{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_36610/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_36610","id":"gutenberg_36610","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36610","summary":null,"tags":["Bible -- Influence","Category: History - Medieval/Middle Ages","Category: History - Other","Category: History - Religious"],"text":"</pre>\n\n\n\nProduced by Charlene Taylor and the Online Distributed\nProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was\nproduced from images generously made available by The\nInternet Archive/American Libraries.)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n  THE INFLUENCE OF THE BIBLE\n  ON CIVILISATION\n\n\n\n\n  THE\n  INFLUENCE OF THE BIBLE\n  ON CIVILISATION\n\n\n  BY\n  ERNST VON DOBSCHUeTZ\n\n  PROFESSOR OF THE NEW TESTAMENT IN THE UNIVERSITY OF\n  HALLE-WITTENBERG\n\n\n  NEW YORK\n  CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS\n  1914\n\n\n\n\n  _Copyright_, 1914\n  BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS\n\n  Published April, 1914\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nOne of the greatest questions of our day is how modern civilisation and\nChristianity can go on in harmony. One can approach this question by\nseveral ways, but historical investigation has always proved to be the\nsurest. The author has in mind to write in German a full \"History of the\nBible,\" when time will allow. Meanwhile this brief sketch may prove\nuseful. Readers who look for references will find most of them in an\narticle contributed by the present writer to Dr. J. Hastings's\nEncyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, vol. II, on \"The Bible in the\nChristian Church.\"\n\nThe author wishes to express his thanks to his friend, Professor J. H.\nRopes, for kindly reading the proofs for him, to Mr. W. J. Wilson and\nMr. H. A. Sherman, who helped him in improving the diction, and to\nProfessor Williston Walker for valuable information regarding early\nAmerican documents. If any reader should find fault with the English\nstyle of this book, he must not blame any translator--the author himself\nis responsible.\n\n                                                  ERNST VON DOBSCHUeTZ.\n\n  CAMBRIDGE, MASS.\n  _January_, 1914.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n  CHAPTER                                                         PAGE\n     I. THE BIBLE MAKES ITSELF INDISPENSABLE FOR THE\n          CHURCH (TO 325 A. D.)                                      3\n\n    II. THE BIBLE BEGINS TO RULE THE CHRISTIAN\n          EMPIRE (325-600 A. D.)                                    28\n\n   III. THE BIBLE TEACHES THE GERMAN NATIONS (500-800 A. D. )       47\n\n    IV. THE BIBLE BECOMES ONE BASIS OF MEDIAEVAL\n          CIVILISATION (800-1150 A. D.)                             67\n\n     V. THE BIBLE STIRS NON-CONFORMIST MOVEMENTS (1150-1450)        94\n\n    VI. THE BIBLE TRAINS PRINTERS AND TRANSLATORS (1450-1611)      117\n\n   VII. THE BIBLE RULES DAILY LIFE (1550-1850)                     138\n\n  VIII. THE BIBLE BECOMES ONCE MORE THE BOOK OF DEVOTION           164\n\n\n\n\nILLUSTRATIONS\n\n\n\n  PLATE                                                   TO FACE PAGE\n     I. HARVARD PAPYRUS. ROMANS 1 : 1-7                             14\n    II. ORIGEN'S HEXAPLA                                            16\n   III. CODEX SINAITICUS                                            28\n    IV. ROLL AND BOOK                                               30\n     V. VIENNA GENESIS                                              32\n    VI. JOSHUA ROLL                                                 38\n   VII. THE LORD'S PRAYER ON A POTSHERD                             46\n  VIII. GOTHIC BIBLE                                                50\n    IX. ALCUIN'S BIBLE                                              52\n     X. THEODULF'S BIBLE                                            54\n    XI. LINDISFARNE GOSPELS                                         66\n   XII. BYZANTINE MINIATURE                                         70\n  XIII. ENGLISH MINIATURE                                           82\n   XIV. WYCLIFFE'S BIBLE                                           116\n    XV. GUTENBERG'S FIRST PRINTED BIBLE                            122\n   XVI. FIRST PRINTED GERMAN BIBLE                                 126\n\n\n\n\nTHE INFLUENCE OF THE BIBLE ON CIVILISATION\n\n\n\n\nI\n\nTHE BIBLE MAKES ITSELF INDISPENSABLE FOR THE CHURCH (UNTIL 325 A. D.)\n\n\nThere is a small book; one can put it in one's pocket, and yet all the\nlibraries of America, numerous as they are, would hardly be large enough\nto hold all the books which have been inspired by this one little\nvolume. The reader will know what I am speaking of; it is the Bible, as\nwe are used to call it--the Book, the book of mankind, as it has\nproperly been called. It has been commented upon, treated in every way,\nbut, curious to say, hardly any one has attempted to trace its history\nthrough the centuries and mark the influence which it exerted upon our\ncivilisation.\n\nIn order to do this we follow the traces of the Bible through the\ndifferent periods of human or, to speak more accurately, of Christian\ncivilisation. In the first period of Christian history, the time of\npersecutions during the first three centuries of our era, there is not\nmuch to say about the Bible as influencing civilisation. Christianity\nwas but starting on its way and fighting for its place in the world. The\nBible could not exert a civilising influence upon a hostile world. But\nby impressing its value upon the Christian mind it made itself\nindispensable for the church and thereby laid the foundation for the\nfuture development.\n\nChristianity was a living religion. The first congregations were\ndwelling in an atmosphere of enthusiasm. There was a general outpouring\nof the Holy Spirit. The prophet's words seemed to be fulfilled: \"They\nshall teach no more every man his neighbour and every man his brother,\nsaying: know the Lord; for they shall all know me.\" Christianity was not\na religion of a sacred book, whose dead letter was to be artificially\nkept alive by learned men. It was a religion of living experiences.\nNevertheless, Christianity from the beginning had a sacred book. Jesus\nand his disciples used the Bible of their people, the Old Testament, and\nSaint Paul carried it to the Christian communities of gentile origin,\nwhich had not known of it before.\n\nChristianity could not do without it. If it was necessary to convince\nJews that Jesus was the Messiah, how could this be done without arguing\nfrom the Scriptures as proof? If the gospel was to be announced to the\nheathen they would give less heed to the new tidings than to the\nstatement that it was really the most ancient form of religion as\nattested by this sacred book, which was superior to all the books of\npoets and philosophers and legislators by reason of its venerable age.\nChristianity without any hesitation claimed the Old Testament as its own\nbook, its own Bible. Not only was Jesus the content of this book, he was\neven believed to be its author. It was the spirit of Jesus which dwelt\nin the prophets and made them seek and search concerning the salvation\noffered by Christ (I Peter 1 : 10-11). \"The prophets having their grace\nfrom him, did prophesy unto him,\" we are told in the so-called letter of\nBarnabas. So the Old Testament seemed to be a Christian book both in\ncontent and in origin, and it was easy enough to add some properly\nChristian pamphlets, as Saint Paul's letters and some gospels, the Acts\nand other letters, and some books of revelation. It was as necessary as\nit was easy, if Christianity was not to lose contact with its proper\norigin.\n\nThe New Testament, as we have it now, was not complete at the start. It\nwas a collection of primitive Christian writings, larger in some ways\nthan it is now; on the other hand lacking some of its present elements.\nIts precise content did not become finally established until a very late\nperiod, not earlier than the end of the fourth century.\n\nSo also the size of the Old Testament was not quite fixed. There were\nmore books in the Greek Bible of the Alexandrian Jews than in the Hebrew\nBible of the Palestinian rabbis. The Christian church at first adopted\nthe Greek Bible, but from time to time some scholar pointed out the\ndifference, and many people thought they had better keep to the Hebrew\ncanon. This view, championed by Saint Jerome, led to a partial rejection\nof the books which nowadays we usually call the Old Testament Apocrypha,\nuntil in the sixteenth century the churches accentuated their difference\nby a different attitude toward these books, the Calvinists rejecting\nthem altogether, the Roman church including them as an integral part of\nthe Bible, and the Lutherans giving them an intermediate position as\nbooks to be read with safety but without canonical authority. When,\nin 1902, King Edward VII was to be crowned, the British and Foreign\nBible Society intended to present to his Majesty the copy of the Bible\non which he was to take his oath. Then it was discovered that according\nto the old regulations the king of England had to take his oath on a\ncomplete Bible, that is a Bible containing the Apocrypha. The British\nand Foreign Bible Society on its part, by its statutes, was prevented\nfrom printing Bibles including the Apocrypha; so they presented to the\nking a most beautiful copy, but the king did not use it for the\ncoronation service. It is the difference between the Alexandrian and the\nPalestinian canon which reappears in this little struggle and thereby is\nseen surviving to our own time.\n\nUnsettled as the size of the Old and of the New Testament may have been,\nnevertheless the principle was established at a very early date that\nChristianity was to have a holy Scripture in two parts, one taken over\nfrom Judaism, the other added from its own stores.\n\nLet us stop here for a moment and try to realise what this meant.\nMohammed, when founding his new religion, acknowledged, it is true, the\nbooks of the former religions, but for his own believers the unique\nauthority is the Koran, a book which originated within a single\ngeneration and therefore is pervaded by one uniform spirit. Christianity\nadhered to a Bible whose larger part originated in a period much\nanterior to its own and in a religion inferior to Christianity. The\nBible covers a period of over a thousand years. What a difference in\ncivilisation between the nomadic life of the patriarchs and the time of\nJesus! What a difference in spirit between the sons of Jacob killing\nthe whole population of Sichem in order to avenge their sister and\nJesus' parable of the good Samaritan! or between the prophet Elijah\nkilling four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and Jesus preaching the\nlove of one's enemies! In fact, it was possible to overcome this\ndifference only in an age which did not read the Bible with historical\nnotions. Even so, the juxtaposition caused much difficulty. We shall see\nthe problem of the Law troubling the church through all the centuries.\nWe shall find the notions of sacrifice and priesthood adapted to\nChristian institutions. Looking at Charlemagne or Calvin, we realise\nthat the Old Testament is ever introducing its views into Christian\nminds, as authoritative as any word of the gospel.\n\nNow, at the beginning the influence was rather the other way; the Old\nTestament was to be interpreted in the light of the New. And, in truth,\nmuch light came from the life of Jesus to the history of the ancient\npeople and to the prophecies. We do not wonder that Christian minds were\nexcited by all this fresh illumination, and we must not wonder that\nsometimes they remodelled the tradition of the life of Christ to accord\nwith the Old Testament.\n\nThe harmony between the two Testaments soon became a leading idea in\nChristian doctrine. Some heretics, indeed, would not accept the Old\nTestament. Marcion maintained that it came from an inferior god, while\nthe supreme God, the father of our Lord Jesus Christ, had revealed\nhimself only through his Son. He found a great many contrasts between\nthe Old and the New Testament, and this criticism was supported by pagan\nphilosophers, as, for example, Porphyry. The church, therefore, was most\nanxious to establish the harmony of the Testaments by any means at its\ncommand. Taste varies from century to century; the minute parallelism\nconstructed by some early Christian writers, and evidently much admired\nby their contemporaries, seems to us rather ridiculous and fanciful. On\nthe other hand, the church was right in maintaining the harmony. The New\nTestament needs to be explained from the Old Testament; it is open to\nmuch misunderstanding when taken apart. There was almost no sense for\nhistorical development at that time; the criticism of Ptolemaeus, in his\nfamous letter to Flora, where he speaks of several strata of revelation\nrunning through the Old and the New Testament, is an exceptional one.\nFor most of the faithful the Christian doctrine was directly looked for\nand found in the Old Testament; the gospel was contained in every one of\nits books, from Genesis to Malachi. Unity was conceived as uniformity.\n\nThis was the system which appealed most to the average Christian mind.\nAnd the Bible was open to all Christians, as Harnack has brilliantly\ndemonstrated in a recent publication. The ancient church laid stress\nupon this publicity and never tried to withdraw the Bible from the\npeople. There was no hidden mystery regarding the Bible. On the\ncontrary, all members of the church were anxiously urged to make\nthemselves as familiar with the Bible as possible. They were supposed to\nhave copies of their own and to read them privately as well as in the\ncongregation. Even when the struggles about the right doctrine began and\nthe heretics sometimes held to the Bible as their champion against the\ndoctrine of the church, the church did not remove the Bible from public\ndiscussion. The ecclesiastical party maintained that the Bible was\nalways in favour of the true doctrine; one needs but to know how to read\nit. Tertullian, it is true, once in the heat of controversy declared\nthat it was no use arguing against heretics from the Bible, but he did\nit, nevertheless, and so did the other fathers.\n\nThe Bible proved its spiritual value to the experience of every reader.\nA man familiar with the Psalms has a treasure which cannot be lost; in\nany situation he will find what is suitable for his needs. If one looks\nfor examples of faith, the author of the epistle to the Hebrews in his\neleventh chapter gives a splendid model for finding heroes of faith all\nthrough the Bible. The book of Genesis, especially its first chapters,\nwas of particular interest for most of the readers on account of the\nsublime description there given of the beginnings of mankind. The\ncreation story in Genesis implies much more than even the finest of all\nGreek myths, namely, the myth in Plato's Timaeus, with which it was\ncompared by the emperor Julian. The mighty words, \"In the beginning God\ncreated heaven and earth,\" proved to be the one true answer to all the\ncosmological questions of Greek philosophy, and besides there was ample\nroom for introducing whatever was wanted--such as the creation and the\nfall of the angels--if only one knew how to read between the lines.\n\nIn an old Christian book dealing with church regulations and the rules\nfor individual Christian life we find the following admonition to use no\nother book at all except the Bible, because, as the author says, the\nBible contains literature of every kind. The passage runs:[1]\n\n     Stay at home and read in the Law and in the Book of the Kings and\n     in the Prophets and in the Gospel (which is) the fulness of these\n     things. Keep far away from all the books of the heathen; for what\n     hast thou to do with foreign words or with false laws or prophecies\n     which also easily cause young people to wander from the faith? What\n     then is wanting to thee in the Word of God, that thou throwest\n     thyself upon these myths of the heathen? If thou wishest to read\n     the tales of the fathers, thou hast the Book of the Kings; or of\n     wise men and philosophers, thou hast the Prophets amongst whom thou\n     wilt find more wisdom and science than among the wise men and the\n     philosophers, because they are the words of God, of the one only\n     wise God. If thou desirest song, thou hast the Psalms of David or\n     if the beginning of the world, thou hast the Genesis of great\n     Moses; if law and commandments, thou hast the book of Exodus of the\n     Lord our God. Therefore keep entirely away from all these foreign\n     things, which are contrary to them.\n\n  [1] Didascalia, ch. ii, p. 5 in Mrs. M. D. Gibson's translation.\n\nThe Bible, in fact, pervaded the whole life of a Christian. It was the\nBible, its history, its commandments, that he was taught as a child in\nhis parents' home. When the girls gathered in the women's hall to spin,\nthey would sing and talk about God's revelations more eagerly than even\nSappho had praised her luxurious love--according to an expression used\nby Tatian in his Apology. The prayers, private as well as\necclesiastical, all echoed Biblical phrases, and even at burials the\nChristians sang joyful psalms.\n\nSo the Bible became familiar to the Christians of that time. We are\nastonished to find how well they knew it. The sermons of this period\nare full of Biblical allusions, and evidently the preacher could expect\nthem to be understood.\n\nThis is the more remarkable as the circulating of the Bible in this time\nmet with the greatest difficulties. There was, of course, a large amount\nof Bible reading in the congregations. According to Justin's description\nof early Christian worship about 150 A. D., the service began with\ncontinuous reading of the Bible through many chapters, as far as time\nwould allow. Then an officer, bishop or elder, would begin to preach.\nThe office of reading was esteemed so highly that it was regarded as\nbased on a special spiritual gift; the anagnostes, _i. e._, the reader,\nin the earliest time had his place among the prophets and spirit-gifted\nteachers. And, in fact, if we look at the earliest manuscripts of the\nBible which have come down to us, we shall almost think that\nsupernatural assistance was necessary for reading them: no punctuation,\nno accent, no space between the words, no breaking off at the end of a\nsentence. The reader had to know his text almost entirely by heart to do\nit well. From the \"Shepherd of Hermas,\" a very interesting book written\nby a Roman layman about 140 A. D., we learn that some people gathered\noften, probably daily, for the special purpose of common reading and\nlearning. But even granted that the memory of these men was not spoiled\nby too much reading, as is ours, so that by hearing they were able to\nlearn by heart--it is said of some rabbis that they did not lose one\nword of all their master had told them, and, in fact, the Talmudic\nliterature was transmitted orally for centuries--nevertheless, we must\nassume that these Christians had their private copies of the Bible at\nhome. The evidence from the allusions of preachers to private reading is\nstrong. Cyprian addresses a Christian: \"Your life should be one of\nassiduous prayer or reading (of the Bible): now you speaking to God, now\nGod to you.\"\n\nHere begins our difficulty: how did they get so many copies? There was\nan organised book-trade in the ancient world; publishers had their\noffices, using (instead of printing-presses) slaves who were trained in\ncopying; they had shorthand writers, as well as calligraphers to do the\nfine writing. But as long as Christianity was still an oppressed\nreligion it is doubtful if the Bible was among the books which\npublishers would care to take. The Christians were, most of them, poor\npeople who could not spend much money for procuring Bibles. Besides, it\nwas no easy thing to get a complete Bible. At that time the books were\nstill written on papyrus rolls, not in book form. Only one side of the\npapyrus could be used; the roll would become unwieldy if too long. So,\nin order to get all the books of the Old and the New Testament, at least\ntwo dozen rolls had to be written. Maybe a simple Christian copied for\nhimself one gospel or some letters or even one or more books from the\nOld Testament. There are preserved on papyrus some unfinished attempts\nwhich show what hard work it was (Plate I). We can scarcely imagine a\nman going with this heavy hand through all the books of the Bible.\n\n  [Illustration: PLATE I--HARVARD PAPYRUS\n\n    An attempt to copy the letters of St. Paul (Romans counts as\n    A = first letter) giving the text only unto Romans 1 : 7; late\n    third or early fourth century.\n\n  From Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Vol. II, PI. II, Egypt Exploration\n  Fund--London.]\n\nWe are told that wealthy Christians helped their brethren by procuring\ncopies for them. Origen, the greatest Bible scholar of the ancient\nchurch, is said to have been supported by a rich admirer, who put at his\ndisposal a number of slave copyists. With their help he succeeded in\ncreating one of the greatest works which Bible criticism ever undertook,\nhis so-called Hexapla, which is a comparison of more than six various\nGreek translations of the Old Testament. Scholars in the nineteenth\ncentury held that scarcely more than one copy of this enormous work had\never been written, but by recent discoveries we know that it was copied\nseveral times (Plate II). A later admirer of Origen, Pamphilus, is said\nalways to have carried with him several rolls in order to provide poor\nbrethren. Now that was the third century. Christianity had already begun\nto spread among the higher classes and to become a feature in the\nworld's life.\n\nDevotional reading of the Bible was accompanied by scholarly\ninterpretation. We mentioned Origen as the greatest Bible scholar of his\ntime, if not of all times. It may be worth while to insert here a few\nwords on his life. A native of Alexandria, he saw as a boy his father\ndying as a martyr for his Christian faith; he longed to become a martyr\nhimself, and was only prevented from giving himself up by a trick of his\nmother's, who concealed all his clothes. He got a good training at the\ncatechetical school of Alexandria, not restricting himself to mere\nChristian and Biblical studies, but reading the pagan philosophers of\nhis time as well as the Greek classics. A youth of only eighteen years,\nhe became the head of the school, and his fame spread all over the\nempire. He travelled to Rome, to Greece; he was even asked by the Roman\ngovernor to come to Arabia to settle certain questions. So zealous was\nhe to fulfil the commandments of the gospel that, misunderstanding one\nof the Lord's sayings, he made himself a eunuch for the kingdom of\nheaven's sake, which brought him into trouble in his later life. When\nonce on a journey through Palestine he, being still a layman, had\npreached before the bishop of Caesarea, he was summoned by his\nown bishop and ordered not to preach. Some years afterward the bishop of\nCaesarea, who was among his strongest admirers, ordained him a priest,\nwhich caused his bishop to banish him from Alexandria. He settled at\nCaesarea and lived there for twenty years without ever aiming at any\necclesiastical position, pursuing his study of the Bible and gathering\naround his chair the best men from every part of Christianity. So great\nwas his fame that the empress Julia Mammaea, being still a pagan, asked\nhim to see her when she was travelling in the East. He was the one man\nto refute the vigorous attack made against the truth of Christian\ndoctrine by the philosopher Celsus. When persecution began again he\nwrote a tractate of comfort, \"On Martyrdom,\" and another, \"On Prayer.\"\nHe himself suffered imprisonment and torture, and died after his\nrelease, as a result of these sufferings, at the age of sixty-nine.\n\n  [Illustration: PLATE II--ORIGEN'S HEXAPLA\n\n     Fragment found in the Cairo-Genizah and published by E. Taylor in\n     1900; parchment, fifth century, with part of second, third, and\n     fourth columns: Ps 22 : 25-28; used later for copying Hebrew texts.\n\n  From \"Hexapla of Origen,\" by E. Taylor, published by G. P. Putnam's\n  Sons.]\n\nWe can scarcely do honour enough to this man, who three centuries after\nhis death was proclaimed to be one of the most dangerous heretics, the\nchurch, however, using his learning in the form of extracts. The vast\namount of reading, the sagacity, and the perspicuity of the man are\nalike admirable. He is said to have commented upon nearly all the books\nof the Bible, and this three times. He wrote short annotations, he\ncompiled large and learned commentaries, and he preached before the\ncongregation. Only a small part of his works has come down to us, but\nthis fills volumes. Origen's great merit is that he brought Christian\ninterpretation to a system which enabled the church to retain the plain\nhistorical sense alongside the so-called higher meaning.\n\nFor a long time gentile philosophers as well as Jewish preachers had\nadopted the method of treating their sacred books allegorically. Homer,\nit was assumed, in telling his stories of battles of gods and heroes,\nmeant quite another thing; otherwise he would be guilty of irreligion.\nHe meant that the powers of nature and the energies of the human soul\ncame into struggle, and therefore virtues and vices were fighting one\nwith another. The same thing was done by Philo for the Old Testament.\nThere was no real history; all was symbolical, allegory. Christianity\ntried to follow in this path. The gnostics indulged in the wildest form\nof allegory. But it was not safe to give up the idea of historicity\naltogether. Jesus and his gospel were historical facts, not mere ideas;\nthey were emptied of all meaning if turned into allegory. And likewise\nthe history of the Old Testament could not simply be reduced to\nallegorical metaphors. Origen saved the situation by asserting that each\nof these two views had its proper place. His theory is that as man\nconsists of body, soul, and spirit, so the holy Scripture has a\nthreefold nature, to which corresponds a threefold interpretation. The\nbody stands for the plain historical meaning: Jesus did cast out of the\ntemple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves and the changers of\nmoney. There are some historical difficulties, Origen admits, if we\ncompare the different gospel narratives and if we take account of the\nfact that a single man did this; Origen explains that it was a miracle\nshowing the divine power in Jesus. But there are other aspects too. The\nsoul represents the higher moral view: Christ is always casting out of\nhis church, which belongs to the heavenly Jerusalem, the men who are\nprofaning it by their money-making. And, lastly, there is the spirit,\nthat is, the supreme mystical understanding. The spirit of Christ,\nentering its temple, the man's soul, casts out of it all earthly desires\nand makes it a house of prayer. Now that is very ingenious. These three\nstrata of interpretation allow for a great variety in explanation and\nadaptation. Origen succeeds by this method in keeping the essential\nhistorical basis and adding what in those days was thought to be most\nsignificant. The Bible, being a divine book, seemed to require a higher\nform of interpretation; the Holy Ghost of God was supposed to be a\nspirit of mysteries; it was assumed that to interpret the Bible in a\nplain way was to think of God meanly.\n\nOf course, the Bible contained some allegories which might seem to\nsupport this theory of allegorical interpretation; for instance, the\nbeautiful vision of Ezekiel, told in the thirty-seventh chapter of his\nbook: he sees the valley full of dry bones, and at the command of God he\nprophesies over them and they begin to come together, and flesh came up\nand skin covered them above and at last breath came into them and they\nlived. It is a magnificent allegory of the people of Israel, scattered\nin the exile and brought to life again by the power of God. It is\nirritating to see the fathers just at this point declining to follow the\npath of allegorical interpretation. They insist upon the reality of the\noccurrence; it is to be taken literally as resurrection of the dead--so\nit has influenced all mediaeval pictures of the last judgment! I need\nonly add that the rabbis took Ezekiel's description in the same way, as\na real occurrence, arguing for the historicity by showing the\nphylacteries which the risen persons had worn--and one feels what a pity\nit is to treat allegory as history. But the opposite fault is still\nworse: the spiritualising and allegorising of real history is the\ngreatest damage ever done to religion.\n\nTheologians tried to establish the authority of the Bible. This had\nalready been done in some measure by the rabbis of the synagogue. In\ntaking over the Bible the Christians had only to accept their estimate\nof it, but they were not quite satisfied with it. The rabbinical\ndoctrine was a rather mechanical one: God had used men, just as a man\nuses a pencil to write with. The pencil does not act consciously: so the\nOld Testament writers, according to this theory, did not take any part\nin what they were writing; it was to them as another man's script.\nCommenting upon the last chapter of Deuteronomy, where the death of\nMoses is described, a rabbinical authority remarks: \"Until this passage\nGod dictated and Moses wrote; henceforth God dictated and Moses wrote\nweeping\"--namely, the account of his own death. There was so little\ninterest in the human author that he could be eliminated altogether. We\nare told by an early Jewish legend that all books of the Old Testament\nhad been destroyed at the time of Nebuchadnezzar, when the temple was\nburned; so God dictated them all to Ezra. According to this theory Ezra\nwould be the real author of the whole Old Testament. This is the most\nmechanical way of representing the equal inspiration of all parts of the\nOld Testament. The Jews of the dispersion had a somewhat similar theory\nabout the inspiration of their Greek Bible; when Ptolemy Philadelphus,\nking of Egypt, gathered at Alexandria seventy elders of the Jews to make\nthe Greek translation of their law, he put each one of them in a\nseparate cell in order to avoid any communication between them, so the\nlegend runs. Then, after working for seventy days, all at once they\nshouted \"Amen\" from their cells, having accomplished their task, and\nwhen the seventy copies had been compared they were found to agree even\nin the smallest detail. Here we have again an attempt to assert\ninspiration not only for the book itself but also for its translation.\nIt is as mechanical as the former, all human co-operation being\nexcluded.\n\nChristians did not want this. In Jesus they had experienced living\nrevelation; they had prophets among themselves. So, at least at the\nbeginning, they had a much higher view of inspiration. God enters a\nman's soul and fills it with his spirit; now the man acts and speaks in\nthe power of this spirit, and yet he is not unconscious of his own doing\nand speaking. There are two ways of inspiration, we are told by Clement\nof Alexandria: either God snatches up the man's soul and conducts it to\nthe unseen world and shows to it whatever he wishes it to know--this is\necstasy--or God enters the man and fills him and makes him his organ.