Closely allied with the question of the origin of language was that of the origin of letters. The earlier writers had held that letters were also a divine gift to Adam; but as we go on in the eighteenth century we find theological opinion inclining to the belief that this gift was reserved for Moses. This, as we have seen, was the view of St. John Chrysostom; and an eminent English divine early in the eighteenth century, John Johnson, Vicar of Kent, echoed it in the declaration concerning the alphabet, that "Moses first learned it from G.o.d by means of the lettering on the tables of the law." But here a difficulty arose--the biblical statement that G.o.d commanded Moses to "write in a book" his decree concerning Amalek before he went up into Sinai.
With this the good vicar grapples manfully. He supposes that G.o.d had previously concealed the tables of stone in Mount h.o.r.eb, and that Moses, "when he kept Jethro"s sheep thereabout, had free access to these tables, and perused them at discretion, though he was not permitted to carry them down with him." Our reconciler then asks for what other reason could G.o.d have kept Moses up in the mountain forty days at a time, except to teach him to write; and says, "It seems highly probable that the angel gave him the alphabet of the Hebrew, or in some other way unknown to us became his guide."
But this theory of letters was soon to be doomed like the other parts of the sacred theory. Studies in Comparative Philology, based upon researches in India, began to be reenforced by facts regarding the inscriptions in Egypt, the cuneiform inscriptions of a.s.syria, the legends of Chaldea, and the folklore of China--where it was found in the sacred books that the animals were named by Fohi, and with such wisdom and insight that every name disclosed the nature of the corresponding animal.
But, although the old theory was doomed, heroic efforts were still made to support it. In 1788 James Beattie, in all the glory of his Oxford doctorate and royal pension, made a vigorous onslaught, declaring the new system of philology to be "degrading to our nature," and that the theory of the natural development of language is simply due to the beauty of Lucretius" poetry. But his main weapon was ridicule, and in this he showed himself a master. He tells the world, "The following paraphrase has nothing of the elegance of Horace or Lucretius, but seems to have all the elegance that so ridiculous a doctrine deserves":
"When men out of the earth of old A dumb and beastly vermin crawled; For acorns, first, and holes of shelter, They tooth and nail, and helter skelter, Fought fist to fist; then with a club Each learned his brother brute to drub; Till, more experienced grown, these cattle Forged fit accoutrements for battle. At last (Lucretius says and Creech) They set their wits to work on SPEECH: And that their thoughts might all have marks To make them known, these learned clerks Left off the trade of cracking crowns, And manufactured verbs and nouns."
But a far more powerful theologian entered the field in England to save the sacred theory of language--Dr. Adam Clarke. He was no less severe against Philology than against Geology. In 1804, as President of the Manchester Philological Society, he delivered an address in which he declared that, while men of all sects were eligible to membership, "he who rejects the establishment of what we believe to be a divine revelation, he who would disturb the peace of the quiet, and by doubtful disputations unhinge the minds of the simple and unreflecting, and endeavour to turn the unwary out of the way of peace and rational subordination, can have no seat among the members of this inst.i.tution."
The first sentence in this declaration gives food for reflection, for it is the same confusion of two ideas which has been at the root of so much interference of theology with science for the last two thousand years.
Adam Clarke speaks of those "who reject the establishment of what, WE BELIEVE, to be a divine revelation." Thus comes in that customary begging of the question--the subst.i.tution, as the real significance of Scripture, of "WHAT WE BELIEVE" for what IS.
The intended result, too, of this ecclesiastical sentence was simple enough. It was, that great men like Sir William Jones, Colebrooke, and their compeers, must not be heard in the Manchester Philological Society in discussion with Dr. Adam Clarke on questions regarding Sanskrit and other matters regarding which they knew all that was then known, and Dr.
Clarke knew nothing.
But even Clarke was forced to yield to the scientific current. Thirty years later, in his Commentary on the Old Testament, he pitched the claims of the sacred theory on a much lower key. He says: "Mankind was of one language, in all likelihood the Hebrew.... The proper names and other significations given in the Scripture seem incontestable evidence that the Hebrew language was the original language of the earth,--the language in which G.o.d spoke to man, and in which he gave the revelation of his will to Moses and the prophets." Here are signs that this great champion is growing weaker in the faith: in the citations made it will be observed he no longer says "IS," but "SEEMS"; and finally we have him saying, "What the first language was is almost useless to inquire, as it is impossible to arrive at any satisfactory information on this point."
