The Expositor's Bible: The Pastoral Epistles Part 18

Of Hymenaeus and Philetus nothing further is known. Hymenaeus is probably the same person as is mentioned in the first Epistle with Alexander, as having made s.h.i.+pwreck of the faith, and been delivered unto Satan by the Apostle, to cure him of his blasphemies. We are told here that much mischief had been done by such teaching: for a number of persons had been seduced from the faith. "Some," in the English phrase "overthrow the faith of _some_," conveys an impression, which is not contained in the Greek (t????), that the number of those who were led astray was small. The Greek indicates neither a large nor a small number; but what is told us leads to the conclusion that the number was not small. It is probably to this kind of teaching that St. John alludes, when he writes some twenty or more years later than this, and says, "Even now there have arisen _many_ antichrists" (1 John ii. 18). Teaching of this kind was only too likely to be popular in Ephesus.

It is by no means unknown among ourselves. At the present time also there is a tendency to retain the old Christian terms and to deprive them of all Christian meaning. Not only such words as "miracle,"

"Church," "catholic," and "sacrament" are evaporated and etherealized, until they lose all definite meaning; but even such fundamental terms as "atonement," "redemption," and "immortality." Nay it is quite possible to find even the word "G.o.d" used to express a Being which is neither personal nor conscious. And thus language, which has been consecrated to the service of religion for a long series of centuries, is degraded to the unworthy purpose of insinuating pantheism and agnosticism. This perversion of well established phraseology is to be condemned on purely literary grounds: and on moral grounds it may be stigmatized as dishonest. If Hymenaeus and Philetus wish to deny the resurrection, let them also surrender the word which expresses it. They have abundance of words wherewith to express mental and moral enlightenment. Let them not so handle a word of truth as to make it suggest a lie.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII.

_THE LAST DAYS.--THE BEARING OF THE MENTION OF JANNES AND JAMBRES ON THE QUESTION OF INSPIRATION AND THE ERRORS CURRENT IN EPHESUS._

"But know this, that in the last days grievous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, haughty, railers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy.... And like as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also withstand the truth; men corrupted in mind, reprobate concerning the faith."--2 TIM. iii. 1, 2, 8.

In the first chapter the Apostle looks back over the past; in the second he gives directions about the present; in the third he looks forward into the future. These divisions are not observed with rigidity throughout, but they hold good to a very considerable extent. Thus in the first division he remembers Timothy's affectionate grief at parting, his faith and that of his family, and the spiritual gift conferred on him at his ordination. And respecting himself he remembers his teaching Timothy, his being deserted by those in Asia, his being ministered to by Onesiphorus. In the second chapter he charges Timothy to be willing to suffer hards.h.i.+ps with him, and instructs him how to conduct himself in the manifold difficulties of his present position. And now he goes on to forewarn and forearm him against dangers and troubles which he foresees in the future.

There are several prophecies in the New Testament similar to the one before us. There is that of St. Paul to the Ephesian Church some ten years before, just before his final departure for the bonds and afflictions which awaited him at Jerusalem. "I know that after my departing grievous wolves shall enter in among you, not sparing the flock; and from your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them" (Acts xx. 29, 30). The Epistles to Timothy show that this prediction was already being fulfilled during the Apostle's lifetime. There is, secondly, the prophecy respecting the great falling away and the revealing of the man of sin, which is somewhat parallel to the one before us (2 Thess. ii.

