honour of Ashtoreth ( Jer. vii. 18) in Vol. ii. p. 309, we are surprised to find no reference to the interesting Phoenician inscription discovered in Cyprus, with its table of expenses for the month Ethanim. Similarly, the function of the Assyrian king as patesi (íšakku) or šangu in the very earliest times, might have been usefully cited as a parallel to the priestly functions discharged by Hebrew kings (Vol. i. p. 310). Also on the subject of Slavery, and the usual price paid for a slave, useful hints might have been derived either from Professor Sayce's recent work on "Social Life among the Assyrians," or from Tiele's 'History of Babylonia and Assyria," p. 507. A careful search among the Assyrian annals from the fourteenth to the ninth century shews, from the records of captured spoils, that both in Canaan and Syria, and other countries that bordered upon the Ninevite Empire, we are moving during that entire period in the midst of the age of bronze. Iron was comparatively rare, and seems to have been chiefly confined to the head or point of instruments. To what extent the chariots of the Canaanites consisted of iron (Judges i. 19) we cannot tell. Thus we note the considerable quantity of bronze as well as of gold and silver vessels sent by Toi, King of Hamath, to David (2 Sam. viii. 10, 11), and the very interesting parallel in the annals of Tiglath Pileser I. (col. iv. 1 foll.). On the other hand, the mention of iron in Assyrian, as in Hebrew literature referring to this period, is extremely infrequent. It is not till the close of the ninth century we read that Rammân-nirâri III. took as spoil 5000 talents of iron from the King of Syria (1 Rawl. 35, No. 1, line 19). These facts might be usefully set forth to illustrate Vol. i. p. 243 foll. As coming from a contemporary civilisation and a neighbouring Semitic people, they are of far greater value than the modern institutions of civilised Islam, which are the ultimate product of older civilisations--including Greek, Roman, and Saracenic, to say nothing of the later influences. Here a distinction must be drawn between the usages of peasant life or of the primitive nomadic society of, say, the Sinaitic Bedouin, on the one hand, and those of town life, especially among the wealthier classes in Damascus or Cairo, on the other. The primitive conditions of life among the fellahin, as among the nomads, change as slowly as do the features of the landscape in which they dwell. It is otherwise with the town-civilisation. Therefore, while the illustration of a modern Syrian plough (Vol. i. p. 230) is a fairly safe guide, we deprecate the insertion of the elaborate specimens of modern Arabic bolts and keys (Vol. i. p. 142) which Nowack and Benzinger alike borrow from Riehm's Handwörterbuch, borrowed in turn by that work from Lane's "Manners

and Customs of the Modern Egyptians." It is curious to note that the numbers conscientiously reproduced in the engravings of Benzinger and Nowack, and scarcely referred to in the text, are adequately elucidated in the original English work. To suppose that the key that opened Eglon's chamber nearly resembled the elaborate contrivance portrayed in Lane's pages makes too great a demand upon our faith. It is probable that the simpler clavis laconica figured in the pages of Rich's "Antiquities" would be a safer guide.

On the subject of pottery (Vol. i. p. 265 foll.) we have an excellent section in which the researches of Perrot and Chipiez, as well as of Flinders Petrie (in his recent work "Tell el Hesy "), are turned to full account (as in Benzinger's treatise). In this book, which is remarkably free from misprints, we notice a bad typographical error in the English citation on p. 265, footnote 2, Vol. i.; also on p. 319 the Hebrew word 'DDD is misprinted in the initial consonant. See also Vol. ii. p. 301, footnote 2.

Before passing from Vol. i. we would call attention to the excellent paragraphs devoted to the political institutions of Israel (pp. 300-357), and to the carefully drawn historic perspective in which the whole subject is presented in successive sections-viz., the constitution of the pre-regal period, of the regal period, and of the post-exilian times. This last section is specially useful.

