I O lir ^ 5 *? s ^ THE PENTATEUCH: AND ITS RELATION TO THE JEWISH AND CHEISTIAN DISPENSATIONS. BY ANDREWS NORTON, LATE PROFESSOR OP SACRED HISTORY, HARVARD UNIVERSITY, MASS. EDITED BY JOHN JAMES TAYLER, B.A. MEMBER OF THE HISTORICO-THEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LEIPSIC, AND PRINCIPAL OP MANCHESTER NEW COLLEGE, LONDON. LONDON : LONGMAN, GREEN, LONGMAN, ROBERTS, AND GREEN, PATERNOSTER ROW. 1863. LONDON : PRINTED BY WOODFAIL AKD KIKDEB, ANGEL COtHT SKINNKB STREET. f.m #i Stack Annex PREFACE. THE ensiling dissertation is reprinted from a long note ap- pended to the second volume of the late Mr. Norton's ela- borate work on the " Genuineness of the Gospels." More than twenty years ago the learned and pious author had adopted and published conclusions respecting the age and authorship of the Pentateuch, substantially identical with those which the appearance of Bishop Colenso's book has recently made the subject of so much eager discussion and hostile criticism. It has been thought that service might be rendered to the cause of religious truth, by bringing Mr. Norton's views once more in a separate form before the public. There must be some powerful reasons to recommend conclusions so much at variance with the popular belief, when we find them forcing themselves on the conviction of independent inquirers in different theological spheres, and, as in the case of the present essay, strenuously maintained by one whose whole cast of mind was cautious and conservative, and who had little sympathy with that German school of thought which is regarded in this country as the special hot- bed of critical heresies. Mr. Norton was by temperament disinclined to rash and daring speculation. His mind was essentially logical, and had been well disciplined by habits of exact philological research. That he was not hasty in giving IV PREFACE. the results of Ins inquiries to the world, appears from his own confession, that he had committed to writing "the sub- stance of his views contained in the following pages, and kept them hy him without any essential change in his con- clusions, for more than ten years before he submitted them to the public eye. The opinions of such a man on a question of criticism, which lies remote from the popular apprehension and judgment, are entitled, it will be allowed, to a respectful consideration. He has approached this inquiry altogether from the religious side of his nature. His conclusion has been wrung from him not only by the irresistible demands of critical evidence, but even more by his profound reverence for Christianity, and his desire to free it from the disabling liabilities which he conceived an undue estimate of the his- tory of the preceding dispensation had brought upon it. In- deed his devoted attachment to the New Testament seems at times to have made him almost unjust to the Old, and has occasionally involved him in over-subtle and almost sophistical distinctions to dissolve the bond of common ideas and beliefs which are usually thought to connect the two. On the origin and composition of the Pentateuch and Joshua in the form in which we now possess those books, the views of the editor are in all essential points the same with those of Mr. Norton. Years ago they appeared to him an inevitable inference from the recorded history of the Israelitish commonwealth, and the traces which it exhibits of a gradual development both in its sacerdotal institutions and in the spiritual teachings of its prophets. But he must not be supposed to acquiesce in all the state- ments, or to sympathize with all the views, which Mr. Norton has interwoven with the exposition of his general theory. On one or two occasions he has ventured to ex- PREFACE. V press his dissent in a few brief notes subjoined to the disser- tation. He thinks it right to state here in general, that he differs considerably from Mr. Norton in his conception of the source and working of the religious principle in man. He is unable to persuade himself that the whole of man's religious convictions and trusts depends entirely on the miraculously-attested mission of Jesus Christ, and on the simple apprehension by the understanding of the facts involved in that mission. With the sincerest acceptance of Christi- anity as the religion designed by God for the final healing of our collective humanity, he cannot believe that there has never been any true religion outside its historical forms ; but thinks with Paul, and some of the early fathers, that a broader and more genial view of the spiritual nature bestowed on us by God, and the recognition of a divine impulse in those resistless aspirations after the infinite and eternal which charac- terize the higher thought of man in all religions and all litera- tures, are indispensable to an adequate appreciation of Chris- tianity itself, and furnish no small portion of the evidence from which its own divinity must be inferred. Thus much the editor may have been permitted to say, to prevent misappre- hension respecting himself. Mr. Norton's testimony on the subject of the following treatise is the more valuable, because it comes from a quarter not predisposed to conclusions which it has been found impossible to resist. His essay is here republished without the alteration or omission of a single word. Every man's system of thought forms a whole by itself. We cannot fairly judge of it without seeing it on every side. It would be an unpardonable wrong to the memory of the dead, to reproduce to the world a mutilated image of their ideas, because some of them may appear to certain individuals mistaken or injurious. Wherever the A 2 VI PREFACE. original sources were readily accessible, the author's re- ferences have been verified ; and the collation has furnished convincing proof of his habitual accuracy and conscientious thoroughness of investigation. Although the views here avowed may seem startling and offensive to numbers who passively acquiesce in the tra- ditional dogmas of an authoritative Protestantism, those who are at all acquainted with the history of theological opinion, past and present, know perfectly well that they are no novelty, and that men of undoubted piety and profound learning have entertained them. No great weight attaches to Gnostic theories in the second and third centuries, or to the opinions of some Manichsean sectaries in the Middle Ages, because their conclusions are known to have been founded on doctrinal pre-suppositions, and in no sense to have resulted from dispassionate criticism. But with the application of philological -learning to theology after the Reformation, inquiry took a new and more healthy direction, and quite as freely, it must be confessed, among Catholics as among Protestants. Carlstadt, a contemporary of Luther, with his characteristic love of paradox, and without stating his reasons at length, declared as early as 1520 that Moses could not be the author of the Pentateuch. In the latter half of the same century Masius, a Catholic jurist, of Brussels, and the author of a commentary much esteemed by the learned on Joshua, avowed, in the preface to that work, his decided conviction that the Pentateuch in its pre- sent form was not the production of Moses, but of Ezra oc some other later writer, who had modernized some of the ancient names. Hobbes, in his Leviathan, maintained that the Pentateuch was a work concerning Moses, not by Moses, admitting, however, that he may have been the author of PREFACE. Vll passages of winch it is expressly said that he wrote them. Isaac Peyrerius, a French Calvinist minister, who afterwards conformed to the Catholic Church, and died a Jesuit in 167C, in his remarkable work on the Pre-adamites (in which he endeavoured to show that Adam was only the ancestor of the Israelites, and not of the whole human race) advanced the theory that Moses had left journals of the passage from Egypt and written down particular laws, and had prefixed to these a history of the earlier ages, even of that which had preceded Adam ; but that these Mosaic autographs had all perished, and that our present books were made up of ex- tracts derived not even immediately from them, and put together at a much later period. Spinoza, the learned philosophical Jew of Amsterdam, in his Tractatus Theo- logico-Politicus, 1670, conjectured that the Pentateuch and the other historical books of the Old Testament were re- duced into their present form by Ezra, who first wrote Deuteronomy and then the other four books of the Penta- teuch, and attached Deuteronomy to them ; and that what is defective and disconnected in these books, arose from the fact that Ezra was prevented by death from putting his last hand to the work, and that after his death it still underwent many alterations. So far the controversy had been left very much in the hands of Jesuits and laymen. Towards the end of the seven- teenth century appeared the celebrated Histoirc Critique du vieux Testament, by the Pere Simon, which gave a new impulse to critical inquiries. Simon ascribes to Moses him- self the writing down of the Laws, but supposes that he had appointed certain public annalists, after the manner of the Egyptians, to record the contemporary history ; and that out of the different memorials of these annalists, who wrote V1U PREFACE. their respective portions without concert, as well as from the Mosaic Law-book itself, our existing Pentateuch was compiled, hut in a manner so confused that it is no longer possible to discriminate the proper Mosaic elements from foreign and later additions. Simon conceived that the nar- ratives and genealogies contained in Genesis had been taken by Moses from other written documents and oral traditions. These bold speculations of the Pere Simon called forth a corresponding movement in a section of the Protestant Church. Le Clerc, then a Professor in the Academy of the Eemonstrants at Amsterdam, published a series of observa- tions on the work of Simon in the well-known Sentimens de quelques Theologiens de Hollande, etc., which appeared without his name in 1685. The heresy of the pupil much exceeded that of the master. In his sixth letter Le Clerc endeavoured to show that our actual Pentateuch was pro- bably the \vork of the Israelitish priest, who, after the disso- lution of the Northern kingdom, was sent by the King of Assyria from Babylon to instruct the new colonists in the worship of Jehovah ; that this priest, .either by himself or with assistants, drew up an account of the Creation, and put together extracts from the Israelitish histories and the Mosaic Law-book ; and that in this way our Pentateuch originated. Some years afterwards Le Clerc abandoned these wild notions, and in a dissertation prefixed to his com- mentaries on the Old Testament (1693) ascribed the whole Pentateuch, with the exception of some few later interpola- tions, to Moses replying to the doubts and difficulties which he had himself been active in raising. After this time, the question lay at rest for the greater part of the eighteenth century. The high reputation of Carpzovius's learned introduction to the Old Testament, in which the PREFACE. IX received view of the PeDtateuch was strenuously maintained, contributed to silence questionings on the subject in Germany. In Holland the learned were now chiefly en- gaged with classical and oriental philology. Of English divines, Hody and Kennicptt had employed themselves on the original texts of the Old Testament ; Lowth, and Blayney, and Newcome were busy with the prophets : and among the Dissenters, Lardner and Benson were exclusively occupied with the New Testament and the evidences of (Christianity; and Taylor, whose exact Hebrew scholarship would have well qualified him for the critical investigation of the subject, never ventured to question the traditional theory of the Pentateuch. Far into the latter half of the last century no serious doubts appear to have generally pervaded the theological mind of Europe. Michaelis and Eichhorn, the highest authorities, affirmed to the last the antiquity and substantial authenticity of the Five Books of Moses. About the middle of the last century a work appeared at Paris, which, though immediately applicable to Genesis alone, exerted a great influence on the subsequent criticism of the entire Pentateuch and of Joshua. Astruc, a French phy- sician, had shown by a careful analysis of Genesis, that Moses, whom he still supposed to be the author of the work, had made use of different documents in constructing it, which might be clearly traced by certain discriminative marks adhering to them through all their combinations. Eichhorn adopted this view, without its at all affecting his belief that Moses was the author of the Pentateuch. Several German scholars, at the end of the last and the commence- ment of the present century, gave to this discovery of Astruc's a wider application, extended it beyond Genesis into the following books, and began to doubt the Mosaic X PREFACE. origin of, at least, the greater part of the Pentateuch. De Wette, in his Contributions to the Introduction to the Old Testament, published at Jena, in 1806 and 7, when he was a very young man, with a commendatary preface by Griesbach, carried these new views, which had long been fermenting in the minds of the learned, with extreme fearlessness to their farthest extent. He supposed that the Pentateuch consisted of different parts, which had been written down indepen- dently of each other, and that none of these was older than the time of David ; that its latest addition was Deuteronomy, which he ascribed to the time of Josiah ; and that the Pen- tateuch, as a whole, did not receive its final form till some- what later still. The history contained in the Pentateuch, he regarded as unreliable, and its primitive legislation he supposed to have been transmitted from an earlier age through oral tradition. These bold views De Wette "qualified to some extent in the latter years of his life; but they left behind them a deep and uneffaceable effect on the ensuing criticism of the Pentateuch. Meanwhile, the orthodox view was firmly upheld by Jahn, Rosenmiiller, and Hug, and in England by Graves and Home ; and to the present day, it still finds zealous and learned representatives abroad in Hengstenberg and Havernick. Nevertheless, among those who are un- biassed by dogmatic considerations, and bring learning and criticism to the solution of the problem, there is a remark- able unanimity as to certain general results which they conceive to be established beyond all reasonable doubt, though they differ very considerably from each other in the detail of applying them. De Wette, Stiihelin, and Lengerke, Tuch, Ewald, Bertheau, and Bleek, are all obliged to admit, from the unanswerable evidence of internal structure, that the Pentateuch is a very composite work, consisting of PREFACE. XI materials of different age and authorship, and put into the form in which we now have it at a comparatively recent date, towards the end of the monarchy, perhaps not before the Exile. On all these points they substantially agree; they are at variance with each other as to the number of the primary documents which have been here combined, their mutual relation, their respective age and probable author- ship, and as to the amount of genuine Mosaic elements, whether originally written down, or only transmitted by tradition, which have been preserved in the so-called books of Moses. Even the late Baron Bunsen, in his Bibelwerk, while he earnestly clings to the authenticity of the Penta- teuch, acknowledges that there is evidence of two distinct pe- riods of legislation, marked by a different character, within the limits of the life of Moses himself, the first more purely ethical, embodied in the Ten Commandments at Sinai, the other descending into legal and ritual enactments in the Transjor- danic district, not long before his death ; and that around this nucleus, essentially Mosaic, accretions continually ga- thered at Shiloh, and during the whole time of the Judges and the Kings the progressive accumulation not ceasing till the reign of Hezekiah, about 700 B.C. Bleek and Ber- theau are decidedly conservative in their theological tenden- cies, and would properly be classed with the moderate Evan- gelical school.* To the list of those who have occupied themselves with this question, must be added the name of Dr. Davidson, who, in the first volume of his Introduction to the Old Testament, now in course of publication, has gone into it with a freedom and copiousness of research as yet unsurpassed by any English theologian. To his pages the * See Bleek's posthumous work, Einhituny ins A . I 7 ., from which some of the materials for the preceding history of the controversy have been taken. Xll PREFACE. English reader is referred for ample information about details which are nowhere else to be found. In conclusion, it will perhaps be asked, what is the advan- tage of inquiries like these ? Would it not be the wiser course to abstain from unsettling the public mind by raising them ? The proper answer is, that solid, healthy instruc- tion can only be based on truth ; and that if such inquiries honestly conducted lead to truth, to distrust them is to dis- trust the God of Truth. If the Father of our Spirits has led us on step by step to the truth, through the inspirations and experiences of Hebrew prophets, let us gratefully and reverentially acknowledge the fact, without presumptuously cavilling about the way in which He has seen fit to bring it to pass. The modus operandi belongs to Him, not to us. A clearer insight into the actual composition of the Bible, and a consequent dispersion of the mischievous error of a mechanical, verbal inspiration, will help to extinguish for ever those fruitless controversies which have split up the Christian world into incurable feuds by inflating every little sect with the fond conceit that it could claim for its own particular dogmas the warrant of Divine authority. When the excitement of early prejudice has subsided, it will be seen, that the critical inquiries which search into the primary elements, the constructive laws, and the manifold combinations of a literary composition, must assist the understanding, and draw out the latent significance and beauty of the Bible, as of every other ancient book. Honestly pursued into their natural consequences, they must exalt rather than deaden the devotional sentiment of the reader, by transferring his reverence from " the letter that killeth " to the " spirit which maketh alive." ON THE PENTATEUCH, AND ITS RELATION TO THE JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN DISPENSATIONS. SECTION I. PRELIMINARY REMARKS. SUCH is the connection between Christianity and the Jewish religion, that the divine origin of the former implies the divine origin of the latter. Christianity, if I may so speak, has made itself responsible for the fact, that the Jewish religion, like itself, proceeded immediately from God. But Christianity has not made itself responsible for the genuine- ness, the authenticity, or the moral and religious teachings, of that collection of books by Jewish writers, which con- stitutes the Old Testament. Taken collectively, it may appear, on the one hand, that those books possess a high and very peculiar character, which affords strong evidence of the divine origin of the Jewish religion; and it may appear, on the other hand, that they also contain much that is incre- dible, and much that does not approve itself to our under- standing and moral feelings. But if the latter be the case, it is a fact with which Christianity is not concerned. Our religion is no more answerable for the genuineness, or the contents, of a series of Jewish writings, dating from an un- certain period, and continued till after the return of a part of the nation from the Babylonish captivity, than it is re- B sponsible for the genuineness and contents of the works ascribed to Christian authors from the second century to the eleventh. The truth of our religion is no more involved in the truth of all that is related in the Books of Judges, of Kings, and of Chronicles, or in the Pentateuch, suppos- ing the Pentateuch not to he the work of Moses, than it is in the truth of all that is related in the Ecclesiastical Histo- ries of Eusebius, Sozomen, and Theodoret. If these propositions be true, they go far to remove those difficulties, which not only embarrassed the early Christians, but which have continued to embarrass Christians in every age. But if they be true, a great error has been committed both by Christians and by unbelievers. The most popular and effective objections of unbelievers have been directed not against Christianity, but against the Old Testament, on the ground that Christianity is responsible for the truth, and for the moral and religious character, of all its contents ; and, instead of repelling so untenable a proposition, believers have likewise assumed it; or rather they have earnestly affirmed its correctness, and proceeded to argue upon it as they could. Thus the books composing the Old Testament have been stripped of their true character, which renders them an object of the greatest curiosity and interest; and a false character has been ascribed to them, which brings them into perpetual collision with the moral and religious conceptions of men of more enlightened times than those of their writers, with the principles of rational criticism in the inter- pretation of language, and even with the progress of the physical sciences. Insuperable objections to the character ascribed to them, objections such as presented themselves to the minds of the early catholic Christians and the Gnostics, lie spread over the surface of these writings. To those ob- jections, thus obvious, familiarity may render us insensible or indifferent. We may pass over them without regard. We may rest in the notion that they admit of some explanation. We may acquiesce, with more or less distrust, in theories and expositions, by which it has been attempted to gloss them over. But, in proportion as these books are critically examined, and as knowledge and correct modes of thinking advance, new objections start up. These, from their novelty, often receive a disproportioned share of notice; and much is thought to be done, if the force of some one that has re- cently become an object of attention can be broken ; while difficulties more important are comparatively neglected. Everyone knows for how long a time there was a struggle between the authority, falsely ascribed to the Old Testament, and the true system of the planetary motions. It is only within the present century that it may be considered as having ceased, so far as the Eoman Catholic church that is, so far as the majority of Christians is concerned. In our day the discoveries in geology have, in like manner, been encountered by the narrative given in Genesis of the Creation. Attempts, which to many seem abortive, have been made to reconcile them to each other. But, in the mean time, a greater difficulty, as implying greater ignorance of the true constitution of the physical world, has attracted compara- tively little notice, though it occurs likewise in the account of the Creation. It is there taught, according to the obvious meaning of language, that the blue vault of heaven is a solid firmament, separating the waters which are above it from the waters on the earth, and that in this firmament the heavenly bodies are placed.* The supposed necessity of maintaining the truth of all that the writers of the Old Testament have said or implied has operated, as might be expected, in a manner the most prejudicial to a firm and rational faith in Christianity. The philosopher, who cannot but regard many of the representa- tions of the Deity in the Old Testament as inconsistent with * ' ' And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament : and it was so. And God called the firmament heaven. .... And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give lighten the earth." Genesis i. 8, 14, 17. Compare the account of the Deluge, in which it is said, that "the windows of heaven were opened ; " and Psalm cslviii. 