Chapter IV THE HYMNS OF THE FIRST CHAPTER OF LUKE?
ape genuinely Palestinian character which has just been vindicated for Lk. i.5-ii-52 may conceivably be explained in a nusaber of different ways; various hypotheses have been proposed to explain the production of such a narrative and the incorporation of it in our Third Gospel. But before these hypotheses are considered, it will be necessary to examine one particular part of the narrative with special care. The part to which we refer consists of the hymns that are embedded in the section: the Magnificat? and the Benedictus.* These hymns, because of their special characteristics, deserve something like separate consideration.
The impression of most readers has been that the hymns exhibit the Jewish or Palestinian characteristics which we have found in the whole section with even greater clearness than that which elsewhere appears. The diction is very largely that of the Old Testament; the style is characterized by that parallelism which is the basis of Hebrew poetry; the thought is marked by a striking absence of specifically Christian, as distinguished from pre-Christian, ideas. Certainly the prima facie evidence is strongly in favor of placing the origin of these hymns on Palestinian ground and at a very early time.
This obvious conclusion has, however, met a vigorous and able opponent in A. von Harnack of Berlin. In a detailed study which appeared in 1900,* supplemented by later works, he has attempted to show that the Magnificat and the Benedictus, far from being Palestinian hymns, are free compositions of the Gentile Christian author of the Gospel. The Old Testament coloring of the hymns, he maintains, was produced not by any familiarity of the author with Hebrew poetry in the original, but by a conscious imitation of the Septuagint translation. After subtraction of the Septuagint words and phrases, he says,
2 This chapter is dependent upon the article by the present writer, “The Hymns of the First Chapter of Luke,” in Princeton Theological Review, x, 1912, pp. 1-38; but much of the detailed proof has here been omitted, and account has been taken of recent investigations.
4Harnack, “Das Magnificat der Elisabet (Luc. 1, 46-55) nebst einigen Bemerkungen zu Luc. 1 und 2,” in Sitzungsberichte der kéniglich preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften xu Berlin, 1900, pp. 537-559.
what remains is so characteristically Lucan as to show that the hymns are due to Luke’s own hand.
This argument of Harnack has not attained any general acceptance. It was opposed, for example, especially by Zimmermann,° Hilgenfeld,° Spitta,’ and later by Gunkel.® In 1912 the present writer attempted some examination of it in detail, with decidedly negative result.°
The first question concerns the validity of Harnack’s method. It has just been observed that Harnack tries to establish the Lucan authorship of the hymns by first subtracting from them the Septuagint words and phrases and then exhibiting the specifically Lucan character of what remains. But the trouble is that the subtraction of Septuagint words and phrases was not inclusive enough; many of the phrases which remain after Harnack’s process of subtraction are found in the Septuagint, though in other passages than those which Harnack supposed the author of the hymns to have used.”
An attempt was indeed made by Harhack to overcome this objection. The. occurrence of a word in the Septuagint, he said in effect, does not necessarily prevent it from being regarded as a mark of Luke’s hand, if, within the New Testament, it occurs solely or chiefly in the Lucan writings; for the choice of the same word from the rich store of Septuagint usage, as well as coincidence of usage in other particulars, might show unity of authorship."* This answer was
7“Das Magnifikat, ein Psalm der Maria und nicht der Elisabeth,” in Theologische Abhandlungen fiir Holizmann, 1902, pp. 61-94, especially pp. 78-83. Compare the later article, “ Die chronologischen Notizen und die Hymnenin Le. 1 u. 2,” in Zeitschrift fur die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft, vii, 1906, pp. 281-317.
8“Die Lieder in der Kindheitsgeschichte Jesu bei Lukas,” in Festgabe... A. von Harnack zum siebzigsten Geburtstag dargebracht, 1921, pp. 43-60, especially pp. 45, 52.
10 This objection was raised by Spitta (“Das Magnifikat, ein Psalm der Maria und nicht der Elisabeth,” in Theologische Abhandlungen fiir Holtzmann, 1902, pp. 78-83) and was supported by him through a detailed examination of the Magnificat, which was extended to the Benedictus by the present writer.
1 Harnack, review of “The Hymns of the First Chapter of Luke,” and “The Origin of the First Two Chapters of Luke” (Princeton Theological Review, x, 1912, pp. 1-38, 212- 277), in Theologische Literaturzeitung, xxxviii, 1913, col. 7: “That this Lucan element comes to a very considerable extent from the Septuagint I have never denied, and it also does not affect my argument if the proofs for the part played by the Septuagint are extended still further; for the point is that the peculiarity and the constancy of the choice cause even the Septuagint elements to be specifically Lucan” (“Dass dieses lukanische Element zu einem sehr betrachtlichen Teile aus der LXX herriihrt, habe ich nie bestritten, und es trifft meine Ausfiihrungen auch nicht, wenn die Beweise fiir den Anteil dieser Quelle noch erweitert werden; denn die Eigenart und Konstanz der Auswahl macht eben auch die LXX-Elemente zu spezifisch lukanischen.”).
anticipated to some extent on behalf of Harnack by Ladeuze,’? and undoubtedly it has some weight. But it does not go the whole way toward removing the objection; and particularly does it fail to do so with regard to the hymns. If Harnack’s original program could really be carried out, possibly his argument might be strong; if he could show (1) that part of the language of the Magnificat and Benedictus comes from the Septuagint, (2) that what is clearly not found in the Septuagint is distinctively Lucan, then possibly he might succeed in establishing Lucan authorship of the hymns. Even that, it is true, would be doubtful; for it would still be possible to hold to the hypothesis of Lucan revision or Lucan translation of originally Jewish Christian hymns. But as a matter of fact, Harnack’s program cannot be carried out at all. When all the words and phrases commonly found in the Septuagint are subtracted from the hymns, very little remains; and it cannot be shown that that little was certainly due to the hand of Luke.
