Old Testament prophecy and modern attempts to explain it away

IT is of the nature of religion, if I may use a somewhat hackneyed distinction, to contain a static and a dynamic element, or again, to put it in a more concrete form, an institutional and a personal aspect. Religion for the most part is intensely conservative, both in what is essential and what is not; it keeps to the old faith and the old forms, and is slow to admit even the most legitimate development. Yet, on the other hand, it must make a living appeal or perish; and it is the very stability of faith and form that enables it to do so. "I know whom I have believed" (2 Tim 1:12); that is the cry of every great religious leader down the ages, of every religion, and modern attempts to modify the attitude show little promise of lasting success.

The Mosaic Law, the system as such, Old Testament religion upon its institutional side, has already been dealt with by Dr. Bird, and much that he has set forth is important for the understanding of the present paper, since it supplies the necessary background. The personal side of Old Testament religion is supplied in the main by the prophets; through them comes the direct appeal from the Divine Person to the human, a sublime and spiritual appeal, yet often highly anthropomorphic. Almighty God speaks at times in the language of an emotion no less vivid and personal than that which He seeks to arouse in His people. The prophet is the human instrument by which He manifests His mind, and makes this personal appeal. The distinction between the institutional and the personal side of the Old Testament religion, however, must not be drawn too sharply. Moses the lawgiver was himself a prophet, and the greatest of the prophets up till the very times of Christ; and the later prophets constituted a permanent institution, recognized as such by the Law, in Deuteronomy 18:15-22. With this authentic declaration we may commence an examination of the nature of Old Testament prophecy, and later pass to the consideration of the function it fulfilled. In both parts of the paper the indication, rather than the substance of argument must suffice; the vastness of the subject and the limits of time permit no more.

Revelation and Mission

The prophet is the spokesman of God; the very word "prophet" signifies as much in the Greek whence it is derived, and most probably the corresponding Hebrew word also. That he may be God's spokesman two essential conditions are required, revelation and mission, God must speak to the prophet, and also commission the prophet to repeat what He has said. That is the idea of prophecy that we find in the Old Testament, both in the Book of Deuteronomy and in the writings of the prophets themselves. Revelation and mission, the message and the command to deliver it, alike stand out clearly in Deuteronomy 18:18-19; here and elsewhere, to avoid discussion and delay, I translate direct from the Hebrew:

"I will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren, like to thee, and I will put My words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I shall command him. And it shall be, that whoso will not hearken to My words, which he shall speak in My name, I will require it of him."

Thus the words are God's, put into the prophet's mouth, spoken in His name, and by His command. Revelation and mission are reinforced by the threat against any that will not hearken. Then comes the command to slay impostors; he is an impostor whose prediction does not come true. To this test we shall return.

Revelation and mission are also clearly indicated, for example, in the larger prophetic works that have come down to us. Isaiah, after his vision of the Lord in glory, receives the divine command, "Go, and tell this people" (Isa. 6:9); to Jeremiah also, like unto Moses in his diffidence no less than in his meekness, it is said, "To whomsoever (or possibly, to whatsoever) I shall send thee, thou shalt go, and whatsoever I shall command thee thou shalt speak .... I have put My words in thy mouth" (Jer. 1:7-9); Ezechiel, like Isaiah, beholds the glory of God before receiving his commission: the vision occupies the first chapter, and the commission the second and third, wherein he is told more ihan once that he is sent of the Lord, and is to speak the words of the Lord. Thus in each of these cases we have clearly the divine message, and the command to promulgate it; but in reality both are indicated every time that a prophet uses the common phrase, "Thus saith the Lord."

