Macdonald-Fletcher-Hitzig.

honest. Both give the reader reason to expect that the following sheets will contain an exposition of the Proverbs of Solomon, whereas before he gets through the introductory sections he finds the book of Scripture in question rent into as many portions as the Saviour's garments at the crucifixion, and each of these respectively assigned to some unknown sage. Scarcely a shred is left for Solomon himself. For, although both our German friends are inclined to think it not improbable that some apothegms out of the 3000 said in the First Book of Kings to have been spoken by the wise King of Israel, have been really embodied in this collection, yet both are equally agreed that the task of identifying them is a hunt after what will prove to be but a small residuum of the whole. It is some comfort, to be sure, that Elster assures us that if anywhere the lost diamonds are to be found in the section chap. x.-xxii. 16, which he regards as the oldest. But then the cup is soon dashed from our lips again by his brother critic, Hitzig, who tells us that this and the section chap. xxviii. 17— xxix. 27 cannot have been composed earlier than B.C. 750. He regards chap. i.-ix. as the most ancient part of the book, and written in the ninth century before Christ at the earliest 'as investigation shows,' he adds, whereas Elster's 'investigation' results in his declaring this portion to be the latest written of the whole. Such criticism would seem to be still entangled in the meshes of subjectivity,' and not to be entitled to much attention. The fact is, that our lively continental neighbours deal with books, even with the books of Scripture, as their police does with persons-they judge every one to be guilty of forgery and what not until he is proved to be innocent. The principle of our English law is not only a more generous, but a far safer one, for the literary as well as the judicial tribunal.

6

6

We must protest, too, against the freedom with which Hitzig claims to deal with the text of this book of Scripture. He is not the sort of man, with all his undoubtedly great acquisitions as an orientalist, to be intrusted with the lower any more than with the higher criticism of inspired literature. Our readers shall judge for themselves. In 1 Kings, iv. 33, we read that Solomon spake of trees, from the cedar-tree that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop.' Now, will it be believed that in the word hyssop' (N) Hitzig fancies he has discovered the name of our old friend Esop? Such is the fact, however, and he accordingly understands in the above passage a collection of fables (whether written he queries,) to be attributed to Solomon, the first of which was entitled, Of the Cedar Tree that is in Lebanon,' and the last, Of Æsop! What may have been the exact purport of the interesting fable about Esop springing,' i. e., we suppose, jumping, out of, or as it must then mean, off the wall,' Hitzig does not deign to inform us, and we are at a loss to divine, unless, perhaps, it may have had something to do with the ingenious The 'king' in the riddle riddle about a certain Humpty Dumpty (no bad description of Æsop), with which most children are familiar.

6

would then, of course, be Solomon himself.

Seriously, however, it is high time that a man who can write such stuff as this should cease to be cried up (as is sometimes the case

even in this country, and still more frequently abroad,) as a great critic. As a profound Hebraist, and as an ingenious and skilful exegetical writer, his opinion (and the same may be said of Elster) will always be worth consulting, although even here his strong Rationalist bias renders great caution necessary.

Biblisches Wörterbuch für das Christliche Volk. (Biblical Dictionary for the Christian People.) In Verbindung mit den evangelischen Geistlichen Würtembergs herausgegeben. Von H. ZELLER. 2 Bde. pp. 774, 916. Stuttgart: 1856-7. London: Williams and Norgate. The spirit of this work contrasts most favourably with that of even the more moderate of the two commentaries on the Proverbs from which we have just passed, viz., Elster's. The want of something of the kind has long been extensively felt in Germany-a Biblical Dictionary, popular and yet scholarlike, copious without wordiness, and, above all, conservative rather than destructive of faith in the Scriptures as a real revelation from God. At a special conference of the German Kirchentag, or General Church Diet, held at Frankfort, in 1854, the plan of such a work was carefully considered and approved. Its execution could not have fallen into better hands than those of the present editor and his excellent coadjutors--the leading men amongst the Evangelical clergy of Wurtemburg. For that little kingdom is the garden of German Christendom, and within it the term Evangelical' means something more than merely Protestant, which is pretty much its equivalent elsewhere, and approximates very closely to the sense the word bears amongst ourselves. Here the Rationalist element, which even in the third edition of Winer's otherwise admirableRealwörterbuch' was only a diminishing quantity, is boldly eliminated altogether.

