not affect his faithfulness. He keepeth truth forever. But the apostle does not say that when the Lord promises a thing for today he may not fulfil his promise for a thousand years: that would be slackness; that would be a breach of promise. He does not say that because God is infinite and everlasting, therefore he reckons with a different arithmetic from ours, or speaks to us in a double sense, or uses two different weights and measures in his dealings with mankind. The very reverse is the truth.” '

ory of prophet

As an illustration of the fallacious and confusing theory of a double sense, especially when applied to prophetic des- Fallacies of ignations of time, witness the following from Bengel. Bengel's theCommenting on the words, "Immediately after the ic perspective. tribulation of those days," in Matt. xxiv, 29, he says: "You will say it is a great leap from the destruction of Jerusalem to the end of the world which is subjoined to it immediately. I reply, a prophecy resembles a landscape painting which represents distinctly the houses, paths, and bridges in the foreground, but brings together, into a narrow space, most widely severed valleys and mountains in the distance. Such a view should they who study prophecy have of the future to which the prophecy refers. And the eyes of the disciples, who in their question had connected the end of the temple with that of the world, are left somewhat in the dark (for it was not yet time to know, ver. 36); hence they afterward, with entire harmony, imitated the Lord's language, and declared that the end was at hand. By advancing, however, both the prophecy and the prospect continually reveal a further and still further distance. In this manner also we ought to interpret, not the clear by the obscure, but the obscure by the clear, and to revere in its dark sayings the divine wisdom which sees all things always, but does not reveal all things at once. Afterward it was revealed that antichrist should come before the end of the world; and again Paul joined these two things closely, until the Apocalypse placed even millenniums between. On such passages there rests, as St. Anthony used to call it, a prophetical cloudlet. It was not yet time to reveal the whole series of future events from the destruction of Jerusalem to the end of the world."

As many falla

Here, we may say, are almost as many fallacies, or misleading statements, as there are sentences. The figure of a landscape painting with its principles of perspective is a cies as senfavourite illustration with those expositors who advo

1 The Parousia, pp. 221-223.

tences.

Gnomon of the New Testament, in loco. Lewis and Vincent's translation. Philadelphia, 1860.

cate the theory of a double sense, and some, who reject such theory, employ this figure to illustrate the uncertainty of prophetic designations of time. But it is a great error to apply this illustration to specific designations of time. Where no particular time is indicated, or where time-limitations are kept out of view, the figure may be allowed, and is, indeed, a happy illustration. But when the Lord says that certain events are to follow immediately after certain other events, let no interpreter presume to say that millenniums may come between. This is not "to interpret the obscure by the clear," but to obscure the clear by a misleading fancy. To say that "the eyes of the disciples were left in the dark,” and that they afterward, "imitating the Lord's language, declared that the end was at hand," is virtually equivalent to saying that Jesus misled them, and that they went forth and perpetuated the error! The notion that any portion of Scripture "reveals the whole series of events from the destruction of Jerusalem to the end of the world," is a fancy of modern interpreters, who would all do well, like the pious Bengel, to confess that over their forced method of explaining the statements of Christ and the apostles there truly rests an obscuring "prophetical cloudlet."

Practical

prophecy may

be many.

There are, indeed, manifold applications of certain prophecies which apmay be called generic, and some events of modplications of ern history may illustrate them, and, in a broad sense, fulfil them as truly as the events to which they had original reference. In the days of John many antichrists had appeared (1 John ii, 18; comp. Matt. xxiv, 5, 24), and the demoniacal attributes of Paul's "man of sin" (2 Thess. ii, 3-8) may appear again and again in monsters of lawlessness and crime. Antiochus and Nero are definite typical illustrations in whom great prophecies were specifically fulfilled, but other similar impersonations of wickedness may also have revealed the beast from the abyss, which was, and then, after disappearing for a time, appeared again, and then again went into perdition (Rev. xvii, 8). But such allowable applications of prophecy are not to be confounded with grammaticohistorical interpretation. When Satan shall be loosed out of his prison after the millennium (Rev. xx, 7) he may, indeed, reveal himself in some man of sin more fearful and more lawless far than any Antiochus or Nero of the past.