Writings and Miracles

In revelation and mission, then, we have the essentials of prophecy. It cannot be necessary to insist that it was not essential that the prophet should commit his prophecy to writing, seeing that we have such striking examples in proof as Elias and Eliseus (Elijah and Elisha). Such records of the prophets utterances as have come down are guaranteed to us by the fact that they are found in inspired books; this, again, was in no way bound to be, though it is all to our advantage. The two prophets named worked miracles, by which the truth of their mission was attested: such at least is the Old Testament version of the matter, and it is the only evidence available, distasteful as it may be to some modern skeptics; a striking example is the trial between Elias and the false prophets on Carmel (3 [1] Kings 18). But neither can miracles be called essential to the prophet, valuable as they may be in confirmation of his mission. They are conspicuous by their absence in the case of the Baptist; "John did no sign" (John 10:41).

Prophetic Prediction

Even prediction cannot be considered strictly essential to the prophet; but here we have to make a distinction, if I may put it this way with all reverence, between short-distance and long-distance prophecy. The former, to be verified almost at once, may serve as a test of revelation and mission, the one test indicated in Deuteronomy; if what the would-be prophet has sought to foretell do not come to pass, the Lord has not spoken by him (Deut. 18:22). Conversely, we may suppose (though it is not said) that the fulfillment of a prediction might go a long way to prove revelation and mission. We have examples both of the positive and negative effect. The false prophets had promised victory to Achab and Josaphat; but Micheas (Micaiah) prophesied the defeat that was to come (3 Kings 22). And Jeremiah refutes Hananiah's promise of deliverance from Babylon by the prediction of Hananiah's own death, which is soon fulfilled (Jer. 28).

False Prophets

A study of the false prophets confirms the conclusion drawn from the study of the true; what is found lacking in them is precisely mission and revelation. Of long-distance prophecy, chiefly messianic in character, I shall speak later; evidently it could not serve as a test, nor can it be said strictly to be of the essence of prophecy. Other tests of mission and revelation of course existed besides those already touched upon; the whole life and character of the prophet, the comparison of his teaching with divine truth already known, and so forth.

The Non-Catholic View

Such is in broad outline the Old Testament conception of the nature of prophecy. It is to be found in all the relevant evidence on the subject; it was enforced by the prophets themselves, even by the false prophets, and was accepted by the people at large. Nevertheless, when we come to examine more closely that revelation which lies at the root of the whole conception, it is no longer possible to proceed in peace and security. While Catholics and most believing Christians admit readily enough that the whole subject of immediate communication between God and man is obscure and difficult, those who believe less, or who believe little or nothing, are apt to treat it as a fundamental axiom, a point beyond all dispute, that such immediate communication is entirely out of the question. And so, if he looks outside of his own communion, the Catholic scholar finds whole commentaries absolutely dominated by this presupposition, that none the less would usually be called moderate and even conservative. The presupposition is seldom avowed; sometimes, indeed, the author or editor himself hardly seems to be aware of the extent to which it influences his whole exegesis. Nevertheless, it is often the fact more often than not, I should think, among serious scholars outside the Catholic Church as I understand it that an explanation involving revelation or miracle is looked upon as no explanation at all, but merely a problem still unsolved; and this attitude is taken up, consciously or unconsciously, even by those who profess to believe in what we may shortly describe as a personal God.

To deal with such presuppositions would evidently take us far afield, far away from prophecy as such. It must be enough to suggest briefly two causes that may help to explain their presence and influence, the neglect both of sound philosophy and of sound history. No doubt some non-Catholic scholars have come to the study of Holy Writ with philosophical opinions already formed, as a result of philosophical studies, and these opinions have sometimes been of a subversive character. But it is my impression that such scholars have often lacked a proper grounding in philosophy, and have not themselves recognized the necessity of resting their exegetical and theological conclusions upon it. Philosophy cannot supply for religion, but a false philosophy can subvert religion. A Christian theory of God, the soul and knowledge is a need of human reason if there is to be Christian faith. Such a theory will also save the scholar from a distortion of historical evidence. Modern exegesis is apt to resolve itself into hacking one's way through the only available evidence, under the hypnotizing influence of a theory of natural evolution which peremptorily excludes all divine intervention. A Catholic, too, comes to the study of Holy Writ with some principles already firm in his mind, let us not deny it; but they are principles open and avowed, which he is fully prepared to discuss, nor is he afraid to admit occasional difficulties in their application, or to define their exact force and influence upon him. I am very far from wishing to impute bad faith to the typical non-Catholic exegete of today; nevertheless, he does need to think and to express himself more clearly, more adequately and even ruthlessly, more frankly. He needs to think out all his own methods and implications, to try to get to the bottom of things, to take nothing for granted unawares.

