BS 538,7 .P52 1909 
 Picton, J. Allanson 1832 
 
 1910. 
 Man and the Bible 
 

MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 a/f '^view of the Vlace of the "Bible 
 in Human History 
 
 BY 
 
 iX 
 
 J. ALLANSON PICTON, M.A. (Lond.) 
 
 author of 
 "new theories and the old faith," "the mystery of 
 
 MATTER," "the RELIGION OF THE UNIVERSE," 
 ETC., ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
 
 LONDON : WILLIAMS & NORGATE 
 
 1909 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 1. THE BIBLE OF OUR FATHERS 
 
 2. THE BIBLE IN PROTESTANT AND LOLLARD TIMES 
 
 3. THE BIBLE IN THE LATER MIDDLE AGE . 
 
 4. THE BIBLE IN THE DARKEST AGE 
 
 5. THE BIBLE IN THE CHURCH's SILVER AGE 
 
 6. THE BIBLE AND PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 
 
 7. THE BIBLE AND RELIGION 
 
 8. THE BIBLE AND MORALS . 
 
 9. THE BIBLE AND SOCIAL EVOLUTION 
 10. EPILOGUE .... 
 
 I 
 
 37 
 69 
 
 83 
 123 
 
 148 
 171 
 218 
 268 
 
 302 
 
MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE BIBLE OF OUR FATHERS 
 
 Probably no lines in The Cottars Saturday Night so 
 much endeared Scotland's national poet to his country- 
 men as the picture of the family gathering around the 
 father-priest of the household, while, with bonnet 
 reverently doffed, he opens the " big ha'-Bible " before 
 him and searches the sacred pages for some word in 
 season. Nor was it Scotland only that vibrated to the 
 touch of that gifted player on the human heart. But 
 throughout the western world, to which one great gift of 
 the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries had been an open 
 Bible, Burns' description of family worship in a cottage- 
 temple kindled emotions of remembrance and repentance 
 in the hearts of all who read. For few indeed there were, 
 at least in English-speaking lands, who were not thereby 
 reminded of the most sacred moments of childhood, 
 when the great Book was laid on the table amidst a 
 hushed group of children and servants or friends, while 
 the father or grandfather, in unforgotten tones, read 
 forth the Psalmist's aspiration, or St Paul's conscience- 
 compelling words, or some crystalline simple sayings of 
 
 I 
 
2 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 the Lord Jesus, or St John's fascinating obscurity, which 
 stirred even where it did not teach. 
 
 In fine, the interest and power of those verses of 
 Robert Burns depended on the entirely pecuHar and 
 unrivalled place held by the Bible in the hearts of a very 
 large part of the human race. Of the limitations of its 
 kingdom both in space and time, it will be inevitable 
 that we should hereafter speak. But the religious history 
 of the western world, and especially of the Britains — 
 great and greater, with their mighty offspring, the 
 grandest republic known to history — is more than enough 
 to justify what has been said. Indeed, to this reverent 
 affection of whole peoples for the Bible there is absolutely 
 no parallel and no analogy elsewhere. For it would be 
 futile to compare therewith the soldierly respect felt by 
 the Mussulman for the orders given him by his Koran, 
 or the mixture of literary pedantry and mystic aspiration 
 with which the Vedantist or Buddhist scholar studies the 
 ancient lore of his creed. Of the moral power exercised, 
 within certain limits, by old eastern scriptures revealed 
 in latter days to us by the industry of great scholars, 
 there need be no question. But, for reasons far other 
 than those imagined by our fathers, the Bible has found 
 a place in the heart, soul, conscience, and affections of 
 common men, women, and children of the west, such as 
 no Veda, nor Zend Avesta, nor Chinese classics, nor 
 Koran ever had a chance of attaining. 
 
 For it is not principally awe nor fear which is felt 
 toward this household god, " the Holy Bible." It is 
 rather the sort of reverence in which gratitude and 
 affection so mingle as they do in our feeling toward a 
 dear friend, too great to be questioned, yet too familiar 
 for chill respect. Thus, from the first dawn of conscious- 
 
INFANTINE MYSTICISM 3 
 
 ness, children have classed it with the sky and the stars 
 among their emerging conceptions of things great and 
 wonderful. For instance, the same sort of infantine 
 contemplation which regarded the stars as " eyelet holes 
 to let through the glory of heaven/' saw in the Bible a 
 letter from God to tell his children how to reach that 
 heaven. To suppose that an understanding of the sacred 
 words was needed to excite this early worship would be 
 to forget our own early childhood, and totally to mis- 
 apprehend the average individual course of mental growth. 
 For who among the departing generation does not re- 
 member how the first chapter of the Fourth Gospel used 
 to be considered long ago as peculiarly fitted for infant 
 reading because it consists so largely of monosyllabic 
 words ? Nor was the venerable chapter without spiritual 
 influence, incomprehensible though its doctrine was. 
 Because in some way it partly lifted a veil between the 
 little everyday world of the child and " the immensities," 
 of which the vastness of ocean, or twinkling stars, or 
 wonder about the beginning of things had already given 
 some hint. 
 
 But when understanding began to make the budding 
 mind more articulate, what a large accession of interest — 
 at least in famiHes like that of Burns' Cottar — did the 
 Bible receive from a desire to realise how the wonderful 
 events related therein actually occurred ; how long ago, 
 in what order of succession, how the detached parts could 
 be fitted together, and how variant narratives could be 
 pieced into one harmonious whole. From such questions 
 the family Bible class, an institution once very largely 
 prevalent on Sunday afternoons among the excellent of 
 the earth, derived much of its innocent excitement. And 
 many whitebeards cherish still the stout, plainly bound 
 
4 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 little Bible, once the treasure of their childhood, where 
 in the margins are still legible the sprawling pencilled 
 figures in which they noted the exact dates of creation, 
 the Deluge, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the Exodus, as 
 they were announced by the unimpeachable authority of 
 the priest-father. To that sort of prehistoric conscious- 
 ness from which distinct memory gradually dawns, there 
 was no suspicion of any difficulty about the two variant 
 accounts of creation at the beginning of Genesis. For 
 what could be clearer than that the second chapter takes 
 up in detail the experiences of the First Man, concerning 
 whom the introductory narrative announces with solemn 
 brevity that " God created man in his own image, in the 
 image of God created he him " ? And so with regard to 
 many other palpable seams, even then scrutinised with 
 microscopic intensity by devotees of truth in far-away 
 universities, the revered pastor of the British church in 
 the household mentioned them only to excite the sort 
 of submissive interest proper to a book which, being 
 divine, could not possibly be judged according to any 
 analogy of human authorship. In like manner the 
 attribution of precisely the same matrimonial troubles 
 from amorous kings to both Abraham and Isaac, against 
 which both father and son are said to have tried to guard 
 by precisely the same deceit ; as also the imperfectly 
 combined variant traditions of the Deluge, together 
 with the impossibilities of the encounter between Moses 
 and Pharaoh, excited remark, indeed, or wonder, but 
 not incipient criticism. For certainly " God's book '' 
 could not be expected to be as other books. 
 
 Meanwhile, the holy or the venerated beings who 
 moved majestically upon the stage of this old world 
 drama, though unrealisable in any sense that could bring 
 
SPIRITUAL DAY-DREAMS 5 
 
 them into discord with fact, were yet imaginable enough 
 to touch the affections and to people the fairyland of 
 day-dreams. Thus how many a child was innocently 
 daring enough to think of God as his own greater Father ! 
 " He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High 
 shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty." To 
 such biblical words as these many a sensitive child would 
 give a literal interpretation little suspected by his in- 
 structors. In his day-dreams he lived in God's palace, 
 beneath God's eye, within sound of God's voice. There 
 were around the sacred domain green meadows and blue 
 sea, and grottoes and caves echoing with the splash of 
 water, all for the child's pleasure. And he had them 
 because he loved God, and God loved him. What God 
 forbade, he would not do. No prohibited fruit would 
 he take. Into no closed, mysterious avenues would he 
 peer. And this from no fear of the all-seeing eye, but 
 from eager loyalty of soul. Yet so large was the liberty 
 in God's palace, where the child's day-dreams ranged, that 
 duty was never thought of as a fetter. Indeed, without 
 knowing it, he anticipated later studies which showed 
 that " where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." 
 
 Strange that it was so much more easy to be familiar 
 with God than with Abraham, or Isaac, or Jacob ! But 
 so it was. These were sacred heroes indeed, who must 
 have been good — even Jacob — because they were so 
 much favoured by God. But though it was, of course, 
 all right, still the child rather shrank from an earthly 
 father who was so ready to slay and burn " his son, his 
 only son." David, however, the man "after God's own 
 heart," was very much after the child's heart too. In 
 fact, as portrayed to us in Hebrew tradition, there was 
 a good deal of the boy about him, in his eagerness, in 
 
6 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 his inconsequence, in his adventurousness, in his senti- 
 mental friendship, in his inconsistent notions of fairplay, 
 exhibited in fits of bullying and chivalry. Besides, there 
 was so much action in David^s career as to keep the boy's 
 interest constantly alert. For the giant-killer, the Jewish 
 Robin Hood, the bold climber from the sheepfold to 
 the throne, was, even from a secular point of view— had 
 that been conceivable then — as attractive as Whittington 
 or Robinson Crusoe. But when this romantic interest 
 was suffused with the glory of the Psalms, nearly all of 
 which David was supposed to have chanted to his harp, 
 the result was a royal saint, consecrated by tradition, 
 authority, religion, and music to childish hero-worship. 
 
 Such reminiscences of a bygone generation will not be 
 found useless to our study of the relations of Man and 
 the Bible. But time and space would fail us to tell in 
 detail of the wonderland in which vaguely conceived 
 kings and prophets glimmered in " a light that never was 
 on land or sea " ; how Solomon's abominations were 
 ignored in recitations of his youthful vision and his 
 admirable choice of understanding as better than gold ; 
 how the pious little Abijah was almost envied, blessed as 
 he was with an early death " because in him was found 
 some good thing toward the Lord God of Israel in the 
 house of Jeroboam " ; how Isaiah's broken music was 
 transfigured under instruction into a premature gospel ; 
 and how isolated passages from unintelligible later 
 prophets were made applicable to the joys and sorrows of 
 family life, nay, to the successes or disappointments of 
 the classroom, and even the provocations of the play- 
 ground. " yf // thy children shall he taught of God; and 
 great shall he the peace of thy children^ ^ Why, naturally 
 
 ^ Is. liv. 13. 
 
FAMILIARITY WITHOUT IRREVERENCE 7 
 
 such a promise was the very word of God to the priest- 
 father expounding the passage, though, of course, the 
 peace must be conditional. " He that toucheth you toucheth 
 the apple of his eye'' The child whose first consciousness 
 of religion had been the day-dream of dwelling in the 
 palace of God felt no presumption in taking to himself 
 such a comfortable assurance of divine defence. " The 
 Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty ; he will save ; 
 he will rejoice over thee with joy ^ he will rest in his love^ he 
 will joy over thee with singing'' What earthly father 
 could have more tenderness, and what earthly father 
 possessed such power to make that tenderness triumph- 
 ant ? Thus, in his half-awakened intelligence, the child 
 might with full heart join in singing of his Bible : — 
 
 " 'Tis a broad land of wealth unknown, 
 Where springs of life arise ; 
 Seeds of immortal bliss are sown 
 And hidden glory lies." 
 
 Or if from sacred legend, psalm, and prophecy he was 
 led to the feet of the earthly trinity — child, woman, and 
 man in one — the Christ whose glory dominated the Old 
 Testament no less than the New, the child had nothing 
 to unlearn. For this human God was the God he had 
 always known in his day-dreams ; and the only shade of 
 sadness in his feeling toward the gospels was a touch of 
 envy toward those long-ago children who were actually 
 held in God's arms. As to the crucifixion, it was not 
 realised as a cruel, agonising death. It was part of the 
 golden legend, necessary — the child-mind did not ask 
 why — to consummate the loving work of the human 
 God, and take his erring children back to heaven. The 
 subtleties of theology had not yet troubled the simplicity 
 
8 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 that looked through the innocent eyes. Jesus was God, 
 and God was Jesus. And therefore all the dark sayings 
 of the Old Testament, over which the child so strangely 
 loved to pore, mnst needs have the same meaning as the 
 words of the Lord Jesus. The two records of divine 
 utterance differed only as the music of a marching band 
 jangled by multiple echoes among dark defiles of savage 
 rocks, differs from the same music when it issues into 
 the open plain. 
 
 But then at last came a time when the boy's Bible was 
 no longer a realm of day-dreams. For understanding 
 and conscience, ripening fast, became susceptible to 
 obscure but fearful issues of salvation or perdition. 
 Not that the Book alone would have pressed such 
 questions, at least in the form in which they began to 
 trouble the growing soul. For, left to itself, the opening 
 mind would still have interpreted St Paul by the loving 
 kindness of the great Father in whose palace the infant 
 had passed such happy days. No harm could come, 
 either in this world or any other, to one who was on such 
 terms with God, and had no thought but to do God's 
 will. But the growing soul was not left to its own 
 communings with the Father. For preachers and 
 Sunday-school teachers, and even parents, were much 
 concerned about its " conversion," and earnestly unfolded 
 the "plan of salvation" in such a manner that they 
 inadvertently turned it into a plan of damnation. " By 
 nature we are all children of wrath," said they ; " and 
 unless this primal curse inherited from Adam be cancelled 
 by repentance and by our appropriation through faith of 
 the atoning sacrifice of Christ, there is no hope for us, 
 but only a certain looking for of judgment and fiery 
 indignation." And the still sensitive boy, who re- 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE WAKING SOUL 9 
 
 membered, though he could not renew, his infant day- 
 dreams, was often warned, especially by " revivalist " 
 preachers, that " it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands 
 of the living God." Such an aspect of God had never 
 presented itself to the dawning religious consciousness 
 of childhood. But the youth who had begun to learn 
 grammar, nay, even a little Greek, saw with a shock that 
 such words really stood in his beloved Bible. And he 
 yielded to the exhortations which besought him to " flee 
 from the wrath to come." 
 
 How he wished such a flight were as easy as that of 
 Christian from the City of Destruction ! For with him 
 the Pilgrim s Progress was only second to the Bible in his 
 affections. And though his understanding could not 
 quite clearly discern between an allegory and a historic 
 fact, such as he supposed Abraham's pilgrimage from Ur 
 of the Chaldees to be, still he cherished the wish that this 
 fleeing from the wrath to come could take such an 
 outward and visible form as the words suggested. And 
 here he and his companions in sport or study went apart 
 on divers spiritual progresses, all with the same heavenly 
 goal in view, but passing through sharply contrasted 
 experiences. Because some were taught that they had 
 already been regenerated in baptism, and they received 
 the comfortable and reasonable assurance that they were 
 already the children of God and inheritors of the kingdom 
 of heaven. All, therefore, that they had to do was to 
 take now upon themselves the holy vows formerly made 
 on their behalf by their sponsors, to become proficient 
 in the formularies of the Church, to receive confirmation 
 at the hands of a consecrated bishop, to enter into closer 
 communion through the Eucharist with the ever-living 
 Christ, and loyally to observe his precepts. 
 
lo MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 This was not a little. But it was light as air compared 
 with the burden laid on less fortunate friends. For 
 some of these latter, in the nervous excitement of 
 " revival " seasons, felt, in a sense never dreamed of by 
 the Psalmist, that " the terrors of hell gat hold upon " 
 them. I do not suppose that the Psalmist quoted was 
 ever afraid to go to sleep lest he should wake up in the 
 flaming company of Satan and his angels. Indeed, it 
 does not 'require much Hebrew scholarship, or perhaps 
 not any, to preclude such a notion as that. But such was 
 not unfrequently the fate of youthful "anxious inquirers" 
 who were struggling for an assurance of conversion and 
 salvation. And as this spiritual nightmare denatured 
 heaven and earth, so it deformed the Book treated by the 
 child as " God's letter," which had kindled endless sweet 
 fancies and hopes. For the young victims of the belief in 
 an everlasting hell scanned the Bible now as a book of 
 charms, amongst which the right formula of deliverance 
 must at last be found. They prayed till they fell asleep 
 on their knees, and wakened to bemoan their " hardness of 
 heart." Till, at last, under some Pentecostal whirlwind of 
 " revival " excitement in a crowded chapel, a mysterious 
 convulsion seized them. They were almost torn like the 
 demoniac from whom a peculiarly obstinate devil was 
 cast out. But when it was over, they felt themselves in 
 heaven, and shouted " glory, glory," in eager response 
 to the saints bending over them.^ In some cases, perhaps 
 in most, the beatification was not eternal. Still, only 
 prejudice would deny that there were a certain number 
 
 ^ Few readers can remember, as I can, the earlier half of the nineteenth 
 century. But if they think such scenes as the above unreal, let them 
 refer to any accessible accounts of the Welsh revival in so recent a year 
 as 1905. 
 
VARIETIES OF SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE ii 
 
 of cases in which such strange experiences proved to be a 
 real salvation, so far as we can judge by this present life. 
 
 Then there were others again who found comfort 
 neither in the ecclesiastical fold nor in ecstatic conversion. 
 For family tradition excluded them from the one, and 
 temperament, including perhaps a difficulty in self- 
 deception, denied them relief from the latter. However 
 much they tried, they found they could not repent of 
 Adam's sin, though they heartily condemned it. And 
 though they were quite sure they had sins enough of 
 their own, they could not feel them drop off as the 
 pilgrim Christian did at the sight of the Cross. To such 
 it happened that pastors or chapel officials, anxious to add 
 them to " the Church," suggested that conversion need 
 not always be instantaneous like St Paul's ; and that the 
 Ethiopian eunuch underwent no terrors nor excitement 
 before his conversion, but only experienced a new light 
 on the Scriptures, with which he was already familiar. In 
 such a way were satisfied many candidates for church 
 membership among Nonconformists ; and they received 
 " the right hand of fellowship " without ever having been 
 converted at all. Perhaps they did not need it. 
 
 But one and all who entered, whether through church 
 or chapel door, on the self-conscious Christian life, felt it 
 to be one of their holiest privileges to magnify " the word 
 of God " in season and sometimes out of season, as the 
 exponent of the plan of salvation, the foundation of right, 
 the sanction of the moral law, the charter of their 
 country's greatness, the bond of social order, the con- 
 secration of the family, the only essential in education, 
 the most blessed treasure God had given to man. Of 
 this pathetic devotion the institution of family worship, 
 already discussed, is the most interesting instance ; and by 
 
12 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 all unprejudiced minds, whatever their creed or lack of 
 creed, will be allowed to have been fruitful in culture of 
 morals and of the emotions. True, the reading of the 
 Bible was only a part of this cult. But every priest- 
 father would have emphatically protested that, compared 
 with the divine word, his own feeble utterances in prayer, 
 or even those consecrated by his church, were but as the 
 chaff to the wheat. Also " professing Christians " to 
 whom the right of private judgment was precious — or, as 
 they would have preferred to put it, the privilege of 
 personal guidance by the Holy Ghost — esteemed it both 
 a duty and a joy to search the Scriptures for themselves. 
 
 How great was the consolation found by the tearful 
 mother, in parting from her boy called to some far-off 
 adventure by sea or land, when he gave her his word that 
 no day should pass without the reading of some portion 
 of the pocket Bible affectionately inscribed with his name, 
 and forming her last best gift ! For it was not merely 
 as a moral chart of life that she regarded it, or as a 
 repository of wisdom. Of such there were many in 
 modern literature, and most of them framed on what 
 were thought to be biblical lines. But though they 
 might contain the very essence of holy writ, no pious 
 mother would have been satisfied that her boy should 
 have substituted any of these for the Bible. For, after 
 all, these were human works, and the Bible was not. 
 It was God's letter to mankind, if not traced with his 
 finger — a distinction reserved for the Ten Command- 
 ments alone — at least dictated by his Spirit to holy men 
 of old, who wrote not their own words but God's. It was 
 this afflatus of divinity, breathing the very life of God 
 into the words, that made it so utterly different from any 
 other book, not only in degree but in kind. And be it 
 
SANCTA SIMPLICITAS 13 
 
 remembered that the cruel discernment of German critics 
 had not yet reached, even as a rumour of horror, the 
 ordinary Bible devotees of that generation. Though 
 how mere common-sense could have missed the obvious 
 suggestions in the text itself of a gradual and natural 
 evolution of Bible religion, has been in later life a puzzle 
 to not a few of those devotees themselves. But so it 
 was. The average Bible worshipper, Protestant though 
 he was, had not even heard of Luther's irreverent sneers 
 at the Epistle of St James, or of Calvin's sparks of 
 rationalism, or of John Knox's doubts whether James 
 and John were moved by the Holy Ghost when they 
 counselled St Paul to deceive the Jews by an occasional 
 conformity to the Mosaic Law. 
 
 In this section of the present treatise we have nothing 
 to do with the changes of opinion which have of late years 
 to some extent rationalised veneration for the Bible. 
 Those changes will receive attention in due course. But 
 meantime I am dealing only with the popular idea of a 
 book dictated by God, and therefore capable of exerting a 
 beneficent influence not merely by its truth or wisdom 
 or appeals to the affections, but by the miraculous and 
 inexplicable power that words dictated by God must 
 needs possess. Instances of this fond confidence in mere 
 sacred words, as though they were incantations or charms, 
 may still be seen in some railway-station waiting-rooms, 
 where detached verses from the Bible are hung up by 
 pious enthusiasts in the hope that a hurried glance may 
 prove to be the salvation of a soul. Yet such words 
 often have no rational meaning apart from the context. 
 As for instance, " Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise 
 perish ; " where the word " likewise " is sufficient to 
 suggest the incompleteness of the passage. And the few 
 
14 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 who care by memory or reference to verify the quotation, 
 find that the context thus arbitrarily ignored has nothing 
 to say about the end of the world, or about the judgment- 
 day and perdition, but deals only with the coming fate of 
 a sanctimonious and hypocritical nation. Moreover, they 
 were not originally spoken of such toilworn wayfarers as 
 those who rest for a bad quarter of an hour in a railway 
 waiting-room, but of precisely such pious zealots and 
 fanatics as those who hang up threatening texts, to the 
 terror of the weary. 
 
 But many superstitions have an amiable side ; and this 
 has certainly been true of bibliolatry. For both in public 
 movements, in social progress, and in private self-culture 
 of humblest souls, the notion of a divine book, through 
 which God in very deed does daily talk to men, has given 
 to human affairs an impulse which, though far from 
 infallible, and sometimes distorted both by ecclesiastics 
 and fanatics to cruel purposes, has on the whole stimulated 
 the pursuit of a moral ideal higher than that of each 
 successive generation of readers. Reserving, then, for 
 later pages any criticism of the influence exerted by the 
 Bible in public life, I desire here to dwell for a little on 
 the sort of quickening influence exerted by the habit of 
 Bible-reading among the dim millions who make up the 
 mass of the people. For it was the one book accessible 
 to them which seemed to bring them under the shadow 
 of the Almighty, and within the sweep of eternity. And 
 most of those whose memory goes back to the earlier 
 part of the last century can recall the solemn or pathetic, 
 and — as must be confessed — sometimes ludicrous, use 
 made of scriptural texts in the little vicissitudes of family 
 life. 
 
 Such survivors of a bygone time will remember how it 
 
THE PATHETIC SIDE OF SIMPLICITY 15 
 
 was the custom of many an afflicted one in humble life, 
 when confronted with bereavement, loss, or persecution 
 for conscience' sake, to kneel before the open Bible as 
 before a sacred shrine, and to gather comfort, strength, 
 and courage by alternating prayer with the reading of 
 " the promises." Indeed, one case I remember in which 
 the bigotry of Christian brethren concerning microscopic 
 points of doctrine, or alleged "want of unction," or I 
 know not what, so tortured their minister that he, poor 
 soul, thus kneeling, read through the story of Christ's 
 sufferings for him, seeking thus to put to shame the 
 cowardly weakness lurking within the carnal man. And 
 with what power came to him then the words of the 
 epistle : " For even hereunto were ye called, because 
 Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that 
 ye should follow his steps " ! True, in those days the 
 alternative to hypocrisy could not be the stake nor the 
 gallows. But loss of livelihood and misery to a family 
 was to a loving father almost worse. 
 
 But the worship of the Bible by the unknown many 
 was not always so noble as this. One venerable elder 
 I remember, who always, on the morning of his departure 
 from any family he had been visiting, would solemnly 
 read at household worship the twentieth Psalm, which 
 superficially seemed appropriate enough. For it was 
 pleasing to hear what sounded like a paternal blessing : 
 " The Lord hear thee in the day of trouble ; the name 
 of the God of Jacob defend thee." But when God was 
 asked to " remember all the burnt offerings " of that family 
 and to " accept their burnt sacrifice," the application was not 
 obvious. And even if this were explained by a reference 
 to deeds of self-denial, the succeeding verses about setting 
 up banners and the overthrow of an enemy by a warrior 
 
1 6 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 king should have made it plain, even to readers of the 
 English version, that the psalm was originally a sort of 
 Hebrew " God save the King," only much more grandly- 
 expressed than the doggerel that satisfies us. Now when 
 plain English could so effectively conceal meaning, other 
 and worse distortions of Scripture were sure to follow. 
 And so I remember how the same venerable elder, in 
 reading Psalm ciii., paused after the words, " He will not 
 always chide, neither will he keep his anger for ever," to 
 expound the words as meaning that the Lord will not always 
 limit himself to chiding, but will take much more decisive 
 measures ; nor will he much longer keep back his anger, 
 but will launch his thunderbolts of wrath. 
 
 From our point of view, the mediaeval Church was 
 wholly wrong in denying to its humblest members free 
 access to the Bible. But it would be mere bigotry on 
 our part to deny that the Scriptures are very liable to 
 misinterpretation by ignorance, or that the communion of 
 the unlettered man with his Bible is often a strange 
 medley of the sublime and the grotesque. Perhaps I 
 cannot better illustrate this than by quoting the medita- 
 tions of a Bible-reading old man whom I knew in my 
 earliest years, and who had no other literature, unless 
 religious tracts and magazines can be so called. But, 
 humble and ignorant as he was, his lucubrations are to 
 me very noteworthy in considering the relations of the 
 Bible and the People. 
 
 The Bible I have before me belonged to a journeyman 
 house-painter, Thomas Dickinson by name, who has long 
 ago joined the " choir invisible." For it is fifty-eight 
 years since, as a boy, I made his acquaintance, and he was 
 an old man then. He had no education beyond the 
 attainments of reading and writing, with the barest 
 
THOMAS DICKINSON 
 
 17 
 
 rudiments of arithmetic. He had been converted in 
 middle age at some Methodist " revival." But for some 
 reason he preferred to attend an Independent chapel, into 
 which he endeavoured, with much disappointment to 
 himself, to infuse something of Wesleyan fire. Notwith- 
 standing his age, his religious fervour and resonant 
 utterance, whether in prayer or exhortation, were such as 
 to win for him amongst us the epithet " Boanerges." 
 And when the dear pastor, possessing the culture of a 
 Scottish university, had finished a correct sermon, unim- 
 peachable in doctrine, but too like Isaiah's idol "with 
 no breath at all in the midst of it," how would the old 
 zealot exclaim, on leaving the chapel gates, " It's n use 
 a dilly-dallyin' a this road ! And sowls perishin' all the 
 time ! " 
 
 But such anecdotes are only intended to suggest what 
 manner of man he was whose Bible I have before me. 
 For if, through fervour of temperament and some original 
 though untrained capacity, he was slightly different from 
 the average man in the street, yet his childlike belief in 
 the Bible as " God's letter to mankind," and his accept- 
 ance of every word of the English version, from Genesis 
 to Revelation, as on an equal level of infallible inspiration, 
 exactly represented the religion of the multitude in his 
 day. It is in this view that the observations of the old 
 man inscribed on the margins of his Bible appear to me 
 interesting and suggestive. 
 
 It is noteworthy that nearly all the marginal comments 
 and affectionate markings of favourite passages are 
 confined to the Old Testament. Nor is this to be 
 explained by the death of the devout reader before his 
 systematic study was ended. For there are clear 
 evidences of careful attention to the New Testament as 
 
1 8 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 well. Indeed, at the top of the first page of St Matthew's 
 gospel are written these uncouth lines, whether quoted 
 or original I cannot tell : — 
 
 " Oh ! when can I that form behold 
 Which hung for me upon the cross ? 
 I heed not gems nor pearls nor gold " — 
 
 a sufficient testimony at any rate that the gospels were 
 not undervalued. Was it a survival of Cromwellian 
 Puritanism, this curious partiality for the Hebrew 
 Scriptures ? I think not. I believe it rather originated 
 in a sort of intellectual pleasure which was found in 
 discovering amid the obscurities of the Old Testament 
 sparks of Gospel light. Take the following words (Deut. 
 X. 7) : "And from thence they journeyed unto Gudgodah ; 
 and from Gudgodah to Jotbath, a land of rivers of 
 waters." What spiritual application seems possible to 
 this obscure fragment of a lost itinerary ? ^ The modern 
 culture of the Scottish university minister would have 
 disdained to attempt it. But the humble house-painter 
 saw it at once. " At conversion " — so he writes in the 
 margin of his Bible ; and I think it better to keep the 
 spelling — "the siner begins an important jurney. He 
 leaves a state wherein are no watersprings of divine 
 influences to jurney in the land of uprightness, a land 
 of rivers of waters. And further as he jurneys in this 
 land the wider and deeper does theese rivers flow." But 
 the determination to read the New Testament into the 
 Old is not always shown in this poetic guise. The some- 
 what stolid assumption that every word of the Hebrew 
 records had an outlook toward the wonder days of Galilee, 
 Calvary, and Bethany is seen in a singular preface 
 ^ See Encyc. Biblica, s.v. Gudgodah. 
 
AN UNLETTERED PURITAN'S "HAGAD AH" 19 
 
 scribbled at the top of the first chapter of Genesis. The 
 special reference is to the words once quoted by a pagan 
 philosopher as an instance of literary sublimity : " And 
 God said, Let there be light, and there was light." But, 
 with perhaps pardonable unsusceptibility to literary form, 
 the pious house-painter reflected thus : — 
 
 " The moral world is without all Spiritual form ; it has 
 no resemblance to the glorious image of its Creator ; and it 
 is void, completely void of all Spiritual life, light, order, and 
 beauty, and will remain so until the Spirit of God moveth 
 upon it in his new creative energies. When God saith to 
 an individual, to a famly, to a community, to a woreld lying 
 in chains of darkness, ' let there be light,' then there is light ; 
 the darkness passeth away, and the true heavenly glorious 
 light shineth into multitudes of Souls." 
 
 The old man had apparently never reached the stage of 
 mental development at which perplexity is caused by the 
 contrast between the facility of such a method of salvation 
 and the infrequency of its application. On the contrary, 
 the darker aspects of mediaeval theology, if they did not 
 yield a grim sort of pleasure, were at any rate not wholly 
 repugnant to this late representative of stern Puritan faith. 
 A gloomy comment follows on the wail of Cain that his 
 punishment is greater than he can bear : " The punish- 
 ment of lost souls in hell will be greate ; but the (they) 
 shall be able to bear it." By which I understand that my 
 old friend would not have tolerated the annihilation theory 
 which came into vogue some years after his death. But 
 we may find relief in the childlike note on the threat to 
 the serpent of the woe to be wrought on him by the 
 woman's descendants — a threat which hardly needs any 
 theological interpretation : " This is the first gospel 
 
20 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 sermon ever preached, and God was the preacher." And 
 the benevolence which could coexist with belief in a 
 physical hell, that tortured without destroying, is manifest 
 in a prayer breathed after reading of the entry of Noah 
 with his belongings into the ark : " Hasten the day, O 
 Lord, when heads of families and all their offspring shall 
 enter into the Ark of thy salvation, even Christ Jesus ! " 
 Yet his notions of that divine mercy to which he prayed 
 were certainly paradoxical ; for on God's rejection of the 
 intercession of Moses, " Let me alone that I may destroy 
 them," the comment is : " O, if God's people where to 
 let him alone, if the where to cease to interceed for siners, 
 what sore and sudden misry would come upon them ! 
 If so, how much is the world of the unregenerate indebted 
 to the godly, — despise and hate them as they may ! " The 
 prosaic geographical enumeration of territories given in 
 Deut. iv., ending with " all the plain on this side Jordan 
 eastward, even unto the sea of the plain under the springs 
 of Pisgah," occasions the following outburst : — 
 
 " About the springs of the earthly Pisgah I know nothing, 
 but of Christian's Pisgah, blessed be God, I know something 
 — the are soul refreshing Springs, Soul transforming Springs, 
 Soul gladdening and Soul ravishing Springs — Haste my soul 
 up Pisgah's mount and view the promised land." 
 
 Very much that is said in Mr Prothero's interesting 
 story of " The Psalms in Human Life " receives humble 
 though not on that account the less striking illustration 
 from this poor man's Bible. For there is no book in the 
 volume more scored or annotated than the Psalms. 
 Little could the singer of Psalm ciii., whoever he was, 
 foresee, when he chanted " thy youth is renewed like the 
 eagle's," that after more than two millenniums had flown 
 
AN EAGLE FLIGHT 21 
 
 he would draw such a rhapsody as this from an obscure 
 house-painter, born in a then inconceivable world : — 
 
 " May my flights be like unto the eagle's ; may my 
 strength be like unto the eagle's ; then I shall at all times 
 mount very high in the holy atmosphere of sweet communion 
 with God, even above the clouds and dwell near the throne, 
 while my body lies grovelHng here below. This is my 
 privilege, and this will shurly be my portion and experience 
 if I seek for it and live for it ; for I have the promise of 
 God, and He cannot He." 
 
 It is an interesting illustration of what the title " word of 
 God," as applied to the Bible, meant to the " man in the 
 street," that a poetic figure of a Hebrew poet is accepted 
 as a definite and palpable promise of God. 
 
 Lastly, a very noteworthy feature of these records is a 
 total insensibility to any literary beauties in the sacred 
 book. One of the most intensely interesting and beauti- 
 ful personalities of the present age, Miss Helen Keller, of 
 Alabama, who, though blind and deaf from two years old, 
 became a collegian, a graduate with honours, and a con- 
 siderable scholar, writes in the story of her life that in 
 her second year at Radcliffe College she began to study 
 " the Bible as English literature." A strange description, 
 surely, for a collection of translations from Hebrew and 
 Hellenistic works. But herein Miss Keller only follows 
 the fashion prevalent on this side of the ocean. For when 
 every other plea for the use in unsectarian schools of a 
 book which in the present state of opinion must needs be 
 sectarian has been silenced, we are told that the Bible is 
 an " English classic," and as such must be included in 
 national education. Well, it is quite possible that if the 
 late Professor Jowett's advice could be taken, and the 
 Bible be " treated like any other book," cultivated teachers 
 
22 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 might arouse the interest at least of children in their teens 
 in the unconscious majesty of some parts of the Bible, in 
 the imperishable human interest of others, in the more 
 laboured but lofty poetry of Job, in the harp-like music 
 of Isaiah, and in the incomparable narrative style of the 
 gospels. 
 
 But the insuperable difficulty in the way is the stubborn 
 fact that at present the Bible cannot be " treated like any 
 other book," but that its miraculous claims always pre- 
 dominate over its literary interest. Indeed, so far is 
 this the case that, apart from certain incipient efforts to 
 rationalise veneration for the Bible, efforts quite outside 
 our purview in this chapter, the man in the street feels 
 towards his " book divine " precisely as did the venerable 
 zealot whose notes I have quoted. And how utterly in- 
 susceptible he was to any thrill of literary interest in the 
 Scriptures is well seen in his treatment of the hundred and 
 fourth Psalm, a survey of Nature which even in these days 
 of scientific revelation still makes the heart glow with the 
 vision of a physical beauty and wonder instinct with a soul 
 of goodness. But for Thomas Dickinson, the psalmist's 
 picture of the perennial resurrection of the Spring — 
 " Thou sendest forth thy Spirit, they are created ; and 
 thou renewest the face of the earth " — had only a theo- 
 logical value : — 
 
 "When God sendeth his Spirit upon siners they are 
 created anew in Christ Jesus unto good works ; and in pro- 
 portion as he doth this, in that proportion is the face of the 
 moral earth renewed in righteousness and holiness. Where 
 the Spirit comes there is hfe, light, and fruitfulness." 
 
 I have thought it worth while to dwell at some length 
 on what seems to me a typical instance of popular Bible 
 
THE BIBLE SOCIETY 23 
 
 religion as existing within the lifetime of the last genera- 
 tion. Because though, in some respects, the man I have 
 quoted was exceptional, substantially he represents the 
 attitude of the million toward the Bible in the nineteenth 
 century. Indeed, for reasons which we shall presently 
 consider, that century was the very earliest period in 
 which such a relation between the Bible and the people 
 was possible. For never before had that collection of 
 sacred traditions been made fully and unreservedly 
 accessible to uncultured faith. And the chief cause of 
 the amazing popularisation of the Bible in the course of 
 the nineteenth century is well worth consideration. 
 
 There can be no doubt that the gift of the Bible to the 
 "common people," the successors of those who heard 
 Christ gladly, has been mainly the work of the British 
 and Foreign Bible Society, whose story has been told 
 in centenary memorials of that Society's achievements. 
 
 To religious Wales was due the first inception of the 
 idea. For the Reverend Thomas Charles of Bala having 
 in 1802 solicited help from the Religious Tract Society 
 toward increasing the supply of Welsh Bibles — of which 
 there would seem to have been a great dearth at that 
 time — the Reverend Joseph Hughes, a Baptist minister of 
 Battersea, being present, responded thus : " Surely a 
 society might be formed for the purpose. But if for 
 Wales, why not for the kingdom ? Why not for the 
 whole world .'^ " ^ 
 
 These words, spoken in the counting-house of a godly 
 and prosperous merchant at Old Swan Stairs, were as 
 seed falling into good ground. For two years afterwards, 
 in 1 804, the Society was organised which, though by no 
 means the first of its kind, certainly in the abundance of 
 1 The Story of the Bible Society^ by Wm. Canton, p. 3. 
 
24 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 its labours and achievements exceeded all others put 
 together. For 1 suppose there is hardly a language spoken 
 anywhere on the round world by half a million people 
 into which this Society has not translated " the word of 
 God." And even dying dialects spoken only by the 
 remnants of once numerous tribes, now nearly ex- 
 terminated by Christian guns, alcohol, and disease, possess 
 in requital at least this sacred lore, said to be the secret 
 of our imperial might. Nay, some extinct languages 
 now possess their only record in the library of the Bible 
 Society. For though the Society has only within two 
 years celebrated the centenary of its birth, it has lived 
 long enough to see not a few wild tribes to whom it 
 addressed the gospel of salvation perish to the last man 
 before the superior prowess of Christian civilisation, 
 which finds its divine charter in the same heavenly 
 message. 
 
 But no such paradoxical events delayed for one 
 moment the printing activities of the great Society. For 
 if the Word could but reach the last dying remnants of a 
 disappearing clan, no one could tell but that the charm 
 of the sacred syllables might be the means of snatching 
 one and another precious soul as brands from the burn- 
 ing. As compared with such a result, what mattered 
 expenditure of money ? Sceptical critics of the history 
 of revelation might hint that the same Supreme Author 
 who had communicated the message to a little group of 
 clans in Judaea of old, and to their descendants in Galilee 
 and Jerusalem, could easily have dispensed with the aid 
 of the Bible Society by communicating directly with his 
 heathen children said to be perishing for lack of know- 
 ledge. But such criticism, of course, ignored one essential 
 feature of the plan of salvation, which was, that after God 
 
POPULARITY AND SUCCESS 
 
 25 
 
 had done his part, man should do the rest. For, as St Paul 
 says, the progress is from " faith to faith," from one 
 glowing heart to another ready to be kindled. Or, as he 
 says in another place, " How shall they call on him in 
 whom they have not believed ^ And how shall they 
 believe in him of whom they have not heard ? And how 
 shall they hear without a preacher ? " True, this slow 
 process of communication from soul to soul necessarily 
 incurred risks awful to contemplate in the light of the 
 then prevalent doctrine of an everlasting hell. But those 
 things belonged to the secret things reserved for the 
 counsels of the Eternal, of which no mortal should dare 
 to judge. 
 
 The British public is always open-hearted toward any 
 forms of human need appealing to family experience of 
 hunger, sickness, or bereavement. Hence the facility 
 with which enormous sums have been raised for soup 
 kitchens, destitute children's dinners, hospitals, and 
 orphan homes. But the need to which the Bible Society 
 ministered did not come within any of these categories. 
 Nevertheless it touched the hearts of precisely that part of 
 the public best able to furnish the sinews of this holy war. 
 For it appealed to prosperous families who, every morn- 
 ing and evening, gave God thanks that they had been 
 brought up on the " sincere milk of the word " ; and to 
 successful merchants who had found godliness profitable 
 unto all things ; and to self-made men who attributed 
 all their success in life to their early acquaintance with 
 God's Word through the lessons of the Sunday school. 
 Not less it appealed to the congregations of the poor who 
 crowded big chapels Sunday by Sunday to hear some 
 heart-searching preacher draw from the sacred book 
 before him a mystical wisdom such as no human under- 
 
26 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 standing could have devised. And deep was the emotion 
 of the hearers when such a preacher pictured the misery 
 of those lands where there was a famine, " not of bread, 
 nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the 
 Lord." To the myriads who day by day lived " not by 
 bread alone but by every word which proceedeth out of 
 the mouth of God," such a famine seemed more deadly 
 than any dearth of bodily food, because it threatened not 
 merely temporal death, but an eternity of woe. And so 
 it came to pass that the Bible Society moved the soul 
 of a people not less deeply than did orphanages and 
 hospitals. For the mood in which its appeals were heard 
 was susceptible to no practical doubts as to the number 
 of readers among the heathen Eskimo, or the Kalmucks, 
 or the Swahili. But as the old-fashioned husbandman 
 took his chance when he flung out handfuls of seed upon 
 ill-prepared ground, so the enthusiast of the Bible Society 
 rejoiced to think of the tons and even shiploads of Bibles 
 in outlandish tongues, — miraculous books to be scattered 
 as living seed, in full confidence of a harvest from heathen 
 ground. For had not God himself declared concerning 
 his word, " it shall not return unto me void, but it shall 
 accomplish the thing which I please, and it shall prosper 
 in the thing whereto I sent it " ? 
 
 This united fervour of all sects was no doubt much 
 fostered and maintained by the prudent rule of the 
 Society adopted from the very beginning, that the copies 
 of the Bible circulated should be wholly " without note 
 or comment." Though, by the way, this did not exclude 
 marginal references, which often form significant notes, 
 and even at times amount to comment. But of course 
 comparison of scripture with scripture could only make 
 for truth ; and therefore no good Christian could fear 
 
"THE BULWARK OF PROTESTANTISM'* 27 
 
 that by subscribing for his dozen or score or thousands 
 of Bibles he was in any way favouring the peculiar 
 tenets of any misguided brethren. Indeed, so much 
 was co-operation promoted by this rule, that, contrary to 
 the prejudiced belief still prevalent in Protestant circles, 
 and in spite of the hesitation or even aversion of one or 
 two popes, Roman Catholic priests have been known to 
 lend ready help to the dissemination of the Society's 
 Erse and Gaelic translations among their Irish and High- 
 land flocks.^ 
 
 Nevertheless, to the Bible Society has often been attri- 
 buted such doubtful success as has attended British 
 resistance to " papal aggressions " during the last two 
 generations. "For," says Mr Canton, "when principles 
 of the Reformation were threatened ; when momentous 
 questions which had slept for ages were reopened ; when 
 claims long held in abeyance were pressed with startling 
 boldness and importunity, there was roused, by some 
 mysterious stimulus, so urgent a Bible movement in the 
 great towns, that in three years from April 1844 to March 
 1847 there were distributed 1,900,776 copies of that 
 book which must form the only standard of appeal."^ 
 Not only so, but to this tidal wave of Bibles was attri- 
 buted even the outwardly and apparently successful 
 opposition to the Chartist demonstration of April 10, 
 1848. For " the Reverend Hugh Stowell declared that 
 only a working clergyman could tell how much we owed, 
 not to the promptitude of the magistracy, not to the wise 
 and timely measures of the government, — these he be- 
 
 ^ Story of the Bible Society^ p. 29. 
 
 2 Observe that the unsectarianism of the great Society, like the " un- 
 denominationahsm " of " simple Bible teaching," retains immovably the 
 fundamental dogma of the miraculous and supreme authority of the book. 
 
2 8 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 lieved would have been insufficient to keep the people, 
 under the pressure of their sore distress, calm, tranquil, 
 submissive, — it was the Bible Society that had done it." ^ 
 Now the Reverend Hugh Stowell, though a distinguished 
 clergyman, was not one of the " goodly fellowship of the 
 prophets " ; and he could hardly be expected to foresee 
 that within a generation almost every demand of the 
 Chartists except " annual parliaments " would be practi- 
 cally conceded. Still less could he foresee that while 
 aliens from the commonwealth of Israel would make it 
 one of their taunts against the Bible that it kept the 
 people "submissive," wiser interpreters of the sacred 
 volume would find in it a perpetual charter of popular 
 revolt against public wrong. 
 
 Another strange feature of this interesting but in 
 some respects paradoxical story is its oblivion of the 
 Bible's comparative failure to provoke the rich and ruling 
 classes to reform abuses, though, as we have seen, it 
 inspired the poor with patience to bear them. Not that 
 we forget the fine philanthropy of such Christian men as 
 Clarkson and Wilberforce, or, later, of the good Lord 
 Shaftesbury. But we cannot help observing that the 
 reforming zeal of such excellent men was excited either 
 by flagrant horrors of oppression in distant parts of the 
 earth, or by special and extreme symptoms of the disease 
 and distortion of our home civilisation, such as the 
 atrocious system of chimney-sweeping by climbing boys. 
 But the root of these evils in the preposterous dispropor- 
 tion between the numbers wielding political power and 
 those suffering the woes caused by its misuse was either 
 entirely overlooked by the directors of " law and order *' 
 or its importance was minimised. Nay, the few who 
 ^ Quoted by Mr Canton in the Story of the Bible Society^ p. 105. 
 
A PARADOX 29 
 
 doubted the perfection of our " glorious constitution in 
 Church and State " were regarded as dangerous characters ; 
 and survivors from the former half of the nineteenth 
 century can well remember how " radicals, socialists, and 
 infidels " were lumped together as enemies of God and 
 the Bible. 
 
 During the terrible years before the Reform Bill, when 
 our country, under the sway of Bible-reading bishops, 
 peers, and squires, was subject to the tortures of insane 
 protection and tremendous internal taxation, the broad- 
 cast scattering of the Scriptures by the Bible Society is 
 credited by its historian with the pathetic patience of the 
 people under their wrongs.^ Yet the thought will occur 
 that if, as we learn, 583,880 copies of the Scriptures were 
 circulated by the Society in 1831, mainly among the poor, 
 the rich who ruled were in no need of such spiritual 
 alms. For there was not a hall or mansion which did 
 not show a Bible in nearly every room. And the 
 dwellers in these " stately homes of England " learned 
 from their Bible lessons much about the obedience of 
 the subject, about the divinely ordained perpetuity of 
 poverty, and about the sacredness of the social hierarchy. 
 Such lessons confirmed their determination, in the interest 
 of the existing state of things, to forbid the importation 
 of foreign or even Irish cattle, to lay heavy duties on the 
 poor man's bread, to tax salt up to four times its value, 
 and to limit light and air in the cottage by a window tax. 
 The religion of these Church and State men was, as far 
 as it went, not less genuine than that of the Directors 
 of the Bible Society, of which indeed these Church and 
 
 ^ Op. cit.^ pp. 103-4. One can hardly repress the now useless prayer — 
 Would to God they had been less patient ! Their children and grand- 
 children would have been all the better off. 
 
30 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 State men were very generally patrons. They learned 
 from their Scriptures, according to an orthodox interpreta- 
 tion, to " bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, 
 and to lay them on men's shoulders." And then we are 
 told that it was mainly the blessed influence of this same 
 Bible which kept the oppressed and miserable people 
 quiescent under their woes. This is no reproach to that 
 venerable book, in which are stored up so many preg- 
 nant but not always consistent utterances of hard-won 
 human experience. But it is distinctly a reduction to 
 absurdity of the superstitious notion that the Bible, 
 wherever we open it, gives us the very voice of God. 
 
 That, however, was the idea of the Bible which prevailed 
 among nine-tenths of the population down to the last 
 quarter of the nineteenth century. This was shown not 
 only by the prevalent faith in miracles of conversion to 
 be wrought by mere dissemination of the sacred Book 
 " without note or comment," but also by the general and 
 almost universal custom of regarding a plain text from 
 any part of the Bible as an end of all controversy on 
 almost any subject whatever. Thus, in the days when 
 factories and workshops gave much more opportunity to 
 workmen for conversation and debate than is possible 
 now, a quotation from Law, Prophets, Psalms, or New 
 Testament, if it seemed to bear upon the point in dispute, 
 whether temperance, socialism, republicanism, or fraternity 
 and equality, would rarely or never be met by a denial of 
 its divine authority.^ The only resource for the dis- 
 putants against whom such a quotation appeared to tell 
 was to produce other texts which might modify it, or to 
 
 ^ This is matter of early personal experience and observation. For, 
 though I never was myself a factory hand, I was in very close contact 
 with workmen for thirty years. 
 
DEGRADATION OF THE BIBLE 31 
 
 throw doubt on the correctness of the translation, which 
 reminiscences of Bible classes enabled even unlearned 
 workmen to do. 
 
 And though amongst the more learned clergy and the 
 cultured laity this notion of the Bible as being in every 
 part the very word of God has been superseded by a 
 more liberal, but more hazy conception, there can be no 
 doubt that this degradation of these ancient books into a 
 fetish has had much to do with the difficulties of national 
 education, not only at home, but in every nominally 
 Christian country. For what can be more unfair and 
 injurious to any record of human experience than the 
 practice of reading it to inexperienced children " without 
 note or comment," as in the common schools of America ? 
 Or what can be more redolent of weak and timorous faith 
 than the clamorous insistence of our sects that the State 
 shall not, dare not, leave the Church to do its own work 
 in its own way, but that, in addition to Church services, 
 Sunday-school teaching and Bible classes, the State must 
 needs dose children with " Bible and water " ^ in every 
 day-school .'' 
 
 ^^ Exitus ergo quis est?'' What is the plain, practical 
 result of enterprises and organisations based on the belief 
 that the Bible is a miraculous book, the very word of 
 God, with wonder-working power within itself to convert 
 untaught heathen, and to ensure high morality in any 
 population imbued with its lore from childhood ^ Neither 
 the question nor the answer of palpable facts can cast the 
 least reproach upon the real Bible as a most precious 
 record of our main line of religious evolution. For its 
 value in this respect is not here doubted. But the point 
 
 1 A (phrase of the first Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton in reference to 
 platitudinarian expositions of Scripture. 
 
32 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 is, that the very foundation of the Bible Society was a 
 belief that the " Word of God, without note or comment," 
 could work its way by a sort of miracle. You had only 
 to send out to heathen lands a sufficient number of tons 
 of the wonder-working book, and whole populations would 
 be brought over to the faith of Christ. Accordingly, at 
 the meetings of the Society, many pathetic stories were 
 told of American Indians, African Negroes, and Hindoos 
 and Dravidians who besieged the distributors of the book, 
 and who met, when and how they could, like the 
 primitive Christians, to hear a slightly lettered fellow- 
 tribesman spell out the divine message. Considering the 
 monotony of primitive life, and its natural eagerness to 
 hear "some new thing," such excitement is entirely 
 credible and readily conceived. But the inference inevit- 
 ably drawn by the hearers of these stories of Bible 
 triumphs, that the mere multiplication of the printed 
 Scriptures was rapidly converting the world, has scarcely 
 been justified by officially published facts. 
 - For the first census of the British empire issued at the 
 beginning of March 1906 from the General Register 
 Office gives the numbers of the king's subjects of all 
 races and religions as more than 300 millions. And of 
 these only 58 millions are registered as Christians, includ- 
 ing the 42 millions or so in the United Kingdom and 
 European dependencies. It is true that no religious 
 census has for many years been taken in Great Britain 
 and Ireland. But, with a generous liberality, this imperial 
 census puts us all down as Christians at home. Canada, 
 South Africa, New Zealand, and Australia contain many 
 millions of American, Dutch, or Anglican Christians ; and 
 if to these be added the white official class and men of 
 business in India, the 16 million imperial Christians out- 
 
IMPERIAL CENSUS OF RELIGIONS 33 
 
 side Europe are practically accounted for, so that the con- 
 verted heathen within an empire covering, as we are told, 
 one-fifth of the land surface of the globe, can only be a 
 few hundreds of thousands. On the other hand, the same 
 official record tells us that there are 208 millions adhering 
 to Hindu forms of religion, 94 millions of Mahommedans, 
 12 millions of Buddhists, besides 23 millions of various 
 pagan and non-christian religions. In other words, after 
 a century of Bible scattering and more laborious missions, 
 the Christians within the empire, even reckoning in the 
 long-established Christianity of the home countries, are 
 less than one-fifth of its total population. 
 
 " And is this little all that was to be ? 
 Where is the gloriously decisive change, 
 The immeasurable metamorphosis 
 Of human clay to divine gold, we looked 
 Should in some poor sort justify the price ? 
 Had a mere adept of the Rosy Cross 
 Spent his life to consummate the Great Work, 
 Would not we start to see the stuff it touched 
 Yield not a grain more than the vulgar got 
 By the old smelting process years ago ! " 
 
 Nay, but in this instance the " old smelting process," 
 if so we may call the struggle and martyrdom of the first 
 hundred years after Pentecost, achieved moral and religious 
 conquests which utterly put to shame the trivial gains of 
 Christianity within the latest hundred years. For though, of 
 course, no statistics are available, there can be little doubt 
 that by a.d. 130 or 140 the Church had taken such a firm 
 hold of Asia Minor,^ Greece, Egypt, Italy, and North Africa, 
 that its final victory was practically assured, and, as the 
 
 1 See Pliny's well-known letter to Trajan. 
 
 3 
 
34 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 devout would have put it, " the gates of hell could not 
 prevail against it." And this moral triumph was achieved 
 without organised missions, without Bible Societies, nay, 
 without Bibles, except indeed the Septuagint, and frag- 
 ments of the gradually evolved New Testament, of which 
 the different portions were variously esteemed, and 
 perhaps none had any established authority. But then in 
 those days the Gospel was a new leaven working mightily 
 in the mass of human affections, hopes, fears, and aspira- 
 tions, all matured to just that stage of preparation to 
 which the Gospel solution of the mystery of life was 
 adapted. The case is not so now. And that is one of 
 the facts we have to weigh and appreciate in discussing 
 the relations of Man and the Bible.-^ 
 
 The result of our survey hitherto, then, is that the 
 ubiquity of the Bible as a household treasure in Protestant 
 countries, and its unchallenged supremacy in the affections 
 and veneration of the common people, have been ex- 
 ceptionally characteristic of the nineteenth century, and 
 are largely owing to the zeal, liberality, and devotion of 
 the greatest of Bible Societies. On the other hand, it 
 must, of course, be acknowledged that the marvellous 
 success of that Society implies a predisposition on the 
 part of the public to favour its work. Such a pre- 
 disposition is also evidence that, to use a Gospel simile, 
 
 ^ If it should be asked why the success of missionary and Bible Society 
 operations outside the British empire is not estimated, the answer is that 
 equally authoritative statistics are not available. But if to the one-fifth of 
 the solid earth covered by the empire we add the enormous area of the 
 United States and Russia, there is really very little room left in which to 
 redress the failure above quoted. The romantic story of Christianity in 
 Madagascar has been familiar from childhood, and is profoundly stirring. 
 But what is that, or the tale of the South Sea Islands, to balance the 
 portentous failure of Christian missions to touch more than a fringe of 
 the enormous and dense population of China.'* 
 
NINETEENTH CENTURY EXCEPTIONAL 35 
 
 " the fields were already white unto the harvest." For, 
 though not so accessible and familiar as it is now, the 
 Bible had been for centuries universally venerated and 
 recognised in all Christian countries as an infallible 
 authority, not only on faith and morals, but also on 
 cosmogony, Jewish history, and the mission of Christ and 
 his apostles.^ But obviously the position of the sacred 
 volume during an entirely exceptional period of Protes- 
 tant organisations is not a broad enough basis for any 
 impartial judgment on the worth of the Bible to the 
 whole world. For the formation of such a judgment, the 
 outlook of the future must be considered as well as the 
 retrospect of the past ; and there are unmistakable signs 
 that even in Protestant countries such authority as the 
 Book may hereafter retain will depend much more on its 
 power to inspire, and much less on the tradition of its 
 miraculous origin, than has ever been the case before. 
 And even as regards past times, the most superficial 
 glance at history shows that during the greater part of 
 the Christian era the imperfections of popular culture, 
 the cost of books, and also the attitude of the Church 
 made absolutely impossible such a position as the Bible 
 has held in the hearts of the Protestant peoples during 
 the last century. Therefore, those who wish to form a 
 reasonable estimate of the worth of the Bible to mankind 
 will beware of the fanaticism engendered by the passion- 
 ate desire of all sects to find their charter in a miraculous 
 book, so recently made accessible to all. On the other 
 hand, they will be justly impatient of the sciolism which 
 
 ^ The only difference on this point between Catholics and Protestants 
 was that the latter insisted on the right of private judgment in every 
 appeal to the authority, while the former held that such appeals must be 
 made through the Church, whose decisions were final. 
 
36 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 treats apostles and prophets as though they had been 
 members of a " long-firm," whose frauds have only now 
 been detected. They will set themselves patiently to 
 examine whether the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures 
 are really a miraculous and isolated revelation ; and if 
 not, what is the place they occupy among other literatures 
 and traditions that have influenced the moral progress of 
 mankind. 
 
 The remaining chapters of this work are an effort to 
 assist such an examination. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE BIBLE IN PROTESTANT AND LOLLARD TIMES 
 
 During the nineteenth century the Bible may be said to 
 have reached its apotheosis. That is to say, in no 
 previous century was it regarded by such numerous 
 adorers with the awe due to a message from God. For 
 though the Bible — a name to which, in our review of 
 the earliest Christian centuries, we shall have to attach a 
 very elastic and variable significance — had always been 
 treated with reverence as a collection of supernatural 
 books, yet through the Early and Middle Ages it was 
 inaccessible to the vast majority of Christians except as 
 its utterances were doled out to them by the Church. 
 And, as will be seen later, it was not the Bible that made 
 the Church, but the Church that made and guaranteed 
 the Bible. It is true indeed that, with the usual 
 argument in a circle which consecrates so many ecclesias- 
 tical positions, the Church appealed to recorded words of 
 Jesus and his apostles for its commission ; but the 
 validity of that appeal rested, at least in part, on the 
 judgment of the Church itself as to the authenticity of 
 the Scriptures. Nor did the pretensions of the Church 
 extend only to the decision of questions of authenticity. 
 It claimed the right of authoritative interpretation as 
 
 37 
 
38 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 well. To most Christians of the Early and Middle Ages, 
 therefore, the Bible, instead of being the household 
 treasure — we might almost say the household god — 
 which it became in the nineteenth century, was rather a 
 mysterious " palladium," sanctioning the authority of the 
 priests, who kept it in their holy of holies, and per- 
 mitted access to it only through themselves. 
 
 Now, in treating of Man and the Bible, it must be of 
 interest to trace the gradual process by which the priestly 
 palladium of the earlier centuries became a universal 
 household god in the late century. And this can best be 
 done by telling the story backwards, beginning, in this 
 chapter, with the period since Wycliffe. Afterwards, as 
 a geologist digs his way down through recent and earlier 
 and earliest formations to the unstratified earth-crust out 
 of which all these formations were successively evolved, 
 so we must make our way backward from the emancipa- 
 tion of the Bible by Wycliffe and his successors, through 
 previous ecclesiastical usage and the conditions existing 
 before the invention of printing, to the primitive times 
 when a single gospel or epistle was a priceless treasure, 
 and when the Church was still uncertain which books 
 should be recognised and which disowned as the Word of 
 God. 
 
 It is one of the anomalies of public tolerance that the 
 Bible monopoly should have been endured for many 
 years after the British and Foreign Bible Society had 
 become a power in the land. Nay, in an attenuated form 
 that monopoly survives still. For, though anyone may 
 issue the Scriptures with notes or emendations, no one 
 other than the King's printers or the two historic uni- 
 versities may even yet print the Bible text alone, though 
 amended translations or text and commentary may be 
 
A CRUEL MONOPOLY 39 
 
 issued freely. But at the commencment of the Bible 
 Society's work the monopoly was much more rigid, and, 
 as a result, the text of the Scriptures was much more 
 costly than it is now. Thus, in the first quarter of the 
 nineteenth century such a Bible as can now be purchased 
 for a shiUing would cost five or six times as much. At 
 the same time, the economic condition of the vast 
 majority of the population was much less prosperous 
 than after the commercial triumphs signalising the middle 
 and end of that age. So that, previous to the operation 
 of Bible Society charities, the cost of the sacred book 
 made it a luxury rather than an ordinary necessity of the 
 poor man's life. Certainly The Cottar s Saturday Night 
 implies the supremacy of the Bible as a household god 
 in certain sections of humble folk even previous to the 
 influence of the Bible Society. But that poetic descrip- 
 tion refers to Scotland only. And whatever may have 
 been the practice in England of those parts of the 
 population inspired by Methodism or its allied spiritual 
 forces, it is as certain as any social fact of the time can 
 be that neither the peasantry nor the industrial classes 
 in England were in the eighteenth century anything like 
 as familiar with the Book, or as much given to its use 
 in family worship, as were the people of Scotland. For 
 instance, when inquiries were made on behalf of the Bible 
 Society early in its history, it was found that in the 
 Colchester district, out of 1059 families visited, 521 were 
 totally destitute of the Bible ; ^ and amongst 500 vessels 
 trading from Sunderland, only a few had even a single 
 Bible on board. Such facts are suggestive of a state of 
 things very different from that described in the previous 
 chapter. Not that they imply any lack of reverence for 
 1 Story of the Bible Society^ by William Canton, p. 19. 
 
40 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 the Bible amongst the multitude who did not possess 
 a copy, but it had for them only a dim and distant 
 sanctity, confirming, indeed, their fears of hell and hopes 
 of heaven, but vividly touching their individual life only 
 on rare occasions, when they heard the lessons read in 
 Church, or were called upon to " kiss the book " in 
 court. Whereas that familiar everyday perusal of its 
 pages, and that freedom to comment thereon, which 
 during the nineteenth century became a whole people's 
 privilege and joy, were necessarily impossible except to 
 those of moderate means, or else of exceptional force of 
 religious faith, such as removes mountains. 
 
 In the twentieth century the buying of a small Bible 
 gives the buyer no more thought than the purchase of a 
 magazine or a sixpenny novel for a railway journey. But 
 in the eighteenth century the purchase of a Bible was, 
 amongst all but the rich, an event in family history. 
 The binding and the print were carefully considered, the 
 lowest price was anxiously ascertained ; and when the 
 prize was brought home it was exhibited with pride, and 
 assigned a conspicuous place in the middle of the best- 
 parlour table with something of the solemn joy that 
 attended the Ark of the Covenant when brought to its 
 final rest among the chosen people. Then, again, the 
 greater part of the eighteenth century was a period of 
 religious depression, during which the manifestation of 
 anything more than conventional reverence for the Bible 
 was a breach of good manners. Nor was this indifference 
 much disturbed by the sporadic growth of Methodism. 
 For long, and slow, and painful was the progress of the 
 religious revival brought about by the Wesleys and 
 Whitefield, hindered as that movement was by social 
 scorn, episcopal stolidity, and all the petty penalties which 
 
RELIGION IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 41 
 
 the stupidity of privileged classes could devise. Speaking 
 of that age, Mr Rowland E. Prothero, in his interesting 
 book on The Psalms in Human Life^ says : — 
 
 '' Religion grew formal, full of propriety, drowsy, prosper- 
 ous. Its authority was put forward with cautious regard to 
 the probability of its acceptance. Seeming to distrust itself, 
 it was regarded as something which could be ignored, not 
 as something which imperatively demanded to be either 
 obeyed or condemned. The devotional cast of mind, the 
 enthusiasm, the prophetic vision, the martyr's passion were 
 left behind in the natural sanctuaries of the mountains. 
 Nothing remained but a religion of the plains — low-lying, 
 level, utilitarian, prosaic."^ 
 
 While such a Laodicean temper possessed the soul of 
 a people, the Bible could not hold in their hearts the place 
 it achieved in the succeeding century. For the words 
 just quoted suggest that the Book was a theatrical 
 property of Church and State, rather than a treasure of 
 the people. In Scotland, as already acknowledged, the 
 position was somewhat different ; for there the Kirk was, 
 in form at least, democratic, and every household father 
 claimed as good a right as the preaching elder to 
 interpret Scripture. And yet the difference was one of 
 form rather than of substance. For early drill in the 
 Shorter Catechism and Paraphrases, with perhaps later 
 exercises in the Westminster Confession, had strangely 
 reduced a proverbially " hard-headed " race to one dead 
 level of conventional belief, and this belief was imposed 
 by the Kirk. That Kirk might be the Kirk of the people, 
 but the Bible was the Bible of the Kirk. 
 
 To these general observations on the relations of the 
 Bible and the people one exception must be made, not 
 1 Op. cit.y pp. 298-9. 
 
42 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 only in Scotland, but in England and all over the 
 Christian world. For the custom of singing the Psalms 
 in public worship gave to the supposed lyrics of King 
 David a special popular vogue in which no other books 
 of the Bible shared. Thus, whereas other parts of the 
 Scriptures were read in public only now and then, accord- 
 ing to the order of the Lectionary in the ancient churches 
 and the caprice of pastors in the more modern, the 
 treatment of the Psalms was very different. In England 
 the whole Psalter was sung right through twelve times 
 in each year. And if the Scottish Kirk did not share this 
 privilege, she had her metrical paraphrases continually 
 repeated in school and home, or sung in the Sunday 
 worship, so that they were more impressed on the memory 
 than any other part of the Bible could be. Now, it is 
 undoubtedly true that the "hymn-book of the second 
 Temple " has shown a singular power of adaptability to 
 the most various religious experiences of successive ages 
 and discordant sects ; but, while making full allowance for 
 that, it may be acknowledged that the chief practical 
 reason for the prominence of the Psalms in human life 
 has been their accessibility to the common people, and 
 their impression on individual memory by constant 
 repetition in the home, the school, and the church. This 
 will be more and more apparent as we extend into earlier 
 centuries our survey of the relations of the Bible and 
 Man. Here it is enough to note that, even under the 
 dead formalism of the eighteenth century, the conventional 
 prudery which disdained Methodism distinctly com- 
 mended the propriety of hearing the Psalms said or sung 
 at least once on a Sunday, and of joining in the quaint 
 doggerel, whether of Sternhold and Hopkins, or of Tate 
 and Brady. 
 
THE BOOK AND THE PROPHET 43 
 
 Here we may well pause for a moment to note one 
 lesson already learned on the relations of Man and the 
 Bible. The contrasts presented by the two centuries 
 considered must obviously suggest that the Book without 
 the Prophet is a sealed fountain. There must be a 
 Moses to strike the rock before the waters of life gush 
 forth. For though it is part of my argument that the 
 Bible was comparatively difficult of access until the Bible 
 Society threw wide its pages to mankind, yet even in the 
 deadest times of the eighteenth century it was accorded 
 at least the honours of a fetish, and contradiction of its 
 teachings was a punishable offence, still visited with the 
 sort of stupid cruelty inspired by fear of heaven's wrath. 
 But till Wesley and Whitefield arose it was a dead letter. 
 There was " no breath at all in the midst of it." Indeed, 
 not then only, but throughout Christian history, the 
 experience of the Ethiopian eunuch has been renewed. 
 " Understandest thou what thou readest ? " " How can 
 I, except some man should guide me ?'' There have 
 been indeed exceptional and notable cases in which 
 solitary reading of the Bible has apparently brought 
 about moral salvation. But in almost all such cases the 
 wonder has been wrought by the echo of a mother's or a 
 father's almost forgotten voice, recalled by the solemn 
 words, or else by the pointed expression given by some 
 passage in the Book to the corporate feeling of the better 
 society which the outcast now remembers with remorse ; 
 or again by the " confirmation strong " of " holy writ " 
 to the neglected warnings of human experience. And 
 the story of the Bible Society in the main supports what 
 is here said. For though its traditions naturally dwell 
 with affection on such exceptional cases as are here 
 admitted, the obvious and palpable fact is, that where 
 
44 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 prophets have abounded, cheap Bibles have done most 
 good. But where there has been no living word, barren- 
 ness of result is patent in the religious census of the 
 British empire. 
 
 Going back to the seventeenth century, we must not 
 allow the volcanic outburst of Puritan zeal to mislead us 
 as to the average spiritual condition of the common people 
 in those days. Scriptural language may then have larded 
 ordinary speech, both in cottage and palace. But the 
 habit was derived more from public sermons and prayers 
 than from private Bible-reading. For if the Book was 
 too costly in the eighteenth century to be a necessary of 
 household life, much more was it so in the seventeenth. 
 It was an indispensable instrument for the defence of the 
 Gospel, but much too costly to be wielded except by the 
 congregations of the saints. Indeed, tracing backwards 
 from our own times the story of the relations of Man and 
 the Bible, we here first find clear evidence of the dependence 
 of the Book upon ecclesiastical authority. Of course, I 
 do not mean that the Bible ever was or could be depend- 
 ent on decree or licence of the Church for its power to 
 stir mankind. But undoubtedly, in the absence of Bible 
 Societies and such extra-ecclesiastical agencies, it did more 
 largely than now depend upon the public services of 
 religion for its contact with the common people. Now 
 those services were under ecclesiastical authority of one 
 sort or another, whether priest, presbyter, or preacher. 
 Convocation, Synod, or Assembly of Divines. And it 
 was inevitable that the unlettered multitude should re- 
 gard the Book as authenticated by the Church, rather than 
 the Church as consecrated by the Book. 
 
 Of this attitude of the popular mind we may find a 
 curious illustration in the charge made by both Anglican 
 
THE QUAKERS 45 
 
 and Nonconformist ecclesiasticism against the Quakers, 
 that the latter undervalued the Bible. Now the only 
 justification for this charge was the refusal of George Fox 
 and his true followers to acknowledge the Bible as " the 
 Word of God." The real nature of that refusal is well 
 illustrated by the following extract from Fox's Journal^ 
 giving his own account of his reason for interrupting a 
 Church service at Nottingham. The incident occurred 
 in 1648, and in that year the Presbyterian order, pre- 
 sumably, prevailed. 
 
 " As I went towards Nottingham on a First Day morn- 
 ing, with friends, to a meeting there, when I came on the 
 top of a hill in sight of the town, the Lord said to me, 
 ' Thou must cry against yonder great idol, and against the 
 worshippers therein.' I said nothing of this to the friends, 
 but went with them to the meeting, where the mighty 
 power of the Lord God was amongst us ; in which I left 
 friends sitting in the meeting, and went to the steeple-house. 
 When I came there, all the people looked Hke fallow ground, 
 and the priest,^ like a great lump of earth, stood in his pulpit 
 above. He took for his text these words of Peter : ' We 
 have also a more sure word of prophecy, whereunto ye do 
 well that ye take heed as unto a light shining in a dark 
 place until the day dawn and the day-star arise in your 
 hearts.' He told the people this ^ vv^as the Scriptures, by 
 which they were to try all doctrines, religions, and opinions. 
 Now the Lord's power was so mighty upon me, and so 
 strong in me, that I could not hold, but was made to cry 
 out, ' Oh ! no, it is not the Scriptures,' and told them it 
 was the Holy Spirit by which the holy men of God gave 
 
 ^ The word " priest " does not necessarily imply an Anglican service. 
 For to George, as to Milton, " new presbyter was but old priest writ large." 
 
