CALEB
157
CALEB
any considerable dramatic ingenuity of his own. In
fact, fertility of conception as to plot and incident was
strikingly lacking in him, he was not in the least
loath to borrow ideas from his predecessors and con-
temporaries, and sometimes he went so far as to
appropriate whole sections of t heir dramas. In the
creation and development of character he achieved
any high degree of success only occasionally. There
is, on the whole, so much of a sameness about his per-
sonages and their behaviour as to justify t he charge of
monotony brought against him. To the national
principle of blind and unreasoning fealty to the mon-
arch he gives expression in a number of his most read
plays, among which are the "El Principe constant* ",
"La banda y la flor", and "Guiirdate de agua
mansa". The point of honour, often carried to
morbid extremes, provides the motif in such charac-
teristic pieces as the "Alcalde de Zalamea", the
" Pintorde su deshonra", the "Medico de su honra ",
and "A secreto agravio secreta venganza." The
actuating principle in these works can hardly appeal to
us; we can feel tittle sympathy with a personage who
methodically and in cold blood slays the one by whom
his honour has been affronted. For us such an action
is a perversion of the ideals of chivalry. That
Calderon could, when he chose to exert himself, attain
to some depth of philosophic thought is proved by
"La vida es sueno", in which there is a wealth of
fancy that charms us even despite the occasional
bombast and obscurity of the style. A noteworthy
piece because of its relation to a philosophic question
agitated by Goethe and Marlowe is the "Ma'gico
prodigioso", wherein we have a Spanish treatment of
the Faust legend. In conclusion, there may be set
down the final judgment upon Calderon by Fitzmau-
rice-Kelly, a critic not at all too favourable and yet
disposed to do justice to his subject. He says that
'Calderon takes rank among the greatest authors of
the Spanish theatre in that he is the greatest Spanish
poet who lias had recourse to the dramatic form. His
race, his faith, his temperament, his especial environ-
ment prevented him from becoming a universal poet;
his majesty, his devout lyrism, his decorative fancy
suffice to put him in the first rank of national poets."
Fitzmujrice-Kelly, History of Spanish Literature (London and New York, 1907 : TRENCH, Calderon (London, 1880), Still useful, although a little antiquated; MacColl, Selected Plays of Calderon (London, 18SSI; M\c€\rthy. Love the '. Enchantment, etc. (London, 1861); Krf.nkf.i.. Klassische B uhnendichtungen der Spanier (annotated edition of three lead- ing plays. Leipzig, 1881-87): Menendez y Pf.lay-o ed., Tcatro selecto de Calderon (4 vols., Madrid, 1SS1); Rouanet, Drames religieux de Calderon (Paris, 1888); Poesias infditas de Cal- deron (Madrid, 1881); Morel-Fatio, Calderon in Revue critique des travaux d'frrudition (Paris. 1881'; Ginther. Calderon und m me Werke (2 vols.. Freiburg im Br., 1888).
