listened to His discourses. In the first place, Christ appears to set aside the method of Halachah as quite secondary, whereas with the scribes it had become of primary importance. 'Legal Judaism,' says Schürer, laid the chief stress upon correctness of action, and comparatively free play was therefore permitted in the sphere of religious notions1.' The scribes in fact represent a tendency diametrically opposed to that of true prophetism. What Frederick Maurice has said. of the scholastic theology of the Greek Church in the seventh and eighth centuries might well apply to the scribes: 'Notions about God more or less occupied them, but God Himself was not in all their thoughts"." With them holiness was too often treated as something merely technical and external, and the religious life was cramped and fettered by innumerable petty restrictions. In a word, the scribes represent that reactionary spirit which at first sight seems to give a discouraging aspect to the post-exilic stage of Israel's religion. Jesus Christ, on the other hand, was recognized by the conscience of His contemporaries as a prophet of God. He lifted high once more the standard of prophetism; righteousness and the love of God, judgment, mercy, and faith 3—these were the theme of His preaching. He left the Halachah untouched, and scarcely noticed. To Him the one thing of supreme importance was that men should have true thoughts about God and His requirement. Accordingly-to notice the second point-the teaching of Jesus was authoritative, and not like that of the scribes. It was characteristic of the Haggadah that though it practically represented what we should call the

1 The Jewish People in the Time of Christ, § 25. Deutsch in the Dict. of the Bible, s. v. 'Versions' (vol. iii. p. 1641), says: The aim of the Haggadah being the purely momentary one of elevating, comforting, edifying its audience for the time being, it did not pretend to possess the slightest authority? Schechter, Studies in Judaism, p. 420, says: The theological side of Judaism, as well as its ideal aspirations and Messianic hopes, find their expression in the Agadah.'

The Religions of the World, p. 23. 3 Matt. xxiii. 23; cp. Luke xi. 42.

dogmatic and moral theology of Judaism, it was nevertheless comparatively unauthoritative. It was nothing more than oral instruction; it represented the acumen and insight of individual teachers, and possessed only the weight which might happen to attach to their utterances. It was taken by the hearers in fact for what it was worth. But the very teaching which the scribes made matter of Haggadah was in our Lord's view essential and primary. Consider His first discourse in the synagogue of Nazareth. It opens with a proclamation, ineffably gracious and tender, of God's character and ways of working. Its theme is grace; its character prophetic; its illustrations are taken not from the Law but from two episodes of Hebrew history speaking the one of judgment, the other of mercy 1. In the manner of Haggadah is the brief comment on each, illustrating the method of God's redemptive action. But most significant is the personal reference to Himself as the anointed of Jehovah, and the calm majesty of the declaration, Verily I say unto you. No wonder that in Jesus men instinctively recognized a teacher come from God, whose word was with power 3. The theme of His teaching imparted its own sublime simplicity to His method of expounding Scripture. He freely employed the Old Testament as illustrating the truths which He revealed about God, but He spoke on the strength of an immediate knowledge of Him whose glory and kingdom He proclaimed; He taught not on authority, but with authority; not as a professional teacher who has studied religious traditions, but as a prophet who by direct intuition knows God.

Thus, speaking generally, the very object of our Lord's coming determined the method in which He employed the ancient Scriptures. To Him all that made for righteous conduct and for truer conceptions of the divine character was of primary importance; to all that the scribes had overlooked or treated with indifference He assigned its rightful prominence. 1 Luke iv. 18-27.

2 John iii. 2.

3 Luke iv. 32.

Haggadah was in a word His favourite method of teaching, but while 'the rabbins interpreted the Scriptures to accord with the traditions of the elders, Jesus interpreted them to accord with the mind of God their author. The sacred liberty which is the characteristic gift of the Holy Spirit appears in the very manner of Christ's citations from the Old Testament. And herein lies another point of contrast between Him and the scribes, whose anxious enslavement to the letter not only blinded them to the inner sense of Scripture and to the daily and hourly fulfilment of it which was going on before their eyes, but actually robbed them of essential reverence for the word of God. They honoured Jehovah with their lips, but their heart was far from him3.

