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vol. title: Vol Four of The Theosophical Society of The Arya Samaj of Arya-wart vol. period: Sept 1878 – Sept 1879 pages in vol.: 350 |
< The “Quarterly Review” on the “Speaker’s Commentary.” (continued from page 8-253) >
Christ, whether as bearing away His people’s sins into Hades, or ascending into heaven, or their accepted propitiation.”
The time-honored interpretation of Solomon’s Song as a prediction of the coming Messiah and his union with his church shares the same fate as the scapegoat. The text of this book has been treated in a scholarly manner, that merits the highest praise, by Mr. Kingsbury, and his conclusion is that “the primary subject and occasion of the poem was a real historical event, of which we have here the only record, the marriage union of Solomon with a shepherd maiden of Northern Palestine, by whose beauty and nobility of soul the great king had been captivated” (iv. 667-9).
The Commentary upon the Psalms was distributed among three writers, the Editor (Rev. Canon Cook), Dean Johnson, and Mr. Elliott, whose convictions are so striking that we regret we have not space to transfer bodily to our columns the Quarterly Review’s most able summary. No part of the Old Testament has been regarded with such a loving reverence as this collection of songs of Zion, and there is peculiar difficulty attending their critical treatment,
“arising out of the fact that for eighteen centuries the whole tide and volume of Christian emotion has been transfused into them, and has winged its way heavenwards in their matchless strains. The inevitable result has been to lift the Psalms generally above their original native atmosphere of religious experience, and indelibly associated their words with the privileges, hopes, and struggles of the believer in Christ. . . . . To these higher uses the words lend themselves with such perfect fitness, that it requires an effort to break the association, and to realize how much less they must have meant at first to the writers themselves. But it is just this that the critical exposition is bound to do. Its office is to bring out the primary meaning. . . . . . and for this some courage is required, for the result is apt to seem like a disenchantment for the worse, a descent to an inferior level, a preparation of the paradise in which ardent souls have found spiritual sustenance and delight. But the difficulty must be faced in any satisfactory exposition of the Psalms, and our writers seem for the most part to have encountered it honestly and without shrinking. As an instance we may refer to Psalm cxviii, which in the Christian use celebrates the Redeemer’s victory over death, and lifts us to the highest heaven of Easter joy as we sing the triumphant strain,—‘The stone which the builders refused is become the head-stone of the corner.’ But Dean Johnson in his comment feels bound to bring us down from this lofty elevation, and to trace back the glowing ode to some far humbler occasion and purpose.”
In his Introduction to the Psalms, Canon Cook admits that the prefixes to four-fifths of the Psalms are not to be trusted; and it is almost certain that “in some cases the original Psalm is not in our hands, but only the form which it assumed when modified for later use.”
With Dr. Kay’s treatment of Isaiah, the Quarterly Review is by no means satisfied. He strains too hard to give an appearance of Messianic prediction to passages of totally different and primitive meaning:
“In the endeavour to draw out the mystic and spiritual significance of these glorious strains, too little attention has been paid to their primary bearing on the history, sorrows, and hopes of the national Israel. . . . . We venture to complain . . . because the Christian use is so often allowed to thrust into the background the original sense and application. In the book itself the Hebrew prophet moves before us as the inspired patriot, reformer, and teacher, denouncing abuses. . . . . . . But in Dr. Kay’s comment that noble figure seems to be changed into the rapt seer, who, transported by the Spirit out of his own time, gazes on the mystery of a future dispensation, and loses the sense of his nationality in the vision of God incarnate and mankind redeemed.”
