would please the Jew none the more because his Rabbis were founding a ceremonialism on different lines, but equally full of casuistry and wearisome inanities. These are a few of the preliminary difficulties which Prof. Cheyne must surely clear up before his theory can be taken into consideration. I do not mean to suggest that no solution is possible; I only plead for investigation. Two other well-known difficulties remain on which Prof. Cheyne has expressed himself in his Isaiah (ed. v., 1889, the year of the Bampton Lectures). The first is the fact that Cyrus was a worshipper of the gods of Babylon. The English reader can realise this for himself by the aid of the new volume of Records of the Past (vol. v. pp. 164 seq., and 169), where he can hear Nabunahid describing Cyrus as the "little servant" of Marduk, and Cyrus himself claiming reward from Bel and Marduk for restoring their temples. On this Prof. Cheyne remarks (Isaiah, vol. i. 305), “If the author of the inscription may be trusted, Cyrus was a thorough indifferentist in his religious policy." But in the Bampton Lectures he thinks Cyrus's Mazdayasnian piety was "the secret of his great character" (p. 280); moreover, that it would give him "a special interest in the religions of Israel and the Chaldeans, and in the restoration of their temples" (p. 183)—why, I cannot see. The Professor's earlier position has been given up very lightly, to judge from the note on pp. 182 seq. We naturally ask what is the argument for the great conqueror's Zoroastrian orthodoxy, which compels us to explain away the primâ facie interpretation of the inscriptions.1 The supposed sympathy of Second Isaiah with the king's religion is a poor argument at best-see G. A. Smith, Isaiah ii., 130, 165 seq., 179—for Prof. Cheyne allows, in the note just cited, that it would be explicable if Cyrus had called "the God of heaven " Marduk instead of Ahura Mazda. Secondly, there is the indisputable fact that the religion of the Achamenian kings was not based on the Avesta, whatever that of priests or people may have been. As Prof. Cheyne observes (Isaiah i. 294), "the inscriptions of the Achæmenidæ are as guiltless of dualism as" Second Isaiah himself. Angra Mainyu (Ahriman) is entirely absent from the inscriptions down to the very last; and Darius, who freely associates his enemies with the "Lie" as the sum of wickedness-a primitive Iranian idea, only adopted by Zarathushtra-recklessly loses opportunities of assigning them to Ahriman's creation. Now, dualism is fully established in the Prophet's own system, as is obvious enough to any reader of the Gâthâs, and it is quite impossible to imagine a real Zoroastrian ignoring it. Clearly, then, Prof. Cheyne is hardly safe in describing "the antithesis of the kingdoms of light and darkness" as the "fundamentally Persian doctrine" (B. L., p. 271). Add to this the absence from the inscriptions of any reference to Zarathushtra, the prophet of the 1 Cyrus's cylinder is not the only inscription which Prof. Cheyne treats in this somewhat cavalierly fashion: note how he waves aside the startling evidence of Ebed-tob's letters (Records, v. 66) in favour of his decision that the Melchizedek narrative is post-Exilic (B. L.. p. 42). Gâthâs, the demi-god of the later Avesta; also the fact that the inscriptions are on tombs, which are the crowning abomination of the Vendidad. (See for these points Darmesteter's Introduction, referred to above.) Finally, note that though Auramazda is the creator and supreme, he is only the "greatest of gods": in the inscription of Artaxerxes Mnemon we find the primitive Indo-Iranian deity Mithra mentioned,1 together with the rivergenius Anâhita. Prof. Cheyne's silence on these important discrepancies presumably means that he accepts Darmesteter's theory that the Avesta is the book of the Magi, the sacerdotal class, the kings retaining the older creed. On this I only observe at present that we might have expected an explanation of the theory adopted in so important a matter. Before closing these remarks, I should like to express my conviction that if the Psalms do show traces of Zoroastrianism it must be only in the broadest conceptions of doctrine, and not in the appropriation of technical phrases. Prof. Cheyne, both in the Lectures and in his articles on the subject in the Expository Times (1891), not seldom gives parallels which are of the vaguest, and are best disputed by using their discoverer's methods. The verbal parallels in Second Isaiah are decidedly more striking, but they are rejected on the score of date. For examples we may quote the tracing of the very characteristic Avestan trinity, "thought, word, and deed," in Ps. xvii. 3-5. Was the Psalmist really unequal on his own