spared for the making of coffins. "Hence the coffin-makers devised the ingenious expedient of making their coffins and moulding them to fit the human form by laying together layers of paper, either simply or with glue, and then covering the surface on both sides with a coat of Nile mud, upon which they printed designs and figures." and scrawled as we do. "We have in their private documents every variety of hand, from the large round hand of the youth writing to his father, to the shorthand notes of the clerk on the back of an old account." Here And there are greater gains than these. comes the description of a testator, almost always a veteran with scars, a Greek, a Macedonian, a Carian, a Thracian, as the case may be, of such an age, of such a complexion and hair. Then the formula: "May I be vouchsafed to live on in good health, and mind my own affairs; but should anything human happen to me, I bequeath," etc. Should anything human happen to me: there is no religious fear or feeling expressed; there is no hint in all these wills and testaments that the Ptolemaic Greek looked forward, as the old Egyptian did, to be judged hereafter according to his works. Now the paper which was used for this purpose was "writing paper." It was paper that had actually been written upon. And Professor Mahaffy has spent "one of the most interesting years of my life" in separating, deciphering, and sorting these layers of written papyri. It is a task as difficult as it is agreeable. "In the first place," he says, "the outer coat of clay or mud must be washed off; and when the writing is turned outward, it is almost impossible to wash off the clay without effacing the writing. Again, where glue was employed, not only is it hopeless to sever the layers without "Before I leave these myriad scraps, with their destroying them, but the whole texture is riddled sundry information, I will only," says Professor by worms, which have gone in search of the glue, Mahaffy, "add a word concerning the peculiar and have reduced the papyrus almost to powder." | dialect in which they are written. It is, of course, Nevertheless, the first instalment of manuscripts, the mixed or common dialect of later Greek times, severed, sorted, and deciphered, now lies before when the conquests of Alexander had made all the public in the Cunningham Memoir (No. 8), Greek culture of one kind and type. But in the published by the Royal Irish Academy, with thirty vocabulary we find a closer likeness to the Greek autotype plates reproducing the faint and curious of the Septuagint than to any other book I could writing in great perfection. name. I have already found several words used in the Septuagint only, so far as we hitherto knew ; and this is a strong corroboration of the legend,which many have doubted, that this translation of the Old Testament was really made in Egypt. According to the story, this translation must have been in process at the very time of the documents we have discovered, and, of course, in the language of that day; but I hardly think it likely that copies. of the Greek Version had already travelled into the country, or that it was read by the settlers in the Fayoum. I have hunted with anxious care for the smallest trace of any such book; but in vain." The literature thus unexpectedly recovered belongs to the Greek tongue, and dates mainly from the reigns of the second and third Ptolemies, 274-225 B.C. The great majority of the fragments are portions of household accounts, from which at least may be learned valuable lessons in palæography. For not only every individual, but every century has its own style of handwriting; and by the new light just acquired, Mr. Maunde Thompson has fixed the date of several fragments in the British Museum. We have also discovered that scrawling and illegibility are no modern developments of the diffusion of letters and the hurry of life. The Greeks of the third century B.C. scribbled It would certainly be a great gain if by means of these Egyptian mummy-cases some of the per plexing questions that surround the Septuagint were laid to rest. To know for certain the when and the where of the origin of even the Pentateuch portion would be a great gain. Older by many centuries, and representing an older text, than the oldest Hebrew manuscript we possess, it nevertheless can be used with no confidence, and in actual fact is not relied upon by textual critics to any extent. Our own Revisers, after due consideration of its variations from the Hebrew text, practically set them aside in the end. Yet every one feels that this Greek translation ought to be of use in the interpretation of the Old Testament. On the one hand, its "painful literalness," to use Dr. Buhl's expression, in the Books of Ezekiel, Chronicles, the Song of Solomon, and Ecclesiastes should be of the greatest service in determining the Hebrew text which it has rendered so literally. And, on the other hand, the free