CHAPTER XV. HEBREW CIVILISATION
If a nation can be in any sense summed up, the National Idea of the Hebrews as a unit has been stated by Hegel in contrast with the Idea of other peoples. He says: While among the Phœnician people the Spiritual was still limited by Nature, in the case of the Jews we find it entirely purified—the pure product of thought. Self-conception appears in the field of consciousness, and the Spiritual develops itself in sharp contrast to Nature and to union with it. It is true that we observed at an earlier stage the pure conception “Brahma,” but only as the universal being of Nature; and with this limitation, that Brahma is not himself an object of consciousness. Among the Persians we saw this abstract being become an object for consciousness, but it was that of sensuous intuition—as Light. But the idea of Light has at this stage advanced to that of “Jehovah,”—the purely One. This forms the point of separation between the East and the West; Spirit descends into the depths of its own being, and recognises the abstract fundamental principle as the Spiritual. Nature, which in the East is the primary and fundamental existence, is now depressed to the condition of a mere creature; and Spirit now occupies the first place. God is known as the creator of all men, as he is of all nature, and as absolute causality generally. But this great principle, as further conditioned, is exclusive Unity.
This religion must necessarily possess the element of exclusiveness, which consists essentially in this—that only the One People which adopts it, recognizes the One God, and is acknowledged by Him. The God of the Jewish People is the God only of Abraham and of his seed: National individuality and a special local worship are involved in such a conception of deity. Before Him all other gods are false: moreover the distinction between “true” and “false” is quite abstract; for as regards the false gods, not a ray of the Divine is supposed to shine into them. But every form of spiritual force, and a fortiori every religion is of such a nature, that whatever be its peculiar character, an affirmative element is necessarily contained in it.
However erroneous a religion may be, it possesses truth, although in a mutilated phase. In every religion there is a divine presence, a divine relation; and a philosophy of history has to seek out the spiritual element even in the most imperfect forms. But it does not follow that because it is a religion, it is therefore good. We must not fall into the lax conception, that the content is of no importance, but only the form. This latitudinarian tolerance the Jewish religion does not admit, being absolutely exclusive.
The Spiritual speaks itself here absolutely free of the Sensuous, and Nature is reduced to something merely external and undivine. This is the true and proper estimate of Nature at this stage; for only at a more advanced phase can the idea attain a reconciliation (recognise itself) in this its alien form. Its first utterances will be in opposition to Nature; for Spirit, which had been hitherto dishonoured, now first attains its due dignity, while Nature resumes its proper position. Nature is conceived as having the ground of its existence in another—as something posited, created; and this idea, that God is the lord and creator of Nature, leads men to regard God as the Exalted One, while the whole of Nature is only His robe of glory, and is expended in His service.
In contrast with this kind of exaltation, that which the Hindu religion presents is only that of indefinitude. In virtue of the prevailing spirituality the Sensuous and Immoral are no longer privileged, but disparaged as ungodliness. Only the One—Spirit—the Non-sensuous is the truth; Thought exists free for itself, and true morality and righteousness can now make their appearance; for God is honoured by righteousness, and right-doing is “walking in the way of the Lord.”
With this is conjoined happiness, life, and temporal prosperity as its reward; for it is said: “that thou mayest live long in the land.”—Here too, also, we have the possibility of a historical view; for the understanding has become prosaic; putting the limited and circumscribed in its proper place, and comprehending it as the form proper to finite existence: Men are regarded as individuals, not as incarnations of God; Sun as Sun, Mountains as Mountains—not as possessing Spirit and Will.
We observed among this people a severe religious ceremonial, expressing a relation to pure Thought. The individual as concrete does not become free, because the Absolute itself is not comprehended as concrete Spirit, since the Spirit still appears posited as non-spiritual—destitute of its proper characteristics. It is true that subjective feeling is manifest—the pure heart, repentance, devotion; but the particular concrete individuality has not become objective to itself in the Absolute. It therefore remains closely bound to the observance of ceremonies and of the Law, the basis of which latter is pure freedom in its abstract form. The Jews possess that which makes them what they are, through the One: consequently the individual has no freedom for itself. Spinoza regards the code of Moses as having been given by God to the Jews for a punishment—a rod of correction. The individual never comes to the consciousness of independence; on that account we do not find among the Jews any belief in the immortality of the soul; for individuality does not exist in and for itself.
But though in Judaism the Individual is not respected, the Family has inherent value; for the worship of Jehovah is attached to the Family, and it is consequently viewed as a substantial existence. But the State is an institution not consonant with the Judaistic principle, and it is alien to the legislation of Moses. In the idea of the Jews, Jehovah is the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and Jacob; who commanded them to depart out of Egypt, and gave them the land of Canaan. The accounts of the Patriarchs attract our interest. We see in this history the transition from the patriarchal nomad condition to agriculture.
On the whole the Jewish history exhibits grand features of character; but it is disfigured by an exclusive bearing (sanctioned in its religion) towards the genius of other nations (the destruction of the inhabitants of Canaan being even commanded), by want of culture generally, and by the superstition arising from the idea of the high value of their peculiar nationality. Miracles, too, form a disturbing feature in this history—as history; for as far as concrete consciousness is not free, concrete perception is also not free; Nature is undeified, but not yet understood.[b]
THE LIFE AND CUSTOMS OF THE ISRAELITES
The expiatory offerings of the Israelites were governed by precepts which were more numerous than sacrifices. If any one had violated the Laws of the Torah, or Book of the Law, he was obliged at once to offer up a young ox; the fat and kidneys of the ox were burnt before Yahveh, the skin, head, legs, stomach, and flesh were burnt outside the camp. If the whole community sinned, the ancients or heads of families had to offer up this sacrifice. Any one who could not afford an ox could replace it by a goat or a young lamb if he had witnessed a curse without declaring it, or if he had blasphemed himself, or had touched the body of an impure animal or any other impurity. A poor man was only obliged to offer up two doves or pigeons, one as a sin offering, the other as a sacrifice. If he was very poor indeed, he contented himself by bringing the tenth part of an ephah of flour without adding oil or the incense for the sacrifice.
The peace offering was offered up after a vow or a pious act, or after a benefit for which the son of Israel wished to thank Yahveh. The law also ordained a few peace offerings such as the ram brought by the Nazarite, at the same time that he offered up a sacrifice. At the festival of the First Fruit, the Hebrews brought two yearling lambs which belonged to the priests. The priest only had the breast and right shoulder of the other peace offerings, while the remainder of the victim formed part of the grand repast to which the tribe was invited, and from which the Christian feasts must have sprung.
Besides the victims chosen for these three kinds of sacrifices, there were two others, the young cow and the red cow, which were sacrificed on special occasions. When the body of a murdered man was found in the country, the ancients and the chiefs of the families of the surrounding towns assembled together. When the nearest place to where the murder had been committed had been carefully fixed upon, the ancients of that city or borough were obliged to take a young heifer, which had not yet worked, to a rough and uncultivated valley. There, after wringing the neck of the cow, the ancients in the presence of the priests washed their hands over the victims killed in the valley, and sang. The guilty man remaining unknown and not making atonement for his crime, the sacrificed heifer served as an atonement instead.
