SOME THOUGHTS ON THE STUDY OF THE GREEK NEW TESTAMENT.

Transcription

1 133 SOME THOUGHTS ON THE STUDY OF THE GREEK NEW TESTAMENT. THE following remarks are not offered as anything like a comprehensive exposition of the subject of New Testament study. They do not, for instance, refer to devotional study, theology, or the Old Testament preparation for Christianity. They are simply some thoughts which have passed through my mind in taking up public work on the New Testament, after spending a number of years mainly in classical study and teaching. St. Paul writes : "An unspiritual man rejects the things of the Spirit of God : to him they are mere folly; he cannot understand them, because they can only be spiritually inquired into. But he that is spiritual is able to investigate all things." These words give rise to my first thought, that the New Testament cannot be adequately interpreted by any one who is not of Chrisfs fold. Those who are disposed to cavil at such a statement will probably agree with it when asked to think of some analogous cases. Can a symphony of Beethoven be in any degree appreciated by the man who has no music in his soul? What of the appreciation of literature not contained in the New Testament? There are some English poets, for example, whose study is a mental agony to some, and an unspeakable pleasure to others. There is no responsive chord in the natures of the former persons. It may be taken as axiomatic that in the study of literature, as in the intercourse of ordinary life, a certain sympathy, spontaneous or acquired, must exist, before a proper understanding of a work can be attained. This is true of the New Testament even as literature. It was left for a layman to show how great a historian Luke really is, after some theological

2 134 SOME THOUGHTS ON THE STUDY OP writers had rated him lower than his proper value. 1 And if this be true of the New Testament as literature, much more is it true of it as Christian literature, the sole occasion of which was the propagation of Christ's gospel among men. The interpreter of the New Testament must, to begin with, have the spirit of Christ; and only in so far as he is filled thereby, will his expositions be of enduring value. But he must be more. And here the Apostle again comes to my aid. He who wrote the words just read, also said : "Prove all things: hold fast that which is good." This warning advice has a great value in the exposition of the New Testament. There is need for the greatest employment of knowledge and skill in its study. The most highly trained specialists in every department, which is in any way connected with the study, must be accessible to the student. Hardly any of these departments has been thoroughly worked out in our time, partly because there is no finality in such matters, but partly because some expositors, through lack of proper training, have imagined that they understood the environment of the New Testament writers and incidents, and made rashly dogmatic statements about this, that and the other thing. These statements were evolved from their own consciousness, or derived from antiquated authorities, which had rested on their book-shelves since boyhood. This is not the way to expound the New Testament, and, in order to understand what this literature means, we must acquire as minute a knowledge of, and as real a sympathy with, human life in the first century of our era as is possible to us. Platitudes derived from Juvenal and his contemporaries present at best a one-sided view, apart from the question of date. We want to have a comprehensive knowledge of how men 1 Prof. W. M. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller, etc., chap. i., and lvas Ohriqt Born at Bethl~hem? chaps. i. and ii. (Hodder & Stoughton).

3 THE GREEK NEW TESTAMENT. 135 lived in the first century A.D. in the various parts of the Roman Empire referred to in the New Testament. We must pay special attention to the life of three classes, the natives, the Roman citizens, and the Jews. By life I mean, of course, life in the widest sense, and this includes private life, institutions like law and religion, education, embracing philosophy and rhetoric, and language. The classification is a rough one, but may serve to show what we ought to study, if we are to understand aright the bearing of the new truths on the people who first listened to them. I speak more or less as an outsider, but have the impression that the study of the life in Palestine in the time of our Lord, except in systematic excavation of sites, has been more cultivated than that of life in Asia Minor and Greece in the time of the Apostles, though doubtless there is room for more clearness in the presentation of the exact place of the Romans in the country, and the exact place of Greek in the speech of the inhabitants. But it is still more important for us, Gentiles as most of us are, to realize as fully as possible the life of the people in those cities which were visited by the God-appointed Apostle of the Gentiles. The Epistles are more suited to the educated Western scholar than the Gospels. It could hardly be otherwise. The classical education of the West is, with some differences, not unlike the education which Paul must have received at Tarsus. His thoughts are inevitably cast in a language which is understood of the educated but not of the simple-minded. I do not know if we always realize that Paul bears a special relation to us that no other Apostle does. The cry of back to the Jesus of the Gospels may be a kind of insult to that very Jesulil. If we believe that Paul was appointed to preach the gospel to the Gentiles, and trust in God's wisdom, we are bound as Gentiles to receive the words of Paul as the very words of God Himself, except where be explicitly tells us that he is

