referred in the case of Abijah, will be something different from the dibre of Iddo quoted in the case of Rehoboam.1 If the Midrashim are to be eliminated from the ancient Book of Kings, why not the dibre, it might be asked? Certainly, in Hezekiah's case, we are able to identify the reference by the survival of the historical section in Isaiah; and in the case of Jehoshaphat we are referred to the dibre of Jehu the son of Hanani, which, we are told, were "transferred" into the national history (2 Chron. xx. 34). But we cannot argue either way from these isolated instances. Their mention may no less fairly be pressed as a proof of exceptional practice than as a proof that the Book of Kings was largely made up of such excerpts from prophetic

memoirs.

There is, then, no substantial disproof of the plausible inference that besides our Kings and its lost precursor (which is possibly identical with the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah ") other sources of information are claimed in the allusions to prophetic dibre. The Midrashim, we may say, were certainly distinct authorities; the dibre of prophets, to a large degree at least, were so too. Here, then, we have the likeliest explanation of the origin of what I have called the Chronicler's "supplement." The surviving archives of the prophetic schools gave him material which he interpieced with such portions of the other two authorities as he chose to reproduce. If we conceive that to this material the writer of our Kings had no access, the difference between the two canonical histories is sufficiently accounted for. The earlier historian worked upon the basis of the lost work, "Chronicles of the Kings of Judah," which is perhaps an earlier edition of the Chronicler's "Book of the Kings." In addition to this latter authority, and the canonical Kings itself, the Chronicler had records edited by the prophetic schools and, in at least two cases, monographs presumably of a didactic or hortatory character-the Midrashim.

On the whole, I think this view offers the most plausible solution of the intricacies in which this question of the Chronicler's supplement is involved. To speak with greater confidence where our data are so scanty is only to mislead. Broadly, the phenomenon to be accounted for is the promulgation of a quantity of new statistic and episode, side by side with a history which was not new, but familiar (indeed, according to the modern critics, 230 years old), and presumably already held in some reverence. Setting aside the theory of reckless sacerdotal invention on the grounds stated in my first paper, we find our conjectural explanations practically reduced to two, viz., either this "supplementary" matter was already the source used by the writer of our Kings, and for some unknown reason he passed it over; or it was not in the hands of that writer, but was unearthed by the Chronicler from other pieces of pre-Exilic literature and interpieced with the earlier history. The latter seems the likeliest alternative. That fresh statistical

1 The dibre are here, moreover, sufficiently defined as a work of statistical character (see 2 Chron. xii. 15), and this description itself seems to differentiate it from the Midrash.

materials were open to this writer is certain.1 And even in the very early history his new sources take us into the province of historical episode. Such pieces as 1 Chron. iv. 9, 10, v. 18-22, vii. 21-23 are instances which point to annals of a readable kind-history rather than statistic. It is not inconceivable that such memoirs were contained in more forms than one during the monarchial period. To sum up, we have to select one of two alternatives. It is bold to assume this large survival of pre-Exilic memoirs. But it it bolder to fall back on the theory of wholesale invention. I will add that if we accept the former alternative at all we have really no right to assign arbitrary limitations. We have no ground, e.g., for assuming that the fresh sources took the Chronicler as far back as Hezekiah, but not as far back as David.

I have avoided hitherto translating the term dibre in the Chronicler's allusions to the names of prophets, assuming that it guides us to the traditional authors of the literature cited. Still, the question may be fairly raised, Does it not indicate memoirs or chronicles "about," rather than memoirs or chronicles "by"? Does not the "status constructivus " refer us, as in the familiar expression of the Kings writer, to the subject of the chronicle, and not to its writer? Adopting this view, one might suppose that the prophetic profession as well as the monarchy furnished subjects of biography, and that apart from the Book of Kings there was a continuous memoir of the principal Prophets. There would be nothing very exceptional in the Chronicler referring to these memoirs occasionally for gesta regum, and the omission of the standard work in the reference would not mean the latter was not used too. Lives of individual prophets would in this case be used to throw the same sidelight on Jewish sovereigns that our monastic biographies often throw on the medieval sovereigns of Christendom. This explanation is adopted by Bertheau, with the, to my mind, needless postulate that the prophetic biographies formed an integral part of the other historical work. "Chronicles about " rather than "chronicles by" is perhaps rather favoured by the case of Jehu ben Hanani, whose dibre is the authority for Jehoshaphat's deeds "first and last." For this Jehu flourished under King Baasha B.C. 953-930, according to 1 Kings xvi. 1, and Jehoshaphat did not die till about B.C. 889. Still, there is no insurmountable difficulty here, and the other interpretation is, to my mind, put on an unassailable basis by the requirements of the Chronicler's phraseology. For (1) though we might be referred to the life of a prophet for sidelights on the reign of a sovereign the reference could hardly be couched in the Chronicler's familiar phrase, "The rest of the acts, first and last" (2 Chron. ix. 29, xiii. 22, xx. 34). This could only be a guide to a work whose main theme was the sovereign's reign, not one in which the sovereign's career was noticed incidentally in connection with a prophet's career. (2) The reference in the case of King David (1 Chron. xxix. 29) naturally suggests annals of the monarchy and its