4, where ' ' the waters above the heavens" are called upon to praise the Lord. B 2 his character ; the enlightened Christian, who is unable to helieve that God commanded the indiscriminate massacre of men, women, and children, hy his chosen people, in order to prepare them for his service ; the moralist, who perceives that the principles and feelings, expressed or approved in portions of these hooks, helong to an unenlightened and barbarous age ; the careful inquirer, who finds that there are parts of the history which he cannot receive as true, because they involve contradictions, or are contrary to all probability, he, in a word, who, examining without preju- dice, sees the many objections to which the Old Testament is exposed, when put forward as an authoritative guide in religion, morals, and history, (even if such authority be not claimed for it in the physical sciences,) is told that, if he would be a Christian, he must renounce his objections, and that it is a part of his religion to receive the Old Testament as bearing such a character. The solutions of the objec- tions to its supposed character, which have been offered by wise and good men, are often such that it is difficult to be- lieve them to have been satisfactory to the proposer. They proceed on false principles, or assume facts without founda- tion. They are often superficial, evasive, or incoherent. They appear to result from a feeling of the necessity of say- ing something. They are often such as can be regarded by any one as admissible only on the ground, that there must be some mode of explaining away all such objections, and, therefore, that there is, in every case, a presumption in favour of a particular explanation, when no other can be found so plausible. Thus, then, the truth of Christianity having been made to appear as implicated in the truth of a position that cannot be maintained, its evidences, though their intrinsic validity has not been weakened, have been deprived of much of their power over the minds of men. In expressing these opinions, one is but giving form and voice to the ideas and feelings that exist in the minds of a large portion of intelligent believers. There is nothing in them of novelty or boldness. One is but saying what many have thought before him with more or less distinctness. 13 for mentioning that the substance of what folfows was originally committed to writing more than ten years ago (in the summer of 1831), and that I have not since found occa- sion to make any essential change in my conclusions. SECTION II. ' OX THE EVIDENCES AND THE DESIGN OF THE JEWISH DISPENSATION. THE belief that Moses was an inspired messenger of God follows from our belief in the divine origin of Christianity. He was, we suppose, miraculously commissioned to give to the Jews a knowledge of God, as the Maker and Governor of all things, and such other just conceptions of Him as they were capable of receiving ; and to teach them to regard themselves as having been separated from the rest of men, by having been called in a peculiar manner to worship and serve Him. Beside the attestation to the divine origin of the Jewish dispensation furnished by Christianity, there are independent proofs of it, to which, without dwelling upon them at length, it may be worth while to advert. When we consider what the Jews were in other respects, the simple, direct knowledge which they possessed of God, as the sole Maker and Governor of the Universe, presenting so striking a contrast to the mythology of the most enlight- ened portion of the ancient world, affords the strongest confirmation of what they asserted, that its source was a divine revelation. This appears more clearly, when we reflect, that the idea of God was not with them a matter of speculation among a few philosophers, but formed the fundamental doctrine of their popular faith. The mere fact, likewise, of their most extraordinary belief, that they had been separated from all other nations, by being called to worship Him, admits, apparently, of no other solution than that their belief was true. The high and just representa- u tions of ihe Deity, the exalted language of piety, and the noble and enlightened views of duty, which we find in the Scriptures of the Jews, when compared with what appears in other portions of those Scriptures, with the prevailing character of the Jews themselves, and with that of other ancient nations, can, as far as we are able to discern, be referred only to the deep influences of a divine revelation upon their minds. We perceive these influences in the formation of poetical writings of a kind to which nothing similar can be produced. They are compositions of the most marked religious character, altogether unlike the poetry of other ancient nations. The individuals addressed are throughout regarded under one aspect, as distinguished from all other men by the peculiar relation in which they stood towards God. In the more eminent of these works, in those, for example, which have been ascribed to Isaiah, \ve perceive, that the powerful mind, the strong feelings, and splendid imagination of the writer, had been thoroughly wrought upon by religious convictions, which we cannot reasonably ascribe to the unaided progress of the human intellect among the Jews. Looking to the time when that people were already in possession of those wonderful books, we have to cast our view back to a period lighted only by a few gleams of authentic history. Here, we see men collect- ing in groups to listen to the poems of Homer, in which the objects of their worship are pictured with the vices and passions of the gross and ferocious chieftains of the age ; there, we behold the gigantic monuments which Egyptian superstition had raised to its monster gods ; all around is the darkness and error of polytheism, in one form or other, except where a small people rise distinctly to view, separate from the rest of mankind ; a people of which there are jnow no famous monuments, but its own continued existence and its sacred writings. Among the Jews, long before Socrates would have taught the Athenians the goodness and provi- dence of the gods, there was a familiar conception of God ; and their prophets could thus address them : " Have ye not known ? Have ye not heard ? Jehovah is 15 the eternal God, the creator of the ends of the earth. He faints not, neither is weary. There is no searching of his understanding." " Thus says Jehovah, the king of Israel, I am the first, and I am the last, and beside me there is no God." "Let the wicked man forsake his way, and the un- righteous man his thoughts, and let him return to Jehovah, and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. " For your thoughts are not my thoughts, nor your ways my ways, says Jehovah. " For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." They who habitually expressed these and corresponding conceptions of the Supreme Being, believed that they had derived them from express revelation ; and there appears no good reason for doubting the correctness of their belief. But it is not merely in the more remarkable portions of Hebrew poetry, that we find conceptions which we can account for only by referring them to a divine revelation. The Jews have left us a large collection of books, most of them in existence five centuries before Christ, throughout which, with the exception of* two (the Song of Solomon, so called, and the Book of Esther), there runs a constant re- cognition of the being, providence, and moral government of God. The Old Testament, so insulated from all other productions of the human mind in ancient times, presents a great phenomenon in the intellectual history of our race. We may explain it at once, if we admit the divine origin of the Jewish religion ; and what other solution but this can be offered ? There is another striking consideration. We can discern nothing but the fact, that the religion of the Jews had been confirmed to them by indisputable evidence, as a revelation from God, which could have wrought in their minds such an invincible conviction of its truth, as to have preserved 10 them a distinct people from a period beyond any connected and authentic records of profane history to the present day. In maintaining their faith they were for more than twenty centuries exposing themselves to the outrages of Heathens and Christians ; to a persecution which even now has not everywhere subsided. Driven from their native soil, scat- tered among enemies, insulted, trampled upon, cruelly wronged, they have still clung to their religion, the cause of their sufferings, with inveterate constancy. From an anti- quity which would be shrouded in darkness, were not a dim light cast upon it by their own history, this small people has flowed down an unmingled stream amid the stormy waves of the world. For a phenomenon so marvellous it is idle to assign any ordinary causes. One cause alone ex- plains it. We must regard it as an inexplicable wonder, or we must believe, that this people were, as they profess, separated from the rest of men by God, and this in a manner so evident, solemn, and effectual, that the ineffaceable belief of the fact has been transmitted from generation to genera- tion, as an essential characteristic of the race. Thus we perceive, that, beside the attestation of Chris- tianity to its truth, the Jewish dispensation has independent evidence of its own ; evidence, which, so intimate is the connection between them, is reflected on Christianity itself. If it be asked, what was the design of the Jewish dispen- sation ? the answer seems to be, that its main, I do not say its sole, purpose was to serve as a groundwork for Chris- tianity. Supposing that no nation like the Jews had existed, and that polytheism had prevailed throughout the world, a messenger from God, such as Jesus Christ, must have had no small difficulty to encounter on the very threshold of his ministry in making his character and office understood by men ignorant of God. If he had appeared, for instance, at Athens or Rome, the very annunciation of his claims to authority would have been a sudden and strange attack on the whole established system of religion. A new and vast conception, that of God, must have been formed in the But he, who discusses the errors that have been connected with our religion, for the purpose of separating them from it, and preventing their further hindrance to its reception and influence, must prosecute his labour under a great dis- advantage ; for he is liable to be altogether misunderstood or misrepresented. There are two classes of writers, who, with wholly opposite views, have called attention to these errors. One class consists of those who have confounded them with our religion, who regard them as essential parts of it, who direct their reasoning or their ridicule against them, and, in exposing them, consider themselves as con- futing the claims of Christianity. The other class is com- posed of such as, with a deep sense of the value of our religion, are solicitous to remove from it all that has ob- scured its character and weakened its power. The purpose of one class is the very opposite of that of the other ; but they agree as to the nature of the errors. By both they are equally considered as indefensible ; and often this cor- respondence alone is regarded ; and the most eaniest defen- ders of Christianity have been confounded with its enemies, by such Christians as agree with its enemies in viewing those errors as essential to our faith. It is, at the same time, not to be doubted, that he, who has been compelled to renounce many prejudices respecting Christianity is in danger of becoming unable to discriminate between what is true and what is false, and, consequently, of renouncing our religion altogether. As he relinquishes one doctrine after another, which he had held as a part of his faith, a sceptical turn of mind is likely to be formed ; a prejudice may grow up against whatever has been received as true ; his judgment may become bewildered, and he may lose confidence in its decisions, except when they favour un- belief; while, having been led wrong by the guides whom he had trusted, he is also deprived of that reliance on the judgment of others, which is so often important or necessary to the strength of our convictions, and even to the formation of our opinions. All this may take place in the mind of one whose intentions and feelings are wholly honest. Eeligious truth, which so many have been seeking for so many cen- turies, and which, amid the vast diversity and opposition of opinions, it is clear that so few can have found, is not to be secured by mere honesty of intention and feeling. To sepa- rate from Christianity what has been erroneously connected with it, and what has become incorporated with the religion of many Christians I mean, to effect the separation in one's own mind is not an easy task. It is not strange that some, whose attention has been strongly directed to those errors, should have failed to accomplish it ; that they should have wanted the learning and judgment, the power of discrimina- tion, the integrity of purpose, the just conception of the essential character of Christianity, and the deep sense of its value, which are prerequisites and sufficient safeguards in the inquiry; and that, having begun as reformers, they should have ended in being unbelievers. Equally by those who consecrate the errors of Christians as parts of Christianity, and by those who reject our reli- gion on account of them, a rational Christian is liable to be questioned, how it is that he retains his Christian faith, while he puts aside so much that Christians have believed ; and it may be suggested to him by both parties, that, if he wiH but follow out his principles, he will become an infidel. But the gross errors which a great majority cff Christians have fallen into, tend in no degree to invalidate the evidences of Christianity. The inquiry concerning those errors has no bearing on the intrinsic weight of its evidences. That the professed disciples of Christ, through eighteen centuries, havo not been miraculously divested of the infirmities and vices of their fellow-men, and thus secured from religious error, is a fact, which, however striking or shocking are the illustrations that may be given of it, cannot be brought to disprove the proposition, that Christ was a teacher from God. It does not follow that there is no truth, or that there is no evidence sufficient to establish the truth, concerning the highest objects of human thought, because a very great majority of our race has fallen into essential mistakes con- cerning them. Christianity may he true, notwithstanding the false doctrines that have accumulated round it ; just as it is true, that the heavenly bodies exist and move, notwith- standing the prevailing theories concerning them from the beginning of science to the sixteenth century were wholly erroneous. It is evident from what has been said, that he who is about to direct his attention to the errors which men have fallen into respecting religion, should settle in his mind what re- ligion is, and what Christianity is, and in what their value consists. It may be said, that this should be a result of the inquiry, not a preliminary to it ; that we must first ascertain how far Christians have been in error, before we can deter- mine what is to be received as true. But such is not the case. Reasoning philosophically, we are not first to inquire into what men have believed, whether correctly or not ; we are to look only at the essential considerations which should determine our judgment concerning religion and Christianity. All religion is founded solely on two facts, the existence of God, and the immortality of man. Our relations to the Infinite Spirit and to the endless future alone constitute us religious beings. If we knew, that there was no G-od and Father of the Universe, and that we were to perish when we die, there could be no religion. It is through faith in God and immortality, that man ceases to appear as a blind, suffering, short-lived creature of earth, and becomes trans- formed into a being, capable of the noblest views and aspirations, of unlimited progress in virtue and happiness ; having a permanent tenure in the Universe, the eternal care of God. Religion must not be confounded with superstition. The belief of error is not the same thing as the belief of truth. The imperfection of language has in this, as in a thousand other cases, led to a great mistake ; for in one sense of the word religion, we apply it to the superstitions, or false religions, that have existed in the world ; and men have, in consequence, classed them together with true religion, as if they all possessed a character essentially alike. But true religion and false religion are essentially different. It has been vaguely and erroneously said, that all men, whether enlightened by revelation or not, have a belief in God ; and this belief has been represented as instinctive, or intuitive, as a matter of consciousness, as a part of our nature, or as necessarily resulting from our nature. The proposition has no other foundation than this, that all men are compelled to recognize the fact, that there are powers, that is, agencies, without them, stronger than they, by which their actions are controlled, and their condition essentially affected. To these powers, by an act of imagination and association, similar to that which leads a child to love the inanimate object that pleases it, or to be angry with that which hurts it, men have transferred moral qualities, and thus personified them ; they have endued inanimate objects, with life and worshipped them, as the sun, moon, and stars, or they have ascribed the effects experienced to some imaginary being, or to some being whose power had been felt on earth. But the obvious recognition of an indis- putable fact, accompanied by one of the most ordinary operations of the mind, is not religion. It does not con- stitute faith in God. The believer in the Egyptian mythology, or in the fabulous gods of Greece and Rome, was not a believer in God. There was nothing in his opinions or imaginations to produce those sentiments, or that character, which are the proper result of a Christian's faith. The heathen gods were but rulers of the same essential nature with earthly despots. The belief in them was not ele- vating but degrading. The heathen religions consecrated vice in their very solemnities, but offered no encourage- ments to virtue, and no consolations or hopes to suffering man. The Jewish and Christian Scriptures truly represent idolatry, not as it has been conceived of in modern times, as an imperfect developement of true religion, but as its. opposite. 9 There is no instinctive, intuitive, or direct knowledge of the truths of religion ; neither of the being of God, nor of our own immortality. It is scarcely a matter of dispute, if indeed it be at all a matter of dispute, that of our own im- mortality, the great fact which changes the aspect of all things and assimilates man to the Divinity ; the fact, without the belief, or, at least, without the hope of which, there can be no religion, that of our own immortality we can be assured only by revelation. It may indeed be the case, that a being of perfect reason might, from the phenomena of the present state known to man, infer not only the existence of God, but our power of attaining an immortal existence. But man is not a being of perfect reason ; and of the individuals who compose our race there are comparatively very few who have a wide acquaintance with the phenomena of the present state, or who are capable of reasoning on any subject remote from their common experience. It is not necessary, however, to inquire, as if the question were unsettled, what the col- lective wisdom of men, unassisted by revelation, can effect toward producing a conviction of the essential truths of religion. The question has been answered. It is answered in the teachings of Socrates, and in the writings of Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero. They had no distinct conception of God, as God is conceived of by an enlightened Christian. They had either no belief, or no confident belief, of the personal immortality of individual men. If any one doubt these statements, they require explanation and discussion. But there is something more to be said. The question is further answered and this answer requires no explanation, for it admits of no controversy by the state of religion among their contemporaries, by the general absence of any conception of God, or of any assurance of immortality. It is answered in the mythology of the Hindoos, in the adora- tion of human divinities by the Buddhists, degenerating into the worship of the Dalai-lama, and in the other superstitions which, in ancient and modern times, have overspread the earth where the light of revelation has not shone. Undoubtedly, there are very noble conceptions of the 10 Divinity, mixed, however, with much that is altogether in- congruous, in the speculations of ancient sages. Such con- ceptions appear, for example, in the writings of Plato, and in the Vedas and other sacred books of the Hindoos. But the question is not, what a few philosophers, unenlightened hy revelation, have "believed or imagined, but what the gene- rality of men, unenlightened by revelation, have believed or imagined. However strong the evidence of religious truth from the phenomena of nature may be in the abstract, and very strong undoubtedly it is, yet the fact is proved by the experience of the world, it is proved, I believe, by the per- sonal experience of everyone who has thought and felt deeply on the subject, that men, left to themselves, are in- capable of grasping and estimating it, and of resting satisfied in the conclusions to which it leads, conclusions, so re- mote from the interests and passions of this world, so beyond the sphere of our ordinary experience, and sometimes so apparently contradictory to -it. Who, not instructed by re- velation, can look on death, and feel assured of immortality ? Upon this evidence alone religion has never been established among men. This alone has never solved the difficulties nor quieted the doubts of one anxious and philosophical inquirer. It has never defined the idea of God, as God is revealed by Christianity. It has never afforded any one a conviction of his being formed for eternal progress in im- provement and happiness. Our belief in God, then, as the Father of men, and our belief in our own immortality, truths, which may well seem to be too vast for human comprehension, if we were left to our unassisted powers, rest on our belief, that their evidence is the testimony of God through the mission and teachings of Jesus Christ. I say his mission; for Ms mission from God to men, if that fact be established, is alone a virtual revelation of the essential truths of religion. In this age of scepticism and false philosophy, it may be said, that such a communication from God to men is hard to be conceived of or believed. Be it so, but let it be remembered, that on the decision of the question, whether such a com- 11 munication have been made or not, depends the existence of religion among men ; I do not say of superstition ; that flourishes rankly \vhen its growth is not overshadowed and kept down by religion; and still less do I speak of the temporary existence of religious mysticism, which is but another word for feelings, the result of education and habit, for which no reason can be given. Religion is either identified with Christianity, or subsists in those who reject Christianity, through its still remaining power; as an ever- green severed from its root may for a time retain the appear- ance of life. The fundamental truths of religion, as taught by Chris- tianity, necessarily imply the fact, or, in other words, involve the truth, that we shall always be subject to the moral government of God ; to that government which connects happiness with the observance of those laws that are essen- tial to the nature of every moral being, and suffering with their transgression. Under this aspect the practical bearing of religion appears. Thus, when assured of the truths which it teaches, we know all that is necessary for our virtue and happiness. We know what may inspire the most glorious hopes, what may animate us in every effort for our own improvement and the service of our fellow-creatures; we know all that we need to strengthen us for the endless course that lies before us. With these truths settled in our minds, we may enter without anxiety on the examination of the many and opposite opinions, true and false, which different parties among Christians have connected with their faith in Chris- tianity. In rejecting far the larger number of them as un- founded, an enlightened and well-informed man will perceive that he is merely arriving at conclusions, to which the pro- gress of the human mind in knowledge and in correct modes of thinking has been gradually conducting us; and that this progress, while it has undermined those errors, has tended equally to confirm the evidence of the essential prin- ciples of religion. He will do honour to his predecessors, who, without discerning all the truth, toiled and suffered in 12 opening the way to it. He will not regard himself as superior to those, through whose labours his intellect has been formed, because through their assistance he has ad- vanced somewhat further than they had done. He will not fancy that in the present age there has been a great out- break of wisdom, from some hitherto unknown source, which is to sweep away all that has been established and revered. Nor in his mind will pernicious errors and essen- tial truths be so bound together by his prejudices that he cannot free himself from the former without loosening the latter from their hold. Far from it. Every truth concerning our religion and its evidences is connected with and confirms every other : and in removing an error we are establishing a truth. Then only may we hope that the evidences of Christianity will be allowed their full weight, and the efficacy of its doctrines be obstructed only by the imperfections and passions essen- tial to our nature, when it shall be presented as it is, separate from all the erroneous opinions and false doctrines that have been connected with it. As one truth confirms another, so one error gives birth to another, often producing a numerous brood ; and the system into which any im- portant error enters, as an essential part, becomes either corrupted throughout, or inconsistent with itself. These observations will not be regarded as out of place, when it is perceived that the inquiry on which we are about to enter leads to conclusions, different from the opinions which have been professed by the generality of Christians ; though, unquestionably, the considerations on which those conclusions are founded have presented themselves to the minds of a great portion of intelligent believers. I will venture to add a word or two more, having some- what of a personal bearing. It seems to me a weighty offence against society, to advance and maintain opinions on any important subject, especially any subject connected with religion, without carefully weighing them, and without feeling assured, as far as may be, that we shall find no- reason to change our belief. I may be excused, therefore, 17 minds of men before they could have a notion of the pecu- liar office of him who addressed them. When we look at the state of either city, it seems scarcely possible that he should have been able to collect an audience, except of such as might have flocked to him as an extraordinary magician or theurgist. If we imagine him to have been listened to by some with deference, as a religious teacher, yet how large a portion of such hearers would have confounded the idea of the Supreme Being, to whom there is nothing similar or second, with that of Jupiter, to whom, in a very limited sense, and in the language of poetical flattery, they had been ac- customed to apply such expressions ; and how many might have mistaken the messenger himself for Mercury, or some other god, come down in the likeness of a man.