Northcote and Meynell 
 
 The 'OolenFo' Gontroverpy Conpid^red from 
 the Catholic Standpoint 
 
 ■^. -^^ 
 
 
"may 15 1959 
 

 Prloe On© Shilling tuaO. Sixpence, \ 4'/:'^ i^k^ 
 
 APR 12 ;j27 
 
 THE 'COLENSO' CONTROVERSY 
 
 CONSIDERED FROM THE 
 
 CATHOUC STANDPOINT; 
 
 BEING 
 
 FIVE LETTERS 
 
 ABOUT 
 
 DR. COLENSO'S WORK UPON THE PENTATEUCH, 
 
 AND THE CRITICISMS WHICH IT HAS CALLED 
 FOETH ON EITHER SIDE. 
 
 BY 
 
 THE VERY REV. CANON NORTHCOTE, D.D. 
 
 PRESIDENT OF ST. MAEY's COLLEGE, OSCOTT J 
 AND 
 
 THE REV. C. lEINELL, D.D., 
 
 PROFESSOR OF MENTAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE SAME COLLEGE. 
 
 LONDON : 
 THOMAS RICHAKDSON AND SON, 
 
 26, PATEKNOSTEE KOW ; 9, CAPEL STREET, DUBLIN ; AND DERBY. 
 MDCCCLXIII. 
 
THE 'COLENSO' CONTROVERSY 
 
 CONSIDERED FROM THE 
 
 CATHOLIC STANDPOINT. 
 
^. 
 
 APR 1 2 :J27 
 
 THE ^COLENSO' CONTROVERSY 
 
 CONSIDERED FROM THE 
 
 CATHOLIC STANDPOINT; 
 
 BEING 
 
 FIVE LETTERS 
 
 ABOUT 
 
 DR. COLENSO'S WORK UPON THE PENTATEUCH, 
 
 AND THE CEITICISMS WHICH IT HAS CALLED 
 FORTH ON EITHEE SIDE. 
 
 BY 
 
 THE VERY REV. CANON NOPJHCOTE, D.D., 
 
 PRESIDENT OF ST. MARY's COLLEGE, OSCOTT ; 
 
 THE REV. C. MEYNELL, D.D., 
 
 PROFESSOR OF MENTAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE SAME COLLEGE. 
 
 LONDON : 
 THOMAS RICHARDSON AND SON, 
 
 I, PATERNOSTER ROW ; 9, CAPEL STREET, DUBLIN ; AND DERBY. 
 MDCCCLXIII. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 A few words of explanation are necessary as to the shape 
 in which the materials of this little puhlication have been cast 
 by its authors. The first letter was written bond fide and 
 without any view to publication : but the epistolary form in 
 the others was chosen, as a convenient fiction, by means of 
 which the writers were enabled to address two very diiferent 
 classes of persons who were likely to be affected by Dr. 
 Colenso's mischievous publication. The letters themselves 
 bear witness that there never was any real disagreement 
 between their respective writers, as to the management of the 
 controversy : but since each of them had taken a different 
 view of it, and adopted a distinct line of argument, they 
 gladly seized upon what seemed the only method of working 
 together, as they hope, for the general good. The facility, 
 also, of the epistolary style was a great advantage to persons 
 writing as they have written under the pressing burden of 
 various other duties. 
 
 Feb. 7, 1863. 
 St. Mary's College, Oscott. 
 
THE 'COLENSO' CO^'TROVERSY 
 
 CONSIDERED FROM THE 
 
 CATHOLIC STANDPOTXT. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 Dear Doctor, 
 
 I wish to have your opinion about a matter which has 
 always been interesting to me, and which certain recent pub- 
 lications have made a subject of importance — the attitude I 
 mean of the faithful mind towards difficulties and objections 
 which may be urged against the truths of religion. 
 
 Some persons seem to think that it is in the power of the 
 Catholic apologist to give a direct and satisfactory answer to 
 every possible objection which may be started against the 
 Christian religion, lest error seem to triumph. But (if you 
 will agree with me) I am persuaded that this statement of 
 the case is absolutely inadmissible. Veiy many objections, 
 it is true, demand and admit of such a reply ; but others 
 (and on the whole, I should say the far gi-eater number) are 
 directly unanswerable ; though in every case (I ought to add) 
 these admit of course, a sufficient indirect answer. Now 
 it is a point of wisdom that the controversialist should be 
 practically conscious of this truth, which, when clearly laid 
 before him, I think he will hardly venture to deny. Where 
 the question is, mainly, one of fact, truth is always successful 
 against falsehood, learning against ignorance, and profound- 
 ness against shallow brilliancy.' The " End of Controversy," 
 and the " Lectures on the Holy Eucharist," have for this 
 reason proved superior to attack ; because, in those days, 
 the question was not so much a matter of reason as a matter 
 oi fact. It was asked, whether this or that doctrine were 
 really contained, or imphed in that Divine page which both 
 parties equally reverenced as inspired? such as — "Whether 
 or not the Scriptures declare themselves to be a sufficient 
 Rule of Faith ? Whether or not such doctrines as the 
 
Supremacy of St. Peter, the Infallibility of the Church, the 
 Real Presence, Auricular Confession, were countenanced or 
 condemned in Holy Writ ? and so forth. I do not mean to 
 say that questions of reason were never brought into the 
 controversy : for they were brought in. But I speak of the 
 general tenour of the discussion. It was about matters of 
 fact ; and the task of the controversialist, however laborious, 
 was not perplexed as it now is, when the question has 
 become one of the reason. There was always to be found 
 someAvhere or other a direct solution of the difficulty — a 
 straight-forward answer to a straight-forward question. But 
 it has become far otherwise now that the difficulties are of the 
 reason. 
 
 I should beware of meeting directly such questions as 
 " How can God be at once Three Persons and yet one God? 
 How could God the Son — the same Person — at once know and 
 not know the Day of Judgment ? — How can the same body, 
 as in the Holy Eucharist, be in many places at once ? — If 
 any man really knows lioio these things can be so, he is wiser 
 than I. I am aware that direct answers to such questions 
 are furnished by the schoolmen, for the purpose of maldng 
 the matter as intelligible as it can be made. I own that such 
 answers have their use in this respect. But do they fully 
 satisfy the objection ? This I cannot admit. For the Holy 
 Trinity is a mystery, which it would not be if I knew lioio 
 God is one God, and jet Three Persons : the Incarnation of 
 God the Son is a mystery, which it would not be if I could 
 render it fully intelligible how the same Person could, in 
 this case, know and not know the same thing. I was always 
 better pleased with the indirect answers, less ambitious bat 
 more really effective — such as the analogy of the Holy Tri- 
 nity and the Human Soul ; that of the union of the Divine 
 and Human Natures in Christ, and the union of a soul and 
 body in man ; the presence of the Body of Christ in the 
 Holy Eucharist, and that of the soul in the body — wholly in 
 the whole and again wholly in each part, as St. Thomas 
 teaches from Aristotle. 
 
 But, perhaps, a more effective method than all, in dealing 
 with an unbeliever who finds the Christian Doctrines contra- 
 dictory is this : — " Better come to another matter," I would 
 say ; " Would you, or would you not accept these doctrines, if 
 (believing there is a God of truth) you knew that He asked you 
 and commanded you to accept them ? Would you dare thus 
 answer Him, that they were contradictions and that you could 
 not accept them? Is it likely, on the other hand, that God has 
 
left men to go their own ways ? Has He not Himself spoken 
 to man about what he is to believe, and how he is to worship ?" 
 • — Thus bring the unbeliever to admit the necessity of some 
 Divine Authority, such as the Catholic Church, and his diffi- 
 culties will not vanish (of course they will not) but they will 
 appear to him in a new light ; and if he obtain the gift of 
 faith, instead of being a subject of pain and disquiet, they 
 will become incentives to humility and adoration. But if 
 this be the case, is there not some Vv'aste of labour over 
 difficulties which must still remain after the objector is con- 
 verted ? And would not much of this labour be better spent 
 in sounding the inquirer's state of mind, and reading his own 
 heart to him ? For I am persuaded that tlie minds of 
 many of these " earnest Truth-seekers" (as they style them- 
 selves) are in an attitude of unconscious rebellion against 
 God. — " I am as free in my way as He is in His. I have a 
 right to know good reasons — reasons which I think satisfac- 
 tory for what He bids me believe ; and if He condemns me 
 on this head, let Him look to it." These are dreadfvil words, 
 but they are, I firmly believe, the language of the heart of 
 many such persons, who have some good left in them, and to 
 whom it would do good to read, as I said, their own hearts 
 to them, and to threaten them with the wrath which their 
 devilish pride (I can find no better term) so richly deserves. 
 — "I did not argue with him, hut I think I frightened him," 
 said a friend of mine about an unbeliever with whom he had 
 some words. Alas ! how many well-meaning persons rush 
 into disputes about matters to which they are unequal, and 
 not only do not frighten, but get the worst of the argument 
 into the bargain. Those who read " the papers" at this 
 time, may witness some painful instances. It may well be 
 asked whether Bishop Colenso's objections or the answers 
 which they have called forth will do more harm. 
 
 But are the preceding remarks, then, applicable to the 
 recent publication against the veracity of the Pentateuch ? I 
 think so. There is indeed a vast difference between Myste- 
 ries of Faith and those seeming inconsistencies which Dr. 
 Colenso has pointed out in the Scripture narrative. The 
 difficulty which the former present to the human reason is 
 owing to the natural limitation of our thinking faculties ; 
 while the latter, as matters invested with a merely acci- 
 dental obscurity arising from deficient experience, are difficul- 
 ties of a lower order altogether. And yet, however unlike in 
 its nature and origin, a similar phenomenon manifests itself 
 in both cases ; that is to say, in both cases it is a question of 
 
10 
 
 reconciling one portion of the Divine Message with another 
 where we have not (clearly) the whole statement of the case 
 laid before us. And the similarity of the phenomenon sug- 
 gests a similarity of treatment. So here again I leave it to 
 those who are wiser than I, to furnish direct answers to such 
 questions as these — How can the Mosaic Record be recon- 
 ciled with Sir Charles Lyell's principles of geology ? How 
 could Noe feed all the creatures in the Ark, such as beasts 
 and birds which prey upon each other — swallows, bats, rep- 
 tiles, insects, &c. ? Or, How could the children of Phares 
 (Hesron and Hamul) be born in Egypt, since they are num- 
 iDored (Gen. xlvi.) amongst those who ivent down into 
 Egypt ? Or' how could they have been born in the land of 
 Canaan consistently with the facts recorded Gen. xxxviii. ? 
 How could a population of 2,000,000 have made the marches 
 recorded in the time recorded? How could they have got 
 food, where no miraculous agency is recorded; and w^hen 
 such miraculous agency is recorded, did the flocks and 
 herds eat quails and manna too ? Where did the Israel- 
 ites get their arms from, with which they fought the Amale- 
 kites ? How is it that at a census recorded Exod. xxx., the 
 number of adult males should exactly tally with the number 
 at a census taken six months later — Num. 1. whereas the 
 ratio of increase ought to have been 215 (?) per diem ? How 
 get the number of lighting men 603,000, at the time of the 
 Exodus, with a proportionate number of aged, females, and 
 children amounting altogether to a population of 2,000,000, 
 out of the twelve sons of Jacob and their wives, allowing the 
 very highest probable ratio of increase ? How can the con- 
 quests of the Israelites (considering the difficulties as to time 
 and numbers) be made probable ? How can the numerous 
 and intricate duties of the priests have been punctually and 
 faithfully discharged, according to the law ? etc., etc. 
 
 Now, what I think specially noticeable in this sort of con- 
 troversy is this ; that w^hereas the difficulty is clear, patent, 
 palpable, yet the answer is (and in most cases cannot be 
 otherwise than) a mere supposition. And I do not say this, 
 mind, out of any contempt for the answers, when tliey are 
 sensible ones : yet such is the fact ; and we ought to be aware 
 of it, and not to insist upon such direct answers (if we 
 attempt them at all) as if they were really our strong point ; 
 which they are not, and cannot be. For I do not know (no 
 man surely does) how the Mosaic Record of Creation is recon- 
 •cileable with certain geological facts : but I have a view upon 
 the matter ; — I hold some theory which is more or less con- 
 
11 
 
 sistent and probable. Thus, I bold the Augustinian theory 
 of the days as indefinite periods ; I like Buckland's theory ; 
 I stand by Cardinal Wiseman, or I side with Hengstenberg : 
 and so forth. I do not know how Noe fed the beasts, fowls, 
 and creeping things. But I suppose supernatural agency of 
 one sort or another. God fed them — sustained them with- 
 out food — taught Noe some (unknown) natural means of 
 providing for their wants. I suppose, again, that the names 
 of Hesron and Hamul were a gloss (to make up the number) 
 which has crept into the text ; or, that the writer inserted 
 them in this case as " guided by genealogical, rather than 
 historical considerations," or that some number in the origi- 
 nal date of calculation has got altered. I siippose superna- 
 tural agency to meet various difficulties of the Exodus ; that 
 God strengthened the people to perform their various jour- 
 nies ; supplied their wants oftentimes, and those of their 
 flocks and herds by unrecorded miracles : or, I think that there 
 is no dignus vindice nodus for supernatural agency save when 
 recorded ; and, then, must suppose facts and circumstances 
 in the back ground, as to their journies, method of living, 
 means of subsistence, acquisition of arms, and discipline on 
 the march, which have not come down to us. I suppose that 
 the census mentioned in Exodus and that in Numbers may 
 possibly be the same census ; and that the numbers were 
 really taken when the tribute was paid, but not given in till 
 six months afterwards ; or that some unrecorded fact in the 
 back ground would set all right. I suppose that inter-mar- 
 riages with Egj^tians (or others) and an offspring in special 
 cases vastly over the European average (such as we read of 
 in the East and in Southern Europe and America) would 
 make void the calculations as to the ratio of increase of the 
 Israelites ; and that circumstances unrecorded would similarly 
 afi'ect other estimates and calculations. 
 