J. D. M. Ford.
Caleb (Heb. 3?3). (1) Caleb, son of Jeph- one, the Cenezite. the representative of the tribe of .luda among the spies sent from Cades to explore Chanaan. On their return he and Josue combated the exaggerated reports of the other spies and en- deavoured to reassure the people, but without suc- cess, and in the mutiny which broke out they nearly fell victims to the popular fury. In reward for their conduct they were exempted from the decree con- demning tin adult population to die in the desert (Num.. xiii, xiv; Deut., i, 19-36). Caleb was ap- pointed one of the commissioners to divide the Prom- ised Land among the tribes Xiiin., xxxiv, 10). On the strength of the Divine promise made to him at Cades at the time of the mutiny (Num., xiv, 24 . he asked and obtained as his portion the district of Hebron (Jos., xiv. 6 sq.); the city itself was, however, assigned to the priests (.Ins.. xxi. 11-13). Though he was then in his eighty-fifth year, he still possessed the full vigour of manhood, and took the field to conquer the territory allotted to him (Jos., xiv. 7 si].; xv. 13 sq.). We last hear of him in connexion with the
marriage of his daughter Axa to his brother Othoniel
(Jos., xv, 16-19; Judges, i, 12-15). It may be remarked
that probably neither "brother" nor "daughter" is
to be taken in the strict sense. Caleb is praised by
the son of Sirach with the great men of Israel (Ecclus.,
xlvi, 9 sq.), and Mathathias numbers him among the
Israelites distinguished for their zeal and faith (I
Mach., ii, 56). Although a prominent figure in
Hebrew history, Caleb seems not to have been an
Israelite by birth, but to have become a member of
the Chosen People by adoption into the Tribe of
Juda. This is intimated by Jos., xv, 13, where Caleb
is distinguished from the sons of Juda, by the designa-
tion Cenezite (h&qqenizzi). which is agentilitial form,
and by the absence of Cenez and Jephone from the
genealogical lists of Juda in I Par., ii. A Cenez ap-
pears among the grandchildren of Esau (Gen., xxxvi,
11, 15, 42), and a tribe of Cenezites, no doubt descend-
ants of this Cenez, is mentioned in Gen., xv, 19.
Caleb probably was connected with this tribe. Ad-
mission to full tribal membership of strangers who
embraced the Hebrew religion and customs was not
foreign to Hebrew practice, and the Edomites, chil-
dren of Abraham and Isaac, would be readily received
because of their racial affinity. (Cf. Deut., xxiii,
7-8, where, however, admission is restricted to the
third generation.)
(2) Caleb, son of Hesron, a descendant of Juda (I Par., ii, 18, 42 sq.), also called Calubi [Heb., Kchlbdi (ib., ii, 9)]. He is only mentioned in the genealogical tables of I Par., ii, where his descendants by different wives are enumerated. Many identify this Caleb with the son of Jephone, who, in the view stated above, would be merely the legal son of Hesron through adoption into his family. The reason for this identification is that both had a daughter named Achsa (written Axa in the Vulgate, Jos., xv, 16, 17; Judges, i, 12, 13). But, to touch only one difficulty, the son of Jephone could not have been the great-grand- father of Beseleel, who was a skilled artificer when Caleb was barely forty years old (cf. Jos., xiv. 7'. To get rid of the difficulty, as Hummelauer does (Com. in Num.. 202), by making I'ri and Beseleel adopted sons of Hur. or by rejecting I Par., ii, 20, is too arbitrary a solution to commend itself.
(3) A man of Juda, the brother of Sua and father of Mahir, whose name according to the Heb. text is Kelub (I Par., iv, 11).
(4) The name of a clan of the tribe of Juda, derived from Caleb, the son of Jephone, and his Cenezite fol- lowers — the Calebites. As said above [under (1)], they were not of Israelitic origin. They settled in the territory around Hebron (Jos., xiv. 12-14), chiefly to the south, it would seem. They must have reached as far south as the Negeb (the "south" or "south country" in D. V.), since Caleb gave land in the Negeb to his daughter Axa for down- (Jos., xv, 19; Jud., i, 15; cf. Heb. text), and a district of the Negeb was called the Negeb of Caleb ("south of Caleb", D. V., I Kings, xxx, 14). In David's time we find the Calebite Nabal. the husband of Abigail, dwelling in Maon and having possessions in Carmel, now el- Kurmul, ten miles south of Hebron. The statement that Caleb is a totem name, derived from the tribe's totem, the dog, and therefore equivalent to "dog- tribe", rests on no better foundation than the ques- tionable etymological connexion of Cakh with Kilib, "dog".
(5) Caleb, The Negeb of (I Kings, xxx, 14). — One of the districts of the Negeb, or "south coun- try", a region extending from the "mountain" or "hill country" of Juda to the Desert of Sin. The Negeb of Caleb is said to be the district in which lay Ziph, Maon. Carmel (el-Kurmul), and Jota; in Jos., xv, 55, however, these cities are included in "the mountain". [Sir Palmer. Desert of the Exodus (New York, 1872), 238, 358 sq ]