* There would have been no preparation for his advent, no expecta- tion of it, no previous conception of its nature. It would have been an insulated, incomprehensible event, connected with nothing in their history or their former belief. The ground would not have been cleared for exhibiting before mankind the marvellous transactions of such a ministry as that of Christ. This view of the important purpose of the Jewish dispen- sation may further tend to assure us of its divine origin. But to maintain that Moses was a minister of God is one thing, and to maintain that he was the author of the Penta- teuch is another. So far is the truth of either proposition from being involved in that of the other, that in order to render it evident that Moses was from God, it may be ne- cessary to prove that the books which profess to contain a history of his ministry were not written by him, and do not afford an authentic account of it! Whether this be so or not, may appear in some degree from what follows, in which I shall examine the probability of the supposition that these books were written by Moses. * Actsxiv. 11, 12. 18 SECTION III. ON THE HISTORICAL EVIDENCE RESPECTING THE AUTHOR- SHIP OF THE PENTATEUCH. IN determining -whether an ancient work is to be ascribed to a particular author, we must begin with the historical evidence. Respecting the Pentateuch we will first consider the evi- dence that relates to its history subsequent to the return of the Jews from, their Captivity (B.C. 536). This evidence is sufficient to render it probable that it was in existence some- where about a century after that event. The date that has teen assigned for Ezra's reading "the Law of Moses" to the people, as related in the eighth chapter of Nehemiah, is the year 454 before Christ.* " Ezra," says Prideaux, " re- formed the whole state of the Jewish Church according to the Law of Moses, in which he was excellently learned, and settled it upon that bottom, upon which it afterwards stood to the time of our Saviour."f This statement expresses what has been the common belief on the subject. Perhaps too much agency may be ascribed in it to Ezra alone. But it seems not improbable that within his lifetime the Jews, who had returned to Palestine, were formed anew into a State, on the basis, generally, of the Levitical Law. Ezra, it is said, read the book of the Law of Moses to the people. But there is nothing to identify this Book of the Law with the whole five books of the Pentateuch. Admitting that the Levitical Law existed in all its extent in the time of Ezra, yet we cannot infer from this fact alone that it was then in- corporated with the historical portion of the Pentateuch. If this union, however, did not then exist, it was probably effected not long after. The Septuagint translation of the * That is, about a thousand years, as commonly reckoned, after the death of Moses, B.C. 1451. [Bunsen, in his Biblische Jahrbiicher (Bibelwerk, I.), places the death of Moses 1300 B.C. ; but this variation does not affect the general argument. ED.] f- Prideaux's Connection of the History of the Old and New Testament, Part i. Book 5. Vol. ii. p. 460. 10th Ed. 1729. 19 Pentateuch was made in the first half of the third century before Christ. The origin of the Samaritan Pentateuch (that which was used hy the Samaritans, written in their own alphabetical characters) , we may, with Prideaux and others,* refer to the time when a temple was built on Mount Gerizim, and the temple-worship introduced among the Samaritans by Manasseh and his associates, as related by Josephus. This, according to Josephus,f was during the reign of Alexander, about 330 years before Christ. Some, however, have assigned to it an earlier date namely, about the beginning of the fourth century before Christ.^ But, if the Pentateuch existed in the time of Ezra, or not long after, this fact alone does not afford any proof that it was then ascribed to Moses as its author. To this point we shall hereafter advert. But we may here observe that the Pentateuch itself, while it assumes to be an authentic account of the deeds and laws of Moses, puts forward no claim to being considered as his work. Though he were not regarded as its author in the time of Ezra, it might be readily re- ceived by the Jews as bearing the character of an authentic document. The fact that " the Law " was ascribed to Moses does not prove that the authorship of the Pentateuch was ascribed to him. But that he was generally regarded by the Jews as its author, about the commencement of our era, appears from Philo, the writers of the New Testament, and Josephus. The prevalence of this opinion at that time shows that it was not of recent origin ; but affords no ground for deter- mining its antiquity within any precise limits. We have no further knowledge of the history of the Pen- tateuch between the time of the return of the Jews to Pales- * Prideaux's Connection, Part i. Book 6. Vol. ii. p. 597, seqq. Simon, Histoire Grit, clu V. T. Liv. i. c. 10. Idem, Critique de la Bibliotheque et des Prolegomenes de M. du Pin. Tome iii. p. 143, seqq. Van Dale, De Origine et Progressu Idolatries, pp. 75-82. p. 681, seqq. Gesenius, De Pentateucho Samaritano, 2. t Antiq. Jud. Lib. xi. ch. 7, 8. Compare Josephus with Nehemiah, xiii. 28, and see Piideaus's Connec- tion, P. i. 13. (j. Vol. ii. p. 588, seqq. c 2 tine and the commencement of the Christian era, an interval of more than five centuries, except that it was included in the class of books which at the last-mentioned date we find considered hy the Jews as sacred hooks, or, in other words, included in the " Canon," as it is called, of the Old Testa- ment. Kespecting this canon there are also some traditions of the Jews which deserve notice. We will next attend, therefore, to its history, and to these traditions. From an age considerably before the time of Josephus, as is evident from a passage in that writer, and from other con- siderations on which our subject does not require us to dwell, the books now regarded by Protestants as forming the Old Testament,* have been recognized by the Jews as sacred books. But this canon was not formed, or, in other words, it was not settled what books should be classed together as possessing in some respects a common, I do not say a sacred, character, till after the return of the Jews to Palestine. This is evident from the fact of its containing books, about which there is no controversy, that they were not written till after that event namely, the Chronicles, the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, and those of Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. Of the history of the formation of the canon we are wholly ignorant. In the reign of Josiah, a little before the com- mencement of the Captivity, it appears, from a narrative in the Book of Kings, that the Jews generally were ignorant of the existence of a written copy of their national laws, before the discovery, as represented, of such a copy in the Temple.f On their return it is probable that a large majority of them, taken individually, were not acquainted with all those writ- ings of the Old Testament which were then extant. Some, * To these the Council of Trent (A.D. 1546) added, as of equal authority, all those books, and parts of books, which constitute the Apocrypha of our English Bibles, except the two books of Esdras (Ezra), so called, and the prayer of Manasseh. It is not here the place to give an account of the manner in which the more intelligent Roman Catholics explain, or evade, this decree of the last General Council, the last which will ever be held. t 2 Kings xxii. 21 perhaps, knew of one work and some of another. Such being the case, we have no credible information respecting the manner in which these books, together with the others afterwards classed with them, were brought into notice, and finally came to be considered as the sacred books of the nation. But though we have no direct evidence on this subject, we have, perhaps, ground for a probable conjecture. These books are very diverse in their character. The con- tents of many of them, as, for example, Ruth, the Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the Song of Solomon, Ezra, and Nehemiah (to mention no others), are such as not to afford any very obvious reason or occasion for ascribing to them a sacred character. The admission of these books into the canon is to be viewed in connection with the fact, that no ancient Hebrew work not included in it is known to have existed at the time when the canon may be supposed to have been completed. Hence we may infer that this class of books was formed upon no principle of selection. It is probable that it comprehended all the remains of the ancient litera- ture of the nation ; all books that is to say, all books in- tended for general use, and of any value or notoriety which had escaped the ravages of war and the injuries of time. They had all a common character, as, with the exception of the use of the Chaldee language in portions of two of those of latest date, Ezra and Daniel, they were all written in the Hebrew language, a language which had become obsolete. Far the greater portion of them were of the highest national interest, as relating either to the religion and laws of the nation, or to its history, which was so intimately connected with the national religion. Others of a different kind had, or were supposed to have, sufficient claims to be classed with them ; as the Proverbs and the Song of Solomon, the latter of which, and many of the former, were ascribed to the most powerful monarch of the nation, the wisest of men. We perceive at once how a sacred character might be assigned to many of these books ; and it is easy to understand how such a character should, in process of time, be extended to all. 22 We are ignorant how far the preservation of these hooks, and their final reception as sacred writings, were the result of a general estimate of their value, or how much was effected hy the care and efforts of some leading individual or individuals. One fact, however, respecting them is evi- dent. Some of them must have heen compiled after the composition of the parts, or writings, of which they are respectively formed ; as the hook of Psalms, the book of Proverhs (which consists of several collections of those ascribed to Solomon, together with those ascribed to Agar, and those, as is said, of the mother of a king Lemuel, who is not elsewhere mentioned*), and the works of some of the prophets, which consist of separate and unconnected prophecies or poems. In the compilation of the latter works there is little doubt that errors have been committed ; and that compositions have been ascribed to some of the prophets, particularly to Isaiah, of which they were not the authors. The book of Nehemiah, likewise, was originally united with that of Ezra, as forming together with it one work, to which the name of the latter was given; and it appears that Ezra was regarded as in some sense the author of both. Each of these two books, moreover, appears to be a compilation, inartificially put together, so as to occa- sion historical and chronological difficulties. Only a por- tion of each can be referred to the individual whose name it bears. It has been commonly said by modern writers, that Ezra, after the return from the Captivity, revised and re-edited the books of the Old Testament ; that is, as the proposition must be understood, those books which were extant at the time of his performing this work. The statement rests on a Jewish tradition. But this tradition first appears at much too late a period to be regarded as any evidence of the fact. It, moreover, presents itself in a shape obviously fabulous. It is not mentioned by Philo or Josephus ; nor is it found * See Proverbs i. 1 ; x. 1 ; xxv. 1 : xxx. 1 : xxxi. 1. 23 in the Talmud. There is a passage in what is called the Second Book of Esdras (Ezra), a book of uncertain origin and date, published among the Apocrypha of the English Bible, which appears to be founded on it. In this passage the Law is said to have been burnt, so that no man knew the things that had been done by God ; and Ezra is repre- sented as proposing, through the assistance of the Holy Spirit, to write over again what had been written in the Law.* The tradition in question is to be traced principally in the works of the Christian fathers, who undoubtedly derived it from the Jews. The earliest writer by whom it is distinctly mentioned is Irenseus, who lived six centuries after the time of Ezra. He says, that, " the Scriptures having been destroyed " at the time of the Captivity, God " inspired Ezra to put in order all the words of the prece- ding prophets, and to restore to the people the Law which was given by Moses."f A similar account is found in Clement of Alexandria. The Scriptures being destroyed, he says, Ezra was inspired to renew them, and to make them known again to the people. $ Tertullian says, that " it is well known that, after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians, the whole body of the Jewish writings was restored anew by Ezra." Chrysostom seems to have been unwilling to admit the marvellous part of the story in its full extent ; for, though he speaks of the books of the Jewish Scriptures as having been burnt, he appears not to have been disposed to believe that they were utterly de- stroyed. God, he says, who had inspired Moses and the prophets, " inspired another admirable man, Ezra, to set them forth, and put them together from their remains."^ Theodoret, on the one hand, represents the books as having been entirely destroyed, and restored by Ezra, through Divine inspiration.^" The tradition which appears under * 2 Esdras xiv, 21, seqq. t Gont. Hseres. Lib. iii. c. 21, 2, p. 216. Stromat. i. 21, p. 392; 22, p. 410. De Cultu Feminarum, 3, p. 151. [De Habitu Muliebri, c. 3. ED.] || Homil. viii. in Epist. ad Hebrseos. II Interpret, in Cant. Cantic. Opp. i. 934, 985. these forms shows, that the Jews, at the time when they transmitted their ancient books to Christians, were ignorant of the history of them, and had substituted fables for facts. This is further made evident by a tradition preserved in the Talmud concerning their canonical books.* " Moses," it is there said, "wrote his book, the section concerning Balaam,f and Job. Joshua wrote his book, and eight verses which are in the Law.! Samuel wrote his book, the book of Judges and Kuth. David wrote the book of Psalms with the assistance [per manus] of ten of the Elders, Adam, Melchisedec, Abraham, Moses, Heman, Jeduthan, Asaph, and the three sons of Korah. Jeremiah wrote his book, the book of Kings, and the Lamentations. Hezekiah [the king of Judah], with his ministers, wrote\ the pro- phecies of Isaiah, the Proverbs, the Canticles, and Ecclesi- astes. The men of the Great Synagogue^! wrote Ezekiel, * Tid. \Volfii Biblioth. Rabbin. Tom. ii. pp. 2, 3. f- "The section concerning Balaam, or of Balaam." These words have been differently understood by the later Jewish commentators. Some suppose, that Moses wrote a separate account of Balaam, apart from the Pentateuch. Others, that the account found in the Pentateuch (Numbers xxii.-xxiv.) was translated by Moses from a book written by Balaam himself. See Fabricii Codex Pseudepig. V. T. Tom. i. pp. 809, 810. This seems to refer to what is said in Joshua xxiv. 26. The Jews ascribed the ninety-second Psalm to Adam, the hundred and tenth to Melchisedec, the ninetieth to Moses, whose name appears in the in- scription to it in our English Bible, and others to the different individuals mentioned, whose names, with the exception of that of Abraham, are likewise found in the present inscriptions in the Psalms. || This word wrote, here, and where it is again italicized, appears to be used very loosely, and in different senses, in respect to the different books men- tioned. It is to be understood, perhaps, in reference to some of these books, as meaning that the persons spoken of committed to writing what before had been orally preserved ; and, in respect to others, that they brought together the different parts of which the book is formed ; that they compiled it. In reference to the book of Esther, it may mean that they composed it. The notion, that Hezekiah, with his associates, was engaged in this work, was undoubtedly derived from Proverbs xxv. 1. " These are also proverbs of Solomon, which the men of Hezekiah, king of Jndah, copied out." IT The Great Synagogue, according to a fiction of the Jewish Rabbins, was a council of one hundred and twenty men, over whom Ezra presided, and who assisted him in the re-establishment of the polity and .relation of the nation after the return of the Jews to Palestine. See Buxtorf s Tiberias, cap. i. p. 93, seqq. 25 the twelve Minor Prophets, Daniel, and Esther. Ezra wrote his book* and the Chronicles." Thus far we have found nothing which bears the character of historical evidence to show that Moses was the author of the Pentateuch. We have found no proof even that such was the opinion of the Jews in the time of Ezra. Nor, indeed, have we found any decisive proof that the Penta- teuch was in existence in his time ; for we have no good reason for believing that, when the Law of Moses is spoken of, the Pentateuch is necessarily intended. But, could it be proved that the Pentateuch, in the time of Ezra, was believed by the Jews to be the work of Moses, we should still be a thousand years distant from the time of Moses ; and an opinion respecting the authorship of a book, existing at a period a thousand years distant from the time of its supposed writer, cannot be regarded as historical evidence. It is clear, therefore, from the nature of the case, that there exists no historical evidence that Moses was the author of the Pentateuch, unless it may be found in some of the other books which compose the Jewish canon. No other documents make such an approach toward the time of Moses, as may entitle them to any weight in support of the supposition, that he was the author of the Pentateuch. We will, then, next consider the historical evidence which has been thought to he furnished hy the Old Testament itself. In the other books of the Old Testament there are re- ferences to various narratives and laws now found in the Pentateuch, and these references have been considered as proving that the Pentateuch was in existence before their composition, and consequently as furnishing indirect proof that it was written by Moses. But such references afford no ground for these conclusions; for, if the Pentateuch were not the work of Moses, it was undoubtedly, in great part, a compilation (derived from ancient authorities, written * By "bis book, as already mentioned, is meant not only that which passes under the name of Ezra, but likewise that ascribed to Nehemiah. 20 or oral, or both), which was made for the purpose of em- bodying and preserving the traditions and national laws of the Jews : and there is no reason why these traditions and laws should not have been referred to as well before its existence as after. In the Book of Joshua there is repeated mention of " the Book of the Law of Moses ;" and hence it has been argued, that we have evidence of the earliest date to justify us in ascribing the Pentateuch to Moses. But such is not the case. We must here, as elsewhere, keep in mind, that there is nothing to identify " the Book of the Law of Moses," or, in other words, a written collection of the laws ascribed to Moses, with the whole Pentateuch, previously to the time when it may be proved, by wholly independent evidence, that those laws were to be found in the last four books of the Pentateuch, and that the whole five had become so con- nected together as to be designated by the common title of " the Book of the Law." But, though it may be well to keep this consideration in view, yet it is not important in its bearing on the case before us. The main fact to be at present attended to is, that there is no evidence to show, when or by whom the Book of Joshua was written. Its history" and age are at least as uncertain as those of the five books ascribed to Moses ; and it is so connected with them, and liable to so many common or similar objections, that its authority must stand or fall together with that of the Pen- tateuch.