account to such an elementary idea? I waive the expansion which has disguised so effectively what, in the Avesta, is always a clearly cut phrase. Then again, is the Psalmist's "dew of lights" made any easier by comparing the "endless. lights" of the Avesta ? Surely the curious addition of dew ruins the parallel, such as it is, at once? Moreover, it would be easy enough to cap these with far more striking parallels, admittedly fortuitous. One such I will give, for it has, methinks, a lesson. In the Gâthâs (Yasn. xxxi. 7) we read, "He : who first planned that those skies should be clothed with lights, he by his wisdom is Creator of righteousness, wherewith to support the Best Mind. These, O Ahura Mazda, hast thou helped by thy spirit, thou who art at every 'now' the same." Need I point out how powerfully this splendid stanza supports the unity of Ps. xix.? I might remark also that in the Avesta, as here, we find the most spiritual and lofty thoughts appearing early; the application of certain critics' principles would make the Gâthâs the latest part of the Avesta. Proceeding, I might defend the Psalmist's adoration of the scanty "law," against Prof. Cheyne's strictures (B. L., p. 237), by quoting the apotheosis of the daena, "law," i.e., the scarcely less scanty Gâthâs, in the later Avesta. And the words about the unchangeableness of the "wise Lord" will on the same principle become the origin of many a Scripture phrase hitherto innocently traced to unaided Hebrew thought. After all, is there anything in the world more treacherous than parallelhunting? I must add a word of summary, for I feel, in reading these notes, that 1 Cf. proper names like Mithredath (Ezra i. 8). my anxiety not to commit myself in this plea for inquiry has tended to obscure the results, in which my confidence is increasingly firm. I may sum up this paper in two propositions: (1) Prof. Cheyne should have proved, or referred to a proof, that the Avesta and its religion were known in Persia at the time he requires. On this I have been careful to express no opinion, though I have tried to formulate some of the difficulties which make this proof necessary. (2) Supposing it proved that the Avestan religion pervaded the Jews' environment, the Gâthâs cannot possibly have held the place assumed for them by Prof. Cheyne. They could only reach the Jews through their sacerdotal interpreters, who (whether they really understood them or not) had overlaid them with a practical polytheism and a minute ceremonial most unlikely to recommend their purer doctrines to Jewish minds. The magnitude of the contrast between Zarathushtra and his later followers will be a suitable subject for discussion when we have investigated the question whether these followers are to be recognized in the Magi of Persian history. NOTE ON CANON CHEYNE'S REPLY TO THE ARTICLE ENTITLED "CRISIS CHEYNIANA." BY REV. G. H. GWILLIAM, B.D. In an age when it is the fashion to scout the opinions of the men of earlier generations, there may be observed, inconsistently enough, a tendency to accept the teaching of distinguished modern writers without question, on their sole authority. But the writer of "Crisis Cheyniana" is probably unknown to the majority of the readers of Canon Cheyne's works. The Professor takes advantage of this, and endeavours to divert attention from the criticisms which have been offered, by describing them as the remarks of one who "is at present at the very beginning of his study of modern theology." The Professor needs to be told that in England, though perhaps not often in Germany, many a scholar reads, and learns, and teaches, who yet publishes nothing, and remains unknown. It is right that the readers of THE THINKER should be assured that he who has addressed them on so weighty a subject is not a novice, and that he expresses an ever-deepening conviction which results from opinions formed long ago. Of the Professor's reply no further notice is taken, except to thank him for his pious ejaculations. EXPOSITORY THOUGHT. THE NINETIETH PSALM. BY REV. PROFESSOR T. K. CHEYNE, D.D. PART I. Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations.