§ 83. The Factors of Inspiration

In the study of the factors of inspiration proper we begin with a sharp distinction between inspiration as a means of revelation and inspiration of the Holy Scripture. If, for instance, I take the fiftieth Psalm, the questions may be asked how, in what way, and on what occasion the singer was inspired with the content of this song, and what the relation is between what he himself sang and what God sang in and through him; but these are entirely different from the question by what action of the Holy Spirit this ancient song, in just this form, was adopted into the holy codex, by which it became a word of God to His whole church. For the present, however, this latter question as to the special inspiration of the Holy Scripture may be passed by. It can only be considered when the inspiration of revelation has been explained more fully. The thought cannot be entertained that a prophet like Amos, as an inspired person, may never have spoken or written anything more than those nine chapters we now have as oracles of God in his name. In length these nine chapters are scarcely equal to one short sermon. The assertion, therefore, is none too strong, that he spoke under prophetic inspiration at least twenty times as much, while whatever has been lost has nothing to do with the inspiration of the Holy Scripture. With these nine short chapters only can there be a question of this. The two kinds of inspiration, therefore, must be kept apart, and we must consider first what came first, viz. inspiration as the means employed of God, by which to cause His revelation-organs to speak, sing, or write what He desired and purposed. It cannot be denied that in the Holy Scripture, even for the greater part, utterances occur from the revelation-organs which make the impression of being the utterance of their subjective consciousness, but back of which a higher motive appears to have been active, flowing from another consciousness standing above them. In Psalm xxii., for instance, a speaker is evidently present who moans from the depths of his own sorrows, but before the song is ended the impression is received that an altogether different “man of sorrows” addresses you. Nothing derogatory is here implied to the more objective medium of inspiration treated in the former section, by which foreign words and scenes affected the ear and eye of the men of God. But in the Holy Scripture these objective means of revelation are not the rule, and the greater part of the content of the Scripture presents itself as having come forth subjectively from the human author, while nevertheless in his subjective utterance there worked a higher inspiring πνεῦμα; and it is properly this action of the Holy Spirit which here introduces inspiration as means of revelation in its narrowest sense. For this reason inspiration bears one character in lyric poetry, and another with the prophets, and still another with the Chokma, with Christ and with the apostles, so that each of these kinds of inspiration must separately be considered. But these lyrical, prophetical, chokmatic inspirations, etc., have something in common, and this must first be explained.

Inspiration rests upon the antithesis between the Spirit of God and the spirit of man, and indicates that the Spirit of God enlists into His service the spirit of man, disposes of it, and uses it as His conscious or unconscious organ. In this the human spirit is either more active or passive, in proportion as it has greater or lesser affinity to what God will reveal by it. If that affinity is entire, as is the case in some apostolic epistles, the action of the human spirit will seem to be the sole factor, and inspiration will scarcely be observed; while, on the other hand, where this affinity is very limited, as is the case with the most of Ezekiel’s visions, the human spirit appears as little more than a phonograph, which serves to catch the action of the Spirit of God. This inspiration lies grounded in the nature of our human spirit. This is no isolated potency, but one that is pervasive. Our spirit can be affected by other spirits, and this can be done in two ways: either by entering in by the periphery, in order thence to approach the centrum of our spirit; or by entering into that centrum, in order thence to extend itself to the periphery. A great orator approaches his hearers in the periphery of their consciousness, and thence penetrates to the roots of their sense of self; while, on the other hand, the biologist or hypnotizer finds a means in the nervous system by which to penetrate at once to the centrum of the human spirit, and is able from thence to reach the periphery in such a way that the mesmerized subjects think and speak as he wills. Such a central inworking upon the human spirit goes out from the Spirit of God, and by inversion from Satan. Our spirit in our innermost being is not independent, but dependent, and, even without inspiration (taken in its narrower sense of means of revelation as Theopneustic), workings and inspirations from the spiritual world go out to the centrum of the life of our soul, which affect us for good or for evil. The poetical impulse, the inner promptings in every department of art, heroism, enthusiasm, animation in speech and writing, the stimulus of genius, premonition, and in connection with this the entire chapter of divination and all that it entails, show incontestably that our consciousness is not a boat propelled solely by the oar-stroke of our own exertions, but that it may likewise carry a sail which may be filled by winds over which we have no control.

Passing by Satanic inspiration, which will be discussed later in connection with the energumens, this general inspiration finds its ground first of all in the omnipresent immanence of God. (“In him we live and move and have our being.”) There is not merely an “of him” and a “through him,” but also an “in him.” He is the fountain of all good, not in the sense that now and then we fill our life-jar with waters from that fountain, and afterward live of ourselves, but in the sense that, like plants, we flourish by the side of that fountain, because the root of our life is constantly refreshed by waters from that fountain. This relation of God is defined, in the second place, more closely by our creation after the image of God. If one may say so, there is a general inspiration of God in all nature. It is lasting and limited in animal instinct, and in a measure even in wine and in the stimulating agents of several medicines. When a dog jumps in the water to save a child, there is an inspiration of God in that animal; and when thunder distresses us, and fresh mountain air makes breathing an exhilaration, there is inspiration of a higher power. But with man, this inspiration assumes a special form by virtue of the affinity between God’s Spirit and ours. God is Spirit. This is, according to Christ, τὸ ὄντως ὄν of His being, and consequently with us also the deepest point of our human life lies in our pneumatical existence. In so far as our nature is created after the image of God in original righteousness, this excellency could be lost and our nature become depraved; but not our creation after God’s image so far as it pertains to its essence (quod ad substantiam). Our human nature is unassailable. The capability of having consciousness, which is the distinguishing mark of the pneumatical, has not been lost, and in this lies man’s openness to inspiration (Inspirationsfähigkeit). Hence, inspiration can work in the unconverted as well, as was the case with Balaam and Caiaphas, and though it generally occurs in connection with conversion, it is by no means dependent upon this. The creation of man as a pneumatic being opens the possibility of communion between his spirit and the Spirit of God, by which the thoughts of God can be carried into his thoughts. To which is to be added, in the third place, that man is created, not as one who is always the same, but as a self-developing being, and that it is his end (τέλος) that God shall be in him and he in God, so that God shall be his temple (Rev. xxi. 22), and he a temple of God (Eph. ii. 21). This, likewise, offers the means by which the influence of the Spirit of God upon his spirit can be supremely dominant.

Care, however, should be taken against a confusion of terms, lest by an exchange with its metonymy inspiration itself escape from our grasp. Inspiration is not the same as communion. This, indeed, places the ego of man over against the ego of God, and makes them wed or enter into covenant, but ever in such a way that the ego of man accepts the communion, enters upon it, and lives in accordance with it, — a unity, but one which rests upon a duality. Neither may we confuse the ideas of inspiration and mystical union. This, indeed, rests upon the necessary and natural union between the head and members of one organism and the body of Christ, and is not grounded in the consciousness, but in the essentia. The mystical union makes us one plant with Christ. Neither, again, may inspiration be confused with regeneration and with its consequent enlightening. To illustrate: inspiration is the use of the telephone, in order to communicate a thought, while regeneration is the act which repairs the telephone when out of order. With such a man as Isaiah, regeneration was the means to save him unto life eternal, and inspiration to make him of service to the Church of God. Every effort, therefore, to interpret inspiration from an ethical basis, and to understand it as a natural fruit of sanctification, must be resisted. The possibility of inspiration does not depend upon the normal or abnormal condition of the nature of man, but lies in his nature as a pneumatic being, which as such is open to the central inworking of the Spirit of God.

Hence, with inspiration we deal with three factors: (1) with the spirit that inspires (spiritus inspirans), (2) with the spirit of man that is inspired (spiritus hominis cui inspiratur), and (3) with the content of what is inspired.

In God who inspires, inspiration assumes thought and will. He who pantheistically denies consciousness in God or merely darkens it, abandons every idea of inspiration. For this very reason God is ever revealed unto us in the Holy Scripture as the light, and this light in God is pictured as the brightness from which the light of self-consciousness is ignited in our spirit. “In thy light shall we see light.” Nothing, therefore, can be present in our consciousness but God knows it. “For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether.” That this does not refer to our words merely, appears sufficiently clearly from the statement, that “the righteous God trieth the heart and reins” (Ps. vii. 9); for by that word “reins” the deepest root is indicated in the subsoil of our conscious soul-life. The most complete transparency of pure, clear consciousness is likewise a characteristic of the being of God, by which His theistic existence stands or falls. The ethical representation must, therefore, be dismissed, that inspiration gives rise to certain perceptions in us, which only afterwards produce thoughts in our human consciousness. At heart, this is nothing but the pantheistic representation of a deep (βυθός) out of which the thought separates itself in us only. If it is asked whether consciousness in God is anthropomorphic, and whether our world of thought is not limited by and bound to the finite, we readily reply: that the question contains some truth. The apostle himself acknowledges that our knowledge is a knowledge “in part,” and that all our gnosis will sometime pass away, in order to make room for a higher “seeing.” He, however, who infers from this, that for this reason there is no consciousness in God, contradicts the apostle’s assertion that even to us a still higher form of consciousness is coming. If consciousness could assume one form only, even the finite form of our consciousness by day, the conclusion would certainly be correct. But this is not true, since consciousness has many forms, one by day and one by night, one without and one in ecstasy, one now and one in the realm of glory, which proves it to be entirely natural that consciousness in God has its own Divine form. Neither does this end the question. That Divine consciousness has affinity to our human consciousness. “We shall know, even as we are known.” If it is self-evident, that our future consciousness must stand in the genetic connection of identity with our present consciousness, this of itself provides the bridge which connects the divine consciousness with ours. Even among men, the consciousness of a child differs from the consciousness of a man, and yet the greater can enter the consciousness of the child. Consciousness differs with each and all, but true love is able to place itself in another’s place; yea, in another’s consciousness. With reference to its formal side, susceptibility for learning foreign languages sufficiently shows that consciousness is possessed of very great pliability, and is by no means frozen solidly in its form. If these are features in us of the image of God, we may safely conclude, that in the consciousness of God (1) there is affinity to our consciousness; and (2) the possibility is found of entering into the form of the consciousness of another. This becomes a certainty, when you remember, that God Himself has fixed the form of our consciousness, and has first thought it in this way before He created it. Our form of consciousness, therefore, is not a strange something to God, for He knew it before He enriched us with it. And though we grant unconditionally that the thoughts of God may not be assumed as clothed in our forms, we maintain that God is able to cast them into our consciousness-form, and hence is also able to think them in our form.

Next to this clear consciousness of thought, inspiration assumes in God who inspires the will to inspire this or that thought. This element of the will was neglected in former times, but in the face of the pantheistic representation of involuntary communication it now deserves a special emphasis. A twofold inspiration goes out from us; one is voluntary, the other involuntary. Voluntary when purposely we try to exert a certain influence; involuntary when our act or person exerts an influence independently of our will. This is so, because our self-consciousness is exceedingly limited, so that we observe a very small part only of the working that goes out from us. With God, however, this is not so. He is not like the star that sparkles without knowing it, but is transparent to Himself to the deepest depths of His Being and the utmost circumference of His action. Here, therefore, is no door that stands open for every passer-by to look in at will, but a door which on each occasion is opened. Inspiration of itself, therefore, presupposes in God the will and the purpose, from His Divine consciousness, to introduce into the consciousness of man this or that thought, transposed and interpreted into our form of thought, and thus to reveal it among men.

The second factor that claims our attention is the spirit that is inspired; viz. the spirit of man. The nature of this human consciousness may differ materially, and this difference may arise from its disposition as well as from its content. With reference to the disposition there can be affinity, neutrality, or opposition. In the case of the venerable Simeon in the Temple, there was a strong affinity of mind and inclination to the inspiration that was given him. The disposition of Jeremiah in Chapter xx. of his oracles bears witness to a strong opposition against inspiration; while in Chokmatic poetry the disposition of the singer does not appear, and thus remains neutral. Of course, with affinity and sympathy the subjective expression is far more strongly apparent; with an antipathetic disposition more violence must be done to the man of God; and with a neutral disposition neither the subject nor the feelings of the subject come to light. With a sympathetic disposition and a neutral mind both, it is possible that the revelation-organ itself should not observe that inspiration takes place, as is seen in many a Psalm and in the prophecy of Caiaphas, John xi. 50 and 52. The strongest possible expression for inspiration is the “Now this he said not of himself.” Connected with this appears also the difference between aphoristic, more continuous, and altogether continuous inspiration. We catch inspired words from the lips of Zechariah and Simeon, with whom it is restricted to one single inspiration; we read of prophets and apostles, with whom repeated inspiration frequently bore an official character; and in Christ, of whom it is written that the Spirit not merely descended upon Him, but also remained upon Him, we see an inspiration in His human consciousness, which ever continues, — “As I hear, I judge” (John v. 30).

