the whole examination is evidently the work of a man who is in intense sympathy with his subject.

The rest of the work-including The Poets of the Seventeenth Century, the Ballads, and the Songs-is not quite germane to the subjects of this Review. Throughout the book there is unmistakable evidence of wide knowledge, alike of original works and standard authorities. The style is excellently adapted to the subject in hand, and the book most satisfactorily fills a long-existing blank in the Critical Literature of Scotland. J. ADAMS.

Old Testament Theology. The Religion of Revelation in its Pre-Christian Stage of Development.

By Dr Hermann Schultz, Professor of Theology in the University of Göttingen. Translated from the Fourth German Edition by the Rev. J. A. Paterson, M.A. Oxon., Professor of Hebrew and Old Testament Literature in the United Presbyterian College, Edinburgh. In Two Volumes. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark. 8vo, pp. 438, 470. Price 18s. nett.

AN English translation of Schultz's Alttestamentliche Theologie has been widely desired. It is now happily provided by Professor Paterson, to whom it has been a labour of love. Professor Schultz has himself revised the proof sheets, and gives the translation his imprimatur. Of the merits of the rendering, therefore, nothing. further needs be said. Professor Paterson is thoroughly familiar with the book and with its subject. He has succeeded in furnishing a translation that is not only faithful but a delight to read. There is no cumbrousness in the style, and no doubt left as to the meaning of the original, even in its most lengthened and intricate discussions. The two handsome volumes in which the translation appears, show that the publishers also have done their best to make the book attractive to English readers.

It is superfluous to speak of the value of Professor Schultz's work. Its merits have long been acknowledged by students of all schools, even by those who dissent most vigorously from its treatment of much that is contained in the historical books. To a large extent Professor Schultz holds a middle position, as his translator remarks, between the school represented by Delitzsch and that of which Stade is a fair example. His construction of the Theology of the Old Testament combines in some measure the best elements in the comparative conservatism of the former with the more reasonable methods and conclusions of the extremer criticism of the latter. Professor Schultz, indeed, is refreshingly appreciative of

other scholars (not an every-day virtue of the German theologian), and frank in his recognition of any points of agreement between their work and his own. In many respects Von Hofmann of Erlangen and Beck of Tübingen stand far apart from Professor Schultz. But this does not prevent our author from doing ample justice to the many points of contact between his own Alttestamentliche Theologie and the Schriftbeweis of the one or the Lehrwissenschaft of the other. The only recent writer of real importance whom he inclines to underrate is, strange to say, Ewald, whose Lehre der Bibel von Gott, rich as it is in large, suggestive thought, is described as of little service in these inquiries by reason of its "peculiar combination of ethical dogmatics with Biblical theology." Oehler's contributions to the subject are more justly valued. They are allowed to have been "specially great," although his Theologie des Alten Testaments is said "not to contain very much beyond what the author himself had previously given to the world in separate essays." Oehler's work, indeed, was all of the first order. We confess to a partiality still for his treatment of Old Testament Theology. His book was a masterly book for its time, greater in relation to its time than any more recent work of the kind, and of conspicuous service still, especially in the newer editions, which have been brought very much up to date. But Professor Schultz's book has the great advantage of having been written throughout in the light of the most recent criticism. It is also much more complete and systematic than Richm's Alttestamentliche Theologie, published in 1889. It stands at present, therefore, in the foremost place in this fruitful field of theological inquiry, and it is based throughout on a careful exegesis.

The first difficulty with a treatise of this kind is to find a plan that will fit the existing condition of Old Testament criticism. In the first edition, which appeared in 1869, Professor Schultz dealt with the facts and conceptions which made the religion of Israel as falling within the three successive stages of Mosaism, or the Mosaic period, the Prophetic period, and the Levitical period. In the second edition, issued in 1878, the change in the critical view led to a radical change in the scheme of the book. Mosaism ceased to occupy the distinct place which it formerly had, and the method followed was to arrange the matter under three topics first, the development of the religion on to Ezra's time; second, Israel's consciousness of salvation at the end of the Prophetic period; and third, Israel's religious view of the world at the end of the same period. To this was added a historical account of the passage of the Old Testament religion into Judaism. In the fourth edition neither of these plans is adopted; but we have the whole matter brought under two main divisions-viz., first, The Development of

Religion and Morals in Israel down to the Founding of the Asmonæan State; and second, Israel's Consciousness of Salvation and Religious View of the World, the Product of the Religious History of the People.

Probably this, though by no means an ideal method, is as good a plan as is practicable at present. Indeed, unless we were able to fix with certainty the dates of all the documents, and also to determine how much earlier the beliefs themselves were than the documents in which they happen to be conveyed to us, we must be content with something far short of the ideal in the scheme of an inquiry of this kind. The method which Professor Schultz adopts has the advantage of giving us first a continuous study of the movement of the life of the Hebrew people from its pre-Mosaic origins, through the periods associated with the names of Moses and Samuel, on to the eighth century, and through all the changes which took place in the Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian Ages, till it came to its conclusion in the Greek and Maccabean times. He is then in a position to attempt a systematic study of the religious beliefs, hopes, and doctrines. Both things are done with great skill, and the former is made the scientific preparation for the latter. In the sketch of the history of the nation's life he brings the beliefs as far as possible into relation to historical events and periods. On the basis of this, he proceeds in the latter to give a scientific account of the Hebrew ideas of the Covenant, righteousness, grace, faith, law, holiness, atonement, the Hebrew doctrine of God and His relation to the world, the Hebrew view of man, sin, death, and the state after death, and, finally, the hope of Israel.

