Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 03.djvu/37

BIBLE. cal edition of the Bible and the Masora (1524- 25 ) Jacob ben Chayim rendered a great service to biblical science. But the two great critics of the Sixteenth Centui-y were Elijah ha Levi (Elias Levita. 1472-1549), whose ilasorcth Hammoso- reth (1538) proved the late origin of the vowel- points; and Azariah de Rossi, in whose Meor Enayim (1574) the fact is clearly recognized that the Greek version fairly represents the He- brew text current at the time in Palestine. 3Iuch was done for the text by ilenahem Lonzano (1(518) and Solomon Xorzi (ilinchat Shai), writ- ten 1626. printed at Mantua (1742-44), while Jacob Lumbroso (16.30) explained it grammatic- ally in a meritorious manner. The impulse to a deeper literary criticism was given by Barueh Benedict Spinoza, in his famous Tract at us The- olofiico-politicus (1670). A searching examina- tion of the difficulties suggested by Ibn Ezra led him to reject the Mosaic authorship of the Penta- teuch: and he made valuable observations on the manner in which biblical books were edited, and the political side of the activity of the prophets. The immediate eft'ect of his work was more marked in Christian than in Jewish circles. But it paved the way for the great achievement of Moses Mendelssohn (1729-86), through whose la- bors and admirable spirit a rapprochement be- tween Jewish and Christian exegesis has been gradually effected that is of utmost value to bib- lical science. During the Nineteenth Century, S. D. Liizzato searched for the motives that led to in- tentional changes of the text by the punctuators (Oheb Ger, 1830; Mishtaddcl.' 1847); Leopold Zunz (OottesdienstUche Vortriiije der Juden, 1832) recognized the untrustworthiness of the superscriptions in the Psalter, the hand of the chronicler in Ezra, and the late date of the Chronicles; Z. Frankel (Historiftch- l^rifische fltiidien zu der Septuaffinta, 1841) discussed learnedly the Greek version; Abraham Geiger (L'rschrift und Uehersetzungen- der Bibel, 1857) offered numerous critical suggestions; H. Graetz, in his Geschichte der Jvden (1875-86), his Com- mentar zu den Psalmen (1882-83), and his Emendationes (posthumous. 1892-93), greatly furthered both literary and textual criticism, and men like Fiirst, Goldziher, Bacher, Montefiore. Jastrow. Giottheil, Abrahams, Hale'y, and others have taken a part in the critical study of the Bible. Xo great commentary from the stand- point of modern science has yet been written by a Jew; but without the impulses received from eminent .Jewish scholars. Christian exegesis would not be to-day where it is.

( B ) Of toe Whole Bible Among Christians.

The history of the interpretation of the Bible is in reality the history of the principles which have underlain the study of the Scriptures. This history is divided into the following stages: (A)" The Patristic Stage; (B) the Keformation Stage; ( C ) the Modern Stage. Be- tween the Patristic and the Refomiation stages lies what is usually understood as the Mediieval Age, which, in its spirit, is so largely a con- tinuation of Patristic methods as to be in reality a part of that stage. Between the Reformation and the Modern stages lies what is generally known as the Rationalistic Age, which, as a matter of fact, is simply the bridge that carries the Reformation methods over into those which characterize the Modern Stage.

(A) The Patristic Stage.

(a) The early period, represented by Clement of Rome, c.lOO: the author of the so-called Epis- tle of Barnabas. c.l20; Justin Martyr, c.loO; and Irenteus, c.lSO.

The Bible with which the Fathers began was the Septuagint, which was accepted as directly inspiied of God, even when it differed widely from the Hebrew. On this the writings pre- served from the Apostolic Age were based, and as they came gradually to be formed into a gen- erally accepted group and to be received as them- selves inspired, they were placed along with the Septuagint as the comprehensive Bible of the Church. In the Septuagint were included the Apocrypha, which were appealed to as scriptural equally with the other books. Under the ear- lier conception of the Church as a spiritual flock, the first use of the Bible was the pastoral and homiletical, followed later, as the Church idea hardened under the rise of heresies, by the doc- trinal use. L'nder both these views, but especially under the latter, the prevailing method of interpretation was the allegorical, by which the literal sense of the passage was held not to be its only sense, in fact not its more important sense, but as inferior and subordinate to the hidden, spiritual sense which, as coming more directly from the Holy Spirit, was considered the real object of the interpreter's study.

For this method the early Fathers were not primarily responsible. Indeed, they were hardly conscious of it as a method. It was the gener- ally current habit of their day, to which time it had been handed down through Palestinian and Alexandrian Judaism from the Classical Age. It was. however, a method, and one that was sci- entifically vicious, as it practically reduced the meaning of Scripture to whatever the interpret- er's fancy conceived, or his sense of what was fitting to God determined.

(b) The Alexandrian School, represented par- ticularly by Clement of Alexandria, c.200, and by Origen, c.185-254.

The interpretation characteristic of this school differed from that of the earlier Fathers simply in its more careful formation of the principles w'hich had been sub-consciously in use by them. It was a process natural and quite inevitable, in view of the scholarship of those who were the leaders in the school; but its only eft'ect was to give a greater definiteness to the allegorical idea and impart to it a further-reaching influence.

(c) The Syrian Schools. (1) The Edessa School, represented by Ephraem Syrus, c.378. (2) The Antioch School, represented by Theo- dore of Mopsuestia, c.350-428.

Contemporaneous with the Alexandrian scholars had been a group of writers in North Africa (e.g. Tertullian, e.20O, and Cyprian, d.258), who, while allegorizing, made much of the literal method. Their position, however, was not in the way of protest against the method at Alexandria. Such protest was reserved for these Syrian schools, which were really the outgrowth of a rising dissatisfaction with the allegorical extremes to which the Alexandrian methods were leading, though their scholarship was inspired by that of Alexandria itself. Their protest voiced itself in the principle that the Scriptures themselves were the basis of knowledge, and not any esoteric gnosis hidden in them. They set