BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS is that branch of theo-logical science which treats of the principles of Scripture interpretation. Variously described as the theory of the discovery and communication of the thoughts of Holy Scripture (Lange), the science of attaining clearness both in comprehending and in explaining the sense of the Biblical authors (Ernesti), the methodological preparation for the interpreter and for exegesis (Doedes), the science of the removal of differences between us and the sacred writers (Immer), it has for its task to determine the laws of valid exegetical practice. Schleiermacher and Klausen have limited it to the doctrine of what the interpreter has to observe in order to put himself in possession of the mind of Scripture. The former defines it as a discipline which looks simply to the reader's own apprehension, not to the conveyance of the meaning ascertained to others; which latter is to be regarded, he thinks, as but a particular division of the art of speaking and writing. It has been generally taken, however, to have respect to the communication as well as the acquisition of the thoughts of the Biblical writers. This larger definition, which is as ancient at least as Augustine's statement of the two things " quibus nititur omnis tractatio Scripturae, modus iuveniendi quae intelligenda sunt et modus proferendi quae intellecta sunt" (Be Boctr. Christ, i. 1), has been formally accepted or practically acted on by most modern authorities. It is consonant with the currency of the terms éppLrjvevoj, ¿p/xr/veús, épfx-rjviVT^i (connected it may be with Hermes, but not derived from that, such use of a deity's name being prob-ably unexampled).1 These in the classics express both expounding (Pindar, 0., 2, 153) and interpreting or translating a foreign language to others (Xen., Anab., i. 2, 17 ; Herod., ii. 125); while in the New Testament kpixnveveiv _means to translate (John i. 39, 43) and 8iepp.r¡veveLv to expound, interpret, or translate (Luke xxiv. 27, 1 Cor. xii. 30, Acts ix. 36). The definition is in harmony too with the Protestant idea of exegesis as an art which brings the con-tents of Scripture to the general understanding, and the Protestant conception of the direct approach of God's word to man's heart by Scripture. As the theory of the interpre-tative art hermeneutics is usually taken to be an historical science, forming a subdivision of historical theology. Where, however, a fourfold, instead of a threefold, distribution of theological science is adopted, it is assigned to literary theology, It presupposes such disciplines as textual criticism and Biblical introduction, while it may exercise a reflex influence on some of the discussions with which these are conversant. Although practice precedes theory, and only through the use of the art of interpretation can the principles of interpretation be reached, as it is out of Scripture itself that the laws of Scriptural exposition must be drawn, theoretically this science precedes exegesis and forms an indispensable preparation for Biblical theology. Much which it has been the custom to embrace within it belongs really to general hermeneutics. The limits properly assignable to it are comparatively narrow, its immediate object being to decide how the laws of general hermeneutics are related to the particular records known as Scripture. The propriety of a special Biblical hermeneutic is established so far as Scripture is proved to be more than an ordinary literature. The Christian who comes to the Bible with the conviction that it is the record of divine communications, and with the experience that it is the medium through which God has spoken to him and led him into new relations to Himself, has to ask whether the principles of ordinary hermeneutics have to be modified or supplemented when applied to these books. Neither the Christian recognition of the spiritual character of Scripture nor the Protestant asser-tion of the right of private judgment, the perspicuity of Scripture, and the laity's direct interest in the Bible, warrants the extreme position assumed among some sects, that a scholarly interpretation and, therefore, a science of hermeneutics are superfluous. Being a literary record com-posed in languages which demand the exegetical praxis of translation, and produced under circumstances, by writers, and for readers widely removed in date and character from our present acquaintance, Scripture requires a scientific process for its exposition, and the laws of that process must be verified. The peculiar value which attaches to it as a holy literature makes this the more needful, the exceptional position assigned it rendering its interpretation opener to the invasion of prepossession and private religious ideas. The exclusive authority ascribed to these books by the Protestant, who accepts them as the only rule of faith and life, gives him a special interest in hermeneutics. The concrete and historical form in which their spiritual teach-ing appears, the figurative, typical, and symbolical terms 1 See article HERMES, and compare Curtius, Greek Etymology, § 350. so largely used in them, the numerous presuppositions on which their statements of religious truth and fact proceed, suggest the necessity of such a discipline. The qualities of Scripture which render its appeal to the common under-standing distinct and immediate are arguments for scientific intelligence in educing from its declarations nothing more and nothing less than their exact intention. The interpre-ter's function being, not to develop some meaning which the words might bear to present students or which the first readers may have seen in them, but simply to ascertain with precision and completeness the ideas which the writers themselves meant to convey, it may be said with Schleier-macher that in a certain sense the interpreter has to educe more than the author introduced. The former has to bring out into clearness much that influenced the latter half-unconsciously in his composition, and to give objective expression to much that underlies his definite statements. Hence the special need for a scientific hermeneutic in the case of a book like the Bible, in which there is so much that is implicit. The vast variety of results reached in crucial passages, and the wide diversities of method which have been pursued among individual exegetes and in exegetical schools, make the propriety and utility of such a science the more apparent.