But the content at hand in their consciousness must likewise be taken into account. By consciousness in this connection we do not merely understand the action of thinking, but also, sensation, perception, and observation in the general sense. With a man of genius from the upper strata of society, like an Isaiah, the content of this consciousness was, of course, much richer than with Amos, who had lived in the country among herdsmen; and, on the contrary, poorer with James, who originally was a fisherman, than with Paul, who had attended the schools of learning. If, in such a consciousness, the conceptions and representations are already present which are necessary for the oracle as its component elements, the oracle needs merely to effect the new combination. If, on the other hand, they are wanting, the material of imagery for the symbolical manifestation must be borrowed from the content of the imagination. Though, thus, the so-called συντήρησις (i.e. our memory, our store of things) is in the first place the all-important factor, the imagination is needful as well, and not merely for the images in its portfolio, if we may so express ourselves, as for what, perhaps, the imagination is capable of doing with those images. Even outside of inspiration, with writers of note, you will see that series of images in the foreground which are in harmony with their inner nature; and in proportion as the writer lives either by apprehension or by conception, the images will lie loosely among his words or they will dominate his style. The many-sided content of the consciousness must not be estimated by what lies ready for use at a given moment, but also by its almost forgotten treasures. All that has ever gone through our memory has left its impression behind, and we often discover that there has been stored in our consciousness the memory of conditions, persons, names and conceptions, which, except for some impulse from without, would never have recurred again to our mind. And finally, to this content of our consciousness must be added all that which, outside of us, has been chronicled and committed to writing or image, and thus lies in reach to enrich our consciousness. The significance of this ready material in the consciousness, or of whatever else our consciousness has at its disposal, becomes plain at once, if we but recognize the organ of revelation to be a messenger who has something to communicate, on the part of God and in His name, to His Church. If, for instance, a superior officer in the army has to employ a captured farm-hand to send tidings to an inferior officer who has command in some distant town, the entire communication must be committed to writing, or, if the man is clever, be explained to him clearly and in detail. If, on the other hand, the officer sends an adjutant who saw the battle from beginning to end, and knows the position of the entire army, a hasty word in passing whispered in his ear is sufficient, and quick as lightning the adjutant rides to obey the given order.

It must not be imagined, however, that in the case of inspiration God the Lord is limited by this affinity of disposition, or by this content of the consciousness. Most of the apocalyptical visions rather prove the contrary. We have simply intended to indicate that, as a rule, that affinity and that content of the consciousness are employed by God as elements in inspiration. This is true even theologically; not as if God, for the sake of the success of Revelation, selected the most suitable persons from among those who were accessible, but rather that He Himself caused these men to be born for this purpose, predestined them for it, and caused them to spend their youth amid such circumstances and surroundings, that in His own time they stood in readiness as suitable instruments. As Jeremiah declares that to him it was said: “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee: and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee. I have appointed thee a prophet unto the nations” (Jer. i. 5). This constitutes the fundamental thought which dominates the appearance of the revelation-organs from first to last. The words, “I know thee by name,” in Ex. xxxiii. 12, indicate the same thing. And what is said of the ideal prophet in Isa. xlix. 1, 2, 5, by virtue of the comprehensive character of predestination, applies to all. This predestination cannot be limited to these men personally, for it embraces the whole sphere of life from which they sprang and in which they appeared. Such inspiration would simply have been inconceivable in England or among any of our Western nations. Our consciousness stands too greatly in need of sharp conceptions, visible outlines and rigid analysis. Since the world of thought that discovers itself to us in inspiration lies at first concentrated in its centrum, from whence it only gradually proceeds, there could be no question here of sharply drawn lines as the result of rigid analysis. The lines of the acanthus leaf cannot be admired so long as this leaf still hides in the bud. Inspiration, therefore, demanded a human consciousness that was more concentrically constituted, and this you find in the East, where dialectic analysis is scarcely known, while intuition is so much more penetrating, for which reason it describes its content rather in images than in conceptions. Moreover, intuitive consciousness lends itself more easily to that passiveness which, in a measure, is needful with all inspiration. The Western mind reacts more strongly and quickly against impressions received; the Oriental has that passive receptivity by which he surrenders himself to perceptions and drifts along with their current. He is more deeply inspired by nature, and therefore more susceptible to the Divine influence (πάσχειν ὑπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ) which is the characteristic of all inspiration. While we are more ready to speak, the Oriental is more inclined to listen; he does not know what conversation is, in our sense of the word, and that very inclination to listen aids his predisposition to inspiration. To this we may add, that among the nations of the East, Israel possessed these peculiarities in that modified form which prevented one-sidedness. It was Eastern, but formed the frontier against the West. The intuitiveness of the Israelitish consciousness, therefore, did not easily turn into an extravagant fancifulness, neither was it lost in a deep revery. The Jew possesses all needful qualities to secure a position of influence for himself in the Western world. Within himself he carried two worlds, and this rendered Israel more capable than any other people of receiving inspiration and of reproducing it intelligibly to the Western world. Paul, the dialectician, and Zechariah, the seer of visions, were both from Israel. In connection with this, the Jew in the East had that peculiarity, which still marks the French of to-day, of being inflamed by an idea, which is no result of logical thought, but springs from national life. The promise given to Abraham in Ur of the Chaldees becomes the pole-star to Israel’s life as a nation. That one animating thought elevates Abraham above Lot, and presently Jacob above Esau, maintains Israel’s independence in Egypt, appears again and again during the period of the Judges, finds at length its embodiment in the idea of the King, finds its acme in the expectation of the Messiah, and preserves Israel in Babylon under Antiochus Epiphanes, under Herod, and in its periods of deformation. From the nature of the case, such an idea animating an entire people is a valuable preparation for inspiration. It accustoms the whole nation to live under a higher inspiration. It has its disadvantages; life in an imaginary world may tempt to sin, as it did Tamar, and feeds falsehood especially, which is one of Israel’s characteristic sins, but this is the defect of its quality, and does not affect its excellence in the least.

If such was the general soil prepared in Israel for inspiration, there was added to this in the second place that particular factor, which intensified and specialized this predisposition in individual persons. This took place in their creation, this creation being taken in connection with their genealogical origin, and going back, therefore, into the generations. But with all the emphasis this genealogical connection deserves, there is, nevertheless, the individual creation of the person, the moulding of his disposition, the tuning of the harpstrings of his heart, the endowment of him with charismata and talents, and the quickening in him of what in lesser measure was common to all his people. An election, if you please, not to salvation, but to service, to the task of an holy vocation, together with the fitting out of the elect one with every requisite for that service. The bow is provided, and also the arrows in the quiver. What lies hidden in the natural disposition is brought out by the leadings of Providence in education and surroundings, — Moses at Pharaoh’s court, David as the shepherd lad, Peter and John the fishermen on the waters of Gennesareth. The casting of the net, the watching of the water’s ripple, the quiet waiting of an almost inexhaustible patience for higher power to send fish into the net, and the constant readiness with fresh courage and hope of blessing to begin anew, constitute a choice preparation of the spirit for that restful and soulful abiding for the work of grace, in which it is known that God alone brings souls into His nets. To these leadings of Providence is added, as a rule, the leadings of grace, which God the Lord imparted to His chosen organs of revelation. By this grace most of them were personally regenerated, and thus themselves established in the salvation, the inspiration of which fell to their share. In an uncommon way this increased the affinity between their own spirit and the Spirit of God, as well as between the content of their consciousness and the content of their inspiration. Not in the sense, as stated above, that inspiration itself might be explained from this ethical affinity. He who affirms this virtually places the inspiration of prophets and apostles in line with the animation of poets and preachers. A virtuoso on the organ will work charms, if need be, from a poor instrument; but only when the organ is worthy of him will his talent be shown in all its power: but who will say that for this reason his playing proceeds from the excellence of the organ? No, the excellence is his who plays, and the organ merely serves as instrument. In the same way, the ethical excellence of the organs of revelation must certainly be taken into account, but it may not be said that this ethical excellence gave birth to inspiration. God alone is He who inspires, and even Isaiah or John are never anything but choice instruments, animated and tuned by God, who plays on them His inspiration. The difference of disposition in these instruments, however, determines the difference of intensity of inspiration. As “a virtuoso on the violin” can only exhibit a part of his art on a violin of two strings, and only on the full-stringed instrument can bring all his powers into play, so the holy playing of inspiration that sounds in our ears, is entirely different, far richer, and infinitely more intensive, when God makes use of a David or a Paul than when Nahum comes from the woods or James’ epistle is unrolled before us. There are certainly degrees of inspiration. Habakkuk affects one more mightily than Haggai. And with the same organs of revelation inspiration is at one time much richer and fuller than at another time, which undoubtedly depends again upon the mood of the singer or writer. But however necessary the close study of these degrees may be, and however often we may be permitted to connect them with the subjective disposition of the instrument used, nevertheless, to derive inspiration itself from this, can never be allowed. All these differences may modify, specialize, and graduate the effect of inspiration, but inspiration itself does not proceed from the consciousness of man, but always from the consciousness and the will of God. All efforts to explain inspiration ethically is a passing into another genus, and is a leap from the ethical into the abstract life of our consciousness.

Finally, there may be added the ready help which every later inspiration found in that which had gone before, as well as in the progress of the revelation of salvation, to which it ran parallel. The content of inspiration is not aphoristic. The one rather builds upon the other. In its beginnings, therefore, inspiration is mostly concentric and deep, and only gradually passes over into detail and moves upon the surface. As a rule, at least, the person to be inspired knew what had formerly been inspired to others, and with these earlier inspirations his own inspiration formed a concatenation of ideas. It connected itself with these. It found in them a thread which it spun to greater length. It is no inspiration now in China, then again in Rome, presently in India or in Elam, but an inspiration which uses men from one and the same milieu of life, and which historically exhibits a certain continuity. For which reason the very images perpetuate themselves with a certain continuity, and certain forms and ways of speech pass on from one to the other. Just bring to mind the Root, the Shepherd and the “sheep of his pasture.” If on account of this, numerous factors were present in the consciousness of the person about to be inspired for the use of Him who inspires, the same applies to the actual dispensation of grace in Israel. There is not merely a disclosing of the holy world above to the consciousness, but the creation as well of a reality in Israel, which bears a holy character. This has its beginning already in the wondrous birth of Isaac. This reality establishes itself in the people, accentuates itself in the tribe of Judah and in the house of David; in its usages and institutions; in its holy ceremonials, and in the types which point to the full reality to be realized by the Incarnation. From the nature of the case, this reality also exerted an influence, moulded and fashioned the more finely disposed spirits in Israel, and enriched the consciousness of those who were to be inspired with those ideas and representations and images, which were fit in every way to do service in inspiration. It made the language, in which Jehovah was to interpret His Divine thoughts, altogether a richer vehicle for inspiration.

The third factor which claims our attention in inspiration is that which is inspired: — Id quod inspiratur. This content of inspiration is not accidental. It does not consist of magic sentences, nor yet of enigmatical communications concerning secret powers or incidental events. The whole content of what is inspired is taken from the counsel of God, and is dominated by the supreme thought of how the profaned majesty of God, both in man and in the cosmos, may again come to its theodicy. We have purposely taken pains to state the case in these definite terms, because the limitation of that content to the salvation of man’s psychical life both is irrational and is contradicted by the Holy Scripture. The latter needs no explanation, and so far as the first is concerned, it would be irrational to intend exclusively the salvation of our psychical life, since the conditions of our somatical life are equally disabled. Irrational, to fix the eye upon the salvation of man alone, since man is an organic part of the cosmos. And it would be equally irrational to find the end of inspiration in man, since either the confession of God must be abandoned, or all things must find their end in Him. At this very point the effort falls away to seek the content of what was inspired exclusively in what is ethical-religious. This ethical-religious does not exist in isolation. In the case of the individual person it touches his body and circumstances as well; in the case of a people, its earthly existence, its history, and its future. Separation, therefore, is here impossible. Even as you cannot find a man except in his body, you cannot expect to find what is inspired except it is alike psychical, somatical and cosmical. However, it may and must be granted that the content of what is inspired does not lend itself to this cosmical, except in so far as it stands in central connection with the work of the Holy Spirit. Not because the rest is indifferent, but because inspiration has a purpose of its own; viz. to introduce into the consciousness of the Church of God that world of thought which belongs to palingenesis. What lies outside of this is not received by the Church as such, but by the members of the Church, as “men and citizens,” in a natural way. And the question, whether the nature of this content joins itself to what God who inspires finds on hand in the person whom He inspires is answered as follows: that the restoration of what was profaned of necessity joins itself to the condition of the profaned, and that the organs of revelation, whose own condition was that of depravity, and who themselves lived in this desecrated cosmos, found, both in themselves and in that cosmos, the canvas stretched on which the floral designs of grace were to be embroidered.