1 Cf. 1 Chron. iv. 41, v. 17.

political relations to foreign lands by the hands of Samuel, Nathan, and Gad. We are referred to the dibre of these prophets for the transactions of David's reign: "With all his reign and his might, and the times that went over him and over Israel, and over all the kingdoms of the countries." The lives of Samuel, Nathan, and Gad could hardly be brought into connection with this large historical survey, which is appropriate enough in a life of David by these three men, i.e., one compiled from their memoirs. (3) The fact that Isaiah is referred to in the case of two kings1 as the writer of the sovereign's memoir favours the like interpretation wherever we have a reference to the dibre of a prophet.

On the whole, it seems probable that the Chronicler indicates a continuous annalistic literature emanating from the sons of the prophets, and associated (more or less accurately) with the præclara nomina of the prophetic profession. How far this prophetic presentation of the reigns of sovereigns agreed or disagreed with the other historical work, may, I think, be often determined in matters of fact by the divergences of the Chronicler from the canonical Kings. But, as I have already had occasion to notice, a large allowance must be made, even by the most conservative critic, for the Chronicler's professional bias. And the analysis will be imperfect indeed that has recourse to imaginary documentary support for the speeches and prayers peculiar to the Chronicler in respect to actual phraseology.

A few words in conclusion on the prophets and their vocations. Modern criticism has endeavoured to gauge the functions of the Jewish prophet by the characteristics of the Eastern dervish, ruling out of court all connection with literary work, or with the functions of the teacher as distinct from those of the sensational preacher. I believe the old-fashioned view of the prophetic occupation and of the institution styled the "sons of the prophets" to be in the main correct. That the professional prophets 2 discharged amongst other duties those of annalists and historians may be inferred, at all events, from portions of the works of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Haggai. How far these literary labours were carried it is impossible to say. Whatever interpretation, however, we choose to put on the phrase dibre discussed above, it testifies at least that in some sort of connection with the prophets biographies were written and annals kept. And to whom, if not to the "sons of the prophets," did it fall to write memoirs of Samuel, Gad, and Nathan, if so we interpret the doubtful phrase discussed above? Whatever the subject of the memoirs, the Chronicler's reference would seem to indicate a class of prophetic writers. The corporate institutions and the large numbers of the prophetsthe ascription of the character nábi to Moses, the traditional legislator and man of letters-the prominence given alike in Kings and in Chronicles to individual prophets-all favour the view that the sons of the prophets were to Jewish what the monasteries were to Christian literary work. There is

12 Chron. xxvi. 22, xxxii. 32.

2 Those I mean to whom we are pointed in such passages as 1 Sam. xix. 19, 20; 2 Kings ii. 3, 5, iv. 38, vi. 1; Amos vii. 14.

certainly nothing in the etymology of the words nibbá, nábi to suggest literary labours. There is as little in the derivation of the words "monk," monastic," which we legitimately associate with our Anglo-Saxon chroniclers and their mediæval successors. It would be superfluous to multiply instances where philology would wofully mislead the inquirer of a thousand years hence with regard to the functions of Englishmen of divers callings to-day.

SAMARITAN ACCEPTANCE OF THE PENTATEUCH.
BY REV. H. HAYMAN, D.D.

