7. Ahijah-Prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite-one work. 8. Jehu Son of Hanani-History of Jehu Son of Hanani-one work.

9. Isaiah-Vision of Isaiah the Son of Amoz,

-A titleless work in 2 Chron. xxvi. 22-two

works.

10. Hosai-History of Hosai-one work.

As a result of this examination, it is found that of the twenty-four titled lost works, twelve are the products of ten different authors. Each, except Iddo, produced one work, he three. In this statement, I have not included the miscellaneous works of Solomon, nor the unnamed work of Isaiah.

After this somewhat tedious and statistical treatise concerning works which to-day are entirely lost, some one may ask: What is the practical bearing of all this upon biblical exegesis and archæology?

I shall mention only a few of the questions and problems suggested by this line of study:

(1) Several books of the Old Testament are pure compilations, the sources for which were found in these lost writings.

(2) The accounts of the lives and times of some kings are given very briefly in the Bible; for example, that of the infamous Manasseh, though king forty-five years, is disposed of in a few verses. Minute details are not given, the reader is referred to two original works for any further information.

(3) The earlier as well as the later kings kept accurate records of their reigns. The records were preserved as royal treasures.

(4) The royal annals were supplemented by a large amount of history written by the prophets.

(5) The prophets wrote, in addition to their histories, visions and prophecies concerning the kings and peoples of their times.

(6) The fact of the preservation of these individual and separate records down to the later biblical times, often explains a reference to an event which occurred several hundred years earlier, about which contemporary biblical history is silent. E. g. the downfall of Shiloh in Samuel's time is not mentioned in contemporary history. But Jeremiah (vii, 12. 14; xxvi, 6. 9), writing at least five hundred years later, seems to have had definite information on this point. Where did he obtain it? Undoubtedly from records contemporary with its fall, which he had at hand, but which are now lost.

(7) These works tell us that God's prophets were among the earliest writers of secular as well as of sacred history.

(8) The warnings of the prophets were probably not all spoken words, but, as those of Iddo, may have been writings.

(9) Very early in the history of Israel, even aside from the utterances and writings of the prophets, there are found references to works and writings, which tell us that writing was no new thing; and that poetry was the language of heroes.

(10) Aside from all the books in which we find works quoted and cited, is it probable that any other books of the Old Testament are compilations, without giving credit to their sources?

The above and a multitude of other questions and suggestions naturally spring upon one in the study of Old Testa nent quotations. They are of the greatest importance in determining many of the most troublesome problems found in the study of the Old Testament.

3C9

ARTICLE X.

CRITICAL NOTES.

I.

THE USE OF MYTHIC PHRASES IN MODERN MISSION-FIELDS.

IN the Expositor, for January, 1888, Dr. Cheyne has an article on "The Use of Mythic Phrases by the Old Testament Writers."

On the critical question discussed in that paper, the present writer claims no right to speak. When, however, he read its title, there at cnce occurred the thought, as the religion of Jehovah in the times of Abral am, Moses, David, and Isaiah existed under circumstances not greatly different from those in which Christianity finds itself at the present day as it wins its way among the ethnic religions of India, China, or Japan, the progress of the latter ought to throw some light upon the development of the former.

A study of the present growth of Christianity among people whose whole life is permeated by the precepts and traditions of other religions ought greatly to aid in understanding-what to those born and bred under exclusively Christian influences is so difficult-the tremendous difficulties which the religion of Jehovah had to encounter in those primitive times. It is with the thought of calling attention to some of these difficulties, as well as the desire of casting a side light upon the question discussed by Dr. Cheyne, that I propose to speak briefly on the Use of Mythic Phrases in Mission Work in Japan.

1. The names of persons and places in Japan are to a considerable extent derived from the prevailing religion, and therefore mythic" in their origin. When some future generation comes to study the origin and growth of the Christian church in Japan, not a few strange phenomena will present themselves. Among the leading Christian preachers will be found the names, Shinto-Temple-River, Great-Shinto-Temple, Second-ShintoTemple, Front-Shinto-God, and many other names of Shinto origin. From Buddhism come the personal names, Little-Buddhist-Temple, Within-theBuddhist-Temple, Buddhist-Temple-Lake, etc. Temple-Street-Church, Church-of-the-Western-Shinto-Temple, Church-of There will be a Buddhistthe-God-of-Var, Church-of-the-God-of-Wealth-Street, Church-on-the-Hill-ofthe-Goddess-of-Mercy, etc. How easy for such a future scholar, from such a name as Church of the God of War." to miss the point that Hachiman, "God of Wa r," is really the name of a place, and so to infer the existence of an impare Christianity.

VOL. XLVI. NO. 182,

II

2.

