ACCOMMODATION, the application of one thing by analogy to another, in consequence of a resemblance, either real or supposed, between them. To know a thing by accommodation, is to know it by the idea of a similar thing referred to it.
In theology, the term accommodation is applied to what may be called the indirect fulfilment of prophecy ; as when passages, that originally related to one event, are quoted as if they referred to another, in which some resemblance may be traced. The method of explaining scripture on this principle of accommodation, serves, it has been said, as a key for solving some of the greatest difficulties relating to the prophecies. It has been justly called a convenient principle ; fur, if it were once gen erally adopted, we should get rid of the strongest proofs of the truth of Christianity, which prophecy has hither to been supposed to furnish. It is not affirmed, that this is either the wish or the design of some of the au thors who have adopted and defended the principle of accommodation ; but scarcely any of them, with the ex ception perhaps of one or two German divines, have pleaded for its unlimited application to the Old Tes tament predictions. It is vain to press even Michaelis into the service, as has been lately attempted ; for both he, and his no less acute and learned commentator .,Harsh, expressly avow, not merely their doubt of the propriety of universally extending this principle, but their conviction of the danger with which it would be attended, and of the inconclusive reasonings which its patrons have brought forward it) its defence. (Vid. Marsh's Michaelis, vol. i. p and Notes, p. 470-479.) The following view of the subject is taken chiefly from their statements.
This mode of interpreting the prophecies was early introduced among theologians, probably by Origen, who employs it under the name of 01,GGYO/AUG, (which the Latin lathers afterwards called dianeneutio,) in replying to thee objections of Celsus; and whose allegorical disposition did such injury to the cause of truth. They ex pressly affirmed, that the apostles accommodated their quotations from the Old Testament to the prejudices of the Jews, without any regard to their original import ; an opinion the most unwarrantable and dangerous ; for that those who were commissioned to publish the re velations of God to mankind, should have recourse to such au unjustifiable artifice, is contrary to all the no tions which sound reason, the ultimate judge of the truth of revelation, leads us to form respecting the di vine character and conduct. Dr Eckermann extends
the doctrine of accommodation to every quotation in the New Testament without exception ; proceeding on the hypothesis, that the Old Testament contains no pro phecy which literally and immediately relates to the person of Jesus Christ. Dr Owen, on the contrary, in his "Modes of Quotation," § 5. entirely rejects the prin ciple of accommodation; to whose opinion Michaelis is, in most cases, inclined to accede, though with this es sential difference, that he admits only a grammatical and literal, whilst Dr Owen contends for a typical, mean ing of particular passages.
With respect to the quotations from the Jewish scrip tures, contained in the New Testament, it seems neces sary to make an accurate distinction between those which, being merely borrowed, are used as the words of the person who quotes them, and those which are pro duced as proofs of a doctrine, or the completion of a prophecy. In the one case, accommodation may be allowed ; for it is natural to suppose, that the writers of the New Testament, from their intimate acquaintance with the Septuagint, might often allude to passages, and quote them from memory, as an illustration of what they were stating, without directly intending to bring them forward as irresistible arguments. But, in the other case, there is no little difficulty, and even hazard, in having recourse to this principle ; for if it once be ad mitted, that the evangelists and apostles, and even our Lord himself, employed arguments which, on this sup position, are evidently no arguments at all, the inspira tion of the one, and the divine mission of the other, must be extremely equivocal.