The red heifer, quite full grown, but which had never been yoked, was killed and burnt whole by the cohene-hakadel, who sprinkled the entrance of the tabernacle, seven times with his finger dipped in the blood of the victim. The cinders of the cow were collected to make lustral water (water of separation), which purified people from the touch of corpses. Perhaps the cow thus sacrificed represented sin and impurity. Amongst the Egyptians, red seems to have been a wicked colour. That was doubtless why the Hebrews had chosen a cow of this colour as victim of sin.
The entire nation was expected to make presents to Yahveh, without counting the private offerings which were added to all these donations. The law decided upon some of them. The poor, who could not offer up two doves or two of their young as sin offerings, could instead offer a tenth part of an ephah of flour without oil or incense. The husband who doubted his wife’s chastity brought her before the priests to try her, but began by presenting some barley, as the offering of jealousy.
The first day the priest exercised his powers he brought the tenth part of an ephah of flour. He offered up half in the morning and half in the evening. According to the Talmud and Josephus, the high priest had every day to offer up sacrifices. This offering had to be consumed whole; as for the other presents, only a handful was burnt and the rest was given to the priests. Voluntary donations and those which were the result of vows have also to be added to those ordained by religion.
Sweet-smelling perfumes were brought by the sons of Israel and burnt upon the altar, Yahveh alone was allowed to smell them. “Whoever makes this perfume for his own use, let him be taken from his people.”
Every first-born belonged to Yahveh; a month after birth, a child had to be presented to the temple and bought back for five shekels at most. As for the first-born of animals, it was offered up as a peace sacrifice, and the flesh went to the priests. If it were an unclean animal, it could be sold or killed for the benefit of the tabernacle.
Besides these sacrifices, which took place, for the most part, at no fixed times, the Hebrews celebrated feasts in honour of Yahveh. Each week they had to observe the Sabbath, by abstaining from work. This was in memory of the repose of Yahveh, the seventh day after he had created the world. Perhaps this number seven, so particularly beloved by the Hebrews, which was the close for them of certain periods of days and years, was also a remembrance of Egypt. The great mourning for the death of Osiris lasted seven days. During the same length of time the death of Adonis, the divine young man slain by the teeth of a wild boar, was mourned in Phœnicia.
On the Sabbath day every occupation was forbidden, even picking up wood or cooking food. No longer journey was allowed than a walk of two thousand steps outside the town. All the religious functions as well as military operations were carried on on that day as on other days. It was only after exile, when a spirit of narrow fanaticism took hold of the people, that Jewish soldiers at certain times preferred to let themselves be killed rather than violate the repose of the Sabbath by fighting. Originally the difference between the Sabbath and other days was only the absence of work and the sacrifice of two lambs, followed by an offering of libation, which had to be made in the middle of the day. Later when there were synagogues throughout Palestine, everybody went there on the Sabbath to pray in common and to hear the Law explained from the mouth of the rabbi. The Sabbath began, like all the days amongst the Hebrews, at sunset, and ended the following evening.
Every seven years the earth also had a Sabbath. During the whole year it rested. People were forbidden to till or sow, or trim the vine or olive trees. Everything the earth produced naturally and unaided went to the land-owner and to the beggars and strangers. That year also all debts and all slavery were cancelled. A Hebrew slave had the right to leave his master after six years; if he preferred to stay with him, he was put against a door and his ear was pierced.
The Egyptians celebrated the feast of the New Moon and the different phases of its course. The Hebrews also celebrated the New Moon; during this feast sacrifice was offered up composed of two bulls, a ram, and seven lambs, to which a he-goat was added as an expiatory offering. Offerings and libation were also added to all this. There was doubtless a solemn repast at the New Moon, when the people were assembled to eat the sacrificed animals.
It was generally the day after the new moon had been seen in the sky that the feast was celebrated.
But the principal feasts of Israel were the feasts of the Passover, of Pentecost, and of Tabernacles, and the day of Atonement. The first three originally had to do with the different phases of the harvest, later souvenirs of national life were associated with them.
The social organisation of the Hebrew people was to a certain degree the outcome of the religious ideas. Yahveh, the master and king of Israel, governed the country through the Law. The chiefs were only the lieutenants of Yahveh, whose business it was to see that the laws were observed which had been transmitted by Moses. All the eldest sons of the Hebrews were equals, there was no aristocracy, no lower class, no plebeians; nothing in Israel resembled Greek or Roman society, divided into castes, whose only objects very often were to crush one another. With this principle of equality among the Hebrews, royalty and its origin did not even enter into the thoughts of the Israelites. If the political and administrative codes of the Hebrews be examined, as they appear in the Pentateuch and in subsequent history, it will be seen that certain great assemblies were called together by the chiefs of Israel, and were composed of ancients, judges, and scribes.
The ancients appear to have been the elders of the family. In each town they formed a kind of local council, and regulated the affairs of the city; they also seem to have had a fairly large judicial power. The Law gave them, in many instances, the right of pronouncing judgments and enforcing the Law. The elders also formed on great occasions a national council, in whose wisdom the chief of the Hebrews could enlighten himself. In general matters they appeared to be often invested with sovereign powers. It was the elders of Israel who invited Samuel to choose a king. Later, they chose David to rule over Israel. It would be a mistake to consider these elders as an aristocratic assembly, full of hatred and bound down to odious privileges; they were the natural representatives of the family, members of different houses who came out of the shade of the fig trees at certain times, to regulate at the gates the affairs of the town, or to give their opinions on the general interests of the Hebrew state.
In each important locality, there was a tribunal composed of judges. The Levites of the city, versed in the knowledge of the Law, doubtless formed part of the tribunals. The judges held very honoured places and formed part of all the great assemblies where the interests of Israel were discussed. They held their office by election.
The scribes, who were also elected, assisted in the great assemblies. They formed the learned part, holding the style like the Egyptian scribes. They were attached to the elders or to the judges, holding the office of genealogists, and in the wars served as heralds to the commanders of the army. At the head of the scribes, there was a chief with certain rights not enjoyed by the others.
In order to assure the equality of rights for the entire Hebrew race, the Law tried to establish, as far as possible, equality of fortune. Every fifty years transferred property had to be returned to the original possessors, but this rule seems hardly to have been observed. Trade and usury, the principal sources of the investment of money, were excluded by the Law from this rule, and thus making Israel an agricultural nation. Israel soon escaped from the obligations. The Hebrew was a most astonishing mixture of idealism and of practical common sense, and this explains many contradictions in his nature. Even to-day the Jew can unite to a prodigious extent, the most terrestrial details with the highest and noblest sentiments. All that was most idealistic in Israel was collected together in the Law; but how far did the lives of the Hebrews resemble their book?
