CONSIDERATIONS OW 1 T HE PENTATEUCH. BY ISAAC TAYLOR. B51225 .8.T24 copy 1 SECOND EDITION- Price Half-a-('rovin. CONSIDERATIONS THE PENTATEUCH. BY y ISAAC i:AYLOR. '•Su.Mi:. . . C'OXCERXIXO FAITH HAVE MAKE SIIIl'WUECK. SECOND EDITION. LONDON : JACKSOX, WALFOED, AND HODDEK, 18, ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYAKD, AKD 27, PATERNOSTER ROW. 18G3. LONDON PHINTED BY R. CLAY, SON, AND TAVLdi;, BREAD STREET niLL. CONSIDERATIONS ON THE PENTATEUCH. One of the Laity is warranted in coming forward on the present occasion inasmuch as the author of a book which attracts much attention again and again in- vites the non-clerical members of the Church of England to give him a hearing. But if we of the unlearned laity are to listen, it is implied that we may use our plain understandings in listening ; and, more- over, that if we are not convinced by a Bishop's reason- ing, we may express our dissatisfaction aloud. Dr. Colenso says, that 'to the strong, practical love of truth, which is the characteristic of his fellow-countrymen, whether Clergy or Laity, he appeals in this instance.' An appeal, thus worded, fairly relieves those to whom it is addressed from the necessity of showing that they, individually, are qualified by much learning, or by ample professional acquirements, for takhig a part in the argument. The ground is not (so we take it) a preserve, to intrude upon which should be accounted an offence. Yet the condition above mentioned — namely, 'a 2 CONSIDERATIONS strong, practical love of truth/ may need, perhaps, a further qualification in any one of the Laity who, after he has given due attention to so high an argument, backed as it is with Hebrew, presumes to declare his discontent and disallowance of the same, through the Press. This further qualification should include so much acquaintedness with the subject in debate as is likely to be possessed by a layman who, through the course of many years, has been conversant with theological books, and to whose thoughts whatever belongs to the subject now brought forward has always been famihar. This, then, is my own ground ; and this is the measure of the pretension I make in thus stepping forth to declare my utter disapproval of the volume on ' the Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua.' Taking position among the Laity of the Church of England, and humbly asking leave, also, to be ad- mitted within the enclosure designated by Bishop Colenso as that of the * intelligent Laity,' I must insist upon my own interpretation of what follows, when it is affirmed ' that a very wide-spread distrust does exist among these as to the soundness of the ordinary view of Scripture Inspiration.'* This may be a fact ; and, inasmuch as on several occasions in the course of forty years I have given expression, in terms more or less explicit, to my own feeling on this subject, and have done so very lately, I would not appear to retract that profession. I have always thought that a better understanding of what we mean * Preface, p. xxiii. ON THE PENTATEUCH. 3 when we speak of the ' inspiration ' of the Scriptures is much to be desired. But then the question comes — In what direction would this better understanding lead us ? Would it lead us toward more belief, or toward less belief? I confidently think that, whereas the doctrine of Inspiration which the modern Church has inherited from the ancient, and from the mediaeval Church, was an inference from a deductive theology, and was, therefore, specidatme and precarious, better notions on the subject, which will be the result of an inductive Theology, will, therefore, be more service- able in consolidating our Eaith in the Scriptures, re- garded as a direct revelation from God. A consequence the very contrary of this must ensue from our accepting the conclusions which Bishop Colenso labours, in his book, to establish. It will appear that these conclusions — if indeed we are to follow them out to their proper issue — will leave not a remnant of our faith in the Bible as an authoritative source of belief in matters of religion. The last pages of the volume are occupied with passages cited from the (also inspired) bible of the Sikh Gooroos, All bibles, we are told, are alike good, so far as every man finds or thinks them to be good ; and yet this grave disparagement rests upon the Hebrew, and, perhaps, also upon the Christian Scriptures, namely, that the eternal truths they incidentally teach are commingled, in a manner peculiarly intimate, with the conceits and the inventions of the writers, and with the supersti- tions of remote ages j and worse still, with a body of B 2 4 CONSIDERATIONS pretended history, which — some fragments excepted — is spurious and fabulous. Among those, therefore, who profess to be dis- satisfied with our inherited notions of Inspiration, there may be a difference of opinion as wide as could at all be put into words. For instance — a Christian Bishop is now content thus to express his own belief concerning those signal passages — occurring in the third and the sixth chapters of Exodus, which hitherto religious men in all ages have read with awe. ' It matters not,' he says, ' that the writer (whether it be Moses or some other) may have exhibited the living truth in the clothing of human imagery, and embodied the divine lesson which his own mind had received, and which he felt himself commissioned to impart to his fellow men, in the story of the flaming bush and the audible voice.' ' It matters not,' he thinks, ' to the reflective and truth-loving men of this reflective age, whether they are to receive ' living truths' in the purity of philosophic expression, or, as we find them in the Hebrew Scriptures, commingled with gross falsities and imbedded in spurious narrations ! ' Here then I am irreconcilably at issue with my episcopal instructor. That ' practical love of truth,' to which he makes his appeal, and that broad and robust common sense of which I make profession as one of the unlearned Laity, impel me to resist — and I might even say, to resent — any such pernicious suggestion as this. * It does not matter,' the Bishop says — nay, truly, it does matter to me, whether henceforth I am to drink in ON THE PENTATEUCH. religious Truth for the nourishment of the soul — pure as from the well of life, or am to swallow it — repug- nant — laden, as now I am told it is, with a copious feculence of human conceits ! ' It does not matter/ the Bishop says ! yes, indeed, it does matter. I may say that, although a layman, I have had experience of the ill effect of being long conversant with the infectious admixture of truth and falsity, of Christian verities, and of ecclesiastical inventions. I know what it is to spend hours, days, months, in the wearisome employment of making acquaintance with what is unreal and spurious, until one comes almost to be in doubt about everything, and to be in danger of indignantly rejecting truth and falsity in mass, as if to disentangle the two were an impracticable task. I have spent time enough with the fourth and the fifth century writers — with Palladius, and with Gregory of Tours, and with Gregory the Great, and with others, until I have been tempted to despair of human nature altogether, and of the destiny of man, as related to God, and as the inheritor of immortality. Does it not matter? Indeed to me it does matter, for I am not only one of the unlearned Laity, to whose love of truth this Bishop makes his appeal so con- fidently, I am father of a family, and, in years past, have been used to officiate as priest in my own house- hold. But now, if those years were still in passing, and if, at this very time, I were to become a convert to the doctrine of this book on the Pentateuch, what could be my text to-morrow in teaching my family 6 CONSIDERATIONS the first truths in theology ? Should I thus address ' the Church in the house,' and say, * Moses, or some other Jew, makes, in this chapter, a noble profession of his faith in God : for it appears that he was a mono- theist; but as to the ' story of the hush ' in the midst of which this faith is imbedded, it must be regarded as wholly fabulous ! I should not do this ; but instead of thus talking, I should take a course which, no doubt, those of the Laity will soon take who may yield them- selves to the teaching of this book 'on the Penta- teuch ; ' — they will manfully renounce the profession they hitherto have made as Christians, Give us, they will reasonably say, give us, if it be only the feeblest glimmer of truth, conveyed in the vague dialect of speculative philosophy ; but do not thrust upon us these same precious particles, needing to be washed from out of the alluvium of the ignorance, the im- posture, and the folly of remote ages. It does not appear, or it does not appear from his book on the Pentateuch, that Dr. Colenso has himself any consciousness of that vehement feeling which, in unsophisticated minds, impels them to part oflp — right hand and left hand — to the utmost remoteness, re- ligious truth, and religious lying — or lying of any sort. He does not, I think, know the mood of the un- learned Laity to whom he makes this unadvised appeal. I must not, and tviU not, here be misunderstood. If I know something of English lay feeling, I have come to know also something of those intellectual con- fusions — those inexplicable meditative fascinations — ON THE PENTATEUCH. 7 which have led some of the most refined, the most acute, the most moral, the most delicately sensitive minds to converse with their own illusions until, in fact, they have quite lost the power of discrimination. Seraph and Demon show faces much alike in the twilight of their chambers. The case of the devout Romanist, born and bred in the Church of miracles, and who reads alternately the Gospels and the " Lives of the Saints," with a child-like homogeneous con- fidence, desiring only to be edified, is easy to be understood, and it is a case that might be envied by those with whom reason has been fully quickened, and who are making the fatal discovery which Dr. Colenso is now making. At this present moment he befieves that he shall be able to keep his hold of a Bible — full of fables. The time is near when he will know this to be impossible. At latest he will find it so when he returns to his duties among his Zulus. The Bishop, and with him the learned and esti- mable Hebraist on whom he leans, both of them greatly misunderstand the Laity. I crave leave to say — and hope I may say it without the imputation of any illiberal feehng toward the ministers of religion — that clergymen often do so. They may hear or read the rude scoffs of irreligious men ; but they do not know the inner mind of those who, Sunday after Sunday, occupy pews, and who respect- fully hear sermons. Laymen of this order are re- strained, by many motives that are not blameworthy, from uttering their thoughts freely and at large in 8 CONSIDERATIONS the presence of their spiritual instructors. And then, on their side, the clergy may be restrained, by proper reasons of discretion, from using an absolute ingenuousness in relation to religious questions ; they know that they may be captiously misunderstood and misreported. Reserve, if not silence, is their safety, as members of a profession. In the present instance Dr. Colenso misunder- stands the Laity because, in his own mind, as is quite manifest throughout his book, he has confounded what belongs to three momentous subjects, the keeping which apart is always, and is just now especially, im- portant. These three subjects — distinct as they are — may thus be parted off. The first to be named is the perplexing and painful question of Clerical subscription : the second is the doctrine or belief we hold concerning the Inspiration of the canonical Scriptures : the third, and incomparably the most momentous of the three, concerns the truth of the Bible, as the authentic record of a supernatural reve- lation — in a word, its truth as history. In relation to these three matters no reader of this book ' on the Pentateuch ' can doubt that the author, unconsciously to himself, borrows his supposition of lay opinion in relation to one or two of them, and applies it to another of them, in a manner which, if he knew better, he would see to be unwarrantable. There may be, and I think there are, very many of the Laity of the Church of England who, if only the way were fairly open for their doing so, would ON THE PENTATEUCH. 9 warmly approve of, and would give their aid to, any movement that should issue in a relaxation, or rather an improved form of the terms of Clerical subscription. Those of the Laity who so think and feel are not therefore to be spoken of as if they held an ambi- guous orthodoxy, or as if they were wishing for doc- trinal laxity of any sort. This however is a subject foreign to my purpose, and I allude to it only that I may contradict the supposition that those of the Laity who wish for, and who would gladly promote, an alteration of the terms of subscription, do stand, or that they might be brought to stand, on the side of the Bishop of Natal in the weighty questions that are argued in his book. There may be laymen — a thoughtful few — the in- telligent readers of theological and biblical works, who are ' distrustful ' of the notions commonly expressed in such books concerning the Inspiration of the Scrip- tures. Some of these thoughtful men may incline this way — some incline that way; and some may hold themselves in suspense, believing that the dis- cussion which this subject is now undergoing will issue in the general, if not the universal, adoption of a better-defined belief than hitherto has been ad- mitted or sanctioned. Dr. Colenso deceives him- self if he imagines that the educated Laity at large are likely to accept any such notions of Lispiration as they find put forth in his book on the Pentateuch. None will do so but those — whether they may be few or many, who, after a httle while, will walk out of 10 CONSIDERATIONS Church, never to return ; and who will rightly say — it is a Christian Bishop that has been our leader in this Exodus. It is with the third only of the three matters above named that I concern myself in these pages : I mean it is only with what bears upon the Truth of the Bible history, as history. Of the terms of Clerical subscription I say nothing. Of the Inspiration of the Scriptures I here say nothing ; what I have to say, and to say in behalf of the unlearned, but not unintelligent. Laity of the Church of England, relates to the certainty — the reality of " those things which are most surely believed among us ; " and of these things I propose to speak (very briefly) in the style and temper which I think is characteristic of the non-professional, or call it the lay mind, as dis- tinguished from the professional, or the regulated and authentically instructed mind to whose decisions such matters are customarily submitted. There is good ground for the distinction here made, which it is important to note; it is a distinction that is peculiarly English; it springs from that mood of independence, and of self-reliance, and of courage, and of power, tempered by modesty, and by a due regard to constituted authorities, which so favourably marks the British people, entitling them to stand foremost among the nations of Europe. What is trial by jury ? — say, it is the security of the individual accused, in putting his life and welfare into the hands of his equals ; but it is more than this; and especially ON THE PENTATEUCH. 