Only one really striking coincidence between the language of the hymns and that of the writer of Luke-Acts remains after the winnowing process just indicated has been carefully carried out.* That coincidence is found in the phrase, “through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old,” in Lk. i.70, which appears in almost the same form in Acts iii21.1* The coincidence is more striking in the Greek original than it is in an English translation. Nevertheless, the argument based upon it can be shown not to be strong enough to bear anything like the full weight of Harnack’s conclusion.
In the first place, it may possibly be questioned whether the text of the phrase translated “his holy prophets from of old” is correct in the passage in Acts.!> In that passage, the so-called Western text, as represented by the Codex Bezz, supported by certain other evidence, including citations in Irenzus, Tertullian and Origen, omits the words, “from of old”; and in the other witnesses
12 “De Y’origine du Magnificat et de son attribution dans le troisieme Evangile 4 Marie ou 4 Flisabeth,” in Revue d’ Histoire Ecclésiastique, iv, 1903, p. 638, note. Compare “The Hymns of the First Chapter of Luke,” in Princeton Theological Review, x, 1912, PP. 7 f., footnote 19.
18 The only other coincidence which deserves special mention is found in the use of the phrase &deors duapriav in Lk. 1.77. That phrase occurs twice in the rest of the Gospel of Luke, five times in Acts, once in Matthew, once in Mark (Mk. i.4=Lk. iii.3), and once in Paul. It does not occur at all in the Septuagint. But in view of Mk. i.4 (Lk. iii.3) the hypothesis suggests itself that the Greek expression is derived from a phrase current in the circles from which John the Baptist came. Compare d¢joet duaprlas in Ps. Sol. ix.14, which is cited by Ryle and James, VAAMOI SOAOMONTOS Psalms of the Pharisees commonly called Psalms of Solomon, 1891, p. XCil.
MLk. 1.70, a orduaros Tov ayluy dx’ aldvos mpopnrdv abrod; Acts 11.21, 6d orduaros rap vy dx’ alvos abrov 7, TOV. eas Zahn (“Die iui der Apostelgeschichte des Lucas,” in Forschungen zur Geschichte des neutestamentlichen Kanons, ix, 1916) brackets the words in his reconstruction of the Western text, which he regards as the earlier of two editions of the book both of which he thinks were made by Luke.
there is some variation as to the place at which the words are inserted. If the witnesses for the omission are correct, then the distinctiveness of the language altogether disappears, and the similarity to Lk. i.70 ceases to be at all striking. And certainly something may be said in favor of following the Western text at this point. In the first place, there is the general presumption in favor of the “shorter reading.” If the short text without “from of old” is correct, it is possible to account for the competing readings; they would represent various ways of inserting the gloss. The authority of the Western text is certainly greater where it omits something that the “Neutral text” contains than where it is longer than the Neutral text. In the second place, the desire of scribes to insert the gloss might be explained as due to the presence of the words in Lk. i.70; the insertion of the gloss would thus come under the head of “harmonistic corruptions.” 76
These arguments, it must be admitted, are by no means conclusive. In the first place, the phrase might have been omitted because of the unusual and — somewhat difficult character of the expression which is found in the original text when the words are retained; in the second place, the documents which include the words do not insert them in exactly the place where they are found at Lk. i.70; and in the third place, despite the arguments for the omission drawn from transcriptional probability, the text of the Codex Bezz and its associates, we hold, is generally so corrupt that it would be dangerous to follow it here.
In view of these considerations, we should probably print the words, “from of old,” in the text of Acts iii21 if we were making an edition of the Book of Acts; but at the same time a serious doubt does remain as to whether these words are genuine.
But if they are genuine, does the coincidence of expression with Lk. i.70 show that the Benedictus, in which the latter verse occurs, was composed by the author of Luke-Acts? We think that that is not the case.
In the first place, the phrase is not precisely the same in the two passages, since the pronoun “his” stands after the word “prophets” in Lk. i.70 and before the word “prophets” in Acts iii.21. It would, however, be a mistake to lay much stress upon this consideration. Certainly the similarity between the two phrases is very striking.
In the second place, it should be observed that the passage in Acts is part of the report of a speech attributed to Peter. Was that speech composed by the author of the book, or does it represent a report of what Peter actually said?
16 Such arguments have led Souter (Novum Testamentum Graece,) to regard the words “from of old” with suspicion at Acts iii.21.
