this constant perusal of Holy Writ is altogether a different operation from that of studying it for the sake of knowing its contents. People read continually what they are already perfectly familiar with, and they neither gain, nor expect to gain, any fresh information from the performance. And this is a species of reading to which among Christian nations the Bible alone is subjected. The genesis of this notion is not difficult to follow. Once let a given work be accepted as containing information on religious questions which man's unaided faculties could not have attained, and it is evident that there is no better way of qualifying himself for the performance of his obligations towards heaven than by studying that work. Its perusal and re-perusal will increase his knowledge of divine things, and render him more and more fit, the oftener he repeats it, to put that knowledge into practice. But if it is thus advantageous to the devout man to be familiar with the sacred writings of his faith, it is plain that the attention he gives to them must be in the highest degree agreeable to the divinity from whom they emanate. For, to put it on the lowest ground, it is a sign of respect. It renders it evident that he is not indifferent to the communication which his God has been pleased to make. It evinces a pious and reverential disposition. Hence not only is the reader benefited by such a study, but the Deity is pleased by it. Or if the books are not conceived as inspired by any deity, yet a careful attention to them shows a desire for wisdom, and a humble regard for the instructions of more highly-gifted men who in these religions stand in the place of gods. Thus the action UNINTELLIGENT REVERENCE FOR THEM. 9 of reading these works, and becoming thoroughly familiar with their contents, is for natural reasons regarded as meritorious. But this is not all. An act which at first is meritorious as a means, tends inevitably to become meritorious as an end. Moreover, actions frequently repeated for some definite reason come to be repeated when that reason is absent. Thus, the reading of Sacred Books, originally a profitable exercise to the mind of the reader, is soon undertaken for its own sake, whether the mind of the reader be concerned in it or not. And the action, having become habitual, is stereotyped as a religious custom, and therefore a religious obligation. The words of the holy books are read aloud to a congregation, without effort or intelligence on their part, perhaps in a tongue which they do not comprehend. Even if the vernacular be employed, there is not the pretence of an effort to penetrate the sense of difficult passages. Holy Writ has become a charm, to be mechanically read and as mechanically heard, and the notion of meritarising in the first instance from the high importance of understanding its meaning with a view to practising its precepts now attaches to the mere repetition of the consecrated words. 3. The exact converse of this unintelligent reverence for the sacred writings is the excessive and oversubtle exercise of intelligence upon them. It is the common fate of such works to be made the subject of the most minute, most careful, and most constant scrutiny to which any of the productions of the human mind can be subjected. The pious and the learned alike submit them to an unceasing study. No phrase, no word, no letter, passes unobserved. The result of this devout investigation naturally is, that much which in reality belongs to the mind of the reader is attributed to that of the writer. Approached with the fixed prepossession that they contain vast stores of superhuman wisdom, that which is so eagerly sought from them is certain to be found. Hence the natural and simple meaning of the words is set aside, or is relegated to a secondary place. All sorts of forced interpretations are put upon them with a view of compelling them to harmonise with that which it is supposed they ought to mean. Statements, doctrines, and allusions are discovered in them which not only have no existence in their pages, but which are absolutely foreign to the epoch at which they were written. This process of false interpretation is greatly favoured by distance of time. When an ancient book is approached by those who know but little of the external circumstances, or of the intellectual and spiritual atmosphere, of the age in which it was composed, much that was simple and plain enough to the contemporaries of the writer will be dubious and obscure to them. And when they are determined to find in the venerable classic nothing but perfect truth, the result of such conditions is an inevitable confusion. Their own actual notions of truth must at all hazards. be discovered in the sacred pages. The assumption cannot be surrendered; all that does not agree with it must therefore be suitably explained. Are proceedings or actions which shock the improved morality of a later age spoken of with approbation in the canonical books? Some evasion must be discovered which will reconcile ethics with belief. Are doctrines which the religion of a later age rejects SUBTLETY OF INTERPRETATION. II plainly enunciated, or statements of facts, which later investigation has shown to be impossible, unequivocally made? The inconvenient passages must be shown to bear another construction. Are there portions whose character appears too trivial or too mundane to be consistent with the dignity of works given for the instruction of mankind? These portions must be shown to possess a mystical significance; a spirit hidden beneath the letter; profound instruction veiled under ordinary phrases. Are the dogmas cherished as of supreme importance by subsequent generations unhappily not to be found in the text of Revelation? These dogmas must be read out of them by putting a strain upon words which apparently refer to some other subject. Perhaps, if they are not contained in them totidem verbis, they may be totidem syllabis; or if not even totidem syllabis, at least totidem literis. And the absence of a letter (like the k in shoulder-knots) can always be got over somehow. Lastly, are there palpable contradictions? At whatever cost they must be explained away, for Holy Writ, being inspired, can never contradict itself. Let us consider a few of the most striking examples of these methods of treatment. China, usually so matter of fact, has manifested in this field a subtlety of interpretation not altogether unworthy of the more. mystical India. The Ch'un Ts'ew, one of the books of the Chinese Canon, is a historical compilation attributed to Confucius himself, and is therefore of more than ordinary authority even for a Sacred Book. Concerning one of the years of which it contains a record, the following statements are made: "In the ninth month, on Kang-seuh, the first day of the moon, the sun was eclipsed. "In winter, in the tenth month, on Kang-shin, the first day of the moon, the sun was eclipsed." 2 "1 Two eclipses in such close proximity were of course an impossibility. Chinese scholars were fully aware of this, and knew, moreover, that the second eclipse mentioned did not take place. A similar mistake occurred in another chapter, so that there were two unquestionable blunders to be got over. No wonder then that "the critics," as Dr Legge says, "have vexed themselves with the question in vain." But one of them proposes an explanation. "In this year," he remarks, “and in the 24th year, we have the record of eclipses in successive months. According to modern chronologists such a thing could not be; but perhaps it did occur in ancient times!" Dr Legge has italicised the concluding words, and put an exclamation after them, as if they embodied a surprising absurdity. But his experience of Biblical criticism must have presented him with abundant instances of similar interpretations of the glaring contradictions to modern science found in Scripture. Is it more ridiculous to suppose that two eclipses might have occurred in two months than to believe that the sun stood still, in other words, that the revolution of the earth on its axis ceased for a space of time? or that an ass could be endowed with human speech? or that a man, instead of dying, could rise from earth to heaven? And if these and similar strange occurrences be explained as miracles, then such miracles "did occur in ancient 1 C. C., vol. v. p. 489.-Ch'un Ts'ëw, b. 9, ch. xxi. p. 5, 6. |