SANCTUARY ^ AND SACRIFICE, A REPLY TO WELLHAUSEh te 4 ^^ W. L. BAXTER, M. A.: DZ S.I^.'IX lfquFa%i bg l|tm tn tl|p iCtbrarg nf gnnrrton Sljrdlngtral S^rmtttarp Z K^ IcCci'^ 1 '■^t. /'^c^AiyA CU^d nciff\'*^-M ^Ca^ici^ . 1y:ic ic^ (Z^ic^-y ^ a^^^-^ /'B(i6 . SAXCTUAEY AND SACRIFICE; ■ A REPLY TO WELLHAUSEN. Just (seemetli) he who is first with his pleading; But then cometh his neighbour and searcheth him. Prov. 18. 17. SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE a IRcpl? to Mellbausen. y BY THE Rev. W. L. BAXTER, M.A., D.D., Minister of Cameron, N.B, EYRE AND SPOTTISWOODE, LONDON— OEEAT NEW STEEET, FLEET STREET, E.G. Edinbukgh, Glasgow, Melbourne, Sydney, & New York, 1895. PRINTED BY ETRE AND SPOTTISWOODE, Queen's Printers, DOWNS PARK ROAD, N.E. OPINIONS. The following are extracts from opinions tliat have been received regarding Part I. of this volume : — From The Right Hon. W. E. GLADSTONE : " Rev. and Dear Sir, "I thank you sincerely for your criticism of Wellhausen, whose works, on a rather slight acquaintance, I have all along mistrusted. " But unless your searching inquiry can be answered and your statements confuted, his character, both literary and theological, is destroyed ; at least for all those who have profited by your investigation. " And he has been set up as our guide in the Encyclopcsdia Britannica ! " I am very desirous to know how long your criticism has been published, so that I may know whether he has had the opportunity of reply : a task in which he is not to be envied. " I remain, Rev. and dear Sir, " Your very faithful and obedient, "W. E. Gladstone." From The Right Rev. C. J. ELLICOTT, D.D., LL.D., Bishop of Gloiicester and Bristol: "... Your counter -argument is very strong and clear. In fact, as 1 read the first paper, I wondered what answer your opponent could pos- sibly make. My hope now is that the movement has received a decided check. . . ." From Professor A. H. SAYCE, D.D., LL.D. {Oxford): " I am just returned to England, and have been reading your articles on Wellhausen with the deepest interest. I hope they will form the nucleus of a larger work. It is the first time that the pretensions and assertions of the Prolegomena have been thoroughly, critically, and dispassionately examined, and I confess that the result surprises me. Wellhausen and his followers speak so confidently, and proceed so naively to build upon the assertions they make, as if there was no possibility of questioning them, vi OPIXIOXS. that we have been apt to take it for granted that the assertions are — at all events for the most part — founded upon fact. Your critical examination of a single point in the Prolegomena — a point, however, of the highest im- portance to the "Wellhausen school — ^has proved that, on the contrary, they are founded merely on Grerman ' subjectivit}',' The sooner this is brought home to the mind of the general public the better." From Professor ROBERT AVATTS, D.D., LL.D. (Belfast): " I have delayed, all too long, the acknowledgment of your great kind- ness in sending me your very valuable and most instructive articles on "Wellhausen's Prolegomena. I have read them with deep interest, and profit as well. I believe you have, by the publication of these articles, rendered a timely service to divine truth You have exposed the utter reck- lessness of "Wellhausen's assaults upon the Inspired Record, You have shown that while he calls in question the veracity and authority of all those portions that are subversive of his baseless theory, he has no hesitation in accepting the testimony of the writer he has denounced as untrustworthy, whenever he can find a passage that seems to give support to his critical dogmatism. . . ." From Professoe JAMES ROBERTSON, D.D. {Glasgow; Author of " Early Beligion of Israel ") : " . . . It was indeed a great pleasure to see your papers. I have read them with great delight. I have been looking for some one to take up that line of patient inductive proof, and you have the necessary qualifications for the task. Just go on as you are doing. ... I admire your courage : and I admire still more your ability." From The Right Rev. R. H. STORY, D.D. {Moderator of General Assembly of Church of Scotland) : " .... I wish to thank you for your dressing of "Wellhausen. You have taken him thoroughly to pieces and exposed his pretentiousness in a way which would confound any one but a ' Higher Critic' But dogmatic self-satisfaction is the badge of all their tribe." From The Very Rev. A. K. H. BOYD, D.D., LL.D. {St. Andrew's) : " .... I have enjoyed the bright and incisive way in which you have gone for "Wellhausen. As far as I can judge, you have made mince-meat of him." PREFACE. TF the object, aimed at by this volume, were attained, -'^ it would certainly go a considerable way towards a very appreciable resolving of one of the keenest per- plexities,by which the Bible student has been bewildered, in quite recent years. Has the ordinary, and venerable, belief, regarding the Old Testament Canon, become an antiquated fable ? Has the