It may, in truth, be said that a large proportion of the confusion and errors of biblical expositors has arisen from mistaken notions of the Bible itself. No such confusion and diversity of views ap

1This thought is made prominent in Hofman's valuable work, Biblische Hermeneutik. Nordlingen, 1880.

ble itself the

tion.

pear in the interpretation of other books. A strained and unnatural theory of divine inspiration has, doubtless, led many Mistaken nointo the habit of assuming that somehow the Scriptures tions of the Bimust be explained differently from other compositions. cause of much Hence, also, the assumption that in prophetic revela- false expositions God has furnished us with a detailed historical outline of particular occurrences ages in advance, so that we may properly expect to find such events as the rise of Islam, the Wars of the Roses, and the French Revolution recorded in the prophetical books. This assumption is often found attaching itself to the theory of a double or triple sense. The interpretation of the Apocalypse of John has especially suffered from this singular error. There is such a charm in the fancy that we have a New Testament prophecy of the events of all coming time-a graphic outline of the history of the Church and the world until the final judgment— that not a few have yielded to the delusion that we may reasonably search this mystic book for any character or event which we deem important in the history of human civilization.'

We must set aside these false assumptions touching the Bible itself, and the character and purport of its prophecies. A rational investigation of the scope and analogies of the great prophecies gives no support to such extravagant fancies as that "the whole Apocalypse of John, from chapter iv to the end, is but a development of Daniel's imperfect tense."" The Holy Scriptures have lessons for all time. God's specific revelation to one individual, age, or nation will be found to have a practical value for all men. We need no specific predictions of Napoleon, or of the Waldenses, or of the martyrdom of John Huss, or of the massacre of St. Bartholomew to confirm the faith of the Church, or to convince the infidel; else, doubtless, we should have had them in a form capable of producing conviction. It cannot be shown that such predictions would have accomplished any worthy purpose not already met by fulfilled prophecies with their practical lessons of universal application.

1 A friend of the writer once observed: It always seemed strange to me that Babylon, and Persia, and Greece, and Rome, and European states should be noticed in the prophecies, and yet no mention of the United States of America. He, accordingly, set himself to work to find something on the subject, and by and by discovered the great North American Republic in the fifth kingdom of Daniel-the stone cut out of the mountain without hands. Further research in the same line soon enabled him to see that the "war in heaven" between Michael and the dragon (Rev. xii, 7) was a specific prophecy of the late civil war between the Northern and Southern States, which resulted in the abolition of American slavery.

2 Pre-Millennial Essays of the Prophetic Conference, p. 326. New York, 1879.

Four classes of

CHAPTER XIX.

SCRIPTURE QUOTATIONS IN THE SCRIPTURES.

In comparing Scripture with Scripture, and tracing the parallel and analogous passages of the several sacred writers, the interpreter continually meets with quotations, more or less exact, made by one writer from another. These quotations may be distributed into four classes: (1) Old Testament parallel passages and quotations. quotations made by the later writers from the earlier books; (2) New Testament quotations from the Old Testament; (3) New Testament quotations from New Testament sources; and (4) quotations from apocryphal writings and oral tradition. The verbal variations of many of these citations, the formulas and methods of quotation, and the illustrations they furnish of the purposes and uses of the Holy Scriptures, are all matters of great importance to the biblical exegete.

tations and par

allels.

