Scripture, Metaphysics, and Poetry by MacSwain Robert

Author:MacSwain, Robert.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)
Published: 2013-03-08T16:00:00+00:00

Lecture VIII:

The Poetry of the New Testament

The voice said, Go, take the book which is open in the hand of the angel that standeth upon the sea and the land. And I went unto the angel, bidding him to give me the book. And he said to me, Take it, and devour it.

Apocalypse, X.8–9

In this last lecture we must try to draw several threads together and say what we have to say about the movement of inspiration in apostolic minds. We have compared the inspiration of the New Testament with the inspiration of the ancient prophets and with the inspiration (so called) of great poets. We have said something about the prophets and the poets, but about the apostolic writers almost nothing at all. It is in the apostolic field that we need now to apply and work out the comparison.

Let us start by tidying up an apparent inconsistency. A good way back we said about St Paul and St John that they reveal divine truth to us under the form of certain master-images: we gave the example of the Trinity. It was this observation which sent us off on a wide detour, examining the function of images in metaphysics, rational theology, poetry and prophecy. And while all the suggested comparisons proved relevant, the comparison with prophecy was obviously the closest: indeed, we quoted St John’s own testimony to show that he regarded his own inspiration as prophetical. What, then, is the inconsistency? It is this: we thought of the divine control over St Paul or St John as developing the images in his mind: the images were the matter of revelation. Whereas in talking of Jeremiah we suggested that the poetical and imaged form was rather a technique of divination than the matter of revelation: in fact, we said, one could translate from image to image, or even into cold prose, without destroying the content. Here, then, we seem to have got prophets whose images are inessential to their message, and prophetical apostles whose images are the substance of what they reveal. But, if this is really so, then the comparison between prophet and apostle cannot be so close as we supposed, and the distance which opens between them touches the very point which is most vital to us, the quasi-poetical movement of images in the inspired mind.

For light upon this difficulty let us return to Jeremiah. We used as our example one of those oracles in which the divine voice pleads with Israel. ‘They have deserted me, the fountain of living waters’.1 The substance of the reproach, we said, could be alternatively expressed, and, we might add, does receive in the prophets a great number of equivalent expressions. Yes, but behind all such alterable images there remain the images which cannot be altered. Behind all divine pleas and reproaches there stand the images which give them their sense and bearing: the image of the God who is as man and not as man: the image of the divine

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