The Representative Men of the Bible, First Series

By ‘The Representative Men of the Bible’ I mean the men of the Bible who represent phases of humanity irrespective of place and time; and I consider them only in those incidents in which they ave thus representative. I offer this volume by way of experimental instalment. I have exhibited but a single row of figures. Should the volume meet with acceptance, I may exhibit a second row contemporaneous with the first; and ultimately, I should like to extend the line into the New Testament. It is this anticipation of future work that explains the omissions in this volume. You may say, Why has /shmael been omitted from your chapter on Abraham, why have Aaron and Balaam been left out of your chapter on Moses? It is.because I have desired to give these a place on their own account and have wished to avoid repetition. These studies are not historical, they are not critical; they

are an analysis of the Portraits as we see vl PREFACE

them — without any attempt to inquire how or when they came. I have imagined myself in a studio, looking at the forms as delineated, and simply asking the question, What did the artist mean? Personally, I have no doubt as to the historical basis for the patriarchal life — not to speak of lives further down the stream. But I have been actuated in the meantime by the desire to find ground that is neutral to the two extremes — the Higher Criticism on the one hand and the Old Orthodoxy on the other. That common ground is the fact that the figures are now before us, and that, if there be a Revelation, it is through them, in the last result, that the Revelation must come. Here, for the present, hands may be joined, here, for the time, views may be united; and those who differ as to dates and origins can meet in the recognition of a spiritual beauty. I have sought to give the book a semi-devotional tone by closing each chapter with a short invocation or prayer.

G. M.

EDINBURGH, 1902.

On INGE GIN as

In a previous work I attempted a study of the Portrait of Christ, as delineated by the Four Evangelists. I propose to stand once more in the Great Gallery of the Jewish nation and to study for a while those other figures which have made the history of ancient Israel more familiar to the average man than the history of modern England. I would come to the new study as I came to the old. I would leave historical questions in the backsround. I would not ask what is proved, but what is painted. It matters not to me when the artist lived; it matters not whether the Portrait has been attributed to the real hand; it matters not even, to my present purpose, whether the events delineated on the canvas were reproduced from the actual life. The Ad point is that the Portraits are there, that they speak to us from a far past, and that their voice, which originally was local and national, has in the course of the years become cosmopolitan and universal. I want to ask, what do they say? When you hear a stir around you, caused by certain words that have escaped your ear, is not that the question you first ask? You do not inquire, who is the speaker? how is he dressed? where does he come from? You inquire, what has he sazd to raise such a commotion? So is it here. We ‘seekerne reason for a universal interest. That reason cannot lie in anything historical. It must lie in something which belongs to no special date, no particular town, no single land. To localise it is to weaken it. To associate it with a definite place and time is to lessen its interest for the race. The Biblical critic may insist on knowing the name of Jacob’s wrestling angel; but the man in the Gallery is content with the message to the eye, content to see the picture and to receive the blessing.

I intend, then, to study these Portraits, not as historical figures, but as art figures. We will enter into the Gallery and shut the door. We will allow no voices from the outside to distract us. We will bring with us no catalogue containing information regarding the artists. To us there will be but one artist — God Almighty. It is the pencil of ¢#zs Artist that we will try to trace. We will endeavour to detect, not the evidence of local colouring, not the vestiges of a special culture, not the indications of a life that has passed away, but the element in them which is abiding, permanent, the same yesterday and to-day and for ever. It is precisely where these Portraits desert the sphere of history that they are great. It is precisely where the environment of the man is dimly seen that the universal element in the Picture shines out most clearly and most resplendently. It is where I lose sight of the manner in which Enoch was translated, in other words, it is where his case ceases to be special, that his figure becomes to me a revelation; for it is then I appropriate his story as something possible for me. It is where I lose sight of

Elijah’s chariot that Elijah’s chariot brings a message to my soul, for it is then that I read in #zs experience a thing which can be reproduced in my own. A revelation from God is not a statement of what men once did; it is a statement of what men may always do. There lies the power of the Bible! It is not the revelation of something which was once revealed to a little band of worshippers; it is a revelation of how God always reveals. It is the special announcement of that which is not special — of the wuzversal order of God’s word and ways to man. It tells not how He spoke ozce, but how He speaks always. It is the proclamation that there is spiritual law in the natural world, and the enumeration of those eternal principles by which that law is enforced and maintained. The men of the Bible Gallery are photographed because they are universal men.

But now a questicn arises. Was Judah the best field for the selection of universal types? Conceding that the selection has been a

success, would it not have been more successful still if it had been made from some other sphere? I have often been struck with the observation attributed to the outside world by the writer of the Acts, ‘ Are not these men Galileans!’ It was the early expression of a feeling which has survived to this day — the contempt for provincialism. Galilee was not the metropolis; it was a mere province. Being but a province, it seemed an unlikely sphere for the founding of a universal language. Christianity was attempting to initiate a common speech — a cosmopolitan medium of intercourse. Why try to inaugurate it in the provinces, where men proverbially resist a uniformity of standard; why not begin with Jerusalem, where people were more likely to think in companies! And what was said of the New Testament had been also said of the Old. What Galilee was to Judah, Judah was to the world — a province. It was outside the fashion of the great capitals. It was regarded as the abode of a peculiar people — a people who had not learned the conventions of society. Other empires moved in masses; Judah was always a divided land. Other empires were subject to a single human will; Judah had ever her individual opinions, and wavered between her prophet, her priest, and her king. Other empires had extinguished private judgment, had enjoined conformity toa common standard; Judah had proclaimed to each separate. man that he was personally responsible to the King of kings. Was not Judah, then, less favourable to permanence? Were not her types of mind likely to be more transitory, more evanescent, more perishable? Was not humanity more likely to be permanently revealed in stereotyped forms of fashion, than in the spontaneous outbursts of individual independence?

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