§ 78. The Testimony of the Apostles

The self-testimony of the Scripture lies so much concentrically in Jesus, that only in connection with His judgment has the testimony of the apostles any real value. His disciples were His followers. If with reference to the Old Testament Jesus had paid homage to a method of viewing it which diverged from the then current one, the disciples would not have followed the common conception, but the diverging conception of Jesus. If, from their ministry, it appears that they themselves adhered to the current conception, it may be inferred from this that they were at no time warned against it by Jesus, that He had rather confirmed it, and Himself had not departed from it. The testimony of the apostles, therefore, has this value, that it throws further light upon Jesus’ own conception, and confirms the result of the former section.

Of the apostles, also, it is not difficult to show that they were familiar with the idea of inspiration and that they held it. This appears most strongly from Acts ii. 4: “And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.” Now ἀποφθέγγεσθαι is to utter an audible sound. Without solving the question whether by “other tongues” languages of other peoples are to be understood, or sounds of an entirely peculiar sort, in either case the apostles brought forth sounds which were not produced from their own consciousness, but were the product of an action which went out upon them from the Holy Ghost. This is inspiration in the fullest sense of the word. Thus we read in Acts viii. 29: “And the Spirit said unto Philip, Go near, and join thyself to this chariot.” It does not say that this thought arose in him, but that a speaking took place; and where it is our point to know the conception which was current in the apostolic circle, we must, of course, be careful to note their way of expressing themselves. Of the Jews, it is said in Rom. iii. 2, “That they were entrusted with the oracles of God.” Πιστευθῆναι implies that to you, as ruler, or manager, or steward, something is committed which does not belong to you, has not been produced by you, but is the property of another subject, and over which you are placed in a position of responsibility. Of the grain which he himself has raised, the farmer cannot say that it is committed to him; this is only true of the grain which was raised by another, and is stored in his barn. Hence, the apostolic representation is not that thoughts, but that “utterances” (λόγια) were given to them for safe-keeping and care, which were not original with themselves, but had another as subject, author and owner. And that other subject is named, for they are called “the oracles of God.” In 1 Cor. vii. 40, after having given a rule for matrimony, the apostle says, “and I think that I also have the Spirit of God.” There is, therefore, no question here of a moral excellence, nor yet of more holiness, but of an insight into the will of God. God alone can decide the question of marriage; the only question for us is to know the will of God, and, by his statement, Paul claims to possess that knowledge, on the ground that he, as well as the writers of the Old Testament and other apostles, had received the Holy Ghost. That this exegesis is correct, appears from 1 Thess. iv. 9; cf. verse 2. In verse 2, he had said: “For ye know what charges we gave you,” and after an instruction in the principles of these charges, he follows it up with these words, in verse 8: “Therefore he that rejecteth, rejecteth not man, but God, who giveth his Holy Spirit unto you.” Thus he assumes that his ordinances are the clear expression of God’s will; that for this reason they are divinely authoritative; and he explains this from the fact that a work of the Holy Spirit has taken place in them or on behalf of the church. Of Moses, it is written in Heb. viii. 5, that he was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle: “See that thou make all things according to the pattern that was shewed thee in the mount.” To him, therefore, had come an utterance from the oracle, for such is the meaning of κεχρημάτισται, according to the conception which was then current in the apostolic circle; something that did not come up from himself, but was given him from without; it referred to a very concrete affair, to wit: that the plan for the tabernacle was not to be designed by himself, but had been brought to him from outside. In James v. 10, we read that the prophets “spake in the name of the Lord,” which implies that what was spoken by them was not binding in virtue of the authority of their own person or insight, but was spoken by them in the name of Christ Himself; which either assumes a fanatical presumption, or, since the apostle does not mean this, can only be explained by the idea of inspiration. In Rev. xxii. 17—20, it is said that Christ bears witness to that which, by exclusively Divine authority, is written in the Apocalypse (to the words of the prophecy of this book), so that adding to or taking away from the things written in this book involves the penalty of eternal loss. According to 1 Pet. i. 12, the preaching of the apostles is done “by the Holy Ghost sent forth from heaven”; even as it was “the Spirit of Christ” who in the prophets did signify beforehand (προμαρτυρόμενον). Even though the ἐν πνεύματι point to a different modality from the προμαρτυρόμενον, both expressions, nevertheless, in their connection refer to one and the same idea of inspiration, which receives its more general description in 2 Pet. i. 21, by the authentic declaration that prophecy did not find its origin in the “will” of the prophets themselves, but in the fact, that they, as “men of God” spoke that which entered into their consciousness while “they were being moved by the Holy Ghost;” a representation which was evidently applied by them, even though in modified form, to the entire Scripture of the Old Testament, as appears from the “all Scripture is theopneustic,” in 2 Tim. iii. 16. The fact, therefore, that the apostles held the idea of inspiration, and applied it to the Old Testament, admits of no difference of opinion.

In the second place, it must also be noted that the apostles, also, did not look upon the Old Testament as a collection of literary documents, but as one codex, which was organically constructed and clothed with Divine authority. That unity lies already expressed in the πᾶσα γραφή of 2 Tim. iii. 16, which does not mean the whole Scripture but every Scripture, and hence does not emphasize the unity only, but simultaneously the organic unity. The same thought lies in 1 Pet. i. 12: “To whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto you, did they minister these things.” First, all the prophets are here taken under one head, and to their collective labor the character is attributed, not of its being a work of their own, over which they have the right of disposal, but of its being a labor which they have performed with another purpose, which lay outside of them, and which was determined by God. According to Heb. i. 1, it is not human insight, but God Himself, which spake to the fathers when they were spoken to by the prophets, and however much this took place “by divers portions and in divers manners,” it all belonged together, formed one whole, and together constituted God’s testimony to the fathers. The apostolic manner of quoting confirms this. They also do not quote by the name of the author, but as γραφή and γέγραπται. In Rom. iv. 17, proof is furnished by “as it is written”; in Rom. x. 11, the phrase, “for the Scripture says,” is conclusive. By the words, “according as it is written,” in Rom. xi. 8, all contradiction is cut off. This shows, indeed, that according to the apostolic representation, the entire Old Testament forms one whole, which is organically connected, and the content of which is authoritative, because it appears in this codex. Even the prayer of Elijah is quoted in Rom. xi. 2, as “What the Scripture saith,” after which the answer of God to his prayer is mentioned as ὁ χρηματισμός (the Divine response), and thus distinguished from the excitement of his own spirit. Especially characteristic in this respect is the extensive quotation in Rom. iii. 10–18, which is referred to as one continuous argument, and yet is constructed from no less than six different chapters; viz. Ps. xiv. 1–3, Ps. v. 9, Ps. cxl. 3, Ps. x. 7, Isaiah lix. 7, and Ps. xxxvi. 1. These parts are introduced by a γέγραπται, “it is written,” and explained by the “what things soever the law saith, it speaketh to them that are under the law.” Γέγραπται as the perfect tense, especially in a quotation composed of so many parts, is even stronger than γραφή, because it is equivalent to what we call a law: “law enacted is sacred” (lex lata, lex sancta est). Γέγραπται implies not only that it occurs or is found in the Scripture, but that as an expression of truth it bears the Divine seal. In the same way, after a quotation from the Psalms and Isaiah, the “what things soever the law saith” convincingly indicates that no importance is attached to Isaiah nor to David, but simply to the fact that it occurs in the holy codex. In these quotations the apostles do not confine themselves for support to the authority of pericopes or extended passages, but base their argument equally well upon a single word from the Old Testament; one may almost say upon a single letter. In Gal. iii. 16, the entire argument rests upon the singular “seed”; if in the original one letter had been written differently, and the plural had appeared, the entire apostolic argument would have lost its force. The same you find in 1 Pet. iii. 5, 6, where the exhortation rests upon the fact that Sarah called her husband “lord.” In the apostolic circle, no such quotations could have been made, if the conviction had not been prevalent that inspiration extended even to the word and to the form of the word; which connection between form and content, Paul also confirms for himself, when in 1 Cor. ii. 13, he declares: “Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teaches, but which the Spirit teaches; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.” In this statement, indeed, the “human” and the “pneumatic” cannot stand over against each other as the intellectual and the mystical. He also bears witness instrumentally through his mind; his speaking, also, is the expression of intelligence, mostly calculated to address the understanding rather than the emotions. The “pneumatica,” therefore, cannot intend anything else but the fountain from which the impulse for his utterances proceeds, and that fountain, he says, does not lie in man, but in the Spirit, and thus in a power which affects him from without.

In the third place it must be conceded, that in the apostolic circle also the Old Testament was considered as the predestined transcript of God’s counsel, of which the instrumental author has, often unconsciously, produced the record, and which, as being of a higher origin, has Divine authority. This appears clearly in Acts ii. 24, 25, where Peter says: “It was not possible that He should be holden of death.” And why does he deem this impossible? Because Jesus was the Son of God? Undoubtedly for this also; of this, however, Peter makes no mention, but states as the only reason that it was thus written in Ps. xvi.: “Neither wilt thou give thy Holy One to see corruption.” Hence the “impossibility” rests upon the fact that the opposite to this was written in the Old Testament; an argument which suits only with the supposition that the Old Testament furnishes us with the program of what must happen according to God’s counsel and will. To that counsel and to that foreknowledge of God he refers us definitely in what immediately precedes: “Him being delivered up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God.” Of a similar tendency is what we read in Acts i. 16, where Peter says: “It was needful that the Scripture should be fulfilled, which the Holy Ghost spake before by the mouth of David.” The thought here quoted is not from David, but from the Holy Ghost, even though the Holy Ghost made use of the mouth of David by which to utter it, and because the Holy Ghost took this thought from the counsel of God, it had to be fulfilled. In Matt. xiii. 34, 35, the apostle Matthew inserts the observation, that Jesus had to speak in parables, “that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet.” In a similar way the apostle John inserts his “that the Scripture might be fulfilled” in John xix. 24, and elsewhere. And all these expressions of “must needs be,” “it is necessary,” “was not possible,” “that the Scripture might be fulfilled,” etc., have no meaning unless it was believed in the apostolic circle as an undoubted fact, that the Old Testament presents us the Divine program of things to come, with such certainty as to render it entirely trustworthy. Hence there is no hesitancy in announcing God the Holy Spirit as the speaking subject in the Old Testament. Acts vii. 6, “And God spake on this wise”; Rom. ii. 4, “But what saith the answer of God unto him?” Heb. i. 6, “When he bringeth in the firstborn into the world, he saith”; Heb. i. 13, “But of which of the angels hath he said at any time”; Acts i. 16, “the Scripture … which the Holy Ghost spake before by the mouth of David”; Heb. x. 15, “And the Holy Ghost also beareth witness to us; for after he hath said … saith the Lord”: expressions which are used not only when it concerns a saying of God (dictum Dei), but also when God is spoken of in the third person, as for instance Heb. iii. 7, “Wherefore, even as the Holy Ghost saith, To-day if ye shall hear his voice,” or with the mention of facts, as in Heb. ix. 8, “the Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into the holy place hath not yet been made manifest.”

