302 THOUGHTS ON HUMANITY. persuaded Eve, and Eve persuaded Adam. Disobedience to God, though only possible with man, is thus, strictly speaking, not of the nature of man, but of the nature of the serpent. For, if man is man only so far as he lives according to the laws of Divine order, the violation of those laws must originate in the sensual nature which man possesses in common with animals, and not in his rational nature, which properly makes him man. His rational nature must, indeed, consent, as Eve and Adam did, before evil becomes sin; but the root of disobedience is in his sensual nature-the serpent. Only so far as he exercises "dominion over" the serpent, as included in "every living thing that moveth upon the earth," which his Creator required him to rule, is he truly human. This shows that humanity consists essentially not in flesh and blood, which animals possess in common with man, but in the rational and spiritual nature which he possesses beyond them. One distinguishing quality, which marks man's superiority over animals, is his ability rationally and voluntarily to govern his actions by law, as either prescribed by himself or imposed by others. This no other creature has the power to do. And so far as man acknowledges no law as the rule of his actions, he becomes an animal, gratifying the lusts of the body and the desires of the sensual life. As we are finite beings, humanity in us must be finite. We have no power to produce anything higher than this. Even in its highest and most perfect form, considered collectively in the kingdom of heaven, humanity is but a finite, and, as such, a faint image of Him who is full and perfect Man. As the only way of obtaining an idea of what we do not know is by means of something that we do know, we may now, by what we know of finite humanity in the person of man, arrive at some idea of what constitutes infinite humanity in the person of the Lord. If our finite humanity is made up of a life of finite and imperfect obedience to the laws of Divine order, as revealed in the Word, the Lord's infinite or Divine Humanity must be made up of a life of infinite and perfect obedience to those laws. And this we shall find to be the case; for our Lord, the second Adam, who was emphatically the Man, came to fulfil the law, and His life was one continuance "of obedience to the will of God," doing good and speaking truth. "Lo, I come! In the volume of the Book it is written of me to do Thy will, O God." This subject is placed in a clear light by our author, whose words we shall here quote :— "Few people understand in what sense the Lord is the Word; for it is generally supposed that the Lord, by means of the Word, may enlighten and teach mankind, THOUGHTS ON HUMANITY. 303 and yet that this is no reason why he should be called the Word: but let it be observed that every man is his own particular will, and his own particular understanding, and thus one person is distinguished from another. Now, as the will is the recipient of love, and consequently of all the goods belonging to that love, and the understanding is the recipient of wisdom, and consequently of all the truths belonging to that wisdom, it follows, of course, that every man is his own particular love, and his own particular wisdom, or, what amounts to the same, his own particular good, and his own particular truth Man is man only by virtue of these constituent parts, and nothing else in his constitution can be called man. With respect to the Lord, He is Love itself, and Wisdom itself;-thus Good itself, and Truth itself, which He became by virtue of His fulfilling all the good and all the truth contained in the Word; for whosoever thinks and speaks nothing but truth, becomes that truth; and whosoever wills and does nothing but good, becomes that good; and thus the Lord, in consequence of fulfilling all divine truth and divine good contained in the Word, as well in its natural as in its spiritual sense, became Good itself and Truth itself—thus the Word."-True Christian Religion, 263. As the Lord thus became man, or the Word itself in ultimates, by becoming Goodness itself and Truth itself, so we become men so far as we also keep and live the laws of God, and thus become forms of good and truth. "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them, for this is the law and the prophets." This is the law of humanity, by fulfilling which we become truly human, members of the Lord's mystical body-of His Church on earth, and of His kingdom in heaven. In these remarks we have only sought to present this subject in such a light as may, without any desire to theorise, lead to practical results, by fixing our thoughts on humanity in such a way as may lead us to "put on Christ," "who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself.” C. I. SWEDENBORG'S KNOWLEDGE OF HEBREW, AND THE "SPIRITUAL MAGAZINE," AGAIN. THE June number of the "Spiritual Magazine" contains our adversary's rejoinder to our reply, in the Repository for May, to his first attack on Swedenborg's competency as a Hebrew scholar. This rejoinder affords ample opportunity for every species of severe retort. There is room for astonishment-not of the most edifying sort that its writer has not discovered a single instance in which it might become him, in the plenitude of his superior knowledge, to admit with grace that any objection of his has been even weakened by our reply, or that haste or 304 SWEDENBORG'S KNOWLEDGE OF HEBREW, carelessness have ever led him to use a term which generosity would retract. There is room for indignation at the ingenuity (not ingenuousness) that evades the edge of direct argument, and by dexterously changing the venue, contrives to ride off victorious even from defeat. There is also room for ridicule-or, let us say, compassion-for the swaggering air that is meant to hide the half-conscious sense of convicted ignorance and injustice. But before a controversialist could find any pleasure in hunting out all the occasions that warrant all these modes of rêtort, he would require to be impressed with a much graver sense of his opponent's and his own personal importance to a great and abiding issue than we, for our part, are able or willing to entertain. As we took up our pen, at the first, in defence of a sacred cause, so we hope to make it, to the very end, subserve no less worthy interest. It is distressing to us that our opponent so wantonly provokes us to leave a discussion, in which permanent truths might be ventilated, merely to rebuke his ephemeral levity,-to parry his unfair fencing with home thrusts, to notice the subterfuges of baffled arrogance. We will resist these temptations as we best may, and strive to keep mainly to what concerns the validity of our vindication of Swedenborg. If that end cannot, unhappily, be attained without incidental damage to our opponent's character for qualities more precious than brilliant scholarship, he must be magnanimous enough to thank himself for it. It is he that has thrust himself upon us as our adversary; we have not wilfully sought him. We