“The Oracles of God”
THE purpose of this paper is to bring together somewhat more fully than can be easily found in one place elsewhere, the material for forming a judgment as to the sense borne by the term ldyua, as it appears in the pages of the New Testament. This term occurs only four times in the New Testament. The passages, as translated by the English revisers of 1881, are as follows: “‘Moses ...who received living oracles to give unto us” (Acts vii. 38); ‘‘They the Jews were intrusted with the oracles of God’’ (Rom. iii. 2); ‘“When by reason of the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need again that some one teach you the rudiments of the first principles of the oracles of God”’ (Heb. v. 12); ‘‘If any man speaketh let him speak as it were oracles of God”’ (I Peter iv. 11). The general sense of the term is obvious on the face of things: and the commentators certainly do not go wholly wrong in explaining it. But the minor differences that emerge in their explanations are numerous, and seem frequently to evince an insufficient examination of the usage of the word: and the references by which they support their several views are not always accessible to readers who would fain test them, so that the varying explanations stand, in the eyes of many, as only so many obiter dicta between which choice must be made, if choice is made at all, purely arbitrarily. It has seemed, therefore, as if it would not be without its value if the usage of the word were exhibited in sufficient fullness to serve as some sort of a touchstone of the explanations that have been offered of it. We are sure, at any rate, that students of the New Testament remote from libraries will not be sorry to have at hand a tolerably full account of the usage of the word: and we are not without hope that
1 From The Presbyterian and Reformed Review, Vol. XI. 1900, pp. 217-260.
a comprehensive view of it may help to correct some long-standing errors concerning its exact meaning, and may, indeed, point not obscurely to its true connotation — which is not without interesting implications. Upheld by this hope we shall essay to pass in rapid review the usage of the term in Classic, Hellenistic and Patristic Greek, and then to ask what, in the light of this usage, the word is likely to have meant to the writers of the New Testament.
I. It may be just as well at the outset to disabuse our minds of any presumption that a diminutive sense is inherent in the term ldyov, as a result of its very form.? Whether we explain it with Meyer-Weiss as the neuter of oytos and point to Aoylétov * as the proper diminutive of this stem; or look upon it with Sanday-Headlam ° as originally the diminutive of Adéyos, whose place as such was subsequently, viz., when it acquired the special sense of ‘‘oracle,”’ taken by the strengthened diminutive Aoyiécvovy — it remains true that no trace of a diminutive sense attaches to it as we meet it on the pages of Greek literature.®
We are pointed, to be sure, to a scholium on the “Frogs”’ of Aristophanes (line 942) as indicating the contrary. The passage is the well-known one in which Euripides is made to
2 So very commonly: as, e. g., by Grimm (“Lexicon in N. T.,’’ s. v.), Bleek (‘Der Brief an die Hebrder,” ii. 2, 114, on Heb. v. 12), Philippi (‘‘Com. on Romans,” E. T., i. 105, on Rom. iii. 2), Morrison (“‘ Expos. of 3d Chap. of Rom.,” p. 14). 3 “Com. on Romans,” on Rom. iii. 2 (E. T., 1. 140, note 1).
4 Plato, “Eryx.,” 401, E.: éraparré ye abrov... 7d Novyidtov; Isocrates, ‘‘Contra Sophistas,” 295 B. (Didot, 191): rocotrw 5& xelpouvs éyévovto T&v wepi ras Epidaskaduvdovperwy, Scov odTo wey ToLradra Aovidta duekvovres.. .; Aristophanes, ‘‘ Vesp.,” 64: add’ Eorw Huiv Aovyidiov yrapunv exov budv pev abr&v odxi deEwrepov. Cf. Blaydes on the passage in Aristophanes.
5 “Com. on Rom.,” on Rom. ii. 2: ‘‘ The old account of Aéytov as a diminutive of Aéyos is probably correct, though Mey.-W. make it neuter of Aéytos on the ground that Noyidioy is the proper diminutive. The form doyiéiov is rather a strengthened diminutive which, by a process common in language, took the place of Aéyvov when it acquired the sense of ‘oracle.’’? When they add that it was as ‘‘a brief condensed saying” that the oracle was called Adyov, they have no support in the literature.
6 Jelf, who looks upon it as a diminutive, cites it as an extreme example of the fact that many simple diminutives in -.ov have lost their diminutive force —
such as @npiov, BiBXlov: Adytov, he says, “‘has assumed a peculiar meaning.” In any event, thus, no diminutive meaning clings to Aéytov.
“THE ORACLES OF GOD” BY A
respond to Aschylus’ inquiry as to what things he manufactured. ‘‘ Not winged horses,”’ is the reply (as Wheelwright translates it), ‘‘ By Jupiter, nor goat-stags, such as thou, Like paintings on the Median tapestry, But as from thee I first received the art, Swelling with boastful pomp and heavy words, I paréd it straight and took away its substance, With little words, and walking dialogues,’ And white beet mingled, straining from the books A juice of pleasant sayings, — then I fed him With monodies, mixing Ctesiphon.”’ It is upon the word here translated ‘‘ with little words,” but really meaning ‘‘verselets’”’ (Blaydes: versiculis) — érvAltors — that the scholium occurs. It runs: ’Avti Tov Noylous urKpots’ ws b€ Bpédos BpedtrAXov, Kal eidos eidVALOY? OUTW Kal Eros éxtAov.2 That is to say, érvAXvov is a diminutive of the same class as BpedtANov and eidvAXov,® and means ldyov pkpov. Since the idea of smallness is explicit in the adjective attached to Aéyov here, surely it is not necessary to discover it also in the noun,” especially when what the scholiast is obviously striving to say is not that émvAXNows means “‘little wordlets,”’ but ‘‘little verses.’’ The presence of uexpots here, rather is conclusive evidence that doyiows by itself did not convey a diminutive meaning to the scholiast. If we are to give Aéyuoy an unexampled sense here, we might be tempted to take it, therefore, as intended to express the idea ‘‘verses’”’ rather than the tautological one of ‘‘little words” or even “‘little maxims”’ or ‘‘little sayings.’ And it might fairly be pleaded in favor of so doing that Aéy.ov in its current sense of ‘‘oracle”’ not only lies close to one of the ordinary meanings of ézos (“‘ Od.,”’ 12, - 266; Herod., 1, 13, and often in the Tragedians), but also, because oracles were commonly couched in verse, might easily come to suggest in popular speech the idea of ‘‘verse,’’
7 érvAXlots Kal wepitarots Kal TevTALotoe AEvKOTS.
8 Dindorf, iv. ii. p. 113, on line 973.
Blaydes adds some other instances: ‘‘Ejusdem forme diminutiva sunt eldvANov, BpepvAXLov, werpaxvANov, SwiAdALov, KpedAALOY, Eevbdduov.”
10 With this éy.ov pexpdy compare the Bpaxéa A6yra Of Justin Martyr, “‘Contra Tryph.,”’ c. 18. When the idea of brevity needed to be conveyed, it would seem that an adjective expressive of this idea was required to be added.
so that a loywov weKpov would easily obtrude itself as the exact synonym of ériAduov, in Euripides’ sense, 1. e., in the sense of short broken verses. There is no reason apparent on the other hand why we should find a diminutive implication in the word as here used, and in any case, if this is intended, it is a sense unillustrated by a single instance of usage.
And the unquestionable learning of Kustathius seems to assure us that to Greek ears loycov did not suggest a diminutive sense at all. He is commenting on line 339 of the Second Book of the “Iliad,” which runs,
~, Ve., e a
an 67 cvvOeciar TE Kal OpKia Bnoerar utr,
and he tells us that dpxwov in Homer is not a diminutive, but is a formation similar to éy.vov, which means ‘‘an oracle’’: Ovx broKxoptotiKoy 6€ wap’ ‘Ounpw ovdé ... To txviov. “Qsirep d€ TA OPKLa TAapWVOUMaGTAL EK TOU OpKOV, OUT Kal EK TOU OYOU TA Ayla Hyouv ot xpyopvot.. There is no direct statement here, to be sure, that Adyvov is not a diminutive; that statement is made — with entire accuracy — only of dpxtov and txmov: nor is the derivation suggested for ldéywov, as if it came directly from éyos, perhaps scientifically accurate. But there is every indication of clearness of perception in the statement: and it could scarcely be given the form it has, had doyvov stood in Eustathius’ mind as the diminutive of ldyos. It obviously represented to him not a diminutive synonym of Aoyos, but an equal synonym of xpnopos. What Aoytov stood for, in his mind, is very clearly exhibited, further, in a comment which he makes on the 416th line of the First Book of the “Odyssey,” where Telemachus declares that he does not ‘care for divinations such as my mother seeks, summoning a diviner to the hall”’: ouTe Oeorporins EuTafouar, Av TWA UATHP és weyapoyv Kahéoaca Oeorporrov é£epenrar.
1. Ed. Bas., i. 177; Rom. i. 233: Weigel’s Leipzig ed. (here used), i. 189.
12 Liddell and Scott say, s. v.: “‘dpxiov is not with Buttm., “Lexil.,” s. v., to be regarded as a dim. of épxos, but rather as neuter of Spxcos, with which iepéy or iepd
may be supplied”’; ‘‘ Dim. of ixvos only in form (v. Chandler, “‘Accent.,’”’ § 340).” Cf. in general Jelf, “Grammar,” §§ 56, 2, and 335, c (Vol. i. pp. 53, 337).
a a
Kustathius wishes us to note that Oeorpd7os means the partis, Georpomta his art, and Oeorpdmiov the message he delivers, which Eustathius calls the ypyouwdnua, and informs us is denominated by the Attics also éyov. He says: “Ioréov 6€ dre Geom pomros ev AdXAwS, 6 wavTis. Oeorporia dé, 7 TExYN alTod. OeoTpom.ov O€, TO xpnoumdnua, 6 Kal hOyLoyv dleyov of ’ArTiKot.8 To Kustathius, thus loy.ov was simply the exact synonym of the highest words in use to express a divine communication to men — Georpomiorv,’* xpnouwdnua, xpynouos. Similarly Hesychius’ definition runs: Adyra: Séogata, wavrevuara, (po) dnredbara, Pjuat, xpnouot. In a word, Adyuov differs from Adyos not as expressing something smaller than it, but as expressing something more sacred.
The Greek synonymy of the notion ‘‘oracle”’ is at once extraordinarily full and very obscure. It is easy to draw up a long list of terms — ywarteta, wavrevuata, mpddavra, Oeorpomia, érileomicpuol Béodata, beoriguata, loy.a, and the like; but exceedingly difficult, we do not say to lay down hard and fast lines between them, but even to establish any shades of difference among them which are consistently reflected in usage. M. Bouché-Leclercg, after commenting on the poverty of the Latin nomenclature, continues as to the Greek:
“The Greek terminology is richer and allows analysis of the different senses, but it is even more confused than abundant. The Greeks, possessors of a flexible tongue, capable of rendering all the shades of thought, often squandered their treasures, broadening the meaning of
13 Hd. Bas., pp. 1426, 1427; ed. Rom., p. 69; ed. Leipzig, 1. p. 72.
14 A scholium on the passage in the “Odyssey”’ brings out the meaning of Oeorpériov, to Wit: 76 é& Oe0d Aeyouevor, é 0b Kal Oeompdmos 6 TA TOD Heod Néeywv. Cf. also the Homeric Lexicons on the word: e. g., Ebeling, s. v. Seorporin et Ocompdmor: “‘Sententia deorum, judicium quod dii (Juppiter potissimum et Appollo) cum vate (vel cum deo) communicant, vates cum aliis hominibus, oraculum. Cf. Negelsb., H[omerische] Th{eologie], 187. Ap. 87, 4 wavrevpa 76 éx Geo mpodeyouevov. Cf. Suid, i. 2, 1144 Hes.”; and Capelle under same heading: ‘‘Alles was von den Géttern (besLonders] Apollon und Zeus) angezeigt und durch den eorpéros gedeutet wird, ‘die von den Géttern eingegebenen Offenbarungen’ (Negelsb. zu A. 385. Cf. ‘Hom. Th.,’ S. 187), also Weissagung, Géttergebot, Gétterbescheid, Orakel.”
16 “Histoire de la Divination dans |’Antiquité” (Paris, Leroux, 1879), Vol.
ii. pp. 229, 230.
words at pleasure, multiplying synonyms without distinguishing between them, and thus disdaining the precision to which they could attain without effort. We shall seek in vain for terms especially appropriated to divination by oracles. From the verb xpfo@a, which signifies in Homer ‘to reveal’ in a general way, come the derivatives xpnouos and xpnornpiov. The latter, which dates from Hesiod and the Homerides, designates the place where prophecies are dispensed and, later, the responses themselves, or the instrument by which they are obtained. Xpynoyés, which comes into current usage from the time of Solon, is applied without ambiguity to inspired and versified prophecies, but belongs equally to the responses of the oracles and those of free prophets. The word yavreiov in the singular designates ordinarily the place of consultation; but in the plural it is applied to the prophecies themselves of whatever origin. In the last sense it has a crowd of synonyms of indeterminate and changeable shades of meaning. The grammarians themselves have been obliged to renounce imposing rules on the capricious usage and seeking recognition for their artificial distinctions. We learn once more the impossibility of erecting precise definitions for terms which lack precision.”
Among the distinctions which have been proposed but which usage will not sustain is the discrimination erected by the scholiast on Euripides, “‘Phoeniss.,’”’ 907,!° which would reserve Oéogata, Jeoriouatra, xpyouot for oracles directly from the gods, and assign wavrevar and wavtebuara to the responses of the diviners. The grain of truth in this is that in partis, pavTever Oar, pavreia, etymologically, what is most prominent is the idea of a special unwonted capacity, attention being directed by these words to the strong spiritual elevation which begets new powers in us. While, on the other hand, in feorifew the reference is directly to the divine inspiration, which, because it is normally delivered in song, is referred to by such forms as deorimdds, Jeorimderv. Xpynouds, on the other hand, seems an expression which in itself has little direct reference either to the source whence or the form in which the oracle comes, but describes the oracle from the point of view of what it is in itself — viz., a ‘‘communication”’? —
16 The scholium runs: Oéogara, Oeoricuata, xpnopol 76 abrd, édéyovrro bé él Oedvspavrevar 6€ kal pavrebuata él uavrewy avOpwrwr.
going back, as it does, to xp7v, the original sense of which seems to be ‘‘to bestow,” ‘‘to communicate.”’ Aéyrov doubtless may be classed with xpnouds in this respect — it is par excellence the ‘‘ utterance,” the ‘‘saying.’’ It would seem to be distinguished from ypyopés by having even less reference than it to the source whence — something as ‘‘a declaration”’ is distinguished from ‘‘a message.” If we suppose a herald coming with the cry, ‘‘A communication from the Lord,” and then, after delivering the message, adding: ‘‘This is His utterance,” it might fairly be contended that in strict precision the former should be xpyopuos and the latter Néycov, in so far as the former term may keep faintly before the mind the source of the message as a thing given, while the latter may direct the attention to its content as the very thing received, doubtless with a further connotation of its fitness to its high origin. Such subtlety of distinction, however, is not sure to stamp itself on current use, so that by such etymological considerations we are not much advanced in determining the ordinary connotation of the words in usage.
A much more famous discrimination, and one which much more nearly concerns us at present, has been erected on what seems to be a misapprehension of a construction in Thucydides. In a passage which has received the compliment of imitation by a number of his successors,® the historian is describing the agitation caused by the outbreak of the Pe-
17 The above is abstracted from J. H. Heinr. Schmidt in his ‘‘ Handbuch der Lateinischen und Griechischen Synonymik”’ (1889), §21, pp. 77-82. The original meaning assigned to xpqv (darretchen, ertheilen) is supported by a reference to Vanitéek, p. 250. Surely it is a much more reasonable determination than that of Bouché-Leclereq (‘‘ Hist. de la Divination,” i. 192), who would derive it from a cleromantic idea, as if xpaw signified first of all ‘‘entailler.”’ So he conceives dvapecv to refer to the lot, as we say to “draw lots,” as if the Pythoness “drew her revelations as we draw lots.” Schmidt refers the use of this word to the early idea that the words came up out of the depths of the earth.