As examples of each of these classes of citations we mention, Examples of first, genealogical tables, as Gen. xi, 10-26, compared Scripture quo- with 1 Chron. i, 17-27, and Gen. xlvi compared with Num. xxvi. Psa. xviii is substantially identical with 2 Sam. xxii. The same is true of 2 Kings xviii-xx and Isa. xxxvixxxix, 2 Kings xxiv, xxv, and Jer. lii. Large portions of the Books of Samuel and Kings are appropriated in the Books of Chronicles, and there are numerous textual parallels like Psa. xlii, 7, and Jonah ii, 3. The New Testament quotations from the Old Testament are manifold in character and form. In most cases they are taken verbatim, or nearly so, from the Septuagint version; in some instances they are a translation of the Hebrew text, more accurate than that of the Septuagint (Matt. ii, 15, compared with Heb. and Sept. of Hos. xi, 1; Matt. viii, 17, comp. Isa. liii, 4). Some of the quotations differ notably both from the Hebrew and the Septuagint, while others were apparently constructed by a use of both sources. Sometimes several passages of the Old Testament are blended together, as in 2 Cor. vi, 16-18, where use is made of Exod. xxix, 45; Lev. xxvi, 12; Isa. lii, 11; Jer. xxxi, 1, 9, 33; xxxii, 38; Ezek. xi, 20; xxxvi, 28; xxxvii, 27; Zech. viii, 8. Sometimes the Old Testament passage is merely paraphrased, or the general sentiment or substance is given, while in other cases it is merely referred to

sources.

or hinted at (comp. Prov. xviii, 4; Isa. xii, 3; xliv, 3, with John vii, 38. Isa. lx, 1-3, with Eph. v, 14. Hos. xiv, 2, with Heb. xiii, 15).' In the New Testament it is evident that the many parallel portions of the Gospels must have been derived from some common source, either oral or written, or both. In Acts xx, 35, Paul quotes a saying of the Lord which is to be found nowhere else. Peter evinces a knowledge of the epistles of Paul (2 Pet. iii, 15, 16), and in the second chapter of his second epistle appropriates much from the Epistle of Jude. Finally, the quotations from apocry- Apocryphal phal and other sources, and allusions to them, both in and traditional the Old Testament and in the New, are quite numerous. Thus, in the Old Testament we have "The Book of the Wars of the Lord" (Num. xxi, 14), "The Book of Jasher" (Josh. x, 13), "The Book of the Acts of Solomon" (1 Kings xi, 41), "The Book of Shemaiah" (2 Chron. xii, 15), and numerous others quoted or referred to. Jude quotes apparently from the pseudepigraphal Book of Enoch, and also makes allusion to traditions of the fall of the angels, and the dispute of Michael and the devil over the body of Moses (Jude 6, 9, 14). St. Paul calls the magicians, who opposed Moses, Jannes and Jambres (2 Tim. iii, 8), names which had probably been transmitted by oral tradition. Many such traditions found their way into the Targums, the Talmud, and the apocryphal and pseudepigraphal Jewish literature. Quotations from such books and allusions to such traditions give them no canonical authority. An apostle or any one else, addressing those who were familiar with such traditions, might appropriately refer to them for homiletical purposes, without thereby designing to assume or declare their verity. Similarly Paul quotes from the Greek poets Aratus, Menander, and Epimenides (Acts xvii, 28; 1 Cor. xv, 33; Titus i, 12).

The great number of parallel passages, both in the Old Testament and in the New, is evidence of a harmony and organic relation of Scripture with Scripture of a most notable kind. Once written, the oracles of God became the public and private treasure of his people. Any passage that would serve a useful purpose was used by prophet

'See Drusius, Parallela Sacra, etc., in vol. viii of the Critici Sacri, pp. 1261-1325; Davidson, Sacred Hermeneutics, chap. xi; Gough, New Testament Quotations Collated with the Old Testament (Lond., 1853); Horne's Introduction (Ayers and Tregelles' Ed.), vol. ii, pp. 113-207; and especially Turpie, The Old Testament in the New; A Contribution to Biblical Criticism and Interpretation. Lond., 1868. This last-named work conveniently classifies and tabulates the Old Testament quotations in the New Testament according to their agreement with, or variation from, both the Hebrew text and the Septuagint version. Comp. also Scott, Principles of New Testament Quotation established and applied to Biblical Science (Edinb., 1875), and Boehl, Die alttestamentlichen Citate im neuen Testament. Wien, 1878.