in intellectuality and moral concepts and a decided advance in the interest displayed in behalf of the Jahve-religion. In this period such men as Gad, Nathan, Elijah and Elisha stand out preeminently as the national prophets who had risen above the level of the earlier natural prophets. These were zealous for Jahve, the national God of Israel, and were violent at times and even reckless in their opposition to everything that detracted from the superiority of Israel's religion and God. For this reason they bitterly opposed witchcraft, magic, necromancy and all forms of divination that were so plainly of foreign origin. Israel had brought into Canaan the seed of an ethical religion in that they had voluntarily, as no other nation had done, accepted Jahve at Mt. Sinai as their national God,1 because he had brought them out of the land of slavery. It was this ethical seed that now took root and grew through the help of the prophets. These prophets, it could easily be shown were closely related to the prophets of the early period and as closely to those of the later period. In the third period Hebrew prophecy becomes with Amos, as many writers have shown, a unique phenomenon. Amos flowered forth into a prophet-genius, and the genius is always in a sense unique. Israel's sons, prince and pauper alike, had become conscious, perhaps through the work of the former prophets, that they must serve Jahve, but this service was still a service of sacrifice and rite. Faults Israel had, but sacrifices would atone for them; besides, Jahve could not be too severe and destroy totally, for he was Israel's God only, and by destroying Israel he would destroy his own field of activity and hence be no God at all. For, thought Israel, as little as a king can be sovereign without subjects, so little can Jahve be God without worshippers. Amos, with true prophetic 1Budde, Karl: “Religion of Israel to the Exile," New York, Putnam, 1898 (Amer. Lect. on Religions). genius, saw that Jahve was God of the whole earth who rules nations with equal justice. Israel was no favorite in the sense of being permitted to disobey His laws. Jahve had punished Damascus and Gaza, Tyre and Edom, Ammon and Moab, each one for the transgression of some moral laws, therefore He will punish Judah and Israel for any transgression of moral law. In other words, a history of prophetism would show that with Amos, as the first prophetic genius, the prophet saw, what no one else as yet saw, that Jahve was a God of the whole earth, one who rules all alike in justice. The prophet seasoned this justice with other qualities of love and mercy, emphasizing always the universality and the ethical or moral nature of Jahve. Recognizing with all the power of their prophetic genius that Jahve is a being whose nature is moral, the prophets devoted themselves with all the heroic passions of their great souls to the various departments of human conduct, state, society and religion, to the end that all these departments of human life especially in Israel shall be lived in accordance with the laws of justice and righteousness, in harmony with Jahve's nature. God cannot be influenced through sacrifice to guard Israel from misfortune, rather must Israel change his mode of life that no misfortune befall him. Hence a history of prophecy would show that as these profound views of life had never before been uttered with such clearness, force and single-minded purpose the prophets were in every sense unique; unique, however, only in this sense that they excelled, as all genius excels, in what others vainly tried; unique in the sense in which the Indian jugglers and the Greek sculptors and philosophers are unique. It would appear that the Hebrew prophets were the perfected embodiments of the Hebrew genius, that is, they were the political, economic, social and religious geniuses of Israel all in one. CHAPTER III THE DISTINCTIVE CHARACTERISTICS OF PROPHETIC FROM the above outline of the history of prophecy it is not yet clear what are the distinctive characteristics of the prophetic genius, in what way the psychology of prophecy differs from a psychology of any other political, religious or other species of genius. Neither has this been elucidated in the chapter on "What Kind of Genius Is the Prophet?" nor in any of the chapters or sections of Part I of this thesis. These distinctive characteristics of the prophet, the things that mark off the prophet from other professions and geniuses, have not been overlooked, but intentionally ignored, because the object of all that has thus far been said was to get the prophet's orientation, to emphasize not wherein the prophet differs from, but wherein he is at one with, kindred spirits. It has been admitted that a soul of truth is found in all the popular views of prophecy. It has also been shown and emphasized that the prophet cannot be explained on any theory of miracles or supernaturalism, and finally the close relation of the priests, the diviner and the poet to the prophet has been pointed out, and the prophet has been placed in the category of genius, somewhere among the poetical-political-religious geniuses. If now we gather up all the legitimate claims of the prophet's faculties, and then eliminate all those faculties which have been shown to be possessed by other men and other geniuses in a degree greater or at least equal to those possessed by the prophet, there will remain all those faculties and powers that are peculiarly the posses sion of the prophet and, explaining them, we shall explain the psychology of prophecy. That this is all that is necessary, nay, that anything more than this would be unnecessary and superfluous becomes evident as soon as we consider that in a psychology of the poet it were unnecessary to begin by examining how the poet eats, sleeps drinks and speaks, for these are characteristics not only of the poet but of the bookkeeper and the lawyer as well. Gathering up, therefore, and eliminating, I find the following peculiarly prophetic elements that require explanation in the Psychology of Prophecy: Prophetic call, premonition, revelation, dream, vision, audition, ecstasy and inspiration. To an investigation of these prophetic elements Part III will now devote itself. PART III PSYCHOLOGY OF PROPHECY CHAPTER I PROPHETIC CALL (a) PREMONITION THE STARTING POINT PREDICTION or rather premonition is the starting point of prophecy. This theory held by Smend, and taught even more clearly and emphatically by Dr. Moses Buttenwieser of the Hebrew Union College of Cincinnati, Ohio, is one that seems to me to be the key to the whole subject of the psychology of prophecy. Dr. Paul Schwartzkopff in his excellent work, "Die Prophetische Offenbarung " attacks Smend's theory with such cogency and force that for over six months I have almost daily weighed the arguments on both sides, and now believe that, in spite of the very weighty objections of Schwartzkopff, which will be given below, the theory of Smend, and especially as enlarged and elucidated by Dr. Buttenwieser, my former teacher and friend, is the only one conceivable in an explanation of prophetic psychology. (b) THE FACTS AS PRESENTED BY THE PROPHETS First as to the facts. The prophets are all conscious of a divine call. They "do not speak of a resolution or purpose, framed by themselves, to devote themselves to their vocation; but they describe a moment in which they receive a call—i. e., to speak from a human point of view, 1 Chap. III, Sec. 3 D. 1 |