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╇ i

The Anatomy of Myth

ii
╇ iii

The Anatomy of Myth

The Art of Interpretation
from the Presocratics
to the Church Fathers

michael herren

1
iv

1
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers
the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education
by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University
Press in the UK and certain other countries.
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America.

© Oxford University Press, 2017

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in

a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the
prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted
by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction
rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the
above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the
address above.
You must not circulate this work in any other form
and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.
Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​P ublication Data
Names: Herren, Michael, author.
Title: The anatomy of myth : the art of interpretation from the presocratics
to the church fathers / Michael Herren.
Description: New York, New York : Oxford University Press, 2017. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016017087 (print) | LCCN 2016028998 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780190606695 (hardback)| ISBN 9780190606725 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780190606718 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Myth. | Mythology.
Classification: LCC BL312 .H47 2017 (print) | LCC BL312 (ebook) | DDC 201/.3—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016017087
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America
╇ v

Contents

Preface╇ vii
Abbreviations╇ xiii

Introduction╇ 1
1. The Paradigm of the Poets╇ 13
2. What Makes a Work Authoritative?╇ 27
3. Physis—╉Redefining the Gods╇ 37
4. Flirting with Atheism╇ 51
5. Attacking Poetry╇ 63
6. The Beginnings of Allegory╇ 73
7. Finding History in Myth╇ 83
8. Theos—╉Rediscovering God╇ 97
9. The Growth of Allegory╇ 109
10. Saving the Poets without Allegory╇ 123
11. From Allegory to Symbolism╇ 131
12. Greek Exegesis and Judaeo-╉Christian Books╇ 147
13. Reflection: How Lasting Was the Greek Achievement?╇ 165
vi

vi contents

Notes 171
Bibliography 189
Glossary of Names and Terms 199
General Index 219
vii

Preface

This is a book for students. By students I mean anyone interested in learning

how ancient ideas influence modern thought and modern ways of being. My
book, though written for students, is not a textbook; that is, it is not a simple
summary of the main lines of myth interpretation as explained by previous
scholars. Rather, it is a fresh attempt to look at the methods of interpreting
the myths contained in ancient authoritative texts in the context of the his-
tory of ideas. I attempt to weave the strands of myth interpretation with those
of shifting paradigms in ancient thought and culture, particularly as they
relate to ideas about god, nature, the origins of the cosmos, and the fate of
the soul. I also relate developments in interpretative methods to issues such
as literacy, authority, the agenda of the philosophical schools, and attitudes to
poetry. I touch on the large questions of freedom of expression, the effect of
myth criticism on religious belief and social cohesion, and the impact of criti-
cal interpretations developed by pagans on the understanding of Jewish and
Christian scriptures.
The notion of a “paradigm” requires an explanation. By “paradigm” I mean
the bundle of ideas prevailing at a given time that encompass the divine, its
relation to nature, the origins of the world and humans, the beginnings of
society, and the concept of the good life. Such ideas can be documented for
any literate age. But one must keep in mind that they are the creations of elites;
they cannot be taken as evidence for the universal beliefs of a given society.
The most influential teachings prevailing in our own society might be cap-
tured by words and phrases such as evolutionism, secularism (“humanism”),
religious and philosophical skepticism, individualism (anti-​authoritarianism),
viii

viii preface

and faith in progress through science—​to name some. Such notions form the
assumptions and working hypotheses of pundits and public intellectuals, and
are disseminated in popular books, print journalism, television, blogs, and
social media. They are not accepted by everyone, and eventually invite a back-
lash that leads to culture wars and a new paradigm.
For the ancient world I have hypothesized three paradigms that cor-
respond roughly to three eras: (1) the Paradigm of the Poets (ca. 800–​600
b.c.e.), (2) the Paradigm of Physis (Nature, ca. 600–​350 b.c.e.), and (3) the
Paradigm of Theos (god, 350 b.c.e. onward). Each was succeeded in turn when
its ideas were perceived as exhausted or inadequate. Myth and poetry gave way
to natural philosophy, which in turn was undermined by the criticism that
it did not adequately explain causation or account for god. The theism that
replaced it, however, did not sweep away everything with it. The critical spirit,
the Greek idea of historia (“investigation,” “inquiry”), survived and endured
even through “the triumph” of Christianity. Remarkably, the greatest debt to
ancient Greek thought incurred by Christianity was not a particular philo-
sophical doctrine, but the habit of reading its scriptures critically—​much as a
pagan Greek might read Homer.
This book entertains a thesis: the exposure of the most authoritative
works of the ancient Greeks to public criticism and discussion was a deci-
sive step toward creating the open, pluralistic society that we in the Western
nations enjoy today. I do not mean to over-​spin this. The speculative thinkers
of the sixth and fifth century b.c.e. were not proto-​secularists, or precursors of
today’s “humanists.” Very few of them engaged in open assaults on religion,
even in times when it was safe to do so. With few exceptions, they did not
attempt to rid their world of gods, but rather to make the gods better, more
worthy of emulation. Their idea of a rational cosmos included the divine, but
it opened the debate over what the nature of the gods really was and what
their role in the operation of the universe may have been. Whatever their opin-
ions on these momentous questions, the early Greeks agreed on one issue: it
was just fine to disbelieve myths, and to criticize portions of what the ancient
poets Homer and Hesiod had to say about the gods. The poets may have been
inspired in some way, but that was no guarantee against misrepresentation of
the divine.
The image invoked by the title word Anatomy refers to the cutting up
(Greek ana-​tomē) of the body (that is, the literal meaning) of a myth to see
what lies inside. We can imagine—​in good Roman fashion—​that a reading
of the entrails is to follow. And like all such efforts in divination, interpreta-
tions varied. Because myths were often coupled with poems, the anatomy of
a myth became closely linked to the dissecting of words (especially names) in
the poems that contained them. I trace the main lines of these different anato-
mies, insofar as they can be documented. I emphasize the importance of “pub-
lic interpretation,” as I focus on the origin and growth of the open criticism of
ix

preface ix

myth and poetry and attempts to interpret them in published form. The advent
of literacy brought with it the possibility of publication. For the ancient Greeks,
any book in the public domain, regardless of topic, was open to discussion and
criticism, even scorn when warranted. Freedom of expression was abetted by
freedom of movement also, as early Greek thinkers moved from place to place
and brought their books with them. There were indeed attempts at repression,
but these were localized, sporadic, and in the long run unsuccessful.
I have designed my book as a narrative. There is a story to be told, and
stories involve advances and reversals, vicissitudes and progress. They do not
always end happily; this one does not end unhappily. I am naive enough to
believe that the appropriation of pagan Greek methods of critiquing ancient
myths by Jewish and Christian interpreters of the scriptures had a long-​term
beneficial effect on later readers of religious books. However, the frame of my
story will be limited to an initial impulse from Jewish scholars to adopt the
tools of pagan Greek myth criticism, followed by their appropriation by the
Greek Christian Fathers. The methods established by the pagan Greeks and
adapted by Jewish and Christian scholars passed into the Western Middle Ages
and the Renaissance, when they were once again applied, with some varia-
tions, for interpreting the pagan classics. “Classical exegesis” (my term for the
bundle of ancient interpretative methods) served first to hedge the scriptures
against fundamentalism, then to preserve the pagan classics against assaults
by zealous Christians.1
The historical era covered, as the subtitle suggests, is the entire ancient
world. I begin with Homer and end, in the Greek domain, with the Neoplatonist
Proclus, who died in 485; in the Latin world I stop at Augustine, who died in
430. The geographical confines are, unsurprisingly, set in cities around the
Mediterranean. I start in Ionia (western coastal Turkey), and proceed to South
Italy, Athens, Rome, Alexandria, Carthage, and back to Athens. While one
can mark certain turning points where paradigms shift, the reader is cau-
tioned against expecting absolute breaks between one paradigm and another.
There is evidence of scientific thinking in the early poets, theistic dogmatism
among the natural philosophers (the Presocratics), and continuity of scientific
thought in the period when theism is predominant.
Although the present book has been gestating for about two decades, I felt
some urgency to complete and publish it in the light of the events in Paris in
2015. I believe the pundits are correct about one thing at least: although the
series of attacks differed in outcome, their purpose was the same. They were
all assaults on freedom. I do not leap from that assertion to an indictment of
Islam or religion in general. But I do fear that there is a link between irrational
acts of cruelty and misguided understandings of religious texts. In that light,
I believe that the ancient Greeks have something of benefit to offer today’s
world. Their methods of interpreting their authoritative poets may strike mod-
ern literary scholars as primitive or naive, but they were infused with a healthy
x