 But enough ; I do not wish to answer Colenso in this 
 manner ; so it is needless to pursue further this portion of 
 my subject. Let us own it; these are not really ansicers to 
 the objections, but mere inventions of the imagination, which 
 seeks to render intelligible that which is (to our minds) unin- 
 telligible. They are conjectures which may some of them be 
 true perhaps, or partially true ; but of this we know nothing. 
 Others, which seem plausible enough, may be (if we only 
 knew the whole state of the case) very wide of the mark. 
 "When we add to this that objections of this kind may be mul- 
 tiplied ad injinituni ; that it is proverbially easier to ask ques- 
 tions than to answer them ; that, oftentimes, the various an- 
 
12 
 
 swers cancel one another ; and that sometimes they only lay 
 one difficulty to start twenty others — I think the controver- 
 sialist will pause ere he venture to take his stand on so un- 
 substantial a basis. Eather as before I would bring the 
 matter to this decisive issue : " How if God commanded you 
 to believe — say the history of the Exodus as narrated by 
 Moses (or whomsoever you suppose was the author) in the 
 Bible. Are you so certain that there is no error, nor misap- 
 prehension about the data on which these supposed incon- 
 sistencies are founded, that you would dare tell Him that you 
 would not, could not believe?" For once get the objector to 
 admit that God has spoken to man ; that the Bible is the 
 Word of God (which however cannot be proved from the Bible 
 itself) and he must see these difficulties in a new light, 
 though difficulties there will ever be. If he be not full of 
 conceit, if he wishes to believe ; then, he may be assisted by 
 indirect arguments. He should be reminded that these cal- 
 culations (though they look so imposing) are in themselves of 
 small moment, and the data on which they are founded is 
 everything; that he is supposing himself, or his authority a 
 competent judge of these data, and that in such matters as 
 the creation of this world, the deluge, and a migration of 
 people which claims to have been conducted by the special 
 agency of God Himself thousands of years ago ; that it is 
 but natural that the history of such events should exhibit 
 apparent inconsistencies and contradictions, when facts that 
 have happened in our own days, such as the life of Napoleon 
 III., the American War, the exploits of Garibaldi read impos- 
 sible and absurd when summarily narrated ; while the duties 
 of the Roman Pontiff might appear equally impossible on 
 paper, as those of the Jewish High Priest ; that even the 
 direct answers to objections, imperfect as they are, yet since 
 they show that men in our circumstances can conceive a 
 way by which the difficulties may be toned down and the 
 facts related brought within the range of possibility, have 
 their use, and are an argument that what is possible in con- 
 ception may be considered possible in itself. He should be 
 reminded also how little are these objections against the 
 veracity of the Pentateuch, compared with the overwhelming 
 mass of evidence in its favour : and instead of being allowed 
 to attack, he should be himself put upon the defensive. Let 
 this suffice however. I do not wish really to answer Colenso, 
 but rather to submit to you the method by which I think this 
 sort of unbelievers should be met. I would willingly hear 
 what you have to say upon the matter. Of one thing I am 
 
13 
 
 fully persuaclecl, viz., that if my method of answering do no 
 good, at any rate it can do no harm ; whereas I fear the ma- 
 jority of answers which are published, and no doubt a propor- 
 tionate number of unpublished ones will do much harm. 
 1st. Because the writers do not oicn the difficulties, and thus 
 seem to be arguing in had faith. 2nd. Because, by trying to 
 answer questions which are unanswerable, they suffer an ig- 
 nominious defeat ; and thus lead the objector to believe that 
 he has the better cause. 3rdly. Because they lose their tem- 
 pers and use unpleasant and vituperative language — showing 
 plainly which side, at any rate, has the best of the argument. 
 4thly. Because they write with a certain conceit and hunip- 
 tiousness (if I may use a slang term) which is unworthy of 
 Christians — though, here, however they are fairly matched on 
 the other side. Now if my answer is a poor one, at any rate 
 it does not pretend to be better than it is. If there are diffi- 
 culties in the Scripture which we cannot quite explain away, 
 let us acknowledge them. We have abundance of reason for 
 believing notwithstanding. 
 
 Yours, Dear Doctor, 
 
 Very affectionately, 
 C. M. 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 My dear Friend, 
 
 I have allowed your letter to remain too long unanswered. 
 The delay has been unintentional and unavoidable ; but it 
 has brought with it this advantage, that I have had the 
 opportunity of seeing some of the answers which Colenso's 
 book has elicited, so that I can now fully appreciate your 
 fears lest these should do more harm than the publication 
 they are intended to refute. I feel certain that many 
 of them cannot fail to have this effect ; in particular, those 
 which pretend to laugh at Colenso's difficulties, on the one 
 hand, and, on the other, those which go a long way in con- 
 ceding all that he contends for in his premises, and yet think 
 that they can deny his conclusion. 
 
 No doubt, Colenso's publication and its history present a 
 very tempting subject for ridicule to those who do not feel 
 
14 
 
 keenly about the spiritual interests that may be endangered 
 by it. It is very easy and very tempting to make a joke about 
 " Colenso's Arithmetic applied to the Pentateuch," about a 
 Protestant Bishop setting out with his Bible to convert the 
 savages, " catching a Tartar," and being himself converted by 
 these same savages so as to discard the Bible, or at least very 
 considerably to lower its estimate in his own mind and in the 
 minds of others. But when a writer goes beyond this, and 
 says that the difficulties he has stated are childish and absurd, 
 and " such as a Sunday-school girl might answer," he only 
 betrays his own ignorance or insincerity. On the other 
 hand, there have been writers who are not afraid to acknow- 
 ledge that " Colenso has demonstrated a consistency in error 
 pervading every part of the Exodus narrative, which abso- 
 lutely forbids our accepting its Arithmetic in the form in 
 which it is now presented to us," and yet seek to escape from 
 his conclusion that the Book, so full of errors, is not to be 
 trusted as a true narrative of historical facts. If in the former 
 class of writers we desiderated more sincerity, in these we 
 certainly want more logic ; and both of one and the other we 
 must needs confess — 
 
 Non tali auxilio, non defensoribus istis 
 Tempus eget. 
 
 Everyone must feel, that answers of this kind inflict a real 
 injury upon the cause they are intended to serve ; and if these 
 are the only direct answers that can be given, better far to 
 abstain from answering at all, or to give only that indirect form 
 of answer which you recommend. Indeed there can be no 
 doubt that the indirect answer is always safer, and often 
 stronger, than any direct answer which it is possible to give. 
 Nevertheless I do not think that in the present moment it 
 would be quite sufficient. The indirect answer seems to me 
 more effective as a preventive and precautionary measure than 
 as a remedy ; more useful for the masses than for individuals. 
 Let me explain what I mean. You know that not long since 
 I had the charge of a large and intelligent, but on the whole 
 an uneducated, congregation ; there was a fair sprinkling 
 amongst them of young men, very fond of reading or "hear- 
 ing some new thing." Had I continued to be their pastor 
 during the last few months, I might very probably have con- 
 sidered it my duty to give them some few lectures on the 
 general idea of a Divine Eevelation ; on the Authority of the 
 Church, on the Inspiration and Interpretation of Scripture, 
 and in particular, on the credibility of the Old Testament. 
 
15 
 
 In this course of Lectures, it would only have been natural 
 to glance at the most popular errors and heresies upon the 
 subject I was treating of; I might perhaps even have taken two 
 or three of Colenso's " difficulties" by way of illustration ; but 
 I should have dealt with these difficulties in my own way, 
 quite independently of the form in. which that writer has 
 chosen to jjut them. Still less, should I have enumerated 
 all, or provided a separate answer for each. Indeed, I should 
 have dealt largely and principally in general and indirect 
 arguments. And I should have relied upon these instruc- 
 tions as abundantly sufficient, under God, to protect my flock 
 from the danger of corruption ; I should have considered that 
 they had been thus provided with sufficient positive informa- 
 tion on the one side, to counteract the effect of those mere 
 doubts and suspicions which the public press would soon be 
 setting before them, on the other. 
 
 But, supposing this preventive measure to have been omit- 
 ted, or in this or that particular case to have failed — suppos- 
 ing an individual, into whose mind the poisoned shaft of 
 doubt had already penetrated in the shape of some argument 
 or arguments extracted from Colenso — then I should mis- 
 doubt the possibility of expelling the poison and healing the 
 wound, merely by supplying wholesome food, or by any treat- 
 ment of the general constitution of the patient ; I should feel 
 myself bound to provide, wherever it was possible, a specific 
 antidote to the poison imbibed, lest an uneasy suspicion 
 should arise in the mind that the Bible had been convicted of 
 falsehood. And from what I hear, I feel that much mischief 
 has already been done to persons who pick up their knowledge 
 of these things from newspapers or from conversations at the 
 clubs, on 'change, or in the market-place (for in all these 
 places is the subject now discussed), and do not know where 
 to turn for a Catholic reply ; and as for the Protestant replies, 
 they are so bewildered by their number and variety, that they 
 know not which to select, so that it often ends in their read- 
 ing no answer at all. I think therefore that it may be worth 
 while to collect for these persons a few answers to the most 
 important of Colenso's objections, not that I have a word to 
 say which has not been very well said, somewhere and by 
 somebody, already, or that is not perfectly familiar to all 
 educated Catholics who have thought on the subject at all. 
 But the misfortune is that not all Catholics are educated, and 
 not all educated Catholics have thought about it, whereas this 
 book of Colenso's is in everybody's hands and everybody is 
 talking about it. 
 
16 
 
 Indeed this seems to me the special danger of this work — 
 far beyond any authority it may receive from the ecclesiastical 
 position of the author — that it is so eminently suited for 
 popular use ; it is " Infidelity made easy," " Infidelity for the 
 million." Its arguments, being almost entirely arithmetical, 
 are not above the level of the meanest capacity. He tells us 
 himself that it was his object to put his case " in a form in- 
 telligible to the most unlearned layman," and in this he has 
 certainly succeeded. For all Englishmen have a real practical 
 familiarity with the first four rules of Arithmetic, but not all 
 know much about the Bible. Consequently, many of his 
 readers pay no attention to the conditions of the problems he 
 proposes ; very probably they are not competent to form an 
 opinion about them, if they did ; but they look only to the 
 working of his sum, and if this is correct, they at once admit 
 his conclusion ; whereas a more accurate knowledge of the 
 subject would often enable them to dispute and disprove the 
 conditions under which he has stated it. 
 
 I cannot undertake to follow Colenso through every detail 
 of his difficulties ; but I should like to select fair samples of 
 them, and give you specimens of the kind of direct answers 
 which it seems to me they fairly admit. I shall confine my- 
 self to that which is his spec'ialite, the numbers, or the time, 
 or the space, or some other arithmetical items involved in the 
 narrative of the Exodus. It is true indeed that he has chosen 
 to complicate the matter in dispute by the adroit introduction 
 of other topics ; but these do not form the staple of his argu- 
 ment. Thus, he more than insinuates his disbelief of the 
 miracles that are contained in the same portion of Holy 
 Writ. He protests most loudly against being required to 
 believe that the deluge was universal, or that the rod of Moses 
 was changed into a living serpent, or that the waters of the 
 Jordan ever stood in a heap, or that the sun and moon stood 
 still, or that Balaam's ass spoke like a man ; nay, so impa- 
 tient is he of anything out of the ordinary course of nature, 
 that he cannot bear that the sacred text should testify concerning 
 the children of Israel at the Exodus, that " there was not one 
 feeble person among their tribes." Nevertheless, he is very 
 careful to tell us that he does not, in his present work at least, 
 rest any of the weight of his argument upon the impossibility 
 or improbability, either of miracles in general, or of any of 
 these miracles in particular. He impeaches the general 
 veracity of the record, even in matters which it narrates as 
 facts of common history, and so undermines at once all evi- 
 dence of the miracles ; he says that the record contains many 
 
17 
 
 *' palpable contradictions and manifest impossibilities," to 
 which he " cannot, as a true man, any longer shut his eyes." 
 The most remarkable of these self-contradictious and impos- 
 sibilities, " l3-ing," as he says, "on the surface of the narra- 
 tive," has been briefly stated as follows. 
 
 " Seventy persons going down into Eg}'pt and remaining 
 there 230 years could not have grown to a population of two 
 millions, w^hich seems to be about the number implied in the 
 book of Exodus; if they had so grown, they could not have been 
 led out of Egj-pt by Moses in a single day ; neither could 
 they have had tents, nor carried them, if they had ; neither 
 could they have taken their cattle with them, nor fed them, 
 if they had ; neither could they have had lambs enough for 
 the Passover, nor kept the feast, if they had ; neither could 
 they have been armed ; for if they were, they w^ould not have 
 been dismayed at their Egyptian pursuers ; and if they were 
 not, how could they have fought v.ith the Amalekites ?" 
 Moreover, the number of the first-born is inconsistent with 
 the number of adults and of the whole population ; the spaces 
 of the wilderness are not extensive enough for the encamp- 
 ment of such hosts, nor its resources sufficient to maintain 
 them, &c., &c., and so on, through a perfect maze of figures 
 and arithmetical calculations iisquc ad nauseam. 
 
 Now it is with reference to such objections as these that 
 some critics, belonging to what would be called the orthodox 
 party among Protestants, have not hesitated to concede the 
 palm of victory to their assailant. I have already quoted the 
 language of one, who is of opinion that " Colenso has de- 
 monstrated a consistency in error pervading every part of the 
 Exodus narrative ;" but wishing to save the credit of the 
 Bible, he suggests that our translators have misunderstood 
 the Hebrew mode of numeration, and seriously proposes to 
 divide the numbers as they at present stand, by 10, which he 
 thinks would be a nearer approximation to the truth. 
 Another grants that "some of the figures, such as the extent 
 of population, the ratio of propagation, the proportion of the 
 first-born to the whole mass, cannot possibly be true under 
 the circumstances stated in Scripture." A third deprecates 
 arithmetical criticism of the Pentateuch altogether, on the 
 l^lea that no ancient document can stand such a test ; that the 
 history of Herodotus, for instance, is full of similar mistakes; 
 that if that historian gives both the items and the total of 
 a sum, the irrohahility is that they don't tally ; and why 
 should we expect greater accuracy in the Bible History which 
 is so much older ? A fourth goes further still, and thinks it 
 
 B 
 
18 
 
 sufficient to answer, that in the same way the Waverly 
 Novels disregard numbers, time, space, weight, &c., and yet 
 that such inaccuracies in no way interfere with our admira- 
 tion of those compositions ! Even Dr. Stanley allows that 
 there may be " exaggerations in the numbers ;" and somebody 
 else suggests that when once a blunder had crept in, there 
 would be intentional alterations made, in order to make all 
 harmonize. 
 
 Let these suffice by way of specimens of the extravagant 
 license to which orthodox Protestant criticism has proceeded 
 in order to escape from Colenso's difficulties. One is tempted 
 to ask, If this is to be allowed in the friends and advocates of 
 the Bible, what remains to be done by its enemies ? There 
 can be no doubt that Colenso speaks much more correctly than 
 his critics upon this topic, when he condemns this system 
 of arbitrary meddling with the numbers of the Pentateuch 
 not only as rash and unauthorised, but as utterly useless for 
 the object in view; since, as he truly says, "the number (of 
 the population of Israel) is woven, as a kind of thread, into 
 the whole story of the Exodus, and it cannot be taken out 
 without tearing the whole fabric to pieces." Is it possible 
 then to solve these difficulties in any other way ? I think it 
 is, in nine cases out of ten, and if a tenth remains an inextri- 
 cable difficulty, I should be quite content to leave it so. For 
 we cannot accept the position laid down by some of Colenso's 
 friends, viz., " that even if some, nay the greater part of the 
 difficulties urged by the Bishop should be proved to be 
 untenable, yet the main result of his researches would not be 
 materially aflected ; that this result is abundantly secured, 
 if but a few points remain as incontrovertible." This I 
 emphatically deny. The point which Colenso seeks to estab- 
 lish is " the unhistorical character of the Pentateuch :" and 
 he attempts to establish this by enumerating some 20 or 30 
 *' contradictions or impossibilities," as he calls them, in the 
 narrative. Now I say that every such alleged contradiction, 
 satisfactorily explained, weakens the force of those which 
 remain ; creates a presumption, that those too would admit 
 of a satisfactory explanation, if only the whole circumstances 
 of the case were kuoAvn to us; and this, I think, is what 
 must be admitted by every impartial observer of the contro- 
 versy. 
 
