11. TYPICAL EXPLANATION. 1 From the preceding remarks on salt, oil, and frank-incense, on blood and fat, on leaven and honey, it will be manifest that the symbolical interpretation of the Hebrew sacrifices and their rituals is in accordance with the spirit of the Scriptures. It derives support from other commands of the Pentateuch, the tendency of which is evidently symbolical. Phylacteries are plainly ordained as a "sign" and a "memorial" for the Law and its observance. The golden plate with the words "Holiness to the Lord", worn by the High-priest on his mitro, was clearly designed to load the Hebrews to a consciousness of their sins, and thus to render their gifts and offerings acceptable." The flesh of certain classes of sin-offerings was to be consumed by the priests, to indicate that they "romoved the iniquity of the congregation and made atonement for them before the Lord."3 The Hebrews were enjoined to sit in Tabernacles during seven days every year, that they might perpetually be reminded of the time, when their ancestors, rescued from Egyptian bondage, pitched their tents in the desert under Divine protection. Moreover, the Hebrew prophets insisted with holy earnestness upon the moral and spiritual ends of all ceremonials; and they taught impressively by symbolical acts, which indeed, natural in themselves, are peculiarly suitable and attractive to a childlike intelligence requiring to perceive the ideas in some outward embodiment. 4 5 But very different from the symbolical is the typical explanation: this regards the ceremonies and events of the Old Testament as the prefigurements of some corresponding doctrine or occurrence recorded in the New; it, more especially, supposes the Hebrew sacrifices and their rituals to foreshadow the person and nature, the life and death of Christ. As it has exercised a momentous influence upon the formation of religious dogmas, the enquiry is not uninteresting what value ought to be attached to it. But it cannot be justly estimated, as will presently be evident, without a direct referenco to the Talmudical and Rabbinical mode of exegesis; we therefore premise a short delineation of the latter, after which we shall compare it with that adopted in the New Testament. As in nature, so in history, the same things are often repeated at different times and in different degrees of perfection; the development 1 Exod. XIII. 9, comp. Deut. VI. 8, 9; Comm. on Exod. XIII. 9. 2 Exod. XXVIII. 36, 38; see Comm. on Exod. p. 416. 3 Lev. X. 17; comp. Sect. X. 11; XV. 4 Lev. XXII. 43. 5 Comp. Isai. XX. 2-4; Jer. XIII. 1-11; XVIII. 1-6; XIX. 1--12; XXIV. 1—8; XXVII. 2—12; XXVIII. 10–14; XXXII. 7-11; Ezek. IV. 1—13; V. 1—4; Hos. II. 1-9; III. 1-5; elc. of nations and of mankind advances in rhythmic cycles, oach complete in itself, and each analogous, but superior, to the proceding. Tho Hebrow mind had, in the period of the Old Canon, creatod for itsolf a cortain system of religious thought and public devotion, compact and consistent, and for the time entirely satisfactory. But the Jews advanced; they unfolded the germs of the earlier literature, and they assimilated to their own views ideas borrowed from the creeds of other nations. Yet they had long learnt to look upon the Old Testament as the all-embracing code of wisdom and knowledge, which must contain ---it may be in obscuro allusions or hiddon allegories all truths that can ever be discovered by the human intellect to the end of time: they acted upon the conviction, "turn it and turn it, for everything is in it." Therefore, they strove to corroborate any new conception or opinion by connecting it with some really or apparently kindred passage of the Scriptures, and they introduced that connection by the word "as it is written." For instance, Ben Zoma said, "Who is wise? He who learns from every body; for it is written, I acquired knowledge from all who taught me'"; though the words employed have in the Psalms where they occur a very different moaning, viz. "I have more knowledge than all my teachers." Such midrashic elements began to appear from very early times, in fact, not long after the completion of the second Tomple; they are discernible in all, oven the oldest translations of the Hebrew Bible, in those of the Septuagint, Symmachus and Theodotion, in Onkolos, Jonathan, and the other Targumim, in the Poshito, and oven in the version of the Samaritans generally so reluctant to adopt anything from the rival sects; they were recognised by the Essenes, of whom Philo clearly observes, "Engaged in the sacred Scriptures, they