This question involves the general question of the speeches in the Book of Acts, and it will not be possible here to discuss it in detail. But certainly the speeches of Peter in the early part of the book do seem to possess a distinctive quality that prevents us from regarding them as free compositions of Luke. If, then, Acts iii21 was not composed by Luke, similarity between that passage and Lk. i.70 does not show Lucan authorship of this latter passage. The similarity would, indeed, still require explanation. But various explanations would suggest themselves. One explanation would be that in his speech reported in the third chapter of Acts Peter himself was dependent upon the Benedictus—supposing that that was a hymn current in the primitive Jerusalem Church. But Peter's speech was probably spoken in Aramaic, and the verbal similarity of Acts ili21 to Lk. iyo could hardly have been produced in its present form except in the Greek language. Possibly, therefore, Peter himself, or whoever else first translated the report or summary of his speech into Greek, was influenced by the Greek form of the Benedictus, whether that hymn was originally composed in Greek or had been translated into Greek from Hebrew or Aramaic. This hypothesis is by no means beyond the bounds of possibility. If the Benedictus was actually composed by the father of John the Baptist, or if it was attributed to him at an early time, it may well have circulated among the disciples of John, and may have passed from them to the disciples of Jesus. There is nothing inherently improbable in supposing that the language of such a hymn might have become so well known in the primitive Church as to color the translation of a phrase in Peter’s speech.
In the third place, if the form in which Peter’s speech appears in the third chapter of Acts was not received by Luke from some previous record, but was composed by him, why may not he himself have been dependent upon the Benedictus—supposing that that hymn had come to him either separately or already embedded in the Jewish Christian narrative of the birth and infancy of John the Baptist and of Jesus? 1” Such dependence upon a Jewish Christian source would be altogether like what we know of this author’s method, Evidently Luke had a keen appreciation of the style used in Palestinian sources; he has shown such appreciation clearly by the fact he has not used the typical
17 Dependence of the author of Luke-Acts upon the songs of Lk. i-ii is accepted in the case of the Gloria in excelsis (Lk. ii.14) by Holtzmann (on Lk. xix.38 in Hand-Commentar sum Neuen Testament, 3te Aufl, i, 1901, p. 401). Compare also B. Weiss, on Lk. xix.38in the ninth edition, 1901, of the Meyer Commentary; J. Weiss, Die Schriften des Neuen Testaments, 3te Auf. (edited by Bousset and Heitmiiller), i, 1917, p. 486. Wellhausen, (Das Evangelium Lucae, 1904, p: £09), on the other hand, instead of regarding Luke xix.38 as being derived from Lk. 11.14, reverses the relationship; while Spitta (“Die chronologischen Notizen und die Hymnen in Lc. Lu. 2, im Zeitschrift fair die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft, vii, 1906, p. 305) supposes that both age citations froma Jewish hymn.
Greek style of the prologue of his Gospel to narrate events that took place in Palestine, but has, both in the Gospel and in the early part of Acts, preserved the quality of narrative that was suited to the subject-matter. If such an author had become familiar with a Jewish Christian hymn attributed to the father of John the Baptist, what could be more natural than that the language of that familiar hymn should come readily to his pen, even, perhaps, without any conscious dependence, when he was introducing a similar thought in his report of a speech of Peter? It must be remembered that the coincidence of language in Lk. iyo and Acts iii.2t appears in the expression of a thought that recurred again and again both among the Jews and in the early Church—namely, the thought that in the person and work of Jesus Old Testament prophecies were fulfilled. Might it not be natural that the phrase, “through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old,” should, through its original use in the Greek translation of a Jewish Christian hymn, have become in some sort stereotyped in the primitive Church?
In the fourth place, the problem would be solved in a particularly satisfactory manner if Luke himself could be regarded as the translator of an Aramaic report of Peter’s speech. In that case his use of a phrase which had already been used in a hymn incorporated in his earlier book would be admirably explained. It is by no means impossible that the author of Luke-Acts, despite the fact that he was a Gentile, should have been acquainted with the Aramaic language. If he was identical with the author of the “we-sections” of the Book of Acts, his presence in Palestine at the beginning and end of Paul’s two-year imprisonment in that country can be definitely established. And whether or not he was a native of Syrian Antioch, as some modern scholars suppose, there is no decisive objection against the view—though also there may be no decisive argument in favor of it—that he lived in a partly Semitic environment in his early life. What is clear, at any rate, is that he had a warm sympathy with Jewish feeling and a delicate appreciation of Semitic style. It is certainly not beyond the bounds of possibility, therefore, that he should have been able to translate a Semitic document.
But if so, why may he not have been the translator, not merely of the speech of Peter in the third chapter of Acts, but also of the Benedictus itself, or even of the whole narrative contained in Lk. i.5-ii52? That supposition, again, is not altogether impossible. And if it be correct, then the similarity between Acts iii.21 and Lk. i.7o is admirably explained, without supposing that either passage is a free composition of the author of the whole double work.
We are, indeed, far from giving assent to this hypothesis, or to any particular one of the hypotheses that have just been mentioned, Still other hypotheses might be suggested. But enough has been said to show that there are various possible ways of explaining the verbal coincidence between the two verses in question other than the way favored by Harnack. The Lucan characteristics which he finds in the Magnificat and Benedictus really reduce themselves, when properly sifted, to this one phrase; and this one phrase will by no means bear the whole weight of Harnack’s theory regarding the composition of the hymns.