world hitherto been " enter- taining forgers unawares " ? And have the Law and the History of Judaism, as the nineteenth century is closing, to begin, for the first time, to have their true foundations laid, and their uprising, to a true completion, indicated ? The most recent (and, as many would fain style it, the reigning) representation, on this head, is that the Jewish Law, as we now have it (the " Law of Moses," as it is familiarly styled), was not only unknown to Israel, when they crossed the Jordan, but continued to be un- known to them, while their most memorable national experiences, under all the Judges, and under all the Kings, were being successively gone through. They had three Laws : but the earliest, and most rudimentary, of the three was never heard of, till five or six centuries Vm PBEFACE. after Moses; and the full-blown Law appeared, other five centuries later still, and is more the Law of Ezra than the Law of Moses. Between the tivo was promul- gated Deuteronomy, which had only a precarious es- tablishment for some twenty years, before the Babylonish Captivity began. It is well known that this view has been proclaimed, with the utmost confidence, and from some of the most trusted quarters, as a clear, and un-impeachable, result, reached by the methods of true " science," and of " Higher Criticism." * The late editor of the Encycloycedia Britannica (whose still recent removal evoked so very wide regret) was necessarily representative enough of much of our foremost theological thought, and it may almost be described, as his legacy to his age, the as- surance that " the key to the right understanding of the history of Israel " (as he called it) has not j^et been, for a quarter of a century, in our hands, and that "THE FIRST complete and sustained argument," establishing that "key," was laid before English readers, when he * It is to be regretted that these terras have almost got fixed into a very narrow and unwarranted usage. If the settling of the mere text of Scripture be the " lower criticism," then the due weighing of the various considerations, that go to settle its age and significance, constitutes the "higher criticism," In tliis, the original, and warrantable, aspect of the terms, such a work as Paley's Horce Paulinas may possibly be prized, as a valuable product of "higher criticism," long after Well- hausen's Prolegomena has ceased to be read. It is a method, or a sphere, of investigation, and not a special set of results, that the term "higher criticism" Itroperly denotes. Our volume does not aim at anything so absurd as tilting against a true "science," or "criticism": its aim is to show that almost every page of the Prolegomena is an utter mis-use, and an utter turning to folly, of legitimate princi- ples of "higher criticism," But, in view of current usage, and if we were to write to be understood, it was almost a necessity to employ "Higher Critics" to denote the recent sect of monopolists, or of critical Pharisees, Their more proper designa- tion would be " Imaginationist Critics' : They are "higher" than others, solely through building their critical castles " in the air," instead of on terra Jirma. P EFFACE. IX introduced to them Wellhaasen's Prolegomena to the History of Israel In his brief Preface to that English Translation, he announces that Wellhausen has, at last, " set all Old Testament problems in a new light " (p. vi), that what was formerly " the twisted skein of Jewish tradition" has now been successfully passed, by Well- hausen, through "a very delicate and complicated process of disentangling" (p. viii), and that Wellhausen's demon- strated, and true, view of Jewish Law and History may now " be presented, in a comparatively simple form, and justified even to the general reader " (p. viii). We are told that the investigation cost Wellhausen many an " operation of special scholarship," but that the Prolego- mena presents the gracious issue of his toil, in a form which " every one can understand, and ought to try to master " (p. ix). Foiu, ''for the first time,'' may the English public be emancipated from "a false idea," and from " false presuppositions " : now, for the first time, may " the plain natural sense of the old history," and "a new view of the history of the Law," be made available, " in a way which is full of interest," for "the mass of Bible readers " (pp. vi-ix). Under the influence of such warm encomia, from such a gifted guide (and the learning of linguistics and logic at the same northern alma mater, and about the same period, as he, might have helped to similarity in our methods), we first opened the Prolegomena: but the result is that our estimate of it is wide as the poles asunder from that which has just been quoted. We find in it a never-ending tissue of assumptions, and of X PREFACES dogmatic revelations, but we hardly ever come on a grain of solid proof, on which to rest them : we find a profession, to found on Jewish History, associated with a claim to mutilate, and contradict, that history (without a shred