speculate on their national philosophy by allegorising; for they look upon the literal expressions as symbols of some secret meaning of nature, intended to be conveyed in those figurative expressions;" and Philo himself habitually indulging in kindred modes of elucidation, supposed every Biblical expression to imply a double sense, a physical and spiritual, that is, a literal and allegorical one. At first, the Jewish doctors were cautious in this mothod: presorving the consciousness that the combinations were the work of their own judgment, they desired the Scriptural passage to be regarded as no more than a mere "support" of their own view, or as implying, at best, only "a hint" in reference to it, and the Mishnah, still sparing in that process, speaks of many now laws that "fly in the air and have no 6 Mishn. Aboth. IV. 1; comp. Ps. CXIX. 99. Biblical foundation", and of others that are "like mountains suspended by a hair, as they are little alluded to in the Bible, yet developed into numerous ordinances." But gradually, though not without opposition from some more sober sects, as the Sadducees and Bacothusians, they pursued the samo path with greator boldness and assurance; they considored no opinion safe against later fluctuations, unless guarded by Scriptural authority; they deemed it, therefore, necessary to trace all the innumerable expansions of the Law to the Bible, which they diligently searched and unscrupulously employed for that object; and they seriously and confidently pointed to their discoveries, no matter how strango soover, as "proofs" of the doctrines they wore anxious to diffuse. In this manner, that which at first was understood merely as a happy and welcome parallel, was imperceptibly converted into an irrefutable argument. It is obvious that the text of the Bible could not without being strained yield the desired results. How could the unlimited number of lator laws, ideas, and ethical precepts bo prossed into the small compass of tho Old Testament without the most hazardous' and the most violent manipulations? Indeed, the expedients employed by the Talmudists to gain their object, form a most curious chapter in the history of human ingenuity and intellectual perversion; they are barely redeemed from reckless frivolity by the religious earnestness which prompted them, and the high aim which they wore designed to sorvo that of hallowing every thought and elevating ovory rolation of life. It was supposed that the diction of the Bible, that is, the holy language of God, is suporhumanly profound and significant, capable of involving all futuro progress and mental life, pregnant of marvellous and mysterious power; that it teaches many things at once; hints by one word at many truths; concoals a lesson in ovory sign; is designedly obscuro, and frequently renounces current expressions; that it may long baffle the efforts of human roflection and penetration, dimmed as these are by sorrow and suffering, but reveals itself at last to pious research; while the enigmas that remain unsolved, will one day be disclosed by the light of the 'Redeemer views which were encouraged by the peculiar and indefinite character of Hebrew phraseology, and by the indistinctness of many legal and ritual ordinances. Occasionally, a gleam of a better hermeneutical method broke through the chaotic confusion; it was declared, "In the whole Law, the toxt does not pass beyond the litoral sonso", or "the Law speaks in the ordinary language of men", or specific instances were judiciously generalised and reforred to similar cases: but the actual application of these abstract principles was a rare and unavoidable exception; as a rule, they were absolutely ignored, and sometimes expressly disclaimed. Ordinarily, letters of the Biblical text were transposed or read with different vowels and interpreted accordingly, combined with the preceding or following word, or permuted with lotters of a similar form or of an analogous position in tho alphabet. Words were interchanged with others of an approximate sound, or read in a different order, computed according to the numerical value of their letters, and then replaced by others making the up same sum; or they wore pronounced superfluous, unusual, or anomalous, on purpose to ronder thom availablo as supports of somo fancied idoa. Some particles were supposed invariably to include something else, others, always to exclude a notion. Verses were torn from their context, and invested with a meaning utterly foreign to it, or they were divided, cut asunder, and distorted with