Читать книгу Chapters of Bible Study - Herman J. Heuser - Страница 16

We have seen that the Biblical writings bear the unmistakable impress of a divine purpose. The nature of that purpose is likewise clearly enunciated on every page of Holy Writ. Man in his fallen condition stands in need of law and example, of precept and promise. These God gives him. We read in Exodus (Chap. iii.) that He first speaks to Moses, giving him His commands regarding the liberation and conduct of His people out of Egypt. Later on, in the desert on Mount Sinai, "Moses spoke, and God answered him" (Chap. xix. 19); and "Moses went down to the people and told them all" (Ibid. 25). Next we read (Chap. xxiv. 12) that the Lord said to Moses: "I will give thee tables of stone, and the law, and the commandments which I have written, that thou mayest teach them."

Here God announces Himself as the writer of "the Law and the Commandments," although we receive them in the handwriting of Moses. Is Moses a mere amanuensis, writing under dictation? No. He is the intelligent, free instrument, writing under the direct inspiration of God. In this sense God is the true author or writer of the Sacred Scriptures, making His action plain to the sense and understanding of His children through the medium of a man whom He inspires to execute His work.

How does this inspiration act on the writer who ostensibly executes the divine work? We answer: God moves the will of the writer, and illumines his intellect, pointing out to him at the same time the subject-matter which he is to write down, and preserving him from error in the completion of his committed task.

Looking attentively at this definition of Scriptural inspiration, a number of questions arise at once in our minds. God moves the will, enlightens the mind, and points out the subject-matter which the inspired writer commits to paper. Is the writer under the influence of the divine impulsion so possessed by the inspired virtue that he acts without any freedom, either as regards the manner of his expression or the use of previously acquired knowledge concerning the subject of which he writes?

I answer: No. God moves the will of the writer; He does not annihilate it or absorb it, unless in the sense that He brings it, by a certain illumination of the intellect, to a conformity with His own. Hence the manner and method of expression retain the traces of the individuality of the writer, that is to say, of his views and feelings as determined by the ordinary habits of life and the range of his previous knowledge. The idea of the divine authorship of the Sacred Scriptures by no means requires that the truths which God willed to be contained therein could not or should not have been otherwise known to the inspired writers: "Their use of study, their investigation of documents, their interrogation of witnesses and other evidence, and their excuses for rusticity of style and poverty of language show this only, that they were not inanimate, but living, intelligent, and rational instruments—that they were men, and not machines.... They were employed in a manner which corresponded to, and which became the nature, the mode, and the conditions of their being. Previous knowledge of certain truths by men can be no reason why God should not conceive and will such truths to be communicated by means of Scripture to His Church.... Hence the idea of inspiration does not exclude human industry, study, the use of documents and witnesses, and other aids in order to the conceiving of such truths, so long as it includes a supernatural operation and direction of God, which effects that the mind of the inspired writer should conceive all those truths, and those only which God would have him communicate."[1] And herein lies the difference between inspiration and revelation, the latter being the manifestation of something previously unknown to the writer.

The second question, which naturally occurs in connection with the one just answered, is whether we are to consider that the words, just as we read them in the Bible, are inspired in such wise that we may not conceive of the sacred text having any other meaning than that to which its verbal expression limits it.

There are many reasons why we need not feel bound to accept the theory of literal or verbal inspiration of the Bible, although such opinion has been defended by eminent theologians, who wished thereby to defend the integrity of the sacred volume against the wanton interference with the received text on the part of innovators and so-called religious reformers.

In the first place, the theory of verbal inspiration is not essential to the maintenance of the absolute integrity of a written revelation. That revelation proposes truths and facts, and whilst the terms employed for the expression of these truths and facts must fit adequately to convey the sense, they admit of a certain variety without thereby in the least injuring the accuracy of statements. This is applicable not only to single words, but to phrases and forms of diction, and to figures of illustration.

Secondly, the sacred writers themselves abundantly indicate the freedom which may be exercised or allowed in the verbal declaration of divinely inspired truths. Many of them repeat the same facts and doctrines in different words. This is the case even with regard to events of the gravest character, such as the institution of the Blessed Eucharist, in which there can be no room for a difference of interpretation as to the true sense.

St. Matthew (xxvi. 26-28), for example, records the act of consecration by Our Lord on the eve of His passion in the following words: "Take ye and eat: This is My Body.... Drink ye all of this, for this is My Blood of the new Testament, which shall be shed for many for the remission of sins."

St. Mark (xiv. 22-24) writes: "Take ye. This is My Body.... This is My Blood of the new Testament, which shall be shed for many."

St. Luke (xxii. 19-20) says: "This is My Body, which is given for you.... This is the chalice, the new Testament in My Blood, which shall be shed for you."

St. Paul (I. Cor. xi. 24-25) has it: "This is My Body, which shall be delivered for you.... This chalice is the new Testament in My Blood."

These four witnesses cite very important words spoken by our Lord on a most solemn occasion. St. Matthew was present at the Last Supper. He wrote in the very language employed by our Lord, and we have every reason to believe that he could remember and wished to remember exactly what our Lord had said on so important a subject, especially when he, with the other Apostles, was told to do the same act in remembrance of their Master when He should be no longer with them in visible human form. St. Mark, St. Luke, and St. Paul nevertheless vary the expression of this tremendous mystery in all but the words: "This is My Body." They drew their knowledge of the form of the institution of the Blessed Sacrament from St. Peter; at least we know that St. Peter revised and approved of St. Mark's Gospel,[2] and St. Paul and St. Luke evidently obtained their knowledge of the Christian faith from a common source, which the chief of the Apostles controlled. They had every opportunity to consult St. Mark, and there might have been reason for doing so since they wrote in Greek, whereas St. Matthew retained the Hebrew idiom, but evidently neither they nor St. Peter deemed a literal or verbal rendering of the sacramental form essential, provided the true version of our Lord's action was faithfully given.

Furthermore, the claim of verbal inspiration implies a necessity of having recourse to the original language in which the inspired writers composed their works, since it is quite impossible that translations can in every case adequately render the exact meaning conveyed by an idiom no longer living. But the necessity of referring to the Hebrew, Chaldee, or Greek text in order to verify the true sense of an expression would place the Bible beyond the reach of all but a few scholars, for whose exclusive benefit the generally popular style of the Bible forbids us to think they were primarily intended.

Finally, we have the indication by writers of both the Old and New Testaments that what they wrote was not conveyed to them by way of dictation, but that the divine thought conceived in their own minds was rendered by them with such imperfections of expression as belonged wholly to the human element of the instrument which God employed, and could in nowise be attributed to the Holy Ghost, who permitted His revelation to be communicated through channels of various kinds and degrees of material form. Thus the writer of the sacred Book of Machabees (II. Mach. ii. 24, etc.) apologizes for his style of writing. St. Paul (I. Cor. ii. 13; II. Cor. xi. 6) gives us to understand that his words fall short of the requirements of the rhetorician, but that he is satisfied to convey "the doctrine of the Spirit."

[1] Vid. "The Sacred Scriptures; or, The Written Word of God." By William Humphrey, S. J.—London, Art and Book Co., 1894.

[2] Clement Alex.—Euseb., H.E., II. xv. 1; VI. xiv. 6; XX. clxxii. 552. Also Hieron., De Vir. Ill., VIII. xxiii. 621, etc.