Harnack does not rely, indeed, merely upon the examination of details. The whole structure of the Magnificat, he thinks, is such that only a Gentile like Luke could have produced it; ** the skilful management of the repeated pronouns,!® and in general the elaborate character of the poetic composition, are thought to indicate the hand of the artist Luke. With regard to the Benedictus, Harnack is particularly confident. “The first three strophes of the Benedictus (verses 68-75; in all, there are five strophes with four lines each) are only superficially,” he says, “put into the form of the Hebrew psalm; a closer examination reveals a single, complicated, genuinely Greek period which is altogether to the credit of the author of the prologue (Lk. i.) and of numerous other excellent Greek sentences. The period is merely forced into the Hebraizing covering: the hands are Esau’s hands, but the voice is the voice of Jacob.” ”°
How many of the niceties of structure discovered by Harnack were intended by the authors of the hymns may well be doubted. At any rate, in order to prove Lucan authorship, Harnack should have exhibited by example (1) the likeness of these hymns to undisputed works of Luke and (2) their unlikeness to non-Lucan hymns.
The former requirement is incapable of fulfilment. Luke has unfortunately left to posterity no certain examples of his poetry, if he ever wrote any poetry at all. The most that could possibly be done would be to show that these hymns are Greek rather than Semitic in poetical form, or rather that they are such as only a man who used Greek as his native language would have produced, without a Semitic original, merely by moulding Hebrew materials into an imitation of a Hebrew poem. Examples of such a moulding of Hebrew materials by a Gentile are rather difficult to find; at any rate they have not been adduced by Harnack. What evidence is there, therefore, for placing the Magnificat and Benedictus in such a category?
19 That is, of ov and abrés in the Magnificat, and of abrés and suels in the Benedictus.
The second requirement also is left unfulfilled by Harnack. If he is unable to exhibit the likeness of these hymns to undisputed Lucan works, or even to works composed by the method which he thinks Luke employed, he is also unable to exhibit their unlikeness to non-Lucan, and particularly Old Testament, hymns. Such an exhibition could only have been carried out by means of examples; and until it is carried out, Harnack’s proof remains, to say the least, incomplete. If some Old Testament Psalms (in the Septuagint) were to be examined by the same kind of minute scrutiny which Harnack has applied to the hymns of Lk. i, perhaps similar peculiarities of composition might be discovered.
Harnack lays particular stress upon the former part of the Benedictus, Lk. i.68-75, which, he points out, constitutes one long sentence. But if he means to compare this sentence with the sentence that forms the Lucan prologue, Lk. j.1-4, the comparison is particularly disastrous for his conclusion. The two sentences are each of them long; but there the similarity ceases. In every other respect, it would be difficult to imagine a greater contrast. Lk. i.1-4 is not a compound, but a complex, sentence; it could not grammatically be broken off until almost the very end, since the sense is held in suspense; and the cadence of the sentence is obviously incomplete until it is rounded off by the last emphatic word, “the certainty.” ** Lk. i.68-75, on the other hand, consists of a large number of codrdinate phrases and clauses put together in the loosest possible way; the passage could be broken off at the end of almost any one of the nine lines of which it is composed, and still make complete sense. The sentence is not planned as though the end were in view from the beginning, but is lengthened out by adding one epexegetical phrase or clause after another, loosely and almost as an after-thought. Is that a characteristic Greek form of sentence? Does it not rather look like the simplicity of Semitic poetry, forced into the restraints of Greek grammar?
A striking parallel to this sentence in the Benedictus is found in a passage in the so-called “Psalms of Solomon.”*? The Psalms of Solomon are extant in Greek, but the Greek is admittedly a translation from a Semitic original. Here we have, therefore, an example of admittedly Semitic poetry appearing in a Greek form. Comparison of these Psalms with the hymns of the first chapter of Luke ought, if Harnack’s hypothesis be correct, to show a contrast; but as a matter of fact it shows a rather striking similarity. The passage to which we refer may be translated into English as follows:
21 Iva excyvas wept dv xarnxnOns ASyww tiv dopddevap (Lk. 1.4).
22 At che end of the eighteenth Psalm of the collection. The text will be found in Ryle and James, op. cit., p. 150.
Blessed are those who are born in those days
To see the good things of the Lord, which he will do for the coming generation, Under the staff of the instruction of Christ the Lord in the fear of his God,
In the wisdom of the Spirit and of righteousness and strength,
To direct a man in the works of righteousness by the fear of God,
To establish them all in the fear of the Lord.
This sentence is, indeed, shorter than the sentence in the Benedictus; but the sentence-structure, if so very loose a conjunction of clauses and phrases may be called “structure” at all, is strikingly similar.