* * It is remarkable, that the references in Joshua to a Book of the Law, when taken together, are of such a character, as rather to throw discredit on the work in which they are found, than to serve to confirm the credit of any other. In the first chapter (vv. 7, 8,) Joshua is represented as being enjoined by the Lord " to do according to the Law which Moses commanded," and "to meditate day and night on the Book of the Law." Here, by " the Book of the Law," it may seem that the writer intended either the whole Pentateuch, or the book of Deuteronomy alone. I mention the last supposition, because there seem to be no clear references in Joshua to any book of the Pentateuch except Deuteronomy. If, however, this book alone were referred to as the Book of the Law, it would prove the writer's ignorance or disregard of the four other books of the Pentateuch, and afford proof, that in his day they were either not in existence, or not attributed to Moses. It may be assumed, there- fore, that the whole Pentateuch is meant. In the last chapter (v. 26) it is 27 In the seventh verse of the fortieth Psalm, ascribed to David, there is mention of a hook, which has heen supposed to he the Pentateuch. The verse is thus given in the Common Version. said, that Joshua wrote "these words" (it is not clear what words, are in- tended) in "the Book of the Law of God." Here again it may seem that some copy either of Deuteronomy or of the whole Pentateuch is intended. In the eighth chapter, after the account of the taking of Ai, on the confines of Palestine, Joshua is immediately represented as proceeding, with the whole nation of the Israelites, to Mount Ebal in the centre of the enemy's country, (fearless of his foes, and unmolested by them,).. and there erecting an altar according to the directions in " the Book of the Law of Moses " (v. 31). The directions referred to are in the twenty-seventh chapter of Deuteronomy ; and "the Book of the Law of Moses" must have the same meaning here as the corresponding terms in the passages before quoted. But the narrative imme- diately goes on to say (vv. 32, 34, 35) that Joshua wrote on the stones of the altar, in the presence of the children of Israel, ' ' a copy of the Law of Moses ; " and "afterwards read all the words of the Law, the blessings and cursings, according to all that is written in the Book of the Law. There was not a word of all that Moses commanded, which Joshua read not before all the con- gregation of Israel." Here, as it is incredible that Joshua should have engraved, or written, the whole Pentateuch on the stones of the altar, it has been imagined by some, that only the book of Deuteronomy was intended ; but this is also incredible. Others, therefore, have supposed, that "the Law of Moses" here means only the blessings and cursings recorded in the twenty- seventh and twenty-eight chapters of Deuteronomy. But this is inconsistent with the use of the term, not merely elsewhere, but, as we have seen, in this account itself. These blessings and curses are nowhere else called "the Law of Moses," nor could they be so with propriety. They were the sanctions of the Law, not the Law itself. Beside, it is evident that Joshua read to the people the same which he had written on the altar. Now, according to the directions in Deuteronomy (xxvii. 14), it was not his business, but that of the Levites, to pronounce those blessings and curses. Others, therefore, have thought, that by " the Law of Moses," as here used, the Ten Commandments only are meant. But, beside that this supposition, like that last mentioned, gives a meaning to the term inconsistent with its common use, and especially with its use immediately before, it may be added, that, if the writer had only intended to say, that Joshua read the Ten Commandments, he would hardly have insisted so strongly upon his having read the whole Law, omitting not a word. The relation, therefore, appears not like the history of a real event, but like the narrative of one who did not well consider what he was writing. But this account in the Book of Joshua is to be compared with the directions which Moses is represented to have given, in Deuteronomy xxvii. 2-8. On these directions it is founded, and they are liable to similar objections with the account itself. Moses, it is said, ordered, that after the Israelites had passed the Jordan, they should "set up great stones, and plaster them with plaster," "and write upon the stones all the words of this Law, very plainly." 28 "Then, said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book* it is written of me." The meaning of the -words is uncertain, and they have been variously rendered and explained. But the passage, however understood, would, at most, prove only, that in the time of David (if he were its writer), that is, according to the common computation, about four centuries after the death of Moses, the Jews possessed some book which they believed to teach what God had prescribed to them. There is no evidence that this book was the Pentateuch. On the contrary, it seems altogether improbable, that it was any book inculcating the ceremonial law of the Jews, as that is laid down in the Pentateuch, considering how the passage is in- troduced and connected. Such, on the contrary, is the un- qualified manner in which it is asserted, that sacrifices were not required by God, that the passage may be considered as affording strong proof, that, at the time when it was written, the Pentateuch did not exist. " In sacrifice and oblation thou hast no pleasure : Mine ears thou hast opened : t By " all the words of this Law," it is clear, from a comparison of many pas- sages in Deuteronomy, in which these or equivalent terms are used, that the author or compiler of that book could have meant nothing less than the whole body of laws contained in it. On the supposition, that the book of Deute- ronomy originally formed a part of the Pentateuch, and was written by Moses in connection with the other four books, the terms in question must denote the whole Pentateuch. For Moses, it is said (xxxi. 24-26), " made an end of writing the words of this Law in a book," and gave it to the Levites to be deposited by the side of the ark of the Covenant, for a witness against the nation. Had he written the whole of the Pentateuch, he would not have separated the book of Deuteronomy from it to be thus preserved alone, as containing the words of the Law. We cannot on that supposition believe that the book, which he gave to the Levites to be thus scrupulously cared for, was not the whole Pentateuch, with the exception, of course, of those portions of it which he could not have written. That it was the whole Pentateuch has generally been admitted, or contended for, by those who have regarded the Pentateuch as the work of Moses. * The words should be rendered; "in the scroll of the book," meaning simply "the book." The periphrasis (which was perhaps used as a more solemn expression) is founded on the manner in which books were anciently written, in the form of a roll. t That is, Thou hast made me hear thy voice ; Thou hast enabled me to understand thy will. 29 Burnt-offering and sin-offering thou dost not desire : Therefore, I said, Lo, I come : In the scroll of the book it is written of me : Oh my God ! to do thy will is my delight, And thy law dwells in my heart." * In the scroll of the book it is written of me : this is a verbal rendering ; and in these words it may seem most pro- bable, that the Psalmist did nojt refer to any book, properly speaking, but to that book, in which, according to an imagi- nation common from his day to our own, God is conceived of as recording both what He sees, and more especially what He wills and purposes, the book, as it may be called, of the Divine Mind.f He may be understood as saying, Lo 1 I come, as thou hast written, that is, as thou hast purposed, concerning me. With the exception of the passages that have been referred to in the Book of Joshua, there is no express mention of a Book of the Law ascribed to Moses in any writing of the Old Testament, which has been supposed to be of an age prior to the Captivity.! No such book is mentioned in the Books, or rather Book, of Samuel. By the prophets, the public teachers of religion among the Jews, such a book is nowhere spoken of. No evidence can be drawn from their writings of the existence of the Pentateuch, or of any book ascribed to Moses as its author. The fact is important as * This version varies a little from that of the Rev. Dr. Noyes ; whose Trans- lations of the Psalms, of Job, and of the Prophets, are, I believe, well enti- tled to the reputation they enjoy, among those to whom they are known, of being the best in our language. f See Psalm Ivi. 8 ; Ixix. 28 ; Ixxxvii. 6 ; cxxxix. 16. Isaiah iv. 3 ; xxxiv. 16 ; IXY. 6. Daniel vii. 10; xii. 1. Exod. xxxii. 32, 33. [See note A. at the end of the volume. ED.] t The Captivity commenced, according to the common computation, in the year 606 before Christ, that is, about eight centuries and a half after the death of Moses. I except, in the sentence above, the book of Joshua, because that has been supposed to have been written before the Captivity, and even by Joshua himself. Nothing can well be more untenable than the latter supposition. The fact, that it was ascribed to him by the same Jewish tradition which has assigned their supposed authors to other parts of the Old Testament, serves to show how little credit that tradition is entitled to. We have no knowledge by whom the book of Joshua was written. Its composition was apparently sub- sequent to that of Deuteronomy. 30 regards our present inquiry. It amounts to more than a mere absence of proof, that Moses was the author of the Pentateuch. Considering that the prophets were the public teachers of religion, the fact, that there is no distinct notice in their writings of a book ascribed to the great Lawgiver of the nation, a book which must have been the fundamental document in all that concerned religion, creates a strong suspicion that no such book .was in existence, or, as regards the prophets after the Captivity, that no such book had been handed down with the authority of antiquity. What should we think of a series of Christian teachers, from whose works no satisfactory evidence could be deduced of the existence of the New Testament ? We come, then, to the Books of Kings, or rather the* Book of Kings, as it should be called, there being no ground for the division either of Samuel, the Kings, or the Chro- nicles, intcrtwo books. Each was reckoned in the Hebrew Canon but as one work. The Book of Kings (to speak of it in the singular number) is brought down to the thirty- seventh year of the Captivity,* about nine centuries, as com- monly computed, after the death of Moses. It is unim- portant, as it regards our present inquiry, whether it was written, or rather compiled, during the continuance, or after the termination, of the Captivity. Any testimony in this work, did such testimony exist, to the supposed fact, that Moses wrote the Pentateuch nine hundred years before, would be of no weight. But the work contains no testimony to this effect. We find words ascribed to David, as his dying charge to Solomon, in which he exhorts him " to keep all the statutes, commands, decrees, and ordinances of the Lord, as written in the Law of Moses."f The writer speaks in his own person of " what is written in the Law of Moses," quoting a passage to be found only in Deuteronomy.^ And he gives an account of the discovery in the Temple, by the high-priest Hilkiah, of " the Book of the Law," during * 2 Kings xxv. 27. t 1 Kings ii. 3. J 2 Kings xiv. 6. Comp. Dout. xxiv. 16. 31 the reign of Josiah * (B. c. 924, as computed). These and other passages in which " the Law," or " the Law of Moses," is mentioned, prove that before the composition of the Book of the Kings, the Jews possessed a written code of laws, which bore the name of Moses. But, without supposing this code to have been written by Moses, we cannot doubt that, by whomsoever compiled, it included all those precepts and laws which were given, or which the Jews believed to have been given, by him. As many as could by any plau- sible tradition, or perhaps by any plausible invention, be ascribed to him, would be so ascribed. Additional laws might be represented as mere deductions from those of which he was the real or reputed author. Hence it is easy to un- derstand, why a code of Jewish laws, whenever compiled, should be called the Law of Moses. But the existence of such a code does not prove that the five books of the Pen- tateuch were written by Moses. On the contrary, it seems impossible plausibly to reconcile the narrative just referred to, of the discovery in the Temple' of a copy of " the Book of the Law," with the supposition, that this book was the Pentateuch, and that the Pentateuch was written by Moses. It is plain that, according to that account, the book was before unknown to Josiah, a religious prince, to his secretary Shaphan, and to the high-priest Hilkiah. It cannot, therefore, be supposed, that the ex- istence of such a book was known to any of the higher officers of the State, or to any of the principal priests ; and if, during a religious reign, which had continued for eighteen years, it was unknown to them, we cannot reasonably sup- pose that it was known to any one, or, to say the least, that it was generally known. But the Pentateuch, if written by Moses, was the most venerable and valuable possession of the nation, and an object of the highest interest, not only to every religious man, but to every Jew not destitute of the love of his country, or a sense of the true honour of his people. It was the work in which the Law-giver of the * 2 King? xxii. 8, seqq. 32 nation, the messenger of God, had related the wonderful events of his own ministry, and announced those ordinances which God had appointed through him. It was not merely the proper foundation of the religion and polity of the State ; it was in itself the national code of laws, civil and ceremonial. It is difficult to believe that such a book should have been so forgotten. It had survived the long period (about three centuries, as commonly supposed), of anarchy, barbarism, and subjugation, following the death of Joshua. If it had ever been recognized and honoured as the work of Moses, it must have been so in the age of Solomon. From his reign to that of Josiah was a period of somewhere about three centuries and a half. According to the history, the kings of Judah, during the larger part of this time, maintained the national religion. If these kings knew and regarded an express ordinance contained in the Pentateuch,* they had each made a copy of it. If they knew and obeyed another requisition, they had caused it to be read to the assembled people every Sabbatical year.f We have, indeed, good reason to believe that this had not been done ; for, as we shall hereafter have occasion to remark, the Sabbatical years had not been observed. But, had the Pentateuch been in existence and regarded as the work of Moses, it cannot be supposed, that, during the long periods when the kings of Judah "did right in the sight of the Lord," they took no effectual means of making known to the people the funda- mental book of their religion, and the code of laws which they were bound to obey, or that there were not many among the priests, the prophets, and the better sort of the nation, who were always interested in its study and preservation. We may compare the period of less than four centuries between the reigns of Solomon and Josiah, v/ith the period of four- teen centuries, which intervened between the destruction of Jerusalem and the first printing of the Pentateuch. During this time, the Jews, though scattered among their enemies, and everywhere trampled down by hatred and cruelty, pre- * Deuteronomy xvii. IS. "f" Ibid. xxxi. 10, 11. 33 served, even amid the barbarism of tbe dark ages, copies of what they then considered as the work of Moses, though few only of their number were able to read it. But, accord- ing to the narrative in the Book of Kings, if we suppose it to relate to the Pentateuch, and suppose the Pentateuch to be the work of Moses, it would appear that this work, carry- ing with it the authority of God, and of the highest interest to the nation, had been so little valued, and had fallen into such oblivion, that, but for an accident, or an interposition of Providence, it might have perished from men's knowledge; and this, though other works written before the Captivity were preserved, and though there had been for two centuries a succession of prophets in Judah and Israel, whose works escaped such neglect. It follows, therefore, as I conceive, that, whatever were the book produced in the reign of Josiah, it could not have been the Pentateuch, if the Pentateuch were the work of Moses. But, if it were any other book, the Pentateuch was not then in existence, or not considered as the work of Moses ; for, had it been in existence and so considered, no other book would have been entitled "the Book of the Law," and produced for the regulation of the national religion. The book actually produced was, according to the narra- tive concerning it, a body of laws, professedly resting on divine authority. It may have been one of the documents afterwards made use of in the formation of the Pentateuch. Perhaps it was, as some have conjectured, the book of Deuteronomy, or perhaps it was a book which afterwards served for the basis of that work. It was brought forward to aid the reformation from idolatry under Josiah ; and the story of its being accidentally found in the Temple may be thought to have been what was considered a justifiable artifice, to account for tbe appearance of a book hitherto unknown. In tracing our course downward from Moses we have now arrived at the period of the re-establishment of the D 34 Jews in Palestine, after the Captivity, the period to which we have before ascended. It is unnecessary to examine critically any supposed notices of the Pentateuch in the books of the Old Testament written after that event. We have seen, that, when the Book of Kings was written, a code of national laws was extant, ascribed to Moses ; and those supposed notices prove nothing more. On reviewing the ground we have gone over, it may appear that no direct historical evidence exists, that the Pentateuch was the work of Moses. But it may be said, that there is strong indirect evidence for this supposition, in the fact, that from the time of Moses the Levitical Law was regarded by the Jews as their national law ; that its religious rites were observed by them, its festivals celebrated, and all its statutes, civil and criminal, considered as binding, except when the nation fell into sin and idolatry. In such statements much is assumed which cannot be proved. It appeal's, that before the Captivity there was a temple at Jerusalem, and priests and Levites, and sacrifices, and other religious rites ; but it does not appear, that the Levitical Law had been, from the time of Moses, the na- tional law of the Jews. On the contrary, there is much that is inconsistent with this supposition. In proof of it we must not argue from books written after the return of the Jews to Palestine, when we may suppose the Pentateuch to have been in existence, and the Levitical Law to have been established. From the circumstances of the case, the evidence, direct or indirect, which they may seem to afford, is altogether questionable. I refer particu- larly to the Books of Ezra, Nehemiah, Malachi, and the Chronicles. The compiler of the Chronicles, especially, seems to have given a strong colouring to the ancient history of his nation, derived from the feelings, customs, and institutions of his own age, for the purpose of recom- mending the Levitical Law to his countrymen by the sup- posed example and authority of their ancestors. His work appears to have been founded principally on the Books of 35 Samuel and the Kings ; or,, to say the least, there is no probability, that, in the portion of bis history coincident with what is contained in those books, he had any otber autbentic documents than what their authors possessed. But in comparing the accounts in those books with the accounts in the Chronicles, we see at once how much the author of this later work has added concerning priests and Levites, and religious ceremonies. As a single illustration of the general character of his work we may take the narra- tive of the removal of the ark by David to Jerusalem, in the thirteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth chapters of the first Book of Chronicles, as compared with the account in the sixth chapter of the second Book of Samuel. In the Chronicles the priests and Levites play a principal part. In the Book of Samuel they do not appear at all. The ark is not borne by Levites, as it should have been, according to the Le- vitical Law, and, contrary to that Law, the sacrifices are offered not by priests but by David.* Without entering into any critical inquiry, but receiving the accounts of the earlier Jewish historians, as they lie before us, it is evident, that, from the death of Joshua to the time when David proposed to erect a national temple, (a period, as computed, of about four centuries,) there could have been, consistently with the accounts in the Books of Judges and of Samuel, no regular observance of the Levitical Law by the Jewish nation. Nor in the interval between * The character of the Book of Chronicles, as stated above, was first, I believe, distinctly pointed out and illustrated by De \Yette, in his " Critical Essay on the Credibility of the Books of the Chronicles" (in German). Though one may be far from assenting to all that is said by De Wette, yet what is essential in his positions respecting the Chronicles seems to be satisfactorily established ; and if so, this work cannot be considered as trustworthy, where it varies from the earlier historians, or adds to their accounts. In the first part of his Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus could have had no other good authority, than the books of the Old Testament. His work, there- fore, affords an example of the licence with which a Jewish historian might remodel and add to the history of his countrymen ; and we have no reason to be surprised, if we find a similar character in the earlier author of the Chroni- cles. [See note u at the end of the volume. ED.] D 3 30 the time \vhen Solomon fell into idolatry* and the time of the Captivity could this law have heen uniformly respected by the Jews as their national law ; considering the separa- tion of the people into two kingdoms, which was contrary to it, and the frequent occurrence of idolatrous kings, during whose reigns it must, if it existed, have heen in abeyance. In the time of Josiah, as we have seen, " the Book of the Law" was generally unknown; and the apparently acci- dental discovery of such a book (less than twenty years, as computed, before the commencement of the Captivity) is represented as a momentous event leading to the re-establish- ment of the national religion. It is to be observed, that these obvious facts are not adduced to disprove the antiquity of the Levitical Law ; they are only brought forward to show, that no proof of its being derived from Moses can be founded on the supposition, that it was the national law of the Jews from the time of Moses. Of this supposition no satisfactory evidence exists; for, as has been remarked, we cannot rely on the historical books written after the Captivity, when the Levitical Law was in operation ; for these books were, to all appearance, conformed to the opinions and feelings of this later time. But there is not only a want of satisfactory evidence in proof of the supposition ; there is, beside the leading facts that have been mentioned, other direct evidence to the contrary, to which we will now advert. The author of the Book of Kings relates, that after the discovery of the Book of the Law, in the reign of Josiah, a passover was celebrated in Jerusalem, and adds : " Such a passover had not been kept from the days of the Judges, who judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel, nor of the kings of Judah."t With the exception of what is * Among the many similar facts, which characterize the Book of Chronicles as a work adapted to the opinions and feelings of the Jews after the Csptivity, xvhen the Levitical Law was established, it may be observed that it omits all mention of the idolatry of Solomon. f 2 Kings xxiii. 22. 37 found in the Pentateuch itself, this is the only mention of the keeping of a passover in any historical book of earlier date than the Chronicles ; nor is there in the Prophets who wrote before the Captivity, any distinct allusion to what afterwards became the great national festival. If the writer of the Book of Kings meant to say, that so splendid a pass- over had not been celebrated before, not even in the days of Solomon, this would be almost equivalent to saying, that no passover had been celebrated at all. If his meaning were, that the rites of the ceremonial Law were more strictly observed than they had been before, the remark must imply, that they were then for the first time fully observed since the days of the Judges. In the Book of Nehemiah, written more than a thousand years after the death of Moses, there is a mention of the celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles;* and, in speaking of it, the writer says, " Since the days of Joshua the son of Nun to that day had not the children of Israel done so." " We see," says the learned Joseph Mede,f " how expressly this Feast of Tabernacles was commanded yearly to be observed. Nevertheless, which is past all belief, it was never kept, at least in this main circumstance of dwelling in booths from the time of Joshua till after their return from Captivity." Lo Clerc| remarks, that "this law [the law respecting the Feast of Tabernacles] was neither obscure nor hard to be observed. But, as I have often said, the laws of Moses were never accurately observed." The national festivals, appointed by a ceremonial law, are of all its ordi- nances the least likely to be neglected. The writer of the Book of Chronicles himself gives us to understand, that the seventy years of the Captivity answered to seventy Sabbatical years which had not been kept. If, as is implied in what is said, the Sabbatical year had not been * Nehemiah, ch. viii. Comp. Ezra iii. 4-6, which I suppose to relate to the same celebration. f- Discourse xlviii. Works, p. 2C8. Ed. 1679. J Comment, in loc. 2 Chron. xxxvi. 