\nThe latter, less striking though it appears, is nevertheless the higher\nand more valuable concept. Therefore the fathers do not so much use the\nmetaphor of the pencil as the similitude of a musical instrument,\nwhether a flute through which the Holy Spirit is playing, or a harp\nwhich he touches with a plectrum.\n\nMuch as they appreciate the holy Scripture, the early fathers usually\ntalk about it in a very unpretentious manner. They have not yet\ndeveloped those gorgeous formulas of quotation which are used in later\ntimes. They quote simply: \"Scripture says,\" or \"Paul says,\" not \"the\nholy and glorious apostle in his most excellent epistle to the Romans\nsays exceedingly well.\" They talk in simple words, but they are prepared\neven to die for this Bible.\n\nEusebius, the first historian of the Christian church, to whom we are\nindebted for so much invaluable information, tells us a moving story\nabout Marinus, a young Christian officer in the Roman army, at Caesarea,\nin Palestine. He had the confidence of his superiors and was to be\npromoted to the higher rank of captain. Then out of jealousy one of his\ncomrades denounced him as a Christian. Summoned before his colonel, he\nwas asked if this was true, and when he confessed he was urged to abjure\nhis faith. The colonel gave him three hours' time. So he went to the\nsmall Christian church, where he found the venerable old bishop. The\nbishop, hearing his story, took the Bible in one hand and the soldier's\nsword in the other. \"This is your choice,\" he said. And the soldier,\nwithout hesitating, grasped the Bible, went back, and declared himself\nto be and to remain a Christian. And instead of receiving military\npromotion he became a martyr.\n\nIt is a significant little story. Indeed, after a hard struggle, lasting\nthrough nearly three centuries, when the Roman empire found it necessary\nto attempt the final destruction of Christianity the attack was mostly\ndirected against the Bible. Diocletian, in 303 A. D., on the 24th of\nFebruary, issued an edict ordering all Christian churches to be\ndestroyed and all Bibles to be burned. He relied on the Roman law, which\nforbids not only the exercise of magical arts, but the science of magic,\ntoo, and therefore condemns all books of magic to be burned. The\nChristians were accused of employing magic, and their Bible was treated\nas a magical book.\n\nWe have thrilling accounts of Christians trying to conceal their\ntreasured Bible rolls from the eyes of the inquiring officials. They\ntook them from the church into their private homes, securing the Bible\nin safety but many a time bringing persecution upon themselves. To the\nofficials they surrendered books of various kinds in order to escape\nfrom surrendering the Scriptures. Asked if they had sacred books in\ntheir houses, many of them would answer: \"Yes, in our hearts.\" The\nenthusiasm was so great that they believed the story of any miracle in\nsupport of the Bible. They maintained that copies of the Bible which had\nbeen thrown into the fire by the heathen were not burned or even touched\nby the flame.\n\nNaturally there were others who were not strong enough in their faith to\nresist, but these \"surrenderers,\" as they were called, were cast out of\nthe church and never admitted again. During the fourth century to bring\nagainst a clergyman the charge of having surrendered sacred books at\nthat period of persecution was felt to be the most serious accusation\npossible. Even to be ordained by a bishop who was under suspicion of\nhaving surrendered his church's holy Scriptures was held a disgrace by a\nlarge party of zealous Christians who demanded that orders of this kind\nbe invalidated. The records of a trial held at Carthage in 329 A. D.\ndealing with this question have come down to us. Here documents from\n303 A. D. were introduced as evidence against the clergy, and the whole\nforms one of the most illuminating pages of church history.\n\nEven to be found reading the Bible made a man guilty of obstinate\nresistance to the emperor's law and involved him in penalty. There was a\ndeacon at Catania in Sicily named Euplus. He was reading the holy\nScripture when the sheriff laid hold of him. Brought before the judge he\ntakes his copy of the Gospel and reads from it (Matt. 5 : 10): \"Blessed\nare they that have been persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs\nis the kingdom of heaven,\" and (Matt. 10 : 38): \"And he that doth not\ntake his cross and follow after me, is not worthy of me.\" The judge asks\nhim: \"Why did you not surrender those volumes which the emperors\nforbade?\" \"Because,\" he replies, \"I am a Christian and it was not loyal\nto surrender. It is better to die than to surrender.\" We do not need the\naddition made by a late Byzantine hagiographer that the copy of the\nGospels was hung on his neck when he was conducted to execution. It is\nclear enough that he was suffering for his devotion toward the Bible and\nthat it was the gospel which inspired his boldness.\n\nEuplus does not stand alone. I could mention a dozen martyrs whose acts\nall give the same impression. Sometimes a gathering of men and women is\napprehended while reading the Bible, and the whole company is forthwith\ncarried away to the most painful tortures.\n\nThese Christians knew what the Bible was to them. All declamations of\nlater theologians about the inspiration and the authority of the Bible\ncount for nothing compared with this testimony.\n\nAfter all, we do not wonder that the Bible became a civilising power as\nsoon as Christianity had won its victory.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nTHE BIBLE BEGINS TO RULE THE CHRISTIAN EMPIRE (325-600 A. D.)\n\n\nAfter the persecution by Diocletian a new era began. Constantine\nproclaimed tolerance, and by and by Christianity became the religion of\nthe empire. The victory of Christianity was a victory of the Bible as\nwell. This finds its expression in the remarkable fact that the first\nChristian emperor, the immediate successor of those who persecuted the\nBible and tried to destroy it, ordered fifty splendid copies of the\nBible to be prepared at his expense for the churches of the newly\nfounded capital, Constantinople. Some scholars have thought that one or\ntwo of these copies still survive in the famous manuscript discovered by\nTischendorf in the Convent of Mount Sinai (Plate III), or in the Codex\nVaticanus at Rome. I venture rather to think that both copies belong to\nthe period of Constantine's sons. But the fact that the Bible, after a\nperiod of destruction when most of the earlier copies were burned, got a\nsurprising circulation under official direction accounts, I think, for a\npuzzling feature in the transmission of the text. From the Old Latin\nand the Old Syriac, as well as from the testimony of the fathers, we can\ninfer that various forms of the Greek text must once have been widely\ncirculated, which have now almost disappeared, whereas most of our\npresent Greek manuscripts give a text evidently based on a late official\nrecension. Looking at Diocletian's attempt to destroy the Bible\naltogether and at Constantine's official order to provide a large number\nof manuscripts, we easily understand the situation. The older forms of\ntext had been swept away; now there was room to supply their place with\nthe learned attempts of later scholars from the schools of Origen or\nLucian who endeavoured to bring in more critical texts.\n\n  [Illustration: PLATE III--CODEX SINAITICUS\n\n    End of St. Mark (15 : 16-16 : 8) and beginning of St. Luke\n    (1 : 1-18); Mark 16 : 9-20 is missing; 15 : 47 is added at the\n    lower margin by a later hand; remark the numbers of Eusebius's\n    sections and canons. The eight columns of the open book recall\n    the roll-system.\n\n  Reduced one-fifth from the fac-simile edited by Prof. Lake and\n  published by the Clarendon Press (Oxford and London).]\n\nAnother change is to be mentioned at the same time. The old form of\npapyrus rolls became obsolete and the parchment book took its place. The\nuse of this latter form seems to originate in the law schools; the\ncodex, or parchment book, is at first the designation of a Roman\nlaw-book. But at an early date the Christian church adopted this form as\nthe more convenient one and gave it its circulation. We hardly say too\nmuch when we call the Bible the means by which our present form of book\ncame into general use. Even if the Bible had done nothing else for\ncivilisation than to give mankind the shape of its books that would be\na great deal (Plate IV).\n\nThe form of a parchment book, or codex, would admit of the copying of\nseveral books in one volume. The great Bibles of the fourth and fifth\ncenturies of which we know contained all the books; they formed one\nvolume. So the internal unity running through the Bible as a whole came\nto be represented even in the outward form.\n\nThe copying of the Bible went on rapidly, monks and noble Christian\nladies undertaking it as a form of ascetic work, providing a heavenly\nmerit and sometimes earning bread and butter, too. Instead of the plain\ncopies in an unskilled hand we now find sumptuous books of the finest\nparchment with purple colouring, in the most luxurious manuscripts the\nsacred text being written in gold and silver, and the margin sometimes\nbeing covered with beautiful paintings. A copy of Genesis in Greek at\nthe Vienna library has forty-eight water-colours, one at the bottom of\neach page, telling the same story as the text. The manuscript when\ncomplete must have had sixty folios: this gives one hundred and twenty\nof such decorated pages for Genesis, and if it contained the whole\nPentateuch we may allow for five hundred and ten illustrations (Plate\nV). And this manuscript does not stand alone; it is but one of\na large group of illuminated manuscripts. This sumptuous appearance may\nbe taken as a sign of the value attached to the Bible. Persecuted\nhitherto, it became the ruler of the Christian empire, invested with all\nthe glory of royalty.\n\n  [Illustration: PLATE IV--ROLL AND BOOK\n\n    St. Luke the Evangelist copying from a roll into a book (codex\n    form): miniature from a Greek manuscript at the Vatican library\n    (gr. 1158), eleventh century.\n\n  From \"Vatikanische Miniaturen.\" Copyright by B. Herder, Freiburg.]\n\nThe place given to the Bible is best shown by the fact that it presided\nover the great councils, a copy of the Bible lying upon the presidential\nchair. It was meant as a symbol for Christ himself taking the place of\nhonour and deciding the great questions of faith. The same holds true\nfor non-ecclesiastical assemblies. In an ordinance of the emperor\nTheodosius it is required that a copy of the Bible be present in every\ncourt-room. The Bible, or rather the Gospels, or to speak even more\nprecisely the most prominent page in them, the beginning of the first\nchapter of St. John's Gospel, was used for taking an oath. The worn\ncondition of this page in many a manuscript still attests this use.\n\nPresiding over the courts, the Bible began at once to exercise its\ninfluence upon the Law. We can already trace this influence in the\nlegislation of Constantine himself: when he forbids to brand a criminal\non his face, giving as reason that the image of God ought not to be\nmarred, it is the Biblical notion of the man's face being the likeness\nof God which underlies this law. When, in a law published in 334, he\ninsists that no man, whoever he is and whatever rank he has, shall be\nadmitted as a solitary witness unless supported by another witness, it\nis the well-known Biblical rule that at the mouth of two or three\nwitnesses every word shall be established. When he makes divorce more\ndifficult, denying the right of remarriage to the man who repudiates his\nwife without sufficient reason on her part, we feel that it is the\ninjunction of Jesus which is behind this law. I would not say the same\nof all parts of this legislation which various scholars have adduced as\nproving Christian influence. Roman law from the second century was\ninfluenced to a large extent by the Stoa, all the famous lawyers such as\nGaius and Paulus belonging to this school and introducing its ideas into\nthe practice of the courts and into the legislation of the magistrates,\nespecially of the emperor. There is an evident development in the Roman\nlaw toward a more humane conception of slavery; this is due to the Stoa.\nThe views on marriage and divorce, the position of \"natural children,\"\nas the Roman law calls illegitimates, all this is largely due to\nnon-Christian influences. Nevertheless, there are unmistakable traces of\na particular influence of the Bible upon the legislation of the\nChristian emperors, and this influence increases from decade to decade.\nConstantine gives a rather vague ordinance for keeping Sunday as a day\non which courts are not to be held. Theodosius is much stricter; and the\nclimax is reached with Justinian, when Sunday has become a legal\nholiday.\n\n  [Illustration: PLATE V--VIENNA GENESIS\n\n    The paradise: Adam and Eve appear three times: (1) under the tree\n    of knowledge, Gen. 3 : 6; (2) when discovering their nakedness,\n    3 : 7; (3) when hiding themselves from the Lord among the trees,\n    3 : 8. The divine voice, represented by the hand from heaven,\n    belongs to this third scene; it is put in the centre merely for\n    artistic reasons.\n\n  From \"Die Wiener Genesis.\" F. Tempsky, Vienna.]\n\nJustinian, of course, codifies the Roman law, but his Novellae, the laws\nissued by himself, show the new spirit of a legislation ruled by the\nBible. He sometimes refers directly to the Bible as authority. Still\nmore is this spirit prevalent in some provincial codes. One of these\nsays that everything has to be judged according to the ancient and to\nthe modern law, i. e., the law of Moses, which antedates the laws of all\nother nations, and the law of Christ, as it is contained in the laws of\nthe emperors Constantine, Theodosius, and Leo. Lawyers of this period\nindulge in comparisons between the Roman law and the law of Moses.\n\nThe Roman empire was Latin in some respects, Greek in others. Latin was\nthe official language of the court, of the law, of the army. But the\npopulation spoke mostly Greek, though from the third century on large\nparts used their native language, Syriac and Coptic, as well. The Bible\nhad been translated into these languages during the former period. Now\nthe general political situation brings the empire into contact with the\nGoths in the North, with Armenians and Georgians in the East, with\nLibyans and Ethiopians in the South. As soon as the empire gains any\ninfluence among these neighbouring peoples, the Christian mission tries\nto get hold of them and we see the Bible translated into these\nlanguages, which hitherto have had no writing. The Bible marks for these\npeoples the beginning of a national literature. Their alphabets were\nmade up from the Greek, thus showing that the reading of the Bible with\nthese nations began in connection with their intercourse with the Roman\nempire.\n\nThe Bible ruled even the Greek language of this empire. There are many\nchanges in the later Greek which are surely due to familiarity with the\nBible. Words previously unknown in Greek or used in a different sense\nbecame quite familiar; everybody knows what is the meaning of Beelzebub,\nMessiah, Paradise, Satan, and that an angel is not a mere messenger, but\nis a messenger from God, a spiritual being, and that the word demon\nalways means an unclean spirit.\n\nMoreover, the Bible influenced the style of the writers, especially of\nthe great preachers. One may distinguish three forms of influence in\nthis department: artificial imitation; naive use of Biblical names and\nphrases (what is usually called in Germany the language of Canaan); and,\nlastly, the unconscious influence which the style of any book exerts\nupon a careful reader. I do not think that there are many instances of\nartificial imitation in this period. Sometimes a preacher skilfully\ncomposed his whole sermon by adding Biblical quotation to quotation;\nasked to preach a sermon on a saint's day, he did nothing else than\ncomment upon the saint's life in Biblical phrases. The second type of\ninfluence is very common; the present emperor is usually spoken of as\nthe new David; the story of a war is always told as if David were\nfighting the Philistines; each heretic is entitled to be called the new\nJudas Iscariot who betrays his Lord. The most famous example of this\nkind is the sermon attributed to Chrysostom after his first return to\nConstantinople, when he had fled from the wrath of the empress: \"Again\nHerodias is furious, again she flurries, again she dances, again she\ndesires the Baptist's head to be cut off by Herod.\" The preacher's own\nChristian name, of course, was John, and the empress was trying to get\nrid of him for political reasons.\n\nThe most important influence, however, is the unconscious influence\nsimply from the use of the Bible. The great power of Chrysostom's\nsermons was partly due to his eminent rhetorical talent and training. He\nknew how to gain his hearers' attention; yet for the greater part his\nthorough acquaintance with the Bible seems to be responsible. Reading\nthe sermons of those great Greek Christian orators of the fourth\ncentury, we are often struck by the embedded quotations from the Bible.\nIn the midst of this fluent Greek there is something quite different,\nsomething stern, something austere, something dignified and solemn,\nwhich immediately appeals to the hearer. As a matter of fact, the\npreachers themselves, proud as they were of their classical training,\nhad rather the opposite impression; they apologise for introducing\nbarbarous language. Chrysostom insists, in many a sermon, on the idea\nthat the apostles were fishermen, unskilled in literary style, and that\nit is one of the proofs of inspiration that those men could write at\nall. He evidently is not aware of the fact, clear to us, that it is just\nthe vigour and strength of Biblical language which gave to his own\nsermons their magnificent effect. He was filled with Biblical\nphraseology as was no other preacher of his time. He himself did not\nrealise it, nor did, I presume, the greater part of his congregation,\nyet it was this which so impressed them. If only the modern editors\nwould note all the Biblical allusions in his works! Yet they are hardly\nable even to recognise them. We find preachers noted for their\nbrilliancy in extemporaneous speaking, and usually the remark is added,\nit was because the speaker knew the Scriptures by heart.\n\nIn this way the people became accustomed to Biblical phraseology, and we\ndo not wonder that at last the colloquial Greek also was influenced by\nthe Bible. We can trace its influence even in the romances.\n\nThe Bible ruled the home and the daily life; people had their furniture\ndecorated with Biblical symbols; lamps showed Noah's ark or Jonah's\nwhale, Jesus with his disciples in a ship or Jesus treading upon the\nlion and adder, the serpent and dragon (according to Psalm 91). At the\nStrassburg Museum there is a beautiful engraved glass cup made probably\nin a Roman manufactory in Cologne. On one side is engraved Abraham\nsacrificing Isaac, on the other side Moses striking water from the rock.\nRich people wore sumptuous garments embroidered with representations of\nBiblical scenes. The preachers complain that these people wear the\nmiracles of Christ on their coats instead of taking them to their heart\nand conscience.\n\nThe great officials of the empire used to give to their friends ivory\ntablets commemorating their honours. In former times they had\nrepresented on them the emperor, the empress, or their own portraits,\nand scenes from the circus; now they chose Biblical subjects. People\nliked to have long rolls exhibiting the wars and triumphs of an emperor\nin a continuous series of drawings. Two gigantic rolls of this kind may\nstill be seen at Rome; I mean the columns of Trajan and of Marcus\nAurelius. Christian art produced rolls of the same kind, exhibiting the\nstory of Joshua's battles (Plate VI). Senators and noble ladies vied\nwith each other in arranging the history of the Bible and especially the\nlife of Jesus in the form of poems, each word of which was taken either\nfrom Homer or from Vergil. It is a wonderful mixture of Bible and\nclassical culture.\n\nThe Bible rules not only the public and the private life, but also the\nchurch and its organisations. At the beginning the Christians were\nafraid of comparing the Old Testament rites with the ecclesiastical\ninstitutions. The Law of the Old Testament belonged to an earlier form\nof religion; it was abolished by the New Testament. Christ, according to\nSaint Paul, was the end of the Law. But by and by the Old and the New\nTestament were brought nearer together. An author of the first century\nremarks that God by his commandments in the Old Testament has shown\nhimself to be a lover of order, therefore in the Christian congregation,\ntoo, order ought to rule. He does not call the Christian communion a\nsacrifice, the Christian minister a priest; but his parallelism comes\nvery near to this, and a century later the step is taken. It becomes\nusual to speak of bishop, elders, and deacons as high-priest, priests,\nand Levites. Later on, even the minor degrees were taken back to\nBiblical models: the subdeacon, lector, exorcist, acolyte, janitor were\nfound represented in the Old Testament. The clergy formed a separate\nclass as distinct from other people as the tribe of Levi was among the\ntribes of Israel. It was upon the authority of the Old Testament that\nthey claimed rights and prerogatives to be given and guaranteed by the\nempire. The monks found their models in Elijah and Elisha; common life\nwas represented by the apostles; penitents were Job, David, and the\npeople of Nineveh; widows (as ecclesiastical functionaries) had their\nmodels in Naomi, Hannah, Tabitha, etc. The church was the tabernacle of\nMoses and the temple of Solomon, and each detail in the description of\nthese Biblical buildings was made to agree with a feature in the\nChristian church by means of allegorical interpretation. The feasts of\nthe church correspond to the feasts of the Old Testament; Easter is\nusually called Passover, and Whitsuntide Pentecost. At a rather early\ndate a festival of the dedication of the individual church was\nintroduced to correspond with the festival of the dedication of the\ntemple. As the Jews kept two days in the week for fasting, so did the\nChristians, choosing Wednesday and Friday instead of Monday and\nThursday; and in doing so they remembered that it was on a Wednesday\nthat Jesus was betrayed by Judas and on a Friday that he died on the\ncross. Even the usual hours for prayers were based on Old Testament\nauthority; David, saying in Psalm 141 : 2 \"The lifting up of my hands as\nthe evening sacrifice,\" means vespers, while in the 131st Psalm he is\nspeaking of compline, in the 63d of matins. The vigil was observed as\nwell as commanded by Christ himself (Luke 6 : 12 and 12 : 37). The whole\nliturgy was explained as being in every detail a representation of\nthe life of Christ. The sacraments, too, were prefigured in the Old\nTestament. This symbolism is very old and very commonly used; it has\ninfluenced Christian art. We see Noah's ark as a symbol of baptism\n(_cf._ I Peter 3 : 20); Abel's sacrifice, and Melchisedek offering\nbread and wine to Abraham, as symbols of the holy eucharist. Abraham\nentertaining at his home the three angels reveals the holy Trinity. All\nthis is represented in splendid mosaics on the walls of the churches, as\nfor instance in San Vitale at Ravenna.\n\n  [Illustration: PLATE VI--JOSHUA ROLL\n\n  (At the Vatican)\n\n    Joshua is sending from Jericho (at the left, walls tumbling down)\n    to Ai two men to spy out the land, Joshua 7 : 2. The towns are\n    represented by edifices as well as by allegorical figures (Tyche\n    of the City).\n\n  From \"Vatikanische Miniaturen,\" by St. Beissel. Copyright by\n  B. Herder, Freiburg.]\n\nTo us this system of Biblical references for everything in the Christian\nservice seems strange. We feel that the worship of the Christian\ncongregation rests on other principles than the ritual of the Old\nTestament and does not gain anything by such hazardous comparisons. It\nlooks like comparing the stars in heaven with beasts on earth. But the\nfathers thought that this was the highest achievement at which they\ncould arrive: to allegorise and spiritualise the Old Testament law in\norder to deduce from it the Christian liturgy. That was what they called\nworship in spirit and truth. It is exactly opposite to the great idea\nwhich Jesus conveyed in those words; it is one of the greatest\nconfusions to which the juxtaposition of the Old and the New Testament\nin one Bible was leading. Nevertheless, it was of great influence upon\ncivilisation for centuries.\n\nThe church and the laity were ruled by the Bible; but the real Bible\nfolk of this time were the monks. There had been a tendency toward\nasceticism from the very beginning of Christianity. At the moment when\nthe church came into power this tendency increased rapidly. In Egypt as\nwell as in Syria, wherever there was a desert place hermits gathered and\nmonasteries were built. Now, in these monasteries the life was really\nfilled with the reading of the Bible. Even the poorest monk would have a\ncopy of the Gospels to read. Some of the monks, of course, were very\nsimple, unlearned people. They could not read, so they learned it all by\nheart. And sometimes--we are told in the legendary tales of the\nmonks--it happened that a monk who never before had learned to read was\nmiraculously given the art of reading, God granting it to him as a\nrecompense for his zeal. The monks had their hours for common worship\nand reading, but they were supposed to read each by himself as much as\npossible. \"The rising sun shall find the Bible in thy hands,\" is one of\nthe monastic rules, and legend illustrates how the divine grace\nrecompensed assiduous reading: filled with heavenly light all through\nthe night was the cell of a hermit as long as he was reading the Bible.\nWhen visitors came the talk was over questions raised by the Bible. It\nwas with quotations from the Bible that the celebrated anchorite\nentertained the people who called upon him to ask for spiritual help.\n\nAmong all Biblical books the Psalter was the one most favoured by the\nmonks. They knew it by heart, almost all of them, and they used to\nrecite it during their manual labour. The Psalter was their spiritual\nweapon against the temptations of the demons; the demon liked nothing so\nmuch as to turn a monk from reciting his Psalter. But besides the\nPsalter it was the Gospel which prevailed over all other books in these\nascetic circles. Many of the hermits were induced to leave the world by\nattending a Gospel lesson in their church at home. \"If thou wouldest be\nperfect, go, sell that thou hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt\nhave treasure in heaven: and come follow me,\" or \"And every one that\nhath left houses or brethren or sisters or father or mother or children\nor lands for my name's sake shall receive a hundredfold and shall\ninherit eternal life.\" These are the words which occur again and again\nin the lives of saints as the decisive ones for their \"conversion,\" that\nis for leaving the world and going to the desert or entering a\nmonastery. The first saying quoted above is referred to in the life of\nSaint Anthony, the greatest of all hermits, and Saint Augustine had this\nin his mind when the time came for him to change his life. The second\nsaying makes Saint Hypatius go away from home; his biographer, however,\nis honest enough to add that the saint, a youth of eighteen, had just\nreceived punishment from his father. An actor living luxuriously with\ntwo concubines chances to enter a church, and hears read from the\nGospel, \"Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand\"; so he repents\nand becomes a monk. I do not mean to say that these tales of the monks\nare historical and trustworthy in every point, but I venture to think\nthat this statement about the motives for conversion is, after all, a\ncorrect one. The gospel is what appeals to the human heart, in all\ncenturies and in all nations. And then the man will try to make the\ngospel the rule of his life. I think it is remarkable that whereas the\nchurch and the empire both were ruled mainly by the Old Testament, these\nascetic circles took the gospel as their main rule, that is to say, the\ngospel as understood by the men of that time. It was to them a new law,\na law of asceticism, of self-denial, and they kept to it as strictly as\npossible. Even if for other Christians it meant an almost inaccessible\nideal, the monastery ought to be the place to fulfil it literally.\n\nOur picture would be inadequate, however, if we should neglect the abuse\nof the Bible, the Bible showing its importance and ruling force even by\nits influence upon the dark domain of human superstition. The ancient\nworld was full of magic. We remember the story in Acts 19 of how Saint\nPaul overcame some Jewish exorcists, with the result that \"not a few of\nthem that practised curious arts brought their books together and burned\nthem in the sight of all, and they counted the price of them and found\nit fifty thousand pieces of silver.\" I suspect many a scholar or\nlibrarian of to-day would like very much to have those books among his\ntreasures, but they were burned; and Christianity scored its first\ntriumph over superstition. Superstition, however, did not give way at\nthis first defeat; on the contrary, it made a strenuous effort to draw\nover all the forces of Christendom to its own side. There was the name\nof Jesus, frightening the demons; black magic took this name and\nconverted it to its detestable uses. There was the Gospel,\nrepresentative of Jesus himself in his heavenly power; superstition made\nit a vehicle of its own magical rites. There was the Bible, the book of\ndivine oracles; human inquisitiveness turned it into a book from which\nto read the dark future. The heathen had done this with the poems of\nHomer and Vergil. Turning over the pages they suddenly stopped at a\nverse and then tried to find in this verse the answer to their question.\nThe fathers of the early church detested this method as something quite\nalien to a Christian mind, but as early as the end of the fourth century\npeople came to feel that it was all right if only they used the Bible\nfor the same purpose. In the sixth century even church officials kept to\nthis practice. When a bishop had to be elected they almost always\nconsulted the Psalter first on behalf of the man to be elected. Bible\nverses written on parchment were attached to easy chairs in order to\nkeep away the evil spirits. Gospels in the smallest form were hung on\nthe necks of the babies. It is astonishing to see how great was the\nesteem in which the Bible was held and how terribly contrary to the\nspirit of the Bible this practice was, especially when the Bible was\nused to do harm. Lead, by its dull lustre, always has reminded mankind\nof the realm of death; so it was used in black magic for bringing upon\nan enemy a curse from the gods of the underworld. A rolled sheet of\nlead, inscribed with a psalm and a dreadful curse against any robber,\nhas been found on one of the AEgean Islands hidden in the ground of a\nvineyard. Evidently the psalm was supposed to be one of the most\neffective spells. Even the Lord's Prayer and other parts of the Gospels\nhave been abused in the same way (Plate VII). Nothing is so holy that it\ncannot be turned into a crime by human sin.