HERDERS' LETTERS RELATING TO THE STUDY OF DIVINITY.

[Translated from the German.]

LETTER III.

On the The pa

Lowth's book on the sacred poetry of the Hebrews. Review of the Hebrew scriptures according to the Jewish division of them. oldest remains that concern the origin of the human race. triarchal history, and the style in which it is written.

You mistook me about Lowth. I love and value his book as agreeable and useful; and am not at all on the side of those, who think they can find all that he contains in their Glassius: Glassius had no such wide and elegant view of his subject. The prelections on the parabolic style of the Hebrews; on the metaphors, images and allegories, that are peculiar to them; and especially the descriptions of particular passages, and his remarks on them, are beautiful. In his beautiful latin they become still more charming; and with the notes of Michaelis, which often exceed the text, and are among his best productions, the work is a good general introduction to the poetical writings of the Old Testament. I would have you read it directly and become fond of it; and to these add two other*

* Sir William Jones' "Commentar. Poeseos Asiat. edit. Eichhorn, Leips. 1779;" and John Richardson's Essay on the literature, languages and customs of the Eastern nations, Leipsic 1779. If any will add to these my work on the spirit of the Hebrew poetry, I shall have nothing against it.-Author's Note.

[All the notes to the preceding letters were by the translator; and all in this and the future letters, which are not marked as the author's, will be known to be by the translator.]

New Series-vol. III.

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books, which I account as equally serviceable in this study. And here let me tell you that I would not be considered as a critic in speaking of books and authors. I am writing letters to you, and not a review. I am no well appointed censor of works by profession, according to the received rules and spirit; but an old friend, who from the pleasant pilgrimage of his reading, his study, his occupation and life, tells you his experiences and opinions, as he tells them to himself, and then leaves them to your examination and approval. Of what use is it to name over books, or to give you long catalogues of them, without any true guide and direction how to read, to use, and to apply them? Seldom is all good in one book; seldom at least good for all persons. Time brings about many changes in books as in other things. The finest library wants an interpreter; and the best gift that a young man can receive is—not books, but advice how they are to be used.

What I objected, merely in passing, to Lowth, and which you must not stumble at, was the somewhat artificial and modern way, in which he has treated the old Hebrew poetry, sometimes in general, and sometimes in particular classifications and passages:-or rather I should say, in which some of his admirers have treated it, pushing his principles too far. According to the representation of these last, David composed this psalm as an idyl for his amusement, and that as an elegy for a youthful exercise; and the most earnest exhortations, denunciations and encouragements of prophecy, are but specimens of Hebrew didactics: I cannot express how much injury is done to the use of the Bible, by regarding it in this manner. It is a disordered function in the principal channels, so that the other vessels can give no nourishment: it is a false first principle, and corrupts and perverts all the rest. The poetry of the Bible was not designed for pastime, nor for an idle mental recreation, still less in the way of paltry common place, as poetry is apt to be among ourselves: indeed we can hardly give the same name to things so entirely and essentially diffe

Poetic expression, the manner of conceiving and executing, was in those times all nature; the very exigency of the language and feeling of him who spoke, and of the ear and feeling of those who listened the necessity of the subject, the time, the object and the circumstances. I do not say this because I am speaking of the Bible; but because I am speaking of the infancy of the world, of the east, of a peculiar language, of a peculiar people and their writings. Here we have need of a new Lowth, who should know nothing of the artificial poetry of later times, to go through this collection of compositions

from the beginning, and to point out in each and in every part of each its simplest design and scope. It may not be unwelcome to you to have a few thoughts of mine on this subject, so far as they may be comprised in a letter. They confirm my first position, that the Bible must be read as a human work and it seems to me, that the great diversity of the contents of the scriptures leads us directly to such a position. Twenty-two or twentyfour books,* embracing a history of 3500 years, the authors of which stand a thousand years apart from each other, and those authors sometimes wholly unknown, and sometimes assumed to be almost as many as there are books ;--such a harvest of times, writings, subjects and authors, cannot be bound together with a wisp of straw-and it is but dreaming in the dark to read through such a book in one breath and as one lesson.

I begin with no animating appeal I shall be animated sufficiently by my love for you; and may your regard for me turn these pages into a muse, who will stand by you as a friend during your still reading of the oldest and most venerable writings in the world, and whisper something of confidential instruction.

We have received this rich collection of books from the Hebrews; and I think they should be followed in the division of them. Not that we are here concerning ourselves about degrees and differences of inspiration; but their division into the law, the prophets, and the holy writings, furnishes us with hints how and when these books were written, and how they were estimated by the people who were entrusted with them.f

*

According to Josephus (Contra Apion. 1. § 8,) the sacred books of the Hebrews were twenty-two in number. There seems to have been no better foundation for this division, than that such was the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet. At least so we are told by Origen and other Christian fathers. The Talmud reckons twenty-four books as canonical this was after the Rabbins, who were always trifling with their letters and scriptures, had added a double to the doubled y.

