world with its angelic spectators of human affairs. And drama is exhibited by the Minor Prophets in various degrees of fulness: Micah moulds a single brief thought in dramatic form; Hosea dares to embody in monologue the varying moods of Deity; Joel and Habakkuk give us the full force of the 'rhapsody' which is the dramatisation of the spiritual. I write from the standpoint of literature, not of theology, and I cannot refrain from insisting once more upon the injury done to our liberal education by its ignoring of Biblical literature. The Hebrews no less than the Greeks were our literary ancestors; to train ourselves in the productions of the one and not of the other means a distorted culture. Criticism can never be scientific that makes its inductions from a single field; and the literature it neglects is rich in forms of the first importance, both for their artistic interest and as vehicles of profound thought and powerful feeling. Nor can I understand those writers who seem to assume that in elaboration and finish of literary detail the Hebrew Scriptures are inferior to the productions of the Greeks. Comparisons of merit can never be more than personal judgments; but, speaking for myself as a student of world literature, I do not know to what I should turn for specimens of literary perfection rather than to the rhapsodies of Habakkuk and Joel. And if to another class of readers this last remark appears objectionable because of the sacredness of Scripture as Divine Revelation, I can only answer that it must be a strange theology which can see incompatibility between Divine inspiration and perfection of literary setting. The text is that of the Revised Version, the marginal alternatives being often adopted. For the use of it I express my obligations to the University Presses of Oxford and Cambridge. A Reference Table at the end connects the numbering of this volume with the chapters and verses of the Bible. xii |