 2 There is some ambiguity here. Did '•'this'' refer to the "word of 
 prophecy " or to the "day-star"? I think the former; for the existence 
 of Scripture was a present fact, not a future hope, and as such the preacher 
 must have treated it. 
 
46 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 forth the Scriptures, whereby opinions, religions, and judg- 
 ments were to be tried ; for it led into all truth, and so 
 gave the knowledge of all truth. The Jews had the 
 Scriptures, yet resisted the Holy Ghost, and rejected Christ, 
 the bright morning-star. They persecuted him and his 
 apostles, and took upon them to try their doctrines by the 
 Scriptures, but erred in judgment, and did not try them 
 right J because they tried without the Holy Ghost. As I 
 spoke thus amongst them, the officers came, took me away, 
 and put me into a nasty stinking prison, the smell whereof 
 got so into my nose and throat, that it very much annoyed 
 me." 
 
 Now it is true that in this extract the phrase " Word of 
 God" does not occur. Nevertheless the whole tenor 
 of it testifies to George Fox's belief in a divine word 
 behind the Scriptures, a word that " spake by the prophets " 
 and bore witness in the hearts of those to whom the 
 prophets spoke. In fact, he looked through the Bible to 
 its source, and declared that source of Hfe and light to be 
 as available for common men of his own day as it had 
 been for prophets before the Gospels or Epistles were 
 written. But he insisted that the insufficiency of the 
 Scriptures without the inward light had been amply 
 proved by the conduct of the Jews, and, he might have 
 added, by that of many Bible Christians in his own day. 
 Why did the rulers of the Church, and, as the context in 
 his Journal shows, the common people also, condemn 
 even what was good in his doctrine } Manifestly because 
 it was unofficial, because it was contrary to the teaching 
 of both priest and presbyter, who declared the Bible to 
 be the " sure word of prophecy." In other words, 
 even in the Puritan seventeenth century, it was the 
 Church that guaranteed the Bible, and not the Bible the 
 Church. 
 
THE AUTHORISED VERSION 47 
 
 But the greatest official tribute to the Bible during 
 this seventeenth century was the achievement of the 
 Authorised Version, issued in 1611, and especially its 
 dedication to that " most dread sovereign " James I., a 
 document wherein all the virtues of a massive and sonorous 
 English style are desecrated by the arts of an abject 
 flattery, for which even the poor defence of sincerity can 
 scarcely be set up. However, our only concern with it 
 here is to note that it heralds an issue of the Bible by 
 earthly authority, and asserts for the Anglican Church — of 
 course with due submission to its worldly head — the 
 right to determine what is the sincere milk of the Word, 
 as distinguished from adulterations of " Popish Persons 
 at home or abroad" on the one hand, or of " self-conceited 
 Brethren " on the other, " who run their own ways." 
 
 As to the sound and lofty English in which that trans- 
 lation is embodied, it is impossible to differ from the 
 unanimous judgment of three hundred years. Or, if any 
 complaint can be made, it is only that from a literary 
 point of view it is too good. For it has so charmed 
 English ears and hearts that any unanimous adoption 
 of a new version, more rigorously representative of what 
 the Hebrew and Hellenistic authors really wrote, is made 
 almost impossible. It is pre-eminently an illustration of 
 the adage, " No man, having drunk old wine, straightway 
 desireth new ; for he saith, The old is better." We must 
 even do as Papias says the early Greek Christians did 
 with the alleged Aramaic Gospel, which " everyone 
 interpreted as he could." By the aid of our "Holy 
 Bible with Twenty Thousand Emendations," the Revised 
 Version, the unhappily incomplete " Polychrome Bible," 
 and other such efforts, we may remind ourselves that the 
 Authorised Version is not infallible. But as to setting 
 
48 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 it aside — we might as well talk of setting aside Magna 
 Charta. 
 
 This great version however, was, of course, far from 
 being original. For while the learned men, who, by a 
 division of labour, produced it in some four years, were 
 as well qualified as the scholarship of the time allowed, to 
 interpret the Hebrew and Greek originals, they had also 
 before them the previous versions of Wycliffe, Tyndale, 
 and Coverdale, revised and re-revised by Cranmer and 
 Wilham Whittingham, who, with the co-operation of 
 Geneva refugees in the days of Mary I., produced " the 
 Geneva Bible" in 1557, the first English translation 
 issued in Roman letters and divided into verses. Then 
 also in 1568 Archbishop Parker, with the assistance of 
 fifteen scholars, of whom eight were Bishops, produced 
 another revision which a nation less scrupulous about the 
 Bible might have been content to accept as final. But the 
 Hampton Court Conference was not satisfied ; and the 
 British Solomon was induced, not very willingly at first, 
 it would appear, to appoint a large Commission of fifty- 
 four^ members to achieve, as the dedication says, "one 
 more exact translation of the Holy Scriptures into the 
 English tongue." But, like wise men, they were content 
 to adopt the work of their predecessors so far as they 
 judged it faithful to the original languages. For their 
 method of procedure was, they tell us — or rather told the 
 earthly head of the Church — to elicit the meaning " out 
 of the Original Sacred Tongues, together with comparing 
 the labours both in our own and other foreign languages 
 of many worthy men who went before us." And though 
 genius is not usually attributed to book-worms, those 
 translators had at least this in common with Shakespeare, 
 1 Only forty-seven actually took part in the work. 
 
KING JAMES I. AND THE BIBLE 49 
 
 that where they borrowed other people's work, they 
 transmuted silver into gold. For the writers of the 
 sumptuous though unctuous English of the dedication 
 were quite incapable of breaking the teeth of readers with 
 gravel, or marring old rhythms for the sake of trivial 
 amendments. 
 
 Our Authorised Version was the first authoritative 
 translation of the whole Bible into any modern vernacular 
 tongue. It was made "by his Majesty's special 
 command." It was " appointed to be read in churches." 
 And to this day nothing but an Act of Parliament would 
 make it legal to substitute the Revised Version for the 
 Authorised in reading the " Lessons " which form part of 
 the morning and evening service. With this exceptionally 
 fortunate result of Tudor and Stuart legislation we shall 
 not quarrel. But the point to be noted here is the 
 conspicuous illustration given of the relations of the 
 Church to the Bible. For even if it had been possible in 
 the seventeenth century to separate things ecclesiastical 
 from things political, things sacred from things secular, it 
 was King James as " sacred Majesty," King James as head 
 of the Anglican Church, King James, moved thereto by the 
 Hampton Court clergy, who watched over and approved 
 and authorised the translation of the Word of God and 
 " appointed it to be read in churches." In this con- 
 currence or rather merging of ecclesiastical in royal 
 authority many good people recognised a fulfilment of the 
 prophecy, " Kings shall be thy nursing fathers." But it is 
 of more importance to us to note that it was rather a 
 critical step in the gradual emancipation of the State from 
 the Church, which had been first inauspiciously begun by 
 the unholy hands of Henry VIII. 
 
 It is true that during the century which included the 
 
 4 
 
50 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 ill-omened reign of the latter monarch, the first official 
 attempts were made to give all English people access to 
 the whole Bible in their own language. But it cannot for 
 a moment be supposed that the successive versions already- 
 enumerated could possibly have done for the multitude 
 the work of the modern Bible Society in making the 
 Scriptures " familiar in their mouths as household words." 
 For, in the first place, a very large part of the population, 
 probably the majority, could not read. And in the next 
 place, the cost of the Book must have put it out of the 
 reach of the labouring classes, who then, as always, were 
 enormously preponderant in numbers.^ Yet it is obvious 
 from innumerable allusions, scattered through the great 
 literature of the century, that not only readers of books, 
 but the humblest hearers of stage plays were presumed 
 to be at least so far acquainted with Bible narratives and 
 doctrines as to follow easily an imperfect citation or a 
 passing reference. Still the popular knowledge implied 
 must, for the two reasons already given — cost of the 
 Book, and the widespread inability to read — have been 
 very much more limited than in the age of Bible Societies 
 and Sunday Schools. Nor was it possible that the 
 scanty means then existing for the education of children 
 could store the memory with Bible lore in early days. 
 On a point like this we may easily be misled by the 
 educational enthusiasm aroused partly by the revival of 
 
 1 In his Econo77iic Interpretatio7i of History^ the late Professor Thorold 
 Rogers describes the condition of the people during the sixteenth century 
 as continually going from bad to worse. Neither the miserly craft of 
 Henry VII., nor his son's plunder of the monasteries, nor the wild 
 extravagance of the latter, had any effect in bettering the lot of the 
 labouring multitude. " When Elizabeth came to the throne both sovereign 
 and people were miserably poor. The base money had driven the work- 
 ing classes to beggary, etc." {op. cit., p. 37). In such a state of things 
 Bibles were necessarily a luxury of the rich. 
 
POPULARITY OF TYNDALE'S VERSION 51 
 
 letters and partly by the Reformation. For in England 
 at least — though Scotland, incited by John Knox, pursued 
 a more democratic policy — the new Grammar Schools were 
 limited in their range of influence, and though originally 
 intended for the poor, soon became the prey of the rich. 
 
 In fine, it was not by any movement of systematic 
 national education that popular knowledge of the Bible 
 was increased during the sixteenth century, but by the 
 response of religious leaders to the revival of the people's 
 hunger for the Word of God. I say the revival, for the 
 spirit of LoUardism was only apparently dead. And 
 when once the quarrel of Henry VIII. with the Pope 
 incidentally opened the ports to Tyndale's Bible, the good 
 seed fell on prepared ground. For though the first 
 edition of that great work was bought up and burned by 
 ecclesiastical authority in Antwerp, it had been available 
 during three years for pious smugglers before that fate 
 befell it in 1529. And before the martyrdom of its heroic 
 author in 1536, some ten or twelve new editions had 
 been issued. It is matter of history that this version of 
 Tyndale's attracted very keen interest. There is probably 
 no exaggeration in the description given by an old writer 
 who declares that this interest was by no means confined 
 to " the learned, and those that were noted as lovers of 
 the Reformation," but was general " all England over, 
 among all the vulgar and common people." "With 
 what greediness the Word of God was read, and what 
 resort to places where the reading of it was ! Everybody 
 that could bought the Book, or busily read it, or got 
 others to read it if they could not themselves ; and divers 
 more elderly people learned (to read) on purpose ; and 
 even little boys flocked among the rest to hear portions of 
 the Holy Scriptures read." 
 
52 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 This is just what might naturally be expected in a 
 country where, in the ashes of LoUardism, many sparks of 
 its fire remained, in an age when all Europe watched with 
 passionate interest the progress of the Lutheran revolt 
 from the Pope, and in a time when there were scarcely 
 any books available for the people, and absolutely not one 
 to vie with an English Bible in its appeal to the deepest 
 springs of hope, joy, and fear in the common man. Still, 
 the words quoted above sufficiently indicate how much 
 more limited was popular access to the Bible than it is in 
 our own day. It was more by hearing than by reading 
 for themselves that the vast majority became acquainted 
 with the Book. Before King Henry had advanced so far 
 as to authorise, though not to compel, the ecclesiastical use 
 of Coverdale's revision of Tyndale, meetings or con- 
 venticles for the purpose of Bible-reading were at least 
 connived at by Bishops and magistrates. And when at 
 length the open Bible took its place in the public services 
 of the Church, it was regarded as the chief boon of the 
 reformed religion. It is true that Henry VIII., though 
 worldly wise enough to use a subservient Parliament as 
 his tool, gave his people the Bible, as he gave or took 
 from them everything else, with a matter-of-course 
 assumption of the embodiment of all power, whether 
 temporal or spiritual, in himself. But though he might 
 hand the Book to Cranmer, the people did not receive it 
 from the king ; they received it from the Church, and 
 were henceforward mainly indebted to the Church for 
 their knowledge of the Word. 
 
 A somewhat pathetic illustration of the difficulties 
 which countless poor people must have experienced at 
 that time in obtaining the Scriptures for themselves, is 
 afforded by the institution of chained Bibles, of which 
 
CHAINED BIBLES 53 
 
 relics have been from time to time reported in our own 
 days. Thus in the year 1855 the Times newspaper 
 reported the replacing in Canterbury Cathedral of a great 
 Bible that had certainly once been chained on a reading- 
 desk to which the public would appear to have had access. 
 The particular book is said to be a second edition of 
 Cranmer's Bible, and dated 1572. It was almost certainly 
 placed in position immediately on publication. Various 
 other chained Bibles have been reported during the last 
 twenty years by correspondents of Notes and Queries^ but 
 it is sufficient for my purpose to note the custom and its 
 implications. For plainly, if Bibles had been even half 
 as plentiful as they are now, no one would have thought 
 of putting up chained Bibles. Nor can we altogether 
 avoid the painful reflection that neither the sacredness of 
 the Book nor the sanctity of the place could make chain 
 and lock needless for safety. Yet in modern times 
 visitors and even loungers of all classes stray about our 
 magnificent cathedrals, where often volumes of no small 
 value lie on reading-desks or stalls apparently unguarded. 
 Perhaps there may be very exceptional cases of attempted 
 theft, though one does not see them reported, and indeed 
 they must be so rare that no one expects them. What 
 is the reason of this difference between our generation 
 and that of the chained Bibles } Is it that the open Bible 
 
 1 The Bible was not the only book treated in this fashion, for a 
 correspondent writing to Notes and Queries (7th series), Nov. 27, 1886, 
 reports a little library of chained books in the Lady Chapel of Wooton 
 Wawen Parish Church, Warwickshire. In fact, it was an ancient "free 
 library" for the parishioners, though, of course, it was limited to religious 
 literature. It is curious to note that Calvin's Institutes in English is 
 mentioned amongst the collection. There is also a well-known chained 
 hbrary, still preserved, in Wimborne Minster. It has survived many 
 changes, but the arrangement of the books and of the chains is almost 
 certainly what it was of old. 
 
54 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 has made us so much more honest ? One would like to 
 think so if the police reports would allow us. Or is it 
 that a great Bible in the former age commanded so high 
 a price that it was well worth stealing ? The contemptible 
 and villainous thefts of rare illustrations or other precious 
 pages from priceless books in the British Museum and 
 other great libraries unfortunately sway the balance 
 towards the latter view. 
 
 But, returning to our proper subject, 1 observe once 
 more that our information about the Bible in the sixteenth 
 century clearly suggests that amongst the vast majority 
 of the population such knowledge of the Scriptures as 
 they possessed came by hearing rather than by reading. 
 This is the impression made upon me by the sort of 
 Bible knowledge expected by Shakespeare in the hearers 
 of his plays. That he was himself at least as well versed 
 in sacred story as in translations of Plutarch there is 
 no reason whatever to doubt. Born at the beginning 
 of Elizabeth's reign, amid the echoes of the Coverdale- 
 Tyndale Bible, he grew up under the predominance of 
 the Cranmer and Geneva Bibles, and during the last five 
 years of his life must have heard our familiar Authorised 
 Version read in Stratford-on-Avon Church. The word 
 " Bible," however, does not once occur in his plays or 
 poems.^ And this not at all because he thought allusion 
 to anything so sacred to be inappropriate in a playwright 
 or poet of love, for in Othello he puts into the foul 
 mouth of lago the words : 
 
 " Trifles light as air 
 Are to the jealous confirmation strong 
 As proofs of holy writ." 
 
 1 One's own observation is confirmed by the Concordance of Mary 
 Cowden Clarke. 
 
SHAKESPEARE AND THE BIBLE SS 
 
 And in the Merchant of Venice^ Antonio, after Shylock's 
 gloating recital of Jacob's sharp practice in the sheep- 
 folds, observes impatiently : 
 
 " Mark you this, Bassanio ; 
 The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose. 
 An evil soul producing holy witness 
 Is like a villain w^ith a smiling cheek j 
 A goodly apple rotten at the heart. 
 O what a goodly outside falsehood hath ! " 
 
 Now to the modern Bible reader there does not seem to 
 be in the story of Jacob's sheep dealings any such mani- 
 fest sanctity as to justify the almost passionate repugnance 
 of Antonio to hearing it quoted by a money-lending 
 Jew. But then it belonged to " holy writ," which was 
 in the mind of the poet and his contemporaries sanctified, 
 not so much by personal or domestic reading, as by the 
 solemnities of public worship, or, in other words, by the 
 authority of the Church. 
 
 As a worshipper at Stratford-on-Avon and in London, 
 Shakespeare had witnessed more rapid alternations of out- 
 ward ritual than any preceding generation had ever seen. 
 But both Catholic and Protestant ecclesiastics had, through 
 all such changes, upheld the traditional awe which 
 hallowed the Bible as the very voice of God. For if it 
 be said, as we shall presently have to admit, that when 
 Papal Rome had sway, the Bible — with certain exceptions 
 — was withheld from the laity, the answer is that this 
 was not from any want of reverence for the Word, but 
 rather from excess of reverence corrupted to idolatry, the 
 same sort of fetishistic superstition, in fact, which in the 
 Mass withheld the cup from laymen, because it was too 
 divine a thing to be touched except by consecrated lips. 
 
S6 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 Now, though early Protestants were not generally aware 
 of it, the Lutheran, Zwinglian, and Calvinistic waves of 
 popular impulse were generated to a considerable extent 
 by a humanistic feeling which, though it was hardly yet 
 an "enthusiasm of humanity," began to be impatient of 
 mere priestcraft. The ultimate developments of this 
 humanism were, of course, far out of sight, and inconceiv- 
 able — as, indeed, they are even yet to the majority of 
 Christians. Meanwhile, the same humanistic feeling 
 which gave the cup to the laity unveiled to them also 
 the Bible. 
 
 But this humanistic feeling worked through the Re- 
 formed Church ; and the newly granted laymen's privilege 
 of access to the Bible was enjoyed mainly in the Church 
 services. Thus " holy writ " was a sacred deposit, 
 entrusted of old to the Church, but now in the latter 
 days communicated by her to the whole people of 
 Christ. Accordingly the references of Shakespeare to 
 the Bible suggest much more an oral acquaintance with 
 it than the personal intimacy apparent in T/ie Cottar s 
 Saturday Night} The grave-digger in Hamlet^ arguing 
 with his mate about Adam, as " the first that ever bore 
 arms," exclaims " What ! art a heathen ? How dost 
 thou understand the Scripture ? The Scripture says 
 
 ^ "As a rule his (Shakespeare's) use of scriptural phraseology, as of 
 scriptural history, suggests youthful reminiscence and the assimilative 
 tendency of the mind in an early stage of development, rather than close 
 and continuous study of the Bible in adult life" {A Life of William 
 Shakespeare, by Sidney Lee, 2nd ed., p. 17). The Right Reverend 
 Charles Wordsworth, Bishop of St Andrews, in his work on Shakspeare's 
 Knowledge and Use of the Bible, was too anxious to make the poet a 
 devout son of the Church. Most of the Bishop's quotations, though, of 
 course, with noble exceptions, are of a piece with what he solemnly gives 
 us from Jaques, in As Yoii Like It, " I'll go sleep if I can ; and if I 
 cannot, I'll rail against all the first-born of Egypt." 
 
ORAL KNOWLEDGE OF THE BIBLE 57 
 
 Adam digged : could he dig without arms ? '* Now 
 this is a purely inferential interpretation of the sacred 
 text. For there is nothing in Genesis about Adam 
 " digging." It is written that he was put in the garden 
 " to dress and to keep it," and it may safely be inferred 
 from this that he " digged." But this is just such an 
 inferential interpretation as might naturally occur to 
 uncultivated hearers of the Word, who were not much in 
 the habit of reading it with their own eyes. Indeed, 
 one cannot help thinking that the honest grave-digger was 
 mingling with holy writ a rhyme much older than his day : 
 
 " Whan Adam dalfe and Eve spane, 
 Whare was than the pride of man ? " ^ 
 
 Nor does it seem that any scriptural references made by 
 the great poet are more suggestive of private reading 
 than of public hearing. The sacred name " Jesus " occurs 
 only once with the final s. Ordinarily it appears as " Jesu," 
 and once as " Jesu Maria." This latter recurrence to 
 Catholic usage may very well have been suggested by 
 the historic sense in which Shakespeare was not wanting, 
 notwithstanding his violent anachronisms. At the same 
 time, it is noteworthy that in the latest days of Elizabeth 
 it was considered safe to introduce a distinctly Roman 
 Catholic title of Christ. But a considerable proportion 
 of the first hearers of Romeo and Juliet had, no doubt, in 
 their earliest days used this form in their personal 
 devotions while hearing Mass under Mary. And the 
 same may be said of the constant preference of the 
 vocative form " Jesu " rather than " Jesus." It was the 
 
 ^ Quoted in the New English Dictionary, s.v. " Delve," from a MS. 
 assigned to A.D. 1340. The more modern form of the couplet changes 
 the strong preterite "dalfe" to the weak form "delved," and for the 
 second line substitutes " Who was then the gentleman ? " 
 
58 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 form habitually used in the services of the ancient 
 Church, and it was perhaps not very easily displaced in 
 the prayers of the people. One other allusion is still 
 more suggestive of the constancy with which the Church 
 services were in the mind of the poet. The unfortunate 
 King Richard 11., at the moment before resigning his 
 crown to Bolingbroke, cries : 
 
 " God save the King ! Will no man say Amen ? 
 Am I both priest and clerk ? ^ Well then, amen." 
 
 On the whole, then, we may fairly conclude that 
 Shakespeare's references to holy writ imply a Bible- 
 hearing rather than a Bible-reading generation. For 
 while causes mentioned above made any universal pos- 
 session of the Scriptures impossible, all were, by law, 
 compelled to attend their parish church. 
 
 But even granting that during the sixteenth century 
 English knowledge of the Bible was chiefly oral and de- 
 rived through Church services, our ancestors of that age 
 were, in this respect, very much better off than the vast 
 majority of their Continental fellow-Christians. For the 
 Reformation movement in France, Italy, Switzerland, and 
 even in Germany, can scarcely be said to have ever laid 
 hold of the soul of a people with such thoroughness of 
 penetration as it did in England and Scotland. The 
 Germans, of course, have as keen a sentiment about re- 
 ligious ideals as they have about poetry or patriotism. 
 But the Reformation did not turn every earnest believer 
 into a theologian as it did in Britain ; nor did it beget 
 
 ^ There is no anachronism here. We are not to ihinkof the eighteenth- 
 century clerk on the lowest stage of a " three-decker." Responses were 
 necessary in many Catholic services, where a responding congregation 
 could not be relied on. Such responses were repeated by a " clerk," who 
 might have other duties as well. 
 
THE BIBLE IN EUROPE 59 
 
 that love for doctrinal controversy, as a joy in itself, so 
 characteristic of the Puritan and Presbyterian temper at 
 home. So that Luther's vigorous version, roughly speaK- 
 ing contemporary with Tyndale's, did not find a middle 
 class and peasantry so eager for weapons of theological 
 strife as did the latter. For it should not be forgotten 
 that, while earlier German translations of the Bible had 
 been made, none of them had anything like the power 
 over the people at large which was wielded by WycliiFe's 
 version, or WycliiFe's poor preachers. 
 
 The interest excited in recent times among the religious 
 public of England by pre-Reformation literature, by the 
 sermons of Tauler^ and the story of the Mystics, and 
 " the Friends of God," has led to an exaggerated idea of 
 the extent to which the masses of the people in Europe 
 before the Reformation were leavened with religious feel- 
 ing in the form of individual conviction or aspiration. 
 But surely the congregations that thronged to hear Tauler 
 preach, vast though they might appear to his enthusiastic 
 disciples, could not constitute one-thousandth part of the 
 population of Central Europe. And the intense earnest- 
 ness of aspiration, combined with an approximation — 
 though only an approximation — to pantheistic insight, in 
 the Theologica Germanka^ suggests the existence of 
 
 1 It is surely noteworthy that in the Golden A B C^ which Tauler's 
 instructor gave him to study, the only reference, if such it can be called, 
 to Scripture, is " Christ our Blessed Lord's life and death shall ye follow, 
 and wholly conform yourself thereunto with all your might." But this 
 may obviously have referred to the tradition of the Church, together with 
 the gospel readings in the Mass. Imagine a modern Protestant teacher 
 giving to a disciple a religious "Alphabet" in which there should have 
 been no reference, other than these doubtful words, to the diligent study 
 of the Bible ! 
 
 2 The best opinions seem to be strongly against ,the attribution of that 
 remarkable book to Tauler. 
 
6o MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 small coteries of esoteric believers rather than any com- 
 prehensive wave of popular zeal. And though of course 
 Luther's version of the Bible, when it afterwards appeared, 
 was eagerly sought after by all anti-papal men and women 
 who could read, these could not be anything like a majority 
 of the German population. Indeed, certain terrible features 
 of the Anabaptist uprising and the Peasant Revolt show 
 that political and social wrongs, much more than any re- 
 ligious convictions, were the cause of those horrors. 
 Whatever view may be taken of the political aims of the 
 British Puritans, the tendency of impartial scholarly 
 opinion, conspicuously represented by the late Dr S. R. 
 Gardiner, has been toward a favourable judgment on the 
 moral tone of the Cromwellian armies, and their modera- 
 tion in the use of the laws of war then prevalent.^ But 
 it is questionable whether Oliver could in any Continental 
 country have recruited 20,000 or 30,000 men who, in 
 his sense of the words, " had the fear of God before them, 
 and made some conscience of what they did." Certainly 
 it would have been impossible anywhere but in Britain to 
 collect a warrior host of whom every man was as ready to 
 expound the Bible in his left hand as to wield the sword 
 in his right. 
 
 It is scarcely probable that in the nineteenth century 
 the Bible was less widely distributed among the people of 
 Europe than in the fifteenth, sixteenth, or seventeenth 
 centuries. But on inquiry being made by the British 
 and Foreign Bible Society, early in the course of its opera- 
 tions, the dearth of Bibles on the Continent was considered 
 appalling. Thus it was found that in Lithuania, 18,000 
 German families were without a Bible, as also 7800 Polish 
 
 ^ The slaughter at Wexford and Drogheda was exceptional, and 
 evidently haunted Cromwell's conscience. 
 
THE BIBLE IN MUNSTER 6i 
 
 and 7000 Lithuanian families. One-half of the popula- 
 tion of Holland was said to be without the Scriptures. 
 In the district of Dorpat (Esthonia) containing 106,000 
 inhabitants, not 200 Testaments were to be found : and 
 there were Christian pastors who, content with their 
 knowledge of the original, did not possess the Bible in 
 the vernacular which they used in preaching.^ If this 
 was the case in the nineteenth century, what must have 
 been the scarcity in the sixteenth ! 
 
 The Bible carried through the streets of Milnster 
 before John Bockholdt, the insane claimant to the throne 
 of David, was merely a fetish, from which people 
 driven mad by oppression expected the same sort of 
 salvation as the African savage expects from his blood- 
 smeared idol. Matthias, a fanatic of heroic mould, knew 
 the story of Gideon, and lost his life apparently through 
 his confidence that a renewal of the exploit related therein 
 only required sufficient faith. But it is doubtful whether 
 he or Bockholdt could read ; and the probability is that 
 the parts of Scripture which they subjected to such 
 amazing misconstruction, were known to them only 
 orally through the readings in their religious services — 
 if such the ceremonies can be called which so rapidly 
 degenerated into orgies. While as to the wild multi- 
 tudes who poured into Mtlnster with the idea that the 
 kingdom of heaven was at hand, their knowledge must 
 have been confined to mere catchwords and phrases that 
 had been transformed into the incantations of diseased 
 brains. 
 
 Perhaps it may be said with some justice that this 
 
 1 See Encyclo. Brit.^ 9th edition, s.v. "Bible." I have reason to 
 believe that the particulars above quoted were confirmed by the 
 Society. 
 
62 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 sudden madness was a Nemesis on the obscurantist policy 
 of the Catholic Church of the Middle Ages, in withhold- 
 ing from the multitude a Book that stored up the 
 spiritual experience of ages ; which counselled patience, 
 and rebuked all rash anticipations of God's purpose. 
 " Woe unto them .... that say. Let him make 
 speed and hasten his work, that we may see it ; and let 
 the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw nigh and 
 come, that we may know it ! " The benevolent advocates 
 of the Bible for the people have been perfectly justified 
 in claiming for the Book a power of inspiring common 
 men with moral ideals. But it is always implied that the 
 attainment of those ideals is subject to a divine order, 
 and that " patience " must " have her perfect work." Nor 
 does it require any belief in the supernatural origin of 
 the Bible to justify the opinion that the comparative 
 order and moderation of the Puritan revolution in 
 England was owing, at least in some measure, to the fact 
 that, whether by hearing or by reading, a larger proportion 
 of the population was familiar with the Scriptures than 
 could be the case elsewhere. Yet, as already remarked, 
 the veto of the Catholic Church upon the free use of the 
 Bible by the laity originated not in any ecclesiastical 
 irreverence for " God's word written," but much more in 
 an exaggerated and superstitious awe. For that Word 
 was held to be too holy and divine a thing to be handled 
 by the profane mob. It is indeed possible, or even 
 probable, that this superstitious awe was intensified 
 by experience of the heretical tendencies of Bible 
 readers. But ecclesiastics anxious for the purity of 
 the faith might plead scriptural precedent for caution 
 in entrusting to the " unlearned and unstable " a 
 Book that contained things " hard to be understood " 
 
HEROISM OF EARLY BIBLE PREACHERS 6^ 
 
 and liable to be wrested to the destruction of the 
 readers.^ 
 
 This was the attitude of the Church in the Middle 
 Ages toward the Bible and the people ; and there is no 
 more conspicuous proof of the courage and faith of 
 WyclifFe and his followers than the daring with which 
 they confronted this ban. Their perils are best under- 
 stood by some frank confessions of the more timid 
 among them. " Brother," wrote one such in answer to 
 a request for a plainer exposition of God's word to the 
 simple, " I knowe wel that I am holde(n) by Cryste's 
 la we to performe thyn axinge, bote notheless we beth^ now 
 so far yfallen awey from Criste's lawe, that if I wolde 
 answere to thyn axingus^ I moste in cas vnderfonge the 
 deth* ; and thu wost^ wel that a man is yholden^ to kepe 
 his lyf as longe as he may. And perawnter^ it is spedfuP 
 to holden oure pes^ awhile, tyl that God foucheth saf^° 
 that his wille be yknowe."^^ 
 
 Under such circumstances, nothing but the imperious 
 voice of God within the soul could inspire mortal man to 
 confront falsehood incarnated in worldly power. Now 
 in the fourteenth century this inspiration was felt more 
 keenly in England than in any other part of Christendom. 
 On the continent of Europe, indeed, there were reformers 
 before the Reformation, and their devotional utterances, 
 their aspirations, and even their mystical speculations, 
 
 1 2 Peter iii. i6. By the Council of Toulouse (1229) "no layman was 
 permitted to have any book of the Old or New Testament, especially in 
 a translation, unless perhaps a Psalter" (Milman's Latin Christianity ^ 
 iv., p. 239). 
 
 ^ Are. 2 Askings. ^ I must run the risk of death. 
 
 ^ Wottest, knowest. ^ Bound. ^ Peradventure. 
 
 ^ Expedient. ^ Peace. ^^ Vouchsafeth. 
 
 " Quoted by Forshall and Madden in their preface to Wyclifife's Bible, 
 p. XV. 
 
64 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 have profound interest. But the practical moral power 
 that shakes spiritual wickedness in high places, was at 
 that time reaHsed most conspicuously by Wycliffe and 
 his preachers to the poor. What, then, was the occasion 
 of this distinction ? The inevitable answer is that here 
 were brought most obviously and closely into co-operation 
 the open Bible and the prophetic voice. 
 
 Yet such an explanation does not in the least assume 
 that miracle or revelation triumphed over natural law. 
 And a right understanding of what really did occur is 
 of much importance to a just appreciation of the true 
 relations between man and the Bible. The Church at 
 that time had fallen into a condition of moral degradation 
 scarcely to be paralleled even in the clouded history of 
 her past. For so far was she then from representing 
 and maintaining the spiritual or moral ideals of the 
 Gospels and the ethical exhortations in the Epistles, that 
 she suspected, rebuked, and punished every slightest 
 movement among priesthood or laity toward a higher 
 life than that of passive obedience and correct ceremonial. 
 Whence, then, did Wycliffe and his followers derive the 
 light and the power which made them pioneers — I will 
 not say of Luther and Calvin, but rather — of the spiritual 
 emancipation dawning now ? Surely they were stimulated 
 to a larger faith by the amazing contrast between the 
 words of the Lord Jesus as interpreted by the ethics of 
 St Paul, and, on the other hand, the worldly wisdom 
 of the Church. 
 
 Of course we are not to forget the subsidiary causes 
 which helped the purely moral revolt. For bitter political 
 discontent was caused by the greed of Rome, and by the 
 alienation of national resources to private advantage, 
 an alienation so grandly denounced in death by 
 
THE WYCLIFFE MOVEMENT 65 
 
 Shakespeare's John of Gaunt. But this only gave the 
 opportunity to the prophet, and could not kindle his 
 sacred fire. The terrible gloom of the Black Death, 
 which seemed to herald the Judgment Day, must indeed 
 have brought the people face to face with " the powers 
 of the world to come." But unvarying experience proves 
 that such horrors drive men only to more assiduous 
 fetishism. They do not, except in rare instances of 
 solitary souls, already enlightened, awaken men to higher 
 thoughts of destiny and God. Whatever, then, may have 
 been the effect of that horrible pestilence upon WyclifFe,^ 
 who was still a youth when the plague swept away nearly 
 half the people of the land, it was, in itself, much more 
 likely to drive men into the arms of heaven's alleged vice- 
 gerents, than to awaken them to a more spiritual faith.^ 
 Still, the rebellion of the Barons against the exactions of 
 the Papacy, and the moral degradation of the Church, 
 did offer to a man like Wycliffe a favourable opportunity 
 for turning the resentment of the people to the exaltation 
 of their spiritual life. His popularisation of the New 
 Testament, and his direct appeal to it, had three beneficial 
 effects. First, it showed that the exaggerated ceremonial 
 and hierarchical pretensions of the contemporary Church 
 had no justification in the primitive Church records. 
 Secondly, it awakened the unlearned to the fact that 
 Jesus and his Apostles taught the immediate sovereignty 
 of God over each soul, without any intervention of the 
 priest. And finally, it displayed to the conscience a 
 religious morahty, not only inconsistent, but totally 
 
 ^ Forshall and Madden suggest the plague as a reason why Wydiffe's 
 first effort to popularise Scripture dealt with the Book of Revelation. 
 
 2 The recent earthquake in Sicily affords a painful confirmation of the 
 above. For, according to eye-witnesses, the influence of unreasoning 
 terror has driven the poor survivors to renewed zeal for superstitious rites. 
 
 5 
 
66 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 incommensurable, with the example and teachings of the 
 Church. 
 
 Herein, surely, lay an immense difference between the 
 proposed, but unaccomplished, reforms of Wycliffe and 
 the inferior, though realised, work of Luther. For the 
 controversial athlete of Erfurt concentrated almost all 
 his dogged force on the rescue and maintenance of one 
 Pauline doctrine, justification by faith, while he was 
 blind to the incongruity with spiritual religion of a 
 fetishistic interpretation of the Lord's Supper.-^ Thus, 
 " hoc est corpus meum " was, to him, a fixed bound, not less 
 impassable to his thought than the angles of the pentagram 
 to Mephistopheles. Very different was the position of 
 Wycliffe, though the difference is manifest in spirit, 
 temper, and outlook rather than in creed. His open and 
 express repudiation of the physical miracle supposed to be 
 wrought in every Mass, was indeed a significant diver- 
 gence as well from the obstinate opinion of Luther as 
 from contemporary belief. Otherwise the opinions of 
 Wycliffe on the supremacy of Scripture and the con- 
 ditions of salvation agreed generally with the Lutheran 
 creed of the future. But though Wycliffe followed St 
 Paul in teaching the value of faith, he certainly did not 
 give to the doctrine of justification by faith alone the 
 disproportionate place afterwards assigned to it. His 
 sense of the value of the Bible seems to have been both 
 wider and more spiritual than that of the German 
 reformer. For it was not to him a repertory of magic 
 spells insuring deliverance from Satan or hell, it was 
 rather a fountain of living water distinguished from all 
 
 1 I do not forget the innumerable names of real saints that may be 
 arrayed against this observation. But it was not the only remnant of 
 fetishism which they transmuted by the glamour of unreasoning faith, 
 
EFFECT ON THE COMMON PEOPLE 67 
 
 the broken cisterns of secular lore by its refreshing and 
 inspiring power. 
 
 If we could but realise for ourselves the mental and 
 spiritual condition of the nameless multitude in that 
 gloomy age, their oppressions by Crown and Church, their 
 life of earthly terror and dread of coming judgment, their 
 intellectual destitution, their squalid lives, relieved only 
 by occasional echoes of heaven in the Church services, — 
 we should be able to understand how WyclifFe's tracts and 
 his English New Testament, illumined by the fervour of 
 his preachers, awoke in them visions of a new world. 
 
 Langland's Piers Plowman had already stirred them. 
 Chaucer was in his prime ; and his merry lines about 
 pardoners and abbots were, no doubt, recited by the 
 few who could read to the many who could not. So, 
 when blessings on the poor, and on the hunger for right 
 and on love and brotherhood fell in full melody of 
 English words from the pages of the New Testament on 
 the ears strained to hear the Sovereign of the soul, the 
 common people, as of old, heard gladly. For those 
 words were felt to have an authority dependent on neither 
 priest nor king. 
 
 How far the Miracle plays of the fourteenth and 
 perhaps the thirteenth centuries may have helped the 
 work of WyclifFe by familiarising an unschooled multi- 
 tude with at least the chief events of Bible story, it is 
 difficult to judge. At least they were popular, and were 
 performed by travelling players, for whose arrival each 
 town or village was prepared by such rude modes of 
 advertisement as were then in vogue. " The intended 
 exhibition," says Edward Clodd, in a series of papers 
 showing much research,^ "was announced by proclamation 
 * Printed in Knowledge^ 1885. 
 
68 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 or hane — a word retained in our * marriage banns ' — made 
 by three heralds with sound of trumpet." The authors 
 of the homely doggerel which formed the text of these 
 plays were not at any pains to quote or adapt the very 
 words of Scripture, though here and there, of course, a 
 phrase or two was made available. Of possible edifica- 
 tion little can be said ; for, obviously, the main purpose 
 was amusement. Wycliffe complained that the Devil 
 was the most popular impersonation,^ and occasionally 
 some of the plays degenerated into downright buffoonery. 
 But for all that, it is likely enough that these Miracle 
 plays helped to familiarise the untaught many with 
 Scripture story, and to form that Bible habit of which 
 Wycliffe and succeeding popular teachers availed them- 
 selves in their efforts to teach higher truth. 
 
 Mt is noteworthy that on a grander scale, and in purer forms ot 
 imagination, the same thing remains true, as in Paradise Lost and Faust. 
 
 The absence of any reference to the work of Dr James Gairdner, C.B., 
 on Lollardy a?id the Reformation in England^ is explained by the fact 
 that the whole of my book was written, and the greater part printed, 
 before I had the advantage of consulting that scholarly and instructive 
 treatise. If I had seen Dr Gairdner's book soon enough I should have 
 discussed some of the points he raises. But I cannot say that I should 
 have made any alterations of consequence. His criticisms of the in- 
 accuracies of Foxe, the Martyrologist, appear to be well grounded. But 
 they are such as to be quite consistent with Dr Gairdner's own generous 
 acknowledgment of that enthusiast's sincerity. Though the learned 
 writer seems disposed in some of his pages to minimise the effect of 
 the Lollard tradition in the English Reformation, I am quite satisfied 
 with the paragraph on p. 328 (Book II. chap, ii.), where the revival of 
 Lollardy by the publication of Tyndale's New Testament is acknowledged. 
 I need scarcely add that I cannot attach to Church law and order the 
 predominant importance which this distinguished writer does. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE BIBLE IN THE LATER MIDDLE AGE 
 
 When in our backward survey we reach the thirteenth 
 century, we enter on the age of the preaching friars, whose 
 novel methods were evoked by the alarming spread of 
 heresy over the south of France, and across the Alps, in 
 an audacious advance toward Rome itself. For nearly 
 900 years — ever since the imperial decree subjecting 
 Hilarius, Archbishop of Aries, to the spiritual supremacy 
 of Rome — the Gallic provinces out of which modern 
 France was gradually evolved had, notwithstanding some 
 efforts to assert a national Christianity, generally acknow- 
 ledged the claim of the Popes to inherit the supposed 
 primacy of St Peter. The adhesion of the Franks under 
 Clovis to the Catholic Church ensured the expulsion of 
 Arianism from the region of their conquests, and gave 
 to orthodoxy in the future France a preponderance which 
 was, on the whole, steadfastly maintained until the Revolu- 
 tion. But one of the incidental results of the Crusades, a 
 freer intercourse between East and West, had introduced 
 into Southern France and Savoy many survivors of a 
 persecuted sect originally domiciled on the borders of 
 Armenia, but afterwards transferred by imperial policy to 
 
 Bulgaria, whence they found their way to Western lands. 
 
 69 
 
70 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 This sect was that of the Paulicians, of whom Gibbon 
 in his great history gives a rapid but vivid sketch. The 
 substantial accuracy of that sketch has been generally 
 acknowledged by competent judges in more recent times. 
 My purpose, however, does not require me to repeat that 
 story at any length, but only to note such incidents as 
 illustrate the relations of Man and the Bible at certain 
 crises in the history of the sect. Thus I postpone until 
 our retrospect reaches the ninth century, such slight 
 examination as space permits of Gibbon's authorities, and 
 must content myself here with premising my conviction 
 that the Albigenses and Waldenses who, in the twelfth 
 and thirteenth centuries appealed from Rome to the New 
 Testament, were the spiritual successors of the Paulicians. 
 The latter, at the time of their origin, appear to have 
 possessed only a part of the sacred books. But their 
 appeal from the Church of their day was practically the 
 same. It is also noteworthy that both the older and 
 the later sect were stigmatised by their opponents as 
 Manichaeans.^ 
 
 A discussion of Manichceism scarcely comes within the scope of this 
 work, but I should fail to interest readers whom I am very anxious to 
 reach if I did not give here some explanation of the term. The foolish 
 zeal of the orthodox in the destruction of heretical books has left the origin 
 of the sect in much obscurity. It is difficult to believe that the name 
 Mane, from which it is derived, ever belonged to an individual man. It 
 is certainly of Persian origin, and probably akin to the word " Mene," or 
 rather " Mane," in the writing on the wall of Belshazzar's palace. True, 
 the first syllable had only a semi-vowel in the Aramaic text ; but in the 
 Septuagint and in other Greek renderings it is navn. The root significance 
 seems to be "number" or "measurement" or "enumeration." I can 
 conceive that the name might be very naturally applied to a school of 
 mystic philosophy, derived from the Magians, and brooding in obscurity, 
 until after the Christian era it attached itself like a foreign parasite to a 
 spiritual organism which could never have given it birth. The main 
 principle of Manichaeism was akin to, though not identical with, the 
 doctrine of Zoroaster concerning light and darkness. These two opposing 
 
THE ALBIGENSES 71 
 
 The name Albigenses, by which the French anti- 
 sacerdotalists of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries are 
 generally distinguished, is of territorial origin.^ For the 
 district around Alby (or Albi) had once been known as 
 the Albigensian region, and with this country they were 
 popularly associated. But in other districts and in 
 Savoy they were known by several other names, such as 
 Cathari (Puritans), Paterini (a name of uncertain meaning), 
 Tisserands (as being of the working class and largely 
 weavers) ; in later times, Vaudois (from the place of their 
 refuge). The religious movement of the Waldenses in 
 the latter part of the twelfth century was apparently 
 continuous with that of the Albigenses, though the name 
 was derived from a personal leader. From a survey of 
 the whole facts, it seems the most obvious conclusion 
 
 powers were alike eternal. All matter belonged to the kingdom of dark- 
 ness. The power of light was the spiritual god who could not come into 
 contact with matter. By some obscure complications, which one need 
 not even try to understand, the realm of darkness encroached on the 
 realm of light. Hence all the miseries of human history. There could 
 be no salvation but by complete emancipation from matter. When 
 Manichaeism affixed itself to Christianity, it inevitably mutilated the 
 Apostolic Creed. Thus it relegated the Old Testament dispensation to 
 the realm of darkness, and to the " Demiurgus," by whose inspiration the 
 bloody sacrifices, crimes, and massacres of old Jewish times were caused. 
 The divine Father of Jesus was the spiritual God of the realm of light. 
 But the Christ, the Word, the Emanation from the spiritual God, was 
 never contaminated by a " virgin birth " or union with flesh and blood. 
 Nevertheless the human Jesus served to manifest the Word or Emanation. 
 But only those followed him truly who sought emancipation from matter, 
 who abstained from marriage, and who practised certain other doctrines 
 of asceticism. The orthodox accusations of entirely opposite practices may 
 be true, or partly true. We cannot tell. But the above is the general 
 theory of Manichaeism, as far as it can be gathered from a welter of 
 obscurities and contradictions. 
 
 1 The opinion of Mosheim, that the name is derived from the Council of 
 Alby, held for the purpose of condemning them, can hardly be sustained 
 even by his authority. Can we imagine the Hussites being called Con- 
 stantians from the Council of Constance t 
 
72 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 that all these names were attached to different phases 
 or different local manifestations of the same spiritual 
 rebellion against hierarchical authority in favour of 
 recurrence to a more primitive tradition, or, where 
 possible, to the actual recorded words of Jesus and his 
 first disciples. Nor should I be at all incHned to dispute 
 the theory that these protesters against sacerdotalism were 
 in various degrees, at some crises, moved by an awful 
 sense of direct personal access to the one eternal source 
 of inspiration in the very life of God. Of this conscious- 
 ness various explanations may be given by different 
 schools of thought. But that it was real to the persons 
 affected, and often productive of unselfish devotion and 
 fruitful heroism, there can be no doubt.^ 
 
 Out of all these forms of one movement I select 
 the Waldenses for brief attention, because their story 
 illustrates best the place of the Bible in such spiritual 
 uprisings. In their case only are we allowed to know 
 any particulars as to the modes in which ignorant and 
 unlearned men " obtained access to the Scriptures which 
 the Church was now guarding with the jealousy of fear." 
 But about the origin of the special Waldensian movement 
 our information seems good. Peter Waldo, a rich 
 merchant of Lyons, who lived during the latter half of 
 the twelfth century, seems to have fallen in some way 
 under the influence of the revivalists from the East. 
 In his case it was spiritual regeneration that stimulated 
 his hunger for the Word of God, rather than Bible- 
 reading, which led to his conversion. At the same 
 time it is probable that what he heard from the revivalists 
 
 1 The anti-sacerdotal movement was not confined to Southern France. 
 In Northern France and Flanders it assumed wild forms, in some respects 
 anticipating the Anabaptist excesses of the sixteenth century. 
 
THE POOR MEN OF LYONS 73 
 
 was confirmed by so much as he could understand of the 
 words of Scripture embodied in Church ceremony. But 
 it seems certain that, rich though he was, no money 
 could procure him any existing vernacular translations of 
 the Bible. His only course was to pay a clerk in orders 
 to translate parts of the holy book for him. Thus he 
 succeeded in obtaining a version of the Psalms and of 
 the Gospels, perhaps also of other parts of the Old 
 Testament, in addition to the Psalms. 
 
 The presentation of such a priceless gift to his fellow- 
 believers gave him a position comparable to that of a rich, 
 pious, and liberal Nonconformist of the nineteenth 
 century in his own denomination. But, alas ! the cir- 
 cumstances were different. For his leadership, instead 
 of bringing him popularity, robbed his earthly life of all 
 ease. That he had the Gospel instinct of devotion to the 
 poor, is sufficiently shown by one of the names bestowed 
 on his followers, " The Poor Men of Lyons." And the 
 innocent audacity with which religion can inspire the poor 
 was shown by the appearance of two of his spiritual 
 brethren before the Pope in the Lateran Council, bearing 
 in their hands their fragmentary version of the Scriptures. 
 That they had no idea of " schism " is shown by their 
 plea for permission to preach the Gospel as they knew it 
 and felt it. Their knowledge of the Bible astonished 
 some ecclesiastics in the Council. But, needless to say, 
 the desired permission was refused. Prohibition, however, 
 did not daunt them, and they returned to continue 
 their mission. The Archbishop of Lyons then charged 
 them, on their allegiance to the Church, to discontinue 
 their work ; and in their own view they were thus 
 called upon to choose between eternal and temporary 
 law. But such men could have no hesitation ; and they 
 
74 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 were involved in the frightful persecution which inflicted 
 on the south of France more slaughter, rapine, and misery 
 than the hordes of Huns or the fanatics of Islam. 
 
 The authorities of the Church, however, regarded the 
 issue of the Scriptures in a vernacular translation as a 
 danger justifying precautions such as would have been 
 thought cruel and barbarous if employed only against 
 pestilence or famine. The Council of Toulouse in 1229 
 went so far as to prohibit to laymen even the possession 
 of the Vulgate version, but especially anathematised the 
 vernacular. An exception was indeed made in favour of 
 the Psalms, canticles, and glosses, to assist the illiterate 
 in following the Church services. Otherwise the posses- 
 sion of any portion of the Bible in the mother tongue of 
 the people was considered as presumptive proof of heresy. 
 And to make sure of the detection of this blight in its 
 first germs, the inhuman system of the Inquisition was at 
 this time elaborated in all its terrors. Its horrors, how- 
 ever, are no part of my story here. It is sufficient to 
 note that ecclesiastical experience of the power of the 
 Bible over simple souls appears to have been one of the 
 chief motives inciting a system of draconic repression, 
 shadowy espionage, exasperating tests, insidious traps, 
 cruel tortures, and savage punishment perhaps unrivalled, 
 certainly never surpassed, in all the history of religious 
 crime. 
 
 A more legitimate method of combating heresy was 
 conceived almost contemporaneously in Spain and in Italy 
 by Dominic and Francis of Assisi. They founded orders 
 of preaching friars, devoted to absolute poverty, and 
 living for no other end than to confirm the faithful and 
 to bring back wanderers from the fold. Innocent III. 
 showed more worldly wisdom than his predecessor, whom 
 
DOMINICANS AND FRANCISCANS 75 
 
 the Poor Men of Lyons had petitioned for permission to 
 preach, and the Papal sanction for the new orders was 
 obtained. Had the founders exerted their moral authority 
 to rebuke the unholy violence of their allies in the 
 crusade, their fame might have been spotless ; for we do 
 not judge men by their theological opinions now. But, 
 unfortunately, we are not able to credit either of them 
 with more than a superficial regret for what they regarded 
 as an imperious need for the secular arm. Indeed, in 
 the case of Dominic, we may doubt the existence even of 
 regret. It was on descending from the Pyrenees as 
 companion to a bishop on a political mission that Dominic 
 was appalled by the prevalence of so-called " Manichaeism " 
 in Provence. On the first night he is said to have 
 converted his heretic ho^t by legitimate argument. But 
 what interests us more is his appeal to the Bible. For, 
 though the story of it survives in the guise of a ridiculous 
 miracle, it may very well, like other miracles, be suggestive 
 of fact. It is said, then, that a schedule of Scripture proofs 
 jotted down by him for a particular conference, leaped out 
 of the fire where it had fallen or been thrown, while a 
 similar trial of the notes of his opponents reduced their 
 fallacies to ash. Thus it would appear that, even where 
 the secular arm was available for the defence of the faith, 
 appeal was first made to the Bible. But whether Scrip- 
 ture or reason was made the court of appeal, it was in 
 those days, as indeed it is often now, with the reservation 
 that only one verdict would be received. 
 
 The figure of St Francis of Assisi has a halo of brotherly 
 kindness and glorified humanity around it such that it 
 might seem almost a sacrilege to associate him with the 
 helHsh deeds of the Inquisition. But, though he certainly 
 did not take an equal part with Dominic in the organisa- 
 
76 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 tion of that horrible system, we have not, so far as I 
 know, any record of a protest on his part against it. At 
 the same time it must be conceded to him that he was as 
 ready to face persecution for himself as to acquiesce in its 
 infliction on others, which he showed by incursions alone 
 and unguarded into the strongholds of Islam. But, for 
 our purpose, it is most needful here to note that he seems 
 to have been as indiff^erent as Papias of old to written 
 records. That he had an unreasoning reverence for the 
 Bible is of course true ; this was shown by his use of 
 sortes evangelic^. But, like the first Quakers and modern 
 revivalists, he relied more on the living Word and the 
 actually present spirit of God. His indifference extended 
 even to Church service books. " I am your breviary," 
 he is said to have retorted on a follower who lamented 
 the absence of such aids to devotion. And at its first 
 inception his order is said to have had no book but the 
 cross. In fact, the Papal commission had made him, as 
 he supposed, a sort of incarnation of the traditions of the 
 Church from the days of St Peter to his own time. It 
 was this sacred deposit, rather than any creed or gospel, 
 that he was to guard against the assaults of heresy. And 
 with such a form of faith he may very well have acquiesced 
 in the decree of the Council of Toulouse. 
 
 We have now reached a point at which it may be well 
 to pause and note the immense difference between the 
 relations of the Bible to everyday life in the nineteenth 
 century and in the Middle Age. In both alike the Book 
 was regarded with awe as a revelation of God's will. 
 But in the nineteenth century it was the Book of the 
 people, accessible to the humblest, read by the otherwise 
 illiterate, known to every child, " familiar in their mouths 
 as household words." In the Middle Ages, on the other 
 
CHURCH VIEW OF BIBLE PROHIBITION 77 
 
 hand, it was the foundation charter of the Church, a 
 portion, and a portion only, of her treasured archives. 
 Like all documents of privilege, it was kept under special 
 guardianship, and only grudgingly shown to the few. To 
 the poor it was inaccessible, not only because of their 
 ignorance, but because of its price. Instead of being 
 scattered broadcast among the illiterate, it was scarcely 
 known even to educated laymen. And, indeed, from the 
 time when Hellenistic Greek in the East, and Latin in 
 the West, ceased to be the ordinary spoken languages of 
 the once Roman provinces, there were thousands of 
 priests who gabbled the services without understanding 
 them, and who were almost totally ignorant of the 
 Bible. 
 
 Yet before we unreservedly condemn the economy 
 with which the Church treated the Bible, we ought to 
 give due consideration to the corporate consciousness of 
 the Church and to the indisputable dangers of committing 
 the miscellaneous contents of the sacred literature to un- 
 guided use, or perhaps to inevitable misuse by an utterly 
 ignorant populace. As to the first point, it is too often 
 forgotten by ardent Protestants that the Catholic Church 
 has always accepted, in a more literal sense than they do, 
 the concluding words of St Matthew's Gospel : " Lo, I 
 am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." 
 To the Catholic, this does not mean any vague, im- 
 personal influence, nor even an emotional imagination of 
 a personal presence, apart from any corporeal manifesta- 
 tion or articulate expression. It means, rather, that the 
 very flesh and blood, vivified by the immortal spirit of 
 Jesus, are present on the altar after every due and rightful 
 consecration of the elements selected by the Lord him- 
 self for this great purpose. It means, moreover, that 
 
78 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 Jesus communicated to his apostles, and they to their 
 successors, such a measure of his spirit as enabled them 
 to develop his doctrine with full authority from him. 
 The Western half of the divided Church goes further still, 
 and insists that a primacy with special fulness of authority 
 was conferred by Christ upon St Peter, which primacy 
 and authority have been renewed to every successor of 
 the Prince of Apostles in the See of Rome. With the 
 truth or the falsehood of such views we have here noth- 
 ing to do. I only insist on the fact that such beliefs 
 prevailed in the Church of the Middle Ages. And this 
 is the corporate consciousness which is too often ignored 
 in Protestant criticisms of the Catholic attitude toward 
 the Bible in the middle centuries of our era. Surely, 
 if it is Christian to regard the above words from 
 St Matthew as fulfilled by a miraculous book and an 
 imagined but inarticulate spirit, the theory is not less 
 Christian, and many think not less rational, which sees 
 the fulfilment of the promise in a perpetually repeated 
 physical miracle, and in an infallible Church or Pope. 
 
 It was with a sense of this corporate consciousness that 
 Bail of Abbeville, in his introduction to his Summary of 
 All Councils^ discussed the question whether Scripture or 
 the Church is prior, in the sense of being the more 
 original authority. " Taking the name ' Church' broadly," 
 he says, " for the congregation of the servants of God, 
 the Church is, in true religion, the prior of the two. 
 
 1 Summa Consiliorujn (9w;«ww, published in Paris, 1775. It is open 
 to question whether " in vera religione " was intended to be taken with 
 "servientium Deo" or with "prior est." It is therefore, perhaps, best to 
 give the ipsissima verba, which run thus : *' sumpto latino Ecclesias nomine 
 pro congregatione servientium Deo in vera religione prior est Ecclesia ; 
 fuit enim hoc ante scripturam et ipsi Ecclesiae jamdudum existenti data 
 est Scriptura." 
 
THE IGNORANT NEED GUIDANCE 79 
 
 For she existed before the Scripture, and the Scripture 
 was given to the Church already in being." That these 
 words expressed what we may call the official doctrine 
 prevalent during the Middle Ages, there can be no doubt. 
 And this being so, the Church, whose lay members were, 
 to the extent of at least eight-tenths, unable to read, not 
 unnaturally thought that her duty was sufficiently dis- 
 charged if the treasures of Church consciousness and 
 tradition were imparted to the multitude by means of 
 public services and private ministrations. 
 
 In this conception of her duty the Church was con- 
 firmed by a prevalent and not unnatural fear that the 
 Bible was, in some respects, a dangerous book for the 
 ignorant layman. This fear did not altogether lack 
 scriptural support ; for St Peter was believed to have 
 written, concerning his " beloved brother PauFs " epistles, 
 that there were in them " some things hard to be under- 
 stood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, 
 as they do also the other scriptures^ unto their own destruc- 
 tion." Such words would undoubtedly appear to suggest 
 that no Scriptures whatever were quite safe for the un- 
 learned, without guidance. Again, when the Ethiopian 
 eunuch, deep in the prophecies of Isaiah, was asked by 
 the Evangelist Philip, " Understandest thou what thou 
 readest } " the obvious reply was, " How can I, except 
 some man should guide me ? " The Catholic Church, then, 
 thought that no disparagement of the Bible was involved 
 in the assumption that all laymen were in the position of 
 this apparently illiterate eunuch, and needed divinely 
 appointed teachers to guide them. Nor should it be 
 
 ^ We naturally suppose Bail to have had the New Testament in mind. 
 But his " broad " definition of the Church would, for him, no doubt, include 
 the Mosaic congregation before the law was written. 
 
8o MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 forgotten that the centre of gravity of the Christian faith, 
 as held from earliest times by Catholic believers, is not an 
 infallible Book, but an infallible Church. True, the Book 
 is infallible from the Catholic point of view, but it is 
 infallible only to those who understand it aright ; and 
 the office of the Church is to secure that right under- 
 standing. 
 
 Very different is the Protestant point of view. For, 
 according to this, the Bible is its own best interpreter ; 
 so much so, that if the Book be scattered broadcast 
 among Andaman Islanders, or Sioux Indians, provided 
 only they are taught to read, or someone reads it to them, 
 the plan of salvation must shine out from its pages. 
 For this view also scriptural support may be found, 
 though perhaps scarcely so clear as the passages quoted 
 on the other side. Thus, when one of the writers of 
 the Isaiah literature speaks of a " highway," a " way of 
 holiness," and assures us that the " wayfaring men, 
 though fools, shall not err therein," ^ he is supposed to 
 be referring to the plainness of the way of salvation as 
 set forth in the New Testament, whereas the true 
 meaning would appear to be that the way of Israel's 
 return from Babylon will be prepared and secured by 
 Israel's God Jahweh. 
 
 With more reason, when St Paul adapts to his own 
 purpose the words of the Deuteronomist concerning the 
 plainness of the Mosaic law,'^ he is supposed to be 
 insisting on the clearness of the Gospel to the simple 
 soul without any aid from Rabbi or priest. But then it 
 
 ^ Isa. XXXV. 8. The translation is given much otherwise by the learned, 
 as, e.g.^ by Canon Cheyne in the Polychrome Bible : "The unclean shall 
 not pass over it, and fools shall err elsewhere." 
 
 2 Rom. X. 8, 
 
DANGERS OF BIBLE READING 8i 
 
 is not the written but the oral Gospel of which he is 
 speaking — "the word of faith which we preach." Or, 
 again, the beautiful pictures sketched with the consummate 
 art of simplicity in the Synoptic narratives, where we see 
 the faces of toil-worn crowds brightened by the self- 
 evident truths of justice and love and hope, uttered by 
 the Galilean prophet in the searching tones of heartfelt 
 sympathy, are supposed to teach that the weary and 
 heavy-laden have no need of any key to God's revelation, 
 save that revelation itself, whereas the only lesson taught is 
 that humanity at its poorest and worst is still susceptible to 
 pure ideals when they are unfolded by love. From such a 
 familiar experience to the incommensurable conclusion that 
 everything within the covers of the Authorised Version 
 is good for " human nature's daily food," is surely an 
 audacious and irrational inference. Yet it is only by such 
 monstrous reasoning that the Bible has been justified as a 
 school-book, and that patriarchal morality, traditions of 
 savage massacres, the deed of Jael, the story of Micah and 
 the Danites, and of " a certain Levite sojourning on the 
 side of Mount Ephraim," have been put into the hands 
 of Christian children, as a part of " God's book." ^ 
 
 It is, of course, true that the attitude of the Church 
 toward the Bible was caused by considerations very 
 different from these. No Protestant believer in verbal 
 inspiration was ever more firmly convinced of the divine 
 dictation of every word in Scripture than was the hier- 
 archy of the Middle Ages. But the key to the meaning 
 of the oracles was in the possession of the Church. And 
 since one mode of revelation was needed to explain the 
 other, there was no inconsistency whatever in the ecclesi- 
 
 ^ It is not true to say that no practical evils have resulted. Those 
 experienced in school management know better. 
 
 6 
 
82 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 astical objection to allow to the laity the free handling of 
 Scripture, apart from the guidance of the priest. On the 
 other hand, it can scarcely be denied that the limitations 
 imposed upon lay reading of the Bible were excessive 
 and unreasonable. For the Council of Toulouse, not 
 content with a caution against indiscriminate and un- 
 guided reading by the " unlearned and unstable," injuri- 
 ously prohibited the possession by a layman of any 
 portion whatever of the Bible, with the exception of 
 the Psalms. Such a policy may be justly stigmatised as 
 obscurantism. Nor is it any sufficient answer to urge 
 that in those dark times the Church alone maintained 
 schools and founded the universities of the coming day ; 
 for all the schools and all the seats of higher learning 
 were treated solely as nurseries for the Church. And if 
 the limitations imposed upon teachers and scholars alike 
 were happily broken through by the irrepressible vitality 
 of human genius, it was only as a stone fence is cleft by 
 the swelling roots of a sapling which is soon brought 
 within bounds again by the stolid labourer's axe. The 
 tragedy of Roger Bacon is a cruel comment on the claim 
 of the Church to have made monasteries the seed-plots 
 of science. I conclude then, that so far as humanity at 
 large, in its public actions was concerned, the Bible, 
 apart from the Church, possessed, before the age of print- 
 mg, an influence so indirect and so slight that a superficial 
 observer might have regarded it as negligible. And yet 
 through secret channels, amongst maligned and persecuted 
 sects, its best lessons were gradually permeating the sub- 
 conscious soul of the Western world, and preparing a new 
 age which has only now begun. With that process we 
 shall be mainly concerned in the succeeding chapters. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE BIBLE IN THE DARKEST AGE 
 
 In any survey of the relations between Church and Bible 
 during the first millennium of the Christian era, our 
 attention is first arrested by the noble reign of King 
 Alfred in England ; for among the ideals of that royal 
 saint was that of a people well instructed in holy writ. 
 Anticipating, as far as the limitations of his time would 
 allow, the modern idea of making the Bible an " English 
 classic," he fastened first of all upon those parts of the 
 sacred book most easily understood by the many, and 
 most fitted to irradiate their squalid lives with finer 
 feeling and more spiritual aims. Therefore it was that 
 he hastened to give to the people in their own as yet 
 barbarous speech the Psalms and the Gospels. That he 
 set at the head of the realm's laws the Ten Command- 
 ments in the English of his clan, is a record suggestive 
 perhaps as much of his limitations as of his ambitions ; 
 for it is not told of him that he repudiated graven 
 images, as the first of those commandments required.^ 
 And, in regard to the Sabbath, he followed the teaching 
 
 * This was the Jewish interpretation after the Mosaic law assumed its 
 present form. And to this extent the Hebrews may be credited with 
 understanding their own language. 
 
 83 
 
84 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 of Jesus rather than that of Moses and the Jews. But 
 the "Ten Words" had been adopted by the Church as 
 a divine code, and this was the sanction that impressed 
 him. Authorities are not unanimous as to the extent of 
 the king's personal share in the work of translation. But 
 this, though a matter of sentimental interest, is of no 
 moment as an evidence of his policy. The vernacular 
 Psalter had existed before his day, but probably needed 
 adaptation to the development of the people's speech. 
 Bede had translated the Fourth Gospel. But the 
 Northumbrian dialect would scarcely be available for the 
 West Saxons. The version, however, of the four 
 Gospels achieved under Alfred's direction, formed the 
 basis on which the early English translation of the 
 immediately succeeding centuries was gradually built up. 
 
 It naturally occurs to us that this anxiety for popular 
 knowledge of Scripture ought to have been shown by 
 the Church rather than by the State ; by the Bishops 
 rather than by the King. But what has been said above 
 about the corporate consciousness of the Church as in 
 itself the repository of divine revelation goes far to 
 explain the apparent anomaly. At any rate there is, so 
 far as I am aware, no record of any episcopal or papal 
 objection to King Alfred's work. For such absence of 
 opposition a reason is readily conceived in the general 
 orthodoxy of England at that time, and the absence of 
 any apparent tendency to use the Bible as a weapon 
 against the Church. Be that as it may, the absence of 
 any clerical protests suggests a happy contrast to the 
 attitude of the Council of Toulouse two centuries later. 
 
 A century and a half before Alfred undertook to give 
 the Gospels to his people, the Venerable Bede, in his 
 dying hours, had dictated the last words of his North- 
 
THE VENERABLE BEDE 85 
 
 umbrian English translation of the Fourth Gospel. 
 Whether it was ever much used we do not know ; for 
 very few indeed of his people could read. But at least 
 they could understand it if read to them ; and this was 
 very likely often done by kindly priests, or educated 
 laymen who cared for their servants' welfare. Nor does 
 the possibility of such Gospel-reading to the ilHterate 
 seem at all incongruous with the sort of Christian social 
 life suggested in the pathetic description given us by 
 Cuthbert of the Master's death. In reading it we breathe 
 a wholly different air from that of the acrid controversies, 
 mean passions, and stolid superstitions which envenomed 
 the Council of Toulouse. Besides, though King Alfred 
 was pre-eminent, he was by no means alone amongst 
 early English Christians and rulers in his desire to present 
 to the people in their mother tongue the best literature 
 of the Church and the world. For though Bede, by 
 writing in Latin his Ecclesiastical History^ showed that 
 for this work he expected only cultured readers, he took 
 care to give the people the Creed and the Lord's Prayer 
 in their own language ; and it is said that many illiterate 
 priests were glad of such renderings, and also of 
 " glosses " ^ which helped them to understand the Psalms. 
 But Bede's Ecclesiastical History was not allowed to 
 remain long in the obscurity of Latin. For King Alfred, 
 either with his own hand or through his clerks, turned 
 it into the native language. And though it may be 
 doubtful whether there were at that time many people 
 who could read at all, yet had not learned Latin, this 
 translation, like that of the Gospels, made the book 
 
 ^ These were interlinear interpretations, putting under each Latin word 
 its English meaning, without regard to the difference of the verbal order 
 in the two languages. 
 
86 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 available for such unlearned Englishmen as could get a 
 clerk to read to them. 
 
 Even before Bede's time, Aldhelm, Bishop of Sher- 
 borne, had turned the Psalms into the vernacular. And 
 still more important is it to recall the well-known story 
 of Caedmon, Bede's countryman, who anticipated and far 
 surpassed the feebler poet of the Ormulum, not only in 
 the extent of his work, but in the vigour and impressive- 
 ness of its form. For what Caedmon did was to render 
 into ringing alliterative metre and in telling northern 
 phrase the whole story of God's dealings with man as 
 narrated by Hebrew seers and Christian apostles or 
 evangelists. And here we find, I think, a clear illustra- 
 tion of the view taken above concerning the real value 
 of early English translations of the Bible. For though 
 they may have found almost as few readers as the Vulgate 
 did, they were understood by all when read aloud. And 
 the whole circumstances of Caedmon's early history 
 make it certain that what he knew of Bible story was 
 wholly derived from oral instruction or from listening 
 to the reading of such English fragments as already 
 existed. 
 
 According to ancient English custom, Caedmon the cow- 
 herd sat with his fellow-servants round the lower end of 
 his master's table, and when the meat had gone round 
 and merriment began, the harp was passed from hand to 
 hand, and even the humblest servant who could sing was 
 applauded as an ornament of the feast. They sang of 
 Beowulf ; they sang of Conisburgh and of many a 
 bloody fight. But gloomy Caedmon sat in silence, and 
 seemed to freeze the flow of song as it approached him. 
 For whether he could sing or not, his thoughts were 
 wandering elsewhere among the mysteries of the world's 
 
C^DMON 87 
 
 beginning, and the brooding of the Divine Spirit over 
 chaos, and the speaking of the Word that said, " Be light, 
 and light was." All this and much more he had heard 
 from priests and readers who, touched by his eager interest, 
 recited these high themes in his own rude speech. He 
 had thought of them alone with his cattle in the forest ; 
 he had pondered over them when watching at night and 
 trying to trace the constellations of the sky. But it was 
 neither suUenness nor the pride of an unsympathetic 
 heart that kept him silent or drove him away when the 
 harp approached. But no chord sounded in his soul, and 
 he could not sing. Then one night, repelled thus from 
 the board, he fell asleep amidst his cattle ; and in his 
 dreams the tiresome request pursued him : " Sing, 
 Caedmon, sing ! " But it was not from jeering com- 
 panions that the request came now, for a heavenly form 
 stood above him. And when Caedmon humbly pleaded 
 that he knew neither how to sing nor what to sing about, 
 the answer came, " Sing creation ! " Then the vision 
 faded, but words, he knew not how, rushed into his mind 
 and ranged themselves in form and fitted themselves to 
 the rude music of the time. When he awoke the dream 
 did not fade into the light of common day ; for not 
 only the heavenly vision, but the very words borne in 
 upon him remained in his memory. And when next 
 challenged to sing, he broke into a majestic cadence of 
 sacred song which not only solemnised his jesting com- 
 panions, but became the talk of the countryside. Hilda, 
 the Abbess of Whitby, heard of the wonder and had no 
 doubt that the Holy Spirit which breathes "where it 
 listeth " had stirred the soul of the devout herdsman. 
 From that time his poetic renderings of Scripture narra- 
 tives multiplied, until at length the common people could 
 
88 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 hear and echo in their everyday speech the whole Bible 
 story of God's dealings with mankind. 
 
 Considering all these reminiscences of earliest English 
 life, we may confidently say that if what is called " the 
 Reformation " took a more native form and a more home- 
 like tone in Britain than in the countries of the Continent, 
 this was largely owing to the intensely English character 
 of the aspirations which stirred Caedmon and Bede and 
 Alfred and Orm of the Ormulum, and Langland and 
 WycliiFe. But be it remembered that during all this 
 time the Bible itself was, to the common people, a dim 
 and awful mystery, almost as much unknown to them in 
 its real form as the Ark of the Covenant to the Hebrews 
 after it had been once enshrined in the darkest recess of 
 the Temple. Of what was in it they- were pardy told, 
 just as the Israelites were told of the two stone tablets 
 and the cherubim over the Mercy seat. But whereas to 
 the nineteenth-century Englishmen the Bible was as 
 familiar as the compass to the mariner, the sacred volume 
 was to the Englishman of old, and indeed to the vast 
 majority of Christians, as mysterious and as inaccessible as 
 any miraculous image fallen from heaven and concealed 
 under the jealous guardianship of priests. 
 
