ART. IX. CHRISTIAN ANTHROPOLOGY.

By J. A. BROWN, D. D., Professor in Gettysburg, Pa.

Anthropology (ävIрwños, man, and lóyos, doctrine) is the science of man; the word is commonly used to denote that science which treats of the natural history of the human species. Though employed in this narrower sense, in its full meaning it would embrace man in his entire nature, physically, intellectually and morally; or, more in accordance with scriptural usage, and more definite, as well as more simple, man as possessed of body and soul. Otto Casman is mentioned as having introduced this term in the year 1596. "This author," says Sir William Hamilton, "had the merit of first giving the name Anthropologia to the science of man in general, which he divided into two parts-the first, Psychologia, the doctrine of the Human Mind; the second, Somatolgia, the doctrine of the Human Body; and these thus introduced and applied, still continue to be the usual appellations of these branches of knowledge in Germany." Metaphysics, p. 95.

Theological Anthropology, while not overlooking the bodily part, treats of man chiefly in his higher nature and relations, as a spiritual and immortal being. As general anthropology looks at the nature side of man, theological anthropology looks at the spirit side. It has to do with man as a religious being, and considers him as "made in the image of God." The field thus opened to survey man, as the creature and subject of God, his origin and destiny, the connection of the individual with the race, or of the race with the first man, his primitive and present condition, his exalted powers and debased estate, his need and susceptibility of redemption, with included and related topics, is one of almost boundless extent, and can not be fully traversed in the compass of an article such as this. A mere outline of leading points is all that can be attempted.

The place usually assigned 'to Anthropology, in Systematic Theology, is that between Theology proper (Theologia) and Soteriology, or the doctrine of salvation, and here it oc

cupies not only a most appropriate, but a most important position. Man, as head of the creation, furnishes the strongest witness for God, His being and perfections; and, as fallen, he presents the need of redemption. It is to man, and through man, and in man, that God has made the most wonderful revelation of Himself; and it is for man, and through man, that salvation has been provided, and is now mediated. Our views of Anthropology must therefore necessarily effect our views of Theology, for they are both parts of one grand harmonious whole, embracing God and man, the creature and the Creator, and their most intimate relations. Soteriology, indeed, may be said to be grounded on Anthropology, and without some intelligent and satisfactory views of human nature, its capacities and its needs, we can have no clear idea of that salvation provided for a fallen and guilty race. But when they are studied together, and we observe how exactly the one is fitted to the other, there is furnished one of the strongest proofs of the divine origin of Christianity, and one of the most wonderful displays of the divine perfections.

I. The nature of man, as learned both from divine revelalation and from our own study, observation and experience, is two-fold. His body, "is of the earth, earthly," 1 Cor. xv, 47: "but there is a spirit in man; and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding.” Job xxxii, 8.

1. This two-fold nature of man is freely and fully recognized in the divine word, and all its teachings proceed on this foundation. Terms not only distinct, but directly opposed to each other, are employed to express this difference of nature. This is true of both the Old Testament and in the New. Eccl. xii, 7, 7y and m; Is. x, 18, 7 and ; Dan. vii, 15, and m; Matt. x, 28, σua and vxn; 1 Cor. vi, 20, vii, 34; ocμa and vεvμα, 2 Cor. v, 8. The distinction is as broad as words can make it. In a few passages it has been supposed that the inspired writers designed to teach a threefold division (trichotomy), as in 1 Thess. v, 23, Heb. iv, 12; and it is quite certain that such a distinction was recognized by Plato, and by many of the early Christian fathers. Yet this does not at all conflict with the two-fold nature of man,

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and the very authors who favor what is called trichotomy, familiarly and generally speak simply of soul and body. It is merely a question of distinguishing between ψυχὴ and πνεῦμα, applying them to different elements in man's intellectual and moral nature. When such a distinction is maintained, "Spirit" refers to his higher relations to God, and "Soul" to his living and intelligent relations to the surrounding world. As it does not fall within the plan of this article to enter upon this subject at large, we may refer to some authorities Olshausen, De trichotomia humanæ naturæ, 1834; Tenneman and Ritter's Histories of Philosophy; Plato, Repub. iv, Timacus. The Scriptures do not deal with it as a question of speculation, or of "doubtful disputation," but treat it as a fact, which we must know and feel, that we have bodies which are perishable, but that within them are spirits which are imperishable.