11 it is SO in civil suits, for it is then an appeal from the fully instructed interpreters of law, to the broad and healthful common sense of the uninstructed Laity — laymen as to law. So be it ever — and especially so may it be within the precincts of theology. It is in approval of this same principle of a final appeal to a non-professional tribunal that the Church of England acknowledges the royal supremacy, and knows of no higher court than that of the sovereign — king or queen, who seeks the advice of those who, although they may be accomplished lawyers, are, in respect to religious questions, laymen. On any occa- sion when the vigorous common sense and the practical intelligence of laymen is called in to adjudge matters which have become entangled and mystified in the hands of the profession, this appeal is made — not on the supposition that an advantage can accrue in any case from the overriding of knowledge by igno- rance, which can never happen ; but on this better and true hypothesis — -namely, that a great principle of analogy prevails upon the wide field of human affairs, so that the tacit and unwritten logic of common reason which has been trained on that field, and which, in the arduous occasions of ordinary life and of business has acquired sagacity, and has sharpened its discriminative instincts, may, with excellent effect, be brought to bear upon problems that have been smothered under technical refinements, and that are disguised by erudite sophistry. Nevertheless, on such occasions, the lay mind knows 12 CONSIDERATIONS its boundary, and pays respectful attention to the professional mind, whenever it ought so to do. Thus it is, often, that eminent physiologists or chemists are listened to when called into the witness box. We laymen in the jury box listen to knowledge ; and yet it is with a cautious reserve that we listen to it ; and for maintaining ourselves in this reserve we are wont to call in professional knowledge to revise, or to contradict — professional knowledge ; and then we weiofh the one learned testimony aarainst the other learned testimony, leaving learned reputations on either side to fare as they may. And thus, in Theology, or in a high Christian argu- ment, we part off those matters in relation to which an authorised acquaintance with the subject is indis- pensable, from those to which rightfully the good, native, common sense of educated men — men accus- tomed to deal with various secular concernments — is undoubtedly competent. Dr. Colenso makes his appeal to a tribunal of this sort : — will he now abide by the decision which, I think, will in due time be pronounced by it — by the public — upon the merits of the book on the ' Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua ' ? I do not think he will rehsh this award. The table of contents of the volume in question may be regarded as a setting forth of the Articles of Impeachment — not of Moses, for Moses appears to escape the range of the prosecution ; but of the unknown Jew, or Jews, the men of a late age, who have fabricated a history of the early times of their ON THE PENTATEUCH. 13 people. Now, in looking to these counts of indict- ment (say tliey are nineteen) for the purpose of dis- tributing them among the counsel for the defence, eight or nine of these heads of accusation are of that sort which would make it proper to hand them over to the most erudite of the pleaders. The points in question are, as we may say, points of lato, proper to be reserved for learned consideration : it is, at least, seemly so to reserve them. As to the ten or eleven of these grounds of exception, on the validity of which the plaintiff mainly rests his plea, they are of a kind which comes thoroughly within the reach of non- professional intelligence. On these matters the Jury may be left to form their opinion, and to come to a verdict without returning into Court to ask for guidance. It is then in relation to these intelligible matters that I am bold to plead on the side of the defence. But now a Jury might wish to know whatever may fairly be known concerning the motives and the per- sonal qualities of the Plaintiff. They may at least listen to what, of his own accord, he says of himself. I need not occupy these pages with citations from a " Preface " which everybody will have read. Briefly stated the case is this — and we might have believed it easily of a clergyman ordained in the last ember weeks, but should not have imagined anything of the sort as likely to have happened in the experience of a bishop of the English Church, and to one who has stood before the world advantaged by a great reputation. 14 CONSIDERATIONS The Bishop of Natal declares that, until quite lately, he had been uninformed concerning certain grave questions bearing upon the early history of the Hebrew people ! He had known, indeed, that there were difficulties ahead in the Biblical criticism of the Pentateuch ; but he had barely known what they were, and, like the schoolboy with his Euclid in hand, who has heard of the difficult theorem, he goes on in faith that, when he comes up to it, he shall be told how to resolve the perplexity. But it was in converse with an intelligent Zulu convert that a sharp point of one of these difficulties stops his way : — he is staggered : — he sends home to his pub- lisher for books, German mostly ; and now he is more and more bewildered. Yet it is for a moment only; and, with little delay, he sets himself clear of the restraints of " superstition." He quits his charge in the wil- derness, hastens home, writes and publishes a book in hot haste ! Not doubting the soundness of his conclusions, he proclaims it to the Christian world, that, on the ground, not of 'speculation,' or of opinion, but of 'facts' which are incontrovertible, he is able to demonstrate his allegation that the books attributed to the Hebrew lawgiver, although em- bodying perhaps some fragmentary memorials of the fortunes of this ancient people, are, in the main, false as history, and spurious in a literary sense . This was a most notable achievement, considering the shortness of the time. The pompous phrases in which the ' coming book ' ON THE PENTATEUCH. 15 was announced, were of a sort to suggest the belief that this missionary bishop, thoroughly conversant, as no doubt he must be, with all matters of biblical criticism, had, to his amazement and dismay, discovered, in some cavern or cleft of a rock in his hitherto unex- plored diocese, new and substantial Y>YOoh— facts, not to be controverted, which yielded demonstration of the falsity of the Hebrew books. Is it, we asked — is it something quite new in geology ? or are we now to learn a new geogony in deciphering the hieroglyphics of another series of " Brass Plates ? " I acknowledge my own simplicity on this occasion, for it appeared to me quite incredible that an an- nouncement of this sort should have been made by an instructed clergyman, and by a bishop, and by Bishop Colenso, when, in simple truth, the ' facts ' now brought forward by him are absolutely nothing more than so many worn questions in biblical exposition, of which most reading men, lay and clerical, have been cognisant these many years — say forty, or, at the shortest, fifteen years. We — I mean men of the instructed class, may have thought, as to some of the solutions that have hitherto been offered of the difficulties in question, that they were quite sufficient, or entirely satisfactory. Other solutions may have appeared to us not sufficient, or not com- plete ; nevertheless we have clearly seen that, if the alternative were of this sort — that we should accept the problem, unsolved as yet, or else reject the biblical history — such a rejection must involve difficulties and 16 CONSIDERATIONS contradictions of an incomparably more perplexing kind than any that are implied in accepting this history. That it is so might soon be shown. How is it, then, that so much precipitancy and indiscretion, and so much blundering too, have come to damage a high reputation ? An answer to such a question presents itself on almost every page of this book. Almost every page — certainly every chapter of it affords an instance, not merely of a strange misapprehension of facts, and of much frivolous criticism, but of an intense feeling, or, as we say — animus ; and this is the word we use when a speaker or a writer, who is labouring to sub- stantiate a defamation, finds it more than he can do to repress emotions that are not of the most amiable sort, and which he does not choose to avow. There is a smothered heat in this writer's paragraphs when- ever he thinks his case good against the defendant. It is manifest that he has a grudge against this Moses, or this Jew of a late age, the author of the Five Books. He exults, therefore, when he professes his own deliverance from all ' superstitious ' regard to these ancient fabrications. If only we can con- vince ourselves that they are of ' no historic value,' then — yes, then — we shall not find ourselves ' com- pelled to believe ' this or that, which offends our modern tastes. There is a deep meaning in all this — a meaning which is visible, although it is glossed over; it is a meaning which has its rise in Dr. Colenso's ON THE PENTATEUCH. 17 theology; and is to be traced to his dedtictive Theism; and it cuts deep, and it will yet cut deeper than just now it may, into his Christianity. He himself gives significant hints of the probable consequence of the line of argument upon which he has entered. Already this course of criticism has distanced him many leagues from the latitude and the longitude which was his place on the chart of belief so lately as when he published his Exposition of the Epistle to the Romans. He does not know that he noio believes what he did believe at that time. If the Bishop be indeed the clear-headed man wiiich he is reputed to be, and the honest man which even those who are the most strongly opposed to him will grant him to be, he will not fail, a year hence, or perhaps in much less time than a year, to discover the logical imprac- ticability of the position which just at this moment he occupies. He foresees, dimly at least, a consequence of this kind ; nor is he dismayed at the prospect. * It will now be apparent,' he says, ' that there is no longer any cause for superstitious terror in respect of the inquiries we are making.' He is confident of his argument, and he intends to pursue it so far as it may touch the other books of the Old Testament Scriptures. But he looks beyond these books, and he provides himself with an apology on the supposition that, after Moses and the Prophets have thus been dealt with, and when the Church shall have been delivered from all terrors in that behalf, we may find ourselves called upon to accept ' a new interpre- c 18 CONSIDERATIONS tation' of certain passages in the New Testament. In anticipation of this issue, he exclaims, ' What the end may be, God only — the God of Truth — can foresee ! ' We may admit the propriety of this pious ejaculation, and yet may affirm that the rejection of Christianity, and a collapse upon the most vague form of modern theism, or rather pantheism, is the near-at-hand con- sequence of a certain course of reasoning. Clear- headed men — Christians and non-Christians alike — will not long stand wavering between two opinions on this ground. At present Dr. Colenso persuades himself that ' our belief in the living God re- mains as sure as ever, though not the Pentateuch only, but the whole Bible were removed.' He thinks that ' the precious lesson ' we are ' to be taught in this our day is, not to build our faith upon a book, though it be the Bible itself ! ' Already, as is mani- fest from his language — ambiguous as this is — all reliance upon writings so largely intermixed ' with human elements of error, infirmity, passion, and ignorance,' is gone from him : and he will quickly find that those who occupy seats on the extreme left of his present position will allow him no rest so long as he hesitates to apply his method of Biblical expo- sition to the other quasi historical books, and then to the Psalms, and to the Prophets ; and how will he be able to make a stand at the closing page of the Hebrew Scriptures ? No stand can be there made ; nor can any stay for the foot be found until the last stage ON THE PENTATEUCH. 19 has been reached, and it will be there that he will find himself borne upon by difficulties, in comparison with which, as to their gravity and the sombre colour which they wear, the difficulties that now meet him in the Mosaic history are trivial indeed. A man must be ignorant of what has been the course of thought in these last days, and he must be ignorant, too, of the history of speculative philosophy, and ignorant of the som"ce and motive of the ancient Gnosticism, and of the Manichsean doctrine, not to foresee the end, which end is now quite near at hand. After * the Book ' has been discarded, seasons of blank dismay will come on to those who have thus lost their way; and it will be then that the 'voice within the heart — the whisper of the living God, our Father and Friend ' — shall be sorrowfully listened for, but shall not be heard. Ought we to expect any other issue ? If indeed the Living God has spoken to man in 'the Book,' those who spurn this Book will be left to follow their own way, and to feed upon the wind. I should not dare to utter prognostications of this sort on the ground merely of momentary religious feel- ing. The history of minds of high quality, and of the highest culture, is in store for sustaining these conclu- sions. It is true that instances may be named in which a happier result has followed a state of mind nearly analogous to that which has brought Bishop Colenso into his present false position. A spurious speculative Theism to begin with, and a fastidious moral sensi- tiveness as its consequence, have driven not a few c 2 20 CONSIDERATIONS lofty spirits to the brink of the atheistic abyss ; yet some have stayed on the road — short of their own ruin. So did Augustine : but then he held fast to the Book ; nevertheless, there remained w^ith him to the end of his course so much of the leaven of this false feehng, that, throughout his expositions of the Patri- archal histories, and of his sermons on the Psalms, he is very often driven to take refuge in the most absurd mystifications as the only means he could adopt for adjusting such spurious notions to the letter of the history. But an instance, vi^hich is still more pertinent to the present case, is that of the noble-hearted Origen, the most accomplished and learned of the Fathers, and a martyr too. When Origen allegorised, it was not because his own turn of mind was fanciful and his genius inventive, for it was not so, although this has often been said ; but because he was driven into myths by the dire necessity, as he thought, of escaping from the historical sense of the patriarchal narratives, which so greatly shocked his hyper-spiritual tastes. He did not reject the Hebrew Scriptures as if their Divine origination were questionable : far was he from falling into this impiety ; but he put upon the language of the Bible histories a non-natural meaning for the saving of his rehgious fastidiousness. Dr. Colenso, moved in a similar manner, steps boldly forward in an opposite direction, and he denies, not only the inspiration of the Mosaic books, but their historic value. It is on this ground that we should look to the quality of the reasoning on the strength of which he ON THE PENTATEUCH. 31 has risked so much, and has risked it in so hurried a manner. Of what quality, then, are those reasonings on the strength of which Bishop Colenso has risked so much, and has risked it so inconsiderately ? I must briefly say they are of that quahty which, in the long run, will not fail to establish and to confirm the very conclusions they are intended to destroy. It may be shown — and, so far as this may be done within the compass of a few pages, I hope to show it — that several of the exceptions to the Mosaic history upon which Dr. Colenso insists, and which he goes about to esta- blish by his inapplicable calculations, are precisely of the kind which a mind of more grasp and compre- hension would seize upon as the most significant evidences of the truthfulness of that history, and especially as indications of its contem/poraneoumess. Only let the case in hand be removed from the shelter of religious jurisdiction — let the suit be carried down into the open court of secular historic criticism, and then it will become manifest that the pleas of the plaintiff (or several of them) are con- vertible in an opposite sense, and may be laid hold of by the counsel for the defence. Por making good this counter plea, it will be requisite to call attention to those characteristics of the people whose history is in doubt, which are so much the more deserving 32 CONSIDERATIONS of regard because we catch them incidentally in following that history through the long track of forty centuries. These remarkable characteristics of the Hebrew race may not always have received the attention that is due to them, as affording a key to some Biblical problems ; and yet, in taking them into account, we do nothing more than what is done, in like cases, on other fields of historical inquiry. But how is it that it can be needful to remind a highly-educated man of these elementary and well- known principles? An answer cannot be given to this question without adverting to the fact that a narrowness of view — a sideway blindness — right and left — has often been the misfortune of those who have signalised their ability on single lines of mathe- matical science. Very eminent minds have shown this want of breadth or grasp. Such men may be mathematicians, but philosophers they are not: and so it is that the same quality which constitutes their eminence while they are on the single path which they tread, shows itself only as pedantry whenever they step off from that path. Men of this order are peculiarly unfitted for conducting inquiries of a mixed historic kind, and which should embrace a knowledge of human nature not only as it is reported in books, but also as it is to be learned in the open world. The author of this volume is not only singularly limited in his range of sight, but he appears (judging him only by his book) incapable of estimating the relative magnitude of objects in the moral world. Sensitive ON THE PENTATEUCH. 