21. 38 observed for "between four and five centuries preceding the Captivity, that is, for more than five centuries before the time of the writer, there is little reason to believe that any evidence then existed of its ever having been observed. With the Sabbatical years, the years of Jubilee were intimately connected, and if there were no Sabbatical years, we cannot reasonably suppose that there were any years of Jubilee. Yet the laws regarding the Sabbatical year and the Jubilee are among the most important of those concerning the rights of property, and, at the same time, are represented to have been intimately interwoven with the theocratical government of the Jews, as implying a periodical miracle. According to a law in Leviticus,* it was enjoined under a severe penalty, that sacrifices should be offered only where the Tabernacle was placed. According to another law in Deuteronomy, f after the Jews were established in Palestine, one place of national worship was to be designated, where alone sacrifices were to be offered. This one place was to be considered as the habitation of Jehovah, where alone the people were to seek Him and come before Him. These laws are apparently fundamental among those relating to the public worship. There is a narrative in the Book of Joshua,J according to which their obligation was recognized. But it does not appear elsewhere from the early Jewish history, extending down to the building of Solomon's temple, that such laws existed. On the contrary, altars were raised and sacrifices offered by holy men in various places, and in places where the Tabernacle was not ; and such facts are related without censure by the historian. Thus, for example. In the first chapter of the first Book of Samuel, we find the Tabernacle and the Ark, with Eli and his sons, at Shiloh. Here was the house of Jehovah. The Ark being taken, and afterwards restored, by the Phi- listines, it was left at Kirjath-jearim, where Eleazar, the son of Abinadab, was consecrated to keep it. Here it appears to have been suffered to remain, separated from the Tabernacle, * Cii. xvii. 3-9. f Ch. xii. 2-14. J Ci. xxii. 10-31. 39 for the greater part of the time, during nearly half a century, till David removed it to Jerusalem. At one period, during this interval, it appears,* that the Tabernacle, with priests, was at Nob, where undoubtedly sacrifices were offered. Meanwhile, Samuel, the prophet of Jehovah, called the people together before the Lord at Mizpeh, and, though not a priest, offered a burnt-offering, t He built an altar to Jehovah at Barnah, the place of his residence.^ He assisted at a sacrifice on a high place, somewhere in the land of Zuph. He proposed to offer sacrifices at Gilgal. || He again called the people before Jehovah at ifizpeh.^1 The people, under his direction, re-acknowledged Saul as king be- fore Jehovah at Gilgal, where they offered peace-offerings.** Bethel was another place where Jehovah was sought, ft And, not to multiply instances unnecessarily, we afterwards find mention of a grandson of Eli, " the Lord's priest in Shiloh, wearing an ephod."$| The author of the Book of Kings, speaking of the state of things at the commencement of Solomon's reign, says, '*' The people sacrificed on high places ; because there was no house built to the Lord until these days." " Although, says Le Clerc,|||| "according to the law in Leviticus, sacri- fices ought to have been offered only where the Tabernacle was placed, yet that law had not hitherto been observed, nor was this imputed to the people as an offence." Solomon himself, it is related, " went to sacrifice at Gibeon ; for that was the great high place ;'' and so far, according to the narrative, was his conduct from being blameable, that the Lord there gave him the choice of whatever blessings he might desire. It is true, that in relation to these facts, and others of the same kind, it may be said, that we cannot infer that a * 1 Samuel, ch. xxi. xxii. U 1 Sam. x. 1 7. f Ibid. vii. 5. 9. ** Ibid. xi. 15. J Ibid. vii. 17. ft Ibid. x. 3. Ibid. ix. 5, 12, 13. JJ Ibid. xiv. 3. || Ibid. x. 8. 1 Kings iii. 2. || H Comment, in loc. 40 law is not extant from the circumstance of its not being obeyed ; that all laws are, more or less, disregarded and transgressed; that Moses was often disobeyed in his life- time, and that, therefore, the Levitical Law may have existed nnd may have proceeded from Moses, though it was dis- obeyed in all the instances that have been mentioned. The force of these general remarks is, however, invalidated, when \ve consider that the instances of supposed disobedience relate to ordinances most likely to be observed, as those con- cerning the celebration of festivals ; to statutes essentially affecting the rights of property, and sanctioned by the promise of a regular interposition of God,* as those con- cerning the Sabbatical year and the Jubilee ; and to laws apparently fundamental in the national worship, as those di- recting a single place to be fixed upon for the celebration of its rites ; and, we may add, though the fact has not been dwelt upon before, those appointing the priests to be the sole minis- ters in offering sacrifices. The case becomes more striking when we find that these laws, supposing them in being, were not only disregarded, but disregarded without censure, by men who are represented as having been highly favoured by the Lord. But it is to be kept in mind, that it is not the proper purpose of these remarks directly to prove that the Levitical Law was not given by Moses. Perhaps the supposition, that it was given by Moses, may be reconcilable with all the facts that have been stated. The purpose of the prece- ding remarks has merely been to show, that the supposed fact, that the Levitical Law in its present state was from the time of Moses the national Law of the Jews, cannot be rendered probable; and, therefore, that this supposed fact can afford no proof towards establishing the proposition, that Moses was the author of the Pentateuch. "And if ye astc, What sliall we eat during the seventh year, seeing we must not sow nor gather in our increase ? I answer, I will command my blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth produce for three years." Leviticus xxv. 20, 21. 41 From the examination we have gone through of the books of the Old Testament, it may appear that the existence of the Pentateuch, as we now possess it, cannot be traced, by any historical evidence, beyond the return of the Jews from their Captivity. According to a Jewish tradition before quoted,* they possessed on their return no copy of the Pentateuch. This tradition flattered none of their prejudices concerning it, and no national feeling ; and this circum- stance affords some presumption, that it was founded on truth. It is such a tradition as might naturally arise, if the compilation and fashioning of the Pentateuch were subsequent to the Captivity ; and one of which no account can be given, if this were not the fact. If, indeed, the Pentateuch were not written by Moses, perhaps we cannot with probability assign to it, in its pre- sent form, an earlier date than some time after the return of the Jews from their Captivity. When restored to Palestine, their national polity was to be re-established ; they were again to be formed into a State. To effect this end, it was requisite that a written code of laws should be provided. In forming such a code their ancient laws would naturally be revived. Some, perhaps, were inserted, of which only a traditional story existed, and which, it is not probable, ever had been, or ever were subsequently, observed ; such, for example, as the law respecting the Sabbatical year.f New * See pp. 22, 23. t I, of course, attach no credit to the story of Josephus (Antiq. Jud. Lib. xi. cap. 8, 5) respecting the remission of the tribute of every seventh year, obtained by the Jews from Alexander, which he apparently means to imply was on account of their observance of the Sabbatical years. His whole narra- tive concerning Alexander's interview with the Jewish high-priest, and of his favour to the Jewish nation, is unquestionably fabulous. It shows this character on its very face ; and it has been made evident by Moyle, and others, that it will bear no critical examination. See Moyle's Correspondence with Prideaux, in the second volume of his Works, p. 26, seqq. Mitford's History of Greece, ch. xlviii. 4, note 16. ilitl'ord, through some mistake, says that the story is told also " in the book of Maccabees." Josephus is not a writer to be trusted in any questionable case. It may be worth while to produce a single other illustration of his character, in a matter of some curiosity, which has not, so far as I know, been before brought to 42 laws, we may suppose, were added to the old ; and ceremo- nies, there is little doubt, were multiplied. At the same time, a strong national feeling must have revived among the Jews, together with a sense of their peculiar relation to God. The history of that dispensation which allied them to God would thus become an object of great interest. All traditions concerning it, written and oral, would be sought out and preserved. The laws of the nation would be ascribed, as far as possible, to their divinely-commissioned Lawgiver ; and for this it is not unlikely that some remaining book or books of their ancient laws, as well as the current of tradition, afforded abundant pretence. Thus, from written documents, and oral traditions, we may suppose the Pentateuch to have been compiled by some of those who held the highest authority in the new State. Such a book, or rather, such a collection of books, under the circumstances of the time, and with the excited feelings of the people, would be readily received. If some fabrications proceeded from the com- pilers, we should be slow, considering the state of ancient morality, and the loose notions of truth then prevailing, to bring this as a very grave charge against them. That the books were originally ascribed to Moses as their author is highly improbable ; for, if their compilers had had any inten- tion of representing him as their author, they would natu- rally have made him speak in the first person, and they would not have introduced the various passages which, it is obvious, at the first glance, that he could not have written, as, for example, the account of his own death. But the notice. Making a computation from the number of lambs sacrificed at the passover, he seems to imply, that the number of Jews who had assembled at Jerusalem to celebrate the passover, and who were shut up in the city when besieged by Titus, was more than two millions and a half. But, putting aside this larger number, he expressly asserts, that those who perished in the siege were eleven hundred thousand. (De Bello Jud. Lib. vi. c. 9.) The walls of the city, he elsewhere says (Ibid. Lib. v. c. 4, 3)> were thirty-three stadia in circumference. They, therefore, included less than one square mile. But a square mile, if levelled, and free from buildings and thoroughfares, would have afforded for each of the eleven hundred thousand persons, for himself, his furniture, utensils, provisions, and arms, a place of but a little more than five feet square. 48 Pentateuch was called " the Book of Moses ; " and in this, as in numberless other cases, the ambiguity of language may have kd into error. This title, meaning a book con- taing the history and laws of Moses, might easily, in process of time, in an uncritical age and -nation, come to be inter- preted as signifying a book written by Moses. The belief that he was the author of the whole of the Pentateuch was undoubtedly greatly facilitated by the fact, that he is repre- sented in it as having committed much or the whole of the Levitical Law to writing, and by the readiness with which a supposition would be admitted, which ascribed a book of such a character to the inspired Lawgiver of the nation. Such may have been the origin of the Pentateuch, sup- posing it not to be the work of Moses. But it is to be recollected, that the main question before us is not, whether this particular hypothesis concerning its formation be pro- bable, but whether it was written by Moses. In support of the proposition, that he was its author, there is, as we have seen, properly speaking, no historical evidence. In all common cases this fact would be decisive of the question ; since it would be wholly unreasonable to ascribe a work to a particular author, when we have no evidence that it was ascribed to him before a thousand years after his death. Whether this case be an extraordinary one, to which peculiar proof is applicable, is a question to which we shall hereafter attend, so far as is necessary. But it may here be recollected, that in our search for historical evidence, we have not only seen that such evidence is wanting, but have found reasons for believing that the books in question were not written by Moses. For it is not credible that these books, if written by Moses, and carrying with them the authority of God, should not have been appealed to by the prophets, the pub- lic teachers of the religion of God, who ought to have made them the basis of their instructions. Nor is it credible, that they should have come so near perishing, as to be saved only by a providential discovery, just before the nation fell into ruin and captivity. The tradition of the Jews, that no copy of them was extant on the return of the nation from 44 their Captivity, favours much more the supposition, tlmt they had their origin after that event, than the supposition which ascribes them to Moses. And if it appear that, hefore that event fundamental ordinances of the Lsvitical Law were not observed, arid even that individuals specially favoured by Heaven acted contrary to them without censure from God or man, it affords a presumption, more or less strong, that the Levitical Law had not God for its author, nor Moses for the organ of its communication. SECTION IV. SOME GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS RESPECTING THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE PENTATEUCH. IT may appear, then, from what has been said, that there is no historical evidence, that the Pentateuch was written by Moses ; but, on the contrary, that the Jewish history affords proof that he was not its author. We will now pass to some general considerations by which the same conclusion seems to be established. I. According to the common computation Moses lived in the fifteenth century before Christ. Such, however, I con- ceive to be the uncertainty of the early Jewish history and chronology, that no approach to accuracy can be made in fixing the time when he lived. But, though it may have been earlier, it, probably, was not much later than the period just mentioned ; and in assuming this as correct we shall commit no error which will affect our reasoning. There is, then, no satisfactory evidence that alphabetical writing was known at this period. If known to others, it is improbable that it was known to the Hebrews. And, in any case, there is no reason to suppose, that they were so familiar with its use, that a book, and especially that five such books as compose the Pentateuch, might have been written for 45 their instruction. Such books are not written except for a people among whom there are many readers. The injunctions,, likewise, respecting the use of writing in the Pentateuch,* imply that the Jews, at the time when they were given, were familiarly acquainted with it ; and so also does the reference, which it contains, to another book, " The Book of the Wars of the Lord,"f as already in existence. But it must have been long after the first rudiments of alphabetical writing had been attained, before the invention was brought to a state so nearly complete, as that in which it appears in the Hebrew alphabet. It must have been a still longer time, before an acquaintance with it had become so common, as to lead to its use for the purpose of com- municating instruction by books. Probably it was first used in inscriptions, and in committing to writing com- positions principally metrical, which had already become familiar by oral tradition. In the latter case, the intended significance of the newly-discovered signs being already known, they would be easily deciphered, and the art of reading would thus be gradually spread. Books, like those which form the Pentateuch, in prose, and in a style so well constructed, must have been comparatively a very late result of the invention. But, if we suppose Moses to have been the author of the Pentateuch, we must suppose, that before his time the art of writing was in common use, and the con- sequent demand for the materials employed in it so great, as to render them of very easy acquisition ; for Moses mus't either have provided himself prospectively with a large store of them in the haste of his departure from Egypt, or have afterwards obtained them in the deserts of Arabia. But for a long time after the supposed date of the Pentateuch we find no proof of the existence of a book, or even of an inscription, in proper alphabetical characters among the nations by whom the Hebrews were surrounded. | The descendants of Jacob, according to their history, resided not less than two hundred and fifteen years in Egypt. * Deut. vi. 9 ; xi. 20 ; xxiv. 1. t Numbers xxi. 14. J [ce note c at the end of the volume. ED.] 40 During this time they could not have learned alphabetical writing from the Egyptians ; for the mode of representing ideas to the eye, which the Egyptians employed till a period long subsequent, was widely different from the alphabetical writing of the Hebrews. Nor is it probable, that the descendants of Jacob, who were first shepherds and then slaves in Egypt, were the inventors of the art. If they were acquainted with it, they must, it would seem, have brought it with them into the country. But we can hardly suppose, that it was invented, or acquired except by tradition, in the family of Isaac, or in that of Jacob before his residence in Egypt, engaged as they both were in agriculture and the care of cattle. We must then go back to Abraham at least for what traditionary knowledge of it his descendants in Egypt may be supposed to have possessed. But it would be idle to argue against the supposition, that alphabetical writing was known in the time of Abraham. II. "We proceed to another consideration. Thevocabulary and style of the Pentateuch cannot have been the vocabulary and style of Moses. There is no important difference between the Hebrew of the Pentateuch and that of the other books of the Old Testament, written before the re-establish- ment of the Jews in Palestine after their Captivity. But from the time of Moses to this event was an interval of about nine hundred or a thousand years. Every other language, the history of which we can trace, if it have continued a living language, has undergone great changes dining the same or a shorter period; as, for instance, the English, during the four centuries and a half since the days of \Yicliff and Chaucer, and the Latin, in a still shorter interval between the laws of the Twelve Tables and the time of Cicero. But the language of the Israelites was peculiarly exposed to change during the long period of its existence as a spoken tongue after the time of Moses. Its vocabulary, never copious, must have been originally barren ; accommodated to the wants of a people having but a narrow sphere of thought. It must not only have enlarged itself to receive -JT the new accession of religious conceptions communicated by Moses ; but must have been afterward in a state of con- tinual growth, to adapt itself to the subsequent intellectual development of the Hebrews, and to the most extraordinary circumstances in which they were placed by the new dis- pensation. After the death of Moses, they established themselves in a new country, widely different in its natural aspect from Egypt ; from being slaves employed in making bricks, they became accustomed to the use of arms; they were placed in new relations, and became familiar with new objects and new customs. They were pressed upon by other nations, speaking, as we have reason to believe, languages or dialects different from their own, with whom they inter- mingled, whose idolatrous rites, and other customs,' they sometimes adopted, and to whom, in the earlier part of their history, they were sometimes in servitude. Their engaging in commerce in the time of Solomon must have had its customary effect to give a new colouring to their speech. Before the time of Samuel, they were wholly without that attention to literature, and that intellectual cultivation, which might have served to fix their language, and certainly had no literary watchfulness to guard against its corruption ; nor can we suppose that those habits of mind existed in a high degree during any stage of their history. Under such cir- cumstances a language cannot remain the same for nine or ten centuries. The supposition, that the Pentateuch in its present form was written by Moses, is as untenable as would be the supposition, that some book written in modem English was a composition of the age of Chaucer. The attempts which have been made to point out certain archaisms of style in the Pentateuch, only show that no evidence can be pro- duced of sucli peculiarity of language as the case requires.* * In treating of the perfection of the Hebrew language, Leusden, one of . the most learned Hebrew scholars of his time, thus writes : " The uniformity of the Hebrew language in all the books of the Old Testament contributes much to its perfection. I have often wondered that there should be so great a correspondence between the Hebrew of all the books of the Old Testament, when we know that they Avere composed by different men (whose respective styles of writing are often distinguishable), at diverse times, and in diverse places. Should a book be written by different men of the s; me city, we should 48 Nor is the existence of those supposed archaisms difficult to be accounted for. The Pentateuch, if not the work of Moses, was undoubtedly, in great part, a compilation; and from the pre-existing documents or traditions which formed its basis those few antiquated or peculiar forms of speech might be copied or imitated. III. In the next place, it may be observed, that the Pentateuch contains passages, which, it is agreed, could not have been written by Moses. Some of them are obvious to every reader ; as, for instance, the account of his own death, and the passage in Genesis,*" in which it is said, "These are the kings who reigned in the land of Edom, before there perceive for the most part greater differences in it, as respects style or ortho- graphy, or some other circumstances, than appear in the whole Old Testament. But let a book be written by a German and by a Frieslander, or let there be an interval of a thousand years between the writers, as there was between many of those of the Old Testament, what a difference of language would appear ! He who understood the writing of one might scarcely understand that of the other. Nay, the difference of time and place would render their modes of speech so unlike, that it would be very difficult to apply to them the same rules of grammar and syntax. But in the Old Testament there is so great a uniformity, such a correspondence in orthography and construction, that one might almost think that all the books were written at the same time and in the same place, though by different authors." Philologus Hebneus, Diss. xvii. pp. 166, 167. It is the opinion of Gesenius, the most distinguished Hebrew scholar of our day, that the antiquity of the Hebrew language, in- its present form, hardly reaches higher than the age of David or Solomon. " Upon the supposition," he says, " that the Pentateuch was a production of the age of Moses, we must indeed carry its existence back to a period considerably more remote. But notwithstanding the learned defenders which that supposition has found in our own age, it can scarcely approve itself to the judgment of an unprejudiced critic It is a fact, that the language of the Pentateuch fully corresponds with that of the other ancient historical books, and, in the poetical portions, with that of the other poetry of the first age." [Gesenius considers the first age of the Hebrew language as extending to the time when it was corrupted by the influence of the Chaldee in consequence of the Captivity.] "If there was an interval of nearly a thousand years between these writings, as there must have been on the supposition that Moses was the author of the Pentateuch, a phenomenon would be presented to which there is nothing parallel in the whole history of language, namely, that the living language of a people, and the circle of their ideas, should remain so unaltered for such a length of time." Geschichte der Hebriiischen Sprache und Schrift : i. c. History of the Hebrew Language and Modes of Writini, 8. * Ch. xxxvi. 