warrant us in regarding the Song as a description of the mystical relationship between God and the individual soul. Hengstenberg has pointed out that the New Testament is pervaded by references to the Song of Songs, and all of them are based on the supposition that it is to be interpreted spiritually. Proportionately,' he says, 'no book of the Old Testament is so frequently referred to implicitly or explicitly in the New Testament as this one.' The song is in fact an idealized representation of that relationship of love between the soul and God which in the New Testament is so often described under

the metaphor of a bridal 2. The power of using the book with spiritual profit is a great test both of proficiency in the spiritual life, and of purity of heart; and its general significance seems to be independent of difficulties in regard to its arrangement and exposition. When we consider its place in the Hebrew Scriptures, and the close connexion of some of its language with that of the Psalms, we shall feel that the allegorical method of interpretation which prevailed both among the Jews and the Christian Fathers, though it has been modified in detail by a critical investigation of the book, is yet in the main a true mode of dealing with it. In any case its ethical value has been vindicated; but we may also truthfully recognize in it a spiritual and mystical purport 3.

Something of the same personal character seems to distinguish the historical books of the Hagiographa. The book of Ruth and the book of Esther seem to describe in conspicuous instances the way in which the providence of God works through individuals and guides their fortunes. The book of Ruth is not only of historical importance as recording the ancestry of Israel's first king. It also bears witness to the

1

2

3

See passages collected in Comm. on Eccles., &c., pp. 297–303.

e. g. John iii. 29; Eph. v. 27; Apoc. iii. 20; xix. 7 foll.

Cp. Keil, Introduction to the O. T. vol. i. p. 506; Driver, Introduction,

&c., pp. 423, 424; A. Réville, The Song of Songs (Eng. Tr.).

reality of a divine love which welcomes, accepts, and crowns with a fitting reward, humble and trustful obedience to the laws of natural affection. It describes the fulfilment beyond expectation of the blessing pronounced by Boaz, The Lord recompense thy work, and a full reward be given thee of the Lord God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to trust. The book of Esther shows us the providence of God acting with the same individual and discriminating tenderness, but on a grander stage. In Ruth, God's guidance of the soul is illustrated; in Esther, His providence overruling the destinies of His Church. There are of course defective moral elements in the book which lie upon the surface; but its deeper teaching is not prejudiced by these 2. Again, the historical portions of the book of Daniel seem designed to illustrate God's willingness to manifest Himself even to the heathen, and the reality of His lordship and sovereignty in the kingdom of men3. Once more, in the large historical work which comprises the books of Chronicles and their sequel Ezra and Nehemiah, it would be a mistake to assume that the historical interest is uppermost. In Chronicles the aim is very clearly moral and didactic. We may question the accuracy of the Chronicler's retrospect of Israel's history, but we must acknowledge the general truth of the lesson which he aimed at enforcing, namely, the reality of God's disciplinary dealings with His people. A leading feature indeed of the book seems to be the tendency to refer all effects to the direct causation of God-to bring out vividly and directly the reality of God's moral governance in

1 Ruth ii. 12.

2 Dalman, Das A. T. ein Wort Gottes, p. 13, remarks: 'Steht das Esterbuch im losesten Zusammenhang mit dem Zweck der Sammlung, nicht weil von Rache darin die Rede ist, . . auch nicht, weil der Gottesname darin fehlt, . . . sondern weil das Purimfest, welches es motivieren will, kein wesentlicher Bestandteil des Gottesdienstes des nachexilischen Israel der vormakkabäischen Zeit war, wie es ja auch niemals in das Tempelritual Eingang gefunden hat.'