 There is another principle also, which I think is very im- 
 portant to insist upon, viz., that the weight of Colenso's 
 argument is destroyed, if, on any not violently improbable 
 hypothesis, it can be shewn that the Scriptural statements, 
 
19 
 
 either of facts or numbers, are possible. For the Scriptures 
 are (so to say) in j^ossession, and it is for Colenso to dispos- 
 sess them, if hS can; the omis iirohamli lies on him; he 
 undertakes to demonstrate the impossibility, the "absolute 
 self-contradiction" of the Narrative ; and we hold him to his 
 bond. If we can shew that the Scriptural statements are not 
 impossible, we have done all that can be required of us, 
 especially in the case of a narrative so brief and condensed as 
 the Bible narrative is, and relating to eveuts which happened 
 so many thousand years ago. This principle once admitted 
 — and I do not see how it can be fairly called in question — 
 we are at once enabled to dispose of a certain number of 
 Colenso's difficulties, which seem to be captious rather than 
 critical ; and with reference to which I find it very hard to 
 believe in the sincerity of the objector. They are capable of 
 60 obvious and natural an explanation, that to insist upon 
 them as " contradictions" or " impossibilities," seems to 
 argue a real desire to make mountains out of molehills. 
 
 Take, for example, his second and third difficulties, " the 
 size of the court of the Tabernacle compared with the num- 
 ber of the congregation," and " Moses and Josue addressing 
 all Israel." Holy Scripture says (Levit. viii. 3-4) that God 
 commanded all the congregation to be gathered together at 
 the door of the Tabernacle, and that this summons was 
 obeyed ; whereupon Colenso pulls out his rule and measure, 
 and proves to a demonstration that the thing is impossible. 
 *' Allowing two feet in width for each full-grown man, and 
 eighteen inches between each rank, the adult males of the 
 congregation alone (setting aside old men, women and chil- 
 dren) would have reached for a distance of more than 100,000 
 feet — in fact, nearly twenty miles." Moreover, suppose them 
 to have been all assembled there in any way you please, still 
 neither Moses nor Josue could ever have read " in the ears of 
 all the people" what they are said to have read in Deut. i. 1. 
 Jos. \iii. 31-35. 
 
 Here are two of the impossibilities which are to destroy 
 the credibility of the Pentateuch ! Yet first, it has been well 
 asked whether similar impossibilities could not be detected in 
 every Book of History, whether ancient or modern, whose 
 veracity however remains quite uuimpeached. How often is 
 an army said to have assembled at a village which could not 
 have contained a tithe of its hosts ? Is not the House of 
 Commons summoned and said to appear at the Bar of the 
 House of Lords, in a space which could not contain a third 
 of their number ? Dr. M'Caul has very happily quoted from 
 
20 
 
 the Monitear of July 16, 1790, and June 10, 1794, similar 
 accounts of speeches delivered and oaths taken at meetings in 
 the Champ de Mars, Paris, to which the whole nation had 
 been summoned, and which were really attended by' more than 
 200,000 men. These answers, and such as these, turning 
 wholly upon the ordinary use of language, will be sufficient 
 to satisfy many minds as to the true value of this ol)jection. 
 But secondly, it may justly be insisted upon that nothing 
 could be more possible or probable than that only the elders 
 and representatives of the people should have been sum- 
 moned on these occasions. Scripture itself intimates to us 
 that this was really the fact (that Moses spoke to the elders, 
 and the elders to the people) in other cases, where the 
 letter of the Sacred Text Avould seem at first to have stated 
 that Moses himself communicated directly with the people. 
 Compare Exod. iv. 29-31, xii. 3, with xii. 21, xix. 3, 7, 8, 
 xxxiv. 30-32. 
 
 Let us pass on to the next impossibility in Colenso's for- 
 midable catalogue. The camp was (perhaps) twelve miles 
 square, and the tabernacle was in the middle of it ; how then 
 could the priests have carried on their backs for six miles to 
 the outside of the camp the whole carcase of a l)ullock, with 
 its skin, entrails, and the rest, as the law required them to 
 do? See Levit. iv. 11, 12. I would answer, your mode of 
 literal interpretation is as opposed to common sense as it is 
 to the genius of the Scriptural language. If it were ad- 
 mitted, we should be obliged to believe that Moses was a 
 mason or a carpenter because God said to him, " Thou shalt 
 make an altar" (Exod. xxx. 1)— and a goldsmith; "thou shalt 
 overlay it with the purest gold" (ibid. v. 3) — and a tailor; 
 " Thou shalt make a holy vesture for Aaron ; moreover for the 
 sons of Aaron thou shalt prepare linen tunics." (xxviii. 2, 40.) 
 We must l)elieve also that Pilate personally inflicted the cruel 
 scourging upon our Lord, because the words of St. Matthew 
 {xxvii. 26) literally say so. It has been well suggested that 
 Holy Scripture speaks of " waggons for the service of the 
 Tabernacle," (Numbers vii. 3, 0,) and has Colenso satisfied 
 himself that this was not one of the uses to which those 
 waggons were put ? Lastly, and above all, can he deny what 
 all Hebrew scholars insist upon, that the word used in the 
 original directly excludes his interpretation, and can only 
 properly be translated as signifying that " the priest should 
 CAUSE to he carried out'" ?* 
 
 * If any one still doubts this solution of the difficulty, let him refer to Leviticus 
 xvi 27, 28, where the pronouns used seem ncccssari/i/ to imply that some one else, 
 not the prient, carried forth the sacrifice witliout the camp. _ - 
 
21 
 
 The fifth of Colenso's difficulties appears at first sight per- 
 haps of a more serious character than those which I have 
 abeady examined; jet on closer inspection it will not, I 
 think, prove very diflicult to deal with. It is hriefly this ; 
 that the law contains a general command that whenever a 
 numbering of the people shall take place, a certain j^oll-tax 
 should be paid towards the maintenance of the sanctuary 
 (Exod. XXX. 11-13). By and l^yo (xxxviii. 25) we read of 
 such a tribute having been collected, but without any mention 
 of a census having l)een taken, (I quote from Colenso ; but 
 any one consulting the Bible for himself ^^ ill probably think 
 otherwise,) and vice versa, a few months later still, we read of 
 a census, but without any mention of- the tribute (Numbers 
 i. 1-46.) Colenso allows that the omission in each case 
 might be considered as accidental, one part of an action being 
 in both instances put for the whole; but he calls our attention 
 to a circumstance which he qualifies as surprising, viz. that 
 the numl)er of adult males was identically the same on the 
 first occasion as it was half a year afterwards. It would bo 
 surprising indeed, if this were quite such a self-contradiction 
 in the narrative as Colenso supposes. I mean, it is too pal- 
 pable to have been an oversight in any forger, or interpolator, 
 of the history. Any honest man, reading the two statements 
 and not wishing to " make out a case" against the writer, 
 would say at once that there was probaldy but one numljeriug 
 of the people for both purposes ; that even if it be certain 
 (which it is not) that there were six months ])etwGen the two 
 events as recorded in Scripture, yet that the same returns 
 may have been made use of fur the two purposes, which (as 
 we have seen) were in fact, by the very letter of the law, so 
 intimately united. Both the enrolment and the payment of 
 the tribute concerned the males among the children of Israel 
 *' from twenty years old and upwards;" neither of them 
 could have been completed in a single day : yet some fixed 
 point would certainly have been taken from which the attain- 
 ment of majority was to be reckoned for all. Is there any- 
 thing improbable in the conjecture which has been made, that 
 this point may have been "the first day of the first month," 
 the day on which the "tabernacle was set up" (Exodus xl. 
 2.) for which this tribute was required "? On this hypothe- 
 sis, the tribute might have been paid prospectively in some 
 instances ; i.e. there would have been some who would not 
 have attained their majority at the very moment it was paid, 
 yet might have been required to pay notwithstanding, because 
 they would be of age on or before the day which had been 
 
22 
 
 fixed as the stanclard, the day on which the tabernacle was 
 set up : and contrariwise, there would have been others who 
 would have attained their majority during the month that 
 intervened between the setting up of the tabernacle and the 
 numbering of the people, yet whose names would not appear 
 in the census, for the same reason ; viz. because they were 
 not of age on the first day of the new year which had been 
 chosen as the starting point ; and so the numbers might have 
 been identical, even if there were two distinct numberings of 
 the people at two separate times. This, however, I do not 
 myself believe ; the very words of Scripture, when speaking 
 of the tax (Exod. xxxviii. 25), that the money " was offered 
 by them that went to- he numbered" 'seem to me clearly to 
 point to the future census ; to show that the census was the 
 principal thing, to which the offering was only an accessory. 
 In other words, I see no reason for believing that the offer- 
 ings here spoken of were made at any other time than at the 
 taking of the census, and I suppose them to be inserted here 
 by anticipation, in order to complete the subject in hand, by 
 naming the cost of all those things which had just been so 
 fully described. However, be this as it may, all I am con- 
 cerned to shew is, that, even if there were two numberings, 
 at an interval of a few months, the identity of the numbers 
 might on some hypothesis be accounted for. It is not an 
 impossibility. I am well aware that even so, there will still 
 remain enough for a captious critic to cavil at, since, ac- 
 cording to the ordinary laws of nature, there must have been 
 some deaths among so large a number in the course of the 
 intervening months, however few they may have been. But 
 this is a difficulty which I think we can afford to pass over, 
 as St. Austin passed over other difficulties proposed by per- 
 sons whom he characterises as otiosi et scrKpulosi, 'paratiores 
 ad interrogandum quam capaciores ad intelligendum.* Or, 
 if we must give a direct answer, what is to prevent our adopt- 
 ing another hypothesis altogether, and supposing that by a 
 wonderful coincidence the number of deaths during these 
 months exactly equalled the number of those who attained 
 their majority during the same period ? 
 
 Let us approach his sixth Enstasis. He quotes Exodus 
 xvi. 16, where the people are commanded to gather a certain 
 
 • De Civ. Dei. xv. 1. Other chapters of this book might be usefully studied by 
 persons, really peqjlexed by Colenso's arithmetical difficulties ; e.g. c. 13, where he 
 accounts for frequent errors in the transcription of numbers, because they don't 
 arrest and fix the attention, where there is nothing difficult to understand or useful 
 to learn. Quis enim existimet sibi e.ise cUscendum, quot viillia hominnm tribus Israe I 
 singillatim habere potuerunt, quoniam prodesse aliquid non jputatur, <&c. 
 
23 
 
 measure of mauna for every man, " according to the number 
 of your souls that dwell in a tent.'''' It is this last word which 
 destroys the historical credibility of the Pentateuch ! How 
 could the Israelites have had anytJiinfi so cumbrous as tents, 
 so soon after their hasty flight out of Egypt ? Were they of 
 canvas, or of skins ? and how large were they? and how were 
 they carried ? One ox perhaps might have carried one tent, 
 with all its apparatus of pegs and poles and cords ; but then 
 oxen won't carry goods, unless they have been trained ; and 
 how could the Israelites have trained them ? This is the 
 way in which Colenso heaps question upon question through 
 three successive pages ; and yet he is obliged to confess at 
 the very outset that it would seem clear from Levit. xxiii. 
 42, 43, that the people dwelt in booths in the wilderness, i.e. 
 in rough temporary tents (so to call them) made out of the 
 boughs of trees. But then booths are not tents, and tents 
 are not booths ; and though the words are sometimes in the 
 Bible interchanged "improperly" (so says Colenso himself), 
 yet it shall not be so here ; in this passage (Exodus xvi. 16) 
 and all other similar passages, tents shall mean real and 
 proper tents, made secundum artem : and then I'll prove the 
 Bible History to be false, because the Israelites could not 
 possibly have had such tents. Was ever more miserable 
 petty special pleading heard in disputes between man and 
 man? and this is the critical method of an "honest enquirer 
 after truth," practised upon the Bible, which he has always 
 professed to receive and reverence as the Word of God ! 
 
 Nor is his mode of dealing with the next " dilficulty" very 
 different. " The children of Israel went up armed out of the 
 land of Egypt" (Exod. xiii. 18). How could this be? would 
 the Egyptians have allowed it ? or, if it was, how came the 
 Israelites to be afraid when they found the Egyptians were 
 pursuing them (xiv. 10) ? Surely this is a " self-contradic- 
 tion." Yet is there anything to cause even a moment's sur- 
 prise in the panic of a " mixed multitude" (xii. 38) of men, 
 women, and children, escaping in haste from a country where 
 they had been so long oppressed and trodden down, and now 
 encumbered with their herds, flocks, and all they possessed, 
 and pursued by a numerous and well-trained army of their 
 enemies, their late masters ? Or is there anything difficult 
 in supposing that some of the Israelites were armed, though 
 others were not? Or rather, must not some of them have 
 been men of wealth and substance, and consequently been in 
 possession of arms? How else could the Egyptians have 
 been afraid of them, and said " they are stronger than we ?" 
 
24 
 
 (Exod. i. 9). Again, is it quite certain that the word really 
 means " armed ?" For we are told that it is a word of very rare 
 occurrence and doubtful etymology ; some persons would have 
 it translated, " in companies of fifty ;" others " in military 
 array;" others again, "equipped," or furnished with all 
 things necessary for their journey. But because the word 
 " armed" might create a difficulty, therefore Colenso prefers 
 this and insists upon it. 
 
 We have seen enough to justify us in saying that this is 
 a characteristic of his mode of argument. Where there are 
 two ways of understanding a passage, this critic invariably 
 prefers that which creates, or magnifies, a difficulty. We 
 have a striking instance in his very next chapter. He 2viU 
 have it that the instruction how to keep the Passover was 
 given only on the very day on which it was actually to be 
 kept, so that it could not possibly have been communicated 
 to so large a multitude within the proper time. Look at 
 Exodus xii. 3, 6, 12, for yourself, and see what you think 
 about this difficulty. If you consult the Vulgate or the 
 Douay translation, I am sure you will marvel where the diffi- 
 culty lies, how such a notion ever could have entered any 
 body's head. If however you study closely either the Hebrew 
 or the authorised Protestant translation, you will see the little 
 word which has proved the stumbling-block to our enquirer. 
 Even in these versions, verses 3 and 6 would seem to make it 
 clear, that the injunctions about the Passover were given on the 
 tenth day of the month at least, if not earlier ; but when you 
 read in verse 12 " this' day (instead of tliat), you may begin 
 to doubt. One or other of the verses must be made to bend 
 somewhat, to bring them to perfect apparent harmony ; which 
 shall we meddle with ? Suppose that little word "this" to 
 have been used prospectively ; that is to say, suppose the 
 speaker so thoroughly to have identified himself with the 
 subject and the day of which he is speaking, that he thinks 
 and speaks of it as though it were already present — and 
 examples are not wanting both in Hebrew and English to 
 warrant such a use of the word — see verses 14 and 17 of 
 this same chapter — and the difficulty vanishes at once ; insist 
 upon the ordinary strictest sense of the word " this," as 
 denoting the day on which, not of which the speaker is dis- 
 coursing, and the whole passage becomes perplexing and 
 self- contradictory : of course Colenso accepts the latter alter- 
 native. 
 
