_THE ORIGIN OF THE POEMS_
As we pass out of Jerusalem by the Damascus Gate, and follow the main
north road, our attention is immediately arrested by a low hill of
grey rock sprinkled with wild flowers, which is now attracting
peculiar notice because it has been recently identified with the
"Golgotha" on which our Lord was crucified. In the face of this hill a
dark recess--faintly suggestive of the eye-socket, if we may suppose
the title "Place of a skull" to have arisen from a fancied resemblance
to a goat's skull--is popularly known as "Jeremiah's grotto," and held
by current tradition to be the retreat where the prophet composed the
five elegies that constitute our Book of Lamentations. Clambering with
difficulty over the loose stones that mark the passage of winter
torrents, and reaching the floor of the cave, we are at once struck by
the suspicious aptness of the "sacred site." In a solitude singularly
retired, considering the proximity of a great centre of population,
the spectator commands a full view of the whole city, its embattled
walls immediately confronting him, with clustered roofs and domes in
the rear. What place could have been more suitable for a poetic lament
over the ruins of fallen Jerusalem? Moreover, when we take into
account the dread associations derived from the later history of the
Crucifixion, what could be more fitting than that the mourning
patriot's tears for the woes of his city should have been shed so near
to the very spot where her rejected Saviour was to suffer? But
unfortunately history cannot be constructed on the lines of harmonious
sentiments. When we endeavour to trace the legend that attributes the
Lamentations to Jeremiah back to its source we lose the stream some
centuries before we arrive at the time of the great prophet. No doubt
for ages the tradition was undisputed; it is found both in Jewish and
in Christian literature--in the Talmud and in the Fathers. Jerome
popularised it in the Church by transferring it to the Vulgate, and
before this Josephus set it down as an accepted fact. It is pretty
evident that each of these parallel currents of opinion may have been
derived from the Septuagint, which introduces the book with the
sentence, "And it came to pass, after Israel had been carried away
captive, and Jerusalem had become desolate, that Jeremiah sat weeping,
and lamented with this lamentation over Jerusalem, and said," etc.
Here our upward progress in tracking the tradition is stayed; no more
ancient authority is to be found. Yet we are still three hundred years
from the time of Jeremiah! Of course it is only reasonable to suppose
that the translators of the Greek version did not make their addition
to the Hebrew text at random, or without what they deemed sufficient
grounds. Possibly they were following some documentary authority, or,
at least, some venerable tradition. Of this we know nothing.
Meanwhile, it must be observed that no such statement exists in the
Hebrew Bible; and it would never have been omitted if it had been
there originally.
One other witness has been adduced, but only to furnish testimony of
an obscure and ambiguous character. In 2 Chron. xxxv. 25 we read,
"And Jeremiah lamented for Josiah; and all the singing men and singing
women spake of Josiah in their lamentations, unto this day; and they
made them an ordinance in Israel; and, behold, they are written in the
lamentations." Josephus, and Jerome after him, appear to assume that
the chronicler is here referring to our Book of Lamentations. That is
very questionable; for the words describe an elegy on Josiah, and our
book contains no such elegy. Can we suppose that the chronicler
assumed that inasmuch as Jeremiah was believed to have written a
lament for the mourners to chant in commemoration of Josiah, this
would be one of the poems preserved in the collection of Jerusalem
elegies familiar to readers of his day? Be that as it may, the
chronicler wrote in the Grecian period, and therefore his statements
come some long time after the date of the prophet.