 It is not necessary to follow closely the relations 
 between the Church and the Bible during the times 
 immediately preceding the tenth century. Indeed, during 
 a large part of the earlier Christian ages the most interest- 
 ing illustrations of the position held by the Bible will 
 be more conveniently treated in the seventh chapter, 
 dealing with the Bible and Religion. But the attitude of 
 the ecclesiastical mind needs to be observed in those 
 earlier times as well as in the later ; the story of the 
 earliest versions must be recalled ; and more important 
 
CHARLEMAGNE AND THE BIBLE 89 
 
 than all, the relation of the Church to the origins of 
 Scripture must be considered. But the moulding of 
 human thought and feeling, the causes of " heresy," 
 whether rightly or wrongly so called, and an attempt to 
 track to its fountain-head the persistent, though precarious 
 and often hidden stream of belief and emotion which, 
 during the nineteenth century, spread into a tide of 
 evangelical faith, must all be relegated to a later page. 
 
 During the earlier Middle Ages some of the most 
 interesting illustrations of our subject are to be found 
 in the records of Charlemagne, who dominated Western 
 Europe during the end of the eighth and the beginning 
 of the ninth century.^ Such illustrations, however, are 
 more to the credit of the State than of the Church. It is 
 true, indeed, that the great king was fortunate in the 
 selection of a scholarly Englishman, Alcuin, a priest of 
 York, as his minister of education. And to the latter the 
 Church was indebted for the practical embodiment of the 
 monarch's ideas. But it is not the less certain that the 
 scheme for schools at ecclesiastical centres, and the work 
 of correcting and re-editing the imperfect and corrupt 
 manuscripts of the Bible in general use at the time, 
 originated from Charlemagne himself. 
 
 Thus, in a circular letter to monasteries and chapters, 
 some years before his assumption of the imperial crown, 
 he wrote that he had remarked with much regret the bad 
 grammar, rude expressions, and uncultured style of the 
 communications received even from Churchmen. The 
 sentiments expressed were good, but the mode of ex- 
 pression shocking. " In consequence," he continued, 
 
 ^ For the following account of Charlemagne and the Bible, I have 
 compared Guizot {Cours d'Histoire Moderne) with the Capitularies in the 
 edition of Baluze ; Paris, 1677. 
 
90 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 " we have become apprehensive that as there is so little 
 facility in writing, the understanding of Holy Scripture 
 may be much more defective than it ought to be." ^ He 
 then exhorts Churchmen to put themselves in a condition 
 " to penetrate easily and surely the mysteries of the Holy 
 Scriptures." " Now, it is certain that, since there are in 
 the Holy Scriptures allegories, metaphors, and the like, 
 that man who has been well instructed in letters will most 
 readily understand them in their true spiritual sense." 
 " Choose, then, for this work men who have the will and 
 the capacity to learn, and also the art of teaching 
 others." ^ 
 
 Perhaps as a model, perhaps as a stimulus to loyal 
 emulation, a school was established in the Palace under 
 Alcuin as principal. This institution anticipated on a 
 lordly scale the itinerant schools of poor countries in far 
 future times, for Charlemagne's restless activities kept 
 his Court as well as his armies continually on the move. 
 But wherever the Court went, there went the Palace 
 school also. By that term, however, is not to be under- 
 stood a place or classes for the instruction of children. 
 The monarch's sons in their teens were indeed privileged 
 to receive lessons from Alcuin, but the greater number 
 of his pupils were grown men and women, councillors, 
 archbishops, the king's own sister, and the female relatives 
 of his ministers. Thus the character of the Palace 
 school suggests to us that when Charlemagne wrote as 
 quoted above, insisting on the appointment pf teachers to 
 
 ^ Recorded in the Capitularies^ as edited by Etienne Baluze ; Paris, 
 1677, tome I, col. 201. 
 
 2 The words are interesting as containing a germ of the "higher 
 criticism," and it is noteworthy that they come from a layman. Charle- 
 magne was certainly no saint ; but he had a great deal of common 
 sense. 
 
ROYAL FORERUNNER OF BIBLE SOCIETY 91 
 
 correct the ignorance of the times, he was not thinking of 
 elementary education, nor yet of children's schools, though 
 these were not neglected, but his immediate object was 
 to remedy the lamentable defects of education which left 
 his clergy utterly unfit to explain " the mysteries of holy 
 writ." 
 
 Yet it would be almost a ridiculous anachronism to 
 impute to Charlemagne the impossible dream of familiaris- 
 ing his Gallic and German subjects with the letter of the 
 Bible. For only a small minority of them could read ; 
 and the people of his newly conquered German realms 
 were only converted by the sword, remaining absolute 
 pagans in everything but the name. Besides, whenever 
 he mentions " Holy Scriptures," he means the Vulgate 
 version ; and if any forerunners of the Bible Society had 
 conceived the bold idea of giving the Scriptures to the 
 common people in their mother tongue, the multitude of 
 unripe dialects, making most of the tribes mutually 
 unintelligible, presented an obviously insurmountable 
 obstacle. True, the Gothic version of Ulphilas had 
 existed for some four hundred years. But it had probably 
 never been available for more than the immediate 
 congeners of the translator, and in the days of Charle- 
 mange its language was already almost obsolete. When, 
 therefore, we read with sympathy of the desire of 
 Charlemagne to make the Scriptures accessible, we must 
 remember that, to all but ecclesiastics and a very few 
 educated laymen, the accessibihty was necessarily indirect 
 and second hand. The clergy were to understand 
 the mysteries ; and from the treasure-house of the 
 Bible they were, as conscientious dispensers of their 
 heavenly Master's mercies, to bring forth things new 
 and old. But the king was most anxious that they 
 
92 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 should make the pulpit a fountain of practical morals 
 to the people, and not a place of vantage for the dis- 
 play of clerical learning. He therefore insisted that 
 all sermons should be such as the common people could 
 understand. 
 
 It is clear, then, that the age of Charlemagne was 
 characterised by a premature and limited revival of letters, 
 and that the chief motive of this revival was the desire of 
 the king that the pastors of his people should have an 
 efficient knowledge of the Bible. But this partial reform 
 was promoted by the secular power, which made a great 
 Churchman its instrument. It is this Churchman whose 
 letters bear testimony to the earnestness of the king's 
 resolve. And one of Alcuin's letters to his master has, 
 from this point of view, a touch of pathetic interest. It 
 was written not long after the imperial coronation at 
 Rome in a.d. 800, from which gorgeous ceremonial the 
 wearied minister and student with difficulty obtained 
 permission to absent himself. He was in his Abbey of 
 St Martin at Tours, whither he had been allowed to 
 retire for the short remainder of his days ; and in that 
 retirement he had completed his long labours on the 
 revision of the imperfect manuscripts of the Bible in 
 ordinary use. Charlemagne was now at the summit of 
 all human dignity. He was a far greater man than the 
 Emperor of the East. The Pope was practically his 
 subject, and he could smile at the ecclesiastical pretence 
 that the Pontiff had conferred upon him his crown. It 
 was to the man who ruled almost all lands between the 
 Northern seas and the Mediterranean, who had come in 
 pomp from Rome, acclaimed and almost adored as the 
 monarch of half the world, that Alcuin wished to make 
 some gift worthy of his acceptance. 
 
ALCUIN^S GIFT TO CHARLEMAGNE 93 
 
 " I have long considered," thus he wrote, " what gift I 
 could offer to you which might not be unworthy of the 
 splendour of your imperial power, and which might add 
 something to your wealth, redundant though that is. 
 While others were bringing you all kinds of precious gifts, 
 I was not content that my small talent should lie torpid in 
 shameful sloth, nor that the bearer of my homage should 
 appear with empty hands before the face of your majesty. 
 At last I have found, with the assistance of the Holy Spirit's 
 inspiration, something fitting for one in my position to offer 
 you, and which might be agreeable to your wisdom. 
 Certainly,! in the eagerness of your most sacred piety, one 
 may clearly see what the Holy Spirit is effecting for the 
 welfare of the whole Church, and why the extension of 
 your empire to its utmost limits of glory is desired by so 
 many prayers of the faithful throughout the world, and also 
 that at home it may be congenial to all the faithful, and 
 terrible abroad to all adversaries of the Lord. 
 
 " But while I was thus searching and pondering, it seemed 
 to me that nothing could be found more worthy of your 
 serene majesty than gifts of the divine books which by the 
 dictation of the Holy Spirit and the ministration of Christ 
 the Lord were written with the pen of heavenly grace for 
 the salvation of all mankind. These books, brought 
 together into the unity of one clear shining^ {clarissimi) 
 body and laboriously freed from clerical error, I have 
 addressed to your illustrious majesty by a distinguished 
 son of yours and a faithful servant to you, so that with full 
 
 1 " Ergo" {sic). But the word, if genuine, introduces no inference, and 
 seems merely to emphasise the following words. 
 
 2 As words with the same, or a closely similar primary significance in 
 different languages, may, at the same time, have dissimilar connotations, 
 it is impossible always to use the same English word to express the 
 same foreign word. Here, e.g., " clarissimus " applied to a holy volume, 
 to a ruling sovereign, and to an officer or son of Charlemagne, had, in the 
 mind of the writer, different connotations, which require a change in the 
 English word. 
 
94 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 hands he may present himself in the delightful service of 
 your majesty. ... If my loyalty had been able to discover 
 anything better, I should eagerly ofFeri it for the increase of 
 your honour.'* 
 
 The familiar phrase " divine books " might seem to 
 justify the evangelical tradition of the Bible as a 
 continuous shechinah undimmed in the darkest ages of 
 the Church, though at such times accessible only to a 
 fev7. But it can do no service to real religion to forget 
 that other books have been so called with equal fervour. 
 And it would show a total misapprehension of the 
 relations of the Bible and the Church in those times to 
 regard the Book as other than the reputed title-deeds 
 of the Church to the theocratic power which she claimed 
 over the souls of men. In one respect, indeed, it may 
 be held that the imperious Charlemagne at least supposed 
 himself to be guided by the voice of Scripture rather 
 than by the mock thunders of the Vatican. For he was 
 certainly inclined to sympathise with the iconoclasts in 
 their protest against the worship of images. This is 
 shown by a decree of the so-called Council of Frankfort, 
 which was much more a Diet of the Empire than a 
 spiritual assembly. That assembly condemned the worship 
 of images without, however, prohibiting their use as 
 ornaments or even aids to devotion. 
 
 But all we need note here is the reference to the 
 Bible in what we may take to be the king's own explana- 
 tion of the meaning of the decree. For he classes the 
 Bible with the Cross and the Holy Sacraments and the 
 communion vessels and the church building itself as 
 entitled to more reverence than ought to be shown to 
 any image. But surely this classification betrays relics 
 of fetishism. For whether it be the Cross, or the con- 
 
RELICS OF FETISHISM 95 
 
 secrated elements, or the vessels holding them that are 
 classed with the Bible, it is the thing that is venerated. 
 And it is impossible to avoid the inference that the Bible 
 was treated in like manner. This tendency to fetishism 
 constituted the essential evil in the use of holy images 
 when such use exceeded the limit of aids to aspiration. 
 And that use may be as easily exceeded in the contempla- 
 tion of a book as in reverence to a symbolic wafer or a 
 consecrated cup. Image-worship was by no means the 
 worst feature of Church corruption in that age. But 
 Charlemagne was never sufficiently imbued with the 
 moral and social spirit of the New Testament to anticipate 
 in any degree the spiritual and rational religion which 
 still remains one of " the powers of the world to come." 
 
 The iconoclastic controversy which, during the eighth 
 century, so much excited the Eastern Church, is of little 
 use for our purpose. For though it might be supposed 
 to illustrate bondage to the letter of the Mosaic law, it 
 seems much more likely that the movement was 
 occasioned by the alarming progress of Islam. For the 
 Unitarians, as the Mahommedans have been sometimes 
 called, taunted the Trinitarian Christians with their 
 polytheism, as evidenced, not only by dogma, but by 
 ritual ; since all the churches were full of images, 
 reverenced by kneeling or prostrate worshippers. Indeed, 
 Gibbon is almost certainly right in tracing the iconoclastic 
 zeal of Leo the I saurian to that rude soldier's early 
 experience of Mahommedan valour, and, perhaps, his 
 association of the success of their arms with their fanatic 
 zeal against idols. 
 
 The Scriptures, then, had very little to do with the con- 
 troversy ; and as to the relations of the Church to the 
 Bible in that age, I shall content myself with quoting Dean 
 
96 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 Milman's criticism of the epistolary denunciations ad- 
 dressed by Pope Gregory II. in the earlier part of the 
 eighth century to the Emperor Leo : — " The strange mis- 
 takes in the history of the Old Testament, the still 
 stranger interpretations of the New, the loose legends 
 which are advanced as history, give a very low opinion 
 of the knowledge of the times. As a great public docu- 
 ment addressed to the whole Christian world by him who 
 aspired to be the first ecclesiastic, we might be disposed to 
 question its authenticity, if it were not avouched by the 
 full evidence in its favour, and its agreement with all the 
 events of the period." The ecclesiastical historian then 
 goes on to quote from the Pope's epistle : — " Where the 
 body is, says our Lord, there will the eagles be gathered 
 together. The body is Christ ; the eagles the religious 
 men who flew from all quarters to behold him. When 
 they beheld him, they made a picture of him. Not of 
 him alone. They made pictures of James, the brother of 
 the Lord, of Stephen, and of all the martyrs ; and so 
 having done they disseminated them throughout the world 
 to receive, not worship, but reverence." ^ " You boast 
 that as Uzziah (Hezekiah) after 800 years cast out 
 the brazen serpent from the Temple, so after 800 years 
 you have cast out the idols from the churches. 
 Uzziah (Hezekiah) truly was your brother, as self-willed 
 and like thee daring to offer violence to the priests 
 of God." The angry and ignorant Pope declared that 
 if the Emperor should enter a children's school and 
 declare himself a destroyer of images, the pupils would 
 
 ^ Reading such passages, Protestants may well ask, what is the worth 
 of ecclesiastical tradition ? But the same Protestants, when dealing with 
 the supposed links of Irenaeus — Polycarp — John, the son of Zebedee, are 
 possibly moved by another bias to exaggerate possibilities and minimise 
 improbabilities in quite a different mood. 
 
THE PAULICIANS 97 
 
 all throw their tablets at his head, and he " would thus be 
 taught by these foolish ones what he refuses to learn from 
 the wise." On which Dean Milman pertinently asks : 
 " What would well-instructed children now say to a Pope 
 who mistook Hezekiah (called Uzziah) for a wicked 
 king, his destroying the brazen serpent for an act of im- 
 piety, and asserted that David placed the brazen serpent 
 in the Temple ? " ^ When such ignorance was shown by 
 one claiming to be Christ's earthly vicar, I may leave it to 
 the reader to imagine what was the popular knowledge of 
 the Bible in the age when this chief Pastor reigned. 
 
 Much more profitable will it be for us now to change 
 our field of observation and to concentrate our attention 
 for a while on the Paulicians, mentioned above as the 
 probable spiritual progenitors of the Albigenses, and of the 
 still more modern evangelical school of religion, who 
 insist that in questions concerning the revelation of God 
 to man, the Bible and not the Church is the only arbiter. 
 The story of this sect, if such it can be called, commences 
 in the latter half of the seventh century. But it is most 
 convenient for our review to take our stand in the ninth 
 century, when, after being driven by persecution to take 
 up carnal weapons, they had, under a vigorous leader, 
 Carbeas, fortified a stronghold called Tephrice on the 
 mountainous borders of Armenia. Here partly the 
 strength of the position, and partly the political circum- 
 stances of the time, gave them a precarious security for 
 many years. Whatever their spiritual aspirations had 
 originally been, they had now succumbed to a cruel fate, 
 and, like David and his men in the cave of Adullam, had 
 become a mere horde of bandits. In their excursions 
 they often captured Catholics, called by them " Romans," 
 
 ^ Milman's Latin Christianity^ ed. 1854, Book iv., chap. vii. p. 160. 
 
 7 
 
98 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 in curious anticipation of modern Protestant phraseology, 
 and these captives, when not killed in fight, were held to 
 ransom. 
 
 Now in 870 there was resident at Constantinople in 
 the Emperor's service a shrewd and most worldly wise 
 Catholic priest, Peter of Sicily. His worldly wisdom had 
 been shown in quitting the island of his birth at the first 
 sign of danger there from Mahommedan incursions ; and 
 his shrewdness speedily won for him employment and 
 promotion at the Imperial Court. He was specially 
 favoured by Basil I. When, therefore, in the year 870, 
 the Emperor felt specially anxious to obtain the release of 
 certain captives held at Tephrice, he selected Peter as the 
 best man for the mission, investing him, of course, with 
 the immunity of an envoy. Thus he came into personal 
 intercourse with Carbeas and the leaders of the sect. And 
 as his business could not be discharged at once, he spent 
 nine months in the heretical stronghold. Then on his 
 return home he composed a History of the Manichceans^ 
 and several discourses against them. But Photius, who 
 from a private soldier rose to be Patriarch of Constanti- 
 nople, also wrote, during the same period, a much larger 
 work on the same subject. Now the story of the rise and 
 progress of the Paulicians is in both these works so 
 entirely similar, that learned editors have differed much on 
 the question of priority. The circumstances of the case, 
 however, and certain slight differences in the mode of 
 telling the tale, point to Peter as the original narrator, 
 who was honoured by the holy Patriarch's adoption of 
 his report.^ 
 
 ^ To a certain extent the two histories seem related to each other, as 
 are two of the Synoptic Gospels, say, Matthew and Mark. The facts 
 alleged are in general identical, and considerable passages coincide even 
 verbally. There are, however, differences. For example, the story of the 
 
THE FIRST PAULICIAN 99 
 
 What they both tell us, then, is as follows : — In the 
 reign of Constantine Pogonatus, about the year 668, at 
 Mananalis, a village of Samosata in Armenia, and a 
 notorious centre of Manichaeism, there was living a 
 certain Constantine, belonging to the sect. At his door 
 there appeared a way-worn traveller, a Catholic deacon 
 returning homewards from captivity in Syria. The 
 Manichaean was not inhospitable, and entertained the 
 stranger until he was fit to resume his journey. At 
 parting, the grateful guest presented his host with two 
 books, one of which was a volume of the " holy Gospel, 
 and the other of the Apostle."^ To modern ears the 
 description sounds vague. But to Peter's first readers it 
 meant one or more of the four Gospels and the Epistles, or 
 part of the Epistles of St Paul. The second book probably 
 included the Acts ; for Constantine showed afterwards 
 more knowledge of St Paul's work and companions than 
 the Epistles alone could give him. To the Manichaean 
 these books came as a revelation. Whether his mind had 
 been at all prepared by religious conversations with his 
 guest, we are not told ; and the effect of the books upon 
 him we have to infer as well as we can for ourselves from 
 the bigoted, bitter, and obviously distorted narratives of 
 Peter and Photius. At any rate it is acknowledged that 
 
 conversion of Sergius is given more vividly by Peter, and the conversation 
 is in the first person, whereas Photius adopts sometimes the third person. 
 For myself, while not presuming to dispute with more learned critics, I 
 think that a man who had spent nine months in Tephrice, was more 
 likely to furnish material to a man who had never been there at all, than 
 to borrow a second-hand narrative from another who, so far as this part 
 of the polemic is concerned, must have known less than himself. Thus 
 Gibbon did not lose much by his inability to consult Photius {Decline a7id 
 Fall^ vol. vii. p. 47, n.^ Dr Wm. Smith's ed.). 
 
 ^ ^^ fiiav ()8t/3A.oj/) Tov oiyiov 'EvayyeXiov Koi erepTjv tV tow dTTocTJAov," 
 
 Petrus, Sic. Hist. Man. K.^ in Migne's Patrologia. 
 
loo MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 he " threw away " his Manichaean library and concentrated 
 his whole attention on the words of Jesus and the work and 
 writings of St Paul. Not only so, but, according to Peter's 
 own acknowledgment, the convert openly renounced 
 and denounced the " absurdities and blasphemies " of the 
 Gnostics whom he had followed. And, so far as we can 
 gather, his remaining unpardonable crime was his too 
 exclusive attention to the parts of the New Testament in 
 his possession, and his adhesion to a simpler form of 
 Christianity than that taught by the Church. 
 
 What that simpler religion was, may fairly be inferred 
 from the examination of one of Constantine's successors 
 before the Patriarch of Constantinople in the reign of Leo 
 the Isaurian (716-741). No doubt there had been in 
 the meantime some development of doctrine, as there 
 always is in the youth of every vigorous religion ; but 
 the main lines of their teaching had certainly not been 
 changed. From that examination, then, we gather that 
 the Paulicians did not venerate the material Cross ; 
 neither did they worship the Virgin Mary, or regard her 
 as " the Mother of God." They did not believe in 
 transubstantiation, nor did they even recognise the duty 
 of communion in bread and wine. They did not practise 
 water baptism, and, according to Peter, they defended 
 themselves on this point by saying, " It is written, ' I am 
 the living water,' " ^ words which do not occur in the New 
 Testament. Still further, they regarded their conventicles 
 as the Holy Catholic Church, and considered the " Roman " 
 Church to be utterly corrupt. Other peculiarities not 
 mentioned in this examination are given on the authority 
 
 1 " Ai6ti ycypaiTTai '£7^1 dfii rh vSup rh (wv." Jesus speaks much of " living 
 water" as his gift, but never uses exactly the alleged phrase. It is curious 
 that Peter does not notice this. 
 
PAULICIAN DOCTRINES loi 
 
 of Peter. Thus they are said to have disowned entirely 
 the Old Testament. But, as this was a tenet of the 
 Manichaeism which, according to Peter himself, the first 
 Paulician renounced and anathematised, this is very 
 probably untrue ; or only true in the sense that they 
 depreciated the Old Testament in comparison with the 
 New, as indeed did St Paul. In the New Testament 
 they are said to have accepted the Gospels and the four- 
 teen Epistles of St Paul. It is, however, uncertain 
 whether they had the four Gospels at first. And though 
 we are told that they received nearly all the rest of the 
 New Testament except the epistles now attributed to 
 St Peter, we may very well doubt whether this was true 
 of the earliest generation of the sect.^ Further, according 
 to our authorities, whom there is here no reason for 
 doubting, the Paulicians did not use the name "presbyter" 
 for their clergy, if indeed they had any " clergy." At any 
 rate, they made no outward distinction between the 
 ministering brethren and others. 
 
 The negations here mentioned are not directly declared 
 in the examination above mentioned ; for the new sect 
 had anticipated by more than a thousand years the 
 disingenuous habit of evading detection in heresy by 
 saying one thing and meaning another. Thus, when asked 
 by the Patriarch, "Why dost thou not believe in and 
 worship the precious Cross ? " the accused replied, 
 " Anathema be the man who does not worship and adore 
 the precious and life-giving Cross." But what he meant 
 by the Cross was the dying Jesus extended in that form. 
 
 ^ The editor of Migne's issue here quotes a marginal note by an ancient 
 hand, antiqiia manu, to the effect that it was doubtful whether they 
 originally used these books, or even the Acts of the Apostles. It is added 
 that in the time of the writer of the note they only used two gospels, and 
 preferred St Luke's. They had also the Epistle to the Laodiceans. 
 
I02 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 In like manner, by " the Mother of God " the heretic 
 meant the heavenly Jerusalem, "the mother of us all." 
 By the body and blood of Jesus in the communion he 
 understood the words of the Lord. Finally, his ideas of 
 baptism and of the Church enabled him fervently to curse 
 those who depreciated either. But he meant one thing, 
 and his judges another. Let us hope that his escape from 
 condemnation is a proof of the comparative leniency of 
 the Patriarch. On the other hand, this facile ingenuity 
 in prevarication suggests a very profound difference 
 between such wily arts and Luther's dogged defiance of 
 Pope and Devil. Such considerations, however, cannot 
 cancel the obvious indications given above of certain 
 anticipations of the Protestant Reformation. It must be 
 added that many of the sect gave proof of a much sterner 
 courage, and rivalled in their endurance the early martyrs 
 of the Christian faith. 
 
 Why were these reformers called Paulicians .'' Their 
 orthodox historians and persecutors maintained that they 
 took the name from a certain obscure Paul, who belonged 
 to a third generation of the school. But Gibbon believed 
 that they owed it to their unbounded devotion to the 
 doctrines and tradition of the great apostle of the Gentiles. 
 And the critical discernment of the historian is amply 
 confirmed by such unwilling witnesses as the Sicilian 
 Peter and the Patriarch Photius. For they tell us, for 
 instance, that Constantine the founder, after his conver- 
 sion, chose to be called Silvanus. And his successors 
 during the two centuries following always adopted on 
 their accession the name of some companion of St Paul's 
 travels, such as Titus, Timothy, Tychicus, and others. 
 In their missionary journeys, also, they followed mainly 
 the footsteps of St Paul, and are even accused by their 
 
MEANING OF THE NAME PAULICIAN 103 
 
 enraged foes of professing to be the very men whose 
 names they took. 
 
 These facts seem to leave no room for doubt that as 
 the disciples at Antioch were called Christians, because of 
 their devotion to the name of Christ,^ so the name 
 " Paulicians," whether assumed by themselves or con- 
 ferred by others, was borne by these people because of 
 their almost exclusive insistence on the Gospel as ex- 
 pounded by St Paul. If, on the other hand, it must be 
 acknowledged that much of their practice and teaching 
 appear inconsistent with true Paulinism, the obvious 
 answer is that such practices and teaching are known to 
 us through the passionately prejudiced writings of their 
 persecutors. And how violent, how savage, how utterly 
 outrageous the rancour of these opponents was can 
 scarcely be conceived by those whose experience of theo- 
 logical bitterness is confined to the religious controversies 
 of modern times.^ In dealing with such witnesses we 
 are justified in suspecting misrepresentation wherever it 
 might serve the cause they are pleading, and this may go 
 far to explain away some of their most plausible allega- 
 tions against these devotees of St Paul. Observing this 
 caution, we may well refuse to believe that their leaders 
 tried to impose themselves upon the men of Macedon or 
 on the Pauline churches as the very Titus or Timothy 
 or Tychicus who had been inspired by the apostle. We 
 may suspect that the alleged relics of Manichaeism in 
 
 1 Whether there was a pun on xPV'^'rhs suggesting a taunt of "goodi- 
 ness" or not, is of no consequence. It was " xp'o"rbs " that gave the name. 
 
 2 The authors whom I am following can scarcely mention a Paulician 
 name without attaching to it some thundering epithet of reproach. And 
 in mockery of the sentiment which led to the adoption of the names of 
 St Paul's companions, they often substitute punning distortions ; e.^: for 
 Timothy {Tifi6eeos\ Thymothy (evfidOeos), i.e. "wrath of God" instead of 
 " honour of God." 
 
I04 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 their doctrine were simply some exaggeration of St Paul's 
 doctrine concerning the opposition of the natural and the 
 spiritual, some fondness for contrasting the splendours of 
 the new covenant with the darkness of the old, some 
 excessive scruple about material symbols,^ and some 
 extreme interpretations or misinterpretations of the 
 apostle's preference for the celibate life. As to their 
 morals, at least down to the period of their desperate 
 uprising against pitiless persecution, the reiterated sneers 
 of their critics at their attempt to make virtue an excuse 
 or a cloak for heresy is sufficiently suggestive. 
 
 Let us now return to the converted Manichaean, Con- 
 stantine of Mananalis, who in his enthusiasm for St Paul 
 took the name of Silvanus, or Silas. Fired with the 
 example he had set before himself, he devoted the whole 
 remainder of his life to an itinerant ministry of the 
 Gospel as he understood it. Macedonia, where the first 
 European church had been gathered at Philippi, had a 
 special charm for him. Taking with him the Epistles, 
 he said to the people : " You are the Macedonians here 
 mentioned, and I am the Silvanus sent to you by the 
 apostle." If these words are correctly reported, what he 
 meant was : " I am as much devoted to your apostle as 
 was Silas ; receive me as coming in his spirit." ^ That 
 his appeal was made on some such reasonable grounds, and 
 not on the ridiculous pretence that he was the identical 
 Silas come back in the flesh, may fairly be inferred from 
 a successful ministry of twenty-seven years. He then 
 became the first martyr of his sect. For much complaint 
 
 ^ To such men St Paul's deprecatory language about water baptism 
 (i Cor. i, 14, 17) might seem to mean more than it does to us. 
 
 2 Cj. Luke i. 17 concerning John the Baptist, "and he shall go before 
 him in the spirit and power of Elias " ; and the words of Jesus (Matt. xvii. 
 12), " I say unto you that Elias is come already." 
 
MARTYRDOM OF THE FOUNDER 105 
 
 was made at the Imperial Court of the spread of the 
 heresy, and accordingly a royal commissioner named 
 Symeon was sent to make inquiry. The local governor, 
 Trypho, was summoned to attend the commissioner, and 
 together, at the head of a strong body of troops, they 
 surrounded and captured the whole congregation of 
 Paulicians in Cibossa, the headquarters of the sect. 
 
 Accounts somewhat differ as to what followed. For, 
 according to Photius, every effort was made to induce 
 the followers of Silvanus to recant and to return as 
 penitents to the Church. Peter, who had better oppor- 
 tunities of ascertaining the facts, says nothing of this. 
 Both, however, agree that the heresiarch, apparently by 
 order of Symeon, was made to stand as a target before 
 his followers and they were commanded to stone him to 
 death. Both also happily agree that the unnerved 
 disciples would not or could not obey. The stones 
 dropped from the paralysed hands of all but one — 
 Justus — a Pauline name — alleged to have been the 
 adopted son of the martyr. This Justus, seizing a 
 massive stone, hurled it with such vigour as to kill his 
 spiritual father, and by his encomiasts is celebrated as a 
 second David, slaying a more dangerous Goliath. If we 
 may believe Photius, the rest of the Paulicians, seeing 
 their teacher now dead, did not hesitate to bury his 
 corpse beneath the stones they now cast on it. "And 
 so," say our authorities, with a reminiscence of scriptural 
 language, " the place is called Sorus — the cairn — to this 
 day." 
 
 But now followed a most startling analogy to the new 
 birth of St Paul himself. For as Saul of Tarsus is not 
 unreasonably supposed by many commentators on his 
 story to have been affected more than he was himself 
 
io6 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 aware by the serene heroism of Stephen, so it would 
 appear that Symeon was never the same man after witness- 
 ing that scene at Cibossa. Perhaps the impression was 
 deepened by the unaccountable persistence of the sup- 
 posed penitents in maintaining their convictions. For, 
 with amazement, Peter tells us that though offered 
 instruction and restoration by the ministers of the Church, 
 they " actually chose rather to perish in their wickedness 
 than through repentance to propitiate their God and to 
 obtain everlasting salvation." Even we, at the end of 
 more than a thousand years after the event, are convinced 
 by the evidence of their most deadly foes, that in some 
 way these people must have caught a spark of the holy 
 fire that baptized the first Christians. To us, therefore, 
 it should not be inexplicable that Symeon, who, beneath 
 his official dress kept something of a human heart, began 
 to feel relentings and dread. He returned to Con- 
 stantinople and made his report. He continued still 
 three years in the Imperial employ ; but could not 
 silence a troubled conscience. We might suspect here 
 an intentional adaptation of the story of St Paul's brief 
 autobiography {cf. Gal. i. i8). But certainly our 
 authorities would not have lent themselves to such a 
 design ; and the resignation of an Imperial post for a 
 martyr's career must have cost a hard struggle. Photius, 
 indeed, seems to have been aware of this. For he tells 
 us that the distracted man " during the space of three 
 years managed to hide within himself and to soothe to 
 quietness the wild beast (of heresy) until, his heart being 
 inwardly devoured, and the yearning for expression 
 becoming insupportable, he secretly left the Court " for 
 Cibossa. He had less difficulty than his ideal apostle in 
 obtaining recognition from those whom he had persecuted ; 
 
THE FATE OF SYMEON-TITUS 107 
 
 and, in fact, was welcomed as a new leader. The marvel- 
 lous change was signalised by the adoption of the name 
 Titus.^ But his maintenance of the forlorn hope was 
 brief, for at the end of three years he was burned alive. 
 
 The immediate occasion of his condemnation is some- 
 what puzzling, and indeed inexplicable as it has come 
 down to us. But as it illustrates the eagerness with 
 which St Paul's words were discussed by the Paulicians, 
 we must not pass it over. We are rather startled to 
 find the traitor Justus, the murderer of Constantine- 
 Silvanus, apparently still frequenting the meetings of the 
 sect. But, if we are to believe our authorities at all, we 
 can only suppose that Justus had urged the coward's plea 
 of necessity, or that the Paulicians were more forgiving 
 than religious zealots usually are. At any rate, we are 
 told that a debate arose between this man and the new 
 leader on the meaning of Col. i. 1 6 : " For by him were 
 all things created, etc." Unfortunately we are not told 
 what the interpretation of Symeon-Titus was, though 
 the insinuation is that he tried to reconcile the passage 
 with the Manichaean denial of the creation of matter by 
 eternal goodness. I have already expressed my opinion 
 that Constantine's renunciation of Manichaeism was 
 genuine ; and I cannot help suspecting that words so 
 pregnant with problems impossible of solution might 
 very well cause deadly strife between two subtle Greeks 
 without any reference to the Zoroastrian doctrine of Two 
 Principles, as held by the Manichaeans. However that 
 may be, since Justus could not prevail by argument, he 
 appealed to the Bishop of the neighbouring Coloneia. 
 
 1 Peter says.he will not call him Tiros, but Krjros—the whale or monster 
 a puerile play on sounds, now only interesting as suggesting how the 
 vowel 7j was pronounced at that time. 
 
io8 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 The Bishop became inquisitor, and condemned, or 
 obtained the condemnation of, Symeon. 
 
 Then followed the obscure Paul referred to above, 
 about whom nothing is told us of any significance except 
 that he had two sons, Gegnesius and Theodore, who 
 disputed the pre-eminence.^ The dispute remained un- 
 settled so long as both were alive, but Gegnesius had 
 the honour of being selected under Leo the Isaurian for 
 the judicial examination previously described.^ 
 
 The next succeeding incidents in the story do not 
 interest us. The headquarters of Paulicianism were 
 transferred to its place of origin, Mananalis, until the 
 rage of the " Romans " on the one hand, and the un- 
 certainty of their somewhat strange relations with the 
 Saracens on the other, drove them to seek a place of more 
 safety. It was during this time of uncertainty that one 
 of the most interesting of their leaders comes into view, 
 Sergius, called also Tychicus. It is not so much because 
 of his own personality that he is specially interesting, as 
 because the story of his perversion or conversion from 
 Catholicism has come to us in a reasonably probable 
 form. It would seem that he was not born within the 
 sect,^ as were most of the successors of Silvanus, but was 
 brought up in the Catholic Church to the period of 
 adolescence. He then made the acquaintance of a young 
 
 1 Gegnesius claimed to have received inspiration from his father who 
 had ascended to heaven ; while Theodore was bolder, and declared that 
 he had his gift direct from the Eternal. Such accounts, coming to us 
 through a double deposit of virulent bigotry, must be taken for what they 
 are worth. 
 
 '^ See p. I GO- 1. 
 
 ' His father is said to have been a certain Dryinus of Armia, a village 
 near the town of Tabia. That the boy was well educated, according to 
 the Catholic standard of the time, in everything but religion, may be 
 gathered from what follows. 
 
SERGIUS AND THE PAULICIAN WOMAN 109 
 
 woman whose name is not given, but who belonged to 
 the Paulicians. And she, seeing in him a likely proselyte, 
 introduced the subject as follows^ : — 
 
 " ' I hear of you, Mr Sergius {Kvpie ^epyie), that you have 
 had a good education, and are skilled in letters, and are 
 in all respects a worthy man. Tell me, then, why you 
 do not read the Divine Gospels ? ' Then he, entrapped 
 by her words, and not in the least suspecting the poison 
 of malice concealed within her, says : ' It is not lawful 
 for us laymen (^Koar/uLiKoli) to read them, but only for the 
 priests (lepevcri),' She replied to him : * It is not so, as 
 you suppose ; for there is no respect of persons with 
 God ; for he wills that all men should be saved, and 
 should come to the knowledge of the truth. But since 
 your priests make a trade of the Word of God, they also 
 keep back the deeper truths ^ in the Gospels. For they 
 do not read to the hearer all that is written therein ; but 
 some parts they read and some they don't, lest you 
 should come to the knowledge of the truth. For it is 
 written in those Gospels : " In that day many shall say 
 unto me. Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy 
 name,^ and in thy name cast out devils, and in thy name 
 done many wonderful works ? And the king, answering, 
 will say to them. Verily, verily, I say unto you, I know 
 you not." * Search and see if it is not thus written. And 
 
 1 Petrus Siculus, Historia ManichcBorum^ xxxiii. 
 
 2 MvffT-fipia ; but the above is obviously meant, as also in Matt. xiii. ii 
 and some other New Testament passages, though perhaps not in all. 
 For St Paul seems occasionally to use the word in a sense familiar to 
 the secret cults of his day ; e.o^. Col. i. 26. So also in the Apocalypse, 
 xvii. 5, 7. 
 
 2 These words are omitted by Peter, though given by Photius. I do 
 not think the omission by the former was intentional. 
 
 * Here also Photius follows more closely the actual words of Matt, 
 vii. 22, 
 
no MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 who are they to whom the Lord will say, " I know you 
 not"?'" "But he," says Peter the Silician, "being 
 without training or learning, was dumbfounded, and said 
 nothing." 
 
 Peter then interposes his own explanation ; but space is 
 too precious to be occupied by it, and we proceed to the 
 next interview of the young Sergius with his instructress. 
 He had been reading the Gospels now for the first time, 
 and, having found the words quoted by her, was very 
 anxious she should tell him who were those false prophets. 
 But she, whether from the feminine arts attributed to 
 her by Photius, or because she anticipated the " heuristic " 
 system of recent great teachers, and desired her pupil to 
 find out for himself, would not satisfy him, but pro- 
 pounded another question. Quoting the words, " Many 
 shall come from the east and the west and shall sit down 
 with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of 
 heaven, but the sons of the kingdom shall be cast into 
 outer darkness," she asked, " Who are the sons of the 
 kingdom ? " He could not tell. But this time she 
 supplied the answer. " They are," she said, " your 
 saints who cast out devils and heal the diseases of men, 
 whom you venerate as gods, while you neglect the living 
 and immortal Lord." ^ 
 
 The remaining course of instruction is not recorded. 
 We are only told that the Paulician woman went through 
 the Gospels with him, perverting the plain meaning, as 
 she herself very well knew, and finally fashioning him 
 into the most mischievous tool of Satan that the accursed 
 
 1 Photius has here, "God," @ehv. But Peter's "Lord," Kvpioy, seems 
 preferable. For the motto of the early Paulicians was, like that of latest 
 reformers, " Back to Christ." But the meaning is obscure, which may be 
 partly owing to the reporters. 
 
PAULICIANS AND THE OLD TESTAMENT 1 1 1 
 
 sect had yet produced. The above citation from the 
 Sermon on the Mount, however, seems to me to expose 
 the falsehood of the accusation against the Paulicians 
 that they shared Manichaean contempt for the Old 
 Testament. For though the presence of Abraham, Isaac, 
 and Jacob in heaven is here only indirectly inferred from 
 the words spoken by "the living and immortal Lord," 
 yet it is clearly accepted. And it seems necessarily 
 implied that all other references of Jesus to the first 
 institution of marriage, to Moses, to David and the 
 Prophets, would be accepted in like manner. But if so, 
 it seems quite impossible that the Paulicians can have 
 denied all value to the Old Testament. The true 
 Manichaeans, as I suppose, did not regard such utterances 
 as the words of the divine Christ, but as those of the man 
 Jesus. There is, however, no indication of such subtlety 
 of distinction in the simple talk of this Paulician woman. 
 It is true that Peter Siculus scoffs at the alleged dis- 
 honesty with which she apparently ignored the obvious 
 explanation that the disinherited sons of the kingdom 
 were the Israelites. But it may well be held that she 
 took a large and far-sighted view of the significance of 
 the words of Jesus, when she saw in them a warning of 
 the precariousness of all spiritual privilege and super- 
 natural pretensions apart from true loyalty to " the living 
 and immortal Lord." To some, her words may suggest 
 an incarnate Word, to others a personal deity, to others 
 again "the moral ideal," and to yet others the infinite 
 ordered life of the universe. But in any case the 
 doctrine she deduced from the saying of Jesus is true. 
 
 It is noteworthy that the new leader, Sergius Tychicus, 
 is said to have been specially dangerous because of his 
 apparent virtues, and because of his skill in making his 
 
112 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 heresy look like true religion. It is interesting also to 
 learn that in his first approaches to converts he taught 
 morals only, and adapted these to the words of the 
 Gospel. It was only after the victim had been bewitched 
 by the beauty of a moral ideal that the soul-destroying 
 deceiver made him swallow the whole poison of impious 
 doctrine.^ Where all is obscure, it is difficult to form a 
 confident judgment. But now let us suppose that 
 Sergius began his instructions by revealing more of the 
 New Testament than had been usually heard by his 
 uninstructed audience. Let us imagine him to have 
 dwelt on the stirring or touching moral exhortations in 
 St Paul's Epistles, such as Rom. xii., or i Cor. xiii. 
 We may well suppose that he spoke of such inspiring 
 words as coming from the spirit of Christ exemplified 
 in the Sermon on the Mount. He could hardly forbear, 
 then, to suggest how much better it was for men seeking 
 salvation to study the Gospels and Epistles for themselves, 
 than to be dependent on the mediation of priests. 
 
 If, then, he went on to expose the difference between 
 Church ceremonialism and the Pauline doctrine of faith ; 
 if he insisted that neither the water of baptism nor the 
 material elements of communion were of any value at all 
 except possibly as symbols to help concentration of 
 thought ; still further, if he taught that the veneration 
 of the Cross was superstition, the worship of the Virgin 
 Mary idolatry, and subjection to the Catholic Church 
 spiritual slavery, he would have done quite enough to 
 provoke the invectives to which we have referred. Such 
 conjectures are based upon the words of his opponents 
 themselves. And if I decline to accept charges made by 
 the latter of gross Manichjeism, it is because these 
 
 ' Photius, op. cit.^ I. xxii. 
 
DECAY OF THE PAULICIANS 113 
 
 writers stultify themselves by telling us almost in the 
 same breath that the Paulicians only pretended to 
 abandon Manes in order to escape persecution, and were 
 at the same time incorrigible heretics, who preferred 
 death to the surrender of their beliefs.^ That these 
 beliefs were very imperfect, could they be compared with 
 the ideals of a Wycliffe or a Wesley, is not only 
 possible, but almost certain. Yet in their preference of 
 the written words of Jesus and his greatest apostle to the 
 Catholic tradition, and in their assertion of the incom- 
 mensurable superiority of the spiritual life to thauma- 
 turgic ritual, it is extremely probable that they kept 
 glimmering the sacred spark which flamed forth in 
 the Reformation. 
 
 The further vicissitudes of Paulicianism are described 
 by the master-hand of Gibbon with luminous brevity, 
 and those who care to follow the story can do so in his 
 fifty-fourth chapter. Briefly, the ministry of Sergius, 
 extending to thirty-three or thirty-four years, was the 
 last period of their existence as purely spiritual reformers. 
 In speaking of the experience of Peter the Sicilian I have 
 already anticipated the effects of a revived persecution, 
 which converted them from scattered groups of zealots 
 
 1 As an instance of very palpable perversion, take the following : 
 Photius says that these people "sealed their prayers, or rather their 
 howlings, with the name of Sergius, saying, The prayer of the Holy Ghost 
 shall bring us mercy" {pp. cit, xxi.). Surely the reference was to Rom. 
 viii. 26, " The Spirit also maketh intercession for us," etc. And if Sergius 
 is quoted as making arrogant or even blasphemous claims to be the 
 doorkeeper, and the shepherd, and "the light of the House of God" till 
 the end of the world, we must remember we have not the text of his 
 epistles, and a very little alteration would make the words refer to St 
 Paul and Christ. As to the charge that each successive Paulician leader 
 who assumed a Pauline name (Silvanus, Tychicus, etc.) claimed to be a 
 reincarnation of the very man whose name he assumed, it is simply 
 incredible. 
 
 8 
 
114 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 into guerilla soldiers. Their later leader, Carbeas, was 
 chosen rather for his previous military training than for 
 any spiritual gifts, and his fortification and defence of 
 Tephrice fully justified their choice. A successor, 
 Chrysocheir, made them a still more formidable power, 
 and they negotiated with the Emperor Basil almost on 
 equal terms. They had forgotten the saying of Christ : 
 " All they that take the sword shall perish with the 
 sword." But after about a century of defiant independ- 
 ence, their stronghold was captured ; and within an 
 interval of some years they were forcibly deported into 
 Thrace, where it was supposed they might serve the 
 political purposes of the time. Here they are said to 
 have spread their opinions, though, it must be feared, in 
 a very corrupt form.^ That they finally made their way 
 westward, as suggested by Gibbon, is extremely probable. 
 And if only a few had preserved the Pauline tradition, its 
 reception by an emotional population and in new sur- 
 roundings might very well account for the religious 
 revival in the south of France during the eleventh and 
 twelfth centuries. 
 
 As already admitted, the story of the Paulicians is in 
 many parts obscure. But the illustrations it offers of the 
 relations of the Church to the Bible are clear enough. 
 And, what is perhaps more interesting, it gives a striking 
 instance of the power wielded by the Gospel and Epistles, 
 m that age of the world, over minds craving for reality — 
 minds dissatisfied with the traditional Church ceremonial, 
 and wanting a clearer sense of the Infinite Life which 
 earlier and later fetishism alike had at once suggested 
 
 * The imputations made against them under the name "Bulgarians" 
 must be taken as the slander of bigotry. If they lived among an immoral 
 population, the vices of their neighbours would be attributed to them. 
 
SPIRITUAL FUNCTION OF PAULICIANS 115 
 
 and obscured. For though even orthodox churches are 
 now finding out the limitations of St Paul, and are re- 
 spectfully discarding his laboured theories of sin, death, 
 and atonement,^ there was in the man an intensity of 
 moral passion together with a searching power of self- 
 impartation which endured far through the Christian 
 centuries and is not extinguished yet. But this power 
 did not depend upon miracle nor upon " revelation " in 
 the supernatural sense of the word. It was the impact 
 of a concentrated moral force on minds whose suscepti- 
 bility to it was the result of a long course of evolution 
 brought to fruition by the whole conditions of their age. 
 
 Protestants, no doubt, prefer to conceive the experi- 
 ence of the Paulician in another form, and I shall not 
 deny its approximate truth. But it is not inconsistent 
 with what I have said. A man whose religion had largely 
 consisted in obedience to priests, when he was assured, 
 as we have seen, that " there is no respect of persons 
 with God," felt like a liberated slave. A man forbidden 
 to meddle with sacred lore, felt an accession of self-respect 
 when he learned that God would have all men — not 
 priests alone — come to the knowledge of the truth. A 
 man unable to think how his salvation could depend upon 
 eating a consecrated wafer or drinking out of a miraculous 
 cup, could not but rejoice to hear that " the kingdom of 
 God is not meat and drink, but righteousness, peace, and 
 joy in the Holy Ghost." To critical minds the philo- 
 sophy of the plan of salvation has always raised difficulties. 
 But, for a plain man in trouble about his soul, the passage 
 from the Church doctrines and ordinances to St Paul's 
 
 1 See a notable discourse delivered by the Rev. R. J. Campbell to 
 the Lancashire Congregational Union, in the Free Trade Hall, 12th 
 March 1907. 
 
ii6 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 declaration of salvation by faith, as, for instance, in 
 Rom. iii., was like the issue from a gloomy, tangled 
 forest into a smooth, sunny, verdant glade sparkling 
 with living waters. In any case, whether we believe in 
 supernatural revelation or not, the contrast between the 
 utterances which the common people have always heard 
 gladly and the muffled conventionalisms in which all 
 organised religions tend to get themselves wrapped up 
 is apparent enough. 
 
 Traditional ecclesiasticism assumed perhaps its most 
 attractive form in the mission of Augustine to the pagan 
 English as recorded by the Venerable Bede.^ And the 
 date of that mission, close on the end of the sixth century, 
 makes it convenient as our next illustration of the re- 
 lations of the Bible and the people. True, the story 
 itself, as told by perhaps the most lovable of ecclesiastical 
 historians, belongs as literature to the age of Charlemagne, 
 which we have left behind. But we are concerned not 
 so much with Bede*s conception of the event, as with his 
 related facts, which, notwithstanding his tendency to pious 
 credulity, there seems only occasional reason to doubt. 
 
 Could anything be less like the advent of St Paul to 
 Philippi, for instance, than the pomp of Augustine's 
 landing with his silver cross as a standard, and his sacred 
 picture majestically borne, and his attendant monks with 
 their sounding chant ? Not that there is anything to 
 condemn in the innocent arts of Augustine, for he 
 came not only as the herald of a heavenly king, but also 
 as an envoy of that king's vicegerent on earth. And as 
 Ethelbert's consort was a Prankish Christian, the mis- 
 
 * We ought, of course, to write " Baeda." But later custom has too 
 strongly estabhshed the form in which English affection cherishes the 
 name. 
 
CONVERSION OF THE ENGLISH 117 
 
 sionary no doubt did perfectly right to maintain the 
 worldly dignity of the queen's religion in the sight of 
 her husband and his men. But we learn absolutely 
 nothing of what Augustine said concerning his gospel in 
 the discourse delivered, apparently through a Prankish 
 interpreter. Queen Bertha may very well have under- 
 stood him, but, whatever were her familiar explanations 
 in private, the obstacle of an interpreter at the diplomatic 
 meeting must have greatly marred Augustine's eloquence 
 as a preacher. True, the king understood something of 
 the present and future blessings promised as a reward of 
 conversion, and said the words were good, while the con- 
 servatism of his future race was presaged in his plea for 
 ancient custom. 
 
 But the impression we get is not at all such as is made 
 by the behaviour and language of St Paul's hearers whose 
 consciences were pricked, or whose fears of a world cata- 
 strophe were aroused. What we gather from Bede's 
 story is rather that the king considered himself to have 
 received a diplomatic proposal, attractive in many re- 
 spects from the advantages it offered, but threatening 
 considerable difficulties on account of the serious breach 
 it involved with the ancient usages of his race. That 
 Augustine mentioned sin and judgment, a new birth by 
 baptism, the privileges of the Church, and the promise 
 of heaven, we may take as certain. But the whole suc- 
 ceeding context suggests that it was the Church and not 
 the Bible, or even the written Gospel, with which the 
 exhortations of the preacher and the dubitation of the 
 hearer were concerned. 
 
 Of course, this prominence of the Church rather than 
 of the Bible, cannot even by the most scriptural Protestant 
 — if the phrase may be allowed for the moment — be 
 
ii8 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 made a fault in Augustine. For he could not help him- 
 self. His whole baggage probably did not contain more 
 of the Bible than the passages incorporated with Church 
 services. And if it be said that St Paul was in even 
 worse case, because, when he set out on his missions, not 
 a word of the New Testament had been written, we must 
 remember that not only was his memory stored with 
 almost the whole text of the old Scriptures, but he found 
 the sacred book in every synagogue ; and not only the 
 Jews of the dispersion, but innumerable Gentile proselytes 
 or half-proselytes were familiar with the Greek version 
 of the Seventy. His preaching, therefore, except in the 
 doubtful case of Athens,^ was always predominantly 
 scriptural, because the Septuagint was his mainstay. He 
 spurned the idea of any authority in the Apostolic Church,^ 
 at least over him. But through the necessity of the case, 
 not the Bible, but the Church, was Augustine's mainstay, 
 and guaranteed his commission. 
 
 The indirect relations of Man and the Bible in that age, 
 and indeed in all ages from the apostolic time to the 
 triumph of the printing press, are also illustrated by a 
 curious saying of Bede at the beginning of his work, 
 where, however, he is speaking of his own day. 
 
 " This land at the present time studies and confesses one 
 and the same science of supreme truth and genuine majesty 
 in the languages of five nations ; that is, of the English, the 
 Britons, the Scots, the Picts, and the Latins, in accordance 
 
 1 Doubtful, not only because of historical uncertainty, but because, if 
 the outline of the discourse be authentic, it is ridiculous to suppose that 
 his reference to coming judgment was huddled up in the few concluding 
 words handed down to us. And if he oflfered any confirmation of his 
 words, he must have referred to the Jewish oracles. 
 
 2 Cf. Galatians, and 2 Cor., passim. 
 
BEDE AND THE BIBLE 119 
 
 with the number of the books in which the divine law 
 was written,! — that science which, by meditation of the 
 Scriptures, has become the common property of all other 
 parts of the world." 
 
 Whose was the " meditation of Scripture '* which 
 permeated as with a leaven so many nations ? Certainly 
 not that of the unlearned multitude, who did not so much 
 as know what the Bible was, except that it was God's 
 charter to the Church. The meditation was that of 
 popes, bishops, priests, and monks, who conveyed the 
 truth to the multitude as the latter were able to receive it. 
 And " the science of supreme truth," " confessed in the 
 five languages," could not be the Bible, for only fragments 
 of it had been translated ; but it was the creeds and such 
 expressions of obedience to the Church as had by means 
 of " glosses " been made accessible to the vulgar.^ Thus 
 a devoted priest was able to exult that the knowledge of 
 the Lord had already covered the earth, though he was 
 well aware that the Bible was a sealed book to all but a 
 small minority even of Christian men. 
 
 One other illustration I shall permit myself to take 
 from this venerable father of the English Church. For 
 it is truly a significant fact that in relating the futile 
 conference between the Augustinians and the represen- 
 tative of the older British Church, he gives us no hint 
 whatever of scriptural arguments adduced on the one side 
 or on the other. Indeed, the subjects of contention seem 
 to have been exclusively points of Church tradition and 
 custom, on which even the latest books of the Canon 
 
 1 The Pentateuch. 
 
 ^ The poetic rendering of Scripture story by Casdmon cannot have 
 been in the mind of Bede when writing the above, for Casdmon's poems 
 were known only in one language. 
 
120 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 could throw no light. Yet there was one exception. 
 For, on the ancient controversy as to Easter Day, the 
 Fourth Gospel might well have been quoted by the 
 British, if, indeed, they were sufficiently familiar with it. 
 But both sides were apparently so utterly wanting in 
 scriptural proofs, that, according to Bede's account, 
 Augustine had recourse to the desperate expedient of 
 test by miracle, and actually triumphed by healing a sick 
 man.-^ 
 
 The Britons were at once more rational and more truly 
 religious when, being still unconvinced even by the 
 miracle, they agreed to the suggestion of a venerable 
 hermit, that they should be guided at their next meeting 
 by the consistency or otherwise of Augustine's bearing 
 with the ideal of Christian courtesy. It is not said that 
 they had in mind St PauFs words : " In honour preferring 
 one another,'* but certainly those words might have 
 suggested the omen by which they now agreed to be 
 guided. They arranged to let the Roman emissaries 
 arrive and be seated first. If, then, on their appearance, 
 Augustine should rise to receive his spiritual brethren 
 with the courtesy of a Christian gentleman, they agreed 
 to consider the sign favourable, and to renew the con- 
 ference with a hope of agreement. But Augustine, with 
 incredible fatuity, remained seated in haughty assumption 
 of spiritual lordship ; whereupon the Britons hardened 
 their hearts and the schism remained unhealed.^ 
 
 1 Aliquis ager. We may suspect the blindness ; otherwise the story 
 may very well be true. Many forms of disease would yield to the 
 amazement and nervous excitement of such an experience. 
 
 2 Whether the extinction of the primitive British Church is a matter 
 for regret, I do not here consider. But I am unable to agree with the 
 view held by some Protestants that it was pure in doctrine, and apostolic 
 in its simplicity. See J. W. Willis Bund, Celtic Church in Wales. 
 
THE VERSION OF ULPHILAS 121 
 
 The sixth and the fifth centuries afford no illustrations 
 suitable to my purpose, until we come to the age of 
 Ambrose and the great Augustine of Hippo. But it was 
 during these times that large numbers of the Teutonic 
 hordes, Lombards, Goths, and Vandals, became nominal 
 adherents of the Church. That the work of Ulphilas had 
 anything to do with this multitudinous conversion is 
 simply incredible. His translation of the Gospels is 
 an interesting fact. But it is impossible to suppose that 
 it could reach the hands or the ears of more than an 
 insignificant number of his own flock in Maetia ; and 
 the adoption of the new religion by the hordes of 
 various dialects who poured across the Danube, and 
 descended from the Alps, is to be attributed to quite 
 other causes. 
 
 These causes are well described by Milman in his 
 History of Latin Christianity^ and amongst them no 
 mention is made of the Bible. The palaces, the courts of 
 justice, the theatres and amphitheatres of the conquered 
 Romans must have seemed to the simple barbarians the 
 work of potent magicians. The great churches with their 
 marble and gold adornments, imposing ceremonial, and 
 enchanting music, would suggest the secret of such pre- 
 ternatural gifts. And if, notwithstanding the apparent 
 devotion of the Romans to their God, he had withheld 
 victory from their arms, surely it was because he was 
 tired of their effeminate vices, and was ready to welcome 
 purer and more valiant vassals. Christ became the 
 Teutonic God of War, and in their devotion to the Cross 
 these warriors profited even more than Constantine from 
 the heavenly omen, in hoc signo vinces. I can well 
 believe that many a stalwart soldier had, like Pepin, a 
 heart susceptible to the pathetic scenes portrayed in 
 
122 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 the Gospel. But that the reading and exposition of 
 Scripture played any such part in the conversion of 
 these northern hordes as it does now, in the reports 
 of missionary operations among modern heathen, is 
 an idea utterly incongruous with the records of 
 the times. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE BIBLE IN THE CHURCHES SILVER AGE 
 
 When we get back to the centuries of the great preachers 
 of the Church's silver age, we find the Bible holding a 
 position much more akin to that with which we were 
 familiar in the nineteenth century than was at all possible 
 during the Middle and Darkest Ages. More akin, I say, 
 but not identical, or even very similar. For it was not in 
 the hands of the unlearned, nor did it take such a place 
 in the education of even Christian children as it did in 
 later times.^ For even the great Augustine, the son of 
 a saintly mother's vows and prayers, knew, as a boy, 
 little if anything of the Scriptures, except that the New 
 Testament was written in very inferior Greek, and the 
 Old Testament version in even worse Latin. Yet during 
 the fifth and the fourth centuries the Bible was constantly 
 the subject of popular expositions to large audiences. 
 And if the laity could not easily obtain copies, or even 
 could not read, at any rate they heard the entire text of 
 large parts of the Bible read by the expositor in the 
 
 ^ The case of Timothy is not in point. Not only does it belong to 
 another age, but though his father is said to have been a Greek, his 
 mother evidently followed her Jewish traditions in teaching her boy the 
 Old Testament. 
 
 123 
 
124 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 course of his exposition. Thus in the last book of The 
 City of God^ Augustine attributes popular familiarity 
 with the miracles of Scripture to the practice of the 
 Church in prescribing the public reading of the canonical 
 books. This, he says, fixed the facts firmly in the 
 memory of the common people. A passage also in his 
 expositions of St John suggests that those who could 
 read sometimes read aloud in private to those who could 
 not.^ The importance thus given to the Bible and to 
 "the ministry of the Word" in that age receives most 
 interesting illustration from Augustine's own account of 
 his conversion under the combined influence of the 
 preaching of Ambrose and his own reading. To a 
 considerable extent the thrilling story anticipates the 
 experience of many a modern sinner and unbeliever, 
 who, between an earnest, powerful preacher and an open 
 Bible, is gradually brought to his knees and finds 
 salvation. 
 
 Yet the differences are obvious, though they are too 
 often overlooked by those who suppose that precisely in 
 proportion as we approach Christian origins the pre- 
 dominance of the Bible increases. For, to Augustine, 
 as to Bede, the Church came before the Bible, inasmuch 
 as it was upon the authority of the Church that the Bible 
 was received.^ And the reiterated and emphatic employ- 
 
 * Lib. xxii., cap. viii. The puerilities which follow do not here concern 
 us. "Leguntur quippe in populis ut credantur." The words do not 
 distinctly mention reading in the church, but the whole context implies it. 
 
 2 On the Gospel of St John, Tract, cxii. He is referring to his own 
 work on the harmony of the Gospels. But the practice must certainly 
 have included the Gospels themselves. 
 
 ^ " Sed me non sinebas aliis fluctibus cogitationis auferri ab ea fide, qua 
 credebam et esse te, et esse incommutabilem substantiam tuam, et esse 
 de hominibus curam et judicium tuum, et in Christo, filio tuo, domino 
 nostro, atque scripturis Sanctis, quas ecclesias tuae catholicae commendaret 
 
AUGUSTINE'S SACRAMENTALISM 
 
 125 
 
 ment of the epithet " catholic," where no spiritual 
 universalism can possibly be meant, shows that Augustine 
 was a firm believer in the theory of a church supernaturally 
 founded by Jesus upon the delegated authority of the 
 apostles, and guaranteed against any real schism by the 
 ever-immanent Holy Spirit, to whose presence and gifts no 
 schismatic congregation could make any but a blasphemous 
 claim. In a word, the Church in Augustine's conception 
 of Christianity had, altogether apart from the Bible, a 
 position and supremacy which to the nineteenth century 
 Bible Christian had become inconceivable. 
 
 Further, the sacramentalism of Augustine's religion 
 widely separates it from simple Bible religion as taught 
 in the last century. Both, indeed, belong to those 
 Oriental religions of which Dr J. G. Frazer says that they 
 " inculcated the communion of the soul with God and its 
 eternal salvation as the only objects worth living for : 
 objects in comparison with which the prosperity and even 
 the existence of the State sank into insignificance."^ But 
 the methods of salvation were different. For, to the 
 modern evangelical Protestant, salvation by faith has 
 been quite independent of the Church, except so far as 
 faith may come by hearing. But, to Augustine, faith 
 could only be realised and acted out by baptism and 
 obedience to the Church. Indeed, though in Augustine's 
 account of his conversion there is much said about his 
 sins, in regard to which he betrays some strange ideas 
 
 autoritas, viam et posuisse salutis humanse ad earn vitam quae post banc 
 mortalem futura est." The reference to Christ in conjunction with the 
 Scripture makes no difference to Augustine's doctrine of Church authority. 
 For all that was known of Christ, whether by Scripture or tradition, 
 depended for its validity on that authority. No modern Bible man, say 
 a Spurgeon or a Moody, would have written so. 
 ^ Isis, A tits, and Osiris^ p. 194. 
 
126 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 of moral proportion,^ and though it would be totally 
 unjust to minimise his desire for moral regeneration, 
 yet his Confessions obviously suggest that the misbeliefs 
 of his youth and adolescence oppressed his conscience 
 more than lying, selfishness, or impurity. His aspiration 
 after communion with God is not at all out of harmony 
 with the most spiritual forms of religion in later days, 
 or with its prophetic instinct of the future.^ But for 
 Augustine one essential condition of communion with 
 God was union with the Church, access to her sacraments, 
 and obedience to her behests. Now this kind of 
 Christianity is practically identical with that of the Greek 
 and Roman and Anglican Churches. But to such as 
 accept the pass-word "the Bible and the Bible alone," 
 it is entirely alien. The idea, therefore, that the 
 emergence of the Bible in the nineteenth century was 
 simply its restoration to the place it had occupied in the 
 times before the spiritual empire of the Pope, finds no 
 justification in Augustine's treatment of the sacred book. 
 His expositions are sometimes noble, occasionally sublime, 
 but often also trivial and even puerile. But whatever 
 
 ^ E.g.f his lying and discourtesy to his mother, when he deserted her 
 under false pretences on the quay at Carthage, evidently does not weigh 
 upon his conscience nearly so much as his early Manichaeism. The fate 
 of his apparently gifted illegitimate son did not seem to grieve him so 
 keenly as the loss of a friend. Even when he began to feel the influence 
 of Ambrose, he heartlessly separated from his faithful concubine, with 
 the view of an advantageous marriage ; and then, as the intended bride 
 was of pre-nuptial age, he could not endure to be without a mistress, but 
 must, temporarily, supply the place of the discarded woman. Besides, 
 amid all the mourning over his own soul's pollution, there is not, so far 
 as I remember, a word of pity for the woman, or regret for the dishonour 
 done to womanhood. Of course, such defective morality is characteristic, 
 not so much of the man, as of the social standard of his ecclesiastical 
 surroundings. But that is precisely my point. 
 
 * See, for instance, Spinoza on "The Intellectual Love of God," 
 Ethics, Part V. 
 
SURVIVALS OF PAGANISM 127 
 
 their character, they always imply the supremacy of the 
 Church, and the supernatural efficacy of sacraments, 
 and are therefore totally inconsistent with the Bible 
 Protestantism of a later day. 
 
 If I recall likewise the relics of paganism surviving in 
 the religion of Augustine and his mother Monica, this is 
 not so much with the idea of emphasising the difference 
 between their Christianity and that of the nineteenth 
 century — for indeed paganism, in the form of fetishism, 
 is with us still — but rather for the purpose of helping us 
 to realise the actual mental and spiritual atmosphere to 
 which the piety of Monica and the expositions of Augustine 
 were adapted. Of the former we are told by her son that 
 in Africa she was in the habit of depositing offerings of 
 food and wine at the tombs of saints and martyrs. But 
 when she followed her son to Milan, Ambrose objected 
 to the practice, partly because it was sometimes made an 
 excuse for excessive drinking, and partly because it too 
 closely resembled the pagan parentalia} Augustine 
 praises her for the readiness with which she submitted to 
 the authority of the Church ; but there is no mention of 
 any appeal to Scripture in condemnation of the practice. 
 It is remarkable, however, that in Africa she had made 
 these offerings for many years without rebuke ; and her 
 evident unconsciousness of doing anything unusual 
 among Christians, justifies the inference that the heathen 
 observance was the subject of episcopal connivance, 
 if not approval. Yet it is obvious that the state 
 of mind to which offerings of food and drink to the 
 
 1 See J. G. Frazer's Adonis^ Attis^ and Osiris^ pp. 240, etc., for the 
 universality of the custom. We are not told whether Monica made her 
 offerings at the season of the Parentalia or on the anniversary of each 
 saint's death. But the former is more likely, if we may argue from the 
 reasons given by Ambrose for his objection. 
 
128 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 dead seemed appropriate, must have been still largely- 
 pagan. 
 
 Augustine himself, when he came under the influence 
 of Ambrose, had so recently emerged from Manichaeism, 
 that, if my notion of the origin of this heresy be correct, 
 there is little wonder that relics of paganism attached 
 themselves to his religion. Now, his thrilling story of 
 his spiritual conflict in a garden with the powers of dark- 
 ness within him, reaches its climax in a resort to the 
 entirely pagan expedient of sortes biblicde^ book omens, 
 obtained by opening at random the pages of the volume 
 consulted, and reading the first words that met the eye.^ 
 As is well known, the Homeric books had often been 
 used by pagans for the same purpose. And though 
 Augustine justifies his action by the example of holy 
 Antony, with whose story he had quite recently become 
 acquainted, yet the practice of divination involved is 
 distinctly heathen. Nor is that fact at all invalidated by 
 the continuance of the custom even into Protestant times. 
 
 It is curious that Augustine, when in his agony he 
 heard the shrill voice in the neighbouring garden repeat- 
 ing tolle^ lege — "Take it up and read," should only 
 have tried to remember whether such words were used 
 in any children's game. The customs of African school- 
 masters must have been very diflrerent from those of 
 other regions and times if he had not often heard them 
 thundered in the ears of his childhood. We have heard 
 them ourselves long ago, though perhaps in a different 
 form — " Turn it up, turn it up ! " — when our rendering 
 
 1 According to Tischendorf, the ancient volumina or rolls had been 
 changed to paged books, with several columns on a page, before the third 
 century A.D. The book of the " Apostle," which Augustine opened on the 
 garden seat where Alypius was sitting, was, no doubt, a paged book. 
 
AUGUSTINE'S "WELTANSCHAUUNG" 129 
 
 did not agree with lexicon authority. But, however that 
 may be, the child's voice mimicking a schoolmaster's orders, 
 sent Augustine back to where he had left the sacred book 
 on the bench on which his friend was sitting. The book, 
 be it observed, was neither the Bible nor the New 
 Testament, but the " Apostle" ; that is, presumably, the 
 collection of St Paul's Epistles, possibly also including 
 the Acts. Augustine opened the book at haphazard, and, 
 glancing at the first words, read : " Not in rioting and 
 drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in 
 strife and envying : but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, 
 and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts 
 thereof" (Rom. xiii. 13, 14). 
 
 But the relics of paganism in Augustine were more 
 deeply rooted than could be inferred from the mere 
 habit of divination. And as in this respect he was 
 eminently representative of the Church in his day, a 
 short examination of his most characteristic pagan tradi- 
 tions may help us to estimate the immensity of the change 
 that has been evolved in the relations of Church and Bible 
 since his time. Notwithstanding the vein of mysticism 
 constantly recurrent in the vast deposit of his writings, 
 it is clear that when Augustine finally abandoned 
 Manichaeism he reverted to the " Weltanschauung " — or 
 world-idea — common to pagans and Jews alike. And 
 when I say "to pagans and Jews," I do not for a 
 moment forget that the monotheism shared by the later 
 Jews with some pre-Christian heathen philosophers, 
 enabled them to give a greater dignity to the concep- 
 tion of a world-creation than had been compatible with 
 earlier mythology. But the three-storied structure — 
 comprising heaven, earth, and hell, or Hades or 
 Sheol — was practically identical in the everyday thoughts 
 
 9 
 
I30 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 of Jew and pagan alike. It was, however, much more 
 pagan than Jewish, since it was immeasurably older 
 than the compilation of the Mosaic myths. Indeed, it 
 was a conception inevitable, so long as men's experi- 
 ence was bounded by firmament, earth-plain, night, and 
 dreams. 
 
 Now Augustine, on surrendering Manichaeism, embraced 
 his mother's belief that this limited experience of man 
 had been enlarged by supernatural revelation ; and the 
 fundamental, or at any rate the initial fact revealed, was 
 that " in the beginning God created the heaven and the 
 earth." Notwithstanding his subtle speculations about 
 the metaphysics of creation, he did not deny the inter- 
 pretation put upon it by the writer of the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews : " Through faith we understand that the worlds 
 were framed by the word of God, so that things which 
 are seen were not made of things which do appear." In 
 other phrase, heaven, the earth-plain, and Hades were at 
 a definite period called into existence by the fiat of 
 an indefinite personal Being entirely and essentially dis- 
 tinct from the worlds he made, a Being henceforward 
 related to those worlds as a supreme despotic sovereign 
 is to the realms he owns. Let it be granted that the 
 idea of fatherhood, superposed even by pagans ^ on this 
 notion of a divine despotism, was enlarged and refined 
 and arrayed in many attributes of tenderness by the 
 genius of Christianity. Still the divine imperialism 
 underlay it, a sovereignty acting by personal will, adapt- 
 ing its decrees to changing times, and much more drastic 
 than any earthly kingship, in that it was omniscient and 
 marked for judgment not only the outward behaviour of 
 
 ^ As recognised in the speech attributed to St Paul on Mars hill, 
 Acts xvii. 
 
EARLY BIBLICAL "WELTANSCHAUUNG'* 131 
 
 every individual subject, but his inmost thoughts and 
 most secret motions. 
 
 To such a limited conception of the immeasurable 
 universe and its government the Augustinian and Middle 
 Age theory of Church and Bible, though in one aspect 
 supernatural, was in another sense eminently natural. 
 For it was in the highest degree unlikely that the personal 
 sovereign who ruled such a finite domain should have 
 left his subjects without any knowledge of himself or any 
 directions as to their duty towards him. The Church, 
 therefore, and the Bible filled an obvious gap in the 
 scheme of things. For the Church was a continuation of 
 the revelation consummated in the person of the Supreme 
 Sovereign's incarnate Son ; and the Scriptures were col- 
 lectively the Church's sacred charter dictated by the Spirit 
 to holy men of old. But the authority of this charter 
 lay in the witness borne to it by the Church, which had, 
 from time to time, guaranteed the divinity of each book 
 or collection of books as it appeared. And only the 
 same competent and indispensable witness could give 
 authoritative interpretation to the words of the Book. 
 