of proof) at will : we find the theories so loosely constructed, that it is a constant experience to be able to confute one page by a contrary page, not far off": we find the origination of three contradictory Israelitish Laws (which is the grand alleged demonstration, achieved by Wellhausen's Part I., and which is the main topic discussed in our present volume) to be an absolutely un-proved, and an utterly improbable, Imagination : and we find his sweeping away of " a false idea," and his revolutionising of a whole Canon, to leave the delivery of the Jewish Law (moral, ritualistic, and social), in a pre-Joshuan age, practically un-touched by all he has written. It may be noted that the editor of the Ency- clopcedia presents Wellhausen to us, as a labourer in a " historical criticism," which he describes as " a compara- tively modern science," and whose characteristic, hitherto, has been, that previous labourers in it have "made many false and uncertain steps " (p. viii) : he holds, however, that Wellhausen's experience contrasts with theirs, and that noiv " the truth has been reached " (p. viii). We incline to agree with his estimate of some previous labourers, but we cannot agree that Wellhausen has cut himself off , as by cataclysm, from the "historical critics" who preceded him: on the contrary, he has, in our view, with most evolutionary faithfulness, prolonged their " many false and uncertain steps." The fact, that we PEEFACE. a thus have a true evolution on our side, may be some counterpoise to the great fame of the Editor of the Encyclopcedia, which it is our misfortune to have against us ! Throughout our volume, be its worth what it may, there will not be found a single appeal to fames of editors, nor to views of individual critics, nor to autho- rity, which the decisions of whole churches should carry. One of our greatest attractions, towards giving to Well- hausen's pages the severe study, which we have done, is his absolute discarding of mere authority, in the investi- gation, which he conducts : he never once seeks victory, under the shadow of a great name : he never once (after his brief Introduction) cumbers even half a page, with stringing off the successive opinions of others : he leaves the mere scissors-work of literature to other hands, and he offers to prove his whole case, from a critical, and independent, survey of the Records of Scrip- ture. The reply, which we offer, is on the same footing ; it is, from first to last, an attempt to show, on critical grounds, and on these exclusively, that his positions are absolutely untenable. We do not profess, in this volume, to have entered, exhaustively, on the ivhole contents of the Prolegomena (which itself, in its English Translation, is an amalgam of three works). Our plan has been to begin at its beginning, and deal, straight on, with its successive reasonings, through chapters, which Wellhausen himself acknowledges to more than contain his "whole ^position" And we think every reader will feel that a plethora of xil PBEFACE. instances of Wellhausen's critical dexterity has thus been presented, whereby to settle whether his " new view " is " the truth," or — an Imagination. The argu- ment is not ex imo disce omnes, but rather ex permultis clisce reliquos. And we would be quite ready to treat the reliquos (viz. "Feasts,'' and "Priests," and "Tithes"), in the same way as we have here treated " Sanctuary," and " Sacrifice " — ^only that the present volume would probably render future discussions briefer. Our present volume is not an investigation into one special Booh of Scripture, but rather an investigation into one fundamental topic, so far as the ramifications of that topic present themselves throughout the various Books, whether legal, or historical, or prophetical. The aim is to give the Bible student a lucid, and conclusive, test, whether the dis-memberment of the Mosaic legisla- tion, into three diverse Codes, harmonises with the contents of the Codes themselves, or with the glimpses, which the Historians afford us, of Israel's worship, or with any references to that worship, in the lofty denunciations of the Prophets. Critically, this is the question of the hour : that dis-memberment is " the modern view " (p. viii), and " is w^hat the neiu school of Pentateuch criticism undertakes to prove " (p. viii) : it is, on the other hand, what this volume confidently charges with being an unsnj^ported Imagination. The book is intended for the ordinary English reader, and claims from him not the slightest special share in Hebrew scholarship. Where Hebrew words occur, they are given in corresponding English letters, and the PBEFACE. ^m argument is so constructed, that even an elementary knowledge of Hebrew grammatical forms is never needed. The current jeers, about the explosion of Tra- ditionalism, are not confined to circles of erudition, they permeate the homeliest, and most widely-read, of our serials, and (appropriately enough) they even enter the domain of popular " fiction " : our reply is not one for clergymen, and