In this dearth of external testimony we turn to the book itself for
indications of origin and authorship. The poems make no claim to have
been the utterances of Jeremiah; they do not supply us with their
author's name. Therefore there can be no question of genuineness, no
room for an ugly charge of "forgery," or a delicate ascription of
"pseudonymity," The case is not comparable to that of 2 Peter, or even
to that of Ecclesiastes--the one of which directly claims apostolic
authority, and the other a "literary" association with the name of
Solomon. It is rather to be paralleled with the case of the Epistle to
the Hebrews, a purely anonymous work. Still there is much which seems
to point to Jeremiah as the author of these intensely pathetic
elegies. They are not like MacPherson's _Ossian_; nobody can question
their antiquity. If they were not quite contemporaneous with the
scenes they describe so graphically they cannot have originated much
later; for they are like the low wailings with which the storm sinks
to rest, reminding us how recently the thunder was rolling and the
besom of destruction sweeping over the land. Among the prophets of
Israel Jeremiah was the voice crying in the wilderness of national
ruin; it is natural to suppose that he too was the poet who poured out
sad thoughts of memory in song at a later time when sorrow had leisure
for reflection. His prophecies would lead us to conclude that no Jew
of those dark days could have experienced keener pangs of grief at the
incomparable woes of his nation. He was the very incarnation of
patriotic mourning. Who then would be more likely to have produced the
national lament? Here we seem to meet again none other than the man
who exclaimed, "Oh that I could comfort myself against sorrow! my
heart is faint within me"[92] and again, "Oh that my head were waters,
and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for
the slain of the daughter of my people."[93] Many points of
resemblance between the known writings of Jeremiah and these poems may
be detected. Thus Jeremiah's "Virgin daughter" of God's people
reappears as the "Virgin daughter of Judah." In both the writer is
oppressed with fear as well as grief; in both he especially denounces
clerical vices, the sins of the two rival lines of religious leaders,
the priests and the prophets; in both he appeals to God for
retribution. There is a remarkable likeness in tone and temper
throughout between the two series of writings. It would be possible to
adduce many purely verbal marks of similarity; the commentator on
Lamentations most frequently illustrates the meaning of a word by
referring to a parallel usage in Jeremiah.
[92] Jer. viii. 18.
[93] Jer. ix. 1.
On the other hand, several facts raise difficulties in the way of our
accepting of the hypothesis of a common authorship. The verbal
argument is precarious at best; it can only be fully appreciated by
the specialist, and if accepted by the general reader, it must be
taken on faith. Of course this last point is no valid objection to the
real worth of the argument in itself; it cannot be maintained that
nothing is true which may not be reduced to the level of the meanest
intelligence, or the "differential calculus" would be a baseless
fable. But when the specialists disagree, even the uninitiated have
some excuse for holding the case to be not proved for either side; and
it is thus with the resemblances and the differences between Jeremiah
and Lamentations, long lists of phrases used in common being balanced
with equally long lists of peculiarities found in one only of the two
books in question. The strongest objection to the theory that Jeremiah
was the author of the Lamentations, however, is one that can be more
readily grasped. These poems are most elaborately artistic in form,
not to say artificial. Now the objection which is roused by that fact
is not simply due to the loose and less shapely construction of the
prophecies; for it may justly be urged that the literary designs
entertained by the prophet in the leisure of his later years may have
led him to cultivate a style which would have been quite unsuitable
for his practical preaching or for the political pamphlets he used to
fling off in the heat of conflict. It originates in deeper
psychological contradictions. Is it possible that the man who had shed
bitterest tears, as from his very heart, in the dismal reality of
misery, could play with his troubles in fanciful acrostics? Can we
imagine a leading actor in the tragedy turning the events through
which he had passed into materials for æsthetic treatment? Can we
credit this of so intense a soul as Jeremiah? The composition of _In
Memoriam_ may be cited as an instance of the production of highly
artistic poetry under the influence of keen personal sorrow. But the
case is not parallel; for Tennyson was a passive mourner over the loss
of a friend under circumstances with which he had no connection, while
Jeremiah had contended strenuously for years on the field of action.
Could a man with such a history have set himself to work up its most
doleful experiences into the embroidery of a peculiarly artificial
form of versification? That is the gravest difficulty. Other
objections of minor weight follow. In the third elegy Jeremiah would
seem to be giving more prominence to his own personality than we
should have expected of the brave, unselfish prophet. In the fourth
the writer appears to associate himself with those Jews who were
disappointed in expecting deliverance from an Egyptian alliance, when
he complains--
"Our eyes do yet fail in looking for our vain help:
In watching we have watched for a nation that could not save."[94]
[94] iv. 17.