x preface

skepticism, a refusal to believe what appeared irrational, or accept myths at

face value.
The idea for this book springs, first and foremost, from my years of
teaching courses on the ancient humanities at York University and gradu-
ate seminars on the classical tradition and the Latin Bible at the University
of Toronto. Several of these courses are directly related to the interpretation
of myth: “Myths and Their Meanings,” “Greek Mythology,” and “Texts and
Interpretation.” Matters related to the interpretation of authoritative books also
arise in the seminar I regularly teach on St. Augustine. By teaching the survey
course “Myths and Their Meanings,” I became acquainted with the methods
developed in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries for dealing with myths
cross-​culturally and the various modern schools of myth interpretation—​the
“myth and ritual school,” structuralism, functionalism (based on historical
linguistics), and the different psychoanalytical approaches.
Perhaps one of the most surprising features of this book is that it is short,
containing chapters of moderate length. I had a great deal more documentary
evidence at my disposal than I use here, but many passages illustrate the same
exegetical points. And so, rather than write a 600-​page book that people might
use for reference, but not really read, it seemed wiser to write a shorter book
that could be read and absorbed in a few sittings. The strategy of brevity also
serves the pedagogical aims of the book, one with chapters of manageable
length that can be used in conjunction with primary sources in a college or
university setting. A short book also supports the aim of presenting a thesis.
The development of a variety of interpretative methods is a worthy subject,
but I would not want this to obscure the central point that it is the activity
of interpreting authoritative texts, and the freedom to do so, that has helped
create the society that we currently enjoy. Thus, I draw upon the Greek poet
Callimachus: a small book is a great virtue.
My research has been generously supported at various stages by the
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Killam
Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Alexander-​von-​Humboldt
Stiftung. I am especially grateful to the Alexander-​von-​Humboldt-​Stiftung
for a research prize in 2004 that enabled me to investigate a large number
of manuscripts in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich. The many
hours needed to collect the large number of slips containing excerpts from
Greek and Latin texts relative to myth interpretation were afforded me by
the Killam Foundation of the Canada Council, which awarded me a Killam
Fellowship (1996–​1998) and by a Guggenheim Fellowship (1998–​1999).
As freedom is one of the leitmotifs of my work, I express my gratitude to
York University, and especially to Atkinson College, for the freedom it gave
me to teach what I saw fit, and to take leaves when I needed them to pursue
my research. I would like to thank my longtime colleague and friend Ross
Arthur for reading the manuscript and suggesting a publisher; Florence
xi

preface xi

Silver for decades-​long encouragement to write a book on Greek myth; John

Magee, Brad Inwood, and Brian Stock for stimulating and helpful discus-
sion; the readers for Oxford University Press for their very helpful reports
preventing error and initiating improvement; executive editor Stefan
Vranka for his faith in this project; and, most of all, my wife, art historian
Shirley Ann Brown, for many wise suggestions over the course of preparing
and revising this book, and for meticulous editing and proofreading of the
final draft.
xii
xiii

Abbreviations

For full bibliographical information consult the Bibliography.

Deut. (Bible) Deuteronomy
DK Diels, Hermann and Walter Kranz, eds., Die Fragmente der
Vorsokratiker
Epid. (Cornutus) Epidrome
FGrH F. Jacoby, ed., Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker
Gen. (Bible) Genesis
H.P. (Heraclitus the Younger) Homeric Problems
Il. (Homer) Iliad
KRS G. S. Kirk, J. E. Raven, and M. Schofield, The Presocratic
Philosophers
LCL Loeb Classical Library
Lev. (Bible) Leviticus
Meta. (Aristotle) Metaphysics
N.E. (Aristotle) Nicomachean Ethics
Od. (Homer) Odyssey
Phys. (Aristotle) Physics
Rep. (Plato) Republic
SVF H. von Arnim, ed., Stoicorum veterum fragmenta
Theog. (Hesiod) Theogony
Tim. (Plato) Timaeus
xiv
╇ xv

The Anatomy of Myth

xvi
1

Introduction

“The Greeks’ most important legacy is not, as we would like to think,

democracy; it is their mythology.” So begins Mary Lef kowitz’s Book,
Women in Greek Myth.1 The statement rings true. Certainly, when we
think of the ancient Greeks, we think first of their gods and heroes. Their
statues abound in museums, and kitschy plaster copies of them can still
be found in people’s houses and gardens. Movies and animated cartoons
about Hercules or Perseus are regularly released, while novelists and short
story writers continue to probe the ancient stories for their insights into
the human condition. Some of the very great stories, for example, the tale
of Odysseus (Roman Ulysses), cross artistic boundaries. Ulysses’ tale pro-
vided the impetus for one of the first operas, Claudio Monteverdi’s Return
of Ulysses, and also for one of the masterpieces of the twentieth-​century
novel, James Joyce’s Ulysses. 2 Like the daimōn Proteus, myths are plas-
tic: they can assume almost any shape at will. And like Proteus, they can’t
be wrestled down. They will wriggle out of any straitjacket you contrive
in order to assume some new form. Myths shape-​shift into paintings on
vases, morph into poems, then take musical form as Pan plies the pipes.
If this does not convince one of the enduring power of Greek and Roman
myths, consider their influence on our language. Our astral bodies from
Mercury to Pluto are named after the Greek gods dressed in Roman garb;
the names have not changed in more than two millennia. The names of sev-
eral months—​March from Mars, May from Maia, and June from Juno—​reveal
Roman or Greek origins. The French tried to change the month names during
the Revolution and for a time under Napoleon, but to no avail. The Romance
languages, for example, French, retained the names of the Roman gods for
the last four weekdays: mardi (Mars), mercredi (Mercury), jeudi (Jupiter), and
vendredi (Venus), while in English Saturday (< Saturn) displaced the Sabbath
(samedi, sabbato), leaving Sun and Moon as common ground. However, the
planets and the times they generate are not the end of the matter. Consider
our psychological states: jovial (“cheerful, merry”), saturnine (“gloomy”), and
2