18 FH). g., Polybius, 3, 112, 8: ‘‘ All the oracles preserved in Rome were in everybody’s mouth (rdvra 8’ qv ra wap’ abrots loyia aor Tore bua oTduaros) and every temple and house was full of prodigies and miracles: in consequence of which the city was one scene of vows, sacrifices, supplicatory processions and prayers”’
(Schuchburgh’s translation). Appian, 2, 115, deiwara ra yap &Aoya woAXols verre epi ddnv ’Iradlav. Kal pavrevpdrov madaray émipoBwrépwr éurnudvevov. Dionys. Hal., loponnesian war, one symptom of which was the passion for oracles which was developed. ‘‘ All Hellas,’ he says,’ ‘‘ was excited by the coming conflict between the two cities. Many were the prophecies circulated, and many the oracles chanted by diviners (kat 7oAXa pev Noyta EAEYorTO, TONG O€ XPNTLOAOYOLyjoov), not only in the cities about to engage in the struggle, but throughout Hellas.’’ And again, as the Lacedemonians approached the city, one of the marks he, at a later point, notes of the increasing excitement is that ‘‘soothsayers (xpnouodoyot) were repeating oracles (jdov xpnopyotls) of the most different kinds, which all found in some one or other enthusiastic listeners.’’ 7? On a casual glance the distinction appears to lie on the surface of the former passage that oyia are oracles in prose and xpyouol oracles in verse: and so the scholiast 7! on the passage, followed by Suidas * defines. But it is immediately obvious on the most cursory glance into Greek literature that the distinction thus suggested will not hold. The xpyopot are, to be sure, commonly spoken of as sung; and the group of words xpynouq@ddos, xpnouwoéw, xpno-Mwola, XpnoUwonua, xpnouwdons, Xpnoumdrkos, witnesses to the intimate connection of the two ideas. But this arises out of the nature of the case, rather than out of any special sense attached to the word xpynopos: and accordingly, by the side of this group of words, we have others which, on the one hand, compound xpyoués with terms not implicative of singing (xenounyopew, xXpnouaryopns — xpnoModoTéw, xXpnopuoddrys, XPNTUOOOTHUA — XpnoLooyEw, XpNnTUoOYos, Xono“odoyla, xpno-MOoNOYLOV, XPNTMOAOYLKN, XPnoWorEoXNS — XpynopoTrowds), and, on the other hand, compound other words for oracles with words denoting singing (feomimdéw, Oeormiwdnua, Oeamiwdds). The fact
““Ant.,” vil. 68: xpnopol 7’ jdovro & moddots xwpios krA. Dio Cassius, 431, 66 and 273, 64, where we read of Aéya ravtota jderOo.
19 1. 8, Jowett’s translation (i. p. 99).
20 11. 21, Jowett’s translation (i. 109).
21 In Didot’s appendix, p. 416: Ady.a éore Ta Tapa Tod Oeod Neyoueva KaTadoyadnv: Xpnopol 6é oirives Euperpws A€yorTal, Deohopovpéevwy TaV NEYOrTWY.
22 Hd. Bekker, p. 666: Ady.a Ta apa Oeod eyoueva KaTadoyadnv, xpynopuol 5é oirives EupéeTpws EyovTa’ Oeohopovpevwy Tar eyovTwr.
is that, as J. H. Heinr. Schmidt “points out in an interesting discussion, the natural expression of elevated feeling was originally in song: so that the singer comes before the poet and the poet before the speaker. It was thus as natural for the ancients to say vati-cinium as it is for moderns to say Weis-sagung or sooth-saying: but as the custom of written literature gradually transformed the consciousness of men, their thought became more logical and less pictorial until even the Pythia ceased at last to speak in verse. Meanwhile, old custom dominated the oracles. They were chanted: they were couched in verse: and the terms which had been framed to describe them continued to bear this implication. Even when called éoyra, they prove to be ordinarily “in verse; and these also are said to be sung, as we read, for example, in Dio Cassius (431, 66 and 2738, 64): loy.a wavrota Héero. What appears to be a somewhat constant equivalence in usage of the two terms xpynopuds and Ndy.ov, spread broadly over the face of Greek literature, seems in any event to negative the proposed distinction. Nor does the passage in Thucydides when more closely examined afford any real ground for it. After all, loyva and xpyopot are not contrasted in this passage: the word xpynopot does not even occur in it. The stress of the distinction falls, indeed, not on the nouns, but on the verbs, the point of the remark being that oracles were scattered among the people by every possible method.” If we add that
23 In his ‘Handbuch der Lateinischen und Griechischen Synonymik”’ (Leipzig, 1889), § 21 (pp. 77-82).
24 So for example in Aristophanes’ “Knights” passim (see below) and in Porphyry’s collection of Oracles.
25 This is the explanation of Croiset in the very sensible brief note he gives on the passage in his attractive edition of Thucydides (Paris, Hachette & Cie., 1886): He says: ‘‘Aéya, oracles: according to the scholiast, oracles in prose in contrast with xpnowol or oracles in verse; but it may be seen in Aristophanes (‘‘ Knights,” 999-1002), that the two expressions were synonyms: the distinction bears here only on the manner in which these oracles were spread among the people; ééyorro signifies: they were hawked about from mouth to mouth, without the intervention of the diviners (ééyor7o in the plural, despite the neuter subject, because it is the idea of diversity that dominates, rather than an idea of collectivity; cf. Curtius
“Gr. gr.,” § 363, Rem. 1); #é0v is the appropriate word in speaking of xpnopuoddyou or oracle-deliverers whose business was to recite the prophecies in verse.”
the second zoAA4& is probably not to be resolved into zoXodsxpnopovs,° the xpyopols being derived from the xpnopwdoyot, but is to have loyca supplied with it from the preceding clause, the assumed distinction between ldoy.a and xpyopot goes up at once in smoke. Adéya alone are spoken of: and these Aoyea are said to be both spoken and sung.”
So easy and frequent is the interchange between the two terms that it seems difficult to allow even the more wary attempts of modern commentators to discriminate between them. These ordinarily turn on the idea that ddya is the more general and xpyoyuds the more specific word, and go back to the careful study of the Baron de Locella,”’ in his comment on a passage in(the later) Xenophon’s “Ephesiaca.”’ Locella’s note does indeed practically cover the ground. He begins by noting the interchange of the two words in the text before him. Then he offers the definition that oraculorum responsa are generically éy.a, whether in prose or verse, adducing the doyia radara of Eurip., “‘ Heracl.,’’ 406, and the hoy.ov mvbdxpynorov of Plutarch, “Thes.,’’ i. 55, as instances of loyra undoubtedly couched in verse; while versified oracles,
26 So still Franz Miller in his handy edition of this second book (Paderborn, 1886).
27 So Steup-Classen in the fourth edition of Classen’s ‘‘Second Book of Thucydides,’ brought out by Steup (Berlin, 1889). They say: ‘‘ééyovro: the unusual plural doubtless on account of the variety and diffusion of the Néya: cf. 5, 26, 2; 6, 62, 4. Adyca, according to the usage of the anaphora, is to be understood with moAXa in both instances (B. supposes the anaphora would require the prepositing of the noun, as I. 3; but there vedrns is emphasized by xai, which is not the case here with éya). ’EX€yovro: circulated by the mouth of the people, without fixed or metrical form, which would be given them or preserved for them by the xpyouoréyo. who were occupied professionally in the collection (hence — Aéyor) and interpretation of transmitted prophecies (cf. Herod. 7, 6, 142; Schémann, Gr. Alt., 23, 304). The distinction is between édéyorro and Féov, not the object of the Aéy.a.”
28 Pp. 152, 153 of his edition of the piece (Vienna, 1796). It is reprinted entire in Peerlkamp’s edition (Haarlem, 1818) with this addition by the later editor: “oyia Latinis interdum dictiones, dicta, sermones, et logia; cf. Heins. ad Ovid., Her. v. 33 et Observ. Misc. V. I. T. IL. p. 276. Apollodorus in Biblioth. saepe permutat Asya et xpnouots, qui quum scribit I, vi. §1, rots dé cots AdyLov liv mireris interpretem reddentem rumor erat inter deos. De discrimine éy:a inter et
xpenouols eadem jam ex Aristophane ejusque Schol. notarat Tresling. Adv. pag. 46, 47, addens L. Bos ad Rom. ii. 2 et Alberti Obs. Phil. pag. 298 seq.”
originally in hexameters and later in iambic trimeters are, specifically, xpyouot — whence xpnouwdéw is vaticinor, xpno-Mqmodia, vatrcinium, and xpnouwdos, vates. As thus the difference between the two words is that of genus and species, they may be used promiscuously for the same oracle. It is worth the trouble, he then remarks, to inspect how often Adytov and xXpnopuos are interchanged in the “Knights” of Aristophanes between verses 109 and 1224, from which the error of the scholiast on Thucydides, ii. 8, is clear and of Suidas following him, in making loyuor specifically an oracle in prose, and xpyopos One in verse. He then quotes Eustathius on the “Iliad,” ii. ver. 233, and on the “‘Odyssey,” i. ver. 1426; adduces the gloss, Aoy.ov, 6 xpyouds; and asks his readers to note what Stephens adduces from Camerarius against this distinction.” The continued designation by Greek writers of the prose Pythian oracles as xpnoyot is adverted to, Plutarch’s testimony being dwelt on: and relevant scholia on Aristophanes’ “Av’’., 960, and “Nub.,” 144, are referred to. It is not strange that Locella’s finding, based on so exhaustive a survey of the relevant facts, should have dominated later commentators, who differ from it ordinarily more by way of slight modification than of any real revision — suggesting that hoya, being the more general word, is somewhat less sacred; or somewhat less precise; *! or somewhat less ancient.®? The common difficulty with all these efforts to distinguish the two words is that there is no usage to sustain them. When the two words occur together it is not in contrast but in
29 Stephens (ed. Dindorf-Hase) merely adduces Camerarius’ testimony: ‘‘So Cam., adding that the discrimination of the grammarians is a false one, although the passage in Thucydides, i (sic.) [8] seems to agree with it.”
30 This seems to be what Haack (on Thucyd., ii. 8) means when he defines Oya as Auguria, presagia vatum, and xpycpoi as oracula deorum.
31 This seems the gist of Bredow’s view (on Thucyd., il. 8): “‘xenoues cum verbis xpav et xpetoOac oraculorum propriis cohaerens definite oraculum divinum vocatur; Adywov autem aperte generalius vocabulorum est, sermo ominosus, verbum faticidium quod non interrogatus vel deus, vel vates elocutus est.”” Poppo and Geeller ad loc. quote these views but add nothing of value to them.
32 Bouché-Leclercq seems almost inclined to revert to Eustathius’ statement and look upon Adyov as “‘an expression peculiar to the Attic dialect, as tpddarra (Herod., v. 63; ix. 93) is an Ionic expression”’ (op. cit., 11. 130, note 4).
apparently complete equivalence, and when loyov appears apart from xpyopds it is in a sense which seems in no way to be distinguishable from it. The only qualification to which this statement seems liable, arises from a faintly-felt suspicion that, in accordance with their etymological implications already suggested, xpyoyuds has a tendency to appear when the mind of the speaker is more upon the source of the ‘‘oracle’? and ldyiov when his mind is more upon its substance.
Even in such a rare passage as Eurip., “Heracl.,’”’ 406, where the two words occur in quasi-contrast, we find no further ground for an intelligible distinction between them:
“Yet all my preparations well are laid:
Athens is all in arms, the victims ready
Stand for the gods for whom they must be slain.
By seers the city is filled with sacrifice
For the foes’ rout and saving of the state.
All prophecy-chanters have I caused to meet,
Into old public oracles have searched,
And secret, for salvation of this land.®
And mid their manifest diversities,
In one thing glares the sense of all the same — They bid me to Demeter’s daughter slay,
A maiden of a high-born father sprung.”’ *4
And ordinarily they display an interchangeability which seems almost studied, it is so complete and, as it were, iterant. Certainly, at all events, it is good advice to follow, to go to Aristophanes’ “Knights” to learn their usage. In that biting play Demos — the Athenian people — is pictured as ‘“a Sibyllianizing old man”’ with whom Cleon curries favor by plying him with oracles,
doer 0€ xpnopuols’ O dé yépwy oiBvdAdG.*®
8 xpnouay 6’ aodods ravras eis & aXlcas HrevyEa Kal BEBNra Kal Kexpvupuéeva Oyta TWarad 7H SE YH owTHpra.
34 Way’s translation, 398 seq.
% Line 61. Blaydes says: “‘sensus est, senes enim oracula amat.”
Nicias steals rovs xpyopots from Cleon, and brings ror tepov xpnopov to Demosthenes, who immediately on reading it exclaims, & loyra! *° “De.: ’Q Adyra. Give me quick the cup! Nic.: Behold, what says the xpyoyués? Dem.: Pour on! Nic.: Is it so stated in the doyios? DemM.: O Bacis!’’ To cap the climax, the scholiast remarks on Noyia: ‘‘(uavreduara): he wonders when he reads tov xpyopuov.”’ Only a little later,’ Demosthenes is counseling the Sausage Vender not to “‘slight what the gods by rots loyiosr have given’’ him and receives the answer: ‘‘ What then says 6 xpyoyés?”’ and after the contents of it are explained the declaration, ‘‘I am flattered by 7a Noyia.’? As the dénouement approaches, Cleon and the Sausage Vender plead that their oracles may at least be heard (lines 960-961: ot xpyopuot). They are brought, and this absurd scene is the result: ‘‘CiEoN: Behold, look here — and yet I’ve not got all. 8. V.: Ah, me! I burst — ‘and yet I’ve not got all!’ Dmem.: What are these? CiEoN: Oracles (Aoyta). DeM.: All! CLEoN: Do you wonder? By Jupiter, I’ve still a chestful left. S. V.: And I an upper with two dwelling rooms. DEM.: Come, let us see whose oracles (of xpyopot) are these? CxEoN: Mine are of Bacis. Dzmm.: Whose are thine? S. V.: Of Glamis, his elder brother.’’ And when they are read they are all alike in heroic measure.
It is not in Aristophanes alone, however, that this equivalence meets us: the easy interchange of the two words 1s, we may say, constant throughout Greek literature. Thus, for example, in the “‘ Corinthiaca”’ of Pausanias (ii. 20, 10) an oracle is introduced as 76 Aoyov, and commented on as 6 xpnopos.*® In Diodorus Siculus, ii. 14,39 Semiramis is said to have gone
36 Line 120. Wheelwright’s translation is used throughout. 37 Line 194. 38 spdrepov dé Ere TOV AYaVA TOUTOY mpoecHnunver 7 IvOia, Kai 7d AdyLov Eire GAWS elre kal @s auveis €6NAwWGEY ‘ Hpddozos: “AXN Srav 7 OnrleLa Tov appevra VikKHoACa éEeXaon Kal K0dos & *Apyeiorow a&pnrat moAas ’Apyelwv audidpudeas Tore OnoeL. Ta pev és 7d Epyov Tay yuvakv éxovra Tod xpnouod radra Fv. In. v. 3, 1; Iv. 9, 4; ix. 37, 4 in like manner xpyopos is identified with wavrevya. 39 Bekker, i. 150.
to Ammon xpnoouevn TS O€@ Tepi THs idtas TeXeuTHS, and, the narrative continues, éyerat ab’TtH yevéobar Aoyrov. Similarly in Plutarch’s “De Defectu Orac.,”’ v.“we have the three terms TO xpnoTnpiov, TO hoy.ov and Ta mavTeta TadTa equated: in “De Mul. Virt.,”’ vii.*t the Aloyua are explained by what was éypno- 6y: in ““Questiones Romane,” xxi.” loyra came by way of a xpnouwoetv. In the “Ephesiaca” of the later Xenophon metrical pavrebwara are received, the recipients of which are in doubt what 7a Tov Oeot Novia can mean, until, on consideration, they discover a likely interpretation for the xpyouov that seems to meet the wish of the God who éuavretoaro.*
How little anything can be derived from the separate use of Aloytov to throw doubt on its equivalence with xpyopos as thus exhibited, may be observed from the following instances of its usage, gathered together somewhat at random: *
Herodotus, i. 64: ‘‘He purified the island of Delos, according to the injunctions of an oracle (é t&v Noyiwv)’’; 1. 120: “We have found even oracles sometimes fulfilled in unimportant ways (7r&v doyiwr évia)’’; iv. 178: ‘Here in this lake is an island called Phla, which it is said the Lacedzemonians were to have colonized according to an oracle (civ vicov Aaxedatmoviorst dace NOyLov etvat KTiaar)’’; vill. 60: ‘‘ Where an oracle has said that we are to overcome our enemies (kal loyov Eore Tav éxOpav xarirepbe)’’; vill. 62: “‘which the prophecies declare we are to colonize (ra Noyra Aeyer).”’ Aristophanes,‘ Vesp.,’’ 799: dpa ro xphua, Ta NOY’ ws wepatverat; ‘Knights,’ 1050, ravri redetoPar Ta AOL’ HON wor doxet. Polybius, vii. 30, 6: ‘‘ For the eastern quarter of Tarentum is full of monuments, because those who die there are to this day all buried within the walls, in obedience to an ancient oracle (kara Te Noytov apxatov).’’ Diodorus Siculus ap. Geog. Sync., p. 194 D(‘‘ Corpus Scriptorum Historie Byzantine,” 1. 366), ‘‘ Fabius says an oracle came to Atneas (Alveia yeveoOar Ady.ov), that a quadruped should direct him
4091, 412 D:
41 11. 247 D. droretpmpevor TOV Noyiwv. ’Expnabn yap abtrots:... #2 11. 268 E. amopbeyyeobat Noyra, Kai xpnoumdety rots EpowrGow:...
