whatever way we interpret it, the element of the extravagant and the grotesque. The divine simplicity, the holy sublimity, and the overpowering grace which characterize the miracles of Biblical history are conspicuously absent. We feel that there is no sufficient reason for such a miracle, and we instinctively shrink from it, not because of lack of faith in the supernatural divine power of working miracles, but because we have such a faith in God's grace and holiness and majesty that we find it difficult to believe that He would work such a grotesque and extravagant miracle as that described in the story of the great fish."

The wholesale and sudden repentance of Nineveh is still more marvelous. Nothing like it meets us in the history of Israel or of the church. Jesus uses it for illustration because there was no historic repentance so well suited to his purpose. The prayer in the story is not appropriate unless the story be considered ideal. This prayer is a mosaic from several more ancient psalms and prophecies, used by the author as appropriate to his story.

As for the reference made to the story by Jesus, Professor Briggs speaks as follows:

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It is objected that Jesus in his use of Jonah gives sanction to the historicity of the story. But this objection has little weight; for we have seen that his method of instruction was in the use of stories of his own composition. We ought not to be surprised, therefore, that he should use such stories from the Old Testament likewise.

"It is urged that Jesus makes such a realistic use of it that it compels us to think that he regarded it as real. But in fact he does not make a more realistic use of Jonah than he does of the story of Dives and Lazarus.

"Paul makes just as realistic a use of the story of Jannes and Jambres withstanding Moses; and compares them with the foes of Jesus in his times (2 Tim. iii. 8.)

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'And Jude makes just as realistic a use of Michael, the archangel, contending with the devil, and disputing about the body of Moses, and compares this dispute with the railers of his time (Jude 9).

"These stories by Paul and Jude are from the Jewish Haggada, and not from the Old Testament. No scholar regards them as historic events. If apostles could use the stories of the Jewish Haggada in this way, why should not Jesus use stories from the Old Testament? Jesus uses the story of Jonah just as the author of the book used it, to point import

ant religious instruction to the men of his time. Indeed Jesus's use of it rather favors the interpretation of it as symbolic. For it is just this symbolism that the fish represents Sheol, the swallowing up death, the casting forth, resurrection, that we have seen in the story of Jonah interpreted by the prayer, which makes the story appropriate to symbolize the death and resurrection of Jesus."

Speaking of the lesson of the book-the triumph of divine grace, in the salvation of Nineveh, over the sentence of judgment uttered by Jonah-Professor Briggs has this to say:

"Jonah represents only too well the Jew of Nehemiah's time, the Jew of the New Testament times, and also the Christian Church in its prevailing attitude to the heathen world. If the Roman Catholic Church had learned the lesson of Jonah, its theologians would not so generally have consigned the unbaptized heathen world to hell-fire. If the Reformers had understood Jonah there would have been more of them than Zwingli and Coelus Secundus Curio, who thought that there were some redeemed heathen. If the Westminster divines had understood Jonah they never would have coined those remarkable statements of the tenth chapter of their Confession, in which the entire heathen world and their babes are left out of the election of grace. The present century, brought face to face with the heathen world, is beginning to learn the lesson of Jonah. Jonah is the book for our times. Tho' written many centuries ago as a beautiful ideal of the imagination to teach the wonderful grace of God in the salvation of repenting heathen and their babes, it has been reserved for the present age to apprehend and apply its wonderful lessons. The repentance of Nineveh is a prophetic ideal."

The affinity between protestant and rationalist daily grows

closer.

Although tradition would be worthless as a motive of credibility, if separated from the Church's infallible authority; in her hands, and under her guidance, it becomes an important factor in her means of teaching. The testimonies of the Fathers are not so much valuable for their critical authority, as for their simple witness of what the Church believed in their time. The Fathers are, in the Church, what the arteries are in the human organism, avenues whither the blood is propelled from the great centre to vitalize every part.

Many writers on Holy Scripture adduce the testimonies of the New Testament as a means of certitude of the deposit of Holy Scripture. The chief text brought forth to substantiate

such position is from the second epistle of St. Paul to Timothy III, 16. The passage, according to the Greek is as follows: “Πᾶσα γραφὴ θεόπνευτσος, καὶ ὠφέλιμος πρὸς διδασκαλίαν, πρὸς ἔλεγχον, πρός ἐπανόρθωσιν, πρὸς παιδείαν τὴν ἐν δικαιοσύνῃ.”

The Vulgate renders the passage: "Omnis scriptura divinitus inspirata utilis est ad docendum, ad arguendum, ad corripiendum, ad erudiendum in justitia." The Roman Catholic version is in accord with the vulgate: "All Scripture inspired of God is profitable to teach, to reprove, to correct, to instruct in justice." It is evident from a scrutiny of the Greek text that the Vulgate does not adequately reproduce it. No account is taken in such version of the Kal, which however appears in all the best codices. The Vulgate expunging kal, would virtually insert the elliptical or after opéλuos, thus making OεÓTVEVOTOS a qualifying characteristic, warranting the predication of ὠφέλιμος, οἱ πᾶσα γραφή. By the expunging of the important particle kal, such sense can be gleaned from this passage; but, retaining such conjunction, whose presence rests upon the best data, I am at a loss to understand how they gather the meaning. Moreover, the context and parallel passages demand the sense which results from the retaining of the particle.

