ON

THE PHILOSOPHY OF ANTHROPOMORPHISM.

By the Rev. JOSHUA FREDERICK DENHAM, M.A., F.R.S. It is well known that the scriptural representations of Deity partake largely of human characteristics. These resemblances begin with the use of the pronoun, by which the personality of God is intimated, and extend through almost everything predicable of the human mind and body. The instances referred to become fewer after those cases are withdrawn which are obviously rhetorical; or which may be resolved into the ordinary laws of thought and language. They become further curtailed when several cases of mistranslation are removed. But after all the abatement which can fairly be made, a multitude of passages remain, which, if taken by themselves, and viewed apart from some descriptions of a more exalted and spiritual kind, which occasionally present themselves, would lead to the conclusion that scriptural ideas of Deity consist chiefly of the qualities, both mental and bodily, of a human being; holy and awful indeed, but only highly magnified.

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This peculiarity of style is not limited to any particular æra. It no less pervades the latest, than the earliest books. For if in Genesis we find God represented as 'resting' on the seventh day from all his work which he had made, we also find him described by the latest of the Old Testament prophets, as 'wearied' with the words of his people (Mal. ii. 17). It is true, that in the book of Genesis we find a greater number of such instances, because the earlier part of that book relates more particularly to the divine operations and interpositions; such as 'breathing the breath of life into man's nostrils, walking in the garden in the breeze of the day,' 'making coats of skins unto Adam and to his wife,' 'smelling a sweet savour' from Noah's sacrifice, going down to see the city and the tower which the children of men builded,' and afterwards to see whether the inhabitants of Sodom had done altogether according to the cry of it,' appearing under all the attributes of humanity to Abraham, and bodily wrestling with Jacob :-but we shall also find the same quality of anthropomorphism attaching to the whole of the Old Testament, and in an equal proportion, if the difference of the subjects and occasions be duly considered. In the New Testament we find all the mental and moral powers, sentiments, sensations, and affections, bodily faculties, qualities, and members

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of men attributed to God. The anthropomorphism of prayer pervades the Old and New Testament, in both which God is represented as being moved by the supplications of mankind. Nor does this class of facts terminate here.

For the idea belongs to it, which equally pervades the Scriptures, that heaven is the local abode of Deity, and of beings superior to man; and that heaven is above the sky, and at no inconceivable distance from the earth. From that heaven the Saviour is ultimately represented as having come down' to effect the redemption of mankind; and as having ascended up where he was before' after he had risen from the dead; and as having passed through the heavens to appear in the presence of God for us,' and to carry on the work of priestly intercession in heaven,' the archetype of the most holy place in the Jewish tabernacle. In unison with this representation of heaven as the abode of Deity, our Lord is said on one occasion to have ' 'lifted up his eyes' when about to pray, and to have taught his disciples to pray to their 'Father who is in heaven.'

This indubitable quality of anthropomorphism, which is diffused in various forms over the whole Scriptures, has led to different inferences in the minds of different readers. The sceptic has regarded it as affording conclusive proof of the merely human origin of the Bible; which he contends, not only contains no ideas that are not gained from the solely human sources of sensation and reflection; but also none that are not grounded upon the most limited conceptions of Deity, the most contracted ideas of the universe, and the most puerile notions of the relative value of the earth and its inhabitants to the extent of the creation, as demonstrated by modern science. He contends that the biblical idea of Deity is simply that of a human monarch, incomparably august indeed, who dwells above the visible heavens, whence he dispatches his celestial ambassadors, and who concentrates his regards upon this mere speck in the universe. He urges that all these representations are suitable only to an age, when the scanty state of human knowledge, assisted by man's natural self-love, induced him to conceive of this earth as the only inhabited world in all the Creator's dominions, and of the universe around it, as consisting of three concentric regions, the first comprising the atmosphere and the abode of evil spirits, the second comprehending the sun, moon, and stars, whose only purpose was to give light upon the earth,' and the third being the residence of God and of the holy angels and he pleads that these representations which are spread over the whole extent of Scripture, are intolerable to the mind imbued with modern philosophy, and enlightened with modern discoveries, concerning the system and extent of the universe; from which we learn the earth's relative insignificance to the crea

tion, and the relation which countless other worlds bear to the divine' omnipresence. To such a mind, he alleges, that the words. 'going up' and 'coming down' have no rational meaning. He accordingly regards such scriptural representations with the same feelings of pity and forbearance with which we may imagine Socrates or Cicero to have contemplated the popular belief of their countrymen, which fixed the abode of the gods on the summits of Olympus. He maintains that modern philosophy, whose conclusions he regards as irrefragable, is totally repugnant to scriptural views of Deity, and of his abode; and while he pronounces those views unphilosophical, he also decides that they are untrue. In a word, he concludes, that the Creator of the universe never could have inspired the Bible, because its representations are utterly inconsistent with the knowledge of nature afforded by modern science. Accordingly, Strauss, in the introduction to his Life of Jesus, ch. i., speaks of the want of harmony and agreement which has arisen between the new intellect and the ancient Scripture;' and this supposed want no doubt originated the disastrous attempt he has made to supply it.