such a degree of arbitrary freedom, that sometimes even Talmudists expressed their disapproval, and began seriously to doubt whether the litoral exposition ought not to be admitted at least by the side of the allegorical. Important analogies of religious law wore founded upon a slight and accidental verbal resemblance; and inferences were drawn entirely unwarranted by the manifest tenour of the verse. The words of the Scriptures were compared to jewels set in silver plates, or to a string of pearls, beautiful as an entire ornament, but precious also individually; thus they were regarded as full of import both in their continuity and their isolation. The recurronce of the samo word in differont passages was deemed sufficient ground for explaining tho passagos thomsolvos as identical or kindred; and it was believed that every vorso could be interprotod from multifarious points of view. Such rules were necessarily fraught with the most singular and most deplorable results. No conceit was too fanciful or grotesque, no construction too incongruous and artificial, too illogical and capricious, if insinuating by adroitness or wit, or evolving a novel idea from familiar terms. Every trace of sound comment vanished, and the Bible was overgrown with the weeds of eccentric paradox. All the conclusions so obtained were endowed with the same authority and holiness as the clear utterances of the Bible. They were regarded not only as justified, but as so exclusively genuine and infallible, that Talmudists could propound the surprising rule, “ho who renders a verse according to its plain form (that is, literally) is a falsifier"; although they had the boldness to add, "he who makes any addition is a blasphemer." The history of the Christian or typical interpretation of the Bible was in many respects analogous to that of the Jewish schools just sketched, and the stages of advance were nearly identical. The earlier phases are visible in the Books of the New Testament. The apostolic writers, Jews by birth and education, followed in the exposition of the Bible the taste and usage of their time and people; nay, they would probably, for practical ends, have accommodated themselves to the current manner, had it oven, as is not apparent, been uncongenial to them. In fact, the New Testament offers numerous instances both of "the support" and "the proof": the former is, as in the Mishnah and Talmud, introduced by "as it is written" or "spoken";' the latter usually by "that it might be fulfilled, what was spoken or written." One instance of each will suffice. Whon Christ intended to enter Jerusalem, it is related, "when he had found a young ass, he sat thereon; as it is written, Fear not, daughter of Sion: behold, the king comes, sitting on an ass's colt." Josoph returning with the child Jesus from Egypt, went into Galilee, and "he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled, what was spokon by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene." Let us briefly examine the two passages. The second Zechariah prophesied of a time when peace would unite the nations of the world, when God would "cut off every chariot and every horse, and cut off every battle-bow, and He would speak peace to the nations"; when, therefore, the ideal king, "just, and victorious, and lowly", would not ride on a horse, used in war and loving the tumult of battle, but on an ass, the peaceful, harmless, and patient animal, which would alone be employed in those days of perfect harmony. How then can the riding of Christ on an ass at a time, when the horses were not "cut off" and warfaro had not coasod, in any sense be called a parallel to Zechariah's description! how much less can it be considered a fulfilment! The picture which the prophet draws of the future monarch is not that of humiliation, but of humility, and every one knows that the ass is, in the East, by no means looked upon with contempt. More characteristic still is the second passage. Isaiah speaks of the Messianic king in the following words, "And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch (netser in Hebrew) shall grow out of its roots", that is, the Messiah shall be a netser of the house of 5 1 John XII. 14; Acts II. 16; comp. Matth. XXI. 13, 42, 44; XXVI. 31 (Zech. XIII. 7); 1 Cor. I. 19, 31; II. 9; IX. 9; 2 Cor. VI. 2; VIII. 15; Rom. II. 24; III. 1, 10, 18; V. 17; VIII. 36; IX. 13, 33; XV. 3, 21; Hebr. V. 6 Rom. IV. 3; X. 8; XI. 2, 4; Gal. IV. 30. 2 Matth. 1. 22; II. 15, 23; VIII. 17; XIII. 35; John XIII. 18; XV. 25; XVII. 3 John XII. 14, 15; comp. Zech. IX. 9. |