Obrázky na stránke
PDF
ePub

specting the future of God's kingdom.

Nevertheless, no à priori historiography down to minute details, as many suppose, is to be found in them, important as history is to them. This would imply somewhat of a Docetic character, and to make it a postulate would be to lead exposition astray. Rightly interpreted, the prophets by no means present a concrete history of the future, but leave a multitude of points in obscurity. Nay, their language proceeds for the most part on the stipulation, presupposed as self-evident, of the future religious and moral character of the nation necessitating or permitting the result announced by prophecy, and thus their fore-announcements of historical events are in many ways hypothetical. Further, local and temporal circumstances form the framework, nay the garb, or let us rather say, that we may preclude the idea of intention in the choice of phraseology, the body, which the new prophetic intuitions appropriate to themselves out of the given natural or spiritual material. But although it would be wrong to suppose that the prophets positively distinguish their ideas from the figure or body which they make for them, thus first possessing the idea simply per se and then inventing its dress, still the creative idea in itself is different from its body. And that they lay stress not so much on the figure, which is the means of representation, as on the idea, is evident from this, that the same idea occurs in very different clothing not merely in different prophets, but in one and the same prophet. In this is evinced the non-dependence of the contents on the form, and in the latter the evidence of human exertion, which is also suggested by the different degrees of prophetic clearness.

But the non-historic view of prophecy was, again, opposed by another, essentially deistic view, which saw in prophecies nothing but purely human productions. The predictions were said to be derived from purely human intelligence and reflection, from a clear political vision and power of combination; or by means of the exposition given they were stripped of all concrete import, which was ascribed altogether to oriental imagination. What was left was general religious propositions, e.g. that goodness will not suffer defeat. This would all but entirely abolish the idea of prediction, and 1 Cf. Bertheau, Jahrbücher f. deutsche Theologie, V. 1860. 2 § 60, 5.

[ocr errors]

make of the prophets mere popular teachers, a view with which even their outward bearing is out of harmony. But when, in presence of the facts of the case, the acknowledgment was inevitable that the prophets made more definite announcements bearing on the history of religion, whether of a painful or joyous kind, it was said that prophecy is merely an expression of the consciousness of God's penal justice in reference to existing sinful conditions, or an expression of aspiration out of the gloom of the present, of vivid longing picturing to itself a consolatory future. That the co-operation of such inward emotions is to be supposed, ought not to be denied. Out of the pain and discord of the legal stage prophecy raises itself to the loftiest pinnacle. But to reduce it altogether to such natural, psychical emotions, would be again to deny it. If it exists, it cannot be a mere human function. So far from this, it is impossible to regard even religion in general as a mere product of man. But since in the O. T. startling predictions are undeniably found, such as cannot be resolved into colourless generalities, but on the contrary having a very definite relation to the future history of religion and the kingdom of God, e.g. Israel's significance for the history of religion and the idea of the Messiah, nothing is left but to acknowledge prophecy to be a manifestation essential to the growth of religion and revelation, and to study its meaning and significance.

2. In the broader sense, the entire history of ancient religion generally may be called a prediction of the perfecting of religion, i.e. of the unity of God and man. Just as the lower stages in the life of nature are as it were predictive of the higher, and give intimations of a type after which nature strives, so the same law is seen in religion. Even the religions of nature contain intimations of the spiritual, nay, as we saw, of a unity of the divine and human. The work of God's government of the world ceases not until history is completed and woven together. The unity of the world-aim in all the manifoldness of form visible in the world is evinced by this fact, that the shadows which higher coming events cast before them, are discernible in what precedes. consider first the system of Types.

Its scientific thought is, that the divine idea of the world

and humanity is from the first so pervaded by the idea of completeness, that rightly understood, in harmony with the world's unity, everything must needs carry in itself its relation to the consummation of the kingdom of God through the consummation of revelation and religion. Nature itself may be used as a symbol of higher spiritual truth, as is seen in so many of Christ's parables.1 Scripture itself describes this application of nature as an utterance of what was hidden in the world from its foundation, so to speak, its secret meaning. According to the theory of typology, the laws in the lower and higher fields are identical, the higher being viewed as the true, perfect manifestation of the same law or relation that was announced at a lower stage. Thus typology addresses itself to that which before the advent of the absolute religion was in sympathy with it in the world of nature, and thus forms the right counterpoise to an absolutely supernatural notion of miracle, maintaining, as it does, the continuity of revelation and the unity of the world. The same thing is repeated in the sphere of humanity. There the most sacred human relations-marriage, the family, the civil and political community-are seen to be symbolical announcements of that which attains its perfect expression in the religious field; e.g., Christ is the Bridegroom of humanity, King of kings, or the Head actuating and controlling the Church as His body.* Thus, whatever typical significance belongs inherently to earthly relations, e.g. kingship, the representatives of such relations share in. The more, therefore, that any one embodies in himself the idea of kingship, the more will it be possible to regard him, as is already done in prophecy, as a real, although unconscious, type of the still higher thing to be expected, e.g. David as a type of the Messianic king, because uniting the kingly with the prophetic spirit. In this way it may be affirmed (such, in fact, is the view of the O. T.) that there are typical persons-prophets, kings, priests-types of the archetypal form of the Perfecter of religion and God's kingdom. And if the persons were not such, still the office would be. The older theology, which no doubt often pushed