 In connection with this same point, of haste and sudden- 
 ness in the Exodus, much stress is laid on the imnossibility 
 
25 
 
 of the Israelites "boiTOwing" of the Egyptians so much 
 silver and gold and raiment as the Bible speaks of, under such 
 circumstances. But there are not wanting passages in the 
 narrative which seem to prove that an intimation of this bor- 
 rowing had been given to Moses from the first (Exod. iii. 22); 
 that it had been repeated, and probably in some measure 
 acted upon, that is to say, the Israehtes had probably made 
 the demand, either on the plea of wages for unrequited labour, 
 or compensation for the immoveable property they were going to 
 leave behind them, before the last plague (xi. 2), but it was 
 only consented to at last by the Eg-j'ptians, under the influ- 
 ence of the panic occasioned by the death of the first-born, 
 (xii. 35.) 
 
 Nor is this the only instance in which Colenso has been 
 guilty of great carelessness, if not of something worse, in his 
 mode of dealing with the Sacred text. See how he urges the 
 impossibility of so many Israelites with their flocks ancT herds 
 living so long in such a dry and barren wilderness ; how per- 
 tinaciously he insists upon this want of water, which he says 
 was not always or often miraculously supplied, "for the rock 
 did not follow them, as some have supposed ;" and one of the 
 texts amongst others which he quotes to support his thesis is 
 this ; "I was thy leader in the great and terrible wilderness, 
 wherein there was the serpent burning with his breath, 
 and no icaters at all." These words he Italicizes, as I have 
 done, as God's own description of the wilderness ; and there 
 he stops. The very next words of the text are these, " who 
 brought forth streams out of the hardest rock, and fed thee in 
 the wilderness with Manna which thy fathers Imew not." 
 (Deut. viii. 15). Why were these words omitted ? Do they 
 not, in their true connection, obviously suggest the very oppo- 
 site to what Colenso wished to prove ? Is it not as though 
 God would remind those to whom He spoke, of the natural 
 drought and desolation in the wilderness through which He had 
 brought them, and at the same time of the supernatural plenty 
 with which His goodness never failed to suj^ply them ? Fi- 
 nally, is not this also what we should have naturally inferred 
 from the expression in St. Paul's Epistle to the Corinthians, 
 (I. X. 4), " the Spiritual rock that followed them.'" 
 
 One more instance of our author's carelessness, or want of 
 good faith, and I have done with this part of my subject. 
 Assuming without any express warrant of Holy Scripture, — 
 if I ought not rather to say, contrary to the plain statement of 
 Scripture ; certainly contrary to the opinion of some of 
 the most learned commentators — that all the laws about sac- 
 
26 
 
 rifices, and other ceremonial observances, were faithfully kept 
 during the wanderings in the wilderness, he objects that each 
 of the three priests (Aaron and his two sons, Nadab and 
 Abiu, being now dead) would have had to eat for his daily 
 portion about eighty-eight pigeons, besides the shoulders and 
 breasts of oxen or of sheep that may have been offered in 
 sacrifice, &c. ; whereas it is distinctly written, "the priests 
 
 and Levites, and all that are of the same tribe [of Levi] 
 
 shall eat the sacrifices of the Lord and His oblations." (Deut. 
 xviii. 1.) Compare Numbers, iii. 6, viii. 19, 24. 
 
 I have now gone through more than half of Colenso's 
 difficulties and contradictions, taking them in his own order of 
 arrangement (excepting that, for the present, I have omitted 
 the first, which is of a somewhat different character,) and I 
 think you will agree with the judgment I passed on them at 
 the beginning, viz. : that many of them are captious rather 
 than critical, and betray a manifest desire to make mountains 
 out of mole-hills. Nobody can believe that these were the 
 difficulties which first roused the author's doubts as to the 
 credibility of the Mosaic narrative ; nor can any scholar give 
 him credit for having really examined them with sufficient 
 care, or with an unbiassed judgment. But this is not what 
 you or I are immediately concerned with ; we only care for 
 the effect which the difficulties themselves may have on the 
 minds of any Catholics to whose knowledge they may be 
 brought ; and I confess I cannot apprehend serious evil from 
 such as these to an honest and good heart. No doubt, they 
 may furnish ready weapons to a man already disbelieving, or 
 wishing to disbelieve, the whole Gospel scheme, and who is 
 therefore on the look out for some excuse to justify his 
 unbelief both to himself and others ; and for this reason, it is 
 well to be prepared with some solution of them ; but in them- 
 selves, I repeat that I do not think they are capable of doing 
 serious mischief. Some of the other difficulties however 
 which yet remain are of a graver kind ; and of these I will 
 write another day. Meanwhile, let me hear what you think 
 of my answers to these ; they do not pretend to be anything 
 learned or original, but simply to be useful and sufficient. 
 Let me hear also more in detail the kind of answer you 
 would propose to adopt. 
 
 Si quid nm-isti rectius istis, 
 Candidus imperti ; si non his utere mecura. 
 
 Yours ever affectionately, 
 
 S,N, 
 
27 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 Dear Doctor, 
 
 I am sincerely obliged to you for the trouble you Lave 
 taken in answering my letter. But, if it be modest to say so, 
 I like my own way best after all. Chacun a son goiU! You 
 are a man of facts and figures, while I feel myself more at 
 home in dealing with 'principles. I think I recollect that you, 
 or one of 3^our friends, once compiled an index to Herodo- 
 tus, carefully noting every individual fact which that gossip- 
 ping historian has recorded ; as, for example, who was the 
 tallest man in Greece, who the handsomest ; what w^as the 
 length and breadth of a sheep's tail in Arabia, what the height 
 of the pyramids in Egypt, &c., &c. The very thought of such 
 an undertaking as this is enough to give one a headache. 
 There are no doubt phases of the human mind and character 
 which your treatment would suit rather than mine, but you 
 would find it, I venture to say, in the vast majority of cases, 
 a wearisome and unprofitable task. Besides, when all is 
 done, when you have answered to your satisfaction each one of 
 Colenso's objections, what have you gained ? You have set 
 the inquirer's mind at rest for the time being; but that is all. 
 You have not cured him ; your method does not pretend to 
 grapple with the enemy in the fortress of his power ; it is 
 merely a' system of skirmishing. For a person who really 
 believed at heart, but whose fancy was haunted and his reason 
 perplexed with difiiculties, your arguments might sufiice ; but 
 for one who was really wanting in faith, and not merely 
 troubled and puzzled, you only provide a temporary relief. 
 His old doubts and difficulties would recur, or fi-esh objec- 
 tions be started about matters not met in your answers. Ob- 
 jections may be multiplied ad infiniium : what have you 
 gained by answering any number of them ? The publication 
 of some mischievous book, a glance at some sceptical arti- 
 cle in a review, a paragraph in a newspaper, a random remark 
 of some unbelieving acquaintance, would upset the work you 
 had finished, or thought you had finished, with such infinite 
 pains. Then, again, you are satisfied, no doubt, with your 
 own performance, and you have good reason to be so. Far be 
 it from me to underrate your work. But as you tell me in your 
 letter that my method is incomplete without yours, I may 
 answer that much mere so is yours without mine. These 
 
£8 
 
 answers, then, which to your miiid seem so convincing, will 
 they — are you quite certain — appear equally convincing to the 
 minds of others ? Eememher how variously different men's 
 minds are affected by reasonings; by the reasonings, for in- 
 stance, of commentators on the Classical Authors. Will he who 
 consults you put more faith in your comments on Moses, than 
 you yourself put in Bentley upon Horace, or Johnson upon 
 Shakespeare, or Lombardi upon Dante ? If so, he has faith 
 already ; he regards you as one having authority to teach 
 and distinguish what is matter of faith from what is matter 
 of opinion. He is only some weakminded Catholic who has 
 been tempted, not convinced by Colenso. But how about the 
 poor unbeliever who is making his religion out of his own 
 head ? How about the poor Protestant who is consciously, 
 or unconsciously, doing the very same thing? These, I 
 repeat, are merely put off with an answer which appears (if 
 it really appears so) sufficient for the time being. They never 
 had any faith before consulting you : they have none after 
 having consulted you ; nor are they even on the road towards it. 
 
 But you ask me to give some fuller description of the sort 
 of indirect treatment which I recommend. I will do so. 
 
 I would ask the inquirer, in the first place, this simple 
 question — whether religion be a Divine or a human thing ? 
 whether (that is to say) God Himself has taught us what we 
 are to -believe and do in order to please Him, or whether He 
 has left each man to settle this matter of his own wit or fancy? 
 He will probably answer, that he has undertaken the search 
 after Truth, with no other guide than that light of reason 
 which God has implanted in his breast — save that as he is 
 only a weak and fallible man, he trusts that God Himself will 
 be his guide in the use of it, and that He will bring him 
 finally to the knowledge of the Truth. This statement of the 
 case, though at first sight it seems very j^lausible, involves 
 consequences of the most astounding nature when considered 
 in detail, which I should now proceed to put before him. 
 God Himself forbid, I would rejoin, that I should dispa- 
 rage His greatest earthly gift. And surely we may abuse it ; 
 we may allot it a work for which it was never designed, to 
 which it is naturally unequal ; and, in that case, vainly shall 
 we expect the Divine co-operation. And do you really believe, 
 that the Almighty has set you to this most laborious, and super- 
 human task of making a religion for j^ourself ? This would be to 
 say, that He means and requires of you to examine the claims 
 of Mahometanism, Buddhism, Catholicism, and the various 
 sects of Protestantism ; that you have to consider the evi- 
 
29 
 
 dences, external and internal, of these opposite forms of reli- 
 gion ; that you study and compare together the* Koran, the 
 Zendavesta, and the Bible ; that you discuss, on the one hand, 
 the abstruse question of the possibility of miracles, and then 
 go on to weigh critically the evidences for their actual occur- 
 rence ; that you invent or discover canons for the purpose of 
 discerning true from false miracles ; that supposing you are 
 chiefly attracted towards the Bible, yet, as it can help you in 
 nothing towards the grand object of inquiry, unless you 
 shall be fully convinced that it is the word of God, you go 
 into the question of its inspiration. Here you must either 
 suppose that there is a savour (so to speak) about an inspired 
 work which proves at once that it is inspired, and that upon 
 hearing quoted a passage from Shakespeare, from the Koran, 
 a proverb of King Solomon, a sentiment from some classical 
 author, you shall by the said savour detect the inspired from 
 the uninspired passage (which can hardly be maintained by 
 any one), or you must suppose on the other hand that there 
 is no such savour about the inspired writings — no a jJ^'iori 
 notion of inspiration ; and then you must take Jowett's notion 
 that inspiration is that idea of the Bible wJiich one gets from 
 reading the Bible, and that so far from viewing the Bible 
 beforehand as a Sacred Book, we ought to start with treating 
 it as a profane book, and subject it to the same laws of criti- 
 cism as any other book : and then, if there be anything in 
 which it is unlike any other book — any savour of Divine In- 
 spiration — that will diseiigage itself and be evolved in the pro- 
 cess. Here, then, you will have to consider the Bible narra- 
 tive as compared with other histories sacred and profane. 
 The ancient and sacred books of most nations start with a 
 Thcogony and Cosmogony. Moses must be compared with 
 other writers of this class : his narrative of the foundation 
 of the world must be also compared with the investigations 
 of scientific men. The various theories and discoveries of 
 these must be studied in their turn. Then the history of 
 Moses must be compared part with part, and the difficulties 
 and objections of such writers as Voltaire, Colenso, and 
 others, be fairly dealt with. The moral teaching of the 
 Sacred Books must form a separate subject of investigation. 
 Whether these overwhelming and anxious labours will have 
 resulted, at last, in the conclusion that the Bible is the Word 
 of God, is, to say the least, very questionable. Rather, a 
 logical mind which started with viewing it as a human book 
 would go on to explain it throughout in a human way, and 
 find nothing but a human element in it. Prophecy would be 
 
30 
 
 reduced to mere poetry; miracles would be convulsions of 
 nature, or els'e fables ; the " Word of the Lord, " an inward 
 prompting of the heart ; and thus the supernatural altogether 
 eliminated. But supposing on the other hand you be not over 
 logical, and conclude that the Bible is, according to the com- 
 mon understanding of the expression, the Word of God; yet 
 it has further to be considered that the Bible is not really one 
 book, but a collection of many books, written at various times 
 and by various authors ; that questions have arisen at various 
 times and amongst various religious bodies as to which of 
 these books are inspired, and which uninspired. This will 
 form another separate subject of inquiry. Suppose that the 
 result of your inquiry shall be unfavourable to the books of 
 the Old Testament, then the New Testament goes along with 
 it. This must be so clear to every careful reader that the 
 subject need hardly be dwelt upon. Anyhow, the New Tes- 
 tament has to be submitted to the same critical tests as you 
 will have already subjected the Old, viz., to those canons 
 of criticism which you would apply to any profane writer. 
 Supposing, again, that your study of the New Testament 
 shall have convinced you that Christ was truly the Son of 
 God, you will have now to study the claims of the various 
 Christian sects and Churches which profess to continue upon 
 earth His Divine mission and teaching. Suppose, however, 
 you reject the doctrine that He was God, you will hardly (if 
 you wish to be consistent) take up with the Unitarian notion 
 that He was merely the Model Man, divinely commissioned 
 to teach authoritatively those sublime truths of the Unity 
 of God and the Immortality of the Soul, which had been previ- 
 ously held as speculations. For either surely He was what 
 the Jews would have stoned Him for declaring Himself; or 
 He was what reverence forbids me to say. You will now have 
 attached yourself to some one Christian Church or sect; which 
 one I cannot venture to say, save that you cannot have become 
 a Catholic ; for this would involve giving up the principle 
 which you started with, and to which I must suppose you 
 have adhered, viz., that " you follow no other guide than that 
 light of reason which God has implanted in your breast, 
 and God's guidance in the use of it." But you are not safe 
 yet. The teacher you have chosen does not claim to be an 
 infallible one : he would be shocked, he would be indignant, 
 he would scout the notion most contemptuously ; but he 
 points to the Book. That at any rate is the Word of God, Avho 
 is Infalhblc, who is the very Truth. And then comes the 
 •question, whether you yourself may not have erred. Is it 
 
31 
 
 after all the Word of God ? Was there no false step at one 
 of the many turnings in the painful inquiry ? — " Will not 
 some day, or other, a discovery be made, or some flaw in the 
 train of reasoning be brought to light by others, or occur to 
 myself, which will overset the whole structure ? There is 
 certainly this great thought to support me, that I am under 
 the guidance of God" (you will say), " but how then with so 
 many thousand others who have taken the same pains, yet 
 have come to infinitely various conclusions ; are they all in- 
 sincere ? am I alone in earnest ? Then, again, though the 
 Bible be the Word of God, yet how variously it is interpreted 
 by its readers. It is undeniably a fruitful source of sects and 
 schisms. The Roman Catholics have one interpretation, Pro- 
 testants another, the German Rationalists and their represen- 
 tatives another. Each sect of Protestantism has its favourite 
 passages which seem to countenance the peculiarity or practice 
 belonging to the sect ; nay, each man has his own religion. 
 Am I alone right, I alone under the Divine Guidance, I alone 
 in earnest?" 
 
