Following the re-awakening of speculation came the Reformation. The
Reformation brought the reading of the Bible at first hand, and a new
style of preaching and exhorting directly from it. In religion and
morals the reformers fell back upon the Scriptures themselves. They
drank in the Scriptures, and therewith the Hebraic spirit which pervades
them. In most cases the salutary effect upon character and conduct can
hardly be overstated. In other cases there was extravagance and harm.
Uncompromisingly, and not very intelligently, did they speak Scripture,
think Scripture, and act Scripture, like Hebrews born out of due
season. Knox invested himself with the austere authority of the Hebrew
prophet; Calvin was fain to hew Agag in pieces before the Lord. The
Puritans of England became fanatical in their sombre conception of sin
and in the rigour of their exaggerated Hebraism. Here was the second
period of Hebraic influence, an influence wholly moral and religious.
In each case the new invasion of the Hellenic spirit precedes, and is
the handmaid of, the Hebraic. In each case the influence of Greece is to
procure the open mind, that of Jerusalem, to mould the unsteady heart.
The Greek works first upon the intellect to make it supple, the Hebrew
comes after and gives robustness to the moral will. Such, in the main,
is the distinction and the historic sequence of the two forces. We have
twice passed under each, and we shall, I believe and hope, feel the
strong power of each again, for we sorely need, on the one hand,
something to give stamina to our weak moral conceptions, and, on the
other, something to give us clear principles of social life, art, and
culture.
Let us look a little closer at what our distinction implies.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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