The stringing together of quotations from different books, such as appears in Acts i. 20, Rom. xi. 8, 26, xv. 9, 1 Tim. v. 18, etc., shows equally clearly, that in the estimation of the apostles the human authors fall entirely in the background. Such quoting is only conceivable and warranted by the supposition that all these sayings, however truly they have come to us by several writers, are actually from one and the same author; exactly in the same way in which one quotes from the works of the same writer or from the articles of the same lawgiver. That this was indeed the apostolic apprehension appears more clearly still from the fact, which they state: that the words of the Old Testament often contain more than the writers themselves understood. In Rom. iv. 23 it is said of the words from Gen. xv. 6, that “it was reckoned unto him for righteousness,” did not refer to Abraham only, as the writer must have intended, but also to us. In Rom. xv. 3, Ps. lxix. 9 is quoted, and what David exclaimed in a Psalm, which cannot stand before the ethical judgment of many, is cited as coming from the Messianic subject; and yet this quotation furnishes the apostle the occasion for the general statement, “that whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that through patience and through comfort of the Scriptures we might have hope.” This, of course, could not have been the intention of the instrumental authors. David sang when his heart was full, Jeremiah prophesied when the fire burned in his bones. Thus this intention is thought of as in the “mind of the first author,” and it is only by divine direction, that the Scriptures are thus predestined to realize their given purpose in the Church of all the ages. This is applied not only to moral and doctrinal dicta, but also to the historical parts. “Do ye not hear the Old Testament (τὸν νόμον)?” Paul asks in Gal. iv. 22; “For it is written, that Abraham had two sons”; and of this he says: “Which things contain an allegory,” i.e. a meaning was hidden in all this, which was neither foreseen nor intended by him who wrote these words. The same appears in Heb. v. 11, 12, where the exposition of the priesthood after the order of Melchizedek is introduced, an exposition in which numerous deductions are made from the common historic narrative, which were not intended by the writer of Genesis. The understanding of this deeper sense is called in verse 11 “hard of interpretation”; it does not lie at hand, and deeper insight only discovers it. And yet, this deeper insight is no play of magic with the word. One may readily acquire it if only one is not dull of hearing. If one is but mature, he is able of himself to enjoy this strong meat, for they “by reason of use have their senses exercised.” It is therefore a mysterious meaning not included in it by the writer, but by the Holy Spirit, which now from behind is revealed by that same Holy Spirit to those who are perfect. A no less broadly prepared example of this is given in 1 Cor. x. 1—18, where a spiritual-typical significance is attached to the crossing of the Red Sea and to the events in the wilderness, which could not have been intended by the writer of the narrative. That meaning was beyond him, and directed itself from the mind of the primary author to us “upon whom the ends of the ages are come.” Now only, because the antitypical has come, can the typical be understood. It can scarcely be denied, therefore, that in the apostolic circle, the conviction was prevalent that, without controversy, the Old Testament had come into existence as a sacred codex by Divine inspiration, and must be viewed as clothed with Divine authority. This shows that Jesus, who knew this conviction, did not contradict it, but put His seal upon it in His intercourse with His disciples. The apostolic use of the Old Testament tends to give us a better knowledge of Jesus’ judgment concerning this codex, and, so far as in Jesus the self-testimony of the Scripture expresses itself most clearly and correctly, to make us know how the Scripture itself desires us to esteem it. The different objections that have been raised against this apostolic use of the Old Testament, particularly upon the ground of Gal. iv. 21—24 and 1 Cor. x. 1—13, cannot here be examined. The question, indeed, what use the apostles have made of the Old Testament, is not critical but historic. The critical examination, therefore, of these objections is not in place in Encyclopedia, but in the disciplina canonica. One objection, however, may be considered here, because it really sheds light upon the use made by the apostles of the Holy Scripture of the Old Testament. Their quotations are by no means always a literal translation of the original. This would create no surprise if they had not understood Hebrew, but it does with a man like Paul, who was well versed in the original text. The fact that they wrote in Greek to Greek-speaking churches is, from the nature of the case, no sufficient explanation. This, no doubt, explains why as a rule they followed the Greek translation which they knew was in use among their readers, but states no ground for their own departure from the original, nor yet for their following of that translation in places where it was incorrect. They who think that the writers of the apostolic circle wrote without assistance (suo Marte), can scarcely come to any other conclusion than that this mode of procedure was faulty and rested upon mistake, either voluntary or involuntary, but in no case pardonable. The matter assumes an entirely different aspect, however, when one starts out from the position that these writers themselves were inspired in a way analogous to the writers whose text they quoted. He who cites the language of another must quote literally, but a writer who quotes himself is bound to the actual content only, and not to the form of what he wrote, except in the face of a third party. If, therefore, it is the same Holy Spirit who spoke through the prophets and inspired the apostles, it is the same primary author (auctor primarius) who, by the apostles, quotes himself, and is therefore entirely justified in repeating his original meaning in application to the case for which the quotation is made, in a somewhat modified form, agreeably to the current translation. Suppose an oration you have delivered has been translated into English, and that you appear before an American audience which knows your position only from that English translation, will it not be natural, in so far as your original meaning comports with that translation, to quote from what your audience knows? Any one would; and to do so is logical. And, therefore, from this point of view, there is nothing strange in it that in the apostolic circle the auctor primarius quotes from his own words agreeably to the accepted translated text. No one else could do this but the author himself, since he is both authorized and competent to guard against false interpretations of his original meaning.

The citation from Psalm xl. 6 in Heb. x. 5 may still further explain this. The translation which is here given is undoubtedly borrowed from the LXX., and it is equally certain that the translation of the LXX. is faulty and corrupted in the copies, either by the change of ὠτία, or, as others assert, by that of στόμα into σῶμα. אזנים is not σῶμα, but ὠτία or ὦτα. Must it be said, that the reading σῶμα indicates another thought? Most assuredly, if one translates אזנים כרית לי as given in the Dutch version: “Mine ears hast thou pierced,” in the sense in which the willing slave was pinned through the ear to the doorpost of his lord. This translation, however, is absolutely untenable, simply because this never could or can be said of the אזנים (ears) in the dual. The only correct translation is: Mine ears hast thou digged, in the sense of opened, i.e. Thou hast prepared me for the service of obedience. For this thought the expression “a body hast thou prepared me” would do just as well, after the rule of the “whole for the part.” If my thumb is hurt, I can use three forms of expression: my thumb is wounded, my finger is wounded, or my hand is hurt. For the preparation of the ear can be put: the preparation of the body; provided both are taken in the sense that this, physico-symbolically, points to spiritual obedience, which is also to be accomplished in outward things. That in Heb. x. 5, body is taken in this sense appears from verse 9, where the exegesis from Ps. xl. 7 is used: “Lo, I come to do thy will,” i.e. to obey. And that it is intended as the actual explanation of the “a body hast thou prepared me,” appears from the additional words: “He taketh away the first (the burnt offerings and offerings for sin) that He may establish the second (the complete sacrifice of obedience).” The atoning act of Christ’s sacrifice lay not in the crucifixion of His body by itself, but in His will to obey; as it is expressly stated in verse 10: by which will (not by which body) we have been sanctified. The question whether the following, “through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ,” does not refer back to the body in verse 5, can never be answered with certainty. Even if this inference is accepted, it can never follow from this that in verse 5 the incarnation, i.e. the providing of the body for His self-sacrifice, is meant. Rather the contrary; for the exegesis which, as we saw, makes verse 9 follow immediately upon verse 8, affirms the opposite. The undeniable fault in the translation, or at least in the copies, lent itself easily to express, nevertheless, the original meaning of the first author in Ps. xl. 6, and this accounts for the fact that in a Greek copy this Greek reading does not need to be changed necessarily to the letter according to the Hebrew requirement, but can be taken as being equal in sense and thought to the original. This would have been indeed unlawful in common quotation by another, but offers not the least difficulty since the auctor primarius of Ps. xl. and Heb. x. is one and the same. An observation, from which at the same time it appears how, in the apostolic circle, they did not represent to themselves the authority of the Scripture as a petrified power, but as a power flowing forth from an ever-vital authority, carrying and ever accompanying the entire Scripture. It presented itself differently to them than to us. For us this inspiration belongs to the past; it is an ended matter; we ourselves stand outside of it. In the same way the Sanhedrin were under the impression that inspiration had died out for as many as four centuries. In the apostolic circle, on the other hand, by Jesus’ promise that the Holy Ghost would resume his working, they were prepared to entertain a different view, and after the day of Pentecost they actually lived in another reality. They perceived that this same wondrous power, which had worked in former times and the product of which was the Scripture, had resumed its action, even though in a different way. By this the apostolic circle lived in the Scripture as in a part of its own life. This broke the barrenness of the mechanical contact, and caused the organic contact to resume its liberating process; and it is in this way that subjectively, from the side of the apostles, their liberty in the use of Scripture is explained, as we explained it objectively from the identity of the author in the quotation and in what was quoted.

§ 79. Significance of this Result for the Old Testament

The period in which the opponents of the Christian confession exegetically misrepresented the Scriptures, in such a way that at length they were said to contain their opinions, is irrevocably past. In controversies of a sectarian character, such dogmatic exegesis may still be resorted to; in the conflict for or against the Christ as the Son of God, this weapon is worn out. Negation has destroyed the gain of this untrue position, and now feels itself sufficiently strong to continue the undermining of orthodox Christendom without the assistance of the authority of the Scripture. This we consider no loss, since it has rendered the position clear and free. The first result is, that one begins by granting that orthodoxy is correct in a most important point, which formerly was combated and derided. Only remember what material was gathered by the waning rationalistic-supranaturalistic period, by which to prove, in an amusingly learned way, that in the Holy Scripture Christ appeared nowhere as a Divine person, and that there was as little mention in the Scripture of a vicarious sacrifice made for sinners. This was altogether a churchly dogma, but no representation of Scripture; and thus the hopeless task was undertaken to exegete all such mysteries out of the Scripture. The authority of Christ or of the apostles stood too high at the time, in public estimation, to be put aside or to be defied. In order to obtain a hearing for one’s “free” ideas, it was necessary, at the time, to press the argument that the churchly representation was forced upon Christ and His apostles, but that, on a more accurate exegesis, it appeared to be foreign to the Scripture. Whatever of protest was entered against this, from the side of the orthodox, was commonly said to have neither rhyme nor reason. It was soon treated with ridicule; and in some inconceivable way the opinion became prevalent that, in all honesty, Jesus and His apostles had fostered those very same ideas, which eighteen centuries later, in a jaded period of enervated theological thought, were sold off as the newest sample of religious wisdom. If you pass from the period of negation of that time to view its present phase, you observe that this breastwork, cast up with so much exertion, is entirely deserted, and that literally no one defends any longer the representation which was then generally accepted. On the contrary, opponents and supporters of orthodoxy are now fairly well agreed that, in that earlier conflict, upon exegetical ground, the orthodox exegetes were right, and that the Scripture, as it lies before us, really preaches those mysteries then so sharply antagonized.

This has not been granted, of course, with the purpose of accepting those mysteries. This recognition was arrived at only after men had become well assured that nothing was to be derived from it in the interest of the truth of those mysteries. Now it was said that the Scripture itself must be abandoned, and that these mysteries had not been promulgated by the Christ, but were attributed to Him by Scripture documents of later composition. A da capo, indeed, of the ancient assertion; only with this difference, that in the earlier period battle was given in the domain of the Scripture, and now it was turned against that Scripture itself. And when this failed of providing a conception of the Christ which divested him of all supernatural elements, they have now even wrested themselves sufficiently free from his moral authority, boldly to declare that a certain circle of conceptions belonged indeed to Jesus, which nevertheless have ceased to be true to us. But even this implies for us a twofold gain. First, the gain that, now we may see what the tendency of the earlier exegetical attack on Christendom was, and that in the main the exegesis of the orthodox was correct. And secondly, there is the gain that it is no longer denied that Jesus and His apostles entertained conceptions concerning several mysteries, which exhibit a clear relationship to the orthodox confession — a fact which is particularly granted with respect to the conception of Jesus and His apostles concerning the Old Covenant. Aside from the question whether the further development of the dogma of inspiration does not diverge from that conception in more than one particular, and in so far stands in need of correction, no one at present will deny that in the circle of Jesus and His apostles there was a current conception, gainsaid by none, which assigned to the Old Testament, as a Holy Book, a normative authority. Even those who think that the portrait of Jesus, as the New Testament delineates it, allows us only with difficulty to form an idea of the figure of the Rabbi of Nazareth which lurks behind it, confess that Jesus cannot be represented in any other way than as having adopted at this point the current opinion of pious Israelites of His times. Even the accommodation theory has long since been abandoned. But after the frank confession that Jesus shared that conception, this fact is emptied of its significance by the simple statement that Jesus’ opinion on this point has no value,— that He Himself, no less than His contemporaries, has simply been mistaken. Hence the confession of the fact has only become possible at the price of respect for Jesus’ person. As long as this respect was retained, the fact could not be granted. Since this respect has been lost, the confession is freely made.

This reveals at the same time the weighty consideration which this confession puts in the scale for him who finds this respect for Christ as the Son of God in the depths of his soul, and to whom, therefore, Jesus shines in the full glory of the divine mystery. Can He have been — mistaken, mistaken — with respect to holiest things, in what must be to us the ground and source of our faith! Mistaken also, therefore, in assigning, on the basis of the Scripture, a high Messianic character to Himself! But the very idea is incompatible with the confession of Jesus’ Divine nature. Erring in what is holy is no mere failure in intellect, but betrays a state of ruin of one’s whole inner being. In the sinner, therefore, a mistake is natural, but not in one who is holy. Hence, here you face a dilemma, from the stress of which there is no escape. One of two things must follow: either, if in the centrum of what is holy Jesus took His stand upon a lying conception, then He Himself had no instinct for the truth, was not God manifest in the flesh, and could not even have been the purely sinless man; or, if He was “ the Christ, the Son of the living God,” in all things like ourselves, sin excepted, then whatever He sealed as true in the centrum of what was holy must also be true to him who thus believes in his Saviour. Nothing can here be put in between. As long as the effort was prosecuted to prove that Jesus shared the view of the Scripture of the Old Testament held by the more liberal tendency at the beginning of this century, inspiration could be abandoned without the loss of one’s Christ. Since, on the other hand, this effort has suffered total shipwreck, and since it is, and must be, historically acknowledged that Christ viewed the Scripture in about the same way in which the Church of all ages has done this in her symbols, the conflict against this view of the Scripture has become directly a conflict against the Christ Himself. He who breaks in principle with that ancient view of the Scripture cuts the cord of faith, which bound him to that Christ as his Lord and his God. And he who cannot refrain from kneeling low before his Saviour cannot break with the ground of faith in the Scripture, as Jesus Himself has sealed it.

