The Lord of Glory; Counterfeit Miracles; Revelation and Inspiration

not caught precisely Dr. Pick’s meaning: Dr. Pick does not commit himself to the extravagant view that wherever subjectless @not occurs in Philo the subaudttum ‘‘ Moses’’ is implied: he only says, in direct words, that here — in this special passage — ‘‘ Moses is introduced as speaking.” It would seem obvious that he had a text before him which read ‘‘ Moses says,’’ and not simply ‘‘says,’’ at this place. This text was doubtless nothing other than Yonge’s English translation, which reads Moses here, as often elsewhere with as little warrant: ‘‘‘ For,’ says Moses, ‘Gideon swore, etc.’’’ The incident illustrates the evil of mechanically supplying a supplement to these subjectless verbs — which cannot indeed be understood except on the basis of Philo’s primary principle, that it is all one to say ‘‘ Moses says,”’ “‘the Scripture says,” or ‘‘ God says.’’ The simple fact here is that Philo quotes Judges, as he does the rest of Scripture, with the subjectless ‘‘says,’’ and with the same implication, viz., that Judges is to him a part of the Word of God.

As has been already hinted, by all means the commonest verb used by Philo thus, — without expressed or obviously indicated subject, — to introduce a Scripture passage, is gonot. Perhaps, however, the one instance to which we have incidentally adverted will suffice to illustrate the usage — other instances of which may be seen on nearly every page of Philo’s treatises. It is of more interest for us to note that Neyer seems also to be used in the same subjectless way — examples of which may be seen, for instance, in the following places, “Legg. Allegor.,’” i, 15; ii, 4; ili, 8; “Quod Det. Bote inside. a4 os mlWes Posterit..@aini,” 9.) 22-152") De Gigant.,”’ 11; 12; ‘“ De Confus. Ling.,”’ 32; “‘ De Migrat. Abrah.,” 11; ‘“‘Fragment. ex Joh. Monast.” (ii, 668). In “Legg. Allegor.,”’ i, 15, for instance, we have a string of quotations without obvious subject, introduced, the first by the subjectless dnotvy, the next by the equally subjectless émuéper madw, and the third (from Exod. xx. 23) by éyer 6€ xai év érépois. In “‘ Legg. Allegor.,”’ ii, 4, we have Gen. ii. 19 introduced by \éeyet yap without any obvious subject. Yonge translates this too by ‘‘For Moses says’”’: but to obtain warrant for this we should have to go back two pages and a half (of Richter’s text), quite to the beginning of the treatise, where we find an apostrophe to the ‘‘prophet.”’ In “De Posterit. Caini,’’ 22, Néyer Ext wev "ABpady ovtws (Gen. xi. 29), though Yonge supplies ‘‘ Moses” again, that would seem to be demonstrably absurd, as the passage proceeds to place ‘‘ Moses,”’ in parallelism with Abraham, in the object. Similarly the passages adduced from “De Gigant.,’’ 11 and 12 (Num. xiv. 44 and Deut. xxxiv. 6) are about Moses, and it would scarcely do to fill out the ellipsis of subject with his name. Examples need not, however, be multiplied.

It would seem quite clear that both the subjectless dnat frequently, and the subjectless Aéyer less often, occur in Philo after a fashion quite similar to the instances adduced from the New Testament. And it would seem to be equally clear that the lack of a subject in their case is not indicative of indefiniteness, but rather of definiteness in their reference. Philo does not adduce passages of Scripture with the bare gynot or Neyer because he knows or cares very little whence they come or with what authority; but because he and his readers alike both know so well the source whence they are derived, and yield so unquestionably to its authority, that it is unnecessary to pause to indicate either. The use of the bare gonot or Neyer in citations from Scripture is in his case, obviously, the outgrowth and the culminating sign of his absolute confidence in Scripture as the living voice of God, fully recognized as such both by himself and his readers. In the same sense in which to the dying Sir Walter Scott there was but one ‘‘ Book,” to him and his readers there was but one authoritative divine Word, and all that was necessary in adducing it was to indicate the fact of adduction. The ¢yat or Aeyee serves thus primarily the function of ‘quotation marks’’ in modern usage: but under such circumstances and with such implications that bare quotation marks carry with them the assurance that the words adduced are divine words.

