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skilful musicians, and passed on their instruments to Greece. Quotations of ancient songs are not unknown in the Old Testament-witness the saying of Lamech (Gen. iv. 23, 24), the snatch of Tyrian song (Isa. xxiii. 16), &c. The antiquity of the musical titles in the earlier Books is confirmed by their absence from the later. This underrating of the pre-Exilian and national period of Hebrew life is considered by the reviewer as a cardinal defect in Canon Cheyne's work, which can be cured only by a more diligent attention to archæology. Who can adhere to the conclusion that Ps. xviii. is the sole pre-Exilian poem of the whole collection, and that this belongs at earliest to the age of Josiah? "What is there improbable in the supposition that the age which produced such a sentiment as Amos v. 8, or, later still, Jer. x. 12-16, could also have given birth to Ps. xix. 1-7, or xxix.? Has not our author himself drawn attention to Wellhausen's reconstruction of a poetic fragment belonging to the age of Solomon (1 Kings viii. 12), where kindred ideas are expressed? And is there any antecedent improbability that Hebrews and Canaanites possessed their own poetic analogues to the impressive Babylonian hymns to Samas and Merodach?" Doubtless, too, fragments of earlier poems were adopted in later productions, the particular being changed into the universal, or the nation assuming the place of the individual. Prof. Whitehouse apologizes for the anti-critical tone of his paper, which he says is owing to Canon Cheyne's world-wide reputation, which ensures acceptance for opinions that need most careful scrutiny, and ought not to be received with otiose docility. The truth is that much of the higher criticism is mere guesswork, is based on insufficient premisses, and is largely indebted to imagination for its surroundings. Till confirmation of its various positions is forthcoming the cautious student will neither affirm nor deny, but wait patiently for more assured results.

CANON DRIVER'S INTRODUCTION TO THE LITERATURE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.-No volume on such a subject could have appeared more opportunely than this most able and scholarly production of Canon Driver's. The problems of Old Testament criticism are daily growing in bulk and in perplexity, and there was pressing need that the results reached should be summarized by a competent hand. This has been effected by the author of this Introduction, who, as Professor Ryle says in his notice in The Critical Review, "has collected together into a 'focus' the reasonings of modern criticism, the data on which they are founded, the results to which they probably lead." In examining the volume the Professor sees therein a most helpful guide to accurate study, and rejoices to think that England itself has at length produced a work of this character, and is no longer to be indebted to German sources for a careful and complete account of Old Testament literature up to the present time. Canon Driver, while availing himself of the rich storehouse of German thought, is the slave of no master; a most able scholar, abundantly furnished with all the requirements needed for his studies, he is thoroughly independent in his judgment,

never biassed by respect for a great name, but sifting all evidence patiently and scrupulously from whatever source it comes, and offering his verdict where he has arrived at a final decision, but not hesitating to acknowledge his inability to make up his mind where the probabilities seem to be equally balanced. The marvel of the work is its condensation; to combine in a volume of some 500 pages an account of the structure, contents, date, and authorship of the several writings, together with a running analysis and a sufficient indication of their general character and aim, is a task which would have deterred many a less courageous man, and which could only be accomplished by a self-denying scholar, who kept before him the primary scope of his undertaking, and was not to be attracted into by-paths or digressions, however tempting to his full mind. The treatment of the Hexateuch will strike many as the most valuable part of the Introduction; it will disappoint the supporters of the traditional view, while giving them material whereby to correct their impressions, if so minded. "He has stated, with admirable conciseness and with great judgment, the arguments upon which he considers the departure from the traditional view, and the adoption of the new critical position, to be justified by reason and to be required by candour. . . . . His statement is likely to have at once an educating and a reassuring influence upon Christian opinion. It will only too probably," continues Professor Ryle, "be a new light to many to learn that the criteria, by which the component documents of the Hexateuch are to be distinguished, are not limited to the use of the sacred names. The treatment of the distinctive characteristics of the Priestly Law and the Priestly Narrative, can hardly fail to convince the unprejudiced reader that if there be anything in the view of compilation (and the most conservative critics admit of its presence in Genesis), then the characteristics of the Priestly Narrative are as clearly recognizable in Exodus, or Numbers, or Joshua, as in Genesis." This theory of the composite character of the books is presented in an ingenious method, which enables the reader to assign the several portions to the supposed sources. Canon Driver concludes that the Priestly Code in its complete form is subsequent to Ezekiel, but it embodies some elements which were in existence long before (e.g., the chief ceremonial institutions), and also some which are antagonistic to the earlier literature. He applies the method of disintegration to others of the historical books and the Prophets, and enunciates his results with a calmness and a caution which must ensure a patient hearing even from opponents. To show that a man who accepts the Higher Criticism does not necessarily, as is often objected, lose his Christian faith, Professor Ryle quotes Canon Driver's weighty pronouncement: "Criticism in the hands of Christian scholars does not banish or destroy the inspiration of the Old Testament; it presupposes it; it seeks only to determine the conditions under which it operates, and the literary forms through which it manifests itself; and it thus helps us to frame truer conceptions of the methods which it has pleased God to employ in revealing Himself to His ancient people of Israel,

