History of the Jewish Church: Preface
by Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D.
The contents of this volume, in accordance with a
plan which I have set forth elsewhere, consist of
Lectures, actually or in substance, addressed to my
usual hearers at Oxford, chiefly candidates for Holy
Orders. The Twentieth (with some slight variations
from its present form) was preached as a sermon from
the University Pulpit. These circumstances will ac-
count both for the local allusions, and for the practical
character of the Lectures, which I have left in most
cases as they originally stood.
Throughout the volume I have endeavored to bear
in mind three main objects, indicated in its title.
In the first place, the work must be regarded not
as a History, but as Lectures. This mode of in-
struction besides being that to which I was naturally
led by the duties of my Chair, appeared to me spe-
cially adapted to the subjects of which I was to treat.
In the case of a history so familiar as that of which
the materials are for the most part contained in the
Bible, and containing, as it does, topics of the most
varied interest, the form of Lectures, whilst it avoided
the necessity of a continuous narrative , enabled me
to select the portions most susceptible of fresh illus-
tration and combination, and at the same time most
likely to stimulate an intelligent study of the whole.
Moreover, there already exists in English a well-known
historical narrative of the History of the Jews, which
is now, I am glad to hope, on the point of reappearing,
with its most recent revisions from the pen of its
distinguished author. I trust that the venerable Dean
of S. Paul's will add to his many other kindnesses
his forgiveness of this intrusion on a field peculiarly
his own, — an intrusion which would never have been
attempted, but in the belief that it would not inter-
fere with those labors which have made his name
dear to all who know the value of a genuine love
of truth and freedom, combined with profound theo-
logical learning and high ecclesiastical station.
Secondly, although for the above reasons abstaining
from the attempt to write a consecutive history, I
have wished to present the main characters and events
of the Sacred Narrative in a form as nearly historical
as the facts of the case will admit.
The Jewish History has suffered from causes similar
to those which still, within our own memory, obscured
the history of Greece and of Rome. Till within the
present century, the characters and institutions of
those two great countries were so veiled from view in
the conventional haze with which the enchantment
of distance had invested them, that when the more
graphic and critical historians of our time broke
through this reserve, a kind of shock was felt through
all the educated classes of the country. The same
change was in a still higher degree needed with regard
to the history of the Jews. Its sacred character had
deepened the difficulty already occasioned by its ex-
treme antiquity. That earliest of Christian heresies
— Docetism, or "phantom worship" — the reluctance
to recognize in sacred subjects their identity with our
own flesh and blood — has at different periods of the
Christian Church affected the view entertained of the
whole Bible. The same tendency which led Philo and
Origen, Augustine and Gregory the Great, to see in
the plainest statements of the Jewish history a series
of mystical allegories, in our own time has as com-
pletely closed its real contents to a large part both
of religious and irreligious readers, as if it had been
a collection of fables. Many, who would be scandal-
ized at ignorance of the battles of Salamis or Cannæ,
know and care nothing for the battles of Beth-horon
and Megiddo. To search the Jewish records, as we
would search those of other nations, is regarded as
dangerous. Even to speak of any portion of the Bible
as a "history," has been described, even by able and
pious men, as an outrage upon religion.
In protesting against this elimination of the histor-
ical element from the Sacred Narrative, I shall not be
understood as wishing to efface the distinction which
good taste, no less than reverence, will always endeav-
or to preserve between the Jewish and other histories.
Even in dealing with Greek and Roman times, we
must beware of an excessive reaction against the old
system of nomenclature. An indiscriminate introduc-
tion of modern associations into the ancient or the
sacred world is almost as misleading as their entire
exclusion. But we shall be best preserved from such
dangers by a true understanding of the actual events,
persons, and countries of which we profess to speak.
