The Beauty of the Bible

It is a principle well understood, and acknowledged even by those who hold what may be considered an extreme doctrine of inspiration, that the Spirit of God, when moving the holy men of old to pen the sacred Scriptures, did not obliterate their natural peculiarities. Men differ from one another at least as much in their mental features as they do in bodily appearance, and these differences did not disappear from their writings, even when they were writing under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. The splendid genius of Isaiah was totally different from the melancholy spirit of Jeremiah; the mystic flight of the mind of St. John was at the opposite pole from the vigorous movement of the intellect of St. Paul; and, when the Spirit of God was employing these men in His service, He did not make Isaiah speak with the voice of Jeremiah or St. John with that of St. Paul. Each speaks with his own voice and displays the peculiarities of his own genius. It is

17 B as easy to distinguish the writing of Isaiah from that of Jeremiah as to distinguish Browning from Tennyson, and it is as easy to distinguish St. John from St. Paul as it is to distinguish Carlyle from Macaulay. Inspiration made the man who was under its influence not less but more himself.

So, too, when the holy men who penned the Bible gave expression to the thoughts at which they had arrived under the guidance of inspiration, the products of their minds fell into the same literary forms as the products of the human mind have assumed in other literatures. In other literatures some writers are orators, the products of whose mental operations are speeches; others are historians, producing histories; some are writers of letters, the products of whose skill are epistles; others are poets, who produce poetry; and so on. Exactly the same variety is to be found among the various books of Scripture, some of which are histories, others epistles, some biographies, others poems, and so on.

The books of the Old Testament fall, on this principle of division, into three groups. At the beginning it contains a large number of books, extending from Genesis to Esther, which may be called Histories. At the opposite end there is a large number of books, extending from Isaiah to Malachi, which we call Prophecies. The latter is, indeed, a species of literature which is peculiar to the Bible, At least it is not met with on anything

J8 like the same scale in other literature. The Prophecies bear a certain resemblance to what in other literature are called Orations, and in other respects they have the characteristics of poetry; but, on the whole, they must be set apart, as a literary form which was invented by the Hebrews but has not been imitated elsewhere to any considerable extent. The nearest approach to them may perhaps be found in the sermons of such preachers as Savonarola or the leaders of the Scottish pulpit in the era of the Reformation or of the Covenant. Between the historical books at the beginning of the Bible and these prophetical ones at the end there lie five books which belong to the genus of literature which we call poetical. They are Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes,* and the Song of Songs. These five are all found side by side in our Bible; but there is at least one other book clearly of the poetical genus, which has wandered away among the prophetical books. This is the Book of Lamentations, which appears in our Bible as an appendix to Jeremiah. Some would reckon to the same class the Book of Ruth, which occurs among the historical books; and there are those who would add to the group, though scarcely with the same certainty, still another from each of the larger groups — namely, Esther from the one and Jonah from the other.

* Ecclesiastes is not, however, printed as poetry in the Revised Version. It is partly prose and partly poetry.

In the New Testament there are no poetical books. The one which comes nearest to deserving the title is Revelation, which is certainly a work of the imagination and carries the reader into an imaginative world; but its Greek name — the Apocalypse — and its resemblance to Daniel suggest — what is the truth — that it belongs to the genus we have called Prophecies rather than to what we call Poetry. There are, indeed, in the Apocalypse scattered poems, and such are to be found also in other New Testament books. These are much more numerous, however, in the Old Testament, occurring in both the historical and the prophetical portions. If they were all collected and published together, they would form a volume as large as some of the poetical books.

Students of literature are very familiar with the division of poetry into different species and varieties, and it may be well, at this stage, to indicate to which of these the poems found in the Bible belong.*

The Lyric species is looked on by experts as the primitive form, from which all the others have been developed. A song is a lyric; and this is the first and most natural poetical product. In all languages which have attained to any measure of develop-

* Ewald, in the first volume of his Dichter des alten Bundes, introduces his account of the Hebrew poets with what is really a succinct treatise on the forms of poetry in general and their development.

meat songs exist. These may be of all kinds — short or long, merry or sad, secular or religious. To this species belongs the Book of Psalms. So does the Book of Lamentations, a collection of infinitely sad and tearful lyrics, which would be called Elegies — a variety of lyric of which a noted example is Gray’s Elegy written in a Country Churchyard.

The second species of poetry is the Epic, and is manifestly a development of the lyric. A song may tell a story, but, when this expands to a certain length and dignity, it is styled an Epic. To the epic species belong many of the greatest poetical works in existence, such as Homer’s Iliad, Virgil’s .Eneid and Milton’s Paradise Lost. But of this species there is no example in the Bible, unless we reckon Ruth a poetical book. Ruth would be styled an Idyll, which is a variety of the epic species, and, if Esther were admitted among the poetical books, it would be on similar terms.

The Drama is also a development of the lyric. In a song a story may be told, not directly, but by making two or more people speak to one another in successive verses. Songs of this character in our own literature will be easily recalled by everyone. Now, if a long and complicated story is told in this way, the poem is called a drama; and to the dramatic species many of the foremost products of human genius, such as the plays of Sophocles, Shakspeare and Schiller, belong. Two of the poetical books of the Bible appear in this form — namely, Job and the Song of Songs.

Keep reading