whom it is not a little significant to find occupying
the Chair of New Testament Criticism and Exegesis at orthodox Yale. His book will make the student think, and so far will be of service ; but he is not a safe guide, for he is too much inclined to play the part of the advocatus diaboli. We can but repeat what we have said before on the subject, that no book could endure the criticism which is applied to the Bible. Against the old doctrine of verbal inspiration such criticism is pertinent enough, but it is ludicrous to apply to the narratives of the Old and New Testaments tests which it would be impossible to apply to Thucydides or Tacitns. There is nothing in the Acts, on which Dr. Bacon is specially severe, so incredible as Thucydides' story of the siege of Plataea. We will take an example of Dr, Bacon's manner : " The story of Elymas the sorcerer displays but one of the many various forms of an ancient theme ; in its present form, it cannot be historical." Why not ? Does not Josephus toll us that Felix was greatly under the influence of a magician ? Sergius Paullus was probably a student of the type of the Elder Pliny, very much interested in all kinds of marvels. Dr. Bacon 'goes on : "The speech placed in Paul's mouth at the Pisidian Antioch is quite un-Pauline, and contains not one trait of his characteristic gospel, least of all in xiii. 39." What is this un-Pauline utterance. " By him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses." It is a really gross misrepresentation to say that this means "that a man may rest upon the works of the law for his general justification, and rely on the death of Christ to make up deficiencies." Professor W. M. Ramsay deals with this very subject, the relation between the teaching at Antioch and the Epistle to the Galatians (" Historical Com- mentary on the Galatians," xliv.), and says, among other things, that "that that which is the burden of the Epistle is also the burden of the address" ; and again: " the coincidences between the Epistle and the address at Pisidian Antioch are so striking as to make each the best commentary on the other." And here is Dr. Bacon declaring that the two are absolutely contradictory, " the doctrine is exactly that which St. Paul fundamentally repu- diates." Which should we follow—Bacon or Ramsay? It is needless to answer.
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