On religious institutions, to which a special volume is devoted, there was less scope for original work. For here the labours of an army of writers for the last thirty years have supplied abundant materials. Among these the chief workers have been Baudissin, Kuenen, Wellhausen, Stade, and Robertson Smith. The influence of Stade is perhaps the most conspicuous in the pages of this treatise, as well as in that of Benzinger. This was inevitable. For no History of Israel can be compared with that of Stade, in comprehensiveness of treatment as well as in insight into archæological problems, displayed in his treatment of the early pre-exilian period of Israel's history. Stade's grasp of his subject in its organic relation to the larger related subjects of primitive culture, as expounded by such writers as Tylor, and of primitive Semitic religion, as illuminated by the researches of Wellhausen and Robertson Smith, ensures his work a permanent place among the authorities on the history of Israel. Stade's researches upon the palace and temple of Solomon, based on the textually difficult materials contained in 1 Kings vi. vii., are laid under contribution in the pages of Nowack. We are glad to see that a wholesome scepticism is displayed towards Benzinger's theory of Egyptian influence in the design of Solomon's temple (p. 34). Benzinger's comparison of the plan of the temple of Amon Rê at Karnak

Nowack considers illusory, and rightly holds that Syrian (or Hittite) influence is clearly evidenced in numerous details, especially in the porticoes. The inscriptions of Sargon (Cylind. insc. line 64, Khorsab. 161-2) bear invaluable testimony to the fact that it was from the land of the Hittites (here probably Phoenicia) he borrowed the bit hilani or "portico." "Hittite" was loosely used in Assyrian inscriptions as a geographical expression meaning Syrian, Phoenician, or Palestinian. The term bit ḥilani was evidently Phoenician in origin, and occurs twice upon the cylinder of Ašurbanipal (col. vi. 123; x. 102), in whose reign (seventh century) it was evidently a term in common use among the Assyrians. This is only one among innumerable indications that exist of the surpassing technical skill possessed by this interesting maritime race. Not only were Phoenician ships and sailors employed by the civilised races of Western Asia from the days of Solomon to those of Sennacherib, and, later still, of Xerxes, but Phoenician skilled workmen were the admiration even of the Greeks. Herodotus pays his express tribute to the superior intelligence and capacity of the Phoenicians in his account of the construction of the canal that was cut across Mount Athos: "they showed their skill in this as in other operations" (vii. 23). These considerations dispose us to reject Benzinger's theory respecting Egyptian influence. It is quite possible, however, that there may have been a remote and indirect Egyptian influence operating through Phoenicia. Respecting the early migrations of the Phoenicians and their contact with Lower Egypt, consult Professor Fritz Hommel's Semiten, p. 125. Compare also Pietschmann's instructive pages (pp. 270-277).

A very useful Appendix on the Canaanitish cults that were prevalent in Israel concludes the second volume. The list, however, is incomplete. Some reference to 'Ashtar-Cemôsh of the Moabite stone, to Hadad-Rimmon (Zech. xii. 11), and to the Shêdim and Lilith of popular beliefs, should be included in the survey. Did not the Hebrews recognise a male Asher similar in character to Gad? Respecting Asherah (see Vol. ii. p. 19 foll.) we do not consider that the sceptical attitude of the writer in presence of the testimony of the Abd-Ašratum of the Tell el Amarna tablet, ought to be maintained (p. 307, footnote 2). Among the authorities to which reference is made we are surprised to find no place given to such worthy contributions as Sayce's Hibbert Lectures, and Bäthgen's Beiträge zur Semitischen Religionsgeschichte.

But enough and more than enough of criticism upon small details in a massive work of enormous erudition based upon the most accurate exegetical scholarship and the very best results of critical and historical investigation. Nowack's treatise is and will remain the greatest and best text-book on Hebrew Archæology.

OWEN C. WHITEHOUSE.

Personality, Human and Divine.

Being the Bampton Lectures for the Year 1894. worth, M.A. London: Macmillan & Co. Price, 8s. 6d. nett.

By J. R. Illing8vo, pp. xvi. 274.

