Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/811

Rh E W A L D 775 it is no less manifestly the result of the speculations and researches of many laborious predecessors in all depart ments of history, theology, and philosophy. Especially is it indebted to the so-called &quot; destructive &quot; criticism. The Reformation had destroyed that mediaeval conception of the Bible which took no account of literary history or doctrinal development at all ; and subsequent researches, especially since those of Astruc, had made it abundantly clear that the conditions under which the Old Testament books had come into being were much more complicated than had been at one time supposed. Criticism, however, could not possibly rest satisfied with these purely negative results. If for a time it seemed as if the sacred literature had been reduced to a mere chaos of fragments, which men might well despair of ever being able to reduce to harmony and order, the historical sense had been developing no less remarkably than the spirit of criticism. Taught by some of the more modern schools of philosophy, men had been learning to take larger, and therefore juster, views of the principles that underlie all national histories and the general history of the human race. It was impossible that such a phenomenon as the Jewish people and their litera ture should be permanently set aside as wholly incom prehensible. The world was only waiting for a bold and vigorous constructive genius like that of Ewald to bring together the scattered fragments, and construe them into an intelligible unity; to show, for example, that, if the Psalter could no longer be regarded as the record of the spiritual experience of the individual to whom it had been tradi tionally ascribed, it became all the more precious when known to embody all the highest aspirations and purest joys and noblest sorrows of many centuries of national life ; and that if the legislation of the Pentateuch was not indeed, as had once been supposed, the work of a few quiet months, it gained in interest and instructiveness when known to be the slow growth of many busy generations. Taking up the idea of a divine education of the human race, which Lessing and Herder had made so familiar to the modern mind, and firmly believing that to each of the leading nations of antiquity a special task had been pro videntially assigned, Ewald felt no difficulty about Israel s place in universal history, or about the problem which that primitive and highly endowed race had been called upon to solve. The history of Israel, according to him, is simply the history of the manner in which the one true religion really and truly came into the possession of mankind. Other nations, indeed, had attempted the highest problems in religion ; but Israel alone had, in the providence of God, succeeded, for Israel alone had been inspired. Such is the .supreme meaning of that national history which began with the exodus and culminated (at the same time virtually terminating) in the appearing of Christ, the supremely perfect revelation or self-manifestation of God. The historical interval that separated these two events is treated as naturally dividing itself into three great periods, those of Moses and the theocracy, of David and the monarchy, of Ezra and the hagiocracy. The periods are externally indicated by the successive names by which the chosen people were called Hebrews, Israelites, Jews. The events prior to the exodus are relegated by Ewald to a preliminary chapter of primitive history ; and the events of the apostolic and post-apostolic age are treated as a kind of appendix. The entire construction of the history is based, as has already been said, on a critical examination and chronological arrangement of the available documents. So far as the results of criticism are still uncertain with regard to the age and authorship of any of these, Ewald s conclusions must of course be regarded as unsatisfactory ; and it cannot be denied that later investigations have shown that in many important points his firm faith that finality had been attained was illusory. These admissions, however, hardly affect the permanent value of his work. It will continue to be a storehouse of learning for all sub sequent investigators in the field of sacred history, and it will be increasingly recognized as a work of rare genius. It would