The force of this argument is still more increased when we observe that the pretended pseudo-Isaiah has, in other respects, the characteristics of the authors before the exile ; namely, their clearness of perception, and their freshness and beauty of description. This belongs to him, even according to the opinion of all opponents. These excel lences are not quite without example among the writers after the exile, but they occur in none of them in the same clegree ; not even in Zechariah, who, besides, ought not to be compared with the pseudo-Isaiah, because he does not manifest the same independence, but leans entirely upon the earlier prophets. To these chamcteristics of the writers before the exile belongs also the scarcity of visions and symbolic actions, and \\hat is con nected therewith (because it proceeds likewise from the government of the imagination), the natural ness and correctness of poetical images. What Unibreit says concerning the undisputedly genuine portions of Isaiah fully applies also to the disputed portions : Our prophet is more an oratoi than a symbolic seer. He has subjected the external imagery to the internal government qf the word. The few symbols which he exhibirs are simple and easy to be understood. In the pro phets during and after the exile ViSi011S and sym bolic actions prevail, and their images frequently bear a grotesque Babylonian impress. Only those authors, after the exile, have not this character, whose style, like that of Haggai and Malachi. does not rise much above prose. A combination of vivacity, originality, and vigour, with natural ness, simplicity, and correctness, is not found in any prophet during and after the exile.' Nothing but very strong arguments could induce us to as cribe to a later period prophecies which rank in language and style with the literary monuments of the earlier period. In all the attacked portions of Isaiah independence and originality are mani fest in such a degree, as to make them harmonize not only with the prophets before the exile in general, but especially with the earliest cycle of these prophets. If these portions were spurious, they would form a perfectly isolated exception, which we cannot admit, since, as we have before shewn, the leaning of the later prophets upon the earlier rests upon a deep-seated cause arising from the very nature of prophetism. A prophet form ing such an exception would stand, as it were, without the cycle of the prophets. We cannot imagine such an exception.
6. A certain difference of style between the portions called genuine and those called spurious does not prove what our opponents assert. Such a difference may arise from various causes in the productions of one and the same author. It is fre quently occasioned by a difference of the subject matter, and by a difference of mood arising there from ; for instance, in the prophecies of Jeremiah against foreign nations, the style is more elevated and elastic than in the home-prophecies. How little this difference of style can prove, we may learn by comparing with each other the prophecies which our opponents call genuine.; for instance, ch. ix. 7- x. 4. The genuineness of this pro phecy is not subject to any doubt, although it has not that swing which we find in many prophecies of the first part. The language has as much ease as that in the second part, with which this piece has several repetitions in common. The difference of style in the prophecies against foreign nations (which predictions are particularly distinguished by sublimity), from that in chapters i.-xii., which are now generally ascribed to Isaiah, appeared to Bertholdt a sufficient ground for assigning the former to another author. But in spite of this
difference of style it is, at present, again generally admitted that they belong to one and the same author. It consequently appears that our op ponents deem the difference of style alone not a sufficient argument for proving a difference of authorship ; but only such a difference as does not arise from a difference of subjects and of moods, especially if this difference occurs in an author whose mind is so richly endowed as that of Isaiah, in whose works the form of the style is produced directly by the subject. Ewald cor rectly observes (p. 173), We cannot state that Isaiah had a peculiar colouring of style. He is neither the especially lyrical, nor the especially elegiacal, nor the especially oratorical, nor the especially admonitory prophet, as, perhaps, Joel, Hosea, or Micah, in whom a particular colouring more predominates. Isaiah is capable of adapting his style to the most different subject, and in this consists his greatness and his most distinguished excellence.' The chief fault of our opponents is, that they judge without distinction of persons ; and here distinction of persons would be proper. They measure the productions of Isaiah with the same measure that is adapted to the productions of less gifted prophets. Jeremiah, for example, does not change his tone according to the difference of subject so much that it could be mistaken by an expenenced Hebraist. Of Isaiah, above all, we might say what Fichte wrote in a letter to a friend in Konigsberg : Strictly speaking, I have no style, because I have all styles' (Fichte's Leben von seinem Sohne, th. p. 196). If we ask how the difference of style depends upon the difference of subject, the answer must be very favourable to Isaiah, in whose book the style does not so much differ according to the so-called genuineness or spuriousness, as rather according to the subjects of the first and second parts. The peculiarities of the second part arise from the subjects treated therein ; and from the feelings to which these subjects give tise. Here the prophet addresses not so much the multitude who live around him, as the future people of the Lord, purified by his judgments, who are about to spring from the ?An?", that is, the small numbet of the elect who were contemporaries of Isaiah. Here he does not speak to a mixed congregation, but to a congregation of brethren whom he com forts. The commencement, Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people,' is the theme of the whole. Hence arise the gentleness and tenderness of style. and the frequent repetitions. Comforting love has many words. Hence the addition of many epi thets to the name of God, which are so many shields by which the strokes of despair are warded off, and so many bulwarks against the attacks of the visible world which was driving to despair. The sublimity, abruptness, and thunders of the first part find no place here, where the object of Isaiah is not to terrify and to shake stout-hearted sinners, but rather to bring glad tidings to the meek ; not to quench the smoking fiax, nor to break the bruised reed. But wherever there is a similarity of hearers and of subject, there we meet also a remarkable similarity of style, in both the first and second part ; as, for example, in the description of the times of Messiah, and of the punishments, in which (lvi.-lix.) the prophet has the whole nation before his eyes, and in which he addresses the careless sinners by whom he is surrounded.