Lecture I : The Call of Abraham (part 2)

by Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D.        

II.   What then is the position which has been     
accorded to Abraham by the general witness of his-     
tory?  What was it which caused his own nation to     
make their highest boast of a descent from him?  which       
caused them to look forward to the rest in his bosom     
as the fitting repose of wearied souls that have escaped     
from the toil of their earthly pilgrimage?         
   The answer may best be given by considering the     
two names by which he is known in the traditions     
of the East, and which, though they only occur once     
or twice in Scripture, yet so well correspond to its     
whole representation of Abraham, that they may fitly     
be taken as his distinguishing characteristics.        
   1.  First, he is "the Friend of God."  "El-Khalil-Allah,"      
or, as he is more usually called, "El-Khalil," sim-       
ply, "the Friend," is a title which has in Mus-       
sulman countries superseded altogether his own proper     
name.  In many ways it has a peculiar significance.        
It is, in its most general aspect, an illustration of the         
difference which has been well remarked between the     
early beginnings of Jewish history and those of any      
other ancient nation.  Grant to the uttermost the un-     
certain, shadowy, fragmentary character of these prim-         
itive records, yet there is one point brought out      
clearly and distinctly.  The ancestor of the Chosen     
People is not, as in the legends of Greece and Rome,     
or even Germany, a god or a demi-god, or the son     
of a god: he is, as we have just observed, a mere     
man, a chief, such as those to whom these records were     
first presented must have constantly seen with their      
own eyes.  The interval between the human and the     
divine is never confounded.  Close as are the com-     
munications with Deity, yet the Divine essence is    
always veiled, the man is never absorbed into it.          
Abraham is "the Friend," but he is nothing more.      
He is nothing more; but he is nothing less.  He is      
"the friend of God."  The title includes a double     
meaning.  He is "beloved of God."  "Fear not, Abram,      
I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward."       
He was "chosen" by God: he was "called"     
by God.  Although in the word "ecclesia," in          
its religious sense, the etymological meaning, as "of an      
assembly called forth by the herald," is lost in the gen-      
eral idea of "a congregation," yet this original mean-      
ing gives a fitness to the consideration the he who      
was the first in the succession of the "ecclesia," or     
"church," was so by virtue of what is known in all     
subsequent history as his "call."  The word itself, as      
applied to the summons which led the Patriarch forth,     
rarely occurs in the sacred writers.  But it gathers    
up in a short compass the chief meaning of his first    
appearance.  In him was exemplified the fundamental    
truth of all religion, that God has not deserted the      
world; that His work is carried on by his chosen      
instruments; that good men are not only His creat-    
ures and His servants, but his friends.  In those      
simple words in which the Biblical narrative describes      
"the call," whatever there is of truth in the predes-     
tinarian doctrine of Augustine and of Calvin finds its     
earliest expression.          
   But the further meaning involved in the title of      
Abraham indicates the correlative truth, — not only     
was Abraham beloved by God, but God was "beloved       
by him;" not only was God the Friend of Abraham,     
but Abraham was "the friend of God."  To expand     
this truth is to see what was the religion, the com-     
munion with the Supreme, which raised Abraham      
above his fellow-men.       
   The greater histories of the Christian Church usu-     
ally commence with dissertations on the state     
of the heathen world at the time of the birth     
of Christ.  Something analogous to this ought, if it      
were possible, to be in our minds in conceiving the      
rise of the Jewish Church in the person of Abraham.      
