the necessity for the rulers of the Church, if they would be its leaders, to exercise influence and not merely to rely upon authority.

May this word be said in conclusion? The American Church will not-it should not-reproduce any narrow Anglicanism in a new world. In some ways' Americanism' may be as perplexing to the mother Church as it has proved in the Latin communion. Grown-up children must take their own way. By their new experiences they enrich the life of the family, but like a dutiful though grown-up daughter the American Church looks continually for sympathy to the mother Church, and for help from her greater learning, her long traditions, and her calmer outlook. If we have something to teach, we know that we have much to learn.

ARTHUR C. A. HALL,

Bishop of Vermont.

SHORT NOTICES.

I. BIBLICAL STUDIES.

Researches in Biblical Archaeology. Vol. I. Ancient Chronology, Part I. By OLAF A. TOFFTEEN, Ph.D. (The University of Chicago Press, 1907.) $2.50 net.

THIS is a strange book. The manipulation of ancient chronology to support a preposterous presupposition is nothing new, but the manipulator is seldom a man abreast of his subject. On the present occasion the author knows all that is to be known about the materials for Assyrian, Babylonian, and Egyptian chronology, and he is familiar with the most recent work on the subject in the English and German languages, though he almost entirely ignores whatever has appeared in French. His individual conclusions within this range are nearly always possible, and often plausible, and, even were they not so, his book would be valuable because of the completeness and perspicacity with which the available material is set forth. But the moment he touches upon Biblical or classical chronology he becomes ridiculous. In a work like the present, which is confined to the

period before 1050 B.C., this might seem unimportant, but un. fortunately the guiding motive of the author's system seems to be the desire to accommodate the chronology of the eastern empires to the dates furnished by the Bible, taken as he himself expresses it 'at their face value.'

It would take up too much space to record in detail how the early patriarchs are converted into exactly dated dynasties; how the Shepherd Kings begin with the coming of Abraham and end with the first Hebrew migration; how the date of Joshua coincides with that of the Khabire,' and the apparent discrepancy between 1 Kings vii. and the chronology of Judges is explained by the supposition that the earlier chapters of Judges deal with some pre-Israelitish Hebrews, and that Joshua entered Canaan in the time of Ehud.

References are found, or at least suggested, up and down the Old Testament to the leading events of secular history, and even Biblical history must give way if it seems to clash with Biblical chronology. A like credulity is shewn in regard to the statements of classical and post-classical writers about the chronology of the heroic age, and even to their synchronisms between Greek and Oriental chronology. Belus and Ninus resume their ancient positions, and Thouoris, the last king of the nineteenth dynasty, is dated by means of the fall of Troy.

Amos and Hosea, 'International Critical Commentary.' By (the late) W. R. HARPER, Ph.D., President of Chicago University. (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1905.) 12s.

At the time when our notice of this volume of the International Critical Commentary was on the point of appearing the news was received of the death of Dr. Harper after an heroic struggle to continue his ordinary work in spite of great suffering. The notice has been held over for a time, but it has been thought best to print it as it stands in view of the fact that the volume is one of a well-known series and will doubtless go into another edition. If the criticism seem occasionally severe, it will not, it is hoped, be thought that we are unmindful of the great loss not only to American scholarship but to all students of the Old Testament which was sustained in Dr. Harper's premature death.

No portion of the Old Testament has been the subject, in recent years, of keener interest or more studious research than the books of the prophets of Israel. The importance of prophecy

as preparing the way for Christianity has been recognized with increasing clearness, while the work and writings of the prophets furnish for more than four centuries a unique illustration of the religious development of the chosen people. Dr. Harper, therefore, rightly begins his book by tracing the factors, and sketching the basis of that religious movement which preceded, and prepared for, the astounding phenomenon of written prophecy.

Now, in this résumé of pre-prophetic activity' the author complains that he has often found himself 'greatly embarrassed for lack of space,' and when it is realized that his plan includes a critical examination of the older and younger Decalogues, the Book of the Covenant (=CC), the Judean (pre-prophetic) narrative (=J), the Ephraemite (pre-prophetic) narrative (=E),' we shall not experience much surprise at his embarrassment. One cannot but feel that this section of the book, to which twenty pages are devoted, might either have been treated with more lucidity at greater length in a separate volume, or that the general argument would have greatly gained, in force and clearness, had the author been content to present his readers with the very interesting conclusions he had reached as a result of his studies in this connexion. On the other hand, while this part of the work seems overburdened with critical elaboration, one must confess that the historical introduction seems slight and unsatisfactory. Thus it is only after tracing with almost unnecessary detail the influence of Elijah and Elisha upon pre-prophetic activities,' that the relation of 'pre-prophetism to Mosaism' is discussed. It surely would have been far more in accordance with historical and scientific method to have begun, not with Elijah and Elisha but with Samuel and the inauguration of the monarchy, if not with Moses himself, whom Hosea at any rate regarded as inaugurating the succession of prophets which distinguished Israel from other nations. The introduction contains, moreover, some highly disputable propositions which are calmly stated as though they were acknowledged facts. Can one state as a fact that in Northern Israel 'extreme class distinctions were less emphasized' than in the South (xxxiii) ? One would not glean this from these two prophets. Or, speaking of Elisha's miracles, that' from no other source does prophecy receive a contribution which so definitely represents or anticipates the Christ-like element'? Or that 'the thought of love is a new idea in Israel's religion' (xliv) ? Or that a true estimate will place Micaiah ben Imlah in some