2 introduction

mercurial (“volatile”), the last named after an element, which in turn got its
name from the god. The heroes come into it as well. A hard job is a Herculean
task, while a fatal flaw is an Achilles heel. All of these names and expressions
are hard wired. They are not going to be replaced any time soon.
Myths take hold of the minds of young people in a way that ordinary
history cannot. Alexander the Great, who was deservedly famous for what
he did, became even more famous for what he didn’t do, which was to travel
in a submarine, sail into the frozen sea, and fly. (These events are recorded
in the pseudo-​histories that grew up after his lifetime.3) Such extraordinary
feats are the stuff of younger children’s fantasies. They incite young imagi-
nations to dream about the possibilities of human life. At a later stage, tales
such as Perseus and Medusa, Odysseus and the Cyclops, and Theseus and the
Minotaur enthrall children’s minds with their focus on bravery and cunning.
Later still, teenagers coming to grips with their own identity are attracted to
darker stories such as Oedipus’s quest for his beginnings, or to the mystery of
the Golden Bough that gained Aeneas entry to the underworld and the enlight-
enment that resulted from his journey.
These and similar stories continue to play an important role in our cur-
rent pedagogy. They are valued not so much because they come from great
works of literature as because they are great stories. They excite the imagina-
tion as they teach. They function well in the educational systems of our mul-
ticultural Western societies because they transcend particular cultures and
value systems. Because the cults to which the Greek gods and heroes were
attached are long dead, their stories rarely give offence. It is little wonder, then,
that children who have never heard of Noah or his ark can tell you all about
Jason and the Argonauts.
What differentiates the Greeks from other earlier civilizations is that they
not only gave us their wonderful narratives, but they also provided the elemen-
tary tools for interpreting them. We know that other civilizations, many of
them much older than the Greek, produced rich mythologies. Think of the
Hindus, the Sumerians and Akkadians, and the Egyptians, to name only
some. But their stories were left to speak for themselves—​or at least we have
no evidence to the contrary. If their tales were simply about heroic feats or the
love affairs of human beings, one might reasonably say that nothing more is
needed. But myths are often much more complex, as they introduce different
types of divine beings (e.g., gods, daimones, nature spirits) and describe the
interactions between these beings and humans. Moreover, myths are often
grouped into larger constellations that begin with the origin of the cosmos, the
creation of men and women, and descriptions of an earlier age when things
could happen that cannot happen now. For us, such claims immediately raise
problems of belief. For adults of our time, a horse named Pegasus was no more
able to fly than Santa’s reindeer. Both are fables fit for young children; they are
the stuff of the nursery.
3

introduction 3

Our earliest records of disbelief in hallowed stories come from the

sixth century b.c.e. There were two basic critiques of the stories: (1) Many
of them were unbelievable for rational human beings. (2) The traditional
tales misrepresent the true nature of the gods, as they depict them com-
mitting theft and adultery and all manner of deception; they also show
them shifting shapes and performing deeds contrary to their natures. On
the one hand, we see skeptical minds that are struck by the disconnect
between a transmitted story and one’s knowledge, based on human experi-
ence, of what is possible. On the other, we see developing a new concept of
what a god should be. Far from shunting the gods aside, the earliest Greek
critics of myths sought to incorporate the gods into a new paradigm: one
that allowed for the operation of the divine, but within the constraints of
reason and the laws of nature. For the pioneers of interpretation, myths
were false stories about the gods and heroes.
When we think of myths today, if we think of them as anything other than
fairy tales, fictions, or propaganda, we imagine them as stories that originated
in the distant past—​a phenomenon beyond the reach of historians. Most of
us do not think of them as coming from specific writers. Poetry and litera-
ture have authors; myth comes from somewhere else. Myths may belong to
racial memory, or may embody some universal truth. We know, for example,
that a primeval flood myth is not unique to the Book of Genesis. There is a
flood story that comes from Sumeria, is repeated in Akkadian literature, and
is later adapted by the compilers of Genesis. The Greeks also have a flood
story that Ovid recounts as the tale of Deucalion and Pyrrha. 4 It is perhaps
not surprising that these geographically connected cultures have a common
account of a cataclysm that preceded history. It is more surprising that similar
tales arise in North and South American mythology. One might explain all
this as caused by the common experience of mankind distributed throughout
the continents. The stories might have arisen from the destruction caused at
the end of the Ice Age when the glaciers covering much of the earth’s surface
began to melt. But there are other modern explanations. Tales of a destructive
catastrophe brought on by flooding could be rooted in a nightmare of the col-
lective unconscious.
Modern theories of the origins of myth appear to have originated in the
age of exploration. Christian missionaries of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, hoping to convert the “primitive peoples” whom their political mas-
ters were colonizing, began to collect and translate their stories. Classically
educated scholars quickly realized that a number of these “primitive tales”
bore an uncanny resemblance to the Greek and Roman myths with which
they were acquainted.5 From the German Romantics of the nineteenth century
came the insight that myth must be taken on its own terms and understood for
its unbreakable bond with the development of the human spirit.6 Meanwhile,
the idea of the connectedness of myth across cultures grew alongside the
4

4 introduction

development of the new science of anthropology, which focused on the nexus

between primitive religion (ritual) and myth.7
In contrast to modern thinking about myth, most ancient Greek inter-
preters associated myths with the poems that contained them. Myth mak-
ing was the business of poets. Homer and Hesiod, the earliest Greek poets
whose works have survived, were widely regarded as the authors of the stories.
Accordingly, they were blamed for deception—​foisting lies on unsuspecting
youth—​or praised for their wisdom. With some important exceptions, the
Greeks saw poets as the inventors of myth. At the start, the Greeks did not
possess the advantage we have of being able to gather myths from different
cultures and different ages and compare them. Had they been able to do this,
they would have realized that their own stories had much in common with
stories from neighboring cultures that were older than their own. Although
willing to attribute much of their wisdom to the Egyptians, the Greeks never
had an inkling that many of their myths were derived from the Middle East
and the Levant.8 We today see poets as shapers of stories that already existed,
and think of myths as having a life of their own. This was not the mainstream
view in ancient Greece. Poems and myths were inseparable; myths are false
stories; therefore, poets are liars. Solon, the famous lawgiver of Athens, was,
I believe, the first to make the accusation in the early sixth century b.c.e.
That poets were the inventors of myths and that they were liars were the
dominant views of the Greeks, not only at the beginning, but well into late
antiquity (down to the sixth century c.e.). However, alternative views were
advanced against both. Regarding the origins of myths, two very different
ideas came on stream. The earlier one came from the sophists of the later fifth
century b.c.e. Some believed that the earliest men lived under terrible condi-
tions, in constant need of food and shelter and protection against those who
were stronger. They argued that myth making reflected this primitive state—​
an idea that is strikingly akin to modern anthropological theories as well as
to Thomas Hobbes’s view of man’s early life as “nasty, brutish, and short.”
Stories about the gods arose collectively through fear or superstition, or from
need, or else were invented by early lawgivers in order to limit the excess of the
strong. In that view, the poets might be regarded as transmitters, rather than
inventors, of myths. Whether one belonged to the “enemies of poetry” group,
or to the more modern-​seeming social theorists, the conclusion about myths
was the same: they could not be taken literally.
An alternative view, developed in the fourth century b.c.e., also relates
the origin of myths to the origin of mankind. Against the idea that human
life advanced from misery to a more prosperous condition, it claimed that
the opposite was true. Ironically, it relied on a myth as its basis. The poet
Hesiod had depicted three quite different conditions of human life deriving
from the myth of initial blessedness: (1) in a “Golden Age” as Zeus’s first
humans; (2) under the benign rule of Zeus’s father, Kronos; or (3) initially
5