and in preparing the way for the fuller manifestation of Himself in Christ Jesus."

UNPUBLISHED INSCRIPTIONS FROM THE HAURAN AND GILEAD.-The Rev. G. A. Smith contributes to The Critical Review some results of his late travels. The inscriptions are indeed not all new, but they have been copied afresh, and freed from the errors of transcription made by previous travellers. Some of them, too, have been destroyed since they were first examined, so that an accurate record of them has become valuable. Mr. Smith has unearthed eleven undoubtedly new monuments, but they are of comparatively little interest to the Biblical student, being chiefly of Greek origin and concerned with private matters. There is one which mentions the foundation of a temple at Es Sanamein, on the pilgrim road from Damascus, in the reign of King Agrippa, whose date is given in two-fold form as λ and λß'. The king is Agrippa II., before whom St. Paul appeared, who in the one date is reckoned as succeeding on the death of his father, when he was really a minor, and in the other date as actually invested with the tetrachy, and reigning in full possession of power five years later. Another interesting inscription, found at Tuffas, represents the only one of the Emperor Otho which is known to exist. "This monument," says Mr. Smith, "must have been erected while Vespasian's forces were at Gadara, and the news of Otho's succession had just been announced, Otho reigning only three months." At Edrei, the capital of Og, king of Basan, there is a stone of the date A.D. 165, containing the names of the co-emperors Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, and Lucius Aurelius Verus. The above seem to be the most important of the last explorer's discoveries-perhaps more curious than historically useful.

KREUKEL'S BEITRÄGE.-Professor Milligan finds (The Critical Review) some noteworthy remarks in these "Contributions relating to the History of St. Paul." Such laborious investigation of personal details could scarcely be equalled in any English work; we doubt whether the toil expended is not somewhat thrown away, contributing as it does nothing to the religious life, nothing to the question of the construction of the Books of the New Testament. Dr. Milligan discusses at some length two of the eight papers contained in the volume. One is concerned with St. Paul's change of name. Kreukel considers that he must have received a Hebrew name at his circumcision, though we know not what it was. It was certainly not Saul, which name represented to the pious Jew a murderer of God's priests, pursued by the Divine wrath which he had justly provoked. The name "Saul" was given by Christians to the persecutor of the infant Church, as the prototype had persecuted David; and "Paul" commemorated the victory over Sergius Paulos. Dr. Milligan, on the other hand, deems that the Apostle was known by the name of Paul before this time, and that the historian's expression, & κàι Ilavλos, notes his remarking the fact that the one who was in danger of succumbing to demoniacal powers, and the other

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who was opposing their influences, had both of them the same name. The other point which the Professor brings forward, only to repudiate utterly, is the notion that Paul's "thorn in the flesh" was epilepsy, and the vision on the way to Damascus was simply an attack of this disease to which he was subject. Who could be led to support such a theory, remembering Paul's life and conduct and intellectual vigour, his unwearied activity, his keen affections, his strong emotions? "Let any one," says Dr. Milligan, "read 2 Cor. xi., and say whether the man who wrote that was an epileptic, and whether the event in his life to which he constantly traced the beginning and spring of his new career was a fit of epilepsy. Certainly he would himself have known it, and himself have told it." Is it the desire to strike out a novel idea that occasions such preposterous theories? And can men be so blinded by complacence at their own ingenuity as to miss the absurdity of their position?