Having thus seriously shaken the prophetic value of our most comforting texts, the Review proceeds to consider how the highly important subjects of a doctrine of a future state, the interpretation of some of the leading miraculous narratives, and the dates and authorship of certain of the canonical books, are settled by this particular exegesis of the Old Testament. With regard to the question of a future state, it is at once evident that the Commentary finds nothing said concerning it by Moses; “a fact,” says the Review,
“all the more remarkable, because even before Abraham the belief in a future state was held in his native land, as we now know from the Chaldee tablets, and all through the sojourn it was familiar to the Egyptians; and as Mr. Fuller remarks, ‘The belief of the Babylonians and Assyrians in the existence and immortality of the soul, in resurrection, in a future life, and in heaven and hell, is no longer disputed’ (vi 396). That Moses, under divine direction, should have abstained from any recognition of man’s destiny beyond the grave, while the belief was more or less prominent in all the religions around Israel, must be confessed to be one of those enigmas which are the trial of our faith.”
Certain passages in Daniel, Job, Psalms, Isaiah, and Hosea, more or less capable of being interpreted as affirmations of a future state, are brought under notice, but the reviewer’s conclusion is, that on the whole “the evidence cannot be deemed other than extremely scanty, considering the immense significance to us of the doctrine of immortality.”
… the miraculous …ere seems no obscurity of opinion. The tendency of modern criticism to favor explanations which exhibit God as effecting His purposes rather by means of, than by violations of, the laws of the natural world, is shown in the interpretations of the writers in our Commentary. Bishop Harold Browne tells us we need not believe that the deluge was literally universal, but only that it seemed to Noah and his family as if the waters had risen above the highest mountains; and Noah’s place “may have been a plain country, as many think the region round about Babylon, with few hills in sight, and those not of great altitude; in which case but a moderate depth of water would have sufficed to cover all the highest hills under the whole canopy of heaven” (pp. 76, 77). Within view of Noah’s vineyard, presumably the Bishop means. The miraculous rain of “brimstone and fire from heaven” is dwarfed into the kindling of the bitumen of the vicinity by lightning, which “set the whole country in a blaze” (i. 129). So, too, Canon Cook takes the view that not one of the plagues of Egypt was anything more than a natural phenomenon, supernaturally intensified; the heaping up of the Red Sea waters into a wall on the east side is “a metaphor;” and Balaam’s ass never uttered articulate speech, but “sounds uttered by the creature after its kind became to the prophet’s intelligence as though it addressed him in rational speech.” The Commentary most strangely avoids reference to “the famous passage in Joshua, which was used to crush Galileo,” and the Review remarks, “of course it is scarcely within the limits of sanity that it can now be quoted to prove the revolution of the sun around the earth; but the question still remains, whether we are bound to believe on the statement of the sacred historian, that the rotation of the earth was really arrested for ‘about a whole day.’”
Respecting the dates and authorship of the books, the Review says that the most serious discussions among divines have been confined to Zechariah, Isaiah, Daniel, and those of the Pentateuch, especially the third and fifth. The present conclusions are, (a.) That it is impossible to determine whether one writer or two produced Zechariah; (b.) That Isaiah was probably, but not necessarily, written by one man; (c.) That the book of Daniel was the work of several hands; Daniel having apparently written certain narratives before the return, and “Ezra and his contemporaries” having edited and added to them at a subsequent period; (d.) The Mosaic books contain both pre- and post-Mosaic fragments, some of the latter “written, or sanctioned, by the prophets and holy men who, after the captivity, arranged and edited the Scriptures of the Old Testament” (i. 494). To Deuteronomy parts were apparently added by Joshua, Jeremiah, and Ezra.
One of the most important concessions of old ideas is in the ascription to human authorship of the expressions “Thus saith the Lord,” “And God spake the word,” and their equivalents, indicating the direct communication of His will to the prophets and historians. It is now not even claimed that the Law was given to Moses from the midst of the smoke and fire of Sinai by God Himself, but only that the words and ideas were communicated through the intermediation of His spirits and angels. It has struck the commentators that unless we conceive of a lowering of the true idea of justice and morality to the undeveloped morality of the age, it would be impossible to reconcile even the authorization of such imperfect sentiments as are attributed to God with a being of His perfections. Such precepts as those relating to concubinage, divorce, and slavery, and “the visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation,” are in part attributed to the human element interwoven in the Old Testament text, and partly to “the rough, incipient stages of the divine dealings with man,” as Canon Mozley puts it in his latest work, “Ruling Ideas in early Ages.” Even the received version of the Decalogue is not, according to Mr. Clark, the commentator, “the real original,” but “the commandments delivered on Sinai . . . . were two short sentences of but a few words each, all the rest being subsequent amplification;” though, how he discovered this without access to the original tablets of stone, is not made quite plain.