\n\nIt is a dark page of human civilisation. I am afraid it is a large page,\ntoo. I could accumulate instance upon instance. But however interesting\nthis might be, it would give a wrong impression. The Bible was not\nprimarily used as a magical means in those centuries. It was\nacknowledged as something superhuman, bearing supernatural powers, and\ntherefore ruling everything. It ruled the empire as well as the church.\nIt influenced law, language, art, habits, and even magic.\n\n  [Illustration: PLATE VII--THE LORD'S PRAYER\n\n    On a potsherd found at Megara, sixth century; used probably as a\n    spell.\n\n  From \"Mitteilungen des K. Deutschen Archaeologischen Instituts,\"\n  Athen. Published by G. Reimer, Berlin.]\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nTHE BIBLE TEACHES THE GERMAN NATIONS (500-800 A. D.)\n\n\nFrom the fourth century on the Germans, tribe by tribe, crossed the\nDanube and the Rhine and entered the boundaries of the Roman empire.\nHere part of them settled near the frontier, part took service in the\nRoman army. But the more numerous they became, the more hostile they\nwere. At last the Roman empire in the West broke down, German kingdoms\ntaking its place. It is a long and cruel history, this period of\n\"Voelkerwanderungen\" as it is usually called in German, the period of the\ngreat migrations. And only after some centuries did the new Roman empire\nof German nationality come to be established by Charlemagne.\n\nAt first the Germans made a brilliant start in taking over Roman\ncivilisation. The Goths had been Christianised and civilised at an early\nperiod. While it is true that the Visigoths under Alaric captured Rome\nand did not refrain from plundering it, the behaviour of the Vandals\nunder Gaiseric was even worse, so that for all time to come their name\nis connected with the most brutal pillage. But the noble tribe of the\nOstrogoths under their celebrated king Theodoric--called Dietrich von\nBern in the German songs--tried another plan; they adopted Roman\ncivilisation as far as possible and endeavoured to combine both nations\nunder one dominion. Theodoric had as his minister or secretary of state\na member of the Roman nobility, the most cultivated man of letters of\nthe time, Cassiodorus. We have his collection of reports and letters,\nand we may infer from them how much, aside from his training in the\nRoman law school, he was influenced by his Christian belief and Biblical\nreading. Later on, when he retired into the monastery which he had\nfounded on his estates at Vivarium, all his devotion was given to the\nstudy of the Bible. He is the man who inculcated on Western monasticism\nthat love for scholarship which has been ever since a characteristic of\nthe Order of Saint Benedict. Cassiodorus was a Roman, of course, but we\nhave ample evidence that even among the Goths the Bible was read and\nstudied. There was a Gothic translation of the Bible, which is supposed\nto have been made in the fourth century by Ulfilas. In order not to\nencourage the warlike spirit in his people he is said to have omitted\nthe books of the Kings, wherein so many wars and battles are described.\nThe educational aspect of the Bible as teaching the German nations\ncomes out here distinctly. We are able to trace the history of the Goths\nby their Bible, which, having been translated in the East from Greek\nmanuscripts, shows traces of a Latin influence, evidently introduced\nwhen the Goths settled in Italy. There still exist some copies, among\nthem the famous Codex Argenteus, now at Upsala, which in its silver\nwriting on purple ground, is a wonderful specimen of luxurious\ncalligraphy, giving testimony to the degree of civilisation which these\nOstrogoths had taken over from Rome (Plate VIII).\n\nThere was, however, one great difference between the Germans and the\nRomans; the latter were Catholics, the former Arians. This religious\ndifference is responsible for many troubles and persecutions brought by\nthe Germans upon the population of the conquered land. The Germans had a\nchurch organisation of their own; they had their own clergy, and this\nclergy was well trained in Bible reading. We find the remarkable fact\nthat the German Arian bishops show an even larger knowledge of the Bible\nthan their Roman Catholic colleagues. The complaint was often heard that\nthe watchwords of Catholicism, as, for example, _homousios_, had no\nBiblical foundation, while, on the other hand, the Arians were always\nready to fill their creeds with Biblical phrases. These Germans had a\nprofound reverence for the holy Scripture and bowed down to it. It was\nonly by Scriptural proofs that the Catholic clergy of Spain succeeded in\nconverting the Arian king to their faith.\n\nTheodoric built at Ravenna some churches which still exist. Here we see\nmosaics exhibiting the life of Jesus in a very simple way, but with that\nunmistakable touch of awe which is so characteristic of German piety.\nHow different are the pictures which were added after Ravenna had become\nByzantine! They are highly ceremonial, representing, among others, the\nemperor Justinian and the empress Theodora with all their suite.\n\nThese were the first centuries of German invasion. The ancient\ncivilisation, championed by the Roman church, was still strong enough to\nimpose itself upon these invaders. Time went on and civilisation more\nand more lost its energy. Especially in Gaul, in the kingdom of the\nMerovingians, intellectual darkness spread all over the country. There\nwas no layman who could read, hardly any member of the clergy. We hear\nof great monasteries, which were rich royal foundations, where no\ncomplete Bible was to be found. We see the troubles of a missionary like\nBoniface. In order to procure the necessary books, he has to apply to\nhis English lady friends, who send him copies of the books he wants,\nfinely written by their own delicate hands. It was a time when a book, a\nBible, was a treasure, and to own one was a fact to be recorded by a\nbiographer. This enables us to trace the history of more than one famous\nmanuscript. We are surprised to find what journeys they made. One was\nsent from Naples to England, and then a century later again removed to\nthe German shore and finally treasured among the rarities of the Fulda\nlibrary. Another manuscript, now at Florence, came originally from the\nmonastery of Cassiodorus in the extreme south of Italy and found its way\nto the monastery of Mount Amiata, near Florence, only by a roundabout\nroute through the famous English monasteries, where it was copied. The\nfew scholars of that period had to go a long way before they could get a\ncopy of the Bible worth their attention, and they had to go a long way\nto find a monastery with hands able to copy manuscripts.\n\n  [Illustration: PLATE VIII--GOTHIC BIBLE\n\n    Codex Argenteus, now at Upsala. Sixth century, written on purple\n    parchment in silver and (some words) in gold. The figures at the\n    bottom give Eusebius's harmony of the Gospels: this particular\n    scheme is found in Syrian manuscripts and in the Old Latin Codex\n    Rehdigerianus at Breslau.\n\n  From \"Deutsche Kulturgeschichte,\" by O. Henne am Rhyn. Grote, Berlin,\n  Germany.]\n\nA new epoch begins with Charlemagne, who has a real right to the name of\nthe Great. If one wants to know a great man, one has only to see what\nattention he pays to minor things. It is simply wonderful how this\nGerman king, who restored the old notion of the Roman empire, whose\ndominion contained France, Germany, Spain, Italy, was taking care of\nthe schoolboys and fixing his eyes on the way in which the Bible was\nbeing copied in the monasteries of his vast realm. In one of his\nordinances he complains that they use unskilled boys for copying the\nmost sacred book. It needs, he says, grammar--nay, good grammar--to\nunderstand what you are copying. It is no religion to pray to God in\nungrammatical language and to have his holy Scriptures in a\ngrammatically incorrect text. From the fact that the monasteries in\ntheir letters of application used a bad style he infers that Bible\nreading here was being neglected. Therefore, Charlemagne tried, in the\nfirst place, to bring the schools of his kingdom to a higher standard.\nEach monastery had to have a well-conducted school for the monks and for\nthe young people who were sent there for education (as they are now sent\nto public schools). At his own court he had the _Schola palatina_ and\nthe great emperor himself went there often and took lessons together\nwith the boys. But he did not stop here. His intention was to secure a\nreally good, trustworthy text of the Bible. He therefore invited\nscholars from everywhere; even some Orientals are said to have shared in\nthe work. The leading man, the chairman of the Committee for the\nrevision of the Bible, as we should say at present, was Alcuin, a monk\nfrom England, who by his great learning had won the confidence of\nCharlemagne and was appointed by him abbot of the famous monastery of\nTours. Here, at the school of Tours, most of the work of revision was\ndone (Plate IX); through Alcuin's influence the revision was mainly\nbased on the text current in England. That this was the best text\navailable at that time is now generally acknowledged by all competent\nscholars. This was not so in Charlemagne's time; other scholars,\nFrankish bishops, disapproved of Alcuin's work. They thought the\nrevision would have come out much better if conducted according to the\ntext prevailing in Spain. So Theodulf, bishop of Orleans, issued a\nversion of his own (Plate X). It is always instructive to see how men\nwere the same in former times as they are now: scholars seldom agree one\nwith another. The result was that henceforth two forms of the Latin\nBible were used through the next centuries--in the North, Alcuin's\nrevision, in the South, the revision made by Theodulf.\n\n  [Illustration: PLATE IX--ALCUIN'S BIBLE\n\n  (Brit. Mus. add. 10546)\n\n    Written at Tours, soon after Alcuin's death: a very good example\n    of fine Carolingian minuscule. The lines are of equal length.\n\n  From F. G. Kenyon, \"Fac-similes of Biblical Manuscripts.\" By\n  permission of the Trustees of the British Museum.]\n\nCharlemagne would not have cared so much for the text of the Bible had\nhe not esteemed the Bible to be the one great text-book for his people.\nHe himself was filled with Biblical notions. In his private circle, a\nclub for promoting classical reading, he was called David. And it was,\nindeed, the Old Testament idea of the theocratic king which governed\nhis mind. The king chosen by God and elected by the people, the king a\nrepresentative of God and the head of the people, the king a valiant\nwarrior and a royal psalmist at the same time, this was his ideal, in\nwhich old German notions were combined with Old Testament views. While\nrevering the priest, he always felt himself superior even to the bishop\nof Rome. He willingly accepted the role of a defender, of a protector;\nhe never would have accepted his crown from the hand of a priest.\nNothing is so alien to Charlemagne as the later mediaeval theory of the\ntwo swords, both given by God to Saint Peter, the one spiritual, kept by\nhimself and his successors, the other worldly, given by them to the\nemperor. No, he had his sword from God directly, and his royalty\nincluded the power and the duty of looking after the church's affairs as\nwell. The Bible tells of a king of Judah, called Josiah, who, on being\ninformed that the book of the Law given by Moses and hidden for a long\ntime had been rediscovered, forthwith ordered everything to be reformed\nand restored according to this law. That served as the model for\nCharlemagne's own ecclesiastical work. Being the king, he felt\nresponsible for the purity of worship and of doctrine. Therefore, when\nthe question arose in the East if worship was due to the pictures of\nChrist and the saints, and the bishop of Rome did not please him in his\nanswer, Charlemagne himself, assisted by Alcuin and other theologians of\nhis staff, wrote a treatise on the subject, which he himself thought to\nbe decisive, the so-called _Libri Carolini_, a document of a rather\nPuritan character, showing the austere spirit of early Western theology.\nWhen in Spain a discussion began about the divine nature of Christ, he\nagain interfered, sending his theologians to discuss the matter\naccording to the true teaching of the Bible--as is said expressly in\ntheir instructions--and after they had decided he even took political\nmeasures against those whom he believed to be heretics. We can scarcely\nunderstand his attitude in those cases without keeping in mind that he\nfelt himself a new David and a new Josiah.\n\n  [Illustration: PLATE X--THEODULF'S BIBLE\n\n  (Brit. Mus. add. 24142)\n\n    Written in three columns like many Spanish manuscripts, and in lines\n    of various length, \"cata cola et commata,\" as St. Jerome says.\n\n  From \"Fac-similes of Biblical Manuscripts.\" By permission of the\n  Trustees of the British Museum.]\n\nSometimes it is a true evangelical spirit which pervades his ordinances\nfor the church. In a proclamation of 811 he says: \"We will ask the\nclergy themselves, those who are not only to read the holy Scriptures by\nthemselves but are to teach them to others also: who are those to whom\nthe apostle says, Be my imitators? or who is the man of whom he says, No\nsoldier on service entangleth himself with the affairs of this life?--or\nhow to imitate the apostle and how to do service to God? What is it to\nleave the world? does it mean simply not to wear weapons and not to be\nmarried publicly? does it mean to enlarge one's property daily, oppress\nthe poor and induce men to perjury?\" Charlemagne is particularly strict\nabout avoiding perjury, not only in the solemn form of public oath,\nwhich is taken on the holy Gospel or on the altar or on the relics of\nthe saints, but in common conversation as well. He tries to introduce\nMatt. 5 : 16, \"Even so let your light shine before men that they may see\nyour good works and glorify your father which is in heaven,\" as the\nmotto for every Christian's life. That is quite evangelical. But it is\nfrom the Old Testament that the tenor of his laws comes. They all have a\nstrong mark of severity, in particular the so-called Saxon laws, which\nwere imposed upon the Saxon tribes when after a very hard resistance\nthey were finally defeated and subdued. Through this law runs, like a\nbloody thread, the frightful menace: _morte moriatur_, by death shall he\ndie. This sounds harsh, but it is nothing else than the adaptation of a\nwell-known Biblical phrase (Ex. 19 : 12; 21 : 12: \"He shall surely be\nput to death,\" R. V.). That is an example of Biblical phraseology. But\nthe Bible influenced the legislation of Charlemagne also in content. I\nchoose three instances: in all three cases the work of Charlemagne was\nprepared for by church councils. Christianity had begun by voluntarily\nadopting Old Testament laws; then the church had made their observance\ncompulsory; now Charlemagne gives to the ecclesiastical ordinances the\nsanction of the state and inflicts penalty upon trespassers. The first\ninstance is Sunday; it was called the Lord's Day; from the sixth century\nsynods and councils had tried to make the people keep this day in a more\nsolemn fashion. They did not refer to the Old Testament commandment at\nfirst; they did not even demand that all manual work should be stopped.\nThe frequent repetition of the decree seems to prove that it was rather\nunsuccessful even in this limited form. Now the government interferes,\nand its injunctions secure at once to the Lord's Day the strictest\nobservance. It is remarkable that Charlemagne expressly refers to the\nOld Testament commandment. It is according to the Bible that the day was\ncounted from sunset to sunset. This is the beginning of the Sabbatarian\nquestion in the West, the East preceding the West, as we have seen, by\nabout two centuries.\n\nOur second instance is the tithe; it was to be paid, according to the\nBible, by all the other tribes to the tribe of Levi, who served at the\ntemple. Now Christians began to pay voluntarily a tithe to their\npriests, accommodating themselves to the Old Testament rule; but by and\nby the clergy derived from the Old Testament a right of asking for the\ntithe. The farmer had to pay his tithe to his parish priest. Charlemagne\nproclaimed this as a law of his kingdom, referring expressly to God's\ncommandments.\n\nThe third instance is given in the prohibition against taking interest.\nIt is said in Deut. 23 : 19: \"Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy\nbrother.\" Ecclesiastical authorities took this as forbidding to take any\ninterest in lending money, and they tried to impress this prohibition\nupon the minds of the Christian people. Here, again, Charlemagne gave\nhis sanction to this ecclesiastical view and made the prohibition\nagainst taking interest a part of the public law. It is obvious that the\neconomic life of the nation was deeply influenced by this compulsory\nadoption of Old Testament laws.\n\nJustice, with the Germans, was to a large extent exercised by means of\nthe ordeals. We scarcely realise the importance these proceedings had at\nthat time. People believed in a divine power bringing out guilt and\ninnocence by means of these curious trials. It was but natural that the\nBible, representing the divine oracles, should be present at the\nceremony, that both parties should revere and kiss it. But people did\nmore; they made the Bible itself a means of deciding between guilty and\ninnocent. They had a particular kind of ordeal which they called\ndetermining by means of the Gospels, and another which was called the\nordeal of the Psalter, a copy of the Psalter being swung over the head\nof the suspected person.\n\nI have referred to the palace school. This had its continuation in a\ngraduate school, if we may so call a Bible circle among the theologians\nattending the court. These theologians, headed by Alcuin himself, were\nfirst-rate Bible scholars. They knew great parts of the Bible by heart;\nthey had read all accessible commentaries of the fathers. They had ideas\nof their own, too, but they were traditionalists to such an extent that\nthey would not say anything of their own unless it was said and\nsupported by the fathers. When asked to write brief commentaries on\nBiblical books, because the patristic commentaries were too large and\ncomprehensive for the students of this time, they simply gave extracts\nfrom the fathers and carefully avoided adding anything of their own. One\nwent so far as to take even the connecting words from the works of Saint\nAugustine; another, whose mental energy was too strong to keep him\nwithin the boundaries of pure traditionalism, excuses himself whenever\nhe introduces an interpretation of his own.\n\nIn these studies the ladies and gentlemen of the court took part. It is\nvery interesting and often amusing to see what kind of questions they\nbring before Alcuin as the great oracle of learning. One lady reading\nher Psalter was puzzled by the words in Psalm 116, \"All men are liars.\"\nHow can babies be liars before they begin to speak, or dumb men? \"The\nsun shall not smite thee by day nor the moon by night\" (Psalm 121 : 6)\nseemed to be incompatible with the fact that the moon never burns. A\nscholar who had come from Greece troubled the court by putting the\nquestion: To whom was paid the price with which we were bought according\nto I Cor. 6 : 20; 7 : 23. Charlemagne himself has other questions. He is\ntroubled by finding that the hymn sung by Christ and his disciples after\nthe Last Supper has not been recorded by any of the Gospels. I wonder if\nhe really was satisfied by Alcuin's answer. After a very learned\nexplanation of the term hymn, Alcuin gives, first, three views of\ndifferent interpreters: (1) That there was no special hymn, only a\ngeneral praisegiving; (2) that they had sung the twenty-second Psalm;\n(3) that it was some Jewish prayer. Then he proceeds to establish his\nown solution: that it is, in fact, the prayer of Jesus, recorded in\nJohn 17, which was meant by the word hymn here. Incidentally, he makes\nsome important remarks upon the harmony of the Gospels: \"Although we see\nin the Gospels some things told similarly, others in a different way,\nwe nevertheless believe that everything is true.\" That was the leading\nidea for the criticism of the fathers, and it was the same for nearly\nall the mediaeval centuries. Historical criticism, directed upon the\nGospels, would have seemed to show intolerable lack of piety or certain\nevidence of heretical views.\n\nTheological thinking does not go beyond the limits of Biblical doctrine.\nScarcely one or two men dare to think in their own way or speculate on\nsuch problems as darkness and nothing (that is, what was before the\ncreation) or on the nature of miracle. There was hardly any attempt at\nscientific theories. And the best men, indeed, as, for instance, Alcuin,\nwere proud of basing their theology entirely on Biblical ideas.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe one great event in the expansion of Christianity among the German\nnations is the mission of Saint Augustine to England. When Pope Gregory\nfound some Anglo-Saxon youths at the slave market of Rome and perceived\nthat in the North there was still a pagan nation to be baptised, he sent\none of his monks to England, and this monk, who was Saint Augustine,\ntook with him the Bible and introduced it to the Anglo-Saxons, and one\nof his followers brought with him from Rome pictures showing the\nBiblical history, and decorated the walls of the church in the monastery\nof Wearmouth. We do not enter here into the difficult question of the\nrelations between this newly founded Anglo-Saxon church and the old\nIro-Scottish church. Differences of Bible text had something to do with\nthe pitiful struggles which arose between the churches and ended in the\ndevastation of the older one. The one point which interests us here is\nthe fact that both Iro-Scottish and Anglo-Saxon monks were driven into\nmissionary work by the Bible. When, in the service, they heard read from\nthe Old Testament or from the epistle to the Hebrews that Abraham and\nthe patriarchs had all left their home, their parents, their native\ncountry, and had gone to a foreign land which they did not know, simply\nin order to please God, then they felt bound to do the same. When at the\nmass the Gospel was read, \"And every one that hath left houses or\nbrethren or sisters or father or mother or children or lands for my\nname's sake, shall receive a hundredfold and shall inherit eternal\nlife,\" then they hurried away, not knowing where to go, looking only for\na far-distant and desert place. It was this ascetic view of the Bible\nwhich drove the Iro-Scottish monks over the sea to France, Italy,\nGermany, which made them preach the gospel to the Germans who had not\nyet heard of it. It was this same motive which caused Willibrord and\nBoniface to cross the North Sea and come to preach among the Frisians\nand Saxons. Boniface is said to have received the deadly stroke from a\npagan while holding his Bible over his head. They still show the copy at\nFulda.\n\nAgain, it was the Bible which determined Charlemagne to use force\nagainst the Saxons in order to bring them to baptism and Christian\nfaith. Saint Augustine had discovered the passage in the Lord's parable\nof the great supper, where the servant is told to go out into the\nhighways and hedges and \"constrain\" them to come in. This _coge\nintrare_, he explained, might excuse the using of secular power for the\npurpose of bringing heretics back to the church or of causing pagans to\njoin the church. Charlemagne knew no better than to suppose that this\nwas the true meaning of the saying of our Lord, and so he felt in\nconscience bound to use military force and the full strength of the law\nin christianising the Saxons.\n\nBut it was the Bible itself and not Charlemagne's sharp sword and his\ncruel law which brought over the wild Saxon tribes into Christendom.\nThey had among themselves a poet who had the gift of singing the gospel\ninto their hearts. Charlemagne himself was fond of the national songs;\nhe loved his German language as much as he esteemed Latin. He was\nconvinced that a man ought to pray to God in his native tongue. There\nare not only three sacred languages, he says, in which to pray and to\npraise God--Hebrew, Greek, Latin--you may praise him in your German as\nwell. Therefore he arranged that a priest should translate the Biblical\nlessons and the sermon to the people who did not understand Latin. He\nwould probably have approved a German translation of the Bible; but the\nclergy were not prepared to do this. They took Latin as the basis of\ncivilisation, and only a few of them had any regard for the uncultivated\npeople. There are preserved some few attempts at translating parts of\nthe Bible into German; they attest what might have come out of this\nCarolingian movement if the bigotry and narrowness of Charlemagne's son\nLouis had not stopped it. Among the Saxons a fresh and vigorous spirit\nwas still alive. Having been introduced to Christianity by brute force\nof war, they embraced the gospel, trying to make it their own by putting\nit into the form of their national song. We do not know the name of the\npoet; he seems to have been a clergyman, instructed in the best\ncommentaries of his time, such as were available at the monastery of\nFulda. For the framework he used a Gospel harmony which is contained in\nthe famous Codex Fuldensis of the Vulgate, originating at Capua (in\nsouth Italy) and brought probably by Boniface himself from England to\nFulda. This Gospel harmony he translated freely into some six thousand\nSaxon verses. His poem is one of the finest assimilations of the Gospel\nhistory to national German feeling, to be compared only with Duerer's\nengravings and Eduard von Gebhardt's paintings. Christ is the heavenly\nking; the apostles are his loyal kinsmen; he wanders with them through\nthe Saxon wood; he stops at a native spring; all Oriental character has\ngone, but the gospel has lost nothing. It is as fresh and as real as it\never had been. The fact our author detests most is Christ's betrayal by\none of his own men; nothing is so bad as this according to the German\nmind. Christ on the cross is not suffering; he dies as a victorious\nwarrior. When he says, \"I thirst,\" he expresses by this the fact that he\nis thirsting after the souls of men, to bring them into paradise. It is\nwonderful how the gospel has penetrated the German soul in order to\nproduce a harmony like this.\n\nThis \"Heliand\" by the anonymous Saxon poet we shall admire even more if\nwe compare it with the other attempt at bringing the life of Christ into\nGerman poesy. It is by Otfried of Strassburg, whose \"Christ\" is a very\nlearned elaboration, partly in German, partly in Latin, therefore\nundoubtedly much preferred in the literary circles of that time, but\ninfinitely inferior to the \"Heliand\" in freshness and popular quality.\n\nIt is remarkable that there is something similar to the \"Heliand\" in\nthe Anglo-Saxon poem, the \"Genesis.\" The theory has been successfully\nstarted and proved by later discoveries that both have the same origin.\nThe Saxons of Germany and the Saxons of England were not so far away one\nfrom the other that they could not have intercourse and exchange (Plate\nXI).\n\nHowever this may be, it is evident that the Bible had an influence in\nteaching the German nations from the beginning, and that the new\ncivilisation which was to be built would have the Bible as one of its\nfoundations.\n\n  [Illustration: PLATE XI--LINDISFARNE GOSPELS\n\n  (Brit. Mus. Cotton: Nero D IV.)\n\n    Written about 690 in honour of St. Cuthbert ([dagger symbol] 687),\n    in English round style. The interlinear version was added two\n    hundred and fifty years later--remark in the midst of the\n    left-hand column the words: _xpi_ (=Christi) _evangelium_ with\n    _Cristes godspell_ above it.\n\n  From \"Fac-similes of Biblical Manuscripts.\" By permission of the\n  Trustees of the British Museum.]\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nTHE BIBLE BECOMES ONE BASIS OF MEDIAEVAL CIVILISATION (800-1150 A. D.)\n\n\nThe Middle Ages, the dark Middle Ages, that is what we are wont to call\nthe period we now enter in our journey through the centuries. Scholars\nof the sixteenth century called it so, when they looked back to the\nclassical period, from which they drew all their light and inspiration.\nThe centuries between counted for nothing; they seemed to be barbarous,\nuneducated; the humanistic scholar would simply drop them out of the\nworld's history. Time passed and men became enthusiastic about the\nbeauties of these Middle Ages. At the beginning of the nineteenth\ncentury Europe was enchanted by romanticism. Nothing was fashionable\nthat was not mediaeval in art, customs, manners. At present we view these\ncenturies more calmly in the light of their own time; we see what was\ntheir defect, and we see at the same time what was their merit. It is\ntrue that civilisation had only begun to recover from the shock which\nthe great migrations had given to it. If a chronicler thinks it worth\nwhile to mention that the emperor Henry IV was able to read to himself\nthe petitions brought before him, we must infer that the art of reading\nwas not wide-spread, even among the nobility. And the famous poet\nWolfram von Eschenbach tells us himself that he was no friend of this\nart. On the other hand, I need only remind my readers of the beautiful\nbuildings we still admire at Cologne: the massive old church of Saint\nGereon in Romanesque style and the light and airy cathedral, whose\nGothic arches and spires reach up toward heaven--to mention only these\ntwo well-known examples--in order to make them realise the power and the\nsplendour of this civilisation, which never will cease to impress the\nhuman mind. We cannot drop this period from our history; nor can\nAmericans deny that this mediaeval civilisation is an element even in\ntheir modern civilisation.\n\nThere is an ingenious theory that history always repeats itself: the\nGerman migrations corresponded to the migrations of the Greek tribes;\nthe time of chivalry was like the time of Homer's heroes; humanism\nrepresents the age of Plato and Aristotle; only the repetition always\nhas the advantage of using the results of the former cycle. But we must\nnot forget that from time to time new forces enter those cycles and\nchange their relation. At the end of the classical period Christianity\nhas come in and now runs as a straight line through the parallel cycles;\ntherefore nothing in this parallelism is quite exact.\n\nIt was the Christian church which served to keep the old civilisation\nalive through all troubles and dangers. When classical training had\nnearly vanished everywhere else, it was found in some remote\nmonasteries. Esteem of good style, love of ancient poetry, some chance\nbits of philosophy had safely weathered the storm. But it was only in\ncombination with the Bible that those remains of classical reading were\nallowed to persist. The mediaeval civilisation was Biblical at its base.\n\nSaint Jerome, who was a great admirer of classical eloquence but a stern\ndefender of pure Christianity, tells in a friendly letter to a certain\nlady a sad experience of his own. He had read much of Vergil and Cicero\nand other pagan books, when one night he found himself suddenly summoned\nbefore the heavenly judge. \"Who are you?