3-7). Thirdly, there is the similar prediction in the First Epistle to Timothy (iv. 1-3). And besides these three by St. Paul, there are those contained in 2 Peter ii. 1, 2 about the rise of false teachers, and in the First Epistle of St. John (ii. 18 and iv. 3) about the coming of antichrist. Those in 2 Thessalonians and 2 Peter should be compared with the one before us, as containing a mixture of present and future. This mixture has been made the basis of a somewhat frivolous objection. It has been urged that the s.h.i.+fting from future to present and back again indicates the hand of a writer who is contemporary with the events which he pretends to foretell. Sometimes he adopts the form of prophecy and uses the future tense. But at other times the influence of facts is too strong for him. He forgets his a.s.sumed part as a prophet, and writes in the present tense of his own experiences. Such an objection credits the feigned prophet with a very small amount of intelligence. Are we seriously to suppose that any one would be so stupid as to be unable to sustain his part for half a dozen verses, or less, without betraying himself? But, in fact, the change of tense indicates nothing of the kind. It is to be explained in some cases by the fact that the germs of the evils predicted were already in existence, in others by the practice (especially common in prophecy) of speaking of what is certain to happen as if it were already a fact. The prophet is often a _seer_, who sees as present what is distant or future; and hence he naturally uses the present tense, even when he predicts.

The meaning of the "last days" is uncertain. The two most important interpretations are: (1) the _whole_ time between Christ's first and second coming, and (2) the portion _immediately_ before Christ's second coming. Probability is greatly in favour of the latter; for the other makes the expression rather meaningless. If these evils were to come at all, they _must_ come between the two Advents; for there is no other time: and in that case why speak of this period as the "last days"? It might be reasonable to call them "_these_ last days," but not "last days" without such specification. At the present time it would not be natural to speak of an event as likely to happen in the last days, when we meant that it would happen between our own time and the end of the world. The expression used in 1 Tim. iv. 1 very probably does mean no more than "in future times; hereafter" (?? ?st????? ?a?????). But here and in 2 Pet. iii. 3 the meaning rather is "in the last days; when the Lord is at hand." It is then that the enemy will be allowed to put forth all his power, in order to be more completely overthrown. Then indeed there will be perilous, critical, grievous times (?a???? ?a?ep??). The Apostle treats it as possible, or even probable, that Timothy will live to see the troubles which will mark the eve of Christ's return. The Apostles shared, and contributed to produce, the belief that the Lord would come again soon, within the lifetime of some who were then alive.

Even at the close of a long life we find the last surviving Apostle pointing out to the Church that "it is the last hour" (1 John ii. 18), obviously meaning by that expression, that it is the time immediately preceding the return of Christ to judge the world. And some twenty years later we find Ignatius writing to the Ephesians "These are the last times (?s?at?? ?a????). Henceforth let us be reverent; let us fear the longsuffering of G.o.d, lest it turn into a judgment against us. For either let us fear the wrath which is to come, or let us love the grace which now is" (_Eph._ xi.). Only by the force of experience was the mind of the Church cleared so as to see the Kingdom of Christ in its true perspective. The warning which Jesus had given, that "of that day or that hour knoweth no one, not even the angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father," seems to have been understood as meaning no more than the declaration "in an hour that ye think not the Son of man cometh." That is, it was understood as a warning against being found unprepared, and not as a warning against forming conjectures as to how near Christ's return was. Therefore we need not be at all surprised at St. Paul writing to Timothy in a way which implies that Timothy will probably live to see the evils which will immediately precede Christ's return, and must be on his guard against being amazed or overwhelmed by them. He is to "turn away from" the intense wickedness which will then be manifested, and go on undismayed with his own work.

"Like as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also withstand the truth." The Apostle is obviously referring to the Egyptian magicians mentioned in Exodus. But in the Pentateuch neither their number nor their names are given; so that we must suppose that St. Paul is referring to some Jewish tradition on the subject. The number two was very possibly suggested by the number of their opponents:--Moses and Aaron on one side, and two magicians on the other. And on each side it is a pair of brothers; for the Targum of Jonathan represents the magicians as sons of Balaam, formerly instructors of Moses, but afterwards his enemies. The names vary in Jewish tradition. Jannes is sometimes Johannes, and Jambres is sometimes either Mambres or

Ambrosius. The tradition respecting them was apparently widely spread.

