position in a denomination. Something is due from them because of the position which they are allowed to hold, and more is due in the general interest of religious journalism.

A journal which is in any sense representative of a denomination should be careful to recognize the rights of a minority. Whatever has an acknowledged place in the community of churches is entitled to an unquestioned and honorable recognition. It is most unseemly when the unofficial representatives of a body antagonize it in its official action. And yet this is the present attitude of the two leading Congregational newspapers toward the denomination. The denomination has pronounced, through its creed, and through a long and unbroken succession of councils, for toleration. The journals in question still advocate an intolerant policy. We do not affirm that Congregationalism accepts as its faith what is known as the New Theology. We do affirm that Congregationalism has declared, and is constantly declaring, by negative and positive action, that this phase of theological thought has a legitimate place within its limits. Nothing would seem to be more ill-advised than the attempt to decry a minority or to deny its rights. If it is so very small and insignificant, why decry it? The constant and urgent effort at repression is a sign of fear not of contempt. And if a minority has rights, why deny them, when the denial will inevitably raise up friends and convert the majority into the support of its rights if not of its opinions. The position of the Congregational national papers has not been in harmony with that of the denomination on present issues or representative of its spirit. The Congregational body is still a body of tolerationalists.

It is to be expected that the semi-denominational journals will show an understanding of controverted questions in their relation to the history of thought in the denomination. Theological controversies are kindled out of the smouldering embers of the past. Every controversy has a history. And whenever one arises in a denomination and takes possession of it, it is safe to say that it must be connected with the intellectual history of that denomination. New England theology, after a long struggle, reached its theoretical conclusion in the doctrine of a universal atonement, but not its practical conclusion. Universal atonement carried with it the thought of a universal providence diffusing the knowledge of it to the ends of the earth. After the doctrine had begun to find practical expression in missions, the question naturally and necessarily arose as to the real extent of the atonement in its available power as a motive to repentance and faith. The discussion which now agitates the Congregational Church was involved from the first in the theology which created and developed modern missions, and in this sense it finds its natural place on the platform of the American Board. And yet, as if in ignorance of the doctrinal history of the denomination, the press at once, upon the appearance of the present controversy, raised the cry of German speculation. A new thought in religious faith may spring from various sources, but, we repeat, that which gives it vitality and growth in

any one part of the church is its natural connection with something which has gone before and made it necessary. It was a singular blunder for an accredited representative of New England theology to attribute the present theological discussion to foreign influences. Events have shown that the New England religious mind is simply thinking along the lines of its historical doctrinal development.

It may also be reasonably demanded of the semi-denominational journals that they shall present to their readers a fair and measurably complete view of the current life of the denomination. As religious newspapers, they should be as impartial as the undenominational press. Many of their readers rely upon them for their knowledge of facts pertaining to the thought and work of the church. They are entitled to these facts under such arrangement, in such proportion, and through such a perspective as will leave a reader free to form his own judgment as to their meaning. Facts once fairly given can be used in argument as the proprietors or editors may see fit to use them. The opinions of a journal are its own; its facts are common property, and belong to the public in their integrity. It is always difficult to tell "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth," but in no case, as we conceive, is the difficulty so great as in the presentation of facts. Despite the proverb, there is, as every one knows, an evil tendency in figures to lie. There is a like perversity in facts. They lose their place, falling out of their true connection; they magnify themselves, in given cases, unduly; they become clannish, refusing to fellowship with other facts not of their class and complexion. It requires the utmost candor as well as skill to manage the news department of a religious paper to rightly provide for information and to use it fairly when secured, to present speeches and correspondence bearing upon mooted questions in true proportion, to give satisfactory reports of the doings of councils and conventions, and their results. We do not ask for omniscience in the use of facts. We do not demand infallibility in fact like that to which we are accustomed in opinion. But we do ask that facts be given in their representative character, that all the facts which have to do with any current issue shall be published in their connection and proportion. If a fact is of importance enough, if known, to hurt a faction, it is important enough to be given to the public. In times of controversy, facts must be allowed to strike where they will, and according to their full weight.

There is a habit of some journals of seeking to create a sentiment not justified by facts, to which we call passing attention to expose it. It is the habit of quoting from other journals of like purpose and sympathy to show the unanimity of public thought in a given case. The assumption is that the unanimity of the public corresponds to the unanimity of the journals: an assumption which may be true, or may be false, but which, from the nature of the case, in times of controversy must be false. A controversy must have two sides. And if the attempt is made at great VOL. VIII. NO. 46.

