BOOK III.

WHAT IS THE TRUE MEANING OF THE TERM

"INSPIRATION?"

CHAPTER I.

PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS.

IF, as a matter of fact, the Bible be not infallible; and if there be no good reason which can be assigned for our supposing the sacred volume otherwise than fallible, what shall we say of the inspired writings? And first, Do we believe the Bible to be inspired at all? Undoubtedly we do. We are firmly convinced that the writers of Holy Scripture were inspired, and that their writings are the reflex of their own inspired minds and thoughts and thus we most distinctly avow our belief in the inspiration of the Bible. But, as has been seen, we are assured that there is no connexion whatever between Infallibility and Inspiration.

SECTION 1.-The idea of "Inspiration," but not the word, is in Scripture.

WHAT then is the true meaning of this solemn and important word?

Let us, first of all, remind the reader that there is no such word as our English noun "Inspiration" either in the Hebrew of the Old Testament or in the Greek of the New. Twice, indeed, in the English Bible, the term is used, but it is not an exact rendering of the idiom in the original. Thus, in Job xxxii. 8, "But "there is a spirit in man and the inspiration of the "Almighty gives them understanding," the Hebrew word translated "inspiration" is, according to Gesenius, more correctly rendered by the words "breath" or "spirit." So, too, in 2 Tim. iii. 16, every tyro in Greek knows that an adjective (theopneustos, signifying 'divinely inspired") is the term which our translators have paraphrased as equivalent to "given by inspiration "of God." Thus, in the two passages of the English Bible where "inspiration" is mentioned, there is no exactly equivalent noun either in the Hebrew or the Greek.

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Do we mean then that the idea of inspiration is novel or peculiar to the English? Far from it. We hope, ere long, to show the reader that this idea is thoroughly Hebrew: but, in order to do this, it is necessary that we should point out that neither the Hebrew language nor the vocabulary of the New Testament writers expressed this grand idea by any single, abstract word like our "inspiration." If a Jew, or an early Christian, wished to say that any action was referable to some inspiration, his mode of expressing this idea was, Such and such an action was performed by such and such a spirit, good or evil, as the case might be.

Answering, then, to our word inspiration neither the Hebrew of the Old Testament nor the Greek of the New has any term: but, for our words "spirit" and "ghost," the Hebrew had the common term "Ruach" and the rarer noun "Neshamah;" whilst the Greek had the one word "Pneuma."

Thus, then, an English reader, who knows nothing of the Bible's original languages, can thoroughly understand our present investigation if he will remember that, wherever "Spirit" occurs in our Old Testament, it is, in the original, represented generally by the word "Ruach" and, in a few instances, by the synonymous word "Neshamah:" and wherever "Spirit" or "Ghost" occur in our New Testament, with reference to the Deity, they answer to the one word "Pneuma" in the Greek.

SECTION 2.-The Vague Application of the terms "Ghost," "Spirit," and their equivalents in the Greek and in the Hebrew.

THE next observation we would offer to the reader is that all these several terms, in the Hebrew, Greek, and English, are used indiscriminately to denote things sacred and profane, if, indeed, this their usage be not an eternal protest against the prevalent belief that any creature of God can be "profane" or otherwise than sacred.

Thus, the word "ghost" is by no means confined to the denoting a divine agent; but even, in modern Eng

lish, it signifies the popular idea of any disembodied human person; and, in scriptural English, we find the expression "yielded up the ghost" as the rendering for a Greek word signifying "died:" and the word "spirit" is by us employed, in manifold senses, to denote courage, animation, alcoholic mixtures, and a multitude of other things.

The Hebrew word "Neshamah was used, Gesenius tells us, to signify the "soul" of man, any "living creature," and once to denote "the mind" (in Prov. xx. 27), or, yet again, it was employed to signify "the panting "of those who are angry:" and, in like manner, the other Hebrew term, "Ruach," occurs as a name for the breath of man, the wind, the quarters of heaven, any thing vain and fickle like the wind, the vital principle, and the rational mind.

Equally various are the significations of the Greek word Pneuma; as is well exemplified by Jno. iii. 8. "The spirit breatheth (our translators say with note"worthy incorrectness 'the wind bloweth') where it "listeth and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst "not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth: so "is every one that is born of the spirit.”

Thus wide and various are the significations of the several words, in Hebrew, Greek, and English, by which the agent who inspires is designated. Does the Divine agent derive his name from some resemblance which is supposed to exist between Him and man's mind, or the vital principle, or the wind? Or, on the other hand, do these and many other created beings and energies obtain

their honourable designation from the belief that they exist and have their power only by the originating and sustaining instrumentality of God whose name is "Ruach," "Pneuma," "Spirit ? "

We are decidedly of the latter opinion ourselves: but, in the meanwhile, we only ask the reader to notice with what a width and consequent occasional confusedness of signification each of these terms is used. "Spirit" is not confined to denoting the Holy Ghost: but has several other meanings in English. So, likewise, is it with "Pneuma" in Greek and with "Ruach" in Hebrew.

But, at present, our object is, if possible, to ascertain in what sense the "Ruach" of God, the divine "Pneu"ma," the Holy "Spirit" is spoken of? In what manner, and in what persons or things, is he said to operate? If, by the help of Old Testament usage, or if by noticing the way in which these terms are applied in the New Testament and in the languages of Christendom, we can answer this question, we shall be sure of success in finding a true, historical definition for our modern word Inspiration; for we shall have the ancient idea to which more recent custom has affixed this title.