23 he is in a most extreme degree (we are used to apply the term morbid to this kind of irritable vitality) ; but as to that consciousness of a loftier and calmer sort which apprehends and which takes to, the true and sublime in the world of action, it is out of his range. A narrow range of vision, when combined with sensitive impulsiveness, is sure to bring with it much argumentative confusion. A writer of this order is seen to be forgetting what it is that he intends to reach as his conclusion ; or, as we colloquially say, he * does not know what he would be driving at.' Much of the reasoning of this volume would be quite proper, if the author's single object were to show the necessity of a relaxation of the terms of Clerical subscription ; and other portions of it would be fairly admissible in contravention of certain doctrines concerning the mode and the extent of the Inspiration of the Scrip- tures ; but scarcely any of it is appropriate if it be intended to prove that the so-called Pentateuchal history is ' non-historical and untrue.' If it be not true, and consequently if it is not inspired, and if, as a further consequence, we — as the Bishop says we may be — are relieved from the ' incubus ' of religious apprehensions in dealing with it, and are freed from superstitions of all kinds, then, clearly, the matters in question are to be dealt with according to the rules and practices of historic criticism, and in no other manner ; they are not to be treated intermixedly — sometimes as if we had an Inspired Book under our hands, and then in the next moment, as if it were the 24 CONSIDERATIONS fabrication of some unknown and ignorant writer. Here, then, I demand argumentative consistency. Choose your ground once for all, and keep to it. As an instance of the confusion that besets the way of one who is not yet reconciled to his own inferences, and who is haunted by a fear that the matters he is treating so freely are, perhaps, after all, invested with divine authority, we may adduce the marvellous argument set forth in the fourth chapter, on the dimensions of the Tabernacle, and of the Court in the midst of which it stood. We are told in the Book of Leviticus, chapter viii. that " the assembly was gathered unto the door of the Tabernacle of the Congregation." But this would be impossible ! no such thing could be done — here is a milKon of people, or more, to be crammed into a space that is barely sufficient for fifty ! Eager to demonstrate this impossibility, I snatch my slate and slate-pencil ; nor shall I fail to make good my case against Moses, against the Pentateuch, and against what not besides ; for I have twenty instances that are of the same solid quality in store. What is it that can be said in reply to reasoning of this quality ? Nothing can be said, unless one might be free to trench upon the decorum that is due to a dignitary of the Church. It is certain that if I had opened upon this very chapter in an anonymous boolc, I should have closed it the next moment, with the exclamation, ' When will pedantry and impertinence have spent themselves in these frivolous assaults upon the Bible ? ' ON THE PENTATEUCH. 25 Julius Csesar does not anywhere affirm that, on a certain occasion, he had marshalled five Roman legions in a kitchen garden. But if, in fact, the author of the Commentaries had affirmed anything of this sort, the mode of dealing with the difficulty thence arising would not be, either — on the one hand, to discard so distinct and so grave a narrative as false and unhis- torical, or— on the other hand, to go about laboriously calculating the area of the largest Roman garden of which we have any account ; as, for example, that of the younger Pliny, and then to reckon how many Roman soldiers, allowing a square yard to each, might possible/ have stood upon the space. To take any such course as this, in any parallel instance, would be, if it were not sheer folly — sheer pedantry. If a writer's manner is uniformly grave and prosaic ; if, in speaking of things which were familiarly known to his contemporaries, and if, in describing natural objects, or buildings, or enclosures, he is at once distinct, brief, and elliptical; if, in a word, the document bears upon it the well-known characteristics of genuineness, reality, and honest intention ; and if we find in such a document some affirmation which is not intelligible in the sense in which, at first, we read it ; if it be so, then our resource is found in common-sense and mo- desty. Supposing, first, the Text to be uncorrupt, then we assume it as certain that the phrases which, as they stand, need explanation, carried a conventional mean- ing, with which we of this age are not acquainted. Or otherwise — and this is always a probable supposition — 26 CONSIDERATIONS that certain modes of action, certain usages, proper to ancient and Oriental peoples, but long ago forgotten, or strange to Western notions, would, if known, re- move every shadow of difficulty from the passage : five words, perhaps, if we had them, might be enough, or more than enough, to dispel the cloud ; or even one word might suffice for this purpose. I undertake to prove that the Koran, as we have it, is a forgery — I see it must be the work of an ignorant Western monk. How so ? I thus prove it — this Koran enjoins daily and abundant ablutions upon all followers of the Prophet, beside many washings on special occa- sions; but now, if the writer had indeed been an Oriental — if he had been a true son of the desert, he would have known that these wanderers in the wilderness spend their days mostly in a waterless waste : weeks pass in which they scarcely see water. What is to become, then, of these daily ablutions ? One word is here enough to open up the mystery — sand! when no water is to be had, these washings are effected with sand. It is true that Mahomet does explicitly allow this substitution, but the objector might not have hit upon the passage. The ground of this degree of critical modesty is rea- sonable, and indeed without it our path through the tangled ways of antiquity would be quite impracti- cable ; and if I did not fear bringing upon myself also the imputation of pedantry, I should be fain to fill many pages of this pamphlet with instances in point, drawn from the prolegomena, and the foot- notes of the great critical annotators upon the historic ON THE PENTATEUCH. 27 remains of antiquity; this sort of illustration must be here omitted. In truth, if it were adduced, there is no doubt a scholar-like man, such as Dr. Colenso, would indignantly say — ' We know all this — this is school-boy stuff, why thrust it upon us in a grave argument ? ' Why, indeed, unless it should appear that this accomplished writer shows himself to be forgetful now of what once he must well have known. But how does he go about to prove that the Pentateuchal history is false ? He is careful to tell us that the whole width of the Tabernacle was ten cubits or eighteen feet, and that allowing two feet in width for each full-grown man, nine men could just have stood in front of it. Supposing then that all the congrega- tion of adult males in the prime of life had given due heed to the Divine summons, and had hastened to take their stand, side by side as closely as possible, in front, not merely of the door, but of the whole end of the Tabernacle in which the door was, they would have reached, allowing eighteen inches between each rank of nine men, for a distance of more than 100,000 feet — in fact, nearly twenty miles I The painstaking author then goes on to calculate the area of the Court of the Tabernacle, and gravely asks how we can make standing room for so many myriads of men in this court, who in truth, in any mode of packing, must have reached nearly four miles ! The area of the court, he says, was 1,800 square yards, but the whole congregation would have covered an area of 201,180 square yards ! He thus concludes this 28 CONSIDERATIONS unanswerable demonstration, and says — * It is incon- ceivable how, under such circumstances, all the assembly, the whole congregation, could have been summoned to attend at the door of the Tabernacle by the express command of Almighty God.' It follows therefore — and Bishop Colenso is sure of it — that the so-called books of Moses are of no historic value, and that the Bible is, as he says, ' largely infused with human elements of error, infirmity, passion, and ignorance.' Neither miracle, nor arithmetic, nor nonsense, needs to be brought in to solve a problem of this sort. I should think it a folly to enter upon counter calculations, in- tended to show how many men might possibly be brought in front of the door of the Tabernacle. Or I might argue on the probable suggestion that the hangings of the Court of the Tabernacle — called ' fine twined linen,' were in fact a net-work, allowing the outstanding people to be spectators of whatever was enacted within the court. But I should think time and pains ill-spent in any such wiry argumentation. If just now some quite new suggestion were to turn up, and were spoken of as sufficient and complete, there is no doubt I should listen to it; but I should not eagerly listen to it, nor listen to it with any sort of religious anxiety. I do not much care whether this mountain is moved out of my path or not. If at last I should be persuaded to throw away my Bible, or should come to think of it after Dr. Colenso's fashion, it will not be at the bid- ding of arguments, which I resent as not more ON THE PENTATEUCH. 29 irreligious than they are frivolous, nugatory, and pre- posterous. I must return to this instance further on. But it may be well to adduce one other example of this same species of reasoning ; and it should be borne in mind that Dr. Colenso's course of argument is not placed before us as probable suggestions ; for, from beginning to end, it is a strict demonstration : it is a chain, which is either good for everything — or else it is good for nothing. I think it is good for nothing ! In his fifth chapter Dr. Colenso affirms — and he says he can prove it — that no man — whether it were Moses, or Joshua, or some other, could make himself heard, at one time, by two or three millions of people ! Only think of what is implied in any such supposi- tion as this ! ' Surely,' he says, ' no human voice, unless strengthened by miracle, of which the Scrip- ture tells us nothing, could have reached the ears of a crowded mass of people, as large as the whole population of London : ' and moreover he reminds his readers of the fact — a fact which no paterfamilias will be likely to deny, that the mere crying of the babies in such an assemblage ' must have sufficed to drown the sounds (of a single human voice) at only a few yards' distance.' Is not this demonstration ? does one need to be skilled in Hebrew — that ' diffi- cult language ' — before one can feel the overwhelming force of it ? To this instance also I must revert. In the next chapter the author again goes into his irresistible arithmetic in proof of his position that 30 CONSIDERATIONS the Mosaic narrative is altogetlier unhistorical. As thus : * we cannot well allow for a living man with room for his cooking, sleeping, and other necessaries and conveniencies of life, less than three or four times the space required for a dead one in his g-rave, and even then the different ages and sexes would be very disagreeably crowded together.' But the Bishop is reasonable in his postulates, and therefore, in measuring out the Hebrew necropolis in the wil- derness, he is content to reckon at the moderate rate, for a full-grown man, of a coffin measuring six feet by two feet. What, then, are the priests — three men only, to do, whose duty it was to carry the refuse of the sacrifices beyond the limits of the camp, and of the necropolis, and all ? I need not quote the para- graphs that follow. If this mode of reasoning is valid at all, less than a tenth part of it would be more than enough. Por brevity sake, I here refer to calcula- tions of the same order, occurring at some dis- tance in this volume. Thus chapter twenty treats of the number of the priests at the Exodus, compared with their duties, and the provision made for them. It was impossible, he says, that three men — Aaron and his two sons, should have performed offices for which three hundred would barely have been enough. I have already expressed my feeling, prompted by the perusal of this book, that Bishop Colenso, strict and demonstrative as he is on a single line of reason- ing, is entirely wanting in that breadth of mind or philosophic comprehension which his argument calls ON THE PENTATEUCH. 31 for, and without which nothing can be done on the field of historic criticism. Much less can any good be done on this field by one who is at once frightened and angry, and who hastens onward tlu-ough the narrow, briary lane of his figures in the manner of a man that has seen a ghost, and is afraid to turn his head, right-hand or left-hand, lest he should again catch a glimpse of the goblin. I now take the leave which he gives me to stand excused from all restraints of religious dread or super- stitious reverence for the Bible. This liberty is what I would wish for in taking in hand the nugatory reasoning of which we have samples now before us. The books of the Pentateuch, thus made to stand on their own merits, are to be taken as the memorials of the Birth — -first, of a Feople, and then — of a Nation. No memorials altogether comparable to these have come down from ancient to modern times. In so far as these documents are in analogy with parallel docu- ments, they work into adjustment with all that we know of Oriental antiquity, and of human nature everywhere. But in so far as they differ from all such instances, the difference is a difierence available in proof of their reality, their genuineness, their authen- ticity : it is so by reason of the gravity and exactness of the matters at large, and of the matters in detail. A perusal of these books — the so-called Mosaic archives, carries, in minds not debilitated by sophisms, an irresistible conviction of truthfulness : there is a majesty here, before which we bow. Just now I have 32 CONSIDERATIONS been persuaded to lay aside my superstition — my feel- ings of religious awe. I have done so; I liave brought these venerable writings into fresh and sharp contrast with other documents or memorials of antiquity, with which I am not unacquainted. It is impossible to me, when looking at them in this cold and ' dry light,' to imagine that I have before me — what can it be ? — a vast congeries of inventions — a thousand Arabian tales — a conglomerate of the vapid extravagancies of base spirits, busy in contriving a fraud ! There is nothing in this world — there is nothing in all history that is real, if, indeed, I have not in these books what I have here affirmed — namely, the various, yet the coherent and consecutive, memorials and the authentic documents of the Birth of a Nation, as to its civil and its religious institutions. But if now we have before us the polity and the institutions, religious and secular, of a Great People, this question presents itself — What the People was as to its native characteristics ? And this other question must also be answered — In the use of what methods are we to reach our conclusions concerning it ? Often and often again have the Hebrew people been judged of on the partial ground of our ordinary religious as- sumptions concerning them ; and also on the ground of irreligious and malignant assumptions. But these estimates, framed on either of these grounds, are now to be kept out of sight ; and assuredly if religious superstitions are to be discarded, so also should we ^ib,- card irreligious prejudices, and these haunt the region. ON THE PENTATEUCH. 