is favoured by Baotbgen, and the possibility of iti acceptance prevents the argument from being con- clusive. Given both texts as they stand, it .seems dilficult to resist the conclusion that Ps 106, with its doxology complete, was before the Chronicler as he wrote.
/3. The evidence afforded by the LXX is much more trustworthy, and rests upon a broader basis. It is true that we cannot be quite certain when the tr. of the Hagiographa was completed. That the whole work was begun and the tr. of tlie Pent, executed about B.C. 250 seems tolerably clear; but Cheyne and some others are disposed to bring down tlie inferior limit for tlie completion of the tr. of the Hagiographa very late. All Cheyne will admit is that it was finished 'at any rate before the Christian era.' The evidence of the prologue of Siradi, however, will hanlh' admit of a later date for the tr. of the Psalter than B.C. 150. The author of this preface, writing about B.C. 130, thrice mentions ' the law, the prophets, and the other books' (or an equivalent expression), and he speaks of his grandfather, .Jesus son of SiiaiOi, as having been familiar with these as sacred writings. This indicates a third class of sacred Scriptures, the canon of which was not necessarilj- complete in the time of Siracides, say B.C. 180. But that the Psalter was included among these can hardly be questioned, even though it were not in its present form. Keferences in 1 and 2 JIac, as we shall see, confirm this supposition. But granted that the evidence is not conclusive, and bringing down the date for the tr. of the Psalter even so low as B.C. 100, it is clear that a considerable interval must be allowed for the accomplishment of the various processes passed through between the completion of the latest collection in Heb. and its rendering into Greek. Sanday (Bampt. Lect. on Inspiration, Lect. V. Note A, p. 271) marks as many as nine such processes. The number is probalily exces- sive ; out if the history of the formation of the Psalter has been at all correctly indicated, several stages must separate the comiiosition of, say, one of the psalms in the Eloliistic collection and its inclusion in the LXX. The smaller group of Korahite or Asaphic psalms would be collected, then would come the larger Eloliistic collection, the addition of title, the embodiment of the smaller collection in the full Psalter of 150 psalms, the numeration, the formation of titles as found in the Greek, — these are some of the steps wliich must have been successively taken. Probably not much time needs to be allowed for some of them, some may even have been contemporaneous, but reflection shows that an interval of, at least, one or two decades must be allowed between the com- pletion of the Heb. Psalter and its tr. into Greek.
y. A further argument may be drawn from
1 Mac 7", which quotes Ps 79 — usually accounted one of the latest in date — with the formula usual in citing Scripture — kot4 tou! \lrfOv! oOs (ypa'pep. l"or a psalm thus to be recognized and quoted as Scripture, implies the lapse of a considerable in- terval since its composition. Not much reliance for our purpose can be placed on the statement of
2 Mac 2", which recorils how Nchcniiah, ' found- ing a librar3-, gathered together tlie books aliout the kings and prophets, and the books of David (rd. ToO Aaveld) and letters of kings about sacred gifts.'
S. Indirectly, the so-called ' Psalms of Solomon ' (which see) furnish evidence from another point of view. These psalms possess a distinct character of their own. If tliey may be placed, as most modem scholars are inclined to place them, about the middle of the 1st cent. B.C., a considerable interval must be allowed as elapsing between their composition and that of the latest canonical books. Even a
PSALMS, BOOK OF
PSAOIS, BOOK OF
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■nperficial reader must be struck by the contrast bet .Veen these 'psalms of the Pharisees' aud those of the canonical psalter. Kirkpatrick speaks of them aa ' separated \>y an impassable gulf.' Tliis is stronj; langua^'c ; but on tlie two great subjects of the future hie and the Messianic hope the contrast is so striking, that if argument from growth and ili;velopuient of thuuglit is worth anything at all, this is a case in which great reliance must be placed ujion it.
Parsing by otlier arguments of more question- able value, such as tliat from tlie musical titles, which were certainly uninteUigible to the (Jr. trans- lators, and that from the language of the Chronicler concerning the Levitical guilds of singers, we may perhaps come to the following; conclusion : — 'I'he PsaJter is a collection of relijrious poetry chielly, though not entirely, intended for use in public worship, and very gradually compiled. The ear- liest stage of the final process dates from shortly after the Exile, one step succeeding another through the compass of some three centuries, till the collection was virtually closed in the first half of the 2nd cent. B.C. R3'le represents tlie pre- vailing view of modern scholars when he sajs, ' The time of its final promulgation in its present form and of its first recognition as part of the people's Scriptures, may well have been that of the great religious revival that accompanied the suc- cess of the Maccaba'an revolt, and the downfall of the Hellenizing party among the priests and nobles' {Canon of OT, ji. 127). Tlie e.xact form of the conclusion reached is somewhat dependent on the decision of questions concerning the date and authorship of individual psalms, a subject in- timately bound up with that just discussed, to which accordingly we now pass.