In France, during the first half of the nineteenth century, yet more heavy artillery was wheeled into place, in order to make a last desperate defence of the sacred theory. The leaders in this effort were the three great Ultramontanes, De Maistre, De Bonald, and Lamennais.
Condillac"s contention that "languages were gradually and insensibly acquired, and that every man had his share of the general result,"
they attacked with reasoning based upon premises drawn from the book of Genesis. De Maistre especially excelled in ridiculing the philosophic or scientific theory. Lamennais, who afterward became so vexatious a thorn in the side of the Church, insisted, at this earlier period, that "man can no more think without words than see without light." And then, by that sort of mystical play upon words so well known in the higher ranges of theologic reasoning, he clinches his argument by saying, "The Word is truly and in every sense "the light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.""
But even such champions as these could not stay the progress of thought.
While they seemed to be carrying everything before them in France, researches in philology made at such centres of thought as the Sorbonne and the College of France were undermining their last great fortress.
Curious indeed is it to find that the Sorbonne, the stronghold of theology through so many centuries, was now made in the nineteenth century the a.r.s.enal and stronghold of the new ideas. But the most striking result of the new tendency in France was seen when the greatest of the three champions, Lamennais himself, though offered the highest Church preferment, and even a cardinal"s hat, braved the papal anathema, and went over to the scientific side.(419)
(419) For Johnson"s work, showing how Moses learned the alphabet, see the Collection of Discourses by Rev. John Johnson, A. M., Vicar of Kent, London, 1728, p. 42, and the preface. For Beattie, see his Theory of Language, London, 1788, p. 98; also pp. 100, 101. For Adam Clarke, see, for the speech cited, his Miscellaneous Works, London, 1837; for the pa.s.sage from his Commentary, see the London edition of 1836, vol. i, p. 93; for the other pa.s.sage, see Introduction to Bibliographical Miscellany, quoted in article, Origin of Language and Alphabetical Characters, in Methodist Magazine, vol. xv, p. 214. For De Bonald, see his Recherches Philosophiques, part iii, chap. ii, De l"Origine du Language, in his Oeuvres, Bruxelles, 1852, vol. i, Les Soirees de Saint Petersbourg, deuxieme entretien, pa.s.sim. For Lamennais, see his Oeuvres Completes, Paris, 1836-"37, tome ii, pp.78-81, chap. xv of Essai sur l"Indifference en Matiere de Religion.
In Germany philological science took so strong a hold that its positions were soon recognised as impregnable. Leaders like the Schlegels, Wilhelm von Humboldt, and above all Franz Bopp and Jacob Grimm, gave such additional force to scientific truth that it could no longer be withstood. To say nothing of other conquests, the demonstration of that great law in philology which bears Grimm"s name brought home to all thinking men the evidence that the evolution of language had not been determined by the philosophic utterances of Adam in naming the animals which Jehovah brought before him, but in obedience to natural law.
True, a few devoted theologians showed themselves willing to lead a forlorn hope; and perhaps the most forlorn of all was that of 1840, led by Dr. Gottlieb Christian Kayser, Professor of Theology at the Protestant University of Erlangen. He does not, indeed, dare put in the old claim that Hebrew is identical with the primitive tongue, but he insists that it is nearer it than any other. He relinquishes the two former theological strongholds--first, the idea that language was taught by the Almighty to Adam, and, next, that the alphabet was thus taught to Moses--and falls back on the position that all tongues are thus derived from Noah, giving as an example the language of the Caribbees, and insisting that it was evidently so derived. What chance similarity in words between Hebrew and the Caribbee tongue he had in mind is past finding out. He comes out strongly in defence of the biblical account of the Tower of Babel, and insists that "by the symbolical expression "G.o.d said, Let us go down," a further natural phenomenon is intimated, to wit, the cleaving of the earth, whereby the return of the dispersed became impossible--that is to say, through a new or not universal flood, a partial inundation and temporary violent separation of great continents until the time of the rediscovery" By these words the learned doctor means nothing less than the separation of Europe from America.
While at the middle of the nineteenth century the theory of the origin and development of language was upon the continent considered as settled, and a well-ordered science had there emerged from the old chaos, Great Britain still held back, in spite of the fact that the most important contributors to the science were of British origin. Leaders in every English church and sect vied with each other, either in denouncing the encroachments of the science of language or in explaining them away.
But a new epoch had come, and in a way least expected. Perhaps the most notable effort in bringing it in was made by Dr. Wiseman, afterward Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster. His is one of the best examples of a method which has been used with considerable effect during the latest stages of nearly all the controversies between theology and science.
