Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/778

Rh 742 HERMENEUTICS generally taken, however, to have respect to the communi cation as well as the acquisition of the thoughts of the Biblical writers. This larger definition, which is as ancient at least as Augustine s statement of the two things &quot; quibus nititur omnis tractatio Scripturse, modus inveniendi quae intelligenda sunt et modus proferendi quee intellecta sunt &quot; (De Doctr, Christ, i. 1), has been formally accepted or practically acted on by most modern authorities. It is con sonant with the currency of the terms ep/r^ei w, ep^ve^s, ep,u?7VUT77s (connected it may be with Hermes, but not derived from that, such use of a deity s name being prob ably unexampled). 1 These in the classics express both expounding (Pindar, 0., 2, 153) and interpreting or trans lating a foreign language to others (Xen., Anab., i. 2, 17 ; Herod., ii. 125); while in the New Testament ep/ATjvevftv means to translate (John i, 39, 43) and SiEp/r^i/evcu/ to expound, interpret, or translate (Luke xxiv, 27, 1 Cor. xii. 30, Acts ix. 36). The definition is in harmony too with the Protestant idea of exegesis as an art which brings the con tents of Scripture to the general understanding, and the Protestant conception of the direct approach of God s word to man s heart by Scripture. As the theory of the interpre tative art hermeneutics is usually taken to be an historical science, forming a subdivision of historical theology. Where, however, a fourfold, instead of a threefold, distribution of theological science is adopted, it is assigned to literary theo logy, It presupposes such disciplines as textual criticism and Biblical introduction, while it may exercise a reflex influence on some of the discussions with which these are conversant. Although practice precedes theory, and only through the use of the art of interpretation can the principles of interpretation be reached, as it is out of Scripture itself that the laws of Scriptural exposition must be drawn, theoretically this science precedes exegesis and forms an indispensable preparation for Biblical theology. Much which it has been the custom to embrace within it belongs really to general hermeneutics. The limits properly assignable to it are comparatively narrow, its immediate object being to decide how the laws of general hermeneutics are related to the particular records known as Scripture. The propriety of a special Biblical hermeneutic is established so far as Scripture is proved to be more than an ordinary literature. The Christian who comes to the Bible with the conviction that it is the record of divine communications, and with the experience that it is the medium through which God has spoken to him and led him into new relations to Himself, has to ask whether the principles of ordinary hermeneutics have to be modified or supplemented when applied to these books. Neither the Christian recognition of the spiritual character of Scripture nor the Protestant asser tion of the right of private judgment, the perspicuity of Scripture, and the laity s direct interest in the Bible, warrants the extreme position assumed among some sects, that a scholarly interpretation and, therefore, a science of hermeneutics are superfluous. Being a literary record com posed in languages which demand the exegetical praxis of translation, and produced under circumstances, by writers, and for readers widely removed in date and character from our present acquaintance, Scripture requires a scientific process for its exposition, and the laws of that process must be verified. The peculiar value which attaches to it as a holy literature makes this the more needful, the exceptional position assigned it rendering its interpretation opener to the invasion of prepossession and private religious ideas. The exclusive authority ascribed to these books by the Protestant, who accepts them as the only rule of faith and life, gives him a special interest in hermeneutics. The concrete and historical form in which their spiritual teach ing appears, the figurative, typical, and symbolical terms 1 See article HEIIMES, and compare Curtius, Greek Etymology, 350. so largely used in them, the numerous presuppositions on which their statements of religious truth and fact proceed, suggest the necessity of such a discipline. The qualities of Scripture which render its appeal to the common under standing distinct and immediate are arguments for scientific intelligence in educing from its declarations nothing more and nothing less than their exact intention. The interpre ter s function being, not to develop some meaning which the words might bear to present students or which the first readers may have seen in them, but simply to ascertain with precision and completeness the ideas which the writers themselves meant to convey, it may be said with Schleier- macher that in a certain sense the interpreter lias to educe more than the author introduced. The former has to bring out into clearness much that influenced the latter half- unconsciously in his composition, and to give objective expression to much that underlies his definite statements. Hence the special need for a scientific hermeneutic in the case of a book like the Bible, in which there is so much that is implicit. The vast variety of results reached in crucial passages, and the wide diversities of method which have been pursued among individual exegetes and in exegetical schools, make the propriety and utility of such a science the more apparent. Since Christopher Wolle (Ilermeneutica Novi Foederis acroamatico-doymatica certissimis defecata philosophic? prin- cijtiis corroborata eximiisque omnium Theologian Christiana; partium ustbus inserviens, Leipsic, 1736) the hermeneutics of the New Testament, for the sake of convenience or on grounds of scientific distinction, has often been separated from the hermeneutics of the Old Testament. The scien tific union or disjunction of these disciplines depends on the view entertained of the mutual relations of the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian. Where the Bible is seen to constitute an organic whole, the hermeneutical principles applicable to the two Testaments are treated in connexion. It then becomes one great object of the science to grasp the differences which are discovered within the unity of Scrip ture, and exhibit what account has to be taken of these in the art of interpretation. A distinct position, however, naturally belongs to Jewish hermeneutics, which dealt with the Hebrew Scriptures as at once the entire written revela tion of God, and the repertory of the highest wisdom on all subjects of human inquiry. The results of the scientific study of the Old Testament, which was carried on with vast activity from Ezra s time by numerous scribes and in great schools and colleges (Jerusalem, Tiberias, Sura, Pumbeditha, Nahardea, &c.), are seen in the Talmudical writings, the Mishna giving authoritative enlargements and explanations of the law, and the Gemara, in its twofold form of Jeru salem Talmud edited at Tiberias, and Babylonian Talmud proceeding from Sura, containing further commentaries, fantastic definitions, and explanations of prior explanations (see TALMUD). The most ancient Jewish interpretation of Scripture, the Midrash (&quot; study,&quot; &quot; investigation&quot;), which assumed a fixed character during the period of the second temple and gradually formed a literature, ran out into two great branches, logical or legal exposition, and practical or homiletical exposition. The former, designated &quot;Halacha&quot; (&quot; rule by which to walk,&quot; &quot; binding precept &quot;), brought the law to bear upon points of religious or general interest on which there was no explicit declaration. It confined itself chiefly to the Pentateuch, extracting from it by numerous exegetical expedients a body of &quot;Halachoth &quot; or sopheric precepts (cf. Matt. xv. 2, Mark vii. 3), which were held authoritative. These, after a long period of oral trans mission, gradually assumed written form, and passed finally through a process of compilation, classification, and redaction which extended perhaps from about two centuries before to two centuries after Christ. The latter,