"Higher" Criticism

Having dared to say so much, and in a way that I hope will give no offense, let me turn to discuss the question, so far as it admits of discussion, as to how the prophet comes by his revelation. A theory has lately been put forward which I may briefly call the mediumistic hypothesis, which would explain, and explain away, the prophetic revelation by supposing the prophet to be endowed with the same kind of properties as a medium, without, however, allowing a divine message in the true sense. Let it suffice here to say that the occupation of a medium does not appear to be profitable for mind or body; the prophets are made of sterner stuff. The theory of subliminal consciousness is more often put forward without this accretion; the prophet's pent up feelings gather in force till they explode with the irresistible conviction of a divine impulse: "Thus saith the Lord!" Here, as elsewhere, my criticism must be summary, since it has seemed best to cover a great deal of ground. I would remark, then, that the prophets themselves, and also those who accepted them as such, would certainly have regarded such a view with horror, as excluding any divine message in the true sense, and putting them on a level with the false prophets, and that their illusion must have assumed colossal proportions, both in the intensity and the duration of their conviction. Sometimes, too, the reception and promulgation of the divine message does violence to the whole bent of the prophet's nature; Jeremiah, for example, seems to be nervous, anxious to escape, broken-hearted. "Woe is me, my mother" he cries, "Thou hast borne me a man of strife and contention to the whole earth" (15:10). At other times the period of internal incubation appears to be unreasonably short: it needs but a night to make Nathan realize that David is not to build the Temple after all (2 Kings [2 Sam.] 7), and perhaps not half-an-hour to make Isaiah retract his divine message of death to Ezechiah (4 [2] Kings 20)

There is another argument, to which also I must fail to do justice. The arm of the Lord is not shortened; the evidence for direct communication between God and man, like that for miracle, comes down in continuous stream to our own times. For the last instance, and that in our own century, I may mention the wonderful, nay, astounding case of Gemma Galgani, in whom, among other things, our Lord renewed the outward tokens of His Passion. His Eminence Cardinal Gasquet has contributed a preface to the English translation of her life. True, the mission of such Catholic mystics cannot be put on a level with that of the prophets, nor does the Church require our assent to the truth of their revelation. Nevertheless, from a purely historical point of view the evidence in their favor is often, as in the case mentioned, far superior to that in favor of the prophets, and has been subjected by competent eye witnesses themselves to searching scrutiny. The experiences of the later mystics, in fact, throw a valuable light upon the phenomena of prophecy, upon the manner in which the divine action affects intellect and sense and so forth. If there still be those who have nothing better than a blank denial for all this mass of evidence from Old and New Covenant well, let us say one last word to them, and not a very new one at that: there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of either in their philosophy or their history.