The tendency, which becomes more and more manifest, to withdraw oneself from the Scripture into an individualistic mysticism and from the Christ to go back to the Holy Spirit, cannot be maintained for one moment by a worshipper of Christ in the face of the fact that Jesus acknowledged the Scripture. For, even though we take them as historical witnesses merely, the Scriptures of the New Testament afford abundant proof that Christ knew this mysticism of the Holy Spirit and honored it, but even in the Gospel of John, in which this mysticism is most often mentioned, almost more strongly than in the Synoptics, you find the conviction of Jesus expressed that He is bound to the Scriptures; bound not only for His conceptions, but bound for His person, for the program of His life and passion, and for the future of glory which awaits Him. Hence the desire to remain orthodox in one’s Christology, and so far as the way of knowledge is concerned to withdraw oneself into mystical territory, in order to be able to make concessions in the domain of the Scripture-question, is the fruit of lack of thought, a measuring with two measures, and self-contradiction. The question is more serious than is surmised by this well-meaning orthodoxy. The conflict, which is begun in order to rob us of the Scripture as Holy Scripture, can have no other tendency than to rob us of the Christ. If the Holy Scripture qua talis falls, then Jesus was a man and nothing more, who was mistaken in the centrum of what was holy, and who consequently can neither escape from the fellowship of sin, nor yet in what is holiest and tenderest be your absolute guide.

It is not true that on this point there could be error in Jesus, without detriment to His person and His character as authority in what is holy. In history entirely innocent inaccuracies are certainly possible, which, so far from doing harm, rather bring to light the free utterance of life above notarial mannerism. But of this character, Jesus’ error could have been least of all. For three reasons. In the first place, because, if the historical-critical school is right, there is not merely a dispute about the author and the origin of several books, but in the Old Testament you frequently encounter deceit and falsehood. There are not only several representations of facts and events which are fictitious, but many pretensions, also, to Divine revelation which are feigned, and the intrusion of writings under other names which are nothing but “ prophecies after the event,” but which nevertheless present themselves as authentic prophecy. Whether this deceit and this falsehood is the personal work of one individual or the result of tradition, makes no difference; falsehood does not cease to be falsehood if it is generated gradually in the course of time. And however much one may talk of “ pious fraud,” even that can only be represented as free from deceit when the rule is adopted that the end sanctifies the means. Grant that you may make no scientific claims on Jesus, which fall outside of the scope of His person and time, may this ever authorize one to deny Him also the instinct for truth? And yet He must have been entirely devoid of this instinct, if He could have taken such a structure of fictitious and designedly untrue representations as the ground of that truth, which He confessed and for which He died.

In the second place, such error could not have been innocently made for the reason stated above, viz. that Jesus accepted the entire program of His life at the hand of the Scripture. The Old Testament Scripture had a meaning for Jesus which it could have had for no other, either before or after Him. From the fatal standpoint of an error no other conclusion can be formed than that in the program of the ’Ebed Jahvah, of the Messiah, and of the man of sorrows Jesus wrongly saw the plan of His own existence, public appearance, passion and glory, and that He labored under an illusion when, on the ground of the Scripture, He conformed Himself to this. His great life-work, then, is no result of a Divine impulse, but a rôle in a drama which He found projected by some one else, and of which He imagined Himself to be the chief actor. Thus if this error is granted, it entails with it a condemnation of Jesus’ whole interpretation of His task. Not only His interpretation of the Scripture, but His entire position in history has then been one mistake. He then has walked in a dream. A beautiful dream wrought into His phantasy by the Old Testament. By this, however, His life and sacrifice forfeit the serious character of being a moral reality sprung from God.

And the third reason, why the idea of an innocent mistake cannot be entertained, is evident from the very conflict of our times. At first the Old Testament was antagonized by means of the New, in order on ethical grounds to exhibit the lower standard of the Old. The religious and ethical representations of the Old Testament must be repelled, in order that Christ and the New Testament might find an entrance as the principium of what was higher and holier. Now one does not hesitate on the ground of his own religious and moral sense to apply his criticism to Christ and the New Testament. But even if we pass this second suggestion by, it is alleged that in the centrum of the religious and moral life there yawns an abyss between the Old Testament and the Christ. Notwithstanding all this the attempt is being made to make it appear as though it had merely been an innocent mistake in Christ that for eighteen centuries by precept and example He has bound His followers and confessors to the authority of that Old Testament. But is it not absurd to qualify in the Founder of your religion, as Jesus is called, as of no importance a mistake which for ages has led millions upon millions astray, and still continues to do this? We may safely prophesy that after not many days the stress of the dilemma, which we here face, will be realized and generally acknowledged. Either Jesus’ view of the Scripture is the true one, and then we should kneel in His presence; or Jesus’ view of the Scripture is one enormous mistake, in which case the Rabbi of Nazareth can no longer be the absolute guide along the way of faith.

We accept this dilemma the sooner since it determines most definitely our point of departure. There are two kinds of people, thus we wrote, in or outside of the circle of palingenesis, and connected therewith there are two kinds of consciousness, subjectively with or without illumination, and objectively with or without Holy Scripture. Applied to the above-named dilemma, this affirms: That if by palingenesis you stand vitally related to the Christ as “ the head of the body,” the relation between your consciousness and the Holy Scripture is born from this of itself. But if that relation of the palingenesis does not bind you to the Christ of God as head of the body of the new humanity, you cannot kneel before Him in worship, neither can the Scripture be to you a Holy Scripture. The scientific form, in which your confession of the Scripture will cast itself, we do not consider here. No one, able to think and to ponder, has ever come either to palingenesis, to faith in the Christ as the Son of God, or to the acceptance of the Scripture, as the result of scientific investigation. Faith is of a different kind, and can never be plucked as fruit from the branches of science. Faith in, as well as the rejection of, the Christ and the Scripture, i.e. of a Logos embodied in the flesh and embodied in writing (ἐνσαρκώμενος and ἔγγραφος), springs from the root of our spiritual existence. Hence it cannot be that by nature every one accepts the Christ and the Holy Scripture. The antithesis cannot remain wanting between those who believe and reject. It lies in the very nature of every intervenient process, which does not find its rise in the natural principium of the creation, but in a special principium that is bent upon recreation. The very nature of special grace brings with it that by one it must be accepted, but also by another be rejected. Faith cannot belong to all. As soon as rejection stands no longer over against faith, special grace has reached its end, and by the parousia passes over into the then glorified natural principium. This was not felt for many years, because faith on the Scripture floated on tradition only, and became thereby unspiritual. The apostasy from the Christ and from the Scripture is therefore nothing else than the falling away from this traditional position, which for a long time had no more spiritual root. Now only, thanks to the simultaneous conflict against Christ and the Scripture, the great dictum, that Christ is set for the rising up but also for the falling of many (Luke ii. 34), also for those who are outside of Israel, begins to be realized as truth.

§ 80. The Inspiration of the New Testament

The Scripture of the New Testament is not so directly covered by the authority of Christ and His apostles as that of the Old Covenant. The Law and the Prophets formed a Scripture which already existed, and concerning which, therefore, Jesus’ verdict and use can give a final explanation; but the New Testament did not yet exist, and therefore could not be subjected to judgment in the circle of Jesus. The absolute and immediate authority which the Bishop of Rome claims as vicar of Christ and head of the Church lacks the Divine seal, which it needs in order to impress the Divine stamp upon the Scripture of the New Testament. The absolute authority necessary for such a sealing, outside of us, is here wanting. Our fixed point of departure, therefore, does not lie in the New, but in the Old, Testament. The Old Testament is to us the fixed point of support, and the New cannot legitimate itself other than as the complement and crown of the Old, postulated by the Old, assumed and prophesied by Christ, actually come, and by the continuity of faith accepted in the Church of Christ. A certain parallel with the standing of the authority of the Old Testament before Jesus’ appearance is here not to be denied. Even though Jesus’ decisive witness concerning the Scripture then in existence lays for us the firmest objective foundation on which its authority rests, it may nevertheless not be lost from sight that respect for this authority did not originate first by means of Jesus’ coming, but was already prevalent before He was manifest in the flesh. Christ had merely to connect Himself with what existed, and put His seal to an authority that was universally recognized. The authority of the Scripture of the Old Covenant arose of itself even as that of the New Testament. It was, as Jesus found it, the result of organic factors which had worked in upon the people of God in the Old Dispensation; an authority which only gradually had been firmly established, and did not maintain itself in an absolute sense, except through conflict and strife, over against the pretension of the Apocrypha and other influential writings, but at length prevailed universally within a sharply bounded domain. As a parallel to the rise of the authority of the New Testament this is of value to us, because it shows that such an authority can establish itself gradually by psychical factors and in organic connection with the life of the people of God, and in such a way that the Christ ratifies it afterwards as an entirely lawful and valid authority. From this the possibility also is evident that in a proper way, without outward legitimation, such an authority may be imposed as of itself, and that afterwards it can appear to have been entirely lawfully established. Thus there is nothing strange in it, that in a similarly unmarked way the Scripture of the New Testament gradually acquired the authority which it has since exercised. From the psychological point of view the process of the rise of this authority, both with the New and with the Old Testament, is one. The description of this process is the task of the science of Canonics, and therefore lies outside of our scope. But the inner necessity needs to be indicated with which the Old called for the New Testament, and how this necessity has been universally realized.

We begin with the latter. Consider then how difficult it must have been at first for the pious mind, to add to the Holy Scripture, consisting as it then did of the Old Testament, a new part, with the claim of equal authority. An absolute boundary line separated the Old Testament from every other writing. Even the conflict with the Apocrypha had ceased. And now the idea arises, of placing all sorts of other writings, which lack every mark of antiquity, and are of very recent date, on a line with this Holy Scripture, even with respect to authority, and yet this idea meets with no opposition, but enters as of itself; and while at the same time all sorts of other writings are circulated, one sees in the main very soon a boundary line drawn between what commends itself as clothed with that authority, and what does not. What are one hundred years in such a process of spiritual development? And not much more than one century has passed after Jesus’ ascension, before a complement for the Old Testament has formed itself, begins to run by its side, finds recognition, and comes into sacred use. And this went on so unobservedly and of itself, that although all sorts of controversies arose concerning the question, whether this or that book should be adopted, yet of a fundamental controversy against the idea itself, of adding a New Testament to the Old, there is absolutely no trace discoverable. Reaction against this idea as such proceeded, and very reasonably, from the side of the Jews alone, but was not even suggested in the circle of the Christians. They were as controversial then as we are now, and there is no difference, however small, dogmatic, ethic, or ecclesiastic, but has been fought for and against from the beginning. But no trace of any significance appears anywhere of opposition to the idea itself, that a new Scripture should be added to the Old. Hyperspiritualism may have reacted against all Scripture, New as well as Old; but that cannot claim our attention here: we speak simply of those, who, while loyally subject to the authority of the Old Testament, faced the question whether or no a second Scripture, clothed with equal authority, should be added to the accepted canon. Psychologically one would have expected a negative answer to this question from more than one side. Imagine what it would mean to you if to your Bible, as it now consists of Old and New Testaments, a third volume was to be added, clothed with equal authority and of later origin, and you perceive at once that reaction against this effort, yea, fierce opposition almost, could not be wanting. And yet such was the case faced by the church at large at that time. Both what was to be added to the Old Testament, and that anything should be added, was entirely new to them. That, nevertheless, all opposition of any essential character and significant influence against this idea as such remained wanting, shows indeed that the minds and hearts must have been predisposed to the reception of a second Scripture; that the enlightening, when this Scripture arose, bound the minds and hearts to it; and that the appearance of the New Testament, so far from sowing unrest in the mind, rather produced that natural rest which is enjoyed when what was incomplete in itself obtains its natural complement. And this sense was so general that not only the orthodox but also the heterodox tendency, as far as it moved in the bed of the Christian Church, supported the rise of this new Scripture. Even though many efforts went out from the side of the heterodox to exclude this or that writing, to modify or replace it by another, yet in this very effort the general consciousness voiced itself, that an authoritative Scripture of the New Testament was a necessity. Even though the authority was questioned of certain books, or of a part of it, the heretic and the orthodox confessor were unanimous in the conviction that the Old Scripture called for a New.

There was indeed some reaction, but this was aimed exclusively against the manner how, and not against the matter itself. By that reaction against the manner of execution, the matter itself was rather strengthened. The adoption of the ἀντιλεγόμενα was reacted against; reaction took place for the sake of introducing other writings, which did not belong to the canon; to modify the text of universally acknowledged writings, agreeably to all sorts of heterodoxy: but this threefold reaction is but a proof that the conflict was waged with reference to certain products of the first Christian literature, but very definitely not with reference to the acceptance of a new Holy Scripture. That such a man as Paul alone wrote perhaps ten times as much as is contained from his hand in the New Testament, lies in the very nature of the case. Is it reasonable to suppose that one of the apostles never wrote anything? How large, then, the literary product must have been about one hundred years after Jesus’ birth. But no proposal was made to add the whole of this literary inheritance, not even all the apostolic writings, as the complement to the Old Testament. There was room for choice, there was room for sifting. This will do; that, not. And in this lies the recognition of the distinction between what should and what should not be received as authoritative. This certainly was not effected mechanically nor conventionally nor scholastically. Whatever in the end compiled this Scripture canonically, it was not simply human sharp-sightedness, but rather Divine providence. Even so, however, it appears from the threefold reaction, mentioned above, that with clear consciousness a second Holy Scripture as such was in view, and that the assignment of such high authority to this or that book was contested, but not the reality of such an authority as such. It is evident that this occasioned a period of uncertainty; but let it be observed that this uncertainty concerned the whole New Testament only for a very short time, and, sooner than could be expected, reduced itself to a very small part of it. In that limited sense, however, this uncertainty could not remain wanting, for the very reason that such a canonical authority could only be the outflow of the finally unanimous and ever spontaneous recognition of the churches. A recognition which was greatly impeded by the distances between the farthest outlying churches in the West and in the East; which experienced still more impediment from the absence of a regular communication; and which, in the midst of the confusion brought about by persecution and by heterodoxy, could only be established as by miracle. And yet the result is that persecution had scarcely ceased, and the ecclesiastical bond been regulated, and heterodoxy been repressed, when on every hand you find the churches in the possession of a second Holy Scripture, and the authority of the New Testament standing in nothing behind that of the Old.