:

This seeems to be overrating very much the value of the Jewish division of the Old Testament. That division, though extremely ancient, was really a very inconvenient one; and has given rise to various classifications of the Hebrew Scriptures. The arrangement of Josephus is this: 1. The law five books of Moses. 2. The prophets: thirteen books. 3. The holy writings, or Hagiographa; (as they have been called since the days of Epiphanius, before whose time they do not appear to have bad any appropriated appellation,) four books. He does not tell us how the several books should fall under their respective heads; and the subject has been the occasion of much dispute. Origen, (born A. D. 185, died A. D. 253,) has undertaken to inform us: but it is wholly uncertain from what sources he drew his opinion. According to him, the books under the second class are: 1. Joshua, 2. Judges and Ruth, 3. two books of

The Law of Moses was the root of their legislation and religion; this and the most ancient history of the nation were contained in his books. The earlier prophets (the books from Joshua to Kings) are a continuation of this history; and are so called because it was believed, and doubtless on good grounds, that prophets collected this history, and added it to that of Moses. The later prophets are those, which we call simply the prophets, Daniel alone excepted. These were prized as the interpreters of the divine will; as they who were to apply the Mosaic law to particular exigences of the state, to seasons and situations. Certainly in this sense, which does not demand what is properly called prophesying, Daniel claims no place among them; but in the meaning, which we commonly affix to the word prophet, he takes a high rank, being wholly conversant with the things of futurity.* Those prophets stood up

Samuel, 4. two books of Kings, 5. two books of Chronicles, 6. Ezra and Nehemiah, 7. Esther, 8. Isaiah, 9. Jeremiah and Lamentations, 10. EzeKiel, 11. Daniel, 12. the twelve minor prophets, 13. Job. Those under the third class, are 1. Psalms, 2. Proverbs, 3. Ecclesiastes, 4. Solomon's Song.

On the contrary, Jerome, (A. D. 422.) The Talmud, and the later Jews, reckon but eight prophets and nine Hagiographa. Jerome's list is as follows: 1-5. Pentateuch, 6. Joshua, 7. Judges and Ruth, 8. two books of Samuel, 9. two books of Kings, 10, Isaiah, 11. Jeremiah's prophecies and Lamentations, 12. Ezekiel, 13. the twelve minor prophets. Then come the Hagiographa, 14. Job, 15. Psalms, 16. Proverbs, 17. Ecclesiastes, 18. Solomon's Song, 19. Daniel, 20. two books of Chronicles, 21. Ezra and Nehemiah, 22. Esther. In the Talmud (Cent. 2-4) we have the same books under the same heads; but they stand in little different order and are spread into twenty-four. The earlier prophets, (who, unfortunately for this method of division, are no prophets at all) are Joshua, Judges, the books of Samuel, and the books of Kings: the later prophets are Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, and the twelve. The Hagiographa_are Ruth, Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Canticles, Lamentations, Daniel, Esther, Ezra and Nehemiah, Chronicles. The Masoretic division, or that of our present Hebrew bibles, is in all important respects the same, differing about as much from the Talmudists, as they from Jerome. There is a diversity in the order of the Hagiographa, and of the larger prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel.

*The singular circumstance, that Daniel has been put down among the miscellaneous books of the canon, instead of taking his place in the noble company of the prophets. excited long ago a great deal of speculation. The later Jews tell us, it was because he did not utter his prophecies in the holy land: as if the Spirit of God was confined within geographical limits, and men were out of the reach of its influences when they wandered from Palestine; as Jonah expected by taking ship for Tarshish to flee from the presence of Jehovah! The opinion of the great Grotius seems hardly more worthy of regard, that Daniel lost his place in the canon on account of his court life; and that as a Persian satrap he was set by the side of David and his royal son. Herder, though he does not distinctly

under the law of Moses; they were its mouth, for the time and occasion before them; they were to be tried according to its directions; and were, more or less, popular leaders in the state, with the fortunes of which they were closely connected. In short, they were the breathing, eloquent spirit of the history that preceded them. All the books which did not fall under these two classes, they that were short, or later known, or later written, were added as an appendix, and in part as a proof and continuation of the foregoing accounts, under the name of holy writings; and we may discover in this a solicitude to let nothing be lost. From this point of view we must proceed, in treating of the diversity of the books, or their arrangement according to time and place.

The Books of Moses begin with ancient narratives; of which the contents and tone, the colouring of description, the occasional abruptness, the alternate use of different names of the Deity, in short the whole fragmentary connexion show, that Moses did not invent them, or receive them at the hands of Gabriel out of the clouds; but that he gathered them from old traditions or documents, and arranged them together with an exactness, which well becomes the most ancient historian of human affairs. The eleven first chapters are evidently distinct pieces, partly fragments; differing from each other in style as well as in matter; using different names of God; and each having the hue of its own incidents and time. After this (chap. xii.) the history of the fathers seems to grow more connected: still however the jointing and insertions are plain enough to be seen; as is evident from chapters 14. 25. 36. 38, and especially in Jacob's blessing.* Why is this so different from the blessing

express an opinion upon it, appears to imply that Daniel does not stand among his brethren because he was not like them a popular leader. but this is fanciful, and has no better ground to rest upon than the other suppositions. Vossius insists that the cause of this fact was the hostility of the Jews towards a prophet, who pointed so distinctly to Jesus as the Messiah. But this idea is altogether erroneous: for we find but one opinion among the Jews, as to the inspiration of Daniel, and the canonical authority of the book that is called by his name. A very different account of this matter, and one that certainly has a great deal in its favour, may be seen in Eichhorn's "Einleitung in das alte Testament," 3ter Band, § 616.

* The fragmentary composition of the book of Genesis is fully established. It is a fact, in which all the learned agree, and indeed must be obvious to every careful, though unlearned reader. Who can fail to see the jointing and insertions,' of which Herder speaks? Who can read the history of the creation or of the flood, without perceiving that each is made up of two different accounts? One of the evidences of this fact, however, which he