Foreigners and colonists were not ill-treated in Israel. The Law guaranteed protection to Hebrew and colonist alike. But the good will shown towards the Canaanite and the sons of Ammon and Moab was not very great. They were forever excluded from using the title of citizen. Neither they nor the bastard nor the eunuch could take a place in the assembly of Yahveh. But at the third generation the sons of Edom and Mizraim were admitted as Israelites on condition they submitted to the ceremony of circumcision, by which the Hebrew was always distinguished from the Gentile.
Marriage was considered an absolute obligation, from which nobody could be exempt. This idea was certainly one of the causes of the morality and power of Israel. Woman was not according to the Law an inferior being, she was part of man, she bore the same name as man; he was called isch, and she ischa, with the feminine termination. No more in Israel than in Egypt were the young girls and young women shut up from all eyes. Nobody could have enjoyed more liberty than Miriam and Deborah. Woman looked up to and free, as she was imagined in a country where law was respected, has been marvellously described at the end of Proverbs. The more they thought of woman, the more she was punished when she forgot her duties.
The power of fathers over their sons and daughters before marriage was very great. The latter could be sold as slaves, but only for a time. However, the Law forbids the father the right of killing his children. It was necessary for the father, in order to have his son put to death, to appeal to the assembly of the elders assembled at the gates of the town. Brought up with the knowledge of the Law, the son remained for a long time under the authority of his father, for whom he had to work even after marriage, which emancipated the daughters.
How were the inheritances divided, and did the right of the eldest son ever exist in Israel? The eldest son, so long as a daughter had not come before him, had a right to two parts of the paternal succession. The remainder was distributed equally amongst the other children. As for the father, he could not lawfully change his will in favour of a favourite son. What Jacob did for Joseph, the Hebrew legislators wished to spare to future generations. Israel with the proud Josephides suffered too severely from favouritism not to repudiate it energetically. Far inferior to the right of priority of birth, the law of favouritism only feeds hypocrites and stirs up hatred and jealousy in the bosoms of families. When a man died leaving only daughters, they shared the inheritance with the obligation of only marrying members of their tribe. If there were no daughters, the nearest relations inherited. Later, by putting aside the Law, the heads of families commenced leaving a part of their property either to their daughters or sometimes to their slaves.
This short account of the Jewish Law would be incomplete if it were silent on an interesting feature of the society of Israel, the slave. Like all nations of antiquity, Israel had slaves. But the Law softened their lot. Amongst the slaves were Hebrews and foreigners. A man who was much in need could sell his young daughter as a slave. Sometimes the son of her master was obliged to marry her. The Hebrew incapable of paying the fine after a theft was obliged to deliver himself up to the man he had stolen from. When reduced to the last extremity, he could sell himself. These were the principal circumstances of slavery in Israel, but at the end of six years the slave became free, and left his master with a reward in the shape of lambs, kids, and goats. They also received presents of ground and of household linen. But if the slave at the eighth year said to his master, “I will not leave you,” the master would take a bodkin or puncheon, and pierce the ear of the slave leaning against the door of his house: this was a sign of perpetual slavery.
Foreigners became slaves in Israel by selling themselves, or when they were prisoners of war. The Law was lenient towards them. They had the right to take part in the panegyrics and joys of Yahveh, to share the repast of the climes and the natural fruit of the Sabbatic years, and to rest on the Sabbath day. If their masters mutilated them, they were obliged to liberate them; freedom might be the result of a broken tooth. If the slave died from his master’s ill-treatment, the master was terribly punished; how, is not clearly stated. A slave seems once to have enjoyed the office of steward; the management of the whole house was in his hands.
Except in regard to Yahveh, the Hebraic Law appears to have received beneficial influence from Egypt and Assyria; at every moment that beautiful chapter cxxv of The Book of the Dead seemed to be remembered, where the soul justifying itself before Osiris, after stating that the precepts of charity had been fulfilled, dares to add “I have not made tears flow.”[c]
HEBREW ART, ARCHITECTURE: THE TEMPLE, TOMBS, ETC.
During the last three centuries, many scholars have devoted themselves especially to the art of this nation that has played such an extraordinary rôle in the history of the world. These researches have been directed almost entirely upon the temple at Jerusalem and its furniture; for here, where the national life was concentrated, was in fact all the art that the country produced. Moreover, while the remains are no longer in our hands or under our eyes, there is not a single edifice in all oriental or classical antiquity concerning which we possess such numerous and circumstantial records.
The city of Jerusalem occupies to-day the northern extremity of a plateau which is bounded on the east by the valley of the Kidron, and on the south and west by the valley of Hinnom. This plateau is divided from north to south by a ravine called the valley of the Tyropœon (“the cheesemakers”) in such a manner as to form two hills. The eastern hill is Mount Moriah, whose southern extremity, now called Ophel, was Zion, the “city of David.”
When Solomon ascended the throne, Jerusalem occupied only Zion, and did not begin to extend to the western and larger hill until under the kings of Judea. Mount Moriah, on the north, was given up to husbandry, and a rich man of Jerusalem, Araunah, owned there a field with a threshing-floor, where camels and oxen trod out the grain at harvest-time. David had bought the field of Araunah as a site for the temple of the true God, and had erected an altar on the threshing-floor.
The work began in the fourth year of the reign of Solomon. The materials had already been in great part fitted. Architects, workmen, and artists were engaged in Tyre by the aid of King Hiram, and the work progressed rapidly. The summit of Moriah was first levelled, and then around the remaining hillock was constructed an immense retaining wall of extraordinary solidity, extending up to the level of the summit. It was built of enormous blocks held together by cramp-irons, and was supported on the outside by embankments. All the space between the interior face of this wall and the rock was filled in with rubble in such a way as to form a square platform.
Movable Vessel of the Temple
(After Mangeant)
Then followed the erection of the temple itself, and so rapidly was it pushed that the dedication feast was celebrated only seven years after the laying of the first stone of the substructure. The temple was to be enclosed by two courts, but Solomon completed only the first or inner one, and the east wall of the second or outer, which was not finished until long after the great king’s death, in the reign of Manasseh.
The Bible gives us a detailed description of the magnificence of the interior of this sanctuary, built and decorated by Phœnician workmen, and of the objects of art accumulated there by the most ostentatious of Hebrew kings.
The architecture and the decorations of the interior were all in Egyptian style, like the temples of the Phœnicians themselves. But of the works of Solomon nothing has remained but the cisterns and the east wall of the outer court. This wall is ornamented with a gate under which Solomon had his throne placed when he assisted at public ceremonies; it was still called Solomon’s gate, even after the time of Herod. Numerous enlargements and restorations were made under the kings of Judea; but in 586 B.C., when the Chaldeans took Jerusalem, the temple was totally destroyed.
