and prophesying lies; but the word of Yahweh which is like fire, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces, they do not possess (23:9 ff.).

As to prediction, we are sure only that Jeremiah foretold the destruction of Jerusalem at the hands of the Babylonians (chapters 7 and 26). From the Scythian invasion, which perhaps occasioned Jeremiah's first appearance as a prophet, on to the end of his life, he is sure that judgment against Judah is the purpose of God, and that neither Jerusalem nor the temple is to escape. In 4:23-27 the coming desolation and chaos are described as if actually seen in vivid anticipation. But it is not vision, but rather insight and moral judgment, on which Jeremiah rests the most incredible of his forecasts, that of Jerusalem's overthrow (7:115).

Ezekiel stands between the prophets of the second sort and those of the third, the apocalyptic type. In part, his message is identical with Jeremiah's. He affirms, with him, that Jerusalem is about to fall. But his nature, his religious experience, his teaching and outlook, differ radically from those of the prophets before him. We are concerned here only to notice that in Ezekiel vision and ecstasy are revived, while prophecy in its more ethical and spiritual qualities begins that decline from which it did not recover until the coming of Christ. The vision of Ezekiel, told in the first chapter, is naturally to be compared with that of Isaiah. The physical details are far more elaborated, but the intellectual content is far poorer, and of ethical or spiritual significance one can hardly speak. This theophany is seen in trance, and conveys to the prophet the visible assurance that Yahweh is free from the temple of Jerusalem; that the temple can fall without violating his transcendence, since his throne is a chariot that moves freely where it will; and that the exiles in Babylonia are not shut off from the worship of him, since he can come to them there. The departure of

Yahweh from the temple before its fall and his final return to the new temple of the Messianic times form, in fact, a central thought in Ezekiel's revelation. And because God's presence in Jerusalem was physically conceived, so his departure and return must be physically experienced. It is for this reason that vision, in the proper sense, is a natural form in which his revelation is received and expressed. Over against the inwardness of Jeremiah's experience of God, we feel the prevailing externality that separates God from man in Ezekiel. The spirit of God lifts him up and carries him away bodily. The hand of Yahweh is strong upon him and forces him to come and go against his will. He is translated from Babylonia to Jerusalem, where he sees the abominations that are defiling the temple, and beholds the departure of Yahweh through the east gate. And then the spirit lifts him up and brings him "in the vision by the spirit of God into Chaldea," where he tells the captives the things Yahweh had shown him (8-11). Later on, long after the destruction of the city, he is once more carried to Palestine" in the visions of God," and is shown God's plans for a new Jerusalem, a new land of Israel, a new temple; measurements and details being imparted to him by an angelic interpreter. So that even his law, his contribution to the coming priestly law of the new Judaism, comes to him in the form of a vision, and is experienced and imparted as things seen and heard (40-48).

In spite of all this, Ezekiel often announces like the others "the words of Yahweh," with no evidence expressed or implied, of visionary accompaniments; and at certain points, especially in his exposition of the rights of the individual before God, in his description of God's shepherding of his scattered people, and most of all in his conception of the renewal of human nature by the incoming of the divine spirit, his message is worthy of following theirs (18, 34, 36:25-27). Nevertheless his conception of God and hence

his idea of worship and his experience of inspiration are rather revivals of earlier views and anticipations of later and lower levels than those reached by the men we have been studying. His vision is meant to impress us with the distance of God rather than his nearness. The approach to him is long and distracting; and when we reach him in the end, even though he has "a likeness as the appearance of a man," yet we see scarcely more than a blaze of light before which man falls on his face and cannot rise until summoned and empowered by God himself.

What, now, shall be our judgment in regard to the experiences characteristic of these greater prophets, who are also best known and have so great and creative an influence upon the spiritual history of the world?

Among the four whom we have principally considered only one, Isaiah, can be said to be characterized by visionary experiences, and even in his case vision proper seems limited to the one crisis which made him a prophet. Moreover, the contents of this vision is such that vision is not necessary for its discovery or confirmation. We know, of course, that what Isaiah saw is not the objective reality of what stands about the throne of God. We can even see that a certain danger belonged to the experience of these truths in vision form. Other men might easily suppose either that such knowledge was beyond their powers, or that all that could be expected of them was the obedient acceptance of the word of the prophet. There was even some danger that the great thoughts themselves might be obscured by this form of utterance. The initiative belongs entirely to God, and the attitude of man seems to be so entirely that of receptiveness that a weakening of moral effort might result, and one might expect salvation from God on the sole condition of passiveness and assent. These very dangers re-appear in connection with Paul, whose experience, as we have seen, was not

unlike that of Isaiah. These tendencies were not in accordance with the purpose either of Isaiah or of Paul. Both men assumed that all others could and should see for themselves the truths which came to them through this opening of their eyes to things unseen. They both assumed also that faith in a God who saves the humble and believing will stimulate, rather than displace, moral endeavor. What is important is to recognize that the truth and the importance of a prophet's message do not depend on the psychological condition in which it is received. We have in every case to judge value and truth and importance in human history independently and by our own tests. Men in a sober state of mind may utter great and epoch-making truths, or commonplaces, without power and effect, and men in an ecstasy or under the impulse of great emotional exaltation may do great things or little, may utter new truths or familiar truisms or things untrue. So that the bare question whether a prophet's self-consciousness is natural or supernatural, normal or abnormal, carries us but a little way toward a proper estimation of his significance. In any case, it is that which is within that counts. No seeing or hearing can give man a knowledge of God. However vividly a prophet imagines and objectifies, what he gives us is always an event or a reality of his soul.

Perhaps the question which a psychologist would most like to ask of an Amos or a Jeremiah is, just what they meant when they said, "Thus saith Yahweh," or "The word of Yahweh." This is the almost uniform introduction to the oracles of the great prophets. It is difficult to suppose that it describes in any sense an objective hearing. It is a strange manner, and no doubt expresses a high selfconsciousness, for a man to speak and write in the character of Yahweh, speaking in the first person. Yet it is difficult to avoid the impression that it is a manner, a convention, and means nothing more, though this, indeed, is

much, than that the prophet is fully convinced that what he says is the truth of God. This strange consciousness is well expressed by that lesser contemporary of Isaiah, the prophet Micah, when he says, in contrast to the prophets who preached because they were bribed to do so, and therefore shall have no vision and no answer of God, “But I, truly, am full of power, even the spirit of Yahweh, and of judgment, and of might, to declare unto Jacob his transgression, and to Israel his sin."

In regard both to the seeing of visions and the hearing of the word of God three possible explanations seem to present themselves: first, that of pure objectivity and supernaturalism, a voice really heard, heavenly or future things really seen; second, a mental experience capable of psychological explanation; as either where a given object calls forth a corresponding idea, or where an idea, after much pondering, comes at last to receive a plastic representation; here a condition more or less ecstatic or dream-like can be assumed; third, some experience seen as one looks back upon it to have been the means by which truth was gained or virtue attained, and hence interpreted as an act of God, or as having come about at the divine command. Only the second and third of these explanations are open to the modern mind.

The convictions and decisions of these prophets went against current opinion and they concerned matters of vital significance to the people and to their rulers. One cannot stand thus alone against prevailing sentiment and the authority of those in power unless he has the conviction that his truth is the word of God. Ordinarily and normally our moral convictions come to us from tradition and training. When one turns against his traditions and his environment, and chooses a way of his own, he must consciously ask himself why he is sure he is right. What power in distinction from that of the community and in contrast