Since Christopher Wolle (Herrneneiitica Novi Foederis acroamatico-dogmatica certissimis defeccdce philosophic prin-cipiis corroborata eximiisque omnium Theologian Christiana; parlium usibus inserviens, Leipsic, 1736) the hermeneutics of the New Testament, for the sake of convenience or on grounds of scientific distinction, has often been separated from the hermeneutics of the Old Testament. The scien-tific union or disjunction of these disciplines depends on the view entertained of the mutual relations of the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian. Where the Bible is seen to constitute an organic whole, the hermeneutical principles applicable to the two Testaments are treated in connexion. It then becomes one great object of the science to grasp the differences which are discovered within the unity of Scrip-ture, and exhibit what account has to be taken of these in the art of interpretation. A distinct position, however, naturally belongs to Jewish hermeneutics, which dealt with the Hebrew Scriptures as at once the entire written revela-tion of God, and the repertory of the highest wisdom on all subjects of human inquiry. The results of the scientific study of the Old Testament, which was carried on with vast activity from Ezra's time by numerous scribes and in great schools and colleges (Jerusalem, Tiberias, Sura, Pumbeditha, Nahardea, <fcc), are seen in the Talmudical writings, the Mishna giving authoritative enlargements and explanations of the law, and the Gemara, in its twofold form of Jeru-salem Talmud edited at Tiberias, and Babylonian Talmud proceeding from Sura, containing further commentaries, fantastic definitions, and explanations of prior explanations (see TALMUD). The most ancient Jewish interpretation of Scripture, the Midrash (" study," " investigation"), which assumed a fixed character during the period of the second temple and gradually formed a literature, ran out into two great branches, logical or legal exposition, and practical or homiletical exposition. The former, designated "Halacha" (" rule by which to walk," " binding precept "), brought the law to bear upon points of religious or general interest on which there was no explicit declaration. It confined itself chiefly to the Pentateuch, extracting from it by numerous exegetical expedients a body of "Halachoth" or sopheric precepts (cf. Matt. xv. 2, Mark vii. 3), which were held authoritative. These, after a long period of oral trans-mission, gradually assumed written form, and passed finally through a process of compilation, classification, and redaction which extended perhaps from about two centuries before to two centuries after Christ. The latter, styled "Hagada" ("opinion," "free exposition"), was meant for edification, traversed the entire Old Testament, and occupied itself with the application of Scripture to the purposes of practical instruction in all manner of subjects, ethical, political, metaphysical, theosophic, as well as religious. Its expositions were conveyed in forms, symbolical, poetic, parabolic, such as were most likely to arrest attention, and, though of no binding authority, it made itself so attractive to the people that it was often known as " the Midrash " distinctively. The hermeneutical laws followed in these two lines of exposition are sufficiently well known. Eliezer ben Jose, the Galilaean, a distinguished rabbi of the 2d century of our era, has embodied the results of a final redaction of the principles of the Hagadic exegesis in a series of thirty-two rules. Some of these are sound, dealing, e.g., with the use of brachylogy, repetition, parable, the reconciliation of two discrepant texts by a third, <fcc. Many of them, are wholly fantastic, prescribing how explana-tions are to be sought by reducing the letters of a word to their numerical value, by the transposition of letters, by the substitution of another word of the same numerical value for one which yields no worthy sense, by studying the introduction of superfluous particles, &c. Such prin-ciples held a much smaller place in the Halachic exegesis, which, as it aimed at something higher than applications of Scripture, could indulge in fewer freedoms in certain directions, so far as it was true to its idea. In the fixing of the Halachic hermeneutics Hillel I. (died 8 or 10 A.D.) occupies a conspicuous place. He reduced the traditional legal erudition of the Jews, with its bewildering multiplicity of laws, from the 600 or 700 sections over which it is said previously to have spread, to six capital "Sedarim" or orders, forming a manageable basis on which his successors 'Akiba, Simon III., and Jehudah I. could work on to the final codification of the Minima. He was also the first to formulate definite rules by which the rabbinical development of the law should proceed. These canons of interpretation were seven in number, afterwards increased by Eabbi Ismael to thirteen by the addition of seven new rules and the omission of the sixth, and looked to the construction of Biblical warrant for precepts which it was wished to prove implicit in the law. These "Middoth" were instructions to reason (1) a minori ad majus, (2) ex analogia, (3) by derivation of a principal proposition from a single passage, (4) by derivation of a principal proposition from two passages, (5) by limitation of the general through the particular, (6) by explanation of one passage through another, (7) by the use of the context. The idea that the Old Testament, pre-eminently the law, held hidden in it the highest wisdom on all subjects, was naturally inimical to the rights of the literal sense. The rabbinical hermeneutics drew inevitable distinctions between the proper or innate sense (UPtfJ?), which again was described as either verbal (EK'i) or figurative ("ND), and the derivative or studied sense (^TV?, ilKH?), which was to be sought either by inference (KMI^) or by artificial conjunction (!'?']). The natural sense, how-ever, though practically robbed of its dues, was not pro-fessedly ignored. This regard for it, which was never wholly disowned, ultimately took shape in the improved rabbinical hermeneutics of the Middle Ages. In the writings of such rabbis as Saadias Gaon, Jarchi, Bashi, Kimchi, Maimonides, Abarbanel (a line of expositors ex-tending from the 10th to the 16th century), we find, along-side the traditional rules and explanations, a scientific recognition of the interpreter's duty to give the literal sense as well as a practical application of the principles of grammatical and historical exegesis to the Old Testament.
The hermeneutics developed among the Hellenistic Jews had marked characteristics of its own. These interpreters, departing from the exclusiveness of rabbinical devotion to the Old Testament revelation, and from the pure Hebraism of native Jews, brought to the study of the sacred books a j range of ideas derived from Hellenic culture. They had to devise a hermeneutical procedure which would harmonize their new ethnic learning with the traditional estimate of ! the Jewish Scriptures. To the theosophic Hellenist, and specially to the Alexandrian Jew, acceptance of the plain ! sense was often an impossibility. A reconciliation was j sought by the use of allegorical interpretation. This method was also pursued by the Babbinical exegetes. It is em-braced in the Halachic hermeneutics, and is seen in the distinctions drawn by Palestinian Jews between the body and the soul of texts. But while the allegorical interpreta-tion of native Jews, in consonance with their purer estimate of the Hebrew revelation, moved in the direction of the typical, that of the Hellenists became rather mystical. The coryphaeus in this hermeneutical practice was Philo (born perhaps about 20 B.C.), although he had predecessors in Aristobulus, pseudo-Josephus, and others. He devoted himself mainly to the exposition to the Pentateuch, with the view of explaining the realism and anthropomorphism of the Old Testament in a way to suit the philosophy of the time. Wishful to retain the Alexandrian Jew's regard for Moses as the supremely inspired prophet of God and the oracle of all mysteries along with adherence to the current Platonism and theosophy, he supposed that the Mosaic writings contained a twofold mode of teaching, a popular representation of God and divine things and a spiritual. It was the task of wisdom to penetrate through the envelope of the literal history to the secret sense which it shielded. The verbal sense was acknowledged, but held to be for the illiterate. The outstanding facts in the records of the creation, the deluge, the careers of the patriarchs and Moses, were accepted in an historic sense, but the details of all these narratives were spiritualized. Sometimes the figurative meaning was made the only meaning, but in other cases the objective meaning was allowed to be the intended meaning. The hermeneutical rule, however, was to rise by allegory from the superficial anthropomorphic sense (TO \J/VXIKOV) to the higher or spiritual sense (TO wvevfiaTLKov). The simple histories were symbols of abstract truths. To the enlightened they were so many modes of soul (TOOVOI uVuxijs)—Adam the figure of the sensuous nature, Bebecca of patience, Leah of despised virtue, Egypt an emblem of the body, and Canaan of piety.