There are many terms, mythic in their origin, which have now be come so much a part of the language and life of the people, that they are used daily and hourly, with no thought as to their origin. For example: A Japanese brother, educated in America and loved and honored in two hemispheres, referring in a sermon to the story of Luther's experience in a thunder-storm, used the words Kaminari ga ochimashita, "Thunder fell." Hardly any other expression was possible to him; yet, in the minds of many Japanese those words are associated with the falling of a dragon or dragon-like animal from the heavens; and persons are said to have seen such animals.

Of mythic origin, also, are many euphemisms for death. Kösen no Kyaku to natta, He has gone to dwell by the Yellow Fountain," is one of these. The mythic yellow fountain is supposed to be somewhere in the interior of the earth. A writer in our Christian newspaper, speaking recently of the death of some one, used the expression, Oni no chōmen ni tsnita, "His name is registered in the book of the oni," a word meaning usually demons, including the spirits of the dead, and clearly of mythic origin.

Many national proverbs spring from the same source. I recently heard one of our Christian preachers in a sermon speak of some pleasant experience as "like meeting a buddha in hell"-Jigoku de hotoke ni au gotoku. Others have quoted in sermons the proverb, "The decisions of Jigoku [the Buddhist term for hell, of which I shall speak later] are according to the amount of money a man has." These might be multiplied indefinitely.

3. A third class comprises those terms expressive of religious thought which Christian teachers are of necessity compelled to borrow from the vocabulary of other religions. How can we speak of God, heaven, the soul, sin, salvation, regeneration, Satan, hell, and so on, without using the terms employed in other religions? Judged from a philological point of view these words are often objectionable. As ordinarily used they are associated with much that is foreign and even antagonistic to Christian thought. Vet, although in individual cases a better choice might have been made, do the best we can, we are obliged to have a long list of such words. For example: As a translation for God we use the word Kami, the name of the mythic deities of the Shinto religion. Motōri, an old writer, says: "The name Kami is applied to all the gods of heaven and earth, the spirits of ancestors, to men, birds, beasts, trees, grass, sea, mountains, and indeed to whatever shows unusual excellence and wisdom." The word is therefore not necessarily personal; in form the singular is not distinguishable from the plural; and, according to Shintoism, the number of the Kami is eight millions. Yet missionaries (including our Japanese brethren) are unanimous in holding that the Japanese language has no better word for the Christian's God than this.

The word used for devil, is aku-ma. Aku means "evil;" ma is a word brought to Japan from China by the Buddhists, who in turn got it from the Brahmans of India, it being only a shortened form of the Sanskrit mara, which Dr. Oldenburg identifies with Mrityn, the Brahmanic God of Death.

Critical Notes.

In this word, also, there is no distinction of number; the plural significa371 tion is much more common than the singular, and it is more commonly used of subordinate demons than of a supreme evil one.

Ten, the word for "heaven," also comes from the Buddhists, by whom it is used in several senses: (1) For the material heaven; (2) For the Sanskrit deva; (3) For innumerable imaginary worlds presided over by a corresponding number of buddha.

For "hell" the Buddhist Jigoku, "Earth-prison," is the term in common use. According to Buddhists, there are eight immense cold hells, eight hot ones, and eight of darkness. Around these as a centre are others innumerable. Life in each is five hundred years in length, and when it ceases in one the criminal is immediately reborn into another, and so on. are presided over by Yemma (Sanskrit, Yama), who judges of the demerits of the different individuals and, with an army of demons as assistants, applies All these hells the various tortures. To this outline popular works add many harrowing details which have become a part of the common thought. There are hells of filth, and hells of revolving swords; valleys filled with boiling ca'drons over which the guilty are compelled to walk on ropes suspended from mountain to mountain; precipices down which the wicked are hurled to fall upon swords set as thick as blades of grass upon a lawn, and where dogs, lions, and tigers of burning iron wait ready to seize them. unchristian representation of the punishment of the wicked, notwithstandNotwithstanding this ing the fact that Buddhists look upon punishment as destructive of sin and therefore of limited duration, our translators could find no other word so satisfactory as a translation of the New Testament Gehenna as this.

In waging its warfare of love, Christianity is compelled to take the imperfect weapons of its foes, and fashion them for its own purposes. Could it have been otherwise in the early days?

M. L. GORDON.

II.

AS TO THE AGE OF DANIEL.

A RECENT work of fiction, whose title the world is already weary of, ventured to impugn the Old Testament only in one of its books, that of Daniel. Why Daniel? Doubt.ess on account of its miracles; but this, of course, is nowhere acknowledged. Whoever reads it all, without skipping, will run across the following passage: ject of the date and authorship of this strange product of Jewish patriotism "It was a change of conviction on the subin the second century before Christ that drove M. Renan out of the Church of Rome. For the Catholic Church to confess,' he says in his 'Souvenirs,' that Daniel is an apocryphai book of the time of the Maccabees, would be to confess that she had made a mistake; if she had made this mistake she may have made others; she is no longer divinely inspired.'"