470 



I 'SAL. Ms 



I-SKI DONYM 



prophetic religion, and iliut the priests in iiarticular 

 were unprogresshe. How then should then- have 

 been temple-songs like those in our Psalter tiefore 

 that spiritual regeneration of which the 'Second 

 Isaiah was presumably the chief instrument ? The 

 only way to avoid the" conclusion that the Psalms 

 are (with the possible exception of I'-, xviii., and, 

 come will add, of Ps. xx., xxi., xlv., ]\i.. IxiiL) 

 poet-exilic IB to suppose that certain pHaltns, 

 especially those which remind us of Jeremiah, 

 were written in the reign of Josiah and during 

 the Exile, with the prophetic hope that they would 

 one day l>e required by a reorganised church- 

 nation. This position represents perhaps the en- 

 lightened conservatism of the future, but caunot 

 here be discussed. 



In any case, the ideal character depicted in 

 the Psalms belongs to an advanced period in 

 Israel's history. It is that of a righteous man 

 who, in the face of oppression, clings to his 

 religion and his Cod, who trusts to be delivered, 

 ami for the most part is delivered, and who now 

 and then forms hold anticipations of a world con- 

 verted to the true God, or, it may be, crushed into 

 reluctant obedience ; anil in the noblest features 

 of this ideal it is impossible not to trace the in- 

 fluence of the two great prophetic teachers of the 

 later peri<xl Jeremiah and the 'Second Isaiah.' 

 It is such a righteous man who, at least in Books 

 i.-iiL, for the most part appears to be the speaker, 

 and the question arises, whether he is more 

 accurately viewed as a personification of Israel, 

 or as simply the typical or representative Israel- 

 ite, such as every memlwr of the congregation 

 either was or desired to become. In some cases 

 no one can deny that the former theory is alone 

 correct (see, e.g., Ps. liv., lx., Ixxxvii., cxvi., 

 cxxix. ), and there are not a few other psalms 

 where its absolute rejection would involve the in- 

 terpreter in the greatest psychological difficulties 

 (see, e.jf., Ps. vi., xxii., xxx., li., cxxx., cxxxi.). 

 It has indeed been hastily stigmatised as forced 

 and fanciful, but the nuinl>er of passages elsewhere 

 in the Olil Testament which without it are unin- 

 telligible (see, besides the sections in second Isaiah 

 relative to the 'servant of .lehovah,' Num. vi. 23- 

 26; Micah, vii. I, 7-10 ; Hosea, iv. 4, 5, vii. 8, 9; 

 Lain. i. 3), and the numerous analogies in the 

 Greek choruses, prove I he liaselessness of the charga 

 The solidarity of the individual ami his tribe was 

 in fact one of the ruling ideas of the ancient 

 peoples. It is, however, a priori improbable that 

 the new sense of the duties ami privileges of the 

 individual, which was stimulated (but hardly 



caused) by the preaching of .ler iah and E/ekiri, 



should not have left it- mark on the Psalter of the 

 second temple. And do we not liml such a mark 

 on some or even many of the 1'salms? Does not 

 the personality of the psalmist sometimes at least 

 assert itself with distinctness (see, e.g., Ps. xlv. 

 1, Ixxiii. -'. 3, i:i 17, 21 28, cvi. 4, 5, cxxxix. 18)? 