 I will not suppose you to remain a Protestant, for, as a 
 rule, no sincere enquirer can do so. One must stifle inquiry ; 
 one must give over thinking out of very weariness ; one must 
 suppose (though against the plain letter and spirit of Scrip- 
 ture) that God cares nothing about what a man believes so that 
 he do that which is right ; one must resign oneself to doubts 
 and difliculties and inconsistencies of doctrine, as the 
 natural order of things, as a part of our earthly probation ; 
 one must turn from the very thought of religious controversy 
 as from a painful subject. This do, and you may remain a 
 Protestant. Distract your attention from the bitter realities 
 around you : throw yourself heart and soul into your profes- 
 sion, or business : exercise yourself in works of charity and 
 benevolence : compound for the exercise of the intellect by 
 the exercise of the heart and affections ; — and you may still 
 remain a Protestant. Do anything but tJiink about matters 
 of doctrine. But you are lost as a Protestant, if you indulge 
 the taste for inquiry. Do you not know that to a logical 
 mind inconsistency is the sin of sins '? Yet this is the very 
 first direction your mind will take : it will want to be rid of 
 inconsistencies ; and in this desire you will take one of two 
 roads : Germany or Rome must be your goal. The fact is 
 patent. How can you believe that God cares nothing about 
 what you believe, and believe the Bible to be the Word 
 of God, which anathematises the unbeliever, be he man or 
 even "an angel from heaven?" How can you claim the 
 
32 
 
 right of following no other guide than the light of reason 
 within you, and Grod's guidance in the use of it, and yet pro- 
 test against one whose reasonings lead him to the conclu- 
 sion, that it is the most reasonable act to submit one's reason 
 to God speaking through His Church ? How can you claim 
 to be guided by the light of reason in the face of the plain 
 statement, '* If he- will not hear the Church, let him be to 
 thee as a heathen or a publican ?" How can you accept the 
 word of God that " the gates of Hell shall never prevail 
 against his Church," and put up with the fact of the bewil- 
 dering confusion of creeds and sects in Protestantism ? No : 
 if you should ever be a Protestant you will not continue a 
 Protestant, and continue to think earnestly about doctrinal 
 matters. But you will either follow the path which leads to 
 Eome though it involves the surrender of your principle ; or 
 you will follow the Kationalists, and then indeed you will 
 have free scope to follow out your principle. You will be 
 guided by reason and by reason alone, and that which is 
 unintelligible will be considered unreasonable. At the start 
 you may be a Deist ; you will accept the Bible only so far as 
 it coincides with Keason, and Nature. You will profess a 
 system of Natural Pieligion, a " Religion of the Pteason," 
 without an altar, without sacraments, without any special 
 religious ordinances of any kind whatsoever — a Religion of 
 savans, Avliich never took hold of the populace ; this for a 
 time, perhaps, will be your religion. The masses, I say, will 
 not care much for you or your religion. They want some 
 token to the eye, and the ear, and the touch. They would 
 sooner turn to fetish-worship itself than embrace your system 
 which they would not even comprehend. You will not, 
 meantime, remain stationary, save by the surrender of think- 
 ing. You will find, in your German books, a statement that 
 will, at first, startle you ; but from frequent repetition you 
 will get accustomed to it. It is this, that the Christian 
 Dogma of Creation out of nothing is inconceivable or contra- 
 dictory. Then there is nothing for it, but the identification 
 of the universe with the Deity. You are now a Pantheist, or 
 Atheist, for it is all one ; the former term is only a finer word 
 than the latter to express the same idea. You are an Athe- 
 ist, but you cannot complain : you are where your first prin- 
 ciple has fairly landed you. The doctrine that creation out 
 of nothing is inconceivable or contradictory, is accounted by 
 rationalistic writers as a mere truism, which it is not worth 
 while proving. It is needless to reply that though this doc- 
 trine may seem contradictory to our minds, yet it may not 
 
33 
 
 be contradictory in itself; that it is above reason, perhaps, 
 but not therefore unreasonable. This is well enough for one 
 who takes the ground of authority ; but for one who like 
 yourself has undertaken to make a religion of the reason, 
 that must evidently be rejected which does not approve itself 
 as such, reasonable. You are an Atheist, really, though you 
 may still call j'ourself a Protestant if you choose, with as 
 much reason as some of the writers of Essays and Reviews. 
 But enough. 
 
 Where has been the Divine guidance all this while ? Where 
 do you see in the Babel of creeds, and the contrary winds of 
 doctrine which war against each other, in this as in any other 
 Protestant country any token of Divine Guidance ? No : God 
 does not, will not guide those who make a religion out of their 
 own heads either with or without the Bible. Eeason was, 
 cleaMy, not given us to construct a lieligious System, but to 
 discover the Teaching Authority. Why do you come to me 
 wdth Colenso's difficulties ? What is this, but beginning 
 altogether at the wrong end ? That Faith is necessary for 
 salvation is equally the dictum of Eevelation and Common 
 Sense — the belief that God Himself must teach us what we 
 are to believe and do in order to the salvation of our souls. 
 The only faith you have had all this time has been a false 
 faith, as the result clearly shows ; a belief that God would 
 guide you in doing what He never intended you to do. For 
 the rest, you have had faith in nothing but yourself; and you 
 have reaped the consequences of j'our own self-sufficiency. 
 You have never known, you will never know (on your own 
 principle) what it is to rest in the full assurance of God's 
 guidance. He only who believes in God, finds rest for his 
 mind and reason. 
 
 "And does God teach men Himself?" you will ask. This 
 would be a boon indeed ! — ! believe it, that He does ! There 
 is one Church, maligned and blackened and misrepresented, 
 whose very name is evil in the mouths of her enemies, whose 
 destruction these enemies are always plotting, whose fall they 
 have, time out of mind, been prophesying, yet behold ! sho 
 lives and promises to live. Unlilve those noisy sects which 
 do not claim to be infallible, she both claims to be God's 
 Mouth-Piece, and will support her claim by those signs which 
 common-sense teaches such a claimant ought to manifest. 
 She is one and the same in all the four quarters of the world. 
 She is not the religion of a race or a nation, but embraces 
 within her fold men of every clime, of every race and station, 
 barbarian and civilized, rich and poor. She has survived the 
 c 
 
34 
 
 vmoiis revolutions which have swept over the nations since 
 her establishment. She embraces those truths in one synthe- 
 sis which other religions exhibit fragmentarily.* She has 
 been illustrious in Saints throughout the ages ; she can exhibit 
 her pedigree and title-deeds, back to the first ages when they 
 who founded her amongst the nations sealed their witness 
 with their life's blood. I do not ask you to believe this on 
 my bare statement. I only ask you to examine for yourself, 
 and to hear her own account about herself, and not to accept 
 without examination the statements of her enemies. Anyhow 
 it is premature to study Colenso's difficulties, before you know 
 even that you will be required to answer them. But if I have 
 brought you to admit that God Himself must be our Teacher, 
 the first question surely is, to find out where, hoiv, and to 
 whom He speaks : all else is of the most secondary impor- 
 tance. At the day of reckoning you will not be requirdG to 
 render account as to whether or not you have carefully and 
 conscientiously studied Colenso ; but if God has spoken, you 
 will indeed have to answer as to why you have not heard His 
 voice. If He has set up His Church amongst the nations, 
 you will indeed have to answer as to wherefore you have not 
 been a member of it, and wherefore you have presumed to 
 make a religion out of your own head. But when once you 
 have listened to the voice of God, when you have found Him 
 and know that it is He who speaks and not another, then you 
 will make little account (if you be faithful) of what man shall 
 devise and declare in opposition to Him. Perplexed you may 
 be, tempted you may be, for faith must have its probation 
 like every other virtue ; but your feet will rest firm on the 
 Rock of His strength, and your heart will neither be moved 
 nor troubled. Until you have considered this all-important 
 matter, it will be superfluous to treat of Colenso's objections. 
 Any answer which you or I might devise will bring you no 
 nearer to that Faith in God which is required of you. 
 Rather, the more satisfactorily you answer him, the more 
 will you be self-satisfied, and self-sufficient; while, on the 
 other hand, when you have heard the voice of God, it will 
 matter little whether you can answer Colenso or no. It 
 
 * " I am embracing that creed.. which upholds the divinity of tradition with 
 Laud, consent of Fathers with Beveridge, a visible Church with Bramhall, a tribu- 
 nal of dogmaiic decisions with Bull, the authority of the Pope with Thorndike, 
 penance with Taylor, jirayers for the dead with Ussher, celibacy, asceticism, eccle- 
 siastical discipline with Bingham. I seek a Church which in these, and a multi- 
 tude of other points, is nearer the Apostolic Church than any existing one ; which 
 is the continuation of the Apostolic Church, if it ha.s been continued at all." Loss 
 and Gain. 
 
35 
 
 will be time enougb, then for me to take an interest in 
 your enquiry ; and I will engage to show that there are 
 no greater difficulties in Keligion than in Nature, and none 
 in Colcnso which cannot be paralleled in common history 
 and common life. 
 
 Thus, my dear Doctor, would I deal with my imaginary 
 unbeliever. I fear that long since you have been impatiently 
 longing for the conclusion of this prosy epistle ; and indeed 
 I am wearied of it myself. But I deem it a matter of the 
 highest importance in the present controversy, not to lose 
 sight of our true position as Catholics, and the true position 
 of Protestants as such. Do not think, once more, that 1 do 
 not appreciate your argument, because I consider it subordi- 
 nate to my own. On the contrary, I beg of you to continue 
 it, as it will be most useful to me. I only mean that its 
 chief usefulness will appear when my own argument (if it be 
 successful in my hands) shall have done its work. One por- 
 tion of your letter I especially appreciate, which distinguishes 
 the real difficulties urged in Dr. Colenso's book, from those 
 frivolous, captious objections with which they are mingled. 
 These latter seem to convict the writer of had faith. 
 I remain, 
 
 Respectfully and affectionately 
 Yours, 
 C. M. 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 My dear friend, 
 
 You and I are moving along, if not on parallel line?? 
 that will never meet,' yet on roads that approach the fortress 
 we aim at from difterent sides. And you travel much faster 
 than I can, for you choose your own road, and go straight 
 ahead, whereas the path that I have been forced into is no 
 road at all, but a mere mass of bricks and stones and rubbish 
 of every kind, heaped together by the enemy for the express 
 purpose of debarring all passage. Certainly you have the 
 advantage of me, and you know how to make the most of it. 
 Nevertheless, mine is a humble and laborious work that 
 
36 
 
 somehody must do; and a priest has no right to refuse any 
 work, however tedious, which may he of use for the saving of 
 souls. 
 
 Of course, I thoroughly agree with you in considering that 
 all attempts to answer Colenso are out of place, and would 
 be quite unprofitable, in dealing with an unbeliever. Even with 
 a Catholic, whose faith had been seriously injured by mixing 
 with unbelievers or studying their works, I would not enter 
 upon such a course of argument. I would insist upon his 
 beginning with some larger, broader view of the subject, or I 
 would not consent to argue with him at all. I would say to 
 him what Father Newman said of me nearly twenty years ago, 
 when he heard that I was likely to embrace the Catholic Faith, 
 but fancied that I was entangling myself in the examination 
 of particular historical difficulties. " When we have lost our 
 way," he said, "we mount up to some eminence to look about 
 us, but N. plunges into the nearest thicket to find out his 
 bearings." Other observations in the same letter are so 
 much to our present purpose that I cannot help copying 
 them, and you will be pleased at seeing how exactly they 
 coincide with some of your own remarks. He writes thus, 
 *' I am far from denying that a strong case of apparent excep- 
 tion to the infallibility of the Church is not sufficient to 
 make a person pause ; but to begin with particular cases is to 
 begin at the wrong end In a very large system you neces- 
 sarily must have great apparent anomalies — as in Scripture 
 fa parallel which might be effectively worked out) — and you 
 must begin by expecting these and making allowance for them. 
 Some things, perhaps, must ever be difficulties {as there are 
 insoluble difficulties in Scripture), but on the whole and in 
 proportion as persons come nearer to the system, there is a 
 growing evidence of consistency. Is it possible that a sensible 
 man can consent to make his own mind the measure, the 
 arbiter of perfect consistency ? Will not one person be able 
 to solve things more fully than another ? Is every one there- 
 fore to stand on different ground, according to their respective 
 success in making all things consistent ? or rather, must there 
 not be some general ground which all may stand upon ? And 
 this, I think, is furnished by the question of evidence, which 
 all inquirers may have, for the consistency of the Catholic 
 system and history." 
 
 We have but to change the word Catholic in this last sen- 
 tence to Scriptural, and I think we have an argument very 
 pertinent to the present difficulties. Indeed, you see the writer 
 distinctly contemplated its application to objections urged 
 
87 
 
 against Scripture, as well as to those urged against the Church ; 
 and if the line of argument which you j^ropose for controversy 
 with unbelievers is not strictly on the question of evidence, yet 
 it is of the same wide and general character. 
 