Two later chapters in the history of Jewish herme-neutics deserve notice. On the one hand the rabbinical procedure was decisively departed from by the Karaites, among whom Japhet ben Heli, of Bussorah, belonging to the close of the 10th century, and Aaron ben Joseph, of the 13th century, are notable. In their case interpretation again sought the via media between bald literalism and arbitrary spiritualizing. It was prosecuted on the principles of renouncing the quest after a variety of senses, abiding by the natural sense, accepting metaphor where the figura-tive was intended, and conserving the religious interest. On the other hand an extraordinary development was given to the rabbinical hermeneutics by the Kabbalists of the Middle Ages, who used the devices of artificial interpreta-tion in order to find an Old Testament basis for their mixed Neo-Platonist, Gnostic, and Sabsean culture. The Kabbala (" what has been received," " tradition," see KABBALA) had its roots in the ancient doctrine of numbers, for which the Jews were probably indebted to the Chaldaeans. The use of the numerical power of letters as a key to mysteries, which the Palestinian Jews had early favoured and which formed a not inconsiderable element in the Hagadic exposi-i tion, expanded into a vast system of fantastic Hebrew Gnosticism in the 8th century of the Christian era. The | written Word was regarded as a depository of secret doctrine and absolute truth which could be entered only by the initiated. The mysteries hidden in its letters required for their discovery processes of exchange, more or less intricate, between literal and numerical values. By the combinations
and permutations of letters, the interchange of words of equal numerical value, and similar artifices, new meanings were extracted where the proper sense seemed poor, and acceptable meanings found where offence was felt. Where the text, e.g., states (Numbers xii. 1) that Moses married an Ethiopian woman, the veiled sense was shown to be that he married a woman of beautiful countenance, and the offence against the law was thus removed. For the letters of rVK'-ia added together make the sum 736; the letters in the expression HB*, " beautiful of countenance," yield the same sum; and the enlightened are able to read the latter idea in the former appellative. Distinct titles came to be applied to different branches of the art. The process of reaching hidden truths by the numerical equiva-lence of letters (as when from the circumstance that x occurs six times in the first and last verses of the Old Testament it is inferred that the world is to last 6000 years) was styled "Gematria." The process of forming new words out of the several letters of some solemn term, or one new word by combining the first letters of several words (as when the answer "circumcision," is discovered in the question' in Deut. xxx. 12, "Who shall go up for us to heaven?" by bringing together the letters with which the several words in the query commence), was called " Notarikon." The use of the anagram or permutation (as when by trans-position of 'PK^P into PXD'D jt is ascertained that " mine angel" of Exod. xxiii. 23 was the angel Michael) was known as " Temurah." The hermeneutical practice of the Kabbalists increased in subtlety as the theosophic system itself grew. Bules were elaborated for exchanging the powers of letters, reading them in a variety of orders, and otherwise conjuring with the literal sense.
The course which Biblical hermeneutics has run outside the purely Jewish pale has been not less changeful or remarkable. The New Testament writings show at large how the apostles and first followers of Christ viewed, interpreted, and quoted the Old Testament. They give little in the shape of formal hermeneutical principles, but allow much to be inferred from usage and example. Conclusions as to authoritative canons of interpretation, so far as these axe drawn from New Testament employments of Old Testa-ment Scripture, are weighted with the question whether or how far currency is followed. It is affirmed on the one hand that Paul, e.g., in his hermeneutics, was a pure rabbinist, while on the other the equally extreme position is held that his training is in no way reflected in his use of the Hebrew Scriptures. The citation of the Old Testament in the New, which forms a question by itself and one of great intricacy, takes a variety of modes. Passages are reproduced as direct prophecies of the Messiah and His kingdom (Acts ii. 34, Heb. i. 13), as mediate references to the same through partial realizations of their idea (Heb. ii. 6-9, 12, 13), as illustrations or applications of principles common to both economies (Rom. x. 6-8, 1 Tim. v. 18), as apt expressions, without the character of explicit quota-tion, in which New Testament statements naturally embody themselves (1 Pet. i. 24). The proper and immediate sense is adhered to. The application of typology and symbolism (Heb. viii. 5, ix. 9) is at the same time exemplified, and the existence of secondary or higher meanings in allegorical or other forms (Gal. iv. 24. Eph. v. 32) is to a certain extent recognized. The typical relation Df the Old Testament to the New is everywhere presented. It is exhibited both in the histories and in the insti-tutions, and is developed alike in ethical, didactic, and prophetic significance (1 Cor. x. 6, 11, Rom. vi. 17, v. 14). The Hebrew revelation is interpreted as a divine preparation for the Christian and as a continuous prophecy bearing onwards towards Christ (Acts. ii. 25). Its official personages and its saints, its ordinances and its events, are real though imperfect exhibitions of Messiah and the Messianic kingdom. Even its minor occurrences and incidental utterances are anticipations or expressions of the purposes of Jehovah realized in the Christian dispensation (Matt. ii. 15, Heb. iv. 7, Eph. iv. 8-12). How far Biblical hermeneutics within the Christian Church has gathered its principles from Scripture itself, and what use it has made of the New Testament praxis will appear from its history. It will be enough here to deal with the capital ideas to which the various conflicting methods seem capable of being reduced. We indicate which of these prevailed on the whole in important schools and periods, without attempting a chronological statement or detailing the exact relations of each great name to this subject. It is not to be supposed, however, that any single mode was exclusively dominant at any one time, or that the interpreters whose names are connected with some particular procedure held by that only. On the contrary, in the long-continued absence of a definite settlement of principles the best writers swayed remarkably from method to method, and men who are largely identified with vicious modes exhibit at the same time admirable examples of the opposite. It may be said that three great hermeneutical tendencies have been followed. These may be conveniently designated the subjective, the dependent, the historical.
1. The first, which we have distinguished asthe Subjective tendency, embraces all those widely diverse schemes which agree in passing beyond the objective intention of the words and seeking veiled or underlying meanings. To this belong the different forms of the allegorical method, by which is meant the imposition of a sense not designed by the writer. It is the adding of a meaning foreign to the intention, rather than the substitution of an improper for the proper sense. The first Christian interpreters were under special temptations in this direction. The idea of the need of exceptional principles of exposition in order to reach the deep significance of divine communications had a great hold of the ancient mind, Greek, Roman, Oriental, and Hebrew. The spell of this idea and the powerful influence of the Rabbinical tradition, acting on the Christian conviction that the Bible is a divine message, readily induced the notion that the ordinary laws of interpretation are inade-quate, and that Scripture is honoured when the natural or "lower" sense is made the stepping-stone to a "higher" sense for which special processes are required. Early Christian literature, although its mysticism may sometimes be otherwise explained, adheres decidedly to this idea. The apostolic fathers and the Apologists, while not entire strangers to sound spiritual interpretation, are addicted to the allegorical. The Epistle of Barnabas confirms faith and perfects oyi/uJo-is by spiritualizing the details of such narratives as that of the two goats in Leviticus xvi. The Shepherd of Hermas contains various-examples. Clement of Rome gives the figurative application of the scarlet line suspended from Rahab's window, which is adopted by so many of the fathers. In this connexion great interest belongs to Justin Martyr, who exhibits acquaintance with several of the distinct senses which were subsequently formulated. Embracing Christianity as the only certain philosophy, and carrying much of his old Platonism with him into his new faith, he dealt with the Scriptures very much as he dealt with the classics. The histories of the Old Testament (he seldom expounds the New) were a drapery covering broad spiritual truths. As the piling of Pelion and Ossa was a Greek version of the building of the tower of Babel, so Jacob's marriage with Leah and Rachel denoted Jehovah's revelation in the Jewish Church and the Christian. Every particular in prophetic passages like Gen. xlix. 9-12 had a mystical reference to Christ and His salvation, His passion being signified by the washing of the garments in wine, the Jews by the ass, the Gentiles by the colt.