Handbuch der Biblischen Archäologie. Von KARL FRIEDRICH KEIL, Doctor der Philosophie und Theologie, Ord. Professor der Exegetik und Orientalischen Sprachen an der Kaiserlichen Universität Dorpat, Mitglied der Deutschen Morgelandischen und der HistorischTheologisch Gesellschaft zu Leipzig. Erste Hälfte. Die Gottesdienstliche Verhaltnisse der Israeliten. ('Handbook of Biblical Archaology.' By Dr. K. F. KEIL, Ordinary Professor of Exegetical Theology and of the Oriental Languages at the Imperial University of Dorpat, &c., &c. First Part, comprising the Religious Worship of the Israelites.) Frankfurt. 1858. London: Williams and Norgate. -Professor Keil is already favourably known to the theological public by his excellent Commentary on Joshua, his own Introduction to the Old Testament, and his zealous and useful labours on the posthumous edition of the lamented Hävernick's similar work. The same solid learning, in happy union with a reverent appreciation of the supernatural in the Bible which marked those productions, also characterizes his Biblical Archæology. The recent manuals of Ewald and Saalschütz on the same subject breathe a very different spirit, and are so little in harmony with the imperative demands of an age, which we may congratulate ourselves has for ever broken with the boorish wisdom of Paulus and Strauss, that a new and elaborate treatise like

Zeller-Keil-Twele-Stahl.

261

that before us, written from a believing point of view, is sure to supersede them. The Imperial University of Dorpat, with such men as Keil and Kurtz filling its chairs, is a Pharos, not only for the Baltic and Protestant provinces of Russia, but for the whole of that vast empire. It is emphatically lux in tenebris, diffusing abroad not merely the 'dry' light of science, but the warm and quickening beams of evangelical truth.

Der Brief des Apostel Paulus an die Galater, ausgelegt in Predigten. Von ED. TWELE, Consistorialrathe, General und StadtSuperintendent zu Hildesheim. (The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Galatians, expounded in a series of Discourses by Superintendent TWELE, of Hildesheim.') Hanover. 1858. London: Williams and Norgate. Another fruit of the revived evangelical theology of Germany. In a series of short, affectionate expository discourses, Pastor Twele imparts to his flock the rich treasures of doctrinal instruction contained in Paul's Epistle to the Galatians, and restores to its due place of honour that articulus stantis vel cadentis ecclesiæ— justification by faith alone. In his style as an interpreter, he endeavours to keep the mean between formal commentary on the one hand, and homiletical diffuseness on the other; and in this we think he has succeeded.

Disputatio de Carmine Jacobi Gen. XLIX. Scripsit J. P. N. LAND. Lugduni-Batavorum. 1858. (Monograph on Jacob's Ode Gen. XLIX.' By J. P. N. LAND.) Leyden. 1858. London. Williams and Norgate.-Old and new crudities touching the patriarch's inspired benediction of his sons, by one who does not believe in prophecy or miracles. What useful purpose can be served by dragging forth once more into light the forgotten misbirths of Eichhorn, Von Bohlen, and the other destructive critics of a bygone time, it is impossible to see. Still more unnecessary was it for our author to add his own ugly little bantling to the disgusting collection.

Luther's Aufenthalt in Worms vom 16 bis 26 April, 1521. (Luther's Sojourn in Worms from the 16th to the 26th of April, 1521.') Riga: 1857. London: Williams and Norgate.-The sublimest moment of all that eventful period was when Luther stood before Charles V., and the magnates of the empire, and the Church at Worms, and uttered his remarkable words-Here I stand; I can no more; God help me!' The publication before us is a reprint of a contemporary narrative of the Reformer's appearance before the Diet, found in various editions of his works. To this the editor, Dr. Buchholz, of Riga, has added a fac-simile of a hitherto unknown recension of Luther's Apology, which he accidentally discovered amongst the rubbish of a second-hand bookshop. The profits arising from the sale are to be devoted to the erection of Luther's statue at Worms.

1. Das Christliche Staat. 2. Vortrag über Kirchenzucht. (1. 'The Christian State.' 2. 'Discourse on Church Discipline.') Von F. J. STAHL. Berlin 1858. London: Williams and Norgate.-The idolatrous veneration for their greatest man, into which the Germans are too prone to fall, and to which it is to be hoped the Worms statue

may not minister, gives birth to that strangest of all abortions, ultraLutheranism, the continental counterpart of English Puseyism. Of this faction Dr. Stahl is the Coryphæus. It will be remembered that it was his abominable Discourse on Christian Tolerance that provoked the crushing reply contained in the Chevalier (now Baron) Bunsen's masterly work, The Signs of the Times. In the essay on the Christian State we have the theory of intolerance elaborately stated and maintained. The opening sentence of the third chapter is this, 'The logical 'consequence from the idea of the Christian state is the limitation of 'political rights to the members of the established Christian Church.' This sentence will give a sufficient notion of the whole, which is brimful of the most detestable ecclesiastical Toryism. The essay on 'Church Discipline' is a complete refutation of the first. For the difficulty in the way of the partial restoration of Church discipline, which Stahl proposes, and still more of its complete revival, which is more than he dares to advise, consists precisely in the fact that political and juridical rights are made dependent upon a Prussian subject's being in church fellowship. But for this, keepers of houses of ill-fame would not present themselves as sponsors at baptism, nor insist on receiving the sacrament, as he tells us is now sometimes the case. It is well for Prussia that Dr. Stahl's pernicious court-influence, formerly almost irresistible, has been, since the meeting of the Evangelical Alliance at Berlin, and the illness of the King, visibly on the wane. Happily, too, his speculations do not seem to meet with great favour from the reading public, if we may judge from the fact that the second edition of these essays appears in the one case eleven, and in the other thirteen years after the first.