and bold version of the Book of Job should at least indicate to us how this ancient litterateur understood the passages which now baffle our best exegetical scholarship. let us wish success to Mr. Flinders Petrie in the discovery of Ptolemaic coffins, and more power to Professor Mahaffy's arm in pulling them to pieces. Every generation has its theological controversy, and surely we have ours. Is it the inevitable throes that accompany the birth of new forms of religious truth? or is it merely the wrath of man working not the righteousness of God? It is hard to tell. But one thing is clear, that there is no possibility now of keeping it back. It is already upon us, and the dust and the din of it cover a wide field, and betoken a serious conflict. Its echoes and something more are in all the newspapers. But the two which have most unreservedly thrown themselves open to the strife are the Times and the Record. In both, the correspondence has been of enormous extent; but it is full of instruction, if one can command the time and the temper to be instructed by it. The Record, in which Mr. Gladstone opened the campaign on the 8th of January, is the most manageable. The Editor's attitude is distinctly. conservative, as one may see at a glance from the headline to the issue of the date just named : "The Attack on the Bible." The advocates of the Higher Criticism must have felt that the question was settled by such a title. And this may account for the large proportion of the writers-a much larger proportion than in the Times correspondence -being on the conservative side. The controversy is this: Has modern criticism the right to question whether the 110th Psalm was written by David or not? It is not entitled so. It is not so assumed by any of the contributors. But that is the question which lies behind almost every letter: every letter, indeed, but one; for Prebendary Bassett is the only writer who has the courage to meet the critics on their own ground, and to say, You may discuss the authenticity of this psalm if you please, and I will meet your arguments with counter arguments, and overthrow them. It is not the authorship of the 110th Psalm, but the right to dispute the traditional authorship, that is asserted and that is denied. So narrow as that is the issue of the most momentous controversy that these modern days have known. Yet let one comforting feature be noted. Thus far, at least, it has been mercifully kept out of our pulpits. It is a paper war. As no theological controversy ever was before, it is being fought out in the periodical press. It is a distinct and gracious gain. For this one thing we know, that the pulpit is not the place for doubtful disputations. For the Son of Man said: "How doth David in the Spirit call the Messiah Lord, sayingThe Lord said unto My Lord, Sit Thou on My right hand, Till I put Thine enemies underneath Thy feet. If David then calleth Him Lord, how is He his Son?" The place is Psalm cx., and by not a few of the writers in the Record these words are held to settle the authorship of the psalm beyond foregone conclusion on the other side, that the dispute or question. The issue is narrow, but it is a serious one. There had been little account made of the critical investigations into the Old Testament, if this question of the authority of our Lord had not been involved. For scientific investigation is the unknown god to which we are forward to erect our altars in these days. If criticism had but discovered that the 110th Psalm was written by David all would have been well; at least there would have been less of that "warmth of affection" in the controversy, which Mr. Gladstone deprecates. But criticism finds it otherwise. 66 This psalm," says Canon Driver (Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament, p. 362), “though it may be ancient, can hardly have been composed by David. If read without præjudicium, it produces the irresistible impression of having been written, not by a king with reference to an invisible spiritual Being, standing above him as his superior, but by a prophet with reference to the theocratic king." Thus the issue is a serious one. If you can settle it by simply refusing the right to inquire into the authorship; if you can say, with the Vicar of St. Faith's, Norwich, "This is not debateable ground; it is holy ground, where mere criticism has no place "--but can you? Can you, as a Protestant and a reader of the Record? The Editor himself sees and acknowledges the difficulty: "We entirely agree, if we may say so, with those who tell us that you cannot stifle criticism by mere authority." And no doubt it is on that understanding that the pages of the Record have been opened to the discussion. But if you hold that Christ's reference to that psalm settled its authorship, what liberty is it that allows men only to reach a result already attained? Says Mr. Hay Aitken: "Although you, sir, affirm that you do not