Fifty-two years later, the captive Jews in Babylon having been delivered by Cyrus, their leader, Zerubbabel, undertook to rebuild the temple of the true God. Though similar in plan to that of Solomon, the new edifice was less beautiful and of less majestic proportions; the old men who recalled the former one wept. This building stood for nearly five centuries, passing through the domination of the Seleucidæ and the Roman conquest of Pompey without being sacked or demolished.
Then Herod, the Idumæan, made king of the Jews by the Romans, conceived the idea of making himself popular with the people by rebuilding the temple in all the splendour of Solomon. The execution of his plan, which included enlargement,—Josephus says he doubled the original size,—required the complete demolition of the former structure and the rebuilding of the ancient terraces and the gates crowning them. The only portion of the old temple that he seems to have preserved was the eastern gate or gate of Solomon. The ancient plan, however, was apparently not departed from in the main.
The great outer court was surrounded on three sides by a double colonnade of Doric columns twenty-five cubits high. On the south side was a basilica, i.e. “a building with three unequal naves supported by columns.” This enclosure was the Court of the Gentiles, and was open to all visitors. A barrier only three cubits high prevented the ungodly from entering the enclosure reserved for the Israelites, which comprised the Court of Women and the Court of Men, or of Israel. The Court of Women had at its four corners square halls serving for the supplies of the temple, for ablutions, or other pious exercises.
From this court three gates led through a group of buildings to the Court of Israel. The principal one of these gates, celebrated as the Nicanor Gate, had doors of Corinthian bronze, and was of beautiful architectural proportions and rich construction. The Court of Israel, which was reserved for men who had performed certain acts of purification, was eleven cubits wide. The halls surrounding it on three sides, which had façades furnished with porticoes, were appendages of the divine cult. Each was consecrated to a special service. Here the skins of victims were salted and washed; the musical instruments, the salt, the eternal fire, the wood were kept here; and here was the hall of the sanhedrim.
Finally came the Court of the Priests, in the middle of which were the temple proper and the altar of burnt offerings. The temple stood on a terrace six cubits high, so that there was thus a difference of level of eight and a half metres between the platform of the temple and the Court of the Gentiles. Its architectural features were essentially the same as those of Solomon’s temple. This temple of the Jews was one of the most majestic works of architecture that antiquity produced. The succession of enclosed courts rising one above another and crowned by the gigantic white marble pylons of the sanctuary is a conception of genius that was realised only here, and all antiquity had but one voice in praise of its imposing grandeur.
The House of the Eternal was embellished with an unprecedented luxury. Costly woods, gold, silver, ivory, precious stones even—nothing was spared by this people that was so jealous of its God. The accessories of the cult, moreover, sacred vessels, knives, basins, utensils of every kind, were works in which caster and engraver vied with one another in the display of their art.
But it must not be forgotten that the artists who decorated the ancient temple were Phœnicians; and as the Phœnicians always limited themselves to imitation of the Egyptians and the Assyrians, their technique has a hybrid character, which, like Syria itself from a geographical point of view, is a sort of compromise between Asia and Egypt.[d]
The race which had so little influence on the art of the world and so much upon its literature, religion, commerce, and destinies, has had the strangest of all national fates. To the Christian it is as the escape of the soul from the corruption and death of the body. Newman[e] has thus closed his History of the Hebrew Monarchy, in words that may fitly serve as finis here:
“It is not intended here to pursue the later fortunes of the Jewish nation. We have seen its monarchy rise and fall. In its progress, the prophetical and the sacerdotal elements were developed side by side; the former flourished in its native soil for a brief period, but was transplanted over all the world, to impart a lasting glory to Jewish monotheism. The latter, while in union with and subservient to the free spirit of prophecy, had struck its roots into the national heart, and grown up as a constitutional pillar to the monarchy: but when unchecked by prophet or by king, and invested with the supreme temporal and spiritual control of the restored nation, it dwindled to a mere scrubby plant, whose fruit was dry and thorny learning, or apples of Sodom, which are as ashes in the mouth. Such was the unexpansive and literal materialism of the later rabbis, out of which has proceeded nearly all that is unamiable in the Jewish character: but the Roman writers who saw that side only of the nation, little knew how high a value the retrospect of the world’s history would set on the agency of this scattered and despised people.
“For if Greece was born to teach art and philosophy, and Rome to diffuse the processes of law and government, surely Judea has been the wellspring of religious wisdom to a world besotted by frivolous or impure fancies. To these three nations it has been given to cultivate and develop principles characteristic of themselves: to the Greeks, Beauty and Science; to the Romans, Jurisprudence and Municipal Rule; but to the Jews, the Holiness of God and his Sympathy with his chosen servants. That this was the true calling of the nation, the prophets were inwardly conscious at an early period. They discerned that Jerusalem was as a centre of bright light to a dark world; and while groaning over the monstrous fictions which imposed on the nations under the name of religion, they announced that out of Zion should go forth the Law and the word of Jehovah. When they did not see, yet they believed, that the proud and despiteful heathen should at length gladly learn of their wisdom, and rejoice to honour them. In this faith the younger Isaiah closed his magnificent strains, addressing Jerusalem:
‘Behold, darkness covereth the earth,
And thick mist the peoples;
But Jehovah riseth upon thee,
And his glory shall be seen on thee:
And the Gentiles shall come to thy light,
And kings to the brightness of thy rising.…
The Gentiles shall see thy righteousness,
And all kings thy glory;
And thou shalt be called by a new name,
Which the mouth of Jehovah shall name.
Thou shalt be a garland of glory in the hand of Jehovah,
And a royal diadem in the hand of thy God.
Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken,
Nor shall thy land any more be termed Desolate;
For Jehovah delighteth in thee,
And thy land shall be married to him.’”[e]
CHAPTER XVI
THE PROPHETS AND THE HISTORY OF SEMITIC STYLE
Written Specially for the Present Work
By Dr. D. H. MÜLLER
Professor in the University of Vienna; Member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, etc.
The Prophets prophesied in a far-off land, many, many hundred years ago. They prophesied to a small nation that dwelt in a small country and established a petty kingdom. The petty kingdom has been crushed under the iron heel of the world’s advance, the nation scattered to every quarter under heaven; but the writings of the prophets remain; they have come down to us in the original text; they have been translated into every language and are read by every nation.
To this day the words of the prophets resound from every pulpit, in admonition and menace, for comfort and salvation. The substance of the prophetic discourses is sufficiently familiar, and these words spoken thousands of years ago do not fail of their effect to-day. From the depths of the heart they welled forth, divine inspiration was their source, they were addressed to men burdened with passions and frailties; and hence they have kept their power through centuries and tens of centuries.
We will not at present concern ourselves with the substance of the prophetic books nor with the development of prophecy; we will consider the form of the prophetic discourses. Men prized the substance so highly that they neglected to examine the form. Are they prose or poetry? Even this question has not been answered. A Greek oration is minutely analysed; we know the rules of rhetoric, and divide each oration into its component parts. A Greek or Latin poem is classed as drama, epic, lyric, etc., and its metre is studied and criticised. What rules govern the composition of the prophetic books?