Would Jeremiah, who bade the Jews bow to the scourge of Jehovah's
chastisement and look for no earthly deliverer, thus confess
participation in the worldly policy which he, in common with all the
true prophets, had denounced as faithless and disobedient? Then, while
sharing Jeremiah's condemnation of the priests and prophets, the
writer appears to have only commiseration for the fate of the poor
weak king Zedekiah.[95] This is very different from Jeremiah's
treatment of him.[96]
[95] iv. 20.
[96] Jer. lii. 2, 3.
It is not a serious objection that our poet says of Zion,
"Yea, her prophets find no vision from the Lord,"[97]
while we know that Jeremiah had visions after the destruction of
Jerusalem,[98] because the general condition may still have been one
characterised by the silencing of the many prophets with whose oracles
the Jews had been accustomed to solace themselves in view of
threatened calamities; nor that he exclaims,
"Shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the
Lord?"[99]
although Jeremiah makes no mention of this twofold assassination,
because we have no justification for the assumption that he recorded
every horror of the great tragedy; nor, again, that the author is
evidently familiar with the Book of Deuteronomy, and refers frequently
to the "Song of Moses" in particular, for this is just what we might
have expected of Jeremiah; and yet these and other similar but even
less conclusive points have been brought forward as difficulties.
Perhaps it is a more perplexing in view of the traditional hypothesis,
that the poet appears to have made use of the writings of Ezekiel.
Thus the allusion to the prophets who have "seen visions ... of vanity
and foolishness,"[100] points to the fuller description of these men
in the writings of the prophet of the exile, where the completeness of
the picture shews that the priority is with Ezekiel.[101] Similarly
the "perfection of beauty" ascribed to the daughter of Jerusalem in
the second elegy[102] reminds us of the similar phrase that occurs
more than once in Ezekiel.[103] Still, that prophet wrote before the
time to which the Lamentations introduce us, and it cannot be affirmed
that Jeremiah could not have seen his writings, or would not have
condescended to echo a phrase from them. A difficulty of a broader
character must be felt in the fact that the poems themselves give us
no hint of Jeremiah. The appearance of the five elegies in the
_Hagiographa_ without any introductory notice is a grave objection to
the theory of a Jeremiah authorship. If so famous a prophet had
composed them, would not this have been recorded? Even in the
Septuagint, where they are associated with Jeremiah, they are not
translated by the same hand as the version of the prophet's
acknowledged works. It may be that none of the objections which have
been adduced against the later tradition can be called final; nor when
regarded in their total force do they absolutely forbid the
possibility that Jeremiah was the author of the Lamentations. But then
the question is not so much one of possibility as one of probability.
We must remember that we are dealing with anonymous poems that make no
claim upon any particular author, and that we have no pleas whatever,
special or more general, on which to defend the guesses of a much
later and quite uncritical age, when people cultivated a habit of
attaching every shred of literature that had come down from their
ancestors to some famous name.
[97] ii. 9.
[98] _E.g._ Jer. xlii. 7.
[99] ii. 20.
[100] ii. 14.
[101] _E.g._ Ezek. xii. 24, xiii. 6, 7, xxii. 28.
[102] Lam. ii. 15.
[103] Ezek. xxvii. 3, xxviii. 12.
Failing Jeremiah, it is not possible to hit upon any other known
person with the least assurance. Some have followed Bunsen in his
conjecture that Baruch the scribe may have been the author of the
poems. Others have suggested a member of the family of Shaphan, in
which Jeremiah found his most loyal friends.[104]
[104] See Jer. xxvi. 24, xxix. 3_ff_, xl. 5.
