Accommodation

Accommodation

a technical term in theology, first innocently used by certain mystical interpreters, who maintained that although the sense of holy Scripture 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. 4, 228). SEE HYPONOIA. From this, however, the term was extended by writers of a Socinian tendency to indicate a certain equivocal character in the language of the sacred writers and speakers. (See Whately’s Bampton Lect.; Conybeare, Lect. on Theol.; Tittmann’s Meletem. Sacra, pref.; Hauft, Bemerk. 12b. d. Lehrart Jesu; Forster, Crit. Essays, p. 59; Marsh, in Michaelis’s Introd. 1, 473 sq. Express treatises on the subject have been written in Latin by Pisansky [Gedan. 1781], Pappelbaum [Stargard, 1763], Weber [Viteb. 1789], Bang [Amst. 1789], Van Hemert [Amst. 1791, and Dortm. 1797], Krug [Viteb. 1791], Kirsten [Amstadt, 1816], Cramer [Havn. 1792], Carus [Lips. 1793], Detharding [Gott. 1782]; in German, by Zacharii [Butz. and Wism. 1762], Eckermann, in his Theol. Beitr. 2, 3, 169 sq.; Hauff [Bresl. 1791], Senff [Halle, 1792], Vogel, in his Aufsatze, 2, 1 sq.; Flatt, in his Verm. Versuche, p. 71 sq.; Gess [Stuttg. 1797], Nachtigal, in Henke’s Mug. 5, 109 sq.; Hartmann, in his Blicke [Dusseld. 1802], p. 1 sq.; Jahn, in his Nacktraige, p. 15 sq.; Crell, in Zobel’s Mag. 1, 2, p. 199-252; Eichhorn, Allg, Bibl. 2, 947 sq.; comp. Henke’s Mag. 2, 2, 638 sq.; also the Journ. f. Pred. 42, 129 sq.; 44, 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. Citations 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 misapplications, or defections from their original design, has been felt in all ages, although it has been chiefly reserved to recent times to give a solution of the difficulty by the theory of accommodation. By this it is meant that the prophecy or citation from the Old Testament was not designed literally to apply to the event in question, but that the New Testament Writer merely 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 Jer 31:15-17, 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 therefore 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 Reverend T. H. Home, in support of this theory, in his Introduction (2, 317, Am. ed. 1835), but it will suffice for our purpose to select the following specimens: Mat 13:35, cited from Psa 78:2. Mat 8:17, cited from Isa 53:4. Mat 2:15, cited from Hos 11:1. Mat 2:17-18, cited from Jer 31:15. Mat 3:3 cited from Isa 40:3.

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 are absolutely adduced 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 they exist, can only be considered 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 application of the Old Testament passages not only as totally irreconcilable with the plain grammatical construction and obvious meaning of the controverted passages which are said to be so applied, but as an unjustifiable 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 Rose’s Protestantism in Germany, p. 75), maintain that the sacred writers, having been themselves trained in this erroneous mode of teaching, had mistakenly, but bona fide, interpreted the passages which they had cited from the Old Testament in a sense altogether different from their historical meaning, and thus applied them to the history of the Christian dispensation. Some of these have maintained that the accommodation theory was a mere shift resorted to by commentators who could not otherwise explain the application of Old Testament prophecies 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 accommodated 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 Testament condescended to the stage of culture existing at the time (Irenaeus, Adv. Hoer. 3, 5). The theory derives all its plausibility from confounding two things essentially different, viz., condescension to ignorance and accommodation to error. The former was indeed employed by the great Teacher (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 German rationalism. See Home, Introd. 1, 317, 324; and for the rationalistic view, Seiler, Bib. Herm. 418; Planck, Introd. 145; Neander, Life of Christ, 113,114.

Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

Accommodation

ACCOMMODATION

i.The Incarnation as the supreme example.

(a)The birth and childhood of Jesus.

(b)The temptations to which He was subjected.

(c)The mental and spiritual sufferings experienced by Him.

ii.Incidents inferentially valuable.

(a)His education in a pious Jewish home.

(b)The deliberate acceptance and public avowal by Him of the limitations conditioning human life.

(c)Revelation of these limitations involved in the spontaneity of His attitude towards (1) His fellow-men, (2) His Father.

iii.Jesus activity as Teacher.

(a)Repeated assertions as to nature of the authority wielded by Him.

(b)Objective of His message defined by (1) the national characteristics of His fellow countrymen; (2) their theological and traditional beliefs

()Messianic kingdom.

()Doctrine of angel-mediation.

()Current conceptions of the power of Satan and of evil spirits.

(c)Methods employed by Jesus in His teaching: (1) parables purposely and economically utilized; (2) use of popular figurative expressions; (3) employment of aphorism, allegory, etc.; (4) acceptance of current conceptions as to

()Natural phenomena.

()Anthropology.

iv.Attitude of Jesus towards the Messianic hopes of His day.

(a)Assumption of the title Son of Man.

(b)Attitude towards the Jewish Canon of Scripture observable in His acceptance of (1) its general historicity; (2) the traditional view of the authorship and interpretation of Psalms 110.

v. Summary and practical conclusion.

Literature.

The term accommodation may be defined as the Principle or law according to which God adapts His Self-revelation to the capacities and limitations of created intelligences. In every age, from the earliest onwards, this Self-revelation of God has been made, and has its own characteristic features. Between the time when men conceived of God in the rudimentary anthropomorphism of Gen 3:8 and the time of the highest attainment by the human mind of His Nature and Being (Joh 4:23 f.), every conceivable gradation occurs in the extent and character of Gods revelation of Himself to men.

i. The Incarnation as the supreme example.This is not the place to enter into a detailed inquiry as to the nature and extent of the self-imposed limitations of Christ, or how far the modern theories of the kenosis (wh. see) are justified by revelation, directly or by implication. It will be sufficient here to indicate how far the Gospels, as we have them, point to a real adoption by Him of the conditions of that life which He assumed, and involved Him ex necessitate in the limitations of a real human life.

(a) So complete is the accommodation to the capacities and requirements of infanthood, that St. Luke scruples not to record, as part of the angelic message, the finding by the shepherds of a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger (Luk 2:12), and St. Matthew makes the safety of His childhood depend on the vigilance and care of Joseph and His mother, their return from enforced exile being conditioned by the fact that they are dead that sought the young childs life (Mat 2:20). All this presupposes, of course, His development along the lines of human growth, which is boldly outlined by St. Luke in the much debated passage, Jesus advanced in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and men (Luk 2:52). If these words are to be interpreted according to their obvious meaning, they imply a moral and spiritual as well as a physical advancement along lines as normal as, for example, those which marked the growth of the child Samuel. We may say, indeed, that there is a marked reference to the words of 1Sa 2:26 [LXX Septuagint ]. Christs growth was from His birth a holy growth (Martensen, Christian Dogmatics, English translation p. 282); but the words the child grew and waxed strong (Luk 2:40) point to the essentially human conditions under which that growth was effected.

The sole incident in connexion with His boyhood which has come down to us in our reliable authorities is that of His visit to the temple (Luk 2:41 ff.). Short, however, as it is, it throws a clear light on the nature and reality of the advance in wisdom and favour, and its uninterrupted continuity is well expressed in Luk 2:40, if we give the word its proper significance. Day by day He was being filled with wisdom. Even at this age, His marvellous intellectual powers displayed themselves, and already He exhibited that keen insight which in after life He so frequently showed. The verb used to express the amazement of the learned teachers () shows how much these men wondered at the Boys knowledge and at the depth of His understanding ( ). Notwithstanding this feature of the narrative, the historian is far from leading us to suppose that there was anything supernatural in the matter. He rather represents Jesus as a boy of a singularly inquiring turn of mind, who deliberately determines to find out for Himself the solution of many problems which puzzled Him during the course of His home education, and for which He could find no satisfactory explanation from His teachers in Nazareth. He sits down () at the feet of these great teachers () as a learner (cf. St. Pauls description of his own education in the Law, Act 22:3). Nor are we to look upon the circumstance in the temple as constituting an exhibition of miraculous intellectual acquirements in the ordinary sense of that word. All Jewish children from their earliest infancy (Josephus c. Apion. ii. 18) were made to acquire a knowledge of and to practise the precepts of the Law. We have only to compare the Lukan narrative with that given in the Arabic Gospel of the Infancy to see how completely natural and human is the whole incident, and how entirely the boyhood of Jesus was subject to boyhoods conditions and limitations. In the latter He is represented as cross-examining each of the doctors, and instructing them not only in matters appertaining to the Law and the Prophets, but in astronomy, physics, metaphysics, and other branches of current erudition (see chs. xlviii.lii.).

Without entering into an examination of the words contained in His answer to His mothers gentle rebuke, or what relation they bear to His subsequent complete and developed self-consciousness, it may be said that they do not necessarily involve all that is sometimes imported into them. Even the implied antithesis of Luk 2:48 and of Luk 2:49 probably means nothing more than a reminder that the claims of His heavenly Father take precedence of all others, and bears testimony to a profound appreciation of the transcendent reality of His Divine Sonship (cf. B. Weiss, Leben Jesu, Eog. translation vol. i. p. 278 ff.). It is true, we have no right to assume that the Boy Jesus had no knowledge of His unique relationship to God (cf. Gore, Diss. p. 78, n. [Note: note.] 1). The use of the possessive particle points to the prohability that His powers of realization in this respect were as wonderful as the development of His mental faculties in another. This is, however, far from saying that Jesus at this early age possessed the consciousness of His Messiahship, which only came to full maturity at the next turning-point of His life (see Sandays art. Jesus Christ in Hasting’s Dictionary of the Bible , vol. ii. p. 609); and the short but graphic touch with which St. Luke portrays for us His surprise at His parents method of search ( ;), and His sustained subordination ( gives the idea of a continuance of His subjection to the conditions of His home life) to the authority of Joseph and Mary shows how completely the Son of God emptied Himself, , Php 2:7.

One incidental reference to this period of Jesus life in the Synoptic narrative further deepens the impressiveness of this self-humiliation. St. Mark relates that on the occasion of one of His visits to Nazareth (Mar 6:1) His teaching was met by His fellow-townsmen with the scornful question, Is not this the carpenter? ( ).* [Note: This would seem to he the original and correct form of the expression, though the Matthaean record has (Mat 13:55, to which the Western text (11) of St. Mark has conformed (see Wright, Synopsis of the Gospels in Greek, p. 52 f.).] This single question gives point to the more general remark of St. Luke mentioned above, and interprets his use of the analytical or periphrastic tense ( : for the use of this form of the verb the reader is recommended to see Burtons NT Moods and Tenses, p. 11 f. and p. 16; see also Blass, Gram. of NT Greek, p. 203).

His whole life, then, previous to the events which led to His public ministry, was lived under the simple conditions which obtained in a humble but pious country home, and His answer to the Baptists remonstrance, it becometh us ( ) to fulfil all righteousness (Mat 3:15), is the result of a training characteristic in its navet of a house whose inmates waited for the redemption of Israel (Luk 2:25), and were strict observers of the laws governing the religious life of the Jews. See, further, artt. Boyhood and Childhood.

It may not be out of place to note a slight but significant difference in the method of introducing the narrative of Jesus baptism between the Lukan and the other two Synoptic versions. The latter speak of Jesus as coming from Galilee for the special purpose of being baptized (see fragment of Gosp. Heb. in Jeromes adv. Pelag. 3) (Mat 3:13), (Mar 1:9).and seem to be conscious of a certain amount of astonishment on account of the act. The Lukan narrative, on the other hand, gives the story an incidental character; and by its uses of the participle, both in describing the act of baptism and also His prayer which immediately followed ( , Luk 3:21), the Evangelist gives a human touch to the whole scene which harmonizes well with the style of his history in this place.

(b) It is, however, when we come to the scene of His temptation, and study it in connexion with the revelation which He had just received from His Father, that we begin to appreciate the full meaning of the words of Heb 4:15 that Jesus was One who in all points ( ) was tempted like ourselves. Whatever be the interpretation we are inclined to put upon the nature and method of the temptations (see art. Temptation) to which He was subjected, one thing must be uncompromisingly insisted onthe struggle was a real one, it was intense, it was necessary ( , Heb 2:10). It is necessary that we should be on our guard against falling into the errors which mar, for example, the work of Hilary of Poitiers in his controversy with the Arians (see especially his Libri XII. de Trinitate, Liber x.). To explain away the reality of the sufferings of Jesus arising out of His different temptations, whether these sufferings are mental or physical, is of the essence of Docetism; and a docetic Christ has never yet appealed, and we are confident never will appeal, to the conscious needs of humanity. Jesus Himself must have been the ultimate source from which the story of the Temptation became known, and it is very evident that the impression made upon His mind by the terrible ordeal was most profound. He had just received from His Father the revelation of His unique Sonship.* [Note: For our present purpose it is immaterial whether we reject the words of the Textus Receptus , in favour of the Western reading of Luk 3:22 , which Resch and Blass as well as others seem to prefer (cf. Blass, Ev. secundum Lucam, etc., Praefatio, pp. xxxvixxxvii).] St. Matthew and St. Luke agree in prefixing to two of the temptations the words, If thou art the Son of God, the essence of the trial consisting in the danger of doubting the truth which had been disclosed to His consciousness, and of testing the fidelity of God by a thaumaturgical exhibition. There is also a subtle psychological and spiritual fitness in the character of the first of the series, which speaks, perhaps, more for its real force than any direct statement could do. The appeal came to Jesus in the hour and on the side of His physical exhaustion, and this is in direct accordance with the general experience of humanity. Temptation becomes infinitely stronger and more dangerous when physical weakness comes to the aid of the external promptings of the Evil One.