But it would be of a totally different kind; it would be-         
long to the province rather of philosophy than of history.     
we must transport ourselves back to that primeval time     
of which so lively a picture has lately been furnished     
from the results of philological research; of       
which, in the European world, we see perhaps    
the last traces of Homer, but of which still later     
memorials were preserved in the New World in the Pe-        
ruvian worship, even down to the sixteenth century,    
when it was seen and elaborately described by the    
first Spanish discoverers.  The objects of nature, espe-    
cially the heavenly bodies, were then invested with a     
"glory" and a "freshness" which has long since     
"passed away" from the earth; they seem to be      
instinct with a divinity, which exercised an almost         
irresistible fascination over their first beholders.  "The       
sight of the sun when it shined, and of the moon       
walking in brightness," was a temptation as potent        
to them as to us it is inconceivable; "their heart       
was securely enticed, and their hand kissed their      
mouth."  There was also another form of idolatry,     
though less universal in its influence.  "There were      
giants on earth in those days;" giants, if not     
actually, yet by their colossal strength and awful      
majesty: the Pharaohs and Nimrods, whose forms we      
can still trace on the monuments of Egypt      
and Assyria in their gigantic proportions, the      
mighty hunters, the royal priests, the deified men.        
From the control of these powers, before which all    
meaner men bowed down, from the long ancestral     
prepossessions of "country and kindred and father's     
house," the first worshippers of One who was above      
all alike had painfully to disentangle themselves.  It        
is true that Abraham hardly appears before us as a     
prophet or teacher of any new religion.  As the       
Scripture represents him, it is rather as if he was       
possessed of the truth himself, than as if he had any       
call to proclaim it to others.  His life is his creed;      
his migration his mission.  But we can hardly         
doubt that here the legendary tales fill up,      
though in their own fantastic way, what the         
Biblical account dimly implies.  He was, in practice,      
the Friend of God in the noblest of all senses of       
the word; the Friend who stood fast when others      
fell away.  He is the first distinct historical witness,       
at least for his own race and country, to Theism —         
to Monotheism, to the unity of the Lord and Ruler        
of all against the primeval idolatries, the natural relig-      
ion of the ancient world.  It may be an empty fable     
that Terah was a maker of idols, and that Abraham         
was cast by Nimrod into a burning fiery furnace for      
refusing to worship him.  But even in the Book of       
Joshua we read that the original fathers of the Jew-      
ish race who dwelt beyond the Euphrates served          
other gods, and the deliverance implied in the call      
indicates something laid in Ur, sometimes in the cele-         
brated hill above Damascus.  The story is best told       
in the words of the Koran.  "When night overshadowed       
him, he saw a star, and said, 'This is my Lord.'  But        
when it set, he said, 'I like not those that set.'  And            
when he saw the moon rising, he said, 'This is my Lord.'         
But when the moon set, he answered, 'Verily if my Lord           
direct me not in the right way, I shall be as one of those        
who err.'  And when he saw the sun rising, he said,            
'This is my Lord.  This is greater than the star or       
moon.'  But when the sun went down, he said, 'O my       
people, I am clear of these things.  I turn my face to      
Him who hath made the heaven and the earth.' "  It is        
an illustration of this ancient legend that many ages           
afterwards another dweller in Ur of the Chaldees, that      
Syrian saint of whom I have before spoken, Ephrem         
of Edessa, relates that once coming out of the city       
very early in the morning with two of his compan-         
ions, he gazed upon the heavens, spangled with bright       
stars.  Their brilliancy struck him as they had struck          
the Chaldæan shepherd of old; and he said, "If the          
brightness of these stars be so dazzling how will the              
saints shine when Christ shall come in glory!"  What       
a world of new hopes, new fears, new prospects, lies       
between the reflection of the primitive patriarch and       
the reflection of the Christian saint.            
   2.  This leads us to the second name by which Abra-        
ham is known, "The Father of the Faithful."         
Two points are involved in this name also.        
First, he was himself "the Faithful."  In him was        
most distinctly manifested the gift of "faith."  In him,        
long, long before Luther, long before Paul, was it pro-        
claimed in a sense far more universal and clear than        
the "paradox" of the Reformer, not less clear and        
universal than the preaching of the Apostle,         
that "man is justified by faith."  "Abraham believed in      
the Lord and He counted it to him for righteousness."         
