BOOK FIRST FIRST PRINCIPLES OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE PAGE CHAPTER 1. THE FUNDAMENTAL LITERARY FORM OF VERSIFICATION AS SEEN IN THE BIBLE 45 II. THE LOWER PARALLELISM OF RHYTHM AND THE HIGHER 64 III. CLASSIFICATION OF THE HIGHER LITERARY FORMS IN 74 IV. APPLICATION OF LITERARY CLASSIFICATION TO BIBLICAL ! LITERATURE 83 CHAPTER I THE FUNDAMENTAL LITERARY FORM OF VERSIFICATION AS SEEN IN THE BIBLE Literary form of THE Bible is the worst-printed book in the world. No other monument of ancient or modern literature suffers the fate of being put before us in a form that makes it impossible, without strong effort and considerable training, to take in elements of literary structure which in all other books are conveyed directly to the eye in a manner impossible to mistake. Scripture ob scured by ordi nary modes of printing By universal consent the authors of the Sacred Scriptures included men who, over and above qualifications of a more sacred nature, possessed literary power of the highest order. But between their time and ours the Bible has passed through what may be called an Age of Commentary, extending over fifteen centuries and more. During this long period form, which should be the handmaid of matter, was more and more overlooked; reverent, keen, minute analysis and exegesis, with interminable verbal discussion, gradually swallowed up the sense of literary beauty. When the Bible emerged from this Age of Commentary, its artistic form was lost; rabbinical commentators had divided it into chapters,' and mediæval translators into 'verses,' which not only did not agree with, but often ran counter to, the original structure. The force of this unliterary tradition proved too strong even for the literary instincts of King James's translators. Accordingly, one who reads only the 'Authorized Version' incurs a double danger: if he reads his Bible by chapters he will, without knowing it, be often commencing in the middle of one com in particular: verse printed as prose may position and leaving off in the middle of another; while, in whatever way he read it, he will know no distinction between prose and verse. It is only in our own day that a better state of things has arisen. The Church of England led the way by issuing its 'New Lectionary'; the new lessons will be found to differ from the old chiefly in the fact that the passages marked out for public reading are no longer limited by the beginnings and endings of chapters. Later still the 'Revised Version' of the Bible, whatever it may have left undone, has at all events made an attempt to rescue Biblical poetry from the reproach of being printed as prose. Biblical Versification based on parallelism of clauses It is to the latter of these two points - the distinction between verse and prose― that I address myself in the present chapter. No doubt the confusion of the two would have been impossible, were it not that the versification of the Bible is of a kind totally unlike that which prevails in English literature. Biblical verse is made neither by rhyme nor by numbering of syllables; its longlost secret was discovered by Bishop Lowth more than a century after King James's time. Its underlying principle is found to be the symmetry of clauses in a verse, which has come to be called 'Parallelism.' Hast thou given the horse his might? Hast thou clothed his neck with the quivering mane? The glory of his snorting is terrible. He paweth in the valley, and rejoiceth in his strength: He goeth out to meet the armed men. Neither turneth he back from the sword. The quiver rattleth against him, The flashing spear and the javelin. He swalloweth the ground with fierceness and rage; And he smelleth the battle afar off, The thunder of the captains, and the shouting. It is abundantly clear, first, that this is a passage of the highest rhythmic beauty; secondly, that the effect depends neither on rhyme nor metre. Like the swing of a pendulum to and fro, like the tramp of an army marching in step, the versification of the Bible moves with a rhythm of parallel lines. How closely the effect of this versification is bound up with the parallelism of the clauses, the reader may satisfy himself by a simple experiment. Let him take such a psalm as the one hundred and fifth; and, commencing (say) with the eighth verse, let him read on, omitting the second line of each couplet: what he reads will then make excellent historic prose. He hath remembered his covenant for ever: the covenant which he made with Abraham, and confirmed the same unto Jacob for a statute, saying, "Unto thee will I give the land of Canaan," when they were but a few men in number, and they went about from nation to nation. He suffered no man to do them wrong, saying, "Touch not mine anointed ones." Let him now read again, putting in the lines omitted: the prose becomes transformed into verse full of the rhythm and lilt of a march. He hath remembered his covenant for ever, The word which he commanded to a thousand generations; The covenant which he made with Abraham, And his oath unto Isaac; And confirmed the same unto Jacob for a statute, To Israel for an everlasting covenant: Saying, "Unto thee will I give the land of Canaan, When they were but a few men in number; Yea, he reproved kings for their sakes; |