31. 49 reigned any king over the children of Israel." But such passages, it is said, do not prove that the Pentateuch was not his work ; they are to be regarded only as additions made to it by some later hand. To this, it may be answered, that there is a presumption, that a work is not to be ascribed to a particular individual, when it contains a considerable number of passages which he obviously could not have written, though this presumption, undoubtedly, may be over- borne by opposite evidence. It may be remarked, likewise, that upon the supposition that Moses was the writer of the Pentateuch, there would have been a natural reluctance among the Hebrews to making or permitting such useless interpolations ; to thus tampering with a work so venerable, the composition of their inspired lawgiver, recording ;the very words of God himself; their infallible directory in reli- gion and morals, and the unalterable code of their civil law. A book thus unique might be expected to escape corruption. During the period concerning which we have satisfactory evidence that the Pentateuch has been so regarded by the Jews, we know that such interpolations have not been made in it. But it is unnecessary to insist on these considerations ; there is another to be attended to. At the time when those supposed interpolations were made, no importance could have been attached to the belief, that the Pentateuch was written by Moses. The necessary effect of such inter- polations was to incorporate into the book itself evidence, false evidence, it may be said, but still evidence, and such as appears at first view decisive, that the book was not written by him. Those, therefore, by whom the interpolations were introduced could not have attached any importance to a be- lief, which they took such means to destroy. But to say that no importance was attached to the belief that the Pentateuch was written by Moses, is but saying in other words, that it did not exist ; for it is impossible, if the belief existed, that it should not have been considered as essentially affecting the character and authority of the Pentateuch. IV. There is another consideration. The books of the E 50 Pentateuch do not claim to be the work of Moses. They profess to contain his history, but they are not professedly written by him. The fact has been regarded as of little weight ; because in other historical works, as in those of Csesar and Clarendon, the author has spoken of himself in the third person. But this is a deviation from common usage and the natural mode of expression, occasioned by some particular motive. It may be adopted by a writer in order to avoid an air of arrogance or vanity ; or to give the appearance of impartiality to his history; as if it were unaffected by his personal feelings ; or to place himself under the same point of view with other individuals whom he introduces into his narrative. It is a mode of writing which belongs not to a rude, but to a refined age ; and no probable reason can be assigned why it should have been adopted by Moses. Such a semblance of modesty would have been wholly unsuitable to his office. As the minister of God to his countrymen, it was his busi- ness to speak with authority, to assert his claims to deference, and to place himself without reserve before them, as one whom they were bound to listen to and obey. But the fact is of much importance under another aspect. Did the Pentateuch assume to be the work of Moses, then, in denying it to be his work, we should be dritffen to the supposition of intentional fraud. But this would be the supposition not merely of a very gross imposture, but of an imposture which, as regards such books, ascribed to such an author, was very unlikely to be attempted, and very unlikely to be successful. On the other hand, there is no difficulty in supposing that a series of books might at any time be readily received by the Jews, which, without claiming to be the work of Moses, embodied the traditions respecting their ancient history, and those that had long been gathering round his name, and which referred to him as their author those laws, that had been gradually built up on the basis of his institutions. SECTION V. ON THE INTERNAL CHARACTER OF THE PENTATEUCH. THE arguments hitherto adduced do not involve the credi- bility of the narratives contained in the Pentateuch, or any moral or religious considerations. It is different with those about to be stated. In judging whether the Pentateuch be the work of Moses, that is, of a writer deserving the highest credit, we must con- sider whether the narratives it contains are in themselves credible. These narratives may be divided into two classes, those which relate to natural and those which relate to supernatural events. As regards either class, it may be sufficient to direct attention to the subject, and then leave it to every one's private investigation and thought. Of many examples a few may be adduced, which seem to show that the history cannot be regarded as authentic, nor as the work of a contemporary of the supposed events which it narrates. We will first attend to those narratives which concern events not miraculous. / I. The number of fighting men among the Israelites ("every male from twenty years old and upward"), immedi- ately after their leaving Egypt, is said to have been more than six hundred thousand ; the numbers of each tribe being par- ticularly given.* This statement of the whole sum of the fighting men is repeatedly made.f It included none from the tribe of Levi, who did not go forth to war. The whole number of the Israelites, therefore, at the time of their leav- ing Egypt, cannot be estimated at less than two millions and a half. More than eighty years before the time of their departure, a king of Egypt is represented as saying, " Lo ! the people of the children of Israel are more numerous and * Numbers i. 19-46. f Numbers ii. 32 ; xi. 21 ; xxri. 51. Exod. xii. 37 ; xxxviii. 26. E 2 52 stronger than we." The land of Egypt is said to have been filled with them.* Let us consider this account of their numbers. The Israelites who established themselves in Egypt, that is, Jacob and his descendants, are stated, in the Books of Genesis and Exodus, to have been seventy in number.f To these, in reckoning the progenitors of the nation, must be added the wives of his sons and grandsons. Their number is uncertain, but, as only two of his grandsons are mentioned ns having children at this time, if we assume that the pro- genitors of the Israelites amounted to two hundred, the whole error in our estimate must be through excess. No one who receives the accounts in Genesis and Exodus as authentic, can suppose that the number was greater. How long, then, did the Israelites remain in Egypt? There are two different opinions on the subject ; according to one of which, the period of their residence was two hun- dred and fifteen years, and according to the other, four hundred and thirty. Passing over some critical considera- tions, which bear upon the question, there are others that may enable us to form a judgment respecting it. It cannot be believed, that the Israelites would have remained a dis- tinct people among the Egyptians for four hundred and thirty years. Four hundred and thirty years are a sixth part of that period, beyond which darkness and uncertainty settle upon the whole history of mankind. When we look back to the changes that have taken place since the com- mencement of the fifteenth century of our era, we may have tsomo notion of what is likely to occur during such a length of time. After the Jews had been separated by God from the rest of the men through the ministry of Moses, their reli- gion might prevent them from mixing with other nations. JJut while they were in Egypt there was no permanent ob- * Exod. i. 7, 9. t Genesis xlvi. 5-27. Exodus i. 5. Stephen, in his speech (Acts vii. 14), s?ys " seventy-five," following the Septuagint. It has been supposed, that to inaka this number the five grandsons of Joseph, who were born after the estab- lishment of Jacob's family in Egypt, are added. 53 stacle to their becoming incorporated with the Egyptians as one people ; and in the nature of things such an incor- poration would have taken place in the course of four centuries. Upon their leaving Egypt, we find that all the descendants of each of the twelve sons of Jacob could severally be re- ferred to their respective progenitors. The nation could readily be divided into twelve tribes. But we can hardly suppose this to have been possible after an interval of four centuries. When established in Canaan, there may have been particular reasons for their preserving their family ge- nealogies, but there was none before. They were in the same circumstances in this respect as the generality of men in other nations; and in what other nation have the individuals who compose it been able to trace back their genealogy for four hundred years, each to a particular son of a com- mon ancestor ? But the genealogy of Moses may alone seem decisive of the question. Moses, on his mother's side, is stated to have been the grandson of Levi. " The name of Amram's wife was Jochebed, a daughter of Levi, whom her mother bare to Levi in Egypt : and she bare unto Arnram, Aaron, and Moses, and Miriam, their sister." * It has been suggested, that by " a daughter of Levi" may be meant nothing more than " a woman of the tribe of Levi." But the probability of this interpretation may be tested by substituting the latter words for the former, in the passage before us : " The name of Amram's wife was Jochebed, a woman of the tribe of Levi, whom her mother bore to Levi in Egypt." Accord- ing to the explanation proposed, the last clause is worse than a mere useless repetition. It perplexes the sense. The as- sertion, that " the mother of Jochebed bore her to Levi " can mean only what the writer is supposed to have just said, that Jochebed was of the tribe of Levi ; and the addition, that she bore her " in Egypt," becomes altogether idle. But if there were any doubt about the meaning of this passage, it would be settled by another in Exodus,f where it is said, -.* Numbers xxvi. 59. f Ch. vi. 16, 20. 54 that Kohath was the son of Levi, and that Amram was the son of Kohath, and thus the grandson of Levi ; and that " Amram took him to wife Jochebed, his father's sister," who was consequently Levi's daughter, " and she hare him Aaron and Moses." The statement of the same fact, that Jochebed, the mother of Moses, was the daughter of Levi, in these two different forms, can leave no question as to the meaning of the writer. Yet ahout eighty years hefore the Israelites left Egypt, Jochebed was capable of bearing children ; for Moses is said to have been eighty years old when he spoke to Pharaoh.* As Moses was on his mother's side the grandson of Levi, so he was on his father's side the grandson of Kohath, who was born before the Israelites en- tered Egypt, f Upon the supposition that the Pentateuch was written by him, it is to be recollected that this is his own account of his progenitors. It follows from it, that the re- sidence of the Israelites in Egypt could not have extended to four hundred and thirty years ; and that, in choosing be- tween this and two hundred and fifteen, we must take the smaller number. One cannot, indeed, very plausibly recon- cile the genealogy of Moses even with the shorter period. . Assuming, then, the period of two hundred and fifteen years, we may calculate the probable increase of two hundred individuals during this time. It must be under favourable circumstances that they would, through such a period, double their numbers once in twenty-five years. But the Israelites were, according to the account in Exodus, placed in circumstances very unfavourable to their increase during the last eighty years of their residence in Egypt; the king having ordered their male children to be destroyed, and they themselves being reduced to miserable servitude. Supposing them, however, to have been originally two hundred indivi- duals, and to have increased at the rate just mentioned, their numbers, upon leaving Egypt, would have amounted to something less than a hundred thousand, instead of two millions and a half. But whatever was the rate of increase among the Israelites, * Exodus vii. 7. f Genesis xlvi. 11. no reason can be given why they should have multiplied faster than the Egyptians. That the rate of increase of the former should so vastly exceed that of the latter, as it must have done according to the history in the Pentateuch, is in- credible. If the Israelites, at the time of their departure, amounted to two millions and a half, their original number had been increased twelve thousand five hundred times ; if it amounted to a hundred thousand, it had been increased five hundred times. But if we suppose merely a million of inhabitants in Egypt at the time when the Israelites entered it, then anything approximating to the lowest rate of in- crease for the whole population of which they made a part, is obviously out of the question. The writer of the Penta- teuch, however, represents a single family of sixty-eight male members as entering one of the principal ancient king- doms, and in a certain time, whether two hundred, or four hundred, years, is here unimportant becoming formidable through their numbers to the other inhabitants of the country, of the population of which it would be unreasonable to sup- pose that they originally formed a ten-thousandth part. II. There is much in the history of the Israelites, which becomes incredible on the supposition that their number approached to what it is represented to have been. When, according to the account, the two or three millions of Israel- ites left Egypt, they were accompanied by " a mixed multi- tude who went along with them, and flocks and herds, even an abundance of cattle."* Yet this immense body is repre- sented as having been collected, arrayed, and put in motion in a single day, in consequence of a hasty command of Pharaoh given the preceding night, f In what time could * Exodus xii. 33. i 1 Exodus xii. Numbers xxxiii. 3. The passover was skin on the four- teenth day of the month, which, according to the Jewish computation, ended at sunset. At midnight, that is, on the fifteenth day, the first-born of the Egyptians were destroyed. The same night Pharaoh issued his order for the departure of the Israelites ; and during the fifteenth day the Israelites were on their march. I should not mention these particulars, which are obvious iu the passages referred to, had I not observed an oversight in the valuable 56 this nation of men, women, and children, with all their sick and aged, with their domestic animals, and their necessary baggage, have defiled, in the face of any enemy, through the Red Sea ? According to the history, it was done in a single night. How long must it have taken such a multitude of men and cattle to quench the thirst of which they were perishing at the waters of Marah, or by those which gushed from the rock of Horeb ? What extent of territory must have been covered by two or three millions of men encamped in tents among the rocky defiles, the mountainous and broken country around Sinai, or along the eastern shore of the Eed Sea ? From the history we should receive the impression that they were a body capable of being readily assembled, and orally addressed by Moses or Aaron; a body which might all be put in motion in the morning, accomplish a day's journey, and at night encamp at a particular place ; as at "'Elim, where there were twelve wells of water, and they encamped there by the waters."* III. The number of the Israelites, we are told, had alarmed one of the kings of Egypt. Before the birth of Moses, that is, about eighty years before the Israelites left Egypt, or one hundred and thirty-five after the family of sixty-eight males entered it, the king is represented as say- ing : " Lo the people of Israel are more numerous and stronger than we ; come, let us wisely prevent their multi- plying.'^ Being alarmed at their numbers, he resolved to provoke their most deadly and desperate hatred. He " made their lives bitter " by reducing them to slavery ; and issued " Biblical Researches " of Professor Robinson, to which he seems to have been unconsciously led by an indistinct sense of the utter incredibility of the narra- tive as actually given. He says (Vol. i. p. 80), " From the time when Pharaoh dismissed Moses and Aaron in the night of [following] the fourteenth day of the month (according to the Jewish reckoning), until the morning of the fifteanth day, when the people set off, there was an interval of some thirty- hours." Between some time after the midnight which followed the fourteenth day of the month, and the morning of the fifteenth, there could have been an interval of but a very few hours. * Exodus xv. 27. t Exodus i. 9, 10. ,07 an order for the destruction of all their male children. After an unsuccessful attempt fully to effect his latter purpose, this order is said to have assumed the following horrible form : " Then Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, Every son that is horn ye shall cast into the river." * To outrage to the utmost a formidable nation, to exercise upon it an ex- travagance of cruelty which no tribe of men, however feeble, would tamely endure, virtually to declare a war of extermi- nation upon the Israelites, in the most odious form which war could assume, are the expedients that Pharaoh is repre- sented as adopting through dread of their enmity. Nor is this the most extraordinary part of the history. The Israel- ites, as far as appears from it, submitted without resistance to be made slaves, and to have their infants murdered as a matter of common usage. The voice of human nature pro- nounces this to be impossible. No people was ever so far degraded below the brutes, who expose their own lives in defence of their young. IV. But the king is represented as, at the same time, in dread of their power, and fearful lest they should withdraw themselves from Egypt ; lest they should join his enemies, and by force of arms leave the country ; "f and, according to the narrative, one of his successors considered their re- maining in Egypt as of so much importance that he mani- fested the most insane obstinacy in refusing to permit their departure. It must have been only for their value as slaves that the kings of Egypt were so desirous to keep the Hebrews in their land. But how is this to be reconciled with an order for the destruction of their male children that is, for the gradual extermination of those Hebrew slaves, who were such valuable property that supernatural inflictions of the most terrible kind were to be endured, or the hazard of them encountered, rather than that they should be suffered to quit the country ? * Exodus i. 22. f Exodus i. 10. 58 V. When at last an order for their departure was extorted, we find them represented as leaving the country in such haste that they " took their unleavened dough in their kneading vessels, wrapped up in their garments, upon their shoulders ; " and during their first day's journey " baked unleavened cakes of the dough ; " " for they were thrust out of Egypt, and could not tarry ; nor had they prepared for themselves any provision." * As we have before remarked, however, they carried with them " flocks and herds, even an abundance of cattle ; " and they carried them into the desert which borders the Red Sea to the west, where no supply of herbage was to be found for their subsistence. Crossing the Red Sea, they commenced their march toward Mount Sinai, through a region of frightful sterility. In this desert they journeyed for three days without water, and, as would appear from the preceding account, without food. At the end of the third day they were furnished with sweet water by a miracle. t What number had perished in the mean time is not told. During their whole journeying and residence along the coast of the Red Sea and in the desert of Sinai, where water for a few travellers is often difficult to be procured, we read of their having a miraculous supply only in one other instance. J Their sufferings from hunger, we are told, were great before their arrival at Sinai ; and quails and manna were miracu- lously provided for their support. Their cattle, of course, had perished, or been killed. The manna was continued for the whole forty years of their journey ings till they came " to an inhabited land." Yet before quitting their encampment around Sinai, they are again described as having an abund- ance of cattle for sacrifices, and of lambs for the passover, flour, oil, and wine, and a profusion of spices. |j Departing from Mount Sinai to march through " a great and terrible * Exodus xii. 34, 39. f Exod. xv. 22-25. J At Horeb. Exod. xvii. 1, seqq. Exod. xvi. || Exod. Ch. xxiv. 5. Ch. xxix. Ch. xxx. 23, seqq. Leviticus, Ch. ix. Numbers, Ch. iii. 41, 45. Cb. vii. Ch. ix. 2-14, &c. 59 wilderness,"* the people complained and wept, saying, " Who will give us flesh to eat ; " and were again miraculously sup- plied with quails. f After this, their sufferings from want of "water return ; but their cattle are still alive ; for they thus expostulate with Moses and Aaron : " Why have ye brought the people of God into this wilderness, where both ourselves and our cattle must die ? "| Thus the whole nation of the Israelites, and not these only, but " a mixed multitude who went with them," are represented as remaining forty years in deserts, where they must have perished but for a constant miraculous supply of food ; and as having at the same time herds of cattle, which, in their longings after flesh, they re- frained from eating. The food of their cattle must also have been furnished by some astonishing miracle, of which the historian has supplied no account. Equally for men and beasts an uninterrupted miraculous supply of water was necessary ; but the supposition that such an uninterrupted supply was afforded, is precluded by the circumstance that four particular cases are specified in which it was given. "|| The Jewish Eabbis, though in general not apt to startle at absurdities, perceived this deficiency in their history, and endeavoured to supply it by a tradition, alluded to by St. Paul,H that the rock of Horeb, or the water which gushed from it, followed the Israelites in their wanderings. VI. An incongruity, only less glaring, is found in the accounts of the wealth possessed by the Israelites, while encamped around Sinai, in gold, silver, brass, precious stones, fine linen of different colours, boards of setim wood, aro- matics, spices, and various other articles of luxury, and of their skill in different arts.** They could have acquired * Deut. i. 19. t Numbers, Ch. xi. J Numbers xx. 4. Exod. xii. 38. Numbers xi. 4. || At Marah, Exod. xv. 23, seqq. At Horeb, Exod. xvii. 1, seqq. At Meribah, Numbers xx. 2, seqq. And at Beer, Numbers xxi. 16, seqq. II 1 Corinthians x. 4. On wbicli passage see Wetstein's note. ** Exod. Ch. xxv. xxviii. Ch. xxx. -xxxi. Ch. xxxiL 2-4, 20, 24. Ch. xxxv. -xxxix. 60 neither their wealth nor their skill by their employment as slaves in Egypt in the making of bricks.* Their skill, it may be said, was miraculously conferred. But this solution will not apply to the casting of the golden calf by Aaron.f A part of their wealth, it may be said, that they procured from the Egyptians, from whom, before leaving Egypt, they asked and obtained " utensils of silver, utensils of gold, and raiment."