 There is one point in your reasoning which I should have 
 liked to have seen more fully developed, viz., the inviolable 
 connection of the Old and New Testaments. You take it for 
 granted that they must stand or fall together ; and to you or 
 me this assumption may seem perfectly just. But I think 
 there are several ill-instructed persons at the present moment, 
 both Catholics and Protestants, who fondly imagine that they 
 can save the New Testament at the expense of the Old. Surely 
 Buch persons must be strangely ignorant of the true state of 
 the case. They can never have considered how habitually 
 Christ and His Apostles assiniied the authority of the Jewish 
 Scriptures throughout all their teaching ; and there is no 
 question whatever but that we have the same Scriptures now 
 as they had then. "Moses and the Prophets,." (St. Luke 
 xxiv. 27) " the whole law and the prophets," (St. Matt. xxii. 
 40.) are continually appealed to as a Divine authority by our 
 Lord, so that He does not hesitate to say to the unbelieving 
 Jews, " If you believed Moses, you would perhaps believe Me 
 also, for he wrote of Me. But if you do not believe his 
 writings, how will you believe My words?" (St. John v. 46-7.) 
 The weapons with which, for our sakes. He vouchsafed to 
 combat and overcome Satan tempting Him in the wilderness 
 were all taken from the Old Testament; two of them from this 
 very portion of it which we are now invited to ridicule as full 
 of contradictions and impossibilities. The " story," as Colenso 
 would call it, of Noe and the deluge, of Lot's wife, of the 
 burning bush, of the brazen serpent, of the manna from 
 heaven — all these taken from the Pentateuch, are distinctly 
 referred to by our Kedeemer Himself. In addition to these, 
 His Apostle, St. Paul, recognizes from the same source the 
 passage through the Red Sea, the miraculous supply of water 
 from the rock, the worship of the golden calf, the fornication 
 of the children of Israel Avith the daughters of INIoab, the in- 
 terviews of Abraham with Melchisedec, the " stories" of 
 Cain and Abel, Henoch, Noe, Sara, Joseph, the fall of the 
 walls of Jericho, &c., &c. And yet these are the books which, 
 on the strength of Colenso's figures, we are called upon to 
 abandon as historically false, to submit to the " solvent" 
 action of sceptical criticism and so to relegate to the region of 
 myths ; and, as I have said, there are those who dream that 
 they can safely do this and still retain faith in Christ. Let 
 
38 
 
 them not deceive tliemselves. Christ is *' He of whom Moses 
 and the Prophets wrote ;" but if Coleuso be true, what value 
 remains to the testimony of Moses ? The New Testament is 
 as it were the development and fulfilment of the Old ; and the 
 germ of both is to be found in the Books of Genesis and 
 Exodus; take away these, and the rest of the Bible becomes 
 a riddle. It has been well said that those books are " un- 
 mistakeably endorsed, as well by the whole subsequent 
 history of the Jewish nation, as by the writers of the 
 New Testament." It is true that Colenso only professes to 
 reject the history of the Pentateuch, but its theology must 
 fall with its history ; they are inextricably interwoven with 
 -one another ; and moreover, it is to the history of the Pen- 
 tateuch, even in some of its minutest details, ratter than to 
 any other part, that we have the most abundant Apostolic tes- 
 timony. See St. Paul's first Epistle to the Corinthians, 
 chapter x : 2 Cor. iii. 13, &c. and the Epistle to the He- 
 brews passim- Indeed, I would beg those who think they can 
 divorce the two Testaments, or at least separate the Penta- 
 teuch from the rest of the Bible, to look into any concordance 
 of the Sacred Volume, and search out for themselves all the 
 words of Christ, His Prophets or Apostles, which bear witness 
 to the principal personages or events of the Mosaic narrative. 
 Then they will begin to understand what they are about ; they 
 will see the unavoidable issue of the path on which they 
 have entered. We have been lately told (Stanley's Lectures 
 on Jewish Church p. xiii.) that five and tvy-enty years ago 
 Arnold expressed a hope that some one would arise to do for 
 the Jewish History what Wolf and Niebuhr had done for the 
 Grecian and Pioman. The Books of Moses were to be han- 
 dled as the books of Livy or of Homer had been. In Colenso 
 we have a specimen of the process and the result ; and many 
 Protestants staggered by it, and feeling that the letter of 
 the Bible is the very foundation of their faith, will, it is to 
 be feared, be carried away by his criticisms into the dreary 
 waste of unbelief. 
 
 It may be easy to draw a distinction on paper,* and to say 
 that " it has long been the doctrine of the educated laity that 
 the word of God is in the Bible, to the utter rejection of the 
 notion that every word of the Bible has that character." 
 But let this principle be once consciously admitted in practice, 
 and what standpoint has Protestantism left ? If the word of 
 God is in the Bible, but not all that is in the Bible is the 
 
 * AthenKum, February 7th. 
 
39 
 
 ^ord of God, what rule have they whereby to distinguish the 
 one part from the other ? We Catholics indeed have never 
 professed to draw our religion from the Bible ; we believe in 
 one Holy Catholic Apostolic Church, the divinely appointed 
 teacher, ".the pillar and ground of the truth." ^et, since 
 we have always been taught to reverence the Bible as the 
 work of men inspired by the Holy Ghost, as the written word 
 of God, it cannot be a matter of indifference to us to hear it 
 held up to ridicule as full of historical contradictions and 
 impossibilities. And when these impossibilities are specified, 
 and are of such a character as even the ignorant can appreci- 
 ate, as for instance that the numbers in the book of Exodus 
 require us to suppose that every Israelitish woman became the 
 mother of eighty or ninety children, that at the Passover in 
 the wilderness each priest had to kill 1250 lambs in every 
 minute of two consecutive hours, that each priest had to 
 consume for his own daily portion eighty or ninety pigeons, 
 &c., &c., some from among the less educated portion of our 
 flocks may be sorely perplexed, unless they are provided with 
 an answer to such criticisms. 
 
 I can conceive such objections becoming a source of very 
 real perplexity even to good men, who are not able to solve 
 them by any observations of their own, and have no right 
 understanding of the position of Catholics towards the Bible. 
 Are we bound, they may ask, to believe with Mr. Burgon or 
 some Protestant commentator that " every book of it, every 
 chapter of it, every verse of it, every word of it, every syllable 
 of it, (where are we to stop ?) every letter of it — is the direct 
 utterance of the Most High, absolutely faultless and uner- 
 ring" ? Or may we believe with Stanley that there may be 
 " errors in chronology, exaggerations in numbers, contradic- 
 tions between the narratives" ? When a Catholic comes with 
 such questions as these, not captiously or in a spirit of un- 
 belief, but only perplexed, tempted, and sincerely anxious to 
 be " ready always to satisfy every one that asks him a reason 
 of the hope which is in him," (1 Peter iii. 15,) I think he 
 both requires and deserves a particular as well as a general 
 •answer. I should put before such a man, first the Canon of 
 the Council of Trent on the subject of the Scriptures. This 
 only declares that all the Books of the Bible as they are wont 
 to be read in the Catholic Church and are in the old Vul- 
 gate Latin Edition, are to be held as sacred and cano- 
 nical ; " the whole of these Books with all tlicir j^arts ;" and 
 I should explain to him that the most probable interpre- 
 tation of these last words is that they have reference to those 
 
40 
 
 portions of Scripture about which there had formerly been 
 Bome doubt in the Church and some of which were at that 
 very time rejected by the various sects of Protestants ; some 
 part of the Book of Daniel, for example, the last twelve 
 verses of the Gospel of St. Mark, part of the eighth chapter 
 of St. John, &c. Next, I would go on to show him that the 
 Church had really defined very little as to the nature and 
 extent of the Divine inspiration of the Scriptures ; but that 
 she certainly does not impose Upon us a belief in their verbal 
 inspiration,* as though the sacred penmen had been mere 
 instruments of the Holy Spirit, contributing nothing whatever 
 of their own ; whereas, on the other hand, it is no less cer- 
 tain, according to the teaching of all Catholic theologians, 
 that they were supernaturally protected from falling into any 
 mistake or error in their writings ; moreover, that those 
 writings have come down to us, if not in their absolute in- 
 tegrity, yet at least without any corruption in things apper- 
 taining to the substance of what was written.! I say, apper- 
 taining to the substance of what was written, because no one 
 maintains that all the transcribers of Holy Scripture were 
 miraculously preserved from making a single mistake in 
 copying a list of names, for example, or a number of figures ; and 
 there are not wanting perhaps two or three examples where 
 the presence of some kind of error seems undeniable, as for 
 instance in 2 Kings x. 18, compared with 1 Paralip. xix. 18. 
 In the one place we read that David slew of the Syrians the 
 men of seven hundred chariots, in the other seven thousand. 
 Again, in 2 Paral. ix. 25, the Vulgate, and consequently our 
 Douay "Version, puts the number of Solomon's horses at 
 forty thousand, whereas the Hebrew (and English Protestant 
 Version) has only four thousand. These are errors or " con- 
 tradictions,'* which can perplex no man ; they are isolated 
 numbers, which may be read either one way or the other 
 without injury to the nuiin narrative, and the occasion of the 
 discrepancy can be easily imagined. There are other " con- 
 tradictions" too, not to be found in Colenso, which admit of 
 explanation, not so readily, yet without any just suspicion ; 
 e.g., the difference between the sums in 2 Kings xxiv. 24, and 
 in 1 Paral. xxi. 25, as to the price of Areuna's threshing- 
 floor. Fifty sides of silver can scarcely have been substituted, 
 by an error of transcription, for six hundred sides of gold; but 
 there seems no valid objection to the explanation which is given 
 
 * The theological reader will understand here the necessary qualifications and 
 exceptions, as to the forms of the sacraments, &c. 
 
 + Perrone de loc. Theol. Pars. 11. c. II. 
 
41 
 
 in the note to the latter passage in tlie Douay Bible. And 
 again, the discrepancies between the Jewish Histoi7 in the Pen- 
 tateuch, and the abridgment of that History in the speech of 
 St. Stephen in the Acts of the Apostles (vii. 14). Theologians 
 distinguish here between the dicta of the inspired writers 
 themselves, and those of others which the inspired writers 
 only repeat.* The former are absolutely and indisputably 
 certain ; the latter need not always be received as such. St. 
 Stephen took his numbers from the Septuagint, which inserts 
 in verse twenty of the forty-sixth chapter of Genesis the 
 names of three sons and two grandsons of the sons of Joseph, 
 not to be found in the Hebrew ; and so gives seventy-five in 
 verse twenty-seven instead of seventy. The other points 
 of diiferenc'e between the same narratives may be explained 
 by supposing St. Stephen to refer to a different transaction 
 from that which we read in Genesis xxxiii. 19, a transaction 
 nowhere recorded in the Scriptures, but the memory of which 
 was preserved by tradition ; or it may be explained in any 
 other way you prefer, provided only that you steer clear 
 of the error of Erasmus, who denied altogether the inspiration 
 of the historical portion of the Bible, and of Holden and 
 others who thought it unnecessary to suppose that the sacred 
 writers had always been secured from flight errors, such as 
 might proceed from a defect of memory or of knowledge, in 
 matters which did not affect doctrine. Of course not even 
 those who once held these loose opinions would have admitted 
 the extreme consequences to which Colenso's application of 
 them would lead ; but I think they would have found it diffi- 
 cult to build an efficient barrier against them upon their own 
 foundations. The safest ground for Catholics to take in their 
 defence of the Bible is the highest, and before long I suspect 
 they will be left alone in the defence of it. Already a new 
 ■word is coming into common use in the controversies of 
 Protestants, one with another, a word which strikes at the very 
 reot of all Protestant belief; I mean the word Bihllolatry : 
 they are now denouncing this new sin of their co-religionists 
 quite as loudly as they used to denounce what they called the 
 Mariolatry of Catholics ; and when we remember the old 
 Protestant watchword, " the Bible, the whole Bible, and 
 nothing but the Bible," we may well tremble for the imme- 
 diate future that lies before them. It is well we should pro- 
 vide betimes for the Babel of confusion that may be expected, 
 lest any of our own people should be carried away by the 
 rising flood of unbelief. Even Colenso's objections, old as they 
 
 * Paliizi, Comm. dc SS. Divinis. Ronise. 1851. 
 
42 
 
 are for the most part, and refuted by those who at the close 
 of the last century entered the lists against Voltaire, cannot 
 be safely despised, I think. It is true, as we have seen, that 
 many of them are very superficial and unfair, so that an 
 honest and intelligent enquirer will not be misled by them ; 
 yet some perhaps may be deceived even by these; and in 
 others, the array of figures brought to bear on the subject 
 is so imposing, and the ai-guments so plausible, that it 
 requires some attention to detect the fallacy. 
 
 I must go on with my work, then, v/earisome as it is, and 
 proceed to that which seems in Colenso's judgment to be the 
 " crowning impossibility" of the whole narrative, and yet to be 
 the most essentially interwoven with every part of it ; viz., the 
 number of the children of Israel at the Exodus. Holy Scripture 
 says that they Avere about " 600,000 men on foot, besides chil- 
 dren." (Exodus, xii. 37.) Colenso says, this is a plain impos- 
 sibility ; for that there were only fifty-one sons of the patri- 
 archs who went down into Egypt ; that they lived there only 
 two hundred and fifteen years; that it was distinctly foretold, 
 that they should come into the promised land "in the fourth 
 generation" (Gen. xv. 16) ; that if we assign to each male 
 in each of the three intervening generations an average of 
 four and a half sons, (the average of the sous of Jacob them- 
 selves), this will give us in the fourth generation 4,923 men, 
 or, if we add all the generations together and suppose that 
 not one man had died, 6,311. Nay, go further still, and add 
 the next generation, who however (he says) would be mostly 
 children, and you will only have 22,154; or something less 
 than a twentieth part of the Scriptural number. 
 
 It is impossible, I think, for anybody to read this sum- 
 mary of Colenso's arguments (which yet I believe to be per- 
 fectly fair) without detecting at once some fallacies ; as, for 
 instance, only four generations allowed to a period of two 
 hundred and fifteen years, or more than fifty years to a genera- 
 tion. Let us see what Scripture itself has to say upon tjiis 
 point. We read (Gen. 1. 22) that Joseph lived to see the 
 children of Ephraim to the third generation ; he saw also his 
 great grandsons by Manasses. Now he was thirty-six years 
 old before his sons were born (Gen. xli. 46-50), and only 
 one hundred and ten when he died (Gen. 1. 25). It follows 
 therefore that there were four generations of the children of 
 Israel living together, within seventy years of their first com- 
 ing into Egypt ; and there was room for more than three 
 times this number in the whole period of their sojourn in that 
 country, even if we take the shortest time that can be assigned 
 
43 
 
 to it, viz., two hundred and fifteen years; so that, proceeding 
 only at the rate of increase allowed by Colenso himself, we 
 shall have no difficulty in arriving at an infinitely larger 
 number than is required. But do we not hereby annul the 
 promise in Gen. xv. 16 ? By no means, for surely this pro- 
 mise is strictly .fulfilled, if any of the fourth generation are 
 living at the Exodus, which they certainly are ; Moses and 
 Aaron, for example. 
 
 But again, Colenso's calculation includes only the sons of 
 Jacob ; it takes no account of his servants, or retainers : and 
 yet I do not see how we can suppose these to have been 
 excluded. Colenso indeed says that he had none. But what 
 then had become of them ? He certainly once had some 
 (Gen. xxxii. 5, 16) ; and !,it was not likely that they would 
 have been left behind to perish of hunger in Chanaan. Pro- 
 bably they are included under the title, "my father's house" 
 as distinguished from " my brethren" in Gen. xlvi. 31. 
 They would have been circumcised (Gen. xvii. 12, 23), and 
 though not reckoned among the pure seed of Israel, would 
 certainly have been among the number of " the fighting 
 men," being reckoned with that particular tribe to which their 
 masters belonged. Suppose Jacob and all his sons to have 
 had no more of these retainers (servants born in the house) 
 than his grandfather Abraham had when he rescued Lot, 
 viz., 318 (Gen. xiv. 14) ; allow to these Colenso's moderate 
 ratio of increase, and you have from these alone very nearly 
 the .whole number of men given in Exodus xii. 37. 
 
 Or look at the matter another way — What is the ordinary 
 rate of increase in an agricultural population of pure morals, 
 and where there are ample means of subsistence ? Malthus, 
 in his famous Essay upon this subject (pp. 5, 6), first tells us 
 of some of the Northern States of America, in which the 
 population was " found to double itself, for above a century 
 and a half successively, in less than 25 j-ears." Next, he 
 speaks of other parts of the same country, where " the popu- 
 lation has been found to double itself in fifteen years. Even 
 this extraordinary rate of increase is probably short of the 
 utmost power of population. According to a table of Euler, 
 the period of doubling will be only twelve years and four- 
 fifths. And this proportion, he goes on to say, "is not 
 only a possible supposition, but has actually occurred for 
 short periods in more countries than one." Finally, he 
 quotes another authority, which " supposes a doubling pos- 
 sible in so short a time as 10 years." And he concludes, 
 that we may be " perfectly sure that we are far icithiu the 
 
44 
 
 truth'" if wc say that "population, when unchecked, goes on 
 doubling itself every twenty-five years ; this is a rate in 
 which all concurring testimonies agree and which has been 
 repeatedly ascertained to be from procreation only." 
 
