A HIGHER CRITIC

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2390, 20 February 1915, Page 6

A HIGHER CRITIC

Db. T. K. Cheyne, whose death ' was announced in our cable columns yesterday, has occupied an honoured plaoe for many years as one of the leaders of the British school , of Biblical criticism. At Oxford he won the Chancellor's medal for tho English Essay, and became Fellow of Balliol College, and in 1885 he was appointed Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture at Oriel College, Oxford, in which position he • exercised a powerful influence on the trend of religious thought in Britain, especially in regard to the literature of the Old Testament. In this field of study > I)fi. Cheyne built up a world-wide ropu'tation. He was a higher critic of decidedly advanced views,, and some of his theories have met with the keenest opposition. 'He was probably more in sympathy- with- the methods of the German school than tho majority of- British scholars, his conclusions on certain points being regarded by many competent authorities as highly, fanciful. One of the chief temptations 'of'" scholarship, both ancient and modern, is to place an unjustifiable strain upon the relevant facts in order to make them fit in with preconceived ideas. Dr. Chetnb's works are not altogether free from this fault, but they are nevertheless characterised by such depth of insight and breadth of knowledge that even when his argument fails to carry conviction it almost invariably suggests some new and fruitful line of thought. He always had the courage of his opinions, and no fear of consequences prevented him from giving expression to the most advanoed and daring theories, and, though his conclusions sometimes evoked strong protests from more conservative minds, he was able to reconcile hia views as a scholar with his position as a clergyman of the Church of England, and he held a canonry at Rochester at the time of his death. The teaching and books of men like Dr. Cheyne, Dr* _G. A. Smith, and-the late Dr. Driver have done much to popularise the general methods and broad results of the Higher Criticism of the Bible in British-speaking countries. The alarm which these new ideas aroused in England thirty or forty years ago has now almost passed away. People are beginning to realise that the gains are greater than the losses, and also to understand the difference between assured results and mere theories and suggestions.. Dk. Driver makes this point qufte clear when he tells us that some of the conclusions reached by oritics rest upon such a wide and varied induction of facts that they may be aocepted as practically certain. Beyond the limit of these assured results there is . a tolerably wide fringe in which, .owing to the slightaess, uncertainty, or conflicting nature of the data, no indisputable decisions can be drawn.' This fringe provides an attractive field for speculation and for the. working out of illuminative theories. Dr. Cheyne delighted in exploring this region of uncertainty, and in studying his works it is always necessary to bear in mind the distinction between a striking idea and an established fact.