\" he was questioned. \"I am a\nChristian,\" he replied. \"Thou liest, thou art a Ciceronian,\" was the\njudge's answer. And forthwith he was given over to cruel constables, who\nbeat him frightfully until he promised never to touch a pagan book\nagain. When he awoke in the morning he still felt the blows. The story\nis mere fancy, and Saint Jerome never proves so guilty of imitating his\nadored classical models as in this very letter. He was an actor who knew\nhow to pose. But by this letter he has caused plenty of people in later\ntime to dream over again the frightful experience he describes so\nsuggestively. Dozens of monks and nuns have felt blows struck upon them\nby invisible hands for having given themselves too much to the seduction\nof reading classical books instead of the Bible. Again and again the\nleaders of monastic institutions had to insist upon the rule that the\nBible must be read and no pagan books. Hrotswitha of Gandersheim, the\nnun who celebrated the great acts of the emperor Otto I, wrote some\nBiblical comedies, in order to prevent the nuns from enjoying the\ncomedies of Plautus and Terence.\n\nOn the other hand, all the great fathers of the church insisted upon\nclassical training; so did Saint Jerome himself and Saint Augustine, not\nto speak of the great classical scholars in Christian bishoprics in the\nEast (Plate XII). And even in the later centuries, when classical\ncivilisation had gone and was only kept up artificially by assiduous\nreading, it was the church which maintained the right and the necessity\nof a classical training for its clergy. Alcuin was proud of the\nclassical training he had had at home, at the famous monastic school of\nYork under the direction of Abbot AElbert. He enjoyed finding kernels of\ntruth in the writings of the heathen, and he pointed out that Saint Paul\nhad done the same. There was a time when there was no reading at all\noutside the clergy and the monasteries, but this reading was a\ncombination of classical and Biblical. That is the great merit of the\nmediaeval church.\n\n  [Illustration: PLATE XII--BYZANTINE MINIATURE\n\n  (Psalter, Paris B. N. gr. 139)\n\n    David, playing harp while watching his sheep, looks like Orpheus\n    in Greek art. The female figure at the left represents Melody,\n    while at the right-hand corner Echo, also personified, is\n    listening behind a pillar. The man in the cave to the right\n    is Mount Bethlehem.\n\n  From \"Die Wiener Genesis.\" F. Tempsky, Vienna.]\n\nMediaeval civilisation had various foundations, but the Bible was one of\nthem, and the most important one. That is what we find wherever we try\nto analyse mediaeval culture.\n\nWhat was the aspect of the world at this period? The world seemed to be\nan edifice of three floors. Above was the heaven, a compact dome, in\nwhich the stars were fixed, while the planets moved in their own sphere;\nover the sky was the space where God or, let us say, according to the\nusual expression of that time, the holy Trinity dwells, surrounded and\nadored by millions upon millions of angels, who keep heaven and earth in\ncontinuous communication. Besides, the heaven can be rent asunder; then\nthe angels look down to earth, and from time to time a pious man is\nallowed to enter and see the heavenly mysteries and the glory of the\nsaints. The earth, the abode of man, is a large round plane; its centre\nJerusalem, where, at the same place, Adam was buried and Christ was\ncrucified, so that the blood of the Saviour dropping down reached Adam's\nskull. The earth was surrounded by the ocean. At its boundaries all\nkinds of strange beings--men with dogs' faces, giants, pygmies--were to\nbe found. There was still an earthly paradise--not to be confounded with\nthe paradise in heaven, the goal of human longing. This earthly paradise\nwas unknown and inaccessible to the greater part of men, but from time\nto time a pious hermit or a favourite of fortune reached it; the lucky\nman on his return had exciting stories to tell about the wealth and the\nbliss of this paradise, but he never could find the way again. I have\nread an accurate description of the way from paradise to Rome, giving\nthe exact number of days and months, but there was nothing said about\nhow to come from Rome to paradise!\n\nBelow the earth was the great dark cellar called hell; here the devil\nwas at home with his companions. But these demons did not like their\nabode; they preferred to roam the earth and play jokes on men and women.\nAs the angels from above were kind and helpful to man, so the devils\nwere cunning and malicious. But many a time the devil showed himself\nstupid; a clever boy might easily cheat him. The devil's aim was to\ncapture the frivolous and to seduce the pious in order to bring them\nall into hell. Here the various categories of sinners had their\nseparate compartments, where they were punished according to the varying\nnature of their sins. Mediaeval writers describe these various tortures,\nand they know more about the geography of hell than they usually know\nabout the geography of the earth.\n\nNow, according to the view of that time this is all Biblical. A modern\nreader would find difficulties in looking for it in his Bible; but he\nwill recognise some of the motives as clearly Biblical. Further\ninvestigation will show him that other notions are brought in from the\nlate classical philosophy, and finally he will discover a large amount\nof folk-lore, German folk-lore. All this mingled together made a very\ncurious combination, and the most curious point was that this\ncombination was regarded as Biblical. It was upon the authority of the\nBible that the church accepted this whole view of the world and put it\nbefore the people, judging all doubts and divergences from its teaching\nas intolerable heresy. It is this naive way of reading between the\nlines, this allegorical method of making the Bible say what it does not\nsay, which we have already found in the Greek fathers of the fourth\ncentury when, in commenting upon the _hexaemeron_, the six days' work of\ncreation, they introduced whatever they had read about the world and\nnature in the works of Plato and Aristotle. In the time of which we are\nspeaking these great Greek philosophers were known only indirectly, but\nnevertheless they exercised much influence through later imitators.\nBoethius was the one great authority of this time, besides the Bible.\n\nThe Bible's influence is still more evident if we turn to the mediaeval\nview of history. What was history? People at this time had few notions\nabout what was happening in the world; there were no means of\ncommunication, nor had they a conception of history as a coherent series\nof events in which each link is the effect of what precedes as well as\nthe cause of what comes after. They simply registered the facts which\nchance made known to them. The chronicle is the form of record which\nprevails at this period. There was no history of the world; what passed\nfor such was the history of the Jewish people as given in the Bible and\nthe history of the Christian church as recorded by certain chronicles.\nBoth together made up the history of mankind. The first part, the\nhistory of the Old Testament, was not regarded as the history of the\nJews, but as the history of the people of God; it was the history of our\nfathers the patriarchs, the history of the first covenant finding its\ndirect continuation in the history of the new covenant and the\nChristian church. There was only a very slight conception of chronology;\neverything was arranged according to the system of a week, the duration\nof the present world corresponding to one week, whose days, according to\nthe 90th Psalm, each counted a thousand years. The world was not\nexpected to endure beyond six thousand years, the seventh day being\nreserved for the millennium. Into this history of the world a few\nfragments of Greek and Roman history found their way by means of an odd\nsynchronism: David was said to have been a contemporary of the Trojan\nWar, and a correspondence was invented between the king of Troy and the\nking of Israel, in which the latter excuses himself for not coming to\njoin the Trojan army. It was in the beginning of the twelfth century\nthat a famous professor of the university of Paris called Petrus\nComestor wrote his _Historia Scholastica_, which for all the Middle Ages\nserved as the text-book of Biblical history.\n\nBut, like the mediaeval aspect of the world, so the history of the world\nwas not purely Biblical. The Bible always had to suffer the strong\nrivalry of apocryphal and legendary fiction. Already the Jews had\ninvented a life of Adam, full of miraculous events, which appealed to\nthe taste of the average man much more than the simple and severe story\nof the Bible itself; the lives of Abraham, of Moses, of Solomon were\nenriched in the same way. Christianity continued this kind of fancy. The\nstory of the holy root was traced back into paradise; it was a branch\nfrom the tree of life, given to Adam's son Seth and planted by him on\nhis father's tomb. It had been used as a bridge over the Kidron until\nthe queen of Sheba arrived at Jerusalem. Being a prophetess, she\nworshipped this holy root; consequently Solomon tried to use it in his\ntemple, but the carpenter did not succeed in cutting it to the necessary\nlength; therefore it lay unused, \"rejected by the builders,\" until the\ntime came when a tree was wanted to crucify Jesus; so Jesus died--on the\ncross which was the tree of life--a splendid symbolism, indeed, but set\nforth in a strange legend. Or they investigated the earlier history of\nthe thirty pieces of silver given to Judas Iscariot as the reward for\nthe betrayal of his master, tracing the money back as far as Abraham.\nThe life of Christ was surrounded by apocryphal legends of all kinds:\nthe story of his birth and of his childhood; his stay in Egypt; how in\ntheir flight lions and all kinds of wild beasts accompanied the holy\nfamily; how a palm-tree bowed down before them in order to provide them\nwith its fruits; how at Jesus' arrival in Egypt all the idols of the\nEgyptians fell down; how he helped his father Joseph in his carpenter\nshop; and so on. Again the miracles at his death, the descent to hell,\nthe resurrection and ascension, everything was covered with an abundance\nof miraculous narratives, partly enlargements, developments of the\ncanonical accounts, partly mere fiction. In addition to this apocryphal\nlife of Jesus there is the life of the Virgin, giving a most curious\ndescription of her birth and childhood and again of her death, making\nevery detail parallel to the life of Christ himself and yet keeping hers\nsubordinate. The mediaeval life of Christ begins--one may say--with the\nbirth of Mary (or with the story of her parents, Joachim and Anna) and\nends with the death and assumption of Mary. The history of the apostles\nas read in this period is nearly all apocryphal except the few data\ntaken from the canonical book of Acts. Then the history of Christianity\nis continued as the history of the church according to the scheme of\nSaint Augustine's _De civitate dei_ (the City of God): the church is the\ncity of God and beside it is the city of this age, the kingdom of this\nworld, the one spiritual, the other secular, with two parallel lines of\ndevelopment. This is best shown by the mural decoration in Charlemagne's\npalace at Ingelheim on the Rhine, where two series of pictures, one\ngiving the Biblical history according to the Old and New Testaments, the\nother tracing the profane history from Ninus, king of Babylon, down to\nCharlemagne himself, were painted on opposite walls. That is the\nmediaeval view of history. We may add that, according to this view,\nhistory begins in heaven when the holy Trinity conceives the idea of\ncreation, and ends in heaven at the last judgment. Our view of history\nis a different one, but we cannot help agreeing that this is a\nmagnificent conception and that it is Biblical, too, in its main points.\n\nIt is partly built upon the Apocrypha, of course. Regarding these\nApocrypha the attitude of the church changed a good deal during our\nperiod. The early view is set forth in several utterances from the Roman\nbishops of the fifth and sixth centuries, and is represented in its\nsharpest form in the so-called decree of Pope Gelasius, which condemns\nall Apocrypha as heretical writings totally to be rejected and detested\nand not to be used in any way by a Catholic Christian. We found this\nPuritan view prevailing in Charlemagne's _Libri Carolini_. It is\npredominant among the theologians of the Carolingian time. They scarcely\nuse apocryphal books, and when they do they always refer to them as to\ndoubtful books devoid of all authority. But gradually the Apocrypha\ncame into favour; they are used freely alongside the canonical books.\nThey are very much of the same kind as the legends of the saints; and\nthose legends of the saints are favoured by the people, too. At last, in\nthe thirteenth century, even theologians do not distinguish between\ncanonical and apocryphal books. They quote the Gospel of Nicodemus\nalongside the Gospel of Matthew or of John; they call it the fifth\nGospel and have it copied in their Bible manuscripts. So they have a\nletter from Saint Paul to the Laodiceans and other Apocrypha inserted in\nor attached to the Bible. And the common people were fond of these\nApocrypha and delighted to hear the preacher quote them because the\nbizarre miracles appealed to their taste.\n\nThere was almost no science, no medicine in this time; the world seemed\nto be full of miracles having no rational connection with one another.\nThere was no causality, no law of nature. This was exactly the same view\nthat we have in most parts of the Bible. Therefore people did not feel\nany difficulty in identifying their own notions about miracle and nature\nwith the Biblical ones. Nay, we may say that many of the legendary\nmiracle stories are copied after Biblical patterns. Even the wording is\noften modelled according to Biblical phraseology. \"Healing all manner of\ndisease and all manner of sickness,\" from Matt. 9 : 35, is repeated in\nmany a saint's life.\n\nBible history in the embellished form which we have just now observed\ninspired mediaeval art. In the first place, there were the inner walls of\nthe churches, usually painted from top to bottom. If we remember that a\nRomanesque church had only very small windows, we understand what a\nlarge space was given to painting. Pictures are the text-book for those\nwho cannot read; so Pope Gregory the Great had said, and this dictum was\nrepeated many a time. It is true, of course. These plain mural\npaintings, awkward as they often are, make a greater impression on a\nsimple mind than even the best written account could produce. The art is\nnothing but illustration; the painter tries to bring before the people\nwho view his work the main features of the Biblical text. One must,\nindeed, know the text in order to understand the pictures. Sometimes the\nspectator is helped by additional inscriptions. To the illiterates these\nmay be read and explained by the priest; and then even the simplest\npeasant will understand and always remember the story. Some churches\nwere decorated in this way twice or even oftener, the first painting\nbeing covered with lime and whitewashed and then another painting being\nput upon it, according to the style of the later time. Here, again, we\nsee the Biblical history, pure and plain at the beginning, but by and by\ncombined with motives taken from the apocryphal sources and the lives of\nthe saints. At the annunciation the angel meets the Virgin Mary at a\nwell; it is to his mother Mary that the risen Christ appears before he\nreveals himself to his disciples.\n\nIn the Gothic period sculpture is more favoured, the walls being broken\nup into groups of columns and large windows. This arrangement lent\nitself more to the representation of individual figures of saints; but\neven so Biblical personalities, and sometimes even Biblical scenes, were\nchosen, and the large windows, with their stained glass, offered another\npossibility for decoration based on Bible stories. Besides, the whole\nbuilding is directed by a scheme of Biblical symbolism difficult for us\nto understand but dear to the men of that period. They loved symbolism.\nThe cult of the Virgin Mary was surrounded by it. She was the queen of\nheaven, she was paradise, she was the tower, she was the unicorn, she\nwas the well, and so on, and all these symbols were taken from or\nrelated to the Bible.\n\nThe growing wealth and the higher standard of civilisation created a new\ndemand for illuminated manuscripts. The artists of this period did not\nfollow the classical scheme of filling the lower margin with\nrepresentations in water-colour; they put little pictures, framed like\nthose on the walls, into the text itself, or they decorated the initials\nof each book or chapter (Plate XIII). In turning over the pages we\nadmire the skill of these artists, their simplicity, and sometimes their\nsense of humour. We seldom recognise what an amount of reading and\ninterpretation of the Bible is contained in these little pictures; and\nhow, on the other hand, they helped and stimulated Bible reading. We are\ntold of King Charles V of France (1364-80), that he read the Bible all\nthrough once a year during his reign. This means a period of sixteen\nyears. We are quite sure that he had a beautifully illuminated copy, and\nwe may assume that the pictures helped him in performing this religious\nexercise.\n\nThe art of painting is often accompanied by the art of making verses, as\nI would rather call this mediaeval poesy. And again it is the Bible or,\nto speak more accurately, the Biblical history which finds its\nexpression in this art. Besides the inscriptions added to the pictures\nand often given in versified form, there are a number of rhymed Bibles,\nas these versifications of the Biblical history are called. There are\nshort verses giving the content of each book or chapter of the Bible for\nmnemonic purposes. There are some real poems, too, dealing with Biblical\nsubjects.\n\n  [Illustration: PLATE XIII--ENGLISH MINIATURE\n\n  (Latin Bible, Brit. Mus. Royal I D I)\n\n    Written in England, early thirteenth century. Initial I, Gen. 1 : 1,\n    shows creation, fall, and redemption.\n\n    The three upper little compartments give each of them the work of\n    two days: Christ is the creator; the fourth brings the seventh\n    day's rest: Christ on the throne; the next three compartments\n    contain the story of Adam and Eve: temptation, expulsion, and their\n    working under the curse; the eighth compartment shows the\n    Redemption as prophesied in Gen. 3 : 15.\n\n    The grotesque little figures are a beautiful illustration of\n    mediaeval sense of humour.\n\n  From \"Fac-similes of Biblical Manuscripts.\" By permission of the\n  Trustees of the British Museum.]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe Bible and mediaeval art brings before us another feature of\ncivilisation, which is important, indeed, in our own time and which one\nwould scarcely think of as originating with the Bible. I mean the\ntheatre. The old classical drama and comedy had entirely died out.\nPlautus and Terence were read in the monasteries, not played, and so\nwere the Biblical comedies by Hrotswitha, of which we have spoken,\nintended to be read only, not played. There was nothing but jugglers,\njesters, and dancers. On festival days people amused themselves by\nfrivolous masquerades, which were looked upon by the church authorities\nwith suspicion and contempt as survivals of heathen rites and therefore\nto be frowned upon and abolished. Things took quite a different turn\nwhen some of the clergy began at Christmas and at Easter to present the\nsacred story in acted form in order to illustrate the lesson. They did\nit inside the church, directly before the altar. It was nothing but a\ndialogue, developed out of the lessons from the Scripture, the angel\naddressing Mary, the shepherds coming to see the child, the three Marys\nat the tomb and the angel speaking to them, and so on, as simply and\nplainly as it was told in the Bible and as it was usually painted on\nthe walls of the church. The people took delight in these\nrepresentations and they were soon enlarged. They had to be removed from\nthe choir to the front of the church, the steps of the entrance forming\nthe stage. Soon more and more persons appeared on the stage; the laity\njoined the performers; the guilds (the trade-unions) undertook the\nperformance of the play, and out of these naive little representations\nof the birth of Christ or his passion and resurrection sprang gorgeous\nmiracle-plays which sometimes lasted four days and brought the whole\nstory from the creation to the last judgment before the bewildered eyes\nof the spectators. Nothing could make the Biblical history so familiar\nto the people as these plays, in which hundreds took part as performers\nand thousands attended as onlookers. There was but little art. They had\nno scenery; the actors simply moved about in the open space. But it was\nhighly realistic. We are told that they nearly killed the man who was\nacting Judas Iscariot. It was also amusing. Mediaeval piety did not\nrefrain from putting in just before the crucifixion a sarcastic dialogue\nbetween the blacksmith, who had to provide the nails, and his wife,\nending in a scuffle between them. People liked to see this. It was on\naccount of these undignified scenes, which kept increasing, that the\nplays were abolished by secular and ecclesiastical authorities in the\nsixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when through humanism and the\nReformation taste and piety had been refined. There are still a few\nsurvivals, such as the Passion Play of Oberammergau, which, however, has\nundergone a thorough change. There is now a revival of these popular\nplays, but I doubt if it will be successful. Possibly the film will take\nthe place, as it has entered some churches already.\n\nMen nearly always like to travel and the Germans liked it exceedingly\nwell. This tendency received a special direction from the Bible; there\nwere so many sacred sites in Palestine which a Christian wanted to see.\nSo since the fourth century we see many people from the West--from Gaul,\nSpain, later on from Germany and England--travelling to the Holy Land in\norder to visit all the places connected with the sacred history of the\nBible. At the end of the eleventh century the pilgrims suddenly turned\ninto crusaders, sailing by thousands, fighting, settling down for a\nwhile, going back again. Then after a period of nearly two centuries of\nvain struggle for the possession of the Holy Land they changed again\ninto pilgrims. Meanwhile, the Holy Land had changed also, and Christian\npiety, too. They were now not so much interested in visiting the sacred\nsites themselves as in gaining the indulgences which were granted in\nabundance to the visitors to each of these places. We still possess a\nlong series of descriptions of these pilgrimages, increasing from\ncentury to century not only in number but also in size. The pilgrims did\nnot rest until they had fixed upon a certain location in Palestine for\nevery event in the Bible. Sometimes we seem to catch the process of\nfixation. The hermit or monk who served as guide had just told the\ncompany everything he himself knew about the resurrection of Lazarus.\nThen suddenly some one broke in with the question, \"And where was it\nthat Jesus met Martha?\" and the poor hermit would be sure to show him a\nrock or a doorway, of which he had never thought before. They showed the\npilgrims the place where Abraham and Melchisedek met, the tomb of\nRachel, the monastery of Elijah on Mount Carmel. They would show also\nthe mantle Elijah left to Elisha or the widow's cruse of oil which was\nalways full. At Nazareth one could see the rock from which the citizens\ntried to throw down Jesus headlong, and one could see on the rock the\nimprint of his body, which he left there--according to a legendary\naddition to the story--when passing through the crowd unhurt. On the\nMount of Olives was the Chapel of the Ascension. Here the pilgrims\ncould see and worship the footprints made by Jesus when he leaped up\ntoward heaven. Nay, we are told that people used to carry away dust from\nthis place to use for charms, and yet the footprints never disappeared.\nI am giving these examples in order to show how even here sacred history\nand legend were mixed together. It is obvious, however, from what I have\nsaid that the pilgrimages contributed a great deal to make people\nfamiliar with the Bible stories; for not only the pilgrims themselves\nbut all their people at home were mightily interested in what they had\nseen and heard in the Holy Land. We see them build churches representing\nthe Holy Sepulchre. In the later centuries they make calvaries and\nstations on the way to them, representing the main points on Jesus' way\nto the cross, on the so-called Via Dolorosa at Jerusalem. There is even\n(as I have pointed out in my book on _Christusbilder_) a mutual\ninfluence between the pilgrimages and the passion plays, which accounts\nfor some changes in the order of scenes and the fixing of places at\nJerusalem.\n\nThe Bible continued to exercise its influence upon the Law. As King\nAlfred of England when collecting the laws of his people put the ten\ncommandments at the beginning, so likewise the German collections,\n_Schwabenspiegel_, _Sachsenspiegel_, and so on, have prefaces which\npresent the national law as an emanation from the law of God as\ncontained in the Old and New Testaments. Still more important than these\nnational laws was the so-called canon law, the collection of\necclesiastical canons and decrees of the Roman bishops. It is remarkable\nthat this canon law, while incorporating naturally a good deal of\nBiblical matter, such as the degrees of relationship within which\nmarriage is forbidden, does not make so much use of Biblical authority\nas one might expect. The decrees of the popes, it is true, usually begin\nwith a quotation from the Bible, but that is more for the sake of\nappearances. The fact that the law of the church, in spite of all\nreferences to the Bible, was derived essentially from other sources, and\nthat the study and the knowledge of this law were appreciated as the\nmost important attainment of a bishop or even a clergyman, is very\nstriking.\n\nWe have already noted the influence which the Bible exerted upon social\nand commercial life. The German notion of the king as representative of\nthe nation was easily combined with the theocratic theory of the Old\nTestament. David's court, with his mighty men (II Sam. 23), furnished a\ngood example for any royal court of this period. Feudalism seemed to\nagree with the stories of the patriarchs, as when Abraham led forth his\ntrained men, three hundred and eighteen in number, and pursued the\ninvaders who had taken captive his brother's son Lot. Bondage, serfdom,\neven slavery, seemed to be sanctioned by the Bible. The church did not\nobject to slavery provided the Christian faith of the slave was\nrespected; he was never to be sold to a Jew or a pagan. The opposition\nagainst slavery in the Middle Ages came from the monasteries. Here the\nancient Stoic doctrine that all men are equal and no man is to be\ntreated as a brute animal had been combined with the Christian view of\nbrotherhood that all are children of God, and with the doctrine of the\nsimple life. But this theory, championed by the monasteries, spread only\nslowly. It did not put an end to slavery in the northern countries of\nEurope before the thirteenth century. In the eastern and southern\ncountries, where Christianity bordered on Mohammedanism, slavery did not\ndie out before the sixteenth century, and bondage remained everywhere\nuntil the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The Bible defined the\nposition of the Jews, who as murderers of Jesus were thought of as\nliving under the divine punishment. Whatever happened to them was\nregarded as a penalty due to the crime of their fathers. So they were\nexposed to all kinds of insults if they were not protected by the king,\nwhose personal serfs they were held to be. A large part of this general\nhatred of the Jews was due to the fact that they were making money out\nof their trade and their medical science, being allowed by their own law\nto take usury from the Christians. The law of Moses (in Deut. 23 : 20)\nexpressly says that a Jew may lend upon usury to a foreigner, while he\nis forbidden to do so dealing with a brother. Now, as we have already\nseen, the Christian church adopted this law as forbidding the Christians\nto lend at interest. The fatal result was that trade on the basis of\ncredit was made almost impossible, and that the Jew was the only one who\ncould lend money at interest. As he abused this opportunity by taking\nenormous usury, it became evident that the one remedy to be used from\ntime to time was to take away from him by force all the money he had\nmade, thus restoring it to its proper source. The Jew might be thankful\nif he got off with his life. Among the many accusations brought against\nthe Jews on such occasions, one of the most effective was the indictment\nthat they had falsified their Bibles, putting in curses against the\nChristians, or that they had insulted and destroyed Christian Bibles.\nThe criminal charge of falsifying the holy Scriptures had been raised\nagainst many heretics, too, and in most cases had been proved to be\nuntrue. It could be retorted that the Christian church itself, during\nthe first centuries, had \"improved\" the Psalter in many a place by\nslight Christian interpolations. Destroying books by fire was at this\ntime one of the most common means used by the church in fighting Jews\nand heretics, and vice versa. The Bible recorded not only the burning of\nthe magical books at Ephesus but also the burning of the holy Scriptures\nby Antiochus Epiphanes. So this also was \"Bible tradition.\"\n\nTo sum up our survey of mediaeval civilisation we find the Bible\nrecognised as one, if not as the one, foundation. Its influence was to\nbe seen in every department: the view of the world, the view of history,\narts and sciences, social life and commerce. It was to the Bible that\npeople referred, even if the thing had not been deduced from the Bible;\nthey made it appear Biblical, though it was not so in itself, because\nthey felt that it had to be Biblical if it was to be recognised as an\nintegral part of Christian civilisation. That is what makes it so\ndifficult for us to define the real influence of the Bible, there is so\nmuch artificial Biblicality.\n\nThe Bible was the leading norm, and it was recognised as such. Never had\nthe Bible had a higher estimation or a more undisputed influence.\n\nAnd yet the real influence of the Bible was a limited one. It had not\nonly to face the rivalry of the classics on one side but of the\nApocrypha, legends, ecclesiastical traditions on the other. Its real\ninfluence was mostly indirect. Biblical ideas had been incorporated into\nthe works on the world and nature; Biblical history had been used for\nthe text-books of history, and now these books came to be substitutes\nfor the Bible. All read the _Historia Scholastica_ of Peter Comestor;\nvery few read the Bible. And those few again read mostly the historical\nparts of the Bible without caring for the books of the prophets and the\nletters of the apostles. A wide-spread substitute for the Bible was the\nso-called _Biblia Historialis_, which gave the Biblical history in a\nconvenient not to say entertaining and even amusing form. Another\nwell-known substitute was the so-called _Biblia Pauperum_ (\"Bible of the\npoor),\" showing the most important features of the life of Christ,\ntogether with typical scenes from the Old Testament and some verses from\nthe Bible. By means of all these substitutes the people became very\nfamiliar with Biblical history, but they knew nothing about doctrines.