CHAPTER IV

APPLICATION OF LITERARY CLASSIFICATION TO BIBLICAL

LITERATURE

IN approaching that which is the main purpose of the present work, the recognition in Biblical literature of such forms as Epic, Lyric, Drama, and the like, we are met at the threshold by an obstacle of a very special kind: an obstacle that affects only the sacred Scriptures, and these not through anything in themselves, but as a result of accidental circumstances in the tradition by which they have come down to us. I would describe this obstacle by saying that, in Biblical literature, the Lower The Lower Unity Unities have obscured the Higher Unity. By and the Higher Lower Unity I mean the bond uniting clauses into Unity

a verse and verses into a stanza. The Higher Unity is the Unity of Poem: the bond which unites successive verses and stanzas into a poem complete in itself.1

The Higher

Unity obscured by reading the

Bible in verses

This conflict of lower and higher unity arises from the arrangement of our printed bibles and of the manuscripts on which they are founded, and still more from the habits of reading which these by long tradition have fostered. In dealing with any other literature the student would naturally, and as a matter of course, look for the higher unity in what he reads. He would not study Virgil merely to get quotable hexameters, nor Shakespeare to find pithy sentences: he would wish to comprehend the drift of a scene, or the plot of a whole play; he would read a whole

1 For convenience of illustration I speak throughout the chapter of poems: but the argument applies, mutatis mutandis, to prose compositions.

eclogue at once, or even sustain his attention through the twelve books of the Æneid. But the vast majority of those who read the Bible have never shaken off the medieval tendency to look upon it as a collection of isolated sentences, isolated texts, isolated verses. Their intention is nothing but reverent; but the effect of their imperfect reading is to degrade a sacred literature into a pious scrap-book.

▾ influence

I have called this tendency mediæval: it is a relic of the Middle Ages under the influence of which arose our earliest translations of the Bible into modern tongues. The This tendency a relic of medieval thought of the Middle Ages is distinguished by disconnectedness. The Schoolmen were not remarkable for successful investigation or wide reflectiveness, but they surpassed all men in subtlety of discussion; indeed, it would almost seem that with them the process of discussing was more important than the conclusion attained. Accordingly their age gave special prominence to the isolated proposition. Its thinkers were not confined to books as a medium for expressing thought; it was open to them to issue, like Luther, a series of propositions, and, setting these up on some church door, offer discussion with all comers. To formulate truth into these brief independent sentences, adapted for attack and defence, made the characteristic literary activity of the period. In modern thought detail truths are so many bricks to be built into an edifice, each valued according as it contributes to the common stability; the independent propositions of the medieval thinker were rather footballs to be driven to and fro in an exercise of dialectic strength. Translations of the Bible made amid such surroundings took shape from the minds of the translators. Hebrew and Greek literature-poem, dialogue, discourse - all assumed a monotonous uniformity of numbered sentences, each to be treated as a good saying in itself, rather than a component part of a literary whole.

The influence of these earliest translations is still felt. There are three versions of the Bible in familiar use amongst us: one is the recent Revised Version'; a second is the 'Authorised

Bible

Version,' executed under King James I; while for a third the earlier translation of Coverdale is represented in the Psalter of the Prayer Book. These three versions stand at Three popular three different points of the line separating us versions of the from the Middle Ages: Coverdale's translation was executed wholly amid mediaval surroundings; the Authorised Version belongs to the borderland between medieval and modern, while the Revised Version is entirely modern. When these three translations are compared what is the result? If Similar in what the comparison be made in respect of phraseology concerns the Lower Unity and single verses there will be little to choose between the three: the earliest will strike our sense of beauty quite as much as the latest. But when attention is given to the connection between verse and verse, to the drift of an argument and the general unity of a whole poem, only the The 'Revised Revised Version will be found reliable; the reader version' stands of the Authorised Version, when he wishes to catch alone as regards the teaching of a whole epistle, or the sequence of the Higher Unity thought in a minor prophet, must go to the Hebrew and Greek to find out what his English version means.

It is most important for the English student of the Bible to remember that these versions are different in kind, and must therefore not be discussed as if they represented different degrees of success in attaining a common object. It will be well to emphasise this matter by examples.

sub

Prayer Book Version compared with the other

Let our first example be taken from the translation of Coverdale. The eighteenth psalm will be specially suitable for our purpose, because in the case of this poem the Authorised and Revised versions stantially agree; moreover the impression they give of the psalm-that of a thanksgiving for recent deliverance—is one not open to dispute, inasmuch as the

two
Psalm xviii

1 Coverdale's version is in actual date (1535) earlier than A. V. by three-quarters of a century; in spirit it is earlier still, being avowedly not original, but founded upon previous 'interpretations. See Dr. W. F. Moulton's History of the English Bible (Cassell), chapters vii and viii.

poem is cited at full length in the book of Samuel, and is there expressly connected with the escape of David from the persecution of Saul. As we read in the Authorised or Revised versions, every line of the poem carries out this idea. At the commencement epithets of adoration succeed one another with an exuberance of diction that is like a flourish of trumpets opening some set piece of music. With the fourth verse the psalm settles down to its regular movement, and in subdued tones describes the perilous extremity out of which the singer has found deliverance.

The sorrows of death compassed me, and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid.

The sorrows of hell compassed me about; the snares of death prevented me.

In my distress I called upon the LORD, and cried unto my God: he heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry came before him, even into his ears.

Then a burst of imagery rushes upon us, sustained through nine verses, presenting all nature agitated to its centre as the Almighty descends to the help of the sufferer who has called upon him. A strain of tenderness comes in with the deliverance itself.

He sent from above, he took me, he drew me out of many waters.
He delivered me from my strong enemy, and from them which hated
me: for they were too strong for me.

They prevented me in the day of my calamity: but the LORD was my
stay.

He brought me forth also into a large place; he delivered me, because

he delighted in me.

With the last clause the conception has widened. The poet considers that with his personal deliverance the cause of righteousness has triumphed, and so he is led to the generalisation:

With the merciful thou wilt shew thyself merciful; with an upright man thou wilt shew thyself upright.

With the pure thou wilt shew thyself pure: and with the froward thou wilt shew thyself froward.

The latter half of the psalm no less clearly carries on the conception of the earlier half; review of past deliverances carries with it confidence for the future, when whole nations will run in submission to the conqueror marked out by Divine favour. Towards the close the rapture of the opening verses reappears :

The LORD liveth: and blessed be my rock; and let the God of my salvation be exalted.

Then in the very last line, like the signature to a document, comes the name of 'David,' at once the singer and the hero of the song.

Let the reader now study this psalm in the Psalter of the Prayer Book. Let him remember what is the exact point of the present argument. If he takes any particular verse, he will find it just as striking in the translation of Coverdale as in the later versions; it will be when he proceeds to note the linking of verse to verse that the difference will appear. At the third verse (in the numbering of the Prayer Book) the psalm appears, as in the other version, to start upon the description of a perilous extremity.

The sorrows of death compassed me: and the overflowings of ungodliness made me afraid.

The pains of hell came about me: the snares of death overtook me.

But when we pass to the next verse, instead of a continuation of the description, we find a general statement.

In my trouble I will call upon the Lord: and complain unto my God. Of course, if a reader has come to his Bible simply as a storehouse of good words, he may find as great a spiritual stimulus in the declaration, "I will call upon the Lord," as in the statement, "I did call upon the Lord." But to the reader of a sacred literature this substitution in the Prayer Book Version of future tense for past has destroyed the connection of the verses, and the unity is gone. Again, at the seventh verse Coverdale's translation returns to the tense of description; but at verse 16 - just where