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 PARALLELISM

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PARALLELISM

their offices was probably intended to induce them to value their calling and to carry out faithfully their duties.

Author and Time of Composition. — The Books of Paralipomenon were undoubtedly written after the Restoration. For the genealogy of the house of David is carried beyond Zorobabel (I Par., iii, 19-24), and the very decree of Cyrus allowing the return is cited. Moreover, the value of the sums collected by David for the building of the temple is expressed in darics (I Par., xxix, 7, Heb.), which were not current in Pales- tine till the time of the Persian domination. The peculiarities of style and diction also point to a time later than the Captivity. The older wi-iters generally attributed the authorship to Esdras. Most modern non-Catholic scholars attribute the work to an un- known writer and place its date between 300 and 2.50 B. c. The main reasons for this late date are that the descendants of Zorobabel are given to the sixth (in the Septuagint and the Vulgate to the eleventh) genera- tion, and that in 11 Esdras (xii, 10, 11, 22) the list of the high-priests extends to Jeddoa, who, according to Josephus, held the pontificate in the time of Alexander the Great. Those lists, however, show signs of having been brought up to date by a later hand and cannot, therefore, be considered as decisive. On the other hand, a writer living in Greek times would not be likely to express the value of ancient monej' in darics. Moreover, a work written for the purpose mentioned above would be more in place in the time immediately following the Restoration, while the position and character of Esdras would point him out as its author. Hence most Catholic authors still adhere to Esdrine authorship, and place the time of composition at the end of the fifth or at the beginning of the fourth cen- tury B. c.

Hi.STORic.4L Value. — The reliability of the Books of Paralipomenon as a historical work has been se- verely attacked by such critics as de Wette, Well- hausen etc. The author is accused of exaggeration, of misrepresenting facts, and even of appealing to imagi- nary documents. This harsh judgment has been con- siderably mitigated by more recent writers of the same school, who, while admitting errors, absolve the au- thor of intentional misrepresentation. The objections urged against the books cannot be examined here in detail; a few general remarks in vindication of their truthfulness must suffice. In the first place, the books have suffered at the hands of copyists; textual errors in names and in numbers, which latter originally were only indicated by letters, are especially numerous. Gross exaggerations, such as the slaying of 7000 char- ioteers (I Par., xix, 18) as against 700 in II Kings (x, IS) and the impossibly large armies mentioned in 1 1 Par. (xiii, 3), are plainly to be attributed to this cause. In the next place, if the sections common to Parali- pomenon and the Books of Kings are compared, sub- stantial agreement is found to exist between them. If the author, then, reproduces his sources with substan- tial accuracy in the cases where his statements can be controlled by comparing them with those of another writer who has used the same documents, there is no reason to suspect that he acted differently in the case of other sources. His custom of referring his readers to the documents from which he has dra^^Ti his infor- mation should leave no doubt on the subject. In the third place, the omission of the facts not to the credit of the pious kings (e. g. the adultery of David) is due to the object which the author has in view, and proves no more against his truthfulness than the omission of the history of the northern tribes. He did not intend to write a full history of the kings of Juda, but a his- tory for the purpose of edification. Hence, in speaking of the kings whom he proposes as models, he naturally omits details which are not edifying. Such a presen- tation, while one-sided, is no more untruthful than a panegyric in which the foibles of the subject are

passed over. The picture is correct as far as it goes, only it is not complete.

GiQOT, Special Intrud., I (New York, 1901), 291 sqq.; Driver, Liter, of the 0. T. (Edinburgh, 1909,, 516 sqq.; Curtis and Mad- den, Comm. on the Books of Chronicles (Edinburgh, 1910); Cor- NELY, Inirod., II (Paris, 1897), i, 311 sqq.; Hummelaueh, Comm. in Lib. I Par. (Paris, 1905) ; Kaulen. Einleitung (3rd ed., Frei- burg, 1890), 240 sqq.; Movers, KHtische Untersuchungen iiber die bibl. Chronik (Bonn, 1834) ; Keil, Apologetischer Versuch iiber die B. dcr Chronik (Berlin, 1834) ; Nagl, Die nachdavidische Konigsgesch. Israels (Vienna, 1905) ; Mangenot in Vigodroux, Diet, de la Bible, s. v. Paralipomenes., Les deux livres des; Kloster- mann in Realencyclop. fur prot. Theol., s. v. Chronik. Die Biicher der. F. BecHTEL.

Parallelism, the balance of verse with verse, an essential and characteristic feature in Hebrew poetry. Either by repetition or by antithesis or by some other device, thought is set over against thought, form balances form, in such wise as to bring the meaning home to one strikingly and agreeably. In the hymns of the Assyrians and Babylonians parallelism is funda- mental and essential. Schrader takes it for granted that the Hebrews got this poetic principle from them (Jahrbuch fiir Protestant. Theologie, i, 121); a com- mon Semitic source, in days long before the migra- tion of Abraham, is a likelier hypothesis. The Syriac, Vulgate, and other ancient versions, recognized and to a certain extent reproduced the balance of verse with verse in the Bible. Not until the sixteenth century did Hebraists speak of it as a poetical prin- ciple, essential to the Hebrews. It was then that Rabbi Azaria de Rossi, in his work 2^2*1' "I'X^ "The Light of the Eyes", first divided various poetic portions of the Bible into verses that brought out the fact of parallelism and of a fixed number of recurrent accents. Schottgen ("Hora? HebraicaeetTalmudica;", Dissertatio vi, Dresden, 1733, vol. I, p. 12.52), though erring in that he calls it absurd to speak of iambs and hexameters in Hebrew poetry, deserves the credit of having first drawn up the canons of parallelism, which hecallsexergasia (i^epyaala, the working up of a sub- ject, Polybius, X, ,xlv, 6). According to these canons Biblical prose differs from Biblical poetry solely in that the poet works up a subject by reiteration of the same idea either in the same or in different words, by omission of either the subject or the predicate, by antithesis of contrary thoughts etc. Bishop Lowth (De Sacra Poesi Hebra>orum, 1753; Isaiah, 1778) based his investigations upon the studies of Schottgen and coined the term parallelism. He distinguished three kinds of parallelism: the synonymous, the anti- thetical, and the synthetic. His conclusions have been generally accepted.

I. Synonymous Parallelism. — The very same thought is repeated, at times in the very same words. The following examples, being close translations of the original text, will better illustrate Hebrew paral- lelism than does our Douai version which (in regard to the Psalms) has reached us through the medium of a Latin translation of the Septuagint Greek:

(a) Up have the rivers lifted, Jahweh, Up have the rivers lifted their voices, Up the rivers lift their breakers.

Ps., xcii, 3 (Hebrew, xciii).

(b) Yea, in the night is Ar-Moab put down,

set at naught; Yea, in the night is Kir-Moab put down, set at naught.

Is., XV, 2.

II. Antithetical Parallelism. — The thought of thefirst line is expressed by an antithesis in the second; or is counterbalanced by a contrast in the second. This parallelism is very common in the Book of Proverbs:

(a) The tongue of the wise adorneth knowledge, The mouth of the fool blurteth out folly.

Prov., XV, 2.

(b) Soundness of heart is the life of the flesh, Envy is the rot of the bones.

Prov., sdv, 30.