The Psalms of Solomon, from which this passage has been taken, afford material for other interesting comparisons with the hymns of the first chapter of Luke. Parallels have been cited by Ryle and James; * and although the similarities in detail may not often be very close, a certain affinity in spirit and in ideas cannot be denied. Here we have, therefore, another indication of the Palestinian and Semitic origin of the Lucan hymns, since the Psalms of Solomon reflect the events of the Palestinian invasion of Pompey, and were written in Palestine and in the Hebrew language at about the middle of the first century before Christ. The date of the Greek translation is placed by Ryle and James between 40 B.c. and av. 40.74 There can be no thought of literary dependence one way or the other between these Psalms and the hymns of the first chapter of Luke; and the interesting hypothesis of Chase,”* to the effect that the parallels are to be explained by a common dependence upon the “Greek Jewish prayers of the Hellenistic Synagogues” is unnecessary.’ But the similarity of thought and feeling between the hymns of Lk. i-ii, on the one hand, and the Palestinian Psalms of Solomon and certain Palestinian Jewish prayers on the other, furnishes subsidiary evidence for a primitive Jewish Christian origin of the Magnificat and the Benedictus.
The primary, as distinguished from subsidiary, evidence is furnished simply
23 Op. cit., pp. Ix, Ixii, and especially xci f., where the parallels are cited in detail. Compare also Hillmann, “Die Kindheitsgeschichte Jesu nach Lukas,” in Jahrbucher fiir protestantische Theologie, xvii, 1891, pp. 201 f.
*% See Ryle and James, op. cit., Introduction, especially pp. xxxvii-xliv. Frankenberg (Die Datierung der Psalmen Salomos, 1896) agreed with this view in holding to a Hebrew original for the Psalms, and even attempted a retranslation into Hebrew; but placed the date in an earlier period, that of the Syrian conflicts. He has, however, apparently won little support for this dating; and the accepted view is that the Psalms of Solomon were written in Hebrew in the first century before Christ. See Schiirer, Geschichte des Jiidischen Volkes, 4te Aufl., iii, 1909, pp. 205- 212; Gray, “Psalms of Solomon,” in Charles, Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, il, 1913, pp. 625-630.
26 See “The Hymns of the First Chapter of Luke,” in Princeton Theological Reotew, x, 1912, by an examination of the two hymns themselves. It has already been observed that the Magnificat is made up almost altogether of Old Testament phrases. These phrases are derived from no one passage, but from the most various parts of the Old Testament Scriptures. The Magnificat is no mere imitation, for example, of the song of Hannah in I Sam. ii.1-10, though it does contain reminiscences of that song. Yet the various elements are welded together into a song of perfect unity and great beauty, which preserves the parallelism of Hebrew poetry in its noblest form. Harnack supposes that this result was accomplished by the conscious art of a Gentile. But it is no wonder that the vast majority of scholars as well as of simple readers are opposed to him. A single passage from the Old Testament might have been imitated; but that so very many passages should have been united without disclosing the joints, without making the slightest impression of artificiality, must always remain very improbable. The author of such a hymn must have lived in the atmosphere of the Old Testament, and must have been familiar from earliest childhood with its. language. Only so could elements derived from so many sources have been incorporated without artificiality in a single poem. The synthesis must have been made in life, long before it was made in literary form.”
This employment of Old Testament phrases has indeed sometimes been regarded as a mark of artificiality. David Friedrich Strauss, for example, thought that if this hymn was inspired directly by the Holy Spirit it was somewhat surprising that the result should not be something more original, instead of being a mere collection of Old Testament reminiscences.”* But surely this taunt displays an inadequate estimate of the Magnificat itself. If the Old Testament Scriptures themselves were given by inspiration of the Spirit of God, the use of them in a song of praise need not necessarily be unworthy of the same Spirit. And to regard such a use of Biblical language as a mark of artificiality is to do despite to the inmost heart of God’s people in all ages. Our Lord Himself used the Scriptures in very similar fashion; the sacred words of prophets and Psalms came unbidden to His lips in moments of crisis and trial. T. D. Bernard ** has aptly compared the modern use of Biblical phrases in prayer.° That is not artificial imitation, but the natural use of the language
27 Compare Gunkel, “Die Lieder in der Kindheitsgeschichte Jesu bei Lukas,” in Festgabe... A. von Harnack zum siebzigsten Geburtstag dargebracht, 1921, p. 52: “... Would the literary art of a Hellenist really have been able, by the use of collected citations from the Bible, to produce such genuineness of style? Is it not much more probable that a Jew, acquainted with the traditions of Hebrew poetry, here speaks to us—probably also in a Semitic language?”
30 Compare C. C. Torrey, “Translations Made from the Original Aramaic Gospels,” in Studies in the History of Religions Presented to Crawford Howell Toy, 1912, p. 293, footnote 9: “The fact that the language ‘consists largely of reminiscences’ is not a blemish. The devotional poetry of dearest to the Christian heart. When a true saint of God uses the words of Holy Scripture to express his deepest feelings whether in prayer or praise, only a very cold and unsympathetic observer can suppose such language of the heart to have been put together, artificially, by the use of a concordance. It does require some sympathy, no matter how much learning the critic may possess, to enter into the soul of the devout Christian or the devout Jew. But when such sympathy is present, the hymns of the first chapter of Luke will seem to be not products of a study chamber, but spontaneous outpourings of devout and thankful hearts. Who can say that such outpourings are unworthy of having been inspired by the Spirit of God?
