SCEPTICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.* Mn. DILLon thinks, as he

tells us in his preface, that "a careful perusal of this first English translation of the primi- tive text of Job," Koheleth,' and the Sayings of Agar,' will satisfy the most orthodox reader" that they are rightly called sceptics. But Mr. Dillon must tell us a good deal more about this "primitive text" of his than he has done in this

volume, before his form of the documents can be accepted. "Our authorised version of Job," he says a propos of

"the text and its reconstruction," is based upon the text handed down to us in existing Hebrew manuscripts, and upon Jerome's Latin translation, and he goes on to state that "none of the manuscripts, the most important of which are those of the Vatican, of Alexandria, and of Sinai, go further back than the fourth century, A.D." This reads as if Mr. Dillon supposed that the three codices named contained the Hebrew text. Of course, every one knows that no Hebrew manuscript is older than the tenth century. That a writer who essays, and in a most audacious way, to exercise the higher criticism, should be so careless as to leave his readers under an impression so erroneous, is indeed strange. We refuse to suppose that he could himself have made the mistake. If he had, it would not be worth while to criticise his book any further. His account of the recovery of the "primitive text" is as follows :—

"One day that distinguished scholar [Prof. Bickell], while saun- tering about Monte Pincio with the late Coptic Bishop Agapios Bsciai, was informed by this dignitary that he had found and transcribed a wretched codex of the Saidic Version of Job in the Library of the Propaganda. Hearing that numerous passages were wanting in the newly discovered codex, Prof. Bickell at once con- jectured that this defective' version might possibly prove to be a translation of the original Septuagint text without the later additions ; and having studied it at the Bishop's house saw his surmise changed to certainty; the text was indeed that of the original Septuagint without the disfiguring additions inserted by Origen. The late Prof. Lagarde of Gottingen then applied for, and received, permission to edit this precious find ; but owing to the desire conceived later on by Pope Leo XIII. that an under- taking of such importance should be carried out by an ecclesiastic of the Roman Catholic Church, Lagarde's hopes were dashed at the eleventh hour, and Monsignor Ciasca, to whom the task was confided, accomplished all that can reasonably be expected from pious zeal and patient industry."

Surely a revolution in criticism was never started on more slender reasons.

• The Sceptics of the Old Testament; Job, Koheleth, Agar, By K. J. Dillon. London: lebister and Co. 1885.

For the "primitive text" of Ecclesiastes, no codas at all is even imagined. It rests on a theory of Professor Bickell of Vienna, that the leaves of the Hebrew manuscript were shifted from their places, and that an additional element of confusion was introduced by the interpolation of various passages, either to join together what, owing to this mechanical dislocation, seemed to be wanting in connection, or to bring

the heterodox views of the writer into better harmony with accepted teaching. This is all in the clouds. As Mr. Dillon says himself, "it is and can be no more than a theory." Of all emendations, that of transposition is the most dubious. It is quite certain that no two critics would agree in proposing the same order. As to interpolations, asserted to be such

simply because they do not suit the critic's theory, it is scarcely necessary to discuss them. It must not be forgotten that of all literatures the Hebrew is that in which there is the least a priori probability for such revolutionary criticism. It was not without reason that Josephus boasted : "Notwith. standing the length of time which has passed [since the writing of the Books], no one has ever ventured to add or subtract or alter anything." Josephus was probably much mistaken about the "length of time" (as Thucydides was mistaken about the authorship of the Homeric Hymns) ; but this does not affect his testimony to the careful transmission of the text.

What our author has to say about the "Sayings of Agar" (Proverbs :cm) is equally unsatisfactory. The theory of an orthodox champion disposing of the attacks of a doubter is quite unsuitable to the facts of the case. When Professor Driver suggests that the chapter may contain "specimens of

foreign wisdom" which an Israelitish author "accommodated to the spirit of his own religion," he goes as far as there can be any need of going. Mr. Dillon's talk about misconstruc- tions by "an ancient Pharisaic controversialist and by his

faithful modern successors," seems to us not a little absurd. The passage is, on the whole, not difficult to understand, though there are some obscurities, not affecting the general argument, in it. First comes the sceptical position, stated as it is stated again and again, and then the answer. From this the writer passes on to a variety of problems of human life, which he sets forth with much homely plainness of speech.

Such utterances might easily be matched in the gnomic verse of other literatures. It is strange how even moderate critics sometimes play the part of advocalus diaboli when any ques- tion concerning the Bible is discussed. Pessimistic utterances, for instance, are taken to prove a late date. Yet what could be more pessimistic than Homer's stock epithet for man, Passing on from Agur to Job we find a drama, but a drama of which the issue is the triumph of right. It seems to us

unreasonable, except on evidence of the very strongest kind, so to manipulate the book as to change this issue to something absolutely different, to find in it, for instance, the conclusion that "the sufferings of men, innocent and guilty, and the prevalence of evil, are incompatible with a personal Creator," and to reduce all that the sufferer attains by the discipline of suffering to a "negative insight by means of that resignation which flows from excess of pain."

That there is a sceptical element in Ecclesiastes can scarcely be questioned. But it is easy to exaggerate it. After all, it is nothing more than has been found in every age as soon as men began to reflect upon the problems of life.

The preacher does not pretend to solve these problems ; he takes a rhetorical pleasure in presenting them in emphatic language, but he clings to two great principles, belief in a

righteous God, without which life would have been a more

insoluble and intolerable perplexity than it was, and the practical wisdom of a good life and strenuous endeavour. Nothing could be better than the summing-up of Professor Driver :—

" The author is no 'pessimist' in the sense in which the word is used in modern times. He does not believe that the world is growing worse and worse and hastening to its ruin, nor is he ever tempted to abandon his theistic faith. He retains his belief in God ; he is conscious of a moral order in the world, though its

operation is often frustrated The Bible contains not only the record of a history; it exhibits the most varied phases of human emotion, suffused and penetrated in different degrees by the spirit of God."

This is the language of a criticism which is at once intelligent and devout. Mr. Dillon has to learn a good deal before he can hope to deserve the same praise.