And there are so many signs of returning healthiness
in regard to Biblical History, that we need not fear
for the result. It is one of the many debts of grat-
itude which the Church of England owes to the
author of the "Christian Year," that he was one of
the first amongst our divines who ventured in his
well-known poems to allude to the scenes and the
characters of the Sacred Story in the same terms
that he would have used if speaking of any other
remarkable history. It is for this reason, amongst
others, that I have on all occasions, where it was pos-
sible, employed his language — now happily familiar
to the whole of English Christendom — to enforce and
to illiustrate my own descriptions. Similar examples
of freely handling these sacred subjects in a becoming
spirit may be seen (to select two works, widely dif-
fering in other respects) in Dr. Robinson's "Biblical
Researches in Palestine," and the Prefaces to Dr. Pu-
sey's "Commentary on the Minor Prophets." Indeed
it may safely be said, — and it is the almost inevitable
result of an intimate acquaintance with the language,
the topography, or the poetry of the Bible, — that
whoever has passed through any one of these gates
into a nearer presence of the truths and the events
described will never again be able to speak of them
with the cold and stiff formality which once was
thought their only safeguard.
Thirdly, it has been my intention to make these
Lectures strictly "ecclesiastical." The history of the
Jewish race, language, and antiquities belongs to other
departments. It is the history of the Jewish Church
of which my office invited me to speak. I have thus
been led to dwell especially on those parts of the
history which bear directly on the religious develop-
ment of the nation. I have never forgotten that the
literature of the Hebrew race, from which the mate-
rials of those Lectures are drawn, is also the Bible, —
the Sacred Book, or Books, of Christendom. I have
constantly endeavored to remind my hearers and
readers that the Christian Church sprang out of the
Jewish, and therefore to connect the history of the
two together, both by way of contrast and illustra-
tion, wherever opportunity offered. Whatever me-
morials of any particular form or epoch of the Jew-
ish History can be permanently traced in the institu-
tions, the language, the imagery, of either Church, I
have endeavored carefully to not. The desire to
find in all parts of the Old Testament allegories or
types of the New, has been pushed to such an excess
that many students turn away from this side of the
history in disgust. But there is a continuity of Char-
acter running through the career of the Chosen Peo-
ple which cannot be disputed, and on this, the true
historical basis of "types" — which is, in fact, only
the Greek word for "likenesses," — I have not scru-
pled to dwell. Throughout I have sought to recog-
nize the identity of purpose — the constant gravita-
tion towards the greatest of all events — which un-
der any hypothesis, must furnish the main interest of
the History of Israel.
These are the chief points to which I have called
attention in my Lectures, and to which I here again
call the attention of my readers. There are many
collateral questions naturally arising out of the sub-
ject, for which the purpose of this work furnishes no
scope. Discussions of chronology, statistics, and phy-
sical science, — of the critical state of the different
texts and the authorship of the different portions of
the narration, — of the precise limits to be drawn be-
tween natural and supernatural, providential and
miraculous, — unless in passages where the existing
documents and the existing localities force the con-
sideration upon us, — I have usually left unnoticed. I
have passed by these questions, because I do not
wish to disturb my readers with distinctions which to
the Sacred writers were for the most part alien and
unknown, and which, within the limits of the plan of
this work, would be superfluous and inappropriate.
The only exception which I have made has been in
favor of illustrations from Geography. These, from
the circumstances of my having been twice enabled to
visit the scenes of Sacred History, I felt that I might
be pardoned for offering as my special contribution
to the study of the subject, even if they somewhat
exceeded the due proportion of the rest of the work.
On all other matters of this secondary nature, I have
been content to rest on the researches of others, and
to refer to them for further elucidation. No one will,
I trust, suspect me of undervaluing these researches.
It is my firm conviction that in proportion as such
inquiries are fearlessly pursued by those who are able
to make them, will be the gain both to the cause of
Biblical science and of true religion; and I, for one,
must profess my deep obligations to those who, in
other countries, have devoted their time and labor,
and in this country have hazarded worldly interests
and popular favor, in this noble, though often peril-
ous, pursuit of Divine Truth.