§ 84. The Forms of Inspiration

Man received in his creation more than one string to the harp of his soul, and according to the nature of the objects that hold his attention his mood changes, he strikes a different key, and his mental action assumes new phases. The lyrical world differs in principle from the epical; the dramatic impulse far exceeds both in creative power; while, on the other hand, poetical inspiration accentuates itself least in didactic poetry. Thus the human mind is disposed by nature to a multiformity of expression, which sustains connection with the multiformity of material that engages our attention. And since there is a wide difference in the material that constitutes the content of Revelation, it is entirely natural that the inspiration of the Holy Spirit has made use of that multiformity of our spiritual expression, and thus assumes at one time a lyric character, at another time an epical, sometimes even a dramatic, but especially also one that is didactic. To some extent one may even say that in these æsthetic variegations certain fundamental forms are given for inspiration, and if need be the entire content of the Scripture might be divided after these four fundamental types. Since, however, outside of the Scripture also these four fundamental types continually overlap each other and give rise to mixed forms, it is more advisable to borrow the division of these types from the content of the Scripture itself. This we do when we distinguish between lyric, chokmatic, prophetic and apostolic inspiration, among which the inspiration of the Christ stands as univocal, and to which is added the later graphic inspiration in the narrower sense.

Let each of these types be separately considered.

Lyric inspiration comes first, because lyric itself, to some extent, bears an inspired character, and so offers us the most beautiful analogy to holy inspiration, and really supplies the only trustworthy key for the correct interpretation of the lyrical parts of the Scripture. Real lyric, worthy of the name, is not the passionate cry which describes in song the concrete, personal experience of sorrow or of joy, but appears only when, in the recital of concrete and personal experience, the note is heard of that which stirs the deeper depths of the hidden life of the universal human emotions, and for this reason is able to evoke a response from other hearts. In his Aesthetik, ii., p. 568 (3d Ausg. Lpz. 1885), Carrière states it thus: “That which is entirely individual in lyric poetry obtains the consecration of art only by being represented as it answers to the nature of man, and by striking the chord of something universally human, whereby it is reëchoed in the hearts of others.” Even this statement is not sufficiently full; for when, by his personal emotions, the lyric poet has descended to the depths where his own life mingles with the waters of human experience, he has not reached the deepest bottom of this ocean. That which is common in the emotional life of humanity is not grounded in itself, but derives its powers of life from the immanence of God, whose Divine heart is the source of the vital breath that stirs and beats this ocean. Von Hartmann (Philosophie des Schönen, ii., p. 736) very properly observes that there is “a mode of feeling which transcends the purely anthropological,” which, from his Pantheistic point of view, he explains more closely as “an extension of self-feeling (Selbstgefühl) unto a form of universal sympathy (Allgefühl), the outreach of this sympathy (Weltschmerz) toward the world-ground, i.e. its expansion into the intuition of the Divine (Gottesschmerz).” Reverse this, and say that his concrete feeling is governed by the universal human feeling, and that, so far as it affects him, this universal human feeling is governed by the vital emotions in God, and the pathway of lyric inspiration is cleared. In every lyric poet you find first a considerable commotion of feeling, occasioned by his own joy or sorrow, or by the weal or woe of that which he loves. Secondly, that sense of solidarity, by which in his personal emotions he discerns the wave-beat of the human heart. And finally, there works in him a dominant power, which, in this universal human emotion-life, effects order, reconciliation, or victory. However subjective the lyric may be, it always loses the personal subject in the general subject, and in this general subject the Divine subject appears dominant. Since we may speak to this extent of a certain Divine inspiration in the case of all higher lyric, it is readily seen how naturally lyric lent itself as a vehicle for holy inspiration, and required but the employment in a special way of the Holy Spirit, to effect the lyric inspiration of the Psalmist.

The lyric poet does not merely sing for the sake of singing, but from the thirst for deliverance. Under the weight of unspeakable joy or of consuming sorrow he is near being overcome. And now the spirit arouses itself within him, not to shake himself free from this feeling of sorrow or joy, but, luctor et emergo, to raise the head above those waves of the ocean of his feeling, and either pour oil upon the seething waters, that shall quiet their violence, or bring those waves into harmony with the wave-beat of his own life, and thus effect reconciliation, or, finally, with power from on high to break that wave-beat. This is always done in two stages. First, by his descent from the personal into the solidary-human. He aptly remarks: I am not alone in these sorrows; there are “companions in misery” (consortes doloris); hence that sorrow must have deeper causes. And secondly, from this “companionship in misery” he reaches out after the living God, who does not stand as a personified Fate over against this necessity, but with Sovereign Authority bears rule over it. It is evident, that God the Lord has led His lyric singers personally into bitter sorrows, and again has made them leap for joy with personal gladness. But it also appears, in the second place, that these experiences of deep sorrow and high-strung gladness almost never came to them in concrete-individual, and, therefore, to a certain extent, accidental circumstances, but that almost always their lot in life was interwoven with the lot of their people, and thus from the start bore a solidary character. David views even his sicknesses as standing in connection with the combat he wages for God and His people. However, you observe, in the third place, that in and through the utterance of personal feeling, once and again a higher and a more general subject, and, if you please, another ego, supplants the ego of the singer, and often ends by God Himself in the Messiah testifying through the mouth of the singer. This makes a confusing impression on him who does not understand lyric, and is the cause of many an error in exegesis. But this phenomenon, which at first sight seems somewhat strange, becomes entirely clear when in this instance also you allow the antithesis to be duly emphasized between sinful and sanctified humanity, between humanity in its state of depravity and humanity in the palingenesis. The lyric poet who stands outside of the palingenesis cannot descend deeper than the emotional life of fallen humanity, and if from thence he presses on to God, he can do nothing more than was done by Von Hartmann, who, being depressed by sorrow, through the world-sorrow (Weltschmerz) reached the supposed God-sorrow (Gottesschmerz), and thus falsified the entire world of the emotions. Such, however, was not the case with the singers of Israel. From their personal joy and grief, they did not descend to the general human feeling, but to the emotion-life of humanity in the palingenesis, i.e. of God’s people. And when in God they sought the reconciliation between this higher life of the palingenesis and actual conditions, their God appeared to them in the form of the Messiah, that other subject, who sang and spake through them, and caused them simultaneously to experience the reconciliation and the victory over sorrow and sin. In the imprecatory Psalms, especially, this is most strongly apparent. Applied to our human relations in general, the imprecatory Psalm is, of course, a most grievous offence to our feelings, and entirely beneath the nobility of lyric. If, on the other hand, you place the lyric singer of the imprecatory Psalms under the absolute antithesis between that which chooses for and against God; if you separate him from his temporal-concrete surroundings, and transfer him to the absolute-eternal, in which everything that sides with God lives and has our love, and everything that chooses eternally against God bears the mark of death and rouses our hatred, then the rule, “Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee?” becomes the only applicable standard, and whatever departs from this rule falls short of love for God. When Jesus speaks of the man who should have a millstone hanged about his neck, that he may be drowned in the depths of the sea, the same fundamental tone which sounds in all the imprecatory Psalms is sounded also by Him. As unholy and repulsive as the imprecatory Psalms are in the lips of those who apply them to our relative universal human life, they are solemnly true and holy when you take your stand in the absolute palingenesis, where God’s honor is the keynote of the harmony of the human heart. This is naturally denied by all those who refuse to believe in an eternal condemnation of those who continue in their enmity against the Almighty; but he who in unison with the Scripture speaks of “a going into everlasting pain,” from this absolute point of view cannot resent the imprecatory Psalm, provided it is taken as a lyric.

(2) Chokmatic inspiration certainly belongs to didactic poetry, but forms, nevertheless, a class by itself, which, outside of the domain of poetry, can make its appearance in prose. Under Chokmatic inspiration, the parables, too, are classed, and other sayings of Christ which are not handed down to us at least in a fixed form. When the question is asked in what particular didactic poetry distinguishes itself from non-didactic, æsthetici say that the didacticus first thinks, and then looks for the image in which to clothe his thoughts, while the non-didactic lyricist, epicist, or dramatist feels the initiative arise from phantasy, and only derives the form from the ideal image. In itself, inspiration is much less strong with the didacticus, and there are didactic poets with whom poetical inspiration is altogether wanting. With this kind of poetry, inspiration is not in the feeling, neither in the imagination, or in the heroic impulse, but exclusively in the sway of the consciousness. Not as a result of his discursive thought, but by an impulse of his perception, the real didacticus is impelled to song. By his immediate perception he understands what he sees the other does not understand, and this he communicates to him in song. Subsidiarily to this, is added that the didacticus, since he does not speak as one who is learned, but sings as one who is wise, is, at the same time, in sympathy with symbolism which unites the spiritual with the material world, and therefore expresses himself in the form of nature-illustrations and parables. In the Chokmah, this universal human phenomenon obtained a character of its own. Even as the prophet, the “wise man” was an isolated phenomenon in Israel. Similarly to didactic poetry, this Chokmah confines itself mostly to the domain of the life of nature and to the natural relationships of life. That life of nature and of man, in its rich unfolding, is the realization of a thought of God. It is not accidental, but develops itself after the Divine ordinances, which, even as the existence of life, are the outflow of a Chokmah in God. Nature does not observe this, but man perceives it because, created after God’s image, he is himself an embodiment of that thought of God, and is therefore himself a microcosmos. In his perception lies a reflected image of this Chokmah, which by nature is Wisdom, and not science, but which only by analysis and synthesis can become science. The purer and clearer that glass of his perception is, the purer and clearer will the image of that Chokmah reflect itself in him. For this reason, Adam was created, not merely in justice and holiness, but also in original wisdom. By sin, however, this perception became clouded. There was a twofold cause for this. First, it reacts no longer accurately, and again, because nature itself and man’s life in nature have become entangled in much conflict and confusion. For this reason, this natural Chokmah does no longer give what it ought to give; it works most effectively with simple folk, to whom only separate problems present themselves, but it refuses its service to the more richly developed mind, which faces all problems at once, and thus necessitates it by way of analysis to seek refuge in close thought. Palingenesis meanwhile presents the possibility of resuscitating again this original wisdom in fallen man, and, at the same time, of giving him an insight into the order and harmony which hide behind the conflicts of our sinful life, and are active to provide the cleansing of them. This does not happen to everybody, not even though the enlightening has entered in, but it takes place with those individuals whom God has chosen and inspired for this purpose, and these are the real, specific, wise men, and what they produce is called the Chokmah. In this, therefore, we deal with an activity of the Holy Spirit, which directs itself to this original sense-of-life, to this practical consciousness of nature and life, and clarifies this, so that the wise man discerns again the wisdom which is apparent in God’s creation and in life, is affected by it, and proclaims it in parable or song. This Chokmah, however, does not appear to him as arising from his subjective consciousness, but as addressing him from another subject, such as Wisdom, which must not be taken as a personification, but as the pure word in God (see 1 Cor. i. 30), that to him coincides with the image of the Messiah. This does not imply that for this reason the solution of all problems, as for instance the problem of the incongruity in the suffering servant of God, stands clear and plain before his eyes. On the contrary, there are conflicts, which cannot be explained on chokmatic ground, but the impression of the Chokmah is, nevertheless, so overwhelming that the interrogation mark after these problems bears in itself the prophecy that it shall sometime disappear. Hence the “wise man” stands over against the “scorner,” the “fool,” and the “ungodly,” who think after their fashion to have found a solution in cynicism, but have abandoned God and faith in his wisdom. To the wise man, on the other hand, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. God must not be wiped out for the reason that we are not able to indicate harmony between Him and the world; but from Him every departure must be made, even though by doing this we should lose the world. This assertion may not methodistically be applied to discursive thought. It only applies to that Wisdom of which it is asked in Job xxxviii. 36, “Who hath put wisdom in the inward parts? or who hath given understanding to the mind?” The entire action, by which this wisdom is quickened, follows along the inward way, and does not come from without. For which very reason it could become a vehicle of inspiration. This also applies to its form, which is almost always symbolical, entirely apart from the question whether it is more commonly lyrical, epic, or dramatic. Its form is and remains that of the Proverb (מָשָׁל), the utterance of a thought in its material analogy. In the “riddle” (חִידָה) and “enigma” (מְלִיצָה), which words indicate entwining and intertwisting, the symbolical character may be less clearly apparent; in both forms, however, lies the same symbolical tendency. The phenomena are significant of something, they are reminders of a thought, which comes from God, and can be understood by us; not by these phenomena themselves, but by the affinity of our spirit to Him who speaks in them. And since this Wisdom does not consist of thoughts loosely strung together, but forms one organic whole, and needs the light of grace, by which to solve the problems of sorrow and of sin, this Wisdom at length concentrates itself in Christ Jesus, whom finally the apostle places over against the foolishness (μωρία) of the world as the incarnated Wisdom (Chokmah or σοφία).

