PART II.

OF PARALLELISM.

THERE is a striking feature presenting itself in the Biblical text, and presenting itself in so marked a manner, in many parts, that it cannot escape the notice of even the least observant reader. In a variety of sentences, indeed, even such a reader will be struck with a certain form or structure pertaining to it, challenging attention, and appealing very strongly to that faculty that is ever gratified by a perception of concord or harmony. He will, perforce, be arrested by it, and be compelled to dwell on it, and recur to it; not perceiving, perhaps, the real cause of the impression, but experiencing it, nevertheless.

It can hardly be called a peculiarity of the Bible, for we meet with it in other writings, ancient and modern; but where, in these, it seems spontaneously to arise out of that innate love of proportion and harmony which is one of the characteristics of the human mind, and perhaps of all sentient beings, it seems to have been cultivated as a special branch of Hebrew literature, and pervades all the writings of that people which have been handed down to us.

But besides the circumstance here noticed, it may be remarked that this striking feature of the Biblical writings is not, there is good reason to believe, confined to sentences, although it is in them necessarily more obvious and striking than it is in longer por

tions of writing. It seems to be a form of arrangement that is common to the sacred writings throughout, a lesser one being included in a larger one, and that, again, in a still larger one, until the whole book is included, and is reducible to the particular form or arrangement. "As the essays of moralists and the speeches of orators are often composed according to a certain plan,-a skeleton, as it has been called, so the words of the Spirit are delivered with an order and method peculiar to themselves, and possessing peculiar advantages of emphasis and perspicuity."*

This form of composition, or arrangement, is what has been denominated parallelism; and it is to the labours of Bishop Lowth, Bishop Jebb, the Rev. Thomas Boys, and Mr. Richard Roe, that we are chiefly indebted for the light that has been thrown upon it, and for the attention it has received from Scripture expositors.

Bishop Lowth defines the parallelism to consist in a certain equality, resemblance, or relationship between the members of each period; so that in one or more lines, or members of the same period, things shall answer to things, and words to words, as if fitted to each other by a sort of rule or measure; and in this sense the term has been employed by Bishop Jebb, who has found the parallelism to exist in compositions wherein Bishop Lowth did not look for it. Lowth, in fact, regarded the rhythmical parallelism as the great characteristic of the Hebrew poetry, as the Rabbi Azarias, a learned Jew of the sixteenth century, had also done, as may be seen in the Bishop's dissertation prefixed to his translation of Isaiah. Bishop Jebb, who, as already said, found * Boys, "Tactica Sacra," Introd., p. 1.

.*

this form of composition in other than the poetical books of the Hebrew Scriptures, has given us the result of his labours in his beautiful work on the Parallelism of the New Testament; and Mr. Boys, whose meritorious labours have not yet received the recognition to which they are fairly entitled, has, in his "Tactica Sacra," and his "Key to the Psalms," exhibited it by a patient and instructive analysis of the Psalms, the 1st and 2nd Epistle to the Thessalonians, the Epistle to Philemon, and the 2nd Epistle of Peter. And, subsequently, Mr. Richard Roe, availing himself of the clue furnished by Mr. Boys, and who, when he met with the "Tactica Sacra," was, as he said in a letter to the writer of this, as one who had found great spoil," has analysed and exhibited in the parallelistic form the rest of the New Testament and the whole of the prophetical books.

66

Thus we see that what is called parallelism is peculiar neither to Poetry nor to Hebrew. It is found alike in the Hebrew Old Testament and in the Greek New Testament-alike in plain prose and in lofty poetry. It is also certain that it was in common use from a very early period amongst the Hebrews; and it would have been strange indeed if we had found the books of the New Testament, all written by Hebrews, though in the Greek tongue, destitute of it. We shall see, by-and-bye, that the employment of this form of composition was not without its designed use, and that attention to it, where it exists, will sometimes help us to the meaning of a passage the sense of which would otherwise remain involved in obscurity or doubt.

Meanwhile, let us look at the structure of this *"Sacred Literature."

literary figure, and glance at the rules by which it is regulated.

There are various species of parallelism, suggested, as Bishop Lowth observes, by the different laws of the association of thoughts, the two principal laws of resemblance and contrast being the most concerned. Following him and the other labourers in this department of criticism to whom we have referred, we may distribute parallelisms into1. GRADATIONAL; 2. ANTITHETIC; 3. INTROVERTED; 4. SYNTHETIC; 5. RHYTHMICAL.

CHAPTER I.

THE GRADATIONAL PARALLELISM.

BISHOP LOWTH, who denominates this the synonymous parallelism, conceives that the sacred writers have employed it to repeat the same sentiment in different but equivalent terms; the proposition being delivered, and immediately repeated, in whole or in part; the expression being varied, but the sense being entirely or nearly the same. It has been shown by Bishop Jebb, however, that this is by no means the case; and he suggested the term cognate, in the place of synonymous, as more correctly defining the nature of the composition. But neither does this term adequately represent the character of the parallelism, and hence we have adopted the one suggested by another learned critic, and which, we think, is more descriptive of its character.

In this kind of parallelism, the second, or responsive clause, so diversifies the preceding one, as generally to rise above it, forming a sort of climax; and sometimes by a descending scale in the value of the related terms and periods, forming a sort of anticlimax, but in all cases with a marked distinction of meaning. Hence the term gradational seems most appropriate. It prevails chiefly in the shorter poems, in many of the Psalms, and often in the prophecies of Isaiah; as also in the New Testament. It has the appearance of art and concinnity, or symmetry, and a studied elegance, as Lowth observes; and it dis