4 136 SOME THOUGHTS ON THE STUDY OF speaking as a mere human being. The discourses of Jesus were divinely appropriate to the audience which listened to them. Such is: also the case with the words of Paul. However much we may Hebraize ourselves 1 if we have studied ancient literature and philosophy, Paul is our Apostle, and no other can take his place. Whether there are contradictions between the teaching of Paul, as we call it, and the teaching of Jesus 1 while an interesting enough question to the philosopher, is of no practical importance. The words of our Apostle are to be received as the rule of conduct for Gentiles. Having, then, explained what I feel with regard to the Pauline teaching, I may go on to refer to the study of the surrounding life 1 amidst which the Epistles were written and read. The private life of the ancient cities of Greece and Asia Minor is rather elusive in its character. The literature of the period deals but little with it. We may draw certain inferences from earlier and later authors, but these must be used with caution. The inscriptions and the papyri are the fruitful store from which one can draw. They must always be studied, however, according to date and locality, and one would do well to follow the methods employed by such scholars as Mommsen in examining and using the evidence provided by them. As a general working rule, it may be said that one or two instances of any fact in them prove nothing, but that rules may be drawn from a large collection. The student must not be satisfied with modern text-books. He must constantly go back to the original documents. He must also keep pace with as much of the periodical literature as he can. Most journals give an epitomized account of the contents of kindred journals. These should be scanned, and the necessary articles should be noted and afterwards read. It may be taken that, with few exceptions 1 English 1 French and German papers give an account of all important research in this 1 as in all other

5 THE GREEK NEW TESTAMENT. 137 parts of our subject. The value of the knowledge that may be acquired, in estimating the character of ancient life in Asia Minor, can be best seen in Professor Ramsay's various works, particularly his Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia. It ought to be a point of honour with Western Christians to have all sites visited by St. Paul scientifically excavated, and the results carefully published. It is disgraceful that such work should have been left almost entirely to private enterprise. Far be it from me to say a word against the spending of money on missionary or philanthropic enterprise. But Christianity is not confined to these. There is an intellectual hunger that cries for satisfaction. May we still hope that in our lifetime the British Government may be got to take some interest in this matter, and, in seeking material benefits for all, not neglect the study of Christian history, as it has the higher musical education of the people? The gain to New Testament study would be incalculable. A knowledge of the worships of Greece and Asia Minor is also necessary, and in this sphere of study we are in a very much better position than our predecessors. To them the ancient gods were little more than a catalogue of names. Now, the application of the historical method to the study of ancient religions has shown bow much the religion of the Jews bad in common with those of all the surrounding countries. We can by this knowledge understand all the better wherein lie the essential differences between the pagan cults and Judaism or Christianity. The subject is a very large one, but also a very fascinating one. The best introduction to it is an article, as yet unpublished, but shortly to appear in the extra volume of Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible. This is from the pen of Ramsay, and is entitled Religion of Greece and Asia Minor. The dry bones of the subject, if one can use such an expression of this study, can be found in Roscher't~!-exfkQ~ der Mythologie.

6 138 SOME THOUGHTS ON THE STUDY OF the best English presentation of it in Mr. Farnell's Cults of the Greek States, both works being still unfinished. If we seek for an example of the advantage of such study, we shall find it in the problem about food offered to idols. This is a confessedly difficult subject, but it has recently received illumination from documents connected with religion. 1 As to philosophy, it is to be feared that we have thought rather more of those Greek philosophers who are important.. for ourselves as thinking persons, than of those who lived in the period between Aristotle and Paul, the writers whose books Paul must have read and been acquainted with. Of this it would be unfair to complain. It is generally allowed by those best able to judge that the philosophers of the intervening period, such men as Philodemus the Epicurean, for example, are barren and uninteresting. We must remember, however, that Cicero de~ived from the philosophers of that age the ground-work of his delightful philosophical writings, which have undoubtedly had a great and good influence on the European thought of later times. There must have been much in the works of those writers, now mostly lost, which was really useful, and adapted to the intellectual grasp of their age, and it is the duty of the expositor of Paul to read and study their existing remains, if only to realize the sort of teaching which Paul must have received for the Greek part of his education. Paul himself must have been classed by the Greeks. as an itinerant philosopher or rhetorician, and used the methods common to such. We have a parallel to him in the later Dio Chrysostom, whose orations have been most unworthily neglected. But, for the study of the Pauline Epistles, a comprehensive knowledge of Greek philosophy is desirable. One of the characteristics of the philosophy of St. Paul's day was eclecticism. Each school borrowed doctrines from the others t Cf. Moulton in ExrosrToR, 1901, i. p. 279, 1903, ii. p. 432; Ramsay in ExroslTOR, 1900, ii. p. 429, 1901, i. p, 93 :ff.