The results of the studies of many years are applied to the discussion of these subjects. No one can read without instruction, though he may sometimes dissent. The thing that many will find openest to criticism in the historical statement, is the treatment of the earlier history. There is so much of it that is shortly disposed of as legendary or mythical. This is done, not only very summarily, but without any adequate investigation of Hebrew tradition in its connection with, or in its difference from, the general Semitic tradition. In the treatment of the doctrine, too, there are some things, though not many, in which Professor Schultz gives way to certain views of his own. He takes over the most characteristic of the positions stated in his earlier work, the Voraussetzungen, and among these his idea of the Old Testament doctrine of man's natural mortality. In what he says on this subject, he is less clear than is his wont. He fails to see that the Old Testament does not concern itself with dogmas like that known among us as Conditional Immortality, but has a broader and more fluid doctrine of man. In point of fact, too, he practically concedes all that those of the opposite

way of thinking need contend for, when he grants that persistent life for man was in the idea of man according to the Old Testament.

Among the many points of interest which present themselves in Professor Schultz's interpretation of the faith of Israel, we can at present notice only one or two. One of these is the view which he takes of the earlier stages of the religion of Israel. He denies the historical probability of Stade's theory that the primitive religion, and indeed the dominant element in Israel's whole mode of worship and in the entire pre-prophetic period, was a species of animism, or more particularly, a form of spirit-worship consisting in the adoration of departed ancestors and heads of families and clans. He holds that the pre-Mosaic religion rose out of the simple elemental religion of the Semites, which was not pure Monotheism, though favourable to it; that the worship of a tribal god passed, as reverence for that god deepened, into what was practically the faith in one God; and that the worship of Jehovah was older than Moses.

The subject of sacrifice, again, is discussed at length and with much acuteness. He is unable to interpret it as having a vicarious, substitutionary, penal, meaning. He thinks that the idea of atonement by substitution did not arise till a comparatively late period, when the Mosaic principle of earthly reward for righteousness and earthly penalty for sin was seen not to square with the experience of the nation and the individual, and when as yet there was no distinct belief in the compensations of a future life. The spectacle of the suffering of the innocent was in these circumstances accounted for, our author thinks, by supposing that the righteous suffered vicariously, as a substitutionary sacrifice, with a view to remove the sins of the people. But he is equally unable to accept Professor Robertson Smith's theory, that the import of sacrifice lay in the idea of a 66 communion of life between God and His worshippers," which was "effected by their partaking of the flesh of the same animal." His own conclusion is, that the thank-offerings were "meant merely to express a specially pious frame of mind;" that it was "simply as a part of human food, of human property, that the animal was given back, just as a vegetable gift might be, to God the Lord and Giver of all"; that the burnt offering merely expresses the idea of unreserved devotion to God; and that, even in the case of expiatory offerings, the sprinkling with blood means nothing more than the " appropriation to God of the animal's life, the accomplishment of the penance demanded by Him through the surrender of that sacred thing, the mysterious centre of life." There is much that seems short of the case in these discussions, able and interesting as they are. Is it enough, e.g., to say of the blood shed and sprinkled, that it forms the "robe in which the priest arrays the sinner, so that he may appear before God"?

In nothing is Professor Schultz more successful than in his account of Hebrew belief and Old Testament teaching on the state after death. Occasionally he may have recourse to a tour de force in dealing with exegetical difficulties, as for instance, in Job xix. 25, &c. But he gives us much of his best work in following the history of the great conceptions of Resurrection and Judgment, until in Daniel we reach the belief in a resurrection and righteous award for all at least in Israel. The book is a weighty contribution to the just appreciation of Old Testament teaching, one which all scholars must value, and which will open to many English readers a world of new ideas. S. D. F. SALMOND.

The Evolution of Religion.

By Edward Caird, LL.D., D.C.L. Glasgow: Maclehose & Sons, 1893. 2 vols. Vol. I., pp. 400; Vol. II., pp. 335. Price 14s. net.

WE have here at last a Gifford lecture of primary importance, with all the merits proper to the work of a strong and scrupulous philosophical mind. Whatever the defects of this book, it cannot be charged with haste or incidentalism, the sin to which such lectureships most sorely tempt men. The last fault that can be attributed to its author is that, having been called to a serious business, he lacked either the time or the will to take it seriously. The materials here used have all been passed through the mind again and again before being worked up into their present shape, which may indeed be described as due to a process of crystallisation rather than of architecture. And the purpose has been as serious as the labour. The book is a sort of Eirenicon; its aim may not be to succour a distressed faith," but it certainly seeks by detaching "what is permanent from what is transitory," to enable those who cannot be orthodox to remain still religious and still Christian. It attempts to do this by means of what we may call a threefold philosophy of religion, of the historical religions, and of Christianity both as historical and as theological. But beneath all, and determining all, is a metaphysic which must be understood before the argument can become intelligible, and accepted before its relevance or cogency can be felt. Apart from the metaphysics, the history and the historical interpretations will hardly appear adequate or valid.

66

The standpoint, method, and terminology tend to awaken recollections that rather embarrass by the comparison they challenge. These lectures do anything but repeat Hegel's Religionsphilosophie, -Professor Caird is too independent a thinker to be the echo of