the Church of God is figurative conceive always an anagoge in what you hear in the doctrine of the Church, the meaning of which will not cease till the figure has become the truth. From this moreover conclude that where the literal sense is, there the allegorical sense is not always along with it; but on the other hand that where there is the allegorical sense the literal sense is always underlying it." 1

At this point I must stay my hand. I will only remind the reader that I have been speaking exclusively of the Exegesis of the Schoolmen, not of their philosophy or their writings generally. And if I have had little or nothing to say in praise of their exegesis, it is only because there is little in it which deserves praise. The science of exegesis was never at a lower ebb than it was throughout the entire Scholastic epoch. I have furnished abundant indications of its want of originality; of its want of independence; of its subservience to dogma and tradition; of its vague views of inspiration; of its neglect of philology and history; of its tendency to vaniloquium; of its barbarous technical language; of its futile speculations; of its baseless theory of a fourfold sense. The merits of these theologians as exegetes are never due to the system and method they adopt, but solely to their individual piety and genius. They make pious remarks and valuable homiletic reflections, but I am not aware of a single new principle discovered, or a single new and valuable fact elicited by their thousand years of commentary. Their merits must be sought for in other regions of thought.

Let me part from them with the remark of a hostile Reformer and of a favourable Pope.

"I read the Schoolmen with judgment," says Luther in a letter to Staupitz, "not with my eyes shut.

1 Colet, On the Hierarchies of Dionysius, p. 107 (ed. Lupton).

I

do not reject all their opinions, but neither do I approve of them all indiscriminately."

The present Pope, Leo XIII., in the Encyclical Eterni Patris, pronounces a glowing eulogium on Thomas Aquinas, and recommends the whole Christian world to study his writings. But, he adds, "we refer to the wisdom of St. Thomas; for whatever in the Schoolmen savours of over-subtlety or over-rashness, and whatever is little in accordance with the demonstrated doctrines of a later age, or whatever lastly is improbable, it is by no means my purpose to recommend to the imitation of our age."

F. W. FARRAR.

NOTE ON ST. JAMES i. 9, 10.

I SHOULD be glad of space for a brief note on the above verses, having special reference to the admirable papers recently contributed to the EXPOSITOR 2 by Dr. R. W. Dale. The interpretation of the verses that is given in those papers is, in my judgment, entirely trustworthy, and indeed the only one that the words can reasonably be made to bear; and it may be hoped that Dr. Dale's complete statement and defence of it will do much towards disposing of the “ savage," "artificial," and other untenable interpretations to which Huther, Alford, and other commentators have been driven in their endeavour to escape the imagined difficulty of understanding ådeλpós to belong to both verses. This difficulty, which I take to be wholly imaginary, is really at the root of all the perplexity that the commentators have felt and occasioned in their treatment of this passage.

The only object of this note is to claim a closer connexion than Dr. Dale seems willing to allow between these verses (9, 10) and the verses that immediately precede them (6-8). In reference to this latter passage Dr. Dale writes: "The words which follow :'Let him ask in faith, nothing doubting; for he that doubteth is like the surge of the sea, driven by the wind and tossed. For 1 Aug. 4, 1879.

2 EXPOSITOR. Second Series, vol. v. pp. 321ff. and 426ff.

let not that man think he shall receive anything of the Lord. A man of two minds, he is unstable in all his ways'-need not detain us. They are a vivid statement of a truth which recurs in many other parts of the New Testament, and have no special connexion with the subject of 'temptations' and 'trials,' unless indeed we say that temptations and trials of all kinds make it hard to pray in faith."

Now it appears to me that these words have the very closest connexion with the subject of those "temptations" and "trials" which James has especially in view, and that they immediately suggest, that they did immediately suggest to him, the exhortations he proceeds to give. If this be so, and if we can discover the unexpressed links in the Apostle's thought, we may expect to arrive at a still clearer understanding of his teaching in the passage under consideration.