introduction 5

in close contact with the gods prior to an unfortunate rupture. Related to

this original happiness is the concept of original wisdom. In the begin-
ning the gods revealed an ancient wisdom containing truths about the cos-
mos and the nature of the divine. This truth was wrapped in myths. As
the myths were passed down through the generations they were corrupted.
The main agents of this corruption were the poets who distorted the divine
truths by inventing fictions about the gods and their actions. The poets still
bore responsibility in the process of myth making, but their contribution
was baneful. It was the job of the philosophers to see through their distor-
tions and reconstruct the ancient wisdom.9
Around the same time as the above theory was being developed, a
radical thesis claiming that the gods were originally men who had done
great deeds to benefit their communities was advanced in a fictional travel
account called Sacred Scripture. Its author was a certain Euhemerus, about
whom little is known. Euhemerus claimed that he learned on his voyage
that the gods were only men who were worshipped as gods after their death.
He reported that the deeds of Ouranos, Kronos, and Zeus were inscribed
on a golden column. Accordingly, myths are stories that arise from the cult
of heroes.
Finally, there is the theory that the ancient poets, not the gods, invented
the myths, but did not tell lies. Rather, they used myths to conceal the deep
cosmological and spiritual truths that were available to them. This “defense
of poetry” can be traced to an early date (sixth century b.c.e.), but was more
widely accepted in the centuries after Christ. In that view the poets were phi-
losophers who communicated deep truths in the form of fables. Thus, the
poets did not distort “the ancient wisdom,” but preserved it. Some adherents of
this idea thought that the poets deliberately concealed their truths so that they
would not be profaned by the masses, while leaving them accessible to those
with deep understanding.10
We might summarize these four theories of myth origins as follows:

I. Authorship Model
A. Poets as Liars
B. Poets as Sages
II. “Evolutionary” Model
A. Needs of Primitive Man
B. Cult of the Heroes
III. “Revelation” Model

In terms of chronology, the authorship model is the oldest, and begins with I.A.
It is also the most enduring of the models, with I.B becoming predominant in
the early Christian era. The “evolutionary” model is the child of the fifth cen-
tury b.c.e., a model that received new impetus from the theory of Euhemerus
6

6 introduction

in the third century. It fits well with the paradigm of physis (nature), as it sees
myth as a natural development appropriate to the challenging conditions of
the earliest humans. The Roman poet Lucretius, who also saw myths as aris-
ing out of the abject conditions of human origins, attributed ideas about gods
and their attributes to terrifying dreams.11 The “revelation” model that arose
in the following century might be understood as a reaction to the pessimistic
picture of the human condition sketched by the “evolutionists.” It is a good
fit for the paradigm of theos (god). In the fourth century three of the major
philosophical schools adopted some form of “creationism” (a broad general-
ization that include theories that god had either a direct or an indirect role in
the creation of the world and humans). Accordingly, a benevolent god or gods
revealed his wisdom to mankind in the form of myths at the beginning of
human existence.
The criticism and interpretation of myth was begun by the early cos-
mologists and philosophers and quickly became their monopoly. The think-
ers of the sixth and fifth centuries were interested primarily in cosmology
(the origin and makeup of the universe) and theology (the nature of god or
the divine). They were also very much concerned with the question of how
god was related to nature. The writings of the poets provided the catalysts for
analyzing these questions. As a result, the study of myth stayed focused on
the origins of things and their makeup. Myths were worth studying for what
they might potentially yield for understanding these big issues. As intellectual
interests broadened into the examination of human society and individual psy-
chology, it was again the philosophers who made them their property. When
philosophers in later antiquity undertook to classify myths, they treated them,
unsurprisingly, as types of philosophical fable. All this had a positive side: the
philosophers deserve much of the credit for saving myths from the attacks of
critics and censors by explaining them as disguised philosophy.12 This defense
proved to be especially valuable in the early Christian and medieval eras.
The natural philosophers were followed by the earliest historians. Some
of these, like Hecataeus, also pursued mathematical and philosophical inter-
ests. (In the history of Greek thought, multidisciplinarity preceded specializa-
tion.) The historians, too, were imbued with the spirit of Greek skepticism
and regarded many popular beliefs as foolish. When they analyzed accounts of
the deeds of great heroes, or the interactions of gods and men, they invariably
posed the question of whether what was described was possible according to
natural criteria. Because humans could do only what was humanly possible,
and gods could do only what conformed to nature, many stories were declared
to be unbelievable.13
The Greeks knew what myths were, but they had no single word for
“myth.” The closest to it was muthos (the origin of our word “myth”). However,
Greek muthos had far too many meanings to be useful as a descriptor of what
we mean by “myth” in the general sense. It could mean any kind of talk or
7

introduction 7

conversation, the subject matter of a conversation, design or purpose, and, of

course, a story. Thus it was no more useful than logos, which had a similar,
perhaps even broader, range of meanings. A third term, plasma, was also used
to indicate clearly that a story was contrived, i.e., fictitious.
The Greeks were also late in developing narrative theory. They devel-
oped a sophisticated terminology for distinguishing genres of literature (epic,
lyric, tragedy, comedy, etc.), but took little or no interest in distinguishing one
kind of story from another. The earliest writers on myth did not distinguish
between a set allegory within an epic, an Aesopian fable, or a philosophical
myth composed to illustrate a philosophical doctrine. These distinctions had
to await the early fifth century c.e., when Macrobius, a philosopher and literary
theorist, addressing the question of the value of myths for teaching philoso-
phy, proposed a division of fable into the following: (1) stories filled with the
imaginary doings of lovers (comic plays and novels or “romances”); (2a) ficti-
tious tales such as the stories of Aesop that call the reader’s attention to kinds
of virtue; (2b) the fabulous narrative (narratio fabulosa), which under a cover
of fiction contains real truth. His examples of the last (and best) type include
stories of the gods by Hesiod and Orpheus,14 and the mystical teachings of
the Pythagoreans.15 All is directed to the usefulness of myth for philosophy
without any serious examination of the narrative structure of the different
types of story.
The above may help to explain why the Greeks did not consider myth a
category of thought that could be investigated. Although they were very inter-
ested in the origin and meaning of myths, they never asked the basic ques-
tion, “What is myth?” Moderns have asked this question many times, but no
answer has appeared yet that is to everyone’s satisfaction. Moderns have also
tried to differentiate myth from such categories as religion and literature; such
attempts were rare among Greek thinkers. Moderns also ask, “How does myth
function in particular societies?”16 —​another question that did not occur to the
Greeks, except to those who saw myths as instruments of social control. And
while some Greeks were aware of religious and cultural similarities and dif-
ferences between themselves and other peoples, they rarely noted similarities
between stories. They might have observed, for instance, the close narrative
similarities between the doings of Hercules and the biblical Samson, had they
been interested in the stories of their neighbors.17 However, they did question
their own myths and they did interpret them.
We do not mean to claim that the Greeks were the first people on the planet
to question or disbelieve their myths. It is hard to think that the Babylonian
astronomers who could plot the course of the planets and divide the circle into
360 degrees believed that humans were created out of the carcass of a mon-
ster slain by a god, as claimed in the “Babylonian Creation Story.” It is just as
difficult to think that the Egyptian architects, who knew enough geometry to
create the enormous pyramids that stand to this day, believed that Isis literally
8