The allegorical method, which offers itself as a natural expedient for harmonizing difficulties between religious faith and philosophical feeling, and which had been freely applied to Homer by Plato, found a most congenial home in Alexandria, where Philo's influence was strong. It became a recognized principle with the entire catechetical school, firmly rooted in the distinction which there prevailed between 71-10-1-19 and yiwis. Clement of Alexandria, who seems to have been the first to bring the New Testament no less than the Old under its scope, finds a parabolic meaning in all Scripture, and affirms that the literal sense carries us simply to the elementary stage of Christian know-ledge called faith, while it is only through the allegorical or mystical interpretation that we can reach that higher wisdom which implies insight into the essence, reason, and real relations of faith's objects. He speaks of a "tradition of the church," an " ecclesiastical canon," or " canon of the truth," which gives the key to the true understanding of Scripture, and is identified with the yvu¡cn<¡ or spiritual apprehension of divine mysteries as that was first communi-cated by Christ to the apostles in oral form, and by them transmitted to their successors. This canon is described as " the consent and harmony of the law and the prophets with the covenant delivered during the Lord's presence." In accordance with this Clement discovers in the Mosaic law three senses in addition to the natural. The terms in which the precepts are expressed are images of other things, rules for the direction of life, and predictions of the future. The high priest's robe is an emblem of the world of sense; the bells upon it are a symbol of the acceptable year of the Lord. The decalogue itself is spiritualized, the fifth com-mandment being taken to refer to the Heavenly Father, and that divine Wisdom which is the mother of the just.
A position of commanding importance must be claimed for Origen, whose genius secured wide and long-continued acceptance for his greatest extravagances. Exact grammati-cal exegesis is by no means alien to his homilies and commentaries, and many of his strangest uses of Scripture may be viewed as practical applications rather than scholarly expositions. Fanciful modes, however, are so predominant that he has been generally regarded as the chief allegorist of the Christian Church. Yet the disservice thus done by his example cannot cloud the lustre of his merits in Biblical studies. His Platonism, his adhesion to the Alexandrian idea of oyvóVis, his wish to defend and elucidate the Christian religion by reason and philosophy, his exaggerated notion of inspiration, combined to commend a mystical style of interpretation. In terms of the Platonic division of man into body, soul, and spirit, he held that Scripture had a threefold sense, o-oj/ianKÓ?, i/arqueos, Tnxvfia.TiKÓ's. The first, or obvious, sense was meant for the edification of the simple. The second, which was to be sought for under the letter, and embodied the soul of Scripture, exhibited the bearing of the word upon the practical needs of the moral life, and addressed itself to the more advanced. The third, which lay still deeper, and imparted the spirit of Scripture, disclosed pure unmixed truth, exercised the speculative powers, and was intended only for the perfect, such as are described in 1 Cor. ii. 6, 7. He has been sometimes credited with the promulgation of the fourfold distinction afterwards so current, especially in the Latin Church, and expressed in the couplet (given, e.g., by Lyra):—
Litera gesta docet, quid credos allegoria, Moralis quid agas, quo tendas anagogia.
Such terms, however, as tropological, mystical, allegorical, pneumatic, anagogical, are rather interchangeable with him. The literal sense, too, is so far from being dispensed with that he has even been regarded (e.g., by Ernesti) as the first who secured for it its primary value, particularly in New Testament exegesis. But, while he maintains that the spirit and the letter are generally to be taken together, and admits that no small portion of the contents of Scripture (e.g., the decalogue, precepts of universal obligation, even many of the narratives) may not be allegorized, his practice is greatly in the direction of esteeming the literal sense only as the protecting shell of secret treasure. Wherever the letter yields a meaning which seems to him unworthy, or opposed to reason and possibility, a mystical sense is discovered. He stumbles at the record of creation when it introduces the sun after the third day, at many of the Mosaic ordinances, at the realism of Christ's temptation. He finds mysteries or figures of spiritual things in Eden, Abraham's wives, Bebecca's visit to the well, the waterpots at Cana, and many other narratives. The later type of Alexandrian hermeneutics is seen in Cyril, who, without wholly abandoning the literal sense, carries typical inter-pretation into unqualified allegorical extremes in dogmatic and polemic interests.
The Western Church exhibited the same tendency, not only in the marked artificialities of such teachers as Hippo-lytus, Hilary, and Ambrose, but in the eminent instance of Augustine. Though not the first to attempt a statement of hermeneutical canons (having before him, for instance, the seven rules of Tichonius, which he states and criticizes at length), he constructed more of a system in this line of inquiry as in some others. Many of the principles which are enunciated in different parts of his writings, and most definitely in his De Doctrina Christiana, are of permanent value. He conceives the object of interpretation to be the discovery of the thoughts of the writer exactly as he meant to express them. He shows that the real sense is often not to be got by insisting merely on expressions as they stand by themselves ; that they must be compared with the immediate context, with similar passages elsewhere, and with the essentials of Christian doctrine; that faith and the aids of the Holy Spirit cannot supersede the use of science; that a reverent and sympathetic mind is indispensable. But along with such rules as these he propounds others which served as grounds for his allegorical procedure. He affirms, e.g., that whatever cannot clearly be seen to bear upon honesty of morals or the truth of faith must be taken figuratively. He speaks of several different modes of interpretation,—the historical, the aetiological, the analogical, the allegorical. He usually practises the first and the last of these. His profound spiritual experience gave him a truer insight than his canons indicated into many parts of Scripture, and above all into the Pauline epistles. Yet over most even of the New Testament he allows the allegorical fancy to range freely. His influence perpetuated the reign of the allegorical method for many centuries throughout the Western Church. In Gregory the Great, the Venerable Bede, Hrabanus Maurus, Hugo de S. Caro, and many others, we see it steadily extending rather than merely maintaining its sway, until in Bonaventura we find the current four senses—historical, tropological, allegorical, anagogical—enlarged to seven by the addition of the symbolical, synecdochical, and hyperbolical.