It is much questioned whether the five elegies are the work of one
man. The second, the third, and the fourth follow a slightly different
alphabetical arrangement from that which is employed in the first--in
reversing the order of two letters,[105] while the internal structure
of the verses in the third shews another variation--the threefold
repetition of the acrostic. Then the personality of the poet emerges
more distinctly in the third elegy as the centre of interest--a marked
contrast to the method of the other poems. Lastly, the fifth differs
from its predecessors in several respects. Its lines are shorter; it
is not an acrostic; it is chiefly devoted to the insults heaped upon
the Jews by their enemies; and it seems to belong to a later time, for
while the four previous poems treat of the siege of Jerusalem and its
accompanying troubles, this one is concerned with the subsequent state
of servitude, and reflects on the ruin of the nation across some
interval of time. Thus the poet cries--
"Wherefore doest thou forget us for ever,
And forsake us _so long time_?"[106]
[105] [Hebrew: ayin] and [Hebrew: pe].
[106] v. 20.
A recent attempt to assign the last two elegies to the age of the
Maccabees has entirely broken down. The points of agreement with that
age which have been adduced will fit the Babylonian period equally
well, and the most significant marks of the later time are entirely
absent. Is it conceivable that a description of the persecution by
Antiochus Epiphanes would contain no hint of the martyr fidelity of
the devout Jews to their law which was so gloriously maintained under
the Maccabees? The fourth and fifth elegies are as completely silent
on this subject as the earlier elegies.
The evidence that points to any diversity of authorship is very
feeble. The fifth elegy may have been written years later than the
rest of the book, and yet it may have come from the same source, for
the example of Tennyson shews that the gift of poetry is not always
confined to but a brief interval in the poet life. The other
distinctions are not nearly so marked as some that may be observed in
the recognised poems of a single author--for example, the amazing
differences between the smooth style of _The Idylls of the King_ and
the quaint dialect of _The Northern Farmer_. Though some differences
of vocabulary have been discovered, the resemblances between all the
five poems are much more striking. In motive and spirit and feeling
they are perfectly agreed. While therefore in our ignorance of the
origin of the Lamentations, and in recognition of the variations that
have been indicated, we cannot deny that they may have been collected
from the utterances of two or even three inspired souls, neither are
we by any means forced to assent to this opinion; and under these
circumstances it will be justifiable as well as convenient to refer to
the authorship of Lamentations in terms expressive of a single
individual. One thing is fairly certain. The author was a
contemporary, an eye-witness of the frightful calamities he bewailed.
With all their artificiality of structure these elegies are the
outpourings of a heart moved by a near vision of the scenes of the
Babylonian invasion. The swift, vivid pictures of the siege and its
accompanying miseries force upon our minds the conclusion that the
poet must have moved in the thick of the events he narrates so
graphically, although, unlike Jeremiah, he does not seem to have been
a leading actor in them. Children cry to their mothers for bread, and
faint with hunger at every street corner; the ghastly rumour goes
forth that a mother has boiled her baby; elders sit on the ground in
silence; young maidens hang their heads despairing; princes tremble in
their helplessness; the enemy break through the walls, carry havoc
into the city, insolently trample the sacred courts of the temple;
even the priest and the prophet do not escape in the indiscriminate
carnage; wounded people are seen, with blood upon their garments,
wandering aimlessly like blind men; the temple is destroyed, its rich
gold bedimmed with smoke, and the city herself left waste and
desolate, while the exultant victors pour ridicule over the misery of
their prey. A later generation would have blurred the outline of these
scenes, regarding them through the shifting mists of rumour, with more
or less indistinctness. Besides, the motive for the composition of
such elegies would vanish with the lapse of time. Still some few years
must be allowed for the patriot's brooding over the scenes he had
witnessed, until the memory of them had mellowed sufficiently for them
to become the subjects of song. The fifth elegy, at all events,
implies a considerable interval. Jerusalem was destroyed in the year
B.C. 587; therefore we may safely date the poems from about B.C. 550
onwards--_i.e._, at some time during the second half of the sixth
century. What is of more moment for us to know is that we have here no
falsetto notes, such as we may sometimes detect in Virgil's exquisite
descriptions of the siege of Troy, for the poet has witnessed the
fiery ordeal the recollection of which now inspires his song. Thus out
of the unequalled woes of Jerusalem destroyed he has provided for all
ages the typical, divinely inspired expression of sorrow--primarily
the expression of sorrow--and then associated with this some pregnant
hints both of its dark relationship to sin and of its higher
connection with the purposes of God.