3 Cp. Dan. iv. 17, 25, 32.

history, especially in that of the Hebrew nation. It need not be a stumbling-block to us that the writer 'consciously or unconsciously shapes the facts to suit the theory' if the theory be in itself plainly true, though we may think that it is somewhat artificially conceived and illustrated. An essential element in true religion is the conviction that God's will is in very truth the supreme force, the one ever-present cause in history and human life, working indeed on lines less simple than the Chronicler perhaps imagined, but still acting ceaselessly in judgment, in retribution, in far-seeing providence, in the overruling of evil for purposes of universal good. The books of Ezra and Nehemiah are also plainly more or less subjective in character. In these the personality of two conspicuous men is very prominent; but in both cases the thought of a providential mission underlies their recorded experiences; the moral value of such a sense of mission and its effect on conduct and character could hardly be more plainly exhibited. The two pictures together present us with two types of individual devotion, inspired by a consciousness of divine guidance, and of a task providentially imposed. It was the work of Ezra and Nehemiah to establish and organize a Church, on such principles as would guard Israel's distinctness from the heathen world and preserve its national unity. In the broad fact that these books describe the reorganization of the temple worship and the endeavour of the Jewish leaders to secure a more general faithfulness to the conditions of the divine covenant, we are to discern the element which gives them a place in the Hagiographa. The instruments whom God raised up to carry His purpose to fulfilment were men who were themselves penetrated by the thought of the blessedness of covenant fellowship with God.

III.

There is a third element in the life of personal religion which the Old Testament Hagiographa bring into prominence: namely, the sense of the fruitfulness and blessedness of suffering. This theme, treated under various aspects, is especially characteristic of the Wisdom literature-the books of Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes.

The importance of these writings is due to various causes, but the most obvious and striking feature in them is the spirit of universalism. They are the products in large measure of the contact between Judaism and heathen, especially Hellenic, thought; and they have an enduring interest as forming a link of connexion between Judaism and the philosophy of other nations. In its exile and dispersion Israel became conscious of its missionary function in the world, but it probably also began to realize the religious capacities of alien races and to take wider views of the divine government1. And so far as the Wisdom literature reflects the spiritual experience which Israel had thus acquired, it marks a stage in the advance of Judaism from being a national faith to being a world-religion. What is it then that gives to the Wisdom of the Hebrews its universalistic character?

First, no doubt, we should place the very conception of divine Wisdom. It was a conception by which Hebrew thought bridged over the gulf between God and the created universe; and what was primarily regarded as an attribute of God became poetically personified as an objective power working in the universe, at once reflecting and executing the creative thoughts and purposes of the Most High. Wisdom thus personified has been admirably described as constituting a middle term' between the religion of Israel and the philosophy of Greece. The Jewish

1 See some interesting remarks on this point in Stanton, The Jewish and the Christian Messiah, p. 105.

use of the word was calculated to suggest that 'the life of righteousness might be identified with the life of true wisdom.'

Secondly, we notice in the Wisdom literature a tendency towards the systematic study of ethics. It is the nearest approach to philosophy exhibited by the Hebrew mind. It starts indeed with religious presuppositions: it bases the theory of life on a high and pure conception of God; it approaches problems from the standpoint of Hebrew religion 1. But there is a certain. absence of religious warmth and a certain freedom of treatment which are not distinctively Hebraic. The book of Proverbs, for example, treats the subject of ethics as resting on an independent ground of reason, common sense, and experience, apart from the teaching of revelation. It shows that the Jewish thinker learned, through his contact with the wise and cultured of other nations, that there was a common ground on which he might stand side by side with them; while, conversely, in the sacred books of Israel, a Greek would find shrewd and homely practical teaching on the subjects of life and duty, virtue and vice, wisdom and folly, which would be analogous to that which was traditional among men of his own race 2. Indeed, in translating the book of Proverbs the compilers of the Septuagint version would find themselves compelled to borrow equivalent terms from Greek ethics. The book is, in short, a monotheistic treatise on practical ethics, its distinctive feature being the idea of wisdom as something transcendental, as a gift from God, manifested in a supreme degree in Israel's Law, and attainable by man only on condition of reverence and submission to the revealed will of God. It is true that Ecclesiastes shows little trace of religious ideas. On the contrary, the writer seems to have lost his interest in religion; it may be he had been repelled and alienated by the exces1 Cp. Schultz, ii. 83, 84.

2 Cp. Prov. viii and ix with Xenophon, Memorabilia, ii. 1.