This would be inexplicable, if the Old Testament had announced itself as exclusive and in itself complete, and had not, rather, itself called for a New Testament as its complement. The prophetic character of the Old Covenant bars out this exclusive point of view. Everything in the Old Testament will be nothing but anticipatory, and calls for the “age to come” (עולם הבא). In the estimation of all who revered its authority, the entire Old Scripture postulated a reality which was to come, the shadow of which alone was given in the old dispensation. The glimmerings were there, the light itself still tarried. One read the prologue; the drama itself was to follow. The pedestal was finished for the monument about to be erected, but the figure itself was still to be placed upon it. There was a protasis, but the apodosis of fulfilment was yet to come. When this end, this complementing reality, came, the same problem arose as of old. This apodosis, this plerosis, came not in one moment of time, immediately to be ended and closed by the parousia, but this manifestation was also to be perpetuated, as has been the case now nearly twenty centuries. The same necessity of the Scripture, which existed for the manifestation of the prophetic dispensation, was here repeated. What took place only once, and was to project its energy for centuries together and to all the ends of the earth, must pass over into tradition, and this tradition must clothe itself in the only conceivable form of human trustworthiness, viz. that of the Scriptura. This necessity would have fallen away if the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the mystical body of Christ had worked actual holiness and infallibility at once. Then, indeed, oral tradition would have been guaranteed against involuntary and wilful falsification. Since, however, this is not so, and they who are regenerated must struggle till their death with the after-throes of sin, and since in the Church of Christ many hypocrites are continually numbered with the children of palingenesis, the oral tradition was in imminent danger of being falsified. The necessitas scripturae, therefore, to perpetuate the manifestation which took place eighteen centuries ago was undeniable. Thus, the content of the Old Testament called for the complementing manifestation in Christ, and the Scripture of the Old Testament for its written complement in the New.

This holds the more because the manifestation, however much it may be plerosis with respect to the prophetical dispensation of the Old Testament, bears in itself, in its turn, an incomplete and therefore a prophetical character. Potentially the Divine reality is seen in the manifestation of Christ, but this will find its actual consummation only in the parousia, when the palingenesis shall have worked its effect in the universal cosmical sense. Hence, the second manifestation in Christ calls for a third manifestation in the parousia. Of this, Paul says, 1 Cor. xv. 24: “Then cometh the end, when he shall deliver up the kingdom to God, even the Father.” In the new dispensation, therefore, there is not only the manifestation of what was prophesied in Israel, but the prophecy, as well, of a manifestation which only comes after this. An ethical “It is finished” has been heard from Golgotha, but the final “It is come to pass” (Rev. xxi. 6) will only be proclaimed after the Parousia. There is also a program, therefore, of what lies between the first coming of Christ and His return, and an apocalypse of what shall be the end; and as the tradition of what had taken place called for the support of writing, from the nature of the case this support was much more necessary for the tradition of what was program-like.

Agreeably to this, we find that Christ Himself postulates such a second Holy Scripture. This already appears from the charge given by Christ to John on Patmos: “What thou seest, write (γράψον) in a book, and send it unto the Seven Churches” (Rev. i. 11), in connection with the strong sense in which the meaning of γεγραμμένον appears in the entire Apocalypse. But since this γράψον comes in too abruptly-mechanically, occurs in an ἀντιλεγόμενον, and refers merely to one single book, we point rather to the position to which Jesus exalts the apostolate. With respect to this, we see that Christ indeed took measures to assure the durability of His work, by which to realize the end of His mission. No trace is found with Jesus of a spiritualistic-mystical laisser-aller. He institutes the apostolate, attaches to it a definite authority, and commissions this apostolate with a definite task. With respect to our present subject, this task is twofold: (1) the appearing as witnesses of the manifestation which they had seen; and (2) the proclaiming of things to come. This double task was imposed upon them, not merely with respect to those who were then alive, before whom they should stand and preach by word of mouth, but with reference to “all nations,” in those nations to all believers, and for those believers “to the end of the world.” Now put this together, and how could the apostles bring this witness to all nations and through all ages, except either by not dying, or, since they died even very early, by the instrumentality of writing?

That Christ gave a call to the apostolate not merely to bring the Gospel to those who were then alive, but to be until the end his authoritative witnesses to all believers, is already observable from John xvii. 20, where Jesus prays, not only for the apostles themselves, “but for them also that believe on him through their word.” That this refers to all believers among all nations and of all ages lies in the nature of the case, since the intercession of Christ applies to all his people; but it appears, moreover, very clearly from the connection. There follows, indeed, a double “that” (ἵνα): (1) that they may all be one, and (2) that the world may believe that thou didst send me. It is self-evident that the unity of believers cannot refer merely to the immediate converts of that time, and in the same way that the cosmos of all ages must receive this witness. Now look at verse 14, where Jesus declares that He has given this Logos as a word of God first to the apostles, and that it is that Logos which, by the apostolate, is to be brought within the reach of the world of all ages, and it follows from this that in the mind of Jesus this apostolic witness must remain available in a fixed form after their death. Entirely in the same sense, therefore, in which in Matt. xxviii. 19 he extends the significance of the apostolate to all the nations and till the end of the world. That the apostles themselves saw the exceptional significance of the apostolate is shown among other things by John in his First Epistle, i. 1-3, in which he declares of himself and of his fellow-apostles: (1) that they received the manifestation so realistically that he even says: “and our hands have handled;” and (2) that they were called to preach this manifestation; and (3) that the fruit of this preaching must be the adoption of converts into the fellowship of the apostolate, because by this fellowship only could they enter into the mystical union with God and His Christ. We even see Paul taking measures, as long as the Scriptura still tarries, to fill in the gap, when to Timothy he writes: “And the things which thou hast heard from me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also” (2 Tim. ii. 2). The conception lies expressed very clearly in this that the apostolate brings something to the world that is to remain for all time the fixed and reliable tradition.

This significance of the apostolate extends itself even farther, when notice is taken of those utterances of Jesus contained in John xiv. 25, 26; xv. 26, 27; xvi. 12, etc. In John xvi. 12-15, the difference is clearly anticipated, which later on was to assert itself between the gospel (τὸ εὐαγγέλιον) and the apostolate (ὁ ἀπόστολος). The task of the apostles was to be twofold: (1) as witnesses of what they had seen and heard, they were to embody the record of the life and work of Jesus upon the earth in a well-guaranteed tradition; but (2) also, to reveal to the world what, after His ascension, Jesus would testify and make known unto them. Not as though this revelation after Jesus’ ascension should advance, in a Montanistic sense, beyond Jesus, for of this Jesus Himself declares, “I have yet many things to say unto you,” and the only reason why as yet He did not reveal them was “that the apostles were not yet able to bear it.” This later revelation, indeed, will proceed in a different way, and come to them by the Holy Ghost, i.e. by way of inspiration, but this will not render the character of this later revelation different in kind; for the Lord declares emphatically that the Holy Ghost will take from the things that are His, “What things soever he shall hear, these shall he speak,” and thus only be able “to declare unto you the things that are to come.” This excludes, therefore, the representation that this working of the Holy Spirit should consist in mystical leadings. Definite material is here spoken of, which is present in the consciousness of the Mediator; which purposely He does not as yet impart to His apostles; and which, after His ascension, the Holy Ghost will borrow as content from the Mediator-consciousness (He shall take of mine), in order by inspiration to communicate it to the apostles. This is so strongly emphasized that Jesus repeats the selfsame thought three times: (1) in the thirteenth verse, “He shall not speak from himself, but what things soever he shall hear, these shall he speak”; (2) in the fourteenth verse, “He shall glorify me: for he shall take of mine”; and (3) in the fifteenth verse, “therefore said I, that he taketh of mine, and shall declare it unto you.” Evidently no mystical sensations are here spoken of which were to be quickened by the Holy Spirit, but thoughts and purposes are referred to which were present in the consciousness of the Mediator, and which are indicated by the “of mine.” Of these thoughts, it is said, “He will guide you into all the truth”; and of these purposes, “He will declare unto you the things that are to come.” And in both cases it applies to a definite content, which is obtained by hearing, and after that is transmitted by declaring. From which it likewise follows that no reference is made here to what Jesus spake after His resurrection, but exclusively to that which only later on should enter into their consciousness by inspiration. On the other hand, John xiv. 25, 26, views what we call the gospel (τὸ εὐαγγέλιον). Here is mention, not of what was still to be revealed, but of what had been revealed unto them, and by a failing memory might escape them. Against this the Holy Spirit shall watch, since “He shall teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I [Christ] said unto you,” a process of inspiration, as will be seen later, of an entirely different character, referring to the past, even as the inspiration of John xvi. 12, to the things that are to come. And if the question is raised how this double tradition, which the apostolate was to bequeath to the Church of all ages, would find an entrance and belief, John xv. 26, 27 gives answer; for their witness would be accompanied and supported by the witness of the Holy Spirit in the heart of believers.

With the holy apostle Paul, however, an exception took place. With him there could be no remembrance by the Holy Ghost, because he had not followed Jesus. Therefore, Paul declares that the exalted Mediator had also revealed the Gospel to him. This, indeed, is the only meaning that can be attached to his statement in 1 Cor. xi. 23, “For I received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you,” which testimony he repeats in 1 Cor. xv. 3 almost literally, where he treats of the resurrection of the Lord. This is likewise referred to by what he says in 1 Cor. vii. 12, “But to the rest say I, not the Lord,” which, from the nature of the case, may not be taken as though his advice following should possess no Divine authority, but as indicating that in His revelation of His earthly appearance the Christ had given him no direction concerning this, so that with reference to this the apostle speaks, not from the remembrance, but from the revelation of the Holy Ghost; which representation, with the apostolic Scripture before one’s eyes, may not be dismissed as being far-fetched. With so many words, indeed, Paul testifies in Gal. i. 11, 12, “For I make known to you, brethren, as touching the gospel which was preached by me, that it is not after man. For neither did I receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came to me through revelation of Jesus Christ.” For the matter in hand, however, this makes no difference. With Paul, also, there is a difference between what is revealed to him of the past, and what is given him by inspiration concerning the thoughts and events, the knowledge of which was given by Jesus to His Church after His ascension, through the Holy Spirit.

The inspiration itself of the apostles will be considered in a separate paragraph. For the purpose in hand it is sufficient to have shown: (1) that the Old Testament postulated a second revelation, which could only come later; (2) that this second revelation also was destined for all nations and every age, and on this ground called for documentation; (3) that up to the time of Jesus’ ascension a part only of this second revelation had come, while another part still tarried, and that the end can only come with the parousia; (4) that Jesus instituted His apostolate as a definite company (κοινωνία), and imposed upon this apostolate the task of being His witnesses until the end of the world; (5) that Jesus, in order that they might accomplish this task, promised and granted them a double inspiration of the Holy Ghost; first that of remembrance (ὑπόμνησις), and secondly that of guidance (ὁδήγησις) and of declaring (ἀναγγελία); and (6) that since Christ honored the Old Testament as an authoritative Scripture for the confirmation and documentation of the revelation which preceded His advent, the idea was given of itself to have a similar Scripture do service for the confirmation and documentation of this second revelation. The result, indeed, puts the seal upon this. Such a second Scripture did arise of itself. This second Scripture legitimized itself as a New Testament to supplement the Old Testament within a relatively short time, and has fused with it into one whole in the consciousness of the Church. There is no question here of a mechanical compulsion. The apostles had no thought of preparing a book which, under the seal of their name and common authority, was to be handed down to posterity. The tie braided itself entirely organically between this new Scripture and the ever broader circle of believers. It was the Holy Spirit Himself who on one side caused the component parts of this Scripture to originate, and on the other side secured the choice of these documents in the churches. The hesitancy, which arose with reference to a number of these documents, shows with what unanimity the others obtained an immediate entrance, and how conscientiously the work was undertaken. The idea that such a second Scripture must come encountered no opposition, but was alive in the heart as an idea and a presumption, before it showed itself above the horizon. Orthodox and heterodox united in this Scripture-idea, and the result was, that in proportion to the measure in which the oral tradition changed color and the spread of the church threatened its unity, the significance of this second Scripture was more and more felt, until at length there was a complete documentation, not only of the shadows (σκιαί) but also of the fulfilment (πληρώσις), which was acknowledged by the churches in all parts of the earth as clothed with Divine authority. This acknowledgment implied that the authority assigned to the New Testament was understood in the same sense as the authority attached by Christ to the Old Testament. To the sense of faith both soon formed one organic whole. Whatever dominion the Old Testament had, that was the dominion that was attributed to the New Testament. And though it is entirely true, in the strict sense, that 2 Tim. iii. 16, and similar utterances, were written with exclusive reference to the Old Testament, yet the Church was entirely right when it applied this as a matter of fact to the New Testament as well, since indeed, after the organic fusion of both, one and the same life flowed through both parts of the Scripture, and in both the Divine Word was communicated unto us. No mistake was made even when they went farther; and in the treatment of the organic life of the Scripture, utterances from the Psalms were also applied to the New Testament. It was indeed well known that originally such utterances could refer merely to what was then written; but it was understood that the same physiological law for one and the same life is valid in all its stages, and that for this reason the explanation of what had already appeared on this plant of the Scripture applied also to the branches which sprang from it at a later period.

