Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/167

 INSPIRATION 155 Special ihm Ley/hit,?, R) ; ]mt ho says that there arc degrees of inspiration, and that all portions of Scripture are not equally inspired, or at least have not the same depth of inspiration. Moses has the first place in the scale of inspired writers ; he is upxt/rpo^Tv??, while others are Mtoucrews fralpot, fj.aOr]Tai, $iacra)Tai, e^oir^rat, yvajpi^ but this idea of degrees of inspiration, a conception borrowed from Plato, does not seem to prevent Philo from thinking that the very words of the Old Testament were all inspired of God (Vit. J/os., 2, 7). It was also common opinion among the Rabbins of the early Middle Ages that the inspiration of the Old Testament required that, not merely the thoughts and words of Scripture, but even the vowel points and accents were thcmselvc of divine origin; but this idea seems to have been com patible with the theory that there were three degrees of inspiration, the highest being the inspiration of the Penta teuch and the lowest that of the Hagiographa. 2. The Church Fathers. The early Christian church seems to have simply taken over the Jewish views about the inspiration of the Old Testament; and, when the New Testament canon was complete, they transferred the same characteristics to the New Testament writings also. It is evident that the early fathers of the church wished to teach that the complete knowledge of the salvation of God revealed in Christ was to be found in the Holy Scriptures because they were the book of God, but it is difficult to gather any consistent doctrine of inspiration from their writings, and when they do speak of inspiration it seems as if they were thinking more of the psychological process going on in the mind of the inspired man than of the result in the character of an inspired book. It was perhaps difficult for men educated in the principles of heathen philosophy to avoid applying their early belief about tho pagan pavta to explain or define tho Christian idea of inspiration. At all events we find the doctrine of inspira tion described under such metaphors as the Platonists were accustomed to use : the inspired writer was the lyre, and the Holy Spirit the plectrum ; the writer was the vase, and the Spirit filled it ; and Montanus could appeal to the almost unanimous idea of the church that prophecy implied both passivity and ecstasy. This view of inspira tion was strengthened by the Apologists, who were accus tomed to plead for the credibility of the inspiration of the Scriptures by appealing to the oracle of Dodona, to tho supernatural character of the Sibylline books, and to the universally accepted fact of pavm. Origen, who so fre quently anticipates later criticism, was one of the earliest theologians who really attempted to construct a theory of inspiration. He said that tho Scriptures contain the plenitude of the Holy Spirit, and that there was nothing in the law nor in the gospel which had not come down to us from the fulness of the Divine Majesty. Inspiration, he declared, preserved the writers from any faults of memory, and made it impossible to say that there was anything superfluous in Scripture. He got over difficulties either by allegorical interpretations, or by declaring that God, like a teacher, accommodates Himself to the degree of civilization in various ages. But the church of tho early centuries was hindered from considering the doc trine of inspiration on all its sides by two influences. Throughout the early church the common opinion pre vailed that the Scriptures were of great practical import ance and promoted the edification of believers. But the church scarcely set itself seriously to ask how the Scriptures edified believers and in what their practical importance consisted ; yet these questions bore upon a right understanding of their inspiration. It seems evident, however, that ever since the early conflicts with Gnosticism the church was tempted to look upon Scripture as primarily a means of information, and not so much a means of grace. The Scriptures edified because they instructed, and were of importance because they gave information not otherwise attainable ; and so inspiration, whatever else it was, came to be regarded as the means whereby that information was kept correct. It had been always held thab the divine agent in inspiration was the Holy Spirit, but the precise function of the Spirit was not clearly defined. The early theologians, when discussing the inspiration of the apostles, forgot the writing in describing the writers, and enlarged on the powers communicated to them by the Spirit of God to guide the church, to work miracles, and to foretell the future. The promise of the Spirit, however, was not confined to the apostles ; all believers were to share in it. Justin Martyr speaks of the miraculous powers of the apostles, and of the spiritual gifts of all Christians, as if the two were the same ; and Tertullian, while he does draw a distinction between the inspiration of the apostles and that common to all believers, declares that the difference is one of degree, the inspiration of believers being only partial inspiration. Out of these conflicting tendencies there emerged in due time a double doctrine of inspiration. The Scriptures were inspired to teach infallible truth, and believers were inspired also with something of the same kind of inspiration to interpret this infallible truth. For though it was not distinctly stated, yet still there were intimations of what was to come. Whenever the Bible is looked on as altogether or even chiefly a means of know ledge, and not as a means of grace also, the intellectual aspect overcomes or drives into the background the concep tion of the Bible as a grace-giving power, and there is need of infallible interpretation as well as of infallible delivery of the propositions which convey the knowledge. In short, the doctrine was in such a state that at any moment it might crystallize into a theory that would practically deny to the ordinary believer the saving use of Scripture as a means of grace. The occasion was furnished by Montanism, which revived within the Christian church the old pagan idea of fiavm, and applied it not to the original Scriptures but to the infallible interpretation of Scripture. The Montanist prophets claimed to be possessed of the Spirit as the Old Testament prophets had been, but this inspiration they used, not so much to give additional Scriptures, as to give authoritative exposition of the Scrip tures already delivered to the church. Theologians rejected the Montanist fj.ana, denied that passivity and ecstasy were marks of inspiration, but none the less did the real essence of Montanist prophecy find its way into the church, for the result was a double doctrine of inspiration, the inspiration of Scripture, which insured that tho knowledge they communicated was correct, and the official inspiration of the church, which insured that the knowledge infallibly communicated was infallibly understood. This brings us to the scholastic period. 3. The Schoolmen accepted the doctrine of inspiration as it came to them from the fathers, and methodized it. They held that the Bible, which was the word of God and there fore inspired, was the source of doctrinal truth; and so this inspiration of the Bible came out in the fact that the doctrinal truths contained in it were infallibly true. The Schoolmen also recognized that a revelation which is primarily doctrinal, and that only, requires infallibility in interpretation as well as infallibility in delivery; and so the inspiration of the church was as important as the infallibility of Scripture. As time went on the infallible interpretations were collected, and side by side with an infallible Scripture was the infallible tradition or the official interpretation of Scripture. The logical Schoolmen, lowevcr, perceived, what was not so distinct to the fathers if the church, who were accustomed to think in pictures