2. The secoud great hermeneutical tendency, which we call the Dependent, has an equally instructive history. It is easy to understand how extreme allegorizing would lead to a counter movement, and how this would be helped by the exigencies of dealing with heretics who were themselves advocates of yvuo-is. The appeal soon came to be made to a rule of faith which may at first have meant nothing more than the harmony of Scripture teaching, but which was speedily identified with something outside Scripture, with the contents of doctrinal summaries, or with the verdict of exegetical tradition. The East and the West gave way alike to this bias, but the West first and most positively. In both we find early mention of an ecclesiastical canon or norm of truth. In the Church of the East, indeed, that took originally the form of an authoritative yiwis or private exposition of the esoteric meaning of Scripture handed down by careful tradition from Christ and the apostles, while in the Church of the West it was rather the voice of the church itself, and that soon the voice as formulated. Both churches, however, more or less dis-tinctly recognized an ecclesiastical tradition represented in compends of doctrine which were used for catechetical and other purposes, and an interpretative tradition embodied in the expositions of influential doctors. Thus hermeneutical independence was sacrificed. In Irenaeus and Tertullian we see how a very natural reaction took this direction. The necessity of meeting errorists who were greater adepts in arbitrary spiritualizing than any whom the church could present led them to protest against the practice. They saw the propriety of looking to Scripture itself for hermeneutical guidance, and of rescuing it from the despotism of a mystical philosophy which threatened the life of its cardinal doc-trines. They adopted a simpler reading of its message, and so far they deserve the name of pioneers in real historical interpretation. But, as appears in their gross chiliastic expositions, their literalism was carried to excess. It came into conflict with the deeper declarations of Scripture, and this conflict they were tempted to compose by a relapse into fanci ful methods. It created difficulties in their controversy with Gnostic opponents, and these they thought to remove by a final appeal to an authoritative tradition fixing the sense in which the sacred books which both parties used as witnesses to their doctrine were to be understood. This was to be found in its integrity in those ancient churches which had enjoyed direct apostolic teaching, and, as Irenseus conceived, in some special way in that of Rome. Gradually the idea of a normative analogy of faith discovered within Scripture was externalized, and the standard of interpreta-tion was looked for in ecclesiastical symbols and the formal decisions of the heads of the church. In this process, which issued in the Tridentine definition of the ultimate determination of the interpretation of Scripture as resident in the church, and the more recent declaration of the in-fallibility of the pope as the voice of the church, Vincent of Lerins claims particular notice. In his Commonitorium, for which we are indebted to the Semi-Pelagian controversy, he lays down rules for the attainment of certitude in belief. Faith is to be settled by two things, the authority of Scripture and the tradition of the church. The former is a perfect and adequate foundation. Yet the caprices of inter-pretation require it to be supplemented by the latter. The sense of Scripture is the sense in which the church under-stands it, and this tradition of the Catholic Church, which is to be accepted as the canon of hermeneutics, is defined as " quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est." This treatise, still retained in singular honour by large sections of the Christian Church, exhibits the herme-neutics which had been winning acceptance since the times of Irenseus and Cyprian, and by which the Latin com-munion was led to bind itself. The result of the deference paid to the fathers in both churches, and especially in the West, was the renunciation of independent exegesis and the production of compilations of patristic comments. These o-¤tpat or Catenas epitomized the interpretations of most of the great expositors, particularly Origen, Chrysostom, Jerome, and Augustine, and were on the whole more successfully executed in the Greek Church than in the Latin. They were in use by the end of the 5th or beginning of the 6th century. Andreas of Caesarea, who belongs to the former period, or Olympiodorus, whose date is about the beginning of the 7th century, has sometimes been recog-nized as the earliest epitomizer; but the position is to be assigned rather to Procopius of Gaza, who comes between these two. For many centuries the most eminent divines took part in the preparation of Catenae, such as Cassiodorus (also a literalist), Bede (already cited as an allegorist), Alcuin, Hrabanus Maurus (often honoured as the most learned interpreter of the 8th and 9th centuries), Haymo, Bemigius, Sedulius, Theophylact, (Ecumenius, Paschasius Badbertus, and Aquinas. The Catena aurea of Aquinas on the gospels was of great value. Bedactions of the Catena were also made in course of time. These were the Glossae, which were known as marginales or extrinsecos when the comments were given on the margin, and interlineares or intrinsecce when these were introduced in the text. The most influential glossa of the second class was that of Anselm of Laon, who belongs to the end of the 11th and the begin-ning of the 12th century. Of the former the most im-portant was the Glossa ordinaria of Walafrid Strabo, which was esteemed the chief exegetical manual for some six cen-turies. Throughout the Middle Ages, full as these were of theological activity, dogmatic and polemic, hermeneutics became more and more a tradition. The less the Bible was studied in a free spirit, the more it became the subject of strained panegyric. Aquinas, indeed, though his practice was often in conflict with his theory, could still speak of the literal sense as that on which all the senses of Scripture are founded, and of argument as to be drawn only from that one literal sense and not from those senses which are ex pressed according to allegory (Snmma, i. 1, art. 10). But at last independence was so completely resigned that John Gerson, the illustrious chancellor of Paris, was only the exponent of the prevalent opinion, when he declared that those who did not take the literal sense as the church defined it ought to be dealt with not by curious reasonings but by statutory penalties.