This physiological unity of the organic life of the Scripture demands that attention shall likewise be paid to the instrumental diversity by which it came into being. The unity lies in the auctor primarius, but this can only be fully known when the needed light is thrown upon the rich multiformity in the auctores secundarii. Let attention, therefore, now be centred upon that instrumental side of inspiration.

§ 81. Unity and Multiplicity

The Holy Scripture offers itself to faith as a unity, and it is that unity which our old theologians called its essentia, i.e. that which makes it Scripture. This unity becomes apparent when Jesus simply quotes it with an “It is written,” and when, by His authority likewise, the Holy Scripture becomes the name by which it is called. In this sense the Scripture is the Word of God, and every distinction, by which we have only a Word of God in the Scripture, is a denial of its essentia or being.

This representation of its unity is not only right but of highest right for faith, and if it did not give rise to such terrible abuse, it might serve, if necessary, as the sole sufficient one in the realm of faith. Since, however, this representation tempts one so readily to quote every sentence which occurs in the Scripture, in whatever place, as forming by itself a Divine saying, and thus to destroy the organic character of revelation, it is the mission of the church to keep alive also the sense of the multiformity of the Holy Scripture. Even though it is entirely true that Jesus briefly quotes with an “It is written,” and does this also when a word is quoted which in the Old Testament does not occur immediately as a saying of the Lord, yet with Jesus such an “It is written” betrays always a spiritual significance. A word of Satan is not an “It is written,” neither is every saying of men, nor even every utterance of God’s ambassadors. Hence, in order to be able to quote Scripture authoritatively, the guidance of the Holy Spirit is necessary, to impart the spiritual tact of distinguishing the gold from the ore. One needs only to turn to the book of Job in order to perceive how much spiritual maturity is required to know what may or may not be quoted from among the numerous utterances of Satan, of Job, of his three friends and of Elihu, with an “It is written.” Everything that grows on and in the stalk is by no means wheat, and especially with finer plants it always takes the eye of the connoisseur to distinguish fruit from what is no fruit. Upon the multiplicity, therefore, in the case of the Holy Scripture, emphasis must also be put, not from the desire to exalt the human factor, but to keep the gold vein of the Divine factor pure; and this will do no harm, provided its organic unity, and not its multiformity, is chosen as the starting-point from which to arrive at its unity. In all organic life unity in the germ is first, from which multiplicity spreads itself. By fastening leaf, blossom and branch to each other you never form a living plant. He who, in the case of the Scripture, thus begins with the multiplicity of the human factor, and tries in this way to reach out after its unity will never find it, simply because he began with its denial in principle.

It was not mistakenly, therefore, that a predestined Bible was spoken of in Reformed circles, by which was understood that the preconceived form of the Holy Scripture had been given already from eternity in the counsel of God, in which at the same time all events, means and persons, by which that preconceived form would be realized in our actual life, were predestined. Hence in the course of ages all sorts of events take place, and persons appear who do not know of each other, and in the midst of these events these several persons are induced, without the knowledge of a higher purpose, to commit to writing certain facts, thoughts and perceptions. These persons also write other documents, and other persons among their contemporaries write as well as they. But, nevertheless, all those other writings are lost, or are put aside, while those special documents, which were destined and ordered of God to compose His Holy Scripture, are not merely saved, but are made honorable, are compiled, and gradually attain that authority which He had ordained for these Scriptures. Thus, according to a plan, known to God alone, a structure is gradually raised on which in the course of many ages different persons have labored without agreement, and without ever having seen the whole. No one of the children of men had conceived the plan, to compile such a Scripture; not one had added his contribution with premeditation, nor exhorted others to supplement his contribution with theirs. Thus the plan of the Holy Scripture was hidden, back of human consciousness, in the consciousness of God, and He it is, who in His time has so created each of these writers, so endowed, led and impelled them, that they have contributed what He wanted, and what after His plan and direction was to constitute His Scripture. The conception, therefore, has not gone out of men, but out of God; and it was in connection with this conception, that in every document and by every writer in the course of the ages there should be contributed that very thing, of such a content and in such a form, as had been aimed at and willed by God. There is no chance, and hence this composition and compilation of human writings are not accidental, but predetermined. And this whole has thus been ordained, and in virtue of this fore-ordination has thus been executed, as it had to be, in order to respond to the spiritual needs and wants of the Church of God in every age and among every nation. For, of course, in the strict sense it may be said that every writing is predestined, and this we readily grant; but when our Reformed circles spoke of a “predestined Bible” they intended to convey thereby the idea of a medium of grace, which was taken up as a link in the counsel of God for the salvation of His elect. In the accomplishment of this purpose lay the justification of the Scripture, and the result has fully shown that this wondrous book contains within itself the mystery of being suited to every nation, new to every age, profound for the scholar and rich in comforts for the meek. By this Scripture the world has been changed, and thanks to its power a moral authority has been established among the nations, of which it was correctly prophesied by Kant, that though it might be destroyed in part, it can never be superseded by another equally immutable authority. In this universality this Scripture works an effect which is beyond calculation, and its influence is not capable of analysis. There it lies in the midst of the Church and of the nations. A certain mystical tie unites the life of the soul to it, as a phenomenon. It makes thereby an impression, and by that impression it fashions spirits. It does this in very different ways, and no theory is able to trace or to interpret the working of that impression. Its light and its glow radiate solemnly, and the result is that the coldness of human hearts retreats and the darkness is driven back. Such is its majesty, and it is by that majesty, that as one mighty γεγραπταί, as one overpowering word of God, it masters our sense of self. In that unity it shines as the Holy Scripture.

He who believes in God cannot represent it otherwise than that there must be a Word of God, one coherent utterance of His Divine thought. Not in that anthropomorphic sense in which we men string word to word, but, in such a sense as becomes the Eternal One, who is not subject to a succession of moments, in the rich and full unity of the conception. And in that sense the Holy Scripture speaks of the Logos of God, which is something entirely different from his spoken words (ῥήματα), and which in itself indicates merely the psyche of the thought, independent of its somatic clothing in language and sound. If man is created after the Image of God, and thus disposed to communion with the Eternal, then this Word of God also must be able to be grasped by man; and even after his fall into sin, this Word of God must go out to him, though now in a way suited to his condition. This takes place now, since man has received being and consciousness, in two ways. In the way of the esse by the incarnation of the Logos, and in the way of consciousness as this selfsame Logos becomes embodied in the Scripture. Both are the spoken Word (Λόγος προφορικός); but in the one case it is the Word “become flesh” (σάρξ γενόμενος), in the other “written” (ἔγγραφος), and these two cover each other. Christ is the whole Scripture, and the Scripture brings the τό esse of the Christ to our consciousness. Care, however, must be taken to guard against the mistake, that our consciousness can only be wrought upon by the spoken word. Very certainly this takes place with spoken words, and the Holy Scripture emphasizes the fact that God the Lord, who gave us language and in language our human word, Himself made use of those words by which directly to address us. Sinai bears witness to this. But besides through the ear, our consciousness is also affected through the eye, both by real revelation in events and by symbolical shadow and manifestation; and it is by these three means, first, the spoken word, secondly, the common or extraordinary inworking in the real world, and third, the shadows, types and figures, that God the Lord has brought to pass, that His thought Logos, His divine Word, has been conveyed to sinners. Only when in this wise these spoken words, signs and shadows are taken together and joined in their organic relation, can the rich revelation of the Word of God be viewed in its unity. Not merely the spoken words, but also the signs, and not merely these two, but likewise the shadows, in the relation in which God Himself has revealed them, together give us the Word of God. He only who places himself under the full impression of this majestic whole, can and may say, that the Word of God has been revealed to him. For this reason the Logos of God is both violated and maimed, when it is sought in the spoken words only, and when consequently one speaks of the words of God in the Scripture. The Scripture as a whole, as it lies before us as a unit, offers us the organic whole of this threefold revelation of God, and he only who takes up in himself that whole, has in himself the image of the full revelation of God, and consequently possesses the Word of God. That God’s Word is not in the Scripture, but that the Scripture itself is the photograph of God’s Word, does not refer therefore to its formal inspiration, but simply states, that you cannot miss any part of that Scripture without marring the picture, the photograph, the etching, the copy, which holds before our eyes the full image of God’s word. To this unity faith stretches forth its hands. From this unity of conception flows the Divine authority, to which the child of God gives itself captive. How this unity hides in that wondrous book remains a mystery which refuses all explanation. Only when you stand before it, at the proper distance, and with the faith-eye of the connoisseur you gaze upon its multiplicity of tints and lines, the full image discovers itself stereoscopically to you. Then you see it. Then you can no longer not see it. The eye of your soul has caught it. In all its glory it speaks to you.

But, of course, the multiplicity of that appearance does not cease to exist on account of that unity. The Holy Scripture is not abstractly transcendent. It is this in some apocalyptical parts, but by no means when taken as a whole. And as a protest must be entered against every effort to take the revelation of God’s consciousness to man as being simply immanent, as though it consisted merely of the unnoticed influences upon our inner being, equally strong must our protest be against the effort to interpret the Holy Scripture as a transcendent phenomenon standing outside of our human reality. Here, also, the parallel maintains itself between the incarnate and the written Logos. As in the Mediator the Divine nature weds itself to the human, and appears before us in its form and figure, so also the Divine factor of the Holy Scripture clothes itself in the garment of our form of thought, and holds itself to our human reality. This is what our old theologians meant by their combination of the first and secondary authors, but it is something that goes yet farther; for even when, on Sinai, God with His own finger engraves in human words His law upon the tables of stone, the revelation remains not absolutely transcendent, but makes use here, also, of the human as instrument. All the shadows and types bear the same mixed character. All of sacred history rests upon the same entwining of both factors. And even in miracles, the Divine factor remains never purely transcendent, but in order to reveal Himself, ever enters into human reality. Hence, in all parts of the rich scenery interpreted to you by the Word of God, it is ever the transcendent, Divine factor, which exhibits itself to your eye in a human form or in a human reality. If, now, in order to be the bearer of the Divine factor, that human form or that human reality were carried up to its perfection, no contradiction would be born from this in the appearance; but this is not so. As the Logos has not appeared in the form of glory, but in the form of a servant, joining Himself to the reality of our nature, as this had come to be through the results of sin, so also, for the revelation of His Logos, God the Lord accepts our consciousness, our human life as it is. The drama He enacts is a tragedy, quickening a higher tendency in the midst of our human misery. The forms, or types, are marred by want and sin. The “shadows” remain humanly imperfect, far beneath their ideal content. The “spoken words,” however much aglow with the Holy Ghost, remain bound to the limitation of our language, disturbed as it is by anomalies. As a product of writing, the Holy Scripture also bears on its forehead the mark of the form of a servant. This, then, deceives our vision. This produces a result like what occurs in the case of many paintings of the latest French school, in which, at first sight, one sees, indeed, bubbles and daubs of paint, and even tints and lines, but not the image; and only after repeated attempts a view is finally obtained, so that those daubs and bubbles disappear, the tints and lines become active, and the image stands out before us. This was the case with Christ Himself. How many an intelligent Jew has seen the Christ, but has failed to discover in Him the Son of God. Somatically, by merely gazing upon the multiplicity of the features of the phenomenon, this was not possible. No chemical investigation, however accurate, could have discovered any difference between the flesh and blood of Christ and ours. He had a face like our face, an eye like our eye; and he only who took his stand at the proper distance, and who himself had received light in the eye of his soul, was able at length to see the shining out of the Divine nature in that Rabbi of Nazareth. Hence, from the attention bestowed upon the human phenomenal in the Holy Scripture, you must never promise yourself the impression of faith. This rather leads many away from the unity, and as such it stands in the way of faith. And however much it is your duty to study that multiplicity and particularity in the Scripture (both materially and formally), yet from that multiplicity you must ever come back to the view of the unity of the conception, if there is, indeed, to be such a thing for you as a Holy Scripture. The Scripture does not exist otherwise than after the “divers portions and divers manners” of Heb. i. 1, but in this diversity the principal thing is ever the word of God.

