2. Perfection as to compass and contents (perfectio s. suffi-
Philip Schaff
churches. Our older theologians cannot be charged certainly with any want of respect for the Bible; rather fault is to be found with the inspiration theory of the seventeenth century, that it did not sufficiently recognize the individuality of the sacred writers, which without the least prejudice to the divinity of the matter, mirrors it nevertheless in every case under a peculiar form. These Bible fathers, as I may style them with Daub," have resolved the excellence predicated on the Scriptures into the following properties:
1. 'The character of fontal and normal authority immediately in view.
2. Perfection as to compass and contents (perfectio s. sufficientia); not of course in the absolute sense, as containing all that can possibly be known of God and divine things; but relatively, reaching to all that is necessary to salvation, as distinctly expressed in the symbolic books (continet omnia, quae ad salutem consequendam sunt necessaria). All traditions accordingly, unless they be mere consequences drawn from the Bible, are either positively false, or contain only subordinate and unessential truth.* It might be presumed indeed beforehand that the divine wisdom and goodness, in the case of the new covenant as well as in that of the old, would provide for a true and full record of the truth, as needed for salvation, in a written form; since a merely oral tradition, in * Schleiermacher (Der christl. Glaube, Vol. II, § 103, p. 120f., 3d ed.) says with much truth: "This original revelation of God in Christ is moreover so sufficient, and at the same time so inexhaustible, that so far as this first point is concerned Christ stands forth at once as the crown and consummation of all prophecy. For it is not possible, either for any representation of our relation to God to take place, out of the sphere in which Christ is already known, that shall not fall behind this revelation; or for any such advance ever to be made within the Christian Church, as may show anything imperfect in the doctrine of Christ itself, for which something better might be substituted, or to conceive for the understanding of man, as it regards his relation to God, anything more spiritual, deep and complete, than has been done by Christ. With the idea of such a perfectibility of the Christian doctrine, as might allow us to go beyond Christ himself, the idea of his peculiar excellence must fall to the ground. On the contrary, all later excellence here can never be anything else than the right development of what is either comprehended in his declarations as handed down to us, or in such relation to them as to have been necessarily present to his mind." 'That Schleiermacher has in his mind the contents of the Bible here, as the measure which none can transcend, must be clear to all who are acquainted with his system.