2. Equally decisive is the teaching of true science and philosophy. A pretended science may attempt to ignore everything but matter and its laws, and a vain philosophy may distrust the evidence of our own senses, but true science and revelation unite their testimony to the truth. A very prince among modern thinkers and philosophers says of man: "As dependent upon a bodily organization, as actuated by sensual propensities and animal wants, he belongs to matter, and, in this respect, he is the slave of necessity. But what man holds of matter does not make up his personality. They are his, not he; man is not an organism-he is an intelligence served by organs. For in man there are tendencies-there is a law-which continually urge him to prove that he is more powerful than the nature by which he is surrounded and penetrated. He is conscious to himself of faculties not comprised in the chain of physical necessity, his intelligence reveals prescriptive principles of action, absolute and universal, in the law of duty, and a liberty capable of carrying that law into effect, in opposition to the solicitations, the impulsions of his material nature. From the coexistence of these opposing forces in man there results a ceaseless struggle between physical necessity and moral liberty; in the language of revela

tion, between the Flesh and the Spirit; and this struggle constitutes at once the distinctive character of humanity and the essential condition of human development and virtue." Sir William Hamilton, Metaphysics, p. 21.

It would be easy to multiply similar testimonies, but they are deemed unnecessary. The greatest names, pagan as well as Christian, give their support to this doctrine. Plato says: "A man's soul is, after the gods, the most divine of all his possessions, as being most his own; and his possessions are altogether two-fold." (Laws, Book V.) This he says with reference to our possession of soul and body, and adds, "I exhort a person to honor his own soul." Of the existence of soul and body, and their possession by man, he has the surest of all testimonies, the testimony of his own consciousness. "We know the knowing mind to be different from the material object known, whether this be the organism as affected, or the object affecting it. In every act in which we know a bodily object, we know it to be different from self, and self to be different from it. This is a conviction which we can never lose, and of which no sophistry can deprive us. with us at all times, and wherever we go." Intuitions of the Mind, p. 133.)

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3. Although viewed as material, man's body is of the same nature as that of other creatures, or as the dust from which he was taken, yet even this is a masterpiece of the Creator's handiwork. With his erect form, and countenance beaming with intelligence, his senses by which he holds communion. with the outer world, his complex yet harmonious mechanism, his delicate sensibilities and susceptibility to pleasure or pain, his whole bodily structure fitted as the tabernacle of the soul, he is, even in this respect, "wonderfully made." The soul is still more wonderful than the body. Differing entirely from the body, in its nature and powers, a thinking, rational agent, with its boundless capacity for knowledge, its desires and affections, its power of volition, its religious aspirations, and moral accountability, it claims affinity and relationship with God. Made in His "image" and "likeness," capable of knowing and communing with Him, the soul

Wonderful as is each.

is the noblest, divinest part of man. part or nature in itself, the mysterious union of these two natures in the one personal being is still more wonderful; and the formation of man must be considered as the crowning. act of creation. Creation in him is complete, as the union of two distinct natures, and man thus uniting in himself two entirely distinct spheres of being,

'Distinguished link in being's endless chain."

4. As a spiritual being, or endowed with a spiritual nature, man possesses personality, self-consciousness, reason, moral freedom, conscience, and moral accountability. Various classifications have been made of man's mental and moral powers, none of which however have satisfied all inquirers in this field. Perhaps the most simple, and that most commonly adopted at the present day, is the one followed by Hamilton, distributing the mental phenomena "under the three heads of phenomena of cognition, or the faculties of knowledge; phenomena of feeling, or the capacities of pleasure and pain; and phenomena of desiring or willing, or the powers of conation." The moral nature has most to do with the conscience and the will, but includes all the powers of the soul, the intellectual and emotional, as well as those more distinctly recognized as possessing a moral character. the soul are so united, and the one exerts

All the All the powers of such an influence entirely separate between the His understanding, or powers

on the other, that we can not mental and the moral in man. of cognition, are affected by the will and the affections, so that his knowledge or ignorance may possess a moral quality, and these powers are continually acting and reacting upon each other.

5. But the most distinguishing element in man's nature, his preeminent endowment, is as a religious being. This raises him above all that is merely temporal and earthly, and brings him into fellowship with the eternal and the divine. This truth has not escaped the attention even of pagans. Plato observes (Protagoras) "that man alone, on account of his relationship with the Deity, believes in the existence of