The nature of prophecy is the more important question; that of the function we may treat briefly under three headings, the function of prophecy with reference to past, present and future. The modern evolutionary hypothesis supposes the prophets to have developed themselves almost all that was worth having in the religion of Israel, and in order to dispose of any recalcitrant evidence passes them through the same mincing machine as the Books of Moses and Josue. No doubt there is a certain development of doctrine to be observed in the prophetic writings, indeed, this very consideration of their doctrine is a powerful motive for regarding the less developed Pentateuch, or even that part of it usually called the Priestly Code, as the starting-point rather than the consummation of their labors. Yet in the main the prophets enforce acknowledged obligations and established beliefs; most of all they presuppose that clear conception of a personal God without which there could be no question of revelation or mission. With Faith and Law to precede them, the prophets are fairly intelligible; to invert the order is to put the cart before the horse. "The Lord shall roar from Sion," begins Amos, "and utter His voice from Jerusalem." If the critics reject this verse, the main reason is precisely because it presupposes the Mosaic Law as we know it, with Jerusalem in the privileged position of the central sanctuary; given the Mosaic Law already in force, nothing could be more natural. And the late Prof. Wellhausen, whose Teutonic yoke appears to be fastened upon our necks more firmly than ever since the War, in order to invest the rival sanctuaries, the high places, with a legal and venerable antiquity, such as would subvert the unique claim of Jerusalem founded upon the Mosaic Law, performs the somewhat startling exploit of entirely overlooking the idolatry which the evidence of the historical books shows to have been practiced there. I have touched upon these points in an article on "The Ark of the Covenant," one of a series on Pentateuch problems, two or three of which in some measure support the contention, which in any case I cannot urge any further here, that in the main the prophets assume doctrine rather than, as the "critics" would say, manufacture it.

Role of Prophets

The function of prophecy, then, with regard to the past was to keep alive ancient standards of faith and religion, and even to infuse into them a life more vigorous still. This sufficiently indicates a function in respect of the present also, which, however, must be conceived on very large lines. The prophets were even more responsible for the guidance of Israel in faith and conduct than might at first sight appear. The priesthood of the Old Testament was essentially and almost exclusively a sacrificial and liturgical priesthood; it is astonishing to find how little is said about any teaching function. This latter chiefly fell to the prophets, and was afterwards taken up by the scribes; it was not the priests that sat in the chair of Moses. We thus appear to have a different working system in Old and New Covenant; in the former there does not seem to be an absolutely permanent infallible teaching body, but a broken series of prophetical teachers, extraordinary rather than ordinary messengers of divine truth, which they receive by special revelation, and promulgate by word of mouth, and sometimes by inspired writing also. Under the Old Covenant also, we have a progressive revelation, though not to the extent that some would suppose; under the New we have a deposit of faith closed once and for all after the death of the Apostles, though a certain development is possible in the better understanding and explanation of it.

Further, the prophets were the guides of Israel even in matters of state; it may be enough to cite Isaiah's warning not to rely upon Egypt (Isa. 30:1-7). The Old Covenant is a theocracy wherein is no limit to the divine guidance; yet it would be a mistake to suppose that the Hebrews could not distinguish between religious and civil allegiance. The story of Joseph and of Daniel and much else offers positive proof to the contrary. Some of the prophets may have directed a more or less ascetic life led by those called the sons of the prophets; but this subject is rather obscure.

Guidance in action brings us to the function of prophecy with respect to the future, which indeed has already been involved to some extent in the discussion of what has been called short-distance prophecy, upon which there is no need to return. Rather let us in conclusion consider long-distance prophecy, and in general the larger hope of Israel. Types there were, persons and things and events signifying persons and things and events of greater import still to come. In the main, types are a sign to believers rather than unbelievers; yet some of them are very striking, for example, the paschal lamb, viewed in the light of the Johannine writings.

Prophetic Prefigurements

There is also to be found in prophecy what I venture to call compenetration, a form of prophetic idealization, wherein the more immediate present fades away, as it were, into the mightier fulfillment of the same divine counsel, which gradually glows through till it takes full possession of the screen. Let me present this doctrine in the words of St. Thomas Aquinas, from the preface to his commentary on the Psalms:

