[16] On page 8 Dr. Moffatt, in discussing "The Method of New Testament Introduction," illustrates the correct procedure for the historian in surveying the literature of a period by the following analogy. "In a note to the first chapter of ‘The Fair Maid of Perth,’ discussing the magnificent view of the Tay valley which may be gained from the Wicks of Baiglie, Scott quotes what a local guide said, on reaching a bold projecting rock on Craig Vinean, 'Ah, sirs, this is the decisive point'. One of the first objects of the literary historian, in attempting the survey of any period, is to secure the decisive point from which he may command the lie of the country, and see it as fully as possible in its natural proportions. Such a vantage ground lies usually at some distance from the particular literature. [17] That is one reason why the decisive point of elevation from which to scan the primitive Christian literature is to be found in the traditions which begin to rise by the second half of the second century."

I confess that I was aghast when I read these sentences. It would be hard to find a falser way of looking at the historical problem, and yet it is so ingenious and plausible, that the unwary reader may for the moment be misled by it. There is no analogy, except a verbal one, between the contemplation of scenery from a lofty point of view and the survey of a period in literature. In order to contemplate a landscape, it is necessary to reach a place from which the eye is able to see it; hence one contemplates it best from an elevated point at a little distance. In order to survey a period of literature, one gets into the most intimate sympathy with the writers. There is the most profound difference, and yet Dr. Moffatt does not see the difference. He labours to emphasize the analogy by verbal touches. The "decisive point" for the Christian literature is where "the traditions begin to [18] rise," just as the "decisive point" for that part of the Tay valley is where the "bold projecting rock on Craig Vinean rises"; but this is purely verbal trifling. If one is going to study the Elizabethan period of literature, one does not "secure the decisive point" in the period of Queen Anne or George I. One saturates oneself with the Elizabethan work, and grows into sympathy with it by close communion. The second half of the second century was a period quite as alien to the Apostolic period as that of A.D. 1702 - 30 was to the Elizabethan period. One cannot ascend a " decisive point" in a later period. Nor can one judge the older period better, or survey it more comprehensively, or appreciate it more sympathetically, by attempting to place oneself amid a later and uncomprehending group of writers. The whole idea is a verbal conceit, not unlike the fanciful trifling of the so-called" metaphysical" writers of the style of Donne in the early seventeenth century.

It is true that one often feels, in appraising the work of some contemporary author, that it is necessary to wait and to look back on him [19] from some point in the future, before one can determine with confidence his rank in the literature of the world. One is too near him to judge rightly his comparative rank. But this is because one dreads lest familiarity may warp the judgment, when the comparison is between a too familiar neighbour and older writers from whom one is far removed; and it gives no reason to think that, in trying to understand and sympathize with the literature of a remote period) one should look at it from "a vantage point" in a later and utterly uncomprehending time.

The truth is that Dr. Moffatt is trying to natch from any side some justification for his false historical method; and, to his literary way of judging, this very clever verbal analogy presented itself as a real analogy and a powerful argument. It is his fashion throughout this book to put himself among "the traditions which begin to rise by the second half of the second century," and to regard the New Testament as similar, and as most easily seen and understood through the analogy. He is every- [20] where trying to do what he plans out for himself in these sentences which have just been quoted, and the result is -- this book, utterly unsympathetic, absolutely external, and blind to the finest side of the literature that it treats.