To name any, in a field where so many have con-
tributed to the general result, would be difficult and
invidious. But there is one so distinguished above the
rest, and so closely connected with the subject of this
work, that I must be permitted to express here, once
for all, the gratitude which I, in common with many
others, owe to his vast labors.
It is now twenty-five years ago since Arnold wrote
to Bunsen, "What Wolf and Niebuhr have done for
Greece and Rome, seems sadly wanted for Judæa."
The wish thus boldly expressed for a critical and his-
torical investigation of the Jewish history was, in fact,
already on the eve of accomplishment. At the time
Ewald was only known as one of the chief Orientalists
of Germany. He had not yet proved himself to be
the first Biblical scholar in Europe. But, year by year,
he was advancing towards his grand object. To his
profound knowledge of the Hebrew language he added
step by step, a knowledge of each stage of the Hebrew
Literature. These labors on the prophetic and poetic
books of the ancient Scripture culminated in his no-
ble work on the History of the People of Israel — as
powerful in its general conception, as it is saturated
with learning down to its minutest details. It would
be presumptuous in me either to defend or to attack
the critical analysis, which to most English readers
savors of arbitrary dogmatism, with which he assigns
special dates and authors to the manifold constituent
parts of the several books of the Old Testament; and
from many of his general statements I should venture
to express my disagreement, were this the place to do
so. But the intimate acquaintance which he exhibits
with every portion of the Sacred Writings, combined
as it is with a loving and reverential appreciation of
each individual character, and of the whole spirit and
purpose of the Israelitish history, has won the respect
even of those who differ widely from his conclusions.
How vast its silent effect has been may be seen from
the recognition of its value, not only in its author's
own country, but in France and in England also. One
instance may suffice: — the constant reference to his
writing throughout the new "Dictionary of the Bible,"
to which I have myself so often referred with advan-
tage, and which more than any other singe English
work is intended to represent the knowledge and
meet the wants of the rising generation of Biblical
students.
But, in fact, my aim has been not to recommend
the teaching or the researches of any theologian how-
ever eminent, but to point the way to the treasures
themselves of that History on which I have spent so
many years of anxious, yet delightful, labor. There
are some excellent men who disparage the Old Tes-
tament, as the best means of saving the New. There
are others who think that it can only be maintained
by discouraging all inquiry into its authority or its
contents. It is true that the Old Testament is inferior
to the New, that it contains and sanctions many in-
stitutions and precepts (polygamy, for example, and
slavery), which have been condemned or abandoned
by the tacit consent of nearly the whole of Christen-
dom. But this inferiority is no more than both
Testaments freely recognize; the one by pointing to
a Future greater than itself, the other by insisting on
the gradual, partial, imperfect character of the Reve-
lations that had preceded it. It is true also that the
rigid acceptance of every part of the Old Testament,
as of equal authority, equal value, and equal accuracy,
is rendered impossible by every advance made in Bib-
lical science, and by every increase in our acquaintance
with Eastern customs and primeval history. But it is
no less true that by almost every one of these ad-
vances the beauty and grandeur of the substance
and spirit of its different parts are enhanced to a de-
gree far transcending all that was possible in former
ages.
My object will have been attained, if, by calling at-
tention to these incontestable and essential features
of the Sacred History, I may have been able in any
measure to smooth the approaches to some of the
theological difficulties which may be in store for this
generation; still more if I can persuade any one to
look on the History of the Jewish Church as it really
is; to see how important is the place which it occu-
pies in the general education of the world, — how
many elements of religious thought it supplies, which
even the New Testament fails to furnish in the same
degree, — how largely indebted to it have been already,
and may yet be, in a still greater degree, the Civil-
ization and the Faith of mankind.
CHRIST CHURCH, OXFORD:
Sept. 16, 1862
from The History of the Jewish Church, Vol. I : Abraham to Samuel,
Preface
by Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D., Dean of Westminster
Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1879, pp. vii - xvi
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