ALTHOUGH a author is, in many points of view, undoubtedly the best judge of his own work, Mr Illingworth will, perhaps, permit one, at the outset, to take some exception to the too depreciatory statement made in his Preface. "The following Lectures," he says, "make no claim to originality; they are simply an attempt to arrange and summarise what has already been expressed with greater amplitude and fuller authority elsewhere, in the hope of attracting some, whose leisure in these eager days may be limited, to reconsider the important question with which they deal" (p. vii.). It may be said at once that, if Mr Illingworth has his due, this book will attract the attention he desiderates. But, for this very reason,

the disclaimer about originality needs interpretation. While it is true that the Bampton Lecturer adds little or nothing to what has already been said by idealists of the Green school, to which he apparently affiliates himself, it is also true that his presentation of the subject under discussion, taken as a whole, is fresh and highly instructive. The importance of plan and method in approaching matters so vital, and so keenly debated, has been fully realised, and the result is as clear and, to some minds, probably as convincing a statement as could be framed. The value of the work centres most of all in its scheme, and this may be taken as an original contribution to the debate. It has the great merit of focussing the points at issue, of fairly presenting the basal conceptions, and of carrying out a constructive and consecutive argument from philosophical premises and from historical observation.

So far as this systematic procedure is concerned, the eight Lectures divide themselves naturally into five portions. The first contains an account of the gradual growth of man's recognition of his own personality, and furnishes a somewhat exhaustive analysis of the elements constitutive of this very complex conception. Still following what may be called an anthropological method, the second traces the evolution of the idea of God's personality to its culmination in the doctrine of the Trinity, and thereafter proceeds to disengage the contents of the idea mainly by consideration of the "proofs" of the being of God. These two sections supply the groundwork of the entire argument, and, as is fitting, one half of the work (Lectures i.-iv.) is devoted to them. In the third part, the conceptions of human and divine personality are brought into explicit relation to one another, with the object of showing that knowledge of Deity is conditioned by the possibility

of moral intercourse. That is to say, God and man can hold communion only on condition-if condition it be-that both are persons. Fourthly, and coming now to the more specifically synthetic or constructive portion of the argument, on the basis of the notion that Deity is personal man inevitably raises the expectation of a revelation. "It is natural that, in proportion to the strength of our belief in a Personal God, we should expect that He would reveal Himself to man; not merely to a favoured few, but to the human race as such. For the desire of self-communication is, as we have seen, an essential function of our own personality; it is part of what we mean by the word; and we cannot conceive a person freely creating persons, except with a view to hold intercourse with them when created" (p. 138). Signs of this expectation are next sought (a) in the earliest religious manifestations, which are mainly "prehistoric," and (b) in the great pre-Christian religions. Occasion is taken to point out that, in both cases, the Theist has a title to approach the records of the past from a certain point of view. "The Theist, then, is entitled to approach religious history with an initial presumption, provided that he do so with care. He believes in a Personal God, and the need of self-communication is part of what he means by personality. He believes that persons were created that God might hold intercourse with them and they with Him; prayer and its answer being two sides of one spiritual fact. Consequently, he expects to find religion universal from the time that man first was man ; and assumes that wherever its human manifestations occur, their divine counterpart must have been present also. This belief does not rest upon history, but upon his analysis of his own personality and religious experience; and he brings it with him, not as a disguised induction, but as an antecedent expectation, to the study of historical facts" (pp. 142-3). The difficulties which this. conviction has to encounter in the most primitive religious forms are argued with admirable skill in the sixth Lecture, while the cumulative evidence for revelation is pressed with learning and dignity in the seventh. In the fifth and concluding section of the demonstration, it is maintained that the long expectation of mankind, the origins and gradual crystallisation of which have been traced, found final satisfaction in the Incarnation of Jesus Christ.. The essence of personality as a trinity in unity, the nature of God which personality demands, and the entire course of history from which the elements of the relation between human and divine personality may be gathered, are conjointly adduced as "invincibly strong a posteriori evidence of this stupendous event.' The author's sobriety, yet warm sincerity, are striking characteristics of the final discourse. What we would submit is, that this method of pre