The first of these, which gave a stimulus not yet exhausted, was
the work of Herder. By a remarkable intuition he had anticipated
some of those ideas of an evolutionary process in nature and in
literature which first gained full recognition nearly three
quarters of a century after him; but his greatest service in the
field of biblical study was his work, at once profound and
brilliant, _The Spirit of Hebrew Poetry_. In this field he eclipsed
Bishop Lowth. Among other things of importance, he showed that the
Psalms were by different authors and of different periods--the
bloom of a great poetic literature. Until his time no one had so
clearly done justice to their sublimity and beauty; but most
striking of all was his discussion of Solomon's Song. For over
twenty centuries it had been customary to attribute to it mystical
meanings. If here and there some man saw the truth, he was careful,
like Aben Ezra, to speak with bated breath.
The penalty for any more honest interpretation was seen, among
Protestants, when Calvin and Beza persecuted Castellio, covered him
with obloquy, and finally drove him to starvation and death, for
throwing light upon the real character of the Song of Songs; and
among Catholics it was seen when Philip II allowed the pious and
gifted Luis de Leon, for a similar offence, to be thrown into a
dungeon of the Inquisition and kept there for five years, until his
health was utterly shattered and his spirit so broken that he
consented to publish a new commentary on the song, "as theological
and obscure as the most orthodox could desire.
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