So far, therefore, as the representation of the secondary authors (auctores secundarii) as amanuenses of the Holy Spirit, or also as an instrument played upon by the Holy Ghost, exclusively tended to point to that unity of conception, there is nothing to be said against it. In that sense, one can even say that the Holy Scripture has been given us from heaven. If, on the other hand, one goes farther, and for the sake of maintaining that unity of conception closes the eye to the many-sidedness and multiformity of the Scripture, and the organic way in which it gradually came into existence as a sum-total of many factors, then nothing remains but a mechanical lifelessness, which destroys the vital, organic unity. This was certainly not intended by our older theologians. They, indeed, pointed, and sometimes even with much detail, to the differing origin of the books, to the difference of style and content, to the difference of character of the authors and of the vicissitudes of their lives, and also to the different tendency of the parts of the Scripture. But yet it can scarcely be denied that they had established themselves too firmly in the idea of a logical theory of inspiration, to allow the animated organism of the Scripture to fully assert itself. This obliges us, just because we join ourselves as closely as possible to the historic Theology of the Reformation, in order to prevent misunderstanding to explain in some detail this very different and multiform character of the multiplicity in the Scripture, first, as it concerns the instruments of inspiration, and then as it concerns inspiration itself.

§ 82. The Instruments of Inspiration

Every revelation, which is not involuntary but voluntary and intended, assumes a consciousness in God from which it goes out, and a consciousness in man toward which it directs itself. It assumes, in the second place, a content which can take on the form of the conscious. And finally it assumes an instrument or vehicle by which it is brought from the consciousness of him who will reveal himself, into the consciousness of him for whom the revelation is intended. All revelation, therefore, falls away if the consciousness in God be not taken as its starting-point, and becomes weakened when, though not entirely pantheistically but in a pantheistic manner, one grants that perceptions arise in us, but denies that the fruit of those revelations in our consciousness was beforehand known and intended by God. In the second place, the essential character of revelation is undermined when, in a mystical sense, it is left to be choked in the world of our emotions, rather than made to come to its sublimate in our consciousness. And, thirdly, revelation becomes darkened and clouded when one studies exclusively its point of departure in God and its point of arrival in man, without a due consideration also of the conducting wire or line along which it directed itself to us. By our creation after God’s image, we are authorized to take, with reference to this matter, the transmission from the consciousness of one man to that of another as an analogy, and in that case it is certainly true that this transmission is accomplished most readily and most often by the vehicle of language; but by no means by this alone. In all sorts of ways also are we able, without ever speaking a word, to convey something from our consciousness to the consciousness of others. First, there is that entire series of communications which is calculated upon the eye as the vehicle; all object lessons, pictures, the look of the eye, the changes of the facial expression, the movements of the body, the pointing to something, the doing of a symbolical or illustrative act, etc. To this is added, in the second place, the strong impression of a deed, of a repeated action, of the example. And, finally, in the third place, there enters here for our consideration, that varied hypnotizing influence by which one is able to subject the psychic life of the other to his will. But however broad our repertory may be for this purpose, it nevertheless remains a limited one, because we have no power over the person himself; neither have we the disposition of his lot. With God, on the other hand, there is no such limitation. He can influence man by all the means that are present in his human composition and in his surrounding world. Hence, for the communication of His revelation, first of all He has the disposal of all the means that are at our service; but also, in the second place, the human body and mind, and all increated capacities and powers, and the conditions in which one may be placed. None of these means may be taken as standing dualistically outside of God and over against Him. God Himself formed our consciousness, and preserves it in existence from moment to moment. All our nervous life is in His hand and is His creature. Our imagination is a capacity quickened in us by Him. Our language is language wrought in us by Him. He gave us the susceptibility for impressions by our sense of sight. The mystical influence, which is shown by biology or hypnosis, of soul upon soul, has been thought out by Him and realized in us. To which is added, moreover, that as our Creator He formed our personality and our disposition, approaches us in the root and centrum of our inner being, and can involve our life in all those events and experiences whose impression in us He will use for His ends. Thus, in the fullest sense of the word, He has the whole of man at His disposal and the world in which He has placed man. This leads of itself to the distinction between the subjective and objective instruments of inspiration, and to the distinction between those means which of themselves are present in man or in the world round about him, and those which He purposely causes to originate or institutes for this end.

Among these subjective and present means of inspiration, we name internal address, external address and the impulse.

By internal address we understand that God speaks to man, without making use of his organ of hearing, in the same way in which, outside of our organs of speech and of hearing, we hold a dialogue with ourselves. This is an ἐντὸς λαλεῖν (a speaking within), by which God the Lord inworks directly upon our psychic consciousness, and there causes such thoughts or perceptions to arise as He wills. As a rule we are not able to do this immediately from man to man. We generally employ in this an action which goes out from our own consciousness to our nerves, thence to our organs of speech, thence to the air, by the repercussion of the air upon the auditory nerves of the other, and only along this way enters into his consciousness. But already in magnetic sleep we have an example of a transmission from consciousness to consciousness, which does not stand in need of this middle-link of speech and hearing; and in the dialogue which we hold with ourselves from moment to moment, we perceive again and again that our organs of speech do not operate, neither, indeed, our organs of hearing, and that nevertheless successive changes of thought take place in us. And since God has access to our consciousness, not simply from without, but also from within, He cannot be bound to organs of speech and hearing; hence by this internal address we must understand that He brings thoughts directly into our consciousness, as coming to us from Him, which we understand as a dialogue of God and our soul. In this sense Jesus constantly affirms, “As I hear, I judge” (John v. 30), which cannot be interpreted otherwise than as a constant internal address of God in His inner being. With Adam, also, such internal address must be assumed before the fall, so that only after the fall we read that he heard God, as though His voice walked in the garden upon the wind of the day; an entirely natural description of the perception of God’s voice, now no longer within him, but outside of him; not as internal address, but as external address. It is self-evident that by sin the susceptibility for this internal address was blunted, but this does not take it away, that also after sin, in still the same way, but now from the special principium, the Lord was able to reveal His thoughts and thus also His words in man, viz. in the prophets. This internal address takes account, of course, of the observation of conceptions that are present in our memory, and of the language in which we express these thoughts and conceptions. There is something in this that offends, if one takes it that the forming of our conceptions and of our words is arbitrary and the fruit of conclusions (θέσις); but it has nothing strange in it, when one perceives that the forming of conceptions and of words is the fruit of our natural disposition (φύσις) and is thus necessary, and has been appointed, therefore, for us by God Himself. Moreover, we leave it entirely undecided whether, in this internal address, God forms these thoughts and words in our consciousness, or whether He merely occasions such an urgency in our consciousness as interprets itself to our conception in those given words and thoughts. We read, to be sure, in Deut. xviii. 18, “I will put my words in his mouth,” an expression which, in comparison with Exod. iv. 15 (where it is said to Moses: “Thou shalt speak unto him and put the words in his mouth,” i.e. of Aaron), makes one almost think of a whispering in the ear, even as Christ promises His apostles that “it shall be given you in that hour what ye shall speak” (Matt. x. 19); but by no means prevents our accepting with this figure of speech also that the inworking has taken place in the centrum itself of the human consciousness, and from thence extended itself to the organs of speech. This, however, by no means excludes the speaking through the organ of speech of a human being without having the action go out to his organ of speech. It is well known how, in magnetic sleep, one person is able to accomplish this with the other. With those who were possessed similar phenomena occur. In our dreams also our organs of speech sometimes utter words which at least do not rise from our normal consciousness. And the strongest proof for this lies in the speaking with the glossolaly, by which the mouth uttered words which were entirely foreign to the thought-sphere of the speaker. Analogous to this is the speaking that has sometimes been taught to birds, and which from the side of God occurs in the significant speaking of the ass of Balaam. All these analogies show that the organs of speech of one can enter the service of the consciousness of another; as, for instance, when one who knows no Latin and has no understanding of medicine has been magnetized, and dictates a prescription which not he but his magnetizer has thought out.

The external address bears another character, and is even said to be (Num. xii. 8) “mouth to mouth,” or also (Exod. xxxiii. 11) to take place “face to face.” Here the emphasis falls not upon what man speaks after the suggestion of God, but upon what he hears, even in such a way that the bystanders also can hear it. This is most clearly seen in Exod. xix. 9, where the Lord says to Moses: “That the people may hear when I speak with thee.” This direct address appears equally clearly in the speaking from Sinai to the people, of which we read in Deut. v. 26: “For who is there of all flesh that hath heard the voice of the living God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as we have?” An entirely unique fact, spoken of with emphasis no less than four times. With the call of Samuel the selfsame phenomenon appears. Samuel heard the sound of a voice, which he first took to be Eli’s voice, and which only afterwards by the direction of Eli was recognized by him as the voice of the Lord (1 Sam. iii. 8, 9). What we likewise read of the voice of the Lord at the baptism of Jesus, and from the cloud at His transfiguration, falls under the same category even as the speaking of God to Adam after the fall, when he heard the voice of the Lord walking in the garden upon the wind of the day. With respect to this external address Num. vii. 89 is especially noteworthy, where the very place is indicated from which the voice went forth. There we read: “Then he (Moses) heard the Voice speaking unto him from above the mercy-seat that was upon the ark of the testimony, from between the two cherubim; and he spake unto him.” The distinction between this external address and the internal address allied to it, exists principally in this, that with the internal address the voice of the Lord is observed as coming up from within, while with the external address a perception arises that the sounds come from without. At the foot of Sinai the people hear the voice coming down to them from above. Moses hears the voice come to him from between the cherubim. Samuel observes the voice from the side of Eli’s chamber. At the baptism of Jesus the bystanders heard the voice from heaven. According to 2 Pet. i. 17, Peter heard the voice on Tabor “from the excellent glory,” etc. Of course the addresses of Jesus on the way to Damascus and on the Island of Patmos do not lie in the same line. After His ascension, Jesus bears somatically, also, our human nature. The question with regard to His speaking from heaven, therefore, is simply whether Jesus descended in order to speak with Paul from the ordinary distance, or whether this speaking took place in a way similar to what is indicated to us by the telephone. With the speaking of God in the address, on the other hand, the somatic remains wanting; hence, also, the organs of speech by which to form the words. The question, therefore, here remains whether indeed this sound of a voice was produced by the vibration of the air-waves, or whether in the tympanum of the hearer a sensation was occasioned similar to what we occasion by the inflection of our voice. “He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? He that formed the eye, shall he not see?” (Ps. xciv. 9). In like manner, is not God, who has established for us so wondrous a relation of voice, organs of speech, waves of air, tympanum, auditory nerve and consciousness, Himself able to use each of these, His creatures, and apply them in like manner as He appointed and maintains them for us from moment to moment by His omnipresent omnipotence? There is no room here for choice, since the more subjective interpretation is equally intricate, or, if you please, equally divinely-natural, as the more objective. Neither does the occurrence on the way to Damascus, when the bystanders about Paul did not hear what he heard, offer any explanation; simply because the speaking of the glorified Christ rests upon the somatic basis, which is not present with God, and the telephone even now shows how one can hear what the other does not observe. Whether, therefore, the address was accomplished by God’s working on the air-waves, or merely upon the tympanum, the same effect wrought by us when we use our organs of speech, cannot be decided; if only we hold fast to the fact that the person addressed heard words in his own language, in the same way as though he were spoken to by his neighbor.

Merely for the sake of completeness we add in the third place the impulse. By itself the impulse is nothing else than the “being moved” (φέρεσθαι) of 2 Pet. i. 21, in entire agreement with the “moving” פַּעַם of Judg. xiii. 25. This “moving” indicates merely that the one moved has received a push, a touch which has driven him out from his repose, in the full sense “an impulse urging the mind.” “And the spirit of God came upon Saul” (וַתִּצְלַח), in 1 Sam. xi. 6, has precisely the same meaning. The most forcible example of this impulse, however, occurs in Jer. vi. 11 and Jer. xx. 9, collato 7; in both of which Jeremiah testifies that he experienced in his heart an impulse so overpowering that, try as he might, he was not able to offer resistance to it until it became to him “as a burning fire shut up in his bones.” This impulse we number among the subjectively present means, for the reason that the poet and artist in general speak of similar experiences. In the “Deus est in nobis, agitante calescimus illo,” an allied sensation announces itself, which is even experienced by the writer of prose, when, as the French call it, he moves en veine. Such an impulse also forms the background of heroism. The hero feels in himself an impulse to action which he cannot explain, either from the world about him or from his world within. To him as well as to the artist this impulse is a mystery. The question whether such an impulse from the world of mysteries is not connected with the basis of genius in such select spirits, need not detain us here. Nothing prevents us from allowing that such a basis was also present in the whole personality of Jeremiah. He even knew himself to be prepared for his calling from his mother’s womb. But even if this impulse in connection with inspiration is nothing else than the use of what is present in the subject, and the application of that for which he had the susceptibility, this impulse here bears nevertheless a peculiar stamp, insomuch as it always occurs as an impulse of the Holy Ghost. This is a closer definition, which certainly concedes the fact that God the Lord can cause such an impulse to come to us in the centrum of our psychical life; but now employs it for a definite purpose, limits it to the sphere of the holy, and places it in connection with the entire plan of Revelation, which He is in the act of giving. The “clothing” (לָבֵשׁ), however closely allied to the “moving” (פַּעַם), may not be placed on a line with the impulse. The former indicates the sensation, by which he who was apprehended feels himself enveloped and overcome as by an unknown power. It refers to a sensation, which, far from being an incitement to action, rather impedes and paralyzes. The פַּעַם makes active, the לָבֵשׁ passive.

The second class of subjective means of inspiration includes the tardemah, “sleep” (תַּרְדֵּמָה), the chalom, “dream” (חֲלוֹם), and the chazon, “vision” (חָזוֹן).

