THE BAMPTON LECTURES FOR 1889.*
STUDENTS of the Psalter and Old Testament critics who have regretted the delay in the publication of these Lectures, and the continued necessity imposed on their writer of not over- working his sight which has caused that delay, will join in congratulating him on the completion of his task. There will also be some disposition to congratulate him yet further on the entire abandonment of reserve, the thorough outspoken- ness which characterises the book. For a long time he has been willing to state his own convictions with less force and completeness than was at his command, in the hope of winning the attention of thinkers belonging to another school, and inducing them to reconsider their theories. The motive is worthy of all respect. But those whose benefit was intended were repelled rather than attracted, their sus- * The Origin and Religious Contents of the Psalter, in the Light of Old Testament Criticism and the History of R ligtons. By T. K. Cheyne, MA., D.D. London : Began Paul, Trench, Trabner, and Co. 1891.
picions being aroused that unwelcome revelations were kept in store for a later day. It is much better that the critic should tell us all that is in his heart. Yet we can well believe that the premisses as well as the conclusions of the arguments employed in this volume will fall on the ears of a large majority of readers with unwelcome strangeness. Stade, in- troducing his History of Israel to the German public ten years ago, found himself compelled to say : "Theologians, as well as non-theologians, who are not accustomed to historical methods of considering Holy Scripture, will take exception to many statements made in this book ;" and Professor Cheyne, notwithstanding the controversy to which Luz lkfundi gave rise, will find the English public in general unprepared to assimilate his teaching.
The work before us divides naturally into two parts, Lectures i.-v. dealing with "The Origin," and vi.-viii. with "The Religions Contents of the Psalter." The former of these is occupied with a careful scrutiny of every important Psalm, with the view of obtaining informa- tion respecting its date and origin. The results thus reached are extended to such other Psalms as are evidently related to the one specially studied, and in this way the whole Psalter is brought under review. Much stress is laid on the utility of studying the Psalms in groups. On the other hand, little reliance is placed on the criteria of date supposed to be furnished by "The Linguistic Affinities of the Psalms." These affinities are discussed in an appendix, where the author points out many phenomena which support his views, but carefully abstains from attaching undue value to them. It is hardly necessary to state that the titles which are prefixed to a considerable number of the Psalms are looked upon as quite untrustworthy. But it is important to observe that every point is treated under the conviction that Hebrew history must be entirely recast ; that the Deuteronomic legislation dates from the time of Isaiah ; that, in fact, the theories which are best known in connection with the name of Wellhausen are substantially true. The total result admits of a brief summary. Psalm xviii., possibly composed in Josiah's reign, is the only one which can have been written before the Exile ; twenty-three, or possibly twenty-six, Psalms are Maccabwan ; the remainder lie between these two extremes, nine, or perhaps sixteen, being pre-Maccabtaan Greek, and most of those which are still to be accounted for belong to the Persian period. The characteristic feature is the bringing the Psalter down to as late a date as possible. In denying its early origin, Professor Cheyne has been influenced by various considerations. He has been much struck by the change in religious life and organisation which took place on the return from the Exile :—" The religious reorganisation of the people in Ezra's time was too complete to allow any con- siderable influence to archaic liturgical formula it is not possible to hold that there is any large admixture of old and new in the Hebrew Psalter." He is even more impressed with the necessity of holding fast the principle of develop- ment. Admitting the possibility that when "David and all the house of Israel played before Jehovah with all their might and with songs," some of these songs had been made by the poet-King, he believes that "we cannot consistently sup- pose that the religious songs of David (if there were any) were as much above the spiritual capacities of the people as the Psalms which Ewald or Hitzig or Delitzsch would assign to him." Yet he cannot divide sharply between the age of David and that, say, of Isaiah ;" he must come lower down the stream in search of the richer ages of psalmody.