8 introduction

gathered the body bits of the dismembered Osiris, put them back together,
and restored him to life. There were doubtless always those who disbelieved
myths, even those that were part of a people’s most sacred tenets of faith. Yet
if these moments of disbelief were ever recorded, the documents have been
lost. So much (too much) history is based on the fate of books. We should
keep in mind that the Greeks learned much from the surrounding peoples
whose civilizations were much older. They adapted the alphabet invented by
the Phoenicians. They must surely have learned some geometry from the
Egyptians, even if we have only the writings of Pythagoras and Euclid. The
same would apply to the Babylonians as a source for Greek astronomy, even
though we must depend on Hipparchus and Ptolemy for our knowledge of
ancient astronomy. But if they learned skepticism from their neighbors, no
document has surfaced to prove it.
Given this gap in our knowledge, we must rely on the Greeks to teach
us about the earliest questioning of traditional myths, and more importantly,
about how they found ways of understanding them so that they accorded with
new hypotheses about the cosmos. Because the Greeks experienced a long
period of illiteracy after the Mycenaean Age, we know next to nothing about
their ways of thinking about myth until the appearance of written versions
of Homer and Hesiod in the sixth century b.c.e. This is not to suggest that
literature did not exist in oral form in “Dark Age” Greece before writing was
rediscovered, probably in the eighth century c.e. Indeed, a great deal of work
has been done on the oral composition and oral transmission of literature.18
We even have evidence for oral interpretation of Homer’s poems from Plato’s
dialogue Ion.19 Unfortunately, Plato does not allow Ion to speak his interpreta-
tions of Homer, so we have no idea what they were like.
For all practical purposes, poetry and criticism appeared almost simulta-
neously in written form. At that point, the criticism and interpretation of liter-
ature became a public matter. Critiques were written and shared and became
part of the public domain. A writer could relay his thoughts on a poet’s teach-
ing from his home in, say, Ephesus (western Turkey) to a friend in Sicily or
southern Italy. A common language, literacy, and navigation made the sharing
of ideas a real possibility in the far-​flung colonies of the Greeks. But written
communication was not simply a private matter between friends. The spread
of literacy soon led to the notion of publication: making one’s views public and
accepting the consequences.
The beginnings of public criticism occurred roughly at the same time as
the earliest authoritative texts came to be in a fixed written form. This may be
pure coincidence, since the earliest expressions of critical opinion are couched
in very general terms and might be based on oral reception. Yet it is interest-
ing that the works of Homer were published in versions commissioned by
political authority at about the same time as the earliest attacks on Homer’s
veracity and moral values were issued. Pisistratus, the tyrant of Athens, who
9

introduction 9

ruled between 560 and 527 b.c.e., is credited with the role of patron of an
“edition,” which was doubtless already far removed from the “original.” Also
around the middle of the sixth century or not much later, Xenophanes of
Colophon and Pythagoras of Samos, whom we shall meet later in this book,
issued their attacks on Homer and Hesiod. Only a short time later Theagenes
of Rhegium rose to Homer’s defence by proposing that his works be inter-
preted allegorically.
We know virtually nothing about conditions surrounding freedom of
expression in the different parts of Greece in the sixth century. We have no
evidence of the “heresy trials,” i.e., the charges of atheism or impiety that were
fairly common in Athens in the fifth and fourth centuries b.c.e. However, the
fact that a critic of the poets such as Pythagoras left his respective homeland
points to the possibility that he incurred public disfavor, if not official censure.
The two events, of course, may not have been connected. It is just as likely he
was attracted by patronage offered by the rulers of the southern Italian town to
which he migrated. We shall probably never know for certain. What is certain
is that public criticism of the most authoritative texts of ancient Greece was
under way.
The initial attacks on the early poets were harsh. However, because the
works of Homer and Hesiod had long been known (Homer doubtless in oral
form) and were regarded by many as foundational, a poets’ defense league
quickly sprouted up. There was simply too much at stake to allow them to be
discarded. Hesiod was respected for his attempts at explaining the origins of
the cosmos, and Homer’s saga of the Trojan War and its aftermath constituted
all that the Greeks had that could tell them about their early history. The poets
had to be saved at all costs.
The main objective of practically all Greek critics was to determine whether
a work or part of a work was true or not. (This was thought of as completely
different from determining whether a work of literature was beautiful or not—​
that was the business of grammarians and rhetoricians.) Interpretation in
antiquity took various forms, but its chief aim remained constant: to establish
the truth of a text. If a myth or group of myths could not be certified as literally
true, that is, if the events they mention could not have happened as described,
then could they be true in some other way? The question opened doors for
several kinds of speculation, and the solutions given depended on the kinds
of study in which critics were engaged (we cannot yet refer to these studies
as disciplines). The early cosmologists looked for hidden messages regarding
the origins of the universe; philosophers looked for teachings about the divine
or about the soul; historians looked for “kernels of truth” regarding the past.
Practically all resorted to nonliteral interpretations of the poems.
Interpretations also shifted with the times. In the nearly two centuries
before Plato, thinkers concentrated on nature (physis). What were things made
of? Was there a single primary substance that explained everything, or were
10

10 introduction

there several? How did the universe come into being? Was it always there, and
will it always be, or did it have a specific origin, and if so, was it made by a god
(theos)? While there was much disagreement about the primary stuff of being,
there was a general consensus about the origin of the universe. It was always
there (because nothing can come from nothing), and it always will be. It was
not made by any god, though god or gods could play a role in its governance—​
at least for some thinkers. I refer to this in later chapters as “the paradigm of
physis.” Homer and Hesiod (and any other poetic voice) had to be made to fit
into this paradigm.
In the fourth century, theism emerged as the dominant theme of philoso-
phy and cosmology. It is unmistakable in Plato’s late work Timaeus, Aristotle’s
Metaphysics, and the earliest writings of the Stoic School, which arose around
300 b.c.e.. The gods, or God, were rescued from their servitude to physis.
They were now able to create, regulate, and animate the universe. Here we
witness a major paradigmatic shift from nature to god, from physis to theos. In
one particular, Aristotle was the most revolutionary of all the theists. Unlike
Plato and the Stoics, whose theological language vacillated between “god” and
“gods,” Aristotle spoke of a single God who set the cosmos in motion. But
Plato was the real game changer. Although previous thinkers may have hinted
at an immaterial substance (i.e., something that exists that contains no mat-
ter), Plato posited an entire world that can be known by the mind alone, and
it exists not just in the mind but also in reality. It is eternal and unchang-
ing, standing in contrast to the changing insubstantial world of matter that is
always in flux. Similarly, humans are composed of two disparate things: mat-
ter, which is the stuff our bodies are made of, and some kind of nonmaterial
essence, from which our souls are made. All things material are born, grow,
die, and decay. But whatever is made of the stuff of souls is eternal. Our indi-
vidual souls always were and always will be, even though our bodies perish
and decay. While the importance of this idea to the development of Christian
theology is obvious, its relevance to the history of interpretation was also great,
as we shall see.
In this book we begin and end with the methods of the ancient Greeks for
interpreting their own myths. The details of these methods and their develop-
ment will be explored fully in the following chapters. However, if the meth-
ods devised had had no other application than to ancient literature, ancient
exegesis (a Greek term for “interpretation”) would be of significance today
mainly to students of literary theory. What gives the methods much greater
importance is that Greek ways of understanding Homer and Hesiod’s myths
were adopted first by Jews, then Christians, and applied to the interpretation
of the Sacred Scriptures. They were incorporated into books on “How to Read
the Bible” by the Jewish philosopher Philo and by Christian thinkers such as
Origen and Augustine. The tradition of reading the Bible with an eye to more
than one layer of meaning became firmly embedded in the scriptural exegesis
11