431. 6.
44 The word, as will be seen, is as old as Herodotus: on the other hand — if we may trust the indices — it does not seem to occur in Homer (Dunbar’s ‘‘Concordance” [to Odyssey ], Gehring’s ‘‘Index’’), Hesiod (Paulsen’s ‘‘Index’’), Plato
(Ast’s ‘‘Lexicon”’) or Aristotle, Xenophon or Sophocles.
to the founding of a city.” Alian, “Var. Hist.,” ii.41: “Moreover Mycerinus the Egyptian, when there was brought to him the prophecy from Budo (76 é Botrns wavretov), predicting a short life, and he wished to escape the oracle (76 ldyiov) ...”? Arrian, “Expedit. Alex.,” ii. 3, 14 (Ellendt., 1. 151): &s 70d Noyiouv rod émi rH Abce TOD Secuod EvuBEBnKdTOs; vii. 16, 7 (Ellendt., ii. 419), ““But when Alexander had crossed the river Tigris with his army, pushing on to Babylon, the wise men of the Chaldeans (Xaddaiwy of Adyor) met him and separating him from his companions asked him to check the march to Babylon. For they had an oracle from their God Belus (Aéy.ov éx Tod Geod Tod Bydov) that entrance into Babylon at that time would not be for his good. But he answered them with a verse (éros) of the poet Euripides, which runs thus: ‘The best uavris is he whose conclusion is good.’”’ Plutarch, “Non posse suaviter vivi,” etc., 24 (1103 F.): “What of that? (quoth Zeuxippus). Shall the present discourse be left imperfect and unfinished because of it? and feare we to alledge the oracle of the gods (76 hoyov mpdos ’Eixovpov deyovres) when we dispute against the Epicureans? No (quoth I againe) in any wise, for according to the sentence of Empedocles, ‘A good tale twice a man may tell, and heare it told as oft full well’;” “Life of Theseus,” § 26 (p. 12 C, Didot, p. 14), “He applied to himself a certain oracle of Apollo’s (Ady.6v re rvddxpnorov)”’ § 27 (p. 12 E, Didot, p. 14): “At length Theseus, having sacrificed to Fear, according to the oracle (card rv Ady.ov)’’; ““Life of Fabius,”’ § 4 (Didot, p. 210), ’Exuw7Onoav 6€ tore rodXal Kal TSv aroppyATwy Kal xpnolwv avtots BiBAwy, ds DuBvddelous Kadodaou’ Kal NEyeTat gvVdpapeEty Evia TOV aTOKELMevWY ev alTats Noyiwy mpos Tas TUXAS Kal Tas Tpdtes Exeivas. Pausanias, “Attica’’ [I. 44, 9] (taken unverified from Wetstein): 6icavtos Aiaxod Kata 64 Te NOyov 7H TlavedAnviw Act. Polyzenus, p. 37 (Wetstein) [I, 18]: 6 beds éxpnoe — of rodeuor TO NOYLOV €iddTES — TOU Aoyiov TeEmAnpwuevov; p. 347 (IV, 3, 27], jv dé Adycov ’AdANwvos. Aristeas, p. 119 (Wetstein): ebxapioT& per, avipes, butv, TH 6€ drooTElAavTe MaNAOV” eEYLO-~ Tov O€ TH Dew, ovTLVOS EgTL TA NOYLA TAUTA.
A survey of this somewhat miscellaneous collection of passages will certainly only strengthen the impression we derived from those in which édy.ov and xpnopyos occur together — that in loy.ov we have a term expressive, in common usage at least, of the simple notion of a divine revelation, an oracle, and that independently of any accompanying implication of length or brevity, poetical or prose form, directness or indirectness of delivery. This is the meaning of ldyrov in the mass of profane Greek literature. As we have already suggested, the matter of the derivation of the word is of no great importance to our inquiry: “but we may be permitted to add that the usage seems distinctly favorable to the view that it is to be regarded rather as, in origin, the neuter of Aoytos used substantively, than the diminutive of Aoyos. No implication of brevity seems to attach to the word in usage; and its exclusive application to ‘‘oracles’’ may perhaps be most easily explained on the supposition that it connotes fundamentally ‘‘a wise saying,’ and implies at all times something above the ordinary run of ‘‘ words.’’ *
II. It was with this fixed significance, therefore, that the word presented itself to the Jews of the later centuries before Christ, when the changed conditions were forcing them to give a clothing in Greek speech to their conceptions, derived from the revelation of the old covenant; and thus to prepare the way for the language of the new covenant. The oldest monument of Hellenistic Greek — the Septuagint Version of the Sacred Books, made probably in the century that stretched between 250 and 150 B.C. — is, however, pecullarly ill-adapted to witness to the Hellenistic usage of this word. As lay in the nature of the case, and, as we shall see later, was the actual fact, to these Jewish writers there were no ‘‘oracles”’ except what stood written in these sacred books themselves, and all that stood written in them were “‘ oracles of God.” In a translation of the books themselves, naturally this, the most significant Hellenistic application of the word 46 Dr. Addison Alexander, with his usual clearness, posits the alternative admirably (on Acts vii. 38): ‘‘The Greek word (Aéya) has been variously explained as a diminutive of (Adyos) word, meaning a brief, condensed and frequent utterance; or as the neuter of an adjective (Ady.os) meaning rational, profound, wise, and as a substantive, a wise saying.” It would seem difficult to rise from a survey of the classical usage without an impression that it justifies the latter derivation. This usage is stated with perfect accuracy by DeMoor (‘‘Com. in Marckii Compend.,” i. 13): 76 Adyeov ‘when used substantively may be considered as more emphatic than 76 pjua or even 6 ddyos: for this term means with the Greeks not any kind of word, but specifically an oracle, a divine response.”
“THE ORACLES OF GOD” ool
‘“‘oracles,’”’ could find little place. And though the term might be employed within the sacred books to translate such a phrase as, say, ‘‘the word of God,” in one form or another not infrequently met with in their pages, the way even here was clogged by the fact that the Hebrew words used in these phrases only imperfectly corresponded to the Greek word doyvov, and were not very naturally represented by it. Though the ordinary Hebrew verb for ‘‘saying’’? — -»x “7 — to which etymologically certain high implications might be thought to be natural, had substantival derivatives, yet these were fairly effectually set aside by a term of lower origin — “354 — which absorbed very much the whole field of the conception “word.” The derivatives of ~2x — “Rk, Ts, TTX, TEX! — in accordance with their etymological impress of loftiness or authority, are relegated to poetic speech (except “»x2, which
occurs only in Esther i. 15, ii. 20, ix. 32, and has the sense of commandment) and are used comparatively seldom. Nevertheless, it was to one of these that the Septuagint translators fitted the word déy.ov. To 753 they naturally consecrated the general terms )dyos, pnua, tpayua: while
47 It occurs, according to the Brown-Gesenius ‘‘Lexicon,”’ no less than 5287 times; according to Girdlestone (“Synonyms of the O. T.,” ed. 2, p. 205), it ‘“‘is generally rendered in the LXX. érw and Neyw.”’ There seems to be inherent in the word an undertone of loftiness or authoritativeness due possibly to its etymological implication of “prominence.” Its derivations are accordingly mostly poetical words designating a lofty speech or authoritative speech.
48 The verb, of doubtful origin, occurs according to Brown-Gesenius, 1142 times, and is generally rendered in the LXX. (Girdlestone, loc. cit.) Xladéw. The noun occurs 1439 times and is rendered “‘generally ldyos, sometimes pfua, and in 35 passages, mpadyua.”
49 There is also the poetic word bon and its derivative noun mr — a word ‘used in 30 passages, 19 of which are in Job and 7 in Daniel,” and rendered in the LXX. ddoyos and pjua (Girdlestone).
50 “Wak, “except in Josh. xxiv. 27 (E) used exclusively in poetry, 48 times, of which 22 are in Proverbs and 11 in Job” (Driver on Deut. xxxii. 1). T728 “only found in poetry (86 times, of which 19 are in Ps. exix.)”’ (Driver on Deut. xxxii. 2). M28, Lam. ii. 17 only. Y28/3, Esth. i. 15, ii. 20, ix. 32 only. On the general subject of their poetic usage see Green, ‘“‘General Introduction to the O. T.: The Text,” p. 19; Bleek, ‘‘Introduction to the O. T.,”’ E. T., i. 98; Havernick, ‘‘ Einleitung,” i. 172; Gesenius, ‘‘Geschichte der hebraischen Sprache,” p. 22, and “‘Lehrgebiude,” Register, p. 892; Vogel, ‘‘De Dialecto Poetica.”’
they adjusted ldy.ov as well as might be to 7x, and left to one side meanwhile its classical synonyms *! — except ywavreta and its cognates, which they assigned, chiefly, of course, in a bad sense, to the Hebrew cop in the sense of ‘“‘divination.”’
mmx is, to be sure, in no sense an exact synonym of hoy.ov. It is simply a poetical word of high implications, prevailingly, though not exclusively, used of the ‘‘utterances”’ of God, and apparently felt by the Septuagint translators to bear in its bosom a special hint of the authoritativeness or awesomeness of the ‘‘word”’ it designates. It is used only some thirty-six times in the entire Old Testament (of which no less than nineteen are in Ps. exix.), and designates the solemn words of men (Gen. iv. 23, ef. Isa. xxix. 4 bis., xxvill. 23, xxxll. 9; Ps. xvil. 6; Deut. xxxil. 2) as well as, more prevailingly, those of God. In adjusting éyor to it the instances of its application to human words are, of course, passed by and translated either by Noyos (Gen. iv. 23; Isa. xxix. 4 bis.; Isa. xxvill. 23, xxxii. 9), or pjua (Deut. xxxil. 2; Ps. xvii. 6). In a few other instances, although the term is applied to ‘‘words of God,” it is translated by Greek words other than hoyov (II Sam. xxii. 31, LX X. pjua, and its close parallel, Prov. xxx. 5, LXX. doyo., though in the other parallels, Ps. xii. 7, xviii. 31, the LX X. has Aédya; Ps. exix. [41 2, 154, where the LXX. has Noyos; in Ps. exxxvill. 2, the LX X. reads TO ay.ov cov, on which Bethgen remarks, 2m loc., that ‘‘ ayvov seems to be a corruption for éyov,”’ which is read here by Aquila and the Quinta). In the remaining instances of its occurrences, however — and that is in the large majority of its occurrences — the word is uniformly rendered by loyov
51 ypnouds, for example, which we have found the constant accompaniment of Aéyov in the classics and shall find always by its side in Philo, does not occur in the LXX. at all. The cognates xpnuarifw (Jer. xxxil. (25) 30, xxxill. (26) 2, xxxvi. (29) 28, xxxvil. (30) 2, xonuwariopés (Prov. xxiv. 69 (xxxi. 1), II Mace. il. 4), xonuatiornpt (I Kegs. viii. 6), are, however, found, and in their high sense. It is somewhat. overstrained for Delitzsch (on Heb. viii. 5, E. T., Vol. ii. 82) to say: ‘‘ The Septuagint word for the deliverance of a divine oracle or injunction is xpynuarifer (rovs Néyous) ruvl or rpds Twa: xpnuarifew is found in this sense only in the LXX.
(Deut. xxxili. 9; Ps. xii. 7 bis., xviii. 31, ev. 19, exix. 11, 38 41h), °7750,/58; 67, 76, 82) 103) 116, 128; 133) 140,7148..158, 162, 170, 172, exlvii. 15; Isa. v. 24). If there is a fringe of usage of sms thus standing outside of the use made of Aoy.ov, there is, on the other side, a corresponding stretching of the use made of éyov beyond the range of a7» — to cover a few passages judged by the translators of similar import. Thus it translates -4k in Num. xxiv. 4, 16; Ps. xviii. 15 [xix. 15], evi. [evii.] 11, and ss in Ps. exviii. [exix.] 25, 65, 107, 169, [exlvii. 8]; Isa. xxviii. 13; and it represents in a few passages ldyorv, a variation from the Hebrew, viz., Ps. exviii. [ cxix.]; Isa. xxx. 11, 27 bis. In twenty-five instances of its thirty-nine occurrences, however, it is the rendering of m7x.°? It is also used twice in the Greek apocrypha (Wis. xvi. 11; Sir. xxxvi. 19 [16]), in quite the same sense. In all the forty-one instances of its usage, it is needless to say, it is employed in its native and only current sense, of ‘oracle,’ a sacred utterance of the Divine Being, the only apparent exception to this uniformity of usage (Ps. xvii. 15 [ xix. 15 ]) being really no exception, but, in truth, significant of the attitude of the translators to the text they were translating — as we shall see presently.
What led the LXX. translators to fix upon mx as the nearest Hebrew equivalent to loyov,* we have scanty material for judging. Certainly, in Psalm cxix, where the word most frequently occurs, it is difficult to erect a distinction between its implications and those of 735 with which it seems to be freely interchanged, but which the LXX. trans-Jeremiah, A very rich body of illustrations for the New Testament usages (Luke ii. 26, Acts x. 22, Heb. viii. 5) might, however, be culled from Philo.
52 Tn some codd. but in the edd. we read, xara 76 €leds gov.
53 The passages are already enumerated just above.
54 The other versions add nothing of importance. At Ps. exix. 41 the ‘TVs rendered édeos by LX X.is rendered éyrov by Aq. and Th. In Ps. exxxvil. (¢xxxviii). 2 the 778 rendered by LXX. a&yov (though Bethgen remarks that this seems merely a corruption of Aéy.ov) is rendered Adyov by Aq. and Quinta. In Isa. xxxil. 9, the ‘T728 rendered in LXX. by dAéyou is given as Adyiov by Aq., a case quite parallel with Ps. xviii. 15 (xix. 15) in LXX. In Jer. viii. 9 the phrase 717“”7572 is rendered in Aq. by Adyrov.
lators keep reasonably distinct from it by rendering it prevailingly by ddoyos,* while equally prevailingly reserving Noytov for w7ex.°® Perhaps the reader may faintly feel even in this Psalm, that =» was to the writer the more sacred and solemn word, and was used, in his rhetorical variation of his terms, especially whenever the sense of the awesomeness of God’s words or the unity of the whole revelation of God” more prominently occupied his mind; and this impression is slightly increased, perhaps, in the case of the interchange of Noytov and dyos in the Greek translation. When we look beyond this Psalm we certainly feel that something more requires to be said of ss than merely that it is poetic.® It is
very seldom applied to human words and then only to the most solemn forms of human speech — Gen. xxiv. 23 (LXX., Noyor); Deut. xxxii. 2 (LXX., pnua); Ps. xxvii. (LXX., pjua); ef. Isa. xxix. 4 bis (LXX., Novyor) where the speaker is Jerusalem whose speech is compared to the murmuring of familiar spirits or of the dead, and Isa. xxviil. 23, xxxil. 9, where the prophet’s word is in question. It appears to suggest itself naturally when God’s word is to receive its highest praises
5 The statistics of this Psalm are: ‘TY28 is used 19 times: being translated by oyov 17 times, viz., at verses 11, 38, 50, 58, 67, 76, 82, 103, 115, 123, 133, 140, 148, 158, 162, 170, 172; at v. 41 it is translated 76 €leos, though some codices read Tov Aoyov and some 76 Adytov; at v. 154 it is translated by Adyov. 137 is used 23 times: being translated by Adyos 15 times, viz., at verses 9, 16, 17, 28, 42, 48, 49, 74, 81,
89, 101, 130, 147, 160, 161; by Aéyiov 4 times, viz., at verses 25, 65, 107, 109; by.
évroln twice, viz., at verses 57, 1389; by véuos at v.105, and by dads at v. 114 (though some cod. read Adyor or Adyos). Adyeov is used 23 times: being the translation of ‘TVa8 17 times, viz., at. verses 11, 38, 50, 58, 67, 76, 82, 103, 115, 123, 133, 140, 148, 158, 162, 170, 172; of “27 4 times (25, 65, 107, 169); of 77 once (124) and of DAWN once (149). Adyos is used 17 times: being the translation of “37 15 times, viz., at verses 9, 16, 17, 28, 42, 43, 49, 74, 81, 89, 101, 180, 147, 160, 161 and of ‘a8 once (154, cf. 41), while once (42a) it is inserted without warrant from the Hebrew.
56 Delitzsch on v. 9 seg.: ‘The old classic (e. g., xvili. 31), JTS alternates throughout with 7727; both are intended collectively.’’ Perowne on v. 11: ‘‘Worp, or rather ‘saying,’ ‘speech,’ distinct from the word employed, for instance, in v. 9. Both words are constantly interchanged throughout the Psalm.”
57 Delitzsch on v. 145-152: “1188 is here as in verses 140, 158, the whole Word of God, whether in its requirements or its promises.”
°8 Driver on Deut. xxxii. 2: “Only found in poetry (36 times, of which 19 are in Ps. 119); cf. Isa. xxviii. 23, xxxii. 9.”
