be the final court of appeal. Really and truly, the test of the canonicity of these Books lies within themselves and nowhere else. When the question arises: "Are Canticles, Eccles., and Esther1 worthy of a place in the Canon?" The one answer is this: "Do they, or do they not, bear clear witness within. themselves to their own inspiration as containing a revelation and declaration of the Divine Will?" As the Westminster Confession well puts it: "We may be moved by the testimony of the Church to an high and reverend esteem of the Holy Scripture . . . yet our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth, and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit, bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts." With Westcott we believe that the Canon was formed "almost by a divine instinct, a providential inspiration." The acclamation of souls, vox populi, in such matters often is vox Dei. But we must not press this plea too far, or force it to mean that the inspiration of a Book of the Bible, or the authorship ascribed to it, is correct simply because the Book happens to be in the Canon. The Canon itself is based on human, not divine, judgment and sanction.

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1 The Jewish phrasing of this question is curious and passing strange in Our ears: Do Canticles, Ecclesiastes, and Esther defile the hand"?" As we saw (cf. p. 207 sup.) in the Priestly Code, "holy" and taboo are equivalent. Contact with "holy" things involves purification, and for two reasons. If it is unauthorised contact, it is a "sin" and sin-purification alone will ward off God's wrath; if it is authorised contact, the "holiness" is contagious, and the hand or dress that has touched the "holy" thing is impregnated with "holiness." Anything it touches now becomes "holy," set apart for God's use and not fit any longer for ordinary use. In this sense, contact with "holiness" defiles the hand. The Sacred Writings were "holy" things, so "holy" that whoso touched them "defiled" his hand for common purposes till it was "purified." Hence the phrase. It was long felt, then as now, that Canticles, Eccles., Esther, do not “defile the hand," and that, had they been excluded and Ecclesiasticus and Wisdom replaced them in the Canon, it would have been a gain. N.T. writers knew the Apocrypha well, i.e. books on the border-line of the Canon but not in it, yet read for edification. Jude quotes Enoch, and Hebrews quotes Maccabees; St. Paul and St. Peter are familiar with Wisdom, St. James with Ecclesiasticus; while no reference is made in the N.T. to Canticles, Esther, or Ecclesiastes.

THE Psalter is the Hymn-Book of the Jewish Church, a collection of hymns gradually compiled and mainly intended for Temple use. Some psalms are earlier than the Exile, a very few may go back to David's day, probably nine-tenths are of the Exile and after. The Second Temple was completed in 516 B.C. and lasted till 70 A.D. As soon as services were rendered possible, a regular liturgy would be required, temple singers and a fixed temple psalmody. But not till about 450 B.C. did Ezra and Nehemiah make provision for full and regular services, by settling definitely the revenues of the priests and singers and other ministers of the Temple, who, till then, had been ill-provided for. Sometime between 516-450 B.C. the first collection of psalms (iii.-xli.) 1 was introduced. The five divisions (see R.V.) of Psalter Bk. I., Pss. 1-41; Bk. II. 73-89; Bk. IV. = = 42-72; Bk. III. = Bk. V. 90-106; = 107-150, each book ending with a liturgical Doxology. As Dr. Burney writes me: "3-41 ' of David, 42-49='of the sons of Korah,' 50= 'of Asaph,' 51-72 (say, really 51-65, 68-70, 72)=' of David,' after which comes the valuable note, 'The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended.'' It looks therefore as if group 3-41 should be immediately followed by 51-72, thus bringing together all the earlier of David' Pss., attaching the single 50 of Asaph' psalm to group 73-83. I think the whole Davidic group 3-41, 51-72 was the earliest collection." Be this as it may, Bks. II. and III., 42-83, apparently once formed a single collection by itself, for it consistently avoids the name Jehovah, substituting Elohim throughout, e.g. Ps. 53 Ps. 14, but every Jehovah ("the Lord") of 14 is changed into Elohim ("God") in 53. Bks. IV.-V. were apparently not in the Temple hymn-book when the musical directions (scattered throughout 1-89) were prefixed to the psalms, for they are lacking in 90-150. The titles to the psalms: "Psalms of David";" of Asaph," etc., simply mean that the Psalter is made up of collections once known as "The Davidic," "The Korahite," "The Asaphite" collection of psalms. The of Korah," "of Asaph," were families or hereditary guilds of templemusicians, each apparently with their special hymn-book. The titles of several

sons

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The "psalms of Asaph" and the "psalms of the sons of Korah" are two later collections, for these choir-guilds were not distinct till after Nehemiah's day. As time went on, two later supplements were added. Thus the Psalter grew exactly like our own hymn-books. We shall not be far wrong in describing the Psalter as a collection of several smaller groups of psalms, of various dates, compiled between 516-150 B.C.