At a time when the last word has by no means been spoken concerning the literary products of the Exile, and the age succeeding the Exile, it would be futile in a brief notice like ours to attempt a comparison between the Psalms which it is sought to place there, and the other works then written. But the later ages afford a clearer field ; and without denying the right of certain Psalms to the title Maccabwan, we may yet doubt whether the old question has been satisfactorily answered : "Were the men of that day endowed with the religious and poetical inspiration which finds utterance in some of these poems?" However true it may be that eras of national upheaval have frequently been marked by unwonted literary activity and power, it has to be acknowledged that no other books, certainly known to have been composed in Maccaba3an days, are worthy to be placed on or near the same line as these Psalms. If we travel a little higher up the stream, we see even stronger objections to the dates proposed for individual Psalms. To say that Psalm xlii. was written B.C. 198, in celebration of the deliverance by Antiochus the Great of a number of Jewish captives who were being carried off to the north by the mer- cenary Scopes, is to sacrifice probability in the vain attempt to ascertain the unknowable. The attempt to discover the historical background of our poems is legitimate and praise- worthy, but conjecture is not proof; and a larger knowledge than is now possible respecting the events which happened during the centuries before Christ would yield many occasions as happily explanatory of the Psalms as any of those which have been selected. We must be content with much un- certainty, and be ready to use the apparent correspondences between poem and history as illustrations rather than as arguments. Professor Cheyne believes that Psalms xlv. and lxxii. were composed in honour of Ptolemy Philadelphus, not long after his accession, B.C. 285. Now, whilst it is per- fectly true that a pions Jew might have written verses in praise of a foreign King, and that the Babylonian Isaiah did, in fact, idealise the Cyrus of whom he wrote, it does not follow that such a poet would use language irresistibly sug- gesting to his countrymen that it was a native Prince whose praises he was singing, and it is at least doubtful whether his odes would have been able to make their way into the hymn- book of the Jewish Church.
The views enunciated in the second half of these lectures, where "The Religious Contents of the Psalter" are examined, are necessarily affected by the opinions on the dates of the Psalms which have been previously arrived at. But the most conservative critics will find them instructive and stimulating. We have not space to do more than barely mention the studiously moderate but admirably argued discussion of the influence which Zoroastrianism may have exercised in deve- loping those germs of thought which expanded into Jewish and Christian eschatology. If we accept the lecturer's con- clusions respecting the age of the Psalter, we shall find teaching in some of the Psalms which we had not previously read there. If we reject them, we shall welcome the fresh light which this discussion sheds on "the ways of God" with men. Another really illuminating thought is admirably pre- sented in Lecture vi. :—
" In those parts of the Psalter which sound most distinctly individualistic, let us recognise the voice sometimes of the suffer- ing and sin-conscious or jubilant and forgiven people of Israel, sometimes of the self-forgetting poet who accepts his share of
the experiences of his people The Psalter (at any rate, Books 1.-Ill.) reminds one of that mystic eagle in Paradise, com- posed of interwoven ruby-souls, glowing with the rays of the divine sun, whose beak Dante heard utter with its voice both I
and My, when in conception it VMS We and Our.' That there are many passages in which the person who speaks or is spoken of is simply and solely the nation, is becoming evident, and if we read the rest of the Old Testament with this in our mind, we shall perhaps be surprised at the number of parallels which it presents."
Of less importance, because covering less ground, but very beautiful in its way, is the grouping and naming of several sets of Psalms, the "Puritan," the "Mystical," and the " Guest " Psalms.
In commending The Origin of the Psalter to critics and students of all schools, one or two general observations are to be made. It would be unjust to leave without mention the freshness of the book, the evidence which it affords that its author sees everything with his own eyes, whilst missing nothing worthy which others have done. And the amount of information which it contains is truly remarkable, information which is enhanced in value by a good index of names and places, and another of passages of Scripture. There is no breach of modesty in Professor Cheyne's statement that the first part "might be enlarged into a synthetic introduction to the Old Testament : the second into a historical sketch of post-Exilic Jewish literature down to the time of Christ." The spirit which pervades the whole will be as helpful to many readers as the knowledge it imparts, for here, as in Job and Solomon, we are made to feel that the world of literature, literature of the most fascinating interest, is immeasurably wider than we had been apt to imagine, and that its best products touch religion closely, and are intimately connected with the Bible.
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