ART. VI.-Constructive Exegesis.1

EXEGESIS in its broadest sense includes the whole function

of interpretation as employed upon the Holy Scriptures. The interpreter acts as the mediator between mind and mind in the transmission of thought. Taken at the highest, his office is that of the prophet, who receives directly the thought of God and communicates it to man. In this Article, however, exegesis will be considered simply as employed in understanding the Scriptures, leaving out of view the methods by which its results are to be made available for the use or advantage of others. As thus employed it aims to elicit from a given passage or book the whole thought and purpose of the writer.

Schleiermacher, indeed, included interpretation as a whole under the definition die Kunst des Verstehens, "the art of understanding." Inadequate as the definition is, it undoubtedly penetrates to what is fundamental. An art, truly, and apt in this age of much reading to lag behind in the so-called progress of the arts! The searching challenge of Philip the Evangelist, "Understandest thou what thou readest?" (yvwσKELS à (γινώσκεις ávayiváσkeis; the felicitous paranomasia of the Greek being perhaps untranslateable) still goes to the heart of the matter, and needs fresh and constant iteration with more than Socratic pertinacity, in the ear of every student of the Bible.

In what sense, or to what extent, is exegesis, thus considered, constructive? The question concerns the order and the aim of the entire exegetic process. In raising, and in attempting to answer, this inquiry, I would address the student, as well as the professional expounder of the Biblethe reader, as well as the writer, of commentaries. We are at present witnessing a remarkable revival of Biblical studies; the press is teeming with commentaries. The appearance of the Anglo-American Revised New Testament has awakened a fresh general interest in the problems and principles that specially concern the exegete. Surely, there

1 From the Bibliotheca Sacra.

was never more need that Biblical interpretation should subject its methods to critical inquiry, ground its work upon broad philosophical principles, and obtain the clearest possible conception of its own ideal. Any real progress will much depend upon its keeping steadily in view the true goal of its course in order to press thitherward with undiverted energies. My main object in this Article is to show that in the exegetic process the constructive idea should dominate throughout. Precisely what is meant by constructive--should any ambiguity attach to the term in this connection-will very soon appear.

Let us hasten to admit that in no field of inquiry is minute criticism and analysis more necessary, in none has it been more productive. The tracing of etymologies, the discrimination of synonyms, analysis of grammatical forms and functions to the last degree of minuteness, have breathed new life into many a dead form of ancient speech, and recovered to Biblical science many a long lost, but germinant and fruitful fact. Kühner's analysis of the sentence, which Professor Greene has elaborated to still greater perfection, and has introduced to the familiar acquaintance of American students, has contributed not a little to lucid exegesis. Witness also the value of a single historical investigation, as given in The Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul, by James Smith of Jordanhill. Still, there is a line to be drawn between studies that are auxiliary to exegesis and exegesis itself. History, philology, archæology, criticism-these are indispensable to the interpreter, and the interpreter to them. Without them he has neither tools nor materials; they, in turn, can but grope blindly among the archives of the past without the organon which it is the office. of interpretation to furnish. Let us now consider

THE FIRST STAGE OF THE EXEGETIC PROCESS.

I. Exegesis begins with Particulars; namely, with the Examination of Words and Phrases.-Its method from the very outset is, and must be, scientific. It grounds all its work upon the minutest analysis of phenomena. The elements of expression are scrutinised in the light of the widest inductive research. Exegesis first applies itself to ascertain, with the aid of lexicography and grammar, the meanings of words and

their relations in the sentence. It seeks for sharply-defined terms and vivid impressions of single thoughts. The meaning of every particle, even of each component factor of it that had a meaning, is indispensable to the success of the investigation. No atom or fibre of the discourse, provided the atom or the fibre were still living, can be allowed to escape the interpreter's scrutiny. He is not concerned with words as relics, with their historical associations or transformations as such, but with that which they signified to him who spoke them. To penetrate to the life of the word and of the sentence, to their signification at the time when they were uttered, this is his first and indispensable task. Hence he accepts in its literal truth the well-known dictum of Melanchthon: "Scripturam non posse intelligi theologice, nisi antea sit intellectum grammatice."