THE adoption of the Pentateuch by the Samaritans is a distinct fact from the translation known as the Samaritan Pentateuch; as distinguishable as is the recognition of Holy Scripture as furnishing the Church's standard of faith, from the many vernacular versions of it which have from time to time appeared. Some recent writers on the subject seem not duly to have observed this distinction-an important one, because there is no more debated question in ancient literature than the date of the Samaritan version, whereas the whole tenor of the Ezra-Nehemiah record implies that the Pentateuch was either known before the Captivity to the heathenish immigrants into the seat of northern Israel, or else became known to their successors and adopted as authoritative not later than the period of Ezra's activity in popularizing it. If it was known before the Captivity, it must have of course existed before, and the alleged concoction of the legislation sometimes called the "Priestly or Priests' Code" by a priestly conclave among the exiles in Babylon falls to the ground. If it was first adopted by the Samaritans upon its promulgation by Ezra in 444 A.D., with the aid of interpreters who "gave the sense," the question arises, is such a fact consistent with such an alleged concoction?

Before discussing this, some elementary facts of the Return from Babylon claim our notice. After the list of families, &c., of those "that went up out of the Captivity" (Ezra ii. 1), we have the official classes distinguished as-1, Priests; 2, Levites; 3, Singers; 4, Porters; 5, Nethinim; 6, Solomon's servants (ib. 36-55). Now, this represents a state of facts in 536 A.D., or over ninety years before the Ezraic promulgation. It is contended by some critics that the grading of 1 and 2 of these as distinct ranks had no place in history before Ezra's promulgation enforced it, and that during the whole period of the monarchy every Levite was a Priest. But we see that the distinction existed from the first moment of the Return, and in the case certainly of the Priests, and almost certainly of all the rest, was founded on genealogy attested by registers (ib. 62). Now, this implies that the distinction was carried through the registers in question and traced up to some priestly, &c., ancestor before the Exile. But then, the distinction

itself was pre-existent to the Exile. The generation of the Captivity must have gone to Babylon as Priests, Levites, &c., as distinctly marked as they came out. Further, when Ezra himself came out, amongst his company are persons of all the above six classes, except the last, similarly distinguished. Now, is it meant to reject or impeach this evidence in order to make way for the theory of a non-distinct priesthood before? Wellhausen,1 indeed, sneers at the genealogies, and coarsely insinuates fabrication. But that will convince no one. It is absolutely certain that the hope of a return, whether on the grounds of Jeremiah's prophecy or on others, governed the minds of all the Captivity, except those who had sunk their patriotism in heathenish surroundings during their expatriation. This hope could only be definitely shaped by a continuity traceable backwards;-but how? By such family records as would make the status of each reconstituted Israelite clear-i.e., by genealogies-is the only possible answer. Thus upon genealogical documents the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah largely turn, and embody several such, the longest duplicated, but with many deviations in detail (cf. Ezra ii.; Neh. vii.). Nor is it impertinent here to notice the large extent to which names apparently of a Babylonish type, at all events typically differing from those of the monarchy, prevail in the lists given. This is confirmed by the fact referred to above that in reading the Law, interpretation was needed. The people had become in nomenclature as in speech, Babylonized. If the lists had been priestly concoctions of a later period, it is very improbable that such outlandish names would have appeared. From the standpoint of the Exile, they are features of nature.

The priestly authorities are charged with adding legislative matter to the extent of between three-fifths and two-thirds of the whole when complete. It seems the view of most who so charge them, that they merely reduced to writing what had existed before in practice, which practice grew up in the centuries before the Captivity. If this had been so, what did they gain save trouble in putting this forth in a language now obsolete? That the unknown proverbially imposes easily on the vulgar will perhaps be the answer. But there seems a magnanimous candour in Ezra and Nehemiah which would be above such practising on vulgar credulity, even in the eyes of those who reject their inspiration. But further, as regards the matter of the precepts, we find from Neh. x. 32 foll., that rules were made and a plan organized for the punctual payment and enjoyment of sacred dues, including tithes, firstfruits, and the like. Now, these rest mainly upon the enactments of the "priestly code," especially that "tithe of the tithes" (ver. 37) payable by the Levites to the Priests, (for which see Num. xviii. 26). It seems violently improbable that this system was in force during the period of the monarchy up to the Captivity, at any rate so uniformly that it could be claimed after the total dislocation of the Captivity itself for seventy years as a recognized custom. But if not, it would have imposed a burden, which had all the air of an innovation in the interest of privileged parties, on the laymen of the 1 Prolegomena to the History of Israel, English Translation, 1885, p 148.