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Updated: September 29, 2025
All of this is a capital jeu d'esprit, but it is scarcely possible that Canticles was translated into Greek so early as Theocritus, and, curiously enough, the Septuagint Greek version of the Song has less linguistic likeness to the phraseology of Theocritus than has the Greek version of the Song by a contemporary of Akiba, the proselyte Aquila. This is a Hebraism, he thinks.
Hebraism, with that mechanical and misleading use of the letter of Scripture on which we have already commented, is governed by such texts as: Be fruitful and multiply,+ the edict of God's law, as Mr. Chambers would say; or by the declaration of what he would call God's words in the Psalms, that the man who has a great number of children is thereby made happy.
The episodes of life consecrated mystically. Paganism chastened, Hebraism liberalised. The system post-rational and founded on despair. External conversion of the barbarians. Expression of the northern genius within Catholicism, Internal discrepancies between the two. Tradition and instinct at odds in Protestantism. The Protestant spirit remote from that of the gospel. Obstacles to humanism.
The agreement was not the artificial production of the commentator, for in truth Plato was in sympathy with the religious conscience as a whole. The contrast between Hellenism and Hebraism is true, if we restrict it to the average mind of the two races. The one is intent on things secular, the other on God.
Carlyle about Socrates, a very happy saying, whether it is really Mr. Carlyle's or not, which excellently marks the essential point in which Hebraism differs from Hellenism.
And, as the force which encourages us to stand staunch and fast by the rule and ground we have is Hebraism, so the force which encourages us to go back upon this rule, and to try the very ground on which we appear to stand, is Hellenism a term for giving our consciousness free play, and enlarging its range." The Liberal Party was just then busy disestablishing and disendowing the Irish Church.
I cannot at all agree with those admirers of George Eliot's genius who believe that it grew continuously in power, who even assure us that it reached its zenith in Daniel Deronda. What can they mean? Daniel Deronda, as usual, shows brilliant literary skill in many passages, and its insight into modern Hebraism is a psychological problem.
That is to say, we are to join Hebraism, strictness of the moral conscience, and manful walking by the best light we have, together with Hellenism, inculcate both, and rehearse the praises of both. Or, rather, we may praise both in conjunction, but we must be careful to praise Hebraism most. "Culture," says an acute, though somewhat rigid critic, Mr. Sidgwick, "diffuses sweetness and light.
"Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeah, and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon." Who, in reading this magnificent Hebraism, in his conception, sees aught but the heroic son of Nun, with the out-stretched arm, and the greater and lesser light obsequious?
And yet the lesson must perforce be learned, that the human spirit is wider than the most priceless of the forces which bear it onward, and that to the whole development of man Hebraism itself is, like Hellenism, but a contribution.
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