It consists in stating, with much fairness, the conclusions of the scientific authorities, and then in persuading one"s self and trying to persuade others that the Church has always accepted them and accepts them now as "additional proofs of the truth of Scripture." A little juggling with words, a little amalgamation of texts, a little judicious suppression, a little imaginative deduction, a little unctuous phrasing, and the thing is done. One great service this eminent and kindly Catholic champion undoubtedly rendered: by this acknowledgment, so widely spread in his published lectures, he made it impossible for Catholics or Protestants longer to resist the main conclusions of science. Henceforward we only have efforts to save theological appearances, and these only by men whose zeal outran their discretion.
On both sides of the Atlantic, down to a recent period, we see these efforts, but we see no less clearly that they are mutually destructive.
Yet out of this chaos among English-speaking peoples the new science began to develop steadily and rapidly. Attempts did indeed continue here and there to save the old theory. Even as late as 1859 we hear the eminent Presbyterian divine, Dr. John c.u.mming, from his pulpit in London, speaking of Hebrew as "that magnificent tongue--that mother-tongue, from which all others are but distant and debilitated progenies."
But the honour of producing in the nineteenth century the most absurd known attempt to prove Hebrew the primitive tongue belongs to the youngest of the continents, Australia. In the year 1857 was printed at Melbourne The Triumph of Truth, or a Popular Lecture on the Origin of Languages, by B. Atkinson, M.R.C.P.L.--whatever that may mean. In this work, starting with the a.s.sertion that "the Hebrew was the primary stock whence all languages were derived," the author states that Sanskrit is "a dialect of the Hebrew," and declares that "the ma.n.u.scripts found with mummies agree precisely with the Chinese version of the Psalms of David." It all sounds like Alice in Wonderland. Curiously enough, in the latter part of his book, evidently thinking that his views would not give him authority among fastidious philologists, he says, "A great deal of our consent to the foregoing statements arises in our belief in the Divine inspiration of the Mosaic account of the creation of the world and of our first parents in the Garden of Eden." A yet more interesting light is thrown upon the author"s view of truth, and of its promulgation, by his dedication: he says that, "being persuaded that literary men ought to be fostered by the hand of power," he dedicates his treatise "to his Excellency Sir H. Barkly," who was at the time Governor of Victoria.
Still another curious survival is seen in a work which appeared as late as 1885, at Edinburgh, by William Galloway, M.A., Ph.D., M.D. The author thinks that he has produced abundant evidence to prove that "Jehovah, the Second Person of the G.o.dhead, wrote the first chapter of Genesis on a stone pillar, and that this is the manner by which he first revealed it to Adam; and thus Adam was taught not only to speak but to read and write by Jehovah, the Divine Son; and that the first lesson he got was from the first chapter of Genesis." He goes on to say: "Jehovah wrote these first two doc.u.ments; the first containing the history of the Creation, and the second the revelation of man"s redemption,... for Adam"s and Eve"s instruction; it is evident that he wrote them in the Hebrew tongue, because that was the language of Adam and Eve." But this was only a flower out of season.
And, finally, in these latter days Mr. Gladstone has touched the subject. With that well-known facility in believing anything he wishes to believe, which he once showed in connecting Neptune"s trident with the doctrine of the Trinity, he floats airily over all the impossibilities of the original Babel legend and all the conquests of science, makes an a.s.sertion regarding the results of philology which no philologist of any standing would admit, and then escapes in a cloud of rhetoric after his well-known fashion.
This, too, must be set down simply as a survival, for in the British Isles as elsewhere the truth has been established. Such men as Max Muller and Sayce in England,--Steinthal, Schleicher, Weber, Karl Abel, and a host of others in Germany,--Ascoli and De Gubernatis in Italy,--and Whitney, with the scholars inspired by him, in America, have carried the new science to a complete triumph. The sons of Yale University may well be proud of the fact that this old Puritan foundation was made the headquarters of the American Oriental Society, which has done so much for the truth in this field.(420)
(420) For Mr. Gladstone"s view, see his Impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture, London, 1890, pp. 241 et seq. The pa.s.sage connecting the trident of Neptune with the Trinity is in his Juventus Mundi. To any American boy who sees how inevitably, both among Indian and white fishermen, the fish spear takes the three-p.r.o.nged form, this utterance of Mr. Gladstone is amazing.
V. SUMMARY.
It may be instructive, in conclusion, to sum up briefly the history of the whole struggle.
First, as to the origin of speech, we have in the beginning the whole Church rallying around the idea that the original language was Hebrew; that this language, even including the medieval rabbinical punctuation, was directly inspired by the Almighty; that Adam was taught it by G.o.d himself in walks and talks; and that all other languages were derived from it at the "confusion of Babel."