We have been speaking primarily of the Magnificat. But the other hymn, the Benedictus, presents essentially the same character. It may be, indeed, somewhat different in form—probably different enough to disprove Harnack’s, and also Gunkel’s,®? contention that the two hymns must have been composed by the same person. The parallelism is not quite so simple; there are more subordinate clauses and appositions and epexegetical phrases; *? the basic Old Testament passages are perhaps not capable of being quite so easily designated. But the Hebrew parallelism and the genuine Old Testament spirit are really just as clear as in the case of the Magnificat.**
The form of the hymns, then, is genuinely Semitic.** The Greek translation, like some of the better parts of the Septuagint, has preserved the spirit of the original, though without doing unnecessary violence to the idiom of the Greek language. But an even stronger argument for a primitive Palestinian origin is to be derived from the content of the hymns, as distinguished from the form. The argument has already been set forth incidentally, in connection with the argument for a Palestinian origin of the infancy narrative as a whole, and so need not be treated here at any length. There is nothing in the hymns which can by any possibility be stretched into an allusion to specifically Christian doctrine, or even to the details of the later history of Jesus. In the Magnificat squat ah, bale pl ea a es es eee any religion of long standing must use familiar phrases; it could not otherwise have its intended effect.”
83 On the argument of Dalman (Die Worte Jesu, 1898, p. 183; English translation, The Words of Jesus, 1902, pp. 223 f.) against a Semitic original of éreoxéaro...... dvarony é& byous (Lk. i.78) see “The Hymns of the First Chapter of Luke,” in Princeton Theological Review, x, 1912, pp. 23 f., footnote 90. Dalman’s argument is by no means conclusive.
% Ladeuze, op. cit.. 1903, while opposing Harnack’s contention for Lucan authorship of the hymns, supposes that Luke retouched the Magnificat here and there. That is perhaps possible, but cannot be proved.
there is no clear allusion even to the person of the Messiah at all.35 In the Benedictus the allusion is merely to salvation in the house of David. The Messianic king has apparently come at last, or is about to come; but nothing more is known about Him than that which was contained in Old Testament prophecy. The child John is thought of as a forerunner, not particularly of the Messiah, but of Jehovah. The coming salvation is conceived of as applying not to the world, but, primarily at least, to Israel; Israel is to be delivered from the insolent oppressors.** That the salvation is to be not merely political, but also moral and religious, does not transcend the bounds of Old Testament prophecy." If the words in Lk. i.79, “to appear to those who are sitting in darkness and the shadow of death,” contain a hint of universalism, it is the universalism of Isaiah.
Against this overwhelming prima facie evidence, Harnack can urge only his linguistic argument. And that has been examined in detail and found insufhcient. Harnack is indeed much more confident about the hymns than about - the rest of Luke i-ii. In the case of the Magnificat and the Benedictus, he would exclude altogether the possibility, which he leaves open as regards the rest of the narrative, that Luke was merely the translator of an Aramaic source; and insists that the hymns were actually composed by him. But this decision should certainly be reversed. A linguistic examination of the hymns, when compared with an examination of the rest of Lk. i-ti, will show clearly that Harnack’s evidence for Lucan authorship is far less convincing in the case of the Magnificat and Benedictus than in the rest of the section.*® That the hymns were found by Luke in a Greek form is perhaps most probable; that they were translated by him from Hebrew or Aramaic is perfectly possible, but is by no means proved by the literary phenomena; that they were composed by him is practically out of the question.
35 Volter (Die evangelischen Erzahlungen von der Geburt und Kindhett Jesu, 1911, p. 23) calls attention to the fact that the closing words of the song of Hannah, xat btydcer xépas xpiorod abrod (I Sam. ii.to) find no placein the Magnificat. If the Magnificat were composed to suit its present context on the basis of the song of Hannah, why should the author omit just those words in his Old Testament model which would seem to apply most directly to the Christian Messiah?
87 Compare Hilgenfeld, “ Die Geburts- und Kindheitsgeschichte Jesu Luc. I, 5-II, 52,” in Zeitschrift fiir wissenschafiliche Theologie, xliv, 1901, p. 219: “Although this salvation is found not only in political liberation, but also in piety and righteousness, yet nothing carries us beyond the feelings of a Jew like the author of Ps. Sol. xvii, except that here the birth of the Messiah in the house of David is already apparently presupposed.”
38 Compare Feine, Eine vorkanonische Uberlicferung des Lukas, 1891, p. 20; Stanton, The Gospels as Historical Documents, ii, 1909, pp. 223 ff. (where Harnack’s argument about the hymns is singled out for particularly emphatic criticism).
The hypothesis of Harnack with regard to the composition of these hymns has been rather generally rejected by recent scholars. Indeed, so strong has been the impression produced by the genuinely Semitic quality of the form of the hymns, coupled with the absence of distinctly Christian ideas in the content of them, that a number of recent investigators have held that the hymns are not even Jewish Christian, but actually Jewish—that they were not originally intended to be placed in the mouths of Mary and Zacharias, but were simply Jewish songs composed to suit some entirely different occasions and then adapted to their present uses by the author of the infancy narrative.
