on Theological Literature.

575

But

work of Hippolytus of Portus (if we may trust Bunsen). every one of these are favourable, and only favourable, to the old conclusions as to the canon and text of Scripture, so far as they touch the subject at all. Have any new lights of importance been thrown upon dates or the genuineness of patristic writings since the era of Cave, Bentley, and the other great critics who settled the estimation of this literature? Have any testimonies as to the Canon been unearthed more authoritative than those of Caius and Eusebius? None. The materials remain substantially as they were, when the renewed and exhaustive research of a Hug, an Alexander, and a Sampson, made a final settlement for fair minds of the Canon. But the new criticism goes on, shuffling its pack of cards over and over without any ground, making its new deals of pretended conclusions, which have nearly as much fortuity, and as little authority, as the deals of the fortune-teller's cards.

But it is claimed that, though the materials remain substantially the same, the advance of philology has given a new apparatus of exposition, and the methods of the new criticism place the data in new lights.

No one can be readier than the writer to recognise with gratitude every collateral ray of light thrown on exegesis by philology. But the recent beams are, compared with the great flood thrown by the Reformed exegetes of the previous ages, slender side-lights, and they are in the main confirmatory of the old orthodox methods and conclusions. To say that modern philology has furnished any grounds for revolutionising exegesis is simply a boastful misrepresentation. Let Winer be taken as the most illustrious example. His Rationalism was probably so entire as to create for him the conditions of a complete grammatical equity and impartiality, by means of his very indifference to the doctrines extracted from the text. It made no difference to his prejudices or feelings whether the Scriptures were so interpreted as to teach Calvinism or semiPelagianism, since to him they were no inspired authority for anything. Hence he could investigate their grammatical laws with the same equanimity as those of Tyrtæus or Pindar. What has been the result? That the principles of his grammatical constructions give the same conclusions in exegesis usually reached in Calvin's. In the minuter details and accomplishments of exegesis, he completes Calvin's exegetical

results; in a few cases he differs from him, usually not for the better.

As for the methods of the new internal criticism, we meet the claim by a direct denial of their correctness. "By their fruits ye shall know them." Their most pungent condemnation is from their clashing results in the hands of their own advocates. On such critical premises an ingenious man might prove almost anything about any authentic writing. A much more plausible argument could be made to prove that the history of the first Napoleon is mythical (as Archbishop Whately showed), than that the Gospels of Jesus are mythical. One maxim of the common-sense of mankind contains a refutation of the most of these criticisms: that "Truth is often stranger than fiction."

Only one of these so-called critical principles-one now exceedingly fashionable-will be mentioned in conclusion.

Protestant expositors have always admitted the utility of learning all that is possible of the personality of the human penman of the inspired document, of his times, education, opinions, modes of thought, idiosyncrasy of language, and nationality. Why? Because it is possible that any of these, when authentically known, may throw a side-light, usually a dim one, on the interpretation of his words. But now this obvious old admission is travestied and reappears in this form: that the human author's ascertained doctrinal "standpoint" is to dictate our construction of his inspired writing. And this sometimes when the doctrinal standpoint is the one he held before his conversion to the gospel! Clearly this principle begs the whole question of that writer's inspiration. On the orthodox theory of inspiration, that the Holy Spirit, using the man as his amanuensis, did not suppress the human element of thought and style, but directed it infallibly to the giving of the form of expression designed by God for the composition, the penman's personal traits would naturally appear in the verbal medium of the divine thought. But even then they would not be allowed to vitiate the perfect truth of that thought. But to say that the propositions themselves were the results of the human writer's education and opinions is simply to say that he had no inspiration. If the sacred writers claimed inspiration, and sufficiently attested the truth of the claim, then this theory of exposition is naught.

R. L. DABNEY.

Aids to the Study of Hebrew.

577

THE

ART. IX.-Current Literature.

revival of interest in Hebrew study has created a demand for improved tools. The time-honoured handbook of Gesenius, which has rendered such long and worthy service, fails in many important particulars to represent the best results of recent research. The original work has been corrected and improved, in numberless details, by the successive editors, Roediger and Kautsch; but of necessity the book remains destitute of scientific plan and proportion, while it conveys no idea whatever of the organic unity and development of the language. In Germany, the giant Grammars of Ewald, Olshausen, and Böttelur have furnished the material for a number of smaller and more practical treatises by Nägelsbach, Müller, Stade, and in Holland by Land. In our own country several excellent manuals have appeared, of which by far the best, in point of scientific structure and practical use, is the Introductory Hebrew Grammar by Professor Davidson of Edinburgh. For the beginner the book is perfect, but unfortunately it lacks a Syntax. Among the smaller Hebrew Grammars in German none stands higher than the SchulGrammatik of Dr. Müller (1), and the best bit of work in it is the Syntax. The author is an eminent Arabic scholar. He makes good use of the analogies and suggestions furnished by the system of Arabic grammar. But he has been careful to leave full room for the psychological element, and, in interpreting the peculiarities of Hebrew speech, he has kept his eyes open to the general relations of all the Semitic dialects. The great principles and formative forces of the language are brought out with much distinctness, and then the details are exhibited. under these in their genetic connection. The plan of the whole is systematic and comprehensive, while for the size of the work the treatment is singularly minute and particular. True, this logical method sometimes entails the disadvantage of scattering similar phenomena over several sections, and combining dissimilar facts in the same paragraph. But the