It was known to Numenius, a Platonic philosopher of Apameia in Syria, who is mentioned by Clement of Alexandria (_Strom._, I. xxii.), and quoted by Origen and Eusebius as giving an account of Jannes and Jambres (_Con. Cels._, IV. li.; _Praep. Evang._, IX. viii.). In Africa we find some knowledge of the tradition exhibited by Appuleius, the famous author of the _Golden a.s.s_, who like Numenius flourished in the second century. And in the previous century another Latin writer, Pliny the Elder, shows a similar knowledge. Both of them mention Jannes as a magician in connexion with Moses, who is also in their eyes a magician; but Pliny appears to think that both Moses and Jannes were Jews.[93] It is highly improbable that any of these writers derived their knowledge of these names from the pa.s.sage before us; in the case of Pliny this would scarcely have been possible. His _Natural History_ was published about A.D. 77, and at that time the Second Epistle to Timothy must have been known to but few, even among Christians. The author of the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus very possibly did derive his knowledge of the names from St. Paul; yet he may have had independent sources of information. He represents Nicodemus as pleading before Pilate that Jannes and Jambres worked miracles before Pharaoh; "but because they were not from G.o.d, what they did was destroyed." Whereas "Jesus raised up Lazarus, and he is alive" (chap. v.).

One of the ablest of English commentators on these Epistles remarks upon this pa.s.sage, "It is probable that the Apostle derived these names from a current and (being quoted by him) _true_ tradition of the Jewish Church." And in a similar spirit a writer in the _Dictionary of the Bible_ thinks that it would be "inconsistent with the character of an inspired record for a baseless or incorrect current tradition to be cited."

Let us look at the phenomena of the case and see whether the number and the names appear to be trustworthy or otherwise, and then consider the question of inspiration. To drag in the latter question in order to determine the former, is to begin at the wrong end.

That there should be a pair of brothers to oppose a pair of brothers, has been pointed out already as a suspicious circ.u.mstance. The jingling pairing of the names is also more like fiction than fact. Thirdly, the names appear to be in formation, not Egyptian, but Hebrew; which would naturally be the case if Jews invented them, but would be extraordinary if they were genuine names of Egyptians. Lastly, Jannes might come from a Hebrew root which means "to seduce," and Jambres from one which means "to rebel." If Jews were to invent names for the Egyptian magicians, what names would they be more likely to fasten on them than such as would suggest seductive error and rebellious opposition? And is it probable that a really trustworthy tradition, on such an unimportant fact as the names of the enchanters who opposed Moses, would have survived through so many centuries? Sober and unbia.s.sed critics will for the most part admit that the probabilities are very decidedly against the supposition that these names are true names, preserved from oblivion by some written or unwritten tradition outside Scripture.

But is it consistent with the character of an inspired writer to quote an incorrect tradition? Only those who hold somewhat narrow and rigid theories of inspiration will hesitate to answer this question in the affirmative. No one believes that inspired persons are in possession of all knowledge on all subjects. And if these names were commonly accepted as authentic by the Jews of St. Paul's day, would his inspiration necessarily keep him from sharing that belief? Even if he were well aware that the tradition respecting the names was untrustworthy, there would be nothing surprising in his speaking of the magicians under their commonly accepted names, when addressing one to whom the tradition would be well known. And if (as is more probable) he believed the names to be genuine, there is still less to surprise us in his making use of them to add vivacity to the comparison. Nothing in G.o.d's dealings with mankind warrants us in believing that He would grant a special revelation to an Apostle, in order to preserve him from so harmless a proceeding as ill.u.s.trating an argument by citing the incorrect details which tradition had added to historical facts. And it is worth noting that nothing is _based_ upon the names; they occur in what is mere ill.u.s.tration. And even in the ill.u.s.tration it is not the names that have point, but the persons, who are supposed to have borne them; and the persons are real, although the names are probably fict.i.tious. Still less are we warranted in believing, as Chrysostom suggests, that St. Paul by inspiration had supernatural knowledge of the names. As we have seen, the names were known even to Gentiles who cannot well have derived their knowledge from him; and why should he have received a revelation about a trifle which in no way helps his argument? Such views of inspiration, although the product of a reverential spirit, degrade rather than exalt our conceptions of it. The main point of the comparison between the two cases appears to be opposition to the truth. But there is perhaps more in it than that. The magicians withstood Moses by professing to do the same wonders that he did; and the heretics withstood Timothy by professing to preach the same gospel as he did. This was frequently the line taken by heretical teachers; to disclaim all intention of teaching anything new, and to profess substantial, if not complete, agreement with those whom they opposed. They affirmed that their teaching was only the old truth looked at from another point of view. They used the same phraseology as Apostles had used: they merely gave it a more comprehensive (or, as would now be said, a more _catholic_) meaning. In this way the unwary were more easily seduced, and the suspicions of the simple were less easily aroused. But such persons betray themselves before long. Their mind is found to be tainted; and when they are put to the proof respecting the faith, they cannot stand the test (?d?????).

