Theologico-Political Treatise 1862/Chapter 13

the Second Chapter of this treatise we have shown that the prophets had a peculiar faculty of imagination only, and no special gift of understanding; that God had revealed to them no mysteries of philosophy, and that he had accommodated himself to their pre-conceived opinions. In Chapter the Fifth we showed that those things only were taught and delivered in Scripture which could be easily understood by all; that it did not proceed in the way of axiom and definition to deduce and concatenate things, but announced in simple terms what was to be said, and, in order to secure faith, appealed to experience, to miracles, and the records of history, the style and phraseology being such as were best calculated to fix the popular attention (vide Chap. III. and the points demonstrated under section 3). Finally, in Chapter the Seventh we have shown that the difficulty of understanding Scripture lay in the language alone, not in the sublimity of the argument. In addition to which, let it be remembered that the prophets preached not to the learned only, but to the Jews indiscriminately, and that the apostles were wont to hold forth in the synagogues, then the places of common resort for all classes of the people. From these facts it follows that the doctrine of Scripture contains no sublime speculations, no philosophical problems, but simple things only, that may be apprehended even by the dullest. I cannot therefore sufficiently wonder at the ingenuity of those of whom I have spoken above, who see such deep mysteries in Scripture that no human tongue is competent to explain them; and who have on the strength of this assumption introduced so much philosophical speculation into religion that the Church assumes the aspect of an academy, and religion that of a science, or rather of a controversy. But why should I wonder at seeing the men who boast of having supernatural light unwilling to yield in knowledge to the philosophers who have only their natural understanding for their instructor? I should be surprised, indeed, did I find them teaching anything new as matters even of mere speculation which had not been already well worn by the handling of the Gentile philosophers (whom they nevertheless accuse of blindness); for when those pretended mysteries are scanned a little closely they are found to resolve themselves into Aristotelian, Platonic, and other philosophical conceptions, which a fool might be supposed to find in his dreams more readily than a reasonable man in the Holy Scriptures. In speaking thus I would not be held to declare without any reservation that Scripture contains nothing of a speculative nature; in the preceding chapter, I have referred on the contrary to certain matters of this kind, even as fundamentals in Scripture doctrine; I only mean to maintain that they are few in number and sufficiently simple; and I shall now proceed to show wherein they consist, and how they are to be determined. And this will be easy for us, since we have ascertained that Scripture was not intended to teach the sciences; whence we may see that it is obedience only which is required from man, and that stubbornness and contempt, not ignorance, are condemned. Now since obedience to God consists in the love of .our neighbour (for he who loves his neighbour, to the end that God may be glorified, according to Paul in his Epistle to the Romans (xiii. 8), fulfils the law), it follows that in Scripture no other science is recommended save that which is necessary to mankind, in order that by obeying God in conformity with the precept of neighbourly love they may show themselves obedient to him, as in ignoring it they must necessarily prove themselves contumacious, or at all events without the discipline of reverential submissiveness. The other speculative matters which do not bear immediately in this direction, those about God, or that refer to the knowledge of natural things, do not touch Scripture in fact, and so are to be distinguished and separated from revealed religion. But although these things are readily perceived by every one as has been said, nevertheless, as on them depends the entire judgment in matters religious, I am in the mind to enter more fully upon the subject and to explain it thoroughly. To which end it is before all things requisite to show that an intellectual or accurate conception of God is not given, like obedience, as a gift in common to all the faithful; and next, that that knowledge which God by the prophets requires of all men, and which every one is held bound to possess, is nothing but the knowledge of his divine justice and mercy, qualities which are readily demonstrated from Scripture. For, 1st, it follows most obviously from Exodus vi. 2, where God, to show the singular grace showered upon Moses, says to him, "I was revealed to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as El Sadai, but by my name Jehovah I was not known to them." For the better understanding of this text it is to be observed that El Sadai in Hebrew signifies God who suffices, because he gives to every one what suffices him; and although Sadai is often taken for God absolutely, there is no question but that El, the proper earliest title of the Supreme, is everywhere understood. Then it is to be observed that no name for God but Jehovah is ever found in Scripture where the absolute essence of God without reference to created things is indicated. The Jews therefore contend that this is the only proper name of God, the other words by which he is designated being mere appellatives; and it is a truth that the other names of God are such substantives or adjectives — attributes, in short — which seem appropriate to God when he is viewed in relation to created things, or is manifested by their means. , or with the letter ha added,, signifies nothing more than the powerful, as already said, and is not appropriate to God save as signifying pre-eminence; in the same way as when we speak of Paul The Apostle. El, therefore, indicates the grand attributes of God as we conceive them; El, the powerful, the great, the awful, the just, the merciful, &c. The word, again, is often found in the plural Elohim, with the singular sense, and then it implies all the attributes of God collectively; this