33 A nation, whether ancient or modern, can be fairly judged of in no other manner than by instituting some comparisons. Looked at, when brought into position side by side with other races or peoples that were its contemporaries (if we can find such), what face does it show ? — what are the recurrent characteristics of the stock ? These features of the people are to be looked for, not in the formal encomiums of its own writers, or in the reports of its applauded his- torians; nor yet shall we be content to take our notions from the calumnies of its enemies. The characteristics of a Race will best be gathered from the unintended representations which come up to the surface again and again in its history, and which are marked in its institutions, and which give a colour to the mass of documents that constitute its authentic literature, through the lapse of centuries. Scarcely any risk of material error attends a method of this kind ; and, in fact, it has been pursued with- out scruple in modern times, and its results have been fully admitted in relation to each of the foremost nations of antiquity. These modern judgments as to Greece and Rome are now worn subjects. But our western and modern civilization has received its im- pulse, not from Greece and Rome only, but from the ancient people of Palestine also, and indeed from these last mainly. This inherited influence has not been confined to the impartation of a Religion; for the Hebrew mind has entered very largely among the con- stituents of our secular civilization, and its presence D 34 CONSIDERATIONS may be traced where least we might imagine it to exist. This suffused influence needs only to be pointed out to be recognised ; and, just now, there is a need that it should be recognised. It is trite to say that the Hellenic people, and these without a rival, possessed the Instinct of Symmetry and the consciousness of Beauty. This prerogative of the race developed itself, not only in matchless works of Art — in its Sculpture and its Architecture, but also in its Abstract and Specidative Philosophy. Symmetry in PoRM, on the one hand, and Symmetry in Thought, on the other hand — these were the two excellent pro- ducts of the one endowment of the Race. It is also trite to say that the Roman stock — whence- soever derived — signalized itself in a wholly diflerent manner. The Race-endowment of the Roman People was the Instinct of Order — order JDynamic, and this distinction evolved itself in the several modes of admi- nistrative ability. The outspeak of this gift was com- mand ; — its passion was power ; — ^its means was mili- tary organization, and its result was extended empire. In thus following the method of comparison, we find the distinctive characteristic of the Hebrew Race — the Stock out of which the Nation at length rose to be — the Instinct of Order; not dynamic, as the Roman, but Statical Order ; and, as such, it has suffused itself in different degrees among the modern European nations. This Instinct of datical Order, as the endowment of the Hebrew Race, the evidences of which are marked and unquestionable, evolved itself in its clanship, carried ON THE PENTATEUCH. 35 out with a rigorous adherence to its principle ; and also in adjustments, and in administrative managements, and in fitnesses, either among material objects, or in the constantly recurrent operations of life ecclesiastical, or life secular. Order in position^ order in daily ob- servances : order was the law of a tranquil, a peaceful, a regulated and unambitious perpetuity. Thus it stood contrasted with the Roman dynamic order, the law of which was restlessness, onward movement, and progress. May we here look back for a moment toward the ancestry of our European (and especially of our English) life — our life intellectual, our life practical, our life aesthetic, and our life social and domestic. The Hellenic Instinct has its extant vouchers among us, in whatsoever we do for satiating the lust of the eye ; and also in whatsoever we say and write for satiating the appetite of the higher reason. As to the Roman Instinct, the extant vouchers of its existence among us are to be found in the voluminous facts of a foreign domination, upon which the sun never sets. As to the instinct of statical order, which had its first de- velopment in the ancient Palestine, it shows itself in the settled habitudes and decorums of our social life, in the seemly reverences of our religious life, in our firm class distinctions, in our aristocratic manners and sentiments, in our fixed conservatism, and in our strong monarchical preference. Enough, or more than enough, has been written in illustration of the well- understood characteristics of the Grecian and of the Roman mind. There may, how- D 2 36 CONSIDERATIONS ever, be room for a page in illustration of what is here affirmed concerning the equally well-defined charac- teristic of the Hebrew mind. I think, moreover, that if a due regard be paid to this less-worn subject, it will take efi'ect in disposing of most of the nugatory exceptions which are now set in array against the truth and reality of the Mosaic records. Five or six, at least, of the difficulties which show so formidable a front in the view of Dr. Colenso, will thus be fairly disposed of at a sweep ; and if so, our responsibihty Avill be concluded as to a full half of his book. This or that narrative of events is, he says, incredible ; this or that institution, or mode of proceeding, must have been ' impossible ; ' and, therefore, the writings affirm- ing such things must be rejected as fabulous. Not so ; or not so to those who have freshness and freedom of thought enough to look at the Mosaic institutions, and generally at the Hebrew writings, under the open sky of universal history ; not so, if we have philoso- phic grasp enough to apprehend the fiational quality of this one People ; not so, if, in our habits of study, we have pushed inquiry beyond the biblical enclosure, and have learned whatever may be learned, or may be gathered, either from contiguous fields, or from sources of information of later date. You confidently tell us that certain operations — ecclesiastical or civil, must be rejected as impossible, or as insufferable, if possible. I cannot consent to think of things in this small and bookish manner ; for I am not uninformed concerning oriental modes of life : I have conversed with those ON THE PENTATEUCH. 37 who well know Egypt, and Palestine, and the East. I have come to understand that, in a hundred in- stances, the very thing which we might pronounce to be 'demonstrably impossible,' is, nevertheless, actually done ! Theory, and arithmetic, and prejudice in heaps, disappear as the chaff of the threshing-floor when the morning breeze sets everything in motion. Take now in hand, as if it were for the first time, the three Pentateuchal books — Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers ; or call these three books — one collection of the intermixed narratives, civil institutions, religious observances, and the therewith-connected descriptions of the Church structures and the appointments of the Hebrew people. While you examine these documents keep in mind the condition subject to which we are to pursue our inquiry. We say — if these institutions are from God, in the sense which is claimed on their be- half, and if the history be true in the same sense, then our controversy respecting the whole matter is at an end : — a verdict may be taken for the defendant ; and it must be for the plaintiff to pay the costs of the suit. But if otherwise, then, and in that case, these institutions, and these laws, and these religious ceremonials are from man; in other words, they represent the people, for they are of the people ; and, according to the admitted methods of historical criti- cism, they are available as vouchers for whatever they indicate as to the manners and dispositions of the race. It is manifest that, in whatever way so strange an event had come about, a vast multitude — mainly the 38 CONSIDERATIONS men of one race, but not wholly so — had come to spread itself up and down through the Wadys of the Sinaitic peninsula — a great multitude indeed, but it was not a crowd. This people, by the fixed usages of centuries, had long ago divided and subdivided itself, on the patriarchal platform, into clans, and these clans into families, and the chief of each clan had his subordinates, and each family had its head, and the head had his subalterns. Each separate tribe, consti- tuting this people, was swathed in ancestral loyalties — in its own traditions — in its rivalries. The mass was thoroughly an organic mass ; and the cementing prin- ciple possessed binding energy enough to aflford ample security against any wide-spread confusion or social dis- integration. Seditions might and did spring up here and there ; but there would not occur a national chaos. Recent national sufferings had imparted strength to every bond ; and, in a word, as if in preparation for the shocks and throes of the new life in the Desert, the Hebrew instinct of order — statical — had recently become intense in a degree that had not before been known. This people — and we need not now care to ask whether, with its camp followers, it was a million strong, or two millions, or was not nearly so many — this people had become wealthy — not in herds only, but in ail kinds of personal appointments. It possessed the costumes and the decorations of superfluous wealth. The mechanical and the decorative arts had long been in practice among them : quite familiar were they ON THE PENTATEUCH. 39 with the luxuries of an advanced material civilization ; and they were adepts in the laborious arts of common life. The moveable wealth of the people, and the appurtenances of rank, they had brought with them. As to the wealth they had created upon the Egyptian soil, they received from their masters a bare tithe of its value in jewellery. These were the visible or exterior conditions of this ousted multitude. But the people had also their inner habitudes, and these got expression in the tone and purport of those ordinances — in those regulations, mixedly rehgious and secular — in those forecasting appointments, which were to be carried out, years later, in a land of rest. In all these legal elements, whether sacred or civil, the Race- instinct makes itself manifest ; and thus also was it in the specialities, and in the measurements, and in the fitting of every hook to its eye, and of every cord to its pole, and of every vessel to its use, and of every movement to its moment — everything was in harmony with, and was an expression of, statical order. This might be proved at large, if space and time were just now at command. But now read the Book of Num- bers with this key in your hand ; and while keeping in view analogous instances, occurring in later histories, give licence for a moment to the imagination, while you bring before you, by the various aids of modern travel and of pictorial illustration, first, the Sinai tic scenery which the people were at this moment leaving ; and then the broad expanses of the northward table- land — the wilderness of Paran. I see, I see as if I were 40 CONSIDERATIONS carried back through the forty centuries — I see the host, for it is just now pushing its upward way through the passes of Jebel et Tih, and it is fanning itself out in a predetermined order, upon the flats of this upland. What I see is not a rout, is not a rabble, is not a promiscuous crowd or horde; it is not a deluge of struggling, countless human forms ; but it is a sample of what may be done in marshalling the millions of a people whose ?iative indinct is order, and whose daily habitudes render conformity thereto far more easy to them than confusion could be. " Who is this that looketli forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun — terrible as an army with banners ? " Thus I read the record — " When the Cloud rested in the wilderness of Paran, and the host took their journey according to the command- ment of the Lord, by the hand of Moses. In the first place went the standard of the camp of Judah, according to their armies; and over his host was Nashon, the son of Amrainadab " — and so, and so, on, and on, and on, in their turns, came all the tribes and families of Israel. " Thus were the journey ings of the sons of Israel, according to their armies, when they set forward." Now if such passages do not breathe the very life of reality — if they be not pre-eminently exact and his- torical, then there is nothing true, there is nothing real, in all the hundred folios upon which our modern industry has employed itself these three centuries past. Not only are these Pentateuchal records manifestly real and true, but they carry with them, to the conviction ON THE PENTATEUCH. 41 of every unsophisticated mind, that inimitable impres- sion of grandeur — that aspect of sublimity which no art can counterfeit, and which arises of itself to accom- pany, and to signahze, those notable occasions when the movements of vast multitudes of the human family are seen to be governed, in tranquil silence, by an instinctive sense of order. Here now before us a Great People is outspreading its ranks — bright and banner- led, upon a scene fitting the action. The stony plain may vibrate far beneath the measured tread of these millions of men ; but as the Heaven above them is clear, and as the One Cloud sharply outlines itself against the burning azure, so are the human masses free from din and uproar, or confusion — One voice in front is listened to, and this is the utterance — — " And when the Ark set forward, Moses said — Rise up. Lord, and let thine enemies be scattered; and let them that hate thee flee before thee. And when it rested, he said— Return Lord, unto the many thousands of Israel." Again and again, in the course of centuries, indi- viduals — the representative men, as we say, of this Hebrew race, come out in the bright distinctness of familiar incidents ; and whenever this happens, there conies up to view this same distinction of the race — namely — this instinct of fitness. In citing two or more of these instances, I ask, and I have a pur- pose in asking it, that the well-known texts should be stripped of their religious phraseology, and that 42 CONSIDERATIONS the neological equivalents for these pious terras should be freely admitted in their stead. Let the reader make the substitution for himself — " And the Lord was with Joseph (a Hebrew youth) and he was a prosperous man, and his master saw that the Lord was with him, and that the Lord made all that he did to prosper in his hand . . . and his master made him overseer over his house, and all that he had he put into his hand." But this blameless slave was soon the victim of calumny and malice: he lost his stewardship, but not his nature. This inborn gift of administrative abihty — this serviceable tact — this genius for doing things in the very best manner — this faculty which we all welcome so gladly, when it comes in to do its office in some scene of confusion — this prerogative of the race showed itself as if it had been a natural phospho- rescence, and soon it gladdened the dismal walls of a prison. As it had been in the mansion, so it was in the dungeon, for " the keeper of the prison looked not to anything that was under his hand, because the Lord was with Joseph, and that which he did the Lord made it to prosper," — and, as in the prison, so was it in the palace, and Pharaoh said unto his servants, "can we find such a one as this is — a man in whom the Spirit of God is?" And thus this Hebrew youth came to be clad royally, and went forth throughout all the land of Egypt to order all things at his will, " to bind (its) princes at his pleasure, and teach its sena- tors wisdom." The lapse of a thousand years finds the Hebrew men ON THE PENTATEUCH. 43 who also are captives, serving the great and noble in a strange land — always the same men, and they are sought after, and are put in authority, because "there were none like them" among a hundred rivals; so we read ; " then the king made Daniel a great man, and gave him many gifts, and made him ruler over the whole pro- vince of Babylon, and chief of the governors over all the wise men of Babylon." Years afterwards he was still noted at Court " as the man in whom was the spirit of the holy gods ; " and still later, this Daniel was preferred above the presidents and princes, be- cause an excellent spirit — that is to say, the facvlty of administrative management was in him, " and the king thought to set him over the whole realm." Facts, incidentally mentioned, yet all bearing the same meaning, as illustrative of the national faculty, might be brought forward from the histories of the Priest Ezra, and of the Prince Nehemiah. The book of Ezra, after its preamble, gives significant evidence to the same effect, for it contains — enumerations — catalogues — inventories ; and these are precisely the sort of documents which attach always to the doings of those who are eminently men of order. Thus runs the record — " thirty chargers of gold, etc., nine-and- twenty knives ; all the vessels of gold and of silver were five thousand and four hundred." Then follows the muster-roll of the people of the captivity that re- turned to their land ; and in genuine style — the people and their modes of action considered, the catalogue includes the horses, the mules, the camels, and the 44 CONSIDERATIONS asses of the caravan. The spirit of managemeiit — the practicable assortments — the appointments in detail of the persons and their duties, everything speaks of that prevalence of method which now is what we have in view, and a knowledge of which is the key to a large part of the Pentateuchal history. I may not fill the pages of a pamphlet with chap- ters from the Bible; instead of this I ask the reader — I ask any of my lay -brethren, to turn to the third chap- ter of the book of Nehemiah, and to say whether we are not rightly interpreting the various documents of this people — the memorials of their brighter days, and the memorials of their darkest days, in the sense I am now affirming : it was a people instinct with the feeling, and habituated to the practice of fitness — it was a people which, refractory and obdurate as it might be in its moods, conformed itself always, ivitli a natural ease, to every arrangement, the end of which was to secure a silent decorum in ceremonies, and a good issue in the most arduous and hazardous operations. Thus I interpret Nehemiah's narrative of the arrangements made for rebuilding the walls of the desolated city. Thus also I read the closing verses of the fourth chap- ter, and thus I read also those passages of the eighth chapter — vividly historical as they are, and applicable too in refutation of some of the nugatory exceptions that now are bolstered up on futile calculations. Many instances, available for the same purpose, must be passed over ; they will occur to the recollec- tion of every Bible reader. Others must also be ON THE PENTATEUCH. 