DISSERTATION IV. OBSERVATIONS ON THE RIGHT METHOD OF PROCEEDING IN THE CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF THE BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. It was remarked in a foregoing Dissertation,* that notwithstanding the sameness both of the language and of the idiom employed by the penmen of the New Testament, there is a sensible diversity in their styles. The first general rule, therefore, which demands the attention of him who would employ himself in searching the Scriptures, is to endeavor to get acquainted with each writer's style, and, as he proceeds in the examination, to observe his manner of composition, both in sentences and in paragraphs; to remark the words and phrases peculiar to him, and the peculiar application which he may sometimes make of ordinary words, for there are few of those writers who have not their peculiarities in all the respects now mentioned. This acquaintance with each can be attained only by the frequent and attentive reading of his works in his own language. 2. The second general direction is, to inquire carefully, as far as is compatible with the distance of time, and the other disadvantages we labor under, into the character, the situation, and the office of the writer, the time, the place, and the occasion of his writing, and the people for whose immediate use he originally intended his work. Every one of these particulars will sometimes serve to elucidate expressions otherwise obscure or doubtful. This knowledge may, in part, be learnt from a diligent and reiterated perusal of the book itself, and in part be gathered from what authentic or at least probable accounts have been transmitted to us concerning the compilement of the canon. 3. The third, and only other general direction I shall mention, is to consider the principal scope of the book, and the particulars chiefly observable in the method by which the writer has purposed to execute his design. This direction, I acknowledge, can hardly be considered as applicable to the historical books, whose purpose is obvious, and whose method is determined by the order of time, or, at least, by the order in which the several occurrences recorded have presented themselves to the memory of the compiler. But in the epistolary writings, especially those of the apostle Paul, this consideration would deserve particular attention. * Diss. I. Part ii. sect. 1. 4. Now, to come to rules of a more special nature: If, in reading a particular book, a word or phrase occur which appears obscure, perhaps unintelligible, how ought we to proceed? The first thing undoubtedly we have to do, if satisfied that the reading is genuine, is to consult the context, to attend to the manner wherein the term is introduced, whether in a chain of reasoning, or as belonging to an historical narration, as constituting some circumstance in a description, or included in an exhortation or command. As the conclusion is inferred from the premises; or, as from two or more known truths a third unknown or unobserved before may fairly be deduced; so from such attention to the sentences in connexion, the import of an expression, in itself obscure or ambiguous, will sometimes with moral certainty be discovered. This, however, will not always an swer. 5. If it do not, let the second consideration be, whether the term or phrase be any of the writer's peculiarities. If so, it comes naturally to be inquired, what is the acceptation in which he employs it in other places? If the sense cannot be precisely the same in the passage under review, perhaps, by an easy and natural metaphor, or other trope, the common acceptation may give rise to one which perfectly suits the passage in question. Recourse to the other places wherein the word or phrase occurs in the same author, is of considerable use, though the term should not be peculiar to him. 6. But, thirdly, if there should be nothing in the same writer that can enlighten the place, let recourse be had to the parallel passages, if there be any such, in the other sacred writers. By parallel passages, I mean those places, if the difficulty occur in history, wherein the same or a similar story, miracle, or event, is related; if in teaching or reasoning, those parts wherein the same doctrine or argument is treated, or the same parable propounded; and if in moral lessons, those, wherein the same class of duties is recommended: or, if the difficulty be found in a quotation from the Old Testament, let the parallel passage in the book referred to, both in the original Hebrew and in the Greek version, be consulted. 7. But if in these there be found nothing that can throw light on the expression of which we are in doubt, the fourth recourse is to all the places wherein the word or phrase occurs in the New Testament, and in the Septuagint version of the Old; adding to these, the consideration of the import of the Hebrew or Chaldaic word whose place it occupies, and the extent of signification of which, in different occurrences, such Hebrew or Chaldaic term is susceptible. 8. Perhaps the term in question is one of those which very rarely occur in the New Testament, or those called ana§ leyóμeva, only once read in Scripture, and not found at all in the translation of the Seventy. Several such words there are. There is then a necessity, in the fifth place, for recurring to the ordinary acceptation of the term in classical authors. This is one of those cases wherein the interpretation given by the earliest Greek fathers deserves particular notice. In this verdict, however, I limit myself to those comments wherein they give a literal exposition of the sacred text, and do not run, as is but too customary with them, into vision and allegory. There are so many advantages which people have for discovering the import of a term or phrase in their mother-tongue, unusual perhaps in writing, but current in conversation, above those who study a dead language solely by means of the books extant in it, that no reasonable person can question that some deference is, in such cases, due to their authority. You will observe that, in regard to the words or phrases whereof an illustration may be had from other parts of sacred writ, whether of the Old or of the New Testament, I should not think it necessary to recur directly to those primitive, any more than to our modern expounders. My reason is, as the word or phrase may not improbably be affected by the idiom of the synagogue, the Jewish literature will be of more importance than the Grecian for throwing light upon the passage. Now this is a kind of learning with which the Greek fathers were very little acquainted. Whereas, on the other hand, if the term in question rarely or but once occur in the New Testament, and never in the version of the Old, there is little ground to imagine that it is affected by the idiom of the synagogue, but the greatest reason to suppose that it is adopted by the sacred penmen in the common acceptation. I think it necessary to add here another limitation to the reference intended to the ancient Greek expositors. If the doubtful