The Higher Criticism Distinguished from the Dicta of the “Higher Critics”

We must always distinguish, therefore, between the decisions of the Higher Criticism

and the dicta of those who claim to be its exponents. If the authorship of a book were the subject-matter of a criminal charge or of

a civil action, the decision of the case would

not be left to philological experts, at least, not

in any civilized country. But in these matters of supreme importance a thoughtless public is browbeaten or cajoled into’ accepting the experts as a final court of appeal. “Nothing, indeed, is more astonishing to me” (says Prof. von Orelli of Basel) “than the readiness with which even diligent explorers in this field (of

Old Testament criticism) attach themselves to

the dominant theory, and repeat the most rash

. hypotheses, as if they were part of an unquestioned creed.” Referring to““the ordeal of the

Englishman’s strong and strict sense for fact,”

— — —

Christianized Rationalism

Matthew Arnold writes: “We are much mistaken if it does not turn out that this ordeal makes great havoc among the vigorous and rigorous theories of German criticism concerning the Bible-documents.” And in this connection the following extract from Prof. Sayce’s Higher Criticism and the Monuments* is still more apt and weighty : —

“The arrogancy of tone adopted at times by the ‘higher criticism’ has been productive of nothing but mischief; it has aroused distrust even of its most certain results, and has betrayed the crit‘c

into a dogmatism as unwarranted as it is unscientific. Baseless assumptions have been placed on

a level with ascertained facts, hasty conclusions have been put forward as principles of science, and we have been called upon to accept th:

revelation of a new gospel. If the archxologist

ventured to suggest that the facts he had discovered did not support the views of the critic, he a iiaiat he Was Ro pinlolopit. ‘Tue opinion of a modern German theologian was worth more,

at all events in the eyes of his ‘school, than the —

caapey RESEND ECERRIEES lestesu In ppupnqeegenyal most positive testimony of the monuments of antiquity.”

=

These cautions must not be forgotten when

p. 5.

we are told that “modern scholarship” has decided this or that respecting the Bible. Nor is this all. When we speak of the decisions of “the Church” we mean that a definite company of men, formally convened like any other corporation, have discussed and voted upon certain subjects. Dr. Harnack, indeed, has done good service in showing how little weight is due to the decisions of Church Councils,* but that does not affect the question here. If, on the other hand, we speak of the decisions of scholarship, we are using language in a loose and figurative sense. When, for example, someone says that scholarship has decided that the books of the Pentateuch were not written in the Mosaic age, he means either that all competent scholars have come to this conclu- ‘sion, or else that some impersonation called “scholarship,” distinct from the united voice of scholars, has decreed it. But the one al-

*I refer to his chapters on the Greek and Roman churches. Were it not for his laboured efforts to prove that the doctrine of the Deity of Christ was a product of Greek thought, and that the truth of the logos, as well as the word, was of Greek origin, these

chapters might lead us to forget that the writer was not a believer.

ternative would be utterly untrue, and the other is absolutely unmeaning.