Powerful as is the effect of these words when we       
read them in their first untarnished freshness, they            
gain immensely in their original language, to which        
neither Greek nor German, much less Latin of English,        
can furnish any full equivalent.  "He was supported,        
he was built up, he reposed as a child in its moth-      
er's arms" (such seems the force of the Hebrew      
word) in the strength of God; in God whom he did       
not see, more than in the giant empires of earth, and       
the bright lights of heaven, or the claims of tribe and      
kindred, which were always before him.  "It was count-          
ed to him for righteousness."  It "was counted to        
him," and his history seals and ratifies the result.         
His faith, as we have seen transpires not in any out-      
ward profession of faith, but precisely in that which       
far more nearly concerns him and every one of us,         
in his prayers, in his actions, in the righteousness, the      
"justice" (if one may again so draw out the sense of       
the Hebrew word), the "uprightness," the moral "ele-      
vation of soul and spirit which sent him on his way      
straightforward, without turning to the right hand or     
to the left.  His belief, vague, it may be, indefinite    
and scanty, even in the most elementary truths of      
religion, is in the scriptures implied rather than stated.           
It is in him simply "the evidence of things not seen,"        
"the hope against hope."  His faith, in the literal     
sense of the word, is known to us only through "his       
works."  He and his descendants are blessed, not        
as in the Koran, because of his adoption of the          
first article of the creed of Islam, but because      
he had "obeyed the voice of the Lord, and kept      
His charge, His commandments, His statutes, and His            
laws."            
   Such was the faith of the First Believer: in how      
many ways, an example, a consolation, a study,           
to his latest descendants.  And this prepares      
us for observing that he was not only "faithful," but       
"the Father of the Faithful."  In modern ages of the        
history of the Church it has had a narrowing effect on       
the conscience and feelings of those who have strongly      
embraced it.  It was far otherwise with its first     
exemplification in the life of the Patriarch Abraham.           
His very name implies this universal mission.  "The         
Father" (Abba); "The lofty Father" (Ab-ram); "The      
Father of multitudes" (Ab-raham); the venerable      
parent, surveying, as if from that lofty eminence, the          
countless progeny who should look up to him as their      
spiritual ancestor.  He was, first, the Father of the     
Chosen People, the people who, by reason of their       
faith, though in one sense the narrowest of all ancient      
nations, yet were also the widest in their diffusion       
and dispersion, — the only people, that, by virtue of     
an invisible bond, maintained their national union in      
spite of local difference and division.  But he was        
much more than the Father of the Chosen People.        
It is not a mere allegory or accidental application of       
separate texts, that justifies S. Paul's appeal to the        
case of Abraham as including within itself the faith      
of the whole Gentile world.  His position, as repre-        
sented to us in the original records, is of itself far     
wider than that of any merely Jewish saint or national      
hero; and he is, on that ground alone, the fitting im-      
age to meet us at the outset of the history of the        
Church.  He, the founder of the Jewish race, was yet,         
by the confession of their own annals, not a Jew, nor       
the father exclusively of the Jews.  He was "the He-       
brew," to whom, both in Biblical record and their       
own traditions, the Arabian no less than the Israelite      
tribes look back as to their first ancestor.  The scene      
of his life, as of the Patriarchs generally, breathes a      
larger atmosphere than the contracted limits of Pal-      
estine, — the free air of the plains of Mesopotamia      
and the desert, — the neighborhood of the vast shapes      
of the Babylonian monarchy on one side, and of     
Egypt on the other.  He is not an ecclesiastic, not     
an ascetic, not even a learned sage, but a chief, a     
shepherd, a warrior, full of all the affections and in-     
terests of family and household, and wealth and power,       
and for this very reason the first true type of the      
religious man, the first representative of the whole    
Church of God.         
   This universality of Abraham's faith, — this eleva-     
tion, this multitudinousness of the Patriarchal, paternal      
character, which his name involves, has also found     
a response in those later traditions and feelings of      
which I have before spoken.  When Mahomet attacks       
the idolatry of the Arabs, he justifies himself by argu-          
ing, almost in the language of S. Paul, that the faith     
which he proclaimed in One Supreme God was no new     
belief, but was identical with the ancient religion of     
their first father Abraham.  When the Emperor Alex-       
ander Severus placed in the chapel of his palace the     
statues of the choice spirits of all times, Abraham,     
rather than Moses, was selected, as the centre, doubt-      
less, of a more extended circle of sacred associations.      
