4 JULY 1891, Page 30

CURRENT LITERATURE.

The Unity of Isaiah. By John Kennedy, MA., D.D. (J. Clarke.) —Dr. Kennedy argues against what is something like a consensus among recent critics of the first class, when he maintains that the whole of the prophecies going under the name of Isaiah were the work of the prophet who began his work in the reign of Uzziah, and, ended it, if the traditions be true, in that of Manasseh. The critical point is, after all, the mention of Cyrus. This divides those who put first the moral, and those who insist on the predictive element in prophecy. We cannot but think that the whole tone of the prophecy, properly so called, is lowered by the introduction of the definite foretelling. As for the " parallel in an older record," the mention of Isaiah by the " man of God who came from Bethel," it really is a case of ignotum per ignotius. Even so conservative a critic as Canon Bawlinson gives this up as a gloss by some later scribe.