\nTheologians, of course, did, but their eyes were blinded by the\ntradition of the church, the doctrine of the fathers. They interpreted\nthe Bible according to tradition. That is the great demerit of this\nage; the people had free access to the Bible, but the Bible became alien\nto them by reason of its many substitutes and its successful rivals. The\nreaction against this will furnish the subject for our next chapter.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nTHE BIBLE STIRS NON-CONFORMIST MOVEMENTS (1150-1450)\n\n\nMediaeval civilisation has a twofold aspect. It looks backward, to the\nold church and the old Roman empire; so far it is Biblical and\nclassical. But it also looks forward, to the development of the nations\nand later to the development of the individual personality, as this has\nbeen realised in the Renaissance; so far it is secular and, in a way,\nmodern. In the earlier part of the Middle Ages the nations did not feel\nstrong enough by themselves. They were parts of the empire, and all\nchildren of the one mother church. The church was training them, and it\nfulfilled this task in an admirable way. But the children grew up and\nthe church lost its power over them. They declared themselves of age and\nindependent at the very moment when the church seemed to have the\nlargest and most undoubted influence.\n\nThe church was training the nations by means of the Bible, and now it is\nthe Bible which stirs the anti-ecclesiastical movements. The Bible had\nbeen used by the church chiefly in an indirect way; parts of the Bible\nor substitutes for it had taken its place. Now the complete Bible made\nits appeal to the people and gave directions which were exactly opposite\nto the training given by the church.\n\nThe Bible had originally been accessible to everybody. In the first\ncenturies the church itself had insisted upon this publicity, as we have\nseen in the first chapter. Then came a time when almost no one could\nread and the clergy had the Bible practically to themselves. They did\nnot take away the Bible from the hands of the laymen; the laymen\nthemselves did not care for it because they could not read it; they were\ntotally dependent on the clergy. But now civilisation had made a new\nstart; the art of reading became again popular. And suddenly a desire\nfor reading the Bible spread among the people. The clergy were\nastonished to find the laymen using their right of reading the Bible\nthemselves. That was something new, and we see the clergy puzzled, we\nhear them complain. They did not want people to read the Bible, for--as\nthey said--this would introduce them to heresy. And so it proved.\n\nThe movement starts from the south of France. As early as the eleventh\ncentury we hear of people here who gather in order to hear the Bible\nread. It is the cardinal Pietro Damiani, a friend of Gregory VII, who\ncomplains of their presumption. They are plain, simple folk,\nshopkeepers, farmers, women, having no theological education, and yet\naiming at understanding the Bible. The theologians of this period\ntreated the Bible as a book of secrets. In order to understand it aright\none had to be initiated into the art of interpreting everything by\nallegory according to the authority of the fathers. They used to quote\nSaint Jerome, that the Bible was a mysterious stream; one man can walk\nthrough in safety while another would be drowned. They therefore\ndisapproved earnestly of this reading of the Bible by unprepared\ntradesmen, women, and children. But reading did not stop. The same\ncomplaint occurs again and again during the next decades. We hear of\npeople in the diocese of Metz, simple country folk, reading the Bible.\nThe church authorities already began to be alarmed and to take a more\nsevere attitude toward the offenders.\n\nThe main movement, to be mentioned here, is the one connected with the\nname of Peter Waldo, a merchant of Lyons, who was a zealous reader of\nthe Bible himself, and travelling about held frequent meetings with\npeople of the same sort. The story of his \"conversion,\" as given by the\nbest authorities, runs as follows. It was in 1176, the year of a great\nfamine, that one Sunday afternoon he listened to a jongleur reciting the\nfamous legend of Saint Alexis the poor. He was struck by this heroism of\npoverty, and the next day he asked a well-known master of theology what\nwas the surest way to God. The master, following the best tradition of\nthe mediaeval church, told him to follow Christ's advice: \"If thou\nwouldst be perfect, go, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the\npoor.\" So Peter separates himself from wife and children and begins to\nlive the life of a poor man--a beggar. Others join him; two by two, on\nfoot, they go preaching the gospel. They are not anxious for the morrow;\nthey do not work; they have faith that whatever they need will be\nsupplied to them. Thus they try to fulfil Christ's commandments and to\nimitate his disciples. They refuse to take an oath; they censure lying\nas a deadly sin; they condemn all shedding of blood either in war or in\nthe execution of justice. The fraternity called itself the Poor in\nSpirit. At the beginning they thought themselves to be true members of\nthe church; only later, when the church denied to them the right of\npreaching, did they form a sect, Peter being ordained bishop and giving\norders to other members of the community.\n\nMeanwhile a similar fraternity of poor men, or _humiliati_ as they were\ncalled here, had made their appearance in the north of Italy. It was a\nkind of workmen's union. So far as we know there was no connection at\nthe beginning between this movement and the one at Lyons. Both started\nindependently, and it was only later that they came into contact,\nwithout, however, amalgamating. The Italian fraternity spread from Milan\nall through that region and was rapidly extended into Germany, while\nfrom Lyons the Poor went through France and even through Spain. It was\nan enormous movement among the laity, and it was stirred by the Bible.\nPeter Waldo desired to have the Bible translated into his own\nvernacular; and it was by reading the Bible that these people got their\nenthusiasm and their eagerness even to suffer persecution and death.\n\nMany scholars in former days treated this Waldensian movement as truly\nProtestant; they used to call Peter Waldo and his followers reformers\nbefore the Reformation. The Protestant church in Italy, calling itself\nWaldensian and growing in our own day more and more vigorously in the\nspirit of Calvinistic Protestantism, seemed to support this view. And\nyet it is wrong. The true Protestantism of the Waldensians dates only\nfrom the sixteenth century, when they came in contact with Geneva, and\nthen went over to Calvinism. Before this they had been something quite\ndifferent, a purely mediaeval form of Christianity. The characteristic\npoint is that they take the gospel as a law, exactly as the monks did.\nIf the monks kept to poverty, fasting, praying, and so on, in order to\nfulfil the gospel's commands, these people did the same; only they did\nnot become monks and enter a monastery; they continued to live in the\nworld, carrying on their ordinary business, because, they said, the\ncommands of the gospel were not given to the monks only, but to every\nChristian. They abolished the double standard of morality which the\nchurch had established, the standard of perfection, reached only by the\nclergy and monks, and the standard of secular morality, kept by the\naverage Christian; but they abolished it in the opposite way from the\nreformers, by making the ascetic ideal the rule for every Christian. It\nwas from the Bible that they deduced this ideal and its binding force\nfor every Christian, but it was, of course, the mediaeval understanding\nof the Bible which they followed.\n\nIt is important to distinguish clearly this Waldensian movement from the\nso-called Albigensian one. This also has to do with the Bible, and\nsometimes seems closely akin to the former, but is based on an entirely\ndifferent principle. It goes back to a very early time and originates\noutside of Christianity. It was in the third century after Christ in\nPersia, that a certain Mani tried to reform the religion of Zoroaster by\nadding Gnostic speculations. He failed, and was put to death together\nwith some of his adherents. But the movement spread and reached as far\nas Gaul and North Africa in the West. Here this Gnostic doctrine of\nPersian origin took the form of a Christian heresy. Manicheism, as it\nwas called, accepted the Christian Bible, or at least some parts of it.\nIt accepted still more heartily the Christian Apocrypha, which seemed to\nbe written for the very purpose of supporting its favourite doctrines.\nSaint Augustine, having been for a long time an adherent of Manicheism,\nafterward spent a great deal of his energy in arguing with this sect and\nrefuting their theories and their criticism. The leading idea was a\nstrictly dualistic conception of the world such as is characteristic of\nPersian religion: there are two gods, a good one and a bad one; in other\nwords, God and the devil are of the same rank. The devil is the author\nof this bodily creation; whatsoever is material comes from him; while\nGod, the good god, is purely spiritual and does not create anything but\nspiritual beings. So man, who is of a mixed nature, having a divine soul\nin a material body, is bound to defy the devil by weakening the\nmaterial part of his being. He has to refrain from meat and wine, from\nmarriage, and from a number of things which belong to the devil's\ndominion. This highest degree of perfection only few could reach.\nTherefore the Manicheans had several classes of members: the lower\nclasses living in the world had to support the higher by their manual\nlabour; the higher class of the so-called \"perfect\" lived entirely for\nprayer and spiritual exercises. It was a well-organised body, extending\nover all the countries. They had their own Pope, residing usually in the\nEast. They were persecuted in Persia, persecuted in the Roman empire,\npersecuted later both by the church and by the secular powers; but in\nspite of all difficulties they kept on, living in secrecy and trying to\nconform as much as possible in outward appearance to the requirements\nfor church members. They went to the Catholic church, even attended mass\nand took the holy communion--one charge brought against them was that\ninstead of eating the consecrated bread they concealed it in their mouth\nand spit it out afterward--but they had their own clandestine\ncongregations, often by night, often outside of the town. They appear\nhere and there under different names. They call themselves Cathari, or\nthe pure ones, from which is derived \"Ketzer,\" the German word for\nheretics. In the East they often are called Bogomils or Paulicians; in\nthe West the usual name given to them was Albigensians, from a town,\nAlbi, in the south of France, where they had their headquarters.\n\nThe attitude of these Albigensians toward the Bible was a somewhat\ndivided one. They accepted the New Testament and interpreted it\naccording to their dualistic theory as a law of asceticism, herein\ncorresponding to the church's interpretation. They praised exceedingly\nthe fourth Gospel, and used its opening verses at their solemn\ninitiation, the so-called _consolamentum_, by which an adherent got the\ndegree of \"perfect\" and became a member of the highest class. But they\nrejected the Old Testament, either the whole of it or the greater part,\nsome admitting that the Psalter, Job, the books of Solomon, and the\nbooks of the prophets were inspired by the good god or (as they used to\nsay) were written in heaven. The rest, they said, came from the devil,\nand they criticised strongly the historical parts of the Old Testament,\nin particular the account of the creation given in Genesis. They took\nthis and all the other stories in a strictly literal sense, not allowing\nfor any allegorical interpretation. It was in the discussions against\nthe Manicheans that Saint Augustine, and through him the Western church,\nlearned to value the allegorical method of interpretation. It was the\neasiest way of evading all the difficulties which were raised by the\ncriticism of the Manicheans.\n\nThis Manichean or, to use the mediaeval expression, Albigensian heresy\ncould hardly be defined as a movement incited by the Bible. It was\nwholly different from the Waldensian movement and its allies. The\nWaldensians were at the beginning loyal members of the Catholic church,\nand were driven into opposition only by the resistance of the clergy,\nnot being allowed to read and to use their Bible and being opposed and\ndisturbed in their harmless meetings; but after having been separated\nfrom the church they kept aloof from it. The Albigensians, on the other\nhand, were at heart opposed to everything in Christianity. They were, in\nfact, adherents of another religion, pretending for the sake of safety\nto be members of the Catholic church. Yet just this attitude of the\nAlbigensians was what made it so difficult to distinguish between the\ntwo movements, and has caused a curious confusion. The Waldensians, with\ntheir frank and open opposition to certain institutions of the church,\nwere taken by many to be the more dangerous, and were therefore attacked\nand persecuted more severely than the Albigensians, who knew how to\nconform themselves to the outward appearance of church life.\n\nWhat was the attitude of the church toward these non-conformist\nmovements? According to the current theory of the time there was no\nsalvation outside the church; there was no room for various\ndenominations. A man belonged to the church by the very fact that he was\nborn in a Catholic community and consequently was baptised. He _had_ to\nattend the church, which procured for him eternal salvation, and if he\nneglected his duties, he was compelled to perform them by the church\nauthorities perhaps with the help of the secular power. A man had no\nright to try his own way to salvation; he was forced to use the means\nprovided for him by the church. And if he did not submit he was to be\nextinguished in order that his devilish spirit of heresy might not\ninfect others; possibly he himself could be saved by being deprived of\nhis sinful body and godless life. This theory gave a legal sanction for\nusing all kinds of persuasion by force, for applying cruel tortures, and\nfor inflicting death by burning, hanging, beheading.\n\nBut the church found that the movements could not be mastered in this\nway. In order to extirpate the evil, the underlying cause had to be\nrooted out or else its energy turned in another direction.\n\nThe first method was tried for the Bible. It was the Bible which had\nstirred the Waldensian and similar movements; so the Bible was to be\nkept away from the people. When asked by the bishop of Metz what he\nought to do with regard to the associations of Bible readers in his\ndiocese, Pope Innocent III replies (1199) that of course the study of\nthe Bible is to be encouraged among the clergy, but that all laymen are\nto be kept from it, the Bible being so profound in its mysteries that\neven scholars sometimes get beyond their depth and are drowned. At the\nend of his letter he refers to the holiness of Mount Sinai as expressed\nin Ex. 19 : 12, 13: \"Take heed to yourselves, that ye go not up into the\nmount, or touch the border of it: whosoever toucheth the mount shall be\nsurely put to death: no hand shall touch him, but he shall surely be\nstoned, or shot through; whether it be beast or man, it shall not live.\"\nLikewise, the Pope says, if a layman touches the Bible he is guilty of\nsacrilege and ought to be stoned or shot through. This amounts to a\ngeneral prohibition of Bible reading for the laity. It was especially\nagainst the translations of the Bible into the vernacular tongues that\nthe church's ordinances were directed. In the later centuries of the\nMiddle Ages the prohibitions against Bible reading by the laity, against\ntranslating the Bible, and against selling the Bible became more\nfrequent. But it is exactly this frequent repetition which makes it\nevident that the prohibitions were for the most part neglected. The best\nknown is a book ordinance, issued by Bishop Berthold of Mainz in 1485-6,\nin which the bishop forbids the printing and selling of Bibles unless\nthey are annotated by approved church theologians, the Bibles in the\nvernacular language being forbidden altogether. We know of a Strassburg\nprinter who was at work printing a German Bible at the very time this\nordinance was issued. He did not stop printing, he only took care not to\nmention his name in the book. Evidently he was sure that he could find a\nsale for his book.\n\nThere was another way of overcoming these non-conformist tendencies, and\nit proved to be more successful; the church tried to direct them and put\nthem to its own service. A good example of this method is given in the\nhistory of the movement started by Saint Francis of Assisi. At the\nbeginning this was exactly like the Waldensian movement that spread\nthrough the south of France and the north of Italy, and may have\nreceived some influence from it; for we know that the family of Saint\nFrancis had French relations and that the business of his father brought\nhim into contact with people from the North. But the conversion of Saint\nFrancis was independent, so far as we know. It again was caused by the\nBible. Once at mass he heard the lesson from the Gospel, and was struck\nby the same words which had struck so many thoughtful Christians before\nhim: \"If thou wouldest be perfect, go, sell that which thou hast and\ngive to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come\nfollow me.\" He at once throws away stick, bag, purse, shoes to become\nthe true follower of the poor Jesus and of his poor apostles, to be\nhimself the apostle of the gospel of poverty, the lover of his good lady\nPoverty, as he likes to call her. When the first two disciples had\njoined him he takes them at daybreak to a small chapel, takes from the\naltar the book of the Gospels, and (so the legend tells us), opening it\nthree times, every time comes upon the words quoted above. Therefore\nthey were made the basis of Saint Francis' rule for his community,\ntogether with the instruction given to Christ's disciples in\nLuke 9 : 1-6, and Matt. 16 : 24-27: \"If any man would come after me, let\nhim deny himself and take up his cross and follow me; for whosoever\nwould save his life shall lose it, and whosoever shall lose his life for\nmy sake shall find it; for what shall a man be profited if he shall gain\nthe whole world and forfeit his life, or what shall a man give in\nexchange for his life?\" It was the desire for martyrdom inspired by this\npassage which caused Saint Francis to go to Palestine and preach the\ngospel to the Moslems. In his retreat at Mount Alverno he assiduously\nread the history of the passion, until he became so deeply impressed by\nit that it had a corporal effect upon him. He became stigmatised, the\nfive wounds of Christ appeared on his body. Saint Francis composed an\ninteresting paraphrase of the Lord's Prayer, and his famous hymn to the\nsun is nothing else than a beautiful reproduction of the 148th Psalm.\nWhen dying he asked for John 13 to be read to him. Thus all his life is\naccompanied and profoundly affected by the Bible. His preaching is an\nattempt at bringing the pure gospel of poverty before the people as\nsimply and plainly as he found it in the Gospels according to the\nascetic understanding of that time.\n\nNow this would have turned into a non-conformist movement, like that of\nthe Poor of Lyons or the Poor of Milan, had not the bishop from the\nbeginning protected Saint Francis from his father's wrath. Then at a\nlater period Cardinal Ugolino of Ostia, known from his later life as\nPope Gregory IX, became a protector of Saint Francis and his fraternity\nand managed to make of it a regular order in the service of the church.\nIt was not Saint Francis who founded the order of the Franciscans or\nFriars, but some of his first pupils and friends, and certain high\ndignitaries of the church abused him for their own purposes. They put\nupon Saint Francis and his fraternity the whole machinery of a religious\nbody of the church. There was to be a general, and numerous provincials,\nand an annual meeting of delegates; there were monasteries ruled by\nabbots or guardians, and later these monasteries received endowments.\nBesides the monks and the nuns who formed the first and second orders,\nthere was a third order of Saint Francis including those laymen who\nwished to belong to the order and enjoy its religious benefits but were\nprevented by their families from entering the monastery. This comes very\nnear to the ideal put forth by the Poor of Lyons, but the organisation\nkept the whole body always in touch with the church and its authority.\nThe non-conformist tendency of the movement had been taken out and it\nhad been turned into an instrument of ecclesiastical policy.\n\nTo be sure, the spirit of Saint Francis reacted against this system,\ninspired, as it was, more by ecclesiastical shrewdness than by Christian\npiety. The saint himself at the end of his life fell out with his\nfriends and especially with the cardinal protector. He felt himself too\nmuch the gallant knight of his lady Poverty to make himself a tool of\necclesiastical policy. He detected a spirit of worldliness, and in his\nlast will he warned his monks not to yield themselves to it.\nNevertheless, the cardinal when promoted to be Pope ordered Saint\nFrancis, two years after his death, to be worshipped as a saint, in a\nbull of canonisation very characteristic for the style of this time,\nfilled as it is with Biblical allusions. \"From this bull,\" says one of\nSaint Francis' recent biographers, \"you learn much more about the\nhistory of David and the Philistines than about the life of Saint\nFrancis.\"\n\nBut the spirit of Saint Francis reacted even more after his death.\nOne part of his followers insisted upon the strict rule of having\nno possessions at all; they treated the other part, which permitted\npossessions in common, as a set of worldly apostates from the master's\nideals, far from the law of the gospel. And as the church authorities\ndecided in favour of the less strict group, the spiritual party, as\nthey called themselves, openly rebelled against the church, while the\nemperor, being on bad terms with the Pope, granted them his protection.\nFrom the book of Revelation they deduced that the official church\nwas the great Babylon and the Pope the antichrist. So even this\nmovement, started by the Bible, ended partly as a non-conformist\nanti-ecclesiastical undertaking.\n\nBut the main part of the Franciscans, or Friars, as they are called\nfrom the Italian _frari_ (brothers), kept to the straight line of\necclesiastical discipline, and, together with the other order founded\nnearly at the same time by Saint Dominic the Spaniard for the special\npurpose of repelling heresy, they became the powerful army of the church\ndirected against all non-conformist movements such as the Waldensians\nand Albigensians. Both orders made themselves at home at the\nuniversities--at this period Bologna and Paris, later Oxford and\nCambridge--and soon became very influential. They had rich monasteries\nand great libraries, and made Bible study their favourite subject. It is\na remarkable contrast between Saint Francis, who, having only one book,\na New Testament, gives this away in order to help a poor widow, and the\ngreat stores of books in the convents of Saint Francis' fraternity. The\nsaint himself did not wish his monks to possess, privately, anything,\nnot even a Psalter, and now they owned huge Bibles and commentaries and\nread and studied like any scholar of the secular clergy. Saint Francis\ndid not wish scholarship among his brethren; it was to him something\nworldly, opposed to the true principles of poverty. Now members of his\norder sat in the chairs of the universities and were among the leading\nteachers of the church.\n\nIt is due to the Friars that Bible study is again favoured at the\nmediaeval universities. But even these Friars were taken away from the\nBible by the current tendency toward scholasticism. Dogmatics,\nsystematics, dialectics were what everybody wanted. The curriculum of a\nstudent of theology required first a training in Biblical studies, then\nhe had to go to attend lectures on the _Sententiae_, as they called the\ntext-book for systematics. Likewise the professor was bound first for\ntwo or three years to teach Biblical matters before he could touch upon\nsystematics. In a number of German universities there still remain some\ntraces of this mediaeval regulation. But we are told that both professors\nand students hurried on to get rid of their Bible course as quickly as\npossible in order to reach the higher level of dialectics and\nsystematics. The Bible among these theologians was a text-book for the\njunior classes, but not held in great esteem as compared with the\ntreasured text-book of the senior classes, the _Liber sententiarum._\n\nIt is no wonder that a reaction against this system of scholasticism was\nstimulated by the Bible itself. Two streams we may distinguish, both\nstarting within the boundaries of the church and of ecclesiastical\ntheology, both inclined to overflow these boundaries, and both ending in\nnon-conformist movements.\n\nOne stream is represented by the mystics. They are pious people, led by\nhigh-church preachers, Master Eckhard, Tauler, Suso, and others. These\npreachers are given to thorough study of the Bible. But their allegory\nturns out to be far different from that traditional with the fathers.\nThey care for God and the soul, and for nothing else in the world. Their\nfavourite text-book is Canticles: the Christian soul as the bride of God\nor of Christ. This mysticism sometimes comes into collision with the\nsacramental view of the church. Being in complete spiritual union with\nGod, the mystic wished no outward sign; piety was love, not creed. The\nchurch instinctively felt that where these ideas were prevailing the\nwhole ecclesiastical system was in danger, and tried to stop the\nmovement. But by this very opposition the movement became more\nanti-ecclesiastical than it had been before. The mystic circles withdrew\nthemselves from the superintendence of the church, they read the Bible,\nthey read the books of their spiritual fathers, and they became more and\nmore sure of their own mystical theory as opposed to the doctrine of the\nchurch.\n\nThe second stream is still more important. Some theologians reading the\nworks of Saint Augustine discovered that the present church doctrine was\nnot what it pretended to be, the true representation of the doctrine of\nthe fathers, that there was a large difference between the real\ntradition of the old church and the scholastic doctrines of their own\ntime. And, as they went on, they found that the Bible, viewed according\nto the interpretation of the fathers, did not support the theories of\nthe modern scholars. So they departed from scholasticism and built their\nown systems on the basis of the Bible as interpreted by Saint Augustine.\nIt was a general movement; men of this kind were found in many places.\nIt is difficult to say how far they were dependent one upon another.\nSome were quiet men of letters; some gained high positions, like John\nGerson, who was elected chancellor of the University of Paris; others\nwere aggressive reformers. Mixing in politics, these became leaders of\nan anti-hierarchical and at last anti-ecclesiastical movement. We are\nnot concerned here with the political side of the question, which\nsometimes seems to be predominant. Thus in England John Wycliffe stirred\nup a long-lived struggle. Influenced by his writings John Huss in\nBohemia entered on a campaign for true Christianity which instead led to\na national Czech movement. In 1409 the German students of the University\nof Prague left the city and moved to Leipzig. After the martyrdom of\ntheir hero at Constance in 1415 the Hussites became an aggressive\nnational and militant party, constantly invading and devastating\nGermany. It needed shrewd politics and the united forces of the empire\nto keep them back from the Silesian and Saxon frontiers.\n\nAs so often happens in history, at the end it is hard to recognise the\ncauses which have led to the result. In spite of all political\nappearances it is true that it was really the Bible which stirred up\nthese two movements, the Wycliffite and the Hussite. The proof is given\nin the fact that both Wycliffe and Huss not only were fond of reading\nthe Bible, but both tried also to make their people familiar with the\nBible by procuring translations into the vernacular. In this way they\naimed to provide the laity with the evidence of this one true authority\nand so to protect them against the adulteration of Christianity due to\nscholasticism and hierarchy.\n\nThe circulation and influence of the English version made by\nWycliffe--or, as some scholars think, at Wycliffe's instance--is shown\nby the fact that in spite of persecution and destruction one hundred and\nseventy copies are still preserved, one hundred and forty of which\nbelong to a second revision, made by a younger friend of Wycliffe's,\nJohn Purvey (Plate XIV). It was the first English translation of the\nwhole Bible, a good specimen of English, but, like most mediaeval\ntranslations based upon the Latin Vulgate, preserving the faults of that\nversion and adding others of its own. There are numbers of Czech Bibles\nin existence, both in manuscript and in print, but not yet thoroughly\nstudied. It is remarkable that in this Hussite Bible, as well as in some\nGerman translations of the same time, readings are found which go back\nto the very earliest period of textual development. They belong to the\nsouthern branch of French tradition and are supplied probably by Latin,\nFrench, or Italian copies which came from Lyons or Milan. This is clear\nevidence that it was through the Waldensians that the Bible spread in\nthe vernacular of Italy, Bohemia, and Germany, and that the later\nmovements, while originating independently, were in close relation with\nthe earlier ones. It is the Bible which not only stirred all these\nmovements but connected them one with the other.\n\n  [Illustration: PLATE XIV--WYCLIFFE'S BIBLE\n\n  (Brit. Mus. Egerton, 617-8)\n\n    A beautiful copy in folio of the first edition; it is interesting to\n    compare Egerton, 1171, a small octavo copy of the second edition,\n    written for private use.\n\n  From \"Fac-similes of Biblical Manuscripts.\" By permission of the\n  Trustees of the British Museum.]\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\nTHE BIBLE TRAINS PRINTERS AND TRANSLATORS (1450-1611)\n\n\nWe have been led in the last chapters far back into the Middle Ages. Now\nwe approach the great time of discoveries. It is difficult to say who\nmade the most important discovery, Columbus crossing the Atlantic to\nfind a new world, in which a new civilisation was to arise, or Gutenberg\ninventing the art of printing and thereby revolutionising the world of\nintellectual life and consequently the history of the Bible.