(3) So far as its result is concerned, Prophetic inspiration is distinguished from the lyric and chokmatic chiefly by the fact that in general it exhibits a conscious dualism of subject, whereby the subject of the prophet has merely an instrumental significance, while the higher subject speaks the word. That other higher subject appears sometimes in lyrics (Ps. ii. et al.) and in the Chokmah (Prov. viii. et al.), but where it does this appearance bears no dualistic character, and at least never becomes antithetic as in prophecy (Jer. xx., Ezek. iii., et al.). In the lyric and in the Chokmah there is “Konsonanz” of subjects, never “Dissonanz.” In prophecy, on the other hand, duality of subject is the starting-point for the understanding of its working, and is even present where it is not expressly announced. Nothing can be inferred concerning this from the word נביא. The etymology of the word is too uncertain for this. Who indeed will prove whether we must go back to נביא, נבע, בא, which would be identical with φα-, in φημί, or to נביא? Or also whether the form בוא is a passive or intransitive katil-form, and whether, if effundere, to pour out, is the primary meaning of this root, we must think of a poured-out person, or of a person who causes his words to flow out like water across the fields? One can offer conjectures, but to infer anything from the etymology as to the meaning of the word is at present simply impossible. The synonyms also, ראה and חוה, merely indicate that the prophet is some one who is given to seeing visions. From the description of some of these visions, as for instance the vision of the calls, from the phenomena that accompanied them, and from the form in which the prophet usually expressed himself, it can be very definitely shown, on the other hand, that, as subject, he felt himself taken hold of by a higher subject, and was compelled to speak not his own thoughts, but the thoughts of this higher subject. The frequent repetition of the “Thus saith” (כֹּה אָמַר) proves this. In Jeremiah’s spiritual struggle (Jer. xx. 7 sq.) this antithesis reaches its climax. In 2 Sam. vii. 3 Nathan first declares as his own feeling that David will build the temple, while in verses 4, 5 he receives the prophetical charge to announce to David the very opposite. In Isa. xxxviii. 1–5 we read the twofold “Thus saith,” first, that Hezekiah will succumb to his sickness, and then that he will again be restored. The fundamental type is given in Deut. xviii. 18 as follows: “I, Jehovah, will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.” We find this all-prevailing fundamental thought still more sharply brought out by Ezekiel in Chap. ii. 8: “But thou, son of man, hear what I say unto thee; open thy mouth, and eat that I give thee.” And in Chap. iii. 1, 2: “Son of man, eat that thou findest, eat this roll, and go and speak. So I opened my mouth, and he caused me to eat that roll.” To eat is to take up and assimilate in my blood a material or food which originated outside of me. This, therefore, is a most definite indication that the subject from whose consciousness the prophecy originated is not the subject of the prophet, but the subject Jehovah. Whichever way this is turned, the chief distinction in prophecy is always that the subject of the prophet merely serves as instrument.

From this, however, it must not be inferred that the character or disposition of this instrumental subject was a matter of indifference. The same musician who at one time plays the flute, the other time a cornet, and at still another time a trumpet, produces each time entirely different tones. This depends altogether upon the instrument he plays and the condition of the instrument. In the same way this personal character and present disposition of the prophet will give tone to his prophecy to such an extent that with Isaiah the result is entirely different from what it is with Hosea, and with Jeremiah from what it is with Micah. Only do not lose from sight that this noticeable difference in prophecy, which is the result of the great difference between prophet and prophet, was also determined by the higher subject. As the player chooses his instrument according to the composition he wants to be heard, Jehovah chose His prophetical instrument. God the Lord, moreover, did what the player cannot do: He prepared His instrument Himself, and tuned it to the prophecy which by this instrument He was to give to Israel, and by Israel to the Church of all ages. If thus without reservation we must recognize the personal stamp which a prophet puts upon his prophecy, it may never be inferred that the fons prophetiae is to be sought in him, and that the primoprimae issues of thought should not come from the consciousness of God. We may even enter more fully into this, and confess that it was the preparation, education, and further development of a prophet and his lot in life generally that brought it about that in his consciousness all those elements were available which God the Lord should need for His prophecy. It may indeed be assumed that the ethnological and political knowledge of the kingdoms with whom Israel came in contact, and from which so many judgments proceeded, was present in the synteresis of the prophets. The capacity to gather thoughts and unite them into an opinion may likewise have been active in the instrumental subject. This much, however, remains fact, that so far as the ego of the prophet was active in this, it did not go to work from its own spontaneity, but was passively directed by another subject, in whose service it was employed.

Even this does not end our study of the anthropological basis of prophecy. Ecstasy, which is so strongly apparent on the heights of prophecy, is no uncommon phenomenon. We know as yet so very little of the nature and working of psychical powers. Biology, magnetic sleep, clairvoyance, hypnotism, trance, insanity, telepathy, as Stead called his invention, are altogether phenomena which have appeared from of old in all sorts of forms, and which science has too grossly neglected. Evidently these workings are less common in quiet, peaceful times, and show themselves with more intensity when public restlessness destroys the equilibrium. This accounts for the fact that at present they are prominently coming again to the front. This at least is evident, that our psyche, over against its consciousness, as well as with reference to its body, can become so strongly excited that common relations give place to those that are entirely uncommon. Whole series of stations lie between common enthusiasm and wild insanity, by which in its course this action assumes a more or less concrete, but ever modified, form. And so far as insanity has no directly physical causes, it carries wholly the impression of being a tension between the psyche and its consciousness, which is not merely acute, but becomes chronic, or even permanent. Ecstasy is commonly represented as being the outcome of the mastery of an idea, a thought, or a phantom over the psyche, and by means of the sensibilities over the body, to such an extent that for the moment the common working of the senses and of the other spiritual powers is suspended, and psyche and soma are used entirely as instruments of this mania, idea, or visionary image. If we combine these ecstatic phenomena with the biological, i.e. with the power which the psyche of one can obtain over the psyche of another, and grant that the power which other men can exert upon us can be exerted upon us much more strongly by God, we must conclude that in prophecy also God the Lord made use of factors which He Himself had prepared in our human nature. With this difference, however, that in this instance He makes use Himself of what at other times He places at the disposal of biologians. A complete analogy to prophecy would be given in this, especially if Stead’s ideas about his so-called thought, which rests upon the system of telepathy, were found to be true. He asserts to have reached this result telepathically, — that at a distance of ten or twenty miles, without any means of communication whatsoever, one man wrote down literally what the other man thought. This may lack excitement and passion, but by no means excludes ecstasy; it is well known that besides a passionate, there is also an entirely restful, ecstasy, which, for the time being, petrifies a man, or causes him to lie motionless as in deep sleep.

If we inquire what the prophets themselves relate concerning their experience in such prophetic periods, a real difference may be observed. At one time the seizure is violent, at another time one scarcely receives the impression that a seizure has taken place. When that seizure comes they receive the impression of a לָבֵשׁ, i.e. as though they are put into a strait-jacket by the Spirit. This admits of no other explanation, except that they lost the normal working of their senses and the common use of their limbs. There is an Iad Iah’wah which takes hold of them; which indicates that the pressure came not gradually, but suddenly, upon them. Sometimes a “fall” is the result of this; they fell forward, not because they wanted to kneel down, but because their muscles were paralyzed, and, filled with terror, they fell to the ground. Meanwhile they perceived a glow from within which put them as on fire, as Jeremiah declares that it became a fire in his bones which he could not resist. Ezekiel testifies (iii. 14), “I went in bitterness, in the heat of my spirit, and the hand of the Lord was strong upon me.” At the close of the ecstasy the prophet felt himself worn-out and faint, and pathologically affected to such a degree that he said he was ill. In that condition he saw visions, heard speaking and saw whole dramas played; and when presently he is again so far restored to himself that he can speak, the continuity of his consciousness is by no means broken. He knows what happened with him, and tells what he saw and heard. By itself there is nothing strange in all this. That which is distinctively prophetic does not consist of these psychical phenomena. These were common with pseudo-prophets. But these phenomena, which were commonly produced by pathological psychical conditions, or by superior powers of other persons, by the influence of mighty events, or by demoniacal influences, in prophecy were worked by God that He might use them for His revelation.

This dualistic character of prophecy, coupled with the repression of the human subject, prompts us to explain prophecy as being epical, even if at times this epical utterance receives a lyrical tint. In the epos the ego of the singer recedes to the background, and the powerful development of events, by which he is overwhelmed, is put wholly to the front. An epos teaches almost nothing about the poet himself. To such an extent is his personality repressed in the epos. The second characteristic of the epos is, that the singer not merely communicates what he has seen and heard, but also pushes aside the veil, and makes you see what mysterious powers from the unseen world were active back of all this, and that the things seen are in reality but the effect worked by these mysterious factors. To this extent the epos corresponds entirely to the content of prophecy, and only in the third point does the epos differ from prophecy. In the epos the poet deals merely with tradition, subjects it to his own mind, lifts himself above it, and exhibits his sovereign power by pouring over into the word, i.e. in the epos, what has happened, but at the same time, and this is the triumph of the epos, explains it and makes it understood. And the epical poet differs from the prophet in this very thing; the epicus rules as artist, while passively the prophet undergoes inspiration from a higher subject. We may grant that the epical poet also invokes a higher inspiration, as is shown in the “Jerusalem Delivered;” and the “breathe into my bosom” (tu spira al petto mio) is certainly a strong expression, but with Tasso it is followed immediately by the statement: “and forgive if I mingle fiction with truth —if I adorn my pages in part with other thoughts than your own,” which were inconceivable with the passivity of the prophet.

