560 OLD TESTAMENT 



Septuagint science has grown up, and will not for a long time to come 

 lay down its authority. 



With this we are standing in the midst of philology, to which in 

 its whole range, as to a sister-science, we also lay claim. Even the 

 authentication of the text, in the case of our literature, meets with 

 very unusual difficulties. For, as is well known, all this work on the 

 versions must be directed solely toward securing a single independent 

 form of text, apart from that which, since the second century A.D., 

 has been handed down by the synagogue in stubborn exclusion, and 

 to the destruction of all variants. Even the best preserved of the 

 books no one to-day doubts this still demand a great deal of 

 philological work; the condition of the others is simply lamentable. 

 The amount of help which the versions, especially the Septuagint, 

 offer varies widely. With such meagre outward evidence everywhere, 

 the inner evidence must be drawn out as a decisive factor, and con- 

 jectural criticism here opens up a wide field, in which, besides much 

 chaff, also much good fruit has been gathered. 



Another branch of philological activity has been employed in 

 textual criticism, and has attained special prominence in recent years. 

 I refer to metrics. Indeed, the Hebrew metric exerts so strong an 

 attraction that even remote distinguished representatives of lin- 

 guistic departments have applied themselves to it with great en- 

 thusiasm and industry. Here, too, as in textual criticism, we are 

 in a worse plight than the majority of our colleagues; for here too we 

 lack the most essential foundation there is no tradition at all 

 handed down to us. When, in the light of the sad condition of our 

 text, there is an attempt to use metrics in their widest sense for the 

 reconstruction of its original form, then, in the face of this lamentable 

 state of affairs, the circulus vitiosus is evident. This method is not to 

 be opposed on principle, for its legitimacy is indisputable, and is, 

 moreover, proved by certain definite results; but we must again urge 

 the greatest caution, since the standard itself by which the correct- 

 ness of the text is to be measured I mean the system of metrics 

 can be gained only through the strongest participation of the critic's 

 own subjectivity. The very foundations of the structure are still 

 in question; let us carefully avoid rearing up hasty air-castles. 



Of exegesis almost nothing need be said; its laws are universally 

 the same, as are also the particular demands made upon it by indi- 

 vidual periods. In the Old Testament, as well as elsewhere, the 

 historical, psychological, and aesthetic sides of the task are to-day 

 much more strongly emphasized than in the past. But surely it is 

 but just to call particular attention to the mighty service which 

 has been done for the Old Testament in the last one hundred and 

 fifty years by literary criticism. Seldom will such difficult problems 

 be assigned to it, and seldom will such complete, safe, and far-reach- 



