4
INTRODUCTION.
How it touches exegesis may be discovered by turning to Mat. vii. 6; in explaining which we need no longer fear it as an undue liberty, to attribute to the "dogs" the "turning" and "tearing," and to the "swine" the "trampling underfoot."[1]
d. The indentations of the lines further present the results of Logical Analysis. This is the case where, without any suspicion of poetry, the thought-relation of the clauses is more readily seen by means of the exact place assigned to the line-commencements; whether, for example, a second line is to be regarded as co-ordinate with the first—that is, of an equally leading character; or as subordinate, subservient, helping. An extremely simple instance may be found in the setting forth of Martha's reply to our Lord, who has just said, "Believest thou this?"
She saith unto him—
Yea, Lord! I have believed.
That thou art the Christ, the Son of God,—
He who into the world should come.
Here, the first line of course is narrative. In the second, Martha confesses that she has faith, but the line stops short of saying what it is she believes; that being reserved for a new and farther-indented line, so indented partly because thereby greater distinctness is given to the proposition which first defines her faith, and partly also because her answer appears to be, if not evasive, yet a little indirect. She, at any rate, does not say quite simply, "Yea Lord! I believe this!" For some reason, she prefers to formulate her own faith. Why she did this may be worth inquiry. Was it that she felt the answer she gave fully endorsed the statements Jesus had just made: "Believing thee to be who and what thou art, I at once confide in the truth of whatsoever thou art pleased to tell me?" Or was it perhaps rather that she was diffident of herself, and hesitated to say whether she believed a revelation so lofty and of such a sweeping amplitude as that just disclosed; and therefore in her grief and perplexity preferred to fall back upon a more elementary truth, to which she felt she had already attained, and upon which she could still reely? The indentation of that line conducts the reader to this piofoundly interesting psychological inquiry. Then the further pushing in of the last line is merely to point out—what is seen after a moment's reflection to be true—that this final line is subordinate to the one that precedes it, being of an explanatory character, as showing who and what the Christ, the Son of God, must be, and as indicating Martha's persuasion that in the sympathetic Teacher standing before her she saw Him whom the prophetic Scriptures had foretold and for whom the ages had waited. Now if all this food for thought is presented, in what may be termed a digestible form, by means of four lines of varying indentation, surely the average thoughtful reader can take the hint, and not deem "Logical Analysis" beyond him, but do a little of it for himself, just when he is analytically inclined; and, for the rest, can come to a working confidence in the Translator for having presented
- ↑ To these references may be added Job xxvii. 16, 17; Jer. ix. 4; x. 11; and especially Is. vi. 10, with Mat. xiii. 15, where the rhetorical movement is "heart—ears—eyes: eyes—ears—heart."