If it is asked, where lies the mighty fact, which appears epically in the epos or Word of prophecy, we answer, that prophecy takes this drama from the counsel of God. While Chokmatic inspiration discovers the ordinances of God that lie hidden in creation, and lyric interprets to us the world of our human heart, in prophecy there is epically proclaimed the ordinance of God with reference to history, the problem of the world’s development. This history, this development, must follow the course marked out by God in His counsel, and to some extent it amounts to the same thing, whether this course is seen in the facts or is read from God’s counsel. The program lies in the counsel of God, in history the performance of the exalted drama. Meanwhile there is this noteworthy difference between the two, that in the days of the prophets especially, the drama had been worked out only in a very small part, while in God’s counsel the complete program lay in readiness. And secondly, even so far as it realized God’s counsel, history could never be understood in its mystical meaning without the knowledge of God’s counsel. It is noteworthy that the compilers of the books of the Canon classed Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings with the prophets as the former prophets, and that the later prophets join themselves to these, as the later. If dioramatically we transfer the Oracles of what we call the prophets to beyond the last judgment in the realm of glory, and add Joshua to Kings inclusive, these together give us both parts of the drama, viz. (1) what was already performed, and (2) what was to follow; while the comparison, for instance, of Kings with Chronicles makes the epical excellence of the former to appear clearly above the latter. The drama then begins from the moment God’s people are settled in the Holy Land. What lies behind this is not history, but preparation. The Thorah gives the Toledoth. With Israel in Canaan the starting-point is given for the all-governing drama. What lies back of that is a description of the situation by way of prologue. With Joshua the drama begins, and ends only when the new humanity shall enter upon the possession of the new earth, under the new heaven. In this drama the prophet stands midway. As a Semite he knew but two tenses, the factum and fiens, a perfect and an imperfect. The prophetical narrative presents that part of the programme which is performed. It does this epically, i.e. with the disclosure of the Divine agencies employed; while that which is to come is not seen by the prophet in reality, but in vision. Always in such a way, however, that to him a review of the whole is possible. He therefore is not outside of it, but stands himself in its midst. In his own heart he has passed through the struggle between this Divine drama of redemption and the roar of the nations, whose history must end in self-dissolution. He is conscious of the fact that that spirit of the world combats the Spirit of God, not only outside of, but also within, the boundaries of Israel. Thus by virtue of his own impulse he pronounces the Holy Spirit’s criticism upon the unholy spirit of the world, and is filled with holy enthusiasm in seeing in vision, that that Spirit of God and His counsel shall sometime gloriously triumph. Thus there is an organic connection between what was, and is and is to come; a connection between one prophet and another; a connection also with the same prophet between the series of visions that fall to his share; and this states the need of the vision of the call, in which God revealed to him, that he himself was called to coöperate in the realizing of the Divine counsel and in the further unveiling of the drama. It is as foolish therefore to deny the element of prediction in prophecy, as it is irrational to make real prophecy consist of single aphoristical predictions. Undoubtedly in the main prophecy offers the unveiling of that which is to come provided it is viewed from the point where the prophet stood and lived, so that very often he himself is active in the process which reflects itself in his Oracle.

The apocalyptic vision only forms an exception to this, which exception, however, accentuates the more sharply the indicated character of common prophecy. The Apocalypse does not move from the prophet to the horizon, but leaves between him and the horizon nothing but a vacuum, in order suddenly to cause a vision to appear on that horizon, which is to him surprising and strange. A veil is pushed aside, which mostly consists of this, that “the heavens were opened,” and when the veil is lifted, a scene reveals itself to the eyes of the seer which moves from the heavens toward him. Hence, the Apocalypse unveils the end, and is by its very nature eschatological, even when its meaning is merely symbolic. It rests upon the assumption that the end is not born from the means, but that, on the contrary, the end is first determined, and that this end postulates the means by which to realize it. Hence, it is far more severely theological than common prophecy, since it takes no pains to join itself to human history, but abruptly shows itself on the horizon. God’s counsel is what is really essential. From that counsel God shows immediately this or the other part, and for this reason the forms and images of apocalyptic vision are described with so great difficulty. The purpose in hand is to show the seer a different reality from that in which he actually lives, a reality which surely is analogous to his own life, but as under the antithesis of the butterfly and the caterpillar. How could the form of the butterfly be made more or less clear in outlines borrowed from the caterpillar, to one who knows a caterpillar but not a butterfly? This is the problem which every apocalyptical vision faces. The forms and images, therefore, are composed of what the prophet knows, but are arranged in such different combinations and connections as to produce a drama that is entirely abnormal. The appearance of Christ in His glory on Patmos is truly the brilliancy of the butterfly, but sketched in forms borrowed from the caterpillar. From this, however, the apocalyptic vision derives its artistic composition. This does not imply that the æsthetic element is wanting in common prophecy; but in this no tableaux are exhibited which, in order to be exhibited, must first be arranged. With the apocalyptic vision, however, this is indispensable. On the prophetic horizon, which at first is vacant, it must show its form or drama in such a way that, however strange it may be to him, the prophet, nevertheless, is able to receive and communicate it. It is Divine art, therefore, which makes the composition correspond to its purpose, and this accounts for the fact that the artistic Unity, in the symmetry and proportion of parts, in symbolism, and in numbers, is seen so vividly in the Apocalypse. This is not artificial, but spontaneous art. By counting it over, the fact has been revealed that the allegro in Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony is divided into two parts of 120 and 193 bars; that the adagio of Beethoven’s B-major symphony separates itself into two parts of 40 and 64 bars. Naumann has found similar results in the master-productions by Bach. The proportion of the golden division always prevails in highest productions of art. No one, however, will assert that Bach, Mozart, or Beethoven computed this division of bars. This artistic proportion sprang spontaneously from their artistic genius. In the same way the unity of plan (Gliederung) in the Apocalypse must be understood, just because in vision the action of the seer is least and the action on the part of God is greatest.

The exhibition and announcement of things to come, i.e. the predictive character, belongs not merely to the Apocalypse, but to common prophecy as well. “Before it came to pass I shewed it thee: lest thou shouldest say, Mine idol hath done them.” “I have declared the former things from of old; yea, they went forth out of my mouth, and I shewed them; suddenly I did them, and they came to pass” (Isa. xlviii. 3—5, passim). Entirely in the same sense in which Jesus said to His disciples, “And now I have told you before it come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, ye may believe” (John xiv. 29; comp. xiii. 19 and xvi. 4). However strongly it must be emphasized, therefore, that in the person of the prophet, in his disposition, education, surroundings, position in life, and in his preparation in the school of the prophets, a number of data are present which claim our notice in connection with his prophecies, all this, however, is no more than the preparation of the soil, and the seed from which presently the fruit ripens comes always from above. Even when seemingly he merely exhorts or reproves, this preaching of repentance or reproof is always the coming into our reality of what is ideal and higher, as the root from which a holier future is to bloom.

(4) The Inspiration of Christ. — Since inspiration has been interpreted too exclusively as Scripture-inspiration, too little attention has ever been paid to the inspiration of the Christ. The representation, however, that the Christ knew all things without inspiration spontaneously (sponte sua), is virtually the denial of the incarnation of the Word. The consciousness of God and the Mediatorial consciousness of the Christ are not one, but two, and the transfer of Divine thoughts from the consciousness of God into the consciousness of the Christ is not merely inspiration, but inspiration in its highest form. The old theologians indicated this by saying, that even the Christ possessed no archetypal, but ectypal theology, and he obtained this via unionis, i.e. in virtue of the union of the Divine and human nature. In this there is merely systematized what Christ Himself said: (John xiv. 10) “The words that I say unto you, I speak not of myself”; (John vii. 16) “My teaching is not mine, but his that sent me”; (John xiv. 24) “The word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s who sent me”; (John v. 30) “As I hear, I judge”; (John viii. 26) “The things which I have heard from him these speak I unto the world”; and (John xii. 49) “The Father which sent me, he hath given me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak.” This in itself is the natural outcome of His real adoption of human nature; but the necessity for this, moreover, was the greater, on account of His assuming that nature in all its weakness, with the single exception of sin (Heb. iv. 15), which at this stage indicates that in Jesus no falsehood was arrayed against the truth, which, as with the common prophets, had first to be repressed. But in Christ there was an increase in wisdom, a gradual becoming enriched more and more with the world that lived in the consciousness of God. This was effected by the reading of the Scriptures, by the seeing of things visible in creation, by His life in Israel, as well as by prophetical inspiration. In that sense, the Holy Spirit to Him also was given. In connection with His preaching we are told, “For he whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God: for he giveth not the Spirit by measure” (John iii. 34), an utterance which, as seen from the connection, may not be interpreted ethically, which would have no sense, but refers to inspiration. This “not by measure” is also evident in this, that all kinds of inspiration, the lyric, chokmatic and epical-prophetical, unite themselves in Jesus, while everything that is connected with the suppression of vital energy, the will, or mistaken thoughts in the case of the prophets, in the case of Jesus falls away. Even in inspiration, He could never be passive without becoming active at the same time. That the form of vision never takes place with Jesus, but all inspiration in Him comes in clear concept (notione clara), has a different cause. Before His incarnation, the Christ has seen the heavenly reality which to prophecy had to be shown in visions: “I speak the things which I have seen with my Father” (John viii. 38); “and bear witness of that we have seen” (John iii. 11). One may even say that the sight of this heavenly reality was also granted Him after His incarnation: “And no man hath ascended into heaven, but he that descended out of heaven, even the Son of Man, which is in heaven” (John iii. 13). This very absence, in the case of the Christ, of all instrumental means, which were indispensable with the prophets because of sin, together with the absence of all individual limitation (“for he had not taken on man, but man’s nature,” non hominem sed naturam humanam assumpserat), gives that absolute character of the teaching “as one having authority” to what He spake as the fruit of the inspiration, in virtue of the Divine union, the impression of which to this day, in the reading of His Word, takes hold of one so overwhelmingly. Entirely in harmony with this, the Scripture indicates that inspiration had in Him its centrum. He is the prophet; who spake in the Old Covenant by the prophets; after His ascension bears witness by His apostles; and who is still our prophet through the Word. (See Deut. xviii. 18; 1 Pet. i. 11, “The spirit of Christ which was in them testified beforehand”; John xvi. 13).

(5) The Inspiration of the Apostles. — He who derives his conception of inspiration exclusively from the inspiration of the prophets, is bound to conclude that there is no question of inspiration in the case of the apostles. In the case of the apostles, indeed, inspiration bears an entirely different character from that of the lyric, chokmatic, or prophetical organs of the Old Covenant. This difference sprang from a threefold cause. First from the fact that the Holy Spirit had now been poured out and had taken up His abode in the Church of God. This difference is most succinctly stated by the antithesis of inshining (irradiatio) and indwelling (inhabitatio). Secondly, from the fact that with the apostles inspiration adapted itself to their official function. And thirdly, from the fact that they came after the Incarnation, which the seers of the Old Covenant anticipated. As soon therefore as, on Patmos, inspiration deals no longer with the reality which appeared in the Christ, but refers to things to come, inspiration resumes with them its prophetical character, viz. in its apocalyptical form. The revelation that came to Peter was equally vision-like. And so far as Paul had not belonged to the circle of Jesus’ disciples, an entirely separate calling, tradition and ecstasy were given him, which were needful to him and adapted to his isolated position. With these exceptions, there is nothing that suggests inspiration in the oral and written preaching of the apostles, as given in the Acts and in their Epistles. They speak as though they speak of themselves, they write as though they write of themselves. In all probability the same phenomenon showed itself in the hundred or more of their addresses and epistles, of which no reports have come to us. The “cloke and the parchments left at Troas,” as an incident, stands by no means by itself. Almost the entire contents of apostolic literature bears the same ordinary character. If from outside sources nothing were known of the inspiration of the prophets, the simple phrase “Thus saith the Lord” already shows that there is at least the pretence of inspiration. With apostolic literature, on the other hand, the suggestion of inspiration scarcely presents itself. In 1 Cor. vii. 10, coll. 12, we even read of an antithesis between “I give charge,” and “Yea, not I, but the Lord,” but this refers to the difference between what Paul knew from the special revelation given to himself (1 Cor. xi. 23, “For I received of the Lord”), and by apostolic inspiration, as he expressly adds at the close of this same chapter: “And I think that I also have the Spirit of God” (1 Cor. vii. 40). That inspiration, however, took place with the apostles, appears meanwhile from Matt. x. 19, 20; John xvi. 12—14, 14—26, etc.; from Acts xv. 28, “For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us”; from 1 Cor. ii. 10—12, “But unto us God revealed them through the Spirit,” and this Holy Spirit alone could reveal to them the deep things of God. Paul, as well as the other apostles, had not received the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God, and the effect of this is that he knew the things that were freely given by God. The same appears from 2 Cor. iii. 3, where on the tables of the heart an epistle of Christ is said to be written, not with ink, but “with the spirit of the living God,” and instrumentally this was effected by the apostles: “ministered by us.” In Eph. iii. 5 it is stated that the mystery, which had been hidden from former generations, “hath now been revealed unto his holy apostles in the Spirit.” In Rev. i. 10 John declares even, “I was in the Spirit.” Paul does not hesitate to say that what they had heard of him is not a “word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God” (1 Thess. ii. 13).