introduction 11

embraced by Christians in antiquity and transmitted to the Western Middle

Ages, surviving to the Reformation and well beyond.
A double benefit resulted from this appropriation. First, Holy Writ was
spared the deadening hand of literalism. From the earliest times the Christian
fathers realized that there were many passages in scripture that could be taken
literally only at the expense of reason. They sought for figurative meanings in
these passages and encouraged others to do so. Biblical texts were seen as mul-
tilayered, with meaning to be found on several levels. This is not to argue that
there were no literalists among ancient and medieval biblical exegetes, or that
there was no one who insisted on conserving the letter of the text while allow-
ing other interpretations. But we have to thank Philo and Origen, who learned
their exegesis from the pagan Greeks, for preventing Christianity from becom-
ing “a religion of the book” in the oppressive sense of that term. Whatever the
source of the biblical literalism that flourishes in parts of America today, its
roots are not to be found in the early Christian centuries, or in the Catholic
Middle Ages.
The continuity of ancient interpretative methods brought a second boon
to the world of letters. When the pagan classics came under challenge in some
quarters during the Middle Ages, ways of interpreting them figuratively were
revived and used in the West for defending the secular books written in Latin.
These defenses were only occasionally needed for pagan philosophical works,
but were often vital for the poems that preserved the pagan myths—​especially
myths of an erotic nature. Although many of these interpretations strike us
today as naive, we are as much in debt to the commentators as we are to the
scribes who copied out the poems. These interpreters played a crucial role in
preserving the pagan classics that we have today.
In presenting my study of the origins and growth of the public interpreta-
tion of myth, I have deliberately avoided a schematic approach. Although I try to
describe the kinds of mental operations involved in the different ways of under-
standing myths, I am conscious of both their ambiguity and their interrelated-
ness. I am also aware that readers who know very little about classical culture, or
are just beginning their studies, require context. Accordingly, the chapters follow
a rough chronology as far as possible. I have also included chapters (or sections
thereof) on the poems of Homer and Hesiod, ideas of authority and inspiration,
changing notions about nature and god, modes of belief and skepticism, the link
between poetry and myth, theories about the origin of myths, the interrelation-
ship among modes of interpretation, and the influence of these modes on Jewish
and early Christian thought. Out of these various themes I have tried to create
a narrative that binds the leitmotiv of interpretation with the themes of Greek
literature, religion, and philosophy. My hope is that readers will appreciate the
importance of these early public experiments in the interpretation of authori-
tative texts, and understand how they contributed to the making of the open
intellectual climate in which we are fortunate to live.
12
Another random document with
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of The books of
Chronicles
 This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United
States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away
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laws of the country where you are located before using this
eBook.

Title: The books of Chronicles

With maps, notes and introduction

Author: W. A. L. Elmslie

Editor: A. F. Kirkpatrick

Release date: October 5, 2023 [eBook #71811]

Language: English

Original publication: Cambridge: University Press, 1916

Credits: Richard Hulse, MFR and the Online Distributed

Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file
was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOOKS

OF CHRONICLES ***
The Books of Chronicles

Transcriber’s Notes
The cover image was provided by the transcriber and is placed
in the public domain.

Punctuation has been standardized.

Most of the non-common abbreviations used to save space in

printing have been expanded to the non-abbreviated form
for easier reading.

This book was written in a period when many words had not
become standardized in their spelling. Words may have
multiple spelling variations or inconsistent hyphenation in
the text. These have been left unchanged unless indicated
with a Transcriber’s Note.

Index references have not been checked for accuracy.

The symbol ‘‡’ indicates the description in parenthesis has

been added to an illustration. This may be needed if there is
no caption or if the caption does not describe the image
adequately.

Footnotes are identified in the text with a superscript number

and are shown immediately below the paragraph in which
they appear.
 THE CAMBRIDGE
BIBLE FOR SCHOOLS
AND COLLEGES
General Editor for the Old Testament:⁠—

A. F. KIRKPATRICK, D.D.
DEAN OF ELY

THE BOOKS OF
CHRONICLES
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

C. F. CLAY, Manager

London: FETTER LANE, E.C.

 Edinburgh: 100 PRINCES STREET

New York: G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

Bombay, Calcutta and Madras: MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd.

Toronto: J. M. DENT AND SONS, Ltd.

Tokyo: THE MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA

All rights reserved

THE BOOKS OF
CHRONICLES
With Maps, Notes and Introduction
by

W. A. L. ELMSLIE, M.A.
Fellow of Christ’s College, Cambridge
 Cambridge:
at the University Press
1916
First Edition 1899
Second Edition 1916

PREFACE
BY THE
GENERAL EDITOR FOR THE
OLD TESTAMENT
The present General Editor for the Old Testament
in the Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
desires to say that, in accordance with the policy of
his predecessor the Bishop of Worcester, he does
not hold himself responsible for the particular
interpretations adopted or for the opinions expressed
by the editors of the several Books, nor has he
endeavoured to bring them into agreement with one
another. It is inevitable that there should be
differences of opinion in regard to many questions of
criticism and interpretation, and it seems best that
these differences should find free expression in
different volumes. He has endeavoured to secure, as
far as possible, that the general scope and character
of the series should be observed, and that views
which have a reasonable claim to consideration
should not be ignored, but he has felt it best that the
final responsibility should, in general, rest with the
individual contributors.

A. F. KIRKPATRICK.
Cambridge.

Stand ye still and see the salvation of the Lord with you,
O Judah and Jerusalem.

2 Chronicles xx. 17.

CONTENTS
I. Introduction
§ 1. Characteristics of Ancient Historical Writings
§ 2. Relation to Ezra and Nehemiah
§ 3. Date and Authorship
§ 4. Contents
§ 5. The Sources
 § 6. The Purpose and Method of the Chronicler
§ 7. The Historical Value of Chronicles
§ 8. The Religious Value of Chronicles
§ 9. Name and Position in the Canon
§ 10. Text and Versions of Chronicles
§ 11. Literature

II. Text and Notes

Index
Maps
Western Asia (Early Times)
Palestine
The Environs of Jerusalem
Jerusalem (Ancient)

PREFATORY NOTE
The author desires to acknowledge with gratitude
his indebtedness to Mr S. A. Cook for his kindness in
reading the first proofs and in making many most
valuable suggestions and criticisms, and to the
General Editor of the Series, the Dean of Ely, for his
very helpful revision of the proofs. His obligation to
Professor W. E. Barnes is referred to on p. lx.
 W. A. L. E.

INTRODUCTION

§ 1: Characteristics of Ancient
Historical Writings
Until recent times the study of the historical records of Israel and
of other nations of antiquity has suffered from insufficient recognition
of the principles and procedure of ancient historians. It is obvious
that a great contrast exists between any modern historical work and
those books of the Old Testament which relate the fortunes of Israel;
and unless there is a clear perception of the main facts to which this
contrast is due, the nature and value of the Books of Chronicles
cannot readily be understood and certainly will not be properly
appreciated. It is desirable therefore to deal with this matter at the
outset, before proceeding to consider the special characteristics of
Chronicles.

(1) Standpoint. According to the modern point of view, a perfect

history would seem to be a complete and impartial statement of
events. This ideal is unattainable, for even the fullest account must
fall far short of the richness of actual life. Moreover, it is imperative
that the trivial be distinguished from the important, and the facts be
presented according to their relative values. A historian is therefore
necessary to arrange the material so that the events are seen in their
proper relationship. Thereby, however, a subjective element is
introduced into our histories. Life is so complex that two men
considering the same facts may reach very different conclusions
concerning them. We cannot wholly escape this danger, but we do
claim that the historian shall consciously seek to present the truth
and nothing but the truth. He must not deliberately suppress or
distort facts to favour (say) the Protestant or the Roman Catholic
view of the Reformation. A modern historian may be convinced that
sin leads to disaster, but he must not therefore write that a certain
wicked monarch perished dethroned and in misery, if he knows that
he died peacefully in his royal bed. If he wishes to enforce the
doctrine that “the wages of sin is death,” either he may turn to history
and select incidents which support that view, or he may invent
characters and weave them into a tale which points his moral, or he
may discuss the belief generally; but he ought not to publish as
serious history a work in which, irrespective of facts, every wicked
king is punished or involves his land in ruin. We should count such a
work an illegitimate use of historical material, unless the author gave
some clear indication of its real nature. We draw a sharp distinction
between history and fiction, and in the serious historian we demand
fidelity to the truth as he sees it.