Of all the versions, the Ethiopic comes closest to the original. According to the Latin translation of the Ethiopic text by Walton, it is as follows: "Et tota scriptura per Spiritum Dei est, et prodest in omni doctrina et eruditione ad corrigendum et instruendum in veritate." Although this ancient and valued text departs somewhat from the verbally literal translation, it reproduces the full sense. We could perhaps literally translate the Greek: "All Scripture is divinely inspired and useful to teach, to reprove, to correct, to instruct in righteousness." Thus it is in conformity with the Greek reading, with the Ethiopic, with the context, with other parallel passages, and with some of the best of the Fathers. We may instance one parallel passage: II Pet. I, 20-21.

We think then that this sense is sufficiently evidenced so as to become practically certain. The passage thus becomes a direct testimony for the influence of God on Holy Scripture. Indeed, Paul's motive is to induce Timothy to entertain a divine regard for the Holy Writ, and, for this reason, brings forward, as the Causal ratio, the divine element in all Scripture. It is not then a discriminative, conditional proposition, but a plain assertion of the Authorship of God in the Holy Scrip

ture.

But this clear text may not be adduced with any profit as a criterion; because, first of all, it is, as Perrone says, begging the question to prove the divinity of the Holy Books from their own testimony. It is the circulus vitiosus. Again, even to those who grant the divine authority of the Epistle to Timothy, it only avails to prove the impress of the hand of God on Holy Scripture in a general way, but does not distinguish book from book, or form any judgment concerning an official Catalogue. We grant then that the text, as well as others of a similar nature, operates to prove the divine impulse of the Holy Ghost on Scripture in general, provided we once have received as granted that these books are of God, but we deny to all such texts any value to discern canonical from uncanonical books.

There remains then one means, and one means only, to teach man not only the truths of Scripture, but also the Scripture of truths. This means is the voice of God through the Church. The Church must teach us two things; what books are of God; and what influence God had in such books. We shall treat first of God's influence upon the Holy Books; and, secondly, of the official list of those books. As it is well to know the nature of the thing sought, before going in quest of it, so we believe that we shall be aided in constructing the list of books of Holy Scripture by a knowledge of the distinguishing element required in them, before admitting them to such list. Our treatise will deal first, therefore, with the NATURE AND EXTENT OF INSPIRATION, and secondly, with THE CANON.

CHAPTER II.

NATURE OF INSPIRATION.

In common parlance, revelation and inspiration are convertible terms, but, in reality, they differ greatly. Revelation, from revelare, means to uncover, unveil, disclose to the view something hidden, and, in the present instance, to make known to the mind a concept not before known. This took place with the Prophets, and in every portion of the Holy Writings where the truths enunciated were impervious to the human under standing, or depended on the free will of God; in fact, wherever the idea portrayed was not acquired by the industry and labor of the writer. When, therefore, the writer gives forth truths which he had acquired by the ordinary method of human research and observation, there is no revelation from God requisite or given. Thus St. Luke tells us that, "it had seemed

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good to him, who had followed studiously all things from the beginning, to write in order these things." Thus the author of the II. Book of Maccabees testifies, Cap. II. 24-27: "And thus the things that were comprised by Jason the Cyrenean in five volumes, we have attempted to compendiate in one volume. We who have undertaken to compendiate this work, have taken upon ourselves a task abounding in vigils and sweat." This bcok then is not, properly speaking, revealed. But usage has prevailed and prevails to speak of the whole body of the Scriptures as revealed writings, and we do not wish to correct this usage, but only to define and fix our terms for the greater facility of our treatise. Inspiration then pervades the whole structure of Scripture: it is its formal principle, its soul; revelation is only called in, as we have said, where the writer could not, or, de facto, did not acquire his knowledge in the ordinary manner.

This distinction is of great moment, as many difficulties are solved by the same. The neglect of this distinction gave rise to a censure of one of the propositions of the famous Leon Lessius, which, had it been couched in precise terms, would have challenged contradiction. The Holy Ghost, then, is the directing and impelling agent in all the Scripture, but not in the same manner. He discloses the truths unknown before in revelation; he impels to write infallibly the things which God would communicate to man in inspiration. We have defined above the concept of inspiration; we shall now scrutinize more closely its object and extent. The Vatican Council has given us a definition which will serve as our guide in dealing with the present subject, for, as we have proven above, the Church can be the only guide in such a question.

In Cap. II, De Revel. we find :

"Qui quidem veteris et novi Testamenti libri integri cum omnibus suis partibus, prout in ejusdem Concilii decreto recensentur, et in veteri vulgata latina editione habentur, pro sacris et canonicis suscipiendi sunt. Eos vero Ecclesia pro sacris et canonicis habet, non ideo quod sola humana industria concinnati, sua deinde auctoritate sint approbati; nec ideo dumtaxat, quod revelationem sine errore contineant; sed propterea quod Spiritu Sancto inspirante conscripti Deum habent auctorem, atque ut tales ipsi Ecclesiæ traditi sunt." And in Canon IV, De Revelatione:

"Si quis sacræ Scripturæ libros integros cum omnibus suis partibus, prout illos sancta Tridentina Synodus recensuit, pro sacris et canonicis non susceperit, aut eos divinitus inspiratos esse negaverit; anathema sit."