7 THE GREEK NEW TESTAMENT. 139 to such an extent that it was hard to distinguish the schools by anything but their names. A good instance of this is Seneca, who, though a Stoic by classification, quotes statements of Epicureans and others, and stamps them with as high approval as he gives to those of the leaders of his own school. This fact makes a knowledge of all the ancient philosophical systems, and the ancient books and fragments of books expounding them, a desirable possession. But there can be no doubt that special attention. should be devoted to the Stoic doctrines, as with these St. Paul must have been specially brought into contact. This has been shown at length by scholars like Bishop Lightfoot, who has accumulated most wonderful parallels between St. Paul and Seneca. But there is an especial reason for the study in the fact that Athenodorus, one of the later Stoics, was a prominent citizen and teacher of Tarsus, the birthplace of the Apostle. We are fortunate in now having a volume of fragments of the Stoic writers, edited by V on Arnim, to be followed by two others, which will together contain everything of the kind which antiquity has left us. Here also the rule, that one must study most closely what is most nearly contemporaneous with the Apostle, must be adhered to. As an introduction, that by Dr. E. L. Hicks, entitled St. Paul and Hellenism, and contained in the fourth volume of Studia Biblica, or Dr. Paul Wendland's Christentum und Hellenism11-s, 1 can be highly recommended. The other important branch of ancient education was the study of rhetoric. It is somewhat difficult for us to realize how higher education among the ancients was directed almost solely to the making of efficient and telling public speakers in the assembly or the law court. The elaborate rules for the construction of speeches may seem to us highly 1 Leipzig, Dr. Wendland, the editor of the Letter of Aristeas, and the co-editor of Philo, is one of the greatest living authorities on postclassical Greek.

8 140 SOME THOUGHTS ON THE STUDY OF ~ ~~~~~~---~--~ artificial, but there can be no question that the ancients: had earned by their experience the right to dictate on such a matter as no modern people has earned it. The pupil had to study long the best ways of influencing and persuading his fellow-men to a course of action. His task was not merely what to say, but just as much how and when to say it. The value of such training was very great. It could convert a very commonplace person into a considerable power, though of course its highest results could not be obtained without the burning spirit behind, whose enthusiasm would from time to time carry the orator above and beyond the technical rules. Such rules do not stifle individuality, but prune it of its ugly excrescences. And this. training affected not merely speeches, but all composition. even in verse. The ancient authors, especially perhaps at. this time, wrote everything in such a way as would tell best if it were declaimed. It is so with the greatest poem of the day, Lucan's Civil War, 1 and it is so also with the Pauline Epistles. It is obvious that they must have been composed greatly with a view to the effect which they might have when read aloud to the congregations to which they were sent. We lose much in their case, as we do in the case of other ancient writings, when we do not have them declaimed for us, and do not use our ears rather than our eyes. Let us then study the rules of ancient rhetoric in some such book as Volkmann's, and trace howfar they are obeyed in New Testament compositions. Dr. Blass, a teacher whose opinion on such subjects all must respect, tells us that the Epistle to the Hebrews shows in the building up of the clauses and the style the care and taste of an artistic writer. 2 In this connexion, I ought to refer to the epistolary modes of expression in Paul's letters, which Deissmann and Rendel Harris 3 t Commonly, but incorrectly, called Pharsalia. 2 Grammatik des neuiestamentlichen Griechisch (2. Aufl. 1002), Sachregister, s.v. Hebraerbrief, cf. Prof. J. H. Moulton, ExPOSITOR, 1904, i. p EXPOSI'!'OR.

