The only department of thought in Avhich the Hebrews can claim to have elaborated anything at all Avorthy to be called ' science ' is literary criti- cism. This, hoAvever, Avas pursued, not in a modern spirit of desire for knoAA-ledge, but because the disasters Avhich the nation had experienced drove its religious leaders to a more careful analy.sis and jireservation of the LaAV, in order that, by obeying it, the anger of God might be ai^peased and the prosperity of the peojile might return. The scribes ' busied tliemselves in providing for all conceivable ' legal ' cases that might occur, and especially in making a hedge or fence round the LaAv, i.e. in so expanding the compass of legal ])recept beyond Avhat Avas laid doAvn in the Pentateuch and in the oldest form of tradition, that it might be impossible for a man, if he observed all their traditional rules, to be even tempted to transgress the LaAV ' (see art. ' Scribes ' in Hastings' DB). Thus the literary and legal ' science ' of the scribes had all the defects of the ' scientific ' temper of the Jcav.s — the criterion of truth Avas not descriptive accuracy, but edifica- tion, the method Avas inventi\e and metaphysical, there Avas an absence of generalizing and systema- tizing poAver, and an over-emphasis of the particu- lar and concrete.
II. Relation of Christ to the 'science' OF His time and race. — We have uoav to inquire as to the mind of Christ in res])ect of the A-arious matters discussed aboA'e, that is, Ave have to ask Avhether His standard of truth Avas HebreAv or modern ; Avhether He sought to explain nature by tlie metaphysical or the descriptive method ; Avhether He shared the mental characteristics of the He1)reAvs or not, and whether Ave are to assume that He held those erroneous vieAvs of nature Avhich Avere common among the HebreAvs.
578
SCIENCE
SCIENCE
1. Among the most obvious characteristics of the mind of Christ is His sense of the radical opposition between Himself and the life of His own day. This opposition expresses itself at every turn in many ways. The political ambitions of the Herodians, the compromising worldliness of the Sadducees, the formalism and pride of the Pharisees, and the carnal carelessness of the generality, alike met with His denunciation and appeal. The traditions of the scribes He altogether rejected, and even the authority of the Law He subjected to a jjenetrating criticism. Against all existing systems of thought, all Rabbinical teaching, all conventional observ- ance, He set up one authority — His own conscious- ness of God, Himself. In a unique way He lived in the realities of things, never compromising, never with double mind. To the great reality of the P'ather and of the Kingdom was added the great reality of Himself, in simple deep-founded truth.
2. We have seen that the Hebrew notion of truth differed from the modern notion, in tliat it rather attached to the nature of a person than to the quality of a proposition. A proposition was true, not so much because it tallied with certain facts as because it had its origin in a certain character. In other words, the Jewish idea of triith Avas re- ligious, wliile the modern idea is scientific. But the Jewish idea was never purely religious. It was confused witli metaphysical and mechanical elements. In the mind of Jesus, however, this Hebrew notion of religious truth is purified of all foreign elements, and ceases all contact with the accidents of experience, making its home in the soul and in God.
It is noteworthy that the Synoptists report no sayings of Jesus from which these conclusions as to the meaning Christ attached to the word ' truth ' can be formally drawn, though, when once they have been drawn, it is seen that none of the sayings of Jesus contradicts them. In the Synoptics tlie word ' truth ' is not used by Jesus except in such phrases as 'of a truth,' the Gr. eqiiivalent for ' Amen ' (Lk 9=7 12"^ 2P). When we come to tlie Fourth Gospel, however (which we assume to be of sufficient historicity to allow us to use the words ascribed to Jesus as representing His thought), we find the words ' true ' and ' truth ' continu- ally in the mouth of Christ. Now, while the criterion of truth in the mind of Christ does not vary, we must not be surprised if difierent shades of meaning are expressed from time to time by the same words ' true' and ' truth.' Indeed, Jesus does not use tlie word ' truth ' always with the same nuance of meaning. In the first place, it represents a quality in a person (4^^ 18^^), then a quality wliich attaches to actions (3^^), and, finally, that which may be communicated from God to man in thought so as to aflect the life and give the quality referred to above (8^2 1417 ^gis lyiT)^ The whole concejition is summed up in 14®, where Jesus says, ' I am the way, and the truth, and the life' — the Personality of Jesus is a revelation that is ethical and vitalizing, and that comes to men to quicken consciences, illumine minds, and arouse affections. There is, indeed, in this thought an element answering to our modern notion of accu- racy ; it is not, however, explicit, but implicit in the idea of a faithful or reliable character. Thus Jesus carries the Hebrew idea of religious truth to its final expression, and in so doing neither antici- pates nor challenges the mod':"rn notion of scientific truth. To the modern mind truth is description of phenomena-— to Christ it meant spiritual in- sight : by the modern mind it is reached through demonstration and reasoning — for Christ it Avas instinctive or inspirational : to the modern mind it is part of a system of thought— with Christ it Avas an element or moment in life.