45 omitted which arise in the course of the history of the Jewish people during the centuries intervening between the close of the Old, and the opening of the New dispensation. As to some which are adducible from the Rabbinical literature — earlier and later, they have a meaning in relation to the present argument which well entitles them to a brief, but emphatic notice, further in this argument. {See Notes.) We open the New Testament, and with this same idea in view, we look to the manner of action, and to the demeanour, on peculiar occasions, of Him of whom it is said, not only that He became man, and dwelt among us, but also that He " took on Him the seed of Abraham!' The Saviour of all nations was the man oihis own people ; and while full of that spirit of order which prevails in the highest Heaven, He gave evi- dence also — whenever the occasion called for it, of the national tact which was his as a Jew. When about to act as Creator in the fullest sense, even as when worlds were made, this Jesus was not unmindful of method. One Evangelist says — " He commanded the men to sit down, and there was much grass in the place ; " another adds this word—" to sit down by companies," and says, moreover, that the people sat down ** in ranks, by hundreds and by fifties, upon the green grass ; " another adds — " He said to his disci- ples, Make them to sit down by fifties in a company." In these instances there was present, not only a cer- tain mode of action in the Principal, for there was also the ready and native habitudes of the twelve 46 CONSIDERATIONS assistants ; and, moreover, there were the national habitudes of this hungry multitude. All things here show the same colour — all is properly Jewish. One may easily think of crowds or mobs — a hungry eight or ten thousand men, women, and children, as to whom the mere endeavour to marshal them in compa- nies— the telling off the bands — the making them all sit in line — the preserving of clear passages — these ad- justments would demand a miracle almost as great as the feeding them to the full : but it was not so in this Jewish multitude. And were not the fragments of food carefully gathered up, and stowed away, and the baskets counted ? Let leave be given to bring upon this page — and I do it with awe — one closing instance of that Jewish instinct of fitness and decorum which is the most remarkable that can be imagined. We are told that, on the morning of the resurrection, Peter saw the linen clothes lying — and the napkin that had been about the head " not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself."* If now these miscellaneous references to the people's history were not enough, they might be multiplied and set in array with care. I think they will seem enough for bearing up the inference I draw from them. From the very earliest age in which its cha- * Apart — folded, or rather rolled up — in its place. ON THE PENTATEUCH. 47 racteristic dispositions come into view, the Hebrew race and nation, and the Jewish people in continuance, were, as distinguished from other races, habituated to the fittest modes of conducting any pubhc, consen- taneous action ; and, moreover, that they were seldom, if ever, wanting in skilled leaders, who well knew how to give effect in the best manner to this excellent quality in their people. These chiefs were far-seeing and provident : in matters of detail they were exact ; in ceremonial they were tranquil, self-possessed, careful, and perhaps jealous, of established dis- tinctions : vividly alive were they to the reciprocal claims and duties of clanship. This was a people among whom, and with whom, operations the most difficult, or seemingly impracticable, would be matters of course, and always easy in the performance. Our inference at large is here divisible in two ; and by thus dividing it, it becomes more distinct and con- clusive : it affects, first, what must be called the legal stgle of the people's enactments ; and then the style, also, of their narrations of particular events, or public acts, as thus : — What we should expect to find as the prevaiHng style of the statutes, the ordinances, the regulative canons, whether civil or ecclesiastical, of a people whose inherited dispositions were of the sort which we find to be characteristic of this race, is this : namely, that a rule will be conveyed in its most condensed or comprehensive terms — omitting those adaptations, in detail, which the settled habits of the people, and the stated modes of official persons, 48 CONSIDERATIONS would always supply : adaptations there would be room for in accordance with exigencies of time, place, and other inevitable limitations : — the rule is to be reasonably and necessarily understood. The law or the ordinance, in each instance, embodies the main purport — the intention — or the Jinal cause of the enactment. This final cause was ever to be kept in view. As to the mode or means of observance, the good sense of the officials, and the national apti- tudes of the people, might safely be relied upon for fitting the action to the occasion. In any instance, therefore, if we fail to find, in the Book of the Law, what may seem to ourselves a needful specification for the guidance of official persons, this very omission (to us moderns it may seem an omission) is what, if it be properly understood, should be taken as a con- clusive evidence of the genuineness of the document in which it occurs. In proof of the correctness of this mode of understanding the case, the traditions of the Rabbinical literature — the Talmud and Mishna — afibrd many illustrations, for some samples of which I shall find room in a note. Thus far as to the Ordinances of the Pentateuchal Books. An analogous application of the same prin- ciple in explanation of the brevity and the elliptical style of the Pentateuchal Histories will go far to aid us in finding a solution of the problems (or puzzles, rather) which have so easily robbed Dr. Colenso of his faith in the Scriptures. In the Mosaic narratives of great events, and of ON THE PENTATEUCH. 49 stated public transactions, what is given is — tlie iipshot of the action, or of the movement, or ceremonial. The things that are omitted are nothing else than those matters of course — those constant Hebrew modes of doing Avhat was done, with which this people had been immemorially familiar, and a formal mention of which would have been quite a redun- dance. Here, again, the very same instances which, in the view of Dr. Colenso, stand up as insurmount- able difficulties, or as conclusive reasons for treating the narrative as a fabrication, appear to me, and so I think they will appear to every calm-minded reader, as significant evidences of its truthfulness, and especially as proofs of the contemporaneousness of the document. If now the reader will please to accept these two rules of interpretation as warrantable, he will, I think, find that they furnish the key to each of the instances upon which Dr. Colenso insists in his own demon- strative manner, as thus : — The historic meaning of the passage upon which, in his fourth chapter, he dwells with so much eager intensity, is very clear ; or, if it were not clear, it could not be taken as an evidence of falsification or of spuriousness, for it is not of that quality ; it is only (if it be not under- stood) a solecism, or it is an idiom of which the equivalent is not now extant — non hahcnt lexica — that is all we are entitled to say of it, at the worst. But in fact, the real meaning is conspicuous. The consecration of Aaron and his sons to their high 50 CONSIDERATIONS functions in the service of the Tabernacle was not to be a matter of the conclave — it was not to be an affair that should be enacted with closed doors. On the contrary, the laity at large — even the princes of the people — the heads of clans and of famihes, were to have cognizance, in the freest manner, of what Moses, on the part of Jehovah, was to do in setting apart his brother and nephews to this function — a function which was to be hereditary and incommunicable. "■ And the assembly was gathered together at the door of the Tabernacle of the congregation." In what mode and order this was done, we are not informed, nor need we care much to inquire. The chiefs of the people, and their subalterns, also, knew well what they were about ; and the people under their guidance knew, also, in what way they should answer to the call, and how they should follow the banner of their tribe. The substantial purpose was effected — the consecration of the Aaronic family was partici- pated in by the Great Ecclesia. All was therefore valid and authentic ; and a record of this transaction — an entry, accordingly, is made in the very heart of the ordinance thereto relating. If now I could have any doubt — which in fact I cannot admit, that this is the proper historic interpretation of the pas- sage in question, I should turn for confirmation of it to those places in the Rabbinical writings where the Hebrew modes of managing public acts are set forth with tedious speciality. But if this method be reasonable, then what place is found for Dr. Colenso's ON THE PENTATEUCH. 51 calculation about the eighteen feet and the twenty miles, and the so forth? This array of arithmetic, so unwisely insisted upon, seems to me more frivolous than anything that is the most puerile in the Rabbi- nical expositions. Take another instance, which is the next in order of these formidable applications of school arithmetic to Biblical interpretation. It is set forth in the fifth chapter of this volume : — (I have already referred to it, but must bring it forward anew for a moment.) It is asked — How could Moses or Joshua make him- self heard by two or three millions of people ? — only think of any one haranguing the population of the metropolitan districts ! — impossible ! If impossible, then we may be sure it was not done. Nevertheless, that was done which had been really embraced in the intention of the Divine command ; and which, moreover, the established usages of the people made practicable and easy. " Moses called all Israel and said unto them ; " and again, " Joshua read before all the congregation of Israel, with the women, and the little ones, and the strangers that were conversant among them, all the words of the law, the blessings and the cursings according to all that which is writ- ten in the Book of the Law." To a mind that is in a healthy condition — indeed, to any mind not labouring under a dangerous infatua- tion, these archaic passages, recommended as they are by the very tone of reality and truth, barely ask the aid of the expositor. The intention is manifest; and there e2 52 CONSIDERATIONS are counterpart passages, occurring in the midst of the narrative, which well expound the other, in put- ting before us what was the Divine purpose in these instances. There was to be an oral instruction of the people — none excepted — in that law in the faithful ob- servance of which stood their welfare as a nation, and as individual men. This publication of the Law, first, under the canopy of heaven, was to be followed up by a practice of domestic instruction so extensive, and of such penetrative force as must (had it been adhered to) have secured to the people at large, and to each member of this national Church, their permanent welfare, secular and spiritual. " So shall it be well with thee. And these words which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart, and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes ; and thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates." With this passage before me, I could easily furnish Dr. Colenso with notes for a supplementary chapter to his book on the Pentateuch. Write the Law of Moses on the posts of a house-door? — impossible^! The utmost extent that can be allowed for the door- posts of the Jewish houses is not more than — how many square inches? It is true that the Lord's prayer and the commandments have been written ON THE PENTATEUCH. 53 within the compass of a silver penny. But is it really intended that the whole of three or four books of the Pentateuch should be thus microscopically inscribed upon Jewish door-posts ? If written so small as this, who could read them ? We conclude, therefore, that the books containing impracticable injunctions such as these, are worthy of no regard ! Listen to these grave and impressive passages in another and a better mood : — they are historical, if there be anything historical among the memorials of past ages. These passages, stamped as they are with sacredness, are also eminently 7iational. This is in- deed Hebrew of the Hebrews ; and these injunctions have passed down, woven into the manners and the traditions of this stereotype race, even to these last days : — the sjnrit of them too much forgotten — the letter too slavishly observed. In any instance in which either the oral instruction of the people, or the people's participation in solemn acts of worship is in question, it is enough for us, at this distance of time, to know that arrangements, fitting the occasion, managements, effective marshallings of the people, and whatever else of this sort might be needed, was quite the faculty or gift of this race, of which we have many significant indications, occurring at re- mote intervals, in its history. The books of Ezra and Nehemiah afford abundant evidence to this effect — that the people of the captivity had retained, in undiminished force, the national habitudes of admi- nistrative order. 54 CONSIDERATIONS The sixth chapter of Dr. Colenso's book furnishes proof — this volume being the work, not of an ilhterate infidel, but of an educated clergyman — that the writer is labouring under an infatuation which blinds him to the most obvious facts; he writes in the hurried manner of one who is driven forward by an impulse he cannot command. This shows itself in his citations, faulty often in the letter, and faulty, also, by the omission of what, in the context, would have removed his difficulty. In this chapter, for instance, he cites JosEPHUS, Ant. iii. 12, 5. The citation itself I should confidently appeal to as an evidence (so far as Josephus may be listened to) of that orderliness and of that perfection in arrangement upon which I have insisted above. But now, if Dr. Colenso had looked a little way up and down on the very page whence he draws this quotation, he would have seen another passage (Cap. xii. 3), which gives us a clue to the Mosaic ceremonial law throughout. Josephus says that so much of this Ritual Institute as was practicable in the wilderness, and which could be carried out while the Tabernacle itself was, sometimes fixed, sometimes in movement, was, indeed, then and there observed. But whatever therein could not then and there be carried out, was held in abeyance, awaiting the time when the people should have reached their expected rest. This is quite answer enough to the arithmetical inanities of the sixth chapter. But answers of another sort are available also, of which I shall offer a sample or two in a note. The Rabbinical writings abound in proofs ON THE PENTATEUCH. 55 of that adaptative skill, often carried to the extreme of frivolous ingenuity, which was characteristic of the Jewish people. I spare myself the unpleasing task of following the disagreeable absurdities of page 39, nor do I think it needful here to bring forward the Mishna to confound the Bishop. Precisely where he sees a ' convincing proof of the unhistorical character of the whole narrative/ 1 see a convincing proof of its authenticity, and of the genuineness of the documents in which passages of this kind occur. I may not give expression to the feeling excited by the passage beginning, ' In that case the offal,' &c. . . . But a word must be said which is applicable at large to those of Dr. Colenso's difficulties which bear upon the Mosaic Sacrificial Institute, as a manijpulatwe ceremo- 7iial. These mimnderstandings, which we should have regarded only as proofs of ignorance in an anonymous writer, occur in Chapters VI., XX., and XXI. The Sacrificia-L Institute is the very centre, and it is the Reason, and it is the Final Cause of the Mosaic Dispensation. It is this which connects the ancient Dispensation with the later Covenant, of which Christ himself was the centre. A deep-felt repugnance to this Primary Truth displays itself, either by insinuation, or in explicit affirmations, throughout the Avritings of those modern theologians among whom Dr. Colenso would, I presume, take his place. Can it be imagined — asks a learned writer — can it be imagined that the Almighty Father should enjoin, or should give instructions concerning, the slaughter of animals ! 