Des Sokrates Leben Lehre und Tod nach den Zeugnissen der Alten Dargestellt. Von ERNST VON LASAULX. (Socrates his Life, Teaching, and Death,' according to the Testimonies of the Ancients.') München: 1858. London: Williams and Norgate.-From the modern Christian and Protestant champion of intolerance to the ancient martyr to heathen bigotry seems almost like a climax. We are not even sure that the Roman Catholic author of this interesting and erudite monograph, a Member of the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Vienna, has not imbibed from his study of Socrates a more intense hatred of persecution than he is likely to have learned from Stahl. There are several tempting topics in the pages before us, on which, had we space, we could have wished to say a word. Such are his views of the theology of the great Grecian sage, and on that old quæstio vexata, the Demon of Socrates. But what has most struck us, is the startlingly close parallel which he draws between the heathen philosopher and the Great Teacher, which has never been carried so far as it is here. It will be, of course, understood, that the comparison relates to our Lord's human nature exclusively. M. Lasaulx goes so far as to say, in closing his remarkable essay, 'I do not hesitate openly and 'boldly to avow my belief, that amongst the personages of the Old 'Testament, none furnishes so perfect a type of Christ as the Greek 'Socrates; and that in like manner the best part of the ethics of Chris

Lasaulx on Socrates-Harless.

263

tianity is incomparably more closely related to Hellenism than to 'Judaism.' His synopsis of the ingenious, though sometimes farfetched, analogies which he discovers between the life and death of Socrates and those of the Son of Mary is too curious to be wholly omitted from even this brief notice.

'As to the history of the youth of both men we know, alas, far too little of that of the Saviour to be able to carry out a comparison. Nevertheless, some points of resemblance are to be found. The one was the son of a statuary, the other was the reputed son of a carpenter; accordingly both belong by birth, not to the learned class, but to that of artificers and mechanics.

At the birth of Christ, Maji from the east came to worship him; a Maje who had come out of Syria to Athens is said to have foretold to Socrates his violent death. Even the manner in which both called their disciples shows remarkable similarities. When Jesus came to the lake of Galilee he found two brothers, Simon and Andrew, who were casting their nets to catch fish, and said to them, Follow Me, I will make you fishers of men; and immediately they forsook their nets and followed Him. Once, when Socrates was passing through the streets of Athens and met Xenophon in a narrow lane, he blocked up the young man's path by holding his stick across it, and asked him where such and such sorts of provisions were to be bought.

'When Xenophon had answered him this question, he asked him further, Do you know, too, of any place for training virtuous and good men? And when upon this the blood flew to the young man's cheek, Socrates said, Follow me and learn. And from that hour Xenophon became his faithful hearer.

'Just as remarkably does Nicodemus who, from fear of men, came to Christ by night in order to hear the Master remind us of Euteleedes, who, at the peril of his life, went by night from Megara to Athens to hear Socrates. Even the manner of their presenting themselves in public, and the popular style of their teaching altogether, are very closely related. As Christ taught on the lake, by the side of Jacob's well, in the temple, and in Solomon's porch, so Socrates in the marketplace, in the Lyceum, in the Cynosarges, and in the porch of Zeus the Liberator; both teaching the most important truths in the simplest parables and proverbial sayings-as, indeed, it is always the surest sign of genius to present in simplicity what is most sublime as something akin to itself. For the same reason, also, both were friends of children. But most wonderful of all is the resemblance between the two which meets us in all that relates to the last events of their lives: here almost every trait finds its counterpart.

'As Christ in Jerusalem was persecuted and accused by the Pharisees, the hypocritical zealots for the old orthodox Judaism, so Socrates by the democrats of Athens, who, in like manner, were burning with zeal for the old popular religion and polity as the one charged our Lord with seducing the people, so the others charged Socrates with corrupting the youth in the one case as in the other, and as at all times the zealots of the law are they who form the opposition to the teachers of new and better doctrines. In like manner, the symposium described by Plato admits of being compared to a certain extent with the last meal of Christ and his disciples . as further manifest parallels we have the followingthat Christ is betrayed and sold for thirty pieces of silver by a faithless disciple, whilst the faithful disciples of Socrates wished to buy a reprieve for their master for thirty minæ, and that, as the traitor Judas hanged himself, and Pilate also, who condemned the Lord of life to death, was afterwards the author of his own death, in an altogether similar manner also, the accusers of Socrates, despised and cursed by all men, at last hanged themselves; as, indeed, it has often been remarked, that great criminals at last imbibe a hatred of life and seek to flee from it by their own hands.'

Das Buch von den Egyptischen Mysterien. Zur Geschicte der Selbst auflösung des Heidnischen Hellenenthums. (The Book of the Egyptian Mysteries.' A Contribution to the History of the Dissolution of Heathen Hellenism.) Von A. VON HARLESS. München: