from the eternal providence. For while they thought that they were
unseen in their secret sins, they were sundered one from another by
a dark curtain of forgetfulness, stricken with terrible awe, and sore
troubled by spectral forms. For neither did the dark recesses that
held them guard them from fears, but sounds rushing down rang
around them, and phantoms appeared, cheerless with unsmiling
faces. And no force of fire prevailed to give them light, neither were
the brightest flames of the stars strong enough to illumine that
gloomy night: but only there appeared to them the glimmering of a
fire self-kindled, full of fear; and in terror they deemed the things
which they saw to be worse than that sight, on which they could not
gaze.
And they lay helpless, made the sport of magic art, and a
shameful rebuke of their vaunts of understanding: for they that
promised to drive away terrors and troublings from a sick soul, these
were themselves sick with a ludicrous fearfulness: for even if no
troublous thing affrighted them, yet, scared with the creepings of
vermin and hissings of serpents, they perished for very trem-
bling, refusing even to look on the air, which could on no side be
escaped. . . . All through the night which was powerless indeed,
and which came upon them out of the recesses of powerless Hades,
all sleeping the same sleep, now were haunted with monstrous appa-
ritions, and now were paralysed by their souls' surrendering; for
fear sudden and unlooked for came upon them. So then every man,
whosoever it might be, sinking down in his place, was kept in ward
shut up in that prison which was barred not with iron: for whether
he were a husbandman, or a shepherd, or a labourer whose toils
were in the wilderness, he was overtaken, and endured that inevitable
necessity, for with one chain of darkness were they all bound.
Whether there were a whistling wind, or a melodious noise of birds
among the spreading branches, or a measured fall of water running
violently, or a harsh crashing of rocks hurled down, or the swift
course of animals bounding along unseen, or the voice of wild beasts
harshly roaring, or an echo rebounding from the hollows of the
mountains, all these things paralysed them with terror. For the
whole world beside was enlightened with clear light, and was occu-
pied with unhindered works; while over them alone was spread a
heavy night, an image of the darkness that should afterward receive
them; but yet heavier than darkness were they unto themselves.

With such supernatural darkness is contrasted the great light enjoyed all the while by the holy ones; and further, the burning.

pillar of fire sent as convoy of their unknown journey, and kindly sun for their proud exile.

The sixth illustration reverses the order of the contrast.

First is mentioned the night of deliverance to the chosen people, when sacrifice was being offered in secret, and with one consent they took upon themselves the covenant of Divine law. The fathers were already leading the sacred songs of praise when there sounded back in discord the cry of the stricken enemy.

For while peaceful silence enwrapped all things, and night in her own swiftness was in mid course, thine all-powerful word leaped from heaven out of the royal throne, a stern warrior, into the midst of the doomed land, bearing as a sharp sword thine unfeigned commandment; and standing it filled all things with death; and while it touched the heaven it trod upon the earth.

And a picture follows of the dead thrown here and there in the tossings of troubled dreams which showed to each his doom ere the death fell on him.

Finally, death itself is amongst the things which are judgments alike and benefits. It befell the righteous to make trial of death, but only as a brief calamity; for the blameless Phinehas, bringing the weapons of his ministry, confronted the advancing wrath, and cut off the way to the living. But upon the ungodly came wrath without mercy, who by a counsel of folly pursued the fugitives, and themselves met with strange death, creation fashioning itself anew, and land rising out of the sea for the salvation of the fugitives. In the deliverance Israel thus celebrated, and the plagues of Egypt fresh in their memory, and the gifts of ambrosial food they were soon to receive, might they see all the elements, interchanging like the notes of a psaltery, conspire to magnify the people of God.

So ends the last of the Scriptural Books of Wisdom. Throughout its whole course it has returned to the tone of serene contemplation, broken only by adoration, which had distinguished all Wisdom literature except Ecclesiastes. The middle discourse of

the series has vindicated Solomon from the morbid experiment imagined for him by the Preacher, and portrayed in his personality individual wisdom in its most kingly form. The earlier discourses have set over against the pessimist conception of a life bounded by death the optimism that is made by extending the vision into a future beyond the grave; while, in place of the Preacher's concluding strain of clinging to happiness, the opening note of the present book is, Love righteousness. And as these discourses have dealt with the future, so the concluding discourses extend the field of Wisdom to include the past, and the history of God's people has been presented as an ordered scheme of providence.

Review

We have seen that the Philosophy of the Bible takes its rise from a floating literature of proverbs. The form of these germ proverbs is fixed to that of a single couplet; accordingly the couplet is the meeting point of verse and prose. Proverb literature develops on the one side into the poetic forms of the epigram and the sonnet, on the other side it travels prosewards in maxims and essays; but in either case Biblical Philosophy always seeks artistic form, and it is just where the thought is most elaborate that the most extended dramatic monologues are found, or the most brilliant rhetorical encomia and pictures. In matter and spirit this Biblical Philosophy is 'Wisdom': reflection associates itself with practical life. In the earlier works reflection has been directed upon life in its separate parts, and miscellanies of practical wisdom are the result: the totality of things is not a subject for theorising upon, but is approached with awe, and worshipped as a personified Wisdom. With Ecclesiastes we reach the point at which analysis has turned itself upon the sum of things, and there ensues a strange divorce between theory and practice while the old miscellaneous maxims still appear, we now hear of a whole duty of man, and this is presented as a reverent happiness; but on the other hand the theory of life has started only to break down in negations, and in despair of all but God. But in the Wisdom of Solomon Philosophy has recovered

its balance, theoretical and practical are harmonised. The principle underlying the All-an All which takes in past, present, and future has again become Wisdom, and is again contemplated with rapture; detailed maxims of practical life have disappeared, except so far as they are items in a universal system. But this final achievement of philosophic reflection has been brought about by drawing within the field of thought something which has not been obtained from philosophy: it is the tacit assumption of a future world that has reversed the conclusions of Ecclesiastes. And when this final stage of Wisdom literature has been reached, the conception of 'Wisdom' itself has become so deep and so many-sided that it would be impossible to discuss it without trenching upon the deepest mysteries of Theology.

XVII. FORMS OF PROPHETIC LITERATURE: THE DOOM SONG 390

XVIII. FORMS OF PROPHETIC LITERATURE: THE RHAPSODY. 404

XIX. THE RHAPSODY OF 'Zion RedeemeD' [Isa. xl-lxvi] . 435

XX. THE WORKS OF THE PROPHETS.

457