56 CONSIDERATIONS Not only may it be imagined, but it may be proved as a fact, and the reality of this fact might be shown by copious and continuous evidences. Those (and there are some such among the un- learned Laity) who have long given attention to subjects of this kind, are well aware of passages in Josephus, in Aristeas, in Philo, in the Mishna, and in later Rabbinical books, which have received unlooked- for confirmation in the course of recent explorations of the site of the Jewish Temple — I mean the substruc- tures of the Haram. This is a large subject, and it is full fraught with meaning : here, I can but allude to it in passing. I have just above affirmed that the Jewish people were eminent in administrative ability — may I use the colloquial phrase, and call it — cleverness in management ? they were adroit in what is manipulative. There is now at hand unquestionable incidental evidence available to this effect. The Sacrificial Ritual, if carried out according to the Mosaic Institute, has been re- garded by certain modern critics as an impracticable affair. Not so when it was in the hands of those whose vocation for life was to give effect to it. In the structure of the temple, and in its substructures, and in its moveable appointments, and in the ordering of the alternating bands of assistant ministers, and in those oriental bodily habitudes also, which Western nations cannot imitate, the o;pus of the sacrifices — daily and annual, was facilitated to a degree which we, in our stiff habits of thinking, may imagine to be impracticable. ON THE PENTATEUCH. 57 On this grave subject I will risk the expression of a belief which I have long entertained. The Mosaic Sacrificial Institute — I mean the daily and the annual shedding of blood, in token of that one blood-shedding, by which provision is made for our redemption, was (I will profess to think so) in prospect ages before the human period ; even at that time when the mountains were lifted up from the deep, and when the hills were fashioned. There is no spot on earth that resembles, in its geological structure, this one sacrificial spot ; there is no hill elsewhere to be found which is so related as this is to a deep and distant reservoir of nitric brine : there is no rising elsewhere to be found which has the same unaccounted-for and unfailing supply of water — vSaros Be aveKXenrros ean (rvcrraa-ts — and that which God had prepared when the hills were moulded, man, in his time, did 'Well and amply make available for the accomplishment of a purpose far deeper than any which the human mind could have imagined. When I now read passages which, years ago, I read with indifference, and collate these passages with the results and issues of the most recent explora- tions, it is with a profound feeling to this effect — that He who of old spake by Moses, has so ordered the course of events — even in these last times, as that the PRINCIPAL Truth of Scripture should receive in- cidental, but convincing confirmation of this pecuKar sort. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews says — " And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no 58 CONSIDERATIONS remission ; " and thus also is it written — " Now once in the end of the world hath (Christ) ap- peared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself/' The Sacrificial Ritual which Moses, as a faithful servant, instituted in the wilderness, and which was enacted there imperfectly during the forty years* wanderings, was afterwards enacted in the conquered Palestine, so far as might be practicable under the pre- carious conditions of that unsettled time. Much more fully did it come into act in a later time ; and more fully, yet with necessary modifications, in the times of the monarchy. But at length the sins of the people, and of their kings, brought this service to a pause. Nevertheless, at the very earliest moment of the return of the repentant people to their city, this shedding of the blood of victims was resumed ; and so was it continued until the last day of doom, when, while the City and the Temple were in flames, the priests — still faithful to their duty — fell slain beside the altar, while accom- plishing the last bloody sacrifice that should ever send its fumes heavenward. But neither the Roman con- queror, with his super-imposed temple of Venus, nor the levellings of the ^jlia Capitolina, nor the basi- licas of Christian emperors, nor the abortive endea- vours of Julian, nor the massive works of the Saracen, nor the reparations of the Crusaders, nor of the Turk, have gone deep enough to disturb those colossal memorials of the remote age of the Monarchy, when the requirements of the Sacrificial Ritual pre- vailed over all other requirements, in fitting the sacred ON THE PENTATEUCH. 59 site for the worship instituted by Moses. And it is now the antiquarian curiosity of travellers and residents that is bringing these long-buried memorials to light. Upon the field of universal history there are found Insulated "Facts, or alleged facts, the reality of which may be affirmed, or may be denied, without mate- rially disturbing the surrounding historic materials. The supposed event was, perhaps, of a signal kind; but yet it was neither the direct consequence of any known train of events, nor was it a germinative event, up to which, as its cause, must be traced wide- spreading and long-enduring results. I need not here adduce instances, which the well-informed reader will promptly call to mind. But there are other events — in the nature of the case they can be but a few compa- ratively — Avhich connect themselves, as causes, or as the radiating centres of political, or religious influence, with large masses of the subsequent fortunes of nations. It is manifest that the office and duty of historical criticism cannot be the same in dealing with these two classes of supposed facts. The insulated event, whatever may be its magnitude, may be established by proper evidences thereto relating; or it may be discharged from the page of authentic history, through the defectiveness of the evidence. " No true bill " has been found — and there is an end of the matter. It is quite otherwise when (jerminating events are in question, for if you reject these, or if you seriously call 60 CONSIDERATIONS in qiiestion tlieir reality, you have done only a half, or less than a half, of what it behoves you to do in such an instance. If indeed there was no William of Nor- mandy, and no landing of his knights on our shores, or no Charles Martel, or no Mahomet, or no Justinian, or no Charlemagne, then, when you have reduced these imagined substances to their proper condition as shadows, you must make good the large gaps which this destructive operation has occasioned. You must bring forward a reasonable and an intelligible hypo- thesis, which shall fit in to so many fragmentary facts. There are a thousand facts which are a ten thousand- times reflected in the mirror of the past, and these now stand before us uncaused, unaccounted for ; they are real, and yet they have sprung out of nothing. It is precisely this part of their task that has perplexed, and that now perplexes, those who reject Christianity. In his noted fifteenth and sixteenth chapters, Gibbon has immortalized his ingenuity while struggling in the fruitless endeavour to disengage Christianity from its true origin. And thus has it been in continuance to the present moment. Christianity is a vast congeries and complicity of facts ; it is the causal centre of numberless radiating lines ; it is the spring of thousands of streams. Remove it from its place, and the entire structure of modern history crumbles into dust ; — a chaos is left to us as our future inheritance on the wilds of time. After naming Christianity itself, which is the greatest of all germinating facts in the history of nations, then ON THE PENTATEUCH. 61 the next to be named in magnitude, and in the count- less multiplicity of the facts and influences therewith connected, as its results and consequences, is — THE GIVING OF THE LAW FEOM SINAI. The Promulgation of the Decalogue from the heights of Sinai, in the manner set forth in the Book of Exodus, stands before us as an instance that is better fitted than any other which might be named, as determinative of the question now moved within the Church, con- cerning the Reality of a Revelation, authenticated by supernatural attestations. On this ground I shall presume to challenge the attention of my lay brethren, and especially of those of them who are members, and thoughtful members, of the Church of England. If the Promulgation of the Law in Ten Commandments was — as we are now told it was — nothing more than an expression of an advanced and improved divine consciousness in man, and if the alleged attendant circumstances — that is to say, the Sinaitic scene — should be regarded as a splendid fiction — innocently contrived by the inspired Moses as a proper decoration — if it be so, then the healthful reason of the Church- going Laity of England will not be slow to draw the proper inference touching our faith in Christ. It is a circumstance highly significant as to the feeling of the author of the book ' on the Pentateuch, that, although he goes round about the Sinaitic scene, speaking largely of the events preceding it, and largely, also, of the events immediately subsequent thereto, he 62 CONSIDERATIONS observes silence on this principal subject. Is this ominous silence to be taken as an instance of the tender regard he has to the feeble consciousness of his religious readers ? This can scarcely be allowed ; for in a passage already cited, he has outraged religious feehng in a manner the most reckless ; he has there uttered the purile suggestions of an exploded rational- ism in terms of his own which are little short of blasphemy. But did he not himself quail — did not his foot falter, when, in thought of this last outrage, the pen, the hand, refused to do its office ? There needs no argument to show that, if the Pro- mulgation of the law from the heights of Sinai took place in the manner affirmed in the Mosaic books — if, indeed, then and there God spake these words '' from out of the thick darkness," and amid the blasts of the trumpet ; if it be so, then this descent of the Almighty — speaking to man, carries with it, as well the imme- diate antecedents of the event, as its more proximate conditions, and its next following consequences. If this history be true as to its central fad, it must be true also as to its indispensable conditions. The Sinaitic narrative must be true altogether, or it must be false altogether. But I ask a moment's attention to this narrative — as to the central fact. The most unmarked spot on earth's alluvial levels might have been chosen as the scene of the event of which we read in the nineteenth and twentieth chap- ters of the Book of Exodus. But it was otherwise ordered, and a group of mountains, remarkable beyond ON THE PENTATEUCH. 63 any other elsewhere found, was singled out as the fit- test for so great an occasion. Thus, therefore, it is that the enduring continuity of local traditions which gives a sort of indestructible vitality to the names of places, whether they be important or unimportant, has clustered upon this mountain mass with a peculiar strength, as if it should never come to be doubted where it was that the Eternal, the King Immortal Invisible, came down to hold converse — not as often heretofore, with favoured men apart and singly, but now with a People congre- gated to meet Him at His call. The stern sublimity of this group of precipices, its unchanging conditions, which neither man nor nature has afiected in the lapse of ages, have preserved, in its primaeval majesty, a scene which the modern traveller — devout or undevout, ac- knowledges as signally proper for the purpose, when a nation was summoned to appear before God. If an objector shall say — what you think of this geo- logical vastness, this granitic sublimity, this adaptation of the scenery to the occasion, is the indication only of the smallness of your modes of estimating magnitudes ; for what is Sinai in relation to the Infinite — what is it in the estimation of the Creator of the universe ? I may grant leave for this cavil ; the reply is this — that, if liberty of traversing this universe were given us, so that we might behold the central palace of Omnipotence, and might gaze upon magnitudes that are immeasur- able, and might see these heights of heaven blazing in the effulgence of a galaxy of suns, even then and there the same frigid reason would be equally applicable ; 64 CONSIDERATIONS inasmuch as things finite can bear no proportion to the attributes of the Infinite Being. Sinai, in its aspect as the Hebrew People saw it when it was crowned with the unquenchable fires, and such as the traveller now sees it, in its unchanging aspect of sterile majesty, is a scene proper for the purpose to which then it was made subservient. The Arabian spearman, as if Heaven had placed him there, has held watch around the heights of Sinai these thirty centuries and more ; and this guard has been conservative of the Sinaitic tradition. Through- out the ages of the Saracenic history, this fmiction- ary — whether intended or involuntary, has held the memory of the one event, as if in the freshness of a recent recollection. Yet more has the Law, spoken from Sinai, lived in the constant heart and in the obdu- racy, too — in the better nature, in the noble martyr strength, and also in the senile traditions, and in the daily habitudes, and in the ponderous literature, and in the speech of the people, whose ancestors then filled the wide plain at the foot of Sinai. It is the same people, immovable in mind, and now, as for ages past, a witness for God in all lands. Each Jewish heart is an enduring tablet whereupon the Sinaitic words are anew and anew written — as with the finger of God. A fact worthy to be noted it is, but to which in this place I must advert only in a line, that, from the very earliest time of the rise of the Christian ascetic and solitary life — that is to say — the meditative life ON THE PENTATEUCH. 65 in caves and sepulchres, Sinai has been its most favoured haunt; and the conventual hfe also has established itself upon the sides of these precipices ; and within the circuit of the Sinaitic group Christian hermits and Christian societies have dared all perils, and have endured all privations, so only that they might live and die — the guardians of the traditions of this hallowed region. Attach what value we please to this conservation — much or little — it has, in fact, availed to perpetuate an oral record of so great an occasion, with unbroken continuity, from the very times of the Exodus, to the now passing moment. It would be a fault not to note the convergence of every species of evidence upon this — the centre fact of the ancient dispensation. In looking in their order to the Hebrew canonical Scriptures, and then to the apocryphal books, and then to the Rab- binical expositions, there is seen to run through the whole series that continuity of reference — direct or in- direct, to the Decalogue, and to the mode of its pro- mulgation from Sinai, which ought to be looked for on the assumption of the reality, and the absolute truthfulness of the history of which that promulga- tion is the leading fact. No intelligent reader of the Prophets, or of the Psalmists, can need guidance in finding the passages now referred to. These passages are to be regarded as literary evidences, properly adducible on the hypothesis that the original record is genuine and authentic. This literary evidence is, however, subsidiary only ; or it is a secondary body of 66 CONSIDERATIONS proof; for there is ^primary evidence. More than once in these pages, I have challenged the attention of the Laity — the Christian commonalty, of which I am a member ; and I do so now again in all earnestness and seriousness. We do not claim to be proficients in that ' difficult language,' a critical knowledge of which is, we are told, a necessary qualification in any who would come to an opinion on the question — whether the Bible is of God, or of man. We make no pre- tension to the learning or the skill requisite for detect- ing the gaps and splicings that intervene where twenty incoherent ancient documents were welded into the one pentateuchal and prophetic mass of our Bibles. On this ground we plead ignorance. But it is true that we have been used, from childhood up- ward, to listen to the Mosaic and the Prophetic books, and to the Psalms — and we have since read these books in the most serious mood. In advancing years we have read them anew — we have listened to them anew — we have pondered them anew : — moreover we have informed ourselves of the opinion of learned commen- tators, and in a word we have become, in our own esteem, such as may fairly pretend to form a judgment on biblical questions — saving such as erudite pro- ficiency may rightfully claim as its peculiar. Take now the case as it stands before us. — The books of Holy Scripture commend themselves to our devout approval — they command our consciences, not merely, nor chiefly, on the ground of that super- abundant literary and historic evidence which attests ON THE PENTATEUCH. 