*? On this passage cf. Konig, ‘‘ Offenbarungsbegriff,’’ ii. 149, 150.
ee eee”/ fates LPS xin gexvills 3 lst Provex sxe we seCKe x Vill: 2), or when the word of Jehovah is conceived as power or adduced in a peculiarly solemn way (Ps. exlvii. 18 ®; Isa. v. 24). Perhaps the most significant passage is that in Psalm ev. 19, where the writer would appear to contrast man’s word with God’s word, using for the former 133 (LX X., lovyos) and for the latter ~7»x (LXX., loyov): Joseph was tried by the word of the Lord until his own words came to pass.* Whatever implications of superior solemnity attached to the Hebrew word 77x, however, were not only preserved, but emphasized by the employment of the Greek term dy.ov to translate it — a term which was inapplicable, in the nature of the case, to human words, and designated whatever it was applied to as the utterance of God. We may see its lofty implications in the application given to it outside the usage of =t»xs — in Num. xxiv. 4, for example, where the very solemn description of Balaam’s deliverances — ‘‘oracle of the hearer of the words of God” (5x~>x) — is rendered most naturally dyoiv dxobwv Noyra iaxupov. Here, one would say, we have the very essence of the word, as developed in its classical usage, applied to Biblical conceptions: and it is essentially this conception of the ‘‘unspeakable oracles of God”’ (Sir., xxxvi. 19, [16 ]) that is conveyed by the word in every instance of its occurrence.
An exception has been sometimes found, to be sure, in Ps. xviii. 15 (xix. 14), inasmuch as in this passage we have the words of the Psalmist designated as 7a Noyia: “‘ And the words (7a Noya) of my mouth and the meditation of my heart shall be continually before thee for approval, O Lord, my help and my redeemer.” In this passage, however — and
60 ‘The God of Israel is the Almighty Governor of nature. It is He who sends His fiat (178 after the manner of the V8”! of the history of creation, cf. xxxiii. 9), earthward. ... The word is His messenger (cf. in cvii. 20), etc.’ Delitzsch, in loc.
6t It seems certainly inadequate to render ‘Ta8 by ‘‘saying,” as is very frequently done, e. g., by Dr. John DeWitt in his “‘ Praise Songs of Israel” (we have only the first edition at hand), by Dr. Maclaren in the cxix. Psalm (“Expositor’s Bible’’) and by Dr. Driver at Ps. cv. 19; cf. exlvii. 15 seg. This English word suggests nothing of the lofty implications which seem to have attached to the Hebrew term.
in Isa. xxxil. 9 as rendered by Aquila, which is similar — we would seem to have not so much an exception to the usage of 7a Adyta as otherwise known, as an extension of it. The translators have by no means used it here of the words of a human speaker, but of words deemed by them to be the words of God, and called 7a éyta just because considered the ‘‘tried words of God.’ This has always been perceived by the more careful expositors. Thus Philippi writes:
“Psalm xix. 14 supplies only an apparent exception, since ra oyta TOD crduaros wou there, as spoken through the Holy Spirit, may be regarded as at the same time, Adyra Beod.”
And Morrison:
“In Psalm xix. 15 (14) the term thus occurs: ‘let the words of my mouth (7a Adyla ToD cTOmaTos wou = “B78, from Wk), and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer.’ But even here the term may be fitly regarded as having its otherwise invariable reference. The Septuagint translator looked upon the sacred writer as giving utterance in his Psalm — the words of his mouth — to diviner thoughts than his own, to the thoughts of God Himself. He regarded him as ‘moved’ in what he said, ‘by the Holy Ghost.’’’ *
In a word, we have here an early instance of what proves to be the standing application of ta loyra on Hellenistic lips — its application to the Scripture word as such, as the special word of God that had come to them. The only ground of surprise that can emerge with reference to its use here, therefore, is that in this instance it occurs within the limits of the Seriptures themselves: and this is only significant of the customary employment of the term in this application — for, we may well argue, it was only in sequence to such a customary employment of it that this usage could intrude itself thus, unobserved as it were, into the Biblical text itself.
62 On Rom. iii. 2.
6& On Rom. iii. 2 (pp. 14, 15).
6 Possibly Bleek in loc. Heb. v. 12 means the same thing when he says the word stands here of ‘‘the inspired religious song of the poet.”
It is scarcely necessary to do more than incidentally advert to the occasional occurrence of loytov = doyetov in the Septuagint narrative, as the rendering of the Hebrew jun, that is, to designate the breastplate of the high priest, which he wore when he consulted Jehovah.® Bleek writes, to be sure, as follows:
“How fully the notion of an utterance of God attended the word according to the usage of the Alexandrians too is shown by the circumstance that the LX X. employed it for the oracular breastplate of the High Priest (jn), Ex. xxviii. 15, 22 seg., xxix. 5, xxxix. 8 seq.; Lev. vii. 8; Sir. xlv. 12, for which doyetov, although found in Codd. Vat. and Alex., is apparently a later reading; Néyov, to which the Latin translation rationale goes back, has also Josephus, ‘‘ Ant.,’’ 11. 7, 5, for it: éoonvns (WM) wer Kadetrat, onuaiver 6€ TodTO KaTa THY ‘EAANVOY yA@rrav Noytov; c. 8, 9: Bev “EXAnVEs ... TOV EcaoHvynY NOYLoV Kadovau; viii. 3, 8. And similarly apparently Philo, as may be inferred from his expositions, in that he brings it into connection with ldyos, reason, although with him too the reading varies between the two forms: see “Legg. Allegor.,’’ ii. 40, p. 83, A. B.; § 43, p. 84, C. ‘Vit. Mos.,” iow OF 0.4871 2)-p.. 672,517,813). p67) A. De Monarch: ,% ll. 5, p. 824 A.”
It is much more probable, however, that we have here an itacistic confusion by the copyists, than an application by the Septuagint translators of éy.ov to a new meaning. This confusion may have had its influence on the readers of the LXX., and may have affected in some degree their usage of the word: but it can have no significance for the study of the use of the word by the LXX. itself.
III. Among the readers of the Septuagint it is naturally to Philo that we will turn with the highest expectations of light on the Hellenistic usage of the word: and we have already seen Bleek pointing out the influence upon him of the
6 lix. xxviii. 15, 22, 23, 24, 24, 26, xxix. 5, 5 A. R., xxxv. 27, xxxvi. 15, 16, 22, 24, 25, 27, 29, 29; Lev. viii. 8, 8; Sir. xlv. 10. Also in Aq.: Ex. xxv. 6 (7), xxvill. 4, xxxv. 9. In Sm.: Ex. xxviii. 4, 28. In Th.: Ex. xxv. 6 (7), xxviii. 4, 23, 23, xxvii.
24, 26, 28, xxxv. 9.
66 Hebrews, pp. 115, 116, note.
LXX. use of loy.ov = Aoyetov. Whatever minor influence of this kind the usage of the Septuagint may have had on him, however, Philo’s own general employment of the word carries on distinctly that of the profane authors. In him, too, the two words xpnopos and loywov appear as exact synonyms, interchanging repeatedly with each other, to express what is in the highest sense the word of God, an oracle from heaven. The only real distinction between his usage of these words and that of profane authors arises from the fact that to Philo nothing is an oracle from heaven, a direct word of God, except what he found within the sacred books of Israel.*’ And the only confusing element in his usage springs
67 It is not intended to deny that Philo recognized a certain divine influence working beyond the limits of Scripture: but he does this without prejudice to his supreme regard for the Scriptures as the only proper oracles of God. At the opening of the tractate ‘‘Quod Omn. Prob. Lib.” (§ 1, M. 444, 445), he gives expression in the most exalted terms to his appreciation of the value of Greek thought: the Pythagoreans are a most sacred brotherhood (iepwraros diacos) whose teachings are kada, and all men who have genuinely embraced philosophy (¢iAocodiavy yrunciwsnomwacavro) have found one of their Aéyou a Oecpuov icobuevov xpnoud. Elsewhere he speaks of Parmenides, Empedocles, Zeno and Cleanthes and their like as “‘divi homines” constituting a “‘sacer coetus” (“‘ De Prov.,’’ §48), who did not cast their teachings in verse only because it was fitting that they should not be quite gods (“De Prov.,”’ § 42). But even here the xpnouds is the standard to which their teaching is only likened: with all their wisdom they fall short of deity; and it is the utterance of deity alone which is ‘‘oracular’”’ — and this utterance is discernible only in the Scriptures of the Jews. We venture to quote here the statements of Prof, James Drummond (“Philo Judzus,”’ i. pp. 13 seq.): The Scriptures “‘ were the ‘oracles,’ the ‘sacred’ or ‘divine word,’ whose inspiration extended to the most minute particulars. Philo distinguishes indeed different kinds of inspiration, but the distinction did not affect its divine authority.. .. Communion between God and man is among the permanent possibilities of our race; and Philo goes so far as to say that every good and wise man has the gift of prophecy, while it is impossible for the wicked man to become an interpreter of God (‘‘Quis rer. div. heres.” 52 [1. 510]). It is true that he is referring here primarily to the good men in the Scriptures, but he seems to regard them as representatives of a general law. He did not look upon himself as a stranger to this blessed influence, but sometimes ‘a more solemn word’ spoke from his own soul, and he ventured to write down what it said to him (‘‘Cherubim,” 9 [i. 143 ]). In one passage he fully records his experience (“‘Migrat. Abrah.,” 7 [i. 441]).... Elsewhere he refers to the suggestions of the Spirit which was accustomed to commune with him unseen (‘‘ De Somniis,” ii. 38 [i. 692]).. .. But he ascribed to the Biblical writers a fullness of this divine enthusiasm, and consequent infallibility of utterance, which he claimed for no others.”
from the fact that the whole contents of the Jewish sacred books are to him ‘‘oracles,’”’ the word of God; so that he has no nomenclature by which the oracles recorded in the Scriptures may be distinguished from the oracles which the Scriptures as such are. He has no higher words than Ndoyov and xpyopuos by which to designate the words of God which are recorded in the course of the Biblical narrative: he can use no lower words than these to designate the several passages of Scripture he adduces, each one of which is to him a direct word of God. Both of these uses of the words may be illustrated from his writings almost without limit. A few instances will suffice.
In the following, the ‘‘oracle’’ is a ‘‘word of God”’ recorded in the Scriptures °°:
‘For he inquires whether the man is still coming hither, and the sacred oracle answers (daoxpiverat 76 loyuov), ‘He is hidden among the stuff’ (I Sam. x. 22)” (“De Migrat. Abrah.,” § 36, pp. 418 E). “‘ For after the wise man heard the oracle which being divinely given said (Oeartabevtos Noyiou TovovTov) ‘Thy reward is exceeding great’ (Gen. xv. 1), he inquired, saying.... And yet who would not have been amazed at the dignity and greatness of him who delivered this oracle (rod xpnou@ dovvros) 2?” (‘Quis rer. div. her.,” §1, pp. 481 D). “And he (God) mentions the ministrations and services by which Abraham displayed his love to his master in the last sentence of the divine oracle given to his son (dxporedebriov Aoyiov Tod xpynaGevros adtod 7 viet) (““Quis rer. div. her.,”’ § 2, pp. 482 E). “To him (Abraham), then, being conscious of such a disposition, an oracular command suddenly comes (eomiferat Adyov), Which was never expected (Gen. xxi. 1)... and without mentioning the oracular command (76 loyov) to anyone ...” (“De Abrah.,” § 32, P., p. 373 E). “[Moses] had appointed his brother high-priest in accordance with the will of God that had been declared unto him (xara 74 xpnoO@v7a NOyta”’) (“De Vita Moysis,’’ ili.
68 Yonge’s translation (in Bohn’s Ecclesiastical Library) is made use of in these citations. The paging of Mangey is often given and sometimes that of the Paris edition: but the edition of Richter is the one that has been actually used. The shortcomings of Yonge’s translation (cf. Edersheim’s article, “‘ Philo,” in Smith and Wace’s ‘“‘ Dictionary of Christian Biography,” iv. 367 A, note o), will be evident to the reader; but when important for our purpose will be correctable from the Greek clauses inserted.
21, P., p. 569 D). “Moses... being perplexed... besought God to decide the question and to announce his decision to him by an oracular command (xpyoue). And God listened to his entreaty and gave him an oracle (Adytov beorife). ... We must proceed to relate the oracular commands (Aéy.a xpnobévra). He says... (Num. ix. 10)” (“De Vita Moysis,” iii. 30, P., p. 687 D). “And Balaam replied, All that I have hitherto uttered have been oracles and words of God (Adya xal xpnopyot), but what I am going to say are merely the suggestions of my own mind. ... Why do you give counsel suggesting things contrary to the oracles of God (rots xpyouots) unless indeed that your counsels are more powerful than his decrees (Aoyiwv)?”’ (“De Vita Moysis,”’ i. 53, P., p. 647 D). “Was it not on this account that when Cain fancied he had offered up a blameless sacrifice an oracle (Adyrov) came to him? ... And the oracle is as follows (76 6€ Adyov Eore ToLdvde) (Gen. iv. 7)” (“De Agricult.,”’ § 29, M. i. 319). “And a proof of this may be found in the oracular answer given by God (76 fecmicbev loytov) to the person who asked what name he had: ‘I am that I am’” (“De Somniis,” i. § 40, M. 1, 655). ‘““But when he became improved and was about to have his name changed, he then became a man born of God (4pwros Geod) according to the oracle that was delivered to him (kara ro xpnobev ait@ Aoy.ov), ‘I am thy God’” (‘‘ De Gigant.,”’ § 14, M. 1, 271). “For which reason, a sacred injunction to the following purport (6.6 kai hoyov Expnoby 7B cod to.ovde) ‘Go thou up to the Lord, thou and Aaron,’ etc. (Gen. xxiv. 1.). And the meaning of this injunction is as follows: ‘Go thou up, O soul’” (“De Migrat. Abrah.,” § 31, M. 1, 462). ‘For which account an oracle of the all-merciful God has been given (Ady.ov Tod thew Oeod weordov Hueporyros) full of gentleness, which shadows forth good hopes to those who love instruction in these times, ‘I will never leave thee nor forsake thee’ (Jos. i. 5)” (“De Confus. Ling.,” § 32, M. i. 430). “Do you not recollect the case of the soothsayer Balaam? He is represented as hearing the oracles of God (Ady Jeov) and as having received knowledge from the Most High, but what advantage did he reap from such hearing, and what good accrued to him from such knowledge?” (““De Mutat. Nominum,” §37). “There are then a countless number of things well worthy of being displayed and demonstrated; and among them one which was mentioned a little while ago; for the oracle (76 Ady.ov) calls the person who was really his grandfather, the father of the practiser of virtue, and to him who was really his father it has not given any such title; for it says, ‘I am the Lord God of Abraham, thy Father’ (Gen. xxviii. 13), and in reality he was his grandfather, and, again, ‘the God of Isaac,’ not adding this time, ‘thy Father’ (“De Somniis,’ i. § 27).” “And there is something closely resembling this in the passage of Scripture (lt. the oracle: Td xpnobév Aoyrov) concerning the High Priest (Lev. xvi. 17)” (“De Somniis,”’ il. § 34).
On the other hand, in the following instances, the reference is distinctly to Scripture as such:
“And the following oracle given with respect to Enoch (76 xpnadev él “Evwx dOytov) proves this: ‘Enoch pleased God and he was not found’ (Gen. v. 24)” (“De Mutat. Nom.,”’ § 4).
It is a portion of the narrative Scriptures which is thus adduced.
“But let us stick to the subject before us and follow the Scripture (axodov0joavres TS Noyiw) and say that there is such a thing as wisdom existing, and that he who loves wisdom is wise’’ (do).
Here 70 loyuov is either Scripture in general, or, perhaps more probably, the passage previously under discussion and still in mind (Gen. v. 24).
““Maprupet 5€ wor Noytov 76 xpnobev eri Tod ’ABpadu 7o6e, ‘He came into the place of which the Lord God had told him; and having looked up with his eyes, he saw the place afar off (Gen. xxii. 9)’” (“De Somniis,’’ i. 11).
This narrative passage of Scripture is here cited as loy.ov 76 xpno lev.
‘This is a boast of a great and magnanimous soul, to rise above all creation, and to overleap its boundaries and to cling to the great uncreated God above, according to his sacred commands (xara ras lepas bWnyjoes) In which we are expressly enjoined ‘to cleave unto him’ (Deut. xxx. 20). Therefore he in requital bestows himself as their inheritance upon those who do cleave unto him and who serve him without intermission; and the sacred Scripture (Ady.ov) bears its testimony in behalf of these, when it says, ‘The Lord himself is his inheritance’ (Deut. x. 9)”’ (“De Congressu erud. grat.,’”’ § 24, p. 448).