MAIN CHARACTERISTICS OF STYLE
On the basis and in pursuance of my previous researches I advance the thesis that “the main characteristics of the style of the prophetic writings are strophic composition and responsion.” What a strophe is every one knows; nevertheless I will expressly state that by “strophe” I mean a group of lines or verses, standing in relation to other verses, and yet forming in and by themselves a compact whole.
In Semitic poetry or rhetoric, in so far as we may speak of it, the “responsion” has hitherto been an unknown quantity; but we are familiar with it in classical literature, the best examples being the choruses of the Greek dramas. The strophe and antistrophe correspond in metre, in form, and in the division of the periods; they frequently correspond in substance also; and this correspondence is often marked by verbal consonance or assonance. This peculiarity, which seems to be of infrequent occurrence and trifling importance in Greek literature, has been recognised and named by the exact observation and penetrative criticism of classical philology; in Semitic poetry, where the responsion, combined with the strophic structure, to which it serves as the element of crystallisation, must be regarded as of the very essence of the poem or discourse, it has neither been explained nor named.
AN EXAMPLE FROM AMOS
I will take an example of the responsion from Amos, the first prophet who cast his discourses into literary form, Chaps. vii.-viii.
1) Thus the Lord God shewed me:
And, behold, he formed locusts in the beginning of the shooting up after the latter growth;
And, lo, it was the latter growth after the king’s mowings.
2) And it came to pass that when they made an end of eating the grass of the land,
Then I said, O Lord God, forgive, I beseech thee:
How shall Jacob stand? for he is small.
3) The Lord repented concerning this:
It shall not be, saith the Lord.
4) Thus the Lord God shewed me:
And, behold, the Lord God called to contend by fire;
And it devoured the great deep,
And would have devoured up the land.
5) Then said I, O Lord God, cease, I beseech thee:
How shall Jacob stand? for he is small.
6) The Lord repented concerning this:
This also shall not be, saith the Lord God.
7) Thus he (the Lord God) shewed me:
And behold he stood beside a wall made by a plumbline, with a plumbline in his hand.
8) And the Lord said unto me, Amos, what seest thou?
And I said, A plumbline.
Then the Lord said, Behold, I will set a plumbline in the midst of my people Israel;
I will not again pass them by any more:
9) And the high places of Isaac shall be desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste.
And I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.
1) Thus the Lord God shewed me:
And, behold, [there was] a basket of summer [ripe] fruit.
2) And he said, Amos, what seest thou?
And I said, A basket of summer [ripe] fruit.
3) Then said the Lord unto me,
The end [ripeness] is come upon my people Israel;
I will not again pass by them any more.
And the songs of the temple shall be howlings in that day.
The dead bodies shall be many; in every place have they cast them forth: be silent.
This vision of Amos sets forth a series of punishments which have overtaken or threaten to overtake the land. “The first two refer to dangers already past at the time of the discourse, the last two to the future.” In form, again, the first two and the last two exhibit a close affinity with one another. All four strophes have eight lines apiece and begin with the same phrase; in all four the second line begins in the same fashion, but proceeds differently even in the verses of each couple. In the third line the couples diverge entirely, the twin strophes alone remaining in close correspondence.
This method of working on a definite plan was a favourite one with the prophets. The change of picture in the same framework produces a lasting impression, and the repetition of the same form with a different substance fixes the mind on the thing seen, which is in danger of vanishing all too quickly. The responsion in verses apparently different is very noteworthy; as are lines 7 and 8 respectively, where the desolate places of Isaac correspond to the songs of the temple changed into howlings, and the rising with the sword of the third strophe to the many dead bodies of the fourth.
AN EXAMPLE FROM EZEKIEL
I take another example of correspondence between the strophes from the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, Chap. xxi.
| 1) And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, | 6) And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, |
| 2) Son of man, | 7) Son of man, |
| Set thy face toward the South. | Set thy face toward Jerusalem |
| And drop thy word toward the South, | And drop thy word toward the Sanctuaries, |
| And prophesy against the forest of the field in the South; | And prophesy against the land of Israel; |
| 3) And say to the forest of the South: | 8) And say to the land of Israel: |
| Hear the word of the Lord; | |
| Thus saith the Lord God: | Thus saith the Lord: |
| Behold I will kindle a fire in thee | Behold I am against thee, |
| And it shall devour every green tree in thee and every dry tree. | And will draw forth my sword from its sheath |
| And will cut off from thee the righteous and the wicked. | |
| 9) Seeing that I will cut off from thee the righteous and the wicked. | |
| The flaming fire shall not be quenched, | Therefore shall my sword go forth out of its sheath against all flesh |
| And all faces shall be burnt thereby. | |
| From the north to the south. | From the north to the south. |
| 4) And all flesh shall see | 10) And all flesh shall know |
| That I, the Lord, have kindled it: | That I the Lord have drawn forth my sword out of its sheath; |
| It shall not be quenched. | It shall not return any more. |
THE SONG OF THE SWORD
One of Ezekiel’s grandest poems is the Song of the Sword. The sword from the North in the hand of Nebuchadrezzar comes forth against Jerusalem and destroys the last remnant of life in the perishing city. The introduction to the Song of the Sword is an allegory such as Ezekiel loves; he looks in prophetic trance towards the south and sees a fire approaching from thence which seizes upon the forest of the south and devours the green tree and the dry. Then he solves the riddle, thus interpreting the vision. By placing the riddle and the interpretation in parallel columns, we obtain a classic example of strict responsion.
As a third example of the responsion I select Matthew vii. 13, 14,
| Enter ye in by the narrow gate: | |
| For wide is the gate, | For narrow is the gate, |
| And broad is the way, | And straitened the way, |
| That leadeth to destruction | That leadeth unto life, |
| And many be they that enter in thereby. | And few be they that find it. |
In order to grasp the fundamental idea, that of the responsion, let us once more clearly define that of the strophe and antistrophe.
STROPHE AND ANTISTROPHE DEFINED
The strophe consists of a number of verses combined so as to form a larger whole; it contains a sheaf of ideas which express a single idea, just as a sheaf of rays unites to form a single light.
The antistrophe represents an analogous or contrasting idea, which is, like the former, the sum or product of another sheaf of ideas, and answers to the former in some or all of its component parts.
Accordingly the responsion, thus conceived of, is the formal expression of this relation of two or more strophes to one another. Where the principle of the responsion is strictly carried out each line of the first strophe corresponds to the corresponding line of the second, either verbally or substantially, and in the latter case either by parallelism or antithesis. The similarity of the majority of lines which thus correspond throws the differences at certain points into strong relief and renders them all the more forcible and impressive.