 Readers of Augustine sometimes wonder how a man 
 of the intellectual strength shown by the design, and, 
 with some obvious exceptions, by the details of his 
 City of God^ could have descended to the credulity and 
 puerility characteristic of his references to contempor- 
 ary miracles, and of his distortions of Scripture for the 
 sake of a feeble and uninteresting symbolism. The same 
 man who, in opening his lectures on St John, described 
 that apostle's inspiration by one of the most majestic 
 metaphors in all literature, could stop beneath the very 
 shadow of the Cross, as he approached the conclusion of 
 his course, to note that the reed used by the executioners 
 
132 
 
 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 to lift the vinegar to the lips of Jesus, was a mystic 
 symbol of the Scriptures. I shall venture to put the 
 passages side by side, for the comparison speaks volumes. 
 At the portals of the Gospel, then, he says : — 
 
 " This John, dear brethren, was of those mountains con- 
 cerning which it is written, ' Let the mountains receive peace 
 for thy people, and the hills righteousness.' The mountains 
 are exalted souls j the hills are lesser souls. But to this end 
 do the mountains receive peace, that the hills may receive 
 righteousness. What is the righteousness that the hills 
 receive ? Faith ; because the righteous doth live by faith. 
 But the lesser souls would not receive faith unless the 
 grander souls, called * mountains,' were illuminated by the 
 eternal wisdom itself [ab ipsa Sapientia)^ in order that they 
 may transmit to little ones what little ones may be able to 
 receive, so that the hills dwell in confidence^ because the 
 mountains receive peace. . . . Thus, then, my brethren, 
 John was of these mountains. ... He lived in contempla- 
 tion of the divinity of the Word. How glorious was this 
 mountain, how exalted ! He had risen above all the summits 
 of the world j he had soared above all the fields of air ; 
 he had transcended even the very stars ; he had passed 
 beyond the choirs and legions of angels. For unless he 
 had risen above all things created, he could not have attained 
 to him by whom all things were made. . . ." 
 
 Perhaps a less spiritual orator, more intent on his own 
 eloquence than on his subject, would have forced the 
 suggested mountain scene more definitely upon his 
 hearers. With Augustine the image served his purpose 
 and dissolved away. But we may please ourselves by 
 remembering Alpine scenes, where a snowy dome touch- 
 ing the sky gathers the light of heaven about itself to 
 
 1 This is not a literal rendering of vivere ex fide colles^ but it gives the 
 suggestive picture. 
 
AUGUSTINE'S BONDAGE 133 
 
 reflect it far and wide, and receives the waters of the 
 firmament to send them singing round the lower hills on 
 which are grouped the villages receiving in those waters 
 from the sky both purity and life. In strange contrast 
 to this poetic and pregnant metaphor we find the follow- 
 ing in the exposition of John xix. 29 : — 
 
 " The mode in which the sponge could be applied to his 
 lips when he was lifted on the Cross high above the ground 
 need not concern us. For, as we read in other Evangelists, 
 though our author has omitted the fact, it was by means of 
 a reed that this drink contained in the sponge was lifted to 
 the upper part of the Cross. Now, by the reed was 
 symbolised the Scripture which was fulfilled by this action. 
 For just as we speak of the Greek or Latin tongue^ or any 
 other mode of speech produced by the tongue, so a reed 
 (pen) may be spoken of as though it were the letter which 
 is written by the reed. I admit ^ that with us it is a familiar 
 and recognised habit to speak of articulate utterances of the 
 human voice as " tongues." ^ Still, just in proportion as it 
 is contrary to custom to speak of Scripture as a reed, in 
 that proportion is the expression here the more (obviously) 
 mystical and symbolic." 
 
 In the following sentences Augustine refers to the 
 incident as the last item in the fulfilment of prophecy 
 required before the death of Jesus : — " Then because 
 nothing remained, which must needs be accomplished 
 before he died .... he bowed his head and gave up 
 the ghost." We are thus told to believe that the divine 
 hero of the sacred tragedy was consciously calculating in 
 his last moments how many ancient predictions remained 
 
 1 This is practically the force of sed here, " I know what you would 
 say, etc." 
 
 2 Understand, "while the reed as an expression for a written word 
 is unknown," 
 
134 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 to be justified, and being sure that this was the last, he 
 cried, " It is finished." It would be hard to find in the 
 pages of mocking unbelievers a more cruel travesty of an 
 event that has held the world in awe.^ 
 
 How are we to account for such amazing inconsistencies 
 of thought and feeling ? It may be said that in his 
 greater utterances Augustine followed his own genius or 
 inspiration, while in his puerilities he spoke the ecclesi- 
 astical dialect of the time. Now, if this be the explana- 
 tion — as I am disposed to think it is — it affords an 
 instructive illustration of the relations of the Bible and 
 the Church, not only in the fifth and sixth centuries, but 
 in all the centuries until the myth of creation began to 
 dissolve away under historical and scientific criticism. 
 The contemplations of the great Churchman, so far as he 
 felt and submitted to the dominion of the Churchy were limited 
 to the finite realm, heaven, earth, and hell, of which a god, 
 conceived on human analogies, was the absolute, autocratic, 
 immediate sovereign. This sovereign must have revealed 
 himself — so it was assumed ; and if so, that revelation 
 
 ^ Augustine's whole treatment of the Johannine narrative of the death 
 of Jesus is in miserably disappointing contrast with the nobility of his 
 introductory lecture on the Gospel. It is almost universally admitted 
 now that the Fourth Gospel is of unknown authorship, and was related 
 to the actual facts somewhat as the imaginations of the Greek tragedians 
 were to the germ of popular tradition out of which genius evoked them. 
 And indeed, in the brief, self-restrained picture given by this Gospel of 
 the Crucifixion, with some touches of suppressed passion, there seems to 
 me to be a sort of y^schylean grandeur — the solitary figure of a suffering 
 God projected against infinite mystery. But, in dealing with that picture, 
 Augustine appears to be most interested in reconciling "the third hour" 
 of Mark with " the sixth hour " of his text, and in the precise truth about 
 the division of the garments, and such-like "vacant chaff." Again, there 
 is downright bathos — and of any modern man we should say irreverence 
 — in his connection of Eph. iii. i8 with the material Cross. The cross-bar 
 represents " the breadth " and the upright beam " the height " of the love 
 of Christ ! 
 
MATERIALISM AND MYSTICISM 135 
 
 could be no other than the Judaeo-Christian Scriptures and 
 tradition. Granting this, it followed that every part of 
 the Scripture dictated by the Holy Ghost must be instinct 
 with divine meaning. And if there is anything in the 
 sacred writings apparently opposed to morality or common 
 sense, that can only be because the questionable passage 
 deals with mysteries only to be understood through 
 symbolic interpretation.^ 
 
 Further, since the plan of salvation involved a series of 
 prophecies and types hinting with gradually increasing 
 plainness at the ultimate theophany, every devout and 
 instructed student of the Word was always on the look-out 
 for a significance deeper than the obvious sense. And 
 again, since God had miraculously intervened to repair a 
 breach made in his world by the craft and subtilty of the 
 Devil, and had kept up that miraculous intervention for 
 more than four thousand years, it was contrary to the 
 analogy of faith to suppose that he would suspend that 
 miraculous intervention for the short period that remained 
 before the consummation of all things. Under such a 
 system of thought, we can hardly wonder that even an 
 Augustine often lapsed into holy folly. 
 
 It remains to add to these considerations the curious 
 mixture of materialism and mysticism characteristic of 
 the sacramental ideas of Augustine, of his contemporaries, 
 and of all his followers. The water of baptism was a 
 material substance, but in the hands of the priest it 
 possessed miraculous powers. The candidate emerged 
 
 ^ See, if anyone cares, D^ Doctrina Christiana^ Lib. vi., cap. 21, where 
 Augustine quotes with evident approval Cyprian's edifying reference to 
 Noah's conduct after he had planted a vineyard. It is true that Augustine 
 quotes it in illustration of a point in his teaching on Christian rhetoric, 
 but the recital of such words by two great fathers amply justifies the 
 above. 
 
136 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 from it as one born again. All his sins were cancelled. 
 The natural man had become the child of God, and an 
 inheritor of the kingdom of heaven. It may be possible, 
 perhaps, for ingenuity so to explain Augustine's allusions 
 to the supreme rite of the Church, " holy communion,'* 
 as to exclude the metaphysical doctrine of transubstantia- 
 tion. But that he believed the real body and blood of 
 Jesus to be in some sense present after consecration, 
 seems undeniable. 
 
 Now, such sacramental magic is utterly incongruous 
 with the probabilities of Christian origins as suggested by 
 historical criticism. For if we put aside the Fourth 
 Gospel as clearly post-apostolic and ideal, and if we 
 confine ourselves to such epistles and to such portions of 
 the Synoptical Gospels as seem proved to have been 
 circulated in the infant church during the latter part of 
 the first century, we get the idea of a spiritualised, semi- 
 Jewish community, separated from the traditions of 
 Israel by a renunciation of the Mosaic law, but insisting 
 on the consummation of those traditions in a Messiah 
 who had been crucified, but had conquered death by 
 rising again and ascending into heaven, whence he was 
 shortly to come down and establish God's kingdom on 
 earth. The preparation of the Christian for that re- 
 appearance was to be a pure and loving life, not according 
 to any literal commandment, but by the inspiration 
 vouchsafed to faith. To this pure and loving life baptism 
 was the initial rite, and the Lord who was to come from 
 heaven was to be constantly kept in mind by a com- 
 memorative meal such as he had ministered to his apostles 
 in the hour of their last social communion with him. 
 
 How did it come to pass, then, that a religion and 
 rites so simple as these received and appropriated a 
 
PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 137 
 
 sacramental magic such as made baptism the means of a 
 supernatural metamorphosis, and the Lord's Supper a 
 viaticum to immortal life ? Opinions differ ; but there 
 seems to be a weight of probability on the side of those 
 who hold that, in the course of the second and third 
 centuries, the pagan " mysteries," whose rites often 
 show a curious analogy to those of the Church, had 
 exerted considerable influence on the latter. The whole 
 Western world was at that period almost morbidly 
 sensitive to the problems of human destiny, and to the 
 possibility of redemption from sin ; while the longing for 
 an assurance of immortality had never before, at least 
 in Roman society, assumed the passionate forms that it 
 did then.^ Now, the class of people who sought initia- 
 tion in the mysteries, which promised satisfaction to this 
 vague longing and perturbation of spirit, were precisely 
 such as to find at once a superior attraction in Christianity, 
 when once they were introduced to its doctrine and 
 worship. And as such proselytes increased in number, 
 it was inevitable that their reminiscences, together with 
 the tendency of the times, should introduce an element 
 of heathen magic into the sacraments of the Church. 
 
 But this kind of sacramentalism made impossible the 
 sort of isolated supremacy claimed for the Bible in the 
 nineteenth century by the popular Protestant voice, as 
 rightly interpreted by the Bible Society. The fourth 
 century was an age of great preachers, whose industry 
 and zeal in the public exposition of the Scriptures 
 familiarised large numbers of the laity with Hebrew 
 mythology, Gospel traditions, and apostolic exhortations. 
 To this extent we may regard the popular Bible habit of 
 
 ^ See Das antike Mysterienwesen in seinem Einfluss auf das Christen- 
 thum^ by Gustav Aurich, 1 894. 
 
138 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 that age as more nearly akin to the feeling of the recent 
 century than to that of the Middle Ages. Yet, after all, 
 it was but distantly akin. For if any layman dared to 
 interpret the Bible for himself, he was in danger of the 
 fate of the later Paulicians ; while the dread authority of 
 the Church, the relics of paganism incorporated with 
 Christianity, and the magic imported into the sacraments, 
 constituted a spiritual atmosphere in which a nineteenth- 
 century believer in " simple Bible religion " could not 
 have breathed. 
 
 One of the great preachers above alluded to was John 
 Chrysostom — John of the Golden Mouth — a presbyter of 
 Antioch in the last quarter of the fourth century, and 
 afterwards (398) Patriarch of Constantinople. Born 
 about A.D. 347, of good family, in Coelesyria, he became 
 a pupil of Libanius the rhetorician, called also the sophist, 
 and he was likewise a hearer of Andragathias, a philosopher. 
 His parents intended him for the profession of law ; but 
 his conscience revolted against the "knavish and unjust" ^ 
 practices of the courts, and he was seized with a craving 
 for the contemplative life to which a fellow-student, 
 Evagrius, had devoted himself. He was, however, 
 diverted from this solitude by the enthusiasm kindled in 
 him for the study of the Bible.^ It is noteworthy that, 
 for the better pursuit of this study, he seems to have 
 considered the social life of the episcopal city of Antioch, 
 
 ^ " rbi/ cV Tots SiKttffT-qpiois fiox^'fipof K°^^ &5iKoy filov,'^ Socr., Eccl. Hist.^ 
 
 vi. 3. 
 
 2 It is not clear whether his parents were Christians or not. At the 
 time of his birth the poUtical estabHshment of Christianity was so recent 
 that almost half the population, or — considering the large population in 
 rural districts {pagani) — more than half adhered to heathen beliefs and 
 practices, or were guided in their religious profession by expediency. 
 I do not know of any proof that Anthusa, like Monica, desired to see 
 her son a priest or bishop. 
 
CHRYSOSTOM'S PREPARATION 139 
 
 and assiduous attendances on the services of the Church, 
 to be more advantageous than the retirement of a hermit. 
 At the same time he lived the life of an ascetic, a self- 
 discipline to which he adhered throughout his life. Such 
 zeal in a young man of his social position and intellectual 
 gifts soon attracted attention, and Bishop Zeno of Antioch 
 ordained him to the office of Reader. The function 
 seems to have been first formally recognised in the third 
 century, and perhaps implies a need which could scarcely 
 be felt until after the completion of the New Testament 
 Canon. It was a humble ecclesiastical office, below that 
 of deacon ; but it must not be confounded with that of 
 lay-reader in the modern Church. Copies of the Scrip- 
 tures being scarce, even in episcopal towns, and the 
 number of illiterate people being large, it was important 
 that frequent opportunities should be affiDrded of hearing 
 the Bible read aloud in church, apart from the more 
 formal rites. The absence or obscurity of such an office 
 in the mediaeval Church, apart from the monasteries, is 
 an indication of the different place held by the Bible in 
 the two periods. 
 
 It is natural to conjecture that such gifts as those of a 
 musical voice, clear enunciation, instinctive modulation, 
 and the nameless charm which quickens sympathy would 
 quickly be recognised in the reading of a born orator. 
 At any rate he soon obtained deacon's orders. One of 
 the too frequent wrangles which marred the work of the 
 Church in those days, as in modern times, delayed his 
 advancement. It is unnecessary here to particularise the 
 quarrels of Meletius, Gregory of Nazianzen, and Paulinus. 
 During the trouble, John withdrew himself for three years 
 into solitude, used no doubt for reading, meditation, 
 prayer, and authorship. At the end of that time his 
 
I40 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 former friend and model succeeded to the bishopric of 
 Antioch, and speedily ordained John as priest or presbyter. 
 He had already written several treatises, but as the 
 Preacher of the Golden Mouth he was yet unknown. 
 
 Aptitude and opportunity, those two essential con- 
 ditions of any great, or indeed of any successful career, 
 were, in the case of Chrysostom, like two chemical 
 elements which rush together with flame and resounding 
 report. As presbyter he was called upon to preach ; and 
 as soon as the people heard him, they cared for no one 
 else. They flocked in such numbers that he was obliged to 
 make an innovation in Church custom. For the preacher 
 seems usually to have stood on the altar steps, as indeed 
 is often the practice of Catholic priests now. But there 
 was placed in the body of the church an " ascent '* or 
 " ambo,'* 1 being a platform with steps on either side. 
 It had been used hitherto for confessions of faith, for the 
 reading of the Gospel and Epistle, likewise as a stand for 
 singers, and for any purpose requiring easy command of 
 the whole area of the church. If it be true that it was 
 not used by preachers in earlier times, the inference is 
 that the preacher did not require to command the whole 
 area, inasmuch as it was not usually filled with people. 
 But the throng, pressing to hear the new preacher, was 
 such, that if all were to see and hear, he must occupy a 
 more elevated position, and the ambo served his purpose. 
 
 His removal to Constantinople and elevation to the 
 archiepiscopal see was caused by the impression his 
 eloquence made on a very unworthy man — Eutropius, the 
 eunuch minister of the weak Arcadius. For, being on a 
 visit to Antioch, Eutropius heard the " Golden Mouth," 
 as he began to be called, and immediately determined that 
 ' Said to be derived from ava^aivw 
 
GREATEST PREACHER OF ALL TIME 141 
 
 this was the man for the first vacancy on the archiepiscopal 
 throne. It might be curious, but it would be hopeless, 
 to speculate on the motives that could have actuated an 
 unprincipled, corrupt, debased, and utterly wicked man 
 to desire for the chief pulpit of the world a preacher of 
 such intense moral earnestness and of such fearless and 
 incisive utterance as characterised Chrysostom. But he 
 was destined to be within little more than a year the 
 occasion and the subject of, perhaps, the most extra- 
 ordinary display of pulpit oratory that the Church has 
 ever known. The scene was dramatic. Eutropius, the 
 victim of popular revolution and Imperial caprice or 
 cowardice, had fled to the church as a sanctuary, and was 
 seen as the congregation assembled to be grovelling at the 
 altar and clinging to its pillars. The Archbishop ascended 
 the steps of the ambo, and gazing at the prostrate figure, 
 pronounced his text, " Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." 
 Then, without exordium, he made the application at 
 once. 
 
 " Where now," he cried, " are the splendid robes of the 
 consulate ? Where are the flaring torches ? Where are the 
 applauding crowd, and the feasts and the assemblies, and 
 the wreaths and the pavilions ? Where are the shouts of 
 the mob, and the welcome of the circus, and the flatteries of 
 the spectators ? All have vanished. A stormy blast 
 scattered the foliage ; it exposed to us the naked trunk : 
 and even that is left shaken from the roots. For so mighty 
 has been the sweep of the wind, that the tree is all but torn 
 up, and its root fibres are quivering. Where now are the 
 pretended friends ? Where are the wine-parties and the 
 dinners ? Where is the swarm of parasites, with wine- 
 bibbing throughout the day, and the fantastic arts of the 
 cooks, and the hangers-on of power, who act and speak only 
 to curry favour ? All those things were a dream, and when 
 
142 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 the day came they were nought. They were flowers of the 
 spring, and when the spring passed they withered. They 
 were a shadow, and it fled. They were smoke, and it 
 dissolved. They were bubbles, and they burst. They 
 were a spider's web, and it was torn to threads. Where- 
 fore let us chant ever again and again this spiritual 
 utterance, ' Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.' For this 
 utterance ought always to be inscribed on our walls, on our 
 garments, in the market-place, in the home, in the streets, 
 on our doors, in our entrance-halls, and, above all, in the 
 conscience of each man." 
 
 After a while, turning to the miserable fugitive, the 
 unsparing preacher, with an apparent cruelty afterwards 
 explained, reproached him : — 
 
 " Did I not tell thee often and often that wealth is 
 fugitive ? But thou wouldst not endure us. Did I not 
 tell thee that it is a senseless ^ servant ? But thou wouldst 
 not be persuaded. See now, how actual facts have proved 
 to experience that wealth is not merely fugitive, not merely 
 senseless, but murderous. For it is that wealth which 
 has brought thee to this abject terror. When thou usedst 
 often to complain of me for telling thee the truth, did 
 I not tell thee that I love thee more than thy flatterers do ? 
 that I, the reprover, care for thee more than those who fawn 
 on thee ? Did I not also remind you that the wounds 
 (inflicted) by friends are more faithful than the obtruded 
 kisses of enemies.^ If thou hadst endured my wounding, 
 their kisses would not have brought thee to this death. 
 
 " If I speak thus, it is not through any desire to trample on 
 that prostrate man, but through the wish to confirm those 
 
 1 ayvwuwv. Perhaps " unprofitable " might translate it, but the emphasis 
 is on the brute stupidity of mere money. 
 
 ^ Prov. xxvii. 6. Chrysostom gives the LXX version. The kisses are 
 there called eKowo-fo, — offered without being asked. 
 
A TRAGIC SCENE 143 
 
 who stand ; not to inflame the wounds of the sufferer, do I 
 speak, but to preserve in sound health those who are not yet 
 hurt J not to sink a man struggling in the waves, but to 
 warn those saiUng with a fair wind, lest they too should 
 founder. How can that be prevented ? Why, by giving 
 careful heed to the mutability of human affairs. For if this 
 man had been on his guard against a reverse, he would not 
 have sustained a reverse. But though he would not profit 
 by private influences or by any other, surely you, who plume 
 yourselves on your wealth, may profit by his fate ; for there 
 is nothing in all things human that is more precarious. 
 
 " Let any rich man enter here and win great profit. For 
 when he sees one who has shaken the whole world, cast 
 down from so high a pinnacle, now crouching in fear, more 
 terrified than a hare or a frog, and fastened to that pillar 
 without bands, fixed by fear instead of chains, he will abate 
 his pretence, he will drop his pompous assumption, and, 
 reflecting on the true philosophy of things human, he will 
 go away, having learned by an object lesson what the 
 Scriptures tell him in words, that ' All flesh is grass, and all 
 the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass is 
 withered and the flower is faded.' Or again : ' As the 
 grass they shall quickly wither, and as the green herb they 
 shall fall away; because as smoke so are his days,'i — and 
 many such passages. On the other hand, the poor man who 
 comes in and looks upon this sight will have no pessimistic 
 feeling about himself, nor will he bemoan his penury. 
 Rather he will be pleased with his poverty, because it has 
 been to him as a place of sanctuary, and as a waveless 
 harbour, and as a secure wall of defence. And, seeing all 
 this, if he hath the choice, he would a thousand times prefer 
 
 Mt is pretty certain that we have here the shorthand writer's report of 
 a discourse delivered almost extempore. Hence we need not be surprised 
 at the tacking of Ps. cii. 3 on to Ps. xxxvii. 2. As to shorthand reports 
 of Chrysostom, see Socrates, Hist En., vi. 4. 
 
144 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 to remain as he is, rather than to possess the world's wealth 
 for a brief space of time, and then to be in jeopardy of his 
 life. Seest thou how the flight of this man hither has been 
 no small gain to rich and poor, to the lowly and the high, to 
 bond and free ? Seest thou how each several man, taking 
 his own appropriate medicine, goes away from this spectacle 
 healed ? 
 
 " Ha ! Do I soften your mood ? Do I turn away wrath ? 
 Do I quench inhuman passion ? Do I convert you to 
 sympathy ? Truly, I think so ; for your faces show it, and 
 the fountains of your tears. Come then, since the rock in 
 you has become deep earth and soft soil, bring forth the 
 fruit of pity ; let the plant of sympathy ripen ; let us fall 
 before the sovereign, or rather let us beseech the all-pitying 
 God to assuage the mood of the Emperor and to soften 
 his heart, so that he may grant us unreservedly this 
 grace. . . ." 
 
 The preacher then goes on to describe how the 
 Imperial soldiery had sought permission to violate the 
 sanctuary, and how Arcadius had pleaded with tears 
 against the deed. He evidently thinks the popular 
 passion is the real danger to the fugitive. Therefore, 
 in immediate prospect of the Communion, he uses all 
 priestly authority and oratorical art to ensure the 
 relenting of the people. 
 
 " For how could you be fit for absolution if, when the 
 injured monarch shows no vindictiveness, you, who have 
 suffered nothing like so much, should persist in such wrath ? 
 Or how, when this congregation separates, will you touch 
 the mysteries,^ or utter that prayer which we are commanded 
 to say, ' Forgive us as we forgive our debtors,' when at the 
 same time you are extorting a penalty from your debtor ? " 
 
 1 /iv<rTi7p(«i'= consecrated elements. 
 
THE CHURCH DOMINATING THE BIBLE 145 
 
 In the result, Eutropius was held inviolable within the 
 church ; but having left it in the hope of escape, he was 
 captured, and after a brief exile was recalled and put to 
 death. But Chrysostom, in a sermon preached after the 
 attempted escape and capture, declared that if he had re- 
 mained within the sacred precincts, no harm could have 
 touched him. And though the moral earnestness of the 
 preacher is indisputable, yet it is clear that what he has 
 most at heart is the inviolability of the Church.^ 
 
 This incident in the career of Chrysostom has been 
 selected for recital partly because its dramatic nature gives 
 a vivid glimpse of Church life at the end of the fourth 
 century, and partly because it illustrates what the Bible 
 then was in the hands and on the lips of a Churchman 
 with popular sympathies and power of expression. The 
 gifts and arts of a successful preacher are much the same 
 in all ages, and there is a good deal in Chrysostom that 
 reminds us of Spurgeon or Ward Beecher, though he had 
 undoubtedly more genius, more culture, and more learn- 
 ing than either of these. But there are two points of 
 difference between his days and ours, which must always 
 strike us in reading him. The first is the much more 
 limited knowledge of the Bible possible to popular 
 audiences in the fourth century, and the second is the 
 universal acceptance by such audiences of the power of 
 the Church as a supernatural body privileged to interpret 
 its own charter in the Scriptures and to influence the 
 eternal destines of every man through its priests and 
 sacraments. There were probably more copies of the 
 Bible, or at any rate of the Gospels and Epistles, in Con- 
 
 1 The discourse is somewhat incoherent, and the Benedictine editor 
 expresses doubts of its genuineness, but the vindication of the Church is 
 characteristic. 
 
 10 
 
146 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 stantinople than in any other city of the world, except 
 Rome. But Chrysostom found it necessary to exhort his 
 hearers to get themselves the Scriptures,^ " the medicine 
 of the soul " ; or, at any rate, if they cannot compass the 
 entire Bible, they ought to have the " New Testament, 
 the Acts of the Apostles, the Gospels, those perpetual 
 teachers." It would be strange indeed to hear a popular 
 preacher in St PauFs Cathedral nowadays urging an 
 average audience to purchase a Bible, or at any rate part of 
 one. It is not likely that any house-painter in Constan- 
 tinople cherished a familiar Bible on which he scribbled 
 independent comments after the fashion of the rude 
 but fervent Christian whose original hermeneutics were 
 quoted in our first chapter. Not because the Bible was 
 less honoured in the fourth century than in the nineteenth, 
 but it was honoured in a different fashion. It was like 
 the Ark of the Covenant, not to be touched by profane 
 hands ; but, so far at least as its interpretation and appli- 
 cation was concerned, to be left to the priests. At the 
 same time it is pleasant to know that the lively and 
 pointed expositions of Chrysostom were probably, at least 
 in the case of some part of his hearers, revived and en- 
 forced by their own reading at home. 
 
 The power of the Church is a familiar topic in Catholic 
 pulpits now, and such power as the Catholic clergy exercise 
 over the uneducated multitude is largely owing to the 
 
 1 Pifi\la. It is one of the earliest uses of the word in that special sense 
 in £p. ad Coll. Hom..^ ix. In the following context is an eloquent com- 
 mendation of the practice of private Bible-reading. " Do not throw the 
 whole work on us. You are sheep ; yes, but not unreasoning sheep ! 
 You have reason." This undoubtedly shows that under Chrysostom the 
 Church did not withhold the Scriptures, as it seems to have done in the 
 seventh century, according to the Paulician accusation (see ante^ p. 109), 
 but it is perfectly consistent with what is said above as to the impossibility 
 of independent interpretation. 
 
BIBLE SUPERSEDING CHURCH 
 
 147 
 
 implicit belief of the faithful in the awful consequences 
 attached to the priest's sacramental prerogatives. But it 
 is questionable whether, even in a Catholic country, such 
 a scene would be possible as that which we have just 
 witnessed in the Church of St Sophia. For, though the 
 pretensions of the Church to absolve or to refuse absolu- 
 tion from damning sin are maintained, no one believes in 
 those pretensions with such thoroughness as to accept the 
 inevitable inference that the destinies of eternity must 
 supersede the expediencies of time, and that the Church 
 must overrule the State. Needless to say that outside 
 the Catholic Church the most sincere and fervent 
 Christians have no feelings even remotely akin to the 
 reverence and awe with which Chrysostom's congregation 
 listened to his exaltation of the Church's delegated divine 
 powers. They are Bible Christians, even if they do not 
 ursurp the title as a sectarian name. Keeping to the 
 limits of the nineteenth century, before the " New The- 
 ology " had become popular, we may say that each wor- 
 shipper in Protestant churches carried his Bible about with 
 him, not as a corporate, but as a personal charter of re- 
 demption and eternal life. Between his soul and God no 
 priest might intervene. Between his understanding or 
 conscience and the Bible, no earthly interpreter had 
 authority to intrude. Advice, information, explanation 
 might be offered and thankfully received, but the only 
 authoritative interpreter recognised by the pious was the 
 same Spirit who moved holy men of old to write the books. 
 Such a relation of Man to the Bible was not only unknown, 
 but inconceivable, in the silver age of the Church. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE BIBLE AND PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 
 
 The purpose of this treatise requires us constantly to 
 keep in view those popular ideas of the Bible which 
 reached their culmination in the nineteenth century. 
 Such ideas are now in process of change, a process which 
 some call development, and others disintegration. But 
 probably the interpretations are not irreconcilable. How- 
 ever that may be, it is certain that, according to the 
 popular Protestant evangelical theory of Christian origins 
 and early progress, it is precisely as we approach the 
 apostolic age that the supremacy of Scripture emerges 
 from the mists of later superstition, and that the virgin 
 Church is heard to anticipate the later Protestant watch- 
 word, " the Bible, and the Bible alone." But this popular 
 idea of early Church life is scarcely confirmed by a can- 
 did study of such documents as are left to us by the 
 internecine struggle between sects for the preservation of 
 their own records and the suppression of those of their 
 rivals. And here it should be noted that the losses 
 suffered in this struggle for existence have told far more 
 heavily against heretical, or, as we might say. Nonconfor- 
 mist Christians, than against those who kept to the 
 
 main stream of tradition. Therefore, if we find that the 
 
 148 
 
PRIMITIVE TRADITION 149 
 
 records of the earliest Christian centuries fail to confirm 
 the nineteenth-century theory above mentioned, it is no 
 answer to say that simple Bible religion was suppressed 
 by ecclesiastical authority. For, to any unprejudiced 
 judgment, it must appear with something approaching to 
 certainty that the result of the struggle for existence 
 amongst ideals and doctrines was that the immediately 
 post-apostolic conception of the respective functions of 
 the Church and Bible prevailed and were handed down 
 identical in essence, though encumbered with many 
 accretions, to future generations. 
 
 It may be plausibly said that Protestant pleaders for 
 pure Christianity are not content to accept the post- 
 apostolic Church as a final court of appeal, but insist on 
 taking the judgment of the apostles and even Christ 
 himself. But the difficulty in maintaining such an ulti- 
 mate appeal is obvious. For what is commonly taken to 
 be that supreme court is in fact constituted, and to a very 
 large extent guided and ruled, by the post-apostolic 
 Church. Thus you cannot possibly appeal to St Paul 
 for the authority of the written Gospels, since in his day 
 no written Gospels existed. Nor can you appeal to the 
 Gospels for the authority of St Paul, since he is not only 
 unmentioned in them, but unconceived and perhaps in- 
 conceivable in the Church life that gave them birth.^ As 
 
 ^ The problem of the Gospels does not come within my range. But at 
 any rate St Paul's exclusive insistence on the death and resurrection of 
 Jesus, together with his really startling reticence as to the life of the Lord, 
 betrays a spiritual standpoint indefinitely removed from that of the Gospel 
 " rhapsodists" — if we may use the term. Besides, the Synoptical Gospels, 
 though certainly unwritten during St Paul's Hfe, except in possible frag- 
 ments, show a childlike simplicity and Homeric objectivity suggesting an 
 earlier tone of thought than that of the Pauline writings. They existed 
 in the talk of the Galilean apostles and Judaic Christians before they were 
 committed to writing. It is true that, so far as our information goes, the 
 
ISO 
 
 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 is well known to all readers of even popular works on the 
 Canon of the New Testament, this book, so dear to 
 Christians, had no rounded completeness until the latter 
 part of the third century. Indeed, when Eusebius wrote 
 after the establishment of Christianity by Constantine, 
 the authorship and authority of the Book of Revelation 
 was still disputed. The Epistle to the Hebrews was 
 assigned by some to Clement of Rome, by others to 
 Barnabas, and by others again to Apollos. And it is 
 scarcely possible that those who assigned it to such non- 
 apostolic writers can have regarded it as authoritative in 
 the same sense as the words of St Paul. The Epistle of 
 James, also, was openly doubted, as well as the second of 
 Peter and that of Jude. Putting aside, therefore, the 
 Old Testament, there was even in the time of Constantine 
 no guaranteed volume, or corpus, of divine revelation 
 such as later Christians recognised in the " New Testa- 
 ment of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." There 
 were only a number of detached sacred books,^ embody- 
 ing partly the traditions of the Church concerning the 
 ministry of Jesus, and partly the personal utterances of 
 his immediate apostles. 
 
 Now, if the devoutest appreciator of "simple Bible 
 teaching" will try to put himself in the place of the 
 Christians living in those early days, he must own that 
 
 Gentile ministry of St Paul began within ten years of the crucifixion of 
 Jesus. But from the beginning of his work, and throughout it, he lived, 
 spiritually, socially, and intellectually, in a different world from that of the 
 Palestinian Christians. There is a great deal implied in his declaration, 
 Gal. i. 22, that he was " unknown by face unto the churches of Judaea 
 which were in Christ." Now, it was certainly amongst the " churches of 
 Judaea " that the reminiscences and imaginations took shape which after- 
 wards developed into the Synoptical Gospels. Of course, these remarks 
 have no reference whatever to the Fourth Gospel. 
 
 * KvpiaKoi or Oeiai ypa4>a\. 
 
"SIMPLE BIBLE" IN THE FIRST AGE 151 
 
 they would inevitably feel the want of some direction 
 and guidance, other than that of these as yet independent 
 and unincorporated books.^ The private Christian found 
 such direction and guidance in the corporate opinion of 
 the congregation to which he belonged, and particularly 
 of the leaders, the Presbyters or Bishops, two titles which 
 from the very beginning of the second century began to 
 denote two distinct orders of clergy. These leaders, 
 again, being in correspondence with other congregations 
 throughout the expanding Christian world, were able to 
 say what seemed to them to be the judgment of the 
 universal or " Catholic " Church. Or, if on any point 
 considered important it appeared that the leaders of 
 various churches were disagreed, the example recorded in 
 Acts XV. was followed and the official representatives of 
 the churches came together "to consider of this matter." 
 In this way there grew up, even while the New 
 Testament was being formed, that commanding authority 
 of the Church, apart from which the story of Christianity 
 cannot be understood. Indeed, the want of a sufficient 
 appreciation of this great prerogative of the Church has 
 marred the Protestant conception of historic Christianity 
 by reducing it to an estimate of more or less Bible in the 
 various epochs, whereas it is perfectly certain that 
 Church authority is considerably older than that of the 
 New Testament, and it can scarcely be too often repeated 
 
 ^ If it should occur to the reader that the Sinaitic Codex makes a 
 volume of all the New Testament books, he may be reminded that it 
 contains also the Epistle of Barnabas, and nearly the whole Shepherd 
 of Hernias^ without the slightest indication that these books belong to a 
 different class. Similarly, the Alexandrian Codex preserves the Epistles 
 of the Roman Clement. The Vatican Codex is defective— all after 
 Heb. ix. 14 being lost. It should be noted also that the differences in 
 the order of books within these ancient codices suggest a still tentative 
 arrangement of scattered MSS. 
 
152 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 that the former determined what the latter should be. 
 Nor can any difficulty be caused if we regard both the 
 one authority and the other as purely natural forms of 
 moral influence, explicable by their origins and by the 
 circumstances and course of their evolution. Some of the 
 New Testament books, indeed, were not the voice of the 
 congregation, but of individual genius. It was not always 
 easy to accommodate these latter to the official theology 
 that might dominate the Church at particular times, but 
 the Church that guaranteed the New Testament inevitably 
 claimed the right to interpret, and thus ensured harmony 
 within the fold. To the outsider, however, the more 
 important question is what has been the service or the 
 dis-service rendered by each form of authority to the 
 progress of man. 
 
 Perhaps the first three centuries of the Christian era 
 give as good an opportunity as any other period for study- 
 ing that question. True, indeed, the religious history is 
 in many parts obscure. But the salient facts of a quiet 
 but resistless expansion of the Church, and of the evolution 
 of the New Testament Canon, are clear enough ; and even 
 the imperfections of ecclesiastical historians cannot deprive 
 those facts of significance. In the age of Augustine and 
 Chrysostom, secular power had already been captured by 
 the Church. The only miracle worthy of religion, the 
 victory of unarmed love and truth over unresisted brute 
 force, had little or no chance of repetition in a church 
 enriched and adorned by the State. Even before the 
 permanent establishment of Christianity, the Church had 
 already proved by experience that prosperity and ease may 
 be worse than persecution. At any rate, Eusebius, 
 writing of his own earliest years, declares that a long 
 period of toleration had produced negligence and sloth 
 
THE MARTYR OF NICOMEDIA 153 
 
 amongst the Christians, and that this relaxation of spiritual 
 energy had given occasion to unbrotherly strife. 
 
 Yet no sooner was the anti-Christian edict of Diocletian 
 posted up in Nicomedia, than a Christian was found bold 
 enough to tear the charta sacra down, rend it in pieces, 
 and trample it under foot. The exact terms of the edict 
 are nowhere given ; but the words of Eusebius suggest 
 that it directed the destruction of the churches recently 
 erected, and the burning of all writings that the Christians 
 counted sacred. What, then, was the impulse which 
 prompted the unnamed martyr of Nicomedia to tear down 
 the Imperial decree } Was it corporate spirit or zeal for 
 the Scriptures } No doubt it was both. But in what 
 proportion were the motives mingled } On the whole, 
 such records as have been preserved, and a comparison of 
 the story of Reformation martyrs with those of the early 
 Church, would certainly suggest that the heroism of the 
 nameless martyr of Nicomedia and of the unconquerable 
 hosts who followed him, was inspired more by the Church 
 than by the Bible. The selection of the Bishops and 
 Presbyters for specially vindictive persecution shows that 
 the powers of this world recognised the Society and its 
 traditions as the stronghold and fountain-head of what 
 they considered a " pernicious superstition." And if they 
 included the sacred writings in their promiscuous condem- 
 nation, it could hardly be because they knew what these 
 sacred writings were, but simply because, according to 
 common fame, those writings gave to the life of the 
 Church a continuity which it was the business of persecu- 
 tion to destroy. 
 
 As it is not necessary to follow up through the mists of 
 Christian origins this criticism of the comparative influ- 
 ence of the Bible and the Church in the inspiration of 
 
154 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 martyrs, we may here call up at once the Lyons martyrs, 
 whose pathetic story is told in an epistle from the church 
 of that city, quoted by Eusebius. Of these martyrs we 
 learn that amidst tortures the endurance of which would, 
 to our self-indulgent age, seem incredible, were it not 
 paralleled and confirmed by many other instances within 
 and also without Christianity, a poor weak girl, Blandina, 
 would reiterate again and again, " I am a Christian, and 
 amongst us nothing base is allowed." The steadfast 
 declaration was, no doubt, directly occasioned by the 
 infamous accusations of incest and ritual murder made 
 by stupid bigotry against the Church. Still, the inspira- 
 tion of the corporate spirit is apparent, and when it is 
 remembered how little opportunity poor Blandina could 
 have had of studying the Scriptures, we may reasonably 
 assume that her piteous cry told more of the power of the 
 Church than of the Bible. 
 
 If we turn to the martyrology of Foxe, we find that 
 in his accounts of Reformation martyrs quotations of 
 Scripture are frequent, and minister greatly to the con- 
 solation of the sufferers. But in the original accounts of 
 primitive martyrs of the Church this is not the case. 
 On the contrary, the words of the Bible are comparatively 
 infrequent on their lips. But instead, we have constant 
 testimony of their loyalty to Christ as king of kings, and 
 of their contempt for false gods. No doubt the position 
 of Reformation martyrs was very different from that of 
 primitive martyrs, inasmuch as the latter were witnesses 
 for the Church, and the former were witnesses against 
 it. And, naturally, the men who appealed from the 
 Church to the Bible must needs make much of the latter. 
 Such a comment, however, only confirms what has just 
 been said as to the comparative prominences of Church 
 
MODERN MARTYRS 155 
 
 and Bible in ancient and modern times. The question 
 as to the religious propriety of either attitude does not 
 lie within our purview ; though every reader may form 
 his own opinion from the facts of which we give a 
 summary. It is sufficient here to note that during 
 the struggles of the first three centuries the Church 
 and its Founder are prominent, and the Bible in 
 reserve. 
 
 This view of the relative positions of Church and Bible 
 in those times is confirmed by many incidents of Church 
 history, from which I select one or two, though many 
 more might be given did space allow. If the Bible, and, 
 in particular, the New Testament, had been the main 
 subject of interest to the faithful ; if, in fact, it had been 
 to the pre-Constantinian Church what it certainly was to 
 Protestant communities and families in the nineteenth 
 century, — it is difficult to conceive how so many biblical 
 treatises or commentaries on the sacred text should have 
 been lost. That the holy books themselves should be 
 carefully preserved, guarded by appointed Church officers 
 and concealed in times of persecution, was a consequence 
 of their being regarded as the voice of the very earliest 
 Church, uttered by or directly reported from the lips of 
 the apostles and their Lord. But this treasure was in 
 the charge of the Church, and the point of interest for 
 Christians was not so much what individual Presbyters 
 or Bishops thought of the sacred text, but rather what 
 the Church said of it. 
 
 Take the case of Origen, one of the most interesting 
 of all Church teachers, comparable in power of intellect 
 to Augustine, and much wider in his sympathies. After 
 the martyrdom of his father in Alexandria, Origen, though 
 scarcely past boyhood, began to earn his living as a teacher 
 
156 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 or lecturer in Greek literature. But he was much more 
 devoted to the unclassical Scriptures. And as the violence 
 of persecution had driven away the catechists, he boldly 
 took up the work and speedily became a renowned and 
 beloved instructor of catechumens. It was natural that 
 such a man, when he afterwards devoted himself to a life 
 of literary labour in the interests of religion, should have 
 much to say about the books of the New Testament. 
 But these comments have been preserved for the most 
 part only in unsatisfactory fragments, while his con- 
 troversial work against Celsus, an assailant of Christianity 
 in the second century, has been preserved entire. 
 
 Another point to be noted is the preference of early 
 Christian controversialists for the appeal to tradition 
 rather than to the books of the New Testament. Not 
 that the latter, so far as they were known and agreed 
 upon, were ever slighted.^ But such appeals to them as 
 are scattered through the records of earliest controversy 
 suggest an entirely different attitude from that of the 
 modern Protestant, for whom nothing avails but reference 
 by " chapter and verse " to the sole divine authority on 
 earth, that of the Bible. Indeed, those ancient references 
 to New Testament books appear not so much intended 
 to invoke any written authority, as to recall the most 
 ancient voice of the Church uttered at the very beginnings 
 of tradition. For instance, Irenaeus, as quoted by 
 Eusebius, wrote a letter to Victor, the contemporary 
 
 ^ E.g.^ Polycrates fortifies his own authority by a boast of " having 
 studied the whole of the sacred Scriptures." The latter, of course, 
 included the Old Testament, which could have no direct bearing on the 
 Easter controversy. But the only text he adduces is, " We ought to obey 
 God rather than man " ; and the authority he adduces as to Easter 
 observance is the practice of his predecessors and Church tradition 
 {Eus.y v., chap. xxiv.). 
 
THE EASTER CONTROVERSY 157 
 
 Bishop of Rome, pleading for tolerance of conscientious 
 differences of practice in the observance of Easter. What, 
 then, is his chief argument ? Not any quotation of St 
 Paul's prose lyric on charity, nor yet any reference to 
 that apostle's almost contemptuous indifference to the 
 observance of days, but simply to the practice of departed 
 saints. And he evidently regards as conclusive the 
 testimony of Polycarp, who, when on a visit to Anicetus 
 of Rome (circ. a.d. 157), could not be persuaded to con- 
 form to the Roman and Western observance, " because 
 he had always kept the day with John the disciple of our 
 Lord, and the rest of the apostles with whom he had been 
 associated." 
 
 Be it remembered that the question in dispute con- 
 cerned the proper day for terminating the fast preceding 
 the chief observance of the year.^ According to Polycarp, 
 then, John, " the disciple of the Lord," and after 
 Polycarp's time the reputed author of the Fourth Gospel, 
 ended his fast on the 14th of Nisan, in accordance with 
 Jewish custom. Now, was the meal with which he ended 
 the fast a Christianised form of the Passover ? It has 
 often been pointed out, as a very significant circumstance, 
 that Irenaeus makes no mention of any reference by 
 Polycarp to the Fourth Gospel on this point. The most 
 rational explanation open to believers in the Johannine 
 authorship would be that the narrative was unsuitable 
 to his purpose because it does not refer to a Passover 
 supper at all, but only to a " last supper," taken by the 
 
 ^ The churches of Asia Minor ended their fast on the date of the 
 Jewish Passover — 14th Nisan — whatever day of the week it might be ; 
 while the Western churches, and such Palestinian or Syrian churches as 
 had, amid the vicissitudes of that disturbed region, lost their Jewish 
 traditions, fasted on until the First Day or "Lord's Day," which they 
 regarded as the anniversary of the Resurrection. 
 
158 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 special authority of Jesus himself on the 13th of Nisan,^ 
 and not on the 14th at all. Still, it remains an insuperable 
 objection to the hypothesis of Polycarp^s recognition of a 
 Johannine Gospel that he should not have referred to it 
 at all on such a point as this, even if he had been obliged 
 to explain and account for its difference from the other 
 Gospels. But, further, Polycarp is represented as justifying 
 his own practice, not only by that of John, but by that of 
 " the apostles with whom he had been associated." The 
 point I wish to make is not invalidated by the extreme 
 improbability, amounting almost to impossibility, of his 
 having been " associated " with any original " apostles " ; 
 for it is the ecclesiastical practice of the second century 
 that I have in view, and not the accuracy of either Irenaeus 
 or Polycarp. 
 
 What would be the method of any modern contro- 
 versialist, supposing him to wish to prove, as Polycarp 
 did, that the Church fast ought to be ended on the 14th 
 of Nisan at evening, and not on the artificially^ calculated 
 resurrection day in the morning ? He would undoubtedly 
 appeal, not to tradition, but to Scripture. And though 
 the references at his service would only be at best indirect 
 and vague, he would think them much more important 
 and decisive than any tradition of the Fathers. He 
 would probably quote the words of St Paul in i Cor. 
 V. 7, 8 : "For also Christ our passover is sacrificed:^ 
 therefore let us keep the feast," etc. And the argument, 
 
 ^ The day, of course, began at sunset. 
 
 2 Easter Sunday is not properly the "anniversary" of any event, 
 historical or mythical, because its coincidence with any possible recurrent 
 day of the year is made impossible by the necessity for keeping to the 
 first day of the week. It is an artificial accommodation for the sake 
 of ritual. 
 
 3 " For us," wirep ry/A«i/, is not found in x or B. 
 
EARLY AND LATE CHRISTIAN FEELING 159 
 
 according to the analogy of such logomachies, would be 
 that " let us keep the feast " means the cessation of the 
 fast on the day which " Christ our passover is sacrificed." 
 Again, he might refer to the anxious remonstrance of 
 James, the President or Bishop of the brethren in 
 Jerusalem, with the apostle of the Gentiles, as recorded 
 in Acts xxi. 20, etc. It is made there perfectly clear that, 
 with the approval of the elders, the Jerusalem Christians 
 were " zealous of the law " and " walked after the 
 customs." But, if so, they must have " kept the feast " 
 on the 14th of Nisan, and could not possibly have 
 observed any ecclesiastical fast which was prolonged till 
 the supposed Resurrection morning. 
 
 Remembering, then, that the point of difference between 
 Polycarp and the Roman pastor had nothing to do with 
 the date of the Resurrection^ but was concerned, so far 
 as we are told, only with the proper time for ending a 
 Church fast, we may be confident that if, in the opinion 
 of Polycarp, the then existing fragments of the New 
 Testament had possessed conclusive authority, he would 
 have anticipated Protestant methods of controversy by 
 citing such passages as the above in the Acts and Epistles, 
 which were in all probability at his command. The fact 
 or tradition that he did nothing of the kind, but only 
 appealed to the customs observed in his youth under the 
 guidance of elders with the ambiguous title of " disciple " 
 or " apostle," is a striking and, indeed, startling illustration 
 of the difference of the position held by New Testament 
 Scripture, even among Christians, in the second century 
 as contrasted with the nineteenth. 
 
 ^ The proper time for celebrating the Resurrection was, of course, 
 involved ; but that is a very different point from the real anniversary of 
 Resurrection. 
 
i6o MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 There is no need to carry the case further,^ for it is 
 sufficiently obvious that during the second century and 
 even the third — if we may take Eusebius as representing 
 the Christian opinion of his early days — the New 
 Testament was " in the making." And, so far as our 
 information goes, the Paulicians, some three centuries after 
 Eusebius, were the very first Christians to set up the 
 New Testament, or at least the parts of it known to 
 them, as independent of and superior to the Church in 
 religious authority. Nor does the fact that they were in- 
 consistent, and often in practice far below their theory, at 
 all invalidate their claim to be the first Christian assertors 
 of the superiority of the written Word to tradition. 
 
 It remains only to say a word on the strange influence 
 exerted by the Old Testament over the beginnings of 
 Christianity — strange, because that influence was made 
 possible only by rabbinical and popular misinterpreta- 
 tions of the venerable texts, misinterpretations which 
 would have been as incomprehensible to Hebrew law- 
 givers, prophets, and psalmists as would have been the 
 " homoousion " of the fourth century, or the claims of 
 Rome to spiritual supremacy over Zion. There can be 
 no doubt that the first generations of Christians regarded 
 the Old Testament with an awe and an absolute submis- 
 
 ^ The crucial case of the quotations by Justin Martyr, from what he 
 called the memoranda or memoirs {aTTotxvnfiov^nara) of the apostles, has 
 been abundantly discussed, and it is common to suppose that everyone 
 brings away from the study thereof the impressions with which he 
 approached it. That, however, was not my own experience. Strongly 
 disposed as I was long years ago to find in Justin's references a knowledge 
 of our present Gospels, careful reading and comparison forced me at last 
 to own that such a view is untenable. Whatever he had before him, the 
 apostolic " memoranda " were not our Gospels, though, of course, generally 
 coinciding with the traditions they give. A discussion would be out of 
 place in a work like this. 
 
MEN OF ETERNITY i6i 
 
 sion to which no writings of their own teachers could then 
 make any claim. Yet on this general acknowledgment 
 two reservations must be made, the first concerning the 
 two makers of Christianity, Jesus and Paul, the other 
 concerning the elasticity of interpretation allowed to 
 themselves by Christians, and the consequent unreality 
 of their professed submission. 
 
 Let us, then, consider the exceptional attitude assumed 
 toward the Old Testament by the original Founder of 
 the Church himself, and also by the man who must be 
 recognised as the second founder, without whom, indeed, 
 it is hardly conceivable that Christianity could have 
 survived the ruin of Jerusalem. Jesus himself was, as 
 has often been reiterated, a man of his time^ as well as a 
 man of eternity ; ^ and he apparently shared, within limits, 
 
 ^ To prevent misunderstanding, it should be said that he was not the 
 only man of eternity, though, indeed, there have been very few. For 
 myself, I would hardly class St Paul among them, much as I admire him. 
 His work was one of adaptation rather than of creation, and his adaptation 
 was of a conventional, conditional, and temporary character — even though 
 it lasted for centuries. But it is now becoming untenable. His doctrines 
 of the Fall, of the Second Coming, of bodily resurrection, of the Atone- 
 ment, and many others, are felt by an increasing number to be mere 
 " aberglaube." But the teaching of Jesus concerning a divine kingdom 
 to be established by natural moral progress (Mark iv. 26, etc. ; Luke xvii. 
 20, etc.), his disparagement of miracle as compared with moral evidence 
 (Matt. xvi. 2, etc.), his superiority to Sabbath superstition (Mark iii. i, etc. 
 etc.), and his teaching of the divine relationship of man, illustrate, and 
 only illustrate, what I understand by a " man of eternity." The incredible 
 theological and teleological discourses which contradict such teaching, are 
 too obviously lifted bodily, by second or third generation Christians, from 
 Jewish apocalypses. A man is a "man of eternity" when he reveals in us 
 some universal truth, or germ of universal truth, which does not die with 
 the change of times, but only reaches higher expression thereby. There 
 have been very few such men. Buddha was one. I know httle about Con- 
 fucius, but I suspect he was another. The fragments of Xenophanes would 
 seem to justify his inclusion, and the next century will certainly include 
 Spinoza ; but the names are only illustrative, and every one will form his 
 list according to the impression of recorded utterances on his own soul. 
 
 II 
 
i62 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 the awe with which the Jews regarded the Old Testament. 
 But it was only within limits ; for no one who regarded 
 the written Word as unchallengeably supreme could 
 possibly have spoken those passages in the Sermon on 
 the Mount which contrasted the ancient law of the letter 
 with the law of the spirit of life then struggling for 
 utterance. " Ye have heard that it was said to them of 
 old time. . . . But I say unto you. . . ." The first of 
 these contrasts deals with the sixth commandment, on 
 which Jesus puts an entirely new and unheard-of inter- 
 pretation ; for he declares that what the eternal law 
 behind the letter condemns is not merely homicide or 
 violence, but unjustifiable anger and opprobrious language. 
 To say that this only brings out the spirit of the com- 
 mandment is surely to trifle with words. It proclaims 
 a deeper morality, and in doing so it supersedes the old 
 law. The second contrast, dealing with the seventh 
 commandment, is not so violent. Still, the analogy of 
 Scripture, and the Latin word adopted in our translation 
 to express the forbidden crime, both suggest that the 
 original prohibition extended only to intercourse with 
 married women.^ But Jesus not only enlarges the scope 
 of the prohibition by extending it to all women, he again 
 unveils an eternal law superseding the letter and con- 
 demning even illicit impulse. It is, of course, true that 
 " fornication and all other deadly sins " of the kind were 
 condemned in various parts of the Old Testament, but 
 
 ^ "Proprice adulterium in nupta committitur " (Papucian, quoted by 
 Faceiolati). "Adulterium est cum aliena uxore coire" (Quintilian, quoted 
 as above). The New English Dictionary allows a very early extension 
 of the meaning of the English derivative, but Gesenius gives no case 
 in which the corresponding Hebrew word means anything else. The 
 spiritual applications of it scarcely count ; but they undoubtedly refer to 
 breaches of a spiritual marriage. 
 
JESUS SUPERSEDES THE MOSAIC LAW 163 
 
 to quote the seventh commandment as an injunction 
 addressed " to them of old time,'* and to expand it into a 
 larger moral rule, was almost as daring an utterance as 
 that of Jeremiah, who declared that Jahweh had given no 
 commandment to Israel concerning burnt-ofFerings and 
 sacrifices, but had only required obedience.^ One more 
 contrast only need be mentioned here, between the " law 
 of the spirit of life " in the Sermon on the Mount, and 
 " the law of a carnal commandment as honoured by the 
 Jews." The practice of confirming promises or covenants 
 by a formal and solemn oath was not only permitted and 
 even in some cases enjoined by the Old Testament,^ but 
 it was sanctioned by the alleged example of Jahweh him- 
 self, who is often described as confirming promises, threats, 
 or covenants by a formal oath,^ Nor were the more 
 ancient recorders of Hebrew myths at all troubled as the 
 writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews was, by the difficulty 
 that an oath should be an appeal to a greater than the 
 oath-taker. Thus, for instance, in the original story in 
 Gen. XV. of the divine oath mentioned in the song of 
 Zechariah (Luke i. 73), it is related simply how the 
 consecrated formulas presumably used for solemn oaths 
 in those barbarous times were observed in Abram's vision 
 by the " smoking furnace and the burning lamp " which 
 symbolised Jahweh's presence. Yet, in face of these scrip- 
 tural precedents alleging the authority of Jahweh himself 
 for the custom of confirming statements by an oath, Jesus 
 pronounces the sweeping prohibition : " But I say unto 
 you, swear not at all." And the reason given is as original 
 as the disregard of Scripture is daring : " Let your com- 
 
 1 Jer. vii. 21-24. 
 
 2 E.g. Gen. xxiv. 3, 1. 25 ; Numb. v. 19, etc. etc. 
 
 2 See Ps. cv. 9 ; xcv. 11, etc. etc. ; and cf. Ep. to Heb. vi. 13-18. 
 
1 64 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 municatlon be Yea, yea ; Nay, nay ; for whatsoever is 
 more than these cometh of evil." The last words have 
 been confirmed by the experience of nigh two thousand 
 years since then, but even yet " the law of a carnal 
 commandment " deprives them of the appreciation they 
 deserve. 
 
 The simplicity which regards this daring spiritualisation 
 of Mosaic law, including the Ten Commandments, as a 
 personal assumption of divine authority, does, I suppose, 
 still survive. But it is an anachronism, belonging to a de- 
 parted age, to a time when it never occurred to such inter- 
 preters to ask how the bystanders who heard this awful claim 
 could afterwards treat the young Rabbi familiarly as one of 
 themselves, " the carpenter, whose father and mother they 
 knew." The divine authority was in the truth uttered, 
 and not in the speaker. The phrase, " I say unto you," 
 served the purpose of giving rhetorical emphasis to the 
 contrast between the ancient and the new theology. Many 
 a modern orator, inspired with an enthusiasm for social 
 reform, exclaims, " I tell you this," " 1 tell you that," or 
 " It has always been said that land is property, but I say 
 it can only of right belong to the whole people." But it 
 would surely be foolish hypercriticism to impute to such 
 a speaker the arrogant pretence of being a supreme law- 
 giver. It is only his rhetorical way of enforcing a truth 
 that he vividly feels. And if anyone thinks that such a 
 comparison derogates from the dignity of the Great 
 Teacher, let me remind such an one of what is implied in 
 the record that the " common people heard him gladly." 
 They heard him gladly not because they thought he 
 claimed to be God — for even his most intimate followers 
 did not at that time dream of such a claim ; but the 
 common people heard him gladly because he touched 
 
CONTRAST OF JESUS AND PAUL 165 
 
 their hearts, and for this an inartificial and unassuming 
 rhetoric was indispensable. It is, therefore, no disparage- 
 ment of Jesus to compare the directness and boldness of 
 his language to the forms of speech employed by the best 
 and purest social reformers of our own day. And if so, 
 we may also be justified in saying that the freedom used 
 by Jesus as a popular teacher in dealing with the letter 
 of the Old Testament was an anticipation, as it has 
 become an inspiration, of the similar freedom asserted 
 by some of his most earnest followers in modern 
 times. 
 
 The freedom of St Paul in dealing with the Old 
 Testament was not nearly so daring as that of his Master. 
 For while Jesus expressly superseded what had been " said 
 to them of old time," and, in the case of the Sabbath, con- 
 tradicted it both by word and deed, his apostle was content 
 with the humbler method of mystical misinterpretation.^ 
 St Paul appears to have held to the last that the law was 
 " holy, just, and good." To him every syllable and letter 
 of it, as well as of the Psalms and Prophets, was something 
 divine and awful. But by his methods of interpretation — 
 learned, I suppose, in Rabbinical schools — he could make 
 the sacred words mean anything necessary to his argument. 
 Thus, instead of the changeless institutes of divine justice 
 recognised in the Pentateuch by the orthodox Jew, St 
 Paul saw only a " paedagogue " ^ to lead immature souls to 
 the school of Christ. And to his mind this was made 
 
 Mt is true that St Paul seems very bold in forbidding his Gentile 
 converts to submit to circumcision, or to observe times and seasons, or 
 holy days such as the Sabbath. But, as is argued further on, this was 
 not a supersession of the law as in the case of Jesus ; it was justified by 
 an ingenious method of explaining it away. 
 
 2 The psedagogue, of course, was not a schoolmaster but a child-leader, 
 who guarded the boy on the way to school. 
 
1 66 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 perfectly clear by the fact that Moses, in recounting the 
 story of the divine covenant with Abraham, used the 
 singular number (seed) and not the plural (seeds).^ The 
 argument was that this promise to Abraham's " seed " 
 after him could not be applied promiscuously to all carnal 
 offspring, which would have been " seeds," but must 
 necessarily have had in view the one supreme " seed," 
 that is, the Messiah. And the Messiah being, as St Paul 
 had come to think, a spiritual saviour, brings into the 
 Abrahamic covenant all who are united to him by faith. 
 For the pivot of the argument is that the covenant with 
 Abraham was an agreement to be carried out by faith, not 
 by works (Gal. iii. 7, 8). But if any of the apostle's 
 erring converts should doubt whether such an interpreta- 
 tion is quite legitimate, their instructor insists that all 
 scruple should be removed by the story of Hagar, which 
 the divine inspirer of the Pentateuch intended to be an 
 allegory setting forth the inferiority of the merely carnal 
 descendants of Abraham to his spiritual descendants 
 through the one " seed," the Messiah (v. 16). " Cast out 
 the bond woman and her son : for the son of the bond 
 woman shall not be heir with the son of the free woman. 
 So then, brethren, we are not children of the bond woman, 
 but of the free " (Gal. iv. 30, 31). 
 
 To treat such an argument with apathetic contempt, as 
 merely puerile, would surely indicate our lack of a 
 "historic conscience." We shall do more justice both to 
 the apostolic writer and to ourselves if we try to realise 
 the antithetic spiritual forces of which such contorted 
 arguments were the results. For St Paul was possessed 
 through heredity and education by the peremptory cer- 
 tainty of a revelation made by Jahweh through the 
 ^ Gal. iii. 16 ; and cf. Gen. xii. 2, and xvii. 7, taken together. 
 
THE PECULIAR POSITION OF ST PAUL 167 
 
 Patriarchs, Moses, and the Prophets. Whatever may- 
 have been the case with more philosophic Rabbis of later 
 days, Saul of Tarsus had not the most infinitesimal glimpse 
 of the modern sceptical attitude toward the evolution of 
 Judaism. No bodily sense of actual things around him 
 could give him the same imperturbable, unquestioning 
 — and perhaps, with all respect, we may say, stolid — 
 feeling of sure and certain reality with which he was 
 aiFected by the story of his nation. But, on the other 
 hand, in early manhood his soul had been caught 
 and wrapped in the blaze of a far more luminous 
 certainty, dependent neither on past nor future, an up- 
 rush in his soul of free devotion to righteousness — or, 
 as he calls it, "the law of the spirit of life in Christ 
 esus. ^ 
 Yet, so far as we can judge from the incomplete 
 evidence left us, there was never in his mind any thought 
 of a contradiction between the national and the personal 
 revelation. Nor is this altogether surprising. For even 
 apart from the disputable, though very probable, 
 hypothesis of Stephen's influence, many methods of 
 reconciling the two certainties could be found in Rab- 
 binical lore. And I cannot regard as genuine rationalism 
 the disposition to see nothing but absurdity in the method 
 chosen ; for such a disposition surely betrays a deficiency 
 in the " historic conscience." But the irrationality of 
 such rationalism forms no excuse for the opposite extreme 
 of conservatism. Indeed, the modern bibliolater who 
 holds fast to " God's word written," notwithstanding his 
 acceptance of the proved facts of its compilation, and 
 
 ^ Rom. viii. 2. Even if the Pauline authorship of this epistle cannot 
 be sustained, its phraseology, as well as theology, were largely borrowed 
 from him. 
 
1 68 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 also notwithstanding the evaporation of many of its 
 alleged essential facts under historic criticism, has less 
 excuse in reason than had the pupil of Gamaliel. 
 
 Still, St Paul's honest quibble about " the seed " should 
 illustrate for all ages the facility with which unreason 
 may be disguised as reason in veracious minds saturated 
 by a false prepossession, and should, therefore, make for 
 charity. The inborn habit of piety which assumes that 
 God must be a sort of magnified human father ; must^ 
 therefore, have " revealed " himself to his human children ; 
 and which proceeds to combine this certainty with the 
 obvious fact that there is only one Church even pretend- 
 ing to a perpetual impersonation of such a revelation 
 from the beginning of the world — has been conspicuous 
 in minds that still command veneration. And though 
 the paradox oftener takes humbler forms, at least those 
 great instances of a venerable perversity should protect 
 their lowlier imitators from irrational bigotry. Still, the 
 scared awe with which many generations have regarded 
 St Paul's preposterous violations of common sense is 
 suggestive of many things in the relations of Man and 
 the Bible. For as Spinoza teaches, if we confine our 
 attention to the regulative effects of biblical tradition, 
 we must acknowledge that many benefits have accrued 
 to mankind therefrom. Yet, apart from Spinoza, it must 
 be owned that the price of those benefits paid in mental 
 humiliation has apparently delayed for centuries the 
 progress of the world. 
 
 St Paul handed on to succeeding Christian writers the 
 ingenious subtleties of non-natural interpretation learned 
 in his Jewish schools ; and this subtlety became in later 
 times the awkward substitute for more courageous 
 freedom of thought. I have already referred to St 
 
THE PAULINE TRADITION 169 
 
 Augustine's methods ; and anyone who turns to the 
 imaginative speculations which at the end of his Con- 
 fessions he interweaves with the plain narrative of 
 creation as conceived in the childhood of the world, will 
 have a striking illustration of the illusions which belief 
 in " God's word written " imposed on almost all the 
 noblest minds of the Church. 
 
 For, as soon as the letters of St Paul himself, together 
 with the artless narratives of three gospels, and the anti- 
 historic idealism of the fourth, were incorporated with 
 the " Word of God," the same ingenious sophistries were 
 used by labouring souls to make those writings mean 
 whatever the changing moral or intellectual tone of 
 succeeding generations required that they should mean. 
 Thus, by certain vague and indeterminate, as well as 
 legendary words said to have been addressed by Jesus to 
 St Peter, the whole claims of the Papacy were supposed 
 to be endorsed. And in latest times "broad Churchmen" 
 — as they used to be called — endeavoured to relieve 
 Christianity of the horror of " everlasting punishment " 
 by imputing to Jesus and his apostles certain philosophic 
 conceptions of eternity of which it is practically certain 
 they had no idea.^ 
 
 And again, how often have Arminian opponents of 
 Calvinistic fatalism laboured with agony to put some 
 interpretation on Rom. ix., x., and xi. other than that 
 which the chapters obviously bear ! The instinct which 
 revolted against arbitrary caprice and injustice in the 
 Supreme Being could not be repressed. But its freedom 
 
 ^ It does not follow that they really did teach ever-enduring torments. 
 For that also is a metaphysical conception, as foreign to their habits of 
 thought as Spinoza's eternity. The real thought was that of a cosmic 
 catastrophe in which the perspectives of the future vanished. 
 
lyo MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 of expression was necessarily subject to reconcilability 
 with the holy syllables of " God's word written." The 
 freedom was indeed asserted, but it was done at the cost 
 of humiliating submission to false interpretations, of 
 which, notwithstanding all brave protests, the "subliminal" 
 self was perfectly aware. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE BIBLE AND RELIGION 
 
 During the period of the Bible's widest sway over human 
 life, that is to say, throughout the greater part of the 
 nineteenth century, any discussion of the subject at the 
 head of this chapter would have appeared to the generality 
 of Christians superfluous or paradoxical, for it would 
 have seemed to them that they might as well raise 
 questions about the relations of physical light and the sun. 
 As in this case, so in the other, it was admitted that many 
 questions of interest were involved in the detailed effects 
 of the heavenly radiance upon human receptivity and 
 upon the life of the earth. But as the sun embodied or 
 begot all light possible to man, so the Bible, as the sole 
 revelation of the Sun of Righteousness, was identified 
 with religion. There could not therefore be, at least to 
 the common apprehension, any question of mere relation 
 between the Bible and religion, for the first term meant 
 the second. 
 
 But the historical, critical, and archaeological investiga- 
 tions, hardly less characteristic of the last century than was 
 the supremacy of the Bible, have gradually brought home 
 even to ordinary intelligence the fact that, however 
 
 valuable may be the influences of the Book, they are 
 
 171 
 
172 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 comparatively novel to the world. They are, in fact, but 
 of yesterday, in contrast to the unmeasured ages of human 
 experience that elapsed before the first chapter of the 
 Bible was written. And they are merely local when 
 compared with the range of other moral and spiritual 
 influences that raised and ruined empires, framed laws, and 
 enforced social order, in lands undreamed of by Hebrew 
 ethnology, and during millenniums earlier than the date 
 assigned to Adam. Such achievements as these were 
 impossible without religion ; and even for the purpose of 
 an intelligent appreciation of the Bible, it is necessary to 
 inquire what effect, if any, the Book, as it grew, exerted 
 on pre-existing religions ; how far it rejected and destroyed 
 them ; how far it adopted, remodelled, " re-stated " them ; 
 how far it quickened and energised the forward impulses 
 recognisable in some more ancient creeds. Nay, a 
 generation claiming, as ours does, for all sects, freedom of 
 thought, may have to face the question whether in any 
 respect the Bible has stilled the breath of primeval in- 
 spiration, and arrested or perverted the evolution of a 
 higher faith. 
 
 It is obvious that such an inquiry assumes at the out- 
 set a wider conception of religion than one which would 
 identify it exclusively with that of any denomination, 
 however great and renowned, even that of Christianity. 
 The late Matthew Arnold's ingenious suggestion of 
 " morality touched with emotion," would be very valuable 
 if the right source of emotion were indicated. But it is 
 not any emotion that will serve our purpose. For fear of 
 hell is an emotion ; but morality touched with that is not 
 only not religion, it is not morality. And, to take a 
 better source of emotion, the gratitude felt by a drunkard 
 to a good man who snatches him from a fatal danger 
 
SPINOZA'S DEFINITION OF RELIGION 173 
 
 incurred through alcoholic madness, may impell the poor 
 wretch to a dog's obedience for a time ; but it will not turn 
 his new sobriety into religion. So, to cut a useless dis- 
 cussion short, I hold fast to Herbert Spencer's doctrine that 
 the source of religious emotion is " the thought of a Power, 
 of which Humanity is but a small and fugitive product 
 — a Power which was in course of ever-changing mani- 
 festations before Humanity was, and will continue through 
 other manifestations when Humanity has ceased to be." ^ 
 
 Now let us turn to Spinoza's definition of religion : 
 " I include under religion all desires and acts of which we 
 are the cause, through our having the idea or knowledge 
 of God." ^ These words, interpreted in accordance with 
 the use of language in the Ethics^ mean that every mental 
 affection or active impulse arising spontaneously within 
 our proper nature through the possession by that nature 
 of the idea or knowledge of God, is religious. But the 
 whole system of Spinoza implies that the name God here 
 has a meaning akin to, though not identical with, the import 
 of the Spencerian phrase, " That which is behind Humanity 
 and behind all other things." Thus we do no more than 
 reduce Spinoza's definition to a practical form available for 
 everyday life if we say that, whatever desires or active 
 impulses arise in us of such a kind that they expand beyond 
 
 ^ The Study of Sociology, 2nd ed., p. 311. While quoting the words 
 exactly as they appear there, I do not forget that the previous context 
 contains phraseology such as I cannot now accept, e.g. " behind Humanity 
 and behind all other things" {cf. Spinoza, A Ha?idbook to the Ethics, 
 Constable & Co., p. 9). It is specially the assertion of one exclusive 
 source of religious emotion that I emphasise. 
 
