i8 7 o] PROPHECY IN CRITICAL SCHOOLS 185 



are we to construe to ourselves these remarkable 

 facts ? 



We know that the prophetic revelations were often 

 associated with visions. May we assume that these 

 ecstatic or half-conscious states were to the prophet the 

 stamp of a Divine communication ? In opposition to the 

 Montanists, the early church answered this question in the 

 negative. Quite recently a view, closely allied to that of 

 the Montanists, was revived by Hengstenberg, and has 

 left no inconsiderable mark on the conservative theology 

 of Germany. But with the critical school the theory has 

 found little favour, least of all with those critics whose 

 decided supernaturalism brings them nearest to the 

 theological convictions of its author. By far the nearest 

 approach to Hengstenberg is to be found in the stress 

 which Kuenen lays upon the prophetic ecstasy. It is, 

 indeed, clear that the theory of vision leaves the historical 

 influence of the prophets quite unexplained. That they 

 did not speak to the people in a state of ecstasy is certain. 

 Their prophecies bear on every page the stamp of a vigor 

 ous, healthy, waking life. Their influence lay not in their 

 words only, but in the force of their whole personality 

 which everywhere shines through their utterances. &quot; The 

 true prophet/ to speak with Ewald, &quot; never utters the 

 word of Jahveh that has come to him until it has become 

 within him quite clear and certain, a part, as it were, of 

 his inmost life and thought.&quot; The theory of ecstasy is an 

 attempt to divide the prophet from the prophetic word, 

 while in truth the peculiar power of men like Amos and 

 Isaiah lay just in the thoroughness with which the word 

 of Jahveh filled and elevated the natural personality of 

 the speaker. This argument assumes slightly different 

 phases according as the ecstasy is conceived as super 

 natural or natural. If, as we believe, God really dealt 

 with Israel in an extraordinary way, entering personally 

 into the history of the people, it is plain that this super 

 natural activity must have been so directed as to enter 