respects above both Elijah and Elisha (1)'? Or that the spirit of the pre-prophetic societies' was 'as narrow as it was intense, as crude as it was correct' (liv)? Or that the older Decalogue as reconstructed' delivers a message only of an 'extremely ritualistic content' (lix) ? Or of the Ten Commandments that they cannot come from the time of Moses' (lxi)? Or that the Fifth Commandment still betrays the influence of ancestor worship! (lxiii)? Again, surely it is much too contentious a point to regard as conclusively proved that some of the main agencies which brought about a change from the monotonous and severe' (lxxxix) Yahwism of the past were the institutions of 'Baalism, among the chief of which was prophetism, adopted and adapted by Israel' (xcii). In fact, our author seems very much inclined to attribute almost every Israelite institution to a Canaanitish origin: the Sabbath (lxiii), the 'world-stories' of Genesis (lxxiii), ancestor worship (lxiii, 182), prophecy itself (xcii). There are occasional inconsistencies. Thus, on page xxxvii we are told that 'the thought of Yahweh's using Syria in order to punish Israel does not, of itself, imply that Yahweh is other than a national god'; three pages further on, we are astonished to find that the threat that Ahab's house is to be destroyed by Syria plainly makes Yahweh something other than a merely national god' (xl).

The rest of the introduction deals with the books of Amos and Hosea, and contains much that is interesting and suggestive. But it is somewhat disconcerting almost at the outset to find it dogmatically laid down that nearly one-fifth of the book which bears the name of Amos is to be set aside' (cx). The able sketch of Israel's religion in the prophet's day is perhaps somewhat overdrawn. It is going too far to speak of a belief that 'Yahweh was bound to protect Israel's political interests without reference to their moral conduct. To him was accorded no option in the matter' (cxii); or that 'moral delinquencies were entirely overlooked by Yahweh' (cxiii). Again, an element of exaggeration enters into the estimate of Amos' ministry. There were probably not fifty people in Northern Israel who could understand him. It is quite certain [?] that he did not himself have in mind a clear conception of the issue involved in his preaching (cxxx). The chapters on Hosea's life, message and ministry are forcibly written, and may be considered the best in the book. Dr. Harper rightly claims that ' Hosea was not illogical, as he has so frequently been represented,' and properly insists on his ability, notwithstanding conflicting feelings, to give

expression to a system of theology which was to serve henceforth as the basis of all Israelitish thought' (cxlvi). Again, Hosea was a poet, not a philosopher a mystic, not a moralist' (clv). And he acutely points out that 'both call and message were in reality a spiritualizing of an ordinary event and an old tradition.' We are moreover wisely reminded that though the poems do not give the impression of having been popular addresses, poetry was the most popular form of address before an Oriental audience' (clvii).

Turning finally to the literary form of Amos and Hosea, we feel bound to enter an emphatic protest against the dogmatism, masquerading under the name of 'scientific criticism,' which characterizes the whole of this section. Although we are told that Amos is especially fond of drawing his language from nature' (cxxxix), the 'well-known doxologies' are ruthlessly rejected as 'theological insertions from a post-exilic time'the only reason assigned being that they are 'similar in tone and spirit to certain passages in Job and Deutero-Isaiah' (cxxxi). Again, it is not easy to see why if a simple statement should be amplified by some picturesque details it is not to be regarded as original but as a technical or archaeological insertion' (cxxxiii). On what conceivable pretext either Dr. Harper or anyone else can say that certain phrases, "the Lord," "God of Hosts," "Oracle of Yahweh," "" Has Yahweh said," are not due to Amos but 'have been inserted arbitrarily to emphasize some favourite thought of a reader' (cxxxiii), it is not easy to discover The charge of arbitrariness might with much plausibility be laid in another quarter. The treatment of Hosea proceeds on the same lines. The thought of Israel's restoration is, we are informed, non-Hoseanic' (cxlvii). This conclusion is reached by the simple method of climinating all passages where such a thought finds expression. Similarly, " he does not yearn for the healing of the schism by a Davidic King [Cheyne]" (clii), a note curtly conveying the information that 3 is not from Hosea.' 'Hosea has no bright message' (cliii). 'References in Hosea to Judah are for the most part the work of a Judaistic editor.' 'It is impossible to reconcile with Hosea's situation and declarations the so-called Messianic allusions' (clix). Although the author realizes that Hosea is a man of conflicting feelings' (cxlv), that in his book 'there is no lack of the tender element' (cliv), that his utterances are in reality 'impassioned sermons, with all the warmth and all the pain of an agonizing heart,' yet the Messianic passages are entirely inconsistent with Hosea's