The Tardemah, which occurs with Adam in Gen. ii. 21, Abraham in Gen. xv. 12, and Saul in 1 Sam. xxvi. 12, is mentioned as a deep sleep, which falls upon a person from without. “Fall” (נָפַל) is the constant word with which this “sleep” is construed, and while at one time it says that the Lord caused such a sleep to fall, at another time it says (1 Sam. xxvi. 12) that this deep sleep from the Lord had fallen upon them. The same word occurs in Job iv. 13 and xxxiii. 15 to indicate a very deep sleep, which falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed, but as shown by the connection in both cases, as a prelude to a Divine revelation; while in Isaiah xxix. 10 such sleep is mentioned in an unfavorable sense, by way of a figure, to express a spirit of entire dulness and insensibility which should be poured out upon the people. This last, therefore, is a sleep in a metaphorical sense, for which reason it reads “the spirit of deep sleep,” and consequently “pour” (נָסַךְ), and not “fall” (נָפַל), is used as verb. In all other places, on the other hand, the Tardemah is taken in its real sense, and occurs again and again as an absolute anæsthesis, which is effected by God upon the person, in order in this entirely passive state to cause an entirely other world to reveal itself to his inner consciousness, or as was the case with Adam, to operate upon him in a violent way. The narcotic sleep offers itself as analogy to this, and especially in the case of the violent operation which Adam underwent, one thinks naturally of the condition produced by chloroform or of the first effects of strychnine. But though it appears from these analogies that human nature is susceptible to such a state of absolute insensibility, the action which took place remains nevertheless an effect of what God directly wrought, and so far as the nature of the psychical life during this sleep is concerned, it is an action of a different sort. It makes the impression of an entire liberation of the psyche from the connection which through the body it has with its surrounding world: a leading back of the psychic life into its centrum, and in that centrum a disclosure to the psyche of a mysterious world, in which God comes to it and speaks to it. A form of revelation particularly noteworthy, because evidently this Tardemah does not enter into this life, but isolates the person, to whom the revelation comes, from this life, and then deals with him according to the law which applies to another than this earthly existence.

The “dream” bears a different stamp. In the first place, here sleep or slumber maintains its common character; and, secondly, revelation-dreams exhibit almost always the form of our common dreams, in so far as in these dreams also an isolated drama is seen by the ego of the dreamer. The world of dreams is still a mystery to us. No one can tell whether in sleep one dreams only when on awakening one remembers it, or whether one always dreams when asleep but that as a rule in awaking one has no remembrance of it. Our dreams bear very different characters. In the common dream all connection is wanting with the actual condition, consisting in the fact that we lie in bed; but with the nightmare one dreams mostly of exciting experiences which overtake us while we lie there. In what is more slumber than sleep we dream that we lie awake and are not able to get asleep. He who saw us slumber knows that we slept, but to us no transition took place from our day into our night consciousness. The content of our dreams generally is made up from images and remembrances which lie in orderly arrangement in our mind, but now appear ofttimes before us in entirely different combinations. Generally the outlines of the images in our dreams are vague, but often they are so sharply drawn, especially in the nightmare, that what we see we could readily reproduce in a drawing. There are dreams which as mere play of the imagination pass away; but there are also dreams which work lasting effects, which discover one to himself, and dreams which are not free from guilt. Holy and demoniacal influences often work side by side in our dreams. Whether indeed this wondrous world of our dreams simply shows the aimless movement of the images in us, or whether these dreams are the result of the activity of our spirits in our sleep, and constitute a component part of the spirit’s activity, remains an absolute secret to us. This, however, may be said, that our dreams cannot be verified by us, that they are not consciously produced by us, but that they leave the impression of a drama shown to us by some one outside of ourselves, in which we ourselves are concerned, without knowing how, and by which an outside power leads us involuntarily into scenes which arise without our aid.

It must not be said, however, that the dream in revelation is nothing else than a common dream, in which, simply, other images appear. Not in the ordinary sense, but undoubtedly in a pregnant sense (sensu praegnanti), it is said in 1 Sam. xxviii. 6: “And when Saul inquired of the Lord, the Lord answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets.” Three distinct revelation-forms are here mentioned in which Saul might have received an answer, and of these three the dream is one. And it is noteworthy that next to false prophets the pseudo-dreamers also are separately mentioned as “the dreamers of dreams” in Deut. xiii. 1, 3. Hence he who dreamed such a dream did by no means at his awakening entertain the opinion that it had been a common dream, which he could safely pass by and forget; but he lived under the impression that something had been shown or told him which was possessed of symbolic or actual reality. The difference, therefore, between these two kinds of dreams was clearly perceived. This much, indeed, may be said, that in the scale of the means of revelation “the dream” does not stand high. The “dream” is, indeed, the common means of revelation for those who stand outside of the sacred precincts, such as Abimelech, Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar. The false prophets imitated nothing so easily as the dream (see Jer. xxiii. 32); and according as the revelation becomes richer and clearer, the dream becomes rarer. Neither with Moses, nor with the Christ, nor with the apostles do we find the dream mentioned as a revelation-form. When this dream was real, it consisted in this, that in the dream God appeared and gave His charge. When it was half-symbolic, as at Bethel, then the appearance of God took place in a given surrounding. And if it was purely symbolical, as with Pharaoh, then it needed the interpretation (פִּתְרוֹן), and was in itself unintelligible and incomplete. Revelation, therefore, by the symbolical dream consists of two parts: the dream itself and its interpretation, both of which bear a supernatural character. Every effort to explain the interpretation as a simple application of the rules of symbolism is vain, from the fact that in the case of both Joseph and Daniel the interpretation of the dream is not given by those who were versed in symbolism, but they were unable to do this, and it is given only by men who stood outside of this peculiar science, and who frankly declared that this interpretation was no fruit of their ingenuity, but of Divine suggestion. The peculiar character of the revelation-dream, therefore, consisted in this, that the person to whom it came saw, indeed, the scene or drama in a similar way as with so-called common dreams, in his night-consciousness; but what he saw and heard was no product of the hidden workings in his own psychical life, but of an act of God in him. That, nevertheless, the drama in these dreams was generally formed from remembrances and images that were present in the memory and in the imagination of the dreamer, does not conflict with this in the least. As with internal address and external address the conceptions and words maintain the connection with the subjective nature of the person addressed, it is self-evident that a similar connection existed in the dream between what was present in the subjective imagination as constitutive element, and what God showed him. Only thus was it rational.

The vision bears almost the same character as the dream, with this difference, however, that the dream occurs when one sleeps, while the vision appears on the horizon of our inner consciousness when one is awake. As little as the dream, however, is vision a phenomenon foreign to our nature, which occurs exclusively in the economy of revelation. What is exceptional, therefore, by no means lies in the vision, but in this, that God the Lord makes use of the visionary capacity of our psyche, by which to introduce something into our consciousness. It must be granted that the dream is more common than the vision, but this is no proof that the visionary does not belong to our nature. No one, indeed, will exclude from our human nature a thirst and talent for art, even though this æsthetic power, with most people, never passes the potential stage; and such is the case with the visionary capacity. Whether or not it will discover its existence depends upon the inner and outward disposition of the person. In the East the chance for this is better than in the West. The Semitic race developed this capacity more strongly than the Indo-Germanic. By one temperament its development is favored; by another weakened. In times of excitement and general commotion, it is more usual than in days of quiet and rest. He who is æsthetically disposed becomes more readily visionary than the intellectualist. Sensitive nerves court the vision more than what have been called nerves of iron. Psychically diseased conditions are more favorable to the visionary than the healthy and normal; and often before dying a peculiar visionary condition appears to set in, which is exceedingly worthy of note. Vivid imagination forms the transition between the common wakeful consciousness and real vision, which operates in a threefold form. It is strongest when one becomes agitated by a phantom, especially when this is occasioned by an evil conscience. Macbeth sees everywhere the image of Duncan, the king he murdered, and in his inquiry whether that image is real, he is unable to distinguish appearance from reality. Of an entirely different nature is what is called “absent-mindedness,” i.e. a life in another world than the real, either as the result of much study and thought, or of the reading of history or novels. This is carried so far by some people, that the very members of their family affect them strangely at times, and they imagine themselves to be in the company of their novel heroes. Finally the third form is the vision of the artist, in whose spirit looms the image, which from his spiritual view he will paint on the canvas or chisel in marble. But these are not visions in the real sense, since the horizon of our inner view here still remains subject to the verification of our consciousness. And this is the very thing lost with vision. Images and forms then rise before us, which force themselves upon us as an outside power, repress the autonomous activity of our imagination, and bring us outside of ourselves. Then one is awake, and sits, stands, walks, or rides, and meanwhile loses himself, and sees sometimes close at hand sharply outlined images in colors and in forms, which, even when the vision departs, leave him a sharp and clear impression, so startlingly vivid that he can scarcely make himself believe it was not reality. Hyperesthesis can introduce such illusory conditions, and can even assume the form of monomania and be a precursor of insanity. In the “Fixed Idea” (Zwangvorstellung), also, a visionary image may obtrude itself upon us against our will. And finally we observe, that vision occurs in rest, in action, in dialogue, and even with the adoption of the person in the drama of the vision. But in whatever form it occurs, it is always characteristic of the vision that the person who sees it ceases to be master in his own consciousness and in his own imagination, and is nothing but a spectator, while another power is active within him.

With this general discrimination of that which is visual, it is not in the least surprising that in the Holy Scripture the vision is also attributed to false prophets (Is. xxviii. 7, Jer. xiv. 14, Ezek. xii. 24, etc.), and that outside of Scripture even, in history, the visionary plays such an important rôle. When, therefore, in the Holy Scripture the vision (חָזוֹן and מַחֲזֶה, Gen. xv. 1) appears as a fixed form, especially of prophetical revelation, it must not be taken as though there were anything uncommon in this vision; but it should be understood in the sense that God the Lord made use of the capacity for visions in man in order to reveal to us His will and His counsel. At best it may still be remarked that the revelation vision often appears with a certain connexity and continuity. Not some strange vision now, and again one some years after, but the vision is constantly repeated in a definite series, even introduced by a vision of a call, by which all the visions become together the successive acts of one mighty drama. Thus construed, the visionary phenomena are certainly subjected to a governing power, while the visions themselves have nothing uncommon about them. That which is uncommon consists exclusively in this, that God the Lord announces Himself in the vision, that it is He that shows what is seen, and that the visionary person knows that he is dealing with God.

Of the content of the vision, it may be said that the same remarks apply to it as apply to that of the “dream.” The content is generally composed from the data which were present in the imagination or in the memory of the visionary person; but from these data a new drama is composed, and in this way all sorts of mysteries of the counsel of God are shown. The difference, however, between the prophetic and apocalyptic vision is apparent. In the first the vision joins itself to the historic reality, in the midst of which the prophet lives, while in the Apocalypse the drama arises from the hidden world and moves towards him. For which reason the forms and images in the prophetic vision are mostly known and common, while in the apocalyptic vision the images are monstrous, or appear in a wondrous manner, and sternly set themselves against every effort to reduce them to a figure intelligible to us. Recall, for instance, the cherubim in Ezekiel, or the appearance of Christ to John on Patmos, as sketched in Rev. i. 13—16. The content, however, of such a vision is not always dramatically realistic, so that it contains both speech and action. There are also visions that are purely symbolical (such as the well-known visions of the olive tree, the flying scroll, etc., of Zechariah), which, just like the symbolical dream, miss their aim unless an interpretation accompanies them. Wherefore, both in Zechariah and in the Apocalypse of John we find this symbolic vision constantly followed by its interpretation.

The ecstasy needs no separate treatment here; later, in connection with prophetical inspiration, it will come in its own order. Ecstasy is distinguished from vision in degree of intensity, but not in kind. As soon as the action of the visionary power communicates itself to the motory nerves, and consequently withdraws the muscular action from the will of the person, ecstatic conditions follow, which according to the intensity of the action exerted, are weak in impulse or overwhelming in their pressure. A single word is needed here concerning מַרְאֶה (Mar’ah, vision), which does not stand on a line with מַחֲזֶה (Mach’zeh, vision). The mar’ah is to be distinguished from the chazon, in so far that the mar’ah seldom plays any part in the sphere of psychic-visions, and rather indicates the seeing of a reality which reveals itself. Chazah is a gazing at something that requires effort, and in so far indicates the psychical weariness which the seeing of visions occasioned, while Ra’ah of itself indicates nothing more than the perception of what passes before us. When a Mar’eh appears, the seeing of this form or image is called the Mar’ah. Special mention of this Mar’ah occurs with Moses. After him no prophet arose (Deut. xxxiv. 10) “whom the Lord knew face to face”; and since this “face to face” is chosen by the holy apostle, by which to express the immediate knowledge of the blessed, with Moses also it must be taken to mean a seeing of the reality of heavenly things. In Numbers xii. 6—8 it is said in so many words, that the Lord reveals Himself to other prophets in a vision or in a dream, but “my servant Moses is not so.” With him the Lord speaks “mouth to mouth, even apparently (וּמַרְאָה), and not in dark speeches; and the similitude (תְּמוּנָה) of the Lord shall he behold.” ² We need not enter here upon a study of the character of this appearing of Jehovah, but we may say that this is no seeing in the visionary condition, but rather the falling away of the curtain behind which heavenly realities withdraw themselves from our gaze. This was a temporary return of the relation in which sinless man in paradise saw his God. Not continuously, but only in those moments in which it pleased the Lord to reveal Himself to Moses “with open face.” A form of revelation which, of course, had nothing in common with the Christophany or Angelophany.