BIBLICAL THOUGHT.

THE ORIGIN AND RELIGIOUS CONTENTS OF THE PSALTER.1 BY REV. PROF. W. T. DAVISON, M.A.

It is impossible to examine Canon Cheyne's Bampton Lectures without adverting to the personal statement contained in his Introduction. It is an unusually frank Apologia on the part of a scholar who feels himself in danger of being misunderstood, and it possesses more than a personal significance in these days of transition in theological belief and teaching. The vindication of his course as a critic and as a religious teacher, which Canon Cheyne here presents, will enlist the sympathy of all who understand the peculiar difficulties besetting one who in our generation would show how faith and free Biblical criticism can be reconciled, not only in theory, but in actual fact.

These explanatory words are, however, very likely to be misunderstood. When a clergyman in a responsible position like the Oriel Professor of Holy Scripture speaks of "seeing with the eyes of his readers" in 1880, and "adopting a possible, but not sufficiently probable, view" of certain Psalms and of Isaiah, whereas, in 1890, he offers them "the truest solution he can find" of these problems; when he speaks of "deliberate self-suppression," of "the necessity for minimizing the results of literary criticism," and of offering in a commentary upon Jeremiah " one more sacrifice to the temporary needs of the Church," he must not be surprised if he is met by some suspicion and questioning. Many are sure to complain that such a writer has not been frank with his readers, that it is impossible to draw the line between his

1 The Origin and Religious Contents of the Psalter, in the Light of Old Testament Criticism and the History of Religions. Bampton Lectures for 1889, by T. K. Cheyne, D.D. Kegan Paul, Trench & Trübner. 1891.

exoteric and esoteric teaching, and that he has practised a Broad-Church doctrine of "reserve" prejudicial to the interests of truth. Indeed, it has been said in so many words that if the Oriel Professor and Canon of Rochester had taught ten years ago as he teaches to-day, he would neither be Canon of the Anglican Church nor Professor in the University of Oxford.

Such comment appears to us quite unfair, though to some it may seem natural. Surely no candid reader of this Introduction can doubt the thorough honesty and earnest purpose of the writer. These Bampton Lectures are the work of a man who, having begun with free destructive criticism, found at a certain stage in his history the need of a deeper and firmer religious faith, and, having found it, has since then been striving to show the compatibility of faith and free criticism of the Scriptures, or rather, the underlying harmony between them. A teacher who in times of transition would tread and lead others along such a path as this has a difficult task before him. It must often be a serious question with him how far the utterance of the whole truth is required at a given moment, not to say that sometimes it may be a serious question what the whole truth is. Thorough candour is no doubt imperative. Frankness, as Canon Cheyne admits, is above all things necessary in apologists. We cannot believe that Dr. Cheyne has been anything but candid and frank in his previous publications, but as he tells us that in this volume he has spoken "more frankly, though I am sure not less considerately and charitably than ever," it is natural to view this his latest declaration upon the great questions of Old Testament criticism as the fullest expression of his most mature convictions, and as such it possesses a special importance.

In an article like the present it would be out of place to discuss in detail questions of scholarship such as abound in a volume that is simply packed with the results of laborious research and prolonged study of Scripture. But many of those who have read Canon Cheyne's previous works with great respect and sympathy, and who believe that the hope of intelligent religious belief in the present generation lies in the combination of faith in the authority of Scripture, with free examination of its contents in their literary aspects, must have felt some dismay at the illustration of the methods of criticism here adopted, even more than at the results reached by the learned author. It may not be out of place, therefore, to state briefly why this volume will disappoint many who were disposed to look to Canon Cheyne as doing good service in the "hallowing of criticism," and why its publication may retard rather than forward the cause the author has at heart, and for which he pleads so eloquently in his Introduction.

The results of the writer's patient and learned researches will be startling to many. He holds that the Psalter is "a monument of the best religious ideas of the great post-Exile Jewish Church." He does not admit the Davidic authorship of a single Psalm, nor does he believe that one was written before the Exile, unless it be the 18th, which he somewhat grudgingly allows may have been written about the time of Josiah. A few Psalms,

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