stages. If this be the correct explanation of the Tripartite INTRODUCT. Division of the Hebrew Canon, and we believe it is so, we shall be able to appeal to it later on as evidence, which favours the representation of history to be made in the following chapters. For the sake of readers who may not before have given close attention to this subject, we here subjoin the contents of the Hebrew Canon of Scripture in the order and arrangement in which they appear in Hebrew Bibles : I. 'The Law,' or Torah, which is equivalent to our Pentateuch. II. The Prophets,' or Nebiim, which are divided into two groups (a) The Former Prophets, or Nebiim rishonim; four Kings. (b) The Latter Prophets, or Nebiim akharonim; four III. 'The Writings,' or Kethubim, which are divided into three groups— (a) The Poetical Books; Psalms, Proverbs, Job. Upon some of the details of this arrangement we shall have occasion to speak at the close of the present work1. 1 See Chap. XII, and Excursus C. limitations Mankind. CHAPTER I. THE PREPARATION FOR A CANON. CHAP. I. EVERYWHERE throughout the history of the literature, The human as well as in the actual pages, of God's Holy Word we of the Divine recognize the invisible presence and the constant operaMessage to tion of His Holy Spirit. Save, however, where express mention is made of some external miraculous agency, it is neither the part of true faith nor of sound reason to presuppose in the case of Holy Scripture the occurrence of any interference with the laws that regulate the composition and operate in the transmission of human literature. In this respect, we may say, it is the same with the Books of Scripture as with the Prophets and Apostles, who were inspired revealers of the Divine Will. We acknowledge in both the over-ruling guidance of the Spirit. But the sacred Canon was subject to the external conditions of the composition and preservation of human literature, as were were the messengers to the laws of human existence. The men, thus highly privileged to be sent on their sacred mission, had been moulded and influenced by education and surroundings, by the very limitations of their place and time; nor should we think of attributing to them the possession of any supernatural powers of which no mention has been recorded in Scripture. Similarly, in the case of the Sacred Writings, we are not justified in assuming that the external circumstances of CHAP. I. their origin, composition, and transmission were subject to any supernatural privilege or exemption. In their colouring and tone, they will reflect the literary characteristics which distinguished the day of their composition. In their structure and formation, they will reproduce the common standard of artistic skill, they will be the product of the usual methods pursued by authors in that age and country. The Divine Spirit penetrates their message with life; it quickens their teaching with power; but it does not supersede, nor become a substitute for, the exercise of the powers of the human intellect, the reason, the imagination, the discernment, the industry, which have, we believe contributed with unimpaired freedom to the formation of the Sacred Books. So much it was needful to say by way of preface. For, wherever, as in the case of Holy Scripture, we are possessed with a strong belief in the active operation of Divine Inspiration, there we are subject to a proportionately strong temptation to anticipate every difficulty by the supposition, that a special miracle may have been permitted, even though it be in the domain of strictly human effort. 'Voluntary humility' is linked so closely to the indolent desire for interposition within the laws of our nature, that rather than acknowledge in Scripture the presence of the limitations of the human intellect, or patiently unravel the gradual unfolding of the Divine Will by the instrumentality of human weakness, it prefers to assume, that human powers were made divine, and raised above the liability to error and imperfection. Let us, therefore, in all reverence endeavour to bear in mind throughout this discussion that, in the formation CHAP. I. A preparation for a and transmission of the Old Testament Canon, as in that of the New, we must expect to find the continual operation of the same natural laws, through which the Divine purpose is unceasingly being fulfilled on earth. Nor, on the other hand, let it ever be absent from our minds, that those efforts of the human intelligence, the results of which we here endeavour to trace, were ever being overruled, ' according to the commandment of the eternal God,' to furnish and to perfect those Scriptures that revealed His Will, and thus to prepare the way for the final Revelation vouchsafed in the coming of our Lord and Saviour in the flesh. We consider first, the preparatory steps which led Canon to be to the formation of a Hebrew Canon. That there presup posed. were such preparatory steps, and that the Canon did not start into existence fully formed, might, indeed, appear self-evident. The very idea of a Canon of Scripture implies some preliminary stage. We can hardly think of it, save as of a collection of writings regarded as sacred and authoritative by a community professing, outwardly at least, to conform to its teaching. We therefore presuppose, in the idea of a Canon of Scripture, the existence of a community prepared to accept its authority. Further, if no Divine Revelation is recorded as specifying the writings of which it should consist, we must also assume that the writings, to which such honour was paid, were selected by that community from out of its general literature. We have, accordingly, one conception of the formation of a Canon in the selection, or adoption, by a religious community, of a certain body of writings from its existing literature. Now a community would hardly accept the sanctity, or acknowledge the authority, of writings, which it did not regard as containing, in some way, the expression of the Divine Will. Conversely, if a community did not recognize the Will of God, it would not acknowledge that those writings, which claimed to reveal His Will, possessed either sacredness or authority. In other words, the formation of a Canon of Scripture presupposes the existence of a community of believers. Accordingly, when we reflect on it, we see how this very conception of a Canon of Scripture may point us back to a yet earlier time, when the writings of which it is composed had their place among the ordinary literature of a believing people. The literature must first arise, before the process of selection begins that leads to the formation of a Sacred Collection. Again, so far as the community is concerned, we see that a community which selects a Canon of Scripture will not only be a believer in the God Who is recognized in that literature, but must also have reached that particular stage in its religious history, when the possibility of the revelation of the Divine Will through the agency of human literature has dawned. upon the consciousness of the nation. This last point is of importance. For there is nothing at all improbable in a religious community existing for a long period without the adoption of any particular writings as the embodiment of belief, or as the inspired and authoritative standard of worship and conduct: least of all would this be improbable, if there were other, and, seemingly, no less authoritative, means of declaring the commands of God and of maintaining His worship unimpaired. Circumstances, however, might arise which would alter the case, and make it advisable, either to embody in writing the sacred teachings of the past, or to recognize the authority and sanctity of certain writings CHAP. I. |