That Jesus believed, and led those to whom He recounted His experiences to believe, in the near presence of a personal spirit of evil during this critical period of conflict, is very evident (see Gore, Diss. p. 24 ff.). Moreover, this Evil One ( , Mat 4:5; Mat 4:8; Mat 4:11, Luk 4:3; Luk 4:6; Luk 4:13; , Mar 1:13) is a prince standing at the head of a kingdom which is the direct antithesis of the kingdom of God. According to the Lukan version of this incident, Jesus expected to meet again in personal conflict this great spiritual enemy. The devil left Him only till further opportunity for assault should arise ( , Luk 4:13); and towards the end of His ministry we find Him giving expression to the consciousness that the great struggle with His arch-foe was about to recommenceThe prince of the world ( , Joh 14:30) is (now) coming (cf. Job 12:1). When His arrest, following upon His betrayal, was about to become an accomplished fact, He recognized the return of the spirit of evil, and that the return was with power ( Luk 22:53).

Perhaps there is no more vivid presentation of the profound reality of His subjection to temptation than that afforded by the narrative dealing with the events which occurred in Caesarea Philippi. It is almost possible to see the startled look of horror on Jesus face as He listens to Peters well-meant, if indiscreet, remonstrance. In the words of His chief Apostle He hears again the voice of Satan (cf. Mat 16:23 and Mar 8:33), and the almost fierce way in which He rebukes Peter points to the conclusion that this is not the first time the suggestion has whispered itself into His ear, to forego the bitter taste which He knows He must experience before His work is ended.

(c) Before passing from the consideration of this aspect of the Incarnation viewed as the self-adaptation of the Son of God to the conditions of humanity, we must refer shortly to some of the details of the last, greatest, and most awful of the temptations to which Jesus was exposed. Some have sought to explain away the reality both of the temptations and the sufferings, through a vain desire to exalt His Divine at the expense of His human nature; but this is not the method of interpreting the life of Christ which brings out of it Gods answer to mans deepest and most conscious needs. There can hardly be a doubt in the mind of any unprejudiced reader that the Synoptists place on record their accounts of the Passion believing the facts detailed to be real and objective. The words of Jesus are the expressions of a mind torn with the mental and spiritual conflict; and if Luk 22:43-44 be not a mere Western interpolation, the element of awful fear entered into and heightened His sufferings. It is only in this way that we can interpret the words . See art. Agony. The thrice-repeated prayer of Jesus, in which He speaks of His own will as distinct from, but completely subordinate to, His Fathers, adds to the impression, already gained, of the purely human feelings exhibited by Him in His struggle, and recalls to our mind the words in His own form of prayer, Thy will be done (Mat 6:10); thus connecting, in the greatest crisis of His life, His own with our absolute dependence upon the expressed will of His Father.

The writer of the Fourth Gospel records sayings of Jesus which are very similar to this. After the conversation of Jesus with the woman of Samaria, He explains to His disciples the all-absorbing, satisfying character of His lifes work, which is to do the will ( ) of His Father (Joh 4:34). In other places He distinguishes between His own and that of His Father (Joh 5:30; Joh 6:38); and this is the word used by the Synoptic writers when recording the words of Jesus prayer in Gethsemane. On what grounds St. Luke employs the verb (Luk 22:42) in this connexion we do not know. If the choice is not accident, it is evidence that even in His great affliction Jesus bowed Himself to the deliberate determination of God (for the connexion between and see Cremer, pp. 143 ff. and 726 f.).

A very pathetic touch is given by St. Matthew to the portraiture of this scene in the garden. Both he and St. Mark relate how Jesus expressed a wish that His three disciples should be on their guard. St. Mark, however, leaves the impression that He is bidding them watch against the too sudden intrusion of their enemies upon His privacy. Twice He uses the imperative Watch. On the other hand, St. Matthew twice adds to this same verb the expression with me, as if anxious to show the very human desire of Jesus to have the companionship of faithful friends in the hour of His need and solitude. The same two writers have recorded a saving of Jesus to His sleeping companions (Sleep on now, and take your rest) which is omitted by St. Luke. In these words it is possible to discover a tinge of bitter sadness and disappointment, as if the reflection were forced upon Him that He was bereft even of that loyal friendship which had left all and followed Him; and that, too, at a time when it was most precious, and when He stood in sorest need of its help and sympathy. The truth is, He felt the full force of the temptation to leave undone the last and hardest part of the work which He came to do, or to find a way of fulfilling His Fathers will other than by treading the path of suffering and death. It was in the very act of submission that He found His most effective weapon of resistance; and we have here at the same time a verification of the reality of His human nature, and an example of Himself carrying out to fulfilment the principle which He inculcated as a guide to othersHe that humbleth himself shall be exalted (Luk 18:14; Luk 14:11).

ii. Incidents inferentially valuable.(a) If we serutinize carefully the method of resistance which Jesus adopted in His first great conflict, we cannot fail to see the results of that moral and spiritual education which was the characteristic element of His domestic surroundings, and with which we become incidentally acquainted by the tone of His remark to His mother in the temple. The words (Luk 2:14) show how profoundly He was impressed with the sense of His Divine Sonship; and, we must believe, they were the outcome of His familiarity with the thought underlying much of the language of the OT. In repelling the Satanic attacks of the Temptation He reveals to us a mind steeped in the literature of, and full to overflowing with spiritual principles culled from, the Book of Deuteronomy. Nor was it only when He felt the sore stress of temptation that His belief in the truth of Gods revelation given in the OT, and His profound knowledge of its contents, came to His aid. In the hour of His intensest bodily and mental agony, the words of Psalms 22 leaped instinctively to His mind, and gave expression to the feeling of awful loneliness which then hung over Him like a black cloud. If in moments of deepest feeling, when the soul almost without conscious effort turns to the sources whence it drew its early sustenance, Jesus had recourse to the words of the OT, and was able to extract from that wide field of literature all that was purest and most spiritual, it was not, we feel sure, without long, deep study and pondering over the meaning of the different writers from His childhood onwards. Remembering, then, this feature in the mental and spiritual equipment of Christ, it will not be surprising if we find Him displaying the same habit of mind in almost every variety of circumstance of which He found Himself the centre. St. Matthew and St. Mark tell us that, at the time of St. Peters confession at Caesarea Philippi, He for the first time spoke to His disciples of the fatal end in store for Him. St. Matthew clearly points out that this was a new departure , … (Mat 16:21).and that He continually reverted to the subject as if desirous of impressing the disciples with the impossibility of His escape. We do not know at what precise period Jesus was convinced that there could inevitably be only one ending to His work, or whether He knew from the beginning, and merely waited for a fitting time to prepare His disciples for the shock. We do, however, know that at this period He was convinced not merely by the signs of the times (Mat 16:3), which all pointed in this direction, but also by His knowledge and interpretation of the things which were written in the law of Moses, and the prophets, and the psalms (Luk 24:44), concerning Him, that the way of glory was the way of the cross. St. Mark makes a pointed reference to the connexion, which evidently existed in Jesus mind, between the death of the Baptist and His own coming end (Mar 9:12 f.); and we know that the murder of John made a profound impression upon Him (Mat 14:13, cf. Joh 6:1). Perhaps we may be allowed to conjecture that this circumstance marked an advance in the mind of Christ towards a great synthesisthe identification of the Conquering with the Suffering Messiah.

The question , …, of Mar 9:12, shows what it was that strengthened His resolve to pursue His mission to its consummation. That He dwelt long and deliberately on this aspect of His work is seen by the way in which He again refers to it towards the end of His journey to Jerusalem (Mar 10:33, to which St. Luke adds the characteristic formula , Luk 18:31; cf. also Mat 26:24 Luk 22:22 Luk 24:26 f., Luk 24:44; Luk 24:46, Mat 26:54.

(b) One of the most widely canvassed, and, indeed, the most difficult passage in the Gospel history is that in which Jesus is said to have disclaimed the knowledge of the time of His glorious Return. St. Matthew and St. Mark record His disavowal in almost identical words, except that the former emphasizes it by the addition of to the words , which are common to both (cf. Mat 24:36 and Mar 13:32). In both narratives Jesus is represented as speaking in the 3rd person ( , by which we are doubtless to understand His usual self-designation Son of Man, occurring as this title does in the context of both passages, Mat 24:37; Mat 24:39, Mar 13:26). How are we to interpret, then, this self-revelation which emanates from the consciousness of Jesus? Many expedients have been tried to get over the logical conclusion derivable from a literal exegesis, some even going so far as to suggest that the passage is an Arian interpolation.

Athanasius would almost dichotomize the Person of Christ in his effort at explanation. Indeed, he plainly asserts that the Son did know the hour of the end of all things. But as being the Word ( ) He knew, though at the same time as man ( ) He is ignorant of it (). In the same context he maintains that Jesus acted deliberately in speaking of His ignorance for the sake of economy ( , ). See his Orations against the Arians, bk. ii. chapters xliii and xliv, where these passages occur (Brights ed.). Cyril of Alexandria, in his capacity of malleus Arianorum, speaks in much the same strain, and sometimes more unguardedly, as if be were unwilling, as indeed most of the Fathers were, to face the theological and exegetical difficulties of this whole question. Most of us will sympathize with the strong and vigorous language of Theodoret with respect to the evasions so commonly current. If, he says, He knew the day, but being desirous to conceal it said He did not know, you see in what blasphemy the inference lands us. For the Truth lies (Repr. XII. capp. Cyril in Anath. IV.).

There is also a considerable body of modern thought which seems to reject all serious consideration of this aspect of the Incarnation as being dangerous to a right and reverent attitude towards the claims of Christ. We have only to read such a book as Halls The Kenotic Theory, or several articles in the Ch. Q. Review (e.g. vols. xliv., xlv., and lii.), to see how earnestly men contend against the frank acceptance, in their most obvious meaning, of the words of Jesus.

However mysterious the conclusion at which we are forced to arrive may be, and however inconsistent the different parts of our Christological system may appear, it is necessary for us candidly to accept this self-revelation of Jesus as being strictly in accord with His personal consciousness, and, moreover, as being an infallible indication of the complete and perfect manner in which the Divine Word accommodated Himself to the conditions of the race whose nature He took.

It would, again, be impossible and absurd to treat the incident of the barren fig-tree, related by both St. Matthew (Mat 21:18-22) and St. Mark (Mar 11:12-14), as if it were a mere scenic display for the purpose of solemnly inculcating a moral lesson. Yet this is practically what we are asked to do by writers who refuse to believe that the mind of Jesus was no more exempt from human characteristics than His body was from the sufferings incident to earthly life. On this occasion He felt the pangs of hunger, and He believed He saw the natural means of satisfying His need. We could look for no more convincing example, in His life, of the complete adaptation of Himself to all the laws governing mortal existence. Other instances there are in abundance which point in the same direction, viz. to His complete and willing submission to the limitations which condition the human mode of life. He hungered, as we have seen (Mat 4:2, Mar 11:12 = Mat 21:18, Joh 4:31), and sympathized with those who suffered thus (Mat 15:32 = Mar 8:2, cf. Mat 12:1 ff; Mat 25:35; Mat 25:42). He suffered the pangs of thirst (Joh 4:7; Joh 19:28). He experienced physical weariness after prolonged exertion (Joh 4:6, cf. Mat 8:24 = Mar 4:38). Notwithstanding O. Holtzmanns interpretation of Luk 9:58 (= Mat 8:20) it is very certain that there is a personal reference to His homeless condition in these words, and we notice a quiet sadness, as if He felt the loneliness attaching to a life of continued wandering (cf. O. Holtzmanns Leben Jesu, English translation p. 169, note 3, and p. 303 f.).

(c) The element of spontaneity discoverable in the words and actions of Jesus, expressive of His attitude either towards His fellow-men or towards God, lends force to what we have been saying about limitations involved in His manhood. (1) He experienced feelings of keen disappointment with the people of His country for their lack of spirituality (Mar 8:12; Mar 6:6, Joh 11:33; Joh 11:38, cf. Mar 9:19, Joh 14:9, Mar 8:17 ff; Mar 6:4 = Luk 4:24, Luk 8:25 = Mar 4:40 = Mat 8:26, Mar 3:5; Mar 7:18; Mar 8:12; Mar 10:21 ff. = Luk 18:18-30 = Mat 19:16-24). On the other hand, He expressed astonishment at the spiritual receptivity of some who had no claim to be amongst the number of the chosen people of God (Mat 8:10 = Luk 7:9, cf. Mat 15:28 = Mar 7:29), though He recognizes the fact that this phenomenon was not confined to His own experience (Mat 12:41 f. = Luk 11:31 f., Luk 4:22-27). The legitimate inference to be drawn from the passage last mentioned is not so much that the Divine love flowed over spontaneously towards those who were outside the Abrahamic covenant, as that faith and trust, often found amongst the heathen, drew towards them Gods gracious intervention, just as the lack of these spiritual graces amongst His own people tended to dry up the fountain of Gods active love (Mar 6:1-6 = Mat 13:54-58 = Luk 4:16-24 [cf. Plummer, in loc.]).

