The Ancient Preachers

In a period of four centuries, ancient Israel produced a unique succession of spokesmen for God--the Hebrew prophets. These inspired preachers profoundly influenced the shape of Judaism and foreshadowed the coming of Christ. Few modern Christians know much about them. Published last week was a book designed to bring them alive for laymen--The Goodly Fellowship of the Prophets (Scribner; $3). Its author, Scottish-born Dr. John Paterson of New Jersey's Drew Theological Seminary, writes about the prophets with human understanding to warm his scholarship.

Nomad. Amos (8th Century B.C.) had the shortest of recorded ministries, says Biographer Paterson; one scholar estimates it as lasting for only 30 minutes. But Amos was "the father of written prophecy," and his words form "probably the earliest book of our Old Testament." Amos was a man of the desert, a tough, nomadic shepherd who loathed the smug luxury that was corrupting Israel. Even religion, he thought, was becoming too lush and ritualistic. Cried Amos:

I hate, I despise your feast days . . . Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols. But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.

Mystic. Hosea, almost a contemporary of Amos, was also a lover of the desert. But he was more mystic than puritan--his interest was not so much in righteousness as in love. Twice he tells a story of a tragic marriage to Corner, a faithless wife. Israel's sin, like Comer's (Hosea reminded his people), was against love--the redeeming love of Jehovah. Redemption through repentance is Hosea's great contribution to the knowledge of God, and in appraising this prophet Paterson quotes Old Testament Scholar C. H. Cornill: "We must reckon him among the greatest religious geniuses which the world has ever produced."

Conservative. Isaiah was a diehard conservative. Any suggestion of upheaval in the social status quo of Israel, says Paterson, horrified Isaiah. But he was also the most concerned of all the prophets with the future coming of the Messiah.

In a vision, Isaiah "saw . . . the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple." From then on, he devoted himself to preaching God's word--not of threatening doom, as did so many of his fellow prophets, but of the need for faith and of the hope for the Messiah. Oratorios have made Isaiah's words familiar to many who do not suspect that they come from the Old Testament ("For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given. . . . Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace").

It was conservative Isaiah, says Paterson, who first preached the idea of a separate church and state--a revolutionary idea in Israel's nation-cult.

Sufferer. Jeremiah, according to Author Paterson, "was the most hum,an of all the prophets, and at the same time the most Christ-like." Commanded by Jehovah to take no wife, Jeremiah reveals himself in his writings as a lonely and humble man whose life was torn between two loves, "my people" and "my God." Writes Paterson: "The other prophets of the Old Testament seem to stand at the side of God and hurl their words of doom down upon the people, but Jeremiah seems to stand between the people and God and gather to his own bosom all the shafts of the divine indignation."

Jeremiah began his public life at the same time that the Book oj the Law was discovered in the temple at Jerusalem. On the basis of the Law the Jewish priesthood undertook a sweeping reform of current religious practice. Jeremiah bitterly opposed the resulting emphasis on ritual and statute. The priests and temple prophets threw him into bondage and imprisonment for his views, and sometimes his grief at Israel's indifference burst from him. in the kind of lamentation that ever since has been labeled with his name:

Let mine eyes run down with tears night and day, and let them not cease: For the virgin daughter of my people is broken with a great breach, with a very grievous blow.

Revelation. The Protestant reformers changed the position of the prophetic books from the middle of the Old Testament (as they are in the Hebrew Bible) to the end. This, says Author Paterson, was a sound instinct, for "those prophets seem to be standing on the tiptoe of expectation, waiting for 'Him who is to come.' . . . For there is a profound organic connection between the Old Testament and the New, and nowhere more than in the prophets do we feel the truth of St. Augustine's words: 'In the Old Testament the New lies concealed: In the New Testament the Old lies revealed.' "

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