3. But alongside these two hermeneutical tendencies there can be traced from the earliest times, however obscurely or fitfully, a third which we term the Historical. Men like Irenaeus, Origen, Augustine, &c, were not wholly incapacitated for the exercise of a better method by their allegorical or dogmatic bias. There has been a line of interpreters, slender enough as that line has been at times, who have recognized it to be the exegete's object to dis-cover the one sense intended by the writer himself, who have allowed allegory therefore only where the writings themselves indicated their mystical design, and who have laid the first importance on the grammatical sense and on the capacity of transporting oneself into the writer's posi-tion. Even Alexandria presents in the great Athanasius and in Isidore notable instances of interpreters who, though given to occasional spiritualizing, proceed on the principle of the airapKtia of Scripture (this specially in the case of Athanasius), and on the necessity of considering the occasion of each writing. But in direct antithesis to the allegorizing school of Alexandria stood the school of Antioeh, which was grammatical and historical, with a tendency to an extreme literalism which yielded in not a few cases a jejune and unspiritual exegesis. Theophilus and Julius Africanus may claim a place in this order. But the acknowledged representatives of the Antiochene school are Lucian of Samosata, who is sometimes reckoned its real founder, Diodorus of Tarsus, Theodore of Mopsuestia, and above all John Chrysostom and Theodoret of the Syrian Cyrrhus. The last two, while not less careful of the objective sense, surpassed the others in spiritual insight. Chrysostom abounds in sound hermeneutical statements which strike a happy mean between Alexandrian arbitrari-ness and the unethical superficiality into which extreme Antiochene interpretation sank. He withstands the imposition of foreign senses as a practice dishonouring to the Word of God, and yet shows how much there is that must be taken otherwise than as it stands. He insists upon the importance of ascertaining the "scope" of a writing in order to a correct judgment of its separate declarations, on the necessity of the revelation of the Spirit, on the respect due to the harmony of Scripture with itself. He lays it down as a general principle that, when allegory is employed, the Bible also gives its interpretation as a check upon the unbridled desire of those who wish to allegorize {Horn, in Genes, v.). Theodoret exhibits a kindred sobriety, and, though occasionally guilty of seeking a secondary sense where the obvious sense seems too bald, ranks deservedly among the very best of ancient exegetes. Principles similar to the Antiochene prevailed for a long period also in the schools of Edessa and Nisibis. The objective tendency found representatives, too, in men like Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa (although he was less decidedly historical, and strongly advocated a non-literal reading of Canticles in particular), Pelagius, and the laborious Jerome. This last-named ornament of the Latin Church, although he too often drifted into fanciful and even puerile interpretations, was strongly opposed both to the allegorists and the extreme literalists. Against the former he affirmed that the gram-matical and historical sense must be held the fundamental thing. Against the latter he insisted that the figurative interpretation is not necessarily equivalent to the allegori-cal, and that the gospel is to be sought not in the words but in the sense of Scripture, not in the surface but in the marrow, not in the leaves of discourses but in the root of the idea {Comm. in Uabac. iii. 14 ; in Epist. ad Galat. i. 11). In the unproductive centuries which followed, this purer hermeneutical tendency appears occasionally in such instances as those of Druthmar, " the grammarian;" CEcumenius, bishop of the Thessalian Tricca, who belongs to the 10th century; Theophylact, bishop of Achrida in Bulgaria, " the last of the fathers "; Rupert of Deutz and Euthymius Zigabenus, who carry us into the 12th century.
A great impetus was given to independent hermeneutics by the Humanists and the precursors of the Reformation. An eminent position is occupied by Nicolaus de Lyra, to whose Postillce, or brief commentaries on the whole Bible, Luther and the Beformers owed a debt expressed in the familiar distich, " Si Lyra non lyrasset, Lutherus non saltasset." The current fourfold division of the sense of Scripture still appeared in his writings, but for the most part only as a theoretic division. He allowed occasional spiritualizing, but that mostly in the form of professed practical application of the proper sense. He declared anew the necessity of adhering to the plain objective meaning, likening the mystical interpretation which departs from the solid basis of the literal sense to a building which deviates from its foundation and inclines to its fall. On the side of grammar and philology the reaction was helped by Laurentius Valla and other Humanists, although the services of Reuchlin in particular, great as they were in the assertion of exegetical freedom and in the restoration of linguistic science, were impaired by cabbalistic predilections (cf. specially his De verbo mirifico). On the religious side, something was achieved by men like Wycliffe, Huss, Wessel, who all perceived the primary importance of the grammatical method, and Faber Stapulensis (Lefévre d'Etaples), who affirmed the sufficiency of the Word, and practised an independent, non-dogmatic exegesis. It is matter of course that Erasmus should claim special notice in this connexion. In this consummate scholar and versa-tile genius, who continued and vastly excelled all that had been attempted by Valla and others, and whose guidance the Reformers were wise enough to follow, notwithstanding the frequent deficiencies of his exegesis in depth and spiritual insight, we come at length upon a master hand that marks a great epoch. Indecision clings indeed to his utterances on some subjects. He speaks with caution on the infallibility of the church and the church's head, although he lets us see that he rejects it. He admits the existence of occasional inaccuracies in the Scriptures. But he declares that these are so far from being disadvantageous to the gospel that they are turned by the Spirit into a help to faith. He adds at the same time that if the authority of the entire Scripture should be supposed to be impaired by the presence of the smallest error in it, it is more than probable that none of the copies now used by the Catholic Church is so perfect as to be free from the intrusion of all mistakes, accidental or intentional (cf. Annot. in Matt. ii. 6). But his clear enunciation of the interpreter's inde-pendence and the inquirer's obligation to become bound by the authority of no one (In Luc. ii. 35), his advocacy of the translation and free circulation of the Scriptures, his repudiation of any other sense than what was meant to be conveyed, his sagacity in dealing with the figurative sections of both Testaments, his recognition of the need of a " pia curiositas " and a " curiosa pietas " in the exposition of the divine word (cf. Pref. to Paraph, in Evang.), his practice of the true exegetical art in his Paraphrases and Annotations, contributed powerfully to the diffusion of better hermeneutical ideas.
The mightiest impetus was given by the Reformers. They were the heirs of what was best in the ancient school of Antioch and in the Humanistic revival. But they added to the philology, the grammar, the history, and the independ-ence which were illustrated in these the spiritual insight and the personal religious interest which were so often wanting. The process by which they won their own way to a freer faith lifted them above tradition, mysticism, and unspiritual literalism. Their profound religious experiences, intensified by the forces at work in an unexampled mental upheaval, made the Bible a new thing to them. It came to them as God's message, and they received it as the only rule of faith and life. It spoke immediately to their souls, and they saw it was to be interpreted by itself. They found it a message conveyed in historical form, and recognized the need of the appliances of language and history in order to read it. They perceived it to be a spiritual message, and discovered that the full reception of it could come only by spiritual enlightenment. Believing it to be a message meant for all, they held it perspicuous to the general intelligence of the prayerful in all that concerns faith and morals, and affirmed, with Melanchthon, "unam et certam et simplicem sententiam ubique quaerendam esse juxta prae-cepta grammaticae, dialecticae, et rhetoricae." Each of the great Reformers did something to advance this truer her-meneutical movement. Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin were alike imbued with the historic sense, Luther excelling in spiritual genius and a bold originality which carried him at times to extremes in the independence of his treatment of Scripture, Zwingli in an incisive perception which inclined strangely at times to subjective interpretations, Calvin in a union of qualities which distinguished him as the foremost exegete of the Reformation. Profoundly reverencing Scripture as God's word, submitting to it as authoritative, yet not binding himself to any theory of its inspiration which would preclude the possibility of circumstantial inaccuracies (cf. on Matt, xxvii. 9, Acts vii. 16), the Reformer of Geneva excelled all in freedom from arbitrary exposition, in reading the Biblical statements in the light of historical occasion and intention, in laying the foundations of a truer typology, and in exhibiting with its Christward testimony the historical basis of Messianic prophecy. The coryphaei of Protestant exegesis were aided by Beza, Bucer, Bullinger, CEcolampadius, and others. At length the hermeneutics of the Beformation found symbolical expression in the Protestant definitions of the exclusive sufficiency of Scripture, its perspicuity under the use of the ordinary means and with the teaching of the Holy Spirit, its possession of a sense which is one and not manifold, and its interpretation by itself. In the Clavis Scriptures Sacrce of M. Flacius Illyricus it was cast for the first time into systematic form, and dealt with theoretically.