This hypothesis, which has been advocated, at least for the Magnificat, in varying forms, by Hillmann,** Hilgenfeld,” Spitta,*# Gunkel,*? and others, would seem to be favored by the rather loose way in which the hymns are inserted in their present context and by the absence in them of any specific reference to the situation in which Mary and Zacharias stood. The Magnificat, in particular, contains no reference to the approaching birth of a son, and, at least superficially considered, might have been spoken under many different circumstances; there is nothing that points necessarily to the situation presupposed in the narrative. Indeed, the word translated “low estate” in verse 48—‘“for he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden”—has sometimes been regarded as introducing a discordant note. Wherein consisted the “low estate” of Mary? ** The phrase, “from henceforth,” or “from now on,” of the same verse has also caused difficulty. Why should the blessing which all generations are to ascribe to Mary be dated just from her visit to Elisabeth, rather
«.“Das Magnifikat, ein Psalm der Maria und nicht der Elisabeth,” in Theologische Abhandlungen fiir Holtzmann, 1902, pp. 83-90. For the modification of Spitta’s view or supplement to it, in his later article, “ Die chronologischen Notizen und die Hymnen in Le. 1 u. 2,” in Zeitschrift fir die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft, vii, 1906, pp. 281-317, see below p. 93; footnote 56.
42 “Die Lieder in der Kindheitsgeschichte Jesu bei Lukas,” in Festgabe..... A. von Harnack zum siebzigsten Geburtstag dargebracht, 1921, pp. 43-60. yS
43 This difficulty would become serious only if Vélter (op. ¢it., 1911, pp. 24 f.) were right in insisting that the word razelywors means not “low estate” or “humility,” but: humiliation” —that is, that it denotes the descent from a higher estate into a lower. How, it might be asked, had Mary suffered such a fall? But the suffix -o1s cannot always be interpreted so strictly (compare Wilkinson, A Johannine Document in the First Chapter of St. Luke’s Gospel, 1902, p. 36); and if the word here means simply “low estate,” then the expression is quite comprehensible on the lips of Mary. Wilkinson (0p. cit., p. 37) suggests that 7 the quotation Srt éréBrevev ext rip rarelywow Tis bobdns abrod quite naturally suits the feeling with which a native of Nazareth in Galilee would receive the news that she was destined to be the mother of Messiah (cf. St. John 1, 45).” But it is perhaps unnecessary to be so specific. The word rarelywors may be simply an expression of natural humility on the lips of Mary; certainly the mother of Jesus according to this narrative did not belong among the “mighty” or the “rich” (verses 52, 53), to whom God might, if He judged according to the outward appearance, have had respect.
than from the conception of the child, or from the birth, or from some other important event? Again, it has sometimes been thought not to suit the character attributed to Mary in these chapters that she should utter a hymn of praise at all. Elsewhere in Lk. i-ii she is represented as silent and passive. The manner in which the hymn is introduced has also aroused objection. Elsewhere in the narrative, it is said, when similar poetical effusions are introduced, the presence of the Spirit is noted; here there is nothing but the simple words, “And Mary said.” What follows the hymn has also been thought to be unnatural if Mary is regarded as the speaker: “And Mary abode with her about three months....” If Mary has just been speaking, it is argued, her name would be omitted and Elisabeth’s would be mentioned, instead of the reverse; that is, the sentence would read, “she abode with Elisabeth,” instead of “Mary abode with her.”
These difficulties have led a considerable number of recent scholars (including Harnack) to suppose that in the original text of the Gospel of Luke the. Magnificat was attributed not to Mary but to Elisabeth.* This hypothesis is not quite devoid of manuscript support.** And apparently it overcomes some of the difficulties. The “low estate” of verse 48 now becomes thoroughly intelligible; #° it is simply the humiliation (very acute to a Jewish woman) of childlessness, like the “humiliation” of Hannah, which in the Septuagint of I Sam. i.11 is expressed by the very same word in a clause very similar to the clause in the Magnificat.*” The phrase “from henceforth” now dates the blessing pronounced upon Elisabeth from the first movement of her child in the womb. The reserve of Mary now remains unbroken. The presence of the Spirit in the speaker now does not need to be mentioned in verse 46, because it has just been mentioned in verse 41. Finally, the “Mary remained with her” (instead of “she remained with Elisabeth”) of verse 56 now becomes natural, for Elisabeth has now just been the speaker and does not need to be mentioned again by name.
Spitta,“® while admitting the validity of some of these arguments which have been urged against the common view that the narrator intended Mary to be regarded as the author of the hymn, is, on the other hand, unable to satisfy
“See, for example, Harnack, “Das Magnificat der Elisabet (Luc. 1, 46-55) nebst einigen Bemerkungen zu Luc. 1 und 2,” in Sitzungsberichte der kéniglich preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, 1900, pp. 538-543.
46 “Elisabeth” is read instead of “Mary” in certain manuscripts of the Old Latin version and in one citation in Irenzus. See Souter’s note.
46 The word could, moreover, now be interpreted in the strict sense of “humiliation.”
47 TE thou wilt indeed look upon the humiliation [or “low estate”] of thine handmaid,” éay imPrérwv eriBrevns (rl) rHv rawelvwow Tis SobAns cov (I Sam. i.11).
