MACGREGOR'S STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS; MAIR'S STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES; DALE'S CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE; AGNES SMITH LEWIS'S A TRANSLATION OF THE FOUR GOSPELS FROM THE SYRIAC OF THE SINAITIC PALIMPSEST; THE FOUR GOSPELS IN SYRIAC TRANSCRIBED FROM THE SINAITIC PALIMPSEST; LOTZE'S MICROCOSMOS (cheaper edition); WHYTE'S JACOB BEHMEN; WHYTE'S SAMUEL RUTHERFORD AND SOME OF HIS CORRE- SPONDENTS; JOLLY'S RUSKIN ON EDUCATION; ROBSON'S A STUDY OF THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IN MAN; DAVIDSON'S HEBREW SYNTAX ; SCHMIEDEL'S WINER'S GRAMMATIK DES NEUTESTAMENTLICHEN SPRACH- IDIOMS; BURTON'S SYNTAX OF THE MOODS AND TENSES IN NEW TESTAMENT GREEK; DAVISON'S THE WISDOM LITERATURE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT ; FEATHER'S THE LAST OF THE PROPHETS; GRANT'S THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD; SWETE'S THE OLD TESTAMENT IN GREEK ACCORDING TO THE SEP- TUAGINT; BROWN'S THE GREAT DAY OF THE LORD; MYER'S SCARABS; THE BIBLICAL ILLUSTRATOR; ROBERTSON SMITH'S LECTURES ON THE RELIGION OF THE SEMITES; TRUMBULL'S STUDIES IN ORIENTAL SOCIAL LIFE; MACLAREN'S THE PSALMS; LIDDON'S CLERICAL LIFE AND WORK; DYER'S PSALM-MOSAICS. History, Prophecy, and the Monuments. New By James Fred. McCurdy, Ph.D., LL.D., Professor of Oriental 8vo, pp. xxiv. 425. THIS is the first part of a work in two volumes, the second of which will soon appear. The present volume ends with the destruction of Samaria by the Assyrians, B.C. 722; and the second will carry on the history to the downfall of the Persian Empire before Alexander, when the rule of the Eastern world passed from Asia to Europe. From the title of Professor McCurdy's work it might have been surmised or feared that it was merely another of the many efforts to exploit the monuments of Babylon and Assyria in the interests of Apologetics. Even if this had been true, the book would have been worthy of attention, because the author, being himself able to read the monuments, would have given us a first-hand and trustworthy account of their meaning and bearing. The dispassionate spirit also in which he writes, and the entire absence of any straining to discover coincidences with Scripture, or confirmations of its statements, would have given the reader confidence, and been a guarantee to him that his guide was a historian and not a partisan. But, though the author's interest no doubt centres in Israel, even Israel is regarded broadly as a member of the great Shemitic race, though its place in history and the contributions it made to the thought of mankind may require that it be oftener contrasted than compared with the other members. The author's work might fitly have been designated a History of the Shemitic World. This world consists of the compact square or parallelogram of territory bounded on the east by the line of mountains extending from the Persian Gulf through Elam, Media, and so on, north to the neighbourhood of Lakes Urmia and Van and the sources of the Tigris and Euphrates; on the north by a line running from the sources of these rivers west to the head of the Mediterranean; on the west by the Mediterranean and the Red Sea; and on the south by the ocean between the Red Sea and Persian Gulf. This world was mainly inhabited by Shemites, and mostly ruled by them, till the Persians came upon the scene and fell heir to the empire of the Chaldeans. Of course the Shemitic empire, whether the early Babylonian one, the Assyrian, or the later Babylonian (Chaldean), often exceeded the limits of this well-defined area, grasping at the kingdoms of Elam and Media on the east and incorporating them, and, when its western career was checked by the sea, rolling its forces south till it overran Egypt and even Ethiopia. But these conquests were temporary, and they had their counterpart in the fact that the mountaineers of Elam and the Kasshites occasionally invaded and ruled for long periods the primitive seats of the Babylonian kingdoms between the rivers, and, wielding their resources, entered into their ideal inheritance as far west at least as the Jordan valley and North Arabia, as in the case of Chedorlaomer. Agreeing with many good authorities, Dr McCurdy argues that the immemorial home of the Shemites was Arabia. In a far distant antiquity they formed what he calls hordes, speaking a language in common, which in process of time developed into several well-defined dialects under climatic and other influences. Even before the dawn of history he considers that they must have crystallised into tribes which, though living side by side, had already to some extent differences of speech, religion, and manners. Some of these tribes moved eastwards, throwing themselves upon the swampy lowlands of the Babylonian plain between the rivers, and founding the earliest Babylonian city-kingdoms. From there a colony moved northwards, and laid the foundation of the new Assyrian state (Asshur). Other tribes moved up the Euphrates, concentrating themselves in the fertile regions watered by the Chabor, the plain known as Mesopotamia or Aram of the two rivers, with its sacred city Haran. These were the Arameans, who, however, sent off swarms westwards, founding a number of small kingdoms in the north of Syria, and eventually the powerful state of Damascus, so long the dangerous rival of northern Israel. While, finally, other tribes moving possibly up the Jordan valley or the sea coast, seized the valleys of Palestine as Canaanites, and the narrow plain on the coast further north as Phenicians. Aramean tribes are found at all times hovering on the borders of the Babylonian plain on both its sides. A family, pos sibly of Aramean descent, migrated from Ur (Mugheir, i.e., Mukayyar, Bitumen Town), and after lingering for a time about Haran, finally settled east of the Jordan as Ammonites and Moabites, and south of the sea as Edomites; while their kindred, the Israelites, after a long sojourn on the borders of Egypt, entered Canaan, and settled beside them at a very recent date. It is the history of this Shemitic world which Dr McCurdy has undertaken to