\n\nDuring the last centuries of the Middle Ages the Bible had been much\ncopied. At the University of Paris booksellers, helped by some scholars,\nundertook to issue a special edition for the benefit of the students.\nThis Paris edition, easily recognised by its fine type of handwriting\nand its blue and red decoration, became the standard Bible text for men\nof learning. At the same time many a pious member of the Fraternity of\nthe Common Life, which was founded by Gerhard de Groot at Zutphen (in\nHolland), copied the Bible in his miserable cell with great skill. The\nmonasteries began to have large collections of Bible editions. There\nwere large copies consisting of four or eight volumes in folio, for use\nin chapel, and smaller ones, in one volume, for private reading. We know\nof a regulation made for all monasteries of the Order of Saint\nAugustine, that in the catalogues of their libraries all Bibles should\nbe put under the letter A. There was no need for such a regulation in\nthe pre-Carolingian time, when a monastery would scarcely have one\ncomplete Bible.\n\nBut now let us try to realise what it meant that each copy should be\nmade by itself, the writer painting (as we may say) letter by letter,\nand this through hundreds and thousands of pages. The copyists showed\nwonderful skill. Some of these manuscripts look exactly like printed\nbooks; one letter is just like the other; no slipping of the pen!\nNevertheless it was inevitable that the copyist should make mistakes\nfrom time to time. He dropped a letter, a word, even a line;\nunconsciously he changed the order of the words. He brought in something\nwhich he happened to have in his mind. When he was familiar with his\nBible, some parallel confused him. It is only natural that in copying a\nbook of this size even the best copyist should make some hundreds of\nblunders; the next copyist would introduce other hundreds, sometimes\neven by an unhappy attempt at correcting the blunders of the former. So\nit went on till in the end the text became filled with mistakes. Of\ncourse, there was a remedy. After having finished the copy the writer\nhimself or some one else was expected to compare it carefully with the\noriginal and correct all the blunders. But from personal experience in\nreading proofs we know how easily a real blunder escapes our attention.\nOne ought to go over a proof-sheet three times at least in order to\navoid all mistakes. So we cannot wonder that the Bibles copied by hand\ncontained errors, and considering all the difficulties it is surprising\nthat the copies were most of them so nearly correct.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt was Johann Gutenberg, a native of Mainz, residing some time at\nStrassburg as a silversmith, then again returning to Mainz, who made the\ngreat discovery that several copies could be printed at once by using\nletters cut out of wood or metal. People had used woodcuts before his\ntime. Engraving large blocks of wood with pictures and letters, they\nprinted the so-called block-books, as a cheap substitute for illuminated\nmanuscripts. Gutenberg's great idea was that instead of using a woodcut\nblock for the page one might compose a page by using separate, movable\nletters, putting them together according to the present need, then\nseparating them and using them again. We are not interested here in the\ntechnical part of the work; imperfect as it was, it was surely a great\nadvance. Now one got a hundred copies, two hundred, or even more without\nany difference between them. When the proofs had been corrected\ncarefully the Bible was sure to have as few mistakes as possible; and if\nthe printer still found some errors, he could easily correct them for\nthe whole edition by adding a printed list of errata, or necessary\ncorrections, at the end of the volume. It was only by printing that\nuniformity of text became possible.\n\nThe important fact for our present investigation is that it was the\nBible which Gutenberg chose to be the first printed book. This fact\nillustrates the estimation in which the Bible was held. It shows at the\nsame time the demand for Bible copies; the printer felt sure that it\nwould sell and pay. It was an enormous enterprise to put the fresh,\ninexperienced art of printing straightway at a task so big as this. It\ntook four years to print the first Bible, from 1453 to 1456. While\nworking at it Gutenberg had to try some smaller things which would bring\nhim money immediately, school-books, letters of indulgence, and so on,\nbut his main care was given to the Bible. It contained six hundred and\nforty-one leaves, with two columns on each page, and forty-two lines in\neach column (Plate XV). The initials were not printed, but were supposed\nto be illuminated by hand; a small letter was printed in the free space\nto indicate what kind of letter the illuminator had to paint. Probably\nnot more than one hundred copies were printed, a third part of them on\nparchment. Out of the thirty-one copies which have been preserved, or,\nto speak more accurately, are known as such, ten are luxuriously printed\non parchment and illuminated, each in a different way, but all very fine\nand costly. It is obvious that Gutenberg put into this printing not only\na great amount of labour but much money, too; and there was no assurance\nthat it would come in again in a short time. Like many ingenious\ndiscoverers and inventors, he was no business man; he was always in need\nof money. So when his first Bible was not yet finished one of his\ncreditors, John Fust, of Mainz, took all his apparatus from him and,\nassociating himself with an apprentice of Gutenberg's, Peter Schoeffer by\nname, brought the printing of the first Bible to completion, thus\ndepriving the inventor of the financial success as well as of the glory.\nBut Gutenberg was not discouraged. He immediately began, with a new set\nof letters, the printing of a second Bible, containing thirty-six lines\nin each column and so amounting to eight hundred and eighty-one leaves\nin size. He printed it in the years 1456 to 1458. Again his rivals, Fust\nand Schoeffer, published, in 1462, a third Bible, called sometimes the\nBible of Mainz. It has forty-eight lines in each column.\n\nThus the printing of the Bible was inaugurated. The new art quickly\nspread all over Germany, and printing-presses were established at\nStrassburg, Bamberg, Nuremberg, Basel, Cologne, Luebeck, and many other\nplaces. The art entered France and England with less success, the\ngovernment in both countries being partly opposed to it and partly\ntrying to make it a royal privilege. Good printers worked at Paris and\nLyons. The most splendid presses were at Venice, where the Doge\nchampioned the new art even against attacks from Rome. Before the year\n1500 ninety-two editions of the Latin Bible were issued by these various\npresses, according to Mr. Copinger, who possessed the largest collection\nof printed Bibles. (He registers four hundred and thirty-eight editions\nof the Latin Bible during the sixteenth century.) In addition to these\nwe have a great number of printed Bibles in the vernacular of Germany,\nFrance, Italy, Bohemia, and so on. There was a sudden outpouring of\nBibles. But we must not overestimate the circulation. These editions\ncontained scarcely more than two hundred copies each; they were most of\nthem in large folio, very unwieldy, and the price was enormous, though,\nof course, not so high as it is now, when for one copy of Gutenberg's\nfirst Bible $20,000 is paid. The Bible was not available for the average\nman. We know of scholars copying for themselves the Bible or the New\nTestament from a printed Bible. The clergy were rather opposed to this\nprinting. They did not in the least encourage the printers; on the\ncontrary, they tried to cause as many difficulties as possible.\nTherefore the circulation was a limited one. Copies were bought by\nchurches for their services, by princes, and by very rich merchants, as\nto-day a splendid work is bought more as a luxury than as something for\ndaily use. One cannot say that at this period the Bible, even by\nprinting, acquired a circulation among the people.\n\n  [Illustration: PLATE XV--GUTENBERG'S FIRST BIBLE\n\n  (42 lines, Mainz, 1453-1456)\n\n    Copy at Leipzig, on parchment, beautifully illuminated. The capitals\n    are painted by hand, but indicated by small printed letters.\n\n  From \"Erfindung der Buchdruckerkunst.\" Published by\n  Velhagen & Klasing, Bielefeld, Germany.]\n\nThis was accomplished only through the Reformation. It was Luther's\nGerman translation which made the printed Bible popular and caused a\nnumber of similar translations. In order to make the Bible what it was\ndestined to be, the book of the people, the printer and the translator\nhad to work together.\n\nIn former times many Protestants held the view that Luther rediscovered\nthe Bible, which had been almost entirely forgotten. They thought that\nthere had been a meagre transmission of the Bible and no translation\ninto the vernacular at all. This view, of course, is untenable. We have\nseen what a circulation the Bible had in the last century before the\nReformation, and that it had been translated into almost every\nvernacular. Nevertheless, Luther's version is a landmark in the history\nof translation; it marks a new period and represents the beginning of a\nnew sort of translation.\n\nIn order to realise this, let us look back over the former history of\ntranslations. In the first period we found the Bible translated from the\nGreek into Latin, Syriac, Coptic; in the next period Gothic, Armenian,\nGeorgian, Libyan, and Ethiopic were added, not to mention the several\nrevisions of the former translations. About 600 A. D. the Bible was\nknown in eight languages; in each of them there had been several\nattempts at translating. There were different dialects, too; in Coptic\nno less than five. The spread of Christianity in the next period is\nshown by the fact that the Bible is translated--and this again several\ntimes--into Arabic and Slavonic from the Greek, and into German,\nAnglo-Saxon, Celtic, and French from the Latin--rather, I should say,\nparts of the Bible, for it was only parts which people at this period\ntried to translate. We hear of a Gospel, of a Psalter, of one or another\nbook translated into the vernacular. Only when stimulated by the popular\nmovements of the next period, as we have seen in the fifth chapter, was\nthe work of translating into the vernacular prosecuted on a larger\nscale; from the thirteenth century on we may speak of Bibles in the\nvernacular. Beginning in the southeast of France, the tendency spread\nover Italy and Germany. We can still trace the influence of the French\nWaldensian Bible in the earliest Italian translations and also in some\nof the German ones. Another circle is defined by the northern French\ntranslation, which influenced the Flemish and Dutch and possibly even\nthe Scandinavian. All these are based not so much upon the Bible itself\nas on a rearrangement known as the Historical Bible, telling the stories\nand omitting the doctrinal portions. A new start was made in England by\nWycliffe, and this caused the Bohemian translation into Czech, which was\nagain influenced by the Waldensian Bible. It is like a net thrown all\nover Europe. We may count more than a dozen languages, many of them\nrepresented by different dialects and by several separate renditions,\nwhich were added to the eight languages of the former periods. The\nculmination came in the fifteenth century, when everywhere fresh\ntranslations were attempted. In Germany more than forty different types\nof translation can be counted, and one of them, containing the whole\nBible, was printed fourteen times before the period of the Reformation\n(Plate XVI). There was only one translation, however, with a value of\nits own, and that was the Spanish, for this was made from the Hebrew Old\nTestament by the help of some Spanish Jews. Both the king of Spain and\nthe high clergy showed at that time a remarkable breadth of view in\ntrying to get a trustworthy translation. All other versions in the West\nwere based upon the Latin Vulgate as the recognised Bible of the church,\nand they were made with more devotion than knowledge. The translators\nusually did not know Latin well nor were they masters of their own\nlanguage. They translated word for word, and the result was sometimes\nstrange. It is of no great importance that, not recognising in \"Tertius\"\nand \"Quartus\" proper names, one of these translators said \"the third\"\nand \"the fourth.\" It was worse when another explained \"encaenia\" in\nJohn 10 : 22, the feast of dedication, as meaning \"wedding,\" or declared\nthe words in Matt. 27 : 46, \"Eli, Eli,\" to be Greek. Sometimes the\ntranslation resulted in pure nonsense, and even where it made sense, it\nwas difficult and often far from the true meaning. Now humanism\ninsisted upon going back to the original languages. Erasmus, in 1516,\npublished the first edition of the New Testament in Greek. We see how\nLuther, at this time professor at the University of Wittenberg,\nlecturing upon Romans when this edition came into his hands, was\nimpressed by this new source of information. He eagerly set himself to\nlearn Greek with the help of his friend Melanchthon, and so he was\nprepared for the great task of translating the New Testament directly\nout of the Greek into German. It was during his exile in the Wartburg\nthat he found the necessary time to make this translation. It appeared\nin print in September, 1522, and it is astonishing in how short a time\nthis New Testament circulated all through Germany. It was reprinted\neverywhere, and often very carelessly, so that Luther had to complain\nagainst the printers as falsifying his translation. He himself did not\ntake any payment for his work; he wanted the publishers to sell it as\ncheaply as possible. And it was a masterpiece, not only for the beauty\nof the language, which was the best and most popular German that had\never been written but also in the way Luther translated, giving not the\nsingle words but the meaning of the sentences, not transferring from one\nvocabulary to the other but transmuting (if one may say so) the whole\nexpression of thought from Greek into German. The Bible became a German\nbook; one hardly feels that he is reading a translation. Luther had more\ntrouble with the Old Testament. In order to master the Hebrew he had to\nrely on friends; he even asked some Jewish rabbis to join their\nmeetings. He tells us that they often had to look for a single word\nthree or four weeks; that in particular Job was so difficult that they\nscarcely finished three lines in four days. The Pentateuch was ready in\nthe year 1523; then year after year the work went on. The prophets were\nnot finished until 1532, and in 1534 the first complete Bible was\nissued. The work was highly praised by Luther's friends and unduly\ncriticised by his antagonists. He himself replied sharply to such\ncriticism, and he had a right to do so because the attempts made by Eck\nand Emser, the champions of Roman Catholicism, to translate the Bible\nthemselves were feeble and betrayed much dependence on Luther's\ntranslation, which they had so severely criticised. Luther himself never\nfelt satisfied with his own work and always tried to improve it. At two\ndifferent periods he held meetings with his friends for the purpose of\nrevising the Bible. The records of these meetings of the committee for\nthe revision of the Bible (if one may call it so) have come down to us,\nand it is highly interesting to see how carefully they discussed every\nword and how it is always Luther himself who at last finds the most apt\nexpression.\n\n  [Illustration: PLATE XVI--FIRST GERMAN BIBLE\n\n    Printed at Strassburg by G. Mentell in 1466: the progress in\n    printing made in these ten years is remarkable.\n\n  Entnommen aus W. Walthers \"Deutsche Bibeluebersetzung des\n  Mittelalters.\" Verlag von Hellmuth Wollermann in Braunschweig.]\n\nIt is a great privilege of the German nation that it received this\nexcellent Bible at the very beginning of the new era. The German\nlanguage is moulded by this Bible. In Luther's time the dialects still\nprevailed. Luther's Bible had to be translated into the dialect of lower\nGermany. The south of Germany and Switzerland had quite another dialect.\nThe Zuerich reformers, in 1529, published a Bible in this dialect,\ntranslating from Luther's Bible as far as it existed at this time and\nproviding for the rest a translation of their own. It is unquestionably\ndue to Luther's Bible that the Germans have now one language for all\nliterary purposes. The German classic writers Herder, Wieland,\nKlopstock, Lessing, Schiller, Goethe were all trained from their\nchildhood by the language of this Bible. Even now there is a remarkable\ndifference in style between authors of Protestant and of Roman Catholic\norigin in Germany. In the easy and fluent language of the former we see\nthe influence of Luther and Goethe, whereas the latter often show a\ncertain stiffness and a greater number of provincialisms. The attempts\nto translate the Bible independently of Luther have never succeeded in\ngaining any large circulation, although there have been many such, not\nonly from the Roman Catholic side but also from Protestants. A famous\none is the so-called Berleburg Bible, by certain mystics, published in\n1726-42 in eight volumes. In the nineteenth century scholars undertook\nto give more scientific and more exact translations, but, valuable as\nthese may be for scholarly purposes, the German people will never\nabandon its classic Bible. It is difficult even to introduce a revision.\nThere was a revision some twenty years ago, but in this Luther's text\nwas retouched and altered only at a very few points, most of the\ncorrections introduced by the revision committee being rather\nrestitutions of Luther's original renderings, which had been badly\n\"improved\" by former printers. It is remarkable that even the printed\nBible never stands still, but is always changing, the printers acting as\nthe copyists did in former times. The copies of the revised text printed\nat Stuttgart differ slightly from the copies printed at Halle and\nBerlin, to mention three of the modern centres of German Bible printing.\n\nLuther's translation was the signal for a general movement in this\ndirection. It is not so much translating the Bible into new\nlanguages--only a few which had no Bible before were added to the list\ngiven above--as rather the making of new translations in all languages\nof the Christian world as far as this was influenced by the Reformation.\nOf course some of these translations were inspired by humanism more than\nby the spirit of the Reformation. The humanists abhorred the vulgarity\nof the monkish Latin, and they extended their aversion to the official\nBible of the church, the Vulgate of Saint Jerome; therefore they tried\nto translate the Bible into what they thought to be Ciceronian Latin,\nand some of them translated this again into French or German. But most\nof the translators were simply following Luther's model; nay, they used\nLuther's translation even more than the original. King Christian III of\nDenmark gave orders that the translators should follow Luther's version\nas closely as possible. In this way the Dutch, the Danish, the Swedish,\nthe Finnish, the Lettish, and the Lithuanian Bibles were more or less\ninfluenced by or even based upon Luther's.\n\nIt is different with the English and the French Bible. Wycliffe's\ntranslation never had been printed. William Tindale, a pupil of Erasmus,\ntranslated the New Testament and parts of the Old during his exile in\nGermany and Holland, whither he had gone under Henry VIII because, as he\nsays, there was no place to translate the New Testament in all England.\nPrinted copies of them were brought to England, but most of them were\nconfiscated and destroyed. Once again the Bible was burned, but this\ntime by the Christian king in agreement with the bishops of the English\nchurch; and with the Bible suffered many of its zealous readers. Tindale\nhimself died a martyr for his faith and his Bible in October, 1536, at\nthe hands of the imperial authorities in Flanders. But the work of Bible\ntranslation went on, nevertheless, and Henry VIII was still on the\nthrone when the Bible gained the victory. Miles Coverdale, who had\nundertaken another translation, issued the year before Tindale's death,\nfailed to get royal sanction for its publication, but the book was not\nsuppressed. John Rogers, a friend of Tindale's, the year after his\ndeath, under the assumed name of Thomas Matthew, published a Bible,\nchiefly made up from Tindale's and Coverdale's work. Through Crumwell's\nmediation Cranmer secured the king's permission to sell this Bible in\nthe realm. But the convocation was not satisfied with it. It asked for\nanother translation, and therefore the so-called Great Bible was\npublished in 1539, Coverdale revising his former work under the\ndirection of Crumwell, Cranmer, and others. This Great Bible was ordered\nby a royal warrant to be exhibited in all parish churches; copies were\nfastened to the pulpits by means of chains, and the public was allowed\nto read them \"with discretion, honest intent, charity, reverence, quiet\nbehavior,\" as is said in the admonition published by Bishop Bonner. This\nhappened in the last years of Henry VIII. Under Queen Mary--bloody Mary,\nas she was called--the printing of Bibles was stopped, but the exiles\nwho went to Geneva undertook a new revision, which was much more radical\nand had the privilege of bearing an introductory letter by Calvin\nhimself. At the very moment of Queen Elizabeth's coronation, among other\nprisoners (according to the expression of one of her courtiers) the four\nevangelists and Saint Paul were released, having been long shut up in an\nunknown tongue, as it were in prison. The Great Bible was revised by\nsome of the bishops under direction of Archbishop Parker, who did not\nshrink from using improvements from the Geneva Bible. This Bishops'\nBible, published in 1568, was the official one, but the Geneva Bible was\nfar more popular, while the Roman Catholics made a translation of their\nown, printed in France at Rheims and Douai. The rivalry between the\nBishops' Bible and the Geneva Bible was confusing. Therefore, in order\nto overcome it, King James, in 1604, appointed a committee for the\nrevision of the Bible, consisting of about fifty members, and divided\ninto six groups, two of which met at Westminster, Oxford, and Cambridge\nrespectively. They did excellent work, the result of which was published\nin 1611 and is known as the Authorised Version. It is in this version\nthat the English translation attained its highest excellence. It is this\nform which gained the largest circulation and the greatest popularity\namong all English-speaking peoples. It still survives the recent attempt\nat revision, which was made by an English and an American committee,\nboth working on the same principles and in constant communication with\none another. It is a well-known fact that the final corrections were\ncabled from England to America in order to procure a simultaneous\npublication on both sides of the Atlantic. Here again, as in the German\nrevision, the two issues are not identical. It marks, however, a clear\ndistinction between the German and the English Bible that the former\nreached its final form at its very beginning, whereas the latter did not\nachieve this result until a hundred years later. The Bible of Luther was\ncreative of the German language, as we have seen, while the English\nBible is rather a product of the period of highest literary culture in\nEngland. Luther produced Goethe. Shakespeare (d. April 23, 1616) is\npractically contemporaneous with the Authorised Version.\n\nThe development of the French Bible is still more slow and varied. There\nwas a pre-Reformation translation, printed several times, at Lyons and\nat Paris; but it was of a purely mediaeval character. Then a humanist,\nJacques Lefevres d'Etaples (Faber Stapulensis, d. 1536), undertook a new\nFrench translation from the Vulgate. The first French Bible translated\nfrom the original Hebrew and Greek was published in 1535 by Peter Robert\nOlivetan, a cousin of Calvin. The author himself, and Calvin, and others\ncorrected and improved it from time to time, and nearly every twenty or\nthirty years a new editor would try to revise it. In this series of\nrevisions one of the most successful was that of Frederic Ostervald of\nNeuchatel, in 1744. But the process is still going on, French and Swiss\ntheologians vying one with another in fair competition. Moreover, the\nProtestant translation found many rivals in the work of Roman Catholics,\nespecially in the great period of French literature in the reign of\nLouis XIV. Some of these translators, for example Bossuet, aimed at\nmaking the style of their translation as elegant as possible, while\nothers, under the influence of Port Royal, paraphrased the text with a\nview rather to clearness. None of these versions had real success; none\nhas become final. France still suffers from the lack of a classic form\nfor its Bible.\n\nThe attitude of a nation toward its Bible is largely determined by the\ndevelopment of the translation. It is obvious that the Germans hold to\nLuther's Bible even more insistently than the English do to their\nAuthorised Version, and that in France there is an open field for every\nfresh attempt at revising and translating. The nation has not become\nunited with its Bible, and, as regards language, the famous\n\"Dictionnaire de l'Academie,\" aiming at a standard of literary\nuniformity, is but a poor and artificial substitute for the influence\nexercised in a living and natural way by the Bible.\n\nIt is not our task here to trace the history of translations in Italy,\nSpain, Portugal, Hungary, and elsewhere. It is to a large extent a\nhistory of enthusiasm, devotion, and martyrdom, and at the same time of\nfailure and oppression. Wherever the so-called Counter-Reformation,\nstarted by the Jesuits, gained hold of the people, the vernacular was\nsuppressed and the Bible kept from the laity. So eager were the Jesuits\nto destroy the authority of the Bible--the paper pope of the\nProtestants, as they contemptuously called it--that they even did not\nrefrain from criticising its genuineness and historical value.\n\nTo sum up: it was the Bible which trained printers and translators and\nthereby made a noble contribution to modern civilisation and literature;\non the other hand, it was printing and translating which made it\npossible for the Bible to become the popular book that ruled daily\nlife.\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\nTHE BIBLE RULES DAILY LIFE (1550-1850)\n\n\nThe Reformation gave the Bible a new position--not that there had been\nno Bible before, nor that the Bible had had no influence. We have seen\nthat there were numbers of Bibles, in Latin as well as in the\nvernacular, and that the Bible had been one of the foundations of\nmediaeval civilisation, yet it was only by Luther's translation and the\nother versions made on his model that the Bible became a really popular\nbook, and it was only by the Reformation that the Bible was established\nas the authority for daily life in a modern, that is, non-ascetic,\nsense.\n\nThe two points insisted on by all the reformers were, first, that the\nBible is perspicuous, that is, that every reader can by himself find out\nin his Bible what is essential for salvation; and, secondly, that the\nBible is sufficient. The Christian does not need anything else; the\nBible tells him everything which he requires--of course in its own\ndomain, religion, or, to use the language of that time, the \"doctrine of\nsalvation.\" By the Reformation the Bible got rid of all its rivals,\nsuch as tradition, Apocrypha, legend, canon law, and so on. It is\nwonderful to see--and I doubt if modern Christianity has realised the\nfact in all its importance--how by the preaching of the reformers all\nthese things, which hitherto had been thought of as integral parts of\nChristianity, simply fell away. No cult of the saints, no adoration of\ntheir images, no legends, no fancy, no merriment connected with\nreligion, but the pure Bible and the stern doctrine of it and the\naustere attitude of Puritanism corresponding to it were now uppermost.\nNay, the letter of the Bible was binding in a stricter sense than it had\never been before. Catholicism made it possible to mitigate the\nstrictness by allegorical interpretation; Protestantism insisted upon\ntaking the Bible in its literal sense. There was now no way of escape; a\nman had to take whatever the Bible said or refuse the Bible altogether.\nIn principle the mystery had gone; the Bible was plain and made itself\nunderstood.\n\nIt was the literal sense, as established by lexicon and grammar, which\nwas to be followed. This caused the reformers to encourage and\nfacilitate the study of the original languages of the Bible. When they\ntried to improve the grammar-schools and to found as many new ones as\npossible, it was not so much the humanistic delight in the classical\nlanguages as the desire to secure a sure knowledge of Greek and Hebrew\nwhich might enable a boy to read and to interpret the Bible. It is\nevident from many utterances both of Luther and Calvin that their aim in\nall their school work was to provide good preachers of the true gospel,\nor good teachers of the genuine doctrine of the Bible.\n\nTo be sure, there are differences of character, both personal and\nnational, between the two great reformers, which account for a somewhat\ndifferent development of their churches. In Luther's piety the joyful\nexperience of salvation brings in a happy note; the children of God\npraise his love and grace. In Calvin's devotion the feeling prevails\nthat God's majesty is above all creatures and that his holy will is the\nsupreme rule for our life. Religion with Luther is bright and cheerful,\nwhereas with Calvin it has a darker tinge. But both are building on the\nsame foundation and with the same end in view: from salvation to\nsalvation, from grace to grace. The difference is but one of attitude\ntoward the present life.\n\nThe difference finds its best expression in a varying use of the phrase\nWord of God. Both, of course, believed in an historical revelation of\nGod to mankind, and they were convinced that this revelation was to be\nfound in the holy Scriptures. God had spoken through his prophets; he\nhad given his promises to his people; he had sent his Son and had\nfulfilled his promises through him. All this was to be found in the\nBible and only in the Bible. The reformers refused the authority of\ntradition, just as they declined to acknowledge the present individual\ninspiration of enthusiasts, or \"Schwarmgeister,\" as Luther\ncontemptuously called them. It was in the Bible that Christianity had to\nlook for all necessary information about God and salvation. And yet\nLuther, when using the expression Word of God, scarcely thinks of the\nwritten book. It is the living word as represented by the preaching of\nthe prophets and the apostles, and perpetuated by the preaching of the\nministers of the church. It is to him not a formal authority but an\nenergising inspiration. Not everything in the Bible is authoritative,\nmerely by the fact that it stands in the Bible; only what witnesses to\nChrist is authoritative and is to be taken as the Word of God. On the\nother hand, Zwingli and Calvin frequently use the term Word of God when\nspeaking of the holy Scriptures themselves. It is characteristic that\nthe reformed churches of Switzerland felt it their duty to fix the exact\nnumber of writings included in this Word of God, just as the Roman\nCatholic church did at the Council of Trent, while no Lutheran creed\never defines the exact content of the Bible. To the former it was a book\nof law, to the latter a book of inspiration.