 2 Ethica, Part IV., Prop, xxxvii., Schol. : " Quiquid cupimus et agimus, 
 cujus causa sumus quatemus Dei habemus ideam, sive quatemus Deum 
 cognoscimus, ad Religionem refero." But for the word " cognoscimus " 
 this might perhaps include the rites of Mumbo Jumbo. Yet I do not 
 know that this matters much. See next pages. 
 
174 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 self and exercise our loyalty to the divine Whole of which 
 we are parts, are of the nature of religion. When, 
 therefore, morality is touched by emotion springing 
 from such a source, it is capable, if time were given, of 
 attaining the highest ideal of religion. 
 
 But I am not assuming that it necessarily does so. 
 For the idea of God, though from the earliest dawning of 
 human thought about self and the world, associated with 
 a mystic outlook toward infinity, has throughout the life- 
 time of humanity been cramped and distorted by inevitable 
 errors incidental to the evolution of mind. And the only 
 question for us here is how far has the Bible helped to 
 correct those errors, to remove prepossessions, to clear 
 the way for the largest faith, and to inspire progress 
 towards it. We are not to deny the reality of a religion 
 because it is imperfect. Nor should we allow ourselves 
 to be prejudiced against any historic form of alleged 
 divine inspiration because it could not convert barbarians 
 at once into philosophic saints. But we may fairly expect 
 as a guarantee of the reality of that inspiration some 
 evidence of an expanding and purifying influence on the 
 morality of the day. Thus, to take an example outside 
 Christianity, the fact that an Arab prophet in the seventh 
 century regarded the sword as a proper instrument of 
 conversion, is not conclusive against the divinity of the 
 impulse urging that prophet to proclaim the unity of 
 God. But the absence from his creed of any scope for 
 expansion toward a loyalty to the universe, or even toward 
 a true human catholicity,^ is proof enough that the 
 
 * This was written before the recent and startling revolution in Turkey. 
 Whether that revolution will bring about a permanent renovation, remains 
 to be seen, but in any case its impulse appears to have come from " young 
 Turks," with a centre of organisation in Paris, and owing much to French 
 ideas. 
 
THE TRUE CATHOLICITY 175 
 
 inspiration was very imperfect. And the total failure 
 of Mohammedanism to raise the relations of man and 
 woman toward the ideal implicit in sex, almost justifies 
 scepticism as to the existence of any inspiration at all. 
 
 The point of view I shall assume is that of a religious 
 Catholicism wider than any historic church, a Catholicism 
 which regards all religions from the days of fetishism or 
 animism, whichever was prior, as essentially one. For 
 they have all been concerned with desires and active 
 impulses arising in man through his having the idea or 
 knowledge of God. It is true that in the earliest stages 
 of spiritual evolution this idea or knowledge is so rudi- 
 mentary as to be scarcely cognisable. But that is equally 
 true of the earliest rudiments of music, painting, architec- 
 ture, law, and all the noblest products of evolution. For 
 in the amorous howlings of the earliest human creatures, 
 no germs of the tone-poetry of a Wagner, or of the art 
 of a Sims Reeves would be apparent, even to an angelic 
 critic, if such existed then. Nevertheless, the germs 
 were there, and the continuity of evolution has been 
 unbroken. So likewise to those who recognise how 
 evolution embraces not only the material but the spiritual 
 forms of human experience, it is clear that both animism ^ 
 and fetishism originated in desires and impulses arising 
 in man through his having the idea or impression of a 
 Power or Powers, real indeed, but so indefinite as to be 
 to him practically infinite. That such religions suggested 
 to their devotees practices revolting to our developed ideas 
 and perceptions, is no more than can be said of creeds 
 
 ^ Of course I take this term as meaning not merely " ghostism," but 
 the habit of regarding all things as in some sense alive. Fetishism 
 certainly invests particular objects with a life to the powers of which no 
 definite bounds are set by the savage worshipper. 
 
176 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 very much higher in the scale of evolution. But, on 
 the other hand, the facts of savage life in later days 
 suggest, or indeed prove, that faithfulness to the tribe, 
 heroism in battle, honourable observance of custom and 
 treaty, as well as the rites of hospitality, owed much of 
 their moral energy to the awe inspired by trust in or 
 dread of supernatural powers. Our point, then, is 
 this : that the gradual refinement and exaltation of such 
 barbaric religions to the spiritual standard of an Augustine 
 or a Spinoza, has been effected through special forms of 
 human experience, such as imagined interference of gods, 
 supposed chastisement of peoples by divine wrath, or 
 blessings upon peoples through divine approval, reputed 
 miracle, the prophetic word, and its embodiment in 
 literature by nations boasting sacred books. And the 
 object of our inquiry is to determine what part has been 
 played by the Bible in this development of faith. 
 
 Now, in dealing with this question the sympathy we 
 naturally feel for the better kind of bibliolatry prevalent 
 in the last century must not be allowed to blind us to 
 the imperfection, narrowness, confusion, and occasionally 
 even the falsehood, of the ideas out of which that enthusi- 
 asm grew ; for the Bible-worship of our sainted grand- 
 fathers regarded the Book as a present gift from God, 
 and took no thought of the gradual accretion and slow 
 combination of its parts. In fact, they treated it just as 
 they would have done a volume that had fallen as a bolt 
 from heaven, accompanied by such a voice as was imagined 
 on Sinai, declaring it to be the first and last word of the 
 unseen Deity to man, until the world should end. There 
 it was, an unmistakable revelation from a Being whose 
 secrecy and silence apart from it caused many searchings 
 of heart. For the spasmodic attempts made by millions 
 
ARTIFICIAL UNITY OF THE BIBLE 177 
 
 to assure themselves of " a very present God " subsided 
 mostly in the cry, "Verily thou art a God that hidest 
 thyself," and only a few realised how they had failed to 
 find him just because they had tried to identify parts of 
 the universe with the Deity who constitutes the Whole. 
 But the Bible-worshippers found a solace in the curious 
 concatenation of concealment and revelation found in 
 the words : " No man hath seen God at any time : the 
 only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, 
 he hath declared him." And around this saying all the 
 complex and heterogeneous fragments of Hebrew folklore 
 and poetry and story grouped themselves from Genesis 
 to the Patmos vision, so that an artificial divine unity 
 was forced upon a number of varied glimpses of human 
 evolution. 
 
 This Bible, thus arbitrarily stamped with a unity that 
 existed only in the inherited prepossessions and socially 
 reinforced devotion of the readers, was thus treated, 
 notwithstanding St Paul,^ as the sole witness for God on 
 earth. Of course, there were what OHver Cromwell used 
 to call " providences " ; and there were the lessons of 
 history ; and to the mystic there was the inward vision. 
 Still, in the age of the Bible's apotheosis, all these were 
 merely a reflex of what the student of " the Word " found 
 in its sacred pages. Needless is it, surely, to disclaim 
 forgetfulness of the scholars and divines, brave pioneers 
 of truer thought, who not only in the nineteenth century, 
 but in the eighteenth, were already teaching a more 
 accurate and therefore a more reverential estimate of the 
 Scriptures. But we are treating of Man and the Bible, 
 and therefore are most interested in the common people. 
 
 1 Acts xiv. 17: "Nevertheless he left not himself without witness," 
 etc., even among those who had no Bible at all, 
 
 IZ 
 
1 78 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 Now such superstitions as these must be wholly and 
 utterly abandoned, if we would get a true answer to the 
 question raised above, — How far has the Bible helped to 
 clear the way for a larger faith than the primeval animisms, 
 fetishisms, and idolatries, and to inspire progress towards 
 its realisation ? In attempting to answer the question it 
 might seem natural to turn to ancient Israel, and ask what 
 it did for the so-called " chosen people." But then we 
 are brought up by the obvious fact that ancient Israel 
 never had any Bible in our sense of the word until after 
 the Babylonian captivity ; and even then it was incom- 
 plete. Literature the Israelites did indeed possess at a 
 comparatively early period, as, for instance, the Book of 
 Jashar and the Book of the Wars of the Lord. How 
 far these have been preserved to us embedded in later 
 works, it would perhaps puzzle the greatest professors of 
 the higher criticism to tell us. But at any rate they are 
 very confident, and apparently on good grounds, that 
 the eighth and seventh centuries B.C. saw the comple- 
 tion by two authors or compilers, belonging one to the 
 northern and the other to the southern kingdom, of two 
 documents of folklore containing the chief adventures 
 attributed by mythical memory to the forefathers and 
 heroes of the race. But these documents ^ gave no 
 account of the Creation, unless the strange and mutilated 
 fragment in Gen. ii. can be considered such. They 
 contained few Psalms, or religious hymns, unless we may 
 consider as such the Song of Lamech, the blessing of 
 Jacob, the Song of Miriam, and such like. Nor were any 
 
 1 Called E and J by the critics, and to be carefully distinguished from 
 P, the Priests' Document, dating, in its complete form, from the Captivity, 
 and containing nearly all the religion and ritual of the Pentateuch, No 
 one holds that the religion and ritual were then newly invented, but only 
 that they then received the form in which we know them. 
 
THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES 179 
 
 such higher religious elements added when the two 
 documents were combined and formed into one book in 
 the course, perhaps, of the seventh century b.c.^ There 
 were indeed psalms, used in the service of the Tabernacle 
 or Temple, probably from the time of David. For the 
 total rejection of the steadfast popular tradition about the 
 " sweet singer of Israel " seems to me unreasonable, since 
 the belief involves nothing impossible or irrational.^ 
 
 But, taking the Jewish Scriptures as they existed in the 
 seventh century b.c, before Deuteronomy was added, 
 let us ask what there was in them calculated to inaugurate 
 a movement toward the more spiritual rehgion of the 
 future. We can scarcely say that they taught monotheism 
 as it was afterwards understood. But they did certainly 
 insist that the ancestral relations of Israel ^ with Jahweh 
 were so close and sacred that any worship of other gods 
 
 ^ The reasons for such an approximate date are well given by Carpenter 
 and Battersby in their Hexateuch^ vol. i. chap, xvi. 
 
 2 Of course the identification of existing Psalms with David's songs is 
 a very different question. Here the "historic conscience" comes into 
 play ; linguistic problems arise ; and discussions of congruity with the 
 times to which they are referred. Wellhausen is probably right in 
 describing the collection as "the hymn-book of the Second Temple." 
 But, notwithstanding his learning, I still hope he is wrong in questioning 
 " whether the Psalms contain any poems written before the Exile." 
 
 3 To my mind the theory of Professor Karl Budde, that the nomade 
 Hebrews, before they reached Canaan, were induced by the Kenites to 
 adopt the god of the latter, and to make a solemn covenant with him at 
 Sinai, appears to have many elements of probability. Certainly it goes 
 far to account for the constant iteration of the "covenant" by priests and 
 prophets. I don't remember any other people whose service of their god 
 began with a formal covenant. But Professor Budde surely yields too 
 much to tradition when he maintains the Egyptian captivity, notwith- 
 standing the utter absence of any confirmation by Egyptian inscriptions 
 or remains in Goshen. The so-called "treasure cities" prove nothing, in 
 the absence of any evidence whatever that Hebrew serfs were employed 
 on them. Professor Cheyne's theory of the issue of a nomade race from 
 North Arabia — Muzri — is more likely. But see Die Religion des Volke 
 Israel^ etc.^ von Dr Karl Budde, Giessen, 1900. 
 
i8o MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 on the part of his chosen people was worse than treason, 
 and of the nature of sacrilege. Yet that this duty of 
 loyalty to Jahweh rested on no theological or philosophical 
 monotheism is abundantly proved by the numerous 
 passages in which the Old Testament writers lament the 
 levity with which the Israelites transfer their allegiance to 
 the various " Baalim " of surrounding tribes.^ This 
 levity is quite inconsistent with any pre-existing deep- 
 seated conviction, founded on revelation, that there was 
 only one God in the universe, and this God, Jahweh. 
 But it is quite consistent with a formal covenant which 
 the third or fourth generation of covenanters did not find 
 it convenient to keep. Those who went after the various 
 " Baalim " had not the least intention to deny the deity 
 of Jahweh. But the various Baalim were also gods 
 having special influence over their own territories, and 
 to recently arrived invaders of these territories it might 
 be of the utmost practical importance to cultivate their 
 goodwill. Herein lies the whole explanation of what is 
 often supposed to be the sheer perversity of early Hebrew 
 idolatry. 
 
 But this is mentioned only to suggest the moral and 
 material difficulties through which henotheism — or the 
 doctrine of one nation, one god, — had to struggle, before 
 it was established as the national faith. And that this 
 was of the utmost importance for the future expansion 
 of this new phase of original fetishism, will, I hope, be 
 soon apparent. For without the henotheism of the 
 early Hebrews, their later monotheism, or that of the 
 Mahommedans, could never have arisen ; and it was 
 the Hebrew monotheism which was the germ of Spinoza^s 
 
 1 See Judges ii. ii, etc. ; i Sam. viii. 8 ; Ezek. xx. The rest are given 
 by Professor Karl Budde. 
 
SPINOZA'S INDEBTEDNESS TO THE BIBLE i8i 
 
 conception of God and the universe.^ But, in consider- 
 ing the evolution of that conception, and in estimating 
 the influence of the Bible upon it, we must carefully 
 keep in mind what has been said above of the profound 
 moral significance underlying Spinoza's definition of 
 religion as including all that we desire and do through 
 having the idea of God. For in Spinoza's gospel that 
 idea is the great Whole of which we are essential parts, 
 and he that realises this must necessarily rise beyond 
 self. It is a long, long pilgrimage from the covenant 
 God of Sinai to the clear and grand thoughts of the 
 seventeenth-century Jew. But it is a sacred pilgrimage, 
 a progressive elevation of thought and aspiration, uncon- 
 sciously craving the blessed goal toward which all im- 
 perfect religions are striving, and which they at length 
 must reach. Our purpose here is to trace the work of 
 the Hebrew and Christian literature in their trans- 
 figuration. 
 
 It would be inconsistent with the scheme of this treatise 
 to follow out in detail all the steps by which Jewish 
 henotheism was transformed into universal or at least 
 general monotheism, the belief in one God, one Universe. 
 But the student of the Bible knows that this faith first 
 appears clearly and distinctly in the prophets and later 
 psalmists. Now, just in proportion as this belief pre- 
 vailed, the moral connotations of religion tended to 
 predominate over mere ritual. This is apparent in what 
 is called the Deuteronomic literature of the Old Testa- 
 ment, including, besides the Book of Deuteronomy, many 
 hortatory passages outside of it. Not that this Deutero- 
 
 1 In saying this, of course, I am fully aware of what he owed to 
 Descartes and earlier philosophers ; but, religiously^ the germ of his 
 pantheism lay in his traditional monotheism. 
 
1 82 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 nomic literature entirely despised ritual, but it was 
 certainly characterised by a tendency to disparage cere- 
 monial as compared with the affections of the heart. 
 The psalmist who wrote — 
 
 "Sacrifice and offering thou dost not desire, 
 Burnt-ofFering and sin-ofFering thou dost not demand. 
 Mine ears hast thou opened 
 By the book of the law prescribed to me. 
 To do thy will, my God, is my delight, 
 And in my heart is thy law," 
 
 was certainly of this school of religionists.^ But, if we 
 may borrow the language of St Paul, Jeremiah " is very 
 bold," and says : " Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the 
 God of Israel : Put your burnt-offerings unto your 
 sacrifices, and eat flesh. For I spake not unto your 
 fathers nor commanded them in the day that I 
 brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning 
 burnt-offerings or sacrifices : but this thing commanded 
 I them, saying. Obey my voice, and I will be your God 
 and ye shall be my people." Whatever may be the 
 ingenious methods by which this utterance is reconciled 
 with the words of Exodus and Leviticus, at any rate it 
 bears witness to a growing predominance of the moral 
 connotations over the external ritualism of religion, and 
 so far it is a witness to the spiritual tendencies of the 
 later monotheism as compared with the earlier heno- 
 theism or faith in the tribal god. 
 
 1 The translation is that of the Polychrome Bible, under the editorship 
 of Dr J. Wellhausen. If it should occur to anyone to refer to i Sam. xv. 
 22, " Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice," etc., let him consider that 
 what had there been required was obedience to a savage command and 
 suppression of all human sympathy. Such an obedience was as much 
 an act of external ritual as any sacrifice or burnt-offering. The sentiment 
 of the fierce Samuel differs entirely from that of Psalm xl. 
 
EVOLUTION OF MONOTHEISM 183 
 
 The vulgar remained henotheists, believing, no doubt, 
 that their tribal Jahweh was stronger than any of the Baals, 
 and would ultimately be more than a match for Merodach, 
 yet still holding that his proper subjects were his 
 covenanted people. But the prophets, with their more 
 spiritual ideas of one Universe, one God, influenced in 
 the first place the more cultured priests, and through 
 them the few educated laymen, and gradually also the 
 many to whom the prophetic lyrics or exhortations were 
 recited or sung. But what inspired the prophets ? So 
 far as they were influenced by the half-developed Bible, 
 Man is indebted to the latter for a beneficent spiritual 
 revolution toward which only the most inefl^ective impulse 
 can be discerned in the great literatures of Greece and 
 Rome.^ It is, indeed, doubtful whether the noblest 
 declarations concerning God in the most ancient Bible 
 could have been known to the earlier prophets, for 
 the best scholars regard the sublime name / ^M (Ex. 
 iii. 14) as the addition of an extremely late philosophical 
 editor. So too the advanced, though by no means 
 perfect, proclamation of the divine attributes to Moses, 
 appearing incongruously amidst an incident of debased 
 anthropomorphism, when the lawgiver is allowed to see 
 only the " back parts " of his God, is pronounced both 
 by reason and authority^ to be much later than the 
 childish story in which it is found. Similarly, the story 
 of creation in Gen. i., founded on Babylonian docu- 
 ments, but much simplified and ennobled by Jewish 
 editors, had not been prefixed to the Bible of the earlier 
 
 1 The idea was there, of course, but it did not take the practical form 
 needed to lay hold on the common people. 
 
 2 That is, the hard-earned authority of laborious scholarship. See 
 Carpenter and Battersby's Hexateuch on the passage. 
 
1 84 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 prophets. Still, the tradition of the call of Abraham, 
 unhistorical as it is, suggested vaguely a larger theism 
 than that of Ur of the Chaldees. And various incidents 
 included in the Bible of Jeremiah, or, at any rate, in the 
 traditions of his time, were suggestive of the transforma- 
 tion of aboriginal fetishism into a more moral religion. 
 The story of Joseph has to me much more of a literary 
 than a moral interest. Still, his resistance to one tempta- 
 tion, and his generous requital of the wrong done to him 
 in youth by his brothers, together with the ample material 
 rewards received by him, may have been m very early 
 times a dim hint of a " power that makes for righteous- 
 ness," and is able to control local gods. Even the bloody 
 career of David is not without some relieving incidents 
 which are similarly suggestive of a better religion than 
 he knew ; such, for instance, was his submission to the 
 rebuke of Nathan after the dastardly crime against Uriah, 
 and also, though in a less degree, his refusal to drink of the 
 Bethlehem water for which he had longed, because it was 
 obtained by blood. 
 
 We must not undervalue such hints of the germination 
 of a moral and spiritual monotheism in the earlier days 
 of the covenant religion ; but such a violent contradic- 
 tion of ritualistic tradition as we find in the above-quoted 
 words of Jeremiah, is suggestive of more potent influences. 
 Thus the increasing closeness of political relationships 
 between the peoples of Western Asia would appear to have 
 widened the view of the prophets. For the gradual evolu- 
 tion of a new empire by the suppression of the smaller 
 kingdoms, the subordination of Egypt, the growth of a 
 resistless sovereignty rooted in ancient Akkad, gathering 
 to itself power by various revolutions, centralising in 
 Babylon the whole resources of Mesopotamia, and cul- 
 
HENOTHEISM AND HISTORY 185 
 
 minating in the supremacy of the invading Cyrus over 
 all the world known to the Jews, made impossible the old 
 idolatry which set up godlets over each region, with no 
 co-ordinating power above them other than blind fate. So 
 it came to pass that the concentration of earthly power 
 was paralleled by the unification of the heavenly realms. 
 And as the prophets were Jews, it was inevitable that 
 their Jahweh was selected to be in heaven what Cyrus 
 was on earth. 
 
 The question naturally occurs why this impulse to a 
 spiritual monotheism so exceptionally affected the Jews, 
 and why, for instance, the Babylonians did not put 
 forward a similar claim on behalf of Marduk or Ea. 
 The answer is twofold. For, firstly, the Jahweh covenant 
 concentrated the attention of his worshippers more 
 exclusively upon himself than was possible in the case 
 of any deity not consecrated by any such special bond. 
 And next, we must accept as a fact proved by the 
 experience of three thousand years, that the Jews had 
 what we can describe only as a special genius for religion. 
 In their grand aspirations toward a realisation of the 
 unity of spiritual life and power, an aspiration which 
 culminates in Spinoza, they have no rivals. For 
 Mahommedanism is at best a pale plagiarism of un- 
 developed Hebrew religion. And though the Christian 
 Church, an offshoot of Judaism, can boast great saints, 
 theosophists, and preachers, its Origens and Augustines 
 and Luthers and Calvins are mere spiritual pygmies when 
 contrasted with the Isaiahs, the Psalmists, the Evangelists, 
 or St Paul. Why it should be so is simply an unanswer- 
 able question. We might as well ask why Greece was 
 so pre-eminent in literature, art, or philosophy, and 
 Republican Rome, on the other hand, in war, juris- 
 
1 86 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 prudence, and polity. The characteristics were in the 
 soul of the people. But why they were so is a question 
 the solution of which requires a greater knowledge of 
 the interaction between Man and the Universe than is 
 ever likely to be attained. 
 
 But, be that as it may, the later psalmists and the 
 prophets did exalt the imperfect monotheism of the 
 oldest Bible into an interesting and beautiful anticipation 
 of a yet wider and more spiritual religion. Thus Psalm 
 Ixxii. prefigures a new moral world in which community 
 of interest shall be so realised that the " poor and needy " 
 shall be safe from " deceit and violence," and their blood 
 shall be as precious as that of kings. Alas ! the shame- 
 ful inequalities of social conditions at home, and the 
 unabashed cruelties attendant on the march of empire 
 abroad, painfully remind us that " the vision is yet for 
 an appointed time." But it is still as true as when 
 Habakkuk wrote the words that "the just shall live by 
 his faith " ; and the principles suggested to faith by the 
 seers of the later pre-Christian centuries cannot die. The 
 very next following Psalm (Ixxiii.) suggests such a grasp of 
 the oneness of the moral order as no mere monotheism 
 could or ever can permanently satisfy. The apparent 
 disorders of the world, the supposed triumph of the 
 wicked, the outward disasters of the true and good, all 
 fall into their place as parts of an ordered whole when the 
 Psalmist goes into the sanctuary of God, and realises the 
 potency of a divine life embracing all. " So foolish was 
 I, and ignorant : I was as a beast before thee. Neverthe- 
 less I am continually with thee : thou hast holden me 
 by my right hand. Thou leadest me according to thy 
 counsel, and takest me by the hand after thee. Whom 
 have I in heaven but thee ? and there is none upon earth 
 
PSALMISTS AND PROPHETS 187 
 
 that I desire beside thee. My flesh and my heart 
 faileth : but God is the strength of my heart, and my 
 portion for ever." ^ For the ultimate goal of such 
 spiritual aspirations we may have to press beyond 
 Augustine, A'Kempis, or Tauler, and find it at last in 
 Spinoza's Intellectual hove of God. For further illustra- 
 tions of the increasing morality of the later Jewish 
 monotheism, we might refer to Psalms xv., xxiv., xxxiv., 
 xxxvii., li., and many others, not forgetting the hundred 
 and nineteenth, prosaic certainly, but a strong testimony 
 to the moral tendencies of the monotheism of that 
 writer's day. 
 
 It may be questioned whether the prophets, even those 
 of the Isaiah literature, advanced much beyond some of 
 the Psalms in the spiritualisation of Jewish monotheism. 
 But, after all, there is a difference between hymns — even 
 the best — and poetry. Thus the hymns of Watts, 
 Wesley, Cowper, and Faber are intensely devotional after 
 the fashion of the Psalms. But the religious musings 
 of Coleridge, and Wordsworth's contemplations of the 
 universe, and even the late Lord Tennyson's rhythmic 
 expositions of the " broad " theology of his day, have 
 more volume and substance, and more intricate connota- 
 tions of infinite truth. A similar, though certainly not 
 identical, relation exists between the utterances of the 
 psalmists and the most spiritual prophets. Thus, take 
 the first chapter of Isaiah — the exact position of which 
 in the literature bearing that name it is not necessary to 
 determine ; we find here, instead of merely emotional 
 utterances, such as those of Psalm li., a poetic and yet 
 
 1 Where possible I gladly keep to the Authorised Version for reasons 
 given in chap. ii. p. 47, but in the above I adopt the Polychrome Bible 
 version of verse 24, because the Anglican is certainly misleading. 
 
1 88 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 reasoned exposition of the moral and spiritual situation 
 of the covenanted people. The old ritual, according to 
 the description of the prophet, was maintained, but the 
 moral ideal to which — in the view of the prophet — it 
 pointed, was entirely ignored. And though this moral 
 indifference had — according to the prophetic theory — 
 brought a palpable and material curse upon the land, yet 
 the misguided people had no notion of any remedy but 
 a revival of fetishism and the multiplication of burnt- 
 offerings and sacrifice. In such a condition of courtly 
 and popular opinion, it was surely a brave voice that 
 cried : " Bring no more vain oblations ; incense is an 
 abomination unto me." . . . . " Wash you ; make you 
 clean ; put away the evil of your doings from before 
 mine eyes ; cease to do evil ; learn to do well ; seek 
 judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, 
 plead for the widow." 
 
 The topic being merely incidental, it is impossible here 
 to trace the expansion of this national moral ideal into a 
 world-wide vision, which foreshadowed that republic of 
 man which is the true kingdom of God. But the vision 
 is certainly there, though dim. Israel is to be a " light 
 of the Gentiles ; to open the blind eyes ; to bring out 
 the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in 
 darkness out of the prison-house." The divine vice- 
 gerent chosen to set Israel free for this spiritual mission 
 to all mankind is himself a heathen sovereign. Thus the 
 Isaiah literature anticipated St Paul in " breaking down 
 the middle wall of partition," and making all mankind 
 one in God. " Neither let the son of the stranger that 
 hath joined himself to the Lord speak, saying. The Lord 
 hath utterly separated me from his people : neither let 
 the eunuch say. Behold, I am a dry tree .... for 
 
EZEKIEL AND HIS MODERN COMPEERS 189 
 
 mine house shall be called a house of prayer for all 
 people." And then, with a note of contradiction not 
 surprising in a variety of authors : " Thus saith the 
 Lord, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my 
 footstool : where is the house that ye build unto me ? 
 and where is the place of my rest ? For all those things 
 hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, 
 saith the Lord : but to this man will I look, even to him 
 that is poor, and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my 
 word" (Is. Ixvi. i). 
 
 The paradoxical position of Ezekiel, who begins by 
 proclaiming with incisive eloquence the superiority of 
 moral principle both to reHgious tradition and to 
 diplomacy, and who ends by a tediously minute descrip- 
 tion of an imaginary temple and ritual, need not detain us. 
 Our own age has seen in certain sections of the Roman 
 and Anglican Churches a very similar combination of 
 intense moral conviction and revived devotion to ritual. 
 In such cases we always welcome the earnestness of 
 moral aspiration, while at the same time we insist that the 
 reaction toward fetishism is fortuitous, unreal, and explic- 
 able by ecclesiastical accidents. So in the case of Ezekiel, 
 if the whole book ascribed to him is really his, we hail 
 his strong convictions of truth and righteousness as 
 veracious prophecies of the religion yet to be. But his 
 curious descriptions of an ideal temple, and its material- 
 istic rites, may well be assigned to the carnal prejudices 
 which haunted the " subliminal consciousness " of the 
 descendant of many generations of priests. 
 
 Resuming now our proper subject of the influence of 
 the Bible on religion, as defined on page 176, I suggest 
 with some confidence that it would be diflicult to find in 
 the rudimentary Bible possessed by the psalmists and 
 
I90 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 prophets any adequate inspiration of their nobler and 
 more spiritual monotheism. The tribal god who 
 required a father to offer a son as a burnt-offering, who 
 sanctioned through Joseph — according to the story — the 
 extortion from a famine-stricken people of the surrender 
 of their land, their cattle, and their personal freedom as 
 the price of relief by their own king, could hardly suggest 
 the heavenly Father revealed to Isaiah, or the Psalmist's 
 Messianic ruler, who should " deliver the needy when he 
 crieth, the poor also, and him that hath no helper." Nor 
 is this reflection at all invalidated by the occurrence here 
 and there in the rudimentary Bible of hints of a better 
 theology ; for, as previously mentioned, in some crucial 
 cases they are nearly always later insertions. Or, if the 
 Deuteronomic literature be cited, it really belongs to the 
 prophetic age, and is among the first-fruits of the new 
 theology, for which we have to account. There is no 
 miracle, there is no supernatural revelation needed to 
 explain it. The tribal theocracy had broken down under 
 the stress of world-wide political change. Cruel, indeed, 
 was the conviction borne in upon the prophets that the 
 covenanted tribal Jahweh had proved to be weaker than 
 the hosts of Asshur and Babylon. But with a fine 
 courage which many champions of outworn doctrines 
 against masterful fact would do well to imitate, they 
 plucked even from despair the power of a resurrection, 
 for they refused to credit the gods of Assyria or Babylon 
 with the superior might that crushed Israel. No ; their 
 forefathers had misunderstood the mystery of their God 
 and of his immeasurable attributes. Those forefathers 
 ought, indeed, to have known better ; for there is no new 
 theology ever propounded which is not at the same time 
 declared to have been from of old, from everlasting. 
 
THE NEW THEOLOGY ALWAYS OLD 191 
 
 " Have ye not known ? Have ye not heard ? Hath it 
 not been told you from the beginning ? Have ye not 
 understood from the foundations of the earth ? It is 
 he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth ; and the 
 inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers ; that stretcheth 
 out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a 
 tent to dwell in."^ It was this supreme God, not of one 
 tribe only, but of the whole universe, whose mysterious 
 counsels required the temporary humiliation of Israel, and 
 the apparent triumph of foreign despots, who were but 
 pawns in his hands. "Thus saith Jahweh to his anointed, 
 to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue 
 nations before him. ... I will go before thee, and make 
 the crooked straight : I will break in pieces the gates of 
 brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron. ... 1 am 
 Jahweh, and there is none else, there is no God beside 
 me : I girded thee, though thou hast not known me " 
 (Is. xlv. 1-5). 
 
 It is true that even in the context of such passages 
 there is a reservation of Jahweh's special favour for Israel, 
 just as in war-time now, the most eloquent Christian 
 sermons on God's universal fatherhood will always imply 
 a special leaning of Almighty power toward his English- 
 men. But the legend of Dagon and the captured Ark, 
 when contrasted with the prophetic monotheism, clearly 
 suggests that while in those barbarous times the tribal 
 Jahweh did not disdain a trial of strength with other 
 tribal gods, in the new age such a thing was inconceivable. 
 For all the gods of the heathen were idols ; and the best 
 
 ^ Let this and similar passages of the prophets be compared carefully 
 with the childish story of the theophanies in Genesis and Exodus (Gen. 
 xviii. 20, 21, etc. ; xxviii. 13, etc. ; Exod. xxxiii. 20-23), and it will be clear 
 that something other than the old writings had elevated the religion of 
 the prophets. 
 
192 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 of the Israelites had already attained St Paul's con- 
 temptuous conviction that "an idol is nothing in the 
 world." Further, the sense in which Israel still remained 
 a chosen people was much more religious than that of 
 the old savagery of Joshua, Gideon, and Jael. It was not 
 merely for themselves, and for their own advantage that 
 they remained God's chosen people, but for the sake 
 of the whole world, on which they were to reflect the 
 virtues that make for unity and peace and brotherhood. 
 This is touchingly shown in the romance of Jonah, the 
 fine meaning of which was for a long time missed through 
 ridiculous wrangles about an impossible whale. 
 
 The pious narrator — who probably never dreamed that 
 his apologue would afterwards be taken as prosaic fact — 
 represents Jonah as called upon to do duty for Israel by 
 awakening the Ninevites to a sense of the divine govern- 
 ment which extended over them as well as the Jews. 
 But Jonah fails in the courage of his faith, and suffers 
 accordingly, by sinking, as all such cowards do, into "the 
 belly of hell." Then, being dragged up again by divine 
 power, and once more brought face to face with duty, he 
 plays the man, and preaches repentance to an apparently 
 apathetic city. The result surprises him. The whole 
 people awake to righteousness ; and the doom which the 
 Israelite missionary proclaimed is repealed. Then, with 
 the characteristic self-seeking of such spiritual cowards as 
 Jonah essentially was, he is offended at the slight he 
 supposes to be put upon himself, and thinks — or says he 
 thinks — it would be better to die than to live. And now 
 follows the lovely parable of the gourd, which expresses 
 in few lines the greater religion that was coming in sight : 
 " Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou 
 hast not laboured, neither madest it grow ; which came 
 
THE MORAL OF JONAH^S ROMANCE 193 
 
 up in a night, and perished in a night. And should not I 
 spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than six- 
 score thousand persons that cannot discern between their 
 right hand and their left hand ; and also much cattle ? " 
 " Doth God take care for oxen ? " asks St Paul in one of 
 his inferior moods. Well, the large-hearted author of 
 Jonah thought he did. But what is more to the point, 
 the many, the mob, the ignorant multitude were dear to 
 the writer because they were human. And in the exalta- 
 tion of that love he anticipated the socialism of three 
 thousand years ahead. 
 
 This spiritual mission of Israel is often emphasised in 
 Isaiah. No doubt Jesus felt it in that sixty-first chapter 
 which he read to his unsympathetic fellow-townsmen : 
 " Ye shall be named the Priests of the Lord : men shall 
 call you the Ministers of our God." " I will greatly 
 rejoice in Jahweh, my soul shall be joyful in my God ; for 
 he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation. . . . 
 For as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and the garden 
 causeth the things that are sown in it to spring forth ; so 
 Jahweh God will cause righteousness and praise to spring 
 forth before all nations." It is difficult, perhaps impossible, 
 for us to think ourselves back into social and spiritual 
 conditions separated from us by nearly three thousand 
 years. But, after all, there is a fundamental human 
 nature which remains pretty much the same in all ages ; 
 and after our critics have severed for us the chaff from 
 the wheat in the bewildering literature of those days, 
 there remains to us a tolerably clear conception of a 
 monotheism, clearing itself by force of world-wide revolu- 
 tions from the old barbarous henotheism, and beginning 
 even to evolve somewhat premature germs of the doctrines 
 of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. 
 
 13 
 
194 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 It would inordinately increase the volume of this work 
 were I to make any attempt to trace the varying fate of 
 this spiritual monotheism through the five hundred years 
 which elapsed before the Christian era. During those 
 years the Old Testament Canon was completed. But it 
 is obvious that the opinions and feelings of the leaders of 
 Jewish thought exercised much more influence on the 
 book than the book did upon them. If, therefore, 
 the Wisdom of Solomon and the Book of Sirach were 
 relegated to a category of books less inspired than Esther 
 and Daniel, this was certainly not owing to the relative 
 spiritual values of the books themselves, but to the 
 prejudices of the Sanhedrim who had fallen back from the 
 comparatively pure monotheism of Jonah, the Isaiah 
 literature and Jeremiah, to a narrower nationalism. The 
 short-lived victories of the Maccabees naturally fostered 
 the unfortunate reaction. The vulgarity of this reaction 
 is well exhibited by the " Testaments of the Twelve 
 Patriarchs," a document of the first century b.c, which 
 Oxford scholarship has recently given to the world with 
 an improved text and illuminating notes. From these 
 Testaments it is clear that even at so late a date Jewish 
 writers felt perfectly free to deal independently with 
 legends already embodied in the Hebrew Bible. But it 
 is of more importance to note that in the confessions of 
 the patriarchs on their deathbeds, moral; considerations 
 had a much more important place than in the old 
 documents which record their doings. Yet, while fully 
 recognising this, we cannot blind ourselves to the fact that 
 the Testaments are a tissue of superstitious maunderings, 
 showing no appreciation of the more spiritual religion of the 
 Isaiah period, and no anticipation whatever of the " Sun of 
 righteousness " about to rise " with healing in his wings." 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF OLD TESTAMENT 195 
 
 So far as we have gone, then, it would appear that the 
 religious influence of the Hebrew Bible in course of its 
 growth was simply a reflection of the faith, feeling, and 
 hopes of successive generations in their gradual and 
 devious ascent from fetishism to monotheism with a 
 vague outlook towards something higher. The writers 
 of the Book of Jashar, of the " Wars of the Lord," or of 
 the documents J and E and P, did not so much form 
 the opinion of their various contemporaries, they rather 
 reflected it. Viewed with the dispassionate impartiality 
 of the Pantheist who knows that " all things are of God," 
 the development of the Old Testament Scriptures is a 
 specially interesting case of the sectional movements 
 toward a higher religion in Assyria, Babylon, India, 
 Egypt, later in Greece, and afterwards in Rome.^ 
 
 But the evolution of Jewish literature and opinion is 
 specially interesting, because that people, as commonly 
 recognised, had an unrivalled genius for religion ; and 
 probably they alone, of all the races of the earth, were 
 capable of producing a Christ or a Spinoza. But when 
 it is said that the Hebrew Bible, in the course of its 
 growth, was simply a reflection of the faith, feeling, and 
 hopes of successive generations in their gradual and 
 devious ascent from fetishism to monotheism, it must 
 be understood, of course, that this reflection afl^ected for 
 good or evil each new age. The bewildering results 
 were represented by the complicated compilations of 
 discordant documents which ensued, and by the " re- 
 dactions " and interpolations which gave the world at last 
 
 * The fantastic orgies of insane emperors, and the degradation of the 
 Plebs after the murder of the great Julius, when his work was not half 
 done, should not blind us to the existence of cosmic emotion such as that 
 of Lucretius, or the true, though weak, wisdom of Seneca, or the aspirations 
 of Marcus Aurelius. 
 
196 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 the most amazing and interesting collection of religious 
 books it possesses. Throughout this review the idea of 
 what is vaguely termed supernaturalism or " miracle " has 
 been ignored. It has been assumed that the Universe is 
 one, and that what went on in the infinitesimal little 
 corner of it called Judaea was only a natural modification 
 of the processes going on wherever intellect, self-love, and 
 self-sacrifice strove together under the sense of an infinite 
 Beyond. 
 
 It is now time to turn to the Christian supplement to 
 the Hebrew Scriptures ; for Christianity is as much a 
 natural development of Jewish monotheism as any fruit 
 is of its preceding bud and blossom. In both cases, 
 however, there is a good deal more to be considered than 
 mere rearrangements and developments of tissue in the 
 vegetable life or transmutation of ideas and feelings 
 in the religious life ; for there are in the former 
 possible changes in the soil through weather or culture, 
 and there are the sweet and bitter influences of the 
 seasons. In fact, there is the whole surrounding medium. 
 So while we may rightfully regard Christianity as the 
 natural outcome of the later Jewish monotheism, yet we 
 must not forget the special influences and accidents ^ of 
 the first century's religious life. 
 
 Of the ideas then prevalent, that of a suffering Messiah, 
 based on Isaiah li. and other scriptures, was most potent. 
 Of the accidents, that of the concurrence of visions 
 and legends of the resurrection was the most decisive. 
 The latter stories are, of course, to be estimated by 
 St Paul's account of his own vision (i Cor. xv. 8), which 
 the apostle of the Gentiles passionately insists is equal in 
 
 1 I.e., appearing so, because of our " inadequate ideas " of things as they 
 are in the infinite Whole. 
 
ST PAUL 197 
 
 value to that of Peter or the Twelve, or the five hundred 
 brethren, or James. Now, those who most sincerely 
 take him at his word must clearly recognise that the 
 bodily resurrection was one of the accidents due to 
 the spiritually electrical atmosphere of the time. But 
 then, granting the idea of a suffering Messiah, and the 
 accident of a visionary resurrection, the way was open to 
 such an expansion of spiritual monotheism as had 
 scarcely been dreamed of even in the literature of Isaiah. 
 
 Dealing as I am with the Bible, it is not within my 
 province to discuss what residual elements of fact there 
 may be in the charming and tragic story of the Gospels. 
 If I may obtrude a personal opinion, I believe there is 
 much more fact in them than bloodless criticism allows. 
 But that has nothing to do with my present task, which 
 is to discuss the relations of the Bible to religion. Now, 
 undoubtedly the first New Testament documents given 
 to the world were some of St Paul's Epistles.-^ Happily 
 for me, it would be quite irrelevant to this part of my 
 subject to attempt any distinction between the authentic 
 and unauthentic writings of the apostle. The thirteen 
 epistles, excluding that to the Hebrews, constitute a 
 Pauline literature ; that is, they give clear evidence of the 
 impulse of one mind having its own theory of Christianity, 
 
 ' Some, I don't know which, but Galatians, at any rate. Internal 
 evidence is sometimes more convincing than external, and I cannot 
 imagine a pious and reverent forger — there were many such in the 
 second and third centuries — writing of St Paul as he does here of himself. 
 The personal reminiscences (chaps, i. and ii.) contradicting Acts — the 
 passion of which he becomes ashamed — " I am become a fool in glorying ; 
 ye have compelled me " — and the manifold grief of a teacher and leader 
 who has been supplanted, seem to me beyond imitation. I am afraid the 
 Epistle to the Romans must be surrendered ; afraid because, granting its 
 premises, it is such a masterly piece of work. But I hold to the two epistles 
 to Corinthians and also to Philemon. However, these questions are now 
 trivial. 
 
198 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 quite apart from the Gospel tradition, and that of the 
 churches of Judaea. We may very well, therefore, note 
 the Pauline influence on religion, apart from any earlier 
 preconception or later conclusions as to the authorship 
 of particular letters. 
 
 There is a passage in the Epistle to the Colossians 
 (ii^. 17) which closely approximates to Spinoza's definition 
 of religion : " Whatsoever ye do, in word or in deed, do 
 all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God 
 and the Father by him." " I include under religion," 
 says Spinoza, as already quoted, " all desires and acts 
 of which we are the cause through having the idea or 
 knowledge of God." The variations and the obscurity 
 of the Pauline ideas about God and Christ do not here 
 aff^ect the similarity, or rather, identity of thought ; for, 
 plainly, the Pauline idea of religion was the habitual 
 connection of our desires and acts of which we are the 
 cause ^ with the idea or knowledge of God. But that is 
 also Spinoza's definition of religion. And in so far as the 
 Christian writings tended to promulgate this notion of 
 religion, it may be said, subject to certain reservations, 
 of which the nature will be gradually apparent, that 
 Christianity was a potent influence in the age-long 
 evolution from fetishism to Pantheism. 
 
 But one of the reservations above mentioned occurs to 
 us at once. For while Spinoza's definition is applicable 
 to every form of religion, from the worship of Mumbo 
 Jumbo to the philosopher's own transcendental reverence 
 for the All in all, we in the most recent stage of evolution 
 find it difficult or impossible to conceive how the crude, 
 
 ^ The latter words were intended to exclude desires and acts of which 
 the true self is not the cause, but which are incidental to the "human 
 bondage " which Spinoza treats in the Fourth Part of the Ethics. 
 
GOSPEL CHRISTIANITY 199 
 
 childish, or cruel notions of God, prevalent in a previous 
 stage, were necessary parts of one harmonious whole. It 
 may be true that Luther, when he acquiesced in the 
 massacre of the peasants maddened by suffering and 
 fanaticism, and that Calvin, when he approved the savage 
 murder of Servetus, "connected his desires and acts^ with 
 the knowledge and idea of God." But what god ? 
 Certainly not the God of Jesus, nor yet the God of 
 Spinoza. We have to ask, then, not only how far the 
 Christian Bible awakened in men a sense of the Divine 
 Presence as distinct from the fear or hope arising from 
 fetishistic charms, but also how far that Bible tended to 
 refine and elevate the idea of God. 
 
 Now, here we cannot help noting a difference between 
 the Gospels and the Epistles, while at the same time we 
 recognise that the difference is not one of opposition, but 
 only the difference between a less developed and a more 
 developed Christianity. For, however the paradox may 
 be explained, it is clear that the Synoptic Gospels,^ though 
 comparatively late in their present form, represent in the 
 materials out of which they have been compiled an earlier 
 and simpler form of Christian belief and practice than 
 that which we have in the Pauline literature. This is not 
 the place to argue the question, but my conclusion rests 
 on fifty years' careful study commenced with very 
 strong and even passionate prepossessions against that 
 conclusion. I am bound, therefore, to make use of what 
 I consider hard-won truth in my survey of the relations 
 
 1 Spinoza carefully adds, "of which we are the cause." He would 
 probably have held that in these cases it was panic or prejudice, not the 
 true self of Luther or Calvin, that was the cause. But these refinements 
 would be out of place here. 
 
 2 I must reiterate that the Fourth Gospel does not count, being a very 
 late first-century or early second-century romance. 
 
200 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 of Man and the Bible. For these differences between the 
 Gospels and the Pauline letters, or even the eirenicon of 
 the Acts, are not a little startling. 
 
 In the Gospels the main and all-pervading purpose of 
 Christ's teaching is to insist on the fatherhood of God 
 in a sense never before conceived. But in the Pauline 
 letters and Acts, though the divine fatherhood is retained, 
 and many stimulating lessons of morality are connected 
 therewith, yet the most insistent and pressing message is 
 the need of personal deliverance from impending damna- 
 tion. Now, although John the Baptist seems to have 
 had much to say about " the wrath to come," and though 
 the gentler Jesus also at times presaged some terrible 
 fate for the lying sanctimony of the Scribes and Pharisees,^ 
 the proportion between the two elements of Christian 
 teaching is wholly different in the two sets of documents. 
 It is true that in the Synoptical Gospels we have the germ 
 of the doctrine of the new birth, so startingly developed 
 in the Fourth Gospel. But that germ consists simply in 
 the insistence on the need of a childlike nature to 
 appreciate the fatherhood of God (Matt, xviii. 3, xix. 14). 
 There is no notion here of any supernatural re-birth. 
 But the latter idea would very easily grow out of it, as 
 in fact it did. Yet the original Gospel laid no emphasis 
 whatever on this " conversion," except as preliminary to 
 an appreciation of God's fatherhood. We seek in vain 
 through all literature for any complete parallel to the 
 teaching of Jesus on the fatherhood of God. For the 
 
 1 The teleological discourses of Matt, xxiv., xxv., and parallels were 
 never uttered by the lips that said, " The kingdom of God cometh not with 
 observation," or which spoke the parables of the seed and the leaven, 
 indicating a natural, imperceptible growth, and not a catastrophe. Those 
 discourses seem, as previously said, to have been lifted bodily from late 
 Jewish apocalypses. 
 
THE DIVINE FATHERHOOD 201 
 
 Greek notion of Zeus as " Father of gods and men," if 
 anything more than a poetic figment, is only a reference 
 to the origin of things. But this dim suggestion is 
 shadowy indeed compared with the full-blooded reality 
 and heart-touching kindliness of affection which gave 
 substance and force to the doctrine of Jesus concerning 
 "the Father." Passages, no doubt, might be quoted 
 from the Greek and Roman classics — even from the 
 fierce Juvenal ^ — which attribute to the gods a parental, 
 or at any rate a benevolent interest in human affairs. 
 But to compare them with the teaching of Jesus concern- 
 ing the heavenly Father would be inept. A much closer 
 approach is made by the Isaiah literature. "Doubtless 
 thou art our father, though Abraham be ignorant of 
 us, and Israel acknowledge us not. Thou, O Jahweh, 
 art our father, our redeemer" (Ixiii. 16). But how 
 vague is this notion of divine fatherhood compared with 
 the Gospel words : " Love your enemies, bless them that 
 curse you . . . that ye may be the children of your 
 Father in heaven ; for he maketh his sun to rise on the 
 evil and on the good, and sendeth his rain on the just 
 and on the unjust." It may be forcibly objected that 
 here moral questions of the divine government are raised 
 to which the lovable teacher does not seem to have given 
 a thought. But that does not in the least interfere with 
 the charming conception he gives us of supreme love 
 enthroned as the Father of mankind. For observe, when 
 speaking of sunshine and rain, Jesus could not possibly 
 have been thinking of Israel only, but of humanity at 
 large. 
 
 Again, take the words, " Your Father knoweth what 
 things ye have need of, before ye ask him " ; or, " If ye 
 
 1 Sat.^ X. I. 350. 
 
202 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your 
 children, how much more shall your heavenly Father 
 give his Holy Spirit to them that ask him ? " True, the 
 Psalmist came even nearer than Isaiah to the teaching of 
 Jesus, when the sacred lyrist sang, " Like as a father 
 pitieth his children, so Jahweh pitieth them that fear 
 him." But the words " them that fear him " suggest a 
 limitation nowhere apparent in the words of Jesus. On 
 the contrary, he showed a special tenderness toward 
 sinners who were not supposed to fear Jahweh. And, in 
 fact, he is reported to have said : " I am not come to call 
 the righteous, but sinners to repentance." Still further, if 
 ever his loving soul was liable to outbursts of volcanic 
 wrath, it was when he saw in the religious leaders of the 
 day a sanctimonious fear of Jahweh unaccompanied by the 
 love of man. It is quite possible that the invective of 
 Matt, xxiii. has given us an exaggerated notion of the 
 wickedness of the Scribes and Pharisees. But the one 
 thing wanting in them in the eyes of Jesus was a sense 
 of the fatherhood of God as he realised it ; and this he 
 could not condone. Moreover, although during the 
 brief months of an undeveloped work he appeared to 
 feel that his immediate mission was limited to Galilee 
 and Judaea, yet his bearing toward the Samaritans, toward 
 the Syro-Phoenician woman, and toward the Roman 
 centurion, seem to imply a suspicion, or even conviction, 
 that amongst the uncovenanted peoples there was to be 
 found an unsophisticated human nature more susceptible 
 to the sense of divine sonship than were the supposed 
 children of the Kingdom. 
 
 The teaching of Jesus, then, consisted simply in the 
 proclamation of a divine Father, and insistence on rever- 
 sion to a childlike spirit as a condition of the reception of 
 
THE HEART OF THE CHILD 203 
 
 that truth. He did, undoubtedly, likewise expect a 
 "kingdom of God" on earth equivalent to a republic 
 of Man under the sway of divine love. He also taught 
 a supremely beautiful morality as essential to that perfect 
 social state. But all rose out of, and centred in, his 
 teaching of the fatherhood of God. That this fatherhood 
 was intensely anthropomorphic, and therefore impossible 
 to any permanent and universal religion, need not here 
 concern us ; because we are engaged in an examination 
 not of ultimate truth, but only of the historic relations of 
 the Bible and Man. Now, it has been already suggested 
 on a previous page that the Acts and the epistolary 
 literature of Christianity differ very much in tone. 
 Indeed, this conspicuous concentration of all thought 
 on the divine fatherhood and human sonship is in that 
 epistolary literature so largely modified, that we seem 
 almost to be introduced to a new religion. I have said 
 that the difference is not one of opposition but of develop- 
 ment. It is, however, one of those incidents of evolution 
 which we could well wish had happened otherwise. But 
 it could not be. The charming doctrine of Jesus concern- 
 ing a divine fatherhood which needed only a childlike 
 heart to receive it, had no chance of survival outside the 
 little band of immediate adherents who were fascinated 
 by his presence and his living words. 
 
 But in the world which St Paul and his fellow-labourers 
 had to confront, it was not so much the fatherhood of 
 God as the immortality of the soul in blessedness or 
 misery that was becoming the question of intensest 
 interest. It would require altogether too long a digres- 
 sion to discuss the causes which in the early centuries of 
 the Christian era gave to this question a disproportion- 
 ate importance. But a word or two must necessarily be 
 
204 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 said. Amongst all the vagaries of human feeling, perhaps 
 nothing is at once more curious and pathetic than the 
 various attitudes of different races toward speculations on 
 immortality. The Egyptians had such a strenuous 
 conviction of the resurrection of the body — if it were only 
 properly preserved — that they spent the acquired wealth 
 of a lifetime on fortress tombs. Yet the Israelites, who 
 are supposed to have lived some four hundred years 
 under their immediate influence, had no notion of 
 immortality except the shadowy Sheol which corresponded 
 to the heathen Hades ; and neither represented anything 
 but a negation — the impossibility of conceiving annihila- 
 tion. On the other hand, countless millions of Oriental 
 races made the chief ends of religion to be a conquest 
 over that very difficulty of conceiving annihilation, and 
 the total and utter suppression of personality.^ Yet, in 
 striking contrast to this Oriental craving for annihilation, 
 we have the enthusiasm of the " Mysteries," Eleusinian 
 and others, which from early times gathered together little 
 churches — for so we may call them — of men who were 
 consumed with a desire to " lay hold on eternal life." ^ 
 
 At the time of the Christian era these " Mysteries " 
 were taking on a new character. For, whereas in the 
 earlier days of the Eleusinian and other Mysteries the 
 thoughts of the " Mystae " were occupied solely with the 
 craving for personal immortality, there was generated 
 
 ^ On this point Pali scholars are not agreed, but Professor T. W. Rhys 
 Davids holds that the notion of a " soul " is foreign to true Buddhism. 
 " Karma" is a very different thing. The ultimate aspiration of the devout 
 Buddhist is "the going out" of this " Karma." What is then left— if any- 
 thing — certainly would not answer to our idea of immortality. This latter 
 is my own conclusion, and I do not pretend here to claim the authority of 
 my friend Professor Rhys Davids. 
 
 2 See passim, Das antike Mysterienwesen in seinem Einfiuss auf das 
 Chrisientum, von Gustav Aurich, Gottingen, 1894. 
 
IMMORTALITY 
 
 205 
 
 now a sort of pious mysticism, not at all totally alien to 
 that of the later Middle Ages. Thus it was not only a 
 continuance of personal life that was desired, but a life in 
 communion with a vaguely conceived divine Being. The 
 forms in which this desire expressed itself were imperfect 
 and rude, often corrupted by the arts of magic. But the 
 desire was there, and in all the circles scattered through- 
 out Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy, where this desire had 
 drawn devotees together, material was provided as 
 susceptible to the Christian mission as dry tinder to fire. 
 There is probably the germ of such a spiritual aspiration 
 to be found in a well-known fragment of Pindar : " Blessed 
 is he who after vision of those (mysteries) sinks beneath 
 the hollow earth. He knows indeed the end of life ; but 
 he knows (also) the God-given beginning." ^ From the 
 idea of the God-given beginning of a higher life to the 
 idea of a life in God is not a great step. Yet it seems 
 to have required several centuries to make the latter idea 
 general amongst the circles of the " Mystae." But that 
 this step had been accomplished about the beginning of 
 the Christian era, before the Gospel had reached Greece 
 or Italy, is, I think, fairly established by Gustav Aurich in 
 his work on the ancient Mysteries. 
 
 Now, if this be so, it is obvious that this state of things 
 offered facilities of which Gibbon never dreamed for the 
 rapid spread of Christianity. It is not in the least 
 necessary to suppose, and for myself I do not believe, that 
 
 KolXav claiv tVb x^<^»'« 
 
 otS^v jxZv Pi6rov reAeuTckv 
 
 otSev 5e 5i6(rBoTov dpx«''.'' 
 Fragment 102 in Donaldson's Pindar. The arrangement of the lines 
 is Donaldson's, and also the reading fii6Tov, as equivalent to fiiov. The 
 sense, apparently, is that a death sanctified by the Mysteries is the begin- 
 ning of immortal life. 
 
2o6 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 the primitive Christian rites were borrowed from these 
 Mysteries. On the contrary, though purification and 
 baptism and a sacramental meal each had a place in the 
 Mysteries, I cannot doubt that these rites among Christians 
 all had a Jewish origin. But surely the existence of a 
 considerable number of people eagerly longing for an 
 assurance of personal immortality, and for communion 
 with God,^ must have been very favourable to the success 
 of St Paul and his colleagues. For it was something 
 entirely new, and must to the prevalent mood have been 
 startlingly impressive to hear a man say, " You want 
 assurance of immortality ? Well, I have seen my Lord 
 and Saviour after he rose from the dead ! " ^ Criticism of 
 such visions did not naturally occur to moods of ecstasy. 
 And if he went on to teach, as the later Pauline literature 
 would suggest, that the elect who believed in the risen 
 Saviour became parts of his body — '^ the fulness of him 
 who filleth all in all " — nothing could be better adapted to 
 meet their spiritual desire for union with God. The solid 
 fact of the Resurrection — for so they regarded it — was 
 the firm foundation which not only sustained their hope 
 of immortality, but also confirmed their assurance of 
 ultimate union with God. 
 
 This digression in not useless if it prepares us to 
 understand the great difference between the teaching of 
 the epistolary literature and that of the Gospels.^ The 
 
 1 The polytheism of the mob may be left out of consideration. What- 
 ever the cultured "Mystae" thought about Olympus, they were sure that 
 all partial divine manifestations merged ultimately in the Infinite Life. 
 
 2 That this was often his argument is clear enough from i Cor. xv. 
 
 ^ It may be necessary to reiterate that the Fourth Gospel does not count. 
 Unique as a work of literature, it belongs rather to the age of the latest 
 Epistles than of the Synoptics. And yet it does not fit in with the former 
 either. It is in a position of "splendid isolation." 
 
. THE GALILiEAN GOSPEL 207 
 
 Epistle to the Romans, though to me its Pauline author- 
 ship is more than doubtful, does, at any rate, give us an 
 elaborate account of the fully developed Pauline doctrine 
 of salvation. Not that it represents the final stage of 
 that doctrine. This must be sought rather in the 
 Epistles to the Ephesians and Colossians. I am not 
 however, dealing with the history of doctrine, but only 
 preparing to show how the later Christian Scriptures 
 aiFected religion. Now, the teaching of the Synoptic 
 Gospels is that to be saved — whether in this world or 
 the next — a sinner has nothing to do but to repent, and, 
 with the simplicity of a little child, yield to the 
 fatherhood of God.^ The fact of moral salvation by 
 faith may indeed be at the back of the Synoptic teaching, 
 but only in the sense that all conversion from worse 
 to better involves loyalty to some hitherto unknown or 
 neglected best. And this is a principle applicable to all 
 religions from animism to Pantheism. The passages 
 which mar this simplicity of the original Galilean gospel 
 are obviously intrusions in the course of the perilous 
 vicissitudes of growth and compilation to which the 
 earliest traditions were exposed. For if the traditions 
 which give us the Sermon on the Mount, or even the 
 invective against the Scribes and Pharisees, may be 
 regarded as the essence of the teaching of Jesus, then 
 all allusions to the " ransom " of sinners by his death 
 or to salvation from hell by personal faith in a mysterious 
 sacrifice, or to a judgment day in which the meek and 
 lowly Jesus is to sit as arbiter of all human destiny, are 
 
 1 See Matt, xviii. 3, xix. 14 ; Luke xviii. 13, 14, xix. 8, etc. etc. The 
 succeeding context of this last, " the Son of Man is come," etc., is just 
 one of many Gospel passages which are forced into an unnatural meaning 
 to comply with the "plan of salvation" in the Epistles. 
 
2o8 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 so utterly incongruous, that they can only be explained 
 as foreign elements absorbed in the course of the 
 evolution of Church thought. 
 
 This, however, we may say with confidence, that the 
 original Galilean doctrine of renewal by a return to 
 childlike simplicity and acceptance of the fatherhood of 
 God, continued to be through all Christian ages far the 
 most precious and inspiring element in the Christian 
 Scriptures. I do not say that it is permanent ; for 
 " when that which is perfect is come, then that which is 
 in part shall be done away." But this soul of the religion 
 has at any rate preserved Christianity from a universal 
 degeneration into an irrational system of Graeco-Judaic 
 theosophy little better than Manichaeism. For in all 
 ages of Papal, Episcopal, Presbyterian, Lutheran, and 
 Calvinistic corruption, there have always been left the 
 proverbial seven thousand who have not bowed the knee 
 to these Baals, but have felt that self-surrender with the 
 acceptance of the divine fatherhood and human brother- 
 hood is worth more than all decrees of councils and all 
 creeds. However, this obscure persistence of the original 
 Gospel was far from being influential enough to neutralise 
 the dangerous and even evil effects of the later Christian 
 Scriptures on the religion of the world. 
 
 Could we allow ourselves to dwell exclusively on the 
 exquisite moral episodes in the Pauline literature, such, 
 for instance, as Rom. xii., i Cor. xiii.. Gal. v. 16-26, 
 Eph. iv. 20-32, we should be utterly unable to account 
 for the "bitterness and wrath and anger and clamour 
 and evil-speaking" which blacken the pages of Church 
 history. But when we find belief in supernatural wonders 
 substituted for the childlike attitude toward the Eternal 
 Father, which was all that Jesus asked, we detect at once 
 
THE CURSE OF CREEDS 209 
 
 the germ out of which grew bigotry, intolerance, 
 ecclesiastical tyranny, and cruelty. "If thou belie vest 
 with all thine heart, thou mayest " is the traditional 
 answer of Philip the Evangelist to the Ethiopian eunuch's 
 request to be baptized. And the answer of the Ethiopian 
 was : " I beHeve that Jesus Christ is the Son of God " — 
 a very simple creed ; and well would it have been for 
 the Church and the world if that creed had never been 
 enlarged. But still, what in the nature of things had 
 it to do with moral regeneration ? As the reputed 
 Epistle of James says : " The devils also believe and 
 tremble." Accidentally perhaps, and by the power of 
 association, such a belief might concentrate attention on 
 the moral ideal incarnate in Jesus. But the story of the 
 believing Church, as well as James's devils, proves 
 beyond any possible contradiction that the effect was 
 only accidental and indirect — achieved in one believer, 
 and totally wanting in ninety-nine. In fact, this arbitrary 
 and unfortunate connection of salvation with belief in 
 alleged supernatural wonders, poisoned, close to the 
 spring, the living water of the Christ's limpid truth, 
 and infected all following ages down to the present 
 time with the curse of metaphysical or theosophical 
 creeds. 
 
 Notwithstanding what has been said above about the 
 unhistorical character of much in the Synoptic records, I 
 am quite prepared to admit that Jesus himself demanded 
 faith, and insisted on its moral omnipotence. But the 
 faith that he demanded was faith in God the Father, 
 and not belief in any supernatural wonder. It is probable 
 that Jesus said, in the figurative style natural to Oriental 
 teachers : " If ye have faith, as a grain of mustard seed, 
 ye shall say unto this mountain. Remove hence to yonder 
 
 14 
 
2IO MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 place ; and it shall remove, and nothing shall be impossible 
 unto you." But what he meant by this faith was loyalty 
 to the Father and the divine order, and certainly not any 
 belief in supernatural wonders or doctrines.^ Now, this 
 is precisely the moral quality which is always predominant 
 in those who achieve apparently impossible victories over 
 falsehood and wrong. " Out of weakness they were 
 made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the 
 armies of the aliens," because the thing they opposed was 
 intolerable to their loyalty to divine order, whether in 
 the domain of morals or of thought. Thus it was surely 
 not so much WyclifFe's belief in a book as his loyalty 
 to God which made a conventional, mercenary, and cruel 
 church unbearable. Piers Plowman, too, was well skilled 
 in the Scriptures ; but his quotations from them suggest 
 that he valued them mainly because they abounded in 
 passages that confirmed his loyalty to God as above both 
 Pope and Church. For all passages — of which there are 
 many — exalting the priest are ignored, and only those 
 selected which echoed his loyalty to his moral ideal. If 
 the Bible had been confined to the prescriptions of ritual 
 which form so considerable a part of the Pentateuch, or to 
 the Rabbinical discussions which figure so largely in the 
 Epistles, it is impossible to conceive of Piers Plowman 
 as caring for it, though that would not have sealed his 
 
 ^ "And he sighed deeply in his spirit and saith, Why doth this genera- 
 tion seek after a sign ? Verily I say unto you, There shall no sign be given 
 unto this generation" (Mark viii. 12). It seems reasonable to suppose 
 that as this is the simplest, so it is the original form of the traditional 
 utterance. But even if we allow that, according to two passages in 
 Matthew, the sign of the prophet Jonas was mentioned, it would appear 
 from a comparison of the latter passages that the preaching of Jonah 
 (Matt. xii. 41) was meant, and not his parabolic abode "in the whale's 
 belly," which is totally incongruous with the context and obviously an 
 addition of later days. 
 
KEPLER^S FAITH 211 
 
 lips ; for certainly to Langland the Word of God was 
 within and not without. 
 
 Or, if we turn to more secular illustrations, Kepler 
 dared to be sure that truth would conquer falsehood 
 because " he was strong in faith, giving glory to God." 
 That is, he knew that the order of the world must 
 prevail against the " little systems " of the day or age. 
 " Eight months ago I saw the first gleam of light," said 
 he ; "for three months I have seen the dawn ; and now 
 for a few days I have seen the sun in full vision. I 
 surrender myself to my inspiration. ... I have written 
 my book. It will be read : whether in the present age 
 or by posterity matters little. It can wait for its readers. 
 Has not God waited six thousand years for one to 
 contemplate his works ? " A daring and yet humble 
 utterance — teaching us at once the bravery of faith and 
 the modesty of patience. There is in those words the 
 ring of a true spiritual loyalty, which is deeper than all 
 creeds. And perhaps the ecstasy of Kepler's faith at such 
 a moment, when the " intellectual love of God " over- 
 mastered all other feeling, enables us better than any 
 theological comment to spiritualise the Psalmist's words : 
 "Thou shall make them to drink of the river of thy 
 pleasures." ^ 
 
 Now, if the pages of Church history are, for the 
 most part, painful reading, it is largely because the 
 teaching of the earliest Gospel tradition concerning 
 
 ^ I have here adapted some sentences from an earlier work of mine 
 on Heroes and Martyrs of Science^ published twenty-two years ago. As 
 it is long dead and buried, the self-plagiarism may be allowed. One 
 always feels that the use of the name " God " by men like Kepler had a 
 prophetic significance far outranging the petty theologies of the time. 
 The usage needs Spinoza's philosophy — not necessarily in detail, but 
 certainly in principle — to justify it. 
 
212 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 religion was almost totally superseded by that of the 
 Epistles. This is not at all inconsistent with what has 
 been previously said as to the role of St Paul in saving 
 Christianity from extinction. Any near approximation 
 to an ideal is impracticable on any large scale in every 
 age. But as " a mixture of a lie doth often give pleasure," 
 so the same expedient may preserve truth for future 
 recognition. As Browning says of the artificer in too 
 pure gold : 
 
 "he mingles gold 
 With gold's alloy, and, duly tempering both, 
 Effects a manageable mass^ then works ; 
 But his work ended, once the thing a ring, — 
 Oh, there's repristination ! Just a spirt 
 Of the proper fiery acid o'er its face ; 
 While, self-sufficient now, the shape remains, 
 The rondure brave, the lilied loveliness. 
 Gold, as it was, is, shall be evermore." 
 
 This " spirt of fiery acid " may figure the modern critical 
 spirit, at once reverent and searchingly true. But we 
 are speaking here of times when such a spirit was incon- 
 ceivable. In those days, instead of the reversion to the 
 child's heart, with a receptivity to the fatherhood such 
 as would refer every desire or act to the idea of God, we 
 have the torments of remorse, the discord of the higher 
 and lower self, the terror of judgment, the agonising 
 effort to understand prophetic words concerning the 
 Kingdom of God, and at last a mystic act of faith, at first 
 trembling and uncertain, but afterwards, often, triumph- 
 ant, by which the sinner casts all his burden of guilt upon 
 an innocent victim, and, being thus united to the dying 
 Christ, is made partaker of his resurrection, and assured 
 of eternal life. Such a doctrine opened the way to end- 
 
EVILS WROUGHT BY PAULINE THEOLOGY 2 1 3 
 
 less controversies. The nature of repentance, the degree 
 of satisfactory sorrow for sin, the various steps of prepara- 
 tion for baptism, the beliefs to be held as to the nature 
 of the Redeemer, the mode in which his death saved the 
 sinner, were all points pregnant with inevitable disputes. 
 And as time went on each bigot became convinced that 
 he alone held saving truth. 
 
 The evil effects of this supersession of the Gospels by 
 the Epistles were seen, as suggested above, in two forms 
 of corruption, which, though always to a certain degree 
 co-existent, were manifested in very different proportions 
 in the earlier and later Christian centuries. For while 
 malignant strife about forms of intellectual or rather of 
 superstitious belief predominated in the fourth and fifth 
 centuries, strife, often ending in unbrotherly and unholy 
 bloodshed, the Reformation, though far from allaying 
 this insane arrogance, added a new terror in the promin- 
 ence it gave to morbid self-introspection in the search 
 for inward signs that should make the "professing 
 Christian's " " calling and election sure." And these 
 inward signs were to be found in compliance of the 
 feelings with innumerable texts, each of which, without 
 any consideration of its historical connection, was con- 
 sidered a touchstone of the saved state of the soul. 
 Carlyle, in his comments on Oliver Cromwell's letter to 
 Mrs St John, has no doubt touched with imaginative 
 sympathy on the great Englishman's spiritual troubles. 
 And it is very true that the " dwelling in Meshec " and 
 in Kedar represent unsatisfied longings for a higher life, 
 apparently unattainable, when " the eternal pole-star had 
 gone out, veiled itself in black clouds." But we may 
 still be unable now to rejoice in the biblical influences 
 which twisted those unsatisfied longings into such 
 
214 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 fantastic forms. It is needless to multiply examples. 
 The fierce spiritual struggles of Bunyan's early life, as 
 depicted in his Grace Abounding to the Chiej of Sinners^ are 
 distinguished only by the graphic power of genius from 
 the story of a thousand humbler pilgrims who " strove 
 to enter in." 
 
 Enough ; in estimating the relations of the Bible and 
 religion, while we may gladly acknowledge that the 
 oldest Scriptures show traces of the gradual elevation of 
 a tribal henotheism into a universal monotheism with a 
 further outlook ; and while we fully recognise the charm- 
 ing transfiguration effected by Jesus of this intellectual 
 monotheism into a religion of the heart, consisting in 
 childlike devotion to the heavenly Father ; nay, while 
 we still further recognise the many gleams of noble 
 morality which brighten the New Testament, — we cannot 
 help concluding that the Pauline Christianity was, to a 
 large extent, a supersession of religion by theology. No 
 doubt religion in its largest sense includes every form of 
 spiritual excitement, from the superstitious fears associated 
 with animism or fetishism, to the " cosmic emotion " of 
 Pantheism. But, in its noblest form, which it takes as the 
 association of every good impulse and aspiration with the 
 idea of God, it was not helped but retarded, both by the 
 Pauline doctrine of propitiation and by the Nicene Creed. 
 
 Finally, so far as the relations of the Bible and religion 
 are concerned, it must be reiterated that, as contrasted 
 with the vastness of humanity contemplated as a whole, 
 and inclusive of its first humble and obscure beginnings, 
 the extent of the influence of the Hebrew and Christian 
 Scriptures has been almost infinitesimal. For though it 
 has not yet been settled in the courts of science whether 
 man first appeared in the last Tertiary or early Quaternary 
 
AREA OF ALLEGED REVELATION 215 
 
 geological age, it is generally agreed that he has been 
 lord of the earth for a period to be measured by centuries 
 of millenniums rather than by thousands of years. Yet 
 no one, however conservative in such things, would date 
 the first written document of Hebrew religion earlier 
 than the supposed commission of Moses, or, say some 
 1450 years before the Christian era.^ Therefore, some 
 hundreds of thousands of years had elapsed, and the 
 human race had spread and multiplied over the whole 
 globe, before the faintest scintilla of revelation had been 
 recorded in Bible form. There are surely few left, at 
 least among educated people, who would attempt to 
 qualify or minimise this glaring fact by insisting on the 
 Hebrew folklore about the preaching of Noah, or the 
 pious testimonies of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But, 
 even if this almost inconceivable simplicity should still 
 survive, it would not much mend matters. For the 
 origin of man is confessedly remote, and it would surely 
 betray a lack of all sense of proportion to treat the 
 patriarchal ministrations as a great factor in a world that 
 had been peopled by innumerable races of men ages 
 before Hebrew folklore or even its Chaldean matrix had 
 begun to take form. 
 
