ii. Inspiration. — The Christian doctrine of In- spiration was largely an inheritance from the Jews along with the OT, to which alone it at first applied. After the disappearance of Prophetism, and the reconstitution of the ' Church-people ' of Israel on the basis of the written law, it is not surprising that rigid and even mechanical views of Inspiration prevailed. The Talmud, while ad- mitting degrees of Inspiration, declared that the Pentateuch at least had been divinely dictated to Moses ; while Alexandrian Judaism, doubtless under Platonic influences, and on the analogy of the heathen Mantic, held that it involved a total suspension of the human faculties. The first Christian writer to propound a theory of this kind is Justin Martyr, who could not conceive of the things above being made kno\vn to men other- >vise than by the Divine Spirit using righteous men like a harp or lyre, from which the plectrum elicits what sound it will. This view was followed «4th more or less eniphasis by such writers as Tertul- lian, Irenaeus, Origen ; while others, like Chry- sostom, Basil, Jerome, were disposed to recognise the individuality of the several writers as mould- ing their respective work. While Eusebius affirms that it would be rash to say that the sacred pen- men could have substituted one word for anotner, and Augustine sometimes ascribes to them an absolute infallibility, the latter betrays some dis- [losition ♦'• recognise the human element when he says that tne evangelists wrote ' ut qtiisque memi- nernt et ut cuique cordi erat.' Two circumstances probably prevented the early Church from defin- itely adopting an extreme doctrine on this subject. One was the struggle with Montanism, which led to a clearer distinction being drawn between in- spiration and ecstasy. The other was the autlio- rity still ascribed to the tradition of the Churches, which was so much on a level with that attri- buted to Scripture that Irenneus could complain of the difficulty of dealing with heretics wlio could appeal from one to the other, as suited their pur- pose. The same duality of resource characterised
the common practice of the Church of that age, whose bishops invoked now the B. and now tradi- tion in favour of their judgments. In the succeed- ing period, the inspiration of the B. was in many quarters maintained in an uncompromising form, while practically the B. was more and more sub- ordinated to tradition as embodied in the Church. On the one hand, it was held to be useless to inquire the name of the ^vriter of a passage of Scripture since the Holy Spirit was the author cf all Scripture, or it was asserted that the Holy Spirit formed the very words in the mouths of prophets ajid apostles ; on the other, the Church placed itself between the indiWdual Christian and the B., which gradually became comparatively unknown and inaccessible. Its authority was not so much disputed as ignored. This was practically the position maintained throughout the Middle Ages — a position definitely formulated by the Council of Trent and the "later Koman Catholic theologians. It was the Reformers who revived the appeal to Scripture in opposition to the autho- rity of the Roman Church and its traditions. Tliis they did, however, without pronouncing upon the questions which the authority they ascribed to the B. seemed to a later age to involve. It was enough for them that the ' good news ' was declared in it, that by its use a soul could draw near to God with- out priest or rite. Luther proposed to revise the Canon, or at least to estimate the value of the several books by the distinctness with which Christ was preached in them — a criterion which, it is evi- dent, was at once too narrow and too wide, exclud- ing some books which not only Christian antiquity, but devout usage, had consecrated, and including, if consistently carried out, masses of Christian literature. Zwingli and Calvin maintained as firmly as Luther the supremacy of the B., while also keeping an open mind as to its several parts. For them the substance and content was every- thing, the form of secondary importance. The Confessions of that epoch in general share this freedom of attitude, though those of the Reformed Churches are more explicit than the Lutheran. The 17th cent, was a period at once of violent con- troversy and of rigid definition. The Jesuits on tlie one Iiand, the Socinians and Arminians on the other, attacked the authority of Scripture in the interests of Ecelesiasticism or Rationalism. Pro- testant orthodoxy, whether in the Lutheran or Calvinistic form, intrenched itself on the founda- tion of the B., identifying inspiration \v\t\\ in- fallibility, and the record with the revelation it conveyed. The sacred writers were regarded as the passive instruments, the amanuenses, of the Divine Spirit. Inspiration was defined as includ- ing the impulsus ad scribendum, the snggestio rerum, and the suqgestio verborum. The diversity of style apparent In Scripture was explained as the voluntary accommodation of Himself to the writers by the Holy Spirit. At the same time, with so exalted an authorship, the language could not be anything but pure and exact ; no barb.arisms or solecisms could enter into the Greek of tlie NT, and even the vowel points and accents of the Heb- rew text were inspired — an opinion stamped as orthodox by the Swiss Formula Consensus of 1675. From the theory of inspiration thus formulated (and exaggerated) followed the attributes (affec- tiones seu proprietates Scriptur(e sacrie) which the dogmatic writers ascribed to tlie B. These are primary and secondary. The primary are : 1. Div- iTia auitijritas, resting upon its external evidences and internal qualities ; but, above all, upon the testimonium Spiritus Sancti, or the witness of God in the soul. This autliority constitutes the Scrip- tures the sole tribunal in matters of faith and life. 2. Perfectio or sufficientia ; the B. contains all that