| The story of " their spoiling of the Egyptians," in consequence of a divine direction, presents difficulties quite as serious as those which it may be brought forward to remove. But, however great may have been the generosity of the Egyptians in gifts of gold and silver utensils and raiment, it will account only for a part of the wealth of the Israelites, much of which consisted in other stores. Nor is any explanation to be given why the Israelites, who were re- * In speaking of the account of the construction of the tabernacle, Dr. Priestley says (" Notes on Scripture, " Exod. xxxvi. 5), "In short, there is no art known to the ancients, a thousand years after this time, with which the Israelites do not appear to have been well acquainted." It is strange, that a man of so much acuteness as Dr. Priestley should have written such a sentence without perceiving its obvious bearing on the credibility of the history. The coincidence between his mention of "a thousand years after the time" of Moses, and the not improbable date of the final compilation of the Pentateuch, is perhaps worthy of notice. We are told, in the Book of Samuel, that some centuries after the period when the Israelites are represented as so skilful iu, the arts, ' ' there was no smith in Israel, " so that they had neither swords nor spears ; and " all the Israelites went down to the Philistines to sharpen every man his share, and his coulter, and his axe, and his mattock." (1 Samuel xiii. 19-22.) t Exodus xxxii. The opinion entertained by some commentators, that Aaron carved the image in wood, and then overlaid it with gold, whi:h is thought to lighten the difficulties attending the narrative, seems to be incon- sistent with its being called a molten calf, and directly contrary to what Aaron is made to say (v. 24), "Then I cast the gold into the fire, and there came out this calf." Exodus iii. 21, 22 ; xi. 2 ; xii. 35, 36. The common version says, that the Israelites "borrowed" of the Egyptians, and the Egyptians "lent" them what they asked for. If they "borrowed," it was with a promise of returning, expressed or implied. But it is far from certain, that the words in the original correspond to those terms, the use of which I have, therefore, avoided. The one party asked as presents, it has been said, and the other party gave, gold and silver utensils (not jewels), and raiment. The causes which have been assigned for this extraordinary liberality of the Egyptiana are such, it seems 1b me, ae will bear no discussion. 01 moving such a profusion of articles of luxury into the desert, and who consequently had provided means for the convey- ance of them, should have borne away in the hurry of their departure their yet unleavened dough in the kneading- vessels upon their shoulders, and should have had no opportunity to provide any store of provisions for their own sustenance. If the Israelites possessed all those articles in the desert, they had, as I have said, means of transporting them. But such does not appear to have been the case. The camel is the only beast of burden which could have been used; and there is no mention of their possessing camels. VII. Concerning the inhabitants of Palestine, the Israel- ites are said to have been told by Moses, " Ye may not de- stroy them at once, lest the wild beasts increase upon you." They were, therefore, to be expelled " by little and little," in proportion to the gradual increase of the Hebrews.* These nations, however, would not have waited in peace to be extir- pated at the convenience of their enemies ; and, if engaged with them in a war of extermination, they would have been more formidable than the wild beasts. The mention of the latter is another strange circumstance. Palestine, at the time when it was invaded by the Hebrews, is described as being inhabited by nations greater and more powerful than they (though their numbers had caused fear to the Egyptians), as having in it large cities " walled up to heaven," and as being highly cultivated, " flowing with milk and honey."f The whole extent of Palestine is less than two hundred miles in length, and a hundred in average breadth. Supposing the Israelites to have been the sole inhabitants of so small a territory, lately so populous, it would not have required that their number should be two millions and a half, nor more than a tenth part of two millions and a half, to secure them from the ravages of wild beasts. The history contained in the Pentateuch is not to be * Deut. vii. 22. Exod. xxiii. 29, 30. t Exod. iii. 8. Numbers xiii. 27, 28. Deut. viii. 7-9 ; ix. 1, &c. judged of only by the few examples of apparent impossibili- ties, or inconsistencies, which I have specified, not selected, except, indeed, with reference to their being such as might be rendered obvious in a few words. The attempts to explain the Pentateuch as authentic history present a constant struggle with difficulties. The commentator is continually called upon to soften down the features of what seems in- credible, and to create hypotheses by which he may reduce what looks like a fabulous tradition from a remote age to a form that may appear consistent with the character of God, the nature of man, and the circumstances of the individuals who are brought into view. As regards this sort of explana- tion, it is to be remarked, that we may sometimes admit a conjecture possible, though not in itself probable, to explain a difficulty in a history of established credit ; but that a history cannot be trustworthy which demands a constant succession of such conjectures. Before speaking of the narratives of supernatural events, there is one general characteristic of the history, its representation of the conduct and character of the Israelites, too important to be wholly passed over. It must strike every attentive reader, that he is conversant throughout with men whose characters be cannot enter into, whose states of mind he cannot comprehend, who are continually acting in a manner different from that in which he himself would act ; men with whom he has nothing in common. The history is inconsistent with human nature. We may take, as an ex- ample, the conduct ascribed throughout to the Israelites in relation to the Deity. According to the history, they wit- nessed, for a long succession of years, displays of miraculous power, the most astonishing, the most magnificent, and the ' most appalling ; a power never suspending its operations, but continually displaying itself in the pillar of cloud, and pillar of flame, in visible descents of the Deity, and even in the supply of their daily food. It was announced to them, that they were selected as the peculiar objects of the favour and protection of the Being whose power was thus made G3 known. Great blessings were promised as the reward of obedience, and terrible punishments threatened for dis- obedience. Under these circumstances the minds of any human beings must have been wholly subdued. Every mo- tive, from the highest to the lowest ; duty, gratitude, hope, fear, pride, in their wonderful distinction; all good in pros- pect on the one side, and nothing but destruction on the other ; and above all, the visible presence of the Almighty, must have determined them to obedience. Yet the conduct of the Israelites is described to have been such, as to justify the language which Moses is said to have addressed to them a little before his death ; " From the day in which ye de- parted from the land of Egypt, until your arrival at this place, ye have been rebelling against Jehovah."* Let us now attend to the miraculous part of the history, the manner in which God is described as making Himself known to his creatures by acts and words. In some of- the conceptions which the Pentateuch presents of the Infinite Being, we perceive, I think, very striking remains of the revelation by Moses, and, as we may reasonably believe, of earlier communications of God to men. The account, for instance, of the Creation, contained in the first chapter of Genesis, appears a monument of magnificent simplicity, when compared with other ancient cosmogonies. The genius of Plato, as displayed in his Timseus, shrinks before it. Throughout the Pentateuch are enforced in the strongest manner the fundamental truths of one Supreme Being, who is God alone, of his interest in the concerns of men, and of his moral government. The latter conception, indeed, is obscured by the imperfect notions of morality belonging to the rude ages, during which the traditions now found in the Pentateuch may be supposed to have been moulded into their present form. The idea of the unmingled benevolence of the Deity, that God is Love, that afflictions and punish- ments flow from his mercy equally with our joys, is not to be found there ; but it is an idea to which the human intellect, * Deut. Ix. 7. G4 through the aid of revelation, has attained only in its fullest development. But when we compare the conceptions of God presented in the Pentateuch with the representations of heathen divinities in the poems of Homer, we shall perceive the immeasurable superiority of the former. In the great precepts, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart," and "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," we find a conception of the foundations of religion and morality, unknown to heathen antiquity. In coming to the Pentateuch we have entered the precincts of true religion, though gro- tesque shapes are around us, and the heavens are obscured by clouds from which the thunder is rolling. These remarks respecting the Pentateuch will not appear incongruous with those that follow, if we recollect that its books admit of being viewed in relation to two wholly different standards. If we regard them as a traditionary, erroneous, account of the early revelations of God to men, especially of his revelation through Moses, we may compare their representations of the Deity with the contemporary superstition and idolatry of the heathen world. If we re- gard them as the work of Moses, and consequently as con- taining an authentic record of the revelation of God through him, we must compare those representations with the concep- tions of God which Christianity has enabled us to form. Such is the comparison now to be instituted, in pursuing the inquiry whether the books of the Pentateuch were written by Moses. It is not necessary to dwell on the narratives in Genesis concerning the appearances and acts of God. They evi- dently imply very rude conceptions of his nature. But there is little doubt among those who have examined the subject, that the Book of Genesis is a compilation of prior accounts, oral or written ; and it may be said, that the narra- tives which it contains had gradually assumed their present form, and that Moses thought 'it best to retain conceptions and language with which his contemporaries were familiar. But it is to be observed, that when we come to the narrative 65 of facts, of which, if we regard Moses as the author of the Pentateuch, he had personal experience, the character of the history does not improve. There is nothing more strange in the book of Genesis than the narrative in the fourth chapter of Exodus, in which it is related, that after Moses had been solemnly commissioned and sent by God to the Israelites, while " he was on his way, at a lodging-place, Jehovah met him and sought to slay him," with all that follows. Eespecting this branch of our subject, like the former, it will be necessary to remark particularly only on a few pas- sages, which may serve as representatives of many others. I. In the twenty-fourth chapter of Exodus, there is the following account. " And Jehovah said to Moses, Come up unto me, thou, and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and worship afar off. . . . Then went up Moses, and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel ; and they saw the God of Israel. And there was under his feet a pavement of lucid sapphire, clear as the very heavens. And on the chief men of the children of Israel He laid not his hand ; and they saw God ; and they ate and drank. And Jehovah said to Moses, Come up to me upon the mount, and there remain, and I will give you tables of stone, with the law and commandments which . I have written, that thou mayst teach the people. . . . And the glory of Jehovah abode on Mount Sinai, and a cloud covered it for six days; and the seventh day he called to Moses from the midst of the cloud. And the sight of the glory of Jehovah was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the view of the children of Israel. And Moses entered into the midst of the cloud and ascended the moun- tain. And Moses was upon the mountain forty days and forty nights. And Jehovah spake to Moses, saying" Before proceeding further, let us consider, that according to the history, we are about to listen, as it were, to the very words of God, addressed to that minister with whom He " spoke as man to man." After all this tremendous solemnity of preparation, after having been summoned into the visible presence of the Deity, after having seen God and lived, what F 66 must have been the expectation of the elders of Israel respecting the momentous import of the divine communica- tion ? Let us imagine that some of their number had formed just and enlarged conceptions of God, and had speculated upon the condition and prospects of mankind. They must have been looking earnestly for some revelation, which would send a stream of light through the darkness that rested upon the world ; which would disclose to their erring and suffering race new relations and new hopes; which should raise man in his moral nature nearer to the author of his being; which should be listened to with intense interest, wherever made known, by all human beings in all ages to come. What, then, was the communication ? " And Jehovah spake to Moses, saying ; Tell the children of Israel to bring me an offering. From every one whose heart is willing to give ye shall take my offering. And these are the offerings which ye shall take from them ; gold, and silver, and brass, and blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine linen, and goats' hair, and rams' skins dyed red, and seals' skins, and setim wood, oil for the lamps, aromatics for the anointing oil and for the sweet incense; onyx stones and other stones, to be set in the ephod and breastplate. And let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them. Ye shall make it according to the pattern of the tabernacle, and all its utensils, which I show thee. " They shall make an ark of setira wood, two cubits and a half in length, and a cubit and a half in breadth, and a cubit and a half in height ; and thou shalt overlay it with pure gold. Within and without shalt thou overlay it ; and thou shalt make a moulding of gold about it." We may stop here ; but seven chapters are filled with di- rections as trivial. So wholly unconnected are they with any moral or religious sentiment, or any truth important or unimportant, except the melancholy fact of their having been regarded as a divine communication, that it requires a strong effort to read through with attention these pretended words of the Infinite Being. The natural tendency of a belief that such words proceeded from Him, whenever this belief prevailed, must have been to draw away the regard of the Jews from all that is worthy of man as a moral and in- tellectual being, and to fix it on the humblest objects of su- perstition. It is not to be forgotten, however, that this tendency was strongly counteracted by much of a different character that is to be found in the Pentateuch. II. But throughout the Pentateuch such accounts of the Supreme Being occur, as may excuse or justify the un- favourable conceptions entertained by the Gnostics of the God of the Jews. It is related, for instance, that He in- flicted the most terrible evils upon the Egyptians, solely on account of the mad obstinacy of their despot, from whose tyranny they without doubt were already suffering in common with the Israelites.* But passing over every other, less striking, example of the same kind, we will advert only to the order for the extirpation of the Canaanites ; and to the manner in which the Midianitish captives are said to have been treated by the command of Moses, acting as the minister of Jehovah. The expedition sent against the Midianites, after destroy- ing all the adult males, without the loss, as the history relates, of an individual on the part of the Israelites, brought back the women and children as captives. The history thus proceeds : " And Moses was wroth with the commanders of the host .... and said, Why have ye saved all the women alive ? Lo ! they, by the counsel of Balaam, caused the children of Israel to ofi'end Jehovah in the business of Peor, so that there was a plague among the people of Jehovah. Now, therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and every female not a virgin ; but the female children that are virgins keep for yourselves."f If we receive the Pentateuch as authentic, the lot of the female children, who were permitted, certainly not in mercy, * It is not necessary to dwell on the narrative of the " ten plagues of Egypt." Little more, perhaps, can be said than what appears at first sight, to show its improbability ; and as little, it seems to me, to remove or palliate this improbability. T Numbers, Ch. xxxi. F 2 68 to survive the butchery of their mothers, and of every male among the little ones, the lot, I say, of these female cap- tives may he judged of by the manners of the times, by the habits which the perpetration of such acts must have pro- duced in the Israelites, by the law respecting female slaves, given in Deuteronomy,* and by the little probability, that even the conditions of this law would be respected.f The command for the destruction of the Canaanites is expressed in the following words, remarkable for their com- prehensive brevity : " Of the cities of these people tliou shalt save nothing alive that breathes."J Of the objections to the credibility of the Pentateuch, theologians seem to have particularly selected for answer this command, and to have laboured to show, that it is reconcilable with the character of God. It is said, that the destruction of the Canaanites is analogous to those cases in which God ap- points a city to be swallowed up by an earthquake, or a nation to be ravaged by a pestilence, without distinction of sex or age. Undoubtedly, the law of nature, that is, the * Ch. jod. 10, seqq. f- Bishop Watson, however, in his "Apology for the Bible" (Letter III.), says; "I see nothing in this proceeding but good policy combined with, mercy." This remark is followed by some ill-advised declamation. The coarse writer (Paine), against whom he professes to argue, had said, that the Midian- itish virgins " were consigned to debauchery by the order of Moses." "Prove this," says the Bishop, "and I will allow that the Bible is what you call it, a book of lies, wickedness, and blasphemy." The promised concession is equally liberal and injudicious. As a matter of fair statement, the word " debauchery " is objectionable, from its association with modern manners and sentiments. But, if we receive the Pentateuch as authentic, the difference between the actual lot of the Midianitish virgins, and what it is represented to have been by the use of that word, is very narrow and unsafe ground on which to peril the whole credibility of revealed religion. It may be said in defence of the Jews, that their conduct toward the Midianites was not more barbarous than that of other ancient nations in their wars with each other. This defence might be admitted, if the massacre, according to the account, had not been perpetrated by the express order of Moses, in opposition to the more humane purpose of the army and its leaders. As the case now stands, this apology implies the proposition, that Moses was commissioned by God to sanction and perpetuate the barbarism of his age. J Deut. rs. 16. C9 merciful law of God, that all must die, takes effect daily upon many thousands of individuals, old men, women, and infants, as well as those able for war. But this ohvious truth does not serve to reconcile us to the present account. The ordinary operations of God's providence are not to be confounded with what is represented to have been a miracu- lous infliction of his vengeance. According to the history, the extirpation of the Canaanites was a terrible punishment irom God for their abominable vices and idolatry ; but no account can be given why the Deity should manifest Himself to his creatures as inflicting punishment indiscriminately on the innocent and guilty ; as an Oriental despot exterminates a family for the offences of its head. But there is more than this to be considered. The destruction of the Canaanites is to be regarded not merely as the act of God, if ordered by Him, but likewise as the act of those who were the appointed instruments of his will, the chosen people, the sole depositaries of true religion and morals. It is said, that the object of their being appointed the executioners of the decree, was to impress them with the deepest horror of the idolatry and vices of the Canaan- ites. It is difficult to believe, that any one can give this answer without a strong suspicion of its unsoundness. The effect of their appointment as executioners must have been to convert them into a horde of ferocious and brutal bar- barians. It cannot be imagined, that they would have any feelings connected with the performance of a moral or religious duty in the massacre of enemies, between whom and themselves there existed the utmost hatred, that could be produced by a war of extermination ; a war which must have seemed to the Canaanites wholly unprovoked and un- justifiable. There is no good moral discipline in the butchery of women and infants. It is not thus that men are to be formed to the service of God. The origin of the supposed direction on which we have been remarking is to be found in the traditionary enmity of the Jews to the Canaanites, and to the ferocity of ancient warfare. The 70 Jews, sharing in the barbarism of the world, reflected back their own character upon Moses and upon God. III. I will not enter into the detail of the various pre- cepts and laws, moral, ceremonial, and civil, which are blended together in the Pentateuch without arrangement and with much repetition. Concerning many of them it is incredible that they should have proceeded from the Deity. It is painful and disgusting to associate the distinguishing rite of the Jews with the idea of its having been solemnly appointed by God, and of its having been enforced in the manner related in the story respecting the circumcision of the sons of Moses.* Nothing can render it probable that a law proceeded from God, according to which a man who murdered his male or female slave by beating was to escape with impunity, if the slave did not die under his hands, but survived for a day or two, with the reason given for it : " For the slave was his property. "t Can any * Exodus iv. 24-26. 1* Exodus xxi. 20, 21. But -with this law of the Jewish people may be compared that which Plato gives in relation to the same subject in his imagi- nary scheme of a perfect code of laws. " Should any man kill a slave, it" it be his own, let him purify himself. ' (De Legibus, Lib. ix. p. 868.) The master was to be subject to no punishment if he performed a religious expia- ticn. Other laws follow respecting slaves, proposed by Plato, which are shock- ing to humanity. The Levitical Law, like the whole Pentateuch, is to be viewed under two aspects. It is to be regarded, on the one hand, in reference to such a code as might, in our apprehension, be worthy of God ; and, on the other hand, it is to be compared with such laws, and such conceptions of justice, as actually existed among heathen nations. When thus compared, there are in the laws respecting persons and property, what may seem clear traces of the effects of that divine dispensation which the Jews had enjoyed, appearing in a higher sense of justice and humanity. The laws respecting slaves, generally, not- withstanding that above quoted, provided for their security and welfare in a manner \inknown among the Greeks or Romans. Among the Romans, till the time of the Emperors, a master had absolute power over his slave, unchecked, or rather unnoticed, by any law, so that he might put him to.death by torture ; and this power, as we may readily believe, was sometimes horribly abused. Nor does the condition of slaves in Greece appear, in general, to have been less iinhappy. How they were regarded at Athens may be judged of by the laws proposed by Plato. [See note D at the end of the volume. ED.] 71 one, at the present day, persuade himself, that he is to refer to the Deity Jaws such as the following? "A man or a woman who has a familiar spirit, or is a divine, shall surely be put to death ; "* " Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live ; " t laws, which have heen the main support of one of the most debasing and cruel superstitions by which the Christian world has been disgraced. We have seen that there is, properly speaking, no historical evidence for the genuineness of the Pentateuch. What, it may be asked, is the amount of evidence, which would render the question worth discussing ? Whether it be true or not, that " the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, .... Of birds ye shall have these in abomination ; they are not to be eaten, they are an abomination, the eagle, the vulture, the osprey; the falcon, kites of every kind, ravens of every kind," &c. ; or that these and other similar injunctions should have been thus enforced : "Ye shall not make your- selves abominable by eating any creeping reptile, nor make yourselves unclean and defiled thereby. For I Jehovah am your God. Ye shall therefore sanctify yourselves, and ye shall be holy, for I am holy." $ To teach men, in the most solemn manner, that to refrain from particular kinds of food is essential to holiness, must tend only to pervert all their conceptions of holiness, duty, and God. The prohibition becomes more strange when we find articles of food enume- rated to which nothing but the extremity of hunger could induce men to have recourse. It is unnecessary to observe * Leviticus xx. 27. t Exodus xxii. 18. See also Deuteronomy xviii. 