Thus in the very midst of the driest critical researches we can feel that, if we have duly fostered the sense of Divine things, we are on the road to further disclosures of religious as well as historical truth. The day of negative criticism is past, and the day of a cheap ridicule of all critical analysis of ancient texts is, we may hope, nearly past also. In faith and love the critics whose lot I would fain share are at one with many of those who suspect and perhaps ridicule them: in the aspirations of hope their aim is higher. Gladly would I now pass on to a survey of the religious bearings of the critical study of the poetical and prophetical books, which, through differences of race, age, and above all spiritual atmosphere, we find, upon the whole, so much more attractive and congenial than the Levitical legislation. Let me, at least, throw out a few hints. Great as is the division of opinion on points of detail, so much appears to be generally accepted that the number of prophets whose works have partly come down to us is larger than used to be supposed. The analysis of the texts may not be as nearly perfect as that of the Pentateuch, but there is no doubt among those of the younger critics whose voices count (and with the pupils of Delitzsch the case is the same as with those of Ewald) that several of the prophetical books are made up of the works of different writers, and I even notice a tendency among highly orthodox critics to go beyond Ewald himself and analyse the Book of Daniel into portions of different dates. The result is important, and not for literary history alone. It gives us a much firmer hold on the great principle that a prophet’s horizon is that of his own time; that he prophesied, as has been well said, into the future, but not directly to the future. This will, I believe, in no wise affect essential Christian truth, but will obviously modify our exegesis of certain Scripture proofs of Christian doctrine, and is perhaps not without a bearing on the two grave theological subjects referred to already.
Bear with me if, once again in conclusion, I appeal to the Church at large on behalf of those who would fain modernise our criticism and exegesis with a view to a not less distinctively Christian but more progressive Church theology. The age of œcumenical councils may have passed; but if criticism, exegesis, and philosophy are only cultivated in a fearless and reverent spirit, and if the Church at large troubles itself a little more to understand the workers and their work, an approximation to agreement on great religious questions may hereafter be attained. What the informal decisions of the general Christian consciousness will be, it would be impertinent to conjecture. It is St. John’s ‘all truth’ after which we aspire—‘all the truth’ concerning God, the individual soul, and human society, into which the labours of generations, encouraged by the guiding star, shall by degrees introduce us. But one thing is too clear to be mistaken—viz. that exegesis must decide first of all what essential Christian truth is before a devout philosophy can interpret, expand, and apply it, and Old Testament exegesis, at any rate, cannot be long separated from its natural ally, the higher criticism. A provisional separation may no doubt be necessary, but the ultimate aim of successive generations of students must be a faithful exegesis, enlightened by a seven-times tested criticism.
THE BOOK OF JOB.
CHAPTER I.
JOB’S CALAMITY; THE OPENING OF THE DIALOGUES.
(CHAPS. I.-XIV.)
The Book of Job is not the earliest monument of Hebrew ‘wisdom,’ but for various reasons will be treated first in order. The perusal of some of the pages introductory to Proverbs will enable the student to fill out what is here given. The Hebrew ‘wisdom’ is a product as peculiar as the dialectic of Plato, and not less worthy of admiration; and the author of Job is its greatest master. To him are due those great thoughts on a perennial problem, which may be supplemented but can never be superseded, and which, as M. Renan truly says, cause so profound an emotion in their first naïve expression. His wisdom is that of intuition rather than of strict reasoning, but it is as truly based upon the facts of experience as any of our Western philosophies. He did not indeed reach his high position unaided by predecessors. The author of the noble ‘Praise of Wisdom’ in Prov. i.-ix. taught him much and kindled his ambition. Nor was he in all probability without the stimulus of fellow-thinkers and fellow-poets. The student ought from the outset to be aware of the existence of discussions as to the unity of the book—discussions which have led to one assured and to several probable results—though he ought not to adopt any critical results before he has thoroughly studied the poem itself. The student should also know that the supposed authors of the (as I must believe) inserted passages belong to the same circle as the writer of the main part of the book, and are therefore not to be accused of having made ‘interpolations.’ I need not here distinguish between passages added by the author himself as afterthoughts (or perhaps paralipomena inserted by disciples from his literary remains) and compositions of later poets added to give the poem greater didactic completeness. A passage which does not fall into the plan of the poem is to all intents and purposes the work of another poet. The philosophic Goethe of the second part of Faust is not the passion-tossed Goethe of the first.
All the writers who may be concerned in the production of our book are, however, well worthy of reverent study; they were not only inspired by the Spirit of Israel’s holy religion, but in their various styles true poets. In some degree we may apply to Job the lines of Schiller on the Iliad with its different fathers but one only mother—Nature. In fact, Nature, in aspects chiefly familiar, but not therefore less interesting, was an open book to these poets, and ‘Look in thine heart and write’ was their secret as well as Spenser’s for vigorous and effective expression.
I now proceed to give in plain prose the pith and substance of this great poem, which more than any other Old Testament book needs to be brought near to the mind of a Western student. I would entitle it The Book of the Trial of the Righteous Man, and of the Justification of God.
In its present form the Book of Job consists of five parts—
1. The Prologue, written in prose (ch. i.-ii.), the body of the work in the Hebrew being written in at any rate an approach to metre;[[4]]
2. The Colloquies between Job and his three friends (ch. iii.-xxxi.);