How were the facts which are narrated in these histories ascertained by the narrator?

A journalist lives and a biographer may live in the times when the events which he records took place, and then he may tell what he has himself seen; but a historian rarely is the narrator of events of which he was an eye-witness; he generally gathers his information from various sources, and in his history gives an account of the facts as he has ascertained them by historical research. There is no reason to suppose that the Hebrew historian pursued any other course.1 We should expect that, writing of events occupying a period of something like a thousand years, he would have given us in his history the substance of accounts, documentary or oral, in which the history of those years had been preserved; in other words, we should expect that other materials than his own personal knowledge would enter into his history. This expectation is confirmed by a study of Oriental literature. Oriental histories, so the scholars tell us, are rarely original; they are compilations. The Oriental historian does not, as the modern historian, examine and investigate original sources, and give in his own language the results of his investigations; he takes what I may call the raw materials of history which he has discovered, and weaves them together, connecting them by utterances of his own. When a new edition is to be prepared, the new

1 Luke expressly declares that he gathered the materials for his Gospel to some extent in this way (Luke i. 1-4).

writer simply takes this conglomerate and intercalates the new material which he has obtained, or appends it in additional pages.1

If, then, we suppose that Hebrew history was prepared as other Oriental histories have been prepared, we shall assume it possible by painstaking study to ascertain to some extent what are the materials of which it was composed. This is what modern students of Hebrew history have done; they have separated it into its constituent parts. They are not all of one mind in the details, but they are all of one mind in the belief that the Hebrew history is not only composed from preexisting materials, as Macaulay's history or Green's history, but that it is so composed of preëxisting materials that, through linguistic peculiarities, forms of expression, historical references, and other indications, the various elements of the history can be measurably distinguished. Even the English reader of the Bible cannot fail to distinguish two of these constituent elements in the later history of the Hebrews, because these elements are not combined in one narrative. From the time of David,

1 "It is the law of Oriental history writing, in fact, that one book should annihilate its predecessor. The sources of a compilation rarely survive the compilation itself. A book in the East is rarely recopied just as it stands. It is brought up to date by the addition to it of what is known, or supposed to be known, from other sources. The individuality of the historical book does not exist in the East; it is the substance, not the form, which is held of importance, and no scruple is felt about mixing up authors and styles. The end sought is to be complete, and that is all." The History of Israel, by Ernest Renan, vol. iii. pp. 50, 51.

that is, about 1000 B. C., to the time of the captivity, that is, about 600 B. C., the history is contained in two narratives, parallel in time but very different in spirit—the First and Second Books of Kings and the First and Second Books of Chronicles.

Thinkers may be roughly divided into two great types, one of which lays emphasis on truth, the other on organization. The first, fixing its attention on truth, forgets that to be efficient in society truth must be embodied; the second, fixing its attention on the mediating organization, forgets the truth which alone can vitalize it. Men of the first type, having no objective standard, often make a standard of their own personal opinions; indifferent to the coöperation of their fellow-men and strenuous in their own opinions, they refuse to compromise the latter to gain the former; and thus become irreconcilables and impracticables. Men of the second type, overestimating the force of numbers and of authority, and underestimating the force inherent in moral principles, too readily yield principles to gain recruits. They may, indeed, be quite ready to sacrifice self to truth, but they are too ready to sacrifice truth to organization. Lacking a standard in themselves, they seek it in the body to which they have attached themselves. In philosophy the first type of man is always a moral reformer, generally an independent, often a doctrinaire. His loyalty to his own convictions is strong; his loyalty to party is slight. The second

seeks to carry moral reform only so far as he can carry it through a political organization; he is generally an opportunist; he sometimes degenerates into what is called a "machine politician." In religion the first has faith, but no creed: he worships, but without a ritual; he is religious, but unchurchly. When organization meant the Church of Rome, he was a Protestant; when it meant the Established Church, a Puritan; when it meant Presbyterianism, an Independent; and when it meant Congregationalism, a "Come-outer." The second is always a Churchman, though he may be a Roman Churchman, an Anglican Churchman, a Presbyterian Churchman, or a Congregational Churchman. He is a defender of creeds, of the established order, of the ancient traditions- or, if he is inclined to reform, he will not carry reform so far as to break with the traditions of the past or the recognized authorities of his own ecclesiastical organization. In the history of the world the first is interested in the progress of ideas, the second in the development of institutions. Is he a historian? the first writes the story of popular life, the second that of institutional life. John Richard Green, writing the history of the English people, represents the first; Lord Macaulay, measuring all events by their relation to Whig principles and policies, or Lord Clarendon, measuring them by their relation to the Royalist principles and policies, represents the second.

This distinction is apparent upon even a most

cursory comparison of the Books of Kings and of Chronicles. The Book of Chronicles - really one book in two parts is written by an ecclesiastic who identifies the religion of the Hebrew people with its churchly forms. His history is essentially Levitical in contents and in spirit - the history of Jerusalem, of the Temple, and of the Temple ordinances. National events are measured by their relation to the institutions of religion. When the separation of the before-united kingdom takes place, and the ten tribes form a nation by themselves in northern Palestine, leaving Jerusalem in the hands of the southern tribes, the author of Chronicles does not include them in his subsequent history, for they have no Temple, no Levitical priesthood, no orthodox ritual; to him, therefore, they are to all intents and purposes as pagans. Even the intensely religious and dramatically romantic lives of Elijah and Elisha do not concern him; they are in the northern kingdom, and they are unrelated to the ecclesiastical institutions of Hebraism. On the other hand, he gives in great detail the organization of the hierarchy, the furnishing of the Temple, the genealogies of the tribes, lists of the cities of the Levites, and makes much of the glory of Solomon, the builder of the Temple, and nothing of his decadence and fall. The Book of Kings-for this also is one book in two partsis as distinctly prophetic as the parallel history is priestly in its character. "The writer records the fulfillment of the promises which God had made to