-Ps. xc. 1. SWEET and precious are these words, which prove the combined antiquity and catholicity of the Church of true believers. But I wish to treat them now not as an isolated saying, but in their historical context. This psalm, we have been told, is a "psalm of Moses, the man of God." But the statement is well known to be unhistorical-it is like many other traditions in which we have been brought up, but which increasing knowledge compels us to abandon, and which we soon find to be much less satisfying than the historical truth. Does the reader ask when this psalm really was written? Well, there is a strong presumption that it was written after the Return of the Jews from Babylon, because it stands at the head of the two last of the five books of psalms, which originally formed but one book, and which contain no other psalms (unless the 110th be an exception) which can possibly belong to the primitive period. It is most unlikely that a really Mosaic work should have escaped incorporation into the earliest account of the age of Moses. Moreover, Ps. xc. clearly contains allusions to a fine song appended to Deuteronomy,1 and certainly not written before the reign of Hezekiah or (far more probably) Josiah, and also to the work of the Second Isaiah, which was written at the very close of the Babylonian Exile. This is all the answer that we require at present. Let us now proceed to make a study of the 90th psalm, noticing the most salient points and the most important allusions to earlier writings. The first four verses run thus: 1. Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place In all generations. 2. Before the mountains were brought forth, Or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, 3. Thou turnest man to destruction; And sayest, Return, ye children of men. 4. For a thousand years in thy sight Are but as yesterday when it is past, The first verse is the cry of a nation which is no longer young, and can look back on many generations. It reminds us of those touching words of the personified people of Israel: 1 Deut. xxxii. Dr. Driver's statement (Introduction, p. 89), that it would be going too far to affirm that the song cannot be by the same hand as the body of Deuteronomy deserves respectful consideration, but must be taken as qualified by the following sentence. Comp. Kuenen, Inquiry into the Origin of the Hexateuch (1886), pp. 256, 257. He hath brought down my strength in the way; He hath shortened my days. I will say, O my God, take me not away in the midst of my days; Israel has been in sore peril. Hunted, it has found no earthly refuge. Friendless and solitary, it looks up to God for protection-to God whose eternity and unchangeableness are the only but the sufficient guarantee of its continued existence. Both these psalms (the 90th and the 102nd) are inspired by the Divine Spirit, you will expect me to say. And entirely I do say this; but in a secondary sense they are inspired by the Second Isaiah. For there is a strange economy in the works of God. Nothing is wasted that can be turned to account, and each spiritual product of the creative Spirit can itself become a secondary source of life and power. This was the case with all the greater prophets, and the proof of this is the Psalter. Whenever we see in a psalm striking points of contact, in language or idea, with a prophecy, it is the psalm which is based on the prophecy, and not the prophecy which is based on the psalm. Now, both Jeremiah and the Second Isaiah produced a mighty effect on the temple-poets. It was from the latter that the psalmists drew their intense conviction of the eternity of God. Listen to these inspired and inspiring words : Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is hidden from Jehovah, and my right hath been let slip by my God? Hast thou not perceived? hast thou not heard? An everlasting God is Jehovah, creator of the ends of the earth; he fainteth not, neither is he weary; there is no searching of his understanding. " 2 We pass on to verse 2. There is hardly a more sublime passage than this in the Hebrew Scriptures, as one of our great religious poets (Christina Rossetti) felt when she adopted almost the very words as the opening of one of her majestic sonnets, "Before the mountains were brought forth, before Earth and the world were made, then God was God." There is indeed a still sublimer passage in the New Testament—sublime, not so much in expression as in thought, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The imagination and the speculative reason can take no higher flight than this. "Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever the earth and the world were made," God was; but God was not alone. An inspired poet had already imagined Jehovah in the depths of eternity rejoicing in converse with His own Wisdom.1 Noble indeed is the rhetoric with which he adorns this grand imaginative figure. But it was the evangelist who first gave it a theoretic or doctrinal basis. The Divine Wisdom, or (as the evangelist expresses himself) the Word really was, when as yet the world was not, and this Word was not only with God, but was God. And yet from St. John we return well-pleased to the psalm, just because in majesty of style the psalmist is superior to the 2 Isa. xl. 27, 28. 4 Prov. viii. 22, 31. 1 Ps. cii. 24. 3 John i. 1. |