One of the methods adopted by Jesus for purposes of instruction was that with which the name of Socrates is usually linked. Starting from premises universally recognized as valid, He leads His hearers onwards by question and answer to the result He wishes to establish (Mar 8:14-21 = Mat 16:5-12, Mar 12:14 ff., Mat 12:48; Mat 22:31 ff., Mat 22:41-46 = Mar 12:23-37 = Luk 20:41-44). With these examples we may also compare the merciless way in which Jesus employed this method lo involve His enemies in an awkward dilemma (Mat 21:24-26), driving home His argument against their moral dishonesty by the parable of the Two Sons, and the question arising out of it (Mat 21:28-31; cf. Mat 21:40-45; Mat 12:27 and Mat 15:3). Not all the questions, however, asked by Jesus were of this character. Some are of the nature of ordinary inquirya demand for some needed information. Such are the questions addressed to the sisters of Bethany (Joh 11:34), to the Gerasene demoniac (Luk 8:30 = Mar 5:9), to the father of the epileptic boy (Mar 9:21), to the disciples on the two occasions (if, indeed, they are not different versions of the same occurrence) of His feeding the multitude (Mar 6:38; Mar 8:5 = Mat 15:34; cf., however, Joh 6:6, which is the authors gloss).

(2) Not very far removed from this phenomenon in Jesus life is the habit of prayer and quiet communion with God which He habitually and sedulously cultivated (Mat 11:25-30 = Luk 10:21 f., Luk 3:21, Mar 1:35, Mat 14:23, Luk 5:16; Luk 6:12; Luk 9:28; Luk 22:32; Luk 22:42 ff. = Mat 26:36 ff. = Mar 14:32 ff., with which we may compare Joh 17:9-15; Joh 17:20; Joh 14:16; Joh 12:27 f.). Of the three Synoptists, St. Luke seems to be the one who most appreciates this feature of Jesus attitude to His Father. No truer comment has ever been made on it than that of the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews (Heb 5:7) in referring to His supplications in Gethsemanethe obedience of Christ was slowly fashioned through prayer, which was answered for His reverent devotion (Westcott, Ep. to Heb. in loc.). The two descriptive words employed by this writer ( ) illustrate well the intense nature, of these supplications ( ), reminding us of the vivid representation of Mar 14:35. We have here the spectacle of true man, weighted with a crushing burden, the dread of a catastrophe awful and unfathomed (Gore, Diss. p. 82 f.).

iii. Jesus activity as Teacher.(a) When we look at the position of Teacher occupied by Jesus, we not merely see Him assuming tacitly to be the ultimate authority upon the ethical value of OT laws, and giving instruction from that standpoint suitable to the receptive powers of His hearers, we are also confronted with His confessed subordination even in this sphere. His is a delegated authority conferred on Him by an unction from God. He was sent with a definite message, the contents of which He identified with that given in Deutero-Isaiah (ch. 42, cf. Isa 61:1 f.). We are reminded of the words of the Apostle Peter at Caesarea (Act 10:38), where he uses the same word to express this unction, and adds as the secret of the marvellous power exhibited by the Anointed that God was with Him. This thought is most frequently and plainly dwelt on in the Fourth Gospel, and this is the more surprising as it appears alongside of claims the most far-reaching as to the significance of His life and teaching. In His conversation with Nicodemus, Jesus sets forth His place in the scheme of world-salvation. He is the object of mens faith and belief. It is through Him that life is brought into the world. At the same time He is the Sent of God ( , …, Joh 3:17, cf. Joh 3:34; Joh 4:34; Joh 5:23-24; Joh 5:30; Joh 5:36-38; Joh 6:29; Joh 6:38-39; Joh 6:44; Joh 6:57; Joh 7:16; Joh 7:18; Joh 7:28-29; Joh 7:33; Joh 8:16; Joh 8:18; Joh 8:26; Joh 8:29; Joh 8:42; Joh 9:4; Joh 10:36; Joh 11:42; Joh 12:44-45; Joh 12:49; Joh 14:24; Joh 15:21; Joh 16:5; Joh 17:8 and Joh 20:21, Luk 10:16; Luk 9:48, Mat 10:40, cf. Mar 9:37 and Joh 13:20).

(b) Not only has He received His commission as a Teacher from God, but there is a limitation defined for Him in the scope of the delivery of His message (Joh 1:11, Mat 15:24; Mat 21:37 f.). (1) This limit He not only observed Himself, but imposed also on His disciples. During His ministry their preaching was confined to the borders of Israel by His direct orders (Mat 10:6 f.); and this limitation was considered of binding force at the time (Act 3:26), though it was abrogated in the light of further development (cf. Mat 28:18, Mar 16:15 f., Luk 24:47, Act 1:4). It is important, then, to recognize that Jesus Himself consciously set national and local bounds to His missionary activity, and was willing to adapt His methods of work to suit the conditions which governed the time and place of His incarnate life. It is difficult to see how He could have approached, with any hope of success, a people so hide-bound in traditionalism as were His countrymen, in any other way than He did. Discrimination in the choice, rather than originality in the creation and presentment of fundamental ideas, characterizes His teaching. And in this we discover His Divine wisdom and greatness. With conscious deliberation He refused, so far as His own personal work was concerned, to break with the best and truest tradition as it was embodied in the teaching and institutions of His time. (2) There is a line of development observable in the Jewish mind from the days of the earliest prophets right onwards to the time of Jesus, and He did not break off at a sharp angle from its continuation. He rather set His face towards the direction in which that line travelled, and unswervingly refused to turn aside at the bidding of a childish literalism or of a debased legalism. That He did not confine His recognition of truth to what was overtly taught in the OT is shown by the whole-hearted way in which He accepted the doctrine of individual resurrection, and pressed home the truth of this latter-day Judaistic development upon those who refused to accept it, by a magnificent argumentum ad hominem (Luk 20:37 f. = Mar 12:26 f. = Mat 22:31 f.). With this doctrinal disputation between Jesus and the Sadducees we may compare that on the same subject between Gamaliel and the scribes of the Sadducees (see Edersheim, Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, vol. i. p. 316 n. [Note: note.] ). This Rabbi bases his argument also on a passage out of the Pentateuch (Deu 1:8; cf. Deu 11:9), but misses the opportunity so well utilized by Jesus of emphasizing the spiritual side of that truth. It is significant in respect of this, that Jesus very seldom makes a formal declaration or revelation of the truth of the resurrection doctrine (Joh 5:25; Joh 5:28); and, except on this occasion when He was challenged to prove it, He never attempts to give any reasons for its acceptance. He found the belief prevalent amongst the best spirits of His time, and He simply refers to it as a matter of course by taking for granted that His hearers will understand the allusion, and accept the consequences He deduces (Luk 14:14, cf. Joh 11:24). On the one hand, He lays stress on His own judicial functions as finding their final scope when that wondrous result is achieved (cf. Joh 5:21; Joh 5:27, Mat 24:31; Mat 16:27; Mat 25:31 ff; Mat 19:28; Mat 13:49 f., Mar 13:23 f.). Then, again, He incidentally refers to the resurrection as a future event of universal significance, to be brought into objective existence by the power of God (Mat 22:29) exercised through Himself, who will employ angels as the executors of His final decrees (Mat 13:41 ff., Mat 13:49 f., Mar 13:27).

() In these passages we are able to observe a double object in the teaching of Jesus about two distinct contemporary beliefs. As we have seen, there was a current belief, existent amongst the best religious thought, in the resurrection of the dead. This was, however, intimately connected with Jewish hopes as to the future earthly national Messianic kingdom (cf. Isa 26:14; Isa 26:19, Eze 37:11, Dan 12:2, where its extent is limited to those who have distinguished themselves on one side or other of the national conflict, mainly with Antiochus Epiphanes [see Driver, Daniel, in loc. and Introd. xci f., and Salmond, Christian Doctrine of Immortality4 [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred] , p. 213; cf. Dan 11:32 f.]).

The imperfection and uncertainty of the hold which this doctrine had on the Jewish mind is evidenced by such passages as 2Ma 7:9; 2Ma 7:14; 2Ma 7:23; 2Ma 7:36, 2 Esdras 7 :(79)(100); Josephus Ant. xviii. i. 3; Bar 2:17, Sir 17:27 f., Sir 41:4. In the Apocalypse of Baruch, in answer to the question as to the changes which are to take place (Sir 49:3), the writer affirms his belief in the resurrection of the body, and the subsequent transformation of the bodies of the righteous in order to the enjoyment of unending spiritual happiness (chs. 50 and 51 [ed. by Prof. Charles]). The authors of the Book of Enoch vary as to the extent of the resurrection, but all are agreed as to the restoration of the righteous Israelite to the fulness of a glorious life in the new Messianic kingdom which God shall establish on earth.

Now, as we have just said, Jesus, in His allusions to the doctrine of the resurrection, while accommodating His language to the received Jewish opinions, emphasizes the truth and discards the excrescences which had deformed the popular belief. In His eschatological references and discourses, connexions with current thought are easily discovered, even when He is engaged in contradicting the presumptuous expectations of those whom He is addressing. Compare His use of apocalyptic figures when speaking of His Parousia (Mat 8:11, Luk 13:28 f.,Luk 22:16, Mat 26:29), where the future kingdom is likened to a banquet where the guests recline at the table with the fathers of the Jewish nation (cf. e.g. Mat 22:1-14 and Luk 14:15-24). This is the more remarkable that it is accompanied by a stern reminder that the real heirs of the kingdom shall find themselves outside their heritage. The reference to the judgment of the tribes of Israel is also to be noted in Mat 19:28, Luk 22:30, and Rev 20:4, reminding us of the idea expressed in Dan 7:22, 1Co 6:2 f., Wis 3:8, Sir 4:15.

The imagery in which Jesus clothed His description of the events which were to precede the destruction of Jerusalem (Mat 24:1-31 = Mar 13:1-27 = Luk 21:5-28), and His subsequent Return, finds many parallels in Jewish literature (cf. 2Es 5:1-13; 2Es 6:18-28; 2Es 9:1-12; 2Es 13:29-31, 2Ma 5:2 f., Apocalypse, Apocalyptic Bar 70:28; Mishna, Sota, ix. 15; and Josephus BJ vi. v. 3). It is probable that in Mat 24:28 we have the quotation of a current proverb which may or may not have had its origin in the detestation in which the symbols of Roman power and authority were held (see Plummer on Luk 17:37; and Farrar, Life of Christ, vol. ii. p. 262). In any event we know that the phrase was known to His hearers as symbolical of Gods judgments wrought by means of heathen enemies and oppressors (see Charles ed. of Enoch [92]; cf. Deu 28:49, Job 9:26, Hab 1:8 etc.). The same may be said of the reference to the trumpet () as the instrument by which the resurrection of the dead is immediately effected (cf. 1Th 4:16, 1Co 15:52, Mat 24:31, and 2Es 6:22). In this connexion, and intimately related to the subject of the destruction of Jerusalem, we may note the simile used by Jesus in His lamentation over that city. The similitude of the hen and her brood (Mat 23:37) is not found in the OT, but is frequent in Rabbinical literature (Plummer on Luk 13:34). Compare, e.g., 2Es 1:30, in which context are also to be found very similar references to the righteous wrath of God and its terrible consequences. He will require the blood of all His servants and prophets slain by the hands of those to whom they were sent (2Es 1:32). Their house is left unto them desolate (2Es 1:33). These words remind us of the language of Jesus in Mat 23:35 f, Mat 23:38 (cf. Luk 11:49 ff.), where Wendt thinks there is a reference to a Jewish apocalyptic writing ( ) on the part of Jesus (Lehre Jesu, English translation ii. 362). See, further, Messiah, Parousia.

() The other contemporary belief referred to above had to do with the part played by angels in the Divine economy of revelation and grace. Amongst the Jews of the time of Jesus there was a tendency to emphasize the importance of the functions ascribed to these beings. This tendency arose out of the growing habit of thought which removed God farther and farther from that active participation in the worlds concerns which was characteristic of early Israelitish belief (Exo 3:7 ff., Gen 11:7; Gen 18:21 [cf. G. B. Stevens, The Theology of the NT, p. 11 f.]). To them angels were the necessary media connecting a transcendental God with the world and men. (For the external influences which helped the growth of this development see art. [by Whitehouse] Demon, Devil, in Hasting’s Dictionary of the Bible , vol. i. p. 592). Over against God and His kingdom, thus conceived, stood Satan and his dominion, ruled after the same method by means of dependent demoniacal beings. It is important to note that, although these dualistic conceptions held a large place in the current thought of His day, Jesus has let fall no hint as to His ideas on the subject of angelology. By Him God is conceived as in direct living contact with men, guiding their affairs, and interesting Himself in their welfare (Mat 5:45, Luk 6:35, Mat 6:4; Mat 6:6; Mat 6:18; Mat 6:32; Mat 7:11). perhaps in no way does this come out so clearly as in the stress laid by Him on the Fatherhood of God (cf. e.g. Luk 15:11 ff.). What was halting, spasmodic, and inferential in the OT becomes in the teaching of Jesus a central, illuminating truth which He would have His hearers emphasize during the most sacred moments of their lives (Mat 6:9, cf. the of Luk 11:2). At the same time the Gospels furnish us with many references by Jesus to angels and their work, all of which are intimately related to contemporary ideas. It is unimportant for our present purpose whether we interpret these references literally, or, as Beyschlag and others do, metaphorically; viz. as poetical and figurative expressions.