There is nothing improbable in the supposition that St. Paul mentions the magicians who withstood Moses as typical opponents of the truth, because the false teachers at Ephesus used magic arts; and the word which he uses for impostors (???te?) in ver. 13 fits in very well with such a supposition, although it by no means makes it certain. Ephesus was famous for its charms and incantations (?f?s?a ???ata), and around the statue of its G.o.ddess Artemis were unintelligible inscriptions, to which a strange efficacy was ascribed. The first body of Christians in Ephesus had been tainted by senseless wickedness of this kind. After accepting Christianity they had secretly retained their magic. The sons of the Jew Sceva had tried to use the sacred name of Jesus as a magical form of exorcism; and this brought about the crisis in which numbers of costly books of incantations were publicly burned (Acts xix. 13-20). The evil would be pretty sure to break out again, especially among new converts; just as it does among negro converts at the present day.

Moreover we know that in some cases there was a very close connexion between some forms of heresy and magic: so that the suggestion that St.

Paul has pretensions to miraculous power in his mind, when he compares the false teachers to the Egyptian magicians, is by no means improbable.

The connexion between heresy and superst.i.tion is a very real and a very close one. The rejection or surrender of religious truth is frequently accompanied by the acceptance of irrational beliefs. People deny miracles and believe in spiritualism; they cavil at the efficacy of sacraments and accept as credible the amazing properties of an 'astral body.' There is such a thing as the nemesis of unbelief. The arrogance which rejects as repugnant to reason and morality truths which have throughout long centuries satisfied the highest intellects and the n.o.blest hearts, is sometimes punished by being seduced into delusions which satisfy nothing higher than a grovelling curiosity.

FOOTNOTES:

[93] Est et alia Magices factio a Moyse, et Janne, et Jotape Judaeis pendens (Plin. _Hist. Nat._, x.x.x. ii.).

Si quamlibet emolumentum probaveritis, ego ille sim Carinondas, vel Damigeron, vel is Moses, vel Jannes [_al. l._ Johannes], vel Apollonius, vel ipse Darda.n.u.s, vel quieunque post Zoroastren et Hostanen inter Magos celebratus est (Appul., _Apologia_, 544, p. 580 ed. Oudendorp).

CHAPTER x.x.xIV.

_THE PERILS OF RATIONALISM AND THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF A LIFELONG CONTACT WITH TRUTH.--THE PROPERTIES OF INSPIRED WRITINGS._

"But abide thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been a.s.sured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them; and that from a babe thou hast known the sacred writings, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.

Every scripture inspired of G.o.d is also profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness: that the man of G.o.d may be complete, furnished completely unto every good work."--2 TIM. iii. 14-17.

For the second time in this paragraph the Apostle puts his faithful disciple in marked contrast to the heretical teachers. A few lines before, after comparing the latter to the Egyptian magicians, he continues, "But _thou_ (s? d?) didst follow my teaching." And in the pa.s.sage before us, after saying that "evil men and impostors shall wax worse and worse," he continues, "But abide _thou_ (s? d? ??e) in the things which thou hast learned." Here there is a double contrast; first between Timothy and the impostors, and secondly between his abiding in the truth and their going away from it, and so from bad to worse, first as deceivers and then as being deceived. They begin by being seducers and end in being dupes, and the dupes (very often) of their own deceptions; for deceit commonly leads to self-deceit. Such a result may well act as a warning to Timothy and those committed to his charge of the peril of trifling with the fundamentals of religious truth.