will now make extracts from the rejoinder, and endeavour to meet their salient points with fitting answers. Thus "To expect that the writer could have completely answered and solved all the questions involved in my remarks would be unreasonable; but it should have been possible for him to have been impartial and candid. At the outset it augurs well to find (and, in deed, how could it have been otherwise ?) that he does not claim for Swedenborg's translation anything like a miraculous origin, and consequently it has no stamp of infallibility, however new this information may be to many Swedenborgians. He frankly admits what really is the giving up of the whole case, not only of infallibility, but of correctness of translation; that in Swedenborg's translation there are 'discrepancies between different renderings of the same words, and (which), as it appears to us, are best accounted for as indications of varying degrees of knowledge and exactness.'" It is implied that we lack impartiality and candour; but "it augurs well" that we grant something that could not, indeed, have been otherwise! Then we "frankly admit what is really the giving up of the whole case, not only of infallibility, but of correctness of transla 66 AND THE SPIRITUAL MAGAZINE," AGAIN. 305 ? tion." Correctness ought here, from the nature of the argument, to mean quasi absolute correctness- -a kind of twin sister of infallibility. But is infallibility, or this kind of correctness, our "whole case We thought, on the contrary, that we had distinctly argued, in the very words he cites, that Swedenborg's translation could not claim any such infallibility. We had readily conceded that we should even expect that the broader light shed in modern times on all linguistic studies should lead to a more exact knowledge of Hebrew than was even possible in his time. That was also necessarily implied in our remark, that the discovery of minor inexactnesses (which, by a deplorable oversight, was printed exactnesses) might even confirm his claim to intelligence of the inner sense. It is evident, then, that infallibility could not constitute our "whole case." Whose "whole case" was it, then? It was his own! It was the burden of his first assumption against us that we considered Swedenborg's translation infallible; and, in spite of our disclaimer, he treats us as if we had frankly surrendered a plea which we had shown that we—at least, personally-never could set up. But suppose our adversary, on the other hand, does not use correctness in the sense of quasi infallibility, but only as meaning very reliable general fidelity;—then, if he imagines that we have frankly yielded up that point, too, he must labour under a signal inability to understand our arguments. For we insisted, with equal zeal, that Swedenborg's knowledge of Hebrew was adequate to enable him to produce a translation which was reliable down to minutiæ so small that they were mere trifles amidst the mass. We certainly did not give up that degree of correctness; our whole vindication was an effort to maintain it. But let us hear further : .... It is "The object is not alone to ascertain the degree of Hebrew scholarship that Swedenborg may be said to have possessed, but also it is the more practical one of trying to find out what is the actual character of Swedenborg's translation as to correctness and clearness, and therefore as a basis for the spiritual meaning which he attributes to it as given to him by the Lord alone,' and that as tested by the highest standard which it is in our power to apply. This is, therefore, neither an unfair nor an undesirable proceeding, but the contrary. true that in the case of the Swedenborgian community this subject is clogged by peculiar difficulties. If the inner sense correspond to or is strictly based upon the natural sense, as Swedenborg alleges, then of course it is of the extremest importance that this relation between the two senses, as it is established by or revealed through Swedenborg, should not be altered. The anxiety, therefore, to keep this mutual relationship of the two senses as fixed by Swedenborg is quite intelligible. In fact, the question resolves itself into this: Are the contents of the Arcana, including the translation of the sacred text as there given, a finality or not?" 306 SWEDENBORG'S KNOWLEDGE OF HEBREW, We cannot imagine why our opponent thinks we should complain of unfairness, if all the scholars of Europe set themselves to examine Swedenborg's translation, and to test its exactness by the highest standard of our time. We have said nothing whatever to the contrary. But in this extract our opponent forgets that he has just given us credit for frankly surrendering the whole case of infallibility and correctness of translation; for he now attempts to fasten on us the charge of considering Swedenborg's literal translation, and his spiritual exposition, as being both equally fixed. It has been in vain that we argued that Swedenborg's knowledge of Hebrew was really a scientific acquirement, and as such liable to error. It has been in vain that we expect modern scholarship to point out minor inexactnesses. It is in vain that we frankly surrender "the whole case." The question it seems still is— whether Swedenborg's translation is accepted by us as a finality! Yet this writer does not scruple to charge us with want of candour! The development of our argument led us to propose, as a crucial test for Swedenborg's pretensions, the examination of his spiritual exposition by the correctest literal version which modern scholarship could educe from the original text; assuming that, if his spiritual exposition were true, it would be found to be more compatible with a more exact representation of the literal sense, than it was with his own possible inexactnesses. Our adversary will not hear of this. He argues, with charming logical cogency "Now this reply has been given over and over again, and seems to have become a convenient kind of canon, but if applied in detail, it is not only insufficient, but is actually an evasion and shirking of the whole question. It draws largely upon implicit faith in the infallibility of Swedenborg; but stops up the channels by which that faith ought ever to be fed and confirmed, from the side of the mental and moral activity of man's nature. It is an appeal from Swedenborg to Swedenborg, with an impossibility of getting from him reasons for his judgment." But as our plan necessarily required that one of the two things whose reciprocal compatibility was to be thus tested, should be the exclusive product of the best modern Hebraists, we labour under an "utter incapacity" to discern how it would "draw largely on implicit faith in the infallibility of Swedenborg;" and still more, how it could be called a mere appeal from Swedenborg to Swedenborg. It could not in any way depend on mere implicit faith in Swedenborg, unless the congruity or incongruity of the one sense with the other, on definite principles of correspondence, were a matter entirely above, or below, intellectual |