From Himself must have come the information noted by the Synoptists as to angelic ministrations (cf. Mat 4:11 = Mar 1:13, Luk 22:43); and He must have been thinking of these services when He rebuked St. Peter with the question recorded in Mat 26:53 (cf. Joh 18:36, where may refer to them also). That He believed in the reality of their existence is, of course, true. That He ascribed to them functions suitable to their state of being is also true. They are described as holy, possessed of a knowledge of the ways of God in a higher degree than the sons of men ( ), and interested in the spiritual condition of mankind (cf. Mar 8:38, Mat 16:27; Mat 25:31, Mar 13:32, Luk 15:10, with which we may compare 2Es 16:66 and Luk 12:8). Jesus in the parable of Dives and Lazarus, utilizes the Rabbinical belief that the souls of the righteous are carried to paradise by the angels, but in a way so incidental that we are not instilled in affirming or denying His belief in that tenet (Luk 16:22, with which may be compared the description of Elijahs translation in 2Ki 2:11). In Mat 18:10 there is a deliberate assertion by Jesus that Gods care over the least important of His people is exercised through the media of angels. This is an extension or development of the idea of national guardian angels in Dan 10:13; Dan 10:20. He makes an incidental reference to their supersensual nature in His discussion with the Sadducees on the subject of the Resurrection (Mar 12:25 = Mat 22:30 = Luk 20:36), where He employs well-known Jewish opinion (with the Lukan compare Apocalypse, Apocalyptic Bar 51:10 and Ethiopic Enoch 104:4, 6) in order to enforce a fundamental spiritual truth. The same didactic purpose is discoverable in all the references of Jesus to these beings; and we are therefore led to the conclusion that there is, in His attitude towards this question, evidence of that deliberate economy by which He set to Himself the task of accommodation to the limited knowledge of His fellow-men. It seems to the present writer to be very evident that Jesus knowingly refrained from correcting their ideas on this subject because He had an infinitely more important work to perform. To say with Bishop Gore that His language certainly reaches the level of positive teaching about good spirits, seems to import more significance into that language than it can bear (cf. Diss. p. 23 f.). The work of Jesus lay on a far higher plane than thisthe correcting and revealing of details as to the nature, position, and employment of subordinate spiritual agencies. It was sufficient for His purpose that a general belief existed in the loving activity of God, though that activity might be somewhat too rigorously conceived of as mediated by certain personal forces (Heb 1:14). A comparison of one pair of parallel passages may throw some light on the way in which Jesus attitude towards this belief was interpreted by those who heard Him. In Mat 10:32 we read of those who accept, and are loyal in their adherence to, His Messianic claims, that the Son of Man will confess them before His Father in heaven; while in Luk 12:8 the words run, Him shall the Son of Man also confess before the angels of God. From this it would appear that the angels of God is a popular synonym for the Sacred Presence, and is employed by Jesus as such (cf. also Luk 15:7; Luk 15:10). But see art. Angels, p. 57b f.

() On coming to the consideration of the kindred question arising out of Jesus language respecting Satan, demons, and demoniacal possession, we are confronted with a more intricate and difficult problem. There can be no doubt, the present writer thinks, that as He believed in the personal existence of good, so He also believed in that of evil angels. How far, on the other hand, we are bound to accept the views which a literal interpretation of the passages where reference to them is found would convey, is another question, and one which demands some care in determining. In the first place, there are several instances where the language of Jesus respecting these beings is obviously figurative, and intended to be interpreted as such. In relating His experiences during the Temptation period, it would certainly seem as if He intended to convey, in language vividly symbolical, an idea of the tremendous difficulties which beset Him in His choice of two alternatives. The popular Jewish Messianic expectations He embodied in a personified form, and Satan appears in the narrative because of the didactic purpose which He had in view.

A similar interpretation seems necessary in Jesus explanation of the parable of the Sower (Mat 13:19 : Mar 4:15 ; Luk 8:12 , though Plummer (note on Luk 8:12) insists that Jesus is here emphasizing His belief in the Personality of the evil there described as working. The whole passage, however, is highly figurative, and it seem somewhat arbitrary to pick and choose in that way. A very remarkable instance of similar personification is found in the Lukan narrative of the healing of St. Peters mother-in-law. Just as St. Luke seems to be the most deeply impressed of the Synoptists with this aspect of Jesus power and work, so he is the only one of the three to note this. By using the verb (Luk 4:39), which he had employed immediately before (Luk 4:35) in describing the healing of the demoniac in the synagogue, he links the two acts together by an inward connexion. The same verb, indeed, is found in all three Synoptists in their narratives of the stilling of the tempest on the Lake of Gennesaret (cf. Luk 8:24, Mat 8:26, Mar 4:39), and we cannot resist the conclusion that the disciples saw behind the storm the work of a living personal agent, and that Jesus acted in the spirit of that presupposition (cf. O. Holtzmanns Leben Jesu, English translation p. 268). Similarly in His rebuke of St. Peter (Mar 8:13 = Mat 16:23), Jesus sees behind the language of His chief Apostle that spirit of evil which all through His work strove to thwart and hinder Him. He addresses him directly and personally as Satan (), just as He addressed the last and fiercest temptation in the first dangerous crisis of His life (Mat 4:10).

A striking and illustrative example of this figure is discovered in Jesus words to His returned missionary disciples (Luk 10:18). These, in their report, referred specially to the power over demons, recently conferred upon the Twelve, as being also possessed by themselves, which elicited from Him the following reply, I beheld Satan fallen (Authorized Version fall) as lightning from heaven (cf. Isa 14:12). Some see in these words a reference by Jesus to the original Fall of the Angels, and an implied rebuke to the disciples, warning them against the sin which caused that catastrophe. On the other hand, the use of the aorist participle () in the place of emphasis points to the conclusion that Jesus is speaking of an event occurring during the time of the successful missionary tour (cf. Blass, Gram. Of NT Greek, 58, 4, p. 197 f.; and Burton, NT Moods and Tenses, 146 ff., p. 67 f.). Be that as it may, the simile is a familiar one to the Jews (cf. Isa 14:12; Isa 14:15, Rev 12:7-9). and is used by Jesus to point to the overthrow of the kingdom of evil, as it was foreshadowed by the success which attended His disciples first efforts (cf. Joh 12:4).

A very remarkable instance of this method is peculiar to the Lukan narrative. Jesus, in warning St. Peter of his coming fall, informs him in solemn language that Satan obtained him by asking (, Luk 22:31) for the purpose of testing him (cf. Job 1:6; Job 1:12; Job 2:1; Job 2:6). He puts Himself in direct personal opposition ( ) to the Prince of Evil by praying for His Apostle. No less remarkable and instructive is the allegory, common to St. Matthew and St. Luke, by which He teaches the danger of and tendency towards reverting to a former state of sin. He speaks of the unclean spirit or demon ( ) which, having been cast out of his victim, goes in search of rest through dry and desert regions ( ). Failing in his quest, he deliberates with himself as to his future line of action, and finally makes up his mind to return to the place whence he was driven. With himself he brings seven other spirits, and they all take up their abode in the empty chamber, which was all too ready to receive them (Luk 11:24-26, Mat 12:43-45). For the belief that more than one demon might possess a human being, compare Mar 5:1 f., Mat 8:28 f., Luk 8:26 f., and Luk 8:2 ( ). The teaching of Jesus is not only based on the popular belief in the active connexion between evil spirits and the children of men, but there is a reference in to the generally accepted idea that wild and desert regions are the special habitat of these beings (see art. Demon, Devil in Hasting’s Dictionary of the Bible , vol. i. p. 593b).

Jesus, on more than one occasion, seems to sanction the current conception of the malignant influence of demons or the human body, their activity in this respect being controlled and guided by their chief, Satan ( , Mat 12:24). St. Lukes diagnosis of the womans case who was afflicted for eighteen years, is simply that she was possessed of a spirit of infirmity ( , Luk 13:11); and Jesus apparently countenanced the belief by the words contained in His reproof ( , Luk 13:16). A similar instance of His countenancing popular beliefs occurs in the healing of the deaf and dumb epileptic (Mar 9:17-27). The boys father believes his son to be the victim of demoniac malignity ( , Mar 9:17); and Jesus addresses the spirit by an authoritative command ( , Mar 9:25).

Perhaps the surest evidence we have that Jesus deliberately suited His language to the notions of His day arises out of the way in which He wrought His cures, depending as He did on the moral and spiritual forces inherent in His own Person. A word, a command, a touch of the hand suffices His purpose (cf. Mat 8:16, Mar 1:27, Luk 13:13). There is no trace of His ever having employed any of the current methods of exorcismthe use of certain magic formulae, such as the ineffable Name, etc. (see Edersheims Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, bk. iii. ch. xiv and ap. XVI. Cf. the astonishment which Jesus method created amongst His countrymen [Luk 4:36; cf. Act 19:13]). That He knew of such methods is evident from the ironical question He put to the Pharisees who accused Him of collusion with Beelzebub (Mat 12:27 = Luk 11:19). For evidence that Jesus believed in power over evil spirits exercised by others not directly commissioned by Him, cf. Mat 7:22, Mar 9:38 f. = Luk 9:49 f.

On the other hand, signs are not wanting that Jesus recognized an essential difference between the casting out of demons and the curing of bodily diseaseI cast out demons and perform cures, (Luk 13:32, cf. Mat 10:8, Mar 6:13, Luk 9:1; Luk 6:17 f.). St. Matthew, moreover, records the same distinction in his account of the early Galilaean ministry ( , Mat 4:24, with which cf. Mar 1:32-34). We may also note in passing that instances are not wanting of references to disease without mention of these agents (cf. e.g. Mat 9:27-31, Mar 7:32-37, Luk 17:11-19).

Looking then at this last aspect of the question, and noting the way in which He employed the language current in His day about this mysterious phenomenon, we perceive Jesus knowledge to be in advance of that possessed by His countrymen. We see the workings of that love which, while it appeals to man as he is, yet ever strives to draw him upwards by gradually stripping him of the clogging weights of superstition and of false conceptions. See artt. Demon, Lunatic, Possession.

(c) In harmony with this characteristic habit of Jesus is His general method of imparting definite instruction. It is impossible not to be struck with the way in which He, not content with telling His hearers directly what He wishes them to know, approaches them from another sidethe side of reason and its resultant freedom and independence of thought. The Sermon on the Mount is not a body of precepts like the Mosaic code, so much as a series of paradoxes which arrest and fix the attention, calling out and developing the powers of rational deduction. The same feature runs through the parabolic form which His teaching so largely took, and which was so admirably suited to maintain the studied reserve in the content of His communications. Notice the way in which He keeps back, all through the earliest period of His ministry, the revelation of His claims to be the Messiah (Mar 1:25; Mar 3:12; Mar 8:30, Luk 4:41, cf. Mat 12:16; Mat 8:4 etc.); and even to the Twelve He does not impart the nature of those claims till they slowly worked out for themselves the conviction to which St. Peter gave such emphatic expression at Caesarea Philippi (Mar 8:29 = Mat 16:16 = Luk 9:20).

(1) Popularly intelligible and highly impressive, the parables of Jesus have been the wonder and admiration of every age. The OT is not without examples of this mode of teaching (2Sa 12:1 ff; 2Sa 14:6 f., 1Ki 20:39 f., Isa 5:1-6), and the Rabbinical writings afford numerous examples of parables (see Edersheim, Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, vol. i. p. 580 f.) some of which bear a striking resemblance to those of Jesus (cf. Midrash on Ca 1:1). The object of parabolic teaching was twofold, and was thus purposely employed by Him (Mat 13:16-17). By it He meant to conceal the truth from the wise and clever ( , Mat 11:25 [see Moffatts Histor. NT2 [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred] , p. 316 f.]). By it He at the same time intended to unfold the same truth to babes (). According to the Markan narrative, there was an adaptation to the capacities of His hearers even within the zone of His parabolic teaching. He did not, that is to say, employ this method indiscriminately or harshly, but in a tentative and gentle fashion, proportionate to the intelligences of those who heard Him (Mar 4:33).

Such was the aim and intention of Jesus; and in connexion with this it will not be unimportant to note how, as His experience widened, and the stress of opposition increased, and the bitterness of the enmity to which He was exposed intensified, the parable enters more and more largely into His public teaching, and gradually assumes a more admonitory, controversial, and sometimes a warning judicial tone. It is impossible to draw up any hard and fast rule exemplifying this statement, but a comparison of the parables grouped in Matthew 13 with those in Luk 14:7-11; Luk 13:6-9; Luk 14:16-24; Luk 16:1-13; Luk 19:12-27 etc. will show the gradual development of method in the employment of the parable by Jesus to drive home the meaning of His message to the heart and understanding of His hearers. See Parable.

(2) Without entering into a discussion as to the difference between the parable, the fable, the allegory, and other forms of instruction by figure, it is important to note that Jesus never disdains to use popular figurative expressions in order to point the truth He is aiming to disclose. Just as in its outward form and method He conformed to the usages of His time (cf. Mat 5:1, Luk 4:20, Joh 8:2, Mat 13:1 f. etc.), so in His choice of language He did not disdain to employ what He found ready to His hand, though it was manifestly imperfect. He did not, for example, correct the popular notions as to the local positions of Heaven and Hades. The one was regarded as being situated at an indefinite height above the earth (see Act 1:9 ff.), the other as a dark deep underworld in which the deceased continued to exist (Salmond, art. Hades in Hasting’s Dictionary of the Bible ii. 275). The ethical teaching of Jesus is not disturbed by these crudities. On more than one occasion He uses them as illustrations of His meaning. Capernaum, because it rejected the unparalleled opportunities afforded by His presence and works, He addressed with the question, Shalt thou be exalted unto heaven? answering it Himself at the same time, Thou shalt go down to Hades. The idea was that a complete moral and spiritual overthrow awaited her, whereas she might have enjoyed the full and lofty freedom characteristic of the atmosphere of Gods presence (see Mat 11:23 = Luk 10:15).