The articles of the Christian faith are not like the commodities in a bazaar from which one can pick and choose at pleasure, and of which one can take three or four without in any way affecting one's relation to the remainder, or reject three or four, without in any way affecting the security of one's hold upon those which one decides to take. With regard to the truths of religion, our right to pick and choose has very strict limits. When the system as a whole has presented its credentials to the reason and the conscience, and these have decided that the bearer of such credentials must be the representative of a Divine Being, then the attempt to pick and choose among the details of the system becomes perilous work. To reject this or that item, as being mere fringe and setting rather than a const.i.tuent element, or as being at any rate unessential, may be to endanger the whole structure. We may be leaving an impregnable position for an exposed and untenable one, or be exchanging a secure platform for an inclined plane, on which we shall find no lasting resting place until the bottom is reached. And this was what the men, against whom Timothy is warned, had done. They had left the sure position, and were sometimes sliding, sometimes running, further and further away from the truth.

In other words, there is a right and a wrong use of reason in matters of faith. The wrong use is sometimes spoken of as "Rationalism," and (adopting that term as convenient) the following clear statement, borrowed from another writer, will show in a striking way where it was that St. Paul wished Timothy to part company with the principles of his opponents. "As regards Revealed Truth," wrote J. H. Newman in 1835, "it is _not_ Rationalism to set about to ascertain, by the exercise of reason, what things are attainable by reason, and what are not; nor, in the absence of an express Revelation, to inquire into the truths of Religion, as they come to us by nature; nor to determine what proofs are necessary for the acceptance of a Revelation, if it be given; nor to reject a Revelation on the plea of insufficient proof; nor, after recognising it as Divine, to investigate the meaning of its declarations, and to interpret its language; nor to use its doctrines, as far as they can be fairly used, in inquiring into its divinity; nor to compare and connect them with our previous knowledge, with a view of making them parts of a whole; nor to bring them into dependence on each other, to trace their mutual relations, and to pursue them to their legitimate issues. This is not Rationalism. But it is Rationalism to accept the Revelation, and then to _explain it away_; to speak of it as the Word of G.o.d, and to treat it as the word of man; to refuse to let it speak for itself; to claim to be told the _why_ and the _how_ of G.o.d's dealings with us, as therein described, and to a.s.sign to Him a motive and a scope of our own; to stumble at the partial knowledge which He may give us of them; to put aside what is obscure, as if it had not been said at all; to _accept one half of what has been told us, and not the other half_; to a.s.sume that the contents of Revelation are also its proof; to frame some gratuitous hypothesis about them, and then to garble, gloss, and colour them, to trim, clip, pare away and twist them, in order to bring them into conformity with the idea to which we have subjected them."[94]

Timothy is to abide in those things which he has "learned and been a.s.sured of." He has experienced the result which St. Luke wished to produce in Theophilus when he wrote his Gospel: he has attained to "full knowledge of the certainty concerning the things wherein he had been instructed" (Luke i. 4). And he is not to allow the wild teaching of his opponents, thoroughly discredited as it is and will be by equally wild conduct, to shake his security. Not everything that is disputed is disputable, nor everything that is doubted doubtful. And if the fruits of the two kinds of teaching do not fully convince him of the necessity of abiding by the old truths rather than by the suggestions of these innovators, let him remember those from whom he first learnt the truths of the Gospel,--his grandmother Lois, his mother Eunice, and the Apostle himself. When it comes to a question of the authority of the teachers, which group will he choose? Those who established him in the faith, or those who are trying to seduce men away from it?

There is a little doubt about the word "of _whom_ thou hast learned them." The "whom" is probably plural (pa?? t????); but a reading which makes it singular (pa?? t????) is strongly supported. The plural must include all Timothy's chief instructors in the faith, especially the earliest, as is clear from the nature of the case and from what follows.

If the singular is adopted, we must refer it to St. Paul, in accordance with "the things which thou hast heard from me ... the same commit thou to faithful men" (ii. 2). It is possible that the words just quoted have influenced the reading in the pa.s.sage under consideration, and have caused the subst.i.tution of the singular for the plural.