This modern standpoint is in reality the outcome of that more

scientific habit of mind which insists above all things on accurate
observation of phenomena and on the subordination of theory to
fact. But the duty of scientific thinking has not so very long been
recognised by the human mind, and in former days many things
were legitimate and natural which would not be so now. The moment
we make allowance for our mental environment, we can conceive
that there might be other ideas than our own as to what constitutes
the use and abuse of historical records. To us the facts are primary,
and the lessons they seem to teach must be accepted, whether they
suit our wishes or not. But an ancient writer was not dominated by
that maxim. Supposing he desired to teach that “Virtue is rewarded,”
he might consider that an excellent way of enforcing his theory was
not only to use the narratives of the past, but to mould and modify
them as best suited his object. History might be made the tool of his
conviction, and the tool be shaped to assist his purpose. If it is hard
for us to realise that such a procedure was legitimate for him, that is
simply due to the difficulty we have in being anything except the
children of our own age.

The earliest historical records of Israel were not attempts to write

a continuous history of the people, but popular tales and songs
commemorating such deeds of the people or its heroes as had made
a profound impression on the popular imagination. An excellent
example is the famous Song of Deborah in Judges v. Records of this
type were long transmitted orally, but eventually were gathered
together into written collections, such as the Book of Jashar, referred
to by the canonical writers (see Joshua x. 13, 2 Samuel i. 18). As
national history lengthened out and State records accumulated in
connection with palace and temple, the idea would finally arise of
combining these with the popular memories so as to form a
connected historical narrative. But the motive which prompted the
formation of such accounts was not scientific interest nor even
perhaps curiosity to ascertain the exact course of events, but the
desire to interest, to instruct, and above all to edify contemporary
thought and life. Broadly, we may distinguish two types of ancient
historical writing; first, the descriptive narrative in which events were
recorded on account of their intense human interest, and, secondly,
the didactic, where the older descriptive tales and any other
available material were selected, related, and built into a unity in
such fashion as might best serve to bring out the religious, moral, or
political lessons which they seem to teach or which the writer was
anxious to impress upon his generation. The books of Samuel‒Kings
and of Chronicles both belong to the didactic type ¹. Thus, they
contain many stories (e.g. the details of Jehu’s revolution in Kings)
which teach no special lesson but are recorded for their intrinsic
interest; and also much annalistic record of fact. But this material has
been welded together by a writer or writers who were supremely
interested in the religious condition of their people, who believed that
the character and purpose of God were manifest in the vicissitudes
of their national history, and who desired to make the ethical and
spiritual import of that history clear to their fellow-men. Hence in their
present form their works are not scientific records but rather what
may be termed “history with a motive.” For instance, the space given
to the tales about Elisha the prophet compared with the brief allusion
to Omri King of Israel is entirely disproportionate to their respective
values in the political sphere. The books of Samuel and Kings are
practical and powerful appeals to history in the interests of religious
faith. The same is true of Chronicles, and to an even greater degree,
because Chronicles belongs to a later period than Samuel‒Kings
(see § 3), when the religious convictions of Israel were felt with
extraordinary intensity, and could be expressed in accordance with
certain precise theological beliefs.

¹ That both Samuel‒Kings and Chronicles can be classed as

didactic does not imply that they do not differ greatly in
character: the former books are “prophetic” and national,
relating God’s dealings with the nation as a whole, whilst
Chronicles gives an essentially priestly and ecclesiastical
view of the history.

(2) Method: the treatment of “sources.” It is of no less importance

to realise something of the difference of method between ancient
and modern historians, particularly as regards their treatment of
“sources.”

For all that lies beyond his personal experience the historian is, of
course, dependent on sources, documentary or otherwise. The
modern writer recognises the duty of testing and verifying the
accuracy of the sources he uses for his narrative, and in producing
his own account of affairs he is expected, where desirable, to state
the sources upon which he has relied. The ancient historian also
made use of sources, but (1) he used them uncritically, with little or
no anxiety concerning their accuracy, and (2) it was his custom
simply to select from the available material any passages, long or
short, even words or phrases, which served his purpose, and to
incorporate these in his work, frequently without any indication of the
borrowing. Only in certain instances was the source precisely
referred to. Moreover (3) the utmost freedom was exercised in
dealing with the passages thus chosen. Sometimes they were
reproduced word for word; at other times they were partially or
wholly transformed to suit the new context. This may seem an
unwarrantable procedure to us, but one has only to examine the
actual instances of these adaptations or transformations of unnamed
sources to perceive that the ancient ¹ writer has acted in perfect good
faith, with no suspicion that the manipulation was in any way
blameworthy. How indeed could it have been otherwise? The
science of literary criticism was unknown, “notions of literary
propriety and plagiarism had not been thought of, and writers who
advanced no pretensions to originality for themselves were guilty of
no imposture when they borrowed without acknowledgement from
their predecessors” (Skinner, Kings, p. 7).

¹ Nor need one go back to antiquity for an instance. Most

instructive examples of composite narrative compiled
uncritically but quite innocently by mediaeval chroniclers from
earlier sources may be found in Chapman’s Introduction to
the Pentateuch (in this series), pp. 260 ff. Compare also an
illustration from Arabic historical writings given by A. A. Bevan
in Cambridge Biblical Essays, pp. 12 ff.

For us there is both gain and loss in these methods of the ancient
writers, (a) Loss—because the continual adaptation of old tradition
has sometimes produced changes so great that it is difficult or even
impossible to discover now what was the actual course of events. By
the exercise of care and by the diligent application of the principles
of literary research the loss thus occasioned can be greatly
diminished, particularly where different accounts of the same period
have survived—e.g. in the parallel history of Judah in Samuel‒Kings
and in Chronicles. Not only do the two versions facilitate the task of
recovering the actual history, but each version throws light upon the
origin and nature of the other. (b) On the other hand, the practice of
incorporating passages of older narratives in the text is a great gain.
It is, of course, unfortunate that the writers did not more carefully
indicate the various sources they happened to be using; but
constantly—thanks to idiosyncrasies of style, language, and thought
—we are able to analyse the composite whole into its component
parts. From the study of the separate sources thus revealed we gain
invaluable information which would have been lost to us had the later
writer (or rather, compiler and editor) given his version of the history
entirely in his own words.