desire to suppress earnest inquiry, I confess it seems to me difficult to understand how such inquiry can be pursued, if we have to start with a question has been for ever settled by the unimpeachable authority of Christ." But the moment you admit the right to inquire into the authorship of this psalm by ordinary critical methods, you face the possibility of admitting that David was not its author. And then, what is the result? To hold that the 110th Psalm was not written by David does not imply assertion both of the limited knowledge of the Divine Saviour, and of His accommodating His teaching to the ignorance and prejudice of the Jews of His day, as Dr. Macaulay strangely asserts in the Sunday at Home for January; but it does seem to involve one of these. It seems to say that either Christ did not know that David was not the author of this psalm; or, knowing it, spoke as if David were its author. Let us examine these suppositions. The first is that He did not know. Two texts are mainly relied upon - Phil. ii. 5-8, the great passage which describes the Kenosis, or Emptying, as it is called; and, more definitely, Mark xiii. 32: "But of that day or that hour knoweth no one, not even the angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father." The former passage is touched upon in this issue of THE EXPOSITORY TIMES, by an unbiassed and most painstaking scholar, and we shall not enter on it further here. There are many who deny that it was ever intended to imply limitation of Christ's knowledge, or does in any respect imply that. And they see a serious obstacle to the application of the passage from St. Mark also. It is the only instance given of a limitation of knowledge on thepart of the Son. It manifestly refers to a subject of special and separate importance. And we know that in innumerable other matters of the same kind as this matter of the authorship of a psalm, He had knowledge, perfect and immediate. "You are not surprised," says Mr. Hay Aitken, "that Christ in His manhood was not the equal of Newton in mathematical knowledge." Yes, they would be surprised if it were so. They cannot He believes that Christ did not exhibit the mathematical knowledge of a Newton, simply because it was no part of His work to do so. "I came not to call the righteous, but sinners;" "I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." All are agreed that our Lord's work on earth had limitations. All see that He strictly confined Himself within them. "I must work the works of Him that sent Me while it is day, the night cometh." Coming, then, in the pursuit of His work, upon an argument which touched the authorship of a book of the Old Testament, was it needful, was it part of His work, that He should enter into the question of its authorship? Conceive Him doing so in the case of the 110th Psalm, upon which the heat of this controversy has become focussed. He is not teaching His disciples; He is arguing with the Pharisees. He uses an argument which shall be felt by them. He shall not convert them, but He will leave them without excuse. The argument is, from their standpoint, unparalleled in simplicity and force. "If David calleth Him Lord, how is He his son?" It is not difficult to see with what avidity the Pharisees would have seized upon any loophole of escape from their dilemma. Would our Lord have been working the works of His Father if He had entered upon a discussion of the authorship of the Psalm He wished to quote, a discussion from which the Pharisees would have seen to it that He did not speedily return? Accommodation it is less terrible, Mr. Gore argues, than it looks. The whole method of Christ's dealing with the people may not unjustly be described as accommodation. "Unto you it is given to know the mysteries, but to them in parables, that seeing they may not see." And especially was this so with the ever hostile Pharisees. One may fairly say that He always answered them from their own standpoint, reasoned with them on their own premises. Take, for example, the conversation regarding the casting out of devils. Their accusation-it was transparently insincere was that He cast out devils through the help of Beelzebub, the prince of the devils. His answer is, as usual, to place them in an inextricable dilemma,-in a double dilemma here indeed. First He shows the absurdity of Satan casting out Satan. Then He says: "And if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your children cast them out?" Was this not an instance of accommodation? Surely we are not bound to believe that these words prove the reality of the power to cast out devils claimed by these unbelieving Jews. If this is accommodation, then it is held that precisely similar is the accommodation in the argument from the 110th Psalm. With the Davidic authorship, says Delitzsch, "the argumentation of the Lord stands or falls as untrue, or only indirectly true." What he means by "indirectly true" it is