9-12. It has been con- tended by some in modern times, that these laws do not sanction the belief in witchcraft, but were directed only against impostors, falsely pretending to magical powers. But if such individuals had been meant, they would have been designated according to their true character as impostors, not in language which conveyed the idea, as plainly as any language could do, that their pre- tences were well founded. The belief in magic appears to have been universal in the ancient world. Such laws as we find in the Pentateuch had their origin in this belief, and could not be understood but as confirming it. Leviticus xi. 72 that there are many of the Jewish laws on which delicacy forbids one to comment.* The general aspect of the Jewish religion, as it appears in the hooks of the Pentateuch, may lead to the conclusion, that at the time of the compilation of those books, the original doctrine of Moses had been greatly corrupted. The multi- plication of trifling and burdensome ceremonies has been in every other case the result of low and very false notions of religion. The observance of such rites has been made a substitute for moral goodness, and in proportion as they have been considered as important in the view of God, has the regard of men being withdrawn from all that constitutes real worth. The state in which our Saviour found the religion of the Jews, upon his appearance on earth, seems a natural consequence of the belief that the Levitical Law had been ordained by God ; while, on the other hand, the tendency to such a state may be supposed to have done much gradually to produce and strengthen this belief. We may, perhaps, compare those representations of Christianity which were given during the darkest period of the Eomish superstition with that which the Pentateuch affords of the religion of Moses. The existence of the Gospels alone prevented the history of Christ from becoming equally fabulous with that of the Jewish prophet. Some of the apocryphal gospels, as those of the Infancy (as they are called), show the strong tendency to this result. * No considerations of this kind, however, restrained the learned Michaelis from discussing them at length. Of his " Commentaries on the Laws of Moses," originally delivered in Lectures to his pupils at Gb'ttingen, it is not speaking too harshly to say, that its most striking characteristics are silliness and obscenity. Of the proper application of the latter term there can be no doubt ; as to the former, I know of none beside so well suited to express the frivolous gossip, and the wretched attempts at reasoning, with which the work abounds. The historian Muller says of Michaelis, whose lectures he attended when a young man, that he was "homrne d'esprit d'ailleurs et tres savant; mais qui par sa maniere burlesque de traduire et de commenter les poemes des sages et des inspires du peuple hebreu, en rendit pour quelque temps la lecture insoutenable & son disciple." (Lettres de Jean de Muller, precedees de sa Vie, p. iv.) Without doubt, such instructors were one cause of the deplorable state of religious speculation that has in our day existed in Germany. 73 The views just given respecting the Levitical Law, are confirmed by much that is found in the Pentateuch itself, and in other books of the Old Testament ; but especially by the representations given in some of the Psalms, and in the earlier prophetical books. The authors of those writings insist in the strongest terms on moral goodness as the recommenda- tion to God's favour, and dwell on the worthlessness of ritual observances. They use language which is apparently irre- concilable with the supposition, that they recognized the Levitical Law as appointed by God, or the history contained in the Pentateuch as authentic. To this subject we will next attend. SECTION VI. ON THE VIEWS OF RELIGION PRESENTED IN THE WRIT- INGS OF THE JEWISH PROPHETS, AND IN THE PSALMS, COMPARED WITH THOSE FOUND IN THE PENTATEUCH. IT has been remarked, as affording evidence that the Pen- tateuch was not the work of Moses, that its authority is not appealed to by the Jewish prophets, the public teachers of religion among the Jews. But the writings of the higher class of prophets furnish evidence more direct to establish the same conclusion. The religion inculcated in the Pentateuch consists very much in rites, and especially in offerings and sacrifices. The precepts concerning rites are multiplied, reiterated, and enforced in the most solemn manner. But by the prophets before the Captivity, such observances are spoken of in the most disparaging terms. The language in which our Saviour has been supposed to have repealed the Levitical Law is not more full and explicit. But those prophets had no authority to repeal that Law. Their language, therefore, proves that they did not recognize such observances as enforced by God, and, consequently, that they knew nothing 74 of the Pentateuch as the work of Moses. Their spirit is wholly different from that which appears in the Levitical Law. They insist in the strongest terms upon moral good- ness as the sole recommendation to God's favour. But it may be said, that the prophets are to he understood as disparaging the observance of the ceremonial Law, only when such observance was made a substitute for higher dudes, or was practised by habitual transgressors ; and were, therefore, far from teaching that a strict regard to its rites, as ordained by God, was not in the highest degree obligatory. This may appear at first view a plausible explanation of much of their language. But it is to be recollected, that if the Law proceeded from God, then the observance of the rites of the Law was a most solemn duty, taking its rank, so far as the Jews were concerned, with the clearest of those obligations, which are imperative upon all men. The explanation given, therefore, supposes that the prophets spoke contemptuously of one duty in order to excite men to perform other duties ; that they treated with disrespect what God had commanded in order to lead men to obey his will. On the supposition, that the Levitical Law was ordained by God, the Jews offered sacrifices, and observed the other rites of that Law, because they believed them to have been commanded by God, and with the view of obtaining his favour. Thus far they acted right ; and they were not to be reproved and discou- raged in doing right, whatever, on the other hand, might be their deficiencies and sins. But, further than this, if there were no intrinsic moral worth in the ceremonies of the Law, then they could have been ordained only as means of holi- ness ; and the absence of holiness in the people afforded no reason for repelling them from the appointed means of obtaining it. According to the representations of the Jewish history, they could hardly, at any time, have been a more perverse and disobedient race than their ancestors on whom those ceremonies were enjoined. It would, therefore, seem, that those who have acquiesced in the explanation that has been mentioned, can have done so only through unconsci- ously transferring to the prophets their own secret and unac- 75 knowledged sense, unacknowledged even to themselves, of the worthlessness of the rites of the Levitical Law. The observance of them, it is agreed, did not constitute holiness ; nor can it appear a suitable means of attaining it, if, as the explanation supposes, actual holiness was necessary to render such observance anything but a matter of reprehension. To illustrate the subject, let us imagine that the practices at one time in high repute in the Komish Church, fasting, the scourging of one's self, other self-inflicted sufferings, and the iteration of forms of prayer, all which were supposed to be conformable to the will of God, had been in fact expressly and most solemnly enjoined by Him. It is evident, that no preacher of true religion, under a conviction that such was the fact, could, by way of reforming the Koman Catholic Church, even when fallen into its most corrupt state, have spoken of those practices contemptuously, or have made a disparaging comparison of them with other duties which he was recommending, or have ventured, through any licence of rhetorical language, to represent them as not ordained and not required by God. The application of this imaginary case to the real case before us is too obvious to be dwelt upon. With these general views let us consider some of the passages that occur in the writings of the prophets and in the Psalms. The prophet Amos ascribes these words to Jehovah.* " I hate, I despise your feasts ; I have no delight in your solemn assemblies ; When ye offer me burnt-offerings and flour- offerings, I will not accept them ; Nor will I look on the peace-offerings of your fallings. Away with the noise of your songs : I will not listen to your harping : But let justice flow as water, And righteousness like a mighty river. Did ye offer me sacrifices and offerings In the wilderness, for forty years, O house of Israel ? " * Ch. v. 21-25. 76 Besides the general character of tliis passage, the conclud- ing question may be particularly remarked. It is equivalent to a strong affirmation, that the Israelites did not offer sacri- fices and offerings during the forty years after their leaving Egypt. But this is directly contrary to what is related in the Pentateuch. Nothing can be more striking than the following passage from Micah.* " ' With what shall I appear before Jehovah, And bow myself before the Most High God ? Shall I come before him with burnt- offerings, With calves of a year old ? Will Jehovah be pleased with thousands of rams ; Or ten thousand of rivers of oil ? Shall I give my first-born for my transgression ; The fruit of my body for my sin ? ' ' O man ! he has made known to thee what is good: And what does Jehovah require of thee, But to do justly, and to love mercy, And to walk humbly before thy God ? ' " I pass to the prophet Isaiah.f " Of what value are the multitude of your sacrifices to me ? says Jehovah. I am weary of the burnt- offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts ; And I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of goats. Who hath required this of you, when ye come to appear before me, to trample my courts ? Bring no more vain oblations." Ch. vi. 6-8 f Ch. i. 11-17. 77 " Wash you ; make you clean ; Put away your evil deeds from before iny eyes ; Cease to do evil ; learn to do well ; Seek to do justice ; relieve the oppressed ; Do right to the fatherless; defend the cause of the widow." The following passage is from Jeremiah.* It may he remarked, that it was written after the discovery, as re- presented, of " the Book of the Law," in the reign of Josiah, and the events immediately consequent. " Thus says Jehovah, God of hosts, God of Israel : Put your burnt-offerings with your sacrifices, and eat the flesh ; For I spake not to your fathers, Nor commanded them, in the day when I brought them out of Egypt, Concerning burnt-offerings and sacrifices. But this did I command them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, And ye shall be my people." *' I spake not to your fathers, when I brought them out of Egypt, concerning burnt-offerings and sacrifices." With what astonishment must this declaration have been listened to by a contemporary Jew, believing the history in the Pen- tateuch, and consequently believing that the ceremonial Law was ordained by God. And with what feelings would he have regarded the prophet, if, upon questioning him as to his meaning, he had explained himself, as he has been most plausibly explained by modern commentators, in words like these : I did not mean to say, that God had " ap- pointed no religious rites, such as sacrifices. For the most particular directions are given concerning them in the books of Moses." But I only intended, that God had " always CIi. vii. 21 2?. 78 laid less stress upon everything of this kind than upon moral virtue." * In the Pentateuch, Jehovah is repeatedly introduced as saying, " I am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of fathers upon children to the third and fourth generation of them that hate me."t With this declaration may he compared the eighteenth chapter of Ezekiel. " The word of Jehovah came to me again, saying ; "What mean ye, that ye use this proverh concerning the land of Israel, ' The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are on edge.' " As I live, saith the Lord, Jehovah, Ye shall not have occasion any more to use this proverb in Israel." " The son shall not hear the iniquity of the father, nor shall the father hear the iniquity of the son. " The righteousness of the righteous shall he upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him." According to the Talmud, there was a discussion among the ancient Jewish doctors about allowing the book now ascribed to Ezekiel a place in the canon, and the majority were at one time disposed to reject it. Their objections to it were founded, it is said, upon passages contained in it, which were regarded as contradictory to the Pentateuch. It seems, from the book ascribed to him, that Ezekiel wrote during the Captivity. It is a work which is not to be generally referred to as presenting correct or agreeable representations of religion or of the Supreme Being. It is made repulsive by other characteristics beside its great * The words marked as quoted are taken from Dr. Priestley's note on the passage. I quote him only because he has expressed briefly and distinctly what has been said by many others. f Exod. xx. 5 ; xxxiv. 7. Numbers xiv. 18. Deut. v. 9. J Bartoloccii Biblioth. Hebr. P. ii. pp. 847, 48. Wolfii Biblioth. Hebr. Tom. ii. p. 156. 79 obscurity. If the last nine chapters were written by him, it would appear that his mind was much occupied about ritual observances. But, putting aside what in these chapters it is difficult or impossible to understand, one striking fact pre- sents itself. It is the want of correspondence between the directions for sacrifices there given and those found in the Pentateuch.* With such passages as have been adduced from the pro- phets may be connected the remarkable quotation before given from one of the Psalms. t And there is a special reason for adding to them the declaration ascribed to God by Hosea4 " I desire goodness and not sacrifices, And the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings." " Go ye and learn," said our Saviour, " what this means, I desire goodness and not sacrifices."^ By thus adopting and sanctioning the declaration of the prophet, he bore testimony that the true character and spirit of the religion of Moses were not to be found in the ritual Law, but that they were identical, as far as that declaration extends, with the spirit and character of his own. He places the prophet for a moment on a level with himself, as equally with him- self rejecting the conception, that ceremonial observances were a means of obtaining God's favour. Such passages as we. have been considering may be thrown into stronger relief by comparing them with what appears in a later writer, who is to be referred to the same general class with those from whom we have quoted. Mala- chi was the last of the prophets, or, in other words, the last of those public religious teachers among the Jews to whom that name has been given. He lived, as is commonly thought, about a century after the return of the Jews to * Compare, for example, the forty-fifth and forth-sixth chapters of Ezekiel, with the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth chapters of Numbers. t See before, p. 29. J Ch. vi. 6. Matthew ix. 13. 80 Palestine, that is, about four hundred years before Christ, when the authority of the ceremonial Law was established. His language in relation to it does not correspond with that of the prophets before the Captivity, but by its con- trast it brings out in a more striking manner the character of those religious sentiments which they express, and serves to confirm the opinion, that the Levitical Law, in its present form, was not believed to be of divine authority among the Jews till after their return from their Captivity. Nothing answering to such passages as the following is to be found in any writer before that time. " But ye say, Wherein have we despised thy name ? Ye bring polluted food to my altar. Yet ye say, Wherein have we polluted thee ? In that ye say, The table of Jehovah is despicable. For when ye bring blind animals for sacrifice, ye say, It is not evil. And when ye bring lame and sick animals, ye say, It is not evil." * "Ye bring what has been plundered, and what is lame and sick, And present it for an offering. Shall I accept it from your hands ? says Jehovah. Cursed be the deceiver who has a male in his flock, And vows and sacrifices to Jehovah what is marred." f " Shall a man rob God ? Yet ye rob me. But ye say, In what have we robbed thee ? In tithes and offerings. Ye are cursed with a curse ; For ye have robbed me, even this whole nation. Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, And let there be food in my house." I * Ch. i. 6-8. f Ch. i. 13, 14. + Ch. iii. 8-10. 81 With these representations of the Deity we may compare those of an earlier writer, the author of the fiftieth Psalm. " I will reprove thee, not for the sake of thy sacrifices, Nor of thy hurnt- offerings, which are daily before me. I will take no bullock from thy stalls, Nor he-goat from thy folds ; For all the beasts of the forest are mine, And the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the mountains ; And the wild beasts of the plains are before me. If I were hungry, I would not tell thee : For the world is mine, and all that is therein. Do I eat the flesh of bulls ? Or drink the blood of goats ? Offer to God thanksgiving ; And fulfil thy vows to the Most High ; Then call upon me in the day of trouble ; And I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me." * In such passages appears, as I conceive, the true spirit of the religion which Moses was commissioned to teach ; and it is remarkable, that this spirit survived the belief that the Levitical Law was ordained by God through him. Eeligious sentiments, coincident with those which have been In the next Psalm (the fifty-first), a Psalm expressing deep penitence in the writer, is the following passage : " Thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it; Thou dost not delight in burnt-offerings. The sacrifice which God loves is a broken spirit ; A broken and a contrite heart, God, thou wilt not despise." I notice this passage principally to observe, that there seems little doubt, that the two verses which follow it are (as has been supposed) an addition by a later writer, after the Captivity. They not only have no connection with what precedes, but they stand in direct opposition to what has just been said by the original author. The verses referred to are these : " Do good to Zion according to thy mercy; Build up the walls of Jerusalem ; Then shalt thou be pleased with right sacrificeSj With whole burnt-offerings ; Then shall bullocks be offered on thine altar." I 82 quoted from the earlier prophetical writings and the Psalms, are to be found in the higher class of Jewish writers of later times. Thus the author of Ecclesiasticus says : * " He who keeps the Law" (a remarkable expression as defining what might be meant by "keeping the Law") " He who keeps the Law abounds in offerings ; he who gives heed to the commandments offers a peace-offering; he who returns a favour makes an offering of fine flour ; he who gives alms offers a thank-offering; he who departs from wicked- ness is accepted by the Lord ; and to forsake iniquity is a sin-offering." If inserted in any part of Leviticus, what a contrast would this passage form to the general tenor of that book ! It is remarkable, likewise, as showing what, in the view of the writer, was meant by " keeping the Law ; " that is to say, the performance of duties of universal obligation, exclusively of the observance of the ceremonial Law. As appears, how- ever, from the passage itself, the ceremonial Law was fully established in his time ; and he accordingly subjoins, " Thou shalt not appear before the Lord with empty hands ; for all these things are to be done for the sake of the ordinances." The philosophical Jews of Alexandria appear to have laid little stress on tbe literal observance of the ritual Law, re- garding all its precepts as symbolical. " God," says Philo, " rejoices in devout affections, in men striving after holiness; from whom He receives, well pleased, cakes, and barley, and the humblest offerings, as of greater worth than the most costly ; and should they bring nothing else, yet making an offering of themselves, perfect in goodness, they would make the best offering, while celebrating God, the Benefactor and Preserver, in hymns of thanksgiving, some uttered," as he goes on to say, " and some unuttered."f A few words may be added from another passage of Philo : " True gratitude to God is not shown, as many think, in buildings, gifts, and sacrifices, for not the whole world Ch. xxxv. 1-3. De Victimas Offerentibus. Opp. ii. 253. 83 would be a worthy temple to his honour, hut in praises and hymns, not such as are sung with a loud voice, but such as sound forth in harmony from the invisible and most pure mind." "To confer benefits is the proper office of God ; to be grateful, that of the creature, who has nothing but gratitude to give in return. For would he render any other gift, he will find that it already belongs to the Maker of All, and not to the being who brings it. Being instructed, therefore, that there is but one thing for us to do in honour- ing God to be grateful, about this let us, at all times and everywhere, be solicitous."* The continuance and the strength of similar sentiments, among a portion of the Jews, are strikingly manifested by the existence of the sect of the Essenes, and the manner in which they were spoken of. They are described by Philo and Josephus as the most conscientious and religious of their countrymen. It may be observed, though it is not to our immediate purpose, that their religion and morality were of an ascetic and monastic character. Their virtues were those which, in other times, have been produced among Christians as the growth of strong principles in a very cor- rupt state of society ; in such a state of society, as may incline those who would attain the religious character to separate themselves from the world, and, in renouncing its pleasures, to neglect many of its duties. But the Essenes, as I have said, were the most virtuous among their country- men, in the view even of Philo ; and this sect, so regarded by him and by Josephus, offered no sacrifices. " They send gifts to the temple," says Josephus, " but offer no sacrifices ; their modes of purification being different ; and hence, being excluded from the common sanctuary, they offer themselves as a sacrifice."t And he goes on to say, that " they deserve admiration above all those who have cultivated virtue."! " Among them," says Philo, " are especially to be found worshippers of God, men who sacrifice no animals, but deem * De Plantation Noe. Opp. i. 348. f" 10' ttvtut