(3) The absence of the idea of Development. One other feature of

the ancient writers, at least of the chroniclers of Israel, is of singular
interest, and deserves special attention: it might be described as a
feature of their temperament or of their mental environment. The
idea of growth has become familiar to us, and we recognise that
there has been a process of development in our religious and social
institutions. We are content to trace the seeds of the present in the
past. But the feeling of antiquity was apparently different. In Israel, at
least, there was a tendency to suppose that the cherished system
and organisations of the present had sprung into existence, as it
were, full-grown at some great moment of the past. For example, by
the Chronicler’s time, the whole body of law and ritual embodied in
the final form of the Pentateuch had come to be ascribed in its
entirety to Moses, whereas historical and literary evidence
demonstrates beyond all question that the system of Jewish worship
and law was a gradual growth of which the stages can be traced with
considerable clearness. Similarly, many features in the organisation
of the Temple ministrants—the Priests, Levites, etc.—came into
existence only in post-exilic days; but the whole system as it
appeared in the Chronicler’s time was believed by him, and
doubtless also by his contemporaries, to have originated with King
David. Indeed, it is very probable that the ancients felt it so natural
and so necessary to justify important customs and institutions by
giving them the sanction of an ancient and honourable origin, that
occasionally the very ideals of the present were represented as facts
of the past. The converse of this tendency was also in force. As the
present sought the support of the authority of the past, so the past
could only continue to be deemed important provided it conformed to
some extent with the beliefs and ideals of the present. Ideas change
and expand. Thus it was quite impossible in the Chronicler’s time to
represent the age of David and Solomon as great and glorious
unless the moderate figures given in Kings were altered to
correspond with the ideas of men accustomed to think of the mighty
armies of the Persian monarchs or of Alexander the Great. As
Kuenen says, “In ancient times, and specifically in Israel, the sense
of historic continuity could only be preserved by the constant
compliance on the part of the past with the requirements of the
present, that is to say by the constant renovation and transformation
of the past. This may be called the Law of religious historiography”
(The Modern Review, vol. i. [1880], p. 705).

One consequence of the first importance follows from this fact.

An ancient historical writing often records unconsciously far more
than the history of the period it purports to describe. Since much in it
which is ascribed to a past age in reality reflects the conditions of the
present, it follows that the work as a whole may be an invaluable
commentary on the author’s own period. By taking into account this
law of religious historiography, by studying the writer’s method of
compilation, his use and manipulation of sources and the additions
he has himself made to the story, we shall find in the completed book
a mirror of the thoughts, the ideals, and the conditions of the age
when it was produced.

Justification for these remarks can be drawn not only from the
writings of the Old Testament but also from the study of ancient
literature in general. Nowhere, however, are the principles and
characteristics which we have outlined more clearly exemplified than
in the books of Chronicles. They are the key to the comprehension of
Chronicles; and, if they are borne in mind, what is generally
considered a somewhat dull book of the Bible will be seen to be one
of the most instructive pieces of ancient literature. At the same time,
we shall be in a position to perceive and appreciate the religious
enthusiasm which animated the Chronicler.

§ 2. Relation to Ezra and Nehemiah

 It is well known that the books of Ezra and Nehemiah were
originally one book; but further it is certain that Chronicles has been
artificially separated from them, and that the three books,
Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah, were once a continuous work. The
reasons upon which this conclusion is based are as follows:

(1) The ending of Chronicles and the beginning of Ezra are the
same (2 Chronicles xxxvi. 22 f. = Ezra i. 1‒3a), i.e. after the
separation was made between Chronicles and Ezra‒Nehemiah the
opening verses of Ezra (recording the proclamation of Cyrus
permitting the Jews to return) were retained, or perhaps one should
say, were added by someone who was aware of the original
continuity of Chronicles with Ezra‒Nehemiah and who was anxious
that Chronicles should end in a hopeful strain (see note on 2
Chronicles xxxvi. 23). The desirability of securing a hopeful
conclusion is much more obvious in the Hebrew than in the English
Bible, for, whereas in the English order Ezra immediately follows
Chronicles, in the Hebrew Canon Ezra and Nehemiah are made to
precede Chronicles, and Chronicles is actually the last book of the
Hebrew Bible. (On the reason for this order in the Hebrew, and
generally on the separation of Chronicles from Ezra‒Nehemiah, see
§ 9, Position in the Canon, ad fin.)

(2) The same general standpoint and the same special interests
are found both in Chronicles and Ezra‒Nehemiah to a remarkable
degree. In particular, attention may be called to the following points:

(a) The same fondness for lists and genealogies is shown in

both works; compare e.g. 1 Chronicles xii. with Ezra ii. or
Nehemiah iii.; and 2 Chronicles xxxi. 16‒19 with Nehemiah
vii. 63‒65.

(b) The same intense interest in religious festivals and

institutions; compare 1 Chronicles xv., xvi.; 2 Chronicles v.‒
vii., xxix., xxx., xxxv. 1‒19, with Ezra iii., vi. 16‒22; Nehemiah
viii.
 (c) Three classes of Temple attendants, viz. Levites, singers,
and porters, which are barely mentioned in the rest of the Old
Testament, receive a great deal of notice both in Chronicles
and in Ezra‒Nehemiah.

(3) The same style and diction are found in both works (excepting
of course in such sentences and passages as are transcribed from
older sources). Characteristic phrases are the following:

(a) “Fathers’ houses”; compare 1 Chronicles vii. 2, note.

(b) “The house of God,” very frequently in Chronicles‒Ezra‒

Nehemiah in place of the usual “house of the Lord”
(Jehovah). With this compare the avoidance of the use of the
name Jehovah (Jahveh) in such places as 2 Chronicles xvii. 4
(compare Authorized Version with Revised Version), xx. 12,
30; Ezra viii. 18, 21.

(c) “genealogy” (“reckon by genealogy”); compare 1 Chronicles

v. 17, note; Ezra ii. 62.

(d) “to oversee”; 1 Chronicles xxiii. 4; 2 Chronicles ii. 2 [ii. 1

Hebrew]; Ezra iii. 8 (Revised Version “to have the oversight”).

(e) “willingly offer”; 1 Chronicles xxix. 14; Ezra i. 6.

These are merely a few instances out of very many which might
be given. This similarity of style and language is far more striking in
the Hebrew (compare § 3, C, and for full particulars the long list in
Curtis, Chronicles, pp. 27 ff.).

When fully stated, the evidence indicated under (2) and (3) above
is of a convincing character, and the conclusion that Chronicles‒
Ezra‒Nehemiah were at one time a single work should be
unhesitatingly adopted.
 § 3. Date and Authorship
(1) Date and Unity. The scope of our inquiry in this section
requires to be defined with some care. In dealing with any work
which is chiefly a compilation of older material, it is necessary clearly
to distinguish between the dates of the various sources which can be
recognised or surmised and the dates of the writer or writers who
have effected the compilation. When we examine the structure of
Chronicles its composite nature is at once evident. Many long and
important passages have been taken, with or without adaptation,
directly from the existing books of Scripture. The date of all such
passages, of course, falls to be considered in the commentaries on
Samuel or Kings or wherever their original setting may be. The
remainder of Chronicles presents an intricate but interesting
problem. It has been held that there are no sources involved in this
remaining portion but that the whole is the free composition of the
writer who quoted or adapted the passages from earlier books of
Scripture referred to above. According to the view taken in this
volume, sources other than these “canonical” books were utilised in
the formation of Chronicles, although for reasons suggested in § 5
(q.v., pp. xxxvi f.) such sources are not easy to distinguish from the
work of the compiler himself. The little which can be said regarding
the origin and history of these supposed sources may conveniently
be reserved for the section dealing with the Sources (§ 5). The
question, therefore, which is before us in this section is the date of
the editorial process to which we owe the present form of Chronicles.
Fortunately the answer is simplified by one important fact, namely
the remarkable homogeneity of Chronicles‒Ezra‒Nehemiah. To such
a degree are these books characterised by unity of style, vocabulary,
standpoint and purpose (see below; also § 2 and § 6), that we may
safely conclude they are essentially the product of one mind: they
have reached substantially their present form in the course of a