form is very frequent in Scripture. But as God informs Moses that he was not known to the patriarchs by his name of Jehovah, it follows that they knew no attributes of God that explain his absolute essence, but only his influences, his promises, — in other words, his power, in so far as it was made manifest by visible things. Now God does not say to Moses that the patriarchs knew him not by his name of Jehovah, in order to accuse them of any infidelity or unworthiness; on the contrary, it was to laud their faith and belief, who though they had not the singular knowledge of him possessed by Moses, yet believed firmly in his promises, and did not, like the great prophet, in spite of his more sublime ideas of God, doubt or question the divine word: — they never objected to God like Moses, that instead of the promised safety he had brought the Jews into greater misery than before. Since then the patriarchs were ignorant of the proper name of God, and God informs Moses that this was so in order that their simplicity and faith might be commended, and that the singular favour shown to Moses might at the same time be commemorated, it follows, most obviously, as we have stated above, that men at large are not held to know the attributes of God by a commandment, but that to do so is a gift peculiar to some only among the faithful. Is it worth the pains to prove this truth by further Scripture testimony? Who does not perceive that the divine conception exists not with equal force and clearness in the minds of all believers? and that no one can be wise at the word of command, any more than he can continue to live or to be? Men, women, children, all alike can obey upon command, but they cannot equally be wise. But if any one should say that it was by no means necessary to know the attributes of God, but simply and without demonstration to believe, this were to jest; for invisible things, which are objects of the mind alone, can be seen by no other than those inward eyes which appreciate the force of demonstrations; they, therefore, who have not these, see absolutely nothing of such things, and all they hear said of them touches their mind no more than the words of a parrot or an automaton touch the bird or the machine which articulates without sense or reason.

Before I proceed further, however, I feel bound to give a reason why in Genesis we constantly find the patriarchs using, and speaking in, the name of Jehovah, which seems plainly in contradiction with what has just been said. But if attention be had to what is stated in Chapter VIII. it will be found easy to reconcile the one statement with the other. In our 8th chapter we have shown that the writer of the Pentateuch speaks of things and places by different names from those they bore in the times long gone by, of which he is giving an account; he uses the titles that were best and most familiarly known in his own day. God, therefore, in Genesis is said to have been known to the patriarchs by the name of Jehovah, not because this name was really communicated to them, for it was not, but because the word is of all words the most holy to the Hebrews. This explanation I believe to have been necessary, seeing that in our text from Exodus it is said expressly that God was not known to the patriarchs by his name of Jehovah; and further because in another passage of Exodus (iii. 13) Moses asks to know the name of God, which, had it been known at all, would surely have been known to the leader of the people. Let us conclude, then, that the faithful patriarchs of old did not know the proper name of God, and that knowledge of God is in virtue of a gift, not of a commandment. Any but the most cursory reading shows the earlier portion of the Book of Genesis to be derived and compiled from at least two different sources. The first chapter and the three first verses of the second chapter form a whole; a grand simple history of creation; and in the English version the Great First Cause is here always simply designated God. This by biblical scholars has been spoken of as the Elohistic portion of Genesis. From the 4th verse of chapter ii. the history of creation is again entered on, and more particularly as regards man. Here the simple word God gives place to the more elaborate Lord God. What is interesting to observe also is this, — that in the first the grand and undoubtedly by much the more ancient history of creation, the gift of the vegetable kingdom to man, is without reservation: "And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat." It is only in the second or Jehovistic account, as it has been called, that we find the reservation of the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil. Further, in the grand old Elohistic account, God creates man in his own image, "male and female created he them." In the more modern history man is at first single, and the Lord God discovers that "it is not good for the man to be alone," and resolves "to make an help meet for him;" and then follows the tale of the rib from which woman was fashioned, and all this in connection with the name of him who said, "Let there be light, and there was light," and as if sex had not been an universal, and therefore primary and eternal, decree of the Almighty. It is in this romance of creation, too, that the tale of the serpent occurs: "Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made." "And he said unto the woman," &c., as if articulate speech were not the apanage of man alone, the creation of an order of faculties of which we do not find a trace so low in the scale of being as reptiles. All this portion of the Bible can in no wise be taken literally, — it is fancy, poetry, allegory, of which various interpretations have been given; among others it has been said that man has lived without care through the summer half of the year; but then comes autumn with its fruits, and ushers in the winter half, the astronomical sign of which is the serpent or dragon, &c. The relations of astronomy to mythology are most fully and ably treated by M. Dupuis in his learned work entitled, 'Origine des Cultes,' 6 vols. 8vo. Paris. Subsequently the Elohistic and Jehovistic elements are greatly jumbled together, yet not always so but that each can often be detected by its own characteristics. — Ed.

