PART FIRST BIBLICAL HISTORY AND STORY I. HISTORY AND STORY II. THE HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL AS PRE SENTED BY THEMSELVES III. THE HISTORY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT CHURCH AS PRESENTED BY ITSELF CHAPTER I HISTORY AND STORY History and Story as Literary Terms Ar the threshold of our subject lies a literary distinction of great importance: the distinction between history and story. Both are narrative: history is narrative addressed to our sense of record and the explanation of things, story is narrative appealing directly to the imagination and emotions. There is much misconception on this subject. It is usually supposed that story is imaginary incident in reality, it is incident that is addressed. to the imagination. Invented matter cannot be part of history; but the converse of this is not true, for matter of fact can perfectly well be worked up into the form of story. The question is not as to the nature of the matter, but as to the mode in which it is narrated. The distinction can be well appreciated by one who reads continuously through The Book of Genesis. He feels the literature he is following shift its character backwards and forwards. At times he is occupied with strings of proper names, that carry him through successive generations of men or mutual connections of races; or in a few lines are narrated revolutions that may cover centuries. He comes upon the name of Joseph, and it is as if a curtain were suddenly lifted: the reader is in the midst of real life, warm with human interest and fluctuating passions. A strong personality is apparent, making itself felt under the most varied circumstances. Joseph is at first the clever child of a large family, too untutored in life to veil his superiority. With boyish self-consciousness he must needs tell his dreams of his brethren's sheaves bowing down before his sheaf, or of the sun and moon and eleven stars doing obeisance; his brothers envy and hate him, his doting father rebukes, but bears in mind and looks for further revelations. Opportunity betrays Joseph to his brethren away from all help, and they prepare to slay him; opportunity is encountered by opportunity, and they are able to sell their brother to travellers, and make gain out of revenge. A slave in Egypt, Joseph none the less makes his personality felt : Potiphar puts his whole household under Joseph's management, and knows not aught that is with him save the bread which he eats. But the same attractiveness which wins men wins women also; Joseph finds himself entangled in a false charge and thrown into prison. Yet in prison, as everywhere else, Joseph soon rules: whatever is done there, he is the doer of it. And when he is by marvellous chance delivered and brought before Pharaoh, Joseph has not concluded his first speech at court before emperor and courtiers are saying, Can we find such a one as this, in whom the spirit of God is? To character interest other elements of story beauty are added in the narrative that centres around Joseph. Manners of the primitive home; pastoral life, with longcontinued wandering of herds and flocks from station to distant station; mercantile caravans crossing deserts; Egypt with its military organisation, its luxury and intrigue, its underground prison life, its noble river fringed with the reed-grass out of which monsters may be dreamed of as issuing; court life with its pomp of gold chains and fine vesture, and runners crying, 'Bow the knee': all these varied types of the picturesque are just sketched in to make a background for the movement of events. The realm of mystery encircling the real world is touched in dreams, the fanciful forms of which may be read as symbols only half veiling events which are on their way. Sudden mutations of fortune are dear to story; and Joseph in a single day steps from the slaves' prison to the prime minister's throne, while it is given to him to be dispenser of food to a starving world. But when in the exercise of his office Joseph sees his own brethren stand before him, recognised but not recognising, then we get one of those double situations which are so fertile a source of beauty in story. And the situation is developed to the utmost. Joseph is torn opposite ways, by desire for righteous vengeance, and by reviving affection for kindred seen in the land of strangers. Now Joseph plays the foreigner with his brethren, speaking to them through an interpreter, while he can hear their naïve conversation; now he entangles them in cross-examination as to their home affairs; now they find themselves overwhelmed with hospitality, mysteriously arranged at table in the order of their age; again their innocence is caught in strange situations of circumstantial guilt. Nor is this merely play. A moral effect is at work, as the brethren are given an opportunity of rising above themselves: from the first they have been led to think of their brother whose distress of soul they would not hear when he besought them; they are as tender to their father in the temporary loss of Ben |