The highest organic structures have been analysed and found to be built up from a single cell. All the preliminary conditions which enable the cell to form organisms lie dormant in it already, but the germ cannot become an organic being except by a slow process of development. What we now have to do is to find the germ from which the responsion has developed; and the germ of this phenomenon is the parallelismus membrorum which constitutes the vital element of apothegm and verse in the Semitic languages, and more particularly in Hebrew. But two things may be parallel one with another not only by analogy but by contrast. The parallelismus membrorum places side by side two or more ideas, analogous but not identical, and adapted by their slight diversity to give an image of what the poet desires to convey. Such sentences abound in the prophetic discourses, as in Isaiah i. 3,
The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib:
But Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.
And Amos ix. 2,
Though they dig into hell, thence shall my hand take them;
And though they climb up into heaven, thence will I bring them down.
The idea, being presented under a different figure, is repeated without producing an effect of tedium or monotony.
What the parallelismus membrorum is to the verse or sentence, that the responsion is to the strophe or discourse.
By slight variations on the responsion two literary forms were evolved to supply an æsthetic want. When two strophes stand in such a relation that the conclusion of the one answers to the beginning of that which succeeds it, the result is the concatenation, which unites two strophes with one another and leads the way from one field of thought to another. Again, if the beginning of one strophe or group of strophes corresponds with the conclusion of the same, the result is the inclusion, the object of which is to emphasise the logical and æsthetic unity of the said strophe or group of strophes.
An example of concatenation may be cited from Isaiah, Chap. i.
One column begins—
Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord hath spoken—
and ends—
We should have been as Sodom, we should have been like unto Gomorrah.
The second strophe-column begins—
Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom;
Give ear unto the Lord our God, ye people of Gomorrah.
Here, as we see, the beginning of the second column answers to the beginning of the first and is linked with its conclusion.
Habakkuk (ii. 11) affords another example,
(end of strophe)
For the stone shall cry out of the wall,
And the beam out of the timbers shall answer it.
Herewith the image of a building rises before the prophet as before the reader. A thought flashes through the prophet’s mind, and he proceeds,
(beginning of strophe)
Woe to him that buildeth a town with blood
And stablisheth a city by iniquity.
And as an example of the inclusion we may quote Jeremiah xlvi. 20-24:
(beginning of strophe)
Egypt is a very fair heifer; but destruction out of the north is come, it is come.
(end of strophe)
The daughter of Egypt shall be put to shame, she shall be delivered into the hand of the people of the north.
In the second chapter of Zephaniah, we find an example of the two-lined inclusion:
(beginning of strophe)
8) I have heard the reproach of Moab, and the revilings of the children of Ammon,
Wherewith they have reproached my people and magnified themselves against my border.
(end of strophe)
10) This shall they have for their pride,
Because they have reproached and magnified themselves against the people of the Lord of hosts.
Thus the three literary forms, besides the strophic measure, which govern the composition of the prophetic books are—the responsion, the concatenation, and the inclusion.
If the responsion is the expression of the outward and inward symmetry—of substance and form—proper to two strophic organisms which, though they may be far apart, show their relation one to another by similarity of character and structure, and correspond to each other more or less, either by analogy or antithesis, the concatenation may be regarded as the complement and counterpart of the responsion, inasmuch as it unites the two strophic organisms by an outward and inward bond—of substance and form. By this means the two are combined to constitute a greater whole. For this reason the concatenation does not run parallel to the responsion, but joins the end of one strophe to the beginning of a second, and leads from one field of thought to another. The inclusion may be regarded as, in a certain sense, the reverse of the concatenation. As the concatenation brings about the conjunction of two strophes, so the inclusion constitutes the boundary line that cuts one strophic organism off from the next. The concatenation obliterates the distinctive character of two separate strophic organisms, the inclusion rounds off and defines a strophe, or group of strophes, and emphasises its distinctive character.
AN EXAMPLE FROM ISAIAH
I cannot refrain from giving at least one example from Isaiah of a strophe-column, which corresponds with a parallel column of similar structure. I select the famous vision of Chapter vi. for the purpose. It may be regarded as one of the earliest prophecies of Isaiah, in conception perhaps the earliest of all. The Tesetes tradition gives the passage as a single whole, without break or paragraph. In dealing with a prophet of Isaiah’s rank, and one so pre-eminent in the composition of these prophetic discourses, we naturally seek to discover a definite plan in the composition of this vision, and such a plan does, as a matter of fact, become manifest to the critical student. The vision begins, “And I saw the Lord,” and the continuation and complement opens with the words (verse 8), “And I heard the voice of the Lord.” The passage, accordingly, falls into two parts, one describing what the prophet saw, the other what he heard. If we examine the two parts more closely we are struck by the phrase, “Then said I,” occurring in the one after he had seen all, and in the other after he had heard all. Hence it appears that the grand vision consists of two images, which correspond with each other exactly.
| 1) And I saw the Lord | 8) And I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, |
| Sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, | Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? |
| And his train filled the temple. | Then I said, Here am I, send me. |
| 2) Above him stood the Seraphim: | |
| Each one had six wings; | 9) And he said, Go, and tell this people |
| With twain he covered his face, | Hear ye indeed, but understand not; |
| And with twain he covered his feet, | And see ye indeed, but perceive not. |
| And with twain he did fly. | |
| 3) And one cried unto another, and said, | 10) How fat is the heart of this people |
| Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts. | And their ears how heavy, |
| The whole earth is full of his glory. | And their eyes as it were shut. |
| Else might they see with their eyes | |
| 4) And the foundations of the thresholds were moved at the voice of him that cried, | And hear with their ears |
| And understand with their heart, | |
| And turn again, and be healed. | |
| And the house was filled with smoke. | |
| 5) Then said I, Woe is me! | 11) Then said I, Lord, how long? |
| Because I am a man of unclean lips, etc. | And he answered, Until the cities be waste, without inhabitant, etc. |
Besides these two-column discourses, of which we have just seen an example, we find three-column discourses, especially in Micah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. They frequently consist of three parallel parts, each divided into two or three strophes. The strophes of each column correspond on the one hand, the corresponding stanzas of each part on the other, so that we have, if we may so express it, a vertical and a horizontal responsion. The double responsion gives, as it were, the fixed points between which the network of the strophes is outspread. A classic example of this method is the great discourse in the ninth chapter of Jeremiah, which belongs to the best period, and the authenticity of which is unreservedly admitted by Biblical criticism. Lack of space unfortunately forbids me to give it here arranged according to the principles I have laid down.
It is time to observe that the same laws may be shown to prevail in cuneiform inscriptions and the works of the prophet Mohammed.
AN ASSYRIAN EXAMPLE
As an example of responsion I give a passage from the great inscription of Sargon (L. 186-194).
| That city and that palace, | (But) its ruler, |
| Asshur, the father of the gods, | Its royal architect, |
| In the glory of his shining countenance | May he attain to old age, |
| May he obtain power | |
| Graciously may he look upon it, | For ever and ever, |
| To days far hence | May its maker grow old. |
| May he proclaim its renewing. | |
| With his shining mouth may he decree: | With his sounding lips may he speak: |
| The protecting genius, | He who dwelleth in them, |
| The rescuing God, | In health of body, |
| Day and night | And joy of heart, |
| Let them rule therein, | And gladness of spirit, |
| Nor let their power cease. | May he rejoice therein, |
| May he taste the joy of life. |
A BABYLONIAN EXAMPLE
A very instructive example of the strophe combined with responsion is afforded by the second Babylonian version of the Creation, which has been for the first time translated and published by T. G. Pinches. It consists of forty lines, and is arranged in four strophes of ten lines each. The responsion is clear and vivid to the last degree, the end harks back to the beginning with manifest intention. The concatenation constitutes, as it were, a rivet between the strophes. I will confine myself at present to quoting the beginning of the first three and the ending of the last two strophes.