 If we take the human race as a whole from its 
 beginnings until now, the above consideration alone is 
 enough to remind us that an enormous and over- 
 whelming majority of our race not only never came under 
 the influence of the Bible, but lived and died before its 
 first fragments were written. But, if anyone should say 
 that this does not much matter, because an unknown but 
 enormous proportion of those perished generations were, 
 
 1 The date is absolutely unsustainable, but for my present point I wish 
 to admit for a moment the old assumption. 
 
2i6 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 according to the theory of evolution, little better than 
 beasts — an assumption which I should regard as a gross 
 exaggeration — at any rate it is certain that recent research 
 has shown that civilisation of a somewhat advanced order, 
 and involving much moral and intellectual activity, existed 
 amongst the Sumerians, as also in Egypt and Mesopotamia, 
 at least six thousand or seven thousand years before our 
 era. But by those who try to force facts into the moulds 
 of Jewish tradition, it is often forgotten that the existence 
 of somewhat complicated civilisations eight thousand years 
 ago necessarily involves a preceding period of development, 
 which can hardly have been less, and much more probably 
 was far longer. For the first civiHsation we can recognise 
 is like an iceberg, at least in this, that its concealed bases 
 are enormously greater than the part which rises into sight. 
 Think, then, of all the soul-life that is not only implied 
 but revealed in the remains of empires flourishing before, 
 as we are told, Abraham left Ur. The Egyptian " Book 
 of the Dead," as given us by scholars, may be in many 
 respects grotesque to us. But its successive recensions 
 go back to ages long prior to the Mosaic epoch, and 
 whatever its absurdities, at least it shows that many 
 generations of Egyptians were anxiously occupied with 
 thoughts of " righteousness, temperance, and judgment to 
 come." Yet the Mosaic revelation was reserved for a 
 small and then obscure tribe who, though alleged to have 
 been resident as serfs in Egypt for several generations, 
 had, strangely enough, entirely failed to appreciate 
 Egyptian interest in the immortality of the soul. Surely, 
 if there were any tangible truth in the doctrine of personal 
 divine intervention for the deliverance of those " who 
 through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to 
 bondage," the Egyptians, in their pathetic, though 
 
REVELATIONS OUTSIDE THE BIBLE 217 
 
 blundering aspirations, had a fair claim to be among the 
 first objects of that intervention. But so far was such a 
 claim from being recognised, that even the voice from 
 Sinai, addressed to their escaped serfs, absolutely ignored 
 spiritual aspirations which those serfs, after centuries of 
 later development, at last began to share. 
 
 To mutiply such illustrations is needless. The ancient 
 Sumerian literature, the Babylonian inscriptions, and 
 especially the Laws of Hammurabi, a thousand years 
 older than the Mosaic epoch, all go to show that there 
 was a moral and spiritual life emerging with many a 
 struggle amongst those Eastern races, which, if it had 
 any relation at all to Bible beginnings, was rather that of 
 teacher, example, and inspiration than that of recipient. 
 When to all this we add the primal religious aspirations 
 of the Aryan invaders of India, the early, but un- 
 fortunately arrested moral development of ancient China, 
 and the implications of social and of moral culture con- 
 tained in the newly unveiled remains of Cnossos, it is 
 impossible to resist the conclusion that the slowly evolved 
 Hebrew monotheism, notwithstanding its undeniable 
 worth, was only an isolated, obscure, and at that time 
 negligible peculiarity of a numerically insignificant tribe, 
 separated by circumstances from the rest of the world. 
 Such a conclusion does not in the least invalidate the 
 worth which the growing Bible had for the infinitesimal 
 minority of mankind who had access to it. But it does 
 entirely destroy the illusion that the Bible has been the 
 light of the world. With its position in the Christian era 
 I have already dealt. But, in considering the relations of 
 the Bible to religion, it was absolutely necessary to show 
 how small has been the range of its influence compared 
 with the immeasurable realm of Man. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE BIBLE AND MORALS 
 
 By morals as distinguished from religion we generally 
 mean the relations of obligation or devotion between man 
 and man, whether taken individually or collectively. 
 Such relations have in all ages been thought to require a 
 religious sanction ; and, as the preceding chapter implies, 
 I cannot agree with those who dispute this judgment of 
 the orbis terrarum. Perhaps it is needless to repeat 
 that I regard all forms of religious sanction hitherto as 
 only more or less imperfect suggestions of the purer 
 faith, which is still a promise of the future, though its 
 germs lay in the animism of primeval man. But, while 
 morals may and do depend on the religious sanction 
 involved in loyalty to the Whole ^ of which we are parts, 
 much mischief has been wrought by an impracticable 
 refusal ever to consider morals apart from religion, and 
 by an equally impracticable insistence not only on the 
 
 1 This is not necessarily the divine Universe ; lesser wholes have served 
 
 the purpose hitherto. The family, the city, the empire, the Church, the 
 
 all-embracing fatherhood of God, have all evoked a loyalty which, in 
 
 each case, according to the customs of different times, has manifested its 
 
 identity with religion by rites and ceremonies around the household altar, 
 
 or in the temples of the city's patron deities, or that of the tribal god, or 
 
 has been sometimes sanctified by the higher ideal of a Holy Catholic 
 
 Church. 
 
 218 
 
MIXED MORALITY OF THE BIBLE 219 
 
 close relationship of these two, but on the inseparability 
 of morals and theology. This error has continually 
 engendered prejudiced misjudgments of the conduct and 
 character of those who differ from us in religious belief. 
 It has also inevitably led the Christian generations to 
 cherish an utterly exaggerated and perverse estimate of 
 the moral differences between Christian and Pagan 
 times.^ But though there has been much exaggeration, 
 the result of theological zeal, it can hardly be disputed 
 that the Bible has had, on the whole, an elevating and 
 refining influence on the morals of that limited section of 
 mankind who have received it as God's message to them. 
 And it is the purpose of this chapter to give an impartial 
 review of the nature and extent of that influence, and of 
 the causes of its unfortunate perversion. 
 
 Simple religionists who have never studied their Bible 
 other that devotionally, or with devotional preconceptions, 
 see in it only what they bring to it, and have no idea of 
 the exceedingly mixed morality which pervades its pages 
 from beginning to end. Thus, the amours of the " sons 
 of God and daughters of men," the story of Noah's 
 drunkenness, and the far more horrible legend of Lot and 
 his daughters, the lying of Abraham and Isaac to Pharaoh 
 and Abimelech, the weak and cruel conduct of Abraham 
 to Hagar, Jacob's unspeakable treachery to his aged father, 
 his dishonest dealings with Laban, the success of which 
 is ascribed to the divine approval, — all these and a score of 
 other revolting tales of pious craftiness or brutal impurity 
 
 1 Dr Dill has incidentally illustrated this in his two books on Roman 
 society in the early centuries of our era. The late Mr Lecky also, in 
 his chapter on " the Pagan Empire " {History of European Morals\ has 
 clearly shown how false is the notion that philanthropy, charity, in the 
 highest sense, and a recognition of the brotherhood of man, were entirely 
 wanting before the apostohc missions. 
 
220 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 and bloodshed, uncondemned by the compilers, are passed 
 over by the pious reader with a moral indifference akin to 
 colour blindness ; and the pages containing these repulsive 
 incidents are passionately defended as absolutely essential 
 to the moral instruction of little children. 
 
 Nor are these relics of savagery confined to the 
 Pentateuch. Indeed, the Book of Joshua, which, how- 
 ever, is now usually reckoned as an epilogue belonging to 
 that ancient volume, has perhaps done more to stimulate 
 among Christian peoples the worship of the " God of 
 battles " than the Sermon on the Mount to discourage it. 
 As to the Book of Judges, while it has much interest 
 for the intelligent and sufficiently instructed student 
 of the patriotic folklore and germinating superstitions 
 of a people destined for a great spiritual mission, 
 — its morals are simply those of a horde of savage 
 conquerors not yet firmly settled in their new possessions, 
 and believing themselves commanded by their tribal god 
 to spare neither aliens nor brethren when the sacred 
 " covenant " was concerned. It is needless to refer to other 
 books, except to acknowledge, what only prejudice can 
 deny, that though the morality of the later Old Testament 
 Scriptures is always imperfect, the general tone continually 
 rises until in some of the prophets it reaches a high 
 degree of purity and sometimes of grandeur. But it is 
 only necessary to mention the cases of Samuel and Agag, 
 David and Joab, the sons of Rizpah, Elijah's slaughter 
 of the prophets of Baal — all of which are related with 
 obvious or implied approval, — in order to suggest the 
 grounds on which Old Testament morality must be 
 adjudged to be of a very mixed character. 
 
 I do not forget — indeed it is my purpose to insist — 
 that amidst the coarse recitals of a barbarous age there are 
 
CASE OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL 221 
 
 interspersed stories or parables such as that of Abraham's 
 intercession for Sodom, or of Balaam's unwilling obedi- 
 ence to conscience, which contain in germ the elements 
 of a higher morality. All I say is that the Bible is a 
 book of mixed morality, and this is true not only of the 
 Old Testament, but of the New. The charm of the 
 Synoptic Gospels is such that criticism recognises it as 
 sacred ground, and retires in reverence, provided only 
 that it is not required to accept beautiful but unauthen- 
 ticated traditions as authoritative facts. But the spiritual 
 romance which the Church of the Second Century so 
 strangely admitted as a matter-of-fact gospel, and as written 
 in extreme age by the son of Zebedee, is, in many parts, 
 utterly wanting in the " sweet reasonableness " which 
 characterises the earlier narratives. The opening has 
 that sort of alluring mystery which has always captivated 
 souls aspiring after the unknowable. The narratives, 
 though regarded by M. Jean Reville as mere parables 
 setting forth successively the spiritual principles embodied 
 in the life and death of Jesus, are so written as to thrill 
 us with an intensely human interest that is generally 
 lacking in the Synoptic parables, if we except that of the 
 Prodigal Son. The story of the Samaritan woman in 
 chapter iv., for instance, concentrates within twenty- 
 six verses an amazingly lifelike study of a childlike 
 nature, innocently enslaved by a sectarian training,^ but 
 still open to the blessed influence of a nobler faith, 
 though only dimly understood.^ The woman's curiosity,^ 
 her childish materialism,* her artless cunning in the 
 evasion of an awkward question,^ are notes of a master 
 in the drawing of character. And the recognition of the 
 
 1 Verse 9. 2 Verse 25. ^ Verses 9, 11. 
 
 ^ Verse 15. ^ Verses 19, 20. 
 
222 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 Christ by an alien race, a recognition for which all these 
 picturesque details are a preparation, was probably 
 intended as a concrete vindication of that larger mission 
 of Christianity which at the date of the obscure origin of 
 the Book ^ was still disputed by the Judaising faction of 
 the Church. 
 
 Almost equally interesting from its vivid portrayal of 
 character is the ninth chapter, in which Christ is mani- 
 fested as the light of the world. The symbolic miracle 
 by which this conception is conveyed is wrought upon a 
 man whose sturdiness of loyalty to his benefactor, whose 
 shrewdnesss of repartee when accused, and whose un- 
 flinching courage when face to face with ecclesiastical 
 tyranny, have been the delight and sometimes the inspira- 
 tion of readers. His pathetic refrain, " He hath opened 
 mine eyes," was, no doubt, in the prophetic soul of the 
 author, the language of a redeemed world, rather than that 
 of any individual subject of miracle. Yet, as in the case 
 of the Woman of Samaria, his genius, in this respect 
 perhaps unrivalled, invests a world-wide theophany with 
 the intensest and most delightful personal interest. It 
 must be obvious that the evangelist, although himself 
 almost certainly a Jew, was contemplating with joy the 
 future prevalence of a sincerer light of truth in which 
 the Jewish superstition of the Sabbath would disappear 
 as a lingering cloud is absorbed in a dry dawn. " And 
 it was the Sabbath day when Jesus made the clay" — a 
 clear opus operatum^ a " manner of work," certainly in- 
 cluded in the prohibitions of the fourth commandment 
 
 1 The Fourth Gospel was probably at first passed from hand to hand in 
 a comparatively narrow circle of " Broad Church " Christians touched by 
 Philonism. Thus it may very well have been written early in the second 
 century, but it certainly did not pass into general circulation till after 
 Justin's time. 
 
JESUS BREAKS THE SABBATH 223 
 
 — and therefore, as in the previous case of the paralytic 
 in chapter v., where Jesus had only directed work to be 
 done on the Sabbath, without doing it himself, the Jews 
 persecuted Jesus " because he had done these things on 
 the Sabbath day." 
 
 The blunt, reiterated, and unswerving opposition of 
 fact to prejudice in the unsophisticated replies of the 
 loyal soul to all condemnations of his benefactor, have a 
 quaint and touching interest. " Whether he be a sinner 
 or no, I know not : one thing I know, that whereas I 
 was blind, now I see." "Why, herein is a marvellous 
 thing, that ye know not from whence he is, and yet he 
 hath opened mine eyes ! " The difference between the 
 sturdy faithfulness of this man, and the poltroonery of 
 the creature in chapter v., who, to gratify his benefactor's 
 persecutors, readily turned informer (v. 15), suggests that 
 this extraordinary writer retained, amidst all his mystic 
 speculations, an intense interest in the characters he 
 created, and rejoiced in depicting differences of moral 
 weakness and strength. Thus, while he kept steadfastly 
 to his plan of a new gospel which should emphasise the 
 incarnation of the Logos and his manifestation as the 
 light of the world and the diviner life of man, all being 
 consummated by the eternal Passover which cancelled the 
 Mosaic law, yet he never lost interest in detail, and 
 his parabolic stories now interest us much more by their 
 keen human touches than by any doctrinal suggestion. 
 In fact, there is not one of the singularly vivid stories in 
 the book which fails to touch the noblest motives either 
 in reason or emotion.^ 
 
 ^ The passage about the woman taken in adultery (viii. i-ii) is, of 
 course, an interpolation, and the Leicester cursive inserts it in another 
 gospel J but it obviously belongs to the earliest traditions. 
 
224 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 But very different is the case of the mystical discourses, 
 interspersed with bitter wrangles, by which the lessons of 
 the beautiful stories are supposed to be applied. For 
 surely it is impossible, without a haunting sense of un- 
 reality, to apply Matthew Arnold's phrase of " sweet 
 reasonableness " to the provocation of opponents by 
 violent paradox, so characteristic of the arguments, or to 
 the bitter reproaches hurled against those opponents be- 
 cause the paradoxes were not received as obvious divine 
 truth. What a stupendous contrast there is between the 
 sunny Beatitudes, or even the simple and self-interpreting 
 paradoxes of the Sermon on the Mount, and the dark, 
 forbidding, arbitrarily obscure enunciations in the Fourth 
 Gospel ! " I say unto ye, that ye resist not evil." Well, 
 it is surely a natural paradox, suggested by a strong re- 
 pugnance to the prevalent code of vengeance — " An eye 
 for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.'* But it easily re- 
 solves itself into a change of spirit from the old hatred 
 of foes to a wish for their good equally with our own.^ 
 But what could unprepared Rabbis and their disciples 
 possibly make of the dark sayings so improbably attri- 
 buted by the Fourth Gospel to Jesus almost at the 
 beginning of his ministry ? " My Father worketh hitherto, 
 and I work ! " It may be easy enough now for us to 
 see in these words a daring anti-sabbatarian denial of the 
 tradition that God's Sabbath after the six days' creation 
 was an age-long rest. But if it had been uttered under 
 the circumstances detailed in the narrative, it would have 
 been a very dark saying, and scarcely calculated to begin 
 an amicable discussion. And if, as we are told in a 
 
 ^ If St Paul was familiar with the Synoptic tradition— a doubtful point 
 — he took a very sensible view of this paradox, as witness Acts xvi. 37 ; 
 xxiii. 17, etc. ; xxvi. 29. 
 
DISCORD WITH THE BEATITUDES 225 
 
 previous discourse, " God sent not his Son into the 
 world to condemn the world," the following discussions 
 with the Jews are singularly discordant with that saying. 
 For every one of them bristles with provocation, and 
 inevitably incites a proud and prejudiced people to reject 
 with anger the supposed message of salvation. " Ye are 
 of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye 
 will do " (viii. 44). This may or may not have been 
 true, but in any case the words were hardly in accord 
 with the Beatitude, " Blessed are the peacemakers." 
 
 The truth is that these discussions are wholly unhis- 
 torical, and existed only in the imagination of the un- 
 known writer, who considered them necessary to elucidate 
 his idea of a Logos-Messiah. The strong opposition of 
 the Judaising faction of the Church to any such conception 
 probably wrought in his mind a resentment which led 
 him to represent the original forefathers of that faction 
 as the bitterest and most hopeless enemies of the Christ. 
 To such a mood the heat of the imagined debates was a 
 matter of course. But our point at present is their bear- 
 ing upon morality, and it is difficult to conceive that 
 the judgment of completely emancipated opinion in the 
 future can be other than adverse. How much of in- 
 tolerance, how much of bigotry, how much of the Church's 
 tyrannous demand for slavish submission of the reason on 
 pain of damnation may be owing to these wrangling dis- 
 cussions in the Fourth Gospel, we can never accurately 
 know. But they certainly set the example of an imperious 
 demand for instant acceptance of vague, indefinable, im- 
 palpable, unverifiable assertions, and that on pain of hell. 
 
 The reason why the imperious and intolerant attitude 
 often assumed by the ideal speaker in these disputes has 
 failed to strike Christian readers generally as irreconcil- 
 
 15 
 
226 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 able with the lovely character predominant in the Synoptic 
 Gospels, is perhaps that such painful words as those 
 quoted above were always justified by the assumption 
 that a supernatural Being, about to mount the judgment 
 seat of the world, might well speak with severe authority.^ 
 But it was forgotten that " the Jews " — as they are con- 
 tinually called in the book — did not recognise this 
 supernatural character, and though I have no wish to 
 defend them, seeing they were as cantankerous as ob- 
 structives of progress know how to be, still, accepting the 
 apparent chronology of the narrative, there was some 
 excuse for their hesitation to admit so extraordinary a 
 claim within a few months of its being made.^ And to 
 an impartial judgment it can scarcely appear reasonable 
 that the natural objection of " the Jews " to open con- 
 tempt for their Sabbath superstition should be met only 
 by mystical utterances which they could not possibly be 
 expected to understand. 
 
 It may be worth while to notice the different aspects in 
 which the story of the treacherous paralytic appeared to 
 two of the greatest preachers of the Church's Silver Age, 
 Augustine and Chrysostom. To the former, bent only on 
 the spiritualisation of every sentence at all costs, the base 
 action of the healed man offered no difficulty whatever ; 
 
 ^ The difference between these so-called Johannine passages and de- 
 nunciations in the Synoptics, such as Matt, xxiii., etc., is that the latter 
 were such as any prophet might utter without pretending to any other 
 authority than that of right against wrong. The principles maintained 
 were impersonal ; but in the Fourth Gospel the offence of the interlocutors 
 is a personal one ; they would not recognise the supernatural dignity 
 asserted. 
 
 2 True, the Fourth Gospel has visits to Jerusalem of which the Synoptics 
 know nothing {cf. ii. 23), but if we take its chronology from itself, " the 
 Jews" in the capital cannot have had much opportunity of hearing the 
 doctrine of Jesus before the miracle of Siloam in chapter v. 
 
AUGUSTINE AND CHRYSOSTOM 227 
 
 for the betrayer's only object was to preach the Gospel.^ 
 " ' He went away, and told the Jews it was Jesus who had 
 made him whole.' He proclaimed, but they raged. He 
 preached their salvation ; they did not seek their salva- 
 tion." But the poor creature who had been rebuked for 
 carrying his bed on the Sabbath, and from whom the 
 name of his abettor in the crime had been so sternly 
 demanded, knew very well that what " the Jews " wanted 
 was the temporal perdition of his healer. Surely it is not 
 going too far to say that before a mind like Augustine's 
 could have been so benumbed to the moral issues involved, 
 it must have been wholly saturated with non-moral 
 theological speculations which relegated ethics to a 
 secondary place. Nor are we in the least debarred from 
 such criticism by our own belief that the whole story lies 
 in imagination's realm. For if we may debate the real 
 or feigned madness of Hamlet, or the contrast between 
 moral exhortation and conduct in Polonius, certainly we 
 may scrutinise with interest the moral characteristics of the 
 actors in this greater spiritual tragedy. And besides, of 
 course, both Augustine and Chrysostom were assured that 
 they were dealing with actual historical events. 
 
 Very different, however, was the effect of this narrative 
 upon Chrysostom. We have already noted the deep 
 humanity of this greatest of preachers, and are not 
 surprised to find that the conduct of the paralytic man 
 puzzled and apparently pained him. Of course, as an 
 orthodox divine, he had his explanation ; but it was not 
 — if I may say so with respect — so absurd as Augustine's, 
 and it is only with an effort that he is content therewith. 
 After dwelling upon the probable spiritual effect of the 
 
 1 "Non fuit piger in evangelisando quern viderit," Augustini, Opera, 
 tome iv., p. 428 A, Benedictine edition. 
 
228 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 words uttered by Jesus when he met the restored man in 
 the Temple — " Sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto 
 thee " — Chrysostom tells us that it was in the frame of 
 mind stimulated by such words that the man went to 
 " the Jews." " For he did not say, ' This is he who said 
 take up thy bed ' ; since that was the specious accusation 
 which they pressed against (Jesus) ; but he always keeps 
 the defence to the front, and reminds them of his healing 
 power ^ in his zeal to win over and reconcile the opponents 
 (those others). For he was not so unfeeling as after such 
 a benefit and such a warning to betray his benefactor, and 
 to give this message with treacherous intent. For, 
 indeed, if he had even been a beast, if he had been some 
 inhuman creature or made of stone, such a benefit and 
 such an awe must have restrained him. Besides, he had 
 the threat fresh in memory, and would have been 
 afraid of some worse thing befalling him, since he had 
 had effective proof of the might of his healer. Still 
 further, if he had intended betrayal, he would have been 
 silent about the healing, while he would have told of the 
 transgression, and condemned it. But it is not so ; it is 
 not so ! On the contrary, his words were marked by 
 boldness and loyalty ; and he proclaims his benefactor 
 with no less (zeal) than the blind man did. For what 
 does the latter say ? ' He made clay and anointed mine 
 eyes.' Just so does this man." ^ 
 
 Every reader must judge for himself of the effectiveness 
 of Chrysostom's defence. But at any rate it must be 
 conceded that he shows more sensitiveness to the moral 
 issue than Augustine does. Our point, however, is simply 
 that the Fourth Gospel tended to subordinate plain moral 
 
 ^ rrdXiv rov larphv SriKov iroiwv- 
 
 2 Chrysostom, Benedictine edition, tome viii. p. 218. 
 
SUBORDINATION OF MORALS 229 
 
 issues to the prevalence of theosophical lore, and that this 
 tendency was found to be irresistible even by the greatest 
 of the Church's priests. Far be it from me to deny that 
 there are other phases of the influence of this Gospel 
 which are so precious that the world, no less than the 
 Church, would be loth to lose it. But if we would truly 
 estimate the relation between the Bible and morals, we 
 must keep an open ear to the discords as well as to the 
 harmony with the moral ideal of the " choir invisible," 
 the resultant of all the best feelings of the noblest hearts. 
 The aim of this Fourth Gospel, however, was only 
 incidentally moral. For certainly its chief purpose was to 
 declare, whether men would hear or no, the transfigured 
 doctrine of the eternal Christ, which was revealed in the 
 soul of the writer through a visionary combination of the 
 traditional Jesus with an adapted idea of the Platonic and 
 Philonic Logos of which his knowledge was probably 
 indirect. 
 
 The resultant suggests the work of a peculiar genius, 
 perhaps unparalleled in kind in all the literature of the 
 world. And I should be sorry for myself if I were un- 
 susceptible to the art, which against a background of 
 eternity depicts a tragedy of time inseparable from its 
 background, but mingling all tones of temporal light and 
 shade, and working into the picture the most varied 
 touches of vivid human interest, all converging on the 
 dread but glorious catastrophe, which withdraws all 
 thought and interest from petty temporal types of God, 
 and engrosses all other forms of devotion in the worship 
 of the eternal Christ. I may be told, indeed, that all this 
 is unreal ; for I have admitted that the book is a spiritual 
 romance. But Jesus as described in the Synoptic narrative 
 appears to have thought that the deepest spiritual truths 
 
230 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 required pictorial fiction for their expression. And the 
 commanding spiritual genius of this belated gospel followed 
 him at least in that. 
 
 Nor let it be thought that this recognition of the 
 spiritual power of a nameless prophet is at variance with 
 the tenor of this treatise. For an accurate estimate of the 
 relations of Man and the Bible must needs assign full 
 value to that mystic sense of our kinship with the Infinite 
 which an affected but unreal materialism can never destroy. 
 Thus those of us who most frankly recognise that all 
 present theologies must merge in the final truth that 
 infinite God is another name for infinite Universe, may 
 yet have some sympathy for the doctrine of the eternal 
 Christ. That is to say, while we try to bring our little 
 consciousness into practical and moral relation with the 
 All in all, we like at least to picture to ourselves a 
 " mediator " — not a separate being, indeed — but a finite 
 mode of the Infinite, which we can realise. And this 
 finite mode we find to be our true self. Nor is this a 
 mere paradox. For the self, blinded and baffled by 
 passions, is not the true self. But it is precisely that 
 false self which disguises the Universe ; and the true self, 
 freed from passion, which reveals it. To this true self 
 birth, re-birth, divine light and life, opposition of the 
 " world," crucifixion, resurrection, eternal life, all have a 
 meaning, though it is not the meaning of the sects. And 
 when we realise that meaning we are grateful for the 
 Fourth Gospel.^ 
 
 The chief interest of the Book of Acts is found in its 
 reminiscences — whether minutely historical or not matters 
 
 ^ I take this to be generally the meaning attached by the Rev. R. J. 
 Campbell to the " eternal Christ," but he might desire to see it expressed 
 otherwise. 
 
BOOK OF ACTS 231 
 
 little — of the early passion of faith which moved mountains 
 and laid firm the foundations of the " City of God." The 
 inspiration of plain men to face the fetish-mongers whom 
 they had dreaded, to " obey God rather than man," moves 
 us yet when we read the story. The portentous daring 
 of Stephen, who plainly prophesied a larger faith than 
 even the day of Pentecost had revealed, and who, in his 
 rapture at the prospect, blenched not — 
 
 ''Tho' cursed and scorned, and bruised with stones," 
 
 is, as Tennyson recognised, an example that stirs us yet. 
 That Saul of Tarsus was moved by Stephen's death and 
 eventually took up his work of evolving an elaborate and 
 non-Judaic Christianity out of the memories of Jesus, is 
 as probable, or, perhaps, more probable, than any other 
 theory of the beginnings of the Pauline missions. And 
 there is surely in that extraordinary man's overpowering 
 passion of devotion a fascination which can never lose its 
 charm so long as the mystery of selfless heroism touches 
 the heart of man. A book containing such memoirs 
 must always be inspiring in the sense of stimulating a 
 desire to live beyond ourselves. But this acknowledg- 
 ment does not necessarily imply that in morality it is 
 always a safe guide. 
 
 The deaths of Ananias and Sapphira are always assumed 
 to be a work of divine vengeance, and therefore beyond 
 question. But the time has gone by when that assump- 
 tion can be allowed, or when such an " act of God " can 
 be regarded as in accordance with the divine order.-^ The 
 
 1 It is useless to refer to deaths by lightning, earthquake, plague, or 
 pestilence as analogous "acts of God." In the first place, they are not 
 "acts" at all, in the ordinary sense, but incidents in the life of the 
 Universe, without which it would not be perfect as it is ; and next, these 
 
232 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 pretence and the lie by which it was maintained are indeed 
 a painfully apposite illustration of the corruption always 
 incidental to collective religious enthusiasm. But that 
 does not in the least justify the severity of the sentence, 
 which, according to the account of Sapphira's death, was 
 pronounced by the Apostle Peter himself. And it seems 
 impossible to doubt that this repulsive incident did, in 
 succeeding generations, go far to reconcile a superstitious 
 laity to the elimination of morality from theocracy in the 
 rule of the priest. A less painful but still indefensible 
 exercise of apostolic power for the injury of the body 
 rather than the salvation of the soul is related in the 
 account of St Paul's first missionary journey ; for, 
 according at any rate to modern ideas, Elymas, the 
 sorcerer of Paphos, had as much right to oppose St PauFs 
 doctrine as the latter had to preach it. But, according to 
 the morality of the Book of Acts, this was not the case ; 
 and Elymas was justly punished with temporary blindness 
 for daring to resist the conversion of his patron. Now, 
 however mercenary his motives may have been, modern 
 law and modern equity would concede to him the right 
 of doing — as he thought — the best for himself. And the 
 general ecclesiastical approval of St Paul's miracle of 
 vengeance upon him is only another instance of the 
 influence of this book in eliminating morality from the 
 jurisdiction of the priest. 
 
 I shall not attempt, where so many more learned than 
 I have failed, to separate truth from error in the confused 
 accounts given in Acts and Galatians of the council 
 
 events have no such reference to human conduct as is alleged in the case 
 of Ananias. In the latter case God is supposed to go out of his way to 
 kill a man for an offence for which excommunication would have been an 
 ample penalty. 
 
ST PAUL AND THE JERUSALEM DECREE 233 
 
 called in Jerusalem to consider the unprecedented 
 procedure of St Paul among the Gentiles. But, at any 
 rate, it is clear that the so-called decree in Acts xv. 29 
 was never observed. For in i Cor. St Paul feels 
 called upon to offer his advice on the very questions 
 there supposed to be closed — the eating of meat offered 
 to idols and of blood — and his advice is much more 
 liberal than could possibly be consistent with the alleged 
 decree. " Whatsoever is sold in the shambles, that eat, 
 asking no question for conscience sake" (i Cor. x. 25). 
 But as they were certainly not Jewish shambles, this 
 involved eating blood. With regard to things offered 
 to idols, the question is more complicated. The apostle 
 sees no harm in eating them ; but if attention is called 
 to the fact that they have been so consecrated, then he 
 thinks Christians should abstain, not on their own account, 
 but for the sake of the idolaters, who might misunder- 
 stand their act (i Cor. x. 27). Now one of two things 
 is certain, if St Paul wrote this epistle, as I think he did : 
 either he had never heard of the " decree," or he set it 
 at nought. In either case it follows that the passage in 
 Acts XV. describing the compromise is only the first 
 amongst an endless series of ecclesiastical makeshifts in 
 which a false peace has glossed over a fundamental schism. 
 But such pretences do not favour a high moral tone. 
 
 The quarrel between Paul and Barnabas about their 
 fickle follower, John Mark, need not involve any reproach 
 to either of them, considered as ordinary men of the 
 world. But when the writer tells us "the contention 
 was so sharp between them that they departed asunder 
 one from the other," he suggests a sort of hot temper 
 scarcely consistent with that " sweet reasonableness " of 
 brotherly love which, as we shall have to note again, was 
 
234 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 a pre-eminent and distinctive characteristic of the earliest 
 Christianity amongst its numerous Oriental competitors 
 for spiritual dominion. On the other hand, the spirited 
 conduct of Paul in refusing a clandestine release from 
 the Philippian gaol, and in demanding the attendance of 
 the erring magistrates, which amounted practically to an 
 apology, is gratifying to the natural man, while it shows 
 that, according to its chief apostle, the rule of love was 
 never intended to cancel the rule of right. 
 
 Whether St Paul ever addressed an audience of 
 " Epicureans and Stoicks " on the Areopagus may be an 
 open question ; but if he did, and used anything like the 
 words attributed to him, those philosophers must have 
 been very much astonished to hear that they supposed 
 "the Godhead" to be "like unto gold or silver, or stone 
 graven by art and man's device." But we are more 
 concerned with the rhetorical art or trick by which he 
 forced into his argument an inscription on one among 
 several altars in Athens " to an unknown god " ; the 
 truth being that in bygone times, when the inhabitants 
 of a street or district had suffered from some divine act 
 which they could not assign to any particular deity by 
 name, they tried to make sure of propitiation by setting 
 up an altar to " an unknown god." St Paul, if he was 
 as well instructed as his native university town was able 
 to make him, must have known this. But his principle 
 of " being all things to all men '* removed all scruple 
 about the use of what to others than the philosophers 
 in his audience might seem a telling point. Supposing 
 the words to be genuine, and not, as is more probable, 
 a happy thought of the editor, I cannot think that they 
 set a high example to the pulpit rhetoric of the future. 
 For the weakness of that rhetoric has always been the 
 
ST PAUUS "OCCASIONAL CONFORMITY" 235 
 
 readiness to sacrifice rigorous veracity for the sake of 
 winning attention and sympathy in an appeal. 
 
 But the most unpleasant incident, from a moral point 
 of view, in St Paul's career as narrated in the Acts, was 
 what the old Puritans would have called his " occasional 
 conformity" for the purpose of conciliating the Jews, 
 whose sectarian souls were enraged by his work among 
 the Gentiles. The unhappy weakness of the apostle in 
 yielding, like too many other reformers, to the wily 
 suggestions of compromise, pressed on him by far 
 inferior men, during his final visit to Jerusalem, has been 
 variously viewed by his admirers according as they con- 
 sidered him uniformly infallible or no. It is to the credit 
 of John Knox's sturdy intellect that when the rightness 
 of "occasional conformity" was pressed upon him by 
 this very case, he replied that he could never satisfy 
 himself that St Paul on that occasion acted under the 
 guidance of the Spirit. And no wonder. For consider 
 the language of the story. James — said to have been 
 the brother of Jesus — and the weak brethren around him 
 were terrified at the rumours going about, and eagerly 
 adopted the cunning plan of St Paul's ostentatious 
 participation in certain superstitious rites ; comforting 
 their victim with the assurance that thus " all may know 
 that those things whereof they were informed concerning 
 thee are nothing, but that thou thyself walkest orderly 
 and keepest the law." 
 
 It is not necessary for me to decide whether this story 
 of conscious hypocrisy is true in fact or not ; and for 
 this reason, that I am treating of the relation of the Bible, 
 as it stands, to morals, and not of the actual St Paul, 
 who may have been entirely guiltless of this pretence. 
 Certainly it is not what we should expect from the man 
 
236 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 who wrote the well-known passage in Gal. ii. 11 : " But 
 when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the 
 face, because he was to be blamed. For before that 
 certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles : 
 but when they were come, he withdrew, and separated 
 himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision " ; 
 precisely the fear which was urged on Paul himself by 
 James and his colleagues. "And the other Jews dis- 
 sembled likewise with him, insomuch that Barnabas also 
 was carried away by their dissimulation. But when I 
 saw that they walked not uprightly according to the 
 truth of the Gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, 
 If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of the 
 Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compellest thou 
 the Gentiles to live as do the Jews ? " Observe, St 
 Paul's point was that St Peter, when not in fear of the 
 circumcision, lived "after the manner of the Gentiles, 
 and not as do the Jews." With what tremendous force 
 could the former apostle's words have been used against 
 himself if in Jerusalem he weakly gave way to the fear 
 of the circumcision, under the instigation of James ! If 
 he did do it, this is the darkest blot on his reputation 
 after his conversion. But whether he did or not, there 
 stands the humiliating story in the alleged records of the 
 earliest Church, a precedent and an instigation to in- 
 numerable ecclesiastical compromises with evil, whether 
 in our struggles for emancipation from effete law, or for 
 national education, or for freedom of thought. 
 
 If we turn to the Epistles ascribed to the authorship 
 of St Paul, I cannot conceive how any unbiassed judg- 
 ment can fail to pronounce their general moral tendency 
 to be inspiring, purifying, and ennobling. But while 
 premising so much, and reserving to a later page the 
 
EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS 237 
 
 reasons for my own admiration, I will not conceal here 
 that the morality of these writings has darker, or at least 
 more dubious, shades. Passing over the terrible descrip- 
 tion of human depravity in Rom. i., which was needed 
 as the rhetorical basis for the succeeding argument, but 
 which the writer in ii. 14, 15 allows not to be universally 
 true, we come to the main thesis of the epistle, that " a 
 man is justified by faith, without the deeds of the law." 
 Now there is a sense in which this is true ; and there are 
 some indications in this letter or treatise that St Paul, or 
 the writer, whoever he was, taught it in that sense. That 
 is to say, if a man who has been a rebel against the divine 
 order of the world ^ and whose passionate selfishness has 
 wrought misery for himself and his fellows, should by 
 any means be converted to a spirit •f loyalty toward that 
 divine order, he now tries to work consciously with that 
 order, and not against it ; and the guilt of his sins falls 
 away, though their consequences may have to be remedied 
 with labour and tears. 
 
 That this was the essential meaning of salvation by faith 
 as taught in the Epistle to the Romans, is, I think, clear 
 from the explanation given of the reason why Abraham's 
 faith was "imputed to him for righteousness." That 
 reason is very simple, for Abraham's faith actually was 
 righteousness. " He staggered not at the promise of God 
 
 ^ It is easy to sneer at this phrase when we take the order of the world 
 as static and not dynamic, as stationary and not progressive. " Nature 
 red in tooth and claw" is a favourite allusion of those who think, with the 
 Spanish king, that if they had been consulted at the "creation" of the world 
 they could have given a valuable hint or two. But the dynamic divine order 
 is that of evolution working upward through the beast to man, through 
 force to reason, through so-called "natural selection" to self-sacrifice, 
 mutual devotion, and socialism. The deeper questions involved cannot be 
 treated here ; but in the Handbook to SpinozcCs Ethics I have tried to 
 show how they are treated there. 
 
238 
 
 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to 
 God." Eliminate the traditional Hebrew theology which 
 is here not at all of the essence of the position, and what 
 is left is a much-tried man's loyalty to the divine order of 
 the world, and a determination to work consciously with 
 it, not against it. But that is surely the root and indeed 
 the substance of all righteousness. 
 
 Now let us take a case from modern poetry, a case 
 which illustrates the same doctrine of salvation by loyalty 
 to the divine order, though it is stated from a very 
 different point of view. Coleridge's Ancient Mariner is 
 in a state of misery until he can love ; but with that 
 blessed experience comes his salvation. And that blessed 
 experience is engendered by a sudden perception of 
 beauty in the world. In the utmost depth of his de- 
 pression a vision appears to him, not of heaven, but of 
 the ordinary world : — 
 
 "By the light 
 of the moon he 
 beholdeth God's 
 creatures of the 
 great calm. " 
 
 ** Their beauty 
 and their happi- 
 ness." 
 
 " He blesseth 
 them in his 
 heart." 
 
 ■ Beyond the shadow of the ship 
 I watched the water snakes : 
 They moved in tracks 'of shining white, 
 And when they reared, the eltish Hght 
 Fell ofF in hoary flakes. 
 
 Within the shadow of the ship 
 
 I watched their rich attire ; 
 
 Blue, glossy green, and velvet black. 
 
 They coiled and swam ; and every track 
 
 Was a flash of golden fire. 
 
 O happy Hving things ! No tongue 
 
 Their beauty might declare : 
 
 A spring of love gushed from my heart. 
 
 And I blessed them unaware : 
 
 Sure my kind saint took pity on me. 
 
 And I blessed them unaware. 
 
THE ORDER OF THE UNIVERSE 239 
 
 "The spell be- That self-same moment I could pray : 
 
 gins to break. " Air i /- 
 
 And rrom my neck so free 
 
 The Albatross fell off, and sunk 
 
 Like lead into the sea." 
 
 The side notes of the poet as given above fully j ustif y 
 me in quoting these lines as a description of the restitution 
 in a desperate soul of that loyalty or faith which brings 
 salvation. No matter about the details of the imaginative 
 setting. No matter that the vision of beauty is limited 
 and apparently accidental. The " kind saint " is as easily 
 eliminated from the story as the Hebrew tribal God from 
 the above story of Abraham. The point is that the 
 mariner's heart warms to the world ; he feels love ; and 
 love involves trust and hope. He feels himself in 
 harmony with God ; and this is the consummation of 
 salvation by faith. So likewise when the imagined 
 Abraham of the Epistle to the Romans " staggered not 
 through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to 
 God," this is only a theological way of describing loyalty 
 to the divine order. The vision of beauty is absent, 
 though perhaps the hope that in him "all generations 
 should be blessed " is something better. But in either 
 case, whether the stimulus was a sense of happy beauty 
 in the world, or the hope of being a benefactor to all 
 mankind, the soul yielded loyalty to the divine order, 
 and each afforded an illustration of the only moral sense 
 we can attach to salvation by faith. 
 
 But as is usually the case with novel or freshly stated 
 doctrines that evoke enthusiasm, this notion of salvation 
 by faith was pushed to extremes, and then presented in 
 perverted forms to which no moral value can possibly 
 be attached. Thus in this very epistle the writer surely 
 spoils a noble passage (x. 6-9) by practically defending 
 
240 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 faith as a belief in a much disputed fact. " If thou shalt 
 confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt 
 believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the 
 dead, thou shalt be saved." Here we might, perhaps — 
 were not the whole context against it — understand by 
 " confessing with thy mouth the Lord Jesus " an adoption 
 of the morality of the Synoptic Gospels. And in such a 
 method of salvation there might be reason enough. But 
 the notion that mere belief in the resuscitation of a dead 
 man — however great and good — can make all the differ- 
 ence between salvation and perdition, seems an arbitrary, 
 perverse, and unreal proposition, which strikes upon us 
 as an unexpected side billow on a labouring barque, and 
 knocks us out of all our moral bearings. For it is not 
 positively moral to believe on evidence an event like 
 that, and it is immoral to believe it without ; though, of 
 course, it may be said that this belief in the resurrection 
 of Jesus gives access to the Christian life : and it is this 
 which saves. But, in the first place, thousands have lived 
 the Christian life, in the moral sense, while entirely dis- 
 believing the bodily resurrection of Christ. And, in the 
 next place, that interpretation is not given by the author 
 of the epistle himself. No ; for him a sincere belief 
 that a questionable event has happened is a sure passport 
 to salvation. Now, such a doctrine is in moral tone 
 immensely below the explanation given of Abraham's faith, 
 and illustrates how biblical writers shared the infirmity 
 of unconsecrated members of the craft, who, having got 
 what seems to them a good idea, write it to death. 
 
 But worse than this followed. For the writer of the 
 Epistle to the Romans, and I doubt not St Paul himself, 
 even if he was not that writer, felt a difficulty in account- 
 ing for the strange fact that the kinsmen and fellow- 
 
SACRED QUIBBLING 241 
 
 countrymen of Jesus, with comparatively few exceptions, 
 rejected salvation by faith, while so many of the Gentiles 
 were attracted by it, that, for the present at any rate, the 
 hopes of the Church lay with the second and not with 
 the first. To explain this paradox he had recourse to 
 the doctrine of election, familiar, at least in the form of 
 predestination, to the Pharisees and to various sects of 
 philosophers in a previous age. Thus, both Ishmael and 
 Isaac were, presumably, according to the custom of those 
 prehistoric times, equally legitimate sons of the father of 
 the faithful. But Ishmael was excluded from the inherit- 
 ance of Abraham's faith, while Isaac was chosen to 
 continue it. Again, Jacob and Esau were brought into 
 the world at one birth, yet, " the children being not yet 
 born, neither having done any good or evil, that the 
 purpose of God according to election might stand, not of 
 works, but of him that calleth — it was said unto her. The 
 elder shall serve the younger. As it is written : Jacob 
 have I loved, but Esau have I hated," — a mysterious 
 choice indeed, as the writer of the epistle, to do him 
 justice, seems painfully to have felt. And the point to be 
 made by this laborious quotation of legendary lore is that, 
 in accordance with previous precedents, God has now 
 chosen the Gentiles to be the spiritual heirs of Abraham, 
 while the natural heirs are, for a time at least, ignored. 
 
 In this exposition of the paradoxical transference of 
 Messiah's kingdom from the chosen people to the un- 
 covenanted Gentiles, moral considerations are entirely put 
 on one side, and " the purpose of God according to 
 election" is made supreme. Now, it would ill become 
 those who believe in a universal and divine order, inde- 
 pendent of human caprice, to condemn as wholly false 
 
 this reference of certain puzzling events to the sovereign 
 
 16 
 
242 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 will of God. But what revolts us is the apparently 
 exceptional nature of the election taught ; for it is not 
 a universal divine order, but " an election of grace." 
 That is, it is concerned with the " plan of salvation," or 
 the fulfilment of prophecy, or the establishment of the 
 kingdom of Christ. But, as to all human affairs outside 
 this "election of grace," the tone of the epistle is consonant 
 with the words attributed to St Paul in his missionary 
 addresses : "The times of this ignorance God overlooked" 
 (Acts xvii. 30) ; " Who in the generations gone by suffered 
 all the nations to walk in their own ways" (xiv. 16). 
 Nor does the following context of the latter passage in 
 the least affect my contention that the "election of grace" 
 is exceptional — a sort of Gulf Stream amidst the weltering 
 chaos of the pre-Christian world. For though God "left 
 not himself without witness," that witness was made at 
 last effective only in and by " the election of grace." 
 
 But divine order is universal ; and Jesus himself 
 recognised that it regulated the rising of the sun, the 
 descent of the rain, the fall of the sparrow, and the 
 numbering of the very hairs of our head. Christianity, 
 however, left it to philosophers, and especially to one of 
 Jewish race, born late in the Christian centuries, to show 
 how the real divine order, eternal, all-embracing, all- 
 permeating, directing the thoughts of a Shakespeare as 
 well as the dust eddies on a summer road, is not only 
 consistent. with, but is essential to, the noblest morals. 
 With that grand doctrine, however, we are not concerned 
 here,^ except to suggest that it contrasts favourably with 
 
 ^ But I may refer to my Handbook to the Ethics of Spinoza (Archibald 
 Constable & Co., Ltd.), in which I endeavour to show that the spontaneity 
 of actions rising from the true self fully compensates for the surrender 
 of an impossible, causeless action or personal caprice. 
 
" BELIEVE, AND YOU SHALL BE SAVED " 243 
 
 the partial and capricious scheme of election and pre- 
 destination by which the Pauline school endeavoured to 
 account for the Gentile usurpation of the Kingdom of 
 God. But, what is of more consequence, perhaps, is the 
 danger which the experience of many centuries has proved 
 so serious, that the lower interpretation of salvation by 
 faith — that is, safety by mere belief — together with the 
 corollaries found necessary to account for the unbelief of 
 Israel — would relax the nerves of moral efFort by an 
 exaggerated emphasis on the exhortation we have so 
 often heard, even in our own times, " Only believe, and 
 you shall be saved." 
 
 Indeed, this danger is recognised within the compass of 
 the New Testament Canon itself. For in the epistle attri- 
 buted to St James,^we find the doctrine of salvation by belief 
 flouted and rebuked : " Wilt thou know, O vain man, 
 that faith without works is dead ?" The writer's selection 
 of Abraham's projected human sacrifice as one of the 
 partriarch's saving works was natural enough in his day, 
 though to us it only suggests an ancient fetishism. But 
 otherwise he shows a surprising anticipation of the modern 
 spirit in his total repudiation of the doctrine that belief 
 in a supposed statement of fact could assure the believer 
 of salvation : " Thou believest there is one God ; thou 
 doest well ; the devils also believe and tremble." Surely, 
 on the assumption of the writer that hell foresaw the 
 triumph of Jesus, the same incisive satire is applicable to 
 
 ^ If we could suppose that this plain, practical and almost non-theological 
 epistle had been written by the James to whom Hegesippus attributed the 
 callosities of a camel through perpetual kneeling in the Temple, it would 
 seem a curious Nemesis that the Judaising leader who induced St Paul 
 to play the hypocrite in Jerusalem should live to see all his schemes 
 of compromise dissipated by the disciples of the man whom he had 
 entrapped. 
 
244 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 the lower conception of faith already quoted from the 
 Epistle to the Romans : " Thou believest in thine heart 
 that God hath raised Jesus from the dead " ; thou doest 
 well ; " the devils also believe and tremble." Whether 
 this was one of the Pauline peculiarities mentioned by the 
 writer of 2 Peter as " things hard to be understood, which 
 they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do 
 also the other Scriptures, unto their own destruction," we 
 cannot tell. But whether wrested or not, it is certain 
 that nothing went further to mar the sweet influences of 
 the Synoptic Gospels and the lessons of love, purity, and 
 noble aspiration contained in the epistles, than this un- 
 fortunate doctrine of salvation by belief. Because, as the 
 late Mr Lecky said : "The destiny theologians represented 
 as awaiting the misbeliever was so ghastly and so appalling, 
 as to render it almost childish to lay any stress upon the 
 earthly suffering that might be inflicted in extirpation of 
 error. ^ 
 
 With the persecution of the early Christians by the 
 pagan empire we have nothing to do. As Mr Lecky 
 and others have clearly shown, it was not a persecution 
 for belief or disbelief, but for disloyalty to certain 
 immemorial traditions on which the safety of the 
 commonwealth was supposed to depend. The attitude 
 of the Roman rulers toward the Christians was very much 
 that of Oliver Cromwell toward the Catholics : " As for 
 the people, what thoughts they may have in matters of 
 religion in their own breasts I cannot reach ; but shall 
 think it my duty, if they walk honestly and peaceably, 
 not to cause them in the least to suffer for the same ; 
 and shall endeavour to walk patiently and in love toward 
 them to see if at any time it shall please God to give 
 
 ^ History of European Morals^ vol. i. p. 421. 
 
MISERABLE CONSEQUENCES 245 
 
 them another or a better mind." But the open practice 
 of the Roman ritual he could not — I do not say would 
 not — allow, because of the inevitable political disturbance 
 it must involve. " I meddle not with any man's 
 conscience," he wrote to the assembled priests of 
 Clonmacnoise ; " but if you mean a liberty to exercise the 
 Mass, I judge it best to use plain dealing and to let you 
 know that where the Parliament of England have power 
 that will not be allowed of." 
 
 A miserable conclusion 1 But, with due change of 
 terms, it represents very much the attitude of the 
 persecuting emperors toward the early Church. A 
 government which tolerated the rites of Mithra, the 
 worship of Isis and Serapis, and many other forms of 
 Eastern religions entirely foreign to Rome, was not 
 likely to be disturbed by the rise of a new Oriental sect. 
 But the difficulty was that this new sect would not 
 honour the ancestral gods of Rome, as all the other sects 
 did. To the Jews, indeed, a special privilege had been 
 allowed ; because they were supposed to have their own 
 tribal god, and as foreigners they were allowed to confine 
 their devotions and worship to him. But the Christians 
 were rapidly gathering in slaves, freedmen, tradespeople, 
 and a few men and women of higher rank. And that 
 this increasing multitude should refuse to honour Rome's 
 old gods even by throwing a few grains of incense on an 
 altar was regarded as an omen pregnant with divine 
 displeasure, and which might mean the ruin of the empire. 
 In addition, the Church came to be regarded as a secret 
 society such as the imperial government always suspected, 
 and this increased the distrust and hatred excited by 
 refusal to honour the ancient gods. If Christians could 
 have followed in Rome the temporising policy advised by 
 
246 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 James when the prejudices of the Jerusalemites were 
 concerned, or if they could have followed the example of 
 the converted Naaman, who bowed himself in the House 
 of Rimmon, and by " occasional conformity " kept his 
 place, no Roman emperor would have dreamed of 
 inquiring into their beliefs. 
 
 Very different were the persecutions of Christians by 
 Christians. For in this melancholy history, whether 
 Gnostics, or Quartodecimans, or Nestorians, or Arians, 
 or in their turn Trinitarians, incurred condemnation, it 
 was simply their beliefs that constituted their crime — a 
 crime punished in the unestablished Church by malignant 
 excommunication and unchristian hate, but still more 
 cruelly avenged when the established Church was able to 
 wield the sword. While readily allowing that the 
 Christian virtues to which we shall soon turn with relief 
 were practised in many an obscure home during the 
 sanguinary century that followed the Constantinian 
 establishment of the Church, the readers, whether of 
 the contemporary Church historians, such as Socrates, or 
 their later interpreters, such as Milman, are often inclined 
 to lay down the book with disgust at the repeated orgies 
 of envy, hatred, and all uncharitableness, often merging 
 in violence and murder, which constitute the Church 
 history of those days. What the Paulicians suffered we 
 have already seen, and also the fate that overtook their 
 remote spiritual descendants in Southern France. Foxe's 
 Book of Martyrs has made our childhood familiar, more 
 or less, with the long roll of sufferers for opinion. And 
 when Foxe fell silent, still the unutterable mischief 
 went on. Believers in bishops persecuted disbelievers 
 in bishops, and presbyters denounced or even murdered 
 priests. Even in our own day, what are called the 
 
THE SILVER LINING TO THE CLOUD 247 
 
 " Blasphemy Laws " are unexpunged from the statute 
 book ; and the nineteenth century saw conscientious, 
 earnest, and noble-minded men, full of the Christian 
 virtue of " charity," suffer a felon's punishment because 
 they denied that the Bible was the " word of God." I 
 will not quote again the indignant words of Lucretius ; 
 for it was not religion that wrought these ills. No ; 
 it was the irrational and immoral doctrine, taught first 
 apparently by St Paul, that salvation depends on " the 
 will to believe " an unproved fact. 
 
 Nevertheless, it remains indisputably true that not- 
 withstanding this unfortunate confusion between loyalty of 
 soul and mere belief in an alleged fact, the first Christian 
 missionaries did carry with them through the world 
 not merely an odour of sanctity, but of goodness and love 
 and "truth in the inward parts," which, in the end, 
 sweetened even theology, and purified the air for the 
 coming Kingdom of God or Republic of Man. I believe 
 that mutual love, brotherhood, or " charity " ^ is the oldest 
 tradition of the Church, older indeed than the imagination 
 or myth of the Resurrection, and dating from the pre- 
 natal state of the Church, when it existed only as a 
 company of Christ's disciples irradiated by the boundless 
 human love breathing through every word and manifest 
 in every deed of their Lord. There are surely few 
 passages in the Gospels more suggestively touching than 
 Matt. ix. 36 and its parallel in Mark. Combining the 
 two passages, we gather that in the course of his itinerancy, 
 after some time of comparative seclusion with the twelve, 
 
 1 I, for one, regret the adoption of "love" in the Revised Version of 
 I Cor. xiii. instead of "charity." The EngHsh "love" includes epws as well 
 as aydirr] ; but " charity," by long association with that prose lyric, has come 
 to represent the brotherly affection which all men should have for each 
 other. 
 
248 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 Jesus, in the windings of his way, was suddenly confronted 
 with a tired, wayworn multitude of the poorest Galileans, 
 who had for many hours, or perhaps some days, been seek- 
 ing him in vain. " And Jesus, when he came out " — from 
 the mountain recess to which he had retired — " saw much 
 people, and was moved with compassion toward them, 
 because they were harassed, and threw themselves down,^ 
 as sheep having no shepherd : and he began to teach them 
 many things." 
 
 The socialism of modern days has quickened the 
 faculties which enable us to picture the scene. Not that 
 there is any justification for supposing the lot of the 
 Galilean peasant to have been comparable to that of the 
 slum-dwellers in London, New York, or Chicago. But, 
 at any rate, these seekers after the prophet had never any 
 superfluity, and had evidently now made insufficient 
 provision for themselves and famihes during the pursuit. 
 And so there were mothers trying to hush children crying 
 through weariness and hunger, and others nursing with 
 self-forgetful patience the sick ones for whom the 
 prophet's aid was craved. And there were fathers who 
 had carried through the heat of the day an afflicted or 
 " demoniac " son. And few, if any, were there who did 
 not bear traces of the anxiety which must needs recur 
 again and again when the margin of earnings beyond bare 
 subsistence is always in danger of shrinking to a mathe- 
 matical line. It is true, indeed, that no one with a 
 genuinely human heart could be unmoved by such a 
 spectacle — that is, no one but a despot, or a case-hardened 
 official convinced that the glories of imperialism are well 
 
 1 The Revised Version has " distressed and scattered." It is not for me 
 to pit myself against such authority, but the marginal translation in the 
 Authorised Version has much to support it. 
 
JESUS THE SOCIALIST 249 
 
 worth the price of human misery. But the distinctive 
 note of the compassion excited in the heart of Jesus was 
 the feeling that something must be done, that the world 
 had got to be saved, and that no suffering on his part 
 was too great to endure for such a redemption. 
 
 Here, then, was the fount and prototype of that " en- 
 thusiasm of humanity" so justly celebrated in Ecce 
 Homo as the chief practical characteristic of Christianity. 
 And in spite of all the immeasurable mischief wrought by 
 those passages of the Pauline writings which degrade 
 salvation by faith into salvation by opinion, this brotherly 
 love, this " charity " in the highest sense, has never 
 utterly forsaken the Church, even in that Churches worst 
 paroxysms of theological delirium. The Pauline Epistles 
 themselves every now and then drop their theosophy and 
 sparkle with a bright, pure love of man. The dismal 
 chapters on election and reprobation in the Epistle to the 
 Romans are suddenly and strangely^ succeeded by a 
 short lesson on practical morality incomparably superior 
 to the "Ten Commandments." The principles of a sane 
 and practicable sociaHsm are briefly laid down by the 
 reference to the body with many members and only one 
 interest. Love without dissimulation is the crown of 
 all ; and the kindly affections of life are to be " human 
 nature's daily food." But perhaps we can detect with 
 more confidence the hand of St Paul himself in the 
 Epistles to the Corinthians. In i Cor. xii. the apostle 
 has been insisting on the beauty and practical value of 
 the eternal principle of oneness in difference, and urging 
 that all petty jealousies about diversities of gifts should 
 be merged and quenched in the social spirit that makes 
 
 1 So suddenly and strangely that we instinctively suspect the joining 
 in here of some other document of a very different origin and nature. 
 
ISO MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 us members one of another. But as he warmed to his 
 work his heart glowed, and the lambent flame of that 
 brotherly love which was the open secret of Jesus all 
 but kindled him into song. 
 
 " Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, 
 And have not charity, 
 I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. 
 And though I have the gift of prophecy. 
 And understand all mysteries, and all knowledge ; 
 And though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, 
 And have not charity, 
 I am nothing." 
 
 It is needless to quote the rest of this prose lyric. For 
 our chief point is that, if not the very man, at least the 
 same school of thought which made belief in the resur- 
 rection of Jesus a passport to heaven, here declares that 
 not only such a belief, but even the faith of Abraham 
 goes for nothing unless sanctified by brotherly love. 
 
 And this must be borne in mind amidst all the be- 
 wilderment caused to us by St Paul's retention of Rabbi- 
 nical methods of word-play and forced allegory in his 
 ministry of the Gospel. Nay, not even his theosophy, 
 which is on a higher level, should obscure to us the fact 
 that the deepest spring of his religious enthusiasm was 
 not the supernatural glory of Jesus, but his love, and the 
 love that it begot. For, indeed, though St Paul and his 
 disciples wrote more even than " St John the Divine " 
 and the Alexandrian-Ephesian school about the eternal 
 Christ, yet, as we have seen, he counts the understanding 
 of such mysteries as nothing unless it be sanctified by 
 brotherly love. In many a passage of the Epistles to the 
 Corinthians, Galatians, and Thessalonians, love rather 
 than community of belief is seen as the bond of teacher 
 
LOVE THE FULFILLING OF THE LAW 251 
 
 and taught. Even in the Epistle to the Galatiars, which 
 was apparently written to recall that fickle people to the 
 true doctrine of salvation by faith without the works of 
 the law, we find that among the enun.erated " fruits of 
 the Spirit'* (v. 22.) love comes first, and "joy, peace, 
 long-sufFering, gentleness, goodness " all take precedence 
 of faith. However the order of thought may be explained 
 in an epistle of such special purpose, at any rate it shows 
 that brotherly love and its associated virtues were always 
 near to the heart of the Apostle as the very core and 
 substance of the Gospel. Indeed, he was to the churches 
 more as a father or a brother than as a missioner or priest. 
 And if we turn to the one personal letter which is probably 
 genuine — that to Philemon — we find every verse instinct 
 with the tender and loving relations that constituted the 
 strongest bond of the infant Church. It is true, Christi- 
 anity did not directly abolish slavery ; though, by ignoring 
 it within the communion, it made the permanence of 
 such an institution impossible. But when a Christian 
 apostle could write of a restored slave as his " son whom 
 he had begotten in his bonds," and could request of the 
 deserted master that runaway servant's reception " not now 
 as a servant, but above a servant, as a brother beloved," 
 the doom of slavery was already sealed. 
 
 It may of course be said with plausibility that this large 
 charity, this brotherly love, was limited to the brethren in 
 communion with the Church,^ while if anyone neglect to 
 hear the Church he was to be not a brother, but " a heathen 
 man " and an alien. But in spite of the perverse com- 
 
 ^ The words of Matt, xviii. 17 cannot of course have been spoken by 
 Jesus, for there was no " church" — iKK\r}<ria — in the apostolic sense of the 
 word in his day. The passage therefore represents the feeling of the 
 age of the Epistles. 
 
252 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 merits of Roman writers, who confounded the gloomy 
 tribal pride of the Jews with the bright brotherly love of 
 the Christians, there is much reason to believe that con- 
 verts to the new religion were often first attracted, not only 
 by the ardour of affection within the fold, but also by the 
 universal charity by which the followers of the Christ 
 sought to reflect the divine love said to be embodied in 
 him. For it was not the Church only, but mankind at 
 large, that the writer of the Epistle to the Romans had in 
 view when he dwelt on the love of God for sinners, and 
 the extension of " the righteousness of one " ^ to all men 
 unto justification of life. But in later Epistles, such as 
 cannot with any confidence be attributed to St Paul him- 
 self, yet are certainly inspired by his teaching, the doctrine 
 of the new humanity " where there is neither Greek nor 
 Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision. Barbarian, Scythian, 
 bond nor free, but Christ is all and in all," is always as- 
 sociated with earnest exhortations to peace, long-suffering, 
 kindness, " and above all " charity, which is the bond of 
 perfectness. 
 
 Even the eccentric Epistle to the Hebrews, so much 
 taken up with profitless speculations on theosophy and a 
 world catastrophe, after announcing that " our God is a 
 consuming fire," immediately adds, " Let brotherly love 
 continue. Be not forgetful to entertain strangers. . . . 
 Remember them that are in bonds as bound with them : 
 and them which suffer adversity as being yourselves also 
 
 1 With all deference, I cannot accept the Revised Version here. The 
 construction of evos SiKKitLfxaros ought surely to be governed by €vos 
 &vepd!)irov TrapairTWfjLaros in the parallel line of the verse. It was natural to 
 drop the avOpdJirov in the second phrase ; it is inevitably supplied from the 
 first ; besides, " one righteousness " hardly makes sense. The whole 
 passage turns on the contrast between the two men — the Adam and 
 the Christ. 
 
SOME LIMITATIONS OF CHRISTIAN LOVE 253 
 
 in the body." The charge of a brotherly love limited to 
 the communion of the Church is perhaps better founded 
 in the case of the Petrine and Johannine Epistles than in 
 that of the Pauline. But i Pet. ii., though its refer- 
 ences to the outside world are comparatively cold,^ yet 
 overflows with a passion of love, and will hear of no de- 
 fence against persecution other than a loyal, loving life. 
 " For so is the will of God, that by well-doing ye may 
 put to silence^ the ignorance of foolish men." The 
 Epistles attributed — and with much probability — to the 
 unknown author of the Fourth Gospel, bear abundant 
 testimony to the prevalence of an intense mutual affection 
 among Christians in the first quarter of the second century. 
 But these brief writings are somewhat too suggestive of 
 the mutual feeling that binds together the members of 
 a secret society or mystery rather than of the love of man. 
 " Marvel not, my brethren, that the world hate you. We 
 know that we have passed from death unto life because 
 we love the brethren." "The brethren," observe, not 
 the world. And in the same sense we must probably in- 
 terpret the words, " He that loveth not his brother whom 
 he hath seen, how can he love God, whom he hath not 
 seen ? " But these observations do not in the least weaken 
 what has been said about the enormous influence of 
 brotherly love in fostering Christianity amid the ten 
 thousand hostile forces which threatened its earliest years. 
 " There has probably never existed on earth," says Mr 
 Lecky, " a community whose members were bound to one 
 another by a deeper or purer aflFection than the Christians 
 in the days of their persecution. There has probably 
 
 1 E.c^., " Honour all men ; love the brotherhood ; fear God ; honour the 
 king." 
 
 2 <j)ifiodv, literally "muzzle" or "gag." 
 
254 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 never existed a community which exhibited in its dealings 
 with crime a gentler or more judicious kindness, which 
 combined more happily an unflinching opposition to sin 
 with a boundless charity to the sinner, and which was in 
 consequence more successful in reclaiming and transform- 
 ing the most vicious of mankind." ^ 
 
 And, in spite of the bitterness of theological disputes, 
 that spirit has survived. I have known converts from 
 Protestantism to the Catholic communion declare that 
 what impressed them most of all in their new surround- 
 ings was the fervour of love that breathed there. The 
 enormous expansion of the Salvation Army has certainly 
 been due not merely to the exceptional organising genius 
 of its venerable founder, but also to the love for all out- 
 casts, sufferers, and sinners with which he inspired his 
 followers from the first. Whatever, then, may have 
 been the defects — and they are many — in the relation of 
 the Bible to morals, at least the Christian Scriptures, 
 notwithstanding the terrible evils wrought by the doctrine 
 of salvation by belief, have given to brotherly love a 
 width and depth of interpretation which has enabled it 
 to survive even sectarian hate, and which might yet 
 establish "peace on earth and good-will to men." 
 
 But this special intensity of brotherly love was not the 
 only emphasised moral virtue that gave character to the 
 earliest Church. I do not think it essential to my pur- 
 pose to enter on any general discussion of early Church 
 morals, or their influence upon the Roman Empire. The 
 subject was most impartially and admirably treated by 
 Mr Lecky in his History of European Morals. I can 
 
 1 History of European Morals, vol. i. p. 450. The intolerance 
 deprecated by Mr Lecky in the immediately following context has been 
 fully acknowledged and explained in previous pages of the present work. 
 
VERACITY 255 
 
 but respectfully echo his judgment, that many of the 
 moral and humanitarian reforms usually attributed to 
 Christianity had already been begun before the Church 
 exerted any perceptible influence on society. Moreover, 
 the continuance of slavery, exposure of infants, gladi- 
 atorial shows, and such like, long after the Church had 
 gained at least an ecclesiastical dominion, suggest that 
 the Bible had little differentiating influence. Both the 
 growth of Christianity and the improvement of manners 
 seem rather to have been results of the same natural pro- 
 cess of evolution. But while it must of course be owned 
 that this observation is true also — to a certain extent — of 
 the virtues I have specially selected as illustrations of the 
 best relations of the Bible and morals, it is not incon- 
 sistent to urge that, for reasons already given, the " en- 
 thusiasm of humanity " was specially indebted to the 
 Church. And I proceed to urge that this equally is 
 characteristic of that high loyalty to truth which Carlyle 
 used to call veracity. For veracity in the highest 
 sense — truth of self, truth to fact, truth to God,^ truth 
 in thought, in word and in act — had never been so 
 insisted upon before. Catechisers are hard put to it to 
 extort a prohibition of lying out of that most imperfect 
 code the " Ten Commandments." For the words, " Thou 
 shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour," 
 evidently refer only to legal testimony before a judge, 
 and leave wholly untouched the untruthfulness of ordinary 
 talk, and false statement as made in business for illicit gain. 
 Nor, if it had been in existence, would that code have 
 interfered with the ready resort to lies by Abraham, Isaac, 
 and Jacob whenever deceit afforded the easiest way of 
 
 ^ /.^., the sum of all fact — but such a conception was still in the womb 
 of the future. 
 
256 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 escape. David is supposed to have known the Command- 
 ments. But he would have been very much surprised to 
 hear that the ninth prohibited his convenient lie to 
 Achish after his " road " or raid against the Geshurites, 
 when he pretended to have attacked " the south of Judah '* 
 (i Sam. xxvii. lo-i i) : "And David saved neither man 
 nor woman alive, to bring tidings to Gath, saying, Lest 
 they should tell on us, saying. So did David, and so will 
 be his manner all the while he dwelleth in the country of 
 the Philistines." So complete a massacre is improbable, 
 perhaps impossible, when many byways of escape must 
 have been open to the young and active. But the calm 
 statement of the writer is worth noting as an indication 
 that David felt himself as little debarred from unprovoked 
 massacre by the sixth commandment, as from lying by 
 the ninth. 
 
 Gehazi's lie has been a stock subject of deprecatory 
 comment in many a Sunday school lesson ; but the 
 children, impressed by a sense of his wickedness, have, in 
 proportion to their intelligence, been surprised and hurt 
 as they grew up to find that Gehazi's moral weakness 
 was shared by many Old Testament worthies whom they 
 had been taught to reverence. For they find in some 
 curious stories of Hebrew folklore that prophetic gifts 
 are by no means inconsistent with a lying tongue.^ If 
 concordances may be trusted, the very word "truth" 
 occurs only about sixteen times in all the Old Testament 
 books preceding the Psalms in the order of the Authorised 
 Version. In the Psalms it occurs with quite dispropor- 
 
 1 I Kings xiii. 18 ; 2 Kings viii. 10 (where Elisha, the oflfended master 
 of Gehazi, is the instigator of a lie which he knew meant murder) ; i Kings 
 xxii. 15 (the withdrawal on pressure is no justification); but see further 
 the whole passage, especially verses 22 and 23, where God is represented 
 as putting a lying spirit in the mouth of all these prophets. 
 
SPIRITUAL TRUTH 257 
 
 donate frequency, and in many of these sacred lyrics it 
 has a high spiritual and moral value. But the collection 
 formed " the hymn-book of the Second Temple," and 
 was only gradually completed ; so that in its final form, 
 comprising five separate books, it can hardly have preceded 
 the Christian era by more than one hundred years. We 
 are not surprised, therefore, to find in these songs of 
 Israel many anticipations of that devotion to truth which 
 characterised primitive Christianity in it purest form. 
 ^^ Behold^ thou desirest truth in the inward parts'' (Ps. li. 6). 
 " Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle } and who shall 
 dwell in thy holy hill ? He that walketh uprightly and 
 worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart " 
 (Ps. XV. I, 2). 
 
 It is needless to multiply examples which must be 
 familiar to everyone. But it is of some interest to note 
 that the word most generally used for " truth " in the 
 Psalms and prophets is a form of the root which yields 
 " amen," the ceremonial word with which both Jews and 
 Christians have responded to the prayers oflFered in the 
 congregation. It is, apparently, a verbal adjective,^ 
 expressive of confirmation, and it has this significance 
 because the unmodified root means standing fast, firmness, 
 stability. No doubt it is dangerous to infer the literary 
 or ceremonial significance of a word from the abstract 
 significance of its root. Still, taking into view the 
 general usage of the word translated " truth " in the 
 passages referred to, it seems reasonable to believe 
 that to the latest Jews and primitive Christians it 
 meant reality as distinguished from outward show, the 
 divine order which cannot be shaken. I shall not here 
 enter upon the question whether ultimate truth, that is, 
 
 1 Gesenius, sub voce. 
 
 17 
 
258 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 reality on the infinite scale, is or is not apprehensible by- 
 finite thought. For there is not the slightest need for 
 any such discussion to enable us to appreciate the heroism 
 with which large numbers of the early Christians endured 
 appalling tortures and death rather than utter a word or 
 commit a ceremonial act which would contradict their 
 confession of Christ. Whether that confession expressed 
 partly a relative truth and partly a historical delusion, or 
 whether, from the point of view of philosophy and critical 
 realisation of fact, it was wholly false, in any case the 
 constancy of the voluntary sufferers was a noble example 
 of veracity in this sense, that they determined at all costs 
 to be true to themselves and to their conviction of the 
 divine order. Now, whatever changes may have taken 
 place in theological opinion — for even the strictest sects of 
 Christians do not agree with those martyrs now^ — the 
 present conditions of both Church and State, which make 
 absolute sincerity a bar to many of the most fruitful forms 
 of public service, suggest that a touch of the martyrs' 
 veracity would be of incalculable value in our own day. 
 