67 the genuineness and authenticity of each portion, and of the whole ; but mainly in virtue of the irresistible force of another kind of evidence which rises into view — as if, of itself: — this persuasion does not come to us as the fruit of critical acumen : — it is no product of lexicons ; nor has it any necessary dependence upon the meaning of Hebrew words, or the significance of Hebrew idioms. We feel Holy Scripture to be — one Bible; and it proves its Oneness by three distinct modes of attestation ; as thus — the Bible — or let us now speak of the Hebrew Scriptures, is One Booh, from its first chapter to its last, because, although it is the work of many writers, it everywhere teaches one THEOLOGY ; and we utterly refuse to believe that many writers, in series, should have done this, if each followed only his own inspiration. Again, the Bible is One Booh although it is the work of many writers, be- cause, amid the diversities which this human instru- mentality implies, there prevails throughout it what must be reverently spoken of as the indication of the historic personality of the speaker ; everywhere this Speaker is the same, in mood, in purpose, and in style — it is the eternal God that, in these books, speaks to man. But more than this — the Bible is One Booh (and here we must speak of the New, as well as of the Old Testament) inasmuch as it brings into view, in an occult manner, and yet undoubtedly, a One Divine Scheme, or system of justice and mercy. Revelation — attested by supernatural events, is the r 2 68 CONSIDERATIONS opening out of an all-comprehensive course of pro- cedure, as from God, toward the human family. Holy Scripture is a structure — integral and immoveable as to its various constituents ; and if it be disintegrated, it is destroyed. Thoughtful men, even the best minds in every age, have thus believed, and have thus re- corded their most mature convictions. We need not cite authorities which, if cited to purpose, would fill volumes. But now, even if it were granted, on the plea of legitimate criticism, that there are some loosely connected portions of the canonical mass which might be detached from it without loss or damage to the whole, or without peril to the foundations ; yet it is manifest that, when criticism affects to touch, and asks leave to remove, the corner-stones, or the base- ment masses of the building, we yield everything when we consent to any such attempt as this. Shall we of the Laity, strong in common sense, and not wanting in rehgious feeling, be brought to believe that the Decalogue may be detached from the Bible, and that, nevertheless, the Bible, and our Christianity, may be conserved ? Or let the supposition be this — that the Ten Commandments are allowed to stand where they do, only that it shall be affirmed concerning the alleged promulgation of the same from Sinai that this — even the entire narrative is nothing but — decoration — is a human conceit — is a fiction, is a falsity, and, if a falsity, an impiety — a blasphemy. If this be the upshot of our modern criticism, then, be sure we shall cease from our accustomed places in ON THE PENTATEUCH. 69 church. We will not henceforward see the Decalogue where now it is. We will not listen while these words are uttered from within the Communion rail. The brevity of the Sinaitic Law, and its compre- hensiveness, and its spirituality, and its firm theistic cautions, and its ethical effectiveness — these, its own qualities, these, its intrinsic attestations, this, its proper force in grasping, and in holding, the human conscience — these qualities, which are, indeed, the strength of the Law, given in ten precepts, have, from that remote age to this, commanded the consciences of men, wherever the knowledge of it has come. So it has been that the most depraved of mankind have trembled in the hearing of this Law of God — and each of its prohibitions has transfixed the guilt-shaken soul; and so it has been that the most blameless of mankind have shaped their confessions upon this same mould ; for in listening to this law they have wept and have humbled themselves before their Judge ; yet have they rejoiced and said, " The law of thy mouth is better unto me than thou- sands of gold and silver." Those Ten Words, true as to their substance in all worlds, and of perpetual force, as in heaven, so toward the human family throughout all time — this Sinaitic proclamation — who is it now that shall spend upon it his nugatory criticism ? who is it that shall dare to pronounce it to be a Fable ? In every mode of incidental allusion, and of the most solemn and formal authentication, Christ, in the exercise of His public ministry, recognised the Decalogue, and also the Summary of it, in two great 70 CONSIDERATIONS commandments, as the Law of God. Look to the instances in the Gospels : read them anew, for it is quite necessary that we, of the Laity, should fortify our Christian belief against an assault which arms itself with the sophistries of laborious learning on the one hand, and with the sophistries of a spurious liberality on the other hand. Christ — the Light of the world, and the Author of a spiritual religion for all nations, to the end of time — Christ, whose word is our warrant, and it is our only warrant for the hope of immortality, estabhshes His mission, and He expressly founds His religion upon the Mosaic Revelation, at large ; and He does so in an em- phatic manner upon the Sinaitic Decalogue. He takes this Law as the very ground of that higher and more spiritual interpretation which an intimate moral code demands. The several occasions on which He does this, at once authenticating the Mosaic Canon, and expanding its letter so as to send it in to govern the thoughts and intents of the heart, were of the most peculiar kind ; as thus — " If thou wouldst inherit eternal life, keep the commandments ; " namely, the commandments given from Sinai. This is the point at which we must make our choice, and then act accordingly. The two hypotheses in front of us at this point are these ; and, manifestly, they are of a kind that can admit of no loose or intermediate supposition. Either the Law in the Ten Commandments was given by God to the Hebrew people from the heights of Sinai, in the manner nar- ON THE PENTATEUCH. 71 rated in the Book of Exodus ; or, if not so, then this same ethical code, which had its origin we know not where, came, in the lapse of time, to be surrounded by a mass of legendary matter — an incrustation of fable — a tissue of falsities, intended by its inventor, or its inventors, to invest it with a glare of dramatic splendour, and so, in the view of a simple people, to enhance its authority ! Is this now what we mean ? But if we adopt this last hypothesis, which is the upshot of Dr. Colenso's book, as well as of the scheme propounded by the accomplished Hebraist whom he follows, then we must thus frame our conclusion, and say — Christ, when in a solemn manner, He rested the religion which He instituted upon the Sinaitic Law, either Himself thought of it, as the men of His time undoubtedly thought of it, who firmly believed it to have been given of God in the manner narrated by Moses — in this case He was in error and igno- rance; or, if He was not in ignorance, then, in respect of a principal matter, which He took as the very foundation of His religion. He practised upon the ignorance of the Jewish people. If it be so, then how far wrong were the men who made their report to Pilate in the terms that are reported by the Evangelist— Matt, xxvii. 63? Every species of mystification, and all sorts of cir- cumlocutions and ambiguities, and every imaginable evasion will be resorted to, and such are now resorted to, by those who hold with the Bishop of Natal, for the purpose of turning aside the irresistible 72 CONSIDERATIONS force of this dilemma. But here I appeal to the vigorous good sense of the Laity, and ask them to free themselves from these cobwebs. The Bishop does not disguise his own consciousness of the impending inference, which he sees must be fatal to Chris- tianity. His learned friend seeks a refuge in sup- positions, the perusal of which will inflict pain upon those who esteem him. Large allowance should, however, be made in a case of this kind for the irresistible fascination of a paradox, when once it has mastered the understanding. But it is with Dr. Colenso that we have to do ; and he may make his protest and say — ' Although I have professed my belief that what we read in the third and the sixth chapters of Exodus is legendary and untrue, I have not yet affirmed the same concerning the matters con- tained in the nineteenth and the twentieth chapters.' If this, then, be his ground, it is certain that he owes it to himself, and to the Church, and especially to the Laity of the Church, to put forth, without delay, a profession of his belief concerning tins also, namely — the promulgation of the Decalogue from Sinai. This profession on his part will not satisfy the reasonable demands of the Christian community, unless it is thoroughly intelligible and quite explicit. On the supposition that Dr. Colenso admits the historic truth of the narrative in the nineteenth and twentieth chapters, then, if it be so, there is an end of the exceptions which he insists upon in the eighth, the ninth, the tenth, the eleventh, the twelfth chapters ON THE PENTATEUCH. 73 of his book. These allegations of impossibility must, in this case, be futile : — the objector substantially dis- poses of the whole of his own difficulties, and he answers them himself, for when he grants the prin- cijml fact — namely, the gathering of the Hebrew people at the foot of Sinai, and when he yields his assent to the reality of the Divine Presence on its summit — not mythically, but in the manner affirmed in the narrative of the event, then those other events must have had place which this event includes or sup- poses. If indeed it be true in this sense that the Almighty Father spoke to the thousands of Israel from out of the thick darkness, then these thousands must have made their way thither in some manner ; — they must have come on from the plains of Egypt — they, and their herds also, must have subsisted up to that moment — they must have had shelter, and they must have been furnished with whatever was necessary to their abode in the Desert. Every kind of incongruity is heaped up around our notions of these events, if, while we admit the leading fact, we affirm the sub- sidiary facts to be incredible or impossible. But if this — the principal fact, be denied, then we ought, forthwith, to know in what manner a Christian Bishop reconciles this conclusion with his professed faith in Christ. This faith cannot be that of the Unitarian communion ; it must be the faith of the Church as expressed in the Nicene Creed. NOTES. Already the Periodic Press has clone its part, not only promptly, but effectively, in meeting the exceptions of Dr. Colenso. Whether or not the author of the book on the Pentateuch may recognise the fact that, in the main, he has been answered, and his argument overthrown, his friends and abettors will at length feel it ; and the religious community at large is coming to the conclusion, that the stir which the publication of the volume occasioned was attributable much rather to the position of the author than to its merits, of any kind. There is, however, more of the same sort forth- coming ; and, in his next part, the author may, perhaps, make concessions on a few points ; but, probably, the assault which he has encountered will have the effect — as in other similar instances — of driving him on further and further toward what must be the end of an argument which has been started in en-or and pursued in a wrong direction. What is now to be done by those who take a better course, is to gather up the useful product of this agitation. Apart from agitation, the vis inertia; of the Christian com- mimity is not to be effectively overcome, but if now the waters are moved, let the moment be well employed by those who may be able so to do. In furtherance of the purport of this pamphlet, I subjoin some cita- tions — or rather references — ^to passages which will sustain what has been affirmed in the coiirse of it — especially of what I have said concerning that gift of management and instinct of order which have always been the distinction of the Jewish people, and which have made it easy to them, and to their official persons, to give effect to religious observances, which, to us, at this time, may seem exceedingly difficult. I bring for- ward, also, some passages bearing upon the important subject of the Sacrificial Eitual, as it was practised during the more settled times of the Jewish monarchy, and again from the time of the retiu'n from Babylon, up to the moment when that Ritual ceased for ever. In its bearing upon this last-named subject, I might ask the reader, to whom Philo may be accessible, to turn to this writer's treatise on the Decalogue — near the beginning ; he there adduces the several reasons why the people were led forth into a desolate region, where they must have felt themselves to be absolutely dependent upon the Divine help for their bodily sustenance from day to day, while they listened to these Ten Precejjts, which were thenceforward to be their law. If time and space NOTES. 75 allowed, I slioiilcl quote i^assages from this writi I's treatise on the animal sacrifices, for the purpose of showing that, at a time when the Sacrificial Eitual was still enacted at Jentsalem, his references to it accord with the testimony (next to be cited) of Aristeas, and, by a necessary inference, are proof that the manipulative part of the Ritual was not thought of as in- volving any difficulty. The arrangements as to the apparatus — the altar, the removal of materials, and the functions of the ministering priests and their assistants — were so complete and effective as to render the daily and the periodic victim-offering a matter that attracted no attention, as if, in its mechanical execution, it were a difficulty. It is admitted that the Letter attributed to Aristeas — an officer in the service of Ptolemy Philadelphus, whether it be genuine or spurious, is of a date anterior to the destruction of Jerusalem — probably, anterior to the Christian era. The writer speaks of things tliat were practised, and well known and understood, by himself, and by the Jews of his time. The five words of Greek which occur on page 57 are taken from that part of the Epistle to Philocrates in which he describes the Holy City, and the Temple, so far as he was allowed to inspect it. He there mentions the ample and never-failing supply of water, artificially conveyed, and, by a natural spring supx)lied, which was needed in cariying off" the blood of the victims, of which many thousands were off'ered on the great festivals. Great as this efflux of blood might be, provision was made for bearing it downwards from the substructures of the Temple toward the deep valley of the Kedi'on. By what arrangements was this laborious Ritual eff'ected ? They were such as to secure for it a silent and a decorous performance. This writer (taking the substance of his report) says — The priests whose duty it was to effect the sacrificial rites, Avere men chosen on account of their great strength, and each, as he was spontaneously intent upon his own i)art in these offices, did it with the utmost regard to decorum, and in silence, although this duty was of a very arduous sort. But then every priest had his part assigned to him in an exact manner, and so as to secure an unin- termitted performance of the whole. It was the office of some to provide the wood — of others, the oil — of others, the fine flour — of others, the pre- cious spices ; others of the priests gave their strength, Avith combined action, to the work of effecting the holocausts ; in doing which they laid hold of the legs of the victim, often of gi'eat weight ; nor did they fail to throw them high to their place. This was done whether the victim was slieep, or heifer, or goat — and these animals were always the choicest of their kind. The priests have near at hand their place of rest, and they come forward, in their turns, promptly, and in silence. You would not suppose any to be there, although the number is so great (seventy). As to those who bring up the victims, it is a multitude ; yet all is done reverently, and in a manner becoming to the worship of the