We confess that we rise with a sadness of feeling from a perusal of the Quarterly Review’s masterly criticism of the “Speaker’s Commentary.” To see so much swept away that has been the solace and support of the Church for centuries; so many breaches made in the wall so long considered impregnable; is cause enough for despondency, if not alarm. One cannot reflect upon the surrender already made of so many important p…ies in the Old Testament without app… when the books of the New Testament are subjected to the same crucial exegesis. Christianity is the hope of the world, and was given to mankind for the redemption and perfection of the nations. But if we are to be forced to discover running through the later precious Revelation the same “human element” as is now proved to taint the more ancient writings, it will be hard indeed to deny to the sceptical school of critics the right to treat the whole book as any other book put forth by religious leaders at various epochs as revelations to them of God’s Will.
Madame Blavatsky writes to a Bombay native paper (the Indu Prakash) complaining that ever since she arrived in Bombay she has been hailed by every class of society as a secret emissary of the Russian Government, but so poorly is she kept informed by the authorities of her native country, that she has now to apply to the native paper in question for help in the following matter. She affirms that a certain mysterious individual, calling himself the Prince of India, has recently arrived in Russia, where he is received secretly, as an honored guest by the St. Petersburgh Court. Madame Blavatsky gives the following verbatim translation from a Russian paper, and asks who the individual referred to can be:—
“A few days ago, arrived at Moscow, on his way from Petersburgh to Samara the Hindustani Prince Ramchander Balajee of Bhitoor. Colonel and aide-de-camp on the General Staff, the Count N. Y. Rostovtzoff, has been placed at the orders of the Prince, and now forms a part of his numerous suite.”
We agree with Madame Blavatsky that this is a question which the Indian police would do well to inquire into. Perhaps the Prince in question is Wassudew Bulwunt, otherwise known as Sivajee the Second, and that Vanity Fair was not so far wrong in ascribing to the ubiquitous Russians the Poona fires, the dacoities, and all the other ills from which India is suffering!
Madame H. P. Blavatsky writes as follows to the editor of the Indu Prakash:—“Ever since my arrival here in February, with an hospitality and persistence worthy of a better cause, I have been hailed by every class of society as a secret emissary of the Russian Government—a ‘spy’ to call things by their proper names. And yet, so poorly informed am I by the authorities of my native country of the ways and doings of the Russian police, that, in my ardent curiosity, I have now to apply to you for help. Will you kindly put your head together with mine to try and ‘guess’ who may possibly be a certain mysterious individual who has recently appeared in Russia? He calls himself a ‘prince of India,’ and provoking the greatest curiosity in the general public is, at the same time, received as an honoured guest by the St. Petersburgh ‘court’—though, as I am informed, secretly. This is what one of the numerous papers I receive, says of him, mentioning his arrival. I translate verbatim:—‘A few days ago, arrived at Moscow, on his way from Petersburgh to Samara, the Hindoostanee Prince Ramchander Balajee of Bhetoor. Colonel and Aide-de-camp on the general staff the Count N. Y. Rostovtzoff has been placed at the orders of the prince, and now forms a part of his numerous suite.’ Who is this prince? He evidently belongs to the native place, if he is not actually of kin to the famous Nana Saheb, of course. Though news for your readers, this piece of information will be stale for the omniscient police of India, who, for instance, have discovered in a twinkling of the eye that I was a dangerous Russian spy. They must certainly know all about this mirific prince. How provoking, then, that they will not tell!”
Editor's notes