 ^ E.g.^ the martyrs thought the world was speedily coming to an end ; 
 they believed in exorcism and other forms of contemporary miracle. 
 Moreover, their ideas on baptism and the eucharist are certainly not 
 shared now by any except the Catholics of the West and the orthodox 
 of the East. But, while these lines are written, the appearance (15th July 
 1908) of the venerable Leo Tolstoy's magnificent protest against the legal 
 murders, tortures, and imprisonments in Russia shows that human nature 
 is as capable of veracity as ever. "It is impossible to live so ! I, at 
 any rate, cannot and will not live so ! This is why I write this and will 
 circulate it by all means in my power, both in Russia and abroad ; that 
 one of two things may happen — either that these inhuman deeds may be 
 stopped, or that my connection with them may be snapped, and I may 
 be put in prison, where I may be clearly conscious that these horrors are 
 not committed on my behalf ; or still better — so good that I dare not even 
 dream of such happiness — that they may put on me as on those peasants 
 a shroud and a cap, and may push me also ofif a bench, so that by my 
 weight I may tighten the well-soaped noose round my old throat." 
 
"THE CLOUD OF WITNESSES" 259 
 
 It is needless to give instances other than those 
 mentioned in previous chapters. Popular Christian 
 story is full of them ; and though there has doubtless 
 been much exaggeration, especially in regard to the 
 number of sufferers/ the facts left unassailable after all 
 criticism are quite sufficient to establish my point that, 
 next after the virtue of brotherly love, the duty of 
 veracity in word and deed was the most distinctive 
 moral mark of the primitive Church. Not that the sense 
 of this duty was novel. For, from Regulus to Epictetus, 
 Roman story has constantly recurrent gleams of the 
 heroism it can inspire. And though the Greeks, notwith- 
 standing the Stoics, were for the most part of a softer 
 texture, Socrates was not alone in his indifference to death 
 when veracity was concerned. Further, the fierce 
 fanaticism of the Jews after their law had become a fetish, 
 produced a sort of heroism which we cannot but respect, 
 though it was more like the martyrdom of hate than the 
 martyrdom of love. We are not here dealing with modern 
 times, but we cannot forget that the Babi sect in Persia 
 has shown many noteworthy points of resemblance to the 
 evolution of Christianity, especially in the almost incredible 
 power of voluntary endurance which their spiritual veracity 
 has inspired. 
 
 But it can scarcely be denied that the " cloud of 
 witnesses " who drowned in their blood the rage of anti- 
 Christian persecutors, were characterised by an enthusiasm 
 of veracity keener and more exalted than that of most 
 other devotees. The traditional Roman heroes, such as 
 
 1 The late Mr Lecky, in his History of European Morals^ has given at 
 the end of his first volume perhaps the most moderate, impartial, and 
 accurate estimate of the extent and nature of the persecutions. -j- Gibbon 
 was certainly not impartial. 
 
26o MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 Scaevola and Regulus, in their brave adhesion to their 
 mission or their word, were actuated by manly honour. 
 But the Christian motive was as far above the sentiment 
 of honour as true self-sacrifice is above pride. The death 
 of Socrates stands alone ; and in his cheerful indifference 
 to everything but truth, as well as in the courage that 
 faced an unknown beyond, he compels a sympathetic 
 admiration such as we cannot accord to a fanatic like 
 Ignatius of Antioch, bent on a glorious passage to supreme 
 bliss. Yet, in one respect at least, the devotion of most 
 of the Christian martyrs closely resembled that of Socrates, 
 in that it was voluntary, in the sense that they could 
 easily have escaped had conscience allowed. For the 
 sympathy of the magistrates was often with them rather 
 than with their accusers, and the sprinkling of a few 
 grains of incense on an altar fire before the Emperor's 
 efiligy would have secured life and ease. The modern 
 spirit would readily have interpreted that as a ceremony 
 of political homage rather than as a religious act. In the 
 case of Polycarp, it was apparently the utterance of a 
 prescribed formula with an unexpected tone and application 
 that doomed him to death. " Have pity on thy grey 
 hairs,*' pleaded the presiding proconsul. " At least say, 
 ' Down with the atheists ! ' ' Down with the atheists ! ' " 
 cried the sturdy old man, turning toward the mob 
 in the arena, and waving his hand toward them. It 
 is said also that he lifted his eyes to heaven, and sighed, 
 as though lamenting their spiritual fate. But his 
 traditional discourtesy to Marcion, whom he is said to 
 have hailed as " the first-born of Satan," makes it 
 probable that, while sternly truthful, he was comparatively 
 insensible to the kindlier graces of his Master's character, 
 and to the lessons of St Paul on universal brotherly love. 
 
THE REPUBLIC OF MAN 261 
 
 Perhaps the large and lofty motives associated with the 
 veracity of the noblest martyrs lift them above the rank 
 of mere witnesses on behalf of new theological doctrines, 
 and thus differentiate them from the heroic enthusiasts 
 of the Babi sect. For though the unexpected delay of 
 Christian hopes, together with the degradation of faith 
 into mere belief, led to a total transformation and 
 deformation of the Church's original life, there can be 
 no doubt that Christ's religion, in its earliest form, involved 
 a certainty that the kingdom of God was at hand. But 
 in the absence of any human sovereign — for Christ him- 
 self was to " deliver up the kingdom to God, even the 
 Father " — this kingdom of God was equivalent to the 
 republic of man, the universal establishment of liberty, 
 equality, and brotherhood amongst all races of mankind.^ 
 It is only reasonable to think that so grand an outlook 
 imparted a distinctive nobility to the steadfastness of 
 martyrs for the Christian faith. 
 
 The melancholy records of Church history after the 
 stimulus of persecution was removed, and the mean 
 intrigues in which thousands of churchmen have been 
 engaged ever since for the acquisition of place and power 
 and wealth, at any cost of hypocrisy and lies, might seem 
 to prove that this inspiration of veracity was short-lived 
 in itself and barren of indirect results. But this would be 
 a very imperfect judgment. For the most prominent 
 
 1 It is true that in i Cor. xv., which I have quoted above, the consum- 
 mation is that " God may be all in all " (verse 28). But it is not as a 
 monarch that God can be all in all. I do not suppose that St Paul was 
 ever, even in his most aberrant moments, a conscious Pantheist, but he 
 said things that implied Pantheism, and this is one of them. As to the 
 universal socialistic republic of Man, see Rom. xiv. 7-17; Col. i. 20, 
 iii. 10, II ; Eph. ii. 14-32, iii. 14-21, iv. 13. Several of these passages 
 are meaningless if they do not suggest the idea of a universal socialistic 
 commonwealth of Man. 
 
262 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 dignitaries of the Church have rarely been true expositors 
 of its life. And this duty of loyalty to truth at any cost 
 has again and again seized on the consciences of humble 
 sectaries, Paulicians, Albigenses, Lollards, and later Pro- 
 testants, to whom to be a living lie was more intolerable 
 than death by fire. It must be confessed, indeed, that 
 the religious rebellions which generated this spirit were 
 often wanting in that " most excellent gift of charity,'* 
 which was the prime and all-moving virtue of the 
 earliest Church. Nevertheless, the primeval tradition of 
 brotherly love could not be wholly erased by the sternness 
 of a pure veracity. And now, in modern days, when the 
 Pauline corruption of faith into opinion is being drastically 
 corrected by the destruction of supernatural beliefs, the 
 solvent of veracity which has sapped those beliefs is 
 found equally to dissolve away rotten relics of feudalism, 
 the subordination of the many to the few, the recklessness 
 of selfish profit-grabbing, and the barriers that give us 
 divided classes instead of one brotherhood. I for one 
 have no fear that socialism can ever destroy or ignore the 
 individuality essential to man. But if it sticks to truth 
 and avoids shams, it can, at least, revive that glorious 
 dream of the Pauline school of one new manhood 
 renewed in knowledge. 
 
 Amidst the false issues raised between religion and 
 science during the last century ;, one debt of science to 
 religion was too often overlooked, and that was the 
 enthusiasm for truth. For, notwithstanding the ample 
 confession already made of the hypocrisies induced by the 
 substitution of belief for faith or loyalty of soul, and also 
 by the political establishment of religion, it still remains 
 certain that the original Christian enthusiasm of veracity 
 outlived such corruptions, and like an underground 
 
MARTYRS OF SCIENCE 263 
 
 stream of living water every now and then sparkled into 
 the light of day. At any rate, it is a fact that the pioneers 
 of science, in the darkest age, and some of its heroes in 
 later days, were men of religion, and may be credited 
 with a religious obedience to the apostolic injunction to 
 follow " whatsoever things are true." 
 
 Roger Bacon, one of the most premature of the 
 prophets of science, did not indeed enter the monastic 
 life till he had reached middle age ; and happier would 
 it have been for him, perhaps, if he had died a layman. 
 But at any rate he thought that the cloister would afford 
 him the best opportunities for pursuing truth. And 
 though he was cruelly disappointed, his fate does not 
 contradict, but rather confirm my contention that the 
 primitive Christian enthusiasm for veracity reappeared from 
 time to time in the heroes and martyrs of science. For 
 the whole tone of his writings suggests a reverent and 
 devout soul to whom truth and God were one. Galileo, 
 however much science owes to him, fails to illustrate our 
 present point. For we do no injustice to his memory 
 if we say that he was inspired rather by love of knowledge 
 than of truth. And though none of us may be sure 
 enough of our own courage to think of his recantation 
 with any feeling but one of reverent sympathy, yet the 
 legendary muttering of " e pur si muove^'' even if it 
 were true, could not rank him with the martyrs for 
 truth. 
 
 Copernicus, a Canon of the Church, and Galileo's 
 predecessor, was never put to the proof. For, with the 
 reticence of genuine science, he delayed the publication 
 of his imperfect theory of the solar system for some 
 thirty years after he had formed it. And perhaps, 
 fortunately for himself, he was on his deathbed when the 
 
264 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 book at last appeared. But, at any rate, his laborious 
 study of planetary movements, and his rejection of the 
 cycles and epicycles of the old astronomy, justify us 
 in attributing to him some share in the apostolic aspira- 
 tion after "whatsoever things are true." Much more 
 illustrious by his enthusiasm for veracity was Giordano 
 Bruno, another churchman of the sixteenth century, who 
 dared to do for the Copernican theory what its author 
 did not live to do himself. He was of sterner stuff than 
 Galileo, and added to his astronomical heresy the still 
 worse guilt of protest against the received theology. 
 His murder by fire in 1600 is one of the blackest records 
 of ecclesiastical wickedness. It is some consolation that his 
 heroism was undoubtedly inspired by that love of truth for 
 its own sake which primitive Christianity had taught. 
 
 The case of Kepler is more complex ; for he frankly 
 confesses to " drawing up almanacks with predictions " in 
 which he did not believe, and defends his conduct on the 
 ground that " it is more honest than to beg his bread." 
 On the other hand, when threatened by local conflicts 
 between Catholic and Protestant he wrote : " I am a 
 Christian attached to the Augsburg Confession by an 
 earnest examination of the doctrine .... and I do not 
 know how to play the hypocrite. Religion is for me a 
 serious matter which I dare not treat with lightness." 
 Such an utterance is borne out by the religious fervour 
 with which in words already quoted he proclaimed his 
 new revelation of the laws of planetary motion. Surely 
 such a spirit is in the direct line of descent from the 
 brotherhood of simplicity and truth that formed the first 
 nucleus of the Church. The less known case of a 
 Dominican monk, Thomas Campanella, born in 1568, a 
 native of Calabria, offers perhaps the closest parallel which 
 
THOMAS CAMPANELLA 265 
 
 the story of science can show to the unconquerable 
 endurance of the Christian martyrs. His ideas evidently 
 inclined to Pantheism.^ But be that as it may, neither 
 sevenfold tortures of the rack, nor other devilries of the 
 Inquisition, could extort from his lips a lie, nor could 
 twenty-five years of imprisonment subdue his loyalty to 
 truth. Yet he hved after all to see his writings published.^ 
 Let us hear some words from his preface, for they form 
 a fitting conclusion of the whole matter so far as this 
 part of our argument is concerned : — 
 
 " Not with the hope of gain have I written, as do most, 
 but persecuted with incessant suffering. Nor am I driven 
 by fear, — I whose courage did not fail after threefold and 
 fourfold torments. But moved only by the love of Truth, 
 I offer to all men the certainty, not of ignorance nor 
 conventional pretence, but of religious power and fact. 
 For this power and fact I rest partly on the perceptions of 
 my own experience, partly on careful research into the 
 experience of others, partly on that finer sense by which 
 humanity is beginning to scent out the things that trans- 
 figure it to a height of glory not to be reached by logic." ^ 
 
 With such records before them, how can nominal 
 followers of him whom they call incarnate truth now 
 tolerate the reservations and shifts and devices by which 
 the pretence of orthodoxy is maintained ? How many 
 
 1 This is certainly suggested by passages in his treatise called Atheism 
 Overthrown^ where he denounces those who "make the part of more 
 worth than the whole," and compares such arrogance to that of "a 
 parasitic worm ensconced in the entrails of a man, and counting the man 
 as nothing compared with itself." 
 
 2 A disciple, Adam of Saxony, managed to smuggle them out of the 
 prison, and they were published in Germany. 
 
 3 For the translation, such as it is. I am responsible ; and as said before, 
 I am venturing to quote myself in an obscure little book with the nom-de- 
 plume of " H. C. Ewart," and long out of print. 
 
266 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 preachers really believe the supernatural story of Man 
 from Adam to Christ, although they declare it to be one 
 consistent whole ? How many trained or scholarly 
 teachers of youth themselves believe what they tell their 
 pupils about Noah, and Abraham, and Jacob, and Moses 
 and Joshua, and Samuel and David ? How many really 
 hold to the Virgin Birth of Jesus while they solemnly 
 recount it ? How many find it possible to picture to 
 themselves as actual the revival of the corpse of Jesus in 
 the tomb, the rolling away of the stone by angelic might, 
 the passage of the same physical body of " bones and 
 flesh " through a solid door, the consumption of " broiled 
 fish and honeycomb," and then the flight into heaven ? 
 Granting that such things are vaguely believed — not 
 realised — by the unthinking multitude to whom it is the 
 duty of these preachers and teachers to minister truth, 
 how can it be consistent with loyalty to God to speak 
 and act in the most sacred relations on assumptions which 
 at best they regard as only half true, and even that in 
 some non-natural sense ? " Economies " of truth in the 
 pulpit, an acted part at the altar, insincerity at the 
 teacher's desk, drag down the moral standard of our 
 national life. And yet, conscious as we are of the 
 pretences pervading ecclesiastical or sectarian professions 
 of belief, we affect amazement at the subordination of 
 honesty to greed of gold in the secular world ! Surely 
 the two phenomena seem closely related the one to the 
 other, if not directly, as cause and effect, at least indirectly 
 as aptitude and opportunity. For the conscience relaxed 
 by unreality in professed religion is ready for any chance 
 to play the knave elsewhere. 
 
 Let it not be said that in these words I admit the total 
 failure of the New Testament and of the early Church to 
 
THE NEW AGE 267 
 
 establish amongst men an awe for the sacredness of truth. 
 Not so. But I have admitted that the Pauline school 
 weakened their stern teaching on the duty of truth at all 
 costs in word and deed by their disastrous error in 
 occasionally confounding faith with mere opinion or 
 belief of fact. And I have endeavoured conscientiously 
 to trace some of the fatal results of this mistake. Yet 
 this is quite consistent with the contention that loyalty 
 of soul to the highest truth known was, not indeed, 
 exclusively, but specially characteristic of primitive 
 Christianity, and has been from time to time recurrent 
 in the pioneers of science and of religious reform. It is 
 a comfort and a joy to know that in the last years of the 
 nineteenth century, and the beginning of the twentieth 
 century, the demand for the sacrifice of dead creeds to 
 living truth has been no longer as the "voice of one 
 crying in the wilderness." But whether through a 
 " Rationalist Press Association," or through a " New 
 Theology," or through the popularisation of the results 
 of scholarly examination of musty manuscripts or buried 
 records, it has now reached a power and a volume which 
 neither Church nor school can any longer disregard. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE BIBLE AND SOCIAL EVOLUTION 
 
 The factors in social evolution which interest us most are, 
 perhaps, culture and freedom. And by culture I do not 
 mean mere scholarship, but that condition of acquired 
 knowledge, skill, perceptions, and habits which, in any 
 community, measures its distance from the lowest known 
 condition of human beings. Freedom surely carries its 
 own interpretation with it. For though it is paradoxical 
 in this respect, that its perfection implies limitation — since 
 no one is free who only does what the caprice or passion 
 of the moment suggests — yet the paradox involves no 
 practical difficulty. For we all know that while a life of 
 mere selfishness is the worst of all slaveries, yet, on the 
 other hand, the constraints necessary to an ordered society 
 are so adopted by each loyal member of it that, while 
 doing what others wish, he does also what he himself 
 desires. 
 
 If, in the above definition of culture, I have not men- 
 tioned law or art, it is because the former, being essenti- 
 ally custom,^ is the oflFspring of culture and freedom, 
 
 1 1/6/105 ; and even in the case of the decrees of a despot or Acts of 
 Parhament, if there is not custom at the back of them— or, say, pubUc 
 opinion or prejudice— they do not usually survive. 
 
 268 
 
CUSTOM, ART, AND LITERATURE 269 
 
 in the union of which prepotency belongs now to the one 
 and now to the other.^ Nor is it necessary or even 
 possible to separate art from culture and freedom, of 
 which it is alternately an inspiration and a product. Thus, 
 for instance, the songs of Tyrtaeus were an inspiration of 
 freedom, while the Attic drama was its product. Its pro- 
 duct, I say, because the wide range of thought and criti- 
 cism of things both divine and human would have been 
 impossible on any other stage than that of a free common- 
 wealth. Of the relation of the Bible to religion and 
 morals I have already treated. And it is matter for 
 regret that many so-called " freethinkers " are disposed 
 to excommunicate all who cannot ignore religion as a 
 fundamental factor in the forces of social evolution from 
 prehistoric animism to the coming Pantheism. 
 
 Literature, as the term is commonly used, includes a 
 great deal that is certainly not art, and much that is dis- 
 cordant with morals. But the whole of it belongs to 
 culture in so far as it marks the distance its writers and 
 readers have travelled from the lowest condition of human 
 beings. Further, to culture belongs the instinct of self- 
 government, the elevation of taste, the evolution of the 
 social idea from its dead level of homogeneity amongst 
 savages to the complex co-ordination of individual char- 
 acters, powers, and functions in the modern free State. 
 Thus the value of any sacred book, whether in the Eastern 
 
 ^ E.g. in the laws which sanctioned the burning alive of a wife for what 
 was called " petty treason," the prepotency belonged to custom, whereas 
 in the laws which bind the husband to sustain the wife, but not the wife, 
 however rich, to sustain the husband ; which make the husband respon- 
 sible for the debts of the wife, but not the wife for the debts of the husband ; 
 which — in recent times — allow a wife to leave her husband with impunity 
 but allow no such privilege to the man, — and several other laws making 
 women a privileged class, we recognise the prepotency of moral and 
 intellectual culture over custom. 
 
270 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 or Western world, would most surely be determined, at 
 least in part, by its influence on all these phases of culture. 
 And if it should be said, as indeed it has been said both 
 by pundits in the East and Church dignitaries in the 
 West, that the supreme contemplation of God, or the 
 salvation of the soul, is more precious than any or all 
 forms of " secular " culture, this is a question to be de- 
 cided by " the common sense of most " ; and it is being 
 decided now. 
 
 Whether, before the invention of printing, the filtra- 
 tion of Bible literature through the Church gave more 
 culture to the illiterate multitude of Christians than the 
 occasional echoes of Homer and other popular poets had 
 given to the untaught multitude in heathen times, is a 
 question on which opinions may differ. But, at any rate, 
 considering the fact that Pauline Christianity was part of 
 the spiritual and social evolution by which a new age was 
 introduced, it seems more than probable that this indirect 
 communication of the Bible to the people imparted a 
 limited culture specially adapted to the needs of Europe 
 and Western Asia in a crisis of the pilgrimage of man. 
 But, on the other hand, the danger of bibliolatry is only 
 too apparent in the contemptuous references often made 
 by Christian authorities to the uselessness of pagan litera- 
 ture since access to the Bible had been secured by the 
 Church. Canon LX. of the Apostolical Council, as 
 edited by Bail, reads thus : — " If to the injury of laity 
 and clergy, any one promulgates in the Church as Holy 
 Scripture any forged books of impious men, let him be 
 deposed." ^ But a note is added by the editor which 
 suggests that those ancient councils, or the Church 
 
 ' It appears to be assumed that this was exclusively a clerical crime, 
 since "deponatur" — the sentence assigned — could not apply to laymen. 
 
ANTIPATHY TO SECULAR LITERATURE 271 
 
 opinion which their unauthentic records represent, were 
 anxious not only for the purity of Scripture, but also for 
 the exclusion of all other literature. For there a curious 
 and impossible decree is attributed to the apostles, the only 
 value of which is that it shows the tendencies of Christian 
 opinion at the time of the forgery, perhaps late in the 
 third or early in the fourth century. The decree runs as 
 follows : — 
 
 " Abstain from all books of the Gentiles. For what 
 hast thou to do with alien books or laws or false 
 prophecies, which indeed often divert light-minded men 
 from the faith ? Or what dost thou find lacking in the 
 law of God, that thou shouldst betake thyself to those 
 fables of the Gentiles ? For if thou desirest to traverse 
 matters of history, thou hast the (Books of) Kings ; 
 if philosophy^ and poetry, thou hast the Prophets, 
 and Job, and the author of Proverbs, in which thou wilt 
 find clearly displayed the very essence of poetry and 
 wisdom, since they are the utterances of the Lord God, 
 who alone is wise. Again, if thou desirest lyrics, thou 
 hast also the Psalms ; while if thou wishest to look into 
 the origin of things, thou has Genesis. If thou desirest 
 law and regulations, thou hast the glorious law of God. 
 Therefore withhold thyself strenuously from all alien 
 literature and books of the Devil." ^ 
 
 If the last words of this quotation look startling, two 
 considerations may help to mitigate the apparent in- 
 congruity. For, firstly, the real author of the words was 
 probably very illiterate, and knew but little of the 
 
 ^ The word used is " sophistica," but obviously the classical sense was 
 not in the writer's mind, as the following context shows. 
 
 2 "Ab omnibus igitur externis et diabolicis libris vehementer te 
 contine." 
 
272 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 literature he assigned to the Devil. And secondly, in 
 those times, as well as amongst the Jews of the time of 
 Christ, the Devil was believed to be capable of appearing 
 as an angel of light. If he might himself heal demoniacs 
 in order to discredit miracles wrought by holier powers, 
 he might certainly also inspire the production of works of 
 art with the sinister design of prejudicing appreciative 
 minds against the more sober attractions of the Old 
 Testament and the New. And, indeed, though 
 Manichaeism was always thought to be so very deadly a 
 heresy, yet the early Church, as well as some later and 
 even modern Puritans, were more Manichaean than they 
 knew. For if the essential error of that heresy consisted 
 in the dualism derived originally from Zoroaster, what 
 could be more akin to it than the saying, " We know that 
 we are of God, and the whole world lieth in the evil 
 one"?^ Whatever, therefore, was not of "us" must 
 needs be of the Devil. And the older amongst us, who 
 have happily lived to breathe the freer air of the new 
 reformation, can well remember how, in the earlier half of 
 the last century, a precisely similar Manichaeism was 
 accounted true religion. The theatre, dancing, and many 
 harmless sports, however purely they might be conducted, 
 were regarded as " lying in the Evil One." Nay, the 
 doctrine was constantly maintained that the good deeds 
 of an unregenerate man were of the nature of sin. 
 
 This perverse habit of mind was only a logical applica- 
 tion of that divorce between things sacred and secular 
 which was not indeed of Christ, but was one of the first 
 corruptions of the early Church, and which was confirmed 
 and enforced by an unnatural treatment of the Bible. I 
 
 1 2 Cor. xi. 14. 
 
 '^ I John V. 19, Revised Version. 
 
UNNATURAL TREATMENT OF SCRIPTURE 273 
 
 say unnatural treatment, rather than supernatural awe. 
 For, making due allowance for the necessary ignorance 
 of even the most learned Fathers of the Church concerning 
 the vastness of the universe and the antiquity of Man, 
 what could be more contrary to healthy reason and 
 common sense than this undistinguishing devotion, not 
 only to the exceptional spiritual aspirations, but to the 
 mere folklore of an obscure and exclusive tribe ? What 
 blinding of the judgment, what wilful perversion of 
 obvious facts must have been needed before well- 
 informed Christians could be brought to regard as diviner 
 than Greek poetry and philosophy such barbarisms as the 
 Hebrew myths of the Deluge, or the horrors of Lot*s 
 story, or the records of Jacob's cowardly dishonesty, or 
 of Joshua's appalling massacres ? And yet, even after the 
 Gospels and Epistles had established themselves as " holy 
 writ," these sickening traditions of a once savage tribe 
 were regarded as the " word of God " no less than the 
 very " Beatitudes " themselves. If ever the term 
 " bibliolatry " can be fairly used, it certainly can be applied 
 with justice to a state of mind which, treating a tribal 
 literature as one book, forces on it an unreal unity as well 
 as a uniform authority, and finds the Spirit of God as 
 manifest in the Song of Deborah as in the Sermon on the 
 Mount. It was this habit of mind which prompted the 
 forgery of the alleged apostolic decree quoted above ; 
 and, in forms more or less disguised, that habit of mind 
 survived till the century in which we were born. 
 
 The effects of such superstition on culture were 
 disastrous and cruel. For not only do we owe to it the 
 neglect which allowed many a noble work of heathen 
 poets and philosophers to perish, but it belittled and 
 
 perverted the mind of the Church. Augustine, being in 
 
 18 
 
274 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 early manhood a teacher of rhetoric, was deterred many 
 years from reading the Bible because of what he con- 
 sidered the poverty of its literary merits as compared with 
 the classics^ that he loved. But after his conversion he 
 gradually approximated to the state of mind described 
 above. And though he was too much of a scholar totally 
 to condemn the literature of the pagans, yet his dis-- 
 courses and writings always seem to imply that for the 
 Christian the Bible is literature enough. Now, the 
 Greek and Roman literature embodied the whole life 
 of two great groups of races. And though these 
 groups of races were very inferior in numbers to 
 the dimly known hordes of the North, and the still 
 less known swarms of the Far East, yet, considering 
 only their practical influence in the then known world, 
 we may say that their literature embodied the life of the 
 predominant half of mankind. On the other hand, the 
 Bible presented only the development of a tribal religion 
 up to the time when it unfolded the outlines of a world- 
 wide organisation. From this point of view its importance 
 is great ; and it is most unfortunate that many rationalists 
 of a certain school see in it only a succession of frauds. 
 But it is to be feared that the Christians did not realise 
 the true interest of the Bible, and chiefly valued it as 
 confirming the commission of the Church. Under such 
 circumstances, it was inevitable that the influence of the 
 Bible should be for a time inimical to culture, as we have 
 defined the latter. For there was in the honour done 
 to it a touch of fetishism, which, so far as it worked 
 effectively, tended to lessen rather than widen the dis- 
 tance between the state of the Christian world and the 
 
 ^ Confessions^ iii. 5. His reference, however, appears to be confined to 
 the New Testament. 
 
BIBLE CULT AND THE DARK AGES 2 
 
 75 
 
 lowest known condition of human beings. But this 
 deleterious influence was limited by certain compensatory 
 tendencies, which we shall presently note. 
 
 Meantime, it must be conceded that this superstitious 
 and exclusive cult of the Bible did not a little to prepare 
 the advent of the " dark ages." Not that this was the 
 only cause of that eclipse. For, as we have allowed that 
 Christianity was only one factor among many in the 
 social evolution which very slowly differentiated post- 
 Christian from pre-Christian times, so we must equally 
 allow that the exclusive cult of the Bible by the Church 
 was only one among many causes which brought about the 
 decay of literature. Still, it was probably one of the most 
 effective amongst those causes. For when the best 
 minds were wholly occupied in the elaboration of 
 metaphysical or theological theories, based, not on any 
 realities, but only on obscure texts of doubtful authorship, 
 the sunny fields of natural imagination and unshackled 
 thought were inevitably deserted. It is true, indeed, 
 that Augustine's Confessions have a kind of thrilling 
 interest, though that is mostly of a morbid nature ; and 
 that his City of God is a noble work, though marred by 
 forced, unnatural, and false explanations of the fact that 
 the favourites of God suffered equally with the favourites 
 of the Devil from the woes of the time. It is true, like- 
 wise, that the golden-mouthed preacher of Constantinople 
 left models of pulpit eloquence which, for simple direct- 
 ness of utterance, variety of illustration, power of appeal, 
 and attractive charm have perhaps never been surpassed. 
 
 But these men were exceptional. The "Apostolic 
 Fathers " — if we except the singular Epistle to Diognetus 
 — are now so musty that no one would endure their 
 dulness were it not for their suggestiveness as to early 
 
276 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 Christian modes of thought. The interest of Justin 
 Martyr's celebrated dialogue with Trypho lies mainly in 
 a comparison of his quotations from the " Memoranda of 
 the Apostles" with the texts of our Gospels. Irenseus, 
 in quoting with apparent confidence the sayings of the 
 elders, descends to depths of absurdity where all faith 
 in his judgment is lost ; and we cease to wonder that 
 such a man should confuse his old teacher, Polycarp's, 
 reminiscences of some John of Ephesus with supposed 
 recollections of John the son of Zebedee. Origen was in 
 some respects of a wider though not of a deeper mind 
 than Augustine ; but it would surely be absurd to com- 
 pare the human interest of his works with that of the 
 great classics, or even of later pagan writers, such as 
 Lucian. 
 
 It is, of course, true that both the greater and lesser 
 heathen authors lightly assumed as a matter of course — 
 though in what sense we are never quite sure — the pre- 
 valent mythology of their compatriots. But they were 
 not obsessed by it as the Christian writers were by the 
 theological traditions of their Church. In fact, they did 
 not take it seriously ; and whenever they touched upon 
 the deeper problems of life they had recourse to some as 
 yet ill-defined elements of a religion of the universe, 
 which elements might indeed be described as latent in 
 the mythology, but by which, just as far as they were 
 evolved and applied, the mythology must needs be super- 
 seded and effaced.^ Very different was the position of 
 Christian writers. For they did not hold their mythology 
 lightly ; or rather, they did not consider it as mythology 
 
 ^ For illustrations take the Ai^atnem7ion of y^schylus and the Antigone 
 of Sophocles, especially in the latter the speech of Antigone defying the 
 threats of Kreon. 
 
BIBLE AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE 277 
 
 at all. And though they too had glimpses of a religion 
 of the universe, the notion that it could supersede 
 their mythology was "anathema." They hastened to 
 cramp and confine it within the verbal symbols of their 
 sacred text. But such an arbitrary process evaporated 
 human interest from most of their works. The de- 
 pressing effect on literature of such examples, backed 
 by the authority of the Church, must surely have been 
 immense. 
 
 If we turn to physical science, the influence of biblio- 
 latry in discouraging its progress can scarcely be denied, 
 but the mode and extent of that influence may easily be 
 misstated. It is a historical fact that from the unauthorised 
 and regretted murder of Archimedes by Roman soldiery 
 during the sack of Syracuse in the second century B.C., 
 to Roger Bacon's pathetic career in the thirteenth century 
 of our era, science appeared to be entirely paralysed, and 
 only survived in the half-animated forms of astrology 
 and alchemy. But the above dates are quite sufficient 
 to bar an exclusive assignment of the blame for this stag- 
 nation to any influence, direct or indirect, of the Bible. 
 For many adverse causes were at work, amongst which 
 the curious agnosticism to which Socrates surrendered 
 himself in early life, when he became convinced of the 
 unknowableness of physical causes and processes, may 
 perhaps be taken as illustrative and even typical. The 
 narrow limitation of the senses, and the lack of instru- 
 ments to extend their range, offered insuperable impedi- 
 ments to the extension of physical knowledge. Even the 
 enormous industry and research of Aristotle could not 
 overcome this difficulty, and though he wrote a great 
 deal about physical science, it was not this part of his 
 writings which laid hold on the minds of men. If 
 
278 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 ecclesiastical scholars for a thousand years prized his 
 philosophy above Plato's, this was not so much on 
 account of his discourses about Nature, but because of 
 his metaphysics, which more easily lent themselves to 
 the illustration of prosaic creeds than did the speculations 
 of Plato. 
 
 It is true, indeed, that Epicurus revived the atomic 
 speculations of Democritus, and that Lucretius improved 
 upon Epicurus, and especially improved upon him in 
 paradoxical fashion by unconsciously making his master's 
 philosophy moral, spiritual, and inspiring rather than 
 materialistic.^ But such rational interest in the mystery 
 of matter was exceptional, and during the arrest of 
 legitimate physical research curiosity about Nature was 
 almost confined to the forms of magic, witchcraft, 
 astrology, and alchemy. Of these the two former were, 
 of course, merely barbarous, or rather savage ; and we 
 may sympathise with their moral condemnation both by 
 wise pagan rulers and also by the Church, though the 
 cruelty with which the latter encouraged Christian 
 magistrates to repress them was a deep disgrace. Astro- 
 logy and alchemy were treated with greater forbearance, 
 not because the Church saw in them a preparation for 
 true science, but, so long as the stars were not worshipped, 
 it seemed not irreverent to read in their movements the 
 will of their creator ; while, as to alchemy, if it refrained 
 from magic, it was at least harmless, and might bring gain. 
 
 1 I am well aware that Epicurus taught a pure morality and indeed 
 practised it ; but Lucretius breathed into it a sacred fire, which is first 
 perceived in his fervid invocation of Venus, considered by some of his 
 admirers — but not by me — to be inconsistent with his IVeltanschauung. 
 See the openings of the second and third books. The scBva indignatio 
 which pervades the Iphigeneia passage is also an illustration of what I 
 mean. 
 
MISCHIEFS OF SUPERNATURAL BELIEFS 279 
 
 But the fatal check imposed — not by the Bible, but by 
 its misuse — on the progress of science was the doctrine 
 of salvation by belief. True, the Pauline teaching 
 apparently was that this saving belief included only a 
 firm persuasion that God had raised Jesus from the dead. 
 And this teaching was, as we have seen, consistent with 
 much liberality of thought on the higher moral and 
 social interests of man, and with a frank determination 
 to seek " whatsoever things are true.*' But in the two 
 centuries following the death of the apostle, this belief 
 came to be articulated with a rigid system of theology so 
 compacted that, if the smallest fraction were denied, the 
 rest perished like what are called Rupert's drops when a 
 single point has been removed. In this system the 
 resurrection of Christ was glorious not merely as mani- 
 festing "the power of an endless hfe," not merely as a 
 miracle — for miracles were more common than star 
 showers in those days, and excited less awe — but because 
 it was the consummation of a divinely ordained course of 
 events beginning with the expulsion of fallen man from 
 Eden, and continued by judgments, signs, wonders, and 
 "types" through the patriarchial and Israehtish history, 
 the Mosaic law and temple ritual up to the supreme 
 events of Golgotha and Olivet. Now, when this system, 
 often in modern days called " the plan of salvation," had 
 been elaborated, it was no longer enough to believe that 
 God had raised Jesus from the dead. No ; whosoever 
 would be saved must also believe that every syllable of 
 the miscellaneous literature compacted into this false 
 view of the world's history was the very word of God. 
 It is no doubt possible to quote doubtful or timid utter- 
 ances of liberal-minded churchmen of old which might 
 seem to permit more freedom of thought. But the 
 
2 8o MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 average, the regulative, the controlling mind of the 
 Church was as stated, and this was an absolutely fatal bar 
 to any progress in science. 
 
 Thus, although the stagnation of inquiry had set in 
 before the Jewish and Christian Scriptures attained any 
 great influence over the secular world, it is impossible to 
 deny that bibliolatry, as it gathered force, extended that 
 stagnation and prolonged it. Indeed, during many ages 
 there was hardly an effort to break the bonds thus imposed 
 on freedom of thought. For the mutually contradictory 
 accounts given in Gen. i. and ii. were regarded as 
 God's own statement about the origin of earth, animals, 
 and men, while the poetic language of sacred lyrics, and 
 the audacious command of Joshua to the sun to stand 
 still, made it an article of faith that the earth was the 
 centre of the little universe made in six days, and 
 that around the earth all planets and stars moved along 
 lines ruled on cyclic and epicyclic spheres. Under 
 such a cramping system of religious faith, when once 
 the Church had gained direction of the secular arm, 
 the fate of any impious wretch who pretended that 
 the earth moved, while God had delared that it stood 
 still, was assured as soon as the accusation was made. 
 Copernicus, as we have seen, was only saved by his 
 peaceful death immediately after the publication of 
 his book. 
 
 Nor were the mischievous effects of this unworthy and 
 irreverent superstition wholly cancelled by the Toleration 
 Act or by the succeeding struggle for sectarian equality. 
 For all sects alike, so far as they had the power, refused 
 equality to those who repudiated the Bible cult. And 
 many survivors from the former half of the nineteenth 
 century still recall with shame the humiliating apologies 
 
BIBLE AND COMMON LAW 281 
 
 then made for geology in the endeavour to reconcile its 
 revelations with Hebrew folklore. The most oppro- 
 brious of epithets — " infidel " — that is, unfaithful, 
 traitorous — was applied to those who could not force 
 their consciences into a pretence of belief in what to them 
 was incredible. Honesty in such matters was regarded 
 as wickedness. Doubt of stories compiled, no one knows 
 exactly when, or by whom, was treated as a dishonour 
 done to God. And the laws of the land, with the 
 approval of the so-called "free churches," 1 punished as 
 blasphemy any outspoken denial of the historicity and 
 accuracy of the Bible. Those laws still, to our shame, 
 remain on the Statute Book ; and belief in the super- 
 natural character of the Bible in some form or other — 
 perhaps the beHef of Henry VIIL in his later days — has 
 often been pronounced by our judges to be protected by 
 our common law. But recent trials have shown public 
 opinion to be increasingly impatient of prosecutions for 
 blasphemy when the offence is at worst a breach of good 
 taste or an ill-mannered disregard of public feeling. 
 Perhaps, however, the most conspicuous and mischievous 
 survival at the present day of the old superstition of 
 salvation by belief is seen in the interminable and dis- 
 graceful wrangle over public elementary education. 
 Nothing can explain this but wilful blindness to the fact 
 that the days of " simple Bible " are gone for ever, and 
 that the only way of peace is to teach morality in the 
 people's school, while leaving salvation by belief to the 
 Church. It must be confessed, then, that as regards the 
 liberation of inquiry, the progress of science and the 
 popular education necessary to the frank acceptance of 
 
 1 They are becoming more really free now, thanks, mainly, to the 
 " New Theology" movement. 
 
282 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 newly discovered fact, the influence of the Bible has not 
 been favourable, but the reverse. 
 
 On the other hand, that minority of the human race 
 which has come under the influence of the Bible forms 
 no exception to the rule that " peoples of the Book " — 
 that is, races with a literature consecrated as divine — have 
 always been stimulated to such studies as would throw 
 light on the doctrines and significance and authority of 
 the Book. The fanatical devotion of the later Hebrews 
 to their sacred volume is well known. They counted its 
 words, its very letters, and pointed out the word that had 
 the honour of occupying precisely the centre of the 
 collected books. Having originally a rude alphabet 
 consisting of consonants only, with which the proper 
 vowels were traditionally associated by use and wont, the 
 Jews, after the destruction of their temple and city, found 
 it necessary to elaborate a system of vowel points to 
 preserve what they regarded as the true pronunciation ; 
 and nothing but devotional zeal can account for the 
 minuteness with which they invented visual representa- 
 tions of every slightest shade of diflFerence in sound. 
 Nor were they content with this ; but added a complex 
 system of accents, indicating to the reader every rise and 
 fall of tone, every pause, and, so far as possible, every 
 modulation of the voice. The later Greeks had indeed 
 their accents, about the practical significance of which in 
 reading there is even yet much dispute among scholars. 
 But it is at any rate certain that the New Testament, even 
 after the establishment of Christianity by law, never 
 received the same kind of devotion to its syllables and 
 letters as did the Old Testament among the Jews of the 
 Dispersion. For if it had, we might have known more 
 than we do now about the relation of Hellenistic to 
 
THE BENEDICTINES 283 
 
 modern Greek.^ Still, among Christians, as well as 
 amongst Vedantists, Zoroastrians, Buddhists, and Mahom- 
 medans, the possession of a sacred book inevitably 
 engendered a certain literary ardour which showed itself 
 in various forms. 
 
 Both Gibbon and Milman,^ from very different stand- 
 points, have traced the inevitable evolution of monasteries 
 into schools of copyists, theologians, critics, metaphysicians, 
 and philosophers. Of this I need say nothing except 
 that the labours of the Benedictines, who were devoted 
 to biblical and patristic lore long before the issue of their 
 well-known massive folios, certainly kept alive scholarship 
 in the dark ages. Perhaps the survival of Latin as the 
 ecclesiastical language, and also the cultivation of New 
 Testament and patristic Greek, had some share in pre- 
 serving the aptitude which found its opportunity after the 
 fall of Constantinople, and the precarious dispersion of 
 Greek literature through the Western world. All this 
 must be set to the credit of the Bible and of the veneration 
 it excited in the minds of the more cultured men of those 
 days. But then came the inevitable difficulty created by 
 the superstition of salvation by belief. For the Renaissance 
 demanded scope for freedom of thought ; and Bible 
 fetishism refused it. Hence the martyrology of science. 
 Thus the Bible did help culture by necessitating the study 
 of letters even in the darkest age. But only prejudice 
 can deny that the misinterpretation of its claims had done 
 much to deepen the darkness. And there is much reason 
 
 ^ Of course Greek is redundant in vowels. But if there had been the 
 same awe for the very sounds which the Jews cherished in reading their 
 sacred volume, one fancies that Christians might have taken more pains 
 to preserve the pronunciation. 
 
 2 See Gibbon's Decline and Fall^ chap, xxxiv., and Milman's Latin 
 Christianity^ Book viii., chap. v. 
 
284 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 to think that the traditions of Greece and Rome, which 
 influenced even the barbarian conquerors, would more 
 quickly have emancipated thought had they not been 
 hampered and checked by that strange perversion of the 
 real nature of the Judaeo-Christian book. 
 
 Although, for reasons above given, I have not thought 
 it necessary to treat at any length of the eflFect of the 
 Bible upon law, yet a word or two must be said in 
 passing from culture to freedom as factors in social 
 evolution, because, as already said, law is the offspring 
 of both.^ It is not essential to be learned in the law of 
 order to judge of its general relation to the evolution in 
 morals. And in the direct or indirect influence of a mis- 
 understood Bible on Christian law, certain facts stand out 
 too plainly to be denied. Nothing that will here be said 
 is in the slightest degree inconsistent with observations 
 already made on brotherly love as in a special sense the 
 social bond of the earliest Christian Church ; and, in one 
 form or another, this brotherly love or " charity " in St 
 Paul's sense has from time to time inspired obscure 
 societies of monks, nuns, " Friends of God," mystics, 
 and various sectaries who have tried to return to the 
 teaching of Christ. Hence, judging the past by their own 
 consciousness, it was not unnatural that members of these 
 brotherhoods, many of them knowing little or nothing of 
 Church history, should assume that, excepting the mis- 
 deeds of a few misguided Christian emperors, popes, and 
 prelates, the story of Christianity had been that of a moral 
 revolution, in which "judgment, mercy, and faith," by 
 displacing the barbarities of heathen superstition, had 
 assumed the prime and sovereign place which Jesus 
 assigned them. But the reality as presented to us by all 
 ^ Cj. p. 268, ante. 
 
IDEAL AND HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY 285 
 
 our great and most trustworthy historians affords a sad 
 contrast. 
 
 In the first place, the law of Moses was adopted as 
 enacted by the eternal, and the distinction between its 
 temporary authority, as in matters of ritual, and its 
 permanent force as a moral code, was never consistently 
 made or firmly held. For instance, the cruel words, 
 " Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live," had far more 
 power over the public conscience in the Middle Ages, and 
 even later, than the words of Jesus said to have been 
 addressed to a woman surprised in a worse offence : 
 " Neither do I condemn thee ; go, and sin no more." 
 The savage laws against heresy in the comparatively late 
 Book of Deuteronomy (chap, xiii.),^ furnished fearful 
 precedents to the persecuting spirit of the orthodox so 
 soon as the Church was able to direct leglislation about 
 religion. But this has been inevitably, though incidentally, 
 illustrated in the preceding pages, and need not be further 
 laboured here. 
 
 Of more importance perhaps is it to note that, according 
 to the best authorities,^ so far from softening the rigours 
 
 1 In these days it is impossible to take for granted familiarity with the 
 Bible even on the part of those who most passionately advocate it as a 
 school book. So, in case readers have not a Bible at hand, I will quote 
 the passage referring to any city convicted of heresy {alias idolatry) : " Thou 
 shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, 
 destroying it utterly, and all that is therein, and the cattle thereof, with 
 the edge of the sword." We may be sure that if the cattle were not 
 to be spared, neither were the women and children. It is, of course, to 
 be remembered that the legislation of Deuteronomy was fictitious, in the 
 sense that it was represented as given some eight hundred years before 
 it was written. But though by the decaying kingdom of Judaea it was 
 never carried out, that did not lessen its evil influence on Christians, who 
 took it as the very law of God. 
 
 2 See Milman's Latin Christianity^ Maine, Lecky. Nor do I think 
 Gibbon ought to be excluded on account of slight occasional lapses into 
 partiality. In general he is most judicial. 
 
286 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 of Roman law, Christian legislation, based rather on 
 Moses than on the Gospel, enfeebled it in some respects 
 and barbarised it in others. If Constantine abolished cruci- 
 fixion, it was from no humane tenderness, for he favoured 
 rather burning alive. The Roman rigour which buried 
 alive unchaste vestal virgins was hateful enough ; but 
 the Christian law which substituted the stake and fire for 
 many forms of unchastity can hardly be considered an 
 advance. Jews had to suffer for ages an exaggerated 
 form of the injustice attributed by them to their own 
 God, who was said in various passages of their law to visit 
 the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third 
 and fourth generation. But in Christian morals, as inter- 
 preted by popes and mobs, the twentieth generation was 
 not immune from the Furies who avenged the murder of 
 Christ. The treatment of witches, Jews, and heretics, 
 according to the supposed teachings of the Bible, is a 
 sufficient illustration of the degradation of the Scriptures 
 by the prime falsehood of salvation by belief. 
 
 When we turn to the influence of the Bible on freedom 
 as a growing factor in social evolution, we are met by the 
 difficulty that the races who earliest developed constitu- 
 tional government had their political instincts quite inde- 
 pendently of the Bible, though when they became familiar 
 with it they could quote it effectively for their purpose ; 
 while, on the other hand, the races who longest maintained 
 despotism were those to whom the Bible had first been 
 given. Moreover, the partial quotations of rebels about 
 the dignity of human nature, and the duty of choosing 
 freedom when possible, were easily parried by multifarious 
 texts about the sacredness of " the Lord's anointed " and 
 the divine ordination of " the powers that be." If we 
 take the only case in all history in which the Bible has 
 
BIBLE AND ENGLISH COMMONWEALTH 287 
 
 been an eiFective, and, for a few brief years, a resistless 
 weapon in the hands of rebellion against unreason in high 
 places — I mean, of course, the too brief triumph of the 
 British Commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell — we find 
 that it was not any biblical doctrine about the rights of 
 man, but about belief and worship that fired the souls 
 and strengthened the arms of the victors. For though 
 ship-money and other illegal exactions supplied the fuel, 
 zeal against " Popery " struck the spark that kindled the 
 flame of revolt. The first Parliament in which Cromwell 
 sat was largely occupied with religious questions, and his 
 heat in speaking of these amazed some of his colleagues. 
 
 Now, when we speak of " religious questions " in the 
 early Parliaments of Charles I., we must remember that 
 for the rising party they were Bible questions. Lollardism 
 had never completely died out, though it was held in 
 abeyance under the brutal rule of the Tudors. But there 
 were signs of its revival under Elizabeth ; and under 
 James it rapidly assumed the new form called " Puri- 
 tanism." In fact, the rate of its revival was fairly pro- 
 portionate to the spread of Bible-reading in Wycliff^e's 
 version, and its successors. And the " most dread 
 sovereign " who has the credit of giving us the 
 Authorised Version, would have been better advised, 
 so far as dynastic interests were concerned, if he had 
 persisted in his first indifference and refused to counte- 
 nance the new version at all. For though, as I have said, 
 the Bible with its many facets could be appealed to in 
 support of almost any theory of government, yet when 
 once a solid phalanx of stern believers in " the plan of 
 salvation " was established in the heart of the kingdom, 
 that Bible interpretation became supreme which saw 
 nothing in the Book but the eternal worth of the indi- 
 
288 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 vidual soul, and the scheme devised by the Almighty for 
 its redemption. All other aspects of the Scriptures were 
 overlooked or were forced into harmony with this. And 
 salvation being of such tremendous import, any State 
 institutions or ecclesiastical traditions and customs that 
 were thought to obscure this pure gospel became intoler- 
 able and must be discarded at any cost. 
 
 Now, when those actuated by this zeal for the Bible 
 found that not only the solid phalanx of Puritans, but 
 the whole people were outraged by financial grievances, 
 and by extensions of the royal prerogative, as illegal as 
 they were intolerable, it was natural enough that religious 
 and secular motives should be fused. Whether in a 
 matter purely religious the devouter English Puritans 
 would, like the Scotch Covenanters, have resisted unto 
 blood with weapons in their hands, is perhaps uncertain. 
 But when the overthrow of ancient laws and royal con- 
 tempt for Parliament made civil war inevitable, the scenes 
 of carnage ensuing did not in the least lessen the confidence 
 of the CromwelHans that they were fighting the battles 
 of the Lord. Apart from this source of burning zeal, 
 it may be doubted whether the king, his courtiers, and 
 their dependents — trained in habits of superstitious loyalty 
 — could have been overcome. But when Oliver went 
 down from the ineffectual fight at Edgehill, and began to 
 drill Bible readers and expounders as the nucleus of the 
 future new model army, victory was made certain. 
 Thus in the solitary instance, so far as I am aware, in 
 which the Bible was an effective auxiliary to people 
 " rightly struggling to be free," it was so incidentally — 
 one might almost say accidentally — for ship-money, forced 
 loans, and the royal power to dispense with the law upon 
 occasion, were not opposed to revelation. But the worth 
 
THE KIRK OF SCOTLAND 289 
 
 of the soul and the right of access to God without the 
 intervention of sacrament or priest were open to biblical 
 proof, and the possession of the Puritan conscience by- 
 burning convictions on these matters incited a sacred 
 furor^ which otherwise might have been lacking to their 
 political creed. 
 
 It may be plausibly said that I am wrong in calling the 
 rise of the English Commonwealth the solitary instance 
 in which the Bible was an effective auxiliary to rebellion 
 against despotism. For, as above admitted, the Scotch 
 Covenanters seem to afford another case, and their 
 resistance was more purely religious. But the ultimate 
 success of the Scotch Presbyterians was entirely an after- 
 effect of the temporary success of the English Common- 
 wealth. For William III. was shrewd enough to discern 
 that the biblical zeal which executed Charles I. and drove 
 away James II. derived in Scotland an additional intensity 
 from a unity of creed unknown in England, and from a 
 democratic Church organisation which had all the strength 
 of a multitude with one mind. But, after all, the 
 establishment of the Scottish Kirk was really a conse- 
 quence of Cromwellian victories, and is hardly conceivable 
 without them. It was part, therefore, of the general 
 movement in Britain, to which, as I have said, the Bible 
 was incidentally an effective help. 
 
 In other lands it seems vain to seek for such a case. 
 The superstitious use of the Bible by the insurgent 
 German peasants in Luther's time has already been 
 described, and clearly offers no parallel. It might be 
 supposed that the rise of the Dutch Republic owed much 
 to biblical inspiration. But the long agony of that 
 struggle, lasting for nigh a hundred years, began at a 
 time when in the Low Countries the common people's 
 
 19 
 
90 
 
 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 knowledge of the Bible must have been limited to the 
 extracts given in Church services. And though Protest- 
 ant opinions made rapid progress amongst them, the 
 probability is that this progress owed more to inter-racial 
 hatred, impatience of Spanish tyranny over a Low German 
 race, and interference with the country's- commercial 
 prosperity, than to any general study of the Bible. At 
 any rate, there was never in the Low Countries anything 
 like the spectacle of Cromwell's soldiers, every one of 
 whom was as ready with his Bible as his sword. In the 
 case of the French Huguenots the Bible, though certainly 
 not as well known as among the English Puritans, 
 undoubtedly had an influence. But it was not effective 
 because it did not enable the sectaries to lay hold on 
 national opinion and turn it into another course. What 
 the Bible did for England, the eighteenth-century 
 philosophers and encyclopaedists had to do for France ; 
 and they did not do it so well. 
 
 Nevertheless, there was one kind of freedom which was 
 much more completely secured by the French Revolution 
 than by the brief triumph of the English Commonwealth ; 
 I mean freedom of thought. Unfortunately, custom, 
 aided by ecclesiastical bigotry, has contracted the phrase 
 " free thought " into a single word to which a sinister 
 meaning has been attached. For in this narrow and 
 sectarian sense " freethought " means thought only in one 
 direction, and no one is a " freethinker " who, at least 
 in the realm of religion, fails to take as his model 
 Goethe's Mephistopheles, the " Spirit who always denies." 
 According to this nothing can be true about religion but 
 negation, and any great thinkers like Kant, Schleiermacher, 
 Hegel, who have dared to make positive assertions, were 
 not free in thought. To such a conception of " free- 
 
SO-CALLED « FREETHOUGHT " 291 
 
 thought " even Spinoza was not a " freethinker " ; for 
 he was one of the most religious of men, and he cherished 
 a faith in God so firm that no curses of the synagogue 
 nor hostility or temptations of the world could shake it. 
 Or, to refer to lesser names, according to this sectarian in- 
 terpretation, neither Roger Bacon nor Thomas Campanella, 
 the latter of whom endured days of frightful torture rather 
 than yield his mental liberty, were " freethinkers," because 
 they had a positive religious faith. Nay, in that very 
 race which most completely shattered ecclesiastical or 
 biblical fetters on thought, some of its noblest sons would 
 be denied the title of " freethinkers " in the cant sense 
 which since the beginning of the eighteenth century has 
 been given to the word. For men such as Albert and 
 Jean Reville, as well as Alfred Loisy, may be regarded as 
 grandsons of the Revolution. They have all asserted 
 in various degrees their inalienable right to think for 
 themselves ; but because they have declined to think only 
 in one direction, they are supposed not to think freely. 
 Now, surely freedom of thought is shown not by the 
 conclusions reached, but by the mental methods used ; 
 and a man who in the exercise of his best judgment, 
 without hope of reward or fear of penalty, leaves, let us 
 say, Wesleyan Methodism for the Catholic Church, may 
 have much more real freedom of thought during his tran- 
 sition than the bigot who condemns all religion as mere 
 fraud. One of the worst results of this lamentable misuse 
 of a noble word in a miserable sectarian sense is that it 
 inevitably, though most unjustly, has suggested during 
 two centuries the etymological analogy of " free-liver." ^ 
 
 1 The first quotation of this misuse which the New English Dictionary 
 has been able to find is dated conjecturally 1692. In 1708 Dean Swift 
 wrote of " atheists, libertines, despisers of religion, that is to say, all those 
 
292 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 But be that as it may, it remains true that the French 
 Revolution did much more effectually and completely 
 than the English achievement of constitutional govern- 
 ment, put an end to the bondage of superstition, whether 
 imposed by Bible or Church. Now, this difference 
 between the results of the two revolutions was un- 
 doubtedly caused by the difference of position held by 
 the Bible in the England of Cromwell and the France of 
 Robespierre. For the Cromwellians staked all their 
 political as well as their religious hopes on the Bible as 
 the Word of God. But the French, in whose nominal 
 religion the Bible held a secondary place, had no tempta- 
 tion to accept an infallible book instead of an infaUible 
 Church ; and when they shook off the yoke of the 
 latter, the authority of the former evaporated as a matter 
 of course. Neither the Napoleonic Concordat, nor the 
 temporary restoration of royalty, nor the Second Empire 
 affects the main facts, for what we see in France now 
 is indisputably the delayed result of the great Revolution 
 in the triumph of free thought. With the question 
 whether this is likely to be a permanent advantage for 
 the French people or not, I am not here concerned, for 
 I am dealing only with actual facts in the story of the 
 relations of the Bible and Man. But adherents of the 
 Puritan or ecclesiastical tradition, who are displeased with 
 many things in the manners of contemporary France, 
 would do well to remember that the people amongst 
 whom equality and fraternity are more real than amongst 
 any other people in the world, are no less displeased with 
 
 who usually pass under the name of Free-thinkers." What the brilliant 
 Dean's ideas of religion may have been, except as a bulwark of established 
 order and a mode of securing a living, it is not easy to make out, but 
 few more deadly thrusts have been aimed at religion than this sanction 
 of the vulgar association of free thought about it with libertinism. 
 
BIBLE AND CONSERVATISM 293 
 
 many things in the manners of contemporary Britain.^ I 
 do not pretend to be a judge, but at least I may urge 
 that differences of race, climate, surroundings, and social 
 traditions necessarily affect the degree of moral import- 
 ance attached to modes of amusement, and adminis- 
 tration of law, and forms of dissipation in different 
 lands.^ 
 
 If I should be asked whether I regret this biblical 
 influence on English politics, I should reply that on the 
 whole I do not. For it has certainly served to strengthen 
 that conservative instinct which, when not mere stupid 
 immobility, makes all the difference between continuous 
 progress and discontinuous shocks of revolution. But I 
 cannot blind myself to the proofs that this conservative 
 instinct has been excessive in the English race, and re- 
 sponsible for the continuance of many belated abuses. 
 Nor can it be denied that the substitution of an infallible 
 book for an infallible Church has been an important, 
 though not the only cause of the excess of the conserva- 
 
 1 The annoyance of our French neighbours at finding the Anglo-French 
 Exhibition closed against them on the one day in the week most con- 
 venient to them, and professedly closed on account of a Mosaic ritual 
 command which no Englishman observes literally, and all interpret as 
 suits their convenience, is well calculated to deepen the French convic- 
 tion of English hypocrisy. 
 
 2 I use the word in the Horatian sense of "dulce est desipere in loco." 
 Intimate friends of my own, brought up in the straitest Evangelical sect, 
 and strict Sabbatarians to this day, when travelling in France have un- 
 scrupulously attended on the Sunday the modified form of bull-fight 
 permitted in that country. Nor is their case at all uncommon. English 
 Pharisees readily become French Sadducees for the nonce when it helps 
 their holiday. I do not think I could bring myself to attend a bull-fight 
 either on a Sunday or any other day. But though I regret such customs, 
 which are disappearing, the practice of my Evangelical friends affords 
 ample proof that the Bible has nothing to do with those customs one way 
 or the other. The Book was a controlling power in England for three 
 hundred years before bull-baiting ceased. 
 
294 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 tive instinct among us. Much must be allowed for the 
 survival of feudal traditions even among the classes most 
 wronged thereby, as, for instance, tenant farmers. Of 
 these feudal traditions the sacredness of land and property 
 is, perhaps, only a special form, and there are many others 
 as yet inextricably intertwined with our social system. 
 But the unreasonable privileges of property in general, 
 whether real or personal, are sustained by other pre- 
 judices to which the teaching of Jesus certainly lends no 
 countenance, while nevertheless they may be amply sus- 
 tained on scriptural grounds if the whole Bible be the 
 Word of God. 
 
 Encomiasts of the story of Joseph in Genesis are fully 
 justified so long as they confine themselves to the skill 
 with which the narrative has been compiled and the 
 literary interest ensuing. But when they attempt to 
 make it a model of morals for children of the twentieth 
 century, they strangely ignore the ungenerous, oppressive, 
 and despotic policy by which Pharaoh's chief minister is 
 said to have used the distress of the people as a means 
 of extorting from them their lands and cattle for the 
 benefit of the king, and of finally making them all his 
 bond slaves. The non-historical character of the story 
 does not affect this point, for the moral is equally bad 
 in a fictitious tale. The ideal of statecraft would surely 
 have been to enforce such thrift that, at the end of the 
 seven years' famine, the freemen of the nation should not 
 only have possessed their lives, but their unmortgaged 
 property together with seed for the better time coming. 
 This, however, was not the ideal of the compiler, nor 
 apparently is it of those who commend his narrative as 
 ideal morality. For the narrator thought that the dignity 
 and wealth of Pharaoh was far more important than the 
 
THE NEIGHBOUR'S LANDMARK 295 
 
 freedom of his subjects. And this is the lesson taught 
 by his story to twentieth-century children. What wonder 
 if past generations, nourished on such lore, conceived 
 that subjects existed for kings, and not kings for their 
 subjects ? 
 
 The sacredness of the " neighbour's landmark " ^ was, 
 no doubt, in early Israelitish times a protection to the 
 poor. But in latter days it has been used with much 
 sanctimony as a defence of the rich. For tribes amongst 
 whom all land was communal except the sites of dwellings, 
 it was not needed. Wherever private ownership was 
 introduced it was much to the interest of the weak that 
 boundary stones should have a special sanctity. But 
 when, under modern systems, the land became practically 
 monopolised by a minority, the appeal to biblical authority 
 on the sacredness of boundaries has often succeeded in 
 giving an utterly disproportionate and even fictitious 
 importance to the rights of the owner of land. As to 
 personal privilege, the Church Catechism has often been 
 unjustly charged with discountenancing reasonable 
 ambition to make the most of our opportunities. But, 
 as previously noted, the catechumen is instructed to do 
 his duty not " in that state of life unto which it kath 
 pleased God to call him," but " in that state of life unto 
 unto which it shall please God to call him " — a very 
 different thing. Yet, for all that, the Anglican Church, 
 like Oliver Cromwell, has always believed in the 
 expediency of a distinction in classes. But while I do 
 not remember that Cromwell quoted Scripture in favour 
 of his cherished social ideal of a " nobleman, a gentleman, 
 a yeoman," the Church has often appealed to Pauline con- 
 servatism — or should we say indifference } — in regard to 
 ^ Deut. xix. 14, xxvii. 17 ; Prov. xxii. 28, xxiii. 10. 
 
296 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 political issues. An any rate the Pauline sanction of " the 
 powers that be," the exhortation that every Christian man 
 should abide in the same calling wherein he was called," 
 and the warning that "the magistrate beareth not the 
 sword in vain " were used in a settled Christian civilisa- 
 tion in a manner which would have very much astonished 
 the originators of these sayings, who perforce adopted 
 them as necessitated by a time of distress. And as the 
 ultimate sanction of this New Testament depreciation of, 
 or indifference to, political equality, the Church made 
 much use of that superstitious and sanctimonious phrase 
 " the Lord's anointed," which, in the Old Testament, is 
 redolent of a combination between clan leadership and 
 fetishism. 
 
 Well would it have been for the Commonwealth 
 if these natural errors had exhausted the evil influences 
 of a misuse of the Bible on social evolution. But it 
 has not been so. For far worse than any consecration 
 of institutional conservatism has been the cramping of 
 individual thought by a fetishistic terror of thinking or 
 saying anything against the divine authority of the 
 Book. Of this fetishistic terror we have some thrilling 
 descriptions in the late J. A. Froude's Nemesis of 
 Faith^ which, though a work of less imagination than 
 his chief work of history, relates in the form of fiction 
 a story of spiritual experience. Not that I for a moment 
 doubt his repudiation of any autobiographical intention ; 
 but it was quite impossible for a man of his intense feel- 
 ing to avoid transferring to the subject of his narrative — 
 I will not say his hero^ of the repugnance — mingled with 
 horror at that repugnance — which he himself had felt 
 towards the theory of the Bible as the Word of God. 
 Granting this, what strikes us as strange, pathetic, and, 
 
"THE NEMESIS OF FAITH'' 297 
 
 in these " New Theology " days almost inconceivable in 
 the case of a man of high culture, is the abject fear 
 which seizes on the subject of the story when he is face 
 to face with honest doubt. 
 
 " When I go to church, the old church of my old child 
 days, when I hear the old familiar bells, with their warm, 
 sweet heart music, and the young and old troop by along 
 the road in their best Sunday dresses, old well-known faces 
 and young unknown ones which by and by will grow to be 
 so like them ; when I hear the lessons, the old lessons, being 
 read in the old way, and all the old associations come floating 
 back upon me, telling me what I too once was, before I 
 ever doubted things were what I was taught they were ; oh, 
 they sound so sad, so bitterly sad ! The tears rise into my 
 eyes ; the church seems full of voices, whispering to me 
 'Infidel, Infidel, Apostate ' j all these believing faces in 
 their reverent attention glisten with reproaches, so calm they 
 look, so dignified, so earnestly composed. I wish — I wish 
 I had never been born ! " 1 
 
 What words of abysmal unbelief are these last — of 
 cowardly despair, of traitorous rebellion against the only 
 God clearly known, the Universe One and Eternal ! To 
 say " I wish I had never been born," is as much as to say 
 " I wish the universe had been other than it is," because 
 without the " I " it must have been other. And that is 
 like wishing that two and two made five, which many an 
 impecunious debtor does, thinking that the change would 
 work only to his advantage, and forgetting that his debts 
 would be increased as well. When will men learn that 
 the perfection of the universe is not to be looked for in 
 its convenience to us, but in the exquisite balance and 
 concinnity of the infinite Whole, so that no part can be 
 
 1 The Nemesis of Faith, The Walter Scott Publishing Co. Ltd., 1904, 
 pp. 26-27. 
 
298 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 annihilated and none of its so-called " laws " abrogated, 
 even for an instant, without injury to all ? " Should it 
 be according to thy mind ? " Experience shows the 
 constitution of the universe, or God, to be such as to 
 afford as much satisfaction to all of what we call its 
 sentient parts, as is consistent with the harmony of the 
 Whole. To desire more than this is selfishness ; and 
 selfishness is sin. But everyone who whines and groans 
 because he cannot honestly keep to his grandfather's 
 notion of the "word of God" is just in this case. He 
 wants the progress of the world to be other than it is 
 doomed to be,^ — and that, to suit his pleasure. If we 
 could conceive of a dragon-fly larva endowed with 
 intellect and sentiment, we might imagine it wishing it 
 had never been hatched, when the probably painful 
 process of shedding the old skin begins, and therewith a 
 new life. But the universe, like wisdom, "is justified 
 of its children " all the same. 
 
 Now, everyone may sympathise, rightly, with the 
 sentimental regrets that have sometimes given a momentary 
 twinge of pain even to a stout Luther when contrasting 
 the sensuous and sometimes passionate ritual of an 
 abandoned superstition with the thinly rational residuum 
 of " reformed " religion left to him. But those senti- 
 mental regrets have hardly anything in common with 
 the horror of great darkness and the craven fear of 
 impossible sacrilege which are described in the passage 
 above quoted from the Nemesis of Faith. Un- 
 fortunately, however, that passage is only too true a 
 portrayal of the morbid or even insane terrors which, 
 
 1 This is not to be confounded with fatalism. I have endeavoured to 
 show the difference in Pantheisjn : its Story and Si^s^nificance^ pp. 73-74) 
 and in Spinoza: A Handbook to the Ethics^ pp. 194 and 255. 
 
TENNYSON'S "IN MEMORIAM " 299 
 
 under the prevalence of bibliolatry, have seized on some 
 of the best of men when they began to suspect themselves 
 of scepticism about " the word of God." Even the 
 fine poetry of In Memoriam^ often regarded as the 
 melodious charter of free thought to the pious, implies 
 everywhere, except perhaps in a few pantheistic passages,^ 
 an irreducible minimum of submission to the Bible as 
 God's word. The words — "he fought his doubts, he 
 gathered strength " — and their context imply a virtuous 
 conquest over doubt in the interest of what used to be 
 called a " broad-church " faith. But though the fair 
 controversialist who held that " doubt is devil-born " is 
 sweetly silenced, the duty of overcoming doubt is distinctly 
 implied. The tone is very different from and distinctly 
 nobler than that of the Nemesis of Faith. Yet both 
 works alike illustrate how, during the nineteenth century, 
 any symptoms of doubt about the divine and infallible 
 authority of the Bible were regarded with a horror not 
 unlike what we feel towards the signs of smallpox or 
 plague. 
 
 Now such a mood of the public mind could not but be 
 fatal to any complete realisation of that freedom which is 
 the British citizen's boast. And that realisation was 
 hindered — and is still — both in politics and in social 
 life and in education. In politics the tyranny of an 
 Established Church was largely aided and abetted by fear 
 
 ^ Canto cxxix., "Thy voice is on the rolling air," etc., seems to me 
 meaningless unless pantheistic. But the following and last canto certainly 
 suggests a return to Anglican "pragmatism." And cxix. harps on the 
 old theme of the materialism of science. Canto Iv., though a noble, 
 passionate outburst, implies that there is no distinction between immor- 
 tality and eternal life ; while the prelude, and the constant recurrence to 
 Christmas legends as historic facts, are sufficient proof of the same 
 orthodox reserve. 
 
300 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 for the national fetish ; for the two most effective argu- 
 ments for the continuance of that anachronism were that 
 it was a defence against " infidelity " and a bulwark against 
 Rome. In his work on Liberty^ John Stuart Mill 
 quoted an Under-Secretary of State whom I cannot identify 
 — and it does not in the least matter — as telling his 
 constituents in 1857 that they were not to abuse the 
 "precious word toleration." "As he understood it, it 
 meant complete liberty to all, — freedom of worship 
 among Christians who worshipped upon the same foundation. 
 It meant toleration of all sects and denominations of 
 Christians who believed in the same mediation^ ^ It is 
 true that the subject of the foolish Under-Secretary's 
 speech was our government of India. But well might 
 Mill ask : " Who, after this imbecile display, can indulge 
 the illusion that religious persecution has passed away 
 never to return } " Certainly no one. The rack and the 
 stake are inconsistent with modern sensibility. But per- 
 secution is not dependent upon particular instruments of 
 torture, and Mill himself cites almost contemporary cases 
 in which refusal to own the Bible as the Word of God was 
 the cause either of criminal penalties or of the denial of 
 civil rights.^ The ungenerous and cruel denial of self- 
 government to Irishmen in Irish affairs has, in recent 
 times, been much more owing to Protestant bibliolatry 
 than to commercial jealousy or to enmity of race. And 
 we actually boast as a triumph of Liberalism the establish- 
 ment of a mutilated University of which Catholics may 
 avail themselves without any gross insult to their faith, 
 provided that they have no University chapel within the 
 precincts, and nominally apply no test, even to theological 
 
 * R.P.A.^ reprint, p. 30 (note). The italics are, I believe, Mill's own. 
 2 Op, cit., p. 28. 
 
A STIFF AND THIN MORALITY 301 
 
 professors. The encouragement of hypocrisy by the last 
 proviso is self-evident. And in the meantime a Bible- 
 worshipping nation prides itself upon the biblical tone 
 which pervades its old Universities, while the great 
 Church from which they were taken over is denied an 
 analogous privilege for its religion in Ireland, though 
 some two-thirds of the people belong to its flock. 
 
 While, therefore, we may appreciate with thankfulness 
 the stern fervour imparted to the men of the English 
 Commonwealth by their sacred book, into which they 
 read their own opinions, and then regarded the latter 
 as sanctioned by the Word of God ; and while we own 
 that even the inconsistent spiritual descendants of those 
 Puritans, by again reading into the Bible their own ideas, 
 have cherished a stifF and thin morality not without its 
 use in the godless times of the Restoration and during 
 the ethical conventionality or indifference of the eighteenth 
 century, — yet it must be admitted that, making all allow- 
 ance for conspicuous exceptions already noted, the 
 popular worship of the Scriptures during the nineteenth 
 century was not an impulse to the enlargement of 
 freedom, but rather a hindrance and restraint. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 EPILOGUE 
 
 On a review of the whole subject the following are the 
 main conclusions at which I arrive, and though, of course, 
 I cannot count upon their being obvious to others, I may- 
 hope that they are worthy of consideration by all. 
 