The expression gates of Hades (Mat 16:18) is similarly figurative, and in this place has reference to the forces of death and spiritual decay. Here there is an incidental reference to the general belief that Hades is an enclosed prison-like (cf. the of 1Pe 3:19) abode whose inhabitants are locked and detained inside its gates (cf. Rev 1:18 I have the keys of Hades), while there is added to this notion the further thought that there is even in Hades a broad impassable line of demarcation (between us and you a great gulf is fixed, Luk 16:26) between the souls of those who have lived piously here and those whose lives were selfish (cf. Luk 23:43 where the former department of Hades is called Paradise). In connexion with this subject it is instructive to note such ideas as are found in Enoch 22, 51, 63:10, 102:5 etc., where, with the single exception of the locale of Sheol, the general description is very similar to that we have been discussing.

(3) One of the traditional forms of teaching was by the employment of aphoristic sayings, such as we have before us in the gnomic wisdom of the Son of Sirach, or of the Pirke Aboth in the Mishna (Schrer, HJP [Note: JP History of the Jewish People.] ii. iii. pp. 2332). Jesus uses this method with wonderful effect, as we see especially in the list of utterances grouped in Matthew 5-7, which were collected, we may feel sure, from many different periods of His ministry. All four Gospels afford examples of these proverbial expressions. Cf. e.g. Mar 2:17; Mar 2:27; Mar 9:35; Mar 9:40; Mar 12:17; Mar 14:38, Mat 22:14; Mat 12:30, Luk 12:48; Luk 16:10, and the unrecorded saying in Act 20:35, Joh 3:6; Joh 4:24; Joh 12:25, while, in this Gospel, Jesus refers explicitly to a proverb current in His time (Herein is the saying true, Joh 4:37). Very striking and vivid also are such figures as those by which the doctrine or teaching of the Pharisees is referred to by the word leaven (Mar 8:15), His own suffering by the words cup and baptism (Mar 10:38, cf. Luk 12:49 f.), the relative positions of Jew and Gentile in the kingdom of grace by the words children and dogs (Mar 7:27). In the Fourth Gospel there is a striking frequency in this mode of expression. It is in this writing that Jesus speaks of Himself as the way ( , Joh_Joh 14:8),the light of the world (Joh 8:12), the bread of life (Joh 6:35), the vine (Joh 15:1), the door (Joh 10:7). He speaks of His work as His meat (Joh 4:34), of His body as this temple (Joh 2:19). Cf. also such passages as those which deal with the second birth (Joh 3:3), the living water (Joh 4:10), the heavenly mansions (Joh 14:2), and so on. In all this we observe a method which is peculiarly adapted to the intelligence of those He meant to instruct; and this is still more emphatically the case when, as He sometimes does, He expands these figures and similes until they assume the shape of aliegories. We see examples of this in His use of the figure of the shepherd (Joh 10:10 ff.), the vine (Joh 15:1 ff.), the light (Joh 12:35 f.), etc. No one who has ever heard these can fail to admire the wonderful art and power of popular eloquence which He possessed. It was precisely the power to gain the attention and arouse and retain the interest of the people which Jesus wielded, and we can appreciate the reasons for the willingness and eagerness with which He was listened to by the proletariat (Mar 12:37). See art. Wisdom.

(4) The references in the discourses of Jesus to natural or world-phenomena, and to the psychological features of mans being, exhibit the same reserve, the same restraint in correcting popular notions, the same frank acceptance of current thought. A few examples will be sufficient to show how completely He adapted His language to the limitations of contemporary knowledge. () God makes His sun to rise (Mat 5:45); lightning comes out of the east and takes its swift journey towards the west (Mat 24:27), or it falls down straight from heaven (Luk 10:18); the germ of life in the wheat-grain is brought into active play only by the death of the seed (Joh 12:24). Even the signs which enabled men to forecast the weather were laid by Him under contribution to emphasize a contrast (Luk 12:54 ff.). The wind blows hither and thither, but men know neither its beginning nor its ending (Joh 3:8), any more than they can point to the origin or the destiny of the mysterious , the reality of whose existence He nevertheless insists cannot be doubted. The gradual growth of the kingdom of God eludes mens observation, just as that of the planted seed does, which receives the vital principle of its growth from the earth, and advances steadily though secretly (Mar 4:27).

It seems to the present writer that in the last two cases Jesus is pointing to the existence of a wider field of knowledge into which man has not as yet entered. At the same time He seems to include Himself in the number of those who know not the how or the wherefore. Ages were yet to pass over the world before men discovered the laws which govern the relations of natural phenomena, and which enable them, in some cases at least, to predict with almost infallible certainty their regular sequence. Jesus consciously recognized that it was no part of His work to add to the sum total of human knowledge of these subjects.

() The same trait is observable in His references to the anthropological ideas of His time; but for the illustration of this we must refer the reader to artt. Flesh, Heart, Soul, Spirit.

iv. The attitude of Jesus towards the Messianic expectations of His time.A discussion of the question of Jesus attitude towards Messianic hopes and longings is of the utmost importance, on account of its bearing upon the subject with which we are dealing. The attention of the student is at once arrested by His obvious anxiety during the early periods of His ministry to conceal from the general public His claims to the Messiahship. This He did expressly by forbidding the open proclamation of the truth not merely by the demoniacally possessed (Mar 1:25; Mar 3:12, Mat 12:16, Luk 4:41), but also by those amongst His circle of disciples who grasped the purport of His teaching and the secret of His Personality (Mat 16:20 = Mar 8:30 = Luk 9:21; Mat 17:9 = Mar 9:9 = Luk 9:36). For the same reason He courted secrecy in the performance of miraculous cures, and enjoined silence on those who were healed (Mar 1:43 f., Mar 5:43, Mar 7:36, Mar 8:23; Mar 8:26, Mat 9:30; Mat 8:4). Indeed, there is no part of the message which Jesus came to deliver where the words of Mar 4:33 (He spake the word unto them as they were able to hear it) are more appropriate. The declaration of His Messiahship was gradual; and even those who were nearest His Person, and in closest touch with His teaching, were left by Him to work out the truth slowly and by degrees.

(a) Perhaps the self-chosen title Son of Man, by which He is styled early in His first Galilaean ministry, might at first sight contradict this statement (cf. Mar 2:10 = Mat 9:6 = Luk 5:24; Mar 2:28 = Mat 12:8 = Luk 6:5; Mat 12:32 = Luk 12:10). On further consideration, however, it will be seen that Jesus, by this designation of Himself, had a twofold object in viewthe concealment of His Messiahship from the many who were not ready to accept His interpretation of its meaning and purpose; and at the same time, the unfolding to the few who could bear the revelation, of the character of His Person and His work as shadowed by the title Son of Man. See art. Son of Man.

(b) The attitude of Jesus to the Jewish Canon of the OT must not be left out of account when considering the methods of His public teaching. Frankly, the belief is at once confessed that here also He used the common language of His contemporaries in regard to the OT (Sanday, Bampton Lect. p. 414), and in accordance with this we can explain the words which St. Luke puts into the mouth of the risen Jesus, where the tripartite division of the Hebrew Bible is recognizedthe Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms (Luk 24:44). With this we may compare the division given in the Prologue of the grandson of Jesus ben Sirach. Other divisions were also current, as Moses and the Prophets (Luk 16:29; Luk 16:31; Luk 24:27), the Law and the Prophets (Luk 16:6, Mat 7:12), where the idea is the same, namely, the entire OT as then existing. In perfect harmony with this is the acceptance by Jesus of the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch (Luk 16:29; Luk 16:31; Luk 24:27; Luk 24:44, Mat 19:8 = Mar 10:3-5, Mar 12:26 = Luk 20:37, Joh 5:45-47; Joh 7:19; Joh 7:22 f.), and the Davidic authorship, if not of the whole Jewish Psalter, at least of many of the Psalms contained therein (Mar 12:36 f. = Mat 22:43 ff. = Luk 20:42 ff.).

(1) Several other indications there are which show that He accepted not only the general popular belief in the authenticity of the OT books as a whole, but also the literal genuineness of the stories with which they abound. The details of the narratives of the Flood and Noah (Mat 24:37 ff. = Luk 17:26 f.), the story of Jonah and his adventures by sea as well as in Nineveh (Mat 12:40 f., Mat 16:4, Luk 11:29 f.), are utilized by Jesus on the assumption of their genuine historicity. The glory of Solomons reign, that heyday of Israelitish prosperity, is incidentally mentioned by Him without any reserve (Mat 6:29 = Luk 12:27). The question is not, as Dr. Sanday puts it (The Oracles of God5 [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred] , p. 111), whether Jesus accommodated His language to current notions, knowing them to be false, but rather, was His accommodation or condescension so complete that He never entertained any other idea as to the character of these narratives than the one currently held? It certainly seems that it never entered into His mind to question their historical truth; and if we seek for the estimation in which He held the Law and the Prophets, we find it expressed in words which, if genuine,* [Note: See Hastings DB, Extra Vol. p. 24 f.] are as emphatic as any that are to be had. Not one jot or one tittle ( ) was to be done away with until all was fulfilled (Mat 5:18). Into this Jewish idea of the abiding nature of the Law, Jesus characteristically imported a depth of meaning which, while it did not destroy, transmuted its whole tenor, giving it the eternal significance of which He speaks ( ), and which it could never otherwise have had. This habitual method, by which Jesus based His teaching on the foundations of existing knowledge, receives some illustration from the way in which He treats the story of Moses and the Bush (Mar 12:26 = Luk 20:37, cf. Mat 22:31). He says nothing whatever of the nature of this vision beyond what the letter of the narrative expresses. He does not tell us whether the sight was visible to the outward eye or to the inward spiritual understanding alone. Cf. also His references to the brazen serpent (Joh 3:14; Joh 12:32).

(2) In the same way, it seems to the present writer, we are to interpret the reference to the authorship of Psalms 110 (Mat 22:41-45 = Mar 12:35-37 = Luk 20:41-44). There were three distinct ideas current about this Psalm which Jesus adopts as the groundwork of His argument: (i.) it was Davidic, (ii.) it was written by David under the influence of inspiration ( ), (iii.) it was explicitly Messianic. If Jesus placed the imprimatur of His Divine authority upon any one of these notions, we are bound to believe that He did so on all, and by consequence on the Messianic ideas which were popularly held, and which doubtless were supposed to be favoured by Psalms 110. We know, however, that He habitually discouraged the popular belief in a Messiah who was to be an earthly Sovereign of all-conquering power, which was held to be countenanced by the words of this Psalm (cf. Joh 6:15; Joh 18:36 f. and Luk 17:20 f.). There is no hint given by any of the three Synoptists that Jesus corrected these Messianic expectations during the course of the argument. His purpose was other than this, to argue from the contents of the Psalm, and not at all to correct ideas as to authorship and interpretation (cf. Driver, LOT [Note: OT Introd. to the Literature of the Old Test.] 3 [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred] p. 363 n. [Note: note.] ; and A. F. Kirkpatrick, Psalms, in the Cambridge Bible, Introd. to Psalms 110).

The whole edifice so laboriously constructed by the opponents of a rational criticism, on the basis of Jesus references to this Psalm as well as to other portions of OT Scriptures, falls to the ground when considered beneath the dry light of reason. The following words of Bishop Gore are so moderate and reasonable in connexion with this reference of Jesus to the Davidic authorship of Psalms 110, that we may be pardoned for quoting them in full. On the face of it, the argument suggests that the Messiah could not be Davids Son,if David calleth him Lord, how is he his Son?but, in fact, its purpose is not to prove or disprove anything, to affirm or deny anything, but simply to press upon the Pharisees an argument which their habitual assumptions ought to have suggested to them: to confront them with just that question, which they, with their principles, ought to have been asking themselves (Bampton Lect. p. 198). In a word, nothing can be truer than that both the Saviour and the Apostles have quoted a body of sacred Scriptures, and it does not appear that in their teaching they had any wish to introduce a novel theory as to the meaning and authority of that collection. Neither the Apostolic writings nor the tradition of the Christian Church bear any trace of an explicit decision given by Jesus Christ or the Apostles with respect to the Canon of the Old Testament, and still less of a decision which would have the effect of formally correcting opinions which obtained in the Jewish world (Loisy, Canon de lAncien Testament, p. 97).

v. Summary and Conclusion.In summing up and reviewing the conditions under which the teaching of Jesus was ushered into the world, and the relation in which that teaching stood to the human race, we cannot do better than quote a passage from a little work of the last-named writer (Lvangile et lglise), though he is there dealing with a very different problem:

Nothing could make Jesus other than a Jew. He was only man under condition of belonging to one branch of humanity. In that in which He was born, the branch that may well be said to have carried in it the religious future of the world, this future was known in quite a precise manner, by the hope of the reign of God, by the symbol of the Messiah. He who was to be the Saviour of the world could enter on His office only by assuming the position of Messiah and by presenting Himself as the Founder of the Kingdom, come to accomplish the hope of Israel. The Gospel, appearing in Judaea, and unable to appear elsewhere, was bound to be conditioned by Judaism. Its Jewish exterior is the human body, whose Divine soul is the Spirit of Jesus. But take away the body, and the soul will vanish in the air like the lightest breath. Without the idea of the Messiah, the Gospel would have been but a metaphysical possibility, an invisible, intangible essence, even unintelligible, for want of a definition appropriate to the means of knowledge, not a living and conquering reality. The Gospel will always need a body to be human. Having become the hope of Christian people, it has corrected in the interpretation certain parts of its Israelitish symbolism. None the less it remains the shadowy representation of the great mystery, God and the Providential destiny of man and of humanity, because it is a representation always striving after perfection, inadequate and insufficient. This is the mystery that Jesus revealed, as far as it could he revealed, and under the conditions which made revelation possible. It may be said that Christ lived it as much as He made it manifest.

