contingency, this dream would take its place in a large class, naturally mediated, but induced by God for the guidance of the affairs of men— another instance of which, we have already suggested, may be discovered in the dream of the Midianitish man mentioned in Jg 7'^''^ (so Nosgen, in loc). In this case, the hve instances of the directly supernatural dream which Matthew records in his ' Gospel of the infancy ' stand alone in the NT.
In any event, this remarkable series of direct Divine revelations through dreams (Mt 1™ 2'2- "• i». 22) forms a notable feature of this section of Matthew's Gospel, and contributes its share to marking it ott' as a section apart. On this account, as on others, accordingly, this section is .sometimes contrasted unfavourably with the corresponding section of the Gospel of Luke. In that, remarks, for example, Reuss (La Bible, NT, i. 138), the angel visitants address waking hearers, tlie in- spiration of the Spirit of God renew.s veritable prophecy, ' it is a living world, conscious of itself, that appears before us ' ; in this, on the contrary, ' the form of communication from on high is the dream, — the form the least perfect, the least ele- vated, the least reassuring.' Others, less preoccu- pied with literary problems, fancy that it is the recipients of these dream-revelations rather than the author of the narrative to whom they are derogatory. Thus, for example, we are told that, like the Magi of the East and the wife of Pilate, Joseph ' was thought worthy of communion with the unseen world and of communications from God's messenger only when in an unconscious state,' seeing that he was not ripe for the manifes- tation of the angel to him, as to Zacharias and Mai-y, when awake (Nebe, Kindheitsgeachichte, 212, cf. 368). Of course, there is nothing of all this in the narrative, as there is nothing to justify it in any Scripture reference to the signiKcance of revelation through dreams. The narrative is notable chiefly for its simple dignity and direct- ness. In three of the instances we are merely told that 'an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph,' and in the other two that he or the Magi were 'warned of God' in a dream, i.e. either by way of, or during, a dream. The term employed for 'appearing' (^aiVu) marks the phenomenal object- ivity of the object: Joseph did not see in his dream-image something wliich he merely inter- preted to stand for an angel, but an angel in his proper phenomenal presentation (see Grimm-Thayer, s.v. SoKia, ad fin. ; Trench, Syn. NT, § Ixxx. : Schmidt, Griech. Syn. c. 15). The term translated ' warned of God ' (xpi7M"'''s'ai) imjjorts simply an authoritative communication of a declaration of the Divine will (so, e.g., Weiss, Keil, Alexander, Broadus, Nebe), and does not presuppose a prece- dent inquiry (as is assumed, e.g., by Bengel, Meyer, Frltzsche). The narratives confine tliemselves, therefore, purely to declaring, in the simplest and most direct manner, that the dream-communica- tions recorded were from the Lord. Any hesitancj' we may experience in reading them is not suggested by them, but is imported from our own personal estimate of the fitness of dreams to serve as media of Divine communications.
It is probable tliat the mere appearance of dreams among the media of revelation recognized by Scripture constitutes more or less of a stumbling- block to most reader.s of the Bible. The disordered phantasmagoria of dreams seems to render them peculiarly unfit for such a use. The superstitious employment of them by all nations in the lower stages of culture, including not only the nation.s of classical antiquity, but also those ancient peoples with whom Israel stood in closest relations, sug- gests further hesitancy. We naturally question whetlier we are not to look upon their presence in
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the Scripture narrative just as we look upon them in the Gilgames epic or the annals of Assurbani- pal, on the stele of Bentrest or the inscriptions of karnak, in the verses of Homer or the histories of Herodotus. AVe are not without temptation to say shortly with Kant (Anthropologic, i. § 29), ' ^\e must not accept dream-tales as revelations from the invisible world.' And we are pretty sure, if we begin, with Witsius, with a faithful recognition of the fact that 'God has seen fit to reveal Himself not only to the waking, but sometimes also to the sleeping," to lapse, like him, at once into an apolo- getical vein, and to raise the question seriously, ' Why should God wish to manifest Himself in tliis singular way, by night, and to the sleeping, when the manifestation must appear obscure, uncertain, and little suited either to the dignity of the matters revealed or to the use of those to wliom the revela- tion is made?' (de Prophetis et Prophetia, ch. v. in Miscell. Sacra, i. pp. 22-27 ; cf. also Spanheim, Duhia Evangelica, 2nd pt., Geneva, 1700, pp. 239- 240, and Rivetus, in Gen. Exercit. cxxiv.).
We have already pointed out how little there is in common between the occasional employment f>f dreams for revelations, such as meets us "in Si rip ture, and the superstitious view of dreams pr( ■ \ : 1 1 ■ 1 1 1 among the ancients. It is an under- statLimiu when it is remarked that ' the Scriptures start from a spiritual height to which the religious conscious- ness of the heathen world attained only after a long course of evolution, and tlien only in the case of an isolated genius like Plato ' ( Jevons, loc. cit. 622). The ditt'erence is not a matter of degree, but of kind. No special sacredness or significance is ascribed by the Scriptures to dreams in general. No class or variety of dreams is recommended by them to our scrutiny that we may through this or that method of interpretation seek guidance from them for our life. The Scriptures merely atiirm that God has on certain specific occasions, in making known His will to men, chosen to ap- proach them through the medium of their night- visions ; and has througli these warned them of danger, awakened theni to a sense of wrong-doing, communicated to them His will, or made known His purposes. The question that is raised by the affirmation of such an occasional Divine employ- ment of (Irc.inis is obviously not whether dreams as siuh |>i]s.sess a supernatural quality and bear a suiieiiiiitunil uR-ssage if only we could get at it, but rather whether there is anything inherent in their very nature which renders it impossible that (icicl should have made such occasional use of them, or derogatory to Him to suppose that He has done so.