not easy to say. There is, however, no doubt of it that, as an argument addressed to us, it is simply untrue, if David was not the author of the psalm. But it is not addressed to us. It is not meant for us. It was not meant for the disciples even then. It was meant for the Pharisees alone. They held that the Messiah was David's Son; they held that David called Him Lord; they were simply asked to put these two things together and reconcile them if they could. They were asked to think, and not. repeat mere tradition, slaying the Son while they built the tombs of the prophets. Studies in "Paradise Lost." I. MILTON'S SUPREME BEING. "Not just, not GOD: not feared then, nor obeyed." Most of us who read Milton are dissatisfied with the conception of GOD that dominates Paradise Lost. The feeling is a complex one, and applies both to the character in itself and to its claim to represent the Supreme Being. Yet the very fact of this claim to some extent hampers us, and prevents us from avowing, or even from fully realising, our dislike to the character. In order Let to discuss it freely we must forget the Name it bears. We must divest it of theological associations, and regard it as we should a character in fiction presented to us for praise or blame. Let us make an effort to do this, and, limiting ourselves to the episode with which theological systems are least concerned, that of the Rebellion of the Angels, discuss the hero of it as we should the hero of an imaginary tale. What is this hero like? What does he do? (1) He is represented as acting under material conditions. He is the Monarch of a world brighter indeed than our own, and indefinitely larger, but not unlike it in nature and structure. It has hills and valleys, seas and rivers, towers and palaces; its soil produces the metals and minerals familiar to our earth. Its inhabitants have bodies of finer texture than our own, and endowed with greater sensibility and elasticity, but capable, like them, of pleasure, pain, fatigue, hunger, and thirst. This world, though he has others under his control, is the Monarch's favourite abode. In the centre of it is the hill on which stands his palace; and within it is his throne, a structure of indescribable brightness, but still material. Nay, he is himself described as having form and substance, - "ethereal mould," - and this in a speech which, though made by a rebel, is evidently not intended to disparage him, but rather to establish his superiority. Of this world he is the absolute ruler, with an absolutism which it is difficult to understand. For although reasons for his supremacy are hinted at, they are nowhere plainly stated, and are apparently unknown to his subjects. The latter are as free to obey or disobey, to exercise their reason and their choice, as any human subjects of a human king. We can hardly wonder that there should be some question of an authority that looks so irrational, and that the temptation should arise to test it,-"Whether upheld by chance, or strength, or fate." A rebellion breaks out, of which the issues are tried by material weapons, on a material field. Finally, the rebel army is defeated, and driven, through a great morass underlying the disputed kingdom, to an underground dungeon, and the punishment of material fire and chains. (2) But Milton's hero not only acts under material conditions, but is actuated by human. motives and passions. His contest with his enemy is one of wits as well as strength. Intellect is pitted against intellect, cunning against cunning; must we not add, malice against malice? The rebel chief is released from prison for a time that "with reiterated crimes he" may "heap on himself damnation." His designs are furthered and utilised as instrumental to the triumph of his foe, and his own more abundant misery. His futile efforts to escape his doom are watched with an exultant glee,-a "Schadenfreude," as the Germans call it, suggestive rather of feline cruelty than of righteous retribution. Nor are there wanting the pettier manifestations of the same temper so familiar to our human experience. The King and the Prince, his son, indulge in mocking laughter at the preparations of the enemy; the steps of heaven are let down in his view, on purpose-so Milton suggests-to "aggravate his sad exclusion from the doors of bliss"; a main motive of the creation of Man is the mortification of the illstarred Angel. (3) And all this while the King, thus driven apparently to use every device in his power to outwit a foe so nearly his intellectual equal, has at his disposal-absolute power and absolute foreknowledge! He might have crushed his enemy at a blow; or if this, as Milton argues, would have involved a contradiction, he might 1 See A Treatise on Christian Doctrine, chap. vii. “God is not able to annihilate anything altogether, because by creating nothing He would both create and not create at the same time, which involves a contradiction." |