Next, we see parts of this theory fading out: the inspiration of the rabbinical points begins to disappear. Adam, instead of being taught directly by G.o.d, is "inspired" by him.
Then comes the third stage: advanced theologians endeavour to compromise on the idea that Adam was "given verbal roots and a mental power."
Finally, in our time, we have them accepting the theory that language is the result of an evolutionary process in obedience to laws more or less clearly ascertained. Babel thus takes its place quietly among the sacred myths.
As to the origin of writing, we have the more eminent theologians at first insisting that G.o.d taught Adam to write; next we find them gradually retreating from this position, but insisting that writing was taught to the world by Noah. After the retreat from this position, we find them insisting that it was Moses whom G.o.d taught to write.
But scientific modes of thought still progressed, and we next have influential theologians agreeing that writing was a Mosaic invention; this is followed by another theological retreat to the position that writing was a post-Mosaic invention. Finally, all the positions are relinquished, save by some few skirmishers who appear now and then upon the horizon, making attempts to defend some subtle method of "reconciling" the Babel myth with modern science.
Just after the middle of the nineteenth century the last stage of theological defence was evidently reached--the same which is seen in the history of almost every science after it has successfully fought its way through the theological period--the declaration which we have already seen foreshadowed by Wiseman, that the scientific discoveries in question are nothing new, but have really always been known and held by the Church, and that they simply substantiate the position taken by the Church. This new contention, which always betokens the last gasp of theological resistance to science, was now echoed from land to land. In 1856 it was given forth by a divine of the Anglican Church, Archdeacon Pratt, of Calcutta. He gives a long list of eminent philologists who had done most to destroy the old supernatural view of language, reads into their utterances his own wishes, and then exclaims, "So singularly do their labours confirm the literal truth of Scripture."
Two years later this contention was echoed from the American Presbyterian Church, and Dr. B. W. Dwight, having stigmatized as "infidels" those who had not incorporated into their science the literal acceptance of Hebrew legend, declared that "chronology, ethnography, and etymology have all been tortured in vain to make them contradict the Mosaic account of the early history of man." Twelve years later this was re-echoed from England. The Rev. Dr. Baylee, Princ.i.p.al of the College of St. Aidan"s, declared, "With regard to the varieties of human language, the account of the confusion of tongues is receiving daily confirmation by all the recent discoveries in comparative philology." So, too, in the same year (1870), in the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland, Dr. John Eadie, Professor of Biblical Literature and Exegesis, declared, "Comparative philology has established the miracle of Babel."
A skill in theology and casuistry so exquisite as to contrive such a.s.sertions, and a faith so robust as to accept them, certainly leave nothing to be desired. But how baseless these contentions are is shown, first, by the simple history of the att.i.tude of the Church toward this question; and, secondly, by the fact that comparative philology now reveals beyond a doubt that not only is Hebrew not the original or oldest language upon earth, but that it is not even the oldest form in the Semitic group to which it belongs. To use the words of one of the most eminent modern authorities, "It is now generally recognised that in grammatical structure the Arabic preserves much more of the original forms than either the Hebrew or Aramaic."
History, ethnology, and philology now combine inexorably to place the account of the confusion of tongues and the dispersion of races at Babel among the myths; but their work has not been merely destructive: more and more strong are the grounds for belief in an evolution of language.
A very complete acceptance of the scientific doctrines has been made by Archdeacon Farrar, Canon of Westminster. With a boldness which in an earlier period might have cost him dear, and which merits praise even now for its courage, he says: "For all reasoners except that portion of the clergy who in all ages have been found among the bitterest enemies of scientific discovery, these considerations have been conclusive. But, strange to say, here, as in so many other instances, this self-styled orthodoxy--more orthodox than the Bible itself--directly contradicts the very Scriptures which it professes to explain, and by sheer misrepresentation succeeds in producing a needless and deplorable collision between the statements of Scripture and those other mighty and certain truths which have been revealed to science and humanity as their glory and reward."
Still another acknowledgment was made in America through the instrumentality of a divine of the Methodist Episcopal Church, whom the present generation at least will hold in honour not only for his scholarship but for his patriotism in the darkest hour of his country"s need--John McClintock. In the article on Language, in the Biblical Cyclopaedia, edited by him and the Rev. Dr. Strong, which appeared in 1873, the whole sacred theory is given up, and the scientific view accepted.(421)
(421) For Kayser, see his work, Ueber die Ursprache, oder uber eine Behauptung Mosis, da.s.s alle Sprachen der Welt von einer einzigen der Noahhischen abstammen, Erlangen, 1840; see especially pp. 5, 80, 95, 112. For Wiseman, see his Lectures on the Connection between Science and Revealed Religion, London, 1836. For examples typical of very many in this field, see the works of Pratt, 1856; Dwight, 1858; Jamieson, 1868.
