Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Discourse volume 1.djvu/278

Rh cations. To maintain they came directly from the God of love is to forget Reason, Conscience, and Religion, which teach us to love our enemies, to pray for them that persecute us.

The book of Proverbs and the Song of Songs speak for themselves, and neither need nor claim any more inspiration than other collections of Proverbs or Oriental amatory Idyls. The latter belongs to the same class with the writings of Anacreon. The somewhat doubtful book of Ecclesiastes seems to be the work of a sceptic. He denies the immortality of the soul with great clearness; thinks wisdom and folly are alike vanity. Though he concludes most touchingly in praise of virtue on the whole, and declares the fear of God and keeping his commandments is the whole duty of man, yet this conclusion is vitiated by the former precept, “Be not righteous overmuch.” The Lamentations of Jeremiah have as little claim to inspiration.

The historical books of this division present some peculiarities. Ezra and Nehemiah are valuable historical documents, though implicit faith is by no means to be placed in them. The book of Esther is entirely devoid of religious interest, and seems to be a romance designed to show that the Jews will always be provided for. The brief book of Ruth may be an historical or a fictitious work.

The book of Daniel is a perfect unique in the Old Testament. It professes to have been written by a captive Jew, at Babylon, in the beginning of the sixth century before Christ; it contains accounts of surprising miracles, dreams, visions, men cast into a den of lions and a furnace of fire, yet escaping unhurt; a man transformed to a beast, and eating grass like an ox for some years, and then restored to human shape; a miraculous and spectral hand writing on the palace wall; grotesque fancies that remind us of the Arabian Nights, and the Talmud. To judge from internal evidence, it was written in the first part of the second century, perhaps about one hundred and eighty-seven years before Christ, in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes. The author seems to have a political and moral end