passage have been produced in support of a side, in any of the famous controversies by which the christian church has been divided, no regard is due to the authority, whatever may be due to the arguments, of any writer who lived at, or soon after, the time when the controversy was agitated. If you know the side he took in the dispute, you are sure beforehand of the explanation he will give of the words in question. Nothing blinds the understanding more effectually than the spirit of party, and no kind of party-spirit more than bigotry, under the assumed character of religious zeal. 9. With respect to the use to be made of the Fathers, for assisting us to understand the Scriptures, there are two extremes, to one or other of which the much greater part of Christians show a propensity One is, an implicit deference to their judgment in every point on which they have given an opinion; the other is, no regard at all to any thing advanced by them. To the first extreme, the more moderate Romanists, and those Protestants who favor pompous ceremonies and an aristocratical hierarchy, are most inclined; and to the second, those Protestants, on the contrary, who prefer simplicity of worship, and the democratical form in church government. But these observations admit many exceptions. As to the Papists, in the worst sense of the word, those who are for supporting even the most exorbitant of the papal claims, the manifest tendency whereof is to establish an ecclesiastical despotism, the aim of their doctrine, in spite of the canons, has long been to lessen, as much as possible, our reverence of the Fathers. What was said by friar Theatin, an Italian, in a public disputation with some French divines at Paris, in presence of the Pope's nuncio and many prelates, may be justly considered as spoken in the spirit, and expressive of the sentiments, of the whole party. When his antagonist Baron, a Dominican, urged the testimonies of several fathers, in direct opposition to the doctrine maintained by the Italian, the latter did not recur to the chimerical distinctions of the Sorbonists, but, making light of that long train of authorities, replied contemptuously, "As to what concerns the authority of the fathers, I have only to say with the church, Omnes sancti patres orate pro nobis ;' an answer which, at the same time that it greatly scandalized the Gallican doctors, was highly approved by the nuncio, well knowing that it would be very much relished at Rome. So similar on this head are the sentiments of the most opposite sects. Nor is this the only instance. wherein the extremes approach nearer to each other, than the midIdle does to either. I may add, that an unbounded respect for the fathers was, till the commencement of the sixteenth century, the prevalent sentiment in Christendom. Since that time their authority has declined apace, and is at present, in many places, totally annihilated. I own that, in my opinion, they of former generations were in one extreme, and we of the present are in another. The fathers are not entitled to our adoration, neither do they merit our contempt. If some of them were weak and credulous, others of them were both learned and judicious. In what depends purely on reason and argument, we ought to treat them with the same impartiality we do the moderns, carefully weighing what is said, not who says it. In what depends on testimony, they are, in every case wherein no particular passion can be suspected to have swayed them, to be preferred before modern interpreters or annotators. I say not this to insinuate that we can rely more on their integrity, but to signify that many points were with them a subject of testimony, which with modern critics are matter merely of conjecture, or, at most, of abstruse and critical discussion. It is only from ancient authors that those ancient usages, in other things as well as in language, can be discovered by us, which to them stood on the footing of matters of fact, whereof they could not be ignorant. Language, as has been often observed, is founded in use; and ancient use, like all other pas ancient facts, can be conveyed to us only by written testimony. Besides, the facts regarding the import of words (when controversy is out of the question) do not, like other facts, give scope to the sions to operate; and if misrepresented, they expose either the ignorance or the bad faith of the author to his contemporaries. I do not say, therefore, that we ought to confide in the verdict of the fathers as judges, but that we ought to give an impartial hearing, as, in many cases, the only competent witnesses. And every body must be sensible, that the direct testimony of a plain man, in a matter which comes within the sphere of his knowledge, is more to be regarded than the subtile conjectures of an able scholar, who does not speak from knowledge, but gives the conclusions he has drawn from his own precarious reasonings, or from those of others. 10. And, even as to what is advanced not on knowledge but on opinion, I do not think that the moderns are in general entitled to the preference. On controverted articles of faith both ought to be consulted with caution, as persons who may reasonably be thought prejudiced in favor of the tenets of their party. If in this respect there be a difference, it is entirely in favor of the ancients. An increase of years has brought to the church an increase of controversies. Disputes have multiplied, and been dogmatically decided. The consequence whereof is, that religion was not near so much moulded into the systematic form for many centuries, as it is in these latter ages. Every point was not, in ancient times, so minutely discussed, and every thing, even to the phraseology, settled, in the several sects, with so much hypercritical and metaphysical, not to say sophistical subtilty, as at present. They were, therefore, if not entirely free, much less entangled with decisions merely human, than more recent commentators; too many of whom seem to have had it for their principal object, to bring the language of Scripture to as close a conformity as possible to their own standard, and make it speak the dialect of their sect. So much for the preference I give to the ancient, particularly to the Greek expounders of Scripture, when they confine themselves to the grammatical sense; and so much for the regard to which I think the early christian writers justly entitled. 11. To the aid we may have from them, I add that of the ancient versions, and, last of all, that of modern scholiasts, annotators, and translators. In the choice of these, we ought to be more influenced by the acknowledged learning, discernment, and candour of the person, than by the religious denomination to which he belonged, or the side which, on contested articles, he most favored. So far from limiting ourselves to those of one sect, or of one set of tenets, it is only by the free use of the criticisms and arguments of opposite sides, as urged by themselves, that undue prepossessions are best cured, or even prevented. We have heard of poisons which serve VOL. I. 15 |