(1) Outlines of Hebrew Syntax, by Dr. A. Müller. Translated and Edited by Professor Robertson of Glasgow. James Maclehose and Sons, 1882. VOL. XXXI.-NO. CXXI.

2 P

practical loss is slight, and is more than compensated by the scientific gain. Moreover, the author's elaborate system of cross-references puts it in the power of the painstaking student to entirely obviate this necessary defect. The style is nearly always clear, and in the translation-thanks to Professor Robertson, who has also materially added to the accuracy and completeness of the work-the meaning is sometimes made even more plain and pointed than it is in the original. No better tools could be used by the young student of Hebrew, who desires to secure a rapid and intelligent mastery of the language, than Dr. Davidson's Grammar for the Accidence, and this excellent treatise of Dr. Müller's for the Syntax. The certain alliance of the two works in the service of Hebrew study must have been foreseen by the publisher, for in respect of size and shape the books are a perfect match.

We think it may safely be said that the Church of our time has had few contributions to its theological thought equal in value-or anything like equal in value-to Dr. Dorner's System of Doctrine (2), of which the third and fourth volumes are now before us in English dress. It is therefore with some regret that we feel it necessary-for the present at least to pass them over with the comparatively brief notice which the limits of this article afford. We cannot peruse a page or sentence without feeling that we are in the company of a master-mind, a mind which has done much hard and lonely wrestling in the darker places of Christian doctrine and the result of this wrestling is the book before us. It need not be said surely, that in expressing the exceptionally high value of this work, we do not accept all its positions; indeed, it seems to us one main part of its value, though detracting in some sort from its completeness, that it keeps us arguing with the writer from point to point, testing in our own way the strength of his premises, disagreeing with him sometimes, and so travelling onward along the line of his conclusions to conclusions which are substantially our own.

(2) A System of Christian Doctrine, by Dr. J. A. Dorner, Oberconsistatorialrath and Professor of Theology, Berlin. Translated by Rev. Alfred Cave, B.A., Principal and Professor of Theology, Hackney College, London, and Rev. J. S. Banks, Professor of Theology, Wesleyan College, Leeds. Vols. iii. and iv. Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark.

Dorner's 'System of Christian Doctrine.'

579

Volume iii. commences with a discussion of the doctrine of Evil, which impresses us at the very first by the calmness and patience with which the argument is conducted, leaving us to contrast Dorner's treatment with the comparatively crude discussions of the subject with which we have grown familiar at home. His position is that the beginning of evil is formed in an act, not in a state; while, as to its origin, he dismisses, after a remarkably subtle and elaborate treatment, the theory of its origination either in dualism or in the Divine unity, and finds it somewhere within the region of creaturely freedom, where alone, as it seems to us, it can be found. "The origin of evil in general has its adequate ground in creaturely freedom. Only the possibility of evil can therefore coincide with the creation, and God cannot be called the author of its reality." We cannot follow the author into his chapters regarding evil in its universality, in which he travels round again the whole circle of the doctrine regarding the Fall and human depravity, pronouncing substantially for the Reformation doctrine, but with some reservations upon the subject of representative sin which do not quite satisfy or convince us. The question of the personality of the Devil is handled with remarkable ability, and Dorner shows how the abstract principle of evil is ever, as it were, striving after a complete personality for itself, yet ends only in "endeavour," whilst yet this leaves room for the existence of a spirit in which, in a great measure, evil realises itself, and in effect reigns. supreme. The latter portion of this volume treats of Christology-first, historically, as expressed in the Old and New Testaments, and in the teaching of the Church, ancient and modern; and, second, dogmatically, as represented in Christ's person and offices. Dr. Dorner thus summarises his view as to the "ecclesiastical development of Christology:"

"The entire apostolic testimony is partly appropriated by the Church in a manner always more complete, and is partly unfolded and dogmatically verified in a manner always more comprehensive, hence the ecclesiastical development of Christology begins at the lowest canonical stage, and under the guidance and stimulus of the Spirit of God and the word of the canon, attains the principal elements of Christology, and establishes their internally sure connection. The history of this doctrine falls into three periods. The first, to A.D. 381, establishes the two sides ('natures') of the Person of Christ according to their main elements. The second, to the end of the eighteenth