 Yes ; but it will also be noticed that even in such 

 passages (the first and third of those just referred 

 to are perhaps the only exceptions) the psalmist 

 speaks, not only in his own licnalf, but at any rate 



for a class within the Church-nation. And in s e 



of the psalms in which a reference to the nation 

 may most plausibly be maintained, it is almost 

 equally possible to hold that the speaker is a 

 typical or representative Israelite (in the sen-..* 

 described above), or even that the ]malniixt him- 

 self in the same psalm sometimes has the nation, 

 sometimes himself, or any other pious Israelite, 

 in view as the speaker. Heading the I'salnm 

 from this point of view makes them not less 

 prophetic of Christ, but much more edifying 

 ami intelligible. 'The psalms,' says the eloquent 

 Adolphe Monod, 'are filled with expressions of 



an unheard-of sorrow. David there speaks in 

 ceasantly of his troubles, of his maladies, of his 

 innumerable enemies ; as we read them we can 

 hardly understand what he meant.' But when 

 we see that it is the troubles of the Church-nation, 

 and not those of any individual, however highly 

 placet), which are described, v. c can account for the 

 strength of the language, and are also stirred up to 

 purge our own religion of its selfishness. It only 

 needs to be added that our conception of the life of 

 the Church-nation must !> a truly historical one. 

 We must not rest contented with the perception 

 that there is a strong family likeness in the Psalms. 

 \\ > must seek out not only resemblances but 

 differences, and ascertain, so far as we can, tin: 

 historical background of each group of psalm-. 

 Ilii/iu' and Ewald mnv have gone too far in this 

 historical 'divination,' hut without exercising this 

 faculty to some extent it is impossible fully to 

 enjoy the Psalms. Historical data will not be 

 wanting if we search for them, and the compara- 

 tive method will here too be found applicable. 

 The period from the Return to the Maccabees 

 was not so monotonous as it is represented in 

 our handbooks, and by judiciously distributing the 

 Psalms over it on grounds of internal evidence we 

 gain so many fresh first-class authorities for the 

 history of the Jewish Church. 



Among modern commentaries accessible in English, see 

 J. A. Alexander (New York, 1850), Tholuck ( tran. 1856), 

 Ewald (trans. livols. 18801, Delitzaoh ( trans. 3 vols. 1887- 

 89), Perowne (latest ed. 1889), Cheyne (1888), De Witt 

 (New York, 1891), Kirkpatrick (voL i. 1891); and of. 

 Bishop Alexander, The Wiimat of the Psalm* to Christ 

 and Christianity ; Cheyne, The Origin and Jieligiou$ 

 Content* of the Ptalmt (Hampton Lecture* for 1876 and 

 1889 respectively). 



Psaltery. See DULCIMER. 



I'-.-iiiiincI i< luis. or PSAMMITICHUS I. and IL 

 See EGYPT, Vol. IV. p. 241. 



Psailllllitie. in Geology, applied to derivative 

 rocks composed of rounded grains, as ordinary 

 sandstone. 



Pseildepilfranhy, the ascription to books of 

 false names of authors. 



Pseildoinorphs, in Mineralogy, applied to 

 minerals which assume the crystalline form of 

 other species. Pseudomorphs result from the 

 action upon minerals of water containing carbonic 

 acid, oxygen, and other reagents in solution. The 

 internal structure of a pseudomorph has no relation 

 to the external form of the crystal. Two kinds of 

 pseudomorphs are recognised : (a) alteration and 

 (b) substitution pseudomorphs. Alteration pseudo- 

 morphs are the result of the chemical metamor- 

 phosis of the original mineral either by loss or 

 gain, or exchange of constituents. Substitution 

 p-eudomorphB are minerals formed in the moulds 

 or vacant spaces left by the total removal in solu- 

 tion of previously existing minerals. 



Pseudonym (Gr. //..///<".<, 'false,' and onoma, 

 'a name'), a false name adopted by an author 

 which conceals his identity. Originally 'pseudo- 

 nymous' was used of works deliberately published 

 under a false name, so as to induce people to 

 l>elieve them the works of those whose names they 

 lx>re, or of works erroneously attributed to a 

 wrong person. Thus, there were pseudonymous 

 gospels of Thomas and of Bartholomew ; and the 

 works circulated under the names of the classical 

 writers, but proved not to ho genuine, are pseudo- 

 nymous works. But the term pseudonym is now 

 most commonly used as an assumed name not 

 really meant to mislead what in England is often 

 called by the French words nom de plume or ' |>en' 

 name,' and nearly corresponding to the French 

 expression nom de guerre. There have been 