Of course, the Psalter as it stands is no more David's work than are the Mosaic Books from Moses' hand. But as David was regarded as the founder and organiser of Temple music and singing (1 Chron. xvi. 4; xxv. 3; Ezra iii. 10; Neh. xii. 36, 45 sq.), so also was he held to have completed and arranged the whole Psalter and to have written several of its psalms. A “cunning player on the harp" he undoubtedly was, and his famous elegy on Saul and Jonathan shows he was a poet as well. But very few psalms in the Psalter are now believed to be David's own. Cheyne and Wellhausen insist that "David wrote none of the psalms that have come down to us." Driver will not commit himself: "A non liquet must be our verdict; but it is not clear that none of the psalms are of David's composition." Sanday ("The Psalms explained," 1918) writes: "The only certain composition of David is the Lament over Saul and Jonathan; to this may possibly be added psalms 15 and parts of 18, 24, and it may be some others." Dr. Burney: "18 (in the main), 15, and 24 (at any rate the latter half) Davidic psalms give the occasion and circumstances of the Ps., really gathered from the psalm itself, e.g. Ps. 51 seems to suit David's contrition after his great sin (cf. 72, 127 Solomon). Ps. 110 is called "of David," yet is generally admitted to be Maccabean; in the Hasmonean dynasty, "priest and king" were one. Cf. Burney: "I think 110 refers to Simon Maccabee's appointment as priest and king. The opening letters of verses 1-4 make an acrostic of his name." The title "Song of Ascents" "6 may mean Pilgrimage Psalms" sung on going up to Jerusalem Feasts; or may refer to the fifteen steps leading from the women's to the men's court. The "Hallelujah" (Praise ye the Lord) Psalms (105-107; 111-118; 135 sq.; 146-150) for festivals. The psalms vary widely in religious worth and poetic merit; some are geniuscreations, others mediocre, though our fine A.V. (and especially the Prayer Book Version) rendering veils the poverty partly.

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seem to me the most probable. I suspect, however, that there may be a fair number of Davidic fragments worked in with later psalms." Some extend the list to include 3, 4, 7, 8, 15, 18, 23, 24, 32, and perhaps 101, 110, but with the qualification "may be David's." Really, it is not known who wrote any of the psalms and, all said and done, the question is of very secondary importance. They stand or fall on their own intrinsic merits; and on their worth all are agreed. The Psalter was meant to be a Jewish Church hymnbook and is undoubtedly Jewish in tone, yet it has been universally accepted as the Christian's devotional hand-book. "It supplies the model of worship, of prayer, of praise, of penitence and hope, of comfort and thanksgiving." It is to the Psalter that we instinctively turn in order to express and to interpret our inmost heart-thoughts and feelings. The human soul whose experiences are depicted there is but our own soul, true to the life in every detail, and these experiences are clothed in words which strike a responsive chord in our own and in every human heart, and tap a source of comfort which is ever flowing, ever fresh, ever real and satisfying. And if the Psalter can no longer be regarded as the record of one man, David, but as the record of many men covering many centuries, it becomes all the more precious as embodying all the highest aspirations, the purest joys, the noblest sorrows of many generations of Hebrew life.

We have dealt so fully with the theology and ethics of the Psalter in Ch. XIV. that less need be said here under that heading. We shall merely quote one paragraph from Montefiore's H.L., p. 386, in support of what we said there: "Close as is the connection between the psalter and sanctuary . . . the psalmist's religion was wider than that of the priest. . . . It marks the high religious level to which prophet, priest, and sage had educated the national consciousness. . . . He was less a specialist than either priest or sage, and is

thus our best authority for the post-exilic religion." The psalmist's conception of God is sublime. Nowhere, outside Christ and the prophets, are we brought so directly into the Presence of God Himself, a God as inexpressibly lofty and pure as He is near and gracious, full of mercy and lovingkindness, a God who will by no means spare the guilty, yet "like as a father pitieth his own children, even so is the Lord merciful unto them that fear Him, for He knoweth whereof we are made."

Sufferings of the Godly.-This problem is often faced in the psalms. The very first psalm tells us that the righteous prosper, while the wicked come to a bad end. So do Pss. xcii. 11 sq.; cxii.; cxxviii. But it was impossible to shut one's eyes to the fact that this is not a safe rule in actual life. Pss. xxxvii., xlix., lxxiii., xcii. come to the conclusion that the ungodly may flourish, but only for a season, "Suddenly they come to a fearful end." In the psalms, however, the question is never probed to its depths as in Job. Deep-rooted in the Hebrew heart was the conviction that sin and suffering were in exact proportion, measure for measure. God's award on earth must tally exactly with man's deserts. This is plainly expressed in Ps. xviii. 25 sqq.: "With the merciful Thou wilt show Thyself merciful; with an upright man Thou wilt show Thyself upright; with the pure Thou wilt show Thyself pure; and with the froward Thou wilt show Thyself froward." This root-idea pervades the Old Testament and is most pronounced in Prov. and Psalter. Some psalms realise the educative and disciplinary value of adversity, eg. "Before I was afflicted I went astray, . . . it is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn Thy statutes." Another psalmist realises that the suffering of the righteous is as nothing compared with the joy and peace of that close fellowship with God which is his, a joy and a peace which the wicked, however prosperous, never knows; he lives and dies