But there is a further consideration. There is not only the _character_ of the doctrine on each side, and the _fruits_ of the doctrine on each side, and the _teachers_ of whom Timothy has had personal experience, and about whose knowledge and trustworthiness he can judge; there is also the fact that from his tenderest infancy he has had the blessing of being in contact with the truth, first as it is revealed in the Old Testament, and then as it is still further revealed in the Gospel. The responsibilities of those who from their earliest days have been allowed to grow in the knowledge of G.o.d and of His government of the world, are far greater than the responsibilities of those who have had no opportunity of acquiring this knowledge until late in life. Old habits of thought and conduct are not extinguished by baptism; and the false opinion and vicious behaviour of many of those who are vexing, or will hereafter vex, the Church in Ephesus, may be traced to influences which had become dominant in them long before they came into contact with G.o.d's revealed law. No such allowance can be made for Timothy. He has had the inestimable privilege of knowing the sacred writings from his earliest childhood. It will be his own fault if they do not "make him wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus."

The expression "sacred writings" (?e?? ???ata) occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. The usual expression is "the scriptures" (a? ??afa?); and once (Rom. i. 2) we have "holy scriptures" (??afa? ???a?). Here both substantive and adjective are unusual. The adjective occurs in only one other pa.s.sage in the New Testament, a pa.s.sage which throws light upon this one. "Know ye not that they who perform the sacred rites, from the sacred place get their food?" (_Speaker's Commentary_, on 1 Cor. ix.

13.) And just as in that pa.s.sage "the sacred rites" are the Jewish sacrifices, and "the sacred place" the Jewish Temple, so here "the sacred writings" are the Jewish Scriptures. It is utterly improbable that any Christian writings are included. How could Timothy have known any of these from infancy? Even at the time when St. Paul wrote this farewell letter, there was little Christian literature, excepting his own Epistles; and he was not likely to speak of them as "sacred writings," or to include them under one expression with the Old Testament Scriptures. The suggestion that Christian writings are included, or are mainly intended, seems to be made with the intention of insinuating that this letter cannot have been written by the Apostle, but by some one of a later age. But would even a writer of the second century have made such a blunder as to represent Timothy as knowing Christian literature from his childhood?

With the use of the substantive "writings" (???ata) in this pa.s.sage, should be compared the use of the same word in Christ's discourse at Jerusalem after the miracle at the pool of Bethesda, where he shows the Jews how hopeless their unbelief is, and how vain their appeal to Moses, who is really their accuser. "But if ye believe not _his_ writings (???ata), how shall ye believe _My_ words?" The Jews had had two opportunities of knowing and accepting the truth; the writings of Moses, and the words of Jesus. So also Timothy had had two sets of instructors; the holy women who had brought him up, whose work had been completed by the Apostle, and the sacred writings. If the authority of the former should seem to be open to question, there could be no doubt of the sufficiency of the latter. They "are able to make him wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus."

It must be observed that the Apostle uses the present tense and not the past (d???e?a) in expressing the power of the sacred writings in communicating a saving wisdom to him who uses them aright. This power was not exhausted when the young Timothy was brought to the ampler truths of the Gospel. However far advanced he may be in sacred knowledge, he will still find that they are able to make him increase in the wisdom which enlightens and saves souls.

But Scripture confers this life-giving wisdom in no mechanical manner.

It is not a charm, which has a magical effect upon every one who reads it. The most diligent study of the sacred writings will do nothing for the salvation of a man who does not prosecute his researches in something more than the mere spirit of curious enquiry. Therefore St.

Paul adds, "through faith which is in Christ Jesus." It is when this is added to the soul of the enquirer that the sacred writings of the Old Covenant have their illuminating power; without it, so far from leading to the salvation won for us by Christ, they may keep those who study them away from the truth, as in the case of the Jews to this day. The pillar of fire becomes a pillar of cloud, and what should have been for wealth becomes an occasion of falling.