Here the anarthrous loy.ov is probably to be understood of ‘a passage of Scripture’’ — viz., that about to be cited.
tod
“Moreover she (Consideration) confirmed this opinion of hers by the sacred scriptures (xpnopyots), one of which ran in this form (évl pep rouse — without verb) (Deut. iv. 4).... She also confirmed her statement by another passage in Scripture of the following purport (érépw roude Xpnous) (Deut. xxx. 15)... and in another passage we read (kal éy érépois) (Deut. xxx. 20). And again this is what the Lord himself hath said... (Lev. x. 3)... as it is also said in the Psalms (Ps. exiil. 25)... but Cain, that shameless man, that parricide, is nowhere spoken of in the Law (otéauod 7Hs vouobecias) as dying: but there is an oracle delivered respecting him in such words as these (4AAd kal oyov Eat Ex’ alt xpnobev roodrov): ‘The Lord God put a mark upon Cain’ (Gen. iv. 15)” (“De Profug.,”’ § 11, M. i. 555).
Here it is questionable whether ‘‘the Law” (7 vouoecia) is not broad enough to include all the passages mentioned — from Genesis, Leviticus and the Psalms — as it is elsewhere made to include Joshua (‘‘ De Migrat. Abrah.,”’ § 32, M. i, 464. See Ryle: p. xix). At all events, whatever is in this voyobecia is a xpynobev NOyrov: the passage more particularly adduced being a narrative one.
“After the person who loves virtue seeks a goat by reason of his sins, but does not find one; for already as the sacred Scripture tells us (ws dndot 7d Aoyuov), ‘It hath been burnt’ (Lev. x. 16) ... Accordingly the Scripture says (¢noatv oty 6 xpnouos) that Moses ‘sought and sought again,’ a reason for repentance for his sins in mortal life... on which account it is said in the Scripture (6.6 éyerar) (Lev. xvi. 20)”’ (“De Profug.,”’ § 28, M. i. 569).
Here 70 loytov seems to mean not so much a passage in Scripture as ‘‘Scripture”’ in the abstract: Lev. x. 16 not being previously quoted in this context. The same may be said of the reference of 6 xpyopds in the next clause and of the simple Aeyerar lower down — the interest of the passage turning on the entire equivalence of the three modes of adducing Scripture.
“This then is the beginning and preface of the prophecies of Moses under the influence of inspiration (rjjs kat’ évOovetacuov rpopyrelas Mwicéws). After this he prophesied (Gec7ifer) ... about food... being full of inspiration (éredcas).... Some thinking, perhaps, that what was said to them was not an oracle (ov xpyopots).... But the father established the oracle by his prophet (76 éyov rod rpodjrov). ... He gave a second instance of his prophetical inspiration in the oracle (Adyrov, anarthrous) which he delivered about the seventh day” (“De Vit. Moysis,”’ ui. 35 and 36).
“And the holy oracle that has been given (76 xpnobév oyiov = ‘the delivered oracle’; Ryle, ‘the utterance of the oracle’) will bear witness, which expressly says that he cried out loudly and betrayed clearly by his cries what he had suffered from the concrete evil, that is from the body” (‘‘ Quod det. pot. insid.,’”’ § 14, M. I., 200).
Here the narrative in Gen. iv, somewhat broadly taken, including vers. 8 and 10, is called ro xpyabev Noyrov.
“There is also something like this in the sacred scriptures where the account of the creation of the universe is given and it is expressed more distinctly (76 raparAnovov Kai év Tots epi THs TOD TavTos yevécEewsxpnabetor Novyiows TEpLexEeTaL OnwEerwoeoTepov). For it is said to the wicked man, ‘O thou man, that hast sinned; cease to sin’ (Gen. iv. 7)” (‘De Sobriet.,” § 10, M. 1, 400).
Here there is a formal citation of a portion of Scripture, viz., the portion “concerning the creation of the universe,’ which means, probably, the Book of Genesis (see Ryle’s “Philo and Holy Scripture,” p. xx); and this is cited as made up of ‘declared oracles,’’ év tots xpyoGetot Noylows. The Book of Genesis is thus to Philo a body of xpyaevra oyna.
‘And this is the meaning of the oracle recorded in Deuteronomy (rap’ 6 Kal NoyLov Ere ToOLoOvTOY avayeypaupevoy év Aevtepovopiw), ‘Behold
I have put before thy face life and death, good and evil’” (“Quod Deus Immut.,”’ § 10, M. i. 280).
Here the ‘‘oracle”’ is a ‘‘written”’ thing; and it is written in a well-known book of oracles, viz., in ‘‘ Deuteronomy,” the second book of the Law. This book, and of course the others like it, consists of written oracles.
“And the words of scripture show this, in which (é6ylo? 6€ 76 Adyov & @) it is distinctly stated that ‘they both of them went together, and came to the plain which God had mentioned to them (Gen. xxii. 3)’’ (‘De Migrat. Abrah.” § 30, M. 1. 462).
“And for this reason the following scripture has been given to men (616 AdyLov ExpHaby Tordvde), ‘Return to the land of thy father and to thy family, and I will be with thee’ (Gen. xxxi. 3)” (‘De Migrat. Abrah.,”’ § 6, M. i. 440).
Here, though the words are spoken in the person of God, the generalized use of them seems to point to their Scriptural expression as the main point.
‘““Moses chose to deliver each of the ten commandments (éxacrov Jeorrifew t&v deka Noyiwv) in such a form as if they were addressed not to many persons but to one” (“De Decem Oracul.,” zepi rav Aéxa Aoyiwv, § 10).
‘“And the sacred scripture (éyrov, anarthrous) bears its testimony in behalf of this assertion, when it says: ‘The Lord himself is his inheritance’ (Deut. x. 9)” (“De Congr. Erud. Grat.,” § 24, M. i. 538).
“For there is a passage in the word of God (Ady.ov yap éorw) that... (Lev. xxvi. 3)” (“De praem. et poen.,” § 17, M. ii. 424).
Both classes of passages thus exist in Philo’s text in the greatest abundance — no more those which speak of words of God recorded in Scripture as loyra than those which speak of the words of Scripture as such as equally Aoy.a. Nor are we left to accord the two classes of passages for ourselves. Philo himself, in what we may call an even overstrained attempt at systematization, elaborately explains how he distinguishes the several kinds of matter which confront him in Scripture. The fullest statement is probably that in the “De Vita Moysis,”’ iii, 23 (Mangey, ii, 163). Here he somewhat artificially separates three classes of ‘‘ oracles,” all having equal right to the name. It is worth while to transcribe enough of the passage to set its essential contents clearly before us. He is naturally in this place speaking directly of Moses — as indeed commonly in his tracts, which are confined, generally speaking, to an exposition of the Pentateuch: but his words will apply also to the rest of the ‘‘ sacred books,”’ which he uniformly treats as the oracles of God alike with the Pentateuch.® He writes:
69 Cf. on this matter Edersheim in Smith and Wace’s ‘‘ Dictionary of Christian Biography,” art. “Philo” (Vol. iv. pp. 386, 387): The only books ‘‘of which “Having shown that Moses was a most excellent king and lawgiver and high priest, I come in the last place to show that he was also the most illustrious of the prophets (xpody7&v). Iam not unaware, then, that all the things that are written in the sacred books are oracles delivered by him (as rdvra eiol xpnopuol boa & rats iepats BiBdousavayeypamta: xpnobevres dv abrov): and I will set forth what more particularly concerns him, when I have first mentioned this one point, namely, that of the sacred oracles (r&v Aoyiwv) some are represented as delivered in the person of God by His interpreter, the divine prophet (éx mpoowmou Tod Beod du’ épunyéws tod Oeiov rpophjrov), while others are put in the form of question and answer (é« zebcews kal dmoxpioews éGecriaOy), and others are delivered by Moses in his own character, as a divinely prompted lawgiver possessed by divine inspiration (éx mpocwrov Mwicéws éerberdoavtos kal €€ alto KatacxeEvTos).
“Therefore all the earliest [Gr. rpra = the first of the three classes enumerated] oracles are manifestations of the whole of the divine virtues and especially of that merciful and boundless character by means of which He trains all men to virtue, and especially the race which is devoted to His service, to which He lays open the road leading to happiness. The second class have a sort of mixture and communication (uiéy Kal kowwviav) in them, the prophet asking information on the subjects as to which he is in difficulty and God answering him and instructing him. The third sort are attributed to the lawgiver, God having given him a share in His prescient power by means of which he is enabled to foretell the future.
‘Therefore we must for the present pass by the first; for they are too great to be adequately praised by any man, as indeed they could
it may with certainty be said that they are not referred to by Philo, are Esther and the Song of Solomon. The reference to Ecclesiastes is very doubtful, much more so than that to Daniel (p. 387 a).” Cf. also Ryle, ‘‘Philo and Holy Scripture,” pp. 16-35: “It is abundantly clear that to Philo the Pentateuch was a Bible within a Bible, and that he only occasionally referred to other books, whose sanctity he acknowledged, as opportunity chanced to present itself” (p. 27). Cf. also Ewald, “‘ History of Israel,” E. T., vii. 204, 205: ‘‘ Although he uses, and generally in the order in which they are now found in the Hebrew Canon, the other books much less gradatim than the Pentateuch, their authors are, nevertheless, considered by him as of equal holiness and divinity with Moses, and inasmuch as from his whole view and treatment of the Scriptures, he can attribute but little importance to their authors as authors, or to their names and temporal circumstances, he likes to call them all simply friends, or associates, or disciples of Moses, or prefers still more to quote the passage to which he refers simply as a sacred song, sacred word, etc.” “It is only the books which we now find collected in the scarcely be panegyrized worthily by the heaven itself and the nature of the universe; and they are also uttered by the mouth, as it were, of an interpreter (kal dws Aeyerar woavel dv’ Epunvews). But (6é) interpretation and prophecy differ from one another. And concerning the second kind I will at once endeavor to explain the truth, connecting with them the third species also, in which the inspired character (tOoverbes) of the speaker is shown, according to which he is most especially and appropriately looked upon as a prophet.””
A somewhat different distribution of material — now from the point of view, not of mode of oracular delivery, but of nature of contents — is given at the opening of the tract “De prem. et poen.”’ (§ 1, init.):
“We find then that in the sacred oracles delivered by the prophet Moses (7p 61a 700 tpodjtrov Mwicéws Aoviwv) there are three separate characters: for a portion of them relates to the creation of the world, a portion is historical, and the third portion is legislative.”
Hebrew Canon which he regarded as holy, and he was both sufficiently learned and careful not to rank all the others which were at that time gradually appended to the Greek Bible upon an equality with them.” Cf. also Lee, “‘The Inspiration of Holy Scripture,” pp. 69, 70.
70 Compare Ewald, ‘‘ The History of Israel,” E. T., vii. 203, 204: ‘The sacred Scriptures are to Philo so immediately divine and holy, that he consistently finds in them simply the divine word rather than Scripture, and therefore really everywhere speaks less of the Sacred Scriptures than of divine oracles [xpyopol, Adyea of which they were wholly composed, or, when he desires to designate them briefly as a whole, of the sacred and divine Word, as if the same Logos, of whom he speaks so much elsewhere, were symbolized and incorporated in them for all time, as far as that is possible in a book [6 éepos, more rarely 6 Oetos Adyos, likewise 6 d6p0ds Néyos (e. g., 1. 8308, 27; 681, 17; cf. esp., ii. 163, 44) is the expression which he constantly uses in this case; cf. esp. i. 676, 37 seq.; 677, 12]. It is true that in the case of the general subject matter, of the Pentateuch for instance, he makes a certain distinction, inasmuch as some of the oracles come to the prophet, as a mere interpreter directly as from the presence and voice of God alone, while others are revealed to him by God in answer to his interrogations, and again others have their origin in himself when in an inspired state of mind. But he makes this threefold distinction simply because he found it in reading particular passages of the Bible, and not with a view of further reflecting upon it and drawing references from it. On the contrary, he regards and treats all the sentences and words of the Scripture as on a perfect equality and teaches expressly that sacred Scripture must be interpreted and applied, as forming even to its smallest particles, one inseparable whole (cf. esp. ‘‘ Auch.,’’ 11. 170, 212 seq.; in other respects, cf. i. 554, 14, and many other passages of a similar character ].”
Accordingly in the tract ‘‘ De Legat. ad Caium,”’ § 31 (Mangey, il. 577), we are told of the high esteem the Jews put on their laws:
“For looking upon their laws as oracles directly given to them by God Himself (Gedxpnora yap NOyra Tods vduous evar bToAauBavovres) and having been instructed in this doctrine from their earliest infancy, they bear in their souls the images of the commandments contained in these laws as sacred.”
By the side of this passage should be placed doubtless another from the “De Vita Contemplativa,”’ §3, since it appears that we may still look on this tract as Philo’s:
‘And in every house there is a sacred shrine... Studying in that place the laws and sacred oracles of God enunciated by the holy prophets (voyueus kal Aoyra SeomicbéevTa 61a tpodynTGv) and hymns and psalms and all kinds of other things by reason of which knowledge and piety are increased and brought to perfection.”’
It is not strange that out of such a view of Scripture Philo should adduce every part of it alike as a loyov. Sometimes, to be sure, his discrimination of its contents into classes shows itself in the formule of citation; and we should guard ourselves from being misled by this. Thus, for example, he occasionally quotes a loy.ov ‘‘from the mouth (or ‘ person’) of God’’ — which does not mean that Scriptures other than these portions thus directly ascribed to God as speaking, are less oracular than these, but only that these are oracles of his first class — those that ‘‘are represented as delivered from the person of God (€k zpoowzov tod Geov) by his interpreter, the divine prophet.”’ A single instance or two will suffice for examples:
‘And the sacred oracle which is delivered as”’ [dele “as”’] “from the mouth” [or “person’’] ‘“‘of the ruler of the universe (Noyov ék mTpocwrou beaTriabev TOU TaV dAwV Wyeudvos) Speaks of the proper name of God as never having been revealed to anyone “when God is repre-
71 The translation here is unusually expanded: the Greek runs Anno? dé kai X. e. 7.0.7. 7. &. 9. Tept TOD wedevt SednNABGBat Svoud Te abTov KUptov, KTV.
sented as saying, ‘For I have not shown them my name’ (Gen. Vi. 3)” (‘De Mutat. Nom.,” § 2). “And the oracles” (of xpyopoi which is a standing term for ‘the Scriptures’ in Philo) “bear testimony, in which it is said to Abraham ék rpocwzov 70d Geod (Gen. xvii. 1)” (ditto, § 5). “And he (Jeremiah the prophet) like a man very much under the influence of inspiration (are 7a woAda évOovo.dv) uttered an oracle in the character of God (xpnopdv riva ééel rev éx Tpoowrov Tod Geod) speaking in this manner to most peaceful virtue: ‘Hast thou not called me as thy house’ ete. (Jer. iii. 4)”’ (“De Cherub.,” § 14, M. i. 148).
The other oracles, delivered not €k mpoowzov Tov Geov but in dialogue or in the person of the prophet, are, however, no less oracular or authoritative. To Philo all that is in Seripture is oracular, every passage is a Aloy.ov, of whatever character or length; and the whole, as constituted of these oracles, is Ta NOyta, Or perhaps even 70 ldyrovy — the mass of logia or one continuous logion.
It is not said, be it observed, that Philo’s sole mode of designating Scripture, or even his most customary mode, is as Ta hoya. As has already been stated, he used ypynouds equally freely with loy.ov for passages of Scripture, and oi xXpyouwot apparently even more frequently than 7a éya for the body of Scripture. Instances of the use of the two terms interchangeably in the same passage have already been incidentally given.” A very few passages will suffice to illustrate his constant use of xpnoués and ot xpnopoi separately.
In the following instances he adduces passages of Scripture, each as a xpnopos:
“On this account also the oracle (6 xpnouds) which bears testimony against the pretended simplicity of Cain says, ‘You do not think as you say’ (Gen. iv. 15)” (“Quod det. potiori insid.,”’ § 45, M. i. 223). ‘And of the supreme authority of the living God, the sacred scripture is a true witness (6 xpnopuds adAnO7ys waptus) which speaks thus (Lev. xxv. 23)” (“De Cherub.,” § 31, M. i. 158). “For a man will come forth, says the word of God (¢nciv 6 xpynouos) leading a host and warring furiously, etc. (Num. xxiv. 7)” (“De Praem. et Poen.,” § 16, M. ii. 423). ““And the sacred scripture bears witness to this fact
72 “De Profug.,” §§ 11 and 28; ‘De Vita Moysis,”’ i. 53; iii. 23, 30, 35, 36.