Evidently with them this inspiration was the working of the Holy Spirit dwelling in them, and this indwelling demands full emphasis. In the first place they had received inworkings of the Holy Spirit before the Day of Pentecost, and, in breathing on them, Jesus had officially communicated to them the gift of the Holy Ghost. Before Pentecost moreover they had been regenerated, for Jesus had prayed, not that Peter might have faith, but that the faith which he had might not fail. Nevertheless Jesus repeatedly declares that only when the Holy Spirit shall have been sent them from the Father, shall real apostolical inspiration begin, as it did on Pentecost in the sermon of Peter. In the Old Covenant the Holy Spirit stands truly “in the midst of them” (Isa. lxiii. 2); but He is not yet the formative principle (principium formans) for the circle. That circle was still national, and not yet œcumenical. It only became such on the Pentecostal Day, when the Church appeared, liberated from the wrappings of Israel’s national life, as an independent organism, having the Holy Spirit as its πνεῦμα. Neither this mystery nor this difference can be more fully explained here. For our purpose it is enough, if the difference is made clear, that after Pentecost there was the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, while before that day there were merely radiations and inworkings as from without. From the nature of the case this was bound to give to inspiration an entirely modified form. Now it came no more as from without, but from within, and that same Holy Spirit, who, in us, prays for us with unutterable groanings, was able in like manner to use, guide, and enlighten the consciousness of the apostles, without any break taking place in them as of a duality; yea, without their own perception of it. To this is added, as we observed, in the second place, that the impulse for the working of this inspiration lay in their official function itself. Dualistic action of the Holy Spirit is thereby not excluded with them, as when, for instance, the Spirit says to Peter: “Behold, three men seek thee” (Acts x. 19), or when the Holy Spirit did not suffer Paul to go into Bithynia (Acts xvi. 7), etc. As a rule, however, such a break did not occur, and their official calling itself formed the basis on which inspiration took place. The prophets’ appearance was also official, but in a different sense. Their prophecy itself was their office, hence this office was very aphoristic and without a cosmical basis. But the apostles had to discharge the regular duties of a fixed office, which found its bed in life itself. This office was continued until death, and inspiration was merely given them, to direct their service in this office. They do not speak or write because the Spirit stimulates them to speak, or impels them irresistibly to write, but because this was demanded of them by their office. Thus inspiration flowed into their everyday activity. This involves in the third place the different point of view, occupied by prophets and apostles, with reference to the centrum of all revelation; viz. the Christ and His truth. It is the antithesis of imagination and memory, poetry and remembrance. With the prophets, who came before the incarnation, the centrum of revelation could assume no other form than the dioramatic figures of their representation, while the apostles, who came after the Christ, testified of what they had heard and seen and handled of the Word of life. What was vague with the prophets, with them was concrete. Not the poetical, but the remembering spirit strikes with them the keynote. Since the inspiration of the Holy Spirit ever joins itself to what is present in its organ and adapts itself to this, it is evident that the inspiration, which with the prophet worked upon the poetical side of his consciousness, was with the apostle first of all a “remembrance” (John xiv. 26). Their spiritual activity, however, did not limit itself to this. They had to proclaim the message, and for this they were endowed with the remembrance. In the second place they were to announce things to come, and for this they were given the apocalyptic vision. But in the third place they had to give the apostolic reflection concerning the “word of life”; and for this the Holy Spirit led them into the deep things of God (1 Cor. ii. 10—12). And here we do not speak of any apostolic dogmatics, or of a Pauline Theology. He who does this destroys the essential difference between the apostle as “the first teacher of the whole Church” and the common ministers of the Word. The apostolate may not be thought to be continued either in the papistical or Irvingite sense, nor can it be made common in an ethical way with the ministry of the Word. According to John xvii. 20, 1 John i. 3, etc., the apostolate is univoca. Only by their preaching does the Christ appear to the consciousness of humanity, in order successively to be assimilated and reproduced by this human consciousness in dogma and theology. The apostles have dug the gold from the mine, and from this gold the Church has forged the artistic ornaments.

Every effort, therefore, to make the inspiration of the apostles identical with their enlightening must be resisted. For this places them virtually on a plane with every regenerated child of God, that shares the enlightening with them. This would be proper, if the enlightening were already absolute in the earth. This, however, it is not. No less than sanctification enlightenment remains in fact most imperfect till our death, however potentially it may be complete. The apostles never claimed that they had outgrown sin. Romans vii., which describes Paul’s spiritual state as an apostle, sufficiently proves the contrary. Galatians ii. also shows an entirely different state of things. With so much of unholiness still present in them, how could their enlightening have been complete? Their partial enlightening would never have been a sufficient cause for the absolute authority of their claims. This is only covered by the inspiration, which ever accompanied them, both in the remembrance and in the revelation of the mystery.

A single remark should be added concerning the charismata, and more particularly about the “speaking with tongues,” since the apostles themselves thus spoke. It is evident at once that this speaking of tongues was essentially different from the apostolic inspiration, in so far as it made a break in the consciousness, and repressed the activity of the consciousness of the apostles, and caused a mightier spirit to control their spirit and organ of speech. This speaking in tongues falls under the category of inspiration only in so far as it establishes the fact, that an inspiring mind (auctor mentalis) outside of them gave direction to what was heard from them. Our space does not allow a closer study of this speaking with tongues, neither does it lie in our way to consider here the charismata in general. Be it simply stated, however, that they belong to the ecstatic phenomena. According to 1 Cor. xiv., the content of the glossolaly could be interpreted, but he who spake did not understand it himself. In so far, therefore, it must be judged by the analogy of the mesmerizer who causes his medium, who knows no Latin, to write Latin words, provided, however, this phenomenon be not taken as being brought about by causing the spirit to sleep, but, on the contrary, as wrought by high exaltation.

§ 85. Graphical Inspiration

All that has thus far been said of inspiration does not refer at all to the Holy Scriptures as canonical writings. Suppose, indeed, that you knew that from the consciousness of God, by the Holy Spirit, inspiration had taken place in the consciousness of psalmists, teachers of wisdom, prophets and apostles, what warrant would this be, that what the Holy Scripture offers you, was really taken from the sphere of this inspiration, and had come to you in a sufficiently trustworthy form? What has been said thus far of the means and forms of inspiration refers to the prophetic, psalmodic, chokmatic and apostolic appearance among the people, in the gate, at the temple and in the first Christian circles. The field which this inspiration covered was incomparably larger than that which bounds the domain of the Scripture. Think how much must have been spoken by a man like Isaiah during all the years of his prophetic ministry. Compare with this his small book in our Hebrew Bible, of a little more than four quires, and you will be readily convinced that Isaiah spoke at least ten or twenty times as much again. How little is known to us of the preaching of most of the apostles, even of Peter and Paul, who for many years discharged their apostolic mission. What are thirteen epistles for a man like Paul, whose life was so active, and whose connections were so widely ramified? How much of controversy has been raised about his epistle to the Laodiceans, as though, indeed, that were the only one that was not included in the Scripture? On the other hand, what a large part of Scripture is left uncovered by inspiration, as thus far viewed. Even though you count Samuel and Kings among the prophets, the books of Chronicles, Ezra, Esther and Nehemiah, etc., are still left over. And, in the third place, even if there were not this difference of compass, still what has been thus far treated of could never result in anything more than that such an inspiration had taken place in a whole series of ambassadors of God, while the compilation of what they sang or spake under this inspiration had received no supervision.

With this in mind, we purposely distinguish graphic inspiration from the other forms of inspiration. So that by graphic inspiration we understand that guidance given by the Spirit of God to the minds of the writers, compilers and editors of the Holy Scriptures, by which these sacred writings have assumed such a form as was, in the counsel of salvation, predestined by God among the means of grace for His Church. To prevent any misunderstanding, we observe at once that in an epistle like that to the Galatians, this graphical inspiration coincides almost entirely with the apostolic inspiration, for in an epistle that was sent, the apostolic inspiration itself bore a graphic character. Nevertheless, the one conception is here not entirely covered by the other; so far, indeed, as there was a choice between several epistles, or between several copies of the same epistle, another factor came into play. Moreover, we grant that it would be more logical, to class that which is not indicated as graphic inspiration as a subdivision under the activity of God with respect to the canon (actio Dei circa Canonem), which in turn belongs under the works of God pertaining to providence (opera Dei, quoad providentiam), and more particularly to special providence (quoad providentiam specialem). For instance, the fact that the Epistle to the Colossians is, and the epistle to the Laodiceans is not, included, may have been caused by the preservation of the one and the loss of the other. There is, then, no question of a choice by men, nor of any inspiration to guide that human choice. It was simply the providence of God which allowed one to be lost and the other to be kept. To us it would be even preferable to treat this whole matter under the science of canonics, disciplina canonica (which follows later), and much confusion would have been prevented, if this Divine activity in behalf of the Canon had always been distinguished in principle from the real inspiration. Now, indeed, there is a confusion of ideas, which to many renders a clear insight almost impossible. A content like that of the second Psalm was certainly inspired to David, when this song loomed before his spirit and shaped itself in a poetical form. This, however, did not assign it a place in the Scripture, neither did this sanction it as an inspired part of the Holy Scripture. Since we have been accustomed to pay almost no attention to the original inspiration, and for centuries have applied inspiration indiscriminately to all parts of Scripture, according to their content and form, ecclesiastical parlance does not permit the conception of inspiration to be entirely ignored in the compiling and editing of the books of the Holy Scripture. This is the less necessary, since in this compiling and editing an activity from the side of God was exerted upon the spirit of man, which, to some extent, is of one kind with real inspiration. Let it never be lost from sight, however, that this graphic inspiration was merely one of several factors used by God in the “divine activity in behalf of the Canon.”

This graphic inspiration is least of all of a uniform character, but it differs according to the nature of the several parts of the Holy Scripture. It is least evident, as observed before, in the apostolic epistles, since these were prepared in writing. Neither can graphic inspiration have been greatly significant in purely lyrical poetic-productions, which were bound to their poetic form, and committed to writing by the poet himself. This simply required such a formulation of the content of his memory, that nothing was changed in it, or, if anything was changed, that this change also took place under the leading of God’s Spirit. Then follow those productions of chokmatic, prophetic, or lyric-didactic content, which were digests of longer recitations. As in the case of more than one prophet, the oral author superintended this digest himself, or some other person compiled the content of their Divine charge or teaching and committed it to book-form. With the latter especially graphic inspiration must have been more active, to direct the spirit of the writer or compiler. The working of graphic inspiration must have been still more effective in the description of the apocalyptic vision, especially when this assumed such proportions as the vision of John on Patmos. To obey the order of the “write these things” and in calmer moments to commit to writing what had been seen in ecstasy on the broad expanse of the visionary horizon, required a special sharpening of the memory. And at the same time it was necessary that in the choice of language and expression the writer should be elevated to the heights of his subject. But even this was not the department in which the activity of this graphic inspiration reached its highest point. This took place only in the writing of those books, for which no inspired content presented itself, but which the writer had to compose himself; that is, the historical books. With these writings also, as shown by their contents, there was no elimination of those natural data implanted in man for this kind of authorship, and made permanent by common grace; on the contrary, graphic inspiration adapts itself wholly to these natural data. The same methods pursued in our times, for the writing of any part of history, were pursued by the historiographers of the Old as well as of the New Testament. Oral traditions are consulted, old chronicles and documents are collected, inquiry is made of those who may have knowledge of the particulars involved, and in this way a representation is formed of what actually took place. Thus Luke (i. 1) himself tells us, (1) that “many have taken in hand to draw up a narrative,” (2) that he makes distinction between the things of which he had entire and partial certainty, (3) that he has carefully investigated once more all things from the beginning, (4) that he is particularly guided by the tradition of ear- and eye-witnesses, and (5) that then only he deemed himself competent to write a narrative of these things in good order (καθεξῆς). This excludes every idea of a mechanical instillation of the contents of his gospel, and may be accepted as the rule followed by each of the historiographers. Of course the question of the origin of the narrative of the creation cannot be included or classed under this rule. No man was present at the creation. Hence no one but God Himself, who has been present ever since He brought it to pass, can be the author of what we know concerning it. And this is taken entirely apart from the closer distinction, whether the first man had received that insight into the origin of the paradise, of sun, moon and stars, or whether this was granted to the Church at a later period, after the separation from the Heathen. For all those things, on the other hand, which happened to or by man, which were matters of human experience, seen and heard, transmitted by oral tradition, and committed to writing in whatever way, the sacred historiographer followed the ordinary method, and discovered at every turn the still imperfect standpoint at which the historiography of the times stood. In their writings it is seen that they consulted tradition, inserted sections from existing works, examined genealogies and other documents, and collected their material in this entirely natural way. This was the first task of their mind. Then came the second task, of making choice between different traditions and diverging documents. In the third place was added the more important task of understanding the invisible motive of this history, and of observing in it the doings of God. And finally their latest task consisted in committing to writing the representation of the past which in this way had formed itself in their minds. And this brings to light what we mean by graphic inspiration. Even where providentially good tradition and trustworthy documents were within reach, their attention had to be directed to them. They needed guidance in their choice between several, ofttimes contradictory, representations. In the study of the mystical background of this history their mind had to be enabled to perceive the Divine motives. And finally in the writing of what had matured in their mind, their mind and their mind’s utterance had to be shaped after the mould of the Divine purpose that was to be realized by the Scripture in His Church. To some extent it can be said that none but natural factors were here at work. It often happens in our times that an author gets hold of a correct tradition, consults trustworthy documents, writes as he ought to write, obtains a just insight into the mysticism that hides in history, thus forms for himself a true representation, and commits this faithfully to writing. But in this case these factors were subject to higher leadings, and upon choice, inventiveness, study of conditions, forming of representations, insight into the mysticism of history, and upon the final writing, the Holy Spirit worked effectively as a leading, directing and determining power; but the subjectivity was not lost. No one single subject could receive in himself the full impression of a mighty event. To see an image from all sides, one must place himself at several points and distances. Hence we find in the Holy Scripture not infrequently more than one narrative of the same group of events, as for instance in the four Gospels. These are no repetitions, but rise from the fact that in the consciousness of one subject the interpretation, and hence also the reproduction, of the incident was necessarily different from those of his fellow-laborer. This is the life of history. It gives no notarial acts, but reproduces what has been received in the consciousness, and does this not with that precision of outline which belongs to architecture, but with the impressionistic certainty of life. This excludes by no means the possibility that the writings thus prepared were afterward reviewed by second or third editors; and here and there enriched by insertions and additions. From their content this very fact is evident. Graphic inspiration must then have been extended to these editors, since they indeed delivered the writings, in the form in which they were to be possessed by the Church. This gives rise to the difficulty, that after the Church had entered upon the possession of such writings, unauthorized editors still tried to introduce modifications, which did not belong to them, and these of course must be excluded. This indeed is related to the general position occupied by the Church over against the Scripture, which tends at no time to allow the certainty of faith to be supplanted by the certainty of intellect. As soon as it is thought that the holy ore of the Scripture can be weighed in the balance with mathematical accuracy, the eye of faith becomes clouded, and the gold is less clearly seen.