48 See the earlier of Spitta’s two articles mentioned above, p. 76, footnote 7, and compare also the later one.
himself with the Elisabeth hypothesis. The external evidence for the omission of the subject of the verb “said” in verse 46, or for reading “Elisabeth” as the subject, is, he thinks, insufficient. It remains more probable, he argues, that the word “Mary” was first omitted by accident and then “Elisabeth” wrongly supplied in certain documents than that an original “Elisabeth” was changed to “Mary” in order that the hymn might be attributed to a more illustrious authoress.*® Furthermore, if the Magnificat, as the song of the barren Elisabeth, were an imitation of the song of the barren Hannah, the indication of the barrenness of the singer, which appears so plainly in the song of Hannah,” would surely not have been omitted from the song of Elisabeth. The term “barren,” being the very link which bound the two songs together, would not have been weakened into the general term “humiliation.” Any other idea in Hannah’s song, Spitta insists, would have been omitted more readily than that. Furthermore, the Elisabeth hypothesis, Spitta continues, explains no better than the Mary hypothesis the looseness with which the song is fitted into the narrative: if Elisabeth were regarded as the speaker, the hymn should have been inserted after Lk. i25. At any rate, almost any place would have been more desirable for the insertion than that which was actually chosen. In verses 42-45, Elisabeth has greeted Mary as the mother of her Lord; Mary and her Son are here the all-important figures. Surely Elisabeth would not proceed at once, in such a situation, to such an extravagant praise of her own son. Moreover, Spitta says, the words “with her” of verse 56 follow admirably upon verse 45; whereas according to Old Testament usage, if the psalm had intervened, the name “Elisabeth” would have had to be mentioned even if Elisabeth had been represented as the speaker of the hymn. The phenomena, Spitta thinks, can be explained only by the hypothesis that the hymn was foreign to the original story. Originally, Spitta thinks, the hymn was intended by its unknown Jewish author merely to express an Israelitish woman’s rejoicing over a happy turn in the history of the nation, for which her sons had fought; it is inserted here by the hand of the Evangelist redactor.
An important objection to this hypothesis is that the motive of the redactor is far from clear. How did the Evangelist ever come to insert the hymn? According to Spitta himself, the plan of the narrative in Lk. i-ii requires Mary to
“6The view of Harnack is that in the original text of the Gospel there stood merely the words xal elev, the addition of Mapidpy and of ’EdodBer representing merely two ways of supplying the missing subject of the verb. Of these two glosses, the one by which ’Ed\.oder was supplied was, Harnack thinks, in accordance with the intention of the author: for the author of course intended the unexpressed subject of elev to be simply the speaker of the preceding words; no
change of speaker was meant. 60 [ Sam. ii.s: “so that the barren hath born seven; and she that hath many children is waxed
keep silent. If that plan is so clear to modern scholars, even after it has been spoiled by the insertion of the Magnificat, it should have been still clearer to the Evangelist before he made his insertion. He has respected it in other parts of the narrative; why has he upset it here? His action might indeed have been conceivable if he accomplished anything by it. If the Magnificat contained Lucan, or even merely Christian, ideas which the Evangelist was anxious to impress upon his readers, then the insertion of the hymn might be explicable. But Spitta himself has insisted that this is not the case. Or if the Evangelist had chanced upon a Jewish hymn that suited the situation of Mary in some remarkable way, conceivably he might have seized the opportunity of embellishing his narrative by inserting it. But that, too, is far from the fact. The situation implied in the Magnificat can be defined, on the basis of the hymn itself, only in general terms. How, then, came the hymn to be attributed to Mary?
By way of answer to this question, Spitta suggests that the Evangelist attributed the hymn to Mary and inserted it just at this point because of the. phrase, “his handmaid,” in Lk. 1.48, which corresponds with Mary’s words, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord,” in verse 38, and because of the expression, “shall call me blessed,” in verse 48, which corresponds with the words referring to Mary, “Blessed is she that believed,” in verse 45.
It is interesting to observe at this point that the very verse (verse 48) which Spitta thus regards as being that in the original hymn which commended the use of the hymn to the Evangelist is excluded from the original hymn by Gunkel.*! Gunkel regards the verse as an addition of the redactor, who thus suited the Jewish psalm to its present (Christian) use; he thinks (1) that it constitutes an intrusion of an individual or personal element into a psalm which otherwise, like most of the Old Testament Psalms, might have been spoken by every pious Israelite, and (2) that it breaks up the form of this psalm by introducing a future tense (“all generations shall call me blessed”) into the midst of the aorists which elsewhere are used, and which alone are proper to an “eschatological hymn” in which future blessings are celebrated as though they were already past.
These arguments for the exclusion of verse 48 are surely insufficient. Even if Gunkel is right in supposing that most of the Old Testament Psalms lack references to peculiar individual experiences and might be sung by any pious Israelite, yet just the Old Testament Psalms will show that there are many exceptions, to say the least, to this rule. And the argument from the form of the hymn depends upon the view that the aorists are aorists proper to an