"Every scripture inspired of G.o.d is also profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness."

This is the Revisers' rendering. Besides one or two smaller changes, they have made two important alterations of the A. V. (1) They have subst.i.tuted "every scripture" for "all scripture," without allowing the old rendering even a place in the margin. (2) They have inserted the "is" (which _must_ be supplied somewhere in the sentence) _after_ instead of _before_ "inspired by G.o.d;" thus making "inspired by G.o.d" an epithet of Scripture and not something stated respecting it. "Every scripture inspired by G.o.d _is also_ profitable," instead of "_is_ inspired of G.o.d _and_ profitable:" but they allow the latter rendering a place in the margin.

This treatment of the pa.s.sage appears to be very satisfactory, so far as the second of these two points are concerned. Certainty is not attainable in either. Yet, as regards the second, the probabilities are greatly in favour of the Apostle's meaning that "inspired scripture is also profitable," rather than "scripture is inspired and profitable."

But, with regard to the first point, it may be doubted whether the balance is so decidedly against the translation "all scripture" as to warrant its exclusion. No doubt the absence of the article in the Greek (p?sa ??af?, and not p?sa ? ??af?) is against the old rendering; but it is by no means conclusive, as other instances both in the New Testament and in cla.s.sical Greek prove.[95] Nevertheless, there is the further fact that in the New Testament "the scripture" generally means a particular pa.s.sage of Scripture (Mark xii. 10; Luke iv. 21; John xix.

24, 28, 36, 37; Acts viii. 32, 35). When Scripture as a whole is meant, the word, is commonly used in the plural, "the scriptures" (Matt. xxi.

42; Mark xii. 24; John v. 39). In the pa.s.sage before us the meaning is not seriously affected by the change. It matters little whether we say "the whole of scripture," or "every pa.s.sage of scripture."

"Every scripture inspired by G.o.d is also profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for discipline (pa?de?a) which is in righteousness:" _i.e._, is of use both for doctrinal and for practical purposes, for informing both faith and conduct. It is because it is "inspired by G.o.d," because G.o.d's Spirit breathes through the whole of it, making every pa.s.sage of it to be a portion of a living whole, that Scripture possesses this unique utility. And if the Apostle can say this of the Old Testament, much more may we affirm it of the New Testament.

From the two together, everything that a Christian ought to believe, everything that a Christian ought to do, may be learned.

But while this declaration of the Apostle a.s.sures us that there is no pa.s.sage in Holy Writ, which, when properly handled, does not yield Divine instruction for the guidance of our minds, and hearts, and wills, yet it gives no encouragement to hard and fast theories as to the _manner_ in which the Spirit of G.o.d operated upon the authors of the sacred writings. Inspiration is no mechanical process. It is altogether misleading to speak of it as Divine _dictation_, which would reduce inspired writers to mere machines. There are certain things which it clearly does _not_ do.

1. While it governs the substance of what is written, it does not govern the language word by word. We have no reasons for believing in _verbal_ inspiration, and have many reasons for not believing in it. For no one believes that copyists and printers are miraculously preserved from making verbal mistakes. Is it, then, reasonable to suppose that G.o.d would work a miracle to produce what He takes no care to preserve. Of the countless various readings, which are the words which are inspired?

2. Inspiration does not preserve the inspired writers from _every_ kind of mistake. That it guards them from error in respect to matters of faith and morality, we may well believe; but whether it does more than this remains to be proved. On the other hand it can be proved that it does not preserve them from mistakes in _grammar_; for there is plenty of unquestionably bad grammar in the Bible. Look for instance at the Greek of Mark vi. 8, 9; Acts xv. 22; xix. 34; Eph. iv. 2; Col. iii. 16; Rev. vii. 9; etc., etc. And it may be doubted whether inspiration preserves the inspired writer from all possibility of error as regards matters of fact, as to whether there were two men healed or only one; as to whether the healing took place as Christ entered the city or as He left it; as to whether the prophecy quoted comes from Jeremiah or Zechariah, and the like. Can there be any reasonable doubt that St.