The answer to the question as to our right to accept such a graphic inspiration is given in §§ 77 and 78. It is the self-witness (αὐτομαρτύριον) of the Scripture, which it gives of itself in the central revelation of the Christ. Christ indeed gives us no theory of graphic inspiration, but the nature of the authority, which He and His apostles after Him attributed to the Scripture of His times, admits of no other solution. The “all Scripture is theopneustic” is not said of the inspiration of the psalmists, wise men, and prophets, but of the products of the writers. This certainly declares that they remained writers in the strictest sense, even as compilers and examiners of their material, as compositors and in artistic grouping of the contents. but that in all these functions the Holy Spirit worked so effectively upon the action of their human minds, that thereby their product obtained Divine authority. Of course not in the sense that the content of what they rehearsed obtained thereby a Divine character. When they relate what Shimei said, it does not make his demoniacal language Divine, but it certifies that Shimei spake these evil words; always impressionistically, however, the same as in the New Testament. When in the four Gospels Jesus, on the same occasion, is made to say words that are different in form of expression, it is impossible that He should have used these four forms at once. The Holy Spirit, however, merely intends to make an impression upon the Church which wholly corresponds to what Jesus said. The same is the case with what is written in the Old Testament. The composition of this had taken place under one continuous authority, which justifies citation with an “it is written,” such as was done by Jesus, but which modified itself in nature and character according to the claims of the content.

For him who has been brought to the Christ, and who on his knees worships Him as his Lord and his God, the end of all contradiction is hereby reached. When the Christ, whose spirit witnessed beforehand in the prophets, attributes such authority to the Scripture of the Old Covenant, and by His apostles indicates the ground for that authority in the Theopneusty, there is no power that can prevent the recognition of that authority by him who believes in Jesus. Not to recognize it would avenge itself in the representation that in the very holiest things Christ had wholly mistaken Himself. This would imply the loss of his Saviour. The objection will not do, that one learns to know the Christ from the Scripture, so that faith in the Saviour can follow only upon a preceding faith on the Scripture. The reading of the Scripture as such, without more, will never be able to bring one single soul from death unto life. The Scripture by itself is as dull as a diamond in the dark; and as the diamond glistens only when entered by a ray of light, the Scripture has power to charm the eye of the soul only when seen in the light of the Holy Spirit. Christ lives, and by His Holy Spirit He still works upon the heart and in the consciousness of God’s elect. Sometimes palingenesis takes place in very infancy. If this were not so, all children dying young should have to be considered as lost. During the period of early bringing up, many children show that the enmity against God was broken in their youthful hearts, before they came to read the Scripture. In fact, it is incorrect to say, that we come to the Scripture first, and by the Scripture to Christ. Even when, after having learned to read the Scripture, in later years one comes to Christ as his Saviour, the Scripture may coöperate instrumentally, but in principle the act of regeneration ever proceeds from heaven, from God, by His Christ; while, on the other hand, without this ἄνωθεν (from above) the most careful study of the Scripture can never lead to regeneration, nor to a “being planted together” with Christ. Tradition, supported and verified by the Scripture, is surely the ground of a purely historic faith in Christ, but this faith at large fails, as soon as another interpretation of the Scripture gains the day. The outcome shows, that where, on the other hand, the revelation of power from heaven (ἄνωθεν) really has taken place, and transformed the mode of the soul’s life and consciousness, even in times of spiritual barrenness, the worship of Christ has again and again revived; and amid general negation, the most learned individuals have bowed again to the authority of the Scripture, in the same way in which Jesus recognized it. The words once spoken by Jesus in the temple at Jerusalem (John vii. 17), “If any man willeth to do his will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it be of God,” is truly the canon here. In Christ we only see and handle the Divine, when transformed in our inner being and life, and without this preceding change of heart and our acceptance with Christ, even though an angel were to come down from heaven in visible form, no one would ever subject himself to the word of God. The starting-point must ever lie in our inner ego, and without this starting-point in sympathy with the revelation of the Scripture, everything in us tends to disown the authority of the Scripture, and to resist it with all our powers.

That our human ego, nevertheless, can be brought to accept and appropriate to itself the special revelation, is a result of the fact that of all the ways and means of inspiration, the self-revealing God has never employed any but those which were present in man by virtue of creation. The whole question of inspiration virtually amounts to this: whether God shall be denied or granted the sovereign right of employing, if so needed and desired, the factors which He Himself created in man, by which to communicate to man what He purposed to reveal respecting the maintenance of His own majesty, the execution of His world-plan, and the salvation of His elect.

§ 86. Testimonium Spiritus Sancti, or The Witness of the Holy Spirit

The point of view held by our Reformers is (1) that true faith is a gift of God, the fruit of an operation of the Holy Spirit; and (2) that true faith, as the Heidelberg Catechism teaches, first of all consists of this, “that I hold for truth all that God has revealed to us in His Word.” This agrees entirely with what was said at the close of the former section. Not merely historical, but true faith is unthinkable in the sinner, except he embrace “the Christ and all His benefits.” This, however, by no means exhausts the meaning of what is understood by the “witness of the Holy Spirit,” or the testimonium Spiritus Sancti. This goes far deeper. Although it is entirely logical, that he who believes on Christ as God manifest in the flesh, cannot simultaneously reject the positive and definite witness borne by that Christ concerning the Scriptures of the Old Covenant, this proof for graphic inspiration is, and always remains, a proof obtained by inference, and not by one’s own apprehension. The two grounds for faith in graphic inspiration must be carefully distinguished, for, though the faith that rests upon the testimony of Christ is more absolute in character, the “witness of the Holy Spirit,” though it matures more slowly, is clearer and more in keeping with the freedom of the child of God. It is with this as it was with the people of Sychar, who first believed because of the sayings of the woman, and later believed on the ground of their own sight. The link between these two is the authority of the Church (auctoritas ecclesiae). Although the Reformers rightly contested the auctoritas imperii, as they called it, viz. the imperial authority, which Rome attributes to the utterance of the ecclesiastical institutions, they never denied the authority of dignity (auctoritas dignitatis) of the Church as an organism, nor of the Church as an institution. From the ethical side it has been made to appear, in recent times, that our faith in the Scripture floats on the faith of the believers, in distinction from the authority of the Church, and this refers to an important element which was originally too much neglected. An unpardonable mistake, however, was committed, from the ethical side, when this was indicated as the starting-point (δός μοί που στῶ), and, worse still, when it was left to this so-called “faith of the believers” to decide what should be accepted from the Scripture, and what was to be rejected from its content. To be able to furnish such a testimony, the believers must have an authoritative organ, i.e. it must appear as an instituted body. Thus we would have come back to Rome’s shibboleth, “the Church teaches,” Ecclesia docet. Since, on the other hand, “the faith of the believers” was taken, as it voices itself without this organ, all certainty, of course, was wanting, and in the stead of “the faith of the believers,” there now appeared the interpretation of “the faith of the believers,” as given by A or B. And this resulted in the free use of this pleasing title for all that was held true by individual ministers and their private circles. What thus presented itself as an objective, solid basis, appears to have been nothing but a subjective soil of sand. Moreover, in this wise “the believers” as such were exalted above the Christ. For where Christ had testified in the strictest sense to a graphic inspiration of the Old Testament, “the believers” contradicted Him, declared that this interpretation was erroneous, and consequently faith was to be pinned to what was claimed by “the believing circle,” and not to what was confessed by Him.

The element of truth in this representation is, that the Church forms a link in a twofold way between faith in the inspiration of the Scripture upon the authority of Christ, and faith in this inspiration on the ground of the testimony of the Holy Spirit. In the first place, it cannot be denied that the Church is one of the factors by which he who formerly stood out of Christ is brought to Christ. “How shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?” (Rom. x. 14). However much regeneration may be an act of God in the heart of the sinner, immediately effected, independently of all instrumental help, no conscious faith on Christ can develop itself from this “seed of God” (σπέρμα θεοῦ) without preaching, which introduces the image of Christ and His work into the human consciousness. Preaching is here taken in the broadest possible sense, not merely as catechization and as preaching of the Word, but as including all communication of man to man, orally or in writing, by which the form of Christ is brought in relief before the seeking eye of faith. So far, therefore, the link of the Church claims our notice, and in proportion as this appearance of the Church is purer or less pure, faith in Christ will be richer or poorer. Augustine’s saying, “Evangelio non crederem nisi ecclesiae me moveret autoritas” (i.e. “I could not have believed the Gospel, except as moved by the authority of the Church”), contains something more still. In this saying, the Church appears not merely as the preacher of truth, but as an imposing phenomenon in life which exerts a moral power, and which, itself being a work of Christ, bears witness to the “founder of the Church” (auctor ecclesiae). It is the revelation of the spiritual power of Christ in His Church, which as a spiritual reality takes hold of the soul. For this very reason the interpretation of this word of Augustine by the Romish dogmaticians, as an auctoritas imperii, or imperial authority, to be attributed to the instituted Church, is wrong, and it was equally wrong to interpret the Gospel Evangelium as the “Inspired Sacred Scripture,” for then Augustine should have begun by subjecting himself to this official authority of the Church. Suppose, indeed, that such an arbitrary subjection would have been conceivable, the word moveret would have been put to an impossible use. An imperial authority does not move (movet), but commands (iubet) and compels (cogit). What remains of this, therefore, is no other than what we, too, confess; viz. that as a herald of the Gospel (praedicatrix Evangelii) and as an imposing spiritual phenomenon, the Church is one of the factors used by the Holy Spirit in bringing the regenerate to a conscious faith in Christ.