It would seem to be very easy, in these circumstances, to give ourselves more uneasiness than is at all necessary as to the precise subauditum which we are to assume with these verbs. It may serve very well to render them simply, ‘‘It says,’ with the implication that Philo is using the codex of Scripture as the living voice of God speaking to him and his readers. The case, in a word, would seem to be very similar to that of the common New Testament formula of quotation vyéyparTrac — meaning not that what is adduced is somewhere written, but that it is the authoritative law that is being adduced. Just so, ‘‘It says,’’ in such a case would mean not that somebody or something says what is adduced, but that the Word of God says it. As the one usage is the natural outcrowth of the conception of the Scriptures as a written authoritative law, the other is the equally natural outgrowth of the conception of Scripture as the living voice of God. How very natural a development this usage is, may be illustrated by the fact that something very similar to it may be met with in colloquial English. In the same circles where we may hear God spoken of as simply ‘‘ He,”’ as if it were dangerous to name His name too freely, we may also occasionally hear the Bible quoted with a simple ‘“‘It says,” or even with an elision of the ‘‘it,’” as ‘‘’Tsays’’: and yet the ‘‘it,” though treated thus cavalierly, is in reality a very emphatic “‘It”’ indeed — the phrase being the product of awe in the presence of ‘‘the Book,” and importing that there is but one “‘It”’ that could be thought of in the case. Somewhat similarly, in the case of Philo, the Scriptures are cited with the bare ¢yat, deyet, because, in his mind and in the circles which he addressed, there stood out so far above all other voices this one Voice of God embodied in His Scriptures, that none other would be thought of in the case. The phrase is the outgrowth of reverence for the Word and of unquestioning submission to it: and the fundamental fact is that no special subject is expressed simply because none was needed and it would be all one whether we understood as subject, Moses, the prophet and lawgiver — the holy or sacred Word or the oracle — or finally, God Himself. In any case, and with any subauditum, the real subject conceived as speaking is Gop.

If now, in the light of the facts we have thus brought to our recollection, we turn back to the New Testament passages in which the Old Testament is cited with a simple ¢yat or \éyet, it may not be impossible for us to perceive their real character and meaning. There would seem to be absolutely no warrant in Greek usage for taking \éye, and but very little, if any, for taking gnoi really indefinitely: and even if there were, it would be inconceivable that the New Testament writers, from their high conception of ‘‘Scripture,”’ should have adduced Scripture with a simple ‘‘it is said’? — somewhere, by some one — without implication of reverence toward the quoted words or recognition of the authority inherent in them. It is rather in the usage of Philo that we find the true analogue of these examples. Like Philo, the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews looks upon Scripture as an oracular book, and all that it says, God says to him: and accordingly, like Philo, he adduces its words with a simple ‘at says,’ with the full implication that this “‘it says”’ is a “God says’”’ also. Whenever the same locution occurs else- “where in the New Testament, it bears naturally the same implication. There is no reason why we should recognize the Philonic ¢@yci in Heb. vill. 5, and deny it in I Cor. vi. 16: or why we should recognize the Philonic Neyer in Heb. vui. 8 and deny it in Acts xill. 35, Rom. ix. 15, xv. 10, IT Cor. vi. 2, Gal. ii. 16, or in Eph. iv. 8, v. 14. Only in case it were very clear that Paul did not share the high conception of Scripture as the living voice of God which underlies this usage in

6. The reverent use of an indefinite may be illustrated from the mode of citation adopted in Heb. ii. 6 — ‘‘one hath somewhere testified’’ —a mode of citation not uncommon in Philo [as, for example, de Temul. (ed. Mang., i. 365), ete yap rob rs (i. e., Abraham, Gen. xx. 12), and other examples in Bleek, II, i. 239].

Delitzsch correctly explains: “The citation is thus introduced with a special solemnity, the author naming neither the place whence he takes it nor the original speaker, but making use (as Philo frequently) of the vague term zov ris, so that the important testimony itself becomes only the more conspicuous, like a grand pictured figure in the plainest, narrowest frame.”

Philo and the Epistle to the Hebrews, could we hesitate to understand this phrase in him as we understand it in them. But we have seen that such is not the case: and his use in adducing Scripture of the subjectless @yct and Aéyer quite in their manner is, rightly viewed, only another indication, among many, that his conception of Scripture was fundamentally the same with theirs, and it cannot be explained away on the assumption that it was fundamentally different.