 Now try to call to mind one of those sums which doubtless 
 you were made to work in your youth, wherein a horse was 
 offered at what seemed to your inexperience a merely nomi- 
 nal price — a farthing for the first nail in one of his shoes, a 
 half-penny for the second, a penny for the third, and so on, 
 increasing in a geometrical ratio — try, I say, to call to mind 
 the exhorbitant sum which the price of your horse ultimately 
 reached when valued at this rate, and you will be able to form 
 some idea of the product of Jacob's family, beginning with 
 70 souls, doubling itself (say) in every fifteen years, and con- 
 tinuing to do so during a period of 215, or 230 years. I will 
 not inflict the sum upon you ; but, unless my Arithmetic 
 deceives me, it would give us a product much nearer to 
 the numbers recorded in Scripture, than to Colenso's calcula- 
 tion. 
 
 So then it appears that Colenso's " plain impossibility" 
 becomes possible, or even probable, merely on natural princi- 
 ples, and ordinary arithmetical calculations ! But this 
 method of reasoning is not just to the subject in hand. The 
 historical credibility of the numbers or other facts stated in 
 the Pentateuch must be tested by the standard of its own 
 assertions ; and it distinctly claims for the children of Israel a 
 supernatural ratio of increase. What else means the promise 
 by God to Abraham of a vast increase of seed, that his seed 
 should become a great nation ? a promise repeated to Abra- 
 ham, to Isaac, and to Jacob : (Gen. xii. 2, xv. 5, xvii. 6, 
 xxii. 17, XXV. 23, xxviii. 14, xxxii. 12, xlvi. 3.) And does 
 not the alarm and jealousy of the Egyptians testify to the 
 fulfilment of this promise ? How else could they say, " the 
 people of the children of Israel are numerous and stronger 
 than we?" (Exod. i. 9.) And the sacred historian says ex- 
 pressly that " the children of Israel increased and sprung up 
 into multitudes, and growing exceedingly strong they filled 
 the land." 
 
 With these facts before me, I confess I cannot understand 
 the repeated assertions of Colenso that " there is not the 
 slightest indication in the Bible" of any extraordinary rate of 
 increase ; of any extraordinary fecundity in the Hebrew women, 
 &c. He even quotes the acknowledged falsehoods of the 
 Egyptian midwives (Exod. i. 19.) as reUahle evidence to the 
 contrary ! It seems to me inconceivable, how any but a most 
 
blindly prejudiced mind could fall into such blunders as these. 
 The devout student of Holy Scripture must surely see in this 
 history not contradictions and physical impossibilities, but on 
 the contrary the most wonderful harmony and agreement 
 between the natural and the supernatural. God had promised 
 the seed of Abraham an extraordinary increase in the land of 
 Egj^pt ; and the land of Egypt was precisely that in which 
 even naturalhj the human race was wont to increase and 
 multiply with extraordinary rapidity. Witness the testimony 
 of Aristotle (Hist. Auim. vii. 4), who says that " twins are 
 common in Egypt ; even three or four at a birth not rare." 
 Witness the no less distinct statement of Pliny (Hist. Nat. 
 vii. 3.) " for a woman to have more than three children at a 
 birth is accounted a portent, except in Egypt, uhi fietifer potu 
 Kilns amnis ;" and presently he mentions an old author as 
 recording a birth of seven children at once in Egypt. Of 
 course I do not wish to lay more stress upon these statements 
 than they will bear ; but I cannot overlook them altogether ; 
 and to my mind they suggest another instance of that beauti- 
 ful law whereby the God of nature and of grace so often com- 
 bines in harmonious action the powers both of the natural 
 and the supernatural worlds for the accomplishment of His 
 own purposes. But when I turn from this consideration to 
 the study of Colenso's Arithmetic, I am struck not only by 
 the cold heartless infidelity of his calculations, but also by the 
 harsh, arbitrary, uncritical way in which he handles the sacred 
 text in order to pervert it to his sense. To the promise of 
 God he attaches no value, as if it were absolutely powerless 
 to produce what it had foretold ; the strong, glowing lan- 
 guage of Holy Writ, expressing in so striking a manner the 
 extraordinary multiplication of the children of Israel, he 
 passes by as an idle poetical exaggeration ; he will confine 
 himself to facts and figures ; 215 years was the probable 
 period of the sojourn in Egj-pt ; there were to be four genera- 
 tions of sojourners ; 4|- sons is a fair average to allow to each 
 individual; divide and multiply secundum artem, and you 
 get 22,000 instead of 600,000. This then is the issue on the 
 first plea, in the case of " Colenso versus Moses." Can any one 
 affect to believe that Colenso has stated the case fairly, argued 
 it correctly, and proved the impossibility which obliges him 
 so unwillingly to abandon his belief in the historical credibility 
 of the Pentateuch '? 
 
 Let us take another point intimately connected with the 
 first. It is the number of the first-born as stated in Numbers 
 iii. 43. Colenso makes very merry over this item of the 
 
46 
 
 Mosaic Arithmetic. 22,273 first-born males, on the one 
 hand ; 600,000 fighting men of 20 years old and upwards, on 
 the other ; add a proportionate number of old men and boys ; 
 double the number, to establish the proper balance between 
 the two sexes ; make all fair allowance for a probable number' 
 of deaths, and now divide and distribute into families; and 
 you will arrive (under Colenso's guidance) at these startling 
 results ; 1st, that only one man in ten among the children of 
 Israel had a wife and family : 2ndly, that every mother 
 amongst them had on an average between 80 and 90 children. 
 "If you cannot believe this," says Colenso, "you must give 
 up the Bible numbers as impossible ; and if the Bible num- 
 bers are impossible, then the Pentateuch is no record of real 
 facts ; it is not historically true." And since few persons, 
 I suppose, if any, could be found ready to accept those .two 
 arithmetical statements, the prospect is sufficiently alarming 
 to all lovers of the Bible. Probably this is the greatest diffi- 
 culty of all ; at least / thought so, and if you had asked me for 
 a satisfactory explanation of it a fortnight ago, I could not have 
 given you one. I should have answered that I had no doubt 
 but that the numbers were somcJww correct, though I could 
 not pretend to say how ; for that Moses had simply recorded 
 the facts, without mentioning all the circumstances of the 
 case, that might have removed any apparent difficulty ; that 
 he had given the numbers as so many facts of the history, all 
 of which was to be believed on the Divine Authority which 
 proposes it to our belief, not to be used as the data of some 
 arithmetical problem to try the powers of human ingenuity. 
 And I think a reasonable man Iwould have found nothing 
 unreasonable in such a reply. He might have wished for 
 something more directly solving his difficulty, but he would 
 not have given up the Bible for the want of it. A few days 
 ago however I came across a pamphlet, by far the ablest I 
 have yet happened to see upon this whole controversy, which 
 contains a direct solution of Colenso's difficulty, at once sim- 
 ple and ingenious, and, as it seems to me, eminently proba- 
 ble. The pamphlet I refer to is by the Piev. C. Pritchard,* 
 late fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, and Secretary of 
 the Royal Astronomical Society ; a mathematician therefore 
 and a man of figures, like Colenso himself, and when " Greek 
 meets Greek, then comes the tug of war." Mr. Pritchard' 
 first lays down the same axiom as I myself insisted upon in 
 my first letter, viz., that if he can shew on any not violently 
 
 • Vindicioe Mosaicte. London : Bell and Daldy. 
 
47 
 
 improbable hypothesis that the Scriptural numbers are possi- 
 ble, Colenso's argument is destroyed. Of course it is ; Colen- 
 so has undertaken to force all reasoning and calculating men 
 to give up the belief they have hitherto had in the Bible, on 
 the score of the utter impossibility of its arithmetical state- 
 ments. Anything short of this will not fulfil his purpose. 
 If then some hypothesis can be invented, barely possible, i.e. 
 not contradicted by the text of the Sacred narrative itself, and 
 not on any other account inadmissible, by the acceptance of 
 which those statements can be made to appear, if not true, 
 yet at least possible, the old belief in the Bible remains 
 unshaken. Such an h^^iothesis Mr. Pritchard has invented 
 in the present instance. He conjectures, or assumes by way 
 of argument, that as the first-born males were set aside for 
 the. service of God and this was the only reason wherefore 
 their census was taken, none would have been reckoned in 
 this number, but those who were of the pure stock of Israel, 
 the real children of the promise ; the sons of the strangers, 
 the servants and retainers of all kinds, though rightly num- 
 bered among the fighting men, might perhaps have been 
 rigidly excluded from this religious privilege. Observe, he 
 does not say that it was so, but that it may have been so ; 
 and that if it was, this circumstance would at once account for 
 the paucity of the numbers. It is idle therefore to object that 
 no traces of such a distinction can be found in the words of 
 Moses ; is it excluded by the words of Moses ? Moses wrote, 
 briefly and without explanation, first one fact and then 
 another, just as they really occurred and as the Holy Spirit 
 inspired him to write them, without caring to fit them to- 
 gether and smooth down apparent discrepancies between 
 them. Thucydides and Herodotus, or any other ordinary 
 historian, would not have dared to leave such glaring incon- 
 sistencies on the very surface of their narrative ; Moses could 
 afford to do it, because his Avork was not to be tried by the 
 canons of a merely human criticism; but if any one chooses so 
 to try it and thus creates difficulties for himself and others, 
 it is surely unreasonable to refuse a solution of those diffi- 
 culties, merely because it rests on some hypothesis, which is 
 beside or beyond, not against, the littera scripta of the 
 Mosaic record. 
 
 I cannot leave Mr. Pritchard's conjectural explanation of 
 this particular difficulty as to the number of the first-born, 
 without observing how happily it explains another of Colenso's 
 perplexities, viz. Whence comes it that, whereas the posterity 
 of Dan and Juda, having but one son each, increased and 
 
48 
 
 multiplied to sixty or seventy thousand, the posterity of Levi, 
 who had three sons, does not much exceed twenty-two thou- 
 sand, i.e. does not come up to a fourth part of the average 
 numbers of the other tribes ? and still further, that these 
 twenty-two thousand had only increased by a single thousand 
 during thirty-eight years of the wanderings in the wilderness ? 
 (See Numbers ii. 26, iii. 39, xxvi. 42, 62.) Both these ano- 
 malies are at once explained, if we concede Mr. Pritchard's 
 hypothesis, which is at least probable, viz. that in the num- 
 bering of the other tribes the children of servants, strangers, 
 or of mixed marriages were not excluded, but that in the 
 numbering of this, the sacred tribe, greater strictness was 
 observed, none but the pure stock of Levi being admitted. 
 And any mind, accustomed to the weighing of moral evi- 
 dence, must needs acknowledge, that an hj^pothesis which 
 thus grasps and links together facts not obviously dependent 
 on one another, bears a strong stamp of truth. 
 
 Another " self-contradiction" Colenso imagines himself to 
 have found, in comparing the extent of the promised land 
 with the number of the chosen people who were to possess it, 
 and with the reason assigned by God for the gradual exter- 
 mination of its original inhabitants. We read in the Book 
 of Exodus (xxiii. 29) that God said "I will not cast them 
 out from thy face in one year, lest the land be brought into a 
 wilderness, and the beasts multiply against thee." Upon 
 this Colenso (or one of his admirers) exclaims that we have 
 here the very " climax of inconsistency between the facts and 
 figures" of the Bible narrative. He says that if all the 
 inhabitants of the land had been driven out at once, the Israel- 
 ites alone would have sufficed to people the country as thickly 
 as two or three English counties which he mentions, and which 
 certainly are in no danger of being " brought into a wilder- 
 ness ;" or again, he says that the population would have been 
 nearly twenty times as thick as it now is in Natal, and yet 
 that the strongest of the wild beasts have been already extir- 
 pated, and that others are disappearing from that colony. 
 How then could there have been any real danger from the 
 multiplication of the beasts in Judea ? 
 
 It seems strange that any student should have overlooked 
 the altered relations between man and beast which are the 
 result of modern inirentions. Had the colonists of Natal 
 only the same means of contending with the wild beasts as 
 Samson had, when " a young lion met him raging and roar- 
 ing," he "having nothing at all in his hand," (Judges xiv. 6,) 
 or as David (1 Kings xvii. 35) when the lion and the bear 
 
49 
 
 came against bis father's sheep, and "he caught them by the 
 throat, and strangled and killed them," we may be allowed to 
 doubt whether " the strongest of the wild beasts" would have 
 been so soon exterminated. Moreover, recent travellers tell 
 us that at this very moment, the Holy Land, having a popu- 
 lation about equal to the number of the Israelites when they 
 took possession of it, suffers very considerable inconvenience 
 from the incursions of wild beasts ; now, as in the days of 
 the prophets of old, wild boars often destroy the grain and 
 other produce of the land along the banks of the Jordan, 
 bears destroy whole vineyards on the sides of the Anti-Leba- 
 non in a single night, and jackals may be seen dragging 
 corpses from their shallow graves under the very walls of 
 Jerusalem.* 
 
 So Siiys one who has entered the lists against Colenso, 
 giving his name and stating that these are facts within his 
 own knowledge and observation. He adds that three-fourths 
 of the richest and best portion of the country remain uncul- 
 tivated and desolate. 
 
 This same traveller makes another observation also which 
 is worth repeating, with reference to Colenso's description of 
 the camp, as one vast mass of tents, "not much inferior in 
 compass, we must suppose, to London" — (Must ive suppose 
 its parks, squares, palaces, theatres, churches and museums 
 to be included in this measurement ?) — He says that nobody 
 who has ever travelled in the East would have fallen into 
 this error ; that he himself once rode for two days straight 
 forward through the flocks of a section of an Arab tribe in 
 the same locality, tended by swarms of men and Avomen, boys 
 and girls, while the encampment of the chief was at that very 
 moment distant not less than thirty miles, at right angles to 
 the traveller's course. 
 
 This picture helps also to dispel another difficulty with 
 which Colenso has amused himself from the injunction in 
 Deut. xxiii. 13., oven if it were not sufficiently disposed of by 
 the first words of the ninth verse, which seem so clearly to 
 limit its aj^plication to a military camp in time of war. I 
 should not have alluded to this subject but for the sake of 
 calling attention to the remarkable fact (mentioned by one of 
 Colenso's critics) that the " Punjaub Sanitary Report for 
 18G2," actually recommends the practice of the natives in 
 these matters in preference to European habits, as being best 
 suited to the climate, and observes that it is " in strict accord- 
 
 * Athenspum, January 17, 1863. 
 
50 
 
 ance with the Divine ordinance which was given to the first 
 great camp the world ever saw." 
 