The present writer has no intention of entering into the very difficult and much-debated question of the connexion between Jesus ideas of the kingdom of God (or of heaven) during the early and the later periods of His active ministry, or how far the latter was a development of the former; nor again to inquire as to the period when it dawned upon His consciousness that His death was the condition upon which its inauguration and subsequent life rested. Broadly speaking, a line of demarcation might be drawn through the life as it is presented to us, cutting it into two fairly well marked divisions at the time of the Petrine confession and the Transfiguration. After these events Jesus began to concentrate His teaching more especially upon the circle of disciples gathered closely round Him. It was then that He, in solemn and almost sad foreboding, warned His followers of the events which were soon to try His own fidelity to the cause which He so constantly and fearlessly championed, and which were to put their faith to a most cruel test. We are indebted to the writer of the Fourth Gospel for the series of discourses in which He endeavoured to strengthen and encourage His disciples against the coming time of trial. From these we gather that Jesus looked forward to the establishment, on the basis of His own life, of a kingdom amongst men which was to carry on His teaching, even as it received the truth at the hands of His Spirit. The time had not as yet arrived when they could assimilate the full self-revelation of God (Joh 16:12), but as their experience widened and their understandings became enlarged, they would be made the recipients of all the truth (Joh 16:13, cf. also Joh 15:26). That He looked beyond the lives of those whom He thus addressed will not, we think, be disputed (cf. , Joh 14:16). Certainly His words were so interpreted by His followers (see Mat 28:20; cf. Mat 18:20, Joh 14:3; Joh 17:24, Act 2:39). We are thus emboldened to state our belief that this plan of Divine self-accommodation enters into the very centre of the life of Jesus Himself, and that it is the plan by which the world has received its education from the beginning even till these latter days.

Each of them [Baptism, Temptation, and Transfiguration of Jesus) constitutes a moment, and a moment important, nay supreme, in the development of the Humanity of our Lord. That for the ultimate, Divine consummation accomplished in the garden and on the cross He was preparing all His life long, and that we can see in these three events a scheme divinely prepared, by which that development was set forward; that we can see Him in each of the three pass from stage to well-defined stage of that incomprehensible process which is indicated in the Epistle to the Hebrews, when He is spoken of as learning obedience. That this growth should have gone on to the end of His life is in itself no more marvellous or more mysterious than that it should ever have been possible, and have taken place (Ch. Quart. Rev., July 1901, pp. 3034).

The question naturally arises at this stage, How far is this Divine method of educating humanity to enter into the conscious active life of the teaching Body of Christ (Eph 4:12)? How is the Church to exercise her functions as the guide and instructress of the race? Is she to draw lines of distinction between those who are able to bear the fulness of the faith delivered to her keeping, and those whose receptive faculties she considers are not fitted to receive such revelation? How far is she to practise the doctrine of economy or reserve in disclosing to men the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints? (Jud 1:3). That grave dangers await a policy which seems to put such judicial authority into the hands of men, is not to be denied; nor can we shut our eyes to the tendency which such a course fosters, to hold up different standards of belief and practice before different minds. At the same time, we cannot shut our eyes to the sad phenomenon of a rent and distracted Christendom, which necessarily implies inability somewhere to grasp the fundamental verity of Christian life (cf. Joh 13:35). Imperfect belief and faith are the causes to which must be attributed the vital as well as the minor differences separating those who ought to belong to the same household. The bearing with each other, the sympathetic endeavour on each side to understand the others point of view, seem to be the only worthy methods of continuing the work of love begun by Jesus. It seems, indeed, to be the method which, springing from the love for men which He inculcated, He bequeathed to His teaching Body. We are, however, bound to admit that those occupying the position of Doctores ecclesiae have not always marched in the van of human progress, and that often they have adopted the rle of obscurantists where the discoveries of science ran counter to preconceived ideas. The Church, at times, seemed to have been committed almost irrevocably to a false and transient philosophy, to a weak and untenable exegetical process, when she was forced by the onward march of Gods self-revelation, grasped and promulgated in the teeth of opposition and obloquy by the brightest intellects amongst her children, to review her position, to reject old prejudices, and to bring her interpretation of the life and teaching of Jesus into line with the newer discoveries which are so constantly revealing to mens minds wider and profounder ideas of the condescending love of God. The chief object for which the Church exists is, while reproving, rebuking, exhorting (cf. 2Ti 4:2), to interpret the Incarnation as it bears on mans life, and on the destiny of the world and the race, in the light of an ever-increasing knowledge. Her business is not so much to keep back the profounder mysteries of a gradually accumulating revelation from the minds of the weak (1Co 8:9), as to build up and strengthen the entire man, intellectual and spiritual, so that all may learn that there is no department of human life which has not its own intimate relationship to the Incarnate Son of God.

Literature.The following works, most of which are either quoted or referred to in the course of this article, are specially recommended as throwing light on a difficult problem:Schrer, HJP [Note: JP History of the Jewish People.] , which is a veritable mine from which we may excavate an immense amount of information about contemporary beliefs, customs, modes of thought and of teaching; J. B. Mozley, Ruling Ideas in Early Ages; Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah; B. Weiss, Leben Jesu, English translation , and Bibl. Theol. NT, English translation (T. & T. Clark); H. J. Holtzmann, Neutest. Theol.; O. Holtzmann, Leben Jesu, English translation (A. & C. Black); Farrar, The Life of Christ; Gore, The Incarnation (BL [Note: L Bampton Lecture.] , 1891), and Dissertations on Subjects connected with the Incarnation; Plummer, St. Luke (Internat. Crit. Corn.); Gould, St. Mark (Internat. Crit. Com.); Salmond, Christian Doctrine of Immortality4 [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred] ; Julicher, Die Gleichnisreden Jesu, and 2829 of his Einteitung in das NT, which are incidentally rather than directly useful; Trench, Notes on the Parables, and Notes on the Miracles; V. Rose, Studies on the Gospels; Loisy, Lvangile et lglise1 [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred] , and Autour dun petit livre, especially two letters therein entitled Sur la critique des vangiles et spcialement sur lvangile de Saint Jean, and Sur la divinit de Jsus-Christ; T. H. Wright, The Finger of God; Wendt, Lehre Jesu, English translation (T. & T. Clark); Stevens, The Theology of the NT; Bruce, The Humiliation of Christ; Sanday, Inspiration (BL [Note: L Bampton Lecture.] , 1893), and The Oracles of God; A. Robertson, Regnum Dei (BL [Note: L Bampton Lecture.] , 1901); J. Lightfoot, Horae Hebraieae et Talmudicae (ed. Gandell, Oxford 1859); several articles in Hasting’s Dictionary of the Bible , especially Sandays Jesus Christ; Drivers Son of Man, which ought to be studied in conjunction with two papers on The use and meaning of the phrase The Son of Man in the Gospels, by J. Drummond in the Journ. of Theol. Studies (Apr. and July 1901); Fairweather, Development of Doctrine in Extra Vol. of DB [Note: Dictionary of the Bible.] ; R. L. Ottley, Incarnation in vol. ii.; A. B. Davidson, Angel in vol. i.; and Whitehouse, Demon, Devil in vol. i., and Satan in vol. iv.

The reader is also recommended to refer to such articles in the Encyc. Bibl. as Demons, 610, and Satan, 58, by J. Massie, and Julichers art. larahles. See also Charles, The Book of Enoch and The Apocalypse of Baruch, which are useful for a comparative study of some of the subjects treated in this article, and in conjunction with these read his two articles on Eschatology in Hasting’s Dictionary of the Bible and in the Encyc. Biblica.

J. R. Willis.

Fuente: A Dictionary Of Christ And The Gospels

Accommodation

a-kom-mo-dashun:

I.Introductory

1.Three Uses of the Term

2.The Importance of the Subject

II.Accommodated Application of Scripture Passages

1.Interpretation a Science

2.Scientific Accommodation

III.Double Reference in Scripture

1.Allegory in Scripture

2.Hidden Truths of Scripture

3.Prophecy and its Fulfillment

4.Conclusion

IV.Accommodation in Revelation

1.General Principles

2.Accommodation a Feature of Progressive Revelation

3.The Limits of Revelation

4.The Outcome of Revelation

5.The Question as to Christ’s Method

Literature

I. Introductory

1. Three Uses of the Term

The term accommodation is used in three senses which demand careful discrimination and are worthy of separate treatment: (1) The use or application of a Scripture reference in a sense other than the obvious and literal one which lay in the mind and intent of the writer; (2) Theory that a passage, according to its original intent, may have more than one meaning or application; (3) The general principle of adaptation on the part of God in His self-revelation to man’s mental and spiritual capacity.

2. The Importance of the Subject

Important issues are involved in the discussion of this subject in each of the three divisions thus naturally presented to us in the various uses of the term. These issues culminate in the supremely important principles which underlie the question of God’s adaptation of His revelation to men.

II. Accommodated Application of Scripture Passages

1. Interpretation a Science

It is obvious that the nature of thought and of language is such as to constitute for all human writings, among which the Bible, as a document to be understood, must be placed, a science of interpretation with a definite body of laws which cannot be violated or set aside without confusion and error. This excludes the indeterminate and arbitrary exegesis of any passage It must be interpreted with precision and in accordance with recognized laws of interpretation. The first and most fundamental of these laws is that a passage is to be interpreted in accordance with the intent of the writer in so far as that can be ascertained. The obvious, literal and original meaning always has the right of way. All arbitrary twisting of a passage in order to obtain from it new and remote meanings not justified by the context is unscientific and misleading.

2. Scientific Accommodation

There is, however, a scientific and legitimate use of the principle of accommodation. For example, it is impossible to determine beforehand that a writer’s specific application of a general principle is the only one of which it is capable. A bald and literal statement of fact may involve a general principle which is capable of broad and effective application in other spheres than that originally contemplated. It is perfectly legitimate to detach a writer’s statement from its context of secondary and incidental detail and give it a harmonious setting of wider application. It will be seen from this that legitimate accommodation involves two things: (1) The acceptance of the author’s primary and literal meaning; (2) The extension of that meaning through the establishment of a broader context identical in principle with the original one. In the article on QUOTATIONS, NEW TESTAMENT (which see) this use of the term accommodation, here treated in the most general terms, is dealt with in detail. See also INTERPRETATION.

III. Double Reference in Scripture

The second use of the term accommodation now emerges for discussion. Are we to infer the presence of double reference, or secondary meanings in Scripture? Here again we must distinguish between the legitimate and illegitimate application of a principle. While we wisely deprecate the tendency to look upon Scripture passages as cryptic utterances, we must also recognize that many Scripture references may have more than a single application.

1. Allegory in Scripture

We must recognize in the Scriptures the use of allegory, the peculiar quality of which, as a form of literature, is the double reference which it contains. To interpret the story of the Bramble-King (Jdg 9:7-15) or the Parables of our Lord without reference to the double meanings which they involve would be as false and arbitrary as any extreme of allegorizing. The double meaning is of the essence of the literary expression. This does not mean, of course, that the poetry of the Bible, even that of the Prophets and Apocalyptic writers, is to be looked upon as allegorical. On the contrary, only that writing, whether prose or poetry, is to be interpreted in any other than its natural and obvious sense, in connection with which we have definite indications of its allegorical character. Figures of speech and poetical expressions in general, though not intended to be taken literally because they belong to the poetical form, are not to be taken as having occult references and allegorical meanings. Dr. A. B. Davidson thus characterizes the prophetic style (Old Testament Prophecy, 171; see whole chapter): Prophecy is poetical, but it is not allegorical. The language of prophecy is real as opposed to allegorical, and poetical as opposed to real. When the prophets speak of natural objects or of lower creatures, they do not mean human things by them, or human beings, but these natural objects or creatures themselves. When Joel speaks of locusts, he means those creatures. When he speaks of the sun and moon and stars, he means those bodies. Allegory, therefore, which contains the double reference, in the sense of speaking of one thing while meaning another, is a definite and recognizable literary form with its own proper laws of interpretation. See ALLEGORY.

2. Hidden Truths of Scripture

There is progress in the understanding of Scripture. New reaches of truth are continually being brought to light. By legitimate and natural methods hidden meanings are being continually discovered.

(1) It is a well-attested fact that apart from any supernatural factor a writer sometimes speaks more wisely than he knows. He is the partially unconscious agent for the expression of a great truth, not only for his own age, but for all time. It is not often given to such a really great writer or to his age to recognize all the implications of his thought. Depths of meaning hidden both from the original writer and from earlier interpreters may be disclosed by moving historical sidelights. The element of permanent value in great literature is due to the fact that the writer utters a greater truth than can exhaustively be known in any one era. It belongs to all time.

(2) The supernatural factor which has gone to the making of Scripture insures that no one man or group of men, that not all men together, can know it exhaustively. It partakes of the inexhaustibleness of God. It is certain, therefore, that it will keep pace with the general progress of man, exhibiting new phases of meaning as it moves along the stream of history. Improved exegetical apparatus and methods, enlarged apprehensions into widening vistas of thought and knowledge, increased insight under the tutelage of the Spirit in the growing Kingdom of God, will conspire to draw up new meanings from the depths of Scripture. The thought of God in any given expression of truth can only be progressively and approximately known by human beings who begin in ignorance and must be taught what they know.