\n\nLuther, owing to his familiarity with Saint Paul, understood that\nChristianity had nothing to do with the Law; the whole notion of the Law\nhad to be dropped out from the field of religion. Law there must be in\nthe government of the state--it would not be necessary even there, if\nall people were true Christians--but for the wicked there must be a law\nand there must be punishment. The Christian's life, however, is not a\nslave's obedience to injunctions but a child's glad doing of his\nfather's will; he knows what his father wants him to do and he does it\njoyfully. Luther is especially interested in proving that Jesus'\nteaching, in particular the Sermon on the Mount, does not exhibit an\nascetic law, but gives principles for the moral life of every Christian.\nOne need not enter a monastery in order to fulfil Christ's commandments.\nIt is in the tasks of the daily life that a Christian has to prove\nhimself a true disciple of Jesus. The Bible is to rule the daily life of\nthe Christian, but not in the sense of a law. When, in 1523, a preacher\nat Weimar aimed to introduce the Mosaic law instead of the common law,\nLuther treated him as a \"Schwarmgeist,\" and, in fact, it was that\nproposal which lay at the basis of all the \"Schwarmgeisterei.\" Such\nexperiments, aiming to constitute a kingdom of the Saints on earth, as\nthe Anabaptists made at Muenster and elsewhere, always failed, and made\nLuther and his friends suspicious of any such attempt.\n\nIt is different with Calvin. He is interested in realising the kingdom\nof God in the Christian congregation, or, to put it more accurately, in\nthe commonwealth of Geneva, which is to him identical with the Christian\ncongregation of that place. So it is the commonwealth which is to be\nruled by the Bible, and the Bible in this role acts as a law to which\nthe whole community as well as the individual has to submit. And again\nit is characteristic that Calvin takes the Bible as a unit. It is the\nOld Testament law as well as the gospel which is to be regarded as the\nindispensable rule both of public and private life. With the Calvinists\nthe ten commandments become an integral part of the regular Sunday\nservice.\n\nOf course there are many gradations between these two positions.\nZwingli, the Zuerich reformer, was of a different type from Calvin, while\nhe was even more opposed to Luther than was the Genevan. Luther's rule\nwas to abolish whatsoever was contrary to the Bible. Zwingli would\npermit only what was based upon or commanded by the Bible; he objected\nto the use of an organ, to the keeping of festival days except Sunday,\nand so on. Luther even tolerated pictures in the church. He was sure\nthat no one would adore them if pervaded by the true spirit of the\ngospel, and he was convinced that this spirit could be successfully\ninculcated by means of preaching. Zwingli and Calvin both did away with\nall pictures in the churches. They had the walls whitewashed and the ten\ncommandments and other passages from the Bible painted on them. Nothing\nis so characteristic of this difference between the Lutheran and the\nCalvinistic feeling as the history of an epitaph in an East Prussian\nchurch, the monument of the noble family of the earls of Dohna. At the\ntime of the Reformation they joined the Grand Master, later Duke,\nAlbrecht of Brandenburg in taking Luther's part. The epitaph, which was\nerected in the church of Mohrungen on the death of Earl Peter in 1553,\nwas decorated with a picture showing the holy Trinity adored by the\nfamily of the donor. At the beginning of the seventeenth century the\nfamily went over to Calvinism, and the painting was altered by covering\nthe image of the holy Trinity with black varnish and putting over it\nsome Bible verses in gold letters.\n\nThe different attitude toward the Bible finds its expression also in the\nfact that the Lutherans used hymns, whereas the Calvinists adhered to\nthe Biblical Psalter. Of course the vigorous songs composed by Luther\nare most of them based upon Psalms and other Biblical passages, and so\nwere the greater number of hymns in the Lutheran church. On the other\nhand, the Calvinists did not agree with the English church in taking\nover the alternative recitation of the Psalter from the mediaeval\nexercises of the monasteries and large cathedral choirs. They used the\nPsalter in a rhythmical paraphrase adapted to modern singing, but\nkeeping so near to the wording of the Psalms that they even called it\nthe Psalm-book. The difference was, in fact, slight, but they felt it to\nbe essential. The Lutherans followed the usage of the church, the\nCalvinists the very word of the Bible. It is remarkable, however, that\nhymns gradually gained more importance among the Calvinists, especially\nsince the time of the eighteenth-century revivals, and that nowadays the\nhymn-book, enriched by the contributions of recent time from poets of\nall denominations, is in favour with all Protestants and in some circles\nis even in danger of becoming a substitute for the Bible.\n\nIn spite of all these differences, these two great forms of\nProtestantism manifest almost the same attitude toward the Bible, and we\nsee them changing their attitude almost at the same time and in the\nsame direction. The theologians of the orthodox period exaggerated the\nauthority of the Bible to such an extent that critics like Lessing could\nspeak of Bibliolatry or Bible-worship. They extended the notion of\ninspiration even to the smallest details in the printed text which lay\nbefore them, with no regard for the fact that those details were late\nadditions, sometimes even misprints, and that the various editions did\nnot agree in these details. True scholastics as they were, they had no\nsense for facts but an unlimited desire for theory; the facts had to\nsubmit to the theory, and whoever would appeal to the facts against the\ntheory was denounced as a heretic and driven out as a disreputable\nperson. This doctrinal attitude changed when, at the end of the\nseventeenth century, Pietism in Germany and Methodism in England once\nagain turned religion from ecclesiastical doctrine to personal devotion.\nThe estimation of the Bible is not diminished--quite the contrary; yet\nit finds its expression not in stiff formulas of dogmatics but in\nbeautiful hymns. Under the direction of P. J. Spener (d. 1705) people\nonce more gather in private circles to read and to interpret the Bible;\nonce more the students are drawn away from dead scholasticism to the\nliving study of the Bible. To the _theologia dogmatica_ is opposed a\n_theologia biblica_. People begin to realise again what is the true use\nof the Bible, not as a text-book for dogmatic competitions and\ncontroversies, but as the divine word of comfort and exhortation, a\nguide to salvation, and an expression of salvation already gained. There\nis a beautiful tract written by A. H. Francke of Halle (d. 1727) and\nvery often printed as a preface to the Bible in German, \"A brief\ndirection how to read the Bible for edification.\" It sounds thoroughly\nmodern, as it deals not with questions of theology but entirely with\npiety. This attitude was again changed by the so-called rationalism.\nThat movement, too, entered the Protestantism of Germany as well as of\nEngland and America in various forms and under various names (deism,\nunitarianism), but with the same tendency. It may be that it had an\neasier start and a wider spread in the Lutheran church of Germany. We\nshall speak of its influence in the next chapter. The Bible was\nsubmitted to reason or explained according to reason. The Bible was to\nbe followed for the sake of the precepts of reason contained in it or\nelse not at all. It was, however, the common conviction that the Bible\ngave the most reasonable injunctions, and whereas orthodoxy had been\nmostly intellectual and Pietism emotional, rationalism by its moral\nstrictness helped the Bible to retain its influence on daily life.\n\nThis influence was due to the fact that since Luther's time the Bible\nwas in every house; it was the centre of the regular morning and evening\nprayers, the father reading and explaining to his family some chapters\nof the Bible. What a knowledge of the Bible had been gained by the laity\nsoon after the Reformation is shown by the prince elector of Saxony\nJohann Friedrich, who at the important meetings held at Augsburg in 1530\nwas able to quote from memory all necessary passages of the Bible.\n\nIn Lutheran countries the influence of the Bible found expression in\narts and crafts. Not only were the walls of the churches decorated with\npictures taken from the Bible but also the walls of private houses. The\nfurniture of a farmhouse was painted with Biblical stories, very awkward\npaintings, indeed, but showing the spirit of simple and plain devotion.\nIt is otherwise when a rich lady's dressing-table in baroque or rococo\nis decorated with such scenes. We feel that they are out of place there\nand that scenes taken from ancient mythology would suit such a purpose\nmuch better. We should consider it a little profane that, at a wedding\ndinner in the sixteenth century, between the several courses elaborate\ndishes were passed, representing Biblical scenes. We cannot help\nremembering the remark of that preacher of the old church who\nexclaimed: \"Oh, that they had these stories painted in their hearts!\"\n\nMuch more important is the art of music. Luther was fond of it; he would\nnever have given up a choir and an organ. He made it possible for the\nLutheran church to produce the greatest masterpieces that music has ever\nachieved--Bach's oratorios. While the Roman church directed the work of\nits great musicians toward the glorification of the mass, and the\nCalvinistic church became rigorously opposed to the very art of music,\nthe Lutheran composers were inspired by the Bible itself. The Biblical\nsonatas of Johann Kuhnau (d. 1722) seem to us mere trifling. The real\nwork was done by Heinrich Schuetz (d. 1672) and Johann Sebastian Bach,\nthe cantor of Saint Thomas in Leipzig (d. 1750), who succeeded in giving\nto the Bible a new voice, a voice which is still sounding and entering\ncircles where the printed Bible would scarcely be read. The combination\nin Bach's oratorios is very striking--the majestic church hymns sung by\nthe choir, the simple recitative of Scripture, and, last but not least,\nthe arias giving the response of the pious individual to the words of\nGod in the Bible. This is the most characteristic part of it. Protestant\npiety cannot be without the personal expression of individual feeling;\nit is thoroughly subjective in the highest sense. As Luther in his\ncatechism explains the Apostles' Creed thus, \"I believe that God has\ncreated me...; I believe that Jesus Christ is my Lord, who has saved\nme...; I believe that it is impossible for me to come to Jesus Christ\nwithout the help of the Holy Ghost...,\" so Protestant piety gives to\neverything this subjective note. There is a Greek manuscript of the\nGospels from the fourteenth century, written in several colours to\ndistinguish the words of Jesus, of his apostles, of his enemies, and of\nthe evangelist. The narrative of the evangelist is given in green ink,\nthe words of the Pharisees and other adversaries of Jesus in black, the\nwords of the disciples in blue, and the sayings of Jesus himself are in\nred. It is a curious piece of work, showing the tendency of the Greek\nchurch to dramatise the sacred history of the Gospel. With this Greek\ncopy we may compare a Protestant family Bible mentioned by a modern\nGerman preacher. It is a plain old printed Bible, but the pious\ngreat-grandfather has marked it all through with various colours, which\nhe explains in a note: \"What touched the sin of my heart:--Black. What\ninspired me to good:--Blue. What comforted me in sorrow:--Red. What\npromised me the grace of God in eternity:--Gold.\" The difference\nbetween objective facts and subjective relation to them, between\napprehension and appreciation, is evident. This is the new spirit which\npervades the Protestant reader of the Bible, and therefore the Bible is\nmuch more to him than it had been to Christianity in former times.\n\nWhere the Bible was read in such a spirit it was bound to gain an\ninfluence upon the daily life. We must admit this even if we have no\ndirect evidence. The inward acting of the spirit in the individual is\ninaccessible to scientific observation and statistics.\n\nWe are in a much better position regarding the Calvinistic circles, for\nhere the influence of the Bible was a public one. The Bible here was\nrecognised as the only rule to be followed in public life as well as in\nprivate. The most characteristic feature is the attitude toward the\nSabbath. Luther had explained the third commandment (according to his\nnumeration, the fourth according to the Calvinists) as meaning \"den\nFeiertag heiligen,\" to use the day, granted by God as a holiday, for\ngoing to church and listening to the preaching of the gospel; so the\nLutherans, who never called it Sabbath, did not insist upon avoiding all\nwork, but upon attending the holy service; besides, human feeling led\nthem to relieve their servants and employees so far as possible from\ntheir labour. The Calvinists kept the Sabbath, as they said, exactly\naccording to the Old Testament commandment: \"Thou shalt not do any\nwork.\" It reminds us sometimes of the minuteness of rabbinical Sabbath\ncontroversies when we see how carefully the Sabbath is kept as a day for\ndoing no work whatever; even the children are forbidden to play with\ntheir toys. It is a concession made to the gospel if works of piety, of\ncharity, or of necessity are permitted.\n\nAnother prominent feature is the use of Biblical names. Among Lutherans\nand members of the English church the use of Christian names, mostly\nderived from famous saints or kings, as Edward, George, Richard, Robert,\nThomas, William, continued; while the Calvinists preferred Biblical\nnames such as Abraham, Isaac, Moses, Joshua, Elijah, Jeremiah,\nNathaniel. They often chose the names of obscure persons from the Bible,\nsuch as Abia, Abiel, Ammi, Eliphalet, Jared, Jedidiah, Jerathmeel,\nReuben, Uriah. It was not so much the admiration for this or that hero\nin the Bible as the simple demand for something Biblical which gave to\nthe children such unfamiliar names. Parents did not care for the real\ncharacter of the man to whom the name first belonged provided he was\nmentioned in the Bible; neither Delilah nor Archelaus had a reputation\nwhich would make their names desirable; but, nevertheless, they were\ngiven. Gamaliel was a Pharisee, a scribe, very far from being a\nChristian, but the name, being in the Bible, became a Christian name\namong the descendants of one of the Pilgrim fathers. Biblical\nreminiscences also are to be found in Christian names, such as Faithful,\nFaintnot, Hopestill, Strong; Praise-God Barbone, one of Cromwell's\nfollowers, is said to have had two brothers, baptised with the Christian\nnames of \"Christ-came-into-the-world-to-save Barbone\" and\n\"If-Christ-had-not-died-thou-hadst-been-damned Barbone\" respectively;\nbut this is apocryphal, and so is probably the American counterpart:\n\"Through-many-trials-and-tribulations-we-must-enter-into-the-kingdom-of-God\"\n(Acts 15 : 22) as a Christian name.\n\nOne can hardly deny that this Biblicism sometimes became an abuse of the\nBible. The Scriptures were used for investigating the future. This\nmethod, which we have already noted in the second chapter, was made an\nofficial one in the Moravian church. People used Bible verses in their\ngames; riddles were taken from the Bible. As the one and only book the\nBible had to serve as a whole library and provide all kinds of\nentertainment. That is the other side of the matter.\n\nThe influence of the Bible on public life in the time of Puritanism is\nillustrated best by the records of the first plantations in New\nEngland.[2] When, in June, 1639, \"all the free planters\" of the colony\nof New Haven \"assembled together in a general meeting to consult about\nsettling civil government according to God,\" the first question laid\nbefore them by John Davenport was: \"Whether the Scriptures do hold forth\na perfect rule for the direction and government of all men in all duties\nwhich they are to perform to God and men as well in the government of\nfamilies and commonwealth as in matters of the church.\" \"This was\nassented unto by all, no man dissenting, as was expressed by holding up\nof hands.\" The second question was whether all do hold themselves bound\nby that (plantation) covenant that \"in all public offices, etc., we\nwould all of us be ordered by those rules which the Scripture holds\nforth to us.\" This was answered in the same way. Therefore it was voted\nunanimously, \"that the Word of God shall be the only rule to be attended\nunto in ordering the affairs of government in this plantation.\" Before\nthey go on to select officials from their number, the chapter on the\ninstitution of the seventy elders (Ex. 18) is read, together with\nDeut. 1 : 13 and 17 : 15 and I Cor. 6 : 1-7, and one of the planters\ndeclares that he had felt scruples about it, but that these had been\nremoved by reading Deut. 17 : 15 at morning prayers. When a difference\narises between two members of the colony they refer it for arbitration\nto brethren, in accordance with I Cor. 6 : 1-7. A prisoner is pressed to\nconfess his crime by reminding him of that passage of Scripture: \"He\nthat hideth his sin shall not prosper, but he that confesseth and\nforsaketh his sins shall find mercy\" (Prov. 28 : 13). When a murder has\nbeen committed they sentence the guilty to death \"according to the\nnature of the fact and the rule in that case, He that sheds man's blood,\nby man shall his blood be shed\" (Gen. 9 : 6). They refer to Lev. 20 : 15\nin a case of bestiality in order to justify the sentence of death. When\nquestions and scruples arise between New Haven and Massachusetts about\nthe justice of an offensive war, New Haven refers to the story of\nJehoshaphat, king of Judah, \"who sinned and was rebuked by two prophets\nJehu and Eliezer for joining with and helping Ahab and Ahaziah, kings of\nIsrael\" (II Chron. 17-20). From this, they say, one might infer that\neven a defensive war and all leagues are forbidden by the law of God. On\nthe other hand, they rely on the conquest of Canaan and David's war\nagainst the Ammonites (II Sam. 10) as examples for the justice of an\noffensive war and even a vindictive war of revenge.\n\n  [2] _Cf._ C. T. Hoadly, _Records of the Colony and Plantation\n        of New Haven from 1638 to 1649_, Hartford, 1857, and\n        _Records of the Colony or Jurisdiction of New Haven from\n        May, 1653, to the Union_ (1665), Hartford, 1858.\n\nIt is their fundamental agreement, not to be disputed or questioned\nhereafter, \"that the judicial law of God given by Moses and expounded in\nother parts of Scripture, so far as it is a hedge and a fence to the\nmoral law and neither ceremonial nor typical nor had any reference to\nCanaan, has an everlasting equity in it and should be the rule of their\nproceedings.\" This fundamental law, as it is fixed in 1639 and\nreinforced in 1642 and 1644, shows clearly the spirit of this\nlegislation. At the same time we learn from the many restrictions how\ndifficult it was to adapt the Old Testament law to the needs of this\nChristian commonwealth.\n\nThe first records of the Massachusetts Bay Company[3] show indeed a\nmarked difference. They are less Scriptural. In the royal charter given\nto the company by Charles I in 1628 the Bible is not mentioned; the aim\nof the colony is said to be \"to win and incite the natives of the\ncountry to the knowledge and obedience of the only true God and Saviour\nof mankind and the Christian faith.\" The governor is bound by his oath\n\"to do his best endeavour to draw on the natives of this country, called\nNew England, to the knowledge of the true God and to conserve the\nplanters and others coming hither in the same knowledge and fear of\nGod,\" or, according to another form of oath, \"to act according to the\nlaw of God and for the advancement of his Gospel, the laws of this land,\nand the good of this plantation.\"\n\n  [3] _Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts\n        Bay_, edited by N. B. Shurtleff. Boston, 1853.\n\nBut in the laws framed by the colonists themselves, the Bible is\nconstantly appealed to. Passing a law against drinking healths, in 1639,\nthe General Court declared this to be a mere useless ceremony and also\nthe occasion of many sins, \"which as they ought in all places and times\nto be prevented carefully, so especially in plantations of churches and\ncommonwealths wherein the least known evils are not to be tolerated by\nsuch as are bound by solemn covenant _to walk by the rule of God's word_\nin all their conversation.\" This statement is a solemn one, and they put\nit into effect as far as possible. When discussing in the General Court\nthe question whether a certain number of magistrates should be chosen\nfor life, a question which had a good deal of importance for the future\ndevelopment of the colony, they decided in favour of it, \"for that it\nwas shown from the word of God, etc., that the principal magistrates\nought to be for life.\" Nay, even a question of minor importance raised\nby the Scriptures, whether women must wear veils, was eagerly\ndiscussed, both parties relying on Scriptural proofs.\n\nWhen, in 1646, the General Court found it necessary to convoke a public\nassembly of the elders, they did so, protesting, however, that \"their\nlawful power _by the word of God_ to assemble the churches or their\nmessengers upon occasion of counsel\" is not to be questioned, and\ntherefore the said assembly of elders, after having \"discussed,\ndisputed, and cleared up _by the word of God_ such questions of church\ngovernment and discipline ... as they shall think needful and meet,\" is\nto report to the General Court, \"to the end that the same being found\n_agreeable to the word of God_, it may receive from the said General\nCourt such approbation as is meet, that the Lord being thus acknowledged\nby church and state to be our Judge, our Lawgiver, and our King, he may\nbe graciously pleased still to save us as hitherto he has done ... and\nso the churches in New England may be Jehovah's and he may be to us a\nGod from generation to generation.\" It is remarkable that not only the\nchurch synod is to judge what is \"agreeable to the holy Scriptures\" but\nthe civil government takes it as its own duty to make sure that the\nresolutions of the synod are really in accordance with the Scripture and\nonly then to give their approbation. It is the secular power which\nfeels bound to the Word of God and to superintend its strict observance.\nBut in fact state and church are not to be distinguished in this period\nof New England history.\n\nIn 1641 the Rev. John Cotton, \"teacher of the Boston church,\" published\nat London \"An Abstract or the Laws of New England as they are now\nestablished.\" The first edition does not mention Cotton's name; this was\nadded only after his death in a second edition, published in 1655 by his\nfriend William Aspinwall. This Abstract by John Cotton does not\nrepresent, as its title seems to indicate, the actual law; it is a\nproposed code of laws for New England. But it has influenced to a great\nextent, if not the legislation of Massachusetts, at any rate the \"Laws\nfor Government, published for the use of New Haven Colony\" in 1656. The\nremarkable feature is that Cotton gives marginal references to the Bible\nfor each one of his rules, for instance: \"All magistrates are to be\nchosen (1) by the free Burgesses--Deut. 1 : 13; (2) out of the free\nBurgesses--Deut. 17 : 15; (3) out of the ablest men and most approved\namongst them--Ex. 18 : 21; (4) out of the rank of Noblemen or Gentlemen\namongst them--Eccles. 10 : 17, Jer. 30 : 21,\" and so on. It is according\nto the Old Testament rule that the eldest son ought to inherit twice as\nmuch as his brothers; it is a true expression of the Old Testament\nmeaning when punishment is extended even to animals which kill a man\n(cp. Ex. 21 : 28). The spirit of this legislation is almost as severe,\nnot to say cruel, as the spirit of Charlemagne's Saxon law. Twenty-four\nkinds of trespassing are enumerated which are to be punished with death.\nIt is evidently against the legislator's own view that an exemption is\nmade for simple fornication, \"not to be punished with death according to\nGod's own law,\" as he adds by way of apology. In the second edition the\nBible verses are printed at length in the text itself, the margin being\ndevoted to learned remarks on different translations. The motto which\nexpresses the character of this abstract is taken from Isaiah 33 : 22:\n\"The Lord is our Judge, the Lord is our Lawgiver, the Lord is our King;\nHe will save us.\"\n\nThe official Laws of Massachusetts, as established in 1658 and printed\nin 1660, have no Bible references in the margin; but in the restriction\nof flogging to the effect that no more than forty stripes should be\napplied, and in the requirement that sentence of death may be imposed\nonly when two or three witnesses testify to the guilt, the Biblical\nrules given in Deut. 25 : 5 and 19 : 15 are seen to be at work.\nSabbath-breaking is to be punished with a fine of ten shillings, the\npenalty being doubled in the second case. In 1630 a man had been whipped\nfor shooting on the Sabbath.\n\nIn 1647 the General Court passed a law ordering that each township\ncontaining over fifty households should appoint a schoolmaster, and if\nthere were more than a hundred families, a grammar-school was to be\nsupported. This care for education is inspired by the desire of securing\na true interpretation of the Bible, as is proved by the following\nstatement of motives: \"It being the chief project of that old deluder\nSatan to keep men from the knowledge of the Scriptures, as in former\ntimes by keeping them in an unknown tongue, so in these latter times by\npersuading from the use of tongues, that so at least the true sense and\nmeaning of the original might be clouded by false glosses of\nsaint-seeming deceivers; that learning may not be buried in the grave of\nour fathers in the church and commonwealth, therefore ordered,\" etc.\n\nAfter the college had been founded in 1636, they chose in 1643 for its\nseal a shield containing three books with _Ve-ri-tas_ written on them,\ntwo open and one seen from the back. Oxford has between three crowns one\nbook with seven clasps. This book evidently is the Bible; it has\n_Dominus illuminatio mea_ (Psalm 27 : 1) written on it. The seven\nclasps are said to indicate the seven liberal arts and the three crowns\nthe three modes of philosophy. It is characteristic of the Puritan\nspirit that their shield had nothing but three Bibles. The meaning of\n_Veritas_, of course, is not (as it has been taken in recent times) that\nthe aim of all research is truth. The Puritan fathers were not concerned\nwith research; they believed in revelation, and it was by the revelation\nlaid down in the Bible that truth was transmitted to mankind. The three\nBibles may or may not be a symbol of the holy Trinity; the script on the\nfront and on the back recalls the book written within and on the back in\nRev. 5 : 1. They meant that the Bible was the fundamental source of all\nknowledge. Harvard College was founded to be a training-school for\nministers, who should know the truth and its source. _Christo et\necclesiae_ became the second motto of the college. That it has developed\ninto a university, containing, besides a college and the divinity\nschool, schools for law, medicine, applied science, etc., is due to a\ntotal change of public opinion at a much later time. The Puritan use of\nthe Bible has disappeared, but something of the Puritan spirit may still\nbe seen in the inscription on the front of the modern building of the\nHarvard Law School, drawn from Ex. 18 : 20: \"Thou shalt teach them\nordinances and laws and shalt shew them the way wherein they must walk,\nand the work that they must do.\"\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\nTHE BIBLE BECOMES ONCE MORE THE BOOK OF DEVOTION\n\n\nHaving made our way through the centuries, we now approach our own time,\nand at once we remark two facts: Never before had the Bible such a\ncirculation as it has now gained. On the other hand, it seems to have\nlost most of its influence. We must look at these two facts before we\nraise the question what value the Bible has for the civilisation of\nto-day.\n\nPrinting greatly facilitated the circulation of the Bible and, as the\nresult of the Reformation, it had become the book of the Christian\nfamily. And yet during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the\ncirculation of the Bible was rather limited. The Bible might be a\ntreasure of the household, but not the personal property of the\nindividual. The first editions, as we have seen, scarcely exceeded one\nor two hundred copies. In contrast, one of the most assiduous and\nindustrious promoters of Bible reading, Baron von Canstein, who settled\nat Halle in A. H. Francke's institute, published during the last nine\nyears of his life (d. 1719) forty thousand Bibles and one hundred\nthousand New Testaments. To-day the British and Foreign Bible Society\nissues more than five million copies--one million Bibles, one and a half\nmillion New Testaments, and two and a half million parts of the\nBible--yearly. The progress is due to the invention of the rotary press\nand other improvements in printing machinery.\n\nBesides, the circulation of the Bible has received strong support\nthrough the foundation of Bible societies. The story is well known how\nThomas Charles discovered the great desire for copies of the Bible among\nhis Welsh countrymen, how, when he gathered some friends for the purpose\nof providing them with Bibles, the Baptist preacher Thomas Hughes put in\nthe question, \"And why not for other peoples, too?\" and how on his\nmotion the Society was started on March 7, 1804, as the British and\nForeign Bible Society. It is wonderful to hear of the work done by this\nSociety in the last hundred years. If one visits the Bible House in\nQueen Victoria Street in London he gets an impression of the extent and\nthe importance of the work done there. The Society has its presses as\nwell as its translators all over the world; it has its agents scattered\nthrough all the nations, and it has begun to do not only a publishers'\nbusiness proper but scholarly work as well. A vast collection of Bible\neditions from all times and in all tongues has been gathered, and a\nvaluable catalogue published which is of great importance for\nbibliography in general.\n\nThe greatest merit of the British and Foreign Bible Society, however, is\nthe fact that it stimulated the foundation of other great Bible\nsocieties. There were some small beginnings in Germany and Switzerland.