[8-2] Cp. Horace, Carm. iii. 23. 17:—
Immunis aram si tetigit manus,
Non sumptuosa blandior hostia
Mollivit aversos Penates
Farre pio et saliente mica.
[9-1] Cp. Amos iv. 1.
[II]
[THE BIBLE AND THE ANCIENT CLASSICS]
For several centuries past, previous to the middle of the eighteenth century, a general notion used to prevail that the contents of the Hebrew Bible consisted entirely of purely theological matter. This idea originated from the circumstance that most of the commentators of the Bible living in those times had treated it as a book that was full of religious mysticism, which theory had commonly been accepted by their readers as the only correct and plausible one.