(uaprupel 5€ 6 mepi ToOUTwWY xpnopds): for it says (Num. xxiii. 19)” (“De Migrat. Abrah.,” § 20, M. i. 454). “For though there was a sacred scripture (xpnopod yap dvros) that ‘There should be no harlot among the daughters of the seer, Israel’ (Deut. xxiii. 17)” (“De Migrat. Abrah.,”’ § 39, M. i. 472). “And witness is borne to this assertion by the scripture (uaprus 6€ kal xpyopuds) in which it is said: ‘I will cause to live,’ etc. (Deut. xxxii. 39)” (“De Somniis,” ii. 44, M. i. 698). “The oracle (6 xpnouds) given to the all-wise Moses, in which these words are contained” (“Quod det. pot. insid.,” §34, M. i. 215). “Which also the oracle (6 xpnouds) said to Cain” (do., § 21). “And I know that this illustrious oracle was formerly delivered from the mouth of the prophet (crduare 8 of6a wore rpodnrik® Oeomicbevraduamupov ro.dvie xpnopov), ‘Thy fruit,’ etc., (Hos. xiv. 9)” (“De Mutat. Nom.,”’ § 24, M. 11. 599). In this last case it is to be noticed that the “oracle” is taken from Hosea: the corresponding passage in ‘‘De Plant. Noe.,’’ § 33, M. 1, 350, should be compared: ‘“‘ And with this assertion, this oracle delivered by one of the prophets is consistent, etc. (Hos. xiv. 9) (rottTw kai rapa rie tv rpodyntdv xpynabev avvader T006€).””
Two other passages may be adduced for their inherent interest. The first from “De Profug.,”’ §32 (M. i. 573), where we read:
“There are passages written in the sacred scriptures (of avaypagevtes xXpnopot) which give proof of these things. What they are we must now consider. Now in the very beginning of the history of the law there is a passage to the following effect (Gen. i. 6) (aiderai rus év apxh Ths vouobecias weTa THY KoopoTottay ebObs ToLdcde).”’
Here there is a precise designation where, among “‘ the written xXpnopol,’’ a certain one (tts) of them may be found, viz., in the beginning of ‘‘The Legislation’? immediately after ‘‘ The Creation” (cf. Ryle, p. xxi, note 1). The other is from the first book of the “De Somniis,”’ § 27 (M. i. 646):
“These things are not my myth, but an oracle (xpyoyds) written on the sacred tables (é vats iepats avayeypaymevos orndats), For it says (Gen. xlvi. 1).”
This passage in Genesis is thus an oracle ‘‘written in the sacred tablets’? — and thus this phrase emerges as one of
Philo’s names for the Scriptures. Elsewhere we read somewhat more precisely:
‘““Now these are those men who have lived irreproachably and admirably, whose virtues are durably and permanently recorded as on pillars in the sacred scriptures (@v rds aperds év Tats lepwraras éornXLrevabar ypadats oupBeBnxev)’’ (“De Abrah.,” $1, M. 1. 2). ‘There is also in another place the following sentence (ypauua) deeply engraven (éornlcrevuévov), (Deut. xxxii. 8)’’ (“De Congr. Erud. Grat.,”’ § 12, Meebo):
The ‘‘Seriptures”’ thus bear to Philo a monumental character: they are a body of oracles written, and more — a body of oracles permanently engraved to be a lasting testimony forever.
The designations for Scripture in Philo are, indeed, somewhat various — such as lepal ypadat (“‘ Quis rerum div. heres,”’ § 32 M. i. 495); tepat Biro. (“Quod det. pot. insid.,’”’ § 44, M. i. 222); rots tepots ypaupacw (“Legat. ad Caium.,’” §29, M. ii. 574). But probably none are used so frequently as, on the one hand, ldyos, with various adjectival enhancements. — such as 6 mpodyrixds Novos (“‘ De Plantat. Noe,” § 28, M. i. 487), 6 Getos Ndyos (‘‘ Legg. Alleg.,” ili, §3, M. i. 89; “De Mutat. Nom.,”2 § 20:)°, DéySomniis, 1. 3350183 7) eee tepos Novos (“De Ebriet.,” § 36, M. i. 379; ‘“De Mut. Nominum,” -§ 38; “Dé Somniis,’” 4. 14, 22) 3335037, 50 ee ae 4,9, 37, etc.); and especially, on the other hand, ot xpnawpot, occurring at times with extraordinary frequency.” Some passages illustrative of this last usage are the following:
‘For the sacred Scriptures (of xpnoyot) say that he entered into the darkness”’ (“De Mutat. Nom.,” § 2). ‘But the sacred oracles (oi xXenopot) are witnesses of that in which Abraham is addressed (the words being put in the mouth of God), (& ots Neyerar 73 ’ABpadp éx Tpoowmov Tov Geov) (Gen. xvii. 1)”’ (do. § 5). “And these are not my
73 Philo’s designations of Scripture have been collected by Cl. Frees Hornemann, in his ‘‘Observationes ad illustr. doctr. de Can. V. T. ex. Philone”’ (1775); more briefly by Eichhorn in his ‘‘ Hinl. in d. A. Test.’’; and in a not altogether complete or exact list by Ryle, ‘Philo and Holy Scripture.”
“THE ORACLES OF GOD” ovl
words only but those of the most holy scriptures (xpnouev rv tepw-TaTwy, — anarthrous to bring out the quality in contrast to éuds dos), in which certain persons are introduced as saying...”’ (do. § 28). Of Isaiah xlviil. 22 it is said in do. § 31: Néyos yap dvrws Kal xpnopds éort Getos. “Accordingly the holy scriptures (of ypyoyot) tell us that...” (do. $36). ‘Therefore the sacred scriptures (of xpnopoi) represent Leah as hated”’ (do. § 44) ‘‘ For she is represented by the sacred oracles (Sua T&v xpnouav) as having left off all womanly ways (Gen. xviii. 12)” (“De Ebrietat.,”’ § 14, M. i. 365). ““On which account the holy scripture (of xpnouoi) very beautifully represent it as ‘a little city and yet not a little one’” (‘De Abrah.,” § 31, M. ii. 25). ‘Therefore the sacred scriptures (of xpnopot) say (Gen. xxiv. 1)” (“De Sobriet.,” § 4, M. 1. 395). “‘ According as the sacred scriptures (of xpynopot) testify, in which it is said (Ex. viii. 1)”’ (“De Confus. Ling.,”’ § 20, M. i. 419). “On which account it is said in the sacred scriptures (& xpyopots) (Deut. vii. 7)” (“De Migrat. Abrah.,’”’ § 11, M. i. 445). ‘“‘God having drawn up and confirmed the proposition, as the Scriptures (ot xpyopol) show, in which it is expressly stated that (Deut. xxx. 4)”’ (‘De Confus. Ling.,’”’ § 38, M. i. 435).
When we combine these passages with those in which Aoytov occurs it will probably not seem too much to say that the dominant method of conceiving the Bible in Philo’s mind was as a book of oracles. Whether he uses the word éyuov or Xpnopos, it is, of course, all one to him. Indeed, that nothing should be lacking he occasionally uses also other synonyms. For example, here is an instance of the Homeric word Oeompomov cropping out: “‘ For there is extant an oracle delivered to the wise man in which it is said (Lev. xxvi. 12), (kal yap éore xpynobev TS cohG Oeomporiov &v eyerar)”’ (“De Somniis,”’ i, §23). And this oracular conception of Scripture is doubtless the reason why it is so frequently quoted in Philo by the subjectless @yat, A€éyer, N€yerar (instead of, say, yéypamrar). There are in general, speaking broadly, three ways in which one fully accepting the divine origin and direct divine authority of Scripture may habitually look upon it. He may think of it as a library of volumes and then each volume is likely to be spoken of by him as a ypad7 and the whole, because the collection of volumes, as ai ypadai, or, when the idea of its unity is prominently in mind, as itself 7 ypady. On the other hand, the sense of its composite character may be somewhat lost out of habitual thought, swallowed up in the idea of its divine unity, and then its several sentences or passages are apt to be thought and spoken of as each a ypauua, and the whole, because made up of these sentences or passages, as Ta yoaupara. Or, finally, the sense of the direct divine utterance of the whole to the soul, and of its immediate divine authority, may overshadow all else and the several sentences or passages of the book be each conceived as an unmediated divine word coming directly to the soul — and then each passage is likely to be called a Aéyov or xpyopes, and the whole volume, because the sum of these passages, Ta Oya oF ot xXpnovot — or oécasionally, when its unity is prominently in mind, one great To éy.ov or 6 xpyouos. Each of these three ways of looking at the Scriptures of the Old Testament finds expression in Philo,“in Josephus and in the New Testament. But it is the last that is most characteristic of the thought of Philo, and the first possibly of the writers of the New Testament:” while perhaps we may suspect that the intermediate
74 As to ypadai, see ‘Quis rerum div. heres,” § 32 (Mangey, i. 495), rap’ 6 kal é& iepats ypadats deyerat; “De Abrah.,” §1 (M.ii. 2), ‘‘ Now these are those men who have lived irreproachably ... whose virtues are durably and permanently recorded as on pillars, & rats ieowraras ypadats.”’ As to ypdupya, ypaupara, see ‘De Congr. Erud. Grat.,” §12 (M.1. 527), “Eore 6é kal érépwht 76 ypdupa TodTO éornLTEVLEvov (Deut. xxxil. 8)”; “‘Quod Deus Immut.,” § 2 (M.i. 273), “‘ For in the first book of Kings (= I Sam. i. 20), she (Hannah) speaks in this manner: ‘I give him (Samuel) unto thee freely,’ the expression here used beirg equivalent to ‘I give him unto thee whom thou hast given unto me,’ kara 76 iepwtatrov Mwicéws ypauma rovto, ‘My gifts and my offerings, and my firstfruits, ye shall observe to offer unto me’”’; ‘“‘Legat. ad Caium,”’ § 29 (M. ii. 574), ‘‘ You have never been trained in the knowledge of the sacred Scriptures (ro?s iepots ypdupaow’’; ‘De Vita M.,” ili. 39; etc.
7% In the New Testament ypduya does not occur in the sense of a passage of Scripture — as indeed ra ypaupara occurs of Scripture only in II Tim. ui. 15, cf. John v. 47. The place of ypduua in this sense is taken in the New Testament by yeaon, though it is extreme to say with Lightfoot on Gal. iii. 22 (cf. Westcott on John ii. 22) that ypa¢y, always in the New Testament refers to a particular passage. On the other hand this use of ypa@q is far from peculiar to the New Testament as seems to be implied by Stephens (‘‘Thes.” sub. voc.). Not only does it occur familiarly in the Fathers, as e. g. (from Sophocles): Clems. Rom., ii. 2; Justin one was most congenial to the thought of Josephus, who, as a man of affairs and letters rather than of religion, would naturally envisage the writings of the Old Testament rather as documents than as oracles.
From this survey we may be able to apprehend with some accuracy Philo’s place in the development of the usage of the word doyov. He has received it directly from profane Greek as one of a series of synonyms — oy.ov, xpynouds, Peorpdmuor, etc. — denoting a direct word from God, an “‘oracle.”’ He has in no way modified its meaning except in so far as a heightening of its connotation was inseparable from the transference of it from the frivolous and ambiguous oracles of heathendom to the revelations of the God of Israel, a heightening which was, no doubt, aided by the constant use of’the word in the Septuagint — Philos Bible — to translate the Hebrew 77x with all its high suggestions. But in this transference he has nevertheless given it a wholly new significance, in so far as he has applied it to a fixed written revelation and thus impressed on it entirely new implications. In his hands, éycov becomes, by this means, a synonym of ypaupa, and imports ‘“a passage of Scripture’’ — conceived, of course, as a direct oracle from God. And the plural becomes a synonym of ra ypaumara, at ypadal, oi GiBdo., 6 Novos — or whatever other terms are used to express the idea of “the Holy Scriptures”’ — and imports what we call “the Bible,” of course with the implication that this Bible is but a congeries of ‘“‘oracles,’’ or
Mart., ‘‘Advs. Tryph.,” cc. 56, 65 (a very instructive case), 69, 71 (cf. Otto’s note here) and elsewhere; Clems. Alex., ‘‘Cohort ad Gentes.,” ix. ad init.: but also in Philo, as e. g., ‘‘De Praem. et Poen.,” § 11 near the end (M. ii. 418): ‘‘ Being continually devoted to the study of the Holy Scriptures both in their literal sense and also in the allegories figuratively contained in them (é rats pyrats ypadats cai & Tats brovoray addAnyopiats),”’ and ‘“‘Quis rerum div. her.,” §53 (M. 1. 511): “And the historian connects with his preceding account what follows in consistency with it, saying ... (76 dé a&kddovdov rpocvpaiver TH ypadh packwy).” Of course Philo sometimes uses % ypad7 in the non-technical sense also, of a human treatise: thus at the opening of ‘‘De Somniis”’ he refers to what was contained in the preceding treatise h pev obv mpd Tabrys ypady weptetxe). What is said in the text is not intended to traverse such facts as these, indicating other usages; but is meant only to suggest in a broad way what seems to be the primary distinction between the three usages; the subsequent development undergone by them is another story.
direct utterances of God, or even in its whole extent one great ‘‘oracle”’ or utterance of God — that it is, in a word, the pure and absolute “Word of God.’”’ But when we say that éy.ov is in Philo’s hands the equivalent of “‘a passage of Scripture,’’ we must guard against supposing that there is any implication of brevity attaching to it: its implication is that of direct divine utterance, not of brevity; and “the passage’’ in mind and designated by loywov may be of any length, conceived for the time and the purpose in hand as a unitary deliverance from God, up to the whole body of Scripture itself.”© Similarly ta loyra in Philo has not yet hardened into a simple synonym of “‘Scripture,’”’ but designates any body of the “oracles”? of which the whole Scripture is composed — now the “ten commandments,” now the Book of Genesis, now the Pentateuch, now the Jewish Law in general.”
There is little trace in Philo of the application made in the LX X. of Aéytov to the high priestly breastplate, by which it came to mean, not only the oracular deliverance, but the place or instrument of divination — though, quoting the LX X. as freely as he does, Philo could not help occasionally incorporating such a passage in his writings. We read, for example, in the ‘“‘ Legg. Allegor.,” iii, § 40 (M. i. 111):
“At all events the Holy Scripture (6 tepds Aoyos), being well aware how great is the power of the impetuosity of each passion, anger and appetite, puts a bridle in the mouth of each, having appointed reason (rov Noyov) as their charioteer and pilot. And first of all it speaks thus of anger, in the hope of pacifying and curing it, ‘And you shall put manifestation and truth’ [the Urim and Thummim ] ‘in the oracle of judgment (éri 76 Aoyrov TH Kpicewv) and it shall be on the breast of Aaron, when he comes into the Holy Place before the Lord’ (Ex.
76 Thus of the passage cited above: in “‘Quod det pot. insid.,” § 14, the reference is to the narrative of Gen. iv; in ‘‘De Vita Moysis,” iil. 35, to the whole legislation concerning food; in ‘‘ De Profug.,” § 28, and ‘“‘De Mutat. Nom.,” § 4, apparently to the whole Bible.
7 “Tye Decem Oraculis,” title and § 10; ‘‘De Sobrietate,” § 10; ‘‘De Praem. et Poen.,” § 1; ‘‘De Vita Moysis,” iii. § 23; ‘‘De Legat. ad Caium,” § 31; “De Vita Contemplativa,” § 3.
xxviil. 30). Nor by the oracle (Aéy.ov) is here meant the organs of speech which exist in us.... For Moses here speaks not of a random, spurious oracle (dyov) but of the oracle of judgment, which is equivalent to saying a well-judged and carefully examined oracle.”’
Thus Philo gradually transmutes the éy.iov = doyeltov of his text into the Ady.ov = xpynopeds of his exposition: and it is a little remarkable how little influence this LX X. usage has on his own use of the word. With him ldyror is distinctively a passage of Scripture, and the congeries of these passages make 7a oyna.
That this usage is not, however, a pecultwm of Philo’s merely, is evidenced by a striking passage from Josephus, in which it appears in full development. For example, we read:
“The Jews, by demolishing the tower of Antonia, had made their temple square, though they had it written in their sacred oracles (avayeypappevor ev Tots Noyiows) that their city and sanctuary should be taken when their temple should become square. But what most stirred them up was an ambiguous oracle (ypyoyos) that was found also in their sacred writings (év rots iepots ebvpnuévos ypdupacy) that about that time one from their country should become ruler of the world. The Jews took this prediction to belong to themselves, and many wise men were thereby deceived in their judgment. Now this oracle (76 ldyrov) certainly denoted the rule of Vespasian”’ (“De Bello Jud.,” vi. 5, 4).
In this short passage we have most of the characteristics of the Philonean usage repeated: here is the interchangeable usage of loyrov and xpyopods, on the one hand, and of 7a loyra and Ta ypamuata, on the other: the sacred writings of the Jews are made up of “‘oracles,’”’ so that each portion of them is a Aoytov and the whole 7a Adyra.