In this pregnant sense the Vision forms of itself the transition from the subjective to the objective means of revelation. Distinction can here again be made to a certain extent between such mediums of revelation (media revelationis) as were present in the ordinary course of life, and those others which in a supernatural way proceed from the special principium; even though it is self-evident that it is by no means always possible for us to draw the boundary-line sharply between the two. In itself, the birth of a person is a common event; but when such a person is set apart and anointed from the womb to a holy calling, in this very birth already mingles the working of the special principium. These objective means of revelation must claim our attention here, because they also were made ancillary to inspiration. This appears most forcibly in the case of the Christophany and Angelophany, which is never silent, but always tends at the same time to reveal to man what was hidden in God. This applies also to the signs (אוֹתוֹת) in the widest sense, because all these, the ordinary as well as the extraordinary, the permanent as well as the transient, uttered audible speech, or tended to support a given revelation, to explain or to confirm it. The field for this should therefore be taken as broadly as possible. The whole appearing of Israel and its historic experiences must here be brought to mind: all the difficulties between Israel and its neighbors; the national conditions which the Lord called into life in and about Israel; the covenant with His people; the persons which the Lord raised up in Israel and put in the foreground; the natural phenomena which Israel observed; the diseases that were plagues to the people; the tabernacle and temple-service, — in short, everything comprised in the rich, full life that developed itself in Israel. To this is added as a second factor, but woven into the first, that series of extraordinary actions, appearances and events which we are mistakenly wont to view exclusively as miracles. It was under the broad and overwhelming impression of this past, of this nation as a whole, and of these events, that he grew up who was called to extend the revelation, and was trained for that revelation; which education was still more definitely accentuated by personal surroundings and experiences.

But besides this general service which the objective phenomena rendered, both the ordinary and the extraordinary, they tended at the same time, by inspiration, to reveal the thoughts of God to the agents of His revelation. This applies especially to the whole utterance of nature, in so far as the veil, which by sin was put upon nature and upon our eyes, was largely lifted in that higher life-circle of Israel, so that the language of nature concerning “the glory of the Lord, which filleth the whole earth,” was again both seen and heard. It will not do to view the revelation of the power of God in nature as an outcome of mechanical inspiration. It was established organically, in connection with what the messengers of God both saw and observed in nature. This revelation assumes a different character, when the “rainbow,” the “starry heavens,” and the “sand of the seashore” are employed, not as natural phenomena, but in their symbolical significance with respect to a definite thought of God. Only then does that which is common in itself become a sign; as, for instance, when Jesus points His disciples to the golden cornfields, and speaks of “the fields, that are white for the harvest.” The speech, which in this sense goes forth from the common phenomena of nature, can thus be strengthened by the extraordinary intensity of their manifestations; as, for instance, the thunder in Ps. xxix. has become the voice of the Lord — the lightning-bolt, more intensively violent in Ps. xviii., the mighty storm-wind of Habakkuk iii., or these three together upon Horeb. This significance can also be emphasized by their strikingly noticeable succession, as in 1 Kings xix. 10—12. Striking events, like that meeting with Melchizedek upon Abraham’s return from war with the mountainous tribes, may give, as here appears, an entire series of thoughts from the revelation of God. What is common in itself can become a sign, simply because prophesied beforehand (for instance, 1 Sam. x. 7). And, finally, all sorts of things that were common in themselves can obtain a significance by their combinations or positions, such as the tabernacle, together with all the things that belonged to the sacred cultus; the memorial stones in Jordan; the boards which Isaiah put up in the market-place; the scrolls of the law and Tephilloth, and even the iron pan of Ezekiel. With all these things and phenomena, common in themselves, the “sign” originates; either because God attaches a definite significance to them, or because they derive that significance from history or from attending circumstances. And it is not so much these things themselves, but much more the significance, original or given to them, which, understood by faith or indicated by a special inworking of the Holy Spirit, rendered service as an instrument to reveal and to inspire the thought of God.

This applied in still stronger measure to those extraordinary phenomena and events which are called “wonders” (מופת), or, in narrower sense, are spoken of as wonderful works (Niphleoth). The root from which these spring has been spoken of in connection with our study of the special principium, and the effort to explain them subjectively may be said to have been abandoned. If it is entirely true that they mostly fell to the share of believers, and that unbelievers sometimes did not see what believers saw very clearly, this affords not the least ground to subjectivize the miracles as such, after the intention of the Holy Scripture. Together with those single wonders, which one observed and another not, there are a number of others, which revealed themselves with an overwhelming impression to all that were present. Just remember the exodus from Egypt and the miracles in the wilderness. Again, it may not be forgotten that the simple presence of a fact is not enough to cause it to be perceived. As often as our mind is abstracted, and our attention refuses its action, it occurs that something is said or done in our presence which escapes our notice. Of this, therefore, nothing more need be said. All these meditation-theories have had their day, and nothing remains except the absolute denial of the miracle on one hand, and on the other hand the frank confession of its reality. Meanwhile, in the matter of inspiration, we are less concerned about the reality of the miracle, or the general revelation of God’s power, which it reveals, than about the sense, thought, or significance which hides in these “wonderful works.” In those miracles and signs there also lies a language, and in the matter of inspiration that language claims our attention. This peculiar language lies in all the phenomena and events which are extraordinary; and therefore no distinction need here be made between the Theophanies, the miracles in nature, the miracles of healing and of destruction, etc. In all these miracles a thought of God lies expressed, and in the matter of inspiration that thought of God is the principal interest. For this reason, however, the reality should not be looked upon for a moment as accidental or indifferent. Without that reality even thought misses its ground in God, and it is by this very union and combination of τὸ ὄν with the mind that thought receives its ratification, and comes to us, not as an idea suggested by ourselves, but as a communication from God to us. The principal thought in all miracles now is the thought of redemption. When the existing order of things distresses us, and turns us pessimistic, and places nature with its curse over against us and above us, as a power against which all resistance is vain, the miracle proclaims that that power is not the highest, that the heavens of brass above us can be opened, and that there is still another reality, entirely different from this order of things, which does not clash with our moral aspirations, but is in harmony with them. The world, such as it became by the curse, and now is, under the tempering of that curse by common grace, offends the only fixed point which the sinner retains in his moral consciousness, viz. his sense of right. Wrong triumphs again and again, while innocence suffers. Between the hidden life and outward conditions there is no harmony, such as our sense of right postulates. It is this problem which presented itself with great force in Israel, and for which no solution is given except in the miracles. The miracles voice a palingenesis which, first in the psychical and after that in the physical world, shall hereafter dissolve all dissonance in entire harmony. Every miracle is a real prophecy of the parousia and of the restitution of all things which it introduces. The miracle is the basis of the hope, in that entirely peculiar significance which in Scripture it has along with faith and love. It shows that something different is possible, and prophesies that such it shall sometime be. It is an utterance of that free, divine art, by which the supreme artist, whose work of creation is broken, announces the entire restoration of his original work of art, even in its ideal completion. Hence there can be no question of a “violation of the order of nature.” This assumes that this order of nature has obtained an independent existence outside of God, and that at times God interferes with this independent order of things. Every such representation is deistic at heart, and in fact denies the immanent and omnipresent omnipotence by which God supports the whole cosmos from moment to moment, and every order in that cosmos. The miracle, therefore, may not be interpreted as being anything else than an utterance of the special principium, taken as principium essendi. An utterance which, preformative and preparative, and thereby at the same time annunciatory, views and ends in the parousia. The Niphleoth, therefore, include the spiritual as well as the material miracles. They react savingly against sin as well as against the misery which flows from sin.

Hence the miracles are no disconnected phenomena, but stand in connection with each other, and, as was shown above, they form one organic whole, the centre of which is Christ as the “Wonderful” and its circumference His people. The great central miracle, therefore, is the Incarnation, which in turn lies foreshadowed in the Christophanies. With those Christophanies the manifestation consisted in this, that, as in paradise God had created the body of Adam, He likewise here provided a human body, which presently returned to nothing, and merely served to render the appearance as of a man possible. In the plains of Mamre Abraham does not perceive at first that he is dealing with anything else than a common human occurrence. Even where angel appearances are spoken of, we may not represent angels as winged beings. Angels have no bodies; they are spirits; and they appear with wings only in the symbolic representation of the vision. In real appearances they always stand before us in the form of a man. All this, however, was altogether outside our nature. It gave us to see what was like unto our nature, not what was of our nature. Thus Christ is the “Wonderful” (Is. ix. 6), and in connection with this there arranges itself about His person the whole miracle-cyclus of His baptism, the temptation in the wilderness, the transfiguration upon Tabor, the voice in the temple, the angel in Gethsemane, the signs at the cross, the resurrection and the ascension, in order to be succeeded by the second miracle-cyclus of the parousia. In like manner we see that entire series of Niphleoth, or mighty works, going out from Christ and becoming established by Him in the sphere of the elements, in the vegetable kingdom, in the animal kingdom, and among men — a series of miracles, the afterglow of which still gleams in the miracles of the apostles. Peter, indeed, testifies (Acts iii. 16) that the authorship of the healing of the cripple lay in Christ.

In this organic connection the one group of miracles appears before us which is immediately connected with Christ. To this is joined a second group of miracles which does not point to the Christ, but to the appearance and the maintenance of His people. The fixed point in this group is the miraculous birth of Isaac, placed in the foreground as the great “wonder” by Paul in Rom. iv. 17 sq. What lies behind this merely serves to prepare the ground, and render the appearance of God’s people possible. Only by the calling of Abraham and the birth of Isaac, when he and Sarah had become physically incapable of procreation, is this people born upon this prepared ground, and come to its incarnation. This was the great mystery. After this follows in the second place the miracle-cyclus of Egypt, of the wilderness, and of the taking of Canaan. Then the miracles which group themselves about Elijah and Elisha in conflict with the worship of Baal. And finally the group of miracles which, outside of Canaan, is seen in the midst of the heathen, when the great conflict between Israel and the nations was temporarily ended with the apparent destruction of Israel, as with its Golgotha.

Of course it extends beyond the lines of our task to work out more fully this concentric exposition of miracles. We merely wanted to show that in this entire phenomenon of miracles there lies one continuous manifestation of the great predominant thought of Redemption. This manifestation by itself was not enough to cause the thought that expressed itself in it to be understood and to be transmitted. To the “handling with hands” (ψηλαφᾶν) of 1 John i. 1 is added the “seeing” (θεωρεῖν), and it is only by that seeing that insight is obtained into the meaning and significance of the miracle. So much, however, is evident that the sight of these several miracles, or the reading of the narrative, counts among the means used by God in the revelation of Himself to the holy men of old. This is true in a twofold way: First, in so far as the miracles occasioned a deep impression of God’s presence and of His overwhelming omnipotence, by which the ban, put upon believers by the superior power of the cosmos, was broken, and they were set free and faith was wakened. And secondly, because in each miracle by itself and in the mutual connection of all these wonderful works one grand, ever-varied thought of God expressed itself, the language of which only needed to be understood in order to have one’s spiritual consciousness enriched. It should be noted, however, that the holy men of God separated that God who manifests Himself in His miracles, so little from the God who created and maintains the cosmos, that in their perception the glory of the Lord in creation and in nature constantly identified itself with that other glory which He revealed to and in His people. The last four Psalms show this most plainly: First, in Ps. cxlvii. 1—11 the glory of God in nature is sung, in verses 12—14 the glory of God’s people appears, in verses 15—18 the power of God over nature is again exalted, and finally we read, “He sheweth his word unto Jacob, his statutes and his judgments unto Israel. He hath not dealt so with any nation.” Thus to the singer the Niphleoth of the natural and special principium form one grand whole, while the antithesis is not lost for a moment. In the same way, in Ps. cxlviii. all that lives not only, but every creature that exists, is poetically called upon to praise Jehovah, while the manifestation of the special principium asserts itself in the end, when it reads: “And he hath lifted up the horn of his people, the praise of all his saints; even of the children of Israel, a people near unto him. Hallelujah.” And comparing Ps. cxlix. with cl. it is seen that in Ps. cxlix. the glory of the Lord among His people is the theme of the Hallelujah, while in Ps. cl. it is His greatness as creator and preserver of everything. Doubtless the singers and prophets of Israel owed this majestic conception of nature, which is entirely peculiar to Israel, to the prayer (Ps. cxix. 18), Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold, etc.; only by the working of the special principium were they enabled to see the greatness of the Lord in the utterances of the natural principium; but with this result that they by no means viewed the miracles as standing isolated by themselves, but always with the Niphleoth in the realm of nature for their background.

Thus we see that apart from real inspiration itself, all sorts of subjective as well as objective mediums of inspiration were employed by God, by which either to prepare His servants for inspiration, to impart it unto them, or to enrich, ratify, or explain its content.