9 THE GREEK NEW TESTAMENT. 141 have shown to be those usual at the time, as seen m the letters preserved in recently discovered papyri. The Dean of Westminster has devoted an excursus to this subject in his most valuable commentary on Ephesians. At this point a reference to law may not be out of place. While the Mosaic law is most commonly referred to, a certain knowledge of other ancient legal ideas and systems ia most useful. And what we have to study is not so much the Roman law as known and practised in Italy, but the systems in vogue in the Eastern part of the Empire. We must try to understand those set up by the successors of Alexander the Great, themselves superimposed on others previously existing. Little information on those of Asia Minor has come down to us, but we may expect to have it considerably added to by the discovery of more inscriptions. Meantime, Mitteis' Reichsrecht und Volksrecht is the standard work in this neglected department of study, and the Egyptian papyri contain much to help us towards a knowledge of the working of law in Egypt, and to provide analogies for the understanding of other systems. Some older expositors, who had only a vague notion of ancient administration, seem to have thought that the Roman Empire was governed over all its parts by exactly the same laws. It may not be even untrue to suppose that they were ignorant of the fact that Greek was the official language of the Eastern half of the Empire. If they were aware of this and what it implied, it showed a lamentable ignorance of the facts of life to suppose that the laws could be the same, when the language. was different. The Romans had little or nothing to learn about administration. They kept the systems they found in all the provinces, except where they were such as might lead to the dismemberment of the Empire. States were governed by client-kings under Rome's suzerainty, until they were fit to be fully incorporated in the Empire. So was

10 142 SOME THOUGHTS ON THE STUDY OF it with the religions of these countries. They were all suffered to continue, but the provinces were bound together by the higher worship of Rome and the reigning emperor. It may be interesting, therefore, to quote the Latin law books in illustration of the New Testament; but as many of the laws have reference to Italy, they must be used with caution. Such is part of the equipment which helps the student to be in the proper condition of mind to approach the writings of the New Testament with a view to their thorough comprehension, and it now remains to say something about the w_ay in which the study itself ought to be carried on. It is almost a commonplace to say that each book or group of books should be read by itself in the first instance, all the attention being concentrated on it alone. Regard must also be had to the chronological order. The student should first pin his faith to some chronological order that has received wide acceptance at the present time, such as Harnack's, and take the books in this order, not, however, wandering from a writer till he has completed the study of his works. One ought to read each book aloud, or, better still, have it read aloud, with as much expression as possible and repeatedly, till the whole context is vivid and present to the mind. This cannot be too much insisted on, in view of the almost invariable custom among the ancients of listening to works read aloud by the avaryvwrtt1'j'> or lector, rather than reading them silently with the eyes only. Another good reason for this practice is that the ear has a better memory than the eye. Due attention must also be paid to the paragraphs, not the least of the services which Westcott and Hort have done for the text of the New Testament. Their value has been recognized by Nestle, who has repeated them in his own text. It may frequently be found advisable to re-read a paragraph before going on to what follows.

11 "----~-~~ THE GREEK NEW TESTAMENT. 143 When the work has thus been read frequently, there doubtless remain a number of difficulties, both of text and interpretation, and with regard to the solution of these something must be said. First with regard to the text. The student naturally desires to read that text which approximates most nearly to the original autographs. But what is that text? Most persons in this country would say " W estcott and Hort' s." To the truth of this I would not demur, if " independent text " be meant. For the student, however, either the Textus Receptus with Dr. Sanday's appendices/ or Nestle's Stuttgart New Testament2 would probably prove more useful. Many believe that Hort dismissed the Western Text too curtly, and certainly one of the wants of the age is a proper edition of this early and important text, in which Beza's great codex will find its proper place. Great things are expected of the text of V on Soden, which is shortly to appear. 3 The advantage of the two editions recommended is that, if the text given do not suit his judgment, perhaps something in the apparatus will commend itself to him. Even the oldest and best manuscripts have errors at times, and may be corrected from later and inferior ones. The st~dent, however, should always make a serious attempt to understand the text before him. It is possible that it was produced by a better scholar than he himself is ; and here the use of lexicon, grammar, translations and commentaries comes in. As to the lexicons, the careful and minute works of Grimm-Thayer and Cremer must still be used, but with caution, and alongside of the Lexicon Graecum Suppletorium et Dialecticum of Van Herwerden (Leyden, 1902), Deissmann's Bible Studies, Canon Hicks' articles in the 1 Oxford, Clarendon Press, Fourth edition, Die 8hriften des Neuen Testaments in ihrer altesten en eichbaren Textgestalt hergestellt auf Grund ihrer Textgeschichte, Band i. Teil 1 (pp. xvi , Berlin: Duncker, 1902).