With the Beformation objective exegesis may be said to have been firmly established. The conditions were also laid for further hermeneutical progress. Since then the prin-ciples of true grammatico-historical interpretation have been gradually coming to be better understood and more successfully applied. This has not been the case, however, without frequent relapses. In various schools there have been revivals of old errors. There has been a return to the subjective tendency, e.g., in the "moral interpretation" of Kant, as well as in various forms of rationalistic and Socinian exegesis. In accordance with his ideas of the empiric and local order of an historical faith, and his definition of morality as the essence of religion, Kant held that the judgments of the pure reason must be the test of religious truth, and that the literal sense, when it seems to convey a meaning adverse to morality, inconsistent with reason, or unworthy of God, must have a new meaning found for it. His hermeneutics, therefore, did not profess to rest with the sense intended by the writer, but reckoned it legitimate to adopt any possible sense which should be con-formable to the interests of perfect morality. To the same tendency belong the "psychological interpretation" of Paulus and Eichhorn, and the mythical interpretation of Weisse and Strauss. Of these the former proposed to hermeneutics the task of distinguishing the realities from the inexact impressions formed of facts by the sacred writers, while the latter sought principles by which the idea might be disentangled from the narrative vesture which it had woven for itself. Pietism, too, although its leaders, Spener and Francke, were of a better spirit, degenerated through its straining after " edifying " interpretation into mystic and chiliastic licence. The dependent tendency, again, formulated in the symbolical definitions on the sub-ject of the Vulgate as the basis of exegesis, the church as the authoritative interpreter, and the pope as the infallible exponent of the church in official declarations on faith and morals, has become so firmly seated in the Bornan Catholic communion that the interpreter's attitude to the church is capable of being compared by a Catholic author to that of a diplomatist acting in the spirit and interest of his prince. It is followed, too, by that section of the English Church which defers to primitive tradition or the consent of the fathers of the first four centuries. Even among those who adhere to the Protestant positions there has been partial reaction in both directions. The subjective tendency has reasserted itself, e.g., in the artificial typology of the Cocceian school, although Cocceius himself rather deserves the credit of making Protestant theology, after it had entered its scholastic period, again more Biblical, and of enforcing the importance of a literal, contextual interpretation. The dependent tendency has reappeared where the " analogy of faith," instead of being kept to the original idea of the general contents of Scripture as gathered from the lucid passages and used for a help to the understanding of the obscurer, has been identified with the creeds and employed as an external standard of interpretation.
But with partial retrogression there has been an advance on the whole in Protestant hermeneutics. To this interpreters of very different schools have contributed. Among these are to be mentioned Sal. Glassius, the author of the Philologia Sacra, Hugo Grotius, Abr. Calov, G. Calixtus, J. J. Bambach, whose Institutiones Hermeneuticce Sacrce exercised a salutary influence, notwithstanding his inclination to the pietist principle of " emphasis " in interpreta-tion ; J. A. Bengel, in whose Gnomon a happy union was effected between pietism and science; and J. S. Sender, who did much for the expansion of historical interpretation, notwithstanding the injurious results of his theory of accommodation. Of still greater importance are J. A. Ernesti, to whose celebrated Institntio Interpretis Novi Testamenti last century was indebted for the scientific presentation of the soundest hermeneutical principles on the philological side; Friedr. Schleiermacher, whose Hermeneutik abounds in fertile suggestions, and brings out for the first time the necessity of recognizing a specifically Christian element in the language of the New Testament; and F. Liicke, who illustrates the just combination of the strictest scientific method with the primary qualification of spiritual sympathy with the Word in the true interpreter. Extensions of hermeneutical method have been attempted, in the form of defining a special "psychological" (Stiiudlin), "theological" (Klausen, Landerer), or " dogmatic " (Doedes) interpreta-tion, or in the form of proposing new modes of interpretation, such as the " aesthetical" of Pareau, the " pneumatical" of Beck, the " panharmonic " of Germar. But whatever is valid in these schemes comes within the ordinary gramma-tico-historical method. Properly understood, the historical side of that method covers all that concerns the transporta-tion of the exegete, not only into the times and circum-stances of the composition of the books, but also into the position and personality of the authors. It embraces therefore that subjective quality which, however variously designated as the religious preparation, sympathy with the writers and their message, spiritual tact, or the illumina-tion of the Holy Spirit, has been recognized by the best interpreters to be a primary and essential requisite. The development of these principles has been greatly helped by the grammatical studies of men like Gesenius, Ewald, Ols-hausen, and Bottcher in Hebrew, and Winer and Buttmann in Greek; by the literary, historical, critical, and theologi-cal investigations of Herder, Baur, Rothe, Hofmann, and many others; and above all by the exegetical practice of scientific expositors such as De Wette, Bleek, Hupfeld, Liicke, Meyer, Godet, Ellicott, Lightfoot, and Delitzsch. Besults are thus being gathered which will issue in new enlargements of hermeneutical method. A clearer insight is being gained into the genius of the languages, which has already rescued New Testament Greek from purist and Hebraist extremes, and into the nature of typology, the laws of prophecy, the relation of the two Testaments to each other, the historical delivery and development of their contents, the unity (so distinguishable from uniformity) which animates their different sections. In these directions there is the promise of further progress in hermeneutics. More exact inquiry into the presuppositions which underlie the Biblical doctrines will also tell upon the laws of interpretation. Differences in hermeneutical method, how-ever, run up finally into differences of conception on the origin of the sacred literature, its intention, and the spirit which animates it. Uncertainty of view on the subject of what Scripture is and what its inspiration covers, as seen in the symbols of the churches and in the widely divergent positions affirmed by representative theologians of different schools (c/., e.g., those expounded respectively by Chemnitz, Beck, Schleiermacher, Martensen, Hodge, Ewald, Bothe, Hofmann), exercises a disturbing influence. More determinate conclusions on the definition of Scripture, such as can be the result only of completer historical investigation into the rise and object of the several books, must yet be reached before a thorough adjustment is possible between the religious interest and the scientific in Biblical her-meneutics.
