1. The stjile of .Jeremiah corresponds with this view of the character of Ids mind : though not deficient in pow- er, it is peculiarly marked by pathos. He delights in the expression of the tender emotions, and employs all
the resources of his imagination to excite corresponding feelings in his readers. He has an irresistible sympa- thy with the miserable, which finds utterance in the most touching descriptions of their condition.
The style of Jeremiah is marked by the peculiaiities which belong to the later Hebre\\', and bj' the introduc- tion of Aramaic forms (Eichhorn, Einleitiimi, iii, 122 ; Gesenius, GeschicJite der JJeb. Sprache, p. 35). It was, we imagine, on this account that Jerome complained of a certain rusticity in Jeremiah's style. Lowth, howev- er, says he can discover no traces of it, and regards Jer- emiah as nearly equal in sublimity in many parts to Isaiah {De Sacra Poesi Heb. p. 42G).
2. The canonicity of the writings of Jeremiah in gen- eral are established both by the testimony of ancient writers, and by quotations and references which occur in tlie New Testament. Thus the son of Sirach refers to him as a prophet consecrated from the Momb, and quotes from Jer. i, 10 the commission with which he was intrusted (Ecclus. xlix, 7). In 2 Mace, ii, 1-8, there is a tradition respecting his liiding the tabernacle and the ark in a rock, in which he is called " Jeremiah the prophet." Philo speaks of him under similar titles, as TrQO(pi]rr}c, pvrrrijc, uno(j)('ii'-t]C, and calls a passage which he quotes from Jer. iii, 4 an oracle — xf"/*^/"^" (Eichhorn, Einlcitimrj, i, 95). Joseph us refers to him by name as ttie profdiet who predicted the evils which were coming on the city, and speaks of him as the au- thor of Lamentations {piXoQ Bpijvijrudi') which are still existing {Ant. x, 5, 1). His writings are included in the list of canonical books given by Jlelito, Origen (whose words are remarkable: 'Ifof/mac ctV ^privoig Kcii Ty bTTitTToX?) IV f)'('), Jcrome, and the Talmud (Eicli- horn, Einhituvg, iii, 184). In the New Testament Jere- miah is referred to by name in IMatt. ii, 17, where a pas- sage is quoted from Jer. xxxi, 15, and in Matt, xvi, 14; in Heb. viii, 8-12, a passage is quoted from Jer. xxxi, 31-34. There is one other place in which the name of Jeremiah occurs — IMatt. xxvii, 9 — which has occasioned considerable difficulty, because the passage there quoted is not found in the extant writings of the prophet (see Kiuniil, Com. ad loc). Jerome affirms that he found the exact passage in a Hebrew apocryj)hal book (Fabri- cius, Codex Pseudepigrajihns, i, 1103), but there is no proof that that book was in existence before the time of Christ. It is jirobable that the passage intended by Matthew is Zeeh. xi, 12, 13, which in part corresponds with the quotation he gives, and that the name is a gloss which has found its way into tlie text (see 01s- hausen, Commentar iiber d. X. Test, ii, 493).
3. The genuinemss of some portions of the book has of late been disputed by German critics. Movers, whose views have been adopted by Dc Wette and Hitzig, at- tributes x, 1-16, and ch. xxx, xxxi, and xxxiii to the author of the concluding portion of the book of Isaiah. His fundamental argument against the last-named por- tion is, that the prophet Zechariah (viii, 7, 8) quotes from Jer. xxxi, 7, 8, 33, and in verse 9 speaks of the au- thor as one who lived " in the day that the foundation j of the house of the Lord of hosts was laid." But there I is nothing in ver. 7 and 8 of Zechariah to prove that it [ is intended to be a quotation from any written prophe- 1 cy, much less from this portion of Jeremiah. Hence 1 Hitzig {Jeremia, p. 230) gives uji the external evidence j on which Movers had relied. The internal evidence ' arising from the examination of particular words and phrases is so slight, especially when the autlienticity of the latter portion of Isaiah is maintained, that even Ewald agrees that the chapters in question, as well as : the other passage mentioned (x, 1-16), are the work of .Jeremiah. It seems, ho>vever, not improbable that the Chaldee of verse 11 is a gloss which has crept into the text, both because it is (apparently without reason) in another language, and because it seems to interrupt the progress of thought. The jiredictions against Babylon in ch. 1 and Ii arc ol)jected to by IMovers, De ^^'ctte, and others on the ground that they contain many interpola-
JEREMIAH 8
tions. Ewald attributes them to some unknown proph- et, who imitated the style of Jeremiah. Their authen- ticity is maintained by Hitzig (p. 391) and by Umbreit (p. 290-293), to whom we must refer ibr an answer to the objections made against them. The last chapter is generally regarded as an appendix added by some later author. It is almost verbally the same as the account in 2 Kings xxiv, 18; xxv, 30, and it carries the historj' down to a later period, probably, than that of the death of Jeremiah. That it is not his work seems to be indi- cated in the last verse of ch. li. (See generally Hilver- nick's Einleilung, ii, 232, etc.)