Str. I (beginning),
The glorious house, the house of the gods, in a glorious place had not been made,
A plant had not been brought forth, a tree had not been created, etc.
Str. I (end),
(As for) the glorious house, the house of the gods, its seat had not been made,
The whole of the lands were sea.
Str. II (beginning),
When within the sea there was a stream
In that day Eridu was made, Ê-sagila was constructed, etc.
Str. II (end),
The gods were to be caused to sit in a seat of joy of heart,
He made mankind.
Str. III (beginning),
Aruru had made the seed of mankind with him.
He made the beasts of the field and the living creatures of the desert; etc.
The age of this Babylonian story of the Creation probably goes back to at least the middle of the second millennium of our chronology, and in this very ancient specimen of Semitic poetry we find this poetic form fully developed.
EXAMPLES FROM THE KORAN
It seems hardly possible to believe that the Arab prophet, who regarded it as an insult to be described as a poet, should have employed definite literary forms, and more particularly the strophe combined with the responsion, in his revelations. Yet such is the fact. In most cases the strophes rise and fall in harmony with his abrupt and agitated style (similar strophes occur in the prophetic books), but regular strophes are to be found, and in those that rise and fall we can trace a definite law which altogether excludes the idea of chance. The occurrence of the strophe combined with the responsion in the Koran, is a point of the utmost importance to the hypothesis of strophic composition, because the correctness of the arrangement of the Koran in lines seems to be assured both by the rhyme and by tradition. I will bring to your notice in this place an example of the regular strophe from the Koran. In the thirty-sixth surah we come upon a passage framed, as it were, between two verses, which form the inclusion.
v. 28. There was only one cry (of Gabriel from heaven), and behold, they became utterly extinct.
v. 49. They only wait for one sounding (of the trumpet), which shall overtake them while they are disputing together.
Between these two lie five strophes of four lines each.
Str. I, begins (v. 29),
Oh, the misery of men! no apostle cometh unto them but they laugh him to scorn.
Str. II, begins (v. 33),
One sign [of the resurrection] unto them is the dead earth, we quicken the same, etc.
Str. III, begins (v. 37),
The night also is a sign unto them, we withdraw the day from the same, etc.
Str. IV, begins (v. 41),
It is a sign also unto them that they carry off their offspring in the ship filled with merchandise, etc.
Str. V (v. 45), takes up the burden of the first, and begins,
And if it is said unto you, Fear that which is before you and that which is behind,
It may be ye shall find mercy, etc.
I will also subjoin an example of the falling strophe combined with the responsion, from sura 56, vv. 57-72.
57) We have created you, will ye not therefore believe.…
58) What think ye? The seed that ye emit.
59) Do ye create the same or are we the creators thereof?
60) We have decreed death unto you all, and we shall not be prevented.
61) We are able to substitute others like you in your stead, and to produce you again in the condition or form which ye know not.
62) Ye know the original production by creation; will ye not therefore consider.…
63) What think ye the grain which ye sow?
64) Do ye cause the same to spring forth, or do we cause it to spring forth?
65) If we pleased, we could render the same dry and fruitless, so that you would not cease to wonder, saying,
66) Verily we have contracted debts for seed and labour, but we are not permitted to reap the fruit thereof.
67) What think ye? The water which ye drink,
68) Do ye send down the same from the clouds, or are we the senders thereof?
69) If we pleased we could render the same brackish: will ye not therefore give thanks?
70) What think ye? The fire which ye strike,
71) Do ye produce the tree whence ye obtain the same, or are we the producers thereof?
72) We have ordained the same for an admonition, and an advantage to those who travel through the deserts.
This passage, which is complete in itself, consists of four stanzas, of 5-4-3-2 verses, all of them diverse presentations of the same idea and alike in construction.
The whole group is enclosed between two single verses which correspond to one another, and form, as it were, a frame to it.
An exact observation of the Koran shows that strophes of the most varied structure occur in it, often combined with the responsion, and held together by all kinds of other literary forms. The principal characteristic of the strophe is still unity of idea, which, being in its nature relative, is subject to great variation. Nor is the strophe the final and greatest unit. As the strophe is formed by the combination of several lines or sentences, so a group is formed of a number of strophes and a great systematically constructed discourse of several groups. The same laws which govern the sentence and the verse prevail in the structure of the strophe and the formation of the group. Parallelism and antithesis are the principal elements of form in sentence and verse; they are likewise the forces that struggle for expression, and assert themselves in the structure of the strophe and the formation of the group.
The question may be raised: How did Mohammed come to adopt this form of composition? For the present, I can only advance a hypothesis in reply. Mohammed received the first impulse to meditate upon matters of religion from various wise and learned men, and through them became acquainted with the principal doctrines of Judaism and Christianity; and in like manner he must have acquired from them the tradition of this form of poetry, a form which, unlike the poetry of the heathen, was not devoted to the delight and joy of life, but to religious meditation and to ancient and pious legend. This form of composition may have been practised and preserved by the old soothsayers (Kahin) after it had been generally superseded by the new-fangled and rigidly metrical poetry. Mohammed may possibly have acquired the secret of this form of composition from such a Kahin, who had meditated upon the nature of religion. He therefore rightly rejected the title of poet, and with equal right called himself the “Seal of the Prophet”; for he spoke and wrote in the style of the prophets of old.
THE PREVALENCE OF STROPHIC FORM AND RESPONSION EXPLAINED
A careful consideration of the laws of strophic form and responsion which can be shown to exist, though in unequal measure, in the three great Semitic literatures, leads us to the conclusion that there are only three possible explanations of their occurrence. Either we have to do with a phenomenon evolved independently in different parts of the world, or these literary forms were invented by one nation and borrowed and imitated by the others, or, lastly, they must all be referred to a common origin.
The three nations among whom we find these literary forms are so widely separated in space and time that there can be no question of borrowing between them. But, again, phenomena so original and complicated could not appear in different places without something of a common origin.
Accordingly, the only possible assumption is that they may all be referred to a common origin, and that even in primitive times religious poetry was governed by these literary forms. They have been preserved in the Bible, the cuneiform inscriptions, and the Koran.
