i8 7 o] PROPHECY IN CRITICAL SCHOOLS 187 



initially passive under the creative hand of God ; but to 

 deal with these elements is not the function of historical 

 inquiry. The limit of personal life is the limit of critical 

 investigation. By what creative and inexplicable power 

 God first wrought in the spirit of the prophet that sym 

 pathy with His own character which is the true character 

 istic of the prophetic life is a question for the theologian, 

 not for the historian. 



That this way of looking at prophecy is really applicable 

 and fruitful, will, we hope, be clear even from the very 

 scanty examples which we have given of the sort of 

 phenomena that fall to be explained. Perhaps, however, 

 the clearest illustration of the peculiar attitude of the 

 prophets to Jahveh is to be drawn from the way in which 

 they themselves describe their first call to their life work. 

 What Ewald says on this point is both instructive and 

 characteristic : 



&quot; No man can be a true prophet of Jahveh till he 

 has first cast his glance into the full majesty and holiness 

 of Jahveh Himself, and there has gained such an inner 

 appreciation of the true eternal life that it now lives on, 

 firmly grounded within him as his new life. The incipient 

 prophet must, once for all, become unalterably sure of the 

 true relation of the world and Jahveh ; gazing in a clear 

 image on the whole lofty and holy essence of Jahveh, and 

 feeling himself borne on by Him alone ... he must have 

 entered wholly, with all his inner powers of work and deed, 

 into the Divine thoughts, and be so fettered by them for 

 ever, that in this constraint he has found the truest force 

 and freedom ; such is the first condition, the true begin 

 ning of all prophetic activity, the holy consecration and 

 inner calling, without which no man becomes a true 

 prophet. . . . When such a prophet undertook a written 

 book he placed at its head, with just perception, the 

 description of the holy moment when he first recognised 

 Jahveh in His true majesty, and felt himself consecrated, 

 strengthened, called by Him.&quot; x 



1 Propheten, i. 22, referring to Isa. vi., Jer. i., Ez. i. 52. The attitude of 

 Kuenen towards these narratives is, as usual, much less sympathetic. 

 Yet he recognises the narrative of Isa. vi. as recording an actual experi- 