1 John xv. 1, xii. 24, x. 1 ff.; Matt. xiii.

3 John xv. 1: iyú siμı n äμwidos ǹ &λndivń; just so vi.
Matt. ix. 15; Rev. xxi. 9, xvii. 14; Eph. v. 23 ff.

2 Matt. xiii. 35. 32, x. 11, iv. 14.

the cultivation of typology to fantastic extremes, showed in this way a presentiment of what we now call the gradual, continuous growth of the absolute religion. For this very reason, also, institutions are typical of the perfecting of religion; so especially the sacrificial cultus and the temple, as is shown at length in the Epistle to the Hebrews. The temple is the place where God's presence is; but it is in His living temple-the Son of Man-that He dwells in a perfect manner.1 And the sacrifices, in the character of covenant- and peace-offerings, express the communion of men at God's table. This is the type of perfect fellowship with God, such as is embodied in the holiest act in the cultus of the new covenant.2 The propitiatory sacrifices are still more definitely related to the Perfecter of religion as the Redeemer from sin that had intervened. In all this, regarded from the highest standpoint, the absolute religion is announced, and that as the completion of a process already begun, a completion standing in intimate alliance and sympathy with the world of the first creation and history, with the laws or ordinances in that world. It is seen in this, that the first creation and the second finished work are governed by one and the same divine principle of revelation, that what came late as to time. was first as to idea and power, and that the principle of the absolute religion was active from the beginning in furthering preparations for its perfect manifestation, and through its imperfect forms of existence advanced to its adequate or supreme form. And so far as such living pre-existence of the principle of the perfect religion pertains to its very idea, typology is the expression of a weighty, essential element pertaining to the doctrine of the historic preparation for the perfect religion. Undoubtedly it would be erroneous to suppose that the exposition of the typical element as a substantive prediction may form, or is meant to form, a proof of the absolute religion in the proper sense. On the contrary, the shadowy outline can only be rightly understood by means of the archetype. Still it is part of the prerogative of the

1 John ii. 19, cf. Rev. xxi. 22.

Similarly the manna, John vi. 31-49; Rev. ii. 17. The Deluge also, and the passage through the Red Sea, are treated as types of baptism, 1 Pet. iii. 21, and 1 Cor. x. 2, 3.

absolute religion, which carries its proof within itself, and of its vocation, to demonstrate its right of property in the entire foretime. Just so, typology would make a mistake were it so to handle its material as if something took place for the mere purpose of pre-signifying the future. This would be a false hunting for teleology, and would imperil the historic apprehension. Rather, a type is only such by its not being merely a type, not merely a means of intimating something else than itself,—but having a significance of its own in its historic place. Typology is only possible on the basis of history. But all significant history points forward, and has relation to the consummation. Especially is every new revelation, previous to the supreme one, a new pledge of its advance towards the destined goal.

1

3. Whereas, then, typology has regard principally to the similarity of the former and later stages, and thus brings to light the close interlinking of history, on the other hand it is difference-more precisely, the imperfection of the former stage, and the sense of that imperfection-which is the negative factor in progress. This is evinced in a quite peculiar manner in the religious history of the O. T.; for the consciousness of defect in the previous stage, however the latter had developed, or of the imperfect reality, was the psychical preparation for or presupposition of prediction in the strict sense. Thus typology and prediction are mutually opposed. The former searches after the similarity of the stages, and assumes continuity; the latter, different new stages. It is therefore not correct, or requisite for the knowledge of historical progress, to resolve all prediction into types. Apart from verbal prediction, typology may give rise to an inclination (e.g. to read back the N. T. into the Old) to efface the differences, and to leave nothing but a difference in form and clearness. On the other hand, we must of course acknowledge that the consciousness of possessing much which is an earnest of what belongs to the consummation, or genuine delight in what has been already gained, must both sharpen the vision for still existing defects and strengthen confidence in the consummation.-Accordingly,

1 Cf. Schleiermacher, Christl. Glaube, vol. II. § 89, 3.

2 A certain inclination to this is shown in von Hofmann's Weissagung und Erfüllung, as formerly in the Cocceian school.

« PredošláPokračovať »