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pains, and with no little temper, to show that there is but one side, the attempt really shows that there is another side, and that the press does not dare to recognize it. In such cases it does not alter the fact, which soon or late makes itself seen and felt it simply refuses to recognize and represent the fact. It fails, that is, in one of the most conspicuous functions of the press.

After saying this much, we repeat our preference for the semi-denominational journal above the denominational organ. We acknowledge the courtesy which often characterizes their management in the correction of mistakes and in the insertion of correspondence, and we acknowledge the difficulties which beset their conduct in times like the present of heated controversy; but we hold them none the less rigorously, and we believe justly, to the principles which are necessary to good journalism when it assumes to represent the thought and work of a body of religious believers.

BIBLICAL AND HISTORICAL CRITICISM.

A CERTAIN HEBRAISM IN THE NEW TESTAMENT.

WHEN we read that Jesus once said, "If any man come to me and hate not his father and mother . . . he cannot be my disciple," or that Paul once wrote, in substance, that God raised up Pharaoh in order to show his own power by hardening the heart of the king, it is difficult to exaggerate the shock to one of tender sensibility or delicate sense of justice. It is only when we have become aware of the Hebrew mode of expression here followed that we find any relief. Then the larger part certainly of the difficulty disappears, even if, especially in the second instance, a portion may still remain.

We will first define this Hebraism, ought we, perhaps, to use the larger term Semitism?-illustrating it from the Old Testament usage, and then notice some important passages of the New Testament which, we think, it explains.

The idiom may be described as a sort of inverted litotes (of the Greek and Latin grammars); and whereas the latter, by the substitution of a negative for a positive formula, resulted in a rhetorical softening of the impression, as if one should say, I do not like him, meaning, I dislike him, the usage in question, by the substitution of a positive for a negative formula, results in a heightening, and sometimes, to our Western minds, even a distorting, of the impression intended.

If we turn to the classical passage Gen. xxix. 30 sq., we read that, "The Lord saw that Leah was hated." It is true that, later, Leah's "affliction" is spoken of, and on the birth of her first-born she hopes, "now my husband will love me;" but these expressions are sufficiently explained by the fact that she stood second in Jacob's affections. So in Deut. xxi. 15, we read, "If a man have two wives, one beloved and the other hated," etc. So, possibly (though, from the context, this is more doubtful), the passage Mal. i. 2 sq. (from which Paul quotes), "I loved Jacob and I hated Esau." In these passages to hate is simply to love less, give the other the preference.

Another sort of cases is where a causative is put for a mere permissive, a causing instead of a not preventing; thus, again, a positive for a negative formula. In the story of the Exodus God is repeatedly said to have hardened Pharaoh's heart, though in the same story Pharaoh is more than once declared to have hardened his own heart, "he sinned yet more and hardened his heart" (Ex. ix. 34). So, also, we venture to explain 2 Sam. xxiv. 1, where God is represented as moving David to number Israel; and this particular argument for the late date of the Chronicles, where the inciting is ascribed to Satan, would not be a good one, were it not that Satan is known to have been a late importation into the Hebrew system of belief. The fourth commandment does not really contain a positive injunction to week-day labor. Work is (in the commandment) permitted then in contrast with, and to emphasize, the absolute prohibition on the seventh day.1 In Prov. viii. 10, "Receive my instruction and not silver," there is not an absolute, but only a relative, depreciation of silver; "and not" becoming equivalent to rather than. (The important bearing of this particular illustration will be seen a little later when we come to certain expressions of Jesus. The clause, though in form negative is impliedly positive," refuse, or neg lect, silver," and so illustrates the usage in question.) In Isaiah lxiii. 17," O Lord, why dost thou make us to err from thy ways, and hardenest our hearts from thy fear?" it is easy to see that in the writer's mind the causative is not essentially different from the merely permissive. Here and in the next chapter the divine sovereignty is reverently acknowledged, but not without an accompanying expression of contrition which no clay marred by the potter's hand could ever feel.