IV. That this employment of ra éyra as a Synonym of ait ypadat was carried over from the Jewish writers to the early Fathers, Dr. Lightfoot has sufficiently shown in a brief but effective passage in his brilliant papers in reply to the
78 Cf. the echo of Josephus’ language in Tacitus, “‘ Hist.,”’ v. 13: ‘‘ Pluribus persuasio inerat, antiquis sacerdotum litteris (= é rots tepots ypaupact) contineri, eo ipso tempore fore ut valesceret Oriens profectique Judea rerum potirentur. Quae ambages (= xpnouds dupiBoros = 7d A6yov) Vespasianum et Titum praedixerant.”
author of ‘Supernatural Religion.’’” It is not necessary to go over the ground afresh which Dr. Lightfoot has covered. But, for the sake of a general completeness in the presentation of the history of the word, it may be proper to set down here some of the instances of its usage in this sense among the earlier Fathers. Clement of Rome, after having quoted examples from the Scriptures at length, sums up the lesson thus: “The humility, therefore, and the submissiveness of so many great men, who have thus obtained a good report, hath through obedience made better not only us, but also the generations which were before us, even them that received his oracles in fear and truth” (c. 19); again (c. 53), “For ye know, and know well the sacred Scriptures (ras iepas ypadas), dearly beloved, and ye have searched into the oracles of God (Ta Nova TOD Beod)’’; and still again (c. 62), “And we have put you in mind of these things the more gladly, since we knew well that we were writing to men who are faithful and highly accounted and have diligently searched into the oracles of the teaching of God (ra loyta THs Tadeias Tod Geov).’’ The same phenomenon obviously meets us here as in Philo: and Harnack and Lightfoot * both naturally comment to this effect on the middle instance — the former calling especially attention to the equation drawn between the two phrases for Scripture, and the latter to the fact, as shown by the Scriptures immediately adduced, that the mind of the writer in so designating Scripture was not on ‘“‘any divine precept or prediction, but the example of Moses.’ Equally strikingly, we read in II Clem., xiii, “For the Gentiles when they hear from our mouth the oracles of God, marvel at them for their beauty and greatness..... For when they hear from us that God saith, ‘It is no thank unto you, if ye love them that love you, but this is thank unto you, if you love your enemies and them that hate you [ Luke vi. 32]’ — when they hear these things, I say, they marvel at their exceeding goodness.”
9 The Contemporary Review, August, 1875, p. 400; ‘“‘Essays on the Work entitled Supernatural Religion” (1889), p. 173. 80 In loc. 81 Loc. cit.
“THE ORACLES OF GOD” od
“The point to be observed,” says Lightfoot,® “is that the expression here refers to an evangelical record.”’ Similarly Polycarp, c. vii, writes: “‘ For every one ‘who will not confess that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is antichrist’ (I John iv. 2, 3); and whosoever shall not confess the testimony of the cross is of the devil; and whosoever shall pervert the oracles of the Lord (7a éyra Tod Kvpiov) to his own lusts and say there is neither resurrection nor judgment, that man is the firstborn of Satan.” On this passage Zahn, followed by Lightfoot, very appropriately adduces the parallel in the Preface to Irenzeus’ great work, “‘ Against Heresies,’’ where he complains of the Gnostics “falsifying the oracles of the Lord (ra Noyta Kupiov), becoming bad exegetes of what is well said’’: while later (“Her.,’’ i. 8, 1) the same writer speaks of the Gnostics’ art in adapting the dominical oracles (ra xuptaxa oyea) to their opinions, a phrase he equates with “the oracles of God,” and uses in a context which shows that he has the whole complex of Scripture in mind. In precisely similar wise, Clement of Alexandria is found calling the Scriptures the “oracles of truth” (‘‘ Coh. ad Gent.,”’ p. 84 ed. Potter), the “oracles of God” (“‘ Quis Div. Sal.,’’ 3) and the “inspired oracles” (‘‘Strom.,”’ i. 392); and Origen, ‘“‘the oracles,” “the oracles of God” “De Prin.,” iv. 11; in Matt., x. § 6): and Basil, the “sacred oracles,” “the oracles of the Spirit”’ (“‘Hom.,”’ xi. 5; xii. 1). The Pseudo-Ignatius (“ad Smyr.,”’ iii) writes: “For the oracles (ra loyua) say: ‘This Jesus who was taken up from you into heaven,’ etc. [ Acts i. 11 |’? — where the term certainly is just the equivalent of 7 ypad7.** And Photius tells us (“‘ Bibl.,’’ 228) that the Scriptures recognized by Ephraem, Patriarch of Antioch (circa 525-545 A.D.), consisted of the Old Testament, the Dominical Oracles (ra xupraxa NOyia) and the Preaching of the Apostles’? — where the adjective xupiaxa is obviously intended to limit the broad 7a Adyua, so that the phrase means just ‘“‘the Gospels.”’ 82 In loc.
83 Cf. what Prof. Ropes says of this passage in The American Journal of Theology, October, 1899 (iii. 698) and his strictures on Resch’s use of it.
Dr. Lightfoot’s object in bringing together such passages, it will be remembered, was to fix the sense of éyra in the description which Eusebius gives of the work of Papias and in his quotations from Papias’ remarks about the Gospels of Matthew and Mark. Papias’ book, we are told by Eusebius (“H. E.,” iii, 39), was entitled Aoyiwy xupraxav éEnyjnoers — that is, obviously, from the usage of the words, it was a commentary on the Gospels, or less likely, on the New Testament: and he is quoted as explaining that Matthew wrote 7a loyea in the Hebrew language and that Mark made no attempt to frame a otvtaéw Tv Kuptax@v doyiwv,** or, as 1S explained in the previous clause, of ra bio Tov XpioTov 7 AexXOevTa ) wpaxdévra — that is, as would seem again to be obvious, each wrote his section of the “Scriptures” in the manner described. The temptation to adjust these Papian phrases to current theories of the origin of the Gospels has proved too strong, however, to be withstood even by the demonstration of the more natural meaning of the words provided by Dr. Lightfoot’s trenchant treatment: and we still hear of Papias’ treatise on the ‘‘ Discourses of the Lord,”’ and of the “Book of Discourses”? which Papias ascribes to Matthew and which may well be identified (we are told) with the “‘ Collection of Sayings of Jesus,’’ which criticism has unearthed as lying behind our present Gospels.* Indeed, as time has run on,
84 Or dywr, as is read by both Schwegler and Heinichen: contra Routh, Lightfoot and Gebhardt-Harnack.
85 If there ever was such a “Collection of Sayings of Jesus,” the natural title of it would certainly not be 7a xvpraxa Adyra, but something like the 4 cbvratts r&v Kuptax@yv Noywv Which Papias says (if we adopt the reading éywv) Mark did not write. We observe with astonishment, the venerable Prof. Godet saying, in his recent volume on the Gospels, that the existence of such collections of éyra is now put beyond doubt by the discovery of the Oxyrhynchus fragment. The last word has doubtless not been said as to the nature and origin of this fragment: but that it was a collection of AOTIA rests solely on the ascription of that title to it by its editors — a proceeding which in turn rests solely on their traditional misunderstanding of the Papian phrase. And that Matthew’s “‘Logia”’ were “‘Logia”’ like these is scarcely a supposable case to a critic of Prof. Godet’s views. Meanwhile we cannot but account it unfortunate that Messrs. Grenfell and Hunt should have attached so misleading a title to their valuable discovery: to which it is suitable only in one aspect, viz., as describing these ‘‘sayings” of Jesus as (in there seems in some quarters even a growing disposition to neglect altogether the hard facts of usage marshaled by Dr. Lightfoot, and to give such rein to speculation as to the meaning of the term loya as employed by Papias, that the last end of the matter would appear to threaten to be worse than the first. We are led to use this language by a recent construction of Alfred Resch’s, published in the “‘ Theologische Studien” dedicated to Bernhard Weiss on his seventieth birthday. Let us, however, permit Resch to speak for himself. He is remarking on the identification of the assumed fundamental gospel (Urevangeltum) with the work of Matthew mentioned by Papias. He says:
“Thus the name — )ddya — and the author — Matthew — seemed to be found for this Quellenschrift. In the way of this assumption there stood only the circumstance that the name ‘dédyra’ did not seem to fit the Quellenschrift as it had been drawn out by study of the Gospels, made wholly independently of the notice of Papias — since it yielded a treatise of mixed narrative and discourses. This circumstance led some to characterize the Quellenschrift, in correspondence with the name doya, as a mere collection of discourses; while others found in it a reason for sharply opposing the identification of the Logia of Matthew and the fundamental gospel (Urevangelium), or even for discrediting the whole notice of Papias as worthless and of no use to scholars. No one, however, thought of looking behind the ldyca for the hidden Hebrew name, although it was certainly obvious that a treatise written in Hebrew could not fail to have a Hebrew title. And I must myself confess that only in 1895, while the third volume of my ‘ Aussercanonischen Paralleltexte’ was passing through the press, did it occur to me to ask after the Hebrew name of the Néya. But with the question the answer was self-evidently at once given: 857,°° therefore pv” 737. To this answer attached itself at once, however, the reminiscence of titles ascribed in the Old Testament to a whole series of Quellenschriften: Sxvaw “35, Jat WT IST, 8327 ym) “IS9, (AXA) Ina ta “at (cf. I Chron. xxix. 29); rinsw at mae (I Kings xi. 41); 782 159, Oxter ‘25n “Sn (II the conception of the compiler, as the constant Aéye shows) ‘‘oracular utterances”
of present and continuous authority. 86 Why should Resch, we may ask, think of 1=7 instead of ‘TV98 as the Hebrew original of édyiov? Cf. above p. 353.
Chron. xxxiii. 18). As, then, there in the Old Testament, it is Just historical Quellenschriften of biographical contents that bear the name of 0735, so this New Testament Quellenschrift, the title my 127. It contained therefore the history of Him of whom the prophets had prophesied, Who was greater than Solomon, David’s Son and David’s Lord and the King of Israel. And as the LXX. had translated the title 125, certainly unskillfully enough by Adya, so Papias or his sponsor (Gewdhrsmann) by dloyra. The sense, however, of the Hebrew 2°73” is, as Luther very correctly renders it — ‘Histories.’ Cf. Heft ii. 812. By this discovery of the original title, the New Testament Quellenschrift which from an unknown had already become a known thing, has now become from an unnamed a named thing. The desiderated x has been completely found.” *”
Criticism like this certainly scorns all facts. The Hebrew word “35, meaning a “word,”’ passed by a very readily understood process into the sense of “‘thing.’’ In defining the term as used in the titles which Resch adduces, Dr. Driver says: ‘words: hence affairs, things — in so far as they are done, ‘acts’; in so far as they are narrated, ‘history.’’’ The word sa thus readily lent itself, in combinations like those adduced by Resch, to a double meaning: and it is apparently found in both these senses. In instances like npxip “25 (Eccl. 1. Leet: Prov.) xxx.) Lfixxxi Seer lev A mt lee No nae it doubtless means “words of Koheleth,” and the like. In the instances adduced by Resch, it is doubtless used in the secondary sense of “history.’? The Greek word )dyos, by which 735 was ordinarily translated in the LX X., while naturally not running through a development of meaning exactly parallel to that of 755, yet oddly enough presented a fair Greek equivalent for both of these senses of “725, used in titles: and why Resch should speak of loyou as unskillfully used in the titles he adduces, does not appear on the surface of things. Certainly, from Herodotus down, oi ldyou bore the specific meaning of just “‘ Histories,’ as afterwards it bore the sense of “prose writings’’: and the early Greek historians
87 Op. cit., p. 121 seq.
88 “Introduction,” last ed., 527, note 1.
were called accordingly of loyoypador.8? The LX X. translators, in a word, could scarcely have found a happier Greek rendering for the titles of the Quellenschriften enumerated in I Chron. xxix. 29, 30, etc. Who, however, could estimate the unskillfulness of translating “25 in such titles by éyua — a word which had no such usage and indeed did not readily lend itself to an application to human “words?” Papias (or his sponsor) must have been (as Eusebius calls him) a man of mean capacity indeed, so to have garbled Matthew’s Hebrew. It should be noted, further, that Papias does not declare, as Resch seems to think, that Matthew wrote 7a Noyra Tov “Inoov, or even 7a Kupiaka Oya — it is Papias’ own book whose title contains this phrase; and it will be hard to suppose that Papias (or his sponsor) was a man of such mean capacity as to fancy the simple 7a éya a fair equivalent for the Hebrew mv” 55 in the sense of “The History of Jesus.” If he did so, one does not wonder that he has had to wait two thousand years for a reader to catch his meaning. Such speculations, in truth, serve no other good purpose than to exhibit how far a-sea one must drift who, leaving the moorings of actual usage, seeks an unnatural meaning for these phrases. Their obvious meaning is that Papias wrote an “Exposition of the Gospels,”’ and that he speaks of Matthew’s and Mark’s books as themselves sections of those “‘Seriptures”’ which he was expounding. Under the guidance of the usage of the word, this would seem the only tenable opinion.”
It is not intended, of course, to imply that there is no trace among the Fathers of any other sense attaching to the
89 See Liddell and Scott, swb. voc., iv. and v.
9° We must account it, then, as only another instance of that excess of caution which characterizes his application of the ‘‘apologetical” results of investigation, when Dr. Sanday still holds back from this conclusion and writes thus: ‘‘The word éya, indeed, means ‘oracles’ and not ‘discourses.’ But while the term ‘the oracles’ might well from the first have been applied to our Lord’s words it is hardly likely that it should so early have been applied to a writing of the New Testament as such. Moreover, even when the inspiration of the New Testament had come to be as clearly recognized as that of the Old Testament, the term ‘the oracles’ would not have been a fitting one for a single work, simply on the ground that it formed part of the collection” (Hastings’ “Bible Dictionary,” i. p. 235 a).
words 76 Adyuov, Ta AOYta, than “the Seriptures”’ as a whole. Other applications of the words were found standing side by side with this in Philo, and they are found also among the Fathers. To Adyuov, used of a specific text of Scripture, for example, is not uncommon in the Fathers. It is found, for instance, in Justin Martyr, “‘Apol.,”’ i. 32: ““And Jesse was his forefather xara 76 loytov’’ — to wit, Isa. xi. 1, Just quoted. It is found in Clement of Alexandria (‘‘ Strom.,’’ ii. Migne, i. 949a), where Isa. vii. 9 is quoted and it is added: “It was this loyov that Heraclitus of Ephesus paraphrased when he said....” It is found repeatedly in Eusebius’ “Ecclesiastical History,” in which the Papian passages are preserved, as, e. g., ix. 7, ad fin., “So that, according to that divine (Getov) Noy.ov,”’ viz., Matt. xxiv. 24; x. 1, 4, “the Aoyov thus enjoining us,”’ viz., Ps. xevii. (xeviii.) 1; x. 4, 7, “concerning which a certain other divine éy.ov thus proclaims,” viz., Ps. lxxxvi. (lxxxvii.) 3. Ta Néya is also used in the Fathers, as in Philo, for any body of these Scriptural loy.a, however small or large (i. e., for any given section of Scripture) — as, e. g., for the Ten Commandments. It is so used, for instance, in the ““Apostolical Constitutions,’ ii. 26: ““Keep the fear of God before your eyes, always remembering tay déxa Tod Beot Noyiwy’’; and also in Eusebius (H. E., ii. 18, 5). So, again, we have seen it, modified by qualifying adjectives, used for the Gospels — and indeed it seems to be employed without qualifications in this sense in Pseudo-Justin’s “Epistola ad Zeram et Serenum’”’ (Otto, i.
Apart altogether from the fact that these caveats are founded on a demonstrably mistaken conception of the origin of the New Testament Canon, they are in themselves invalid. The term loyra was contemporaneously applied to writings of the New Testament as such — as a glance at II Clem. xii. and Polycarp vil. will show — and as Lightfoot’s note on the former passage, correcting his less careful earlier note on the latter passage, points out. And that ra Aéyea could easily refer to any definite portion of the congeries of ‘‘oracles’”? known also as ‘‘Scripture,” Philo’s usage as indicated above (p. 374) sufficiently exhibits. For the rest, it cannot be doubted that Papias was understood by all his early readers to mean by his ra Aéyra Of Matthew, just Matthew’s Gospel. This has been sufficiently shown (“Einleitung,”’ ii. 265) by Zahn, who in his rich and fundamentally right remarks on the subject both here and elsewhere (e. g., pp. 254 seg. and ‘‘Geschichte d. Kanons,”’ i. 857 seq., ii. 790 seq.) supplies another instance of how near a great scholar can come to the truth of a matter without precisely adopting it.
706). It is further sometimes used apparently not of the Scripture text as such, but of certain oracular utterances recorded in it — as, for example, when Justin says to Trypho (ce. 18): ‘For since you have read, O Trypho, as you yourself admitted, the doctrines taught by our Saviour, I do not think that I have done foolishly in adding some short utterances of his (Bpaxéa Tov éxeivov hoya) to the prophetic statements”? — to wit, words of Jesus recorded in Matt. xxi, xxiii and Luke xi, here put on a level with the oracles of the prophets, but apparently envisaged as spoken. All these are usages that have met us before.