When the author of the "Liberty of Prophesying"         
ventured, before any other English divine, to lift up     
his voice in behalf of universal religious toleration, he     
was glad to shelter himself under the authority of the     
ancient Jewish or Persian apologue, of doubtful origin,      
but of most instructive wisdom, of almost Scriptural       
simplicity, which may well be repeated here as an           
expression of the world-wide sympathies which attach       
to the Father of the Faithful.           
   "When Abraham sate at his tent-door, according to his     
custom, waiting to entertain strangers, he espied an old     
man stooping and leaning on his staff, weary with age and      
travel, coming towards him, who was an hundred years of       
age.  He received him kindly, washed his feet, provided sup-     
per, caused him to sit down, but observing that the old man       
ate and prayed not, nor begged for a blessing on his meat,        
asked him why he did not worship the God of Heaven?       
The old man told him that he worshipped the fire only,       
and acknowledged no other god; at which answer Abra-      
ham grew so zealously angry, that he thrust the old man       
out of his tent, and exposed him to all the evils of the     
night and an unguarded condition.  When the old man       
was gone, God called to him and asked him where the      
stranger was; he replied: 'I thrust him away, because he       
did not worship thee.'  God answered, 'I have suffered     
him these hundred years, though he dishonoured me; and       
couldst not thou endure him for one night, when he gave      
thee no trouble?'  Upon this, saith the story, Abraham        
fetched him back again, and gave him hospitable entertain-        
ment, and wise instruction.  Go thou and do likewise; and      
thy charity will be rewarded by the God of Abraham."          
   If we may trust the ingenious conjecture of a dis-     
tinguished writer, whom I have already quoted,       
a more certain and enduring memorial has        
been preserved of this side of Abraham's mission.           
The name by which the Deity is known throughout      
the patriarchal or introductory age of the Jewish       
Church is "Elohim," translated in the English version      
"God."  In this name has been discovered a trace of             
the conciliatory, comprehensive mission of the first     
Prophet of the true religion.  "Elohim" is a plural     
noun, though followed by a verb in the singular.       
When "Eloah" (God) was first used in the plural,      
"many Eloahs;" and such a plural could only have     
been formed after the various names of God had be-       
come the names of independent deities; that is, dur-      
ing a polytheistic stage.  The transition from this into      
the monotheistic stage could be effected only in two      
ways; either by denying altogether the existence of      
the Elohim and changing them into devils, — as was      
done in Persia, — or by taking a higher view, and       
looking upon them as so many names invented with       
the honest purpose of expressing the various aspects     
of the Deity, though in time diverted from their orig-      
inal intention.  This was the view taken by Abraham.       
whatever the names of the Elohim worshipped by      
the numerous clans of his race, Abraham saw that all      
the Elohim were meant for God; and thus Elohim,        
comprehending by one name everything that ever was     
or ever could be called Divine, became the name by    
which the monotheistic age was rightly inaugurated:        
a plural conceived and constructed as a singular.  From       
this point of view the Semitic name of the Deity,      
which at first sounds not only ungrammatical, but            
irrational, becomes perfectly clear and intelligible.  It     
is at once the proof that Monotheism rose on the    
ruins of a polytheistic faith, and that it absorbed and        
acknowledged the better tendencies of that faith.  In      
the true spirit of the later Apostle of the Gentiles,       
Abraham, his first predecessor and model, declared the      
God "whom they ignorantly worshipped," to be the      
"God that made the world, and all things therein,       
the Lord of heaven and earth," "in whom we live,       
and move, and have our being."         