 I. The phenomena of the Bible and the story of its 
 relations to mankind are perfectly consistent with what we 
 know of the processes of human evolution, but are not 
 in the least suggestive of any miraculous revelation from 
 a personal Being outside the world. Should I be 
 honoured — contrary to expectation — by the attention of 
 readers who instinctively recur to the theophanies of 
 Eden and Sinai, to the divine judgment by deluge, to 
 Jahweh's intercourse with Abraham, and finally to the 
 Incarnation and Resurrection, I can only say, with all 
 respect for those who still accept these myths and visions as 
 facts, that in my view they establish the above conclusion, 
 that we are dealing with human evolution and not with 
 miraculous revelation from a personal Being indefinitely 
 greater than man. But, in the first place, I may premise 
 that every one of these incidents is a proper subject not of 
 intuition, like the fact of our own existence, but of historical 
 
 evidence ; and the evidence does not exist. It is undeni- 
 
 302 
 
SCRIPTURE AND FOLKLORE 303 
 
 able that even the clergy and ministers whose duty it used 
 to be to preach such things, are rapidly consigning them to 
 a class of what are called spiritual allegories. I know that 
 a majority still draw the line at the Incarnation and Resur- 
 rection. But the line is not a very firm one, and is often 
 obliterated by zealous apostles of the " New Theology." 
 
 Premising so much, we find the analogy between the 
 Bible stories and religious folklore all over the world 
 to afford a strong presumption in favour of human 
 evolution. Creation, Eden, the Deluge, propitiatory 
 sacrifices, and even the death and resurrection of a deity 
 are all commonly known in heathen religions. And if in 
 Hebrew folklore the stories take, in some respects, a 
 more refined form than in more primitive traditions, that 
 is because they were edited late in the development of 
 the Jewish nation, and were naturally remoulded according 
 to the culture of the time. Further, the moral progress 
 achieved by the influence of the Bible is just what we 
 should expect from a process of human evolution, but 
 utterly and hopelessly inconsistent with the intervention 
 of an omnipotent God. For whether we accept or reject 
 Budde's theory of a religion established by covenant at 
 Sinai, the conduct of the conquering hordes who invaded 
 Palestine from the south-east, uncommonly like that of the 
 'Abiri described in the, perhaps, contemporary letters 
 found at Tel el Amarna,^ was precisely what we should 
 
 1 Of course I do not pretend to be an expert judge of such things. 
 But the coincidence, or at any rate close likeness of the names, the near 
 approximation in date — for what, in the loose chronology of those times, is 
 a hundred years ? — the direction of the invasion, and the utter inability of 
 opposing scholars to say who the 'Abiri were, if they were not the 
 Hebrews, seem very strong points. Such a terrible incursion as that 
 described in the letters could not be a mere passing raid. And if not, 
 what became of the 'Abiri ? The most likely answer is that they remained 
 as the Hebrews. 
 
304 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 expect from a half-savage race who had agreed on a new 
 cult, but who held it loosely, and who followed or 
 abandoned it, just as they thought most expedient, in view 
 of their belief in the surviving powers of the local gods, 
 and of their doubt whether the newly adopted Jahweh 
 would always be a match for those gods on their own 
 ground. The alternative assumption of some stiff-necked 
 perversity in the Hebrew, which made him always more 
 disposed to worship the wrong god that the right one, is 
 surely baseless. What we dimly discern in the many 
 uncertainties of the Hebrew tradition is a very natural 
 process in the course of which the desire to avoid 
 aggravating the old gods of the new land was gradually, 
 through the efforts of priests, prophets, and kings, super- 
 seded by persistent appeals to a covenant with Jahweh, 
 whose worship proved in the end to have a higher moral 
 worth. 
 
 The above must be taken as an illustration of what is 
 meant by saying that " the phenomena of the Bible and 
 the story of its relations to mankind are consistent with 
 what we know of the processes of human evolution, but 
 are not in the least suggestive of any miraculous revelation 
 from a personal Being outside the world." To extend 
 such illustrations further would only be to repeat what 
 has been said in preceding chapters. But a word on the 
 last part of the above sentence must be added. For, if 
 anything so tremendous had occurred as the interference 
 of an alleged Almighty Being with the order of the world 
 for the purpose of saving man from his wicked ways, so 
 potent an expedient must have had both immediate and 
 permanent results. But history cannot be read like that 
 at all ; for religious and moral as well as social and 
 scientific progress, have been gradual, generally in the 
 
GOD INVOLVED IN HUMAN EVOLUTION 305 
 
 line of least resistance, and always accommodated to the 
 changing conditions of natural human evolution. Of 
 course there have been special times of crisis, times of ex- 
 uberant growth, and times of stagnation. And I suppose 
 it seems to many that the rapid spread of Christianity, 
 mainly by the zeal of St Paul after the resurrection vision, 
 is proof positive of miraculous intervention. But that 
 has been already dealt with, and I will not return to it 
 here. I would only remark that the whole course of 
 Church history, from the beginning of the second century 
 onward, is proof positive that the development of Christi- 
 anity was an exceedingly human affair, and that if the 
 exuberance of faith and brotherhood in the first century 
 had been the work of direct divine intervention, its 
 Almighty Author would certainly have prevented its 
 submersion in heretical swamps of gnosticism and sectarian 
 strife about words. 
 
 But, before leaving the first conclusion from considera- 
 tions adduced in this work, I must guard myself against 
 misinterpretation of the terms " natural " and " human 
 evolution." For it is commonly supposed that they 
 exclude God, while on the contrary they belong to a view 
 of the world in which eventually we shall see nothing but 
 God. With all respect for men who have done much to 
 emancipate thought from superstition, I am unable to see 
 in the advent of the human race the appearance of a cause- 
 less and independent consciousness capable not only of 
 judging supposed imperfections in the world,^ but of re- 
 
 ^ This is not the place to explain why I say " supposed imperfections." 
 The notion of imperfection is generated by the preconception that the 
 world was made to suit man's pleasure, while he finds that it does not 
 always do so (see p. 297). The only sense in which I attribute per- 
 fection to the Universe is that its innumerable phases make one infinite 
 Whole, such that each is necessary to all, and that no single part or 
 
 20 
 
3o6 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 vising its constitution and rolling it in another course. 
 For, whenever and however man appeared, he was evolved 
 from pre-existing conditions, and remained absolutely 
 dependent on the Eternal Life of which all things are 
 phases. Moreover, the evolution of humanity never did 
 and never can separate it from what, as Herbert Spencer 
 said, " was before Humanity and before all other 
 things." We may speak of this Eternal Being as 
 Nature, as the Universe, or as God. But after the 
 human race appeared in the earliest fully self-conscious 
 and reasoning hordes, it was just as much a part of 
 Nature as when it lay in embryo in the " pithecanthropus " 
 or other such form ; was still just as much dependent 
 on the eternal life of the universe, or God, for the 
 exercise of the new faculties acquired. And so it has 
 continued ever since. As a phase of Nature, man has 
 been subject to the influences of other phases of Nature, 
 and, among them, to those of the Bible. But human 
 evolution in this sense does not exclude God any 
 more than does the natural evolution of a nightingale 
 or a rose. 
 
 IL Our second conclusion is this : that the numerical 
 insignificance of those tribes or nations who have lived 
 within the influence of the Bible is entirely inconsistent 
 with the conception of it as " the Word of God " to man- 
 phase could be destroyed or altered without destroying or mutilating 
 the Whole. This, however, regarded from the human notion of time, is 
 perfectly consistent with phenomenal changes such as make upon us the 
 impression of " evolution." Nor is it inconsistent with social reform. The 
 doctrine of the conservation of force should assure us that transmutation 
 involves no radical or ultimate change in the substance of the finite phase 
 or thing transmuted. The balance of parts and their ontological relation 
 to the Whole remain the same. Perhaps the always residual difficulty 
 lies in our finite incapacity for thinking of Eternity otherwise than as 
 endless Time. 
 
HUMANITY GREATER THAN BIBLE 307 
 
 kind. The facts adduced in the course of this work 
 compel us to assign to the Bible a place analogous to that 
 of other tribal scriptures, such as the Vedas, Zendavesta, 
 and Koran, each of which, to its own people, was a divine 
 revelation, but which we all regard as having been pro- 
 duced by a natural process of human evolution. But 
 we are perfectly free to consider the Bible superior to 
 any of them if we find it so. If so, however, we 
 must be content to regard that superiority as a 
 difference of degree and not of kind. Moreover, 
 we have to bear in mind that even amongst the small 
 minority of the human race who have known the 
 Bible, that knowledge was not, until quite recent times, 
 direct, but only indirect, through the services of the 
 Church. Exception must, of course, be made of the 
 clergy, though even they, as Charlemagne complained, 
 were often and for long periods very ignorant of the 
 sacred text. 
 
 III. A Book such as this, known only to a small minority 
 of mankind, and prized as conferring upon them some ex- 
 clusive privileges, naturally acquired not only a sacredness, 
 but such a power of divine guardianship as the Trojans 
 attributed to their palladium, or such as more savage 
 tribes ascribed each to their own particular fetish. This 
 degradation of an interesting and in many parts noble and 
 inspiring literature was aggravated when intelligent know- 
 ledge came to be considered unnecessary for the evocation 
 of its powers, and the muttering of its syllables by an un- 
 learned clergy was thought sufficient to appease God. It 
 might be supposed that such a desecration of the Book 
 could only be possible where conservative superstition 
 insisted on the continued use in Church services of the 
 dead languages, which even to many priests had become 
 
3o8 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 unknown tongues. But the recent and perhaps not yet 
 extinct custom to which 1 have alluded (p. 13) of post- 
 ing up detached biblical texts in railway waiting-rooms, 
 or employing " sandwich men " to carry them on boards 
 through the streets, would have been impossible unless 
 some tinge of fetishism had mingled with Protestant 
 reverence for the Bible. 
 
 IV. This unfortunate perversion and degradation of 
 the Bible has been gradual and incidental, not in the least 
 caused by its own claims, or arising out of its own 
 essential nature. The scribes who first gathered into a 
 codex the traditional fragments of Mosaic law, believed, 
 no doubt, in a vague manner that these relics originated 
 in a divine sanction. But so did Hammurabi, when he 
 compiled his code some thousand years before. And the 
 compilers, distinguished by critics as primarily E and J, 
 who embodied the law in an account of origins, had 
 certainly no such awe of their sources of information as 
 now overmasters the readers of Genesis, Exodus, and 
 Joshua. It is, no doubt, difficult for the modern mind to 
 put itself by imagination into the position of the ancients. 
 For we now — wrongly — distinguish things secular and 
 sacred, while to the ancients divine action was everywhere. 
 To modern popular opinion some literature is sacred and 
 the rest profane. But when letters and writing were a 
 miracle, and were employed only in the service of the 
 deity or his vicegerents, all writings were sacred. Yet 
 this did not in the least imply such slavery to the letter 
 as characterises modern bibliolatry. For each successive 
 copyist had no scruple whatever about accommodating 
 his predecessor's work to the needs or the taste of the 
 new age. Thus the fetishistic awe in which the Old 
 Testament was held by the later Jews, and the whole 
 
APOTHEOSIS OF THE BIBLE 309 
 
 Bible by Christians after the fourth century, was entirely 
 unknown to the makers of the Book. In fact, the case 
 of the Bible in this respect is entirely analogous to that 
 of all other sacred books of the world, except the Koran. 
 For this latter was issued full-fledged, as a sort of Jove's 
 eagle, a messenger of God through his prophet. But 
 the case of the other books already mentioned was en- 
 tirely different. For they, like the Bible, were originally 
 the embodiments of popular tradition, edited and re- 
 edited by philosophers or scribes. And it was only 
 after ages of custom that they reached the dignity or 
 degradation of a fetish. We ought not, therefore, to 
 allow the superstition of its ignorant devotees to pre- 
 judice us in our estimate of the value of this venerable 
 Book. 
 
 V. It may be freely allowed that this apotheosis has 
 given authority to the best parts of the Bible, and that 
 they have thus gained in power over the minds and 
 consciences of men. Of this I have given illustrations 
 in the first chapter and elsewhere. But a fatal nemesis 
 has followed, in that the same power and authority have 
 been given to the worst and most demoraHsing parts of 
 the Book. If the late Psalmist tells us that, " Like as a 
 father pitieth his children, so Jahweh pitieth them that 
 fear him," the earlier compiler of his people's history 
 tells us that the same Jahweh ^ said to Abraham, " Take 
 now thy son, thine only son, Isaac, whom thou lovest . . . 
 
 1 In the compilation out of two older documents, or in the later editing 
 of the story, the name Jahweh has been introduced where apparently 
 Elohim alone formerly stood (Carpenter and Battersby). But I have 
 only to do with the Bible as authorised by the Church. The rescue of 
 Isaac by an angel is little to the point. It cannot cancel the fact that a 
 human sacrifice — the sacrifice of an only son — was thought a demand 
 proper for the deity to make. 
 
3IO MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 and offer him for a burnt-offering." The lawgivers and 
 judges of all Christian ages until comparatively recent 
 times defended by Bible texts their savage penalties 
 inflicted on crazy old women convicted of an impossible 
 crime. Contemporary hymn-books are still full of pagan 
 superstitions about the power of blood to propitiate 
 God. And recently, within my knowledge, a child, 
 attending a summer morning service on the seashore, 
 who, in answer to a question about the best way 
 of getting to heaven, said she must live a good and 
 loving life, was told. No, that was not right ; she 
 must be "Sprinkled with the blood of Jesus." What 
 sense the young Oxford zealot conducting the service 
 attached to these materiaHstic words, it is difficult to 
 conceive. But he was, of course, amply justified by 
 the religious instruction which led him to attach an 
 equal value to the Bible's coarsest phrases and most 
 spiritual flights. Such are only typical instances of 
 the modes in which the Bible has been degraded into 
 a fetish. 
 
 VI. The parts of the Bible really authoritative are so 
 because they call attention to self-evident truth, and not 
 at all because they contain any " revealed word of God." 
 And no " higher criticism," or any controversy about the 
 authenticity of books, or the historicity of miracles, has 
 the slightest tendency to lessen the authority of such 
 utterances as these. We may, indeed, have to make 
 allowance for differences between far distant ages in 
 mental habit and choice of language to express substantially 
 identical thought. Yet this does not hinder our accept- 
 ance of the Sermon on the Mount, i Cor. xiii., Rom. xii., 
 and such passages as words of eternal life. But this is 
 not because they were spoken by Christ or written by his 
 
THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 311 
 
 first followers ; it is because they touch the heart as self- 
 evident truth.^ 
 
 Nor is the Old Testament wanting in such passages 
 which gain rather than lose authority as true freedom of 
 thought prevails. The " Ten Commandments " cannot, 
 for reasons previously adduced, be reckoned among such 
 passages. Yet some of them, such as " Thou shalt not 
 kill " and " Thou shalt not steal " — against which the 
 whole action of Church and State since Constantine has 
 been one constant rebellion — seem to be coming into 
 more honour now precisely in proportion as all belief in 
 their supernatural origin dies away. For humanitarian 
 legislation and the belated movement in favour of " peace 
 on earth " look like an adoption of the former, with 
 certain reserves, by natural morality ; while contemporary 
 social reforms consist largely in an application of the 
 latter to the depredations of the successful rich.^ But 
 happily there are, in the Old Testament, better illustra- 
 tions than the Ten Commandments of self-evident moral 
 truth. For instance, when the Psalmist asks who is 
 worthy of the divine presence — which to Spinoza would 
 mean " the intellectual love of God " — he replies, " He that 
 
 1 In applying this to the Sermon on the Mount, of course ample 
 allowance has to be made for orientalisms and a habit of arresting 
 attention by paradox. But those who regard it as utterly unpractical, 
 have not sufficiently considered the cases of George Fox, or, a far better 
 man, John Woolman and a host of the early Quakers. 
 
 2 This is especially the case with land law reform, which seeks, as yet 
 very inadequately, to remedy the cruel and monstrous wrong inflicted on 
 the vast majority of the community through the appropriation by a few 
 of the land on which all must live. This does not mean the abolition of 
 private holdings nor the division of the land into unworkable fractions. 
 But it does mean a sufficient payment by the few landed to the many 
 landless, through taxation, for the privilege enjoyed by the former. There 
 is no conceivable revival of the eighth commandment which would do 
 more good than this. 
 
312 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 walketh uprightly and speaketh the truth in his heart. 
 He that backbiteth not with his tongue, nor doeth evil 
 to his neighbour," and so forth. It is certainly not be- 
 cause the nameless Psalmist says these things, still less 
 because we suppose the words to have been dictated by 
 God, that our hearts respond to such words. Their worth 
 is self-evident. There are very many other golden 
 sayings in the Old Testament, such as depend for their 
 authority neither on miracle nor revelation. On some 
 of them, no doubt, rationalists inevitably differ, because 
 they are either bent upon the impossible task of excluding 
 God from human thought, or else they have not settled 
 within themselves what meaning should be attached to 
 the name. But to Spinoza the prophet's words, " Thou 
 wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on 
 thee, because he trusteth in thee," would be self-evident, 
 and indeed it pervaded all his experience. He, however, 
 knew what he meant by God, and was always at peace 
 under curses, persecution, and poorly paid labour, because 
 he was freely acting out the divine idea in himself as a 
 part of the perfect Whole which was God. Such doctrines 
 of the Bible are gaining in authority, not losing it, as 
 the legends of a miraculous revelation die away. And 
 the Bible writers had a way of putting them such as will 
 always appeal to the feelings of " the wayfaring man " 
 with a directness that no philosophic moralist can attain. 
 
 Very different is the case with such religious doctrines 
 as have been received only because " revealed." Perhaps 
 the best illustration we can take is the fetishistic conception 
 of sin, just now a subject of acute controversy between 
 the Old and the New Theology. For, according to the 
 old notion, sin is something worse than doing evil to one's 
 neighbour or the commonwealth. Whether the Rev. 
 
SIN 313 
 
 R. J. Campbell is absolutely right in identifying it simply 
 and exclusively with selfishness, 1 will not undertake to 
 say. And the point is not important. But people of 
 rational religion are much indebted to him for the earnest- 
 ness and incisive force with which he has taught through 
 his sermons and books the superstitious absurdity of 
 supposing that there could be any such thing as sin 
 against God in the sense that it is God's sanctity alone 
 that suffers or is desecrated thereby. As I understand 
 him, he holds that God is only affected by wrong-doing 
 indirectly, through his creatures who are injured thereby. 
 This is something very different from the savage's notion 
 that his fetish is vexed and wronged by the introduction 
 of something " taboo " into the precincts of the sacred 
 hut ; very different also from the ecclesiastical notion 
 that not only is humanity wronged, but a divine presence 
 is desecrated by a murder or a suicide within a consecrated 
 shrine. The whole so-called Law of Holiness, incor- 
 porated after the Captivity with the Pentateuch, is instinct 
 with this fetishistic idea that God could be the direct 
 object of man's improprieties or wrong-doing. And 
 hence was generated first the Jewish and then the Christian 
 notion of sin, of which, however, I am thankful to say, I 
 can find no trace in the most probably genuine teaching 
 of the Founder himself. This superstition of sin, as 
 something worse than wrong-doing to God's creatures, 
 depends altogether on traditional theophanies or revelations 
 in which the local or national god claims for himself a 
 special awe and reverence belonging to no self-evident 
 moral code, and dependent for its enforcement only on 
 misinterpretations of Nature. For thunderbolts, plague, 
 pestilence, and famine were supposed to be the sanctions 
 of this sacred horror, and to magnify the sin against the 
 
314 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 god above any wrong done to man. The manifest decay 
 of this baseless beHef is the best illustration I can give of 
 the neglect into which all doctrines are falling that depend 
 upon evidence of miracle or supernatural revelation. 
 Beyond this it is needless to allude to the rapid break-up 
 of creeds about Trinities and Incarnations and Atonements. 
 I use the plural advisedly, for there are now as many 
 different interpretations of them as there are clergy schools. 
 VII. Another conclusion which I cannot help drawing 
 — and I do so with renewed expression of obligation to 
 pioneers whom I may think misguided, but must always 
 respect — is that the best defence of bibliolatry has con- 
 sisted in the extravagances of " rationalists," who make a 
 dead set against our Bible, and while allowing much 
 value to the code of Hammurabi — extensively adopted 
 in the Pentateuch — and to the scriptures of the Aryan 
 invaders of India, as well as to the Buddhist writings, 
 and even to the Koran — largely a plagiarism from 
 Judaism and Christianity — can yet see nothing whatever 
 in the Bible but a record of human folly exploited in the 
 interests of designing priests. Let us have fair play even 
 when the Bible is the game. Happily there are many 
 rationalists of a more judicial mind, and Mr Charles T. 
 Gorham, in his Ethics of the Great Religions^ has well shown 
 how the Jewish and Christian Scriptures advocate at least 
 no lower an ideal than other sacred books of the nations. 
 But the bitterness of other so-called "rationalistic" writers, 
 and their blindness to the fact that the Jewish and 
 Christian Scriptures, equally with the sacred writings 
 of other religions, are normal, natural, and honest 
 examples of human evolution, have done much to 
 prejudice religious people against their arguments, and 
 have, so far, strengthened the defences of " the faith." 
 
BIBLE AS THE WORD OF MAN 315 
 
 VIII. My final word is that the Bible is not dead, but 
 has an indefinite if not immortal life before it ; for the 
 entire abandonment of supernatural claims, so far from 
 lessening its influence in the coming age, will confirm and 
 extend it. True it is that my poor friend referred to in 
 the first chapter, and the millions of whom he was a type, 
 could find no use for the Bible if it was not to them the 
 Word of God. But even then there were solitary souls 
 who thought it much more precious as the word of man. 
 And if it be true, as I think it is, that moral and social 
 evolution are largely dependent on stored experience, 
 surely that storage of experience is most effective which 
 is most accessible to the " common people " whom Jesus 
 loved. Now, I know that there have been and still 
 survive, epics and folk-songs and folklore which store 
 up, sometimes in beautiful, sometimes in strange and 
 repulsive forms, the moral and social experience of past 
 times. But explain it how we may, there was something 
 in the Hebrew genius which enabled it to express the 
 moral and spiritual experience of successive ages in forms 
 which had a singular attractiveness for the mixed races 
 with whom lay the moulding of the future world. That 
 its history was false, its morality often imperfect, and 
 in its earlier records repugnant, is now extensively 
 admitted. But that did not prevent its better portions 
 from stimulating the moral sense of simple souls who 
 traced to Adam's disobedience all our woe, and who were 
 incapable of picturing evolution, or the working of the 
 world's eternal life, as other than the struggles of a divine 
 Being with a recalcitrant race for whom he designed a 
 miraculous plan of salvation. 
 
 But what of the times when there shall be no more such 
 simple souls, when everyone will recognise that God and 
 
3i6 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 the Universe are one, and that the only inspiration is the 
 world's eternal life, however various the forms it may 
 take ? Will the Bible then be useless, or only a curious relic 
 for students of forgotten lore ? If I think not, perhaps 
 this may, with some plausibility, be attributed to the fact 
 that since I could read at all, the Book has scarcely been 
 out of my hands, and that at every step in my advance 
 toward a purer faith than that of earlier years, I have 
 found in it the " seeds immortal " of the grandest human 
 hopes. But there are reasons outside personal experience 
 for thinking as I do. For instance, Spinoza recommends 
 that short sentences compressing into a few words decisive 
 moral principles should be memorised, so that we may 
 always readily recur to them whenever occasion may 
 arise.^ Of course it is to be understood that such moral 
 principles have already become at times matters of 
 experience, and have been found to work. Thus the 
 words of Brutus in Shakespeare's Julius C^sar : " Be 
 patient till the last," will recur to many troubled minds, 
 irrespective of their immediate context, and yet laden with 
 all the meaning of human impatience rebuked by events. 
 So, in fits of ill temper or rash condemnation of the 
 eternal order, the recalled words sound like the knell of 
 slain self-confidence, and bring, if not happiness, at least 
 peace. Again, when Hamlet, either mad or sane, let fall 
 the words " There is nothing either good or bad, but 
 thinking makes it so," ^ he pronounced, concerning the 
 
 * Ethics^ Part v., Prop, x., Scholium. 
 
 2 The memory instantly recurs to the contradiction contained in the 
 words : 
 
 " O who can hold a fire in his hand 
 By thinking on the frosty Caucasus.?" 
 
 Both passages are true to human nature, but that quoted in the text is 
 more salutary. 
 
THE BIBLE IN THE NEW AGE 317 
 
 power of the mind over the body, an aphorism which 
 anticipated by several generations not only quack methods 
 of " faith healing " and so-called " Christian Science," but 
 the more sober truth realised in the legitimate practice of 
 medicine, that a sound mind can often do much to 
 preserve or even restore a sound body. And in many 
 moods of ill-humoured discontent the recollection of the 
 words brings alleviation if not a cure. 
 
 Now, if this be so, what an exhaustless mine of moral 
 wealth, and what unfathomable sources of inspiration, 
 must ever remain for the " common people " in the 
 Bible's noblest words ! Shakespeare has never been 
 handicapped by a superstitious ascription to him of 
 miraculous inspiration or infallibility, and therefore he 
 passes through every age like a star through changing 
 clouds, his brightness above reach of evanescent vapours. 
 And when the Bible comes to be taken simply for what it 
 is worth, as the outcome not of a single, but of a racial 
 genius, with a strange power to touch the souls of the 
 Western peoples, its disembarrassment from a weight of 
 impossible doctrines will discover to us that "touch of 
 nature" which "makes the whole world kin," and, to quote 
 its own metaphors, its " word will have free course and 
 be glorified." Then the unlearned man will no longer be 
 perplexed by an obligation to accept Oriental paradoxes, 
 metaphors, and folklore as prosaic facts. The return to 
 something of the simplicity of childhood will no longer 
 be barred by fantastic doctrines of an impossible rebirth. 
 The declaration that the " Son of Man came not to be 
 ministered unto but to minister, and to give his life a 
 ransom for many" will not be darkened by an odious 
 superstition of propitiation, but will be called to mind 
 when a brave coal-miner sacrifices his life to save his 
 
3i8 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 fellows, or the captain of a foundering ship, with the way 
 of escape open to him, sees everyone else safe and dies at 
 his post. The Psalmist's exhortation to " Trust in the 
 Lord and do good " will not have less but greater force 
 when " the Lord " is taken as the Universe itself in all 
 the plenitude of its eternal life and order. 
 
 In fact, the Bible teems with pregnant utterances such 
 as the wayfaring man may use in accordance with Spinoza*s 
 advice,^ provided only that when complete in themselves, 
 they may be taken apart from the context, and in entire 
 independence of the supernatural complications in which 
 tradition may have involved them. It is futile to scout 
 such a natural use of the Bible as impossible or in- 
 effectual ; {sohitur amhulando). Thousands who love the 
 Bible are using it in no other way now, and they will 
 soon become millions. It may be true that the ultimate 
 truth of Pantheism can scarcely enter into the world- 
 view {Weltanschauung) of the multitude for generations to 
 come. But their ideas, to adopt the venerable Tolstoy's 
 phrase, of " what they call God " are constantly expanding 
 and must ultimately include the " All in all." Meantime 
 many biblical aphorisms, proverbs, and other pregnant 
 words expressing the will of " what they call God " 
 concerning the higher manhood bring that will very " nigh 
 them in their heart and in their mouth that they may do 
 it." Thus, from Abraham's inception of a peace policy, " Let 
 there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee .... 
 for we be brethren," to the bold words of Jesus — " I say 
 unto you, love your enemies " — the whole Bible, notwith- 
 standing ;the savagery of much in its earlier parts, is full 
 of brief sayings that prepare us for a time when men 
 
 ^ As is well known, Spinoza assigned to the Bible a morally regulative 
 function, and not a power of revelation. 
 
TRUTH AND LOVE 319 
 
 shall learn war no more. Though, as I have admitted, 
 the Ten Commandments are weak in regard to truthful- 
 ness, yet, from the time when the moral consciousness of 
 Israel had developed far enough to recognise that God 
 " desires truth in the inward parts " to the declaration of 
 the Seer in Revelation that into the perfect social state 
 there shall in nowise enter " anything that maketh a lie," 
 there are abundant brief utterances sharp enough to sting, 
 if it were possible, the conscience of the modern Pharisee. 
 And though the old Testament has too many passages 
 lurid with blood feuds, sanguinary bigotry, and cruel 
 deeds supposed to please God, yet, from the command in 
 Leviticus, " Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," to 
 the unknown Ephesian mystic's words, " God is love, and 
 he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in 
 him," the Bible as a whole abounds in passages calculated 
 to prepare men for the triumph of rational socialism ^ in 
 the Kingdom of God or Republic of Man. 
 
 The evolution of man will some day be universally 
 regarded not as a series of catastrophes, or divine inter- 
 ventions, creating disconnected epochs, but as a graduated 
 and self-consistent process. That process can never, 
 indeed, be rightly conceived as a separate, self-contained 
 whole, having a clearly conceived beginning and a definite 
 end. But at least, to our human apprehension, it will 
 simulate unity within its finite proportions as part of an 
 infinite Whole. When this view of human evolution 
 
 ^ Between rational socialism and communism there is a great difference. 
 Readers of the above and other previous forecasts of ultimate religion 
 must perhaps again be reminded that I have not overlooked the suffering 
 that is in the world. But on that I can only again refer to Spinoza's 
 doctrine of "inadequate ideas." It does not come within the scope of 
 this work. But I have treated of it elsewhere, in Spinoza : A Handbook 
 to the Ethics^ Constable & Co., Ltd. 
 
320 MAN AND THE BIBLE 
 
 becomes universal, no one will think of eliminating 
 the Bible as a notable and influential factor among the 
 influences that have made the foremost races what they 
 are. The superstitious belief natural to the childhood of 
 man, that here we have a message from a manlike God, 
 of which every word is true, will indeed have evaporated 
 into the cloudless sky of a brighter intellectual day. But 
 equally superstitious will seem the notion entertained by 
 a few sciolists intoxicated with a partial emancipation from 
 authority, that this great literature is merely the work of 
 designing priestcraft and interested fraud. On the 
 contrary, the Bible will always keep its place as the most 
 precious treasure ever inherited by any " people of the 
 Book," and will vindicate more and more against its 
 ignorant, misled, or wilful misinterpreters of the past, its 
 claim to be a still living record of the struggle of man 
 toward purity, freedom, and light. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abijah, 6. 
 
 'Abiri, 303 and note. 
 Abraham, his mixed morality, 
 221. 
 and Isaac, coincidences in their 
 
 matrimonial troubles, 4. 
 his faith, why imputed for 
 righteousness, 237-8. 
 Acts, Book of, 231-2. 
 
 its precedents for unprincipled 
 compromise, 236. 
 Adultery, in Sermon on the 
 Mount and in 7th com- 
 mandment, 162 and note. 
 Agag and Samuel, 220. 
 Age of great preachers, 137-8. 
 Albigenses, 70, 71. 
 
 and spiritual successors, 97. 
 Alchemy, 278. 
 Alcuin, 89. 
 
 Aldhelm, Bp. of Sherborne, 86. 
 revises Bible for Charlemagne, 
 
 93- 
 Alexandrian Codex, 151 «. 
 Alfred the king and the Bible, 
 
 83-4. 
 Ambo, 140. 
 
 Ambrose, 121, 124, 127, 128. 
 Amen, 257. 
 Anabaptist rising, 60. 
 Ananias and Sapphira, 231. 
 "Ancient Mariner" saved by 
 
 faith, 239. 
 Andragathias, 138. 
 Anicetus, 157. 
 Animism, 175 and note. 
 
 321 
 
 Annihilation, desire for, 204. 
 Antonio and *' holy writ," 55. 
 "Anxious inquirers," 10. 
 Apocalypses, Jewish, in N.T., 
 
 200 n. 
 Apocrypha, O.T., 194. 
 Apollos, 150. 
 "Apostle," the, as title of book, 
 
 99, 129. 
 Apostolic Fathers, 275-6. 
 Apotheosis of the Bible, 37, 
 
 177, 309. 
 Aptitude and opportunity, 140. 
 Arcadius, 140, 144. 
 Archimedes, 277. 
 Areopagus, 234. 
 Arianism excluded from early 
 
 France, 69. 
 Aristotle, 277. 
 Armenia, 69. 
 
 Arminians and Rom. ix., 169. 
 Assumptions of anachronistic 
 
 religion, 168. 
 Astrology, 278. 
 Atomic theory, 278. 
 Augustine, St, of Hippo, 121, 
 176. 
 City of God, 131, 275. 
 Confessions, 126 n., 275. 
 early ignorance of Bible, 123. 
 his doctrine of creation, 130. 
 his judgment of the Bible and 
 
 the world, 274. 
 his mingled mysticism'^ and 
 
 materialism, 135. 
 his pagan traditions, 129. 
 21 
 
322 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Augustine, St, his sacramental- 
 ism, 125, 126. 
 
 his strange ideas of moral 
 proportion, 126 and 
 note. 
 
 his views entirely inconsistent 
 with Protestantism, 127. 
 
 idea of the Church, 131. 
 
 introduction to fourth Gospel, 
 132. 
 
 notion of the universe, 131, 
 
 135- 
 revelation a necessity to him, 
 
 i3i> 134. 
 story of his conversion, 124, 
 
 etc. 
 tragedy and bathos, 133, 134. 
 unequal treatment of Scripture, 
 
 126, 131-2. 
 Augustine the missionary to 
 
 Britain, 116, etc. 
 contrast with St Paul, 117. 
 his conference with British 
 
 Church, 1 19-120. 
 not a Bible colporteur, 118. 
 preaches church rather than 
 
 gospel, 117. 
 
 Baalim, 180. 
 
 Babi sect, 259. 
 
 Babylon and creation myth, 183. 
 
 Bacon, Roger, 82, 263, 277. 
 
 Bail of Abbeville, 78. 
 
 account of " Apostolical Coun- 
 cil," 270-1. 
 
 puts Church before Bible, 78. 
 Balaam, 221. 
 Bane = ban, 68. 
 
 Baptismal regeneration, 9, 135-6. 
 Barnabas, 150, 151 n. 
 Barnabas and Paul, 233. 
 Barons and Papal exactions, 65. 
 Basil I., 98. 
 Bade, the Venerable, 84, 85, 88, 
 
 116, 117, 118. 
 Beecher, Ward, 145. 
 Belief not the same as faith, 240. 
 
 Bertha, Queen, 117. 
 Bethlehem, water of, 184. 
 Bible and God, 174. 
 
 "and Bible alone," 148. 
 
 and heresy, 62. 
 
 and pre-existing religions, 172. 
 
 "and water," 31. 
 
 apotheosis of, 37, 177, 309. 
 
 as a letter from God, 3, 10, 
 12. 
 
 as "an English classic," 21. 
 
 as ark of the covenant, 88, 
 146. 
 
 as fetish, 31, 43, 55. 
 
 as " God's book," 4. 
 
 as household god, 2, 38. 
 
 as palladium, 38, 307. 
 
 as personal charter, 147. 
 
 as school-book, 81 and note. 
 
 as shechinah, 94. 
 
 as the word of man, 315. 
 
 as title-deeds of Church, 94, 
 
 131J 145- 
 as word of God, 11. 
 authenticated by the Church, 
 
 44, 46, 78, 1 5 1-2. 
 authority of, self-evident when 
 
 real, 310. 
 buying in 20th and i8th cen- 
 turies, 40. 
 chained, 53. 
 
 change in its position, 35. 
 dangers of, in view of mediaeval 
 
 Church, 16. 
 debt of its compilers to Sum- 
 
 erians and Babylonians, 
 
 217. 
 dictated by God, 13. 
 difference (alleged) from other 
 
 books not only in degree 
 
 but kind, 12. 
 doubtful influence on freedom, 
 
 286, 289. 
 early use of name, 146. 
 fear of translating it, 63. 
 higher criticism cannot touch 
 
 real authority of, 310. 
 
INDEX 
 
 323 
 
 Bible, how known in 5 th and 4th 
 
 centuries, 123-4, 146. 
 identified with religion, 171. 
 in Shakespeare, 54-58. 
 in the future, 316. 
 in workshop debates, 30. 
 induces in some a moral 
 
 colour blindness, 220. 
 influences in politics not 
 
 wholly regrettable, 293. 
 insignificance of its realm in 
 
 space and time, 306. 
 its afilatus of Divinity, 12. 
 its cost, 39, 50. 
 its influence compared with 
 
 that of the Church, 153. 
 its literary beauties unappre- 
 ciated by devotees, 21, 23. 
 its mixed influence on morals, 
 
 219. 
 its own interpreter, 80, 81. 
 its possession suggestive of 
 
 heresy, 74. 
 its relation to everyday life in 
 
 19th century and in the 
 
 Middle Ages, 76. 
 limited range of its influence, 
 
 214-15-16. 
 misapplications of, 15, 16. 
 monopoly, 38. 
 not dead, 315. 
 
 not supernatural, 64, 196, 302. 
 of childhood, 3, 4. 
 palpable seams in its compila- 
 tion overlooked, 4. 
 phenomena of, consistent 
 
 with evolution, 302. 
 popular knowledge of, formerly 
 
 oral, 50, 51, 54, 56 and 
 
 note, 79, 88. 
 private reading of, inspiring, 
 
 14. 
 promotes one-sided learning, 
 
 283. 
 
 sealed book without prophet, 
 
 . 43-4. 
 society, 23, etc. 
 
 Bible texts as charms, 13. 
 the mother's gift, 12. 
 traditions novel as compared 
 
 with age of humanity, 
 
 172. 
 theatrical property of Church 
 
 and State, 41. 
 unity of, artificial, 177. 
 unknown to early Israel, 178. 
 used as a defence of privilege 
 
 and wrong, 28, 29. 
 various versions of i6th cen- 
 tury, 48. 
 will yet be taken for what it 
 
 is worth, 317, 320. 
 withheld from laity in 7th 
 
 century, 109. 
 Bibliolatry a real danger, 167, 
 
 273. 
 better and worse, 176. 
 brought on the dark ages, 275. 
 finds best defence in pseudo- 
 rationalism, 314. 
 in early times, 270-273. 
 its amiable side, 14, 15. 
 its darker side, 16. 
 its ignorance, 13. 
 its morbid terrors, 298-9. 
 obstructed science, 277. 
 Bishops and Presbyters, 151. 
 Black death, 65. 
 Blandina, martyr, 154. 
 "Blasphemy laws," 247, 281. 
 Blind man of Siloam, 222. 
 Bockholdt, John, 61. 
 "Books of the devil," 271. 
 British and Foreign Bible 
 Society, 23. 
 credited with arrest of "papal 
 
 aggression," 27. 
 reasons for its success, 25, etc. 
 British and foreign reforms con- 
 trasted, 58, 62. 
 British Church and Augustine^ 
 
 119, 120. 
 British Museum, thefts from, 54. 
 Brotherhood of man, 193. 
 
324 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Browning on the failure of 
 Cliristianity, 133. 
 on the use of alloy, 212. 
 Bruno, Giordano, 264. 
 Budde, Dr Karl, 179 «. 
 Bunyan, Grace Abounding^ 214. 
 Burns, Robert, and the Bible, 
 I, 3. 
 
 Caedmon, 86-88. 
 
 Calvin, 13, 14. 
 
 Campanella, Thomas, 264-5. 
 
 Campbell, Rev. R. J., 115 «., 
 
 230 n., 313. 
 Canon of N.T., 150, 152. 
 Carbeas, 97, 114. 
 Carlyle, on Cromwell's spiritual 
 
 troubles, 213. 
 Cathari, 71. 
 
 Catholicism, the widest, 175. 
 Celsus, 156. 
 Census of the British Empire 
 
 and its religions, 32. 
 Chained Bibles, 53. 
 " Charity," as brotherly love, 249, 
 
 250. 
 Charlemagne, 89-95. 
 
 converts by the sword, 91. 
 
 crowned at Rome, 92. 
 
 desires better instructed clergy, 
 
 89. 
 
 desires simple Bible teaching, 
 
 92. 
 employment of Alcuin, 92. 
 inclines to Iconoclasts, 94. 
 only half Christian, 95. 
 receives revised Bible from 
 
 Alcuin, 93, 
 sets up Palace school, 90. 
 Chartism, the denial of its just 
 claims credited to the 
 Bible Society, 27-28. 
 Chaucer, 67. 
 Cheapness of Bible, effects of, 
 
 40. 
 Christ, as the child's God, 7. 
 "the Eternal,'' 230, 250. 
 
 "Christian," and " Paulician," 
 
 103. 
 Christianity, as flower and fruit 
 of Judaism, 196. 
 its earliest forms, 136. 
 its early successes, 33. 
 Christians, primitive — 
 Mr Lecky on, 253, 254. 
 their initiative of social reform 
 exaggerated, 255. 
 Chronology, incipient study of, 
 
 4- 
 Chrysocheir, Paulician General, 
 
 114. 
 Chrysostom, John, 138-145. 
 
 his exhortation to get Bibles, 
 146. 
 Church, Catholic, 151. 
 
 as a secret society, 245. 
 
 councils, 78, 94, 151, 232-233. 
 
 "Fathers," perversity of their 
 morals, 273. 
 
 history, inconsistent with super- 
 natural revelation or mir- 
 acle, 304-5. 
 
 inspires martyrdom, 153. 
 
 its alienation of national re- 
 sources, 64. 
 
 its attitude towards the Bible, 
 how defended, 16, 55, 77. 
 
 its corporate consciousness ig- 
 nored by Protestants, 77. 
 
 its demoralisation in 14th 
 century, 64, 65. 
 
 its doctrine of development, 
 78. 
 
 its early capture of secular 
 power, 152. 
 
 its worldly wisdom repugnant, 
 64. 
 
 mediaeval, its case against un- 
 guided reading of the 
 Bible, 16. 
 
 obscurantism and its Nemesis, 
 62. 
 
 of England, its catechism un- 
 justly criticised, 295. 
 
INDEX 
 
 325 
 
 Church, relation to the Bible, 37, 
 
 55. 78, 155. 159. 
 supernatural powers of, 146- 
 
 147. 
 Cibossa, 105. 
 "City of God," 131. 
 Civilisation, prehistoric, 216. 
 Clarkson, 28. 
 Classic civilisation, development 
 
 of, hampered by biblio- 
 
 latry, 284, 285, 286. 
 Clerical ignorance, 89, 91. 
 Clerk, 58. 
 
 Clodd, Edward, 67. 
 Clovis, 69. 
 Cnossos, 217. 
 Codex Sinaiticus, 151 «. 
 Colchester, dearth of Bibles in, 
 
 39- 
 
 Coleridge, 187. 
 
 Coloneia, Bp. of, as an in- 
 quisitor, 107-8. 
 
 Commandments, — see Ten. 
 
 Common people and Jesus, 81, 
 248. 
 
 Commonwealth, English, aided 
 by fusion of " sacred," and 
 secular interests, 288. 
 
 Constantine of Mananalis, the 
 first Paulician, 99. 
 martyrdom, 105. 
 mission to Philippi, 104. 
 problem of his conversion, 99. 
 renounces Manichseism, 100, 
 107. 
 
 Conversion, varieties of, 8-n. 
 among Nonconformists, 10, 
 II. 
 
 Copernicus, 263. 
 
 Corinthians, Epistles to, almost 
 certainly St Paul's, 249. 
 
 Cottage temple, 6. 
 
 Cottar's Saturday Nighty i, 3. 
 
 Covenanters, Scottish, 289. 
 
 Cowper's hymns, 187. 
 
 Cranmer, 48. 
 
 Creation, story of, 4. 
 
 Creation, myth from Babylon, 
 
 183. 
 
 St Augustine on, 130. 
 Creeds, break up of, 314. 
 Critical spirit like Browning's 
 "spirt of fiery acid," 
 212. 
 Cromwell, O., makes the Bible a 
 charter of freedom, 287. 
 a solitary case, 288. 
 letter to Mrs St John, 213. 
 Cromwell's, O., armies, morals of, 
 
 60. 
 Cruelty, spiritual, to children, 
 
 8-9. 
 
 Crusades, their effect on inter- 
 course of East and West, 
 
 69. 
 
 Culture, meaning of, 268. 
 
 affected by all sacred books, 
 
 269, 270. 
 comparative mfluence of pagan 
 poetry and Bible, 270. 
 Cuthbert, 85. 
 Cyprian on Noah, 135 «. 
 Cyrus, 185, 191. 
 
 David, 184, 256. 
 
 after the boy's heart, 5. 
 Davids, Prof. T. W. Rhys, 204 n. 
 Day-dreams of the religious child, 
 
 5- 
 Democritus, Epicurus, Lucretius, 
 
 278. 
 Deuteronomic literature, 181, 
 
 190. 
 Development in Church doctrine. 
 
 Devil, credited with best literature, 
 271-2. 
 popularity of, 68. 
 
 Devils believing, 209. 
 
 Dickinson, Thomas, house- 
 painter, 16, etc. 
 
 Dill, Dr, 21^ n. 
 
 Diocletian, edict of, 153. 
 
 Divine order universal, 242. 
 
326 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Documents imbedded in Penta- 
 teuch, 178-9, 195. 
 
 Dominicans, 74, 75. 
 
 Dorpat, lack of Bibles in early 
 19th century, 61. 
 
 Dutch republic, 289-90. 
 
 Earliest centuries of Church, 
 
 152. 
 Easter controversy, 156-7. 
 
 probable practice of Jerusalem 
 
 Christians, 159. 
 the question at issue, 157. 
 Easter Sunday not an anniversary 
 
 of the Resurrection, 159 
 
 and note. 
 Education, public elementary 
 
 paralysed by bibliolatry, 
 
 281. 
 Egyptians failed to indoctrinate 
 
 Hebrews with craving for 
 
 immortality, 204-216. 
 Eighteenth century a time of 
 
 religious depression, 40, 
 
 41. 
 Election of grace, immorality of, 
 
 242-3. 
 contrast to Spinoza's doctrine, 
 
 242-3. 
 Ely mas, 232. 
 " Enthusiasm of humanity," 249, 
 
 255- 
 "Eternal Christ," the, 230, 250. 
 
 Eternal life, 204. 
 words of, 310. 
 Eternity, men of, 161 and note. 
 Ethelbert, 116. 
 Ethiopian eunuch, 11, 43, 79, 
 
 209. 
 Eucharist, meaning of, to the 
 
 Catholic Church, 77, 136. 
 Eusebius, 150, 152, 153, 160. 
 Eutropius of Constantinople, 140, 
 
 141, 145. 
 Evagrius, 138. 
 Experience, human, as revelation, 
 
 176. 
 
 Ezekiel, paradoxical position of, 
 189. 
 modern imitators, 189. 
 
 Faber's hymns, 187. 
 Faith, power of, 210. 
 
 noblest meaning of, 237-9. 
 Family worship, i, 11. 
 
 Bible class, 3. 
 Fascinating obscurity, 2. 
 Fetishism, survival of, 94-5, 114, 
 127, 180, 184, 188, 189, 
 195, 274, 283, 313. 
 in evolution of religion, 175. 
 Fourth Gospel — 
 
 acrid dialogues intended to 
 enforce writer's doctrine 
 of Logos-Messiah, 225. 
 and Easter controversy, 157. 
 apparently not known to Poly- 
 carp, 158. 
 as infant reading, 3. 
 doctrine of new birth, 200. 
 difference between its bitter 
 words and the invectives 
 in Synoptics, 226 n. 
 evil effect on Church morality, 
 
 225. 
 its narratives, 221-225. 
 its residual value to the world, 
 
 229. 
 lateness of, 206 «., 221, 222 n. 
 reminiscences of Judaisers, 225. 
 subordinates plain moral issues 
 
 to theosophic lore, 229. 
 supernatural assumptions, 
 
 225-6. 
 "the Jews" therein, 226. 
 uses pictorial fiction, 230. 
 Fox, George, 45-46. 
 Foxe, martyrologist, 154. 
 France and Papacy in Middle 
 
 Ages, 69. 
 Franciscans, 74, 75. 
 Frazer, Dr J. G., 125. 
 "Free churches," 281. 
 Freedom, 268. 
 
INDEX 
 
 327 
 
 Freedom of thought shown by 
 mental method, not by 
 results reached, 291. 
 "Freethinkers," 269, 290-1. 
 " Freethought " a cant word, 290. 
 confined to denial, 290-1. 
 excludes many of the freest 
 
 souls, 291. 
 Spinoza in that sense not a 
 freethinker, 291. 
 Free libraries and morals, 53-54. 
 Free libraries for non-readers, 85, 
 
 86-88. 
 French Revolution, 292. 
 
 and mutual misjudgments of 
 English and French, 293. 
 Friars, 69, etc. 
 "Friends of God," 59. 
 
 Gairdner, Dr James, on "Lollardy 
 and Reformation," 68, 
 note. 
 Galatians, Ep. to, 251. 
 Galilee, 263. 
 Gardiner, Dr S. M., 60. 
 Gegnesius, 108. 
 Gehazi, 256. 
 Geneva Bible, 48. 
 Geology and Bible, 280-1. 
 Germany, scarcity of Bibles in 
 early 19th century, 60-1. 
 Gibbon, 70, 95, 99 n., 102, 113, 
 
 114. 
 God and the child, 5. 
 "a very present," 177. 
 evolution of ideas of, 1 74-11 n. 
 fatherhood of, 130, 190, 193, 
 
 200, 201. 
 idea of, inevitable issue of 
 human evolution, 305, 306. 
 influence of Bible on, 174, 178. 
 imperialism of, 130. 
 kingdom of, the republic of 
 
 man, 188, 247, 261. 
 "of battles" and Sermon on 
 the Mount, 220. 
 God "that hidest thyself," 177. 
 
 "God's Englishmen," 191. 
 God's word written, 167, 170, 
 
 273»3i5- 
 Gorham, Mr Chas. T., 314. 
 Gospel forced into Old Testa- 
 ment, 19. 
 Gospel of God's love, 252. 
 Gospels, synoptic, problem of, 
 149 «., 197, 199. 
 original simplicity of, 207-8. 
 supersession of, by Epistles, 
 
 213, 214. 
 the soul of Christianity, 208. 
 Gourd, parable of, 192. 
 Grammar schools, 51. 
 Grave-digger in Hamlet, 56-7. 
 Glosses, 74, 85 ;^. 
 Gregory II., his ignorance of 
 Scripture, 97. 
 
 Habakkuk, 186. 
 Hades and Sheol, 204. 
 Hagar allegorised by St Paul, 166. 
 Hampton Court conference, 48, 
 
 49- 
 Hammurabi, 217. 
 Hebrew Scripture, a product of 
 
 devotion, 282. 
 Hebrews, Ep. to, 150, 252. 
 Hebrews and 'Abiri, 303 n. 
 Hell, terrors of, 10. 
 Henotheism, 180, 181, 183, 193, 
 
 214. 
 Henry VIIL, 49-50. 
 Heuristic system in 7th century, 
 
 no. 
 Hilarius of Aries, 69. 
 I Hilda, Abbess of Whitby, 87. 
 ; Historic conscience needed in 
 I Bible reading, 166, 167. 
 
 \ Holiness, law of, 313. 
 ' Holland, poverty in bibles in early 
 19th century, 161. 
 Huguenots, 290. 
 Humanity as a whole scarcely 
 touched by Bible, 214- 
 i5» 217- 
 
328 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Humanity immeasurably older 
 than Bible, 172. 
 the new, 252. 
 
 Humanistic element in Refor- 
 mation, 56. 
 
 " Hymn-book of second temple," 
 42, 257. 
 
 Hymns and poetry, 187. 
 
 lago and " holy writ," 54. 
 
 " I AM," a very late name of God, 
 
 183. 
 Iconoclasts, 94, 95. 
 Ignatius of Antioch, 260. 
 Immortality, craving for, 137, 
 
 203, 204. 
 Imperial census, 32. 
 InfalUble Book, substitution of, 
 
 for infallible Church, 293. 
 Infantine mysticism, 3. 
 ''Infidel," 281. 
 Infinite, kinship with, 230. 
 Innocent III., 74. 
 Inquisition, 74. 
 Inspiration, test of, 174-5. 
 Irenseus and tradition, 156-8. 
 
 his follies, 276. 
 Isaac, sacrifice of, 309. 
 Isaiah, on religion and ritual, 187, 
 
 188. 
 Israel, mission of, 188, 192, 
 
 193. 
 
 Jacob, 5, 55. 
 
 Jahweh, possibly a Kenite god, 
 
 179 n. 
 James I. and Bible, 44. 
 James, St, Epistle of, 150, 209, 
 
 2+3- 
 supposed brother of Jesus, 
 
 244, note. 
 Jashar, Book of, 178, 195. 
 Jeremiah, 163, 182. 
 Jerusalem, council at, 232-3. 
 "Jesu" in Shakespeare, 57. 
 Jesus, a characteristic scene on 
 
 the Galilean hills, 248. 
 
 Jesus, a man of his time as well 
 as of eternity, 161 and 
 note. 
 
 a true socialist, 247-9. 
 
 contradicts the traditions and 
 letter of O.T., 163. 
 
 his demand for faith, 209-10. 
 
 his doctrine of the kingdom, 
 203. 
 
 his unsectarian humanity, 202. 
 
 made no assumption of 
 personal authority, 164. 
 
 makes light of the fourth com- 
 mandment, 165. 
 
 on the Father, 201, 202-3. 
 
 why the common people heard 
 him gladly, 164, 165. 
 Jews, persecution of, in name of 
 
 Christ, 286. 
 John of Gaunt (Shakespeare's), 
 
 6s- 
 
 John, St, — see Fourth Gospel. 
 
 Epp. 21^3. 
 
 the Divine, 250. 
 Jonah, 192. 
 
 author's advanced outlook, 
 
 193- 
 Joseph, story of, 184, 190, 294. 
 Jotbath, spiritual interpretation 
 
 of, 18. 
 Jowett's advice, 21. 
 
 its present impracticability, 
 
 22 
 Jude, St, Epistle of, 150. 
 Judges, Book of. 220. 
 Justin Martyr and the Gospels, 
 
 160 n., 276. 
 Justus, the Paulician Judas, 105, 
 
 107. 
 his dispute with Symeon as to 
 
 Col. i. 16, 107. 
 
 Keller, Helen, 21. 
 Kenites, 179 ?i. 
 Kepler, 211, 264. 
 Kingdom of God, the Republic 
 of man, 188. 
 
INDEX 
 
 329 
 
 Kirk, Scottish, 41, 42. 
 Knox, John, 13, 51, 235. 
 Koran, 2, 309. 
 
 Land Law Reform, 311 note. 
 
 Langland, 67, 88. 
 
 Law, human and Bible, 284-5 
 
 and note. 
 Lecky, history of European 
 
 morals, 254. 
 on primitive Christian love, 
 
 253- 
 on results of salvation by 
 
 belief, 244. 
 Lee, Sidney, on Shakespeare 
 
 and Bible, 56 n. 
 Leo, the Isaurian, 95, 100. 
 Libanius, 138. 
 Lithuania, scarcity of Bibles in, 
 
 60. 
 Logos, Platonic, Philonic, and 
 
 "Johannine," 229. 
 LoUardism, late survival of, 51, 
 
 52, 287. 
 " Lord's anointed," 296. 
 Love, brotherly, in the Pauline 
 
 Epistles, 250, 251. 
 apparent limitation of, 251-2. 
 Lucretius, 278 and note. 
 Luther, his version, 59, 60. 
 as reformer, 64, 66, 102. 
 " Lyons, poor men of," 73, 75. 
 
 Maccabees, reactionary, 194, 
 
 Madagascar, 34 n. 
 
 Magic, 278. 
 
 Man, exaggeration of his place in 
 the universe, 305. 
 
 Mananalis, 99. 
 
 Manichaeism in Provence, 75. 
 of Paulicians, 104. 
 Puritans had more of it than 
 they knew, 272. 
 
 Manichasans, 70 n. 
 
 Martyrs in the nineteenth cen- 
 tury, 15. 
 
 Materialism, unreal, 230. 
 
 Matthias of Miinster, 61. 
 Methodism, 40. 
 Men of eternity, 161 and note. 
 Messiah, suffering, 196. 
 Milman, on conversion of the 
 
 Goths, 121. 
 Miracle plays, 67. 
 Mohammedan monotheism, 180, 
 
 185. 
 
 absence of scope for expan- 
 sion, 174. 
 failure to realise the ideal of 
 sex, 175 
 Monica, 127. 
 
 her paganism, 127. 
 submission to church authority, 
 127. 
 Monopoly of Bible printing, 38-9. 
 Monotheism, Jewish, partly of 
 political origin, 184-5, 
 190-1. 
 not final, 186, 187. 
 Moral progress not suggestive of 
 
 miracle, 304. 
 Morals disregarded by Church 
 Fathers where Bible was 
 concerned, 273. 
 not inseparable from miracu- 
 lous revelation, 219 and 
 note, 
 ordinary meaning of, 218. 
 religious sanction of, and note, 
 218. 
 " Morality touched with emo- 
 tion," all depends on 
 the source of emotion, 
 172-3. 
 Moses, anthropomorphic, 183. 
 
 and Pharaoh, 4. 
 -Mosheim, 71 «. 
 " Mother of God " according to 
 
 Paulicians, 102. 
 Mysteries, Eleusinian and later, 
 204. 
 Pagan and Christianity, 137. 
 Mysterienwesen, das antike, by 
 Gustav Aurich, 137 n. 
 
330 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Mystics, 59. 
 
 Mysticism, pious pre-Christian, 
 
 205. 
 Mythology, pagan, its hold on 
 
 the people contrasted 
 
 with that of the Jews and 
 
 Christians, 270. 
 
 Nathan, 184. 
 
 Neighbour's landmark, 296. 
 
 Nemesis of Fa tth, 296. 
 
 subject of the book a real 
 infidel, 297. 
 New birth in the fourth Gospel, 
 
 200. 
 " New Theology," 303. 
 Nicomedia, edict of, 153. 
 Nineteenth century the Bible 
 age, 34. 
 exceptional, 35. 
 Bible's apotheosis, 37. 
 Nineveh, 193. 
 
 Oaths sanctioned by Moses, but 
 
 denounced by Jesus, 163. 
 
 Old Testament, curious uses of, 
 
 18, 19, 81. 
 
 canon of, 194. 
 
 from Pantheist's point of view, 
 
 195. 
 in New Testament times, 160, 
 
 161. 
 mixed morals of, 220, 221. 
 not denied by Paulicians, iii. 
 Oral Gospel, 81. 
 Origen, 155, 276. 
 Ormulum, 86, 88. 
 " Orthodoxy," its immoral shifts, 
 265-6. 
 
 Pagan myths analogous to those 
 
 of Bible, 303, 
 Papias, 47, 76. 
 
 Paralysed man at Bethesda, 226. 
 St Augustine and Chrysostom, 
 
 226-8. 
 Parentalia, 127. 
 
 Parker, Archbishop, 48. 
 Patriarchs, twelve, testaments of, 
 
 194. 
 Paul, an obscure Paulician, 108. 
 Paul, St, almost certainly author 
 of Epistles to Corinthi- 
 ans, 249. 
 
 and Barnabas, 233. 
 
 and Elymas, 232. 
 
 and Stephen, 167. 
 
 anticipates Spinoza, 198. 
 
 apostle of better things than 
 behef, 250. 
 
 at Athens, 118. 
 
 difference between his treat- 
 ment of Old Testament 
 and that of Jesus, 165, 
 211-12. 
 
 fascination of his character, 
 231. 
 
 first Christian master of non- 
 natural interpretation, 
 168-9. 
 
 first Christian writer of author- 
 ity, 197. 
 
 followed by St Augustine and 
 many others, 169. 
 
 Genesis of his special form of 
 Christianity, 167. 
 
 his adaptation of Deut.xxx. 12, 
 80-1. 
 
 his epistles, worth of, 236,249. 
 
 his indifference to alleged 
 Jerusalem "decree," 233. 
 
 his limitations, 115. 
 
 his moral ideals marred by 
 theosophy, 208-9. 
 
 his occasional conformity, 235. 
 condemned by John Knox, 
 
 235- 
 his rabbinism, i66, 167. 
 his spirited conduct at Philippi, 
 
 234. 
 his vision, the test of what is 
 
 meant by " Resurrection," 
 
 196-7. 
 misplaced ingenuity, 166. 
 
INDEX 
 
 331 
 
 Paul, St, mystical misinterpreta- 
 tions, 165-6. 
 on Passover, 158. 
 on things offered to idols, 233. 
 owned no ecclesiastical au- 
 thority over himself, 118. 
 Pauline indifference to political 
 
 issues, 295-6. 
 puzzled by Jewish unbelief, 
 
 240-1. 
 re-maker of Christianity, 203. 
 Paulicians, 70, 97-115. 
 
 accused of impersonation, 103. 
 adoption of names of St. Paul's 
 
 followers, 102. 
 alleged Manichaeism of, 107, 
 
 112, 113, 202. 
 deported to Thrace, 114. 
 Gegnesius, 100, 108 and note, 
 illustratepowerof N.T.,99, 114. 
 make their way westward, 114. 
 martyrdoms, 105, 107. 
 Old Testament used by, in. 
 origin of name, 102. 
 Paul, an obscure leader of, 108. 
 perhaps earliest asserters of the 
 supreme authority of N.T. 
 as against the Church, 1 60. 
 precursors of Reformation, 113. 
 Protestant idea of, 115. 
 question of their morals, 104. 
 Sergius, 108, 113 n. 
 
 his probable methods, 1 1 1- 
 112. 
 their persistency, 106. 
 their prevarications, loi, etc. 
 Theodore, 108 and note, 
 violence of their opponents, 
 103 and note. 
 Peasant revolt in Germany, 60, 
 Nemesis on Church obscur- 
 antism, 62. 
 "Peoples of the Book," their 
 
 advantages, 282, 283. 
 Persecution by Christians, 246. 
 by Pagans, 244. 
 recent, 300. 
 
 Persecution, Pagan, subject of 
 
 condemnation not belief, 
 
 but practice, 244-6. 
 
 their attitude like that of O. 
 
 Cromwell to Catholics, 
 
 244-5- 
 Christian, condemnation not of 
 
 practice but belief, 246. 
 Peter, St, condemned by St Paul, 
 
 236. 
 on caution in use of Scripture, 
 
 79- 
 Petrus Siculus, 98, in. 
 Philemon, Epistle to, 251. 
 PhiUp the Evangelist, his test 
 
 for baptism, 209. 
 Photius, 98 and note, 105, 106, 
 
 113 n. 
 Piers Flow majt, 67, 210, 211. 
 Pilgrim's Progress^ 9? u. 
 Pindar and mysteries, 205. 
 Pisgah, a rhapsody, 20. 
 Plan of salvation, 8, 11, 115, 242, 
 
 279. 
 Polycarp, 157, 158, 159, 260. 
 Polycrates, Bp. of Ephesus, his 
 
 use of Scripture, 156 n. 
 Popular blindness to Biblical 
 
 difficulties, 4. 
 Presbyters and bishops, 151. 
 Priest father, i, 12, 41. 
 Priests in Middle Ages often 
 
 illiterate, 71. 
 Primacy, Papal, 78. 
 Primitive Church and Protestant- 
 ism, 148, etc. 
 Property and Bible, 294, 295. 
 Prophets, office of, 43-4, 64- 
 
 183. 
 what inspired them, 183, 189, 
 
 190. 
 Protestant inconsistency in judg- 
 ing the Catholic Church, 
 
 78. 
 Martyrs and Bible, 154- 
 view of the Bible, 80, 147, 148, 
 
 155, 159- 
 
332 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Prothero, Rowland E., on i8th 
 century, 41. 
 on Psalms, 20. 
 Psalms, popular use of, 42. 
 
 their exaltation of truth, 256-7. 
 Pulpit rhetoric, 234-5. 
 Puritanism, possible exaggeration 
 of its influence in 17th 
 century, 44. 
 
 Quakers and Bible, 44-5. 
 Quibbling, sacred, 241. 
 
 Radicals, socialists, and infidels. 
 
 Railway station texts, 13. 
 Rationalism, pseudo-, 167, 314. 
 "Reader," an ecclesiastical office, 
 
 139- 
 
 Reading in past time the privi- 
 lege of a few, 50. 
 
 Regeneration, — see Baptism. 
 
 "Reformation," how far human- 
 istic, 56. 
 especially in England, 58, 88. 
 
 Religion as loyalty to the whole, 
 
 as " morality touched with 
 
 emotion," 172. 
 dishonoured by insincerity, 
 
 265-7. 
 identified with Bible, 171. 
 its debt to science, 262. 
 moral connotations of gradual 
 
 development of, 182, 186, 
 
 187, 188. 
 not unreal because imperfect, 
 
 '74- 
 Religious statistics of British 
 
 empire, 32. 
 Republic of man and kingdom 
 
 of God, 188. 
 Resurrection, 196, 206. 
 Revelation, Book of, 150. 
 Revelation, difference between 
 
 primitive and modern 
 
 conception of, 150. 
 
 Reville, Jean, 221, 291. 
 " Revival " scenes, 10. 
 Romans, Epistle to, argument of, 
 
 237, etc. 
 repulsiveness of its treatment 
 
 of "election," 241. 
 "Rupert's drops," 279. 
 
 Sabbath observance condemned 
 in N.T., 165, 222, 224, 
 226. 
 Sacramentalism, 135-6-7. 
 "Sacred" and "secular," un- 
 hallowed divorce between, 
 , 272-3, 308. 
 Salvation Army, 254. 
 Salvation by faith, demoralising 
 forms of, 239-40. 
 degraded into salvation by 
 belief, 240, 243, 279, 283, 
 286. 
 effects on pubHc elementary 
 
 education, 281. 
 Mr Lecky on the results, 244. 
 this corruption condemned in 
 
 N.T., 243. 
 perhaps by 2 Peter, 244. 
 Samaritan woman, 221-2. 
 Samosata, 99. 
 Sanhedrim, 194. 
 Sapphira, her death as "act of 
 
 God," 231 note. 
 Savoy, 69. 
 
 Science, its gift to religion, 262. 
 Sciolism and irreverence, 35-6. 
 Scottish Kirk, 41. 
 Scribes and Pharisees, possibly 
 exaggerated notions of 
 their wickedness, 202. 
 Seams, palpable, in joining of 
 
 Biblical documents, 4. 
 "Seed," as expounded by St 
 
 Paul, 166. 
 Sergius Sychicus, a leading 
 Paulician, 108. 
 his dangerous virtues, in. 
 his probable methods, 112. 
 
INDEX 
 
 333 
 
 Sergius Tychicus, probably 
 
 slandered by Photius, 
 
 113 n, 
 "Shaftesbury, the good Lord," 
 
 28. 
 Shakespeare and Bible, 54-58. 
 Sheol and Hades, 204. 
 Shorthand reports of sermons 
 
 in 4th century, 143 n. 
 Shylock and Jacob, 55. 
 "Simple Bible religion," entirely 
 
 modern, 138, 144, 150. 
 Sin, its fetishistic connotations, 
 
 312-13. 
 Sinaitic Codex, 151 «. 
 Sirach, Book of, 194. 
 Slavery and Christianity, 251, 
 
 Socialism, 261 «., 262, 319 and 
 note. 
 
 Socrates, 259, 260, 277. 
 
 Solomon, 6. 
 
 Songs, earliest sacred, 178. 
 
 Sophia, St, Church of, scene in, 
 141, 147. 
 
 Sortes bibliccE, 128. 
 
 *' Sorus," the Paulician martyr's 
 cairn, 105. 
 
 South Sea Islands, 34 n. 
 
 Spade work of 19th century, and 
 its effect on belief, 171. 
 
 Spencer, Herbert, 173, 306. 
 and Spinoza, 173. 
 
 Spinoza and the Bible, 168, 173, 
 181, 185, 311, 312, 318. 
 coincidence with St Paul, 198. 
 his recommendation of me- 
 morised maxims, 316, 
 bearing on value of Bible, 
 316. 
 
 Spiritual day-dreams, 5. 
 
 "Sprinkled with the blood of 
 Jesus," 310. 
 
 Spurgeon, 145. 
 
 Stephen, 167. 
 
 Sternhold and Hopkins, 42. 
 
 Subliminal self, 170, 189. 
 
 Sumerian records, 217. 
 Sunderland, shipping without 
 
 Bibles in 19th century, 
 
 39- 
 Symeon, judge and convert, 105, 
 
 106. 
 as Titus, 107. 
 martyrdom, 107. 
 Synoptic Gospels, their charm, 
 
 221. 
 
 Tate and Brady, 42. 
 
 Tauler, 59 and note. 
 
 Tel el Amarna letters, 303. 
 
 Ten Commandments, 12, 225, 
 
 .311.319- 
 forbid the sculptor's noblest 
 
 art, 83 «. 
 Tennyson's In Memortam^ 187, 
 
 299. 
 Tephrice, 97, 114. 
 Teutonic conversion, 121. 
 Teutons adopt Christ as their 
 
 fighting god, 121. 
 Theologica Germanica, 59. 
 Theology, old and new, 312-13. 
 Timothy (Paulician), 102, 103. 
 Tisserands, 71. 
 Titus (Paulician), 102, 103. 
 Toleration under Roman empire, 
 
 245. 
 difficult of application to 
 
 Christianity, 245. 
 limited notions of, quoted by 
 
 J. S. Mill, 300. 
 Tolk, lege! 128. 
 Toulouse, Council of, 63 «., 74, 
 
 82, 84. 
 Tradition, preference of, early 
 
 Church for, 156. 
 Tychicus (Paulician), 102, 103. 
 Tyndale, 48, 51. 
 
 Ulphilas, 91, 121. 
 Understanding and worship, 3. 
 Universe, its true perfection, 305, 
 note. 
 
334 
 
 INDEX 
 
 "Unknown God," allusion a 
 
 rhetorical artifice, 234. 
 Ur of the Chaldees, 184. 
 Uriah, 184. 
 
 Vagaries of religion, 29. 
 
 Vatican Codex, 151 «. 
 
 Vaudois, 71. 
 
 Vedas, 2, 217. 
 
 Veracity, 255, 259, 261, 263, 
 
 319- 
 little regarded in earlier O.T., 
 
 256. 
 revived in Psalms, 256, 257. 
 revival in the present day, 267. 
 Vernacular versions, difficulty of, 
 
 91. 
 Victor, Bp. of Rome, 156-7. 
 Vision of Moses, 183. 
 Vulgate, 91. 
 
 Waldenses, 70. 
 
 their use of the Bible, 72. 
 Waldo, Peter, 72. 
 
 his Bible, 73. 
 Wars of the Lord, Book of, 178, 
 
 195. 
 Watts's hymns, 187. 
 
 "Way-faring men," in Isaiah, 80. 
 Wesley and Whitefield, 40, 43. 
 Wesley's hymns, 187. 
 Whittingham, William, and the 
 
 Geneva Bible, 48. 
 Wilberforce, 28. 
 " Will to believe," 247. 
 Wimborne Minster, its chained 
 
 library, 53 «. 
 "Wisdom of Solomon," 194. 
 Witchcraft, 278. 
 " Without note or comment," 26, 
 
 27 n., 30, 32. 
 Wordsworth, 187. 
 Wooton Wawen, chained books, 
 
 53 «• 
 "Wrath to come," 200. 
 Wycliffe, 48, 59, 63, 64, 65, 66, 
 
 67, 88, 210. 
 Wycliffite heroism, 63. 
 motives of, 64. 
 
 Zend Avesta, 2. 
 
 Zeno, Bp. of Antioch, 139. 
 
 Zeus as "father of gods and 
 
 men," 201. 
 Zoroastrian "two principles" and 
 
 Manichaeism, 107. 
 
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