To this is added, in the second place, the very important significance of “the communion of saints.” Even though it is not impossible in the absolute sense that faith can be maintained in isolation, isolation, nevertheless, goes against the nature of faith; and it remains a question whether any one but Christ Himself, in that absolute sense, has stood alone in his faith. This is the very profound meaning of Gethsemane. Sin, and hence unbelief, scatters, individualizes, and pulverizes; but grace, and hence faith, restores life in organic connection, viz. the life of each member in the body. And what applies to being applies also to the consciousness; here it is also an “apprehending with all the saints” (Eph. iii. 18). The power of public opinion shows how mightily this factor inworks upon our own conviction; and as there is a public opinion in the things of the world, there is also a certain fides communis, or, if you please, a public opinion in the communion of saints. And in so far the ethical school maintains correctly that “the faith of the believers” supports the faith of the individual, and exercises a certain authority over it. This factor works in a threefold way: (1) in an historical sense, in so far as the testimony of the ages comes to us in tradition and writings; (2) in a catholic sense, insomuch as the general appearance of the universal Church always includes a certain confession of faith; and (3) in an empirical sense, if we ourselves personally come in contact with confessors of Christ, move in the circles of the children of God, and thus experience immediately the influence of the communion of the saints. In this we are not dealing with the Church as an institution, but with the Church as an organism. And though it must be granted that the influence of this public opinion, if untrue, can inwork disastrously upon our conviction, so that spiritual criticism only keeps us in the right path, it is nevertheless entirely true that this communis fides, this public opinion among the children of God, this “faith of the believers” as it may be called, imprints in our consciousness the image of Christ as the Saviour of the world, and supports in us faith in the Holy Scripture.

This, of course, cannot be the last point of support, and therefore the Reformers wisely appealed on principle to the “witness of the Holy Spirit.” By this they understood a testimony that went out directly from the Holy Spirit, as author of the Scripture, to our personal ego. They did not call it an internal (internum) but an external proof (argumentum externum), for the reason that it did not rise from our ego, but from without us, from God, it moved itself toward our ego. It has often, however, been wrongly represented that by this witness was meant in a magic sense a certain “ecstasy” or “enthusiasm,” and that it consisted of a supernatural communication from the side of God, in which it was said to us, “This Scripture is my Word.” Thus it has been represented by some who were less well informed, but never by our theologians. On the contrary, they have always protested against this representation; the more since experience taught that all such interpretation led at once to a false mysticism, and thereby undermined the authority of the Scripture. For then, indeed, the revelation of God, which one imagines and declares himself to have received, is placed above the Scripture, and in the end the Scripture is rejected. No, the representation of the Reformers was this, that this witness is to be taken as “light so irradiating the mind as to affect it gently, and display to it the inner relations of the truth that had hitherto been concealed.” Hence it was a subdivision of the enlightening, but in this instance directed immediately upon the Holy Scripture, and not upon its inspiration, but its Divine quality. First one stood before the Holy Scripture as before a foreign object which did not suit his world of conceptions, and over against which, in his world-consciousness, one assumed essentially not merely a doubtful, but a hostile attitude. If meanwhile the change of our inner being has taken place by palingenesis, from which there has gradually sprung in our sense and in our consciousness a modified view of ourselves, of the things of this world, and of the unseen world, which withdraws itself from our natural eye, this enlightening of the Holy Spirit creates discord between our deepest life-consciousness and the consciousness of the world, which formerly ruled and still presses itself upon us. And in this struggle the Holy Spirit opens our eyes, that in the Holy Scripture we may see a representation of our ego, of the world and of the eternal things, which agrees with what we seek to defend in the combat against the naturalistic consciousness of the world. Hence a process is here involved. The more deeply we are led by the Holy Spirit into the knowledge of ourselves as sinners, of the unreality of the world, and of the reality of the Divine, the more intense becomes this struggle, and the more evident grows the affinity between the work of the Holy Spirit in us and in that Holy Scripture. Thus the veil is gradually being pushed aside, the eye turns toward the Divine light that radiates from the Scripture, and now our inner ego sees its imposing superiority. We see it as one born blind, who being healed, sees the beauty of colors, or as one deaf, whose hearing being restored, catches the melodies from the world of sounds, and with his whole soul delights himself in them.

In this connection the so-called internal proof for the Divine character of the Holy Scripture must also be understood. In a later period it has been made to appear that the “heavenly majesty of the doctrines, the marvellous completeness of the prophecies, the wonderful miracles, the consent of all its parts, the divineness of the discourse,” and so much more, formed a system of outward proofs able to convince the reason without enlightenment; but our first theologians, at least, did not attach such a meaning to them. They taught that these inner relations of the Scripture were understood, and thus were able to serve their real purpose only when, by enlightening, the spiritual understanding had been clarified and purified. He only, who in palingenesis had experienced a miracle in his own person, ceased to react against miracles, but rather invoked them himself. He who had observed the fulfilment of several prophecies in his own spiritual life, understood the relation between prophecy and its fulfilment. He who heard the music of the Divine melody of redemption in his own soul was rapt in wonder (rapiebatur in admirationem), as they expressed it, in listening to the Oratorio of Salvation proceeding from the heavenly majesty of doctrine in the Holy Scripture. As the Confessio Belgica states in Art. 9, that we even believe the mystery of the Trinity “from their operations, and chiefly by those we feel in ourselves,” our faith in the Divine character of the Scripture rests upon the experience of spiritual life that addresses us from that Scripture. That similarity of personal experience fosters affinity, quickens sympathy and opens eye and ear. In by far the greater number of cases this testimonium Spiritus Sancti works gradually and unobserved. The “enlightening” increases gradually in intensity, and in proportion as it grows stronger we see more, and see with more certainty, and stand the more firmly. Sometimes, however, this witness of the Holy Spirit becomes more incisive in character. This is especially noticeable in days of general apostasy, and then the child of God is fully conscious of this incisive inworking. Living in a society of high intellectual development, and taking notice of what is contributed by reason without enlightening to enervate the Divine character of the Holy Scripture, inwardly most painful discord is born. Doubt is contagious. When with firm tread you walk along your well-chosen way, and without hesitancy at the cross-road turn to the right, you are involuntarily brought to a standstill, and shocked for a moment in your feeling of assurance, when three or four persons call out after you that you should turn to the left. As in sanctification you are made to err in this way from time to time with respect to the Holy Scripture, you may be led to doubt, and even for a while pursue wrong paths. But this will not be permanent. The work of grace is not left to yourself, but with a firm hand is guided by the Holy Spirit, who in no mechanical way, but by a richer spiritual experience, at length restores you to seeing again what is truly Divine. And when the Holy Spirit enters accusation against us in our own soul that we kick against the pricks, and depend more on our own and Satan’s word than on His Word, and moves and implores us with groanings unspeakable that for the sake of the glory of God and our salvation we attach again a greater significance to His Word than to any other, then there comes that incisive, and therefore decisive, moment when the child of God lays the hand on his mouth, and with shame and confusion turns his back upon doubt, in order that in contrition and sorrow he may hearken again to the Holy Spirit as the speaker in His Word. As said before, however, this incisive character is not borne by the witness of the Holy Spirit in every person, nor at all times. As the conversion of many people has taken place almost without observation, which often happens in the quieter walks of Christian life, and the conversion of a few only, who at first wandered far off, is incisive like that of an Augustine, such also is the case here. For the most part this witness works gradually and unobserved, and only in exceptional cases is it as lightning that suddenly flames through the skies.

From the nature of this witness of the Holy Spirit, it follows at the same time, that it begins with binding us simply to the Holy Scripture in its centrum. It is the central truth concerning our ego, concerning the world about us, and of the true reality which is with God, that takes hold of us, convinces and follows after us, until we give ourselves captive to it. This central truth will take hold of one by this, and of another by that utterance, in proportion as our inner life is tuned to it; but the first impressions will always cause us to descend into the depths of misery and ascend to the heights of redemption. How far the authority, which from this spiritual centrum obtains its hold on us, extends itself later to those things in the Scripture that lie on the periphery, is a question devoid at first of all spiritual significance. Conditions are conceivable in which, after one is captured centrally by the Scripture, the clashing is continued for many years between our thinking and acting on the one hand, and that which the Scripture lays upon us in the name of the Lord as faith and practice (credenda and agenda). Gradually, however, an ever more vitally organic relation begins to reveal itself between the centrum of the Scripture and its periphery, between its fundamental and its derivative thoughts, and between its utterances and the facts it communicates. That authority which at first addressed us from that centrum only, now begins to appear to us from what has proceeded from that centrum. We feel ourselves more and more captivated by a power, whose centrum cannot be accepted without demanding and then compelling all unobservedly an ever more general consent for its entire appearance, and all its utterances. Thus it ends as Scripture by imposing sacred obligations upon us, as Holy Book by exercising over us moral compulsion and spiritual power. And in the end the connection between its form and content appears so inseparable, that even the exceptional parts of its form appeal to us, and, in form and content both, the Scripture comes to stand before us as an authority from God.

But this process of conviction worked in us by the Spirit, is always a spiritual work, which has nothing in common with the learning of the schools; it is moreover incapable of maintaining itself theoretically and of continuing itself according to a definable system. By itself it tends no further than to bear spiritual testimony to our personal, regenerated ego concerning the Divine character of everything the Holy Scripture teaches and reveals; and without more, the truth, for instance, of graphic inspiration can never be derived from it. If, however, an absolute certainty concerning this Divine character of the content of the Scripture has been sealed in the personal consciousness of man by this witness of the Holy Spirit, the effect of this goes back to the two former stages of the public opinion (communis fides), and the cleaving to Christ. With this conviction, which is now his own for good and always, he, who has been set free from the veil that darkly hung between, does not stand alone, but feels himself assimilated by the illuminated consciousness which in the communion of the saints is distinguished from the natural consciousness of the world. This assimilation becomes the stronger, according to the greater vitality of the child of God in him, by which he is evermore being changed into the image of the Son of God. Thus there originates a communion of consciousness not merely with those round about us, but also with the generation of saints of former ages, affinity of life with the saints that have gone before, unity of soul-conceptions with the martyrs, with the fathers of the Church, with the apostles, and so at length with Christ Himself and with the faithful of the Old Covenant. In the life-consciousness of that sacred circle the positive conviction prevails, that we have a graphically inspired Scripture, on which we lean and by which we live; and that this is not contingent, nor accidental, but necessary. This faith in the Scripture is found as an indispensable and an entirely natural component part in the life-consciousness of this circle. And when in experience the riches of the Scripture contents become ever more precious to the heart, resistance is no longer possible. The power of assimilation is too strong, the general unsanctified human consciousness loses all its power, and at length the believer must accept the equally general, but now sanctified, human consciousness, including this component part of its content. If then, finally, the believer goes back to the first stage in his Christian life, i.e. to his personal faith in his Saviour, and realizes that Christ himself has presented the Holy Scripture — which the common opinion in the communion of saints has adopted in its world of thought as theopneustic, and of the Divine truth of which, thanks to the “Witness of the Holy Spirit,” he is himself firmly convinced — as the product of the Holy Spirit, the assurance of his faith on this point is immovably established, and to him the Scripture itself is the principium, i.e., the starting-point, from which proceeds all knowledge of God, i.e. all theology.

In this sense the Holy Scripture was the principium of Theology to our fathers, and in the same sense it is this to us. Hence this principium, as such, can be no conclusion from other premises, but is itself the premise, from which all other conclusions are drawn. Of course this does not dismiss the fact, that objections, derived from the common norma of our thought, can still be entered against the Holy Scripture and its alleged character; in this, indeed, every one should be left free, and these objections it is the task of Theology squarely to face. This, however, can be considered only in the science of the canon (disciplina canonicae) and the science of the text (ars textualis). We merely observe that on the one hand this critical task should not be impeded in the least, provided it is clearly understood on the other hand that the failure of your first efforts to solve such critical objections can rob you of the certainty of your principium, as little as success can strengthen it. Assurance of faith and demonstration are two entirely heterogeneous things. And he who, in whatever department, still seeks to demonstrate his principium, simply shows that he does not know what is to be understood by a principium.

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Footnotes

1. The exegesis: For my affairs have come to an end, which Meyer too defends, is justly rejected; (1) because it loses from view the reference of the τέλος to τελεσθῆναι; (2) because such a saying would have had sense in the general announcement of His death, not in the special indication of something that would accompany His death; and (3) because it should have had to read: that the end was near or at hand. That all things have an end is an argument all too weak to claim support. ↩

2. It is noteworthy that מַרְאֶה is here used for common vision. A deviation, which comes under the general rule, that a sharply drawn distinction of conceptions and a consequent constant usage of words is foreign to the Scripture. ↩