Accommodation, a technical term in theology, first innocently used by certain mystical interpreters, who maintained that although the sense of holy Scrip- ture is essentially but one, yet that certain passages were made the vehicle of a higher and more distant import than the mere literal expressions exhibited (Walch, Bibl. Theol. iv, 228). See Hyponoia. From this, however, the term was extended bvT writers of a Socinian tendency to indicate a certain equivocal char- acter in the language of the sacred writers and speak- ers. (See Whately's Bampton Lect. ; Conybeare, Lett, on Theol.; Tittmann's Meletem. Sacra, pref. ; Hauft, Bemerk. id), d. Lehrart Jesu ; Forster, Crit. Essays, p. 59; Marsh, in Michaelis's Introd. i, 473 sq. Express treatises on the subject have been written in Latin by Pisansky [Gedan. 1781], Pappelbaum [Stargard, 176.:], Weber [Viteb. 1789], Pang [Amst. 1789]. Van Hcmert [Amst. 1791, and Dortm. 1797], Krug [Viteb. 1791], Kirstcn [Amstadt, 1816], Cramer [Havn. 1792], Cams [Lips. 1793], Detharding [Gott. 1782] ; in German, by Zacharia [Biitz. and Wism. 1762], Eckermann, in his Theol. Beitr. ii, 3, 169 sq. ; Hauff [Bresl. 1791], Senff [Halle, 1792], Vogel, in his Avfsaize, ii, 1 sq. ; Flatt, in his Verm. Versucke, p. 71 sq. ; Gess [Stuttg. 1797], Nachtigal. in Ilcnke's Mag. v, 109 sq. ; Hartmann, in his BlicJce [Dusseld. 1802], p. 1 sq. ; Jahn, in his Nachtrdge, p. 15 jq. ; Crell, in Zobel's Meg. i, 2, p. 199-252; Eichhorn, Ally. Bibl. ii, 947 sq. ; comp. Henke's Mag. ii, 2, 638 sq. ; also the Journ. f. Bred. xlii, 129 sq. ; xliv, 1 sq. ; and, generally, Davidson's Sacred Hermeneutics, p. 199 sq., 334 sq., 487 sq.) It is now applied,
1. To explain the application of certain passages of the Old Testament to events in the New to which they have no apparent historical or typical reference. Cita- tions of this description are apparently very frequent throughout the whole New Testament, but especially in the Epistle to the Hebrews.
The difficulty of reconciling such seeming misappli- cations, or deflections from their original design, has been felt in all aires, although it has been chiefly re- served to recent times to give a solution of the diffi- culty by the theory of accommodation. By this it is
ACCOMMODATION.
meant that the prophecy or citation from the Old Testa- ment was not designed literally to apply to the event in question, but that the New Testament writer mere- ly adopted it in order to produce a strong impression, by showing a remarkable parallelism between two analogous events which had in themselves no mutual relation. Thus Dr. Adam Clarke, in his Commentary on Jeremiah (xxxi, 15-17), remarks: " St. Matthew, who is ever fond of accommodation, applied these words to the massacre of the children of Bethlehem ; that is, they were suitable to that occasion, and there- fore he applied them, but they are not a prediction of that event."
There is a catalogue of more than seventy of these accommodated passages adduced by the Kev. T. H. Home, in support of this theory, in his Introduction (ii, 317, Am. ed. 1835), but it will suffice for our pur- pose to select the following specimens :
Matt, xiii, 35, cited from Psa. lxxviii, 2. " viii, 17, " Isa. liii, 4.
" ii, 15, " Hos. xi, 1.
" ii, 17, 18, " Jer. xxxi, 15.
" iii, 3, " Isa. xl, 3.
It will be necessary, for the complete elucidation of the subject, to bear in mind the distinction not only between accommodated passages and such as must be properly explained (as those which arc absolutely ad- duced as proofs), but also between such passages and those which are merely borrowed, and applied by the sacred writers, sometimes in a higher sense than they were used by the original authors. Passages which do not strictly and literally predict future events, but which can be applied to an event recorded in the New Testament by an accidental parity of circumstances, can alone be thus designated. Such accommodated passages therefore, if th&y exist, can only be consider- ed as descriptive, and not predictive.
The accommodation theory in exegetics has been equally combated by two classes of opponents. Those of the more ancient school consider such mode of ap- plication of the Old Testament passages not only as totally irreconcilable with the plain grammatical con- struction and obvious meaning of the controverted passages which are said to be so applied, but as an un- justifiable artifice, altogether unworthy of a divine teacher. The other class of expositors, who are to be found chiefly among the most modern of the German Rationalists (see Pose's Protestantism in Germany, p. 75), maintain that the sacred writers, having been themselves trained in this erroneous mode of teach- ing, had mistakenly, but bona fide, interpreted the passages which they had cited from the Old Testa- ment in a sense altogether different from their histor- ical meaning, and thus applied them to the history of the Christian dispensation. Some of these have main- tained that the accommodation theory was a mere shift resorted to by commentators who could not oth- erwise explain the application of Old Testament proph- ecies in the New consistently with the inspiration of the sacred writers. See Condescension.
2. The word is also used to designate a certain rationalistic theory, viz., that Christ fell in with the popular prejudices and errors of his time; and so ac- commodated himself to the mental condition of the Jews. The Gnostics seem to have first originated this theory. They asserted that Christ's doctrine could not be fully known from Scripture alone, because the writers of the New Test uncut ninth sc< it h d to the stage of culture existing at the .time (tremens, Adv. liter. iii, 5). The theory derives all its plausibility from confounding two things essentially different, viz., con- descension to ignorance and accommodation to error. The former was indeed employed by the great Teach- er (e. g. in his use of parables) ; the latter would have been utterly unworthy of him. In this last sense, the theory is one of the most pernicious outgrowths of < rer- man rationalism. See Home, Introd. i, 317, 324 ; and