For citation from c.u.mming, see his Great Tribulation, London, 1859, p.
4; see also his Things Hard to be Understood, London, 1861, p. 48. For an admirable summary of the work of the great modern philologists, and a most careful estimate of the conclusions reached, see Prof. Whitney"s article on Philology in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. A copy of Mr.
Atkinson"s book is in the Harvard College Library, it having been presented by the Trustees of the Public Library of Victoria. For Galloway, see his Philosophy of the Creation, Edinburgh and London, 1885, pp. 21, 238, 239, 446. For citation from Baylee, see his Verbal Inspiration the True Characteristic of G.o.d"s Holy Word, London, 1870, p. 14 and elsewhere. For Archdeacon Pratt, see his Scripture and Science not at Variance, London, 1856, p. 55. For the citation from Dr. Eadie, see his Biblical Cyclopaedia, London, 1870, p. 53. For Dr. Dwight, see The New-Englander, vol. xvi, p. 465. For the theological article referred to as giving up the sacred theory, see the Cyclopaedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, prepared by Rev.
John McClintock, D. D., and James Strong, New York, 1873, vol. v, p.
233. For Arabic as an earlier Semitic development than Hebrew, as well as for much other valuable information on the questions recently raised, see article Hebrew, by W. R. Smith, in the latest edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. For quotation from Canon Farrar, see his language and Languages, London, 1878, pp. 6,7.
It may, indeed, be now fairly said that the thinking leaders of theology have come to accept the conclusions of science regarding the origin of language, as against the old explanations by myth and legend. The result has been a blessing both to science and to religion. No harm has been done to religion; what has been done is to release it from the clog of theories which thinking men saw could no longer be maintained. No matter what has become of the naming of the animals by Adam, of the origin of the name Babel, of the fear of the Almighty lest men might climb up into his realm above the firmament, and of the confusion of tongues and the dispersion of nations; the essentials of Christianity, as taught by its blessed Founder, have simply been freed, by Comparative Philology, from one more great incubus, and have therefore been left to work with more power upon the hearts and minds of mankind.
Nor has any harm been done to the Bible. On the contrary, this divine revelation through science has made it all the more precious to us.
In these myths and legends caught from earlier civilizations we see an evolution of the most important religious and moral truths for our race. Myth, legend, and parable seem, in obedience to a divine law, the necessary setting for these truths, as they are successively evolved, ever in higher and higher forms. What matters it, then, that we have come to know that the accounts of Creation, the Fall, the Deluge, and much else in our sacred books, were remembrances of lore obtained from the Chaldeans? What matters it that the beautiful story of Joseph is found to be in part derived from an Egyptian romance, of which the hieroglyphs may still be seen? What matters it that the story of David and Goliath is poetry; and that Samson, like so many men of strength in other religions, is probably a sun-myth? What matters it that the inculcation of high duty in the childhood of the world is embodied in such quaint stories as those of Jonah and Balaam? The more we realize these facts, the richer becomes that great body of literature brought together within the covers of the Bible. What matters it that those who incorporated the Creation lore of Babylonia and other Oriental nations into the sacred books of the Hebrews, mixed it with their own conceptions and deductions? What matters it that Darwin changed the whole aspect of our Creation myths; that Lyell and his compeers placed the Hebrew story of Creation and of the Deluge of Noah among legends; that Copernicus put an end to the standing still of the sun for Joshua; that Halley, in promulgating his law of comets, put an end to the doctrine of "signs and wonders"; that Pinel, in showing that all insanity is physical disease, relegated to the realm of mythology the witch of Endor and all stories of demoniacal possession; that the Rev.
Dr. Schaff, and a mult.i.tude of recent Christian travellers in Palestine, have put into the realm of legend the story of Lot"s wife transformed into a pillar of salt; that the anthropologists, by showing how man has risen everywhere from low and brutal beginnings, have destroyed the whole theological theory of "the fall of man"? Our great body of sacred literature is thereby only made more and more valuable to us: more and more we see how long and patiently the forces in the universe which make for righteousness have been acting in and upon mankind through the only agencies fitted for such work in the earliest ages of the world--through myth, legend, parable, and poem.