Wyclif has a variety of spelling : sautree, sautrie, sawtree, sawtrye, and jisautrie are all found in the Wyclilite versions. The eccles. Lat. psidterium was both a psalterr and a song sung to the psaltery, and then also the book of songs or the Psalter. J. Hastings.
PSALTIEL.— 2 Eb 5'« (RVm). See Phaltiel.
PSYCHOLOGY An initial prejudice on this
topic, arising out of an extravagant claim made by some writers on its behalf, has first of all to be removed. To frame a coni])lete and indepen- dent philosophy of man from the Bible is impos- sible. The attempt cannot commend itself to any judicious interpreter. The psychology of the Bible IS largely of a popular character, and not a scien- tilic Hystem. Moreover, the Bible implicitly takes for granted much that luen have thought out for themselves on thb theme. But the relation
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PSYCHOLOGY
PvSY Clio LOGY
of the p.S3cliolof;y to the content of revelation is very close. It is essential to the other doctrines of Scripture — its directly relijjious doctrines — that these be expressed in terms of such underlying,' thoufihts on man's nature and constitution as aie implied in the Bible itself. For in terms of some conception of man — some psycholo"y more or less systematic — must all religious and theological statements be couched. But the religious teach- ings of the Bible have always suffered Injustice when they have been forced (as is so commonly the case) to take shapes derived from systems of thought and theories of man other than those of Scripture. How constantly all through the Chris- tian centuries Cliristian doctrines have been run into the mould of the prevailini; philosophies, is proverbial. In the earliest age of Christian specu- lation Plato and Plotinus shaped almost all Bible interpretation. In the Middle Ages, Aristotle ruled the Scholastic Theology, and his sway extended down to and beyond the Reformation. Leibnitz and Descartes had their age of influence in the ITth and 18th centuries. Kant and Hegel control the forms of thinking of many cultured theologians iu our own day. But when we seek to work out a Biblical Theology, when we aim at presenting the result of Scripture exegesis in our statement of revealed doctrine, we are bound to defer to the Scripture way of thinking. We can rid ourselves of the mistake which so long vitiated Theology, only by observing those ideas of Life and of the Soul which the Scripture-writers themselves assume in all their statements. To ascertain the science of human life, if it may be so called, to put to- gether such simple psychology as underlies the writings of Scripture, cannot be an unnecessary task. Theology is not truly biblical, so long as it is controlled by non - biblical philosophy, and such control is inexcusable when it is seen that a view of human nature, available for the purpose, is native to the source from which Theology itself is derived. Two things are assumed here, without further explanation. The one is, that such materials, of this kind, as the Scriptures give, cannot form a complete or independent structure. They cannot be riglitly treated except in close connexion with the proper and principal theme of the Bible. They cannot be treated abstractly or separately. They occur in the record of a revelation of Divine dealings with man for his redemption. They must be treated, therefore, in 1 ine with the history and development of these deal- ings. The other is, that they are on the whole uniform, that one fairly consecutive and con- nected system of ideas on the topic holds through the whole Bible. The proof of this will come out in the exposition. It is an OT system of tliought. Even among the older apostles in the NT the same order of thought rules. Only in the case of the Pauline writings is there any marked change or advance, consistent enough, however, in its de- velopment of the original ideas.
Rotlie has said * that we may appropriately speak of a ' language of the Holy Ghost. Cremer, \vho quotes the remark, expounds it thus : ' Tlie spirit of the language assumes a form adequate to the new views whicli the Spirit of Christ creates and works.' + Without attention to this element of progress it is impossible to read biblical psychol- ogy aright. This alone explains the transition from terms in the earlier Scriptures that are rather physical than psychical, to those in the later Scriptures that are more deej)ly charged with spiritual meaning. A progressive religious revelation is intimately connected with the growth
* Znr DofrnuUih, p. 238 (Ootha, 18B3>.
t Cremer'8 W6rterbuch der NT Oriicitdt. Voirede, p. 6 (Ootha, IS86)
of humanity, casts growing light npon the nature and prospects of man, will tlierefore he increasingly rich in statements and expressions bearing upon the knowledge of man himself, and especially of his inner being. It is in the latest records of such a revelation tliat the terms expressive of the facta and phenomena of man's nature should be corre- spondingly enriched, diversilied, and distinguish- able in their meaning. It is on this principle that in the sketch which follows so much attention is given to tlie Pauline antliropology.
i. The Bible account of man's origin first claims our attention. What strikes one is the unity and simplicity of tlie conception. We are warned oil', by the primal passage (Gn 2'), from any sliarp analysis. 'The Lord (Jod formed man of tlie dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils tlie breath of life ; and man became a living soul.' There are two elements or factors specified from wliich God formed man — 'dust from the ground'; ' breath of the Almighty,' — and the result is a unity. Tlie OT has no dehnite, single word (unless we excejit n'lj, which occurs 13 times, nanielv Gn 47", J;; 14»-»,'l S Sl'o-'^"", Neh 9^', Ps llO^'Ezk l''-^:*, Nah 3"", Dn 10« ; see art. Body) for the ' body ' apart from the soul. Indeed the term 'soul' is sometimes used for the corpse (Lv 21", Nu 6' 9"- '■ '" 19"). In this primal passage, there- fore, the expression ' man became a living soul ' has a characteristic simplicity. We must not identify ' soul ' here with what it means in modern speech, or even in later biblical language. In primitive Scripture usage it means not the ' im- material rational principle ' of the philosophers, but simply ' life embodied.' So that here the unity of the created product is emphatically expressed The sufficient interpretation of tlie passage is that the Divine inspiration awakes the already kneaded clay into a livinji human being. Cf. Ezekiel's vision (ch. 37), w-liere there is, first, the recon- struction of the animal frame — bone, sinews, flesh, skin ; and only after this the ' breath ' comes upon them, and they live.