In his learned work on the "Genuineness of the Gospels," Prof. Andrews Norton found occasion to argue (v. Note D, Section VI., 2d edit.) the late origin of the Pentateuch-a question on which, although inclined to accept the Dutch view, we express no formed opinion here from the testimony, not merely negative but apparently positive, of the prophets, and cited such passages as Amos v. 25, Micah vi. 6 sq., Isaiah i. 11 sqq., Jer. vii. 22, and Hos. vi. 6 (cf. Ps. xl. 6), to show that the earlier prophets knew no sacrificial system as we read it in the Pentateuch to-day. But apart from the objection that the very questions and allusions of the prophets seem to imply a fact or a popular belief back of them, and so to make rather for the existence of the system in their day, and to compel us to see in their words a questioning not of the fact, but of the significance and relative value, of the institution, their words are explicable through the Hebraism we are discussing; and whereas by question or indignant remonstrance they seem to ignore or even denounce the sacrifices while exalting the practical duties of charity and righteousness, it is quite possible that it is the relative urgency of these which subjects the former to seeming obloquy and prompts the seeming denial that they were instituted in the days of the fathers. It is very possible that the prophets if questioned would have answered in

1 Cf. Job xxxviii. 11, "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further; and here shall thy proud waves be stayed;" where the first clause, though in form positive, is really negative (as hinted, indeed, by the close of it), the sole purport of the utterance being to show, not how far the sea shall, or even may, come, but what limits it shall not overpass.

2 Ewald's explanation (die Propheten d. Alten Bundes, vol. ii. p. 132) of Jeremiah's words, that he is thinking here only of the free-will offerings of the Pentateuch, does not seem to meet the case at all.

Jesus' words, after his apparent denunciation of the tithing of mint, anise, and cummin, as compared with the weightier matters of justice, mercy, and faith, 'these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone." And it is quite probable that Dr. Priestley, whose words Norton cites only in apparent surprise that they should be offered in explanation, may have hit upon the true solution of the difficulty when he makes the prophet reply to some inquirer, that he did not mean to say that God had "appointed no religious rites such as sacrifices. For the most particular directions are given concerning them in the books of Moses." He only intended that God had "always laid less stress upon everything of this kind than upon moral virtue."

We add a few other significant passages from the Old Testament, especially illustrative of the word to hate: Prov. i. 29, "They hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord;" and Judges xiv. 16, where Samson's wife reproaches him with "thou dost but hate me, and lovest me not" (because he had not told her the riddle !); in both which examples the parallel expressions show the real negative meaning of "hate." Prov. xiii. 24: "He that spareth his rod hateth his son,' and xxix. 24, "Whoso is partner with a thief hateth his own soul," call for no remark except to say that while they may be mere hyperboles, such as are common in all languages, and particularly in Oriental speech, as to loving and hating, as see in the recent N. T. Lexicon of Dr. Thayer, under poré, we may also assume that the word hate had by the usage in question so often been made equivalent to love less than, that at length it came to lose, even in absolute expressions, a degree of its original force. Cf. 2 Sam. xix. 6, "Thou lovest them that hate thee, and hatest them that love thee." And we may anticipate here our New Testament discussion, by referring to noticeable passages illustrating the same softening John xii. 25, "He that hateth his life in this world, shall keep it, etc.' Luke xix. 14, "They hated him and sent a message after him, saying, We will not have this man to reign over us;" and Eph. v. 29, "No man ever hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it," in all of which hate means scarcely more than neglect, be indifferent to. The Aryan, or, perhaps, rather Occidental, tendency seems to be in the opposite direction of litotes, seen in the Irish expression, " y' had a right to do" so-and-so, meaning, it was your duty to do it, and in our Westernism, “I allow" for I assert.

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In passing, now, to the New Testament, we must recollect that though we are dealing with a nominally Aryan language, it is so colored and shaped much of it at least by the modes of thought of the Semitic authors as to require its own lexicon, and especially its own grammar. It should occasion no surprise, therefore, if expressions which in classical Greek would have a very different meaning, or no meaning at all, disclose their proper meaning only through the lens of some Hebrew idiom. In the light, then, of our present discussion, let us examine certain troublesome passages.

When Jesus utters (Luke1 xiv. 26) the apparently harsh saying about hating father and mother, he means only (as, indeed, he more nearly ex

1 The fact that Luke's own Greek was purer than that of the other New Testament writers may be conceded, but he evidently gives these words much as they fell, or were reported to have fallen, from Jesus' lips; and Winer points out that Luke Hebraizes much more in the Gospel, where he largely follows the Evangelical tradition, than in the Acts.