THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
of the sun which is referred to. But there is no case of concession to real error, still less of assertion of error, in any of this accommodation.
As to the general ethical use of accommodation, a case may arise in which one is 7. When bound by the law of love not to make Accommo- use of a liberty which in the abstract dation is he possesses, lest the weaker brethren Admissible, should be scandalized. From this point of view Paul lays down his rule in regard to the eating of meats offered to idols (I Cor. viii. 13). In like manner one may be bound, like Paul again, by the love of his neighbor to do something he would not otherwise do (Acts xvi. 3, xxi. 17 sqq.). Paul's acceptance of Timothy's circumcision was no concession to error; he did not cease to teach that the rite was unnecessary for Gentile converts; and he stoutly resisted an attempt to impose it on Titus (Gal. ii. 3-5). Limitations which he willingly imposed on his own personal liberty in the accommodation of pastoral wisdom would have been unworthy weakness if he had yielded to them when imposed by others when the circumstances did not justify them. This is the standpoint of the Formula Concordia (art. x.) in reference to the Adiaphora (q.v.). In such matters, what in itself is innocent and may be used with Christian freedom becomes, when it is sought to be imposed as an obligation, an attack on evangelical liberty which must be resisted.
(Rudolf Hofmann.)
The theory of theological accommodation, so
far as it is drawn from the New Testament, grows
out of a particular conception of the knowledge of
Christ and the scope of inspiration. (1) If one
holds that Christ possessed complete knowledge
of all matters relating to the natural
8. Accom- world, the Old Testament, the events
modation of ms own timej and the future 0f the
N^T ta kingdom of God on earth, he may ment affirm either that all of Christ's teaching on these subjects is authoritative and final, or else that in many instances he fitted his teaching to the immediate needs of his hearers; in the latter case, one could not be sure as to the precise nature of the objective fact. (2) If, however, it be alleged that Jesus's intelligence followed the laws of human growth, that he shared the common scientific, historical, and critical beliefs of his day, and that for us his knowledge is restricted to the spiritual content of revelation, then his allusions to the natural world, to persons, events, books, and authors of the Old Testament, to demons, and the like are to be interpreted according to universal laws of human intelligence; thus the principle of accommodation drops away. (3) In like manner, inspiration may be conceived of either as equipping the sacred writers with an accurate knowledge concerning all things to which they refer, and yet leading them to fit their communications to the temporary prejudice or ignorance of their readers, or as quickening their consciousness concerning spiritual truth, while they were left unillumined about matters which belong to literary, historical, or scientific inquiry. It is thus evident that, the question of theological accommodation in
the New Testament turns in part on a solution of two previous questions — the content of our Lord's knowledge, and the scope of inspiration in the authors of the various books (cf. C. J. Ellicott, Christus Comprobator, London, 1892; J. Moorhouse, The Teaching of Christ, ib. 1892; H. C. Powell, The Principle of the Incarnation, ib. 1896; G. B. Stevens, The Theology of the New Testament, New York, 1899; L. A. Muirhead, The Eschatology of Jesus, London, 1904). C. A. B.
Under the title " Accommodation Controversy " is also frequently understood the long and bitter dispute between the Jesuits and the Dominicans as to the extent of lawful concessions to the prejudices of their 9. Contro- pagan hearers by missionaries. The versy in the Jesuits were the first to preach Chris- Roman tianity in China — Xavier went there Catholic in 1552. They were attacked by the Church. Dominicans and Franciscans, when, forty years later, these orders entered the same field, on the charge of having made an improper compromise with Chinese beliefs, especially in regard to the practise of ancestor worship and to the name adopted to designate the Supreme Being in Chinese. They maintained, however, that such concessions were an inevitable condition of the toleration of Christian missions in the empire. The " Chinese rites " were provisionally forbidden by Innocent X. in 1645, but were again tolerated by Alexander VII. in 1656, on the ground that they might be regarded as purely civil ceremonies. Clement IX. took a middle course in 1669; but at the end of the century the controversy broke out with renewed violence, to be terminated only by a bull of Clement XI. in 1715, absolutely prohibiting the " Chinese rites." The legate Mezzabarba attempted to mitigate the strict enforcement of this ruling; but Benedict XIV confirmed it in 1742, with the result of provoking a severe persecution which almost exterminated Christianity in China. A somewhat similar controversy raged in the eighteenth century over the so-called Malabar rites, terminated in the same sense by the bull Omnium sollicitudinum of Benedict XIV. (1742), ^the pope refusing, even at the cost of imperiling the future of missions, to permit any compromise with paganism. A heated controversy on the general subject of accommodation was provoked in England by the publication of No. 80 in the Oxford Tracts for the Times, On Reserve in Communicating Religious Knowledge, written by Isaac Williams (q.v.), which caused the author to be accused of Jesuitical and un-English insincerity, and provoked additional antagonism to the Oxford movement.
Bibliography: On the general subject: K. F. Senff, Versuch uber die Herablassung Gotten zu den Menschen, Leipsic, 1792; W. A. Teller, Die Religion der Vollkommern, Berlin, 1792; P. van Hemert, Accommodation, Dortmund, 1797. On the Accommodation Controversy: G. Daniel, Histoire apologetique de la conduite des Jesuites de la Chine, in Recueil des divers ouvrages, vol. iii.,3 vols., Paris 1724; T. M. Mamachi, Originum et antiquitatum christian arum libri xx, ii. 373, 424, 425-426, 441-442; 6 vols., Rome, 1749-55; G. Pray, Historia controversiarum de ritibus sinicis, Budapest, 1789.