The doublemindedness that James condemns, and declares to be the hindrance to all effectual prayer, arises from a false estimate of worldly position and temporal possessions-an estimate wherein the judgment of man shews itself at variance with that of God. This really exposes men to the assaults of temptation. If the Divine standards of value determined all their judgments, the "lust" through which they are "drawn away and enticed," would be robbed of its power, and would by and by altogether cease to trouble them, But the brother of low degree is tempted to look with envious eyes upon the brother who is rich, and the brother who is rich is tempted to look down with haughty pride upon the brother of low degree, because neither has learnt to see himself as God sees him, and to prize above all else the things that are most precious. Hence the "doublemindedness "-half a mind towards God, and half a mind towards the world-which reveals itself in the futile attempt to serve two masters, and in the "respect of persons," that are so flagrantly inconsistent with "the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of Glory."

For all this James indicates the true remedy. He remembers the commonest cause of the doublemindedness that he condemns ; and to correct the false estimates so natural to man, so persistent even among Christian men, he gives the exhortations of verses 9 and 10. The brother of low degree, and the brother abounding in the wealth of this world, are on the same footing in the sight of God. The faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory,

reverses our customary judgments. Let, therefore, the brother of low degree glory in that high estate which is his through Christ; and let the rich brother glory in the knowledge that rebukes his foolish pride, and shews how transient and superficial are those distinctions which are based on temporal position and possessions. Christ has enriched us all, and our true ground of glorying is the wealth that is ours through Him-wealth in which poor and rich may have an equal share.

Thus, I venture to think, it may be seen that, in the thought of James, the statement in verses 6-8, has a special and close connexion with the subject of temptation, not only because "temptations and trials of all kinds make it hard to pray in faith," but because the doublemindedness that renders it impossible to pray in such a way as to be heard is at the root of so many of the temptations that beset us, and especially of those temptations against which the exhortations of verses 9 and 10 were intended to guard and strengthen us.

In support of the connexion I have attempted to indicate it may be worth while to notice: (1) the very obvious characteristic of St. James's style, according to which the concluding word or thought of one section or sentence becomes the starting point of that which follows. It seems to me that the thought expressed in verse 8 immediately and most naturally suggested the exhortations that succeed it. (2) The words of the Apostle in Chapter ii. 4, where the false estimate of worldly wealth, or obsequious reverence for the rich man, is said to indicate a doubting or divided mind. This division of mind would be effectually healed, and the man of two minds would henceforth have one mind wholly toward God, if only he rightly learnt, and constantly remembered, the great lesson of those verses that Dr. Dale has expounded for us.

ERIC A. LAWRENCE.

THE BOOK OF ECCLESIASTICUS: ITS CONTENTS

AND CHARACTER.

AMONG the editions of the Book of Ecclesiasticus, some fifty of which are more or less well known, there is one by J. Drusius (Franckeræ, 1596), which is interesting as having been undertaken by the desire of Archbishop Whitgift. The Reformers generally had a very high opinion of the work of the Son of Sirach, and from Luther downwards have used and quoted it, if not to establish doctrine, at any rate to confirm moral and religious teaching, and "for example of life and instruction of manners." 'Ex eo certius," says Bullinger,1 "et minore cum periculo discent moralem philosophiam studiosi, quam ex ullo Platone aut Aristotele." This is questioned, not so much on the ground of defects or error in the subject matter, as on the supposed absence of all system in the treatise, and the impossibility of discovering any methodical principle in the utterances of the author. Some commentators deny that there is any unity in the various portions of which the work consists, asserting that it is a mere farrago of apothegms and sayings gathered by different authors, from different sources and at different times.2 Ewald knows all about the composition of the book. According to this omniscient critic, the writer, up to Chapter xxxvi. 22, merely used two collections of proverbs already existing, dating respectively from the third and fourth century B.C.; his own composition com

3

1 Præfat. in Vers. Leo. Judæ, quoted by Arnald.

* Sonntag's edition (Riga, 1792) is entitled, De Jes. Sirac. Eccles. non libro sed libri farragine.

3 Gesch. d. V. Isr., vol. iv. pp. 300 ff, etc. NOVEMBER, 1883.

Y

VOL. VI.