It does not indeed follow that on every occasion when a Scripture passage is introduced by a @yai or a Aéyer it is to be explained as an instance of this subjectless usage — even though a subject for it is given or plainly implied in the immediate context. That is not possible even in Philo, where the introductory formula often finds its appropriate subject expressed in the preceding context. But it does follow that we need not and ought not resort to unnatural expedients to find a subject for such a @yot or Aéyer in the context, or that acquiescing, whenever that seems more natural, in its subjectlessness, we should seek to explain away its high implications. Men may differ as to the number of clear

62 The matter is approached in a sensible and helpful way by Viteau, in his “Etude sur le Grec du N. T.: sujet, complement et attribute” (1896), p. 61. He is treating of the subject to be mentally supplied, i. e., of the case where the reader may be fairly counted upon to supply the subject, and he remarks (¢nter

alia): ‘‘76 (9). There is a kind of mental subject peculiar to the New Testament. When events of the Old Testament are spoken of, these events are supposed to be known to the reader or the hearer, who is invited to supply the subject of the verb mentally.... 77 (10). There is still another kind of mental subject peculiar to the New Testament and kindred to the preceding. In the citations made by the New Testament the subject is often lacking, as well for the verb which announces the citation as for the verb in the citation itself. The reader is supposed to recognize the passage and is invited to supply the subject. (a) For the verbs which announce the citation there occur as subjects: 6 6eds, Acts 11. 17; 6 rpopjrns, Acts vil. 48; Aaveid, Rom. iv. 6; Mwiofs, Rom. x. 19; ‘Hoaias, Rom. xv. 12; } yeaa, Gal. iv. 30. When the verb has no subject, the reader is to supply it mentally: Acts xiii. 34, 35, elonxev and deve, the subject is 6 6eds, according to the LXX., Es. lv. 3, and Ps. xv. 10; Rom. xv. 10, raw dA€ver (6 Mwio fs), according to Deut. xxxil. 43; Eph. iv. 8, Aéyee (6 Geds or Aaveid), according to Ps. lxvii. 19; Eph. v. 14, ud A€yer, those who regard the passage as imitated or partially cited from the Old Testament give ‘Hoaias as the subject of \éye, according to Isa. lx. 1, 2, but if we regard this passage as containing some «da of an early hymn (in imitation of

instances of such a usage, that may be counted in the New Testament. But most will doubtless agree that some may be counted: and will doubtless place among them Eph. iv. 8 and v. 14. Some will contend, no doubt, that in the latter of these texts, the passage adduced is not derived from the Old Testament at all. That, however, is ‘‘another story,’’ on which we cannot enter now, but on which we must be content to differ. We pause only to say that we reckon among the reasons why we should think the citation here is derived from the Old Testament, just its adduction by 616 Aéye. — which would seem to advise us that Paul intended to quote the oracular Word.

There may be room for difference of opinion again as to the precise subauditum which it will be most natural to assume with these subjectless verbs: whether 6 @eds or) ypad7. In our view it makes no real difference in their implication: for, in our view, the very essence of the case is, that, under the force of their conception of the Scriptures as an oracular book, it was all one to the New Testament writers whether they said ‘‘God says” or ‘‘Scripture says.’’ This is made very clear, as their real standpoint, by their double identification of Scripture with God and God with Scripture, to which we adverted at the beginning of this paper, and by which Paul, for example, could say alike ‘‘the Scripture saith to Pharaoh”’ (Rom. ix. 17) and ‘‘God.... saith, Thou wilt not give thy. Holy One to see corruption”’ (Acts xiii. 34). We may well be content in the New Testament as in Philo to translate the phrase wherever it occurs, “It says’’ — with the implication that this ‘‘It says” is the same as ‘“‘Scripture says,’’ and that this ‘‘Seripture says’’ is the same as ‘‘God says.”’ It is this implication that is really the fundamental fact in the case.

Isaiah) we must supply as the subject ris, ‘it is said,’ ‘it is sung’ (96a); Heb. viii. 5, dnoiv (6 beds), according to Ex. xxv. 40.”’ We do not accord, of course, with the

remark on Eph. v. 14; and we miss in Viteau’s remarks the expected reference to the deeper fact in the case.