The establishment of the fact that strophic composition combined with responsion is to be found in all three Semitic literatures naturally drew my attention to a similar phenomenon in the choruses of Greek tragedy, a phenomenon noted and recognised by classical philology, though not treated with the consideration it deserves. Too much stress has been laid on the metrical uniformity of the strophes, too little on their substantial correspondence, and more especially on the way in which the latter is interwoven with assonance and verbal responsion. A certain amount of critical acumen is required for the recognition of these subtly concealed and delicate allusions and antitheses, but when once they are recognised, we cannot doubt that in their choruses the Greek tragedians employed the same artistic methods as the prophets. Strophe and antistrophe are modelled on the same pattern, not in rhythm and syntax alone, but in idea. Now and then the correspondence may be seen and shown to exist line for line, but in most cases it is found only in single lines, though almost always in such as occur in the same place, a circumstance that proves that the correspondence is not due to chance, but that a definite artistic intention was at work to create a certain symmetry between the two strophes.
EXAMPLES FROM THE GREEK TRAGEDIES
I subjoin a few examples in support of this assertion. From the Prometheus of Æschylus, 397-414.
Strophe
I mourn thy grievous fate,
Prometheus! From my tender eyes pours forth a flood of tears,
Wetting my cheeks from the springs of weeping. 400
For thus harshly Zeus,
Ruling in the law of his own will, displays
An imperious sceptre to the gods of old.
Antistrophe
And now all the earth mourns,
And for that grand and ancient sway she weeps,
With mourning for the empire thou and thy brothers held. 410
And all who have abodes
On holy Asia’s borders, in thy loud mourned woes
Those mortals suffer with thee.
The curious responsion of these two strophes is very interesting, interwoven as it is with most of the lines, now by verbal similarity (as in στένω and στονόεν), now by similarity of sense (tears and weeps), now by antithesis (gods and men), and lastly, by an etymological play upon words (νόμος and νέμονται). In addition we have the contrast of ideas in the last lines, in the one strophe Zeus constrains the gods, in the other men mourn complaining. Again in the Œdipus Rex of Sophocles, 1, 863-910:
| Strophe I | Antistrophe I |
| Beginning. | |
| 863) Be it my lot to keep | 873)’Tis insolence begets the tyrant, |
| That reverent purity of word and deed, etc. | Insolence, foolishly puffed up, etc. |
| Conclusion. | |
| 870) Ne’er shall forgetfulness lull them to rest: | 880) Rivalry that brings |
| Weal to the state I ask not God to end: | A great god in them dwells, nor ever waxeth old. |
| Never shall I depart from God my champion. | |
| Strophe II | Antistrophe II |
| Beginning. | |
| 883) But a man who walks in haughty insolence of word or deed, | 897) Never shall I more in reverence go to Delphi’s holy place |
| Fearing not the hand of Justice, nor revering shrines of gods. | Nor the shrine of Abæ, nor Olympia. |
| Conclusion. | |
| 895) But if such deeds as these are held in honour | 909) No longer in Apollo’s worship manifest, |
| What offerings need I bring the gods? | But honours to the gods go all unpaid. |
This form of strophic construction is worthy of note, because not only do the strophe and antistrophe correspond, but the couples of strophes answer to one another; in other words, besides the vertical responsion we find a horizontal responsion (as in Jeremiah ix.), expressed sometimes by the use of identical words, sometimes by antithesis.
Euripides, Bacchæ.
Strophe. 862-870
All night in choric dances my white foot shall beat
The Bacchic rout; my head I will toss in the dewy air,
As the fawn that sports among the pleasures of green fields,
When in fear it flees the chase,
Escaping the trap, overleaping the well-wrought toils.…
Antistrophe. 882-890
Slowly, yet surely moves the power divine,
It punisheth mortals who go the way of folly,
And madly fail to reverence the gods.
But subtly the gods still wait
Long time in hiding, and hunt down the impious man.…
In the strophe we have the shy and timid fawn which takes flight from the pasture and rejoices at her escape from the pursuit of the hunters, in the antistrophe the presumptuous man who transgresses the laws of nature and custom. In the one the timid flight, in the other the subtle (ποικίλος) lying in wait of the gods; the fawn escapes the huntsman, man escapes not the gods. The antithesis in lines 4-5 is most striking. The last lines of both strophes are identical.
A careful study of the responsion in all the wonderful variety of form it presents will suffice to show, even from these few examples, that they bear an amazing resemblance to the forms exhibited by Semitic poetry, particularly by the prophetic writings.
SEMITIC INFLUENCE AND THE GREEK CHORUS
Instead of attempting to prove here that the Greek chorus came into being under Semitic influences I will subjoin the opinion of a classical philologist who has studied the question more minutely than any one else. I refer to D. P. Thomas M. Wehofer (Untersuchungen zur altchristlichen Epistolographie, p. 16).
“For the rest, long before the Christian era Greek literature had received a strong admixture of Semitic art-forms. For, as has been convincingly proved, in my opinion, by Dr. D. H. Müller (Die Propheten, p. 244 seq.), the Greek choruses, those splendid productions of Greek poetry, must be referred for their origin to the temple of Apollo at Delphi, whither (according to the tradition preserved by Euripides in the Phœnissæ) ‘chosen Phœnician virgins were sent from Tyre to conduct the service of the god.’ It is evident that the Greek chorus, the germ from which Greek tragedy was destined to be evolved, followed the same path as Greek painting and plastic art.
“The Greek spirit took possession of all the elements of beauty it encountered, not to preserve them in a petrified state, but by its own working to shape and perfect them, and bring them to the highest conceivable pitch of development.”
The genius of Greece recognised the power of Semitic poetry; it gladly left it its soaring flight, but brought into it the noble feeling for form which was its own peculiar gift, and to ideas and responsion added metrical symmetry. The choruses present a happy combination of the Semitic spirit and the Greek sense of beauty.
The assumption that the Greek chorus, with its strophe and antistrophe, is a Semitic invention is not without bearing on the history of the earliest ages of Semitic poetry. If the Greeks borrowed the chorus, it must have been in use in the religious worship of the Phœnicians. If, in connection with this fact, we consider the responsion in the strophes of the prophetic writings, which exhibit precisely the same method of composition and literary form as the Greek choruses, we are forced upon the hypothesis that the earliest form of prophetic composition must be regarded as a chorus with strophes and antistrophes.
Authorities.—Die Propheten in ihrer ursprünglichen Form. Die Grundgesetze der ursemitischen Poesie erschlossen und nachgewiesen in Bibel Keilinschriften und Koran und in ihrer Wirkung erkannt in den Chören der griechischen Tragödie, by D. H. Müller. 2 vols. Vienna, 1896.
Strophen und Responsion. Neue Beiträge. By D. H. Müller. Vienna, 1898. (Cf. also Felix Perles in the Wiener Zeitschrift für Kunde des Morgenlandes, X, 112, 71; and J. Zeenner in the Zeitschrift für Katholische Theologie, XX, p. 378.)
Untersuchungen zur altchristlichen Epistolographie, by D. P. Thomas M. Wehofer. Vienna, 1901.
Ancient Quarry near Jerusalem