But there are lower usages also discoverable in the later Patristic writers at least. There is an appearance now and then indeed as if the word was, in popular speech, losing something of its high implication of “solemn oracular utterances of God,’’ and coming to be applied as well to the words of mere men *! — possibly in sequence to its application to the words of prophets and apostles as such and the gradual wearing down, in the careless popular consciousness, of the distinction between their words as prophets and apostles and their words as men; possibly, on the other hand, in sequence to the freer use of the word in profane speech and the wearing away of its high import with the loss of reverence for the
9 Tn the thirty-fifth chapter of the fourth book of Origen’s ‘‘ Against Celsus,”’ there is a passage which is given this appearance in Dr. Crombie’s excellent English translation, printed in the ‘‘Ante-Nicene Library” (Am. Ed., iv. 512): ““And yet if Celsus had wished honestly to overturn the genealogy which he deemed the Jews to have so shamelessly arrogated, in boasting of Abraham and his descendants (as their progenitors), he ought to have quoted all the passages bearing on the subject; and, in the first place, to have advocated his cause with such arguments as he thought likely to be convincing, and in the next to have bravely refuted, by means of what appeared to him to be the true meaning, and by arguments in its favor, the errors existing on the subject (xal rots trép abrijs Noylous ra Kara Tov Térov).”’ The renderirg of doyious here by “arguments,” however, is certainly wrong. The whole context is speaking of Celsus’ misrepresentation of the teaching of the Hebrew Scriptures; and what Origen would have him do is to point out the passages in them which will bear out his allegations. According to Koetschau’s index the word occurs but twice elsewhere in the treatise ‘‘ Against Celsus,” viz., V. xxix. ad fin., and VI. lxxvii. near the end (inserted by Koetschau from Philoc. 85, 16): and in both of these cases the high meaning of the word is
unmistakable.
thing designated. Thus we read as early as in the “Acts of Xanthippe and Polyxena,’”’ edited by Prof. James for the ‘Cambridge Texts and Studies,’ and assigned by him to the middle of the third century (c. 28, p. 78), the following dialogue, in the course of a conversation between Polyxena and Andrew, ‘‘the apostle of the Lord’’: “Andrew saith: ‘Draw not near me, child, but tell me who thou art and whence.’ Then saith Polyxena: ‘I am a great friend of these here (€v7 Tav évtav0a), but I see thy gracious countenance and thy logia are as the logia of Paul and I presume thee, too, to belong to his God.’”’ If we may assume this to mark a transition stage in the usage, we may look upon a curious passage in John of Damascus as marking almost the completion of the sinking of the word to an equivalence to pnuara. It occurs in his ‘“Disput. Christiani et Saraceni’”’ (Migne, i. 1588, iii. 1344). The Saracenic disputant is represented as eager to obtain an acknowledgment that the Word of God, that is Christ, is a mere creature, and as plying the Christian with a juggle on the word loyta. He asks whether the loyra of God are create or increate. If the reply is “create,” the rejoinder is to be: “Then they are not gods, and you have confessed that Christ, who is the Word (Adyos) of God is not God.” If, on the other hand, the reply is “increate,’’ the rejoinder apparently is to be that the éyra of God nevertheless are not properly gods, and so again Christ the ldéyos is not God. Accordingly John instructs the Christian disputant to refuse to say either that they are create or that they are increate, but declining the dilemma, to reply merely: “‘I confess one only Aéyos of God that is increate, but my whole Scripture (ypapy) I do not call Aoyra, but pnuata Oeov.”’ On the Saracen retorting that David certainly says Ta Noyra (not pyuata) of the Lord are pure loy.a, the Christian is to reply that the prophet speaks here rporodoyixs, and not KuprodoyKds, that is to say, not by way of a direct declaration, but by way of an indirect characterization. It is a remarkable logomachy that we are thus treated to: and it seems to imply that in John’s day Noyra had sunk to a mere synonym of pnuara.
That men had then ceased to speak of the whole ypad# as Té Geta Aloyia we know not to have been the case: but apparently this language was now made use of with no more pregnancy of meaning than if they had said 7a Oe?a pnuara. This process seems to have continued, and in the following passage from a work of the opening of the eleventh century — the “Life of Nilus the Younger,” published in the 120th volume of Migne’s “Pat. Gree.” (p. 97 D), — we have an instance of the extreme extension of the application of the word: ‘“‘Then saith the Father to him: ‘It is not fitting that thou, a man of wisdom and high-learning, should think or speak 74 rv xowdv dvOpu-Tov hoyra.’’’ And accordingly we cannot be surprised to find that in modern Greek the word is employed quite freely of human speech. Jannaris tells us that it is used in the sense of “maxim,” and that in colloquial usage ra Méyra May mean “promise”? — in both of which employments there may remain a trace of its original higher import.%* While Kontopoulos gives as the English equivalents of éyrov, the follow-
2 Dr. F. W. Farrar, with his fatal facility for quoting phrases in senses far other than those attached to them by their authors (other instances meet us in his dealing with the formula ‘‘ Scriptura complectitur Verbum Det” and with the word ‘“‘TInspiration”’ in the same context, — see pp. 369, 370 of work cited) makes a thoroughly wrong use of this passage (‘‘ Hist. of Interpretation,” p. 374, note 2). He says: “But as far back as the eighth century the eminently orthodox Father, St. John of Damascus, had said, ‘We apply not to the written word of Scripture the title due to the Incarnate Word of God.’ He says that when the Scriptures are called Aéyra Geo§ the phrase is only figurative, ‘Disput. Christiani et Saraceni’ (see Lupton, St. John of Damascus, p. 95).’’ But John says the Scriptures are called without figure pnuara rod Oecd: he only means to say they are not God’s Word in the same sense that the Logos is: in comparison with Him who is the only incarnate Word of God, they are only figuratively words of God, but they are real words of God, nevertheless, His sj7uara, by which designation, rather than Noyta, John would have them called, not to avoid confessing them to be God’s utterances, but to escape a Moslem jibe.
93 An instance of the secular use of the word in this lowered meaning, is found doubtless in the Scholium on the ‘‘ Frogs” of Aristophanes adduced above, p. 336. The date of this Scholium is uncertain, but it seems to belong to the later strata of the Scholia. It is not found in the ‘Ravenna MS.,” which Rutherford is publishing; nor in the ‘‘ Venetus” (Mare. 474), cf. Blaydes, ‘‘Ranae,” p. 391; nor indeed in four out of the six MSS. used by Dindorf (iv. 2, p. 113).
% In his ‘Concise Dictionary of English and Modern Greek,’ sub. voce. “word” and “saying.”
ing list: “A saying, a word; a maxim; a motto, an oracle; 7a beta Noyta, the divine oracles, the sacred Scriptures.’’ * Thus not only all the usages of the word found, say, in Philo, are continued in the Fathers, but there is an obvious development to be traced. But this development itself is founded on and is a witness to the characteristic usage of the word among the Fathers — that, to wit, in which it is applied to the inspired words of prophets and apostles. And by far the most frequent use of the word in the Patristic writings seems to be that in which it designates just the Holy Scriptures. Their prevailing usage is very well illustrated by that of Eusebius. We have already quoted a number of passages from his “Ecclesiastical History ’’ in which he seems to adduce special passages of Scripture, each as a loywov. More common is it for him to refer to the whole Scriptures as 7a Aoya, or rather (for this is his favorite formula) ta @eta Aldéyra — and that whether he means the Old Testament (which in the ‘Prep. Evang.,” ii. 6 [Migne, iii. 140 A], he calls 7a ’”EGpaiwy Noyta), or the New Testament, or refers to the prophetic or the narrative portions. Instances may be found in “H. E.,”’ v., 17, 5, where we are told that Miltiades left monuments of his study of the @eta Adyia; vi. 23, 2, where the zeal of Origen’s - friend Ambrose for the study of the #eta loyra is mentioned as enabling Origen to write his commentaries on the Oetar ypadat; ix. 9, 8, where a sentence from Ex. xv. 1 is quoted as from the deta NOyta; x. 4, 28, where Ps. lvii. (lviii.), 7 is quoted from the Oeta Adyia; ‘‘ Palestinian Martyrs,” xi. 2, where the devotion of the Palestinian martyrs to the 6eva éyra is adverted to. Even the singular — 70 loyrov — seems occasionally used by Eusebius (as by Philo) as a designation of the whole Scripture fabric. We may suspect this to be the case in “H. E.,”’ x. 4, 43, when we read of “the costly cedar of Lebanon of which TO Oetoyv loyvov has not been unmindful, saying, ‘The forests of the Lord shall rejoice and the cedars of Lebanon which he planted’ (Ps. ev. [civ.] 16).’”’ And we cannot doubt it at “H. E.,” ii. 10, 1, where we read concerning Herod Agrippa,
% Tn his ‘‘New Lexicon of Modern Greek and English,” sub voc.
“THE ORACLES OF GOD” OO/
that ‘as 7 rv tpatewv ypady relates, he proceeded to Cesarea and....70 ldy.ov relates ‘that the angel of the Lord smote him’’’? — in which account it is worth while to observe the coincidence of Josephus’ narrative with r7v belay ypadnv. Here, of course, 76 ldyov is primarily the Book of Acts — but as the subsequent context shows, it represents that book only as part of the sacred Scriptures, so that 7d loytov emerges as a complete synonym of 7 Oeta ypadn. Whatever other usage may from time to time emerge in the pages of the Fathers, the Patristic usage of the term, xar’ é£ox7v, is as a designation of the “Scriptures”? conceived as the Word of Godt
In the light of these broad facts of usage, certain lines may very reasonably be laid down within which our interpretation of [7a] Aoyca in the New Testament instances of its occurrence should move. It would seem quite certain, for example, that no lower sense can be attached to it in these instances, than that which it bears uniformly in its classical and Hellenistic usage: it means, not “words” barely, simple “utterances,”’ but distinctively “oracular utterances,” divinely authoritative communications, before which men stand in awe and to which they bow in humility: and this high meaning is not merely implicit, but is explicit in the term. It would seem clear again that there are no implications of brevity in the term: it means not short, pithy, pregnant sayings, but high, authoritative, sacred utterances; and it may be applied equally well to long as to short utterances — even though they extend to pages and books and treatises. It would seem to be clear once more that there are no implications in the term of what may be called the literary nature of the utterances to which it is applied: it characterizes the utterances to which it is applied as emanations from God, but whether they be prophetic or narrative or legal, parenetic or promissory in character, is entirely indifferent: its whole
96 Sophocles, in his ‘‘ Lexicon,” gives also the following references for this sense: Titus of Bostra (Migne, xviii. 1253 B); Serapion of Egypt (Migne, xl. 908 C, 909 B). References might be added, apparently, indefinitely.
function is exhausted in declaring them to be God’s own utterances.” And still further, it would seem to be clear that it is equally indifferent to the term whether the utterances so designated be oral or written communications: whether oral or written it declares them to be God’s own Word, and it had become customary to designate the written Word of God by this term as one that was felt fitly to describe the Scriptures as an oracular book — either a body of oracles, or one continuous oracular deliverance from God’s own lips. This last usage is so strikingly characteristic of the Hellenistic adaptation of the term that a certain presumption les in favor of so understanding it in Hellenistic writings, when the Scriptural revelation is in question: though this presumption is, of course, liable to correction by the obvious implications of the passages as wholes. In such a passage as Rom. il. 2 this presumption rises very high indeed, and it would seem as if the word here must be read as a designation of the “Scriptures”’ as such, unless very compelling reasons to the contrary may be adduced from the context. That the mind of the writer may seem to some to be particularly dwelling upon this or that element in the contents of the Seriptures cannot be taken as such a compelling reason to the contrary: for nothing is more common than for a writer to be thinking more particularly of one portion of what he is formally adducing as a whole. The paraphrase of Wetstein appears in this aspect, therefore, very judicious: ‘‘ They have the Sacred Books, in which are contained the oracles and especially the prophecies of the advent of the Messiah and the calling of the Gentiles; and by these their minds should be prepared”’: though, so far as this paraphrase may seem to separate between the Sacred Books and the Oracles they contain, it is unfortunate. The very point of this use of the word is that it zdentzfies the Sacred Books with the Oracles;
7 It is therefore a perfectly blind comment that we meet with in Gerhard Heine’s recent ‘‘Synonymik des N. T. Griechisch”’ (1898), p. 157 — when in contrast to dAdyos as the ‘‘reasonable expression” of the vots, 76 Aéytov is said to be “more the separate utterance, with the (occasional?) accessory notion of promise ( Rom. iii. 2).”
and in this aspect of it Dr. David Brown’s comment is more satisfactory: “That remarkable expression, denoting ‘ Divine Communications’ in general, is transferred to the sacred Scriptures to express their oracular, divinely authoritative character.’’ The case is not quite so simple in Heb. v. 12: but here, too, the well-balanced comment of Dr. Westcott appears to us to carry conviction with it: “The phrase might refer to the new revelation given by Christ to His apostles (comp. ¢c. 1. 2); but it seems more natural to refer it to the collective writings of the Old Testament which the Hebrew Christians failed to understand.” In Acts vii. 88 the absence of the article introduces no real complication: it merely emphasizes the qualitative aspect of the matter; what Moses received was emphatically oracles — which is further enhanced by calling them “lively,” i. e., they were not merely dead, but living, effective, operative oracles. The speaker’s eye is obviously on Moses as the recipient of these oracles, and on the oracles as given by God to Moses, as is recorded in the Pentateuch: but the oracles his eye is on are those recorded in the Pentateuch, and that came to Moses, not for himself, but for the Church of all ages — “to give to us.” Here we may hesitate to say, indeed, that Aoy.a means just the “Scriptures’’; but what it means stands in a very express relation to the Scriptures, and possibly was not very sharply distinguished from the Scriptures by the speaker. With the analogies in Philo clearly in our mind, we should scarcely go far wrong if we conceived of éy.a here as meaning to the speaker those portions of Scripture in which Moses recorded the revelations vouchsafed to him by God — conceived as themselves these revelations recorded. In I Peter iv. 11 the interpretation is complicated by the question that arises concerning the charisma that is intended, as well as by the casting of the phrase into the form of a comparison: “let him speak as it were oracles of God.” It is not clear that the Divine Scriptures as such are meant here; but the term, in any case, retains all its force as a designation of sacred, solemn divine utterances: the speaker is to speak as becomes one whose words are not his own, but the very words of God — oracles proclaimed through his mouth. Whether it is the exercise of the prophetic gift in the strict sense that is adverted to, so that Peter’s exhortation is that the prophet should comport himself in his prophesying as becomes one made the vehicle of the awful words of revelation; or only the gift of teaching that is in question, so that Peter’s exhortation is that he who proclaims the word of God, even in this lower sense, shall bear himself as befits one to whom are committed the Divine oracles for explanation and enforcement — must be left here without investigation. In either case the term is obviously used in its highest sense and implies that the Aloyra of God are His own words, His awesome utterances.
What has thus been said in reference to these New Testament passages is intended to go no further in their explanation than to throw the light of the usage of the word upon their interpretation. Into their detailed exegesis we cannot now enter. We cannot pass by the general subject, however, without emphasizing the bearing these passages have on the New Testament doctrine of Holy Scripture. It will probably seem reasonable to most to interpret Rom. iil. 2 as certainly, Heb. v. 12 as probably, and Acts vii. 38 as very likely making reference to the written Scriptures; and as bearing witness to the conception of them on the part of the New Testament writers as “‘the oracles of God.’’ That is to say, we have unobtrusive and convincing evidence here that the Old Testament Scriptures, as such, were esteemed by the writers of the New Testament as an oracular book, which in itself not merely contains, but is the “utterance,” the very Word of God; and is to be appealed to as such and as such deferred to, because nothing other than the crystallized speech of God. We merely advert to this fact here without stopping to develop its implications or to show how consonant this designation of the Scriptures as the “Oracles of God” is with the conception of the Holy Scriptures entertained by the New Testament writers as otherwise made “THE ORACLES OF GOD” o9l
known to us. We have lately had occasion to point out in this Review some of the other ways in which this conception expresses itself in the New Testament writings.*? He who cares to look for it will find it in many ways written largely and clearly and indelibly on the pages of the New Testament. We content ourselves at this time, however, with merely pointing out that the designation of the Scriptures as Ta loyra tov Oeou fairly shouts to us out of the pages of the New Testament, that to its writers the Scriptures of the Old Testament were the very Word of God in the highest and strictest sense that term can bear — the express utterance, in all their parts and each and every of their words, of the Most High — the ‘oracles of God.”’ Let him that thinks them something other and less than this, reckon, then, with the apostles and prophets of the New Covenant — to whose trustworthiness as witnesses to doctrinal truth he owes all he knows about the New Covenant itself, and therefore all he hopes for through this New Covenant.
% See article entitled, “It Says; Scripture Says; God Says,” in the number of
this Review for July, 1899, and also article entitled, ‘‘God-Inspired Scripture,”’ in the number for January, 1900.