present--the history of its peoples, its institutions, its manners, its religion, and its worship, no less than the history of its wars and conquests, and varying external form and fortunes. It is this wide scope that gives the author's work its interest. Because, whatever differences may appear between one family of this race and another, the resemblances common to all far outweigh them ; and in reading the history of the Babylonians we are acquiring conceptions and securing points of view which form the best preparation for reading with real insight the history of Israel. There are several things which distinguish all these peoples-one is their political incapacity, another their commercial instinct, and a third their extraordinary religiousness. Without the instinct of political articulation or organisation, they were incapable either of governing or being governed. The city was the largest conception they possessed, and citizenship in the sense that all the inhabitants united should, through representatives, share in the government, or in the sense that the ruler should delegate his power to the people and share with them the rule of the commonwealth, was an idea never reached. Hence the territory of a city was not enlarged by peaceful combination with another city, but by conquest of it. Even the Assyrians in their palmiest days, under Tiglath Pileser and the strenuous rulers of the house of Sargon, never founded an empire in the sense of a homogeneous organism. The cohesion was no closer than that the conquered peoples acknowledged suzerainty and paid tribute. This was largely because the instinct of unity was wanting to the race. Hence, whenever the Assyrian ruler died, a fever of revolt spread through the whole states or cities subject, the yoke was thrown off, and his successor had the work of subjugation to accomplish over again. And if some of the Assyrian monarchs did rise to the idea of a cohesive and homogeneous empire, they could perceive no means of securing homogeneousness but the barbarous expedient of tearing up populations by the roots and transplanting them among a distant and alien race, a policy continued by the last great Shemitic state, the Chaldeans. But even this policy failed, as the history of the Jews in Babylon shows, and indeed their whole subsequent history up to this day. And if this was owing in some measure to religion, it was scarcely due to the distinctive character of the religion of Israel, but to some deeper instinct of race; for the people of Cutha, who were transferred from Babylon to the city of Samaria, amalgamated so little with the surrounding population that Samaria was virtually a heathen city in the days of the Maccabees. Dr McCurdy signalises Israel as affording the only instance of a Shemitic state arising by the voluntary confederation of a number of tribes. There were possibly other examples. But even in regard to Israel any reader of the Book of Judges can perceive how readily the unity of the tribes secured at the exodus fell asunder on their entering Canaan, and how difficult it was to secure, even in the face of the greatest dangers, co-operation or common action. And even when the danger of complete subjugation at the hands of the Philistines united the tribes under a monarch, the inherent propensity to indi vidualism revealed itself after two or three reigns, and the united state broke across into two. Dr McCurdy is inclined to ascribe much of the political feebleness of the Shemites to their religion. Not quite in the same way as Renan, for the latter attributed the form of their religion, their monotheism, and all their other defects, political and artistic, to a certain simplicity and monotony of mind, which could not rise to the varied or the complex. Dr McCurdy does not go so far back, but, starting from the nature of their religious ideas, endeavours to trace the influence of these upon their social and civil evolution. The god or deity was the bond of union; the city or state was one because the deity was one. But the neighbouring city or tribe was a unity for the same reason, and its god was another. And the Shemitic gods were intolerant. It was not the God of Israel only that was a jealous God. Asshur was equally impatient of other gods, and more contemptuous toward them. Hence, so long as the god existed, the people who worshipped him was indestructible. It must be confessed that we enter a very difficult region here. The author, in a few condensed but well considered sentences, gives his view of the origin of the conception of god and its development. He traces religion to several sources-animism, reverence for dead ancestors and for heroes of the tribe. Of necessity much must be conjecture. By the time we meet with these religions in history they are greatly developed, and the gods have been endowed with qualities of the spirit of man not originally belonging to them. The gods of the eastern Shemites seem mostly either cosmogonic or elemental to begin with; but when we meet with Asshur first in history, has he not become in good measure the reflection of the spirit of his people, the Assyrians? Not, of course, that any people created a god by projecting their own spirit into objective existence; they heard him in the wind or perceived him in the sweet influences of the skies, or felt him in the predominance of the spheres; but having found him, did they not proceed to fashion him after their own likeness? This, at anyrate, can be said, that all over the Shemitic world religion is the same, the relation of people and god is alike; the religiousness of Israel did not differ from that of the other members of the race,-the difference lay in the conception of its God to which Israel had attained from the beginning, in the ethical nature of Jehovah. And if the repulsive features of Shemitism were modified or almost effaced in Israel, this was not due to a different conception of the relation of god to people, institutions, and the life of men, but to a different idea of the Spirit of Him who was the God of the people, who inspired their institutions and animated their life. As Dr McCurdy describes the early Babylonians, |