"Prophecies are sometimes uttered about things which existed at the time in question, but are not uttered primarily with reference to them, but in so far as they are a figure of things to come; and therefore the Holy Ghost has provided that when such prophecies are uttered, some details should be inserted which go beyond the actual thing done, in order that the mind may be raised to the thing signified. Thus in Daniel many things are said of Antiochus as a figure of Antichrist; wherefore somethings are therein read which were not accomplished in the case of Antiochus, but will be fulfilled in Antichrist. Thus, too, some things are read about the kingdom of David and Solomon, which were not to find fulfillment in the kingdom of these men, but they have been fulfilled in the kingdom of Christ, in figure of whom they were said. Such is Psalm 71, 'Give to the king thy judgment, O God' which, according to its title, deals with the kingdom of David and Solomon, but there is something said therein which exceeds the power of that kingdom, viz., 'In his days shall justice spring up, and abundance of peace, till the moon be taken away;' and again, 'He shall rule from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends,' etc. This psalm, therefore, is expounded of the kingdom of Solomon, in so far as it is a figure of the kingdom of Christ, in whom all things there said shall be fulfilled."

St. Thomas is doubtless basing his view in great part upon St. Jerome's note on Daniel 11:21 ff. It may be well to quote also the words wherein for the first time, in what may be called the greatest of Jerome's commentaries, he explicitly sets forth this important teaching. He sets it forth, however, not as something new and original, but as the current Catholic opinion of his day, that Antiochus was a type of Antichrist, "and that what befell Antiochus beforehand in part is to be accomplished in Antichrist in full. And that this is the wont of Holy Writ, to anticipate in types the truth of things that are to be, as in what is said of the Lord Savior in Psalm 71, which has Solomon's name prefixed to it, whereas all that is said of Him cannot apply to Solomon. For he did not endure 'with the sun and before the moon, throughout all generations' ... But in part and, as it were, in a shadow and image of the truth, these things were anticipated in Solomon, that they might be more perfectly fulfilled in the Lord Savior. As therefore the Savior has both Solomon and the other holy men as a type of His coming, so Antichrist has that most wicked king Antiochus."

This principle of the blending or compenetration of type and antitype appears to go back to St. Peter himself, in the discourse recorded in Acts 2:14-36; and the importance of it has been recognized by more than one recent Catholic writer. Not being able to expound the subject so fully as I should wish, I may perhaps be allowed to refer for a more detailed treatment to the chapter on "Christ in Type and Prophecy" in my little book, Back to Christ, where also it may be seen how His Eminence Cardinal Billot has applied the principle to the child of Isaiah 7.

Direct predictions we also find, long-distance prophecies in the strictest sense. Jacob, for example, prophesies of Judah in words which it appears fairly safe to translate thus:

"The scepter shall not pass from Judah,
Nor the staff from between his feet,
Until he come whose it is,
And to him shall be the obedience of the peoples."
(Gen. 49:10.)

Thus, when Judah has finally lost its independence, the kingly scepter in peace and the marshal's staff in war, the Messiah is to come to save the nations. But He is to save them through His passion and death, foretold in poems which my friend Pere Condamin at Hastings has so ably translated and expounded in his edition of Isaiah. This death, again, is re-enacted in the universal sacrifice among the nations which Malachi foretells shall supplant the sacrifices in the Temple. To set forth these and other prophecies at length has seemed upon the whole of less importance than to insist upon the fundamental principles of prophecy as such. One feature may be singled out, however, common to the three prophecies just mentioned, and repeated in the Psalms and elsewhere, to which also emphatic appeal is made in the New Testament, for example, by St. James at Jerusalem (Acts 15:17) and by St. Paul in his epistle to the Romans (e.g. Romans 15:9-12): it is the strong universalism that appears again and again in the Old Testament, the marvelous and God-given conviction that so small a people were big with blessing for all mankind.

And how was it to be fulfilled? That God, who had so striven to present Himself as a living Person to His people through the prophets, was at the last to woo them in the Flesh itself, to found a New Covenant, wherein should be neither Jew nor Greek, but Himself all in all.

by THE REV. C. LATTEY, S.J., M.A.