\nThey suddenly became strong and influential in consequence of the report\nmade concerning the British and Foreign Bible Society by its secretary,\nDoctor Steinkopf, and Basel and Stuttgart made a new start in 1804 and\n1812. After the Napoleonic War in 1814, Mr. Pinkerton travelled through\nGermany with the result that Bible societies were started at Berlin,\nDresden, Elberfeld, and Copenhagen, and in Holland, Norway, and even\nRussia. In 1808 Philadelphia joined the movement. The American Bible\nSociety has twice canvassed the entire United States, finding that five\nhundred thousand families were without any Bible, and selling sixty\nmillion Bibles. It is remarkable that in the beginning Roman Catholics\njoined the Bible societies enthusiastically. A Bible society was founded\nat Regensburg in 1805, supported almost exclusively by the Roman\nCatholic clergy. But as early as 1817, soon after the restoration of the\nJesuits by Pope Pius VII, these Bible societies were dissolved; the\nRoman Catholics were forbidden to be members of the other Bible\nsocieties, and in the syllabus of Pius IX, in 1864, the Bible societies\nare reckoned among the dangers of our time, together with Masonry and\nother secret societies.\n\nBy the help of the Bible societies it has become possible that Bibles\nshould really spread among the people. In Germany each boy and girl who\ngoes to school has his own Bible. Bibles and New Testaments are\ndistributed among the soldiers. Most churches make a present of a Bible\nto each couple who are to be married. There is rather a superabundance\nof Bibles, which contrasts sharply with the estimation in which the\nBible is held. As Spurgeon, in his drastic way, said in one of his\nstimulating sermons: \"The Bible is in every house, but in many the dust\non it is so thick that you might write on it: _Damnation_.\" It was a\nveteran Bible agent who, after thirty years' experience, said: \"It is\neasy to give away dozens of Bibles, but only the one which you sell will\nbe valued.\"\n\nThe circulation has been greatly enlarged by numbers of translations. We\nremember that the first translations of the Bible were connected with\nChristian missions; they were epoch-making for the languages, creating a\nwritten alphabet and a national literature. The translations of the\nsixteenth and seventeenth centuries were of a different character; they\nwere the result of a religious reformation; they represented for the\nnation the culmination point in language and a remarkable stage in\nliterature. Now again Christian missions revived, and started on a\nwonderful career all over the world, and they needed to have the Bible\ntranslated. The Bible societies did their best to provide as many\ntranslations as possible. From the eight languages of 600 A. D. and some\ntwenty-four in the sixteenth century the number of languages into which\nthe Bible has been translated has grown up to four hundred, and if we\ncount the dialects separately we have over six hundred. The whole Bible\nhas not been translated into all these languages and dialects, but in\nevery case parts of it, sometimes the New Testament, sometimes only one\nGospel, have been translated, and other parts will follow. It is\ninteresting to hear the translators speak of the difficulties they have\nto overcome. One sees what influence the Bible has on civilisation.\nOften a language lacks some word which is indispensable for the\ntranslator; he has to adapt one or coin a new one. There is no idea\nmore frequent in the Bible than the idea of God. The Chinese had no word\nwhich exactly corresponded, the usual words indicating either spirits or\nthe sun or something of that sort. The Amshara lacks the idea of\nrighteousness, the Bantu the idea of holiness. If the translator uses as\nan equivalent the word for separateness, his reader will get rather the\nnotion of something split. Sometimes the translator will prefer to keep\nthe Greek word, as in the case of _baptise_, but he must be careful, for\n_batisa_ in Bantu means \"treat some one badly.\" So the language has to\nbe remodelled in order to become suitable for the purpose of translating\nthe Bible. The Bible once again exercises a civilising influence on the\nlanguages of many peoples. With very few exceptions, such as a Malayan\nBible of 1621 and a translation by John Eliot into the Massachusetts\nIndian dialect published in 1666, most of these translations originated\nin the nineteenth century and are due to the present missionary energy\nof Christianity. Here again it is mortifying to see how the Bible is\nspread among peoples who never had had civilisation before, while among\nthe Christian nations, who, to a large extent, owe their civilisation to\nthis very Bible, it is disregarded.\n\nBesides the circulation we may also mention the enormous amount of\nmental energy spent on Bible studies by the scholars of this last\ncentury. Not only students of theology but also classical and Oriental\nscholars have joined to study the Bible, to comment upon it, and make\neverything in it understood. Specialisation in its inevitable course has\ncaused a separation of Old Testament and New Testament studies. In order\nto understand and explain thoroughly the Old Testament one has to know\nseveral Oriental languages and follow up the daily increasing evidence\nfor Oriental history, culture, and religion, whereas the New Testament\nscholar is bound to study the development of the Greek language and the\nwhole civilisation of the Hellenistic period. Nay, even the Old and the\nNew Testament departments are each specialising into the textual and the\nhigher criticism, the theology or the religious history both of the\nJewish people and of primitive Christianity. One scholar studies the\nlife of Christ, another makes the apostolic age the topic of his special\nresearch; one is commenting upon the Gospels, another upon the letters\nof Saint Paul. The literature in these different departments has grown\nso rapidly that it is almost impossible to follow it and to survey the\nwhole field. Nevertheless, we need a comprehensive view, and a large\nnumber of scientific journals, in German, English, French, some few\nalso in other languages, are devoted to the summing up of results which\nhave been attained by special research. There are dozens of dictionaries\nand encyclopedias dealing with Biblical matters either separately or in\nconnection with other material. It is, indeed, wonderful what progress\nhas been and is being made. One is astonished to find that every day\nbrings new problems and new attempts at solution, and one cannot help\nadmiring the energy and sagacity which are put into these studies.\n\nBut in spite of this circulation never attained before, and in spite of\nthis active work of research, the fact remains indisputable that the\nBible has lost its former position. There was a time, in the Middle\nAges, when the Bible was at least one foundation of Christian\ncivilisation, not to say the one foundation (as the men of that period\nwould have said). Then there was a time, during recent centuries, when\nthe Bible ruled daily life almost completely. Whether we regret the fact\nor approve of it, it remains a fact, and we have to face it, that those\ntimes are gone.\n\nThe Bible nowadays is one book among a thousand others. It is still\nrevered by the majority of the people, but it is not so much read as it\nwas in the time when it was the one book the people possessed. The\nenormous statistics for Bible circulation lose in effect if we compare\nthe figures of the book-trade in general, the number of books published\nevery year, and the numbers of editions and copies which some of the\nnotable successes have attained.\n\nThe old problem, the Bible or the classics or a combination of both, is\nrevived in a new form. There is a neopaganism in literature, and often\nit seems incompatible to read both the Bible and modern literature, and\nmost people decide in favour of the latter. Once again the Bible has its\nrivals very numerous and strong.\n\nThe Bible in former times was held to be the divinely inspired text-book\nfor all human knowledge. It was in the Bible that one had to look for\ninformation not only about God and God's will and everything connected\nwith God, but also about philosophy, natural science, history, and so\non. Now a secularisation of science has taken place by which all these\ndepartments of human knowledge are withdrawn from the ecclesiastical,\ntheological, and Biblical authority.\n\nThe mediaeval view of the world as taken from the Bible, or at least\nbelieved to be taken from it, had been utterly shattered by the great\ndiscoveries of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. When Columbus\nfound the way to America and Vasco da Gama sailed around the Cape to\nIndia, and later others crossed the Pacific Ocean, the earth could no\nlonger be considered as a round plane, it was proved to be a globe.\nCopernicus deciphered the mystery of heaven, the movement of the earth\naround the sun; Galileo Galilei followed in the same studies, and Kepler\nreached the climax of probability for the new theory. The church did not\nfollow at once. It is remarkable that Copernicus did not win the assent\nof Luther. The great reformer, critical as he was, felt bound in this\nquestion to the authority of the Bible, and called the contradicting\nCopernicus a fool. It is well known how the Roman church by its\ninquisition treated Galileo until he withdrew his theory--formally,\nstill holding it in his heart (_e pur si muove_, \"and yet the earth does\nmove\"). Johannes Kepler, himself a Protestant and brought up with the\nfullest reverence for the Bible, found his own way out of the difficulty\nby distinguishing between the religious and the scientific aspect of the\nBible, an anticipation of the modern solution. And if one is willing to\nmaintain the modern scientific view of the universe as it has been\nestablished by the three men just named, and strengthened by their\nfollowers, he must renounce the Bible as authority in matters of\nscience. It is a notable fact that even the Roman church, in 1817,\nwithdrew the verdict against Galileo's theory and similar theses,\nthereby admitting that a Christian may safely deny the Biblical\nassumption that the sun moves round the earth.\n\nThe Bible in its first chapter tells us that the world was created in\nsix days; geology now speaks of twenty million years and more. The Bible\nsays that man was created on the sixth day by a special act of God;\nDarwin's theory is that the human race is the result of an evolution\nwhich eliminated numbers of former beings and developed ever higher\nspecies. The Bible tells of many miracles which can have no other\nmeaning than that in certain cases the law of gravitation and other laws\nof nature are suspended; the scientist tells us that a law loses all\nmeaning if it admits of exceptions. Of course, there are miracles and\nmiracles: the healings of Jesus we may accept as historical without any\nhesitation, but the standing still of the sun in Josh. 10 : 12 is\nnothing but a poetical form of speech, and the floating axe-head is as\nlegendary in the story of Elisha (II Kings 6 : 6) as it would be in any\nother legend.\n\nIn former times scholars wrote large volumes on the animals mentioned in\nthe Bible and the flowers and the stones and so on; this they called\nsacred zooelogy and sacred botany and sacred mineralogy. It was not for\ntheir amusement: it was a serious study. The Bible was thought to be a\ntext-book for every science, and it seemed to be much more valuable to\nget information of all kinds from the Bible than to collect real\nanimals, flowers, or stones. Likewise the human body was dealt with in\nthe same scholastic way; it is a comparatively modern thing for\nphysicians to be allowed to study the body and find out its real\nstructure by dissection. Nowadays it is universally agreed that science\nand medicine are autonomous and are not dependent on the Bible.\n\nThe Bible was also the text-book for history, as we have seen. The\nhistory of mankind, according to this view, was limited to six thousand\nyears. A great amount of mental energy was spent upon the question of\nBiblical chronology, which, however, proved to be hopelessly confused by\nthe fact that various systems were used by the Biblical authors\nthemselves. History was the history of the Jewish people, enriched by\nsome glimpses of contemporaneous pagan history. Now, the discoveries in\nEgypt and Babylon and the deciphering of the Oriental inscriptions have\nillustrated the fact that the Jewish people was only one among others\nand one of the weakest of all these Oriental nations. Assyrian kingdoms\nwere established as early as 6000 B. C. The famous code of Hammurabi is\nmuch older than the Mosaic law. If we compare them, we find that the\nformer represents a high level of civilisation, while the latter\nestablishes rules for nomadic life, a relation similar to that which\nexists between the Roman law and the national laws of the German tribes:\nthough codified later, they represent, nevertheless, an earlier stage.\nThe occupation of Canaan has come to be viewed in a new light through\nthe exploration of Palestine. The history of the kings of Judah and\nIsrael is now seen much more clearly than before to have been determined\nby politics; they are for ever steering between the influence of Egypt\nand that of Babylon. The accounts given in the Babylonian archives and\nthe Egyptian inscriptions are to be compared with the Biblical account,\nand some may feel that the comparison is not always in favour of the\nlatter. Even the social and religious position of the prophets is\nnowadays compared with contemporaneous facts in Greece, Persia, and\nIndia. The life of Jesus and the Acts of the Apostles have changed their\naspect with the possibility of literary comparison. It is not so much\nthe literary criticism of the Gospels and the Acts by themselves as it\nis this facility of comparison which contributes to shake the authority\nof the Bible. We find the same miracles told of Jesus and of the emperor\nVespasian; some sayings of Jesus can be compared with utterances of\nCaesar and Pompey. Many of his words have parallels in the Jewish\nliterature as well as in the writings of the Stoa. I feel sure that the\noriginality of Jesus will but gain by such comparison, but it is obvious\nthat originality must be taken in a higher sense than is often the case;\nit is not the wording but the meaning attached to it which is new and\noriginal.\n\nIn this way everything which loomed so large when viewed standing by\nitself in the Bible has been reduced to its natural size; the earth has\nlost its central position; man is only one in a long line of similar\nbeings; the history of Israel enters the large field of universal\nhistory; and even the personality of Jesus is subject to comparison and\nanalogy.\n\nThis reduction is the necessary complement of the independence and\nautonomy attained for human science as the result of a long development.\nAlready in the sixteenth century the humanists claimed for science the\nright to follow its own rules without being led and limited by the\nchurch's authoritative doctrine. They aimed at a civilisation free from\necclesiastical tutelage; going back to the classicism of pre-Christian\ntimes, they did not want the guardianship of the Christian church and\nits clergy. But the time was not yet ripe for this view. Even the\nreformers, Luther as well as Calvin, while they broke with the authority\nof mediaeval scholasticism and of the Roman church, were not prepared to\nacknowledge the autonomy of science; they established the primacy of the\nBible in an even stricter sense than it had borne in the Middle Ages.\nThe Bible was to rule everything, and it was the Bible in its plain and\nsimple meaning, without the mitigations which tradition and allegory had\nallowed in former times. To be sure, Luther occasionally granted some\nindependence to secular science. He was furious when Aristotle was\nquoted as an authority in matters of religion, but would himself\nintroduce him as an authority for civil government or for logic. He had\na curious proof for this from the Bible itself. It was on the advice of\nhis father-in-law, Jethro, a pagan, that Moses appointed the seventy\nelders to help him judge the people. Therefore for secular organisation\none may take the counsel of the heathen, of the philosophers. But Luther\nwas not consistent; as we have already seen, against Copernicus he\ninsisted upon the authority of the Bible. He did not see that it was a\nquestion of astronomy without any relation to religion. In the\nseventeenth century the philosophers began to claim independence for\nthe human reason, and soon they established reason as the highest\nauthority, even in religious matters. It is very interesting to see the\neffect of this claim at the beginning. Even the most advanced liberals\nwere so convinced of the infallible authority of the Bible that they\ntried by all means at their disposal to reconcile with the contents of\nthe Bible the principles which the rational philosophy of Descartes or\nSpinoza had established. They started a new method of interpretation in\norder to make the Bible agree with reason. A long time had to pass\nbefore it became obvious to all competent minds that the Bible and\nreason were not to be reconciled by means of a makeshift harmony. It was\nonly in the nineteenth century that the view forced itself upon all\nscholars that the Bible has to be understood in an historical way; that\nit does not give inspired information upon natural science and history,\nits revelation dealing with God and religion only.\n\nBy recent discoveries it is proved that the creation story in Gen. 1 is\nby no means a unique and original one; there is something similar in the\nBabylonian mythology; it may have been taken from there. The same holds\ntrue regarding the story of the deluge and others. So there is no reason\nfor claiming for these stories the authority of revealed science; the\nBiblical author simply shares the ideas of his time. We are not bound to\nthe scientific notions of a period two thousand years before Christ and\nfour thousand years before our own time. And yet there is something\nunique in this creation story, as told in Gen. 1, for which one looks in\nvain in all the alleged parallels in Babylonian and other religions; it\nis the idea of the one God Almighty, who by his supreme will creates\nheaven and earth. That is the revelation conveyed to mankind by this\nchapter. We must not trouble about the specific description of creation;\nthat belongs to the historical form. We cling with all our heart to the\nwonderful idea of the one creating God, and we realise that here\nrevelation is given to us.\n\nIt is only by comparison that the real importance of a thing comes out.\nOn a map of America, made on a small scale, the distances may seem\nshort; comparing a map of Europe on the same scale one realises how long\nthey are in fact. We are always in danger of taking some accidental\nfeature for the main point. The frame does not make the worth of the\npainting.\n\nAs the Bible has lost its exclusive authority in the domain of science,\nso in the fine arts it has ceased to be the single source of\ninspiration. Since the Renaissance motifs taken from ancient mythology\nand poetry have come into competition with the Biblical scenes; the\nDutch school cultivated the illustration of the life of the people and\npresented even the sacred story in this fashion--the mystery of\nsacredness has gone; it is purely human, not to say profane. The French\nliked landscapes and used Biblical subjects only as accessories.\nPictures of battles, triumphs, apotheoses filled the galleries. Art\nto-day is anything but Biblical; modern painters have, most of them, no\nsense for sacred art. I venture to think they do better to keep away\nfrom it. For if a modern painter, when trying to illustrate the parable\nof the prodigal son in a triptychon, puts in the large middle field the\nman feeding the swine, giving only the left-hand corner to the return to\nthe father, he has proved himself incapable of a religious understanding\nof the story, however finished a work of art his painting may be.\n\nBy all this process of secularisation the Bible has been drawn back from\ngeneral civilisation and restricted to its own proper domain, religion.\nWe must not insist on the fact that even here the Bible seems to have\nlost somewhat of its infallible authority. It is in the domain of\ntheology as distinct from religion that this holds true. Strange as it\nmay seem, it is a fact that the Bible is no more the text-book of\ntheology. Theology, of course, can never do without the Bible, but here\nalso the Bible is the source of historical information, not the\nauthoritative proof for doctrine. Already in the period when the\northodox Protestants vied with one another in asserting the inspiration\nof the Bible in the boldest terms and relied on the Bible for answers to\nevery question, Samuel Werenfels (d. 1740), a professor at Basel, wrote\nthe distich:\n\n  \"Hic liber est in quo quaerit sua dogmata quisque,\n  Invenit et pariter dogmata quisque sua.\"\n\n  \"This is the book where each man seeketh his own ideas,\n  In it accordingly each findeth his own beliefs.\"\n\nIt was the support given by the Bible to every doctrine and every theory\nwhich made critical people doubt the propriety of proving truth by\nadducing proof-texts; and this not only for dogmatical questions but\nalso for moral ones. It is well known how both parties in the\ncontroversy over slavery appealed to the authority of the Bible, and it\nwould be difficult to say which party found the stronger support in the\nletter of the text. The same holds true regarding other questions of\nmodern life; one can argue from the Bible pro and con regarding the use\nof wine. The Bible has been adduced in the question of polygamy. It can\nbe quoted on both sides with reference to woman suffrage. It is\nindicative of the present attitude toward the Bible that this is so\nseldom done. The use of the Bible for the settling of modern social\nproblems has brought upon many Christian minds a pitiful confusion. It\nhas proved impossible to deduce from the Bible, even from the teaching\nof Jesus, rules for modern life. Times have changed and the conditions\nof life have altered.\n\nAll this prepared the way for the historical view of the Bible. Then the\nperiod of higher criticism began. It was to many a hard lesson; but we\nhad to learn it. It was started--curious to say--by Roman Catholic\nscholars in France. Having the authority of the church behind them, they\nfelt more free as regards the Bible than the Protestants did. Richard\nSimon made it evident that the transmission of the Bible excludes a\nmechanical view of inspiration. Astruc, a doctor, the physician of Louis\nXIV, discovered that in the Pentateuch two different sources were used.\nDuring the eighteenth century the theories of literary criticism were\napplied to all the books of the Old and the New Testament, and the\nscholarship of the nineteenth century has taken up the task, perfected\nthe method, and reached in some questions a general agreement. To-day\nthe principles of literary criticism in their application to the Bible\nare generally acknowledged. The books of the Bible are like other books;\nthey are not to be treated as divine Scriptures but as human writings.\nOne has to inquire in each instance about the author, his methods of\nwriting, the sources of his information, his tendencies, and so on.\n\nCriticism did not stop here; it overstepped the boundaries of purely\nliterary criticism; it became historical criticism, too. The historicity\nof the facts reported in the Bible was called in question; recently the\nhistoricity of Jesus has been denied; and where his existence was\nadmitted, still his teaching was criticised. Some people found it too\nascetic, to others it was purely eschatological; in either case it could\nnot be adapted to our own time. So even in its central points the Bible\nseemed to be attacked and its authority shaken. Instead of being\nrestricted to the domain of religion, the Bible seemed to be denied even\nto the uses of devotion. But the present situation is not so desperate\nfor the pious Bible reader as it looks.\n\nWe have once more to face the two facts: the circulation of the Bible\nhas grown rapidly--immensely--and the estimation of the Bible has been\nreduced in nearly every field. Many a pious Christian, while rejoicing\nin the first fact, is greatly troubled by the second. Has the Bible\nceased to be authoritative? Has it lost its infallibility? If the Bible\nis not true from cover to cover, then it seems to be not trustworthy at\nall. We had better put it aside and leave it to deserved oblivion. That\nis an argument frequently brought forward nowadays, both by people who\ndisbelieve in the authority of the Bible and the truth of the Christian\nreligion and by those who eagerly try to assert the old authority of the\nBible as the inspired Word of God which reveals everything. They argue,\nand apparently not without plausibility, that if you destroy the\nauthority of the Bible at any point, it is lost altogether; there is no\nlimit to the destructive energy of our time. Therefore do not touch this\nquestion; leave the Bible as it stands--the sacred book, undisturbed by\nprofane hands. It is the book by which our fathers were taught. Why\nshould we disbelieve in it? Both these positions seem to be logically\nconsistent: everything or nothing; infallible or no authority. But, in\nfact, the truth is never on one side. Hard as it may sound to our\nphilosophers, the truth is very seldom logical. What seems to be\nconsistency is, in fact, a confusion of two different aspects which\nought to be kept separate. The Bible is not a text-book for any\nscience--nay, not even for the science of theology. It is the book for\nChristian devotion. This was its original intention, and I venture to\nthink that it is not a loss but a gain if the Bible is once more applied\nto its proper purpose.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAs we have seen in the first chapter, the Bible proved itself to be an\ninexhaustible source of comfort and strength, of exhortation and\ninspiration to the Christians of the first period. They would not leave\nthis book for any consideration--nay, they would even die for it. And so\nwhenever the Bible was read by a pious Christian a new stream of life\nflowed through him and through the church. And this new life has always\ncaused a strong desire for the Bible. There is a reciprocal influence\nbetween Bible and piety; the Bible creates piety, and piety demands the\nBible. This is the experience of nineteen centuries; it is impossible\nthat the twentieth century should alter it. As long as a pious Christian\nlives on earth, the Bible will exercise its influence upon him, and as\nlong as there is such thing as the Bible there will be Christians. That\nis sure! It is not always easy to measure this private influence of the\nBible on individual piety and devotion. People who read the Bible for\nedification usually do not talk much about it. In biographies it is not\nmentioned, either because the biographer took it for granted or because\nhe did not care for it himself. Seldom do we have an opportunity, like\nthe one given in Bismarck's letters to his wife, where he mentions\nfrequently what Psalm or passage of the Bible he read before going to\nbed and discusses some points which have struck him. It is impossible to\nsay how many people read the Bible privately for their own edification.\nSeeing how few know the Bible thoroughly, we might suppose that very few\nread it, but it is said that Bible reading among the boys in the English\npublic schools is again increasing. And I feel sure that the time must\ncome, and will come, when private reading of the Bible will again be a\ncommon practice among Christians.\n\nBut the Bible's task is not only to sustain individual piety; it has a\nsecond duty to perform. Christianity is not a mere aggregation of\nChristian individuals but a community--a church, if you will. It is\nnecessary for any community to have a standard, for any church to have a\ncreed. It is the Bible which has to supply this. Herein lies the danger\nof aberration, as we have seen in the second and the following chapters.\nThe history of the church and of its doctrine gives ample proof of the\nfact that, taking the Bible as a rule for the church's dogma,\nChristianity not only missed the right path for the development of\ndoctrine, but even lost the right use of the Bible. It is only by\naiming at an historical orientation that the church can gain from the\nBible the right direction for the setting forth of its doctrine. The\ndoctrine of the church never can be, and never has been, identical with\nthe doctrine of the Bible, because it is impossible to stop the\ndevelopment of history; besides, there are as many doctrines in the\nBible itself as men who wrote the several books of the Bible, or even\nmore. Saint Paul has not one doctrine of the atonement but half a dozen\ntheories about it. The church has to formulate its own doctrine\nconsistently with the Bible; that means a doctrine which keeps to the\nmain line of religious development as testified to by the Bible; or,\nrather, to do justice to the variety of Biblical doctrines, permits a\nmodern adaptation of the several modes in which religious experience is\nexpressed. This seems vague, but it is the path which Christianity is\nbound to follow; and it promises success.\n\nThe modern view is that it is the religious experience of men, as\ntestified to in the Bible, from which both the individual and the church\ntake their start. But Christians believe that through this human\nexperience God himself is revealing his grace. Therefore it is still, as\nour fathers said, God's Word. And God will teach the church to\nformulate the common experience by the help of his Word. That is the\npresent position.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut now what of the influence of the Bible on civilisation? Has it gone?\nIt seems under present conditions reduced to very small proportions, if\nnot made impossible altogether. I am prepared, however, to declare that\njust the opposite is true. The influence of the Bible on civilisation\nstill continues, and it will grow greater the more the Bible is used in\nthe proper way, as an influence not on outward form but in inward\ninspiration.\n\nThe results of the influence exerted by the Bible in former centuries,\nwhen it was an outward rule of life, still go on. We cannot imagine what\nwould have become of mankind if there had been no Bible. We cannot drop\nthe previous history out of our life. We still speak the language which\nwas modelled by our Bible; we still quote many proverbs which originate\nin the Bible, even without knowing that they come from the Bible. Our\nartists will go on choosing motifs from the Bible. The civilised nations\nwill never give up Sunday, although not keeping it as a Sabbath. They\nwill continue to aim at a fuller measure of legal and social equality,\nconvinced as many may be that it is impossible to create an outward\nequality among men as long as there is no equal sense of responsibility\nand duty in all members of the nation.\n\nThe influence of the Bible in its present position as the book of\ndevotion is of supreme importance for civilisation. Progress in\ncivilisation is guaranteed not by constitution nor by law but only by\nthe spirit which rules the individual and through the individual the\ncommunity. We need strong characters who know the great truth of\nself-sacrifice. Such characters are formed by the inward inspiration\ngiven by devotional reading of the Bible. Making men devout, it makes\nthem strong and influential in the common effort to promote civilisation\nby removing everything which is contrary to the welfare of others. That\nis the most important influence which the Bible can have; and that\ninfluence it still exerts and ever will exert on civilisation.\n\n\n\n\n\n<pre id=\"pg-footer\">","title":"The Influence of the Bible on Civilisation","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":43165}