The estimate of Jeremiah is necessarily affected by the evidential value assigned to the various parts of the book that bears his name. Renan considered him as a fanatic filled with hatred of the human race; but this judgment was based upon oracles against foreign nations which probably are not his. The opinion of ,Maurice Vernes that a prophet who gave his people the counsel to surrender is a historically impossible character arises from a failure to recognize the highest type of patriotism, and the tendency of religious genius to subordinate all considerations of state to the demands of the divinity. Certain charges of cowardice, disingenuousness, partisanship and personal animosity are in a large measure based on stories which are perhaps too unquestioningly accepted as in every detail accurate. His phys ical courage may not have been always equal to his spiritual boldness; he may not have been altogether free from vindictiveness, and Ben nett wisely warns against picturing Hananiah and the Egyptian party as absolutely black, Jeremiah and the Chaldman party as absolutely white. His strong sense of being in the right made him firm as a wall when the occasion de manded it, and also made the patriotic ardor of his opponents seem like freason against Yahwe. The popular conception of him as the ((weeping prophet" is largely derived from Lamentations. There is no mistaking, how ever, his prevailing sadness and his tenderness of heart. The idea that he foretold a new cov enant, the restoration of the monarchy, and a boundless material prosperity is based on oracles that probably were not uttered by him.
It was given to this prophet to see more clearly than his predecessors how independent real re ligion and true morality are of the ceremonies of a temple cult, the external authority of a written law, and the shifting fortunes of polit ical society, to enter fresh fields of spiritual experience and to open new paths of personal piety.
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