With this first stage of the exegetical process,—which perhaps answers to grammatical exegesis, in the larger sense of the term, many seem to stop, or at least to consider their main task accomplished. The reasons are various. One is, that, though but a first step, it is a slow and difficult one. It is a task requiring large knowledge, acute observation, laborious and widely-extended inductive research. Besides, it is, in the very nature of the case, accompanied by exegetic processes of a higher order, which impart a certain appearance of completeness to the result. Bishop Ellicott, in his commentaries on the Epistles of Paul, has for the most part restricted himself to this stage of the work. These commentaries testify to the possibilities of the grammatical process rigorously applied, and by the hand of a master. The author, it seems to me, goes beyond the proper province of a commentator in incorporating into his notes so much grammatical and lexical material not needed for the elucidation of the passage in hand. As it is, suitable indexes would have made this material far more useful to the New Testament student.

Another reason why exegesis is often confined to the explanation of single words and sentences, is to be found in the homiletical motive with which the Scriptures are studied, taken in connection with the habit of preaching from single Broad, deep knowledge of the Bible is not to be

verses.

Inconvenience of Verse-arrangement.

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attained by studying texts and difficult passages. Still a third reason may be found in the verse-arrangement that has so long prevailed in our modern Bibles-the printing of each verse as if it were a separate paragraph. The revisers of the New Version rightly speak of it in their preface as interposing "serious obstacles to the right understanding of the Holy Scriptures." Happily they also set the example of a return to the earlier and better method of printing in longer paragraphs. Notwithstanding all that has been said upon the subject, the great majority of readers have but a slight apprehension of the mischievous effect of the prevalent method of printing. How it tends to obscure the sense of a passage may be seen by comparing the first twelve verses of the second chapter of Philippians with the original. A curious instance of the obliteration of an important historical transition may be found in Mark iii. 19. In many of the best editions of the Oxford Bible it reads, with a period before and after: "And Judas Iscariot which also betrayed him; and they went into an house." Examining the whole passage, we see that the first half of the verse forms the close of Mark's account of the appointment of the twelve; the latter half, "and they went into an house," begins his account of the memorable warning given to the scribes against incurring the guilt of an eternal sin. It took place probably several months after the appointment of the twelve, certainly after an extended preaching tour in Galilee had intervened.

Nor is it merely the unlearned reader who is thus misled. What exegete has arisen on American soil of greater learning than Joseph Addison Alexander? Yet in his Commentary

on Mark-a work whose value it would be superfluous to indorse here-we find the two clauses of the above-mentioned verse explained as if forming integral parts of the same section; an oversight on the part of the author that we can scarcely account for, except by referring it to the long-continued habit of seeing and reading them together.

Linguistic learning and tastes predispose an exegete to expend disproportionate time upon the meaning of a single word,-disproportionate, I mean, so far as such investigation is made part of the exegetic process. For it is apt to become a study of the linguistic form rather than of the actual

thought for which it stands, or it becomes an inquiry into a fact for its own sake, and thus diverts the attention of the interpreter from more difficult and important problems. Not that exegesis can make too much use of etymology, lexicography, or archæology; but these are sciences in their own right, they are not exegesis, and for its purpose are only servitors and auxiliaries. Hence the significance of the old maxim of law, Qui hæret in litera hæret in cortice, "He who considers merely the letter of an instrument, goes but skindeep into its meaning; " or, as again paraphrased by Broom, "He who too minutely regards the form of expression, takes but a superficial, and therefore probably an erroneous, view of the meaning of an instrument."

Science, as well as philosophy, is impatient of disjecta membra. Whatever be the concrete object presented to its contemplation, it seeks to bring separate parts into their proper order, and to conceive of the object as a whole. Now the objects which are presented to the contemplation of exegetical science are the most perfect products of the mind,products which must therefore exhibit complexity and unity in the highest degree. "You will allow," says Plato, "that every discourse ought to be a living creature, having its own body and head and feet." That is, in discourse properly so called, the thought to be conveyed must be somewhat highly organised, and the structure of the discourse must have a corresponding degree of organic completeness. The first and chief task of the speaker or the writer is thus to give organic form to his thought. He labours to combine, construct, create. This creative or constructive process takes place within his own mind. Perfection there assures perfection in expression. Now, the interpreter aims to follow the workings of the writer's mind; he thinks his thoughts after him; his sympathy with the writer must be such as to enable him to reproduce in great measure the original constructive process. Hence, the description of particulars, and the grammatical analysis which have been spoken of above, only constitute a preparation for the most important part of his work. These particulars he must construct anew in terms furnished by his own thinking and experience, till the whole thought and purpose of the writer have taken living form in his own soul.