(3) The supernatural factor in revelation also implies a twofold thought in every important or fundamental statement of Scripture: the thought of God uttered through His Spirit to a man or his generation, and that same thought with reference to the coming ages and to the whole truth which is to be disclosed. Every separate item belonging to an organism of truth would naturally have a twofold reference: first, its significance alone and of itself; second, its significance with reference to the whole of which it is a part. As all great Scriptural truths are thus organically related, it follows that no one of them can be fully known apart from all the others. From which it follows also that in a process of gradual revelation where truths are given successively as men are able to receive them and where each successive truth prepares the way for others which are to follow, every earlier statement will have two ranges of meaning and application – that which is intrinsic and that which flows from its connection with the entire organism of unfolding truth which finally appears.

3. Prophecy and Its Fulfillment

(1) The principles thus far expressed carry us a certain way toward an answer to the most important question which arises under this division of the general topic: the relation between the Old Testament and the New Testament through prophecy and its fulfillment. Four specific points of connection involving the principles of prophetic anticipation and historical realization in the career of Jesus are alleged by New Testament writers. They are of total importance, inasmuch as these four groups of interpretations involve the most important elements of the Old Testament and practically the entire New Testament interpretation of Jesus.

(2) (a) The promise made to Abraham (Gen 12:1-3; compare Gen 13:14-18; Gen 15:1-6, etc.) and repeated in substance at intervals during the history of Israel (see Exo 6:7; Lev 26:12; Deu 26:17-19; Deu 29:12, Deu 29:13; 2 Sam 7; 1 Ch 17, etc.) is interpreted as having reference to the distant future and as fulfilled in Christ (see Gal 3 for example of this interpretation, especially Gal 3:14; also QUOTATIONS, NEW TESTAMENT).

(b) The Old Testament system of sacrifices is looked upon as typical and symbolic, hence, predictive and realized in the death of Christ interpreted as atonement for sin (Heb 10, etc.).

(c) References in the Old Testament to kings or a king of David’s line whose advent and reign are spoken of are interpreted as definite predictions fulfilled in the advent and career of Jesus the Messiah (Psa 2:1-12; Psa 16:1-11; 22; Psa 110:1-7; compare Luk 1:69, etc.).

(d) The prophetic conception of the servant of Yahweh (Isa 42:1; Isa 44:1; 52:13 through 53:12; compare Act 8:32-35) is interpreted as being an anticipatory description of the character and work of Jesus centering in His vicarious sin-bearing death.

(3) With the details of interpretation as involved in the specific use of Old Testament statements we are not concerned here (see QUOTATIONS, etc.) but only with the general principles which underlie all such uses of the Old Testament. The problem is: Can we thus interpret any passage or group of passages in the Old Testament without being guilty of what has been called pedantic supernaturalism; that is, of distorting Scripture by interpreting it without regard to its natural historical connections? Is the interpretation of the Old Testament Messianically legitimate or illegitimate accommodation?

(a) It is a widely accepted canon of modern interpretation that the institutions of Old Testament worship and the various messages of the prophets had an intrinsic contemporary significance.

(b) But this is not to say that its meaning and value are exhausted in that immediate contemporary application. Beyond question the prophet was a man with a message to his own age, but there is nothing incompatible, in that fact, with his having a message, the full significance of which reaches beyond ins own age, even into the far distant future. It would serve to clear the air in this whole region if it were only understood that it is precisely upon its grasp of the future that the leverage of a great message for immediate moral uplift rests. The predictive element is a vital part of the contemporary value.

(c) The material given under the preceding analysis may be dealt with as a whole on the basis of a principle fundamental to the entire Old Testament economy, namely: that each successive age in the history of Israel is dealt with on the basis of truth common to the entire movement of which the history of Israel is but a single phase. It is further to be remembered that relationship between the earlier and later parts of the Bible is one of organic and essential unity, both doctrinal and historical. By virtue of this fact the predictive element is an essential factor in the doctrines and institutions of the earlier dispensation as originally constituted and delivered, hence forming a part of its contemporary significance and value, both pointing to the future and preparing the way for it. In like manner, the element of fulfillment is an essential element of the later dispensation as the completed outcome of the movement begun long ages before. Prediction and fulfillment are essential factors in any unified movement begun, advanced and completed according to a single plan in successive periods of time. We have now but to apply this principle in general to the Old Testament material already in hand to reach definite and satisfactory conclusions.

(4) (a) The promise made to Abraham was a living message addressed directly to him in the immediate circumstances of his life upon which the delivery and acceptance of the promise made a permanent impress; but it was of vaster proportions than could be realized within the compass of a single human life; for it included himself, his posterity, and all mankind in a single circle of promised blessing. So far as the patriarch was concerned the immediate, contemporary value of the promise lay in the fact that it concerned him not alone but in relationship to the future and to mankind. A prediction was thus imbedded in the very heart of the word of God which was the object of his faith – a prediction which served to enclose his life in the plan of God for all mankind and to fasten his ambition to the service of that plan. The promise was predictive in its essence and in its contemporary meaning (see Beecher, Prophets and Promise, 213).

(b) So also it is with the Messianic King. The Kingdom as an institution in Israel is described from the beginning as the perpetual mediatorial reign of God upon earth (see Exo 19:3-6; 2Sa 7:8-16, etc.), and the King in whom the Kingdom centers is God’s Son (2Sa 7:13, 2Sa 7:15) and earthly representative. In all this there is much that is immediately contemporaneous. The Kingdom and the Kingship are described in terms of the ideal and that ideal is used in every age as the ground of immediate appeal to loyalty and devotion on the part of the King. None the less the predictive element lies at the center of the representation. The very first recorded expression of the Messianic promise to David involves the prediction of unconditioned perpetuity to his house, and thus grasps the entire future. More than this, the characteristics, the functions, the dignities of the king are so described (Ps 102; Isa 9:6, Isa 9:7) as to make it clear that the conditions of the Kingship could be met only by an uniquely endowed person coming forth from God and exercising divine functions in a worldwide spiritual empire. Such a King being described and such a Kingdom being promised, the recipients of it, of necessity, were set to judge the present and scrutinize the future for its realization. The conception is, in its original meaning and expression, essentially predictive.

(c) Very closely allied with this conception of the Messianic King is the prophetic ideal of the Servant of Yahweh. Looked at in its original context we at once discover that it is the ideal delineation of a mediatorial service to men in behalf of Yahweh – which has a certain meaning of fulfillment in any person who exhibits the Divine character by teaching the truth and ministering to human need (for application of the term see Isa 49:5, Isa 49:6, Isa 49:7; Isa 50:10; especially Isa 45:1). But the service is described in such exalted terms, the devotion exacted by it is so high, that, in the application of the ideal as a test to the present and to the nation at large, the mind is inevitably thrown into the future and centered upon a supremely endowed individual to come, who is by preeminence the Servant of Yahweh.

(d) The same principle may be applied with equal effectiveness to the matter of Israel’s sacrificial system. In the last two instances this fact emerged: No truth and no institution can exhaustively be known until it has run a course in history. For example, the ideas embodied in the Messianic Kingship and the conception of the Servant of Yahweh could be known only in the light of history. Only in view of the actual struggles and failures of successive kings and successive generations of the people to realize such ideals could their full significance be disclosed. Moreover, only by historic process of preparation could such ideals ultimately be realized. This is preminently true of the Old Testament sacrifices. It is clear that the New Testament conception of the significance of Old Testament sacrifice in connection with the death of Christ is based upon the belief that the idea embodied in the original institution could be fulfilled only in the voluntary sacrifice of Christ (see Heb 10:1-14). This view is justified by the facts. Dr. Davidson (op. cit., 239) holds that the predictive element in the Old Testament sacrifices lay in their imperfection. This imperfection, while inherent, could be revealed only in experience. As they gradually deepened a sense of need which they could not satisfy, more and more clearly they pointed away from themselves to that transaction which alone could realize in fact what they express in symbol. A harmony such as obtained between Old Testament sacrifice and the death of Christ could only be the result of design. It is all one movement, one fundamental operation; historically prefigured and prepared for by anticipation, and historically realized. Old Testament sacrifice was instituted both to prefigure and to prepare the way for the sacrifice of Christ in the very process of fulfilling its natural historic function in the economy of Israel.

4. Conclusion

The total outcome of the discussion is this: the interpretation of these representative Old Testament ideas and institutions as referring to Christ and anticipating His advent is no illegitimate use of the principle of accommodation. The future reference which takes in the entire historical process which culminates in Christ lies within the immediate and original application and constitutes an essential element of its contemporary value. The original statement is in its very nature predictive and is one in doctrinal principle and historic continuity with that which forms its fulfillment.

IV. Accommodation in Revelation

1. General Principles

(1) It is evident that God’s revelation to men must be conveyed in comprehensible terms and adjusted to the nature of the human understanding. That is clearly not a revelation which does not reveal. A disclosure of God’s character and ways to men revolves the use and control of the human spirit in accordance with its constitution and laws. The doctrine of inspiration inseparable from that of revelation implies such a divine control of human faculties as to enable them, still freely working within their own normal sphere, to apprehend and interpret truth otherwise beyond their reach.

(2) The Bible teaches that in the height and depth of His being God is unsearchable. His mind and the human mind are quantitatively incommensurable. Man cannot by searching find out God. His ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts.

(3) But, on the other hand, the Bible affirms with equal emphasis the essential qualitative kinship of the divine and the human constitutions God is spirit – man is spirit also. Man is made in the image of God and made to know God. These two principles together affirm the necessity and the possibility of revelation. Revelation, considered as an exceptional order of experience due to acts of God performed with the purpose of making Himself known in personal relationship with man, is necessary because man’s finite nature needs guidance. Revelation is possible because man is capable of such guidance. The Bible affirms that God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, but that they may become ours because God can utter them so that we can receive them.

(4) These two principles lead to a most important conclusion. In all discussions of the principle of accommodation it is to be remembered that the capacity of the human mind to construct does not measure its capacity to receive and appropriate. The human mind can be taught what it cannot independently discover. No teacher is limited by the capacity of his pupils to deal unaided with a subject of study. He is limited only by their capacity to follow him in his processes of thought and exposition. The determining factor in revelation, which is a true educative process, is the mind of God which stamps itself upon the kindred and plastic mind of man.

2. Accommodation a Feature of Progressive Revelation

(1) The beginnings of revelation. Since man’s experience is organically conditioned he is under the law of growth. His entire mental and spiritual life is related to his part and lot in the kingdom of organisms. The very laws of his mind reveal themselves only upon occasion in experience. While it is true that his tendencies are innate, so that he is compelled to think and to feel in certain definite ways, yet it is true that he can neither think nor feel at all except as experience presents material for thought and applies stimulus to feeling Man must bye in order to learn. He must, therefore, learn gradually. This fact conditions all revelation. Since it must deal with men it must be progressive, and since it must be progressive it must necessarily involve, in its earlier stages, the principle of accommodation. In order to gain access to man’s mind it must take him where he is and link itself with his natural aptitudes and native modes of thought. Since revelation involves the endeavor to form in the mind of man the idea of God in order that a right relationship with Him may be established, it enters both the intellectual and moral life of the human race and must accommodate itself to the humble beginnings of early human experience. The chief problem of revelation seems to have been to bring these crude beginnings within the scope of a movement the aim and end of which is perfection. The application of the principle of accommodation to early human experience with a view to progress is accomplished by doing what at first thought seems to negate the very principle upon which the mental and moral life of man must permanently rest. (a) It involves the authoritative revelations of incomplete and merely tentative truths. (b) It involves also the positive enactment of rudimentary and imperfect morality.

In both these particulars Scripture has accommodated itself to crude early notions and placed the seal of authority upon principles which are outgrown and discarded within the limits of Scripture itself. But in so doing Scripture has saved the very interests it has seemed to imperil by virtue of two features of the human constitution which in themselves lay hold upon perfection and serve to bind together the crude beginnings and the mature achievements of the human race. These two principles are (c) The idea of truth; (d) The idea of obligation.

(2) It is mainly due to these two factors of human nature that any progress in truth and conduct is possible to men. What is true or right in matter of specific fact varies in the judgment of different individuals and of different ages. But the august and compelling twin convictions of truth and right, as absolute, eternal, authoritative, are present from the beginning of human history to the end of it. Scripture seizes upon the fact that these great ideas may be enforced through crude human conceptions and at very rudimentary stages of culture, and enforcing them by means of revelation and imperative law brings man to the test of truth and right and fosters his advance to larger conceptions and broader applications of both fundamental principles. Canon Mozley in discussing this principle of accommodation on its moral side, its necessity and its fruitfulness, says: How can the law properly fulfill its object of correcting and improving the moral standard of men, unless it first maintains in obligation the standard which already exists? Those crudely delineated conceptions, which it tends ultimately to purify and raise, it must first impose (Ruling Ideas in Early Ages, 183; compare Mat 5:17 with 21, 27, 33).