Pressed by this seeming repugnance, some believers in revelation have pleaded that the acknowledged anthropomorphism of the Scriptures is a divine condescension to the degree of knowledge possessed by mankind in past ages. This style,' says Dr. Pye Smith, was undoubtedly adopted as the most conformable with the fresh and lively sensibilities of mankind in the first periods of literary composition. The anthropopathia, which the spirit of inspiration condescended so largely to employ in the Old Testament, was doubtless best adapted to the men of the earliest ages. Those writers who take this view commonly urge that more abstracted conceptions of the Deity could not have been understood in the comparative infancy of the human faculties in past ages. Hence such writers have invented the canon of interpretation, that whatever the Scriptures ascribe to the Deity after a human manner, we, who have attained to more exalted conceptions of Him, are to understand after an intellectual or spiritual manner. that according to this rule, when we read that God said, let there be light,' we are not to understand a vocal command, but merely a determination of the divine intelligence. When we read that God rested from all his work which he had made, we are to understand simply that he completed the creation of that part of the universe to which the account relates. When it is stated that the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, we are to understand simply an act of the divine power, whereby a part of the

Scripture Testimony, vol. i. p. 525. Second edition.

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earth was rendered particularly fertile. That, by breathing into man's nostrils, we are to understand the act of communicating vitality to man: that, by walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze and calling to Adam, we are to understand a mere intellectual process in the mind of our first parent, by which the consciences of Adam and his wife were by divine agency indeed, but after the usual action of conscience, made to feel the guilt of their transgression; that, by making coats of skins unto Adam and to his wife, we are to understand a divine impulse on their minds, revealing to them the institution of sacrifices; that, by the Lord's smelling a sweet savour from the sacrifices of Noah, we are to understand the divine complacency; that, by the consultation Let us go down now, and see,' &c., we are simply to understand the divine inspection into the conduct and purposes of mankind; and that, by the appearance of Jehovah to Abraham, we are to understand only a series of divine revelations, real indeed, but not made. in the mode related by the sacred writer; but which mode was simply adopted by the Holy Spirit in condescension to the limited conceptions of mankind, at the time when the record of those revelations was first published.

This solution then resolves these cases of anthropomorphism into allegories, in which divine interpositions are represented under a narrative of personal acts, and after a human manner, to suit the apprehension of the Hebrew mind. According to this theory, the Scriptures really consist of intellectual abstractions conveyed under sensible ideas, and under the ascription of human actions to the Deity; and thus are equally adapted to the reader of ancient times, who could not have understood them if otherwise detailed, and to the use of those who in modern ages are capable of understanding the sublimer meaning.

This solution, however well it may apply to the events which transpired before the time of the respective writers of Scripture, and which events might, we may suppose, have been revealed to them by this mode, fails altogether when applied to those theophanies, &c., of which the writers declare themselves to have been actual spectators. It fails altogether when applied to the narrative of our Saviour's local and visible transition into heaven in the sight of his Apostles. It fails also when applied to the anthropomorphism which attaches to the subject of prayer, and which is ever represented in Scripture as having, when rightly offered, an efficacy in procuring blessings which would upon no other condition be granted.

Other apologists for the anthropomorphism of the Scriptures have taken higher ground; and have maintained, that by no other means was it possible to communicate the knowledge of divine

things,

things, not only to mankind at large, but even to those of them. who had attained the utmost extent of intellectual refinement. They have urged that mankind cannot be made to comprehend anything of God except by comparison with the powers, perfections, and properties which they are conscious of in themselves, and observe in others of their own species; that analogy is the only ground upon which we could derive the ideas of God, or of his attributes, whether through reflection or revelation. Thus, Dr. Seiler observes, as men cannot pass beyond the sphere of themselves and the things which surround them, it was not possible to bring within their comprehension a representation of the exalted nature of Deity, in any other way than that God should speak as if he were a human being, and thought, felt, and acted like a human being. Only by means of this wise condescension of God placing His own attributes and counsels in a constant comparison with the faculties and operations of men, could mortals arrive at the necessary, though as yet very feeble knowledge of the invisible and eternal Creator. This is the foundation of that figurative language which is set before us in the whole Holy Scripture.' It is also pleaded by many writers that this method of communicating the knowledge of God to mankind, though necessarily very incomplete, is still sufficient for all the designs of revelation, and forms a safe basis for all the purposes of religion. And revelation itself sanctions this hypothesis, for in that sublime principle propounded in its opening pages, that God created man in his own image,' referring, of course, to the mental and moral constitution of our nature, provision is made for such an intercommunity of ideas between the divine and human mind as may suffice for all the great objects of natural and revealed religion.

But though this theory goes far to explain and justify the quality of the scriptural style under consideration, it does not mitigate the difficulties experienced by what Strauss calls the new intellect,' in the representation of heaven as the abode of Deity, and of heaven as being in such near contiguity to the earth as to admit of an ascent thither, agreeably to our ordinary ideas of motion and distance; which are among the facts which especially seem to excite his discontent. The actual ascent of the Saviour through the air, till a cloud received him out of the Apostles' sight, followed by his sitting down at the right hand of God, was either a real ascent thither, or it was not; and the supposition of its reality is deemed inconsistent with modern ideas of the extent of the universe. It is an instance of what Strauss calls 'the want of harmony between these old documents, and the new mind of those who are sent back to such writings, as peculiarly sacred.' The conclusion is deemed inevitable :-the ideas derived

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