It is clear then that our Lord and His apostles freely sanctioned by their own example the current principles of exegesis, but it is also manifest that both in the subject-matter of their teaching, in modes of illustration, and in the observance of moral proportion, they produced an impression on their hearers different in kind from that which was derived from the teaching of the scribes. In endeavouring, however, to elicit principles from the practice of Christ and the New Testament writers, we have to bear in mind that they used the current methods of exegesis in the way most suitable to the capacity of each particular class of hearers and most appropriate to the subject of their discourse. Moreover, the apostles display differences corresponding to their individual temperament and training: St. Peter, St. James, and St. Jude inclining to the method of Haggadah; St. Paul to that of Halachah with free use of allegorism; while St. John and the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews are distin

1 Briggs, Biblical Study, p. 314. I wish to express my obligations to this useful work, on which some of the following paragraphs are largely based.

22 Cor. iii. 17.

3 Matt. xv. 8. See Valeton, Christus und das A. T. pp. 13 foll.

guished by their preference for this latter method, whether in its Palestinian or in its Hellenistic form.

What, then, are the most striking features in the New Testament exegesis of the Old?

1. First, we notice its remarkable breadth and freedom. Our Lord and His apostles adapt their use of the Old Testament to the requirements and capacities of those whom they address. They deal with Scripture in ways which the popular teaching of the scribes had already rendered familiar. There are passages in the Gospels which are at least closely analogous to the method of Halachah. Such would be the a fortiori argument of St. John x. 34-36: Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came... say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest, because I said, I am the Son of God? Such again is the illustrative combination of references to the Law and to the former and later Prophets in St. Matt. xii. 3 foll., where our Lord is defending against the Pharisees the action of His disciples in plucking the ears of corn on the sabbath day. On the other hand, there is nothing in our Lord's teaching that corresponds to the casuistry of the scribes; indeed it is only in controversy with the learned that He even appears to use the method of Halachah. The large majority of His references to the Law are intended to enforce great principles of morality, and seem calculated to qualify the paramount estimation in which the Law was held by the Jews. Thus many of the quotations, especially from the book of Deuteronomy, are ethical rather than legalistic, and it is significant that in dealing with a lawyer, our Lord takes occasion to enunciate in two passages from the Torah the law of love in its widest form, adding to them the comment that on the two commandments of love towards God

1 Aug. de util. cred. 6 refers to this passage as a simple use of Scripture secundum historiam.

and love towards one's neighbour hang all the law and the prophets1.

Of the apostolic writers, St. Paul especially shows partiality for Halachah. Thus in Rom. iv. 3-6 we have an argument on the subject of faith, applying a general principle to an individual case, which is in the manner of Halachah2. So in 1 Cor. ix. 9 (cp. 1 Tim. v. 18) a passage of Deuteronomy (xxv. 4) is appealed to as implying the acknowledged rule of equity, that service merits reward. Again, such a combination of passages as is used to illustrate or prove a point in Rom. iii. 10 foll, is in accordance with the principles of the Halachah 3.

More suitable, however, than Halachah for purposes of popular teaching would be Haggadah, that is expansive comment on passages of sacred Scripture, or free imaginative application of them. There can be no doubt that the apostolic writers were divinely guided in their use of this method, so markedly do they avoid the idle or absurd legends which the Haggadah of the scribes had woven around the sacred story. Thus St. James illustrates the nature of faith from the cases of Abraham and Rahab, and enforces the lesson of patience from the experience of Job. Indeed it may be said generally that all references to Old Testament passages and incidents as typical or prophetic of Christ and His kingdom are in the style of Haggadah. Conspicuous instances would be the Messianic citations in St. Paul's Epistles and the description of Melchizedek, or the catalogue of the heroes of faith in the Epistle to the Hebrews, so far as these

1 Matt. xxii. 35-40; cp. Luke x. 25-28. On Matt. xxii. 40 Valeton, Christus und das A. T. p. 16, remarks: Hier ist mehr als ein einfaches Zitat aus Deut. 6. 5 und Levit. 19. 18; hier ist wieder eine kleine Probe von der göttlichen Freiheit, die nicht auflöst, sondern erfüllt.

2 A somewhat similar argument from the law' (in this case Isa. xxviii. II, 12) is found in 1 Cor. xiv. 21 foll. It is possible that the word didaokadia in the N. T. signifies Halachic teaching.

1:3 Compare a somewhat similar combination of passages to prove a point in James ii. 8-13.