3. The Limits of Revelation

Since the chief end of revelation is to form the mind of man with reference to the purpose and will of God to the end that man may enter into fellowship with God, the question arises as to how far revelation will be accommodated by the limitation of its sphere. How far does it seek to form the mind and how far does it leave the mind to its own laws and to historical educative forces? Four foundation principles seem to be sufficiently clear: (a) Revelation accepts and uses at every stage of its history such materials from the common stock of human ideas as are true and of permanent worth. The superstructure of revelation rests upon a foundation of universal and fundamental human convictions. It appeals continually to the rooted instructs and regulative ideas of the human soul deeply implanted as a preparation for revelation. (b) Regard is paid in Scripture to man’s nature as free and responsible. He is a rational being who must be taught through persuasion; he is a moral being who must be controlled through his conscience and will. There must be, therefore, throughout the process of revelation an element of free, spontaneous, unforced life in and through which the supernatural factors work. (c) Revelation must have reference, even in its earliest phases of development, to the organism of truth as a whole. What is actually given at any time must contribute its quota to the ultimate summing up and completion of the entire process. (d) Revelation must guard against injurious errors which trench upon essential and vital matters. In short, the consistency and integrity of the movement through which truth is brought to disclosure must sacredly be guarded; while, at the same time, since it is God and man who are coming to know each other, revelation must be set in a broad environment of human life and entrusted to the processes of history. See REVELATION.

4. The Outcome of Revelation

It is now our task briefly to notice how in Scripture these interests are safeguarded. We must notice (a) The principle of accommodation in general. It has often been pointed out that in every book of the Bible the inimitable physiognomy of the writer and the age is preserved; that the Biblical language with reference to Nature is the language of phenomena; that its doctrines are stated vividly, tropically, concretely and in the forms of speech natural to the age in which they were uttered; that its historical documents are, for the most part, artless annals of the ancient oriental type, that it contains comparatively little information concerning Nature or man which anticipates scientific discovery or emancipates the religious man who accepts it as a guide from going to school to Nature and human experience for such information. All this, of course, without touching upon disputed points or debated questions of fact, involves, from the point of view of the Divine mind to which all things are known, and of the human mind to which certain facts of Nature hidden in antiquity have been disclosed, the principles of accommodation. Over against this we must set certain contrasting facts:

(b) The Scripture shows a constant tendency to transcend itself and to bring the teaching of the truth to a higher level. The simple, primitive ideas and rites of the patriarchal age are succeeded by the era of organized national life with its ideal of unity and the intensified sense of national calling and destiny under the leadership of God. The national idea of church and kingdom broadens out into the universal conception and world-wide mission of Christianity. The sacrificial symbolism of the Old Testament gives way to the burning ethical realities of the Incarnate Life. The self-limitation of the Incarnation broadens out into the world-wide potencies of the era of the Spirit who uses the letter of Scripture as the instrument of His universal ministry. It is thus seen that by the progressive method through a cumulative process God has gradually transcended the limitation of His instruments while at the same time He has continuously broadened and deepened the Spirit of man to receive His self-disclosure.

(c) More than this, Scripture throughout is marked by a certain distract and unmistakable quality of timelessness. It continually urges and suggests the infinite, the eternal, the unchangeable. It is part of the task of revelation to anticipate so as to guide progress. At every stage it keeps the minds of men on the stretch with a truth that they are not able at that stage easily to apprehend. The inexhaustible vastness and the hidden fullness of truth are everywhere implied. Prophets and Apostles are continually in travail with truths brought to their own ages from afar. The great fundamental verities of Scripture are stated with uncompromising fullness and finality. There is no accommodation to human weakness or error. Its ideals, its standards, its conditions are absolute and inviolate.

Not only has Israel certain fundamental ideas which are peculiar to herself, but there has been an organizing spirit, an unique spirit of inspiration which has modified and transformed the materials held by her in common with her Semitic kindred. Even her inherited ideas and Institutions are transformed and infused with new meanings. We note the modification of Semitic customs, as for example in blood revenge, by which savagery has been mitigated and evil associations eliminated. We note the paucity of mythological material. If the stories of Adam, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Samson were originally mythological, they have ceased to be such in the Bible. They have been humanized and stripped of superhuman features. (See Fable, HGHL, 220ff.)

If we yield to the current hypothesis as to the Babylonian background of the narratives in Gen, we are still more profoundly impressed with that unique assimilative power, working in Israel, which has enabled the Biblical writers to eradicate the deep-seated polytheism of the Babylonian documents and to stamp upon them the inimitable features of their own high monotheism (see BABYLONIA). We note the reserve of Scripture, the constant restraint exercised upon the imagination, the chastened doctrinal sobriety in the Bible references to angels and demons, in its Apocalyptic imagery, in its Messianic promises, in its doctrines of rewards and punishments. In all these particulars the Bible stands unique by contrast, not merely with popular thought, but with the extra-canonical literature of the Jewish people (see DEMONS, etc.).

5. The Question as to Christ’s Method

We come at this point upon a most central and difficult problem. It is, of course, alleged that Christ adopted the attitude of concurrence, which was also one of accommodation, in popular views concerning angels and demons, etc. It is disputed whether this goes back to the essential accommodation involved in the self-limiting of the Incarnation so that as man He should share the views of His contemporaries, or whether, with wider knowledge, He accommodated Himself for pedagogical purposes to erroneous views of the untaught people about Him (see DCG, article Accommodation). The question is complicated by our ignorance of the facts. We cannot say that Jesus accommodated Himself to the ignorance of the populace unless we are ready to pronounce authoritatively upon the truth or falseness of the popular theory. It is not our province in this article to enter upon that discussion (see INCARNATION and KENOSIS). We can only point out that the reserve of the New Testament and the absence of all imaginative extravagance shows that if accommodation has been applied it is most strictly limited in its scope. In this it is in harmony with the entire method of Scripture, where the ignorance of men is regarded in the presentation of God’s truth, while at the same time their growing minds are protected against the errors which would lead them astray from the direct path of progress into the whole truth reserved in the Divine counsel.

Literature

(a) For the first division of the subject consult standard works on Science of Interpretation and Homiletics sub loc.

(b) For second division, among others, Dr. A. B. Davidson, Old Testament Prophecy; Dr. Willis J. Beecher, Prophets and Promise.

(c) For the third division, the most helpful single work is the one quoted: Mozley, Ruling Ideas in Early Ages, published by Longmans as Old Testament Lectures.

Fuente: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

Accommodation

Accommodation (exegetical or special) is principally employed in the application of certain passages of the Old Testament to events in the New, to which they had no actual historical or typical reference. Citations of this description are apparently very frequent throughout the whole New Testament, but especially in the Epistle to the Hebrews.

It cannot be denied that many such passages, although apparently introduced as referring to, or predictive of, certain events recorded in the New Testament, seem to have, in their original connection, an exclusive reference to quite other objects. The difficulty of reconciling such seeming misapplications, or deflections from their original design, has been felt in all ages, although it has been chiefly reserved to recent times to give a solution of the difficulty by the theory of accommodation. By this it is meant that the prophecy or citation from the Old Testament was not designed literally to apply to the event in question, but that the New Testament writer merely adopted it for the sake of ornament, or in order to produce a strong impression, by showing a remarkable parallelism between two analogous events, which had in themselves no mutual relation.

There is a catalogue of more than seventy of these accommodated passages adduced by the Rev. T.H. Horne, in support of this theory, in his Introduction (ii. 343, 7th ed. 1834), but it will suffice for our purpose to select the following specimens:

Mat 13:35cited fromPsa 78:2

Mat 8:17cited fromIsa 53:4

Mat 2:15cited fromHos 11:1

Mat 2:17-18cited fromJer 31:15

Mat 3:3cited fromIsa 40:3

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 are absolutely adduced 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 they exist, can only be considered as descriptive, and not predictive.

It will here be necessary to consider the various modes in which the prophecies of the Old Testament are supposed to be fulfilled in the New. For instance, the opinion has been maintained by several divines, that there is sometimes a literal, sometimes only a mediate, typical, or spiritual fulfillment. Sometimes a prophecy is cited merely by way of illustration (accommodation), while at other times nothing more exists than a mere allusion. Some prophecies are supposed to have an immediate literal fulfillment, and to have been afterwards accomplished in a larger and more extensive sense; but as the full development of this part of the subject appertains more properly to the much controverted question of the single and double sense of prophecy, we shall here dwell no further on it than to observe, that not only are commentators who support the theory of a double sense divided on the very important question, what are literal prophecies and what are only prophecies in a secondary sense, but they who are agreed on this question are at variance as to what appellation shall be given to those passages which are applied by the New Testament writers to the ministry of our Savior, and yet historically belong to an antecedent period. In order to lessen the difficulty, a distinction has been attempted to be drawn from the formula with which the quotation is ushered in. Passages, for instance, introduced by the formula ‘that it might be fulfilled,’ are considered, on this account, as direct predictions by some, who are willing to consider citations introduced with the expression ‘then was fulfilled’ as nothing more than accommodations. The use of the former phrase, as applied to a mere accommodation, they maintain is not warranted by Jewish writers: such passages, therefore, they hold to be prophecies, at least in a secondary sense. Bishop Kidder appositely observes, in regard to this subject, that ‘a scripture may be said to be fulfilled several ways, viz., properly and in the letter, as when that which was foretold comes to pass; or again, when what was fulfilled in the type is fulfilled again in the antitype; or else a scripture may be fulfilled more improperly, viz., by way of accommodation, as when an event happens to any place or people like to that which fell out some time before.’ He instances the citation, Mat 2:17, ‘In Ramah was a voice heard,’ etc. ‘These words,’ he adds, ‘are made use of by way of allusion to express this sorrow by. The evangelist doth not say that it might be fulfilled, but then was fulfilled, q.d., such another scene took place.’

It must at the same time be admitted that this distinction in regard to the formula of quotation is not acknowledged by the majority of commentators, either of those who admit or of those who deny the theory of accommodation. Among the former it will suffice to name Calmet, Doddridge, Rosenmller, and Jahn, who look upon passages introduced by the formula ‘that it might be fulfilled,’ as equally accommodations with those which are prefaced by the words ‘then was fulfilled;’ while those who deny the accommodative theory altogether, consider both as formulas of direct prophecies, at least in a secondary or typical sense. This, for instance, is the case especially in regard to the two citations of this description which first present themselves in the New Testament, viz., Mat 2:15, and Mat 2:17, the former of which is introduced by the first, and the latter by the second of these formulas. But inasmuch as the commentators above referred to cannot perceive how the citation from Hos 11:1, ‘Out of Egypt have I called my son,’ although prefaced by the formula ‘that it might be fulfilled,’ and which literally relates to the calling of the children of Israel out of Egypt, can be prophetically diverted from its historical meaning, they look upon it as a simple accommodation, or applicable quotation. Mr. Horne observes, that ‘it was a familiar idiom of the Jews, when quoting the writings of the Old Testament, to say, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by such and such a prophet, not intending it to be understood that such a particular passage in one of the sacred books was ever designed to be a real prediction of what they were then relating, but signifying only that the words of the Old Testament might be properly adopted to express their meaning and illustrate their ideas.’ ‘The apostles,’ he adds, ‘who were Jews by birth, and wrote and spoke in the Jewish idiom, frequently thus cite the Old Testament, intending no more by this mode of speaking, than that the words of such an ancient writer might with equal propriety be adopted to characterize any similar occurrence which happened in their times. The formula that it might be fulfilled, does not therefore differ in signification from the phrase then was fulfilled, applied in the following citation in Mat 2:17-18, from Jer 31:15-17, to the massacre of the infants at Bethlehem. They are a beautiful quotation, and not a prediction of what then happened, and are therefore applied to the massacre of the infants according not to their original and historical meaning, but according to Jewish phraseology.’ Dr. Adam Clarke, also, in his Commentary on Jeremiah (Jer 31:15-17), takes the same view:’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 therefore he applied them, but they are not a prediction of that event.’

D.J.G. Rosenmller gives as examples, which he conceives clearly show the use of these formulas, the passages Mat 1:22-23; Mat 2:15; Mat 2:17; Mat 2:23; Mat 15:7; Luk 4:21; Jam 2:23; alleging that they were designed only to denote that something took place which resembled the literal and historical sense. The sentiments of a distinguished English divine are to the same effect: ‘I doubt not that this phrase, that it might be fulfilled, and the like were used first in quoting real prophecies, but that this, by long use, sunk in its value, and was more vulgarly applied, so that at last it was given to Scripture only accommodated.’ And again, ‘If prophecy could at last come to signify singing (Tit 1:12; 1Sa 10:10; 1Co 14:1), why might not the phrase fulfilling of Scripture and prophecy signify only quotation’ (Nicholl’s Conference with a Theist, 1698, part 3, p. 13).

The accommodation theory in exegetics has been equally combated by two classes of opponents. Those of the more ancient school consider such mode of application of the Old Testament passages not only as totally irreconcilable with the plain grammatical construction and obvious meaning of the controverted passages which are said to be so applied, but as an unjustifiable artifice, altogether unworthy of a divine teacher; while the other class of expositors, who are to be found chiefly among the most modern of the German Rationalists, maintain that the sacred writers, having been themselves trained in this erroneous mode of teaching, had mistakenly, but bona fide, interpreted the passages which they had cited from the Old Testament in a sense altogether different from their historical meaning, and thus applied them to the history of the Christian dispensation. Some of these have maintained that the accommodation theory was a mere shift resorted to by commentators who could not otherwise explain the application of Old Testament prophecies in the New consistently with the inspiration of the sacred writers: while the advocates of the system consider that the apostles, in adapting themselves to the mode of interpretation which was customary in their days, and in further adopting what may be considered an argument e concessis, were employing the most persuasive mode of oratory, and the one most likely to prove effectual; and that it was therefore lawful to adopt a method so calculated to attract attention to their divine mission, which they were at all times prepared to give evidence of by other and irrefragable proofs.

Fuente: Popular Cyclopedia Biblical Literature