Encyclopedia of sacred theology - pagina 571

Chap.

II]

§ 85.

GRAPHICAL INSPIRATION

547

This simply required such a formulation of the content of his in it, or, if anything was changed, that this change also took place under the leading

memory, that nothing was changed of God's Spirit. tic,

Then

follow those productions of chokma-

which were digests of more than one prophet, digest himself, or some

prophetic, or lyric-didactic content,

longer recitations.

As

in the case of

the oral author superintended this

other person compiled the content of their Divine charge or

teaching and committed

it

to book-form.

With

the latter

must have been more active, to the writer or compiler. The working of must have been still more effective in the

especially graphic inspiration direct the spirit of

graphic inspiration

description of the apocalyptic vision, especially

assumed such proportions

when

this

John on Patmos. To obey the order of the " write these things " and in calmer moments to commit to writing what had been seen in ecstasy as the vision of

on the broad expanse of the visionary horizon, required a memory. And at the same time it was necessary that in the choice of language and expression the writer should be elevated to the heights of his subBut even this was not the department in which the ject. special sharpening of the

activity of this graphic inspiration reached its highest point.

This took place only in the writing of those books, for which no inspired content presented itself, but which the writer had to compose himself; that is, the historical hooks. With these writings also, as shown by their contents, there was no elimination of those natural data implanted in man for this kind of authorship, and made permanent by common grace; on the contrary, graphic inspiration adapts itself wholly to these natural data. The same methods pursued in our times, for the writing of any part of history, were pursued by the historiographers of the Old as well as of the New Testament. Oral traditions are consulted, old chronicles and documents are collected, inquirj^ is made of those who ma}^ have knowledge of the particulars involved, and in this way a representation is formed of what actually took place. Thus Luke (i. 1) himself tells us, (1) that "many have taken in liand to draw up a narrative,"' (2) that he makes distinction

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