spiritual attitude, a state of mind determined mainly by the dominance of the Levitical element of the Law, whose operation, while regulative, was rigid and exacting. History Charged with This element had, however, a rival prior in inProphecy fluence, namely, the Deuteronomic, which with greater or less dissemination had been influential since the time of Josiah; and through this, the prophetic farewell of Moses, the distinctively personal force of the law became as it were a household companion, honored and revered. Of the succeeding history, as this was reduced to permanent form, the Deuteronomic spirit was a potent factor, its style and molding being quite perceptible in much of it. Ezra's incorporation of Deuteronomy with the completed Pentateuch gave increase to an influence already powerful, an influence which the Levitical code could share with but not impair. "Never has any people," says Professor S. H. Butcher, "been so conscious of its own spiritual calling as the Jews; none has had so profound an intuition of the future. They pondered their long preparation and equipment for their office, its unique design, their repeated lapses, their baffled hopes, the promises postponed."1 These words are a scholar's tribute to a history charged with prophecy. We have noted how the body of historical books from Joshua to Second Kings came to be recognized as "Earlier Prophets"; it was a just designation.2 And when the "Later Prophets," from Isaiah to Malachi, were coördinated with these in one collection, the meaning of Israel's mission in the world and in the ages received its succinct expression, sharing thereby with the Puritan Era's contribution of Mosaic law. 1 "Harvard Lectures on Greek Subjects," p. 31. CHAPTER VIII TREASURY OF THE CHOICE HEBREW CLASSICS SUCH The Implied [Independent of eras and epochs] UCH is the designation that may fitly be given to the third and closing division of the Hebrew Scripture canon,1 on which, having hitherto been occupied mainly with the field and purpose of the other two, we are now ready in turn to enter. The Hebrew name of this diviNew Crite- sion, K'thubhim, "writings," has for equivalent the Greek graphai, translated "scriptures" (cf. Matt. xxvi, 54), and used in the New Testament to denote the Old Testament as a whole. Here, however, the word One might by a modern rion is of more restricted application. term translate it "literary works," such being the implied distinction of this section as compared with the others. It is in effect the consciously literary portion of the Hebrew Bible, comprising the choice works in which, as the Jewish men of letters understood it, the literary feeling and standard, as compared with the legal and the prophetic, came to dominance. A classic is a work that has stood the test of time, surviving the shifts and waves of immediate juncture or opinion. It takes account of these, arises intimately from them as does all vital literature, and has its fitted effect upon them, but it is based on something deeper and more permanent, something that without seeming to do so gives more to history than it derives therefrom. Relation to 1 For the contents of these three divisions see note on "The Original Order of the Old Testament Canon," p. 19, above. 2 It is worthy of note that the title given to the whole Old Testament in the new Jewish version (1917) is "The Holy Scriptures." Hence the quality intimated above. These classical works are for the most part independent of eras and epochs; the timeless and universal claims of human nature alone can account for them. They represent in a true sense the impact of the Hebrew mind on the abiding issues of mankind. I. TRAITS OF THE COLLECTION AS A WHOLE The fact that in making up the body of sacred text the Jewish scribes and rabbis set first and greatest store by the Law (the Pentateuch) and secondarily by the Prophets (prophets proper with their setting of history 1), thus subserving the practical uses of Temple and synagogue, need not be taken as an implication that they deemed this third division a mere repository of left-overs and miscellanies. The high character of its contents negatives this idea. A collection whose distinguishing works are Psalms, Proverbs, and Job would hardly be held in ignoble estimation in the varied values of Biblical thought. The scale of estimate is likelier, indeed, to have inclined the other way. For those who loved letters for their own sake the transition to this division must have been like escape into a freer air; for these were the books which, instead of being read to the people by official requirement, could be read according to taste and convenience by them. It was the division suited to the matured culture of a reading people. Bear in mind what has just been said about the relation of these classical works to time and change. We are speaking now not of a progressive growth but of an eventual collection. As a collection it ranges over all the history of Israel from the awaking of the literary sense onward, a history in which several lines of education in the school of Jehovah were parallel and blended. In the final makeup of the canon these were discriminated and classified. So, 1 Cf. above, pp. 376, 377. describing roughly the avails of this third deposit as compared with the other two, we may say that as they drew from a history charged with law and with prophecy this in turn draws from the same history charged with literature. Let us consider some salient qualities of this collection as a whole. The Human Initiative The most differentiating, perhaps, is traceable in its attitude toward the sacred truths of life. This is apparent not in assertion but in the unspoken assumption and Genius and atmosphere of the whole work. It is the simple conviction of the writer that his thought or vision is his own, and his faith that it is as true as if it were an attested revelation from heaven. This feeling is no novelty'; it lies at the roots of the human creative genius. A consciousness often noted in the swing and fervor of poetic imagination or inventive thought, it is the intrepid uprise of human intuition to meet and strike hands with some phase of the absolute truth or beauty. Its presence here is noteworthy on account of the prevailing idea of divine revelation which obtained in a nation so sincerely the ward and learners of Jehovah. What I mean may be understood from the current formulas of law and prophecy as compared with the absence of such things in our literary section. The constant attesting word of the Mosaic law, approved by miraculous events, was, "And Jehovah spoke unto Moses"; and its precepts were implicitly accepted on that score. Similarly, the prophets' stated authorization was, "Thus saith Jehovah"; and their word was heeded without question of its source. It was as if the whole nation were consciously dependent on the revealed word of God, which avowed itself infinitely beyond man's (cf. Isa. lv, 8-11). Yet alongside of this we may put the noteworthy fact that no such assertion or assumption is made in the books we are considering. Their typical didactic formula, rather, is, "Incline thine ear, and hear the words of the wise" (cf. Prov. xxii, 17). All that is presupposed is the spontaneous uprise and free play of human aspiration and intellect (cf. what is said of Our Lady Wisdom, Prov. viii, 22-31) working out its own salvation as in the sight of Jehovah. In this the nation's highest literary genius is engaged. A distinctively human movement this, yet accepted in the sacred canon as an integral strand in the web of the Word of God, and, indeed, on the same plane of revelatory value. Even its obscurest writer, using a word peculiar to the divine claim, dares to say, n'um haggeber, "oracle of the strong man" (Prov. xxx, I), while its greatest is bold to report undying utterances of God out of the whirlwind of nature (Job xxxviii-xli). NOTE. This sense of the intimacy of human genius with the answering collaboration of the divine, as referred to above, is poetically described by Browning in the words of Abt Vogler, as the latter tries to account for the transcendent worth and beauty of his musical improvisation : "... for it seemed, it was certain, to match man's birth, Nature in turn conceived, obeying an impulse as I; And the emulous heaven yearned down, made effort to reach the earth, As the earth had done her best, in my passion, to scale the sky." This merely puts in intenser form the felt coöperation, in the productions of the purest minds, of divine and human. The Sphere of Personal Values Another thing to be noted of this section of Scripture is that it is concerned more directly than are the others with the passions and activities and duties in a word, with the character of the individual man. The Law deals with the affairs of church and state as a whole and with men's duties in prescribed relation thereto. Prophecy is concerned with Israel's foreign relations and with the nation's moral integrity in view of its destiny of exile and opportunity. All this has its bearing on the individual, for a nation's obligations are only those of the individual writ large; but its edicts and warnings are addressed for the most part to the people in the mass, and do not go |