   Yet, however comprehensive is this type of the       
Patriarch's character, there is an exclusive-       
ness also.  In one point of view, "he is the      
Father of all them that believe, though they      
be not circumcised:" in another point of view he is        
the Father of the circumcision only.  That venerable     
rite, indeed, which in the first beginnings of Chris-        
tianity was regarded only as a mark of division and      
narrowness, was, in the primitive Eastern world, the      
sign of a  proud civilization.  It was not only a Jew-      
ish, but an Arabian, a Phœnician, an Egyptian cus-      
tom.  As such it still lingers in the Coptic and Abys-      
sinian Churches.  How far any of these countries re-       
ceived it from Abraham, or Abraham from them, is       
now almost as difficult to ascertain, as it is to dis-        
cern the original signification of a usage, once so        
honourable and so sacred, and now so entirely re-      
moved alike from honor and from sanctity.  But the         
limitation, of which, in a religious sense, it was the      
symbol, is expressed in a passage of the Patriarch's     
life which stands midway, as it were, between his       
wider and his narrower call.  In the visions     
of the night Abraham is called forth by the        
Divine voice, from the curtains of the tent, under the    
open sky.  He is told to look towards heaven, the       
clear bright Eastern heaven, glittering with innumer-     
able stars, those stars which all tradition, as we have      
seen, has so naturally and so closely connected with      
the education and conversion of Abraham; the stars       
which have in all times taught unearthly wisdom and        
vastness of spiritual ideas to the mind of man.  "Look      
toward heaven, and tell the star, if thou be able to      
number them.  So shall thy seed be."  This was, if      
taken in its fullest sense, that wide, incalculable, inter-         
minable view of all nations, and kindreds, and peoples,           
and tongues — each star differing from the other star       
in glory — of which we have already spoken.  But       
the vision was not ended.  He was bidden to prepare     
as for the peculiar forms of sacrifice which, t is said,       
for centuries afterwards, in his own country, were used       
to sanction a treaty or covenant.  The birds, and the      
fragments of the heifer and the goat, were parted, so       
as to leave a space for the contracting parties to pass            
between; and the day began to decline, and the birds     
of prey, of evil omen, hovered like a cloud over the          
carcasses; and at last the sun went down, and the       
heavens, so bright and clear on the preceding night,     
were overcast; and "a deep sleep fell upon Abraham,       
"and lo! a horror of great darkness fell upon him."       
And in that thick darkness a light, as of a blazing     
fire, enveloped with the smoke as of a furnace, passed     
through the open space, and the covenant, the first      
covenant," the Old Testament," was concluded be-      
tween God and man.  Taking these figures as they     
are this shadowed forth, and in combination with the      
words which followed, they truly express the peculiar     
"conditions," to use the modern phrase, under which     
the history of the Chosen People was to be unfolded      
from its brighter and from its darker side.  Darkness     
and light are mingled together; the bright heavens     
of yesterday overclouded by the horror of great dark-      
ness to-day; wheresoever the carcasses of the victims      
lie, the ravenous eagles are gathered together, and     
with difficulty scared away by the watchful protector;       
the light, burning in the midst of the smoke as it    
sweeps through the narrow pathway, is the same image      
that we shall meet again and again throughout the     
history of the Older, and of the New covenant also:       
the bush burning but not consumed; the pillar at       
once of cloud and of fire; the children in the midst     
of the furnace, yet without hurt; the remnant pre-      
served, though cut down to the root: exile and bond-      
age, yet constant deliverance; a narrow home, yet a          
vast dominion; the perverse, wayward, degraded peo-       
ple, yet the countrymen and the progenitors, after      
the flesh, of One in whom was brought to the high-          
est fulfilment their own union of suffering and of     
triumph, the thick darkness of the smoking furnace,      
the burning and the shining light.  This is the mixed      
prospect of the History of the Jewish Church; this is    
the mixed prospect, in its widest sense, of all Eccle-      
siastical History.            

from The History of the Jewish Church, Vol. I : Abraham to Samuel,
Lecture I: The Call of Abraham
by Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D., Dean of Westminster
Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1879, pp. 14-28