 But enough ; I must not try your patience too long ; and 
 indeed my own is now well-nigh exhausted. I have followed 
 Colenso through at least nine-tenths of his difficulties and 
 " contradictions"; and I think I have laid down principles 
 which will suffice for the solution of any that remain. Critics 
 of his school may object to some of the explanations that 
 have been given as far-fetched and improbable. This is a 
 matter of opinion, in which I should difter from them ; but 
 at any rate it can hardly be maintained that the explanations 
 are impossible, and unless this can be proved, Colenso's argu- 
 ment is destroyed. Indeed, more than once in his book, he 
 himself acknowledges with reference to some of these expla- 
 nations, or others like them, that they might be accepted, if 
 the historical character of the Pentateuch were established. 
 Now this is precisely the standpoint in which we have the 
 advantage over him ; we know and are sure on the declaration 
 of competent authority that the Pentateuch is divinely in- 
 spired and contains a true history. We are not therefore 
 easily staggered by any apparent difficulties ; we are ready to 
 accept this or that probable conjecture which supplies a means 
 of solving them, or if we cannot solve them at all, we are not 
 much concerned. We believe all the facts recorded, though 
 we may not be able to combine and reconcile them. We 
 agree with Colenso in holding that a volume of inspired 
 truth cannot relate as facts physical impossibilities, but we 
 fail to find in the Mosaic Books those physical impossibilities 
 which he imagines he detects there. There is only one Bib- 
 lical statement that I know of, objected by Colenso, which 
 could be rightly so described, and this is the statement in Gene- 
 sis xlv. 12, which occupies therefore the very foremost place 
 in his van-guard, but which I have reserved until now for my 
 own greater convenience. 
 
 We read in Genesis xlvi. 6, that " Jacob came into Egypt 
 with all his seed, his sons and grandsons, daughters, and all 
 his ofispring together. And these are the names of the chil- 
 dren of Israel that entered into Egypt, he and his children. 
 
 The sons of Juda, Her and Onan, and Sela and Phares, 
 
 and Zara. And Her and Onan died in the land of Chanaan. 
 And sons were born to Phares, Ilcsron and Hamid." The 
 insertion of these two last names seems to involve a physical 
 impossibility. For Hesron and Hamul were the sons of 
 Phares, and Phares was himself the son of Thamar by her 
 incestuous connection with Juda, after she had become the 
 
51 
 
 widow of Juda's eldest and second sous, and been refused to 
 (or by) his third son. In other words, they were Juda's grand- 
 sons, but they stood (so far as time is concerned) in the 
 relation of grcat-gi'Sindsons to Juda. How then is it possible 
 that they could have been born in Chanaan and rjonc doirn 
 into Egypt with Juda, since Juda himself could not at that 
 time have been more than forty-four years old at the most? 
 It is a " plain physical impossibility," says Colenso, and we 
 quite agree with him in thinking so. How then are we to 
 explain it ? 
 
 An attempt has been made indeed to alter the statement of 
 this sum. It has been alleged that there is nothing in the 
 Sacred Text to fix the age of Juda ; that he may have been 
 much older perhaps. This does not seem to me to alter the 
 case at all. The date of Juda's marriage, not his age, is the 
 point on which everything depends ; and the date of this is 
 fixed, I think, with tolerable accuracy. For Juda married 
 presently after the sale of Joseph ; so we gather from Gene- 
 sis xxxviii. 1.* Now Joseph was sixteen before he was sold 
 (chap, xxxvii. 2.) ; and he was thirty years old when he stood 
 before Pharaoh (xli. 46). Add to these fourteen, the seven 
 years of plenty and not more than two of the scarcity (chap, 
 xlv. 11.) before Jacob went down into Eg^^^t, and you have about 
 twenty-three years in all (14 + 7 + 2). And it is clearly 
 impossible within these limits to find time for Juda's mar- 
 riage, the birth of his three sons, their marriages (or quasi- 
 marriages) with Thamar, the birth of Phares of this Thamar, 
 and finally, the birth of Hesrou and Hamul, the two sons of 
 Phares. 
 
 We feel the difficulty quite as fully as Colenso himself, and 
 one or two other difficulties also, connected with the same 
 subject ; and yet we cannot admit that they at all disturb our 
 faith in the historical credibility of the Pentateuch. Thus, it 
 is a difficulty in the same narrative, that ten sons are at- 
 tributed to Benjamin, who cannot have been more than twenty- 
 two years old at the time ; yet Colenso gets over this, by 
 supiDosing that he had many vdvea ! Again, the number of 
 souls that went down into Egj-pt is in the Hebrew and 
 Vulgate stated to be seventy ; in the Septuagint version of 
 this same passage, it is seventy-five ; and St. Stephen, the 
 
 * Lightfoot and others after him have contended that the expression " at that 
 time" need not be interpreted strictly as a chronological note. To those who 
 agree with the Talmudists that there is no chronological order in the Pentateuch, 
 this observation may commend itself. Most Catholic theologians however agree, 
 I suppose, with Patrizi (Comment, do Script. Div. Rome, 1851) that in the histo- 
 rical books the order of events " ad inspirationem pertincrc." (p. 18). 
 
52 
 
 Proto- Martyr, in his abridgment of the Jewish History ad- 
 dressed to the council in Jerusalem, adopts this larger num- 
 ber (Acts vii. 14). The whole subject therefore is beset with 
 difficulties, and has engaged the attention of commentators on 
 Holy Scripture from St. Augustin downwards. I need not 
 repeat their explanations. I will only observe two things : 1st, 
 that it is undeniable — explain it how you will — that the 
 Sacred Text itself says of two persons in this list of Jacob's 
 family, both that they were " horn in Eg}'pt," and that they 
 " entered into Egypt," or came down into it. I am spealdug 
 of the two sons of Joseph, and referring to chap. xlvi. 27. 
 There we read that Ephraim and Manasses were born in 
 Egypt, and yet they go to make up the number of seventy, of 
 whom we read that they came down into Egypt. Now, if this 
 can be said of Ephraim and Manasses, why not of Hesron and 
 Hamul also ? and what right has Colenso to insist upon it 
 *' that the writer here means to say that Hesron and Hamul 
 were born in the land of Canaan because he says they 
 came into Egypt wdth Jacob," when he cannot possibly have 
 meant to say this of the other two (since he distinctly testifies 
 the contrary), concerning whom he nevertheless has made the 
 same statement ? 
 
 And my second observation is this ; that a careful study of 
 the text itself seems to reveal a marked distinction between 
 the historian's way of mentioning these two pairs of brothers, 
 and the way in which all the others of the seventy are named. 
 Ordinarily, the names are given, succeeding one another as in 
 a catalogue, without the use of any verb at all ; but at the end 
 of verse twelve the writer abandons this brevity, and says, 
 " and sons were horn to Phares, Hesron and Hamul." In 
 like manner in verse twenty, we read, "And sons were born to 
 Joseph." This peculiarity of expression leads us to suspect 
 some distinction present to the mind of the historian between 
 these persons, and the general mass of those named in the 
 catalogue; and it belongs, in the Hebrew* and in our transla- 
 tion, only to those two cases, where the facts of the history 
 render it imperative upon us to suppose that there was some 
 distinction. Moreover it is very remarkable that in the Septua- 
 gint, the same peculiarity belongs to one other set of names ; 
 that, namely, in which we have already seen cause to suspect 
 some latent error, the ten sons of Benjamin. Here the 
 Septuagint catalogue gives us only tliree sons of Benjamin ; 
 
 * The Hebrew verb is not "were born," but simply " were." The difference is 
 immaterial to the argument, which rests on the presence of any verb at all in these 
 cases, when there is none in the rest of the catalogue. 
 
53 
 
 then ft adds, " there wore born to " one of these sons, five or 
 six sons, and lastly, it mentions one of a still later generation, 
 the great-grandson of Benjamin. I say then, that this pecu- 
 liarity of expression, attaching only to those of whom we feel 
 confident that they could not really have been born in Cha- 
 naan and gone down into Egypt, is a very clear indication that 
 the writer was as conscious of this fact as we are, and that ho 
 meant to set a chronological mark of distinction upon them. 
 But why then did he name them at all ? and why did he 
 reckon them in the number of those who went down into 
 Egypt ? I do not pretend to know. Many reasons have been 
 suggested by various commentators ; some more, some less 
 satisfactory ; as, for instance, that the names are inserted as a 
 kind of compensation for Her and Onan, whose deaths have 
 been just recorded : or that there was some special excellency 
 or eminence in them over the rest of Jacob's grandsons, as 
 there was in Ephraim and Manasses (Gen. xlviii. 5.), &c. &c. 
 Perhaps none of the reasons assigned is altogether conclusive. 
 Nevertheless I do not on this account abandon my belief in 
 the historical truthfulness of the inspired narrative ; any more 
 than hundreds and thousands before me, who have examined 
 the same difficulty and been equally unable thoroughly to 
 satisfy themselves with a solution. For it must be remem- 
 bered that this, like most of Colenso's difficulties, has been 
 patent to every student of Holy Writ from generation to 
 generation ; and may we not justly suspect some perversion of 
 the will, or of the understanding, in a writer who thinks that 
 he can upset the belief of the wisest and best of mankind for 
 the last two thousand years, merely by means of a few arith- 
 metical or genealogical difficulties of this kind, which have 
 challenged the attention of critics, whether friends or foes, 
 during the whole of this period, yet without impairing the be- 
 lief of the Christian world in the Divine authority of the Books 
 containing them ? 
 
 And now I must take my leave of Colenso. He has robbed 
 me of some hours that were claimed by other duties, and I am 
 afraid my letters will bear many tokens of the haste and in- 
 terruptions amid which they have been written. Their mate- 
 rials too (like those of the walls of Athens, of which Tliucy- 
 dides tells us) have been taken from all sides, from public and 
 from private sources, without scruple ; and after all, the sub- 
 ject is not really ended ; on the contrary it is only begun, for 
 on this very day I see that a second volume of his work has 
 issued from the press, and is to be followed by a third. 
 Nevertheless I believe it will be worth while to publish what I 
 
54 
 
 have written, because I have reason to know that even such a 
 reply as this may be of service to some. I make no apology 
 to you for the popular unlearned way in which I have answered 
 your enquiry. You did not ask for your own sake, but that 
 you might have a ready answer to give to others. Colenso 
 has written for the unlearned, and I have wished to keep the 
 same class in view in what I have said in reply. They are the 
 larger and more necessitous class, and no one, so far as I can 
 hear, among Catholic writers has announced his intention of 
 doing anything for their protection and assistance. Mean- 
 while the plague is raging round them ; they are living in a 
 poisoned atmosphere, and they require some antidote to pre- 
 serve them from the infection. May God bless these feeble 
 efforts for their good. 
 
 Yours ever very sincerely in Christ, 
 S.N. 
 
 LETTEK V. 
 
 Dear Doctor, 
 
 Many thanks for your ivorh, which (as I said in my 
 former letter) will be most useful to me ; and all the more so 
 as I should never have had the patience to do it myself. We 
 are pretty well agreed as to how the controversy with unbe- 
 lievers should be conducted. The combination of your argu- 
 ment with mine will prove a two-edged sword with which I 
 hope, when occasion offers, to do battle manfully against the 
 enemy. I have only one thing to add (if you will have 
 patience with me) to what I have said already, and that is that 
 supposing Dr. Colenso to be in good faith (upon which you 
 throw some doubt), no Protestant has a right, on Protestant 
 principles, to find fault with his opinion, or interfere with 
 him for expressing it. Judging him from the Catholic 
 Stand-point Colenso is wrong, for we hold to an objective 
 standard of truth ; but Protestantism offers him the Sacred 
 Book, which he reads, as he reads it, like the rest of them ; 
 and, whatever comes of it, is thereby a true Protestant. And 
 after all, it is not to be wondered at that, since they differ 
 amongst themselves, he should differ from the rest of them. 
 For here Dr. Newman's remark is very pertinent, that where 
 each man's mind is made the standard of truth it would be 
 
55 
 
 unreasonable to expect a common standard. Tliey may say 
 that Dr. Colenso's conclusion is a wrong one, if they choose ; 
 but when all is said, his wisdom is not their wisdom, and as 
 a true Protestant, he must go by his own lights, and not by 
 theirs. The simple fact that they disagree with one another is 
 the grand condemnation of their condemnation. No : this 
 crop of unbehef which has sprung up in our days is the legi- 
 timate produce of Protestantism itself, which gives a man 
 with prayer and the Bible to make a religion for himself. 
 (You see I am on my old line of rail again.) The wonder is, 
 not that the last result should have at length appeared, but 
 that it did not appear long before. What is it that makes a 
 princijjle germinate with such fungus-like rapidity on the 
 Continent and so slowly with us ? Anyhow there was a stag- 
 nancy in English Protestantism before the time of Dr. 
 Arnold ; whereas since his time (owing I suppose to German 
 influences) the pace has become so rapid that one must read 
 hard to keep up with it. And now every variety of unbelief 
 is rife within the bosom of the Estabhshment. But since 
 this is the case, is there not some unfairness in the outcry 
 raised by Protestants against Dr. Colenso as though he were 
 the only offender, while it is allowed to Professor Stanley to 
 indoctrinate the youth of Oxford with the very same principles 
 of Biblical Criticism ? Is it a greater sin to say with the 
 former that there are contradictions in the Pentateuch, or with 
 the latter that one must not enter into too close a scrutiny of 
 the history of Samson ? But if on the other hand Colenso 
 alone is to be held up to obloquy as the wolf within the fold, 
 can that really be the true fold of Christ which is unable 
 to cast out the wolf ? Truly it was an awkward confession 
 which had to be made by the Bishop of Rochester, in the 
 address to his clergy, that nothing remains but to pray for 
 Dr. Colenso. Allow me to exhibit the course these gentlemen 
 have taken in this matter in the form of 
 
 A FABLE. 
 
 Once upon a time, the wolf disguised himself as a shepherd 
 and made sad work among the sheep and tender lambs of the 
 flock. Whereupon, the sheep and shepherds of the neigh- 
 bouring flocks were sore afraid ; and a council was called to 
 determine what were best to be done. There was a great deal 
 of talking, but, as no one dared to act, it seemed that nothing 
 would come of it. At last, one old shepherd, bolder than the 
 rest, sent a message to the wolf, ' 
 
to tlie woods, for that his presence was injurious to the flock. 
 The wolf laughed, on receiving the message. " My friend," 
 he answered back, " you consider this matter from a sheepish 
 point of view : were you in my place, you would think other- 
 wise." When the wolf's answer was delivered, the old shep- 
 herd thus addressed the assembly. '' My Brothers," he said, 
 *' it seems that remonstrance is vain. It is my advice that, 
 seeing this -wild creature must still remain a shepherd, Ave 
 pray Jove that he would deign to change the nature of the 
 beast, and give him a distaste for mutton." 
 
 I remain, 
 Dear Doctor, 
 
 Yours affectionately, 
 C. M. 
 
 PEIKTED BY HICHARDSON AND SOTC, DERBY. 
 
Stockton, Colif. 
 
 DATE DUE 
 
 
 i iV^/ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 GAVLORD 
 
 
 
 PRINTED INUS A 
 
BS1225.4 .C7N8 
 
 The 'Colenso' controversy considered 
 
 .f'f.'.".':.!'.°."J^^°'°9ical Semmary-Speer Library