be impossible to praise too highly the con scientiousness with which the minutest features of the history have been carefully scanned; the marvellous power of combination which, at even the most unlikely points, can draw the most graphic illustrations from contemporary prophets and poets ; the vividness with which, not only the politics, but also the religion, the arts, the literature, the domestic life, of each sucesssive period are depicted ; the loving enthusiasm of the student who believes that those only are the enemies of the Bible who fail to investi gate it, or who fail to investigate it thoroughly. In his work on biblical theology, he can hardly be said to have been so successful as in some of his earlier efforts. Though a suggestive and therefore a useful book, its con clusions are vitiated in many cases by a glaring departure from the inductive method, the interpretations being often speculative rather than biblical, and unduly dominated by a preconceived metaphysico-religious system of the universe. Subjoined is a list of the more important of his works : Die Cam- position der Genesis kritisch untersucht (1823) [an acute and able at tempt to account for the use of the two namesot God without recourse to the document-hypothesis ; he was not himself, however, perma nently convinced by it] ; De mctris ca-rminum Arabicorum (]825) ; Das Hohclicd Salomos iibcrsetzt u. erkldrt (1826; 3rd ed. 1866); Kritischc Grammatik dcr liebr. Spraclie (1827) [this afterwards became the Ausfiihrlichts Lchrbuch der hebr. Sprache (8th ed. 1870) ; and it was followed by the Heir. Sprachlchrc fur Anfdnger (4th ed. 1874)]; Vcler einiye dlterc Sanskritmctra (1827); Liber Vakcdii de Mesopotamia; expugnalcc historia (1827) ; Commcntariua in Apocalypsin Joliannis (1828) ; Al/handlunyen zur biblischen u. orientalise/ten Litcratur (1832) ; Grammatical mtica lingua Arabiccc (1831-33) ; Die poctischen JSiichcr dcs alien Bundcs (1835-37, 3rd ed. 1866-67); Die Propheten des alien Bundcs (1840-41, 2nded., 1867-68) ; Geschichtc dcs Koikes Israel (1843-59, 3rd ed. 1864-68) ; Alterthilmer Israels (1848) ; Die drei ersten Evangclien ubersctzt v. erkldrt (1850) ; Ueber das dthiopische Buch Henoch (1854) ; Die Scndschreiben des Apostels Paulus iibcrsetzt u. erkldrt (1857) ; Die Johanneischcn Schriftcn iibcrsetzt u. erkldrt (1861-62) ; Ueber das vierte Esrabuch (1863); Sicbcn Sendschrcibcn des ncucn Bundes (1870); Das Sendschreiben an die Hebrder u. Jakobos 1 EundscJircibtn (1870) ; Die Lchre dcr Bibel von Gott, odcr Thcologie des alien u. neuen Bundcs (1871-75). The Jahrbucher der biblischen Wisscn- scJiaft (1849-65) were edited, and for the most part written, by him. He was the chief promoter of the Zcitschrift fur die Kwide des Alor- gcnlandcs, begun in 1837; and he frequently contributed on various subjects to the Gotting. gelehrte Anzeigcn. He was also the author of many pamphlets oi an occasional character. The following have been translated into English : Hebrew Gram mar, by Nicholson (from 2nd German edition), Lond. 1836; In troductory Hebrew Grammar (from 3rd German edition), Lond. 1870; History of Israel, 5vols. (corresponding to vols. i.-iv. of the German), by Russell Martineau and J. Estlin Carpenter, Lond. 1867- 74; Antiquities of Israel, by H. S. Solly, Lond. 1876 ; Commentary on the Prophets of the Old Testament, by J. Frederick Smith, 2 vols., Lond. 1876-77 ; Isaiah the Prophet, chaps, i.-xxxiii., by 0. Glover, Lond. 1869 ; Life of Jesus Christ, also by 0. Glover, Lond. 1865. (J. S. BL.) EWALD, JOHANNES (1743-1781), the greatest lyrical poet of Denmark, was the son of a melancholy and sickly chaplain at Copenhagen, where he was born on the 18th of November 17i3. At the age of eleven he was sent to school at Schleswig, his father s birth-place, and returned to the capital only to enter the university iu 1758. His father was by that time dead, and in his mother, a frivolous and foolish woman, he found neither sympathy nor moral support. At fifteen, he fell passionately in love with &quot; the delicate, noble, majestic Arense,&quot; a girl whose father, later on, married the poet s mother ; and the romantic boy resolved on various modes of making himself admired by the young lady. He began to learn Abyssinian, for the purpose of going out as a missionary to Africa, but this scheme was soon given up, and he persuaded a brother, four