Let us now proceed to the second head of our subject, and show that God sought no other knowledge of himself from man by the mouths of the prophets than that of his divine justice and charity; a knowledge, in other words, of such attributes of God as men by a certain rule of life may readily imitate; and this indeed is expressly taught by Jeremiah; for speaking of Shallum, son of King Josiah, he says (xxii. 15), "Did not thy father eat and drink, and do judgment and justice, and then it was well with him? He judged the cause of the poor and the needy; then it was well with him: was not this to know me? saith the Lord." Nor is the meaning less clear of what is said in chapter ix. 24: "But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me that I am the Lord, which exercise loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth; for iii these things I delight, saith the Lord." The same sentiments are, besides, found in Exodus (xxxiv. 6, 7), where God, in answer to Moses, who desires to see and to know him, reveals no other attribute but such as shows forth his divine justice and mercy. Lastly, what is said by John cannot be passed by without notice in this place, although we shall have occasion to speak of it by and by at greater length; for as no one has seen God, he interprets or explains God to be Love or Charity, and concludes that he indeed knows and possesses God who has charity in his heart.

We therefore see that Moses, Jeremiah, John, all alike make a knowledge of God to consist in a very few principles, which every one may be held bound to know and observe, the sum and substance of which is this: That God is all righteous, and all merciful, and the sole exemplar of the true life to man. Scripture gives no express definition of God; nor does it prescribe any attribute besides those just mentioned as necessary to be known and imitated. From all of which we conclude that the intellectual conception of God, involving considerations of the nature of the Supreme as he is in himself, which man is incapable of imitating by any course of life, and which he cannot therefore take as an example to be followed, has nothing whatever to do with the institution of a perfect rule of life, with faith and with revealed religion; and as a consequence of this it is plain that men may go wrong in regard to it in every way without sin. It is not therefore to be wondered at that God should have accommodated his revelations and modes of revelation to the imaginations and preconceived opinions of the prophets, and that the pious have frequently entertained different opinions of God, as we have shown by numerous examples in our second chapter. Again, there is no reason for wondering that God is constantly spoken of so improperly in Scripture, and that eyes, ears, hands, feet, senses, a mind, and proportions, are ascribed to him, to say nothing of such mental emotions as anger, jealousy, mercy, &c., — or that he is pictured as a sovereign or judge, seated on a royal throne in heaven, with Christ on his right hand, and the heavenly host around. All this is mere condescension to the capacity of the vulgar, whom Scripture strives to make not learned but obedient. The common run of theologians, however, have concluded, that whatever they saw by their natural understanding which did not accord with higher conceptions of the divine nature was to be interpreted metaphorically; and that whatever transcended their capacity was to be taken quite literally. But if everything of this kind that is found in Scripture were necessary to be interpreted and understood metaphorically, then were Scripture written not for the rude and unlettered populace, but for the most learned and philosophical only among men. And what is more; if it be impious to conceive and believe those things of God which we have thus far set forth in all purity and simplicity of mind, then ought the prophets to have been especially careful to avoid such phrases, and in respect of vulgar weakness to have spoken expressly of the attributes of God in such a way as to make them readily appreciable and retainable by ordinary men; but this they have nowhere done. We are therefore by no means to believe that opinions, abstractly considered, and without reference to deeds, have anything either of piety or impiety in themselves; let it rather be said of any man that he is good or bad, as he is moved by his opinions to obedience and purity of life, or otherwise is led to licentiousness of conduct and rebellion against God's decrees; he who, believing the truth, yet shows himself contumacious, is a sinner, as ho who believing falsehoods yet leads a good life is pious and good. The true knowledge of God comes not by command, as we have shown, but is a divine gift; and God asks nothing more of man than recognition of his divine justice and mercy, which leads not to science, but is indispensably necessary to obedience to his eternal laws.