Page:The Canons of Interpretation.djvu/4

 read, "The just will live by [their] faith," or "The just by faith will live"? In the latter case, it is argued, there are two classes of just ones — those who have done works whereon they may rely, and those who must rest on their faith, but this calls to mind the Old Testament passage cited, where the meaning is evident, and if we further compare our verse with the opening paragraph in chap. 4, we shall find that even Abraham, prince of those supposed to be justified by works, is reckoned among those justified by faith.

4. But the passage from Hebrews calls up still another law, interpret historically. The historical background is often the best if not the sole method for getting at the meaning of a passage. The covert references in any considerable piece of literature, whether the Divine Comedy, the tracts of Milton, the letters of Burke, Hudibras, or the Dunciad, all stand revealed in the light of history. The student of Paul must first know of the world of Paul, the northeastern corner of the Mediterranean— Jerusalem to Rome, for that matter. Further, Christianity sprang from the lap of Judaism. Much of the setting is Jewish, and only from that setting are many passages to be successfully construed. And, further still, Christianity grew up in the midst of that bewildering Greco-Roman civilization and becomes clear only in the light of that bewildering complex thought of the first century.

Accordingly, the reference to angels in Acts 12:15, Matt. 18:10, and similar passages, roots back in Jewish theology. To quote Professor J. H. Moulton, angels are "spiritual counterparts of human individuals or communities, dwelling in heaven, subject to changes depending on the good or evil behavior of their complementary beings on earth." Hence the reply to the damsel Rhoda's query, though so blind to us Occidentals, was a then familiar allusion to a universally accepted belief. In I Cor. 10:4 occurs a strange allegory concerning the Rock that was Christ. According to rabbinic tradition, a rock followed Israel in their Wilderness journey — providentially arranged — moving as they moved and halting when they camped. This rock when smitten was a never-failing fountain ("Cum vexilla castra ponerent, et tabernaculum staret, ilia petra venit; et consedit in atrio tentorie" ).

In I Tim. 1:4 we find a warning against "endless genealogies." Here it is the bewildering blend of Greco-Oriental thought that must illuminate the way. The Gnostics sought to combine philosophy with — or to seek a philosophic basis for — Christianity. World-creation was by a series of emanations of and from the divine original ground, source, or basis. This interpretation is familiar to students of the church-writers of the second century. The allusion is ambiguous, but either way equally apt for illustration here. Arguing