Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/784

Rh 748 the Biblical statements in the light of historical occasion and intention, in laying the foundations of a truer typology, and in exhibiting with its Christward testimony the historical basis of Messianic prophecy. The coryphaei of Protestant exegesis were aided by Beza, Bucsr, Bullinger, (Ecolampadius, and others. At length the hermeneutics of the Reformation found symbolical expression in the Pro testant definitions of the exclusive sufficiency of Scripture, its perspicuity under the use of the ordinary means and with the teaching of the Holy Spirit, its possession of a sense which is one and not manifold, and its interpretation by itself. In the Clavis Scriptural Saenz of M. Flacius Illyricus it was cast for the first time into systematic form, and dealt with theoretically. With the Reformation objective exegesis may be said to have been firmly established. The conditions were also laid for further hermeneutical progress. Since then the prin ciples of true grammatico-historical interpretation have been gradually coming to be better understood and more success fully applied. This has not been the case, however, without frequent relapses. In various schools there have been revivals of old errors. There has been a return to the subjective tendency, e.g., in the &quot;moral interpretation&quot; of Kant, as well as in various forms of rationalistic and Socinian exegesis. In accordance with his ideas of the empiric and local order of an historical faith, and his defini tion of morality as the essence of religion, Kant held that the judgments of the pure reason must be the test of religious truth, and that the literal sense, when it seems to convey a meaning adverse to morality, inconsistent with reason, or unworthy of God, must have a new meaning found for it. His hermeneutics, therefore, did not profess to rest with the sense intended by the writer, but reckoned it legitimate to adopt any possible sense which should be con formable to the interests of perfect morality. To the same tendency belong the &quot;psychological interpretation&quot; of Paulus and Eichhorn, and the mythical interpretation of Weisse and Strauss. Of these the former proposed to hermeneutics the task of distinguishing the realities from the inexact impressions formed of facts by the sacred writers, while the latter sought principles by which the idea might be disentangled from the narr.itive vesture which it had woven for itself. Pietism, too, although its leaders, Spener and Francke, were of a better spirit, degenerated through its straining after &quot; edifying &quot; interpretation into mystic and chiliastic licence. The dependent tendency, again, formulated in the symbolical definitions on the sub ject of the Vulgate as the basis of exegesis, the church as the authoritative interpreter, and the pope as the infallible exponent of the church in official declarations on faith and morals, has become so firmly seated in the Roman Catholic communion that the interpreter s attitude to the church is capable of being compared by a Catholic author to that of a diplomatist acting in the spirit and interest of his prince. 1 It is followed, too, by that section of the English Church which defers to primitive tradition or the consent of the fathers of the first four centuries. Even among those who adhere to the Protestant positions there has been partial reaction in both directions. The subjective tendency has reasserted itself, e.g., in the artificial typology of the Cocceian school, although Cocceius hims3lf rather deserves the credit of making Protestant theology, after it had entered its scholastic period, again more Biblical, and of enforcing the importance of a literal, contextuil interpretation. The dependent tendency has reappeared where the &quot;analogy of faith,&quot; instead of being kept to the original idea of the general contents of Scripture as gathered from the lucid passages and used for a help to the understanding of the 1 Loelmis, Grv.ndziiye der biblischen Hermeneidik und Kritik, p. 151, Giessen, 1839. obscurer, has been identified with the creeds and employed as an external standard of interpretation. But with partial retrogression there has been an advance on the whole in Protestant hermeneutics. To this inter preters of very different schools have contributed. Among these are to be mentioned Sal. Glassius, the author of the Philologla Sacra, Hugo Grotius, Abr. Calov, G. Calixtus, J. J. Rambach, whose Institutiones Ilerme-neutica; Sacrce exercised a salutary influence, notwithstanding his inclina tion to the pietist principle of &quot; emphasis &quot; in interpreta tion ; J. A. Bengel, in whose Gnomon a happy union was effected between pietism and science; and J. S. Semler, who did much for the expansion of historical interpretation, not withstanding the injurious results of his theory of accom modation. Of still greater importance are J. A. Ernesti, to whose celebrated Institutio Interprets Novi Testameuti last century was indebted for the scientific presentation of the soundest hermeneutical principles on the philological side; Friedr. Schleiermacher, whose Hermeneiiiik abounds in fertile suggestions, and brings out for the first time the necessity of recognizing a specifically Christian element in the language of the New Testament ; and F. Liicke, who illustrates the just combination of the strictest scientific method with the primary qualification of spiritual sympathy with the Word in the true interpreter. Extensions of hermeneutical method have bean attempted, in the form of defining a special &quot;psychological&quot; (Staudlin), &quot;theological&quot; (Klausen, Landerer), or &quot; dogmatic &quot; (Doedes) interpreta tion, or in the form of proposing new modes of interpretation, such as the &quot; testhetical &quot; of Pareau, the &quot; pneumatical &quot; of Beck, the &quot; panharmonic &quot; of Germar. But whatever is valid in these schemes comes within the ordinary gramma- tico-historical method. Properly understood, the historical side of that method covers all that concerns the transporta tion of the exegete, not only into the times and circum stances of the composition of the books, but also into the position and personality of the authors. It embraces therefore that subjective quality which, however variously designated as the religious preparation, sympathy with the writers and their message, spiritual tact, or the illumina tion of the Holy Spirit, has been recognized by the best interpreters to be a primary and essential requisite. The development of these principles has been greatly helped by the grammatical studies of men like Gesenius, Ewald, Ols- hausen, and Bottcher in Hebrew, and Winer and Buttmann in Greek; by the literary, historical, critical, and theologi cal investigations of Herder, Baur, Rothe, Hofmann, and many others ; and above all by the exegetical practice of scientific expositors such as De Wette, Bleek, Hupfeld, Liicke, Meyer, Godet, Ellicott, Lightfoot, and Delitzsch. Results are thus being gathered which will issue in new enlargements of hermeneutical method. A clearer insight is being gained into the genius of the languages, which has already rescued New Testament Greek from purist and Hebraist extremes, and into the nature of typology, the laws of prophecy, the relation of the two Testaments to each other, the historical delivery and development of their contents, the unity (so distinguishable from uniformity) which animates their different sections. In these directions there is the promise of further progress in hermeneutics. More exact inquiry into the presuppositions which underlie the Biblical doctrines will also tell upon the laws of interpretation. Differences in hermeneutical method, how ever, run up finally into differences of conception on the origin of the sacred literature, its intention, and the spirit which animates it. Uncertainty of view on the subject of what Scripture is and what its inspiration covers, as seen in the symbols of the churches and in the widely divergent positions affirmed by representative theologians of different schools (rf., e.g., those expounded respectively by Chemnitz,