Divine Being. With these passages from the Alexandrian writer, it may be well to compare some drawn from a very different source — the Rabbinical Exj^osi- tions of the national worship. In adducing these citations, I have to acknowledge the aid of my learned friend, Archdeacon Tattam, who has kindly extracted for mc what might sustain the allegation— that the Jewish people, and their priests especially, were accustomed to give effect 76 NOTES. to the Mosaic Institutions in a manner the most exact and reverential. These testimonies are available, partly as contemporaneous records, and partly as authentic traditions embodied in the writings of the Rabbis of a later age. So far as they are contemporaneous — that is to say, are of earlier date than the cessation of the Jewish temple worship, at the time of the destruction of the city and temple — there can be no ground for calling in question the truthfulness of the statements they contain. A like degree of truthfulness, in the main, is fairly to be claimed for the , Rabljiuical traditions, in so far, at least, as these relate to practices which must have been known to the writers, more or less fully. Yet even where we might be disposed to assign a less degree of authenticity than this to certain portions of these writings, they nevertheless stand before us as characteristic samples of the national mind, which, even in its dotage, still showed the same genius for Older ; — the division of labour carried out to the utmost extent, and the grave specialities, and the careful exceptions, and the fine distinctions, and the prohibitions, and the cautions : — all these things — insisted upon with so mixch solemnity by the Jewish doctors, would be found nowhere but among a people so remarkable for its dis- posedness toward management, and so well skilled in the statelj' adjustment of offices to their purposes. Long centm-ies of suffering, and of dispersion, and of sordid occupation, have not broken in upon this national habitude. Let now the Jew, in all lands, be thorouglily released from his fetters — let him find himself again the Joseph, on the right hand of Pharaoh, and he will well re-enact his part, and again "teach senators -ndsdom : " he will again be the Daniel, and be made "ruler over the wise men" of empires. But now for our Rabbis. — The jiassages following are from the Mishna. This oral Law was committed to writing probably about A.D. 105, by Judah Hahkodesh. Fro7n the Treatise of the measurement of the Temple. "Note. — Lastly was the bath-room (beneath the platform of the sanc- tuary), not that they (the priests) might wash themselves in that place ; but there they descended to the bath, as thou hast it under the end of this chapter. There likewise a fire was jiiled up, at which, returning from the bath, they might warm and wipe themselves. ... I will confirm it by a few words from Bartenora. There was a fire at which the priest himself, after he had washed the body, might be made warm, and ascending from the bath, might wipe himself ; and it was named the room of the heat ; and it opened towai'ds the greater place of the heat, as it was called." The "end of the chapter" above referred to is this — " Going out by the winding stairs, he ^the priest) descended into the secret porch, which led down imder the sanctuary, and here the torches burned till he should approach the bath." — Notes. "In this secret porch the contaminated went along, until they came to the bath, whence, when they had washed themselves, returning into the portico itself, near the bath, at a fire burning where they were warmed, there they wiped themselves. " . . . "But the mndiug channel between the west-end and the south had two small holes, like the small part of two drains, through which the blood sprinkled when NOTES. 77 it descended upon tlie floor, or west foundation, as well as upon tlie sontli foundation ; and the blood of both was mixed in the canal, and flowed out in a torrent, into the Kedron. " These passages well agree, so far, with the descriptions of the Temple which are given by Aristeas in the section preceding that from which I have ah'eady cited a passage. This writer, after describing the aspect of the city and the Temple, and speaking of the ever-undulating veil — flutter- ing from the bottom to the top, as every gust of wind passed along the pavement — says, of the altar of burnt off'erings in front of the veil, that upon, and around it, and upon the slopes leadjng up to it, everything was so ordered as to facilitate the ministrations of the priests. Conduits there were, moreover, for the descent of water (beneath the pavement), where, mixing with the blood of the victims, the commingled torrent found its way (as above said), and at the great feasts many thousand victims were ofiered. There was, he says, an unceasing confluence of waters, partly conveyed thither from a distance by pipes, and partly arising from a natural spring on the spot. Thus there was at once an incessant flow of water to the spot (supplying the baths), and also an efflux of the commingled streams of blood and water toward the Kedron. In the treatise — entitled Meddoth — oftheMishna — chapter v. sect. 2, it is written : " Six private chambers were in the Court (of the Temple), three from the north, and three from the south. Those from the north were called — ' the room of the salt — the room of Hapharve — the room of washings. ' In the room of salt was laid up salt for the oblations ; in the room of Hapharve the skins of the victims were preserved with salt ; and in its roof was a bath for the High Priest, on the feast of expiation. The room of washings was where they washed the intestines of the \'ictim^, and thence the stairs rose into the roof of Hapharve. Those to the south were — the room of wood ; — the room of the spring ; — and the room of hewn stones. Of the room of wood, saith R. Elieser, the son of James — I have found what was its use. Aba Saul saith, it was a room of the High Priest, as was that other one ; but of those three the roof was equal. But in the room which belongs to the spring, there is a pit, or a hollow place was made, and a pulley was put, and thence water was siipplied to the whole court. In the chamber of hewn stone the great (council or) assembly of Israel sat, and even judged the priests. The priest in whom a fault was found put black garments on himself, and wi-apped himself in black, and thus going out, he departed. But he against whom no faidt was entered, put on himself white robes, and wrapped himself in white, and going out, ministered with his brethren ; and they celebrated the feast-day when fault had not been found in the seed of Aaron the Priest : and He is praised who elected Aaron and his sons that they should stand to minister before God in the most holy Temple." Ohservmices on tJie Bay of Atonement. Chapter III. " The Prefect said to them — Go out and see if the time of the killing of the sacrifice draws near. If it had drawn near, the observer shouted — Shinings ! — Mathea, the sou of Samuel, saith— hath it 7o NOTES. illuminated tlie face of the whole of the East, even to Hebron? He answered yes. Wherefore was this necessary ? Because they thought that when the moon shone brightly, the daylight had passed, and they might slay the perpetual sacrifice ; and they led it to the place of burning. They conducted the High Priest to the house of washing ; this was a general rule in the sanctuarj'-, that whoever had covered his feet (a Jewish eupheism) should wash. Whoever had cast water should purify the hands and feet. ..." "No one entered the court for the ministry to be performed, although clean, before he had washed. The High Priest washed in it, and often purified the hands and feet in the day ; and all these washings and purifi- cations in the holy place above the house of Hapharve, (which was in the court in which the skins of the victims were salted) absolved (availed for absolution) except the first washing. They extended the veil of fine linen between him (the High Priest) and the people. He put off his garments and descended and washed, and ascended and wiped himself. They brought him the golden garments, and he clothed himself, and ]nirified his hands and feet. They brought him the continual sacrifice, and he slew it, and another after him completed the slaughter. He received the blood and sprinkled it. He entered and burnt the incense of the morning, and pre- pared the lamps, and offered the head and members, and the piece of flesh and the wine. In the morning he burned the incense between the blood and the members ; in the evening between the members and the libations. If the High Priest was old or infirm, they made the water warm for him. ..." " In the morning he (the High Priest) was clothed with vestments. . . . He went to his bullock {his 2'>c')'sonal offering), and the bullock stood (or was placed) between the porch and the altar, with the head placed to the south and the face turned to the west ; and the priest stood to the east, with the face turned to the west {i.e. he stood in the interval between the altar and the porch, and he looked westward — towards the victim). He placed his two hands on (the victim), aud confessed and said thus — ' I beseech Thee, Lord, for I have offended, and have been rebellious, and have sinned before Thee, I and my house. I beseech Thee, Lord, forgive also now the offences, and rebellions, and sins which I have committed, and in which I have been rebellious, and which I have sinned before Thee, I and my house, according to what is written in the Law of Moses, Thy servant ; because it will be expiated this day. ' . . . And they (the attendant priests) shall respond after him (saying), 'Blessed be the glorious name of His kingdom for ever and ever.' " He went to the east of the court and the north of the altar. The Prince of the Priests stood on his right hand, and the Prefect of the Fathers on his left hand. There were two he-rams there ; and there was a room there in wliich were deposited two lots of precious wood. In the treatise entitled Zebachim, sections 1 and 2, occur strict regida- tions concerning the Passover, and the sacrifices for sin, showing the pro- perly vicarious sense in which the immolation of the victim was regarded by the Jews and their teachers. In stipport of what I have affirmed con- cerning those laborious arrangements to which this people was habituated, NOTES. 79 and in which the priestly class was trained, passages occur in the treatise entitled Pseachim, to this efl'ect — The Passover sacrifice was slaughtered for three successive bauds or divisions of the people. The first division entered until the court of the Temple was filled. The doors of the comi were then closed, and the trumpets sounded ; they rejoiced, and then (again) the trumpets were sounded. The priests then placed themselves in double rows, each holding a bowl of silver or gold in liis hand — silver in the hands of the priests on the one side, gold in the hands of the others. These bowls had no stems or stands, so as that they might have been set down, allomng the blood to coagulate, but must be kept warm in the hands. The Israelite (one of the peoj^le) slaughtered (the victim), the priest received the blood, and passed it on to another (priest), and thus onward^ each receiving a full bowl, and returning an empty bowl ; and the priest nearest to the altar poured it out in one jet at the base of the altar. The fii-st band (of the people) then went out, and the second entered, and thus, also, the third. The HiUel (Ps. cxvi.) was also read. Further on in this book the means employed for preparing the lamb for the Passover are described — the removal of the parts, and the departure of the people to their homes for roasting what had thus been made ready, [(" Where wilt thou that we make ready the passover ? " — namely, where is to be the home at which it is to be roasted ?) Every day, before dawn, the altar was cleansed, and this duty was ear- nestly sought for among those who were competent to the discharge of it ; as was also the part to be taken by each of the priests in the routine of the sacrifices ; or it was detenuined by lot. The number of priests engaged in this service was, in the daily offering, nine, ten, eleven, or twelve, and, on the Sabbath and feasts, many more. In offering a ram, eleven priests were engaged ; for a bullock, twenty-four, each having his duty prescribed to him with the utmost exactness. The treatise entitled Yoma, narrates the proceedings preparatory to the Day of Expiation, which are in the same style of speciality and careful aiTangement of every detail. These preparations included the personal demeanour of the High Priest, to such an extent as was thought necessary for securing the sanctity of this mediator between God and the people. Much to this effect might be cited from the several books of the Mishna. The bearing of this evidence upon the present argument is this— it avails first in illustration of what I have afl[irmed above, as at jiages 30, 35, 47, and particularly at page 48. These citations may also be taken as con- taining, or as clearly siujgesting, the proper and reasonable reply to the futile argument pursued in the sixth, the twentieth, and the twenty-first chapters of Dr. C'olenso's book on the Pentateuch. It has appeared to some of those who have already come forward as the Bishop's opponents that in this instance, namely, the apparent insufficiency of the priests as related to their duties, he has brought forward a serious difficulty. It does not so appear to me ; and if my space and leisure were not quite expended, I would undertake to meet this objection. It will be met, I have no doubt, in an effective manner by one or more of those who are about to come forward as his antagonists ; and so with some other instances in which he strangely misunderstands the facts he has to do with. 80 NOTES. It would not be possible, witbout tlie aid of plans and elevations of tbe Haram, to sbow wbat grounds there are for tbe belief which I have ven- tured to advance above — page 56, and foUomng — concerning the adaptation of the Site of the Jewish Temple to the purposes of the Sacrificial Ritual. This subject carries with it a far higher importance than ordinarily attaches to questions of antiquarian topography ; and it is one that might well engage the attention of any erudite traveller, or rather sojourner, at Jeru- salem. The liberty of access to the court of the Haram, and to the vaults beneath, which is now granted to " Infidels " by the Pasha, would make it easy for a visitant, who already knew what to look for, to explore those recesses, and especially to follow the substructure watercourses to their rise, and then to their exit. It is not unlikely that, along the rocky slopes between the eastern wall and the wady of the Kedron, and which are used as a Turkish burying-gi'ound, there might yet be found some of the Emts mentioned by Aristeas and by the Rabbis. When the time comes for a thorough and leisurely exploration of this site, discoveries will be made for understanding which future scholars wUl seek aid in the Mishna, and other writings of that class. In this place I can only make a passing allusion to a subject so grave, so arduous, and so suggestive, and to which the questions of the time are giving a peculiar meaning. Among the replies which have already appeared in answer to tlie book on the Pentateuch, some have touched the questions that relate to the passage of the Israelites from the plains of Egypt to the foot of Sinai ; and I think a still more thorough treatment of these matters is forthcoming from the pens of some who have recently spent weeks or months in the Peninsula, and in the border countries. Instead of attempting this subject, I shall better promote the edification of any intelligent reader who may not have seen it, by recommending to him the highly instructive and suggestive volume, entitled — "Scripture Lands, in connexion with their History — by G. S. Drew, M.A., Incumbent of St. Barnabas, South Kensington." This volume is rich in illustration of each of the principal points of biblical history, and it is especially worthy of regard (as I humbly think) in what relates to the Exodus, and the passage of the Hebrew people through the . Desert. I refer here to Chapters II. and III. In this present instance that which has so often happened heretofore will almost certainly have place again — namely, this — an onslaught upon the historical reality of the Old Testament Scriptures — an assault ill-con- sidered, intemperate, and ill-managed, will be the occasion of renewed in- vestigations — it will stimulate learned industry — it will make itself memo- rable — not in the way that had been imagined by its author, but on the contrary, by imparting to our faith in Holy Scripture more coherence and more confidence. LONDON : R. CLAY, SON, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS. BS1225.8.T24 Considerations on the Pentateuch. Princeton Theological Semmary-Speer Library 1 1012 00041 4153