[9] If I attempt to justify my inability to praise this book in the way that I should like, and in the way that (as I have already mentioned) I at one time anticipated, I enter on the task with much reluctance and diffidence, yielding only to the urgent wish expressed by several friends. To put my opinion in a sentence, I should say that the author never reaches the historical point of view; he never shows any comprehension of the way in which great events work themselves out. It may be said, of course, that he is writing an "Introduction to the Literature of the New Testament," and not a study of early Christian history; but in a surpassing degree the literature of the New Testament is the expression of the life of the Church, and can never be rightly understood if it is regarded simply as [10] literature. Dr. Moffatt knows that well, 1 and shows his knowledge by constantly correlating the literature with the development of the Church, as he conceives it; but he looks at history with a certain literary quality of mind, and not with the understanding and sympathy of practical knowledge. His many brilliant literary gifts, and especially his wonderful power of detecting literary analogies, tend to warp his historical judgment, and require sometimes to be sternly controlled by him.

The author brings his wide reading in modern literature to bear on the illustration of his subject by profuse quotations and elaborate comparisons or similes. Sometimes these "purple patches" lighten up rather quaintly the laborious collection of opinions and references. On page 594, "The Homeric hymns, it has been said, are neither hymns nor Homer's. The so-called [11] 'first epistle of John' is neither an epistle nor is it John's, if by John is meant the son of Zebedee." Then a few lines down the page, "Lord Hailes once pointed out to Boswell his additions to a legal paper originally drawn up by Dr. Johnson. The editor of 'First John' had, in all likelihood, some share in the editorial process through which the Fourth Gospel reached its final form." There would have been more point in the allusion to Lord Hailes, if, like him, the editor of " First John" had pointed out to some one the additions that he made to the Gospel; but these unfortunately remain uncertain. The allusion to the Homeric hymns is a piece of smart writing, but savours too much of flippant journalism. There is no real analogy, nothing but the forced and purely verbal analogy of an epigrammatic balance.

Much better in taste, and much more apt and illuminative as an illustration, is the comparison on page 148 between "Romans" and Burke's "Reflections on the Revolution in France ". 2 [12] In both cases what was begun as a letter grew beyond the character of a letter, and yet retained the outward form of one.

Not so illuminative, but still quite pertinent and in good taste, is the quotation from Theocritus and the elaborate application of it on page 597. It is purely ornamental, it is only a "purple patch"; but it is ingenious, clever, and interesting.

On page 171 we have a very favourable specimen of Dr. Moffatt's comparisons. As Baur and Manen judged of Philippians, "so did Johnson judge of Gray". This well brings out by a brief touch the utter inability of Baur and Manen to sympathize with, and therefore to judge, Paul, though it errs by suggesting that a clever writer like Baur and a stupid one like Manen can be put on a level with a great man like Johnson. But why not extend the comparison? It is just because Dr. Moffatt quotes [13] such a portentous number of unsympathizing and therefore incapable and unprofitable Baurs and Manens, that his book is profitless and even dull. Moreover, he in the comparison subtly suggests that in all these cases one great man judges another. We learn from Johnson on Gray, because the critic, though out of sympathy, is still a man of genius, who is instructive even when he misses the truth; but Manen, or even Baur, sitting in judgment on Paul, is a mole attempting to estimate the size of a colossus, or the strength of a lion, or the swiftness of an eagle in the air.

Again on page 204, in the extremely hypothetical sketch of the "fortunes of Q," we are told that "it suffered a sea-change, when it was employed by Matthew". Shakespeare is dragged in here, without any special appropriateness, unless Dr. Moffatt's intention is to suggest very delicately that Q is a thing "that doth fade". The writing here is smart, the veiled allusion to a familiar passage of "The Tempest" is clever and lights up the rather arid page, and I quote it as typical, as probably likely to please the reader [14] and to carry on his interest in the book, and certainly not as a blemish, since it does not injuriously affect the train of reasoning, while it has a certain literary quality.

In Dr. Moffatt's former book this kind of illustration by quotations from literature was much more sparingly used, and always, so far as I have observed, for the purpose of making his meaning clearer. The habit has grown upon him, however, until he has come to use his quotations in some cases almost as ornaments, and to let his judgment sometimes be carried away by a purely fanciful analogy which he has employed. I allude to this subject chiefly for the sake of leading on from the good or the harmless examples to those which seem to me to be injurious. 3 Accordingly, it is not my intention[15] to lay stress on these examples of Dr. Moffatt's custom as if they were faults. They are mentioned as instances of the Author's character; and from them we may gather what is a tendency of his mind, and estimate his "personal equation". They are an interesting feature; and they are indicative of the literary rather than the historical temperament. That is what seems to me the fundamental truth. Our Author shows in a fashion extremely interesting to the student of human nature the course which the literary temperament may follow when it is allowed to run riot in historical investigation. It is in danger of essaying the problem in a misleading fashion. This I shall try to exemplify by taking some others of those ornate passages, in which the misleading influence that the habit may exercise is more conspicuous.

FOOTNOTES:

1 He will not dissent from this opinion that right study of the literature of the New Testament is impossible without keeping the eye constantly turned towards historical method : as he says in the "Historical New Testament," p. 56, "true criticism of the New Testament is like science, it becomes 'a precious visitant only when it has been trained in the methods of historical evolution".

2 This illustration, which is a good one, helping to make the author's view more distinct and at the same time constituting a justifiable argument in favour of his view, because it shows by analogy that the process supposed can really occur, was used already in the Author's "Historical New Testament" (as I observe later).

3 These literary and purely ornamental illustrations even obtain sometimes a place in the Index A of "Subjects and References," where they take up space that might be usefully employed. It seems odd to find Shakespeare mentioned three times, Jane Austen once, Byron twice, and so on, in the Index A, while Georgios Hamartolos does not occur in any of the Indices, though he is referred to in the text as an authority of consequence, forming the main support of the Author's belief in the very early death of St. John, a critical point in his whole opinions