Literature.—On the history generally :—Buddrcus, Isagoge hist, theol., &c, 1730; Hartmann, Die enge Verbindung des A. T. mit dem N. T., 1831; J. G. Rosenmiiller, Historia interp. libr. saer. in écoles. Christ., 5 vols., 1795-1814; G. W. Meyer, Geschichte der Schrifterklärung seit der Wiederherstellung der Wissenschaften, 5 vols., 1802-8; L. Diestel, Geschichte des alten Testaments in der christ. Kirche, 1869 ; also the notices in Beuss's Geschichte der heil. Schriften N. Test. ; the Introductions to the Old Testament by Keil and Bleek, and De Wette's Lehrbuch der historisch-kritischen Einleitung in das Alte und Neue Testament (edited by Schräder), 1869 ; and the sketches in Klausen's Hermeneutik des N. T. (German edition, Leipsic), 1841 ; J. L. Lntz's Biblische Hermeneutik, 1861 ; S. Davidson's Sacred Hcrmeneutics, 1843. On the Rabbinical Hermeneutics :—Surenhusius, BißXos KaTaAAayrjs, 1713; Zunz, Die gottesdienstl. Vorträge d. Juden, 1832; Bressel's article '' Rabbinismus," in Herzog's Beal-Encyclopddie; Hirsehfeld, Der Geist der talmudischen Auslegung der Bibel (Erster Theil, "Halaehische Exegese," 1840), and Der Geist der ersten Schrift-auslegungen, oder diehagadische Exegese, 1847; Frankel, Vorstudien zu der Scptuaginta, 1841 ; E. Deutsch, Literary Remains, 1874 ; and the sections in Jost's Geschichte ¿les Judenthums und seiner Secten, Grätz's Geschichte der Juden, Derenbourg's Histoire de la Palestine, Hausrath's Neutestamentliche Zeitgeschichte, Sehürer's Lehrbuch der Neutestamentlichen Zeitgeschichte, and Gfrörer's Jahrhundert des Heils. On the Kabbala also : —Delitzsch, Zur Geschichte der Jüdischen Poesie, 1836 ; Jellinck, Moses ben Schern Tob de Leon und sein Verhältniss zum Zohar, 1851 ; Ginsburg, The Kabbalah, its Doctrines, Development, and Literature, 1865. On the Alexandrian School :—Gfrörer, Philo und die alexandrinische Theosophie, 1831 ; Keim, Geschichte Jesu von Nazara, vol. i. ; Siegfried, Philo von Alexandria als Ausleger des A. T., 1875 ; Frankel, lieber den Einfluss der palästinischen Exegese auf die alexandriniselie Hermeneutik, 1851 and Ueber palästinische und alexandrinische Schriftforschung, 1854; the monographs by Kaye on Clement and Thomasius, and Redepenning on Origen ; C. R. Hagenbach, Obs. circa Origenis methodum interp., 1823 ; J. J. Bochinger, De Origenis allegorica S.S. interpretatione, 1829. On the Antiochene School :—Hergenröther, Die Antioch. Schule und ihre Bedeutung auf exeg. Gebiete, 1866 ; Kihn, Die Bedeutung der Antioch. Schule auf dem exeget. Gebiete, 1867 ; Specht, Der exeg. Standpunkt des Theodor von Mopsuestia und Theodoret von Kyros in der Auslegung mess. Weissag., 1871; also the monographs on Chrysostom by Neander, Meyer, Förster, and Stephens. Of the treatises referred to above, the following are of special importance:—M. Flacius, Clavis S. Scriptural (by Musaeus), 1674; Rambach, Institutiones Hermenéutica!, 1723 ; Ernesti, Institidio intcrpr. N. T. (in English by Terrot, 1843) ; Schleiermacher, Hermeneutik und Kritik mit besond. Beziehung auf das N. T. (by Lücke), 1838 ; Fr. Lücke, Grundriss der Neutest. Hermeneutik, 1817. In addition these also deserve notice :—S. F. N. Morus, Super Hermenéutica N. T. acroases academ., 1797-1802 ; Olshausen, Ein Wort über tiefern Schriftsinn, 1824; Kuenen, Critices et Hermeneutices librorum Novi Foederis lineamenta, 1858 ; Döpke, Hermeneutik der Neutest. Schriftsteller, 1829 ; Wilke, Die Hermeneutik des N. T. systematisch dargestellt, 1843-44; Immer, Hermeneutik des N. T., 1873, English edition by Newman, Andover, 1877 ; Cellerier, Manuel d'Herméneutique biblique, 1852 ; Doedes, Manual of Hermeneutics, 1867 ; Lange, Grundriss der bibl. Hermeneutik, 1878. On the Hermeneutics of the Roman Catholic Church, in addition to Loehnis, there may be mentioned—J. Jahn, Enchiridion Hermenéuticas generalis tabularum Vet. et N. T., 1812; Ranolder, Herrn, bibl. gen. principia rationalia, 1839 ; Kohlgruber, Herrn, bibl. gener., 1850; Güntner, Herrn, bibl. gener., 1851; Setwin, Herrn, bibl. institutiones, 1872; Reithmayr, Lehrbuch der bibl. Herrn., 1874; Friedlieb, Prolegomena zur bibl. Hermen., 1868; Wilke, Bibl. Hermen., 1853. Important discussions of sections of the subject are found in Seyffarth, Ueber Begriff, Anordnung, und Umfang der Herrn, des N. T., 1824; J. C. K. von Hofmann, Vermischte Aufsätze, 1878: John Keble, Primitive Tradition recognized in Holy Scripture, 1837, and On the Mysticism attributed to the Early Fathers of the Church, 1868 ; Merx, Eine Bede vom Auslegen ins besondre des Alten Tests., 1879. (S. D. F. S.)
Footnotes
See especially Strom., vi. p. 676-89; also Baur, Die Christliehe Gnosis, and Kaye, Some Account of the Writings and Opinions of Clement of Alexandria.
Loehnis, Grmidzuge der biblischen Hermeneutik und Kritik, p. 151, Criessen, 1839.