12 144 SOME THOUGHTS ON THE STUDY OF Classical Review for 1887, Professor Ramsay's articles entitled The Greek of the Early Church and the Pagan Ritual in the Expository Times for October 1898, and later, Mr. Moulton's recent papers in the ExPOSITOR on the language 'of the papyri/ and, generally, all recent editions of later Greek works and documents with verbal indexes. When Cronert's new Greek dictionary appears, it is hoped that the results of such scattered articles will be combined in one work. His papers in the Cla8sical Review, though they have incurred some adverse criticism, promise well. Illustrations of the Greek we find in the New Testament are daily accumulating, and personal study of papyri and inscriptions is a most useful adjunct to the papers here mentioned. The Septuagint also should be by the student's side, with the splendid concordance of Hatch and Redpath, for which we are indebted to the Clarendon Press. 2 For the grammatical difficulties the reader must consult Winer-Moulton, 8 Winer-Schmiedel, which is stiu far from complete, and Blass's second edition. He ought also to have by him the splendid Historical Greek Grammar of Jannaris, which covers the whole of Greek from the beginning of Attic Greek to the present day. A training in classical Greek is a great advantage for the study of the Greek New Testament. By it we learn to respect minute differences of expression, and obtain a knowledge of their respective value. But we must not allow this knowledge to bias us in the interpretation of the language of the New Testament. It is only the spirit attained by the acquisition of such knowledge that must be applied to the language of the New Testament. We must collect, ' 1901, i. 271 ff., 1903, i. 104 ff., ii. 423 ff., also his Classical Review articles there referred to.! We are promised a Grammar to the LXX from the capable hands of Mr. H. St. John Thackeray. a Of which a new edition is being prepared by Dr. Moulton's son, Prof. J. H. Moulton.

13 THE GREEK NEW TESTAMENT. 145 examine, and arrange here as elsewhere. A much needed caution must be exercised. There is no homogeneity except that of spirit and speech between, say, the Gospel of St. Matthew and an Epistle of St. Paul. We must take each writer's grammar by itself. Such excellent aids as Bruder's and Moulton and Geden's concordances make this kind of study easy. As to the help which translations can give, the best translation to use is perhaps still, as in Dr. Routh's day, the Vulgate.. We may be able to improve on it at times, but its renderings are always entitled to respect. In English, the Twentieth Century Translation, and Dr. Weymouth's, are perhaps the best in existence of the whole New Testament, Both are the result of great labour, and show good taste. Of commentaries the number is legion, and it is difficult to give good advice with regard to them. The use of the commentary ought to be the last stage in the study of the New Testament, and it should be consulted only in cases where difficulty has occurred. When I say this, I presuppose thorough study of the text. Those who are not prepared to study the text seriously, would be better to follow a good commentary blindly from the first. I should strongly advise study of the ancient Greek and Latin commentaries, which has been rather neglected of late years. The texts are often inaccurate or badly printed, but this state of matters will be gradually remedied. I would seek to reinforce Mr. C. H. Turner's recent appeal to the English Universities to undertake the editing of the exegetical writings of the Fathers on the New Testa.ment. 1 It is work for which the best trained theological students at our Universities are eminently fitted, and I venture to think that some of them would be better employed thus than in writing commentaries of their own. It is not always 1 Journal of Theological Studies, iv (1900), pp. 139, 140, VOL. IX. 10

14 146 THE GREEK NEW TESTAMENT. sufficiently realized how great an ad vants.ge the Greeks and Latins have a priori over ourselves in the interpretation of the New Testament. It ought to be recalled that they lived amidst surroundings, climate, intellectual atmosphere, and language very much more like that of New Testament times than we do. We ought to pay more respect to their opinions than we have done. The marvellous acquaintance with Scripture which some of them reveal is in itself an education to the modern Christian scholar, on whose cheek it might well produce a blush of shame. But it is quite true that the modern commentator is often superior - in historical imagination and critical knowledge of the language, and he cannot be neglected. Much valuable help can be got from the International Critical Commentary and the Expositor's Greek Testament, both now in course of publication. 1 There is no finality in commentaries, but each, if faithfully written, contains something that is valuable for all time. Of this truth, Wettstein, Bengel, and some of the Critici Sacri are good examples. 1 The third volume of the latter, taking us down to Ooloasians, has recently appeared. ALEX. SOUTER.