for scholars, only, but one, which the com- paratively unlearned, one which many an intelligent leader, in our working men's unions, is quite competent to master. Christianity is, emphatically, for the cor)ivion people; and this treatise re-echoes the aim of the Prolegomena, to be "for the mass of Bible-readers" (p. ix). Its preface says further : " The present volume gives the English reader, for the first time, an oppor- tunity to form his own judgment on questions which are within the scope of any one who reads the English Bible carefully, and is able to think clearly, and without prejudice, about its contents " (p. vii). "We cordially adopt such an aim as our own. We offer manifold proofs (in considering which, we will be as glad of the common people, as of the scholar, for umpire) that it is only he, " who reads the English Bible carelessly," that is in the slightest danger of being taken in by the Prolegomena, and that any approach to " thinking with- out prejudice" is hardly ever to be found on its pages. As a further aid to the ordinary reader, we have given Wellhausen's views, as they are successively criticised, in large, and exact, quotations of his own words. If, there- fore, the Bible student should feel that he gets the XIV . PEEFACE. antidote, it is not because we conceal the bane : for the opposing views are placed, with equal prominence and fulness, before him. The only other circumstance, we need advert to, is that the first (and much briefer) of the two Parts, into which the book is divided, originally appeared, as a series of contributions to The Thinker magazine, and has thus already appealed to a wide variety of readers. One advantage, resulting from this, is that we have been able to prefix certain weighty, and very decided, opinions, which Part I. has called forth. The strong conviction, indicated by Mr. Gladstone, that (unless a hitherto un-attempted refutation is forthcoming) " Wellhausen's character, both literary and theological, is destroyed," will perhaps be enough to ensure a respectful hearing, even from those " Higher Critics," who are most effectually cased in that triple steel of dogmatism, which is their almost unfailing, if unconscious, covering. It will be observed that other writers, whose names are as " house- hold words," are equally un-reserved in commendation. And we are not aware that the other side have, to the slightest extent, entered anywhere on the " tash of ve'ply" at which, Mr. Gladstone considers, they are " not to be envied."* There is one remark, by Pi'ofessor Sayce, which we venture to think will recur, with * The pages of The Thinker were freely opened by the editor for both sides of any topic discussed. AVhat appeared in one month was often replied to, with much fulness, in the next ; and such replies were regularly invited "on any of the opinions contained in the pages of the magazine." It is not for us to copy the conceit of the " new school," and say that they felt no reply to be possible ; they may merely have thought us beneath their notice. We only note the fact that, while the editor generously accorded much prominence, and space, throughout four months, to our ai'ticles, no counter-argument appeared. And we are quite unaware whether Wellhausen was, at the time, a reader of The Thinker. PBEFACE. XV extreme frequency, to every reader of our pages : "Well- hausen and his followers speak so confidently, and proceed so naively to build upon the assertions they make as if there was no possibility of questioning them, that lue have been apt to take it for granted that the assertions are — at all events for the most part — founded upon fact." The illustrations will be found even much more plentiful in Part II., than they were in Part I., that their " assertions," instead of being " founded upon," are utterly inconsistent with, " fact." Professor Sayce remarks that the result of Part I. " surprises " him ; and such an acknowledgment seems to render it natural that we say that the volume, which we now offer to the public, is the result of a study of the Prolegomena, of the most rigorous and persevering kind, and also that it embraces the exhibition of many (as ive think them) weaknesses, and contradictions, in Wellhausen's positions, which, so far as our reading has extended, have not hitherto been urged against him. W. L B. Cameron Manse, November, 1895. S 2893. CONTENTS, PART I.— SANCTUARY. CHAPTER I. Pages One Temple on Zion — One Tabernacle at Shiloh . . 3-21 CHAPTER 11. Establishment of Centralization at Sinai — " Evolutio a non EVOLVENDO " c ...... . 22-42 CHAPTER III. (A) The Ludicrous Dating of the Three Codes — (B) Multi- plied Contradictions . . . . . . . 43-69 Conclusion and Notes ....... 70-79 PART II.— SACRIFICE. CHAPTER I. Wellhausen's Methods and Aims — Introductory . . . 83-89 CHAPTER II. ^ General Glance at Wellhausen's Sacrificial Development 90-104 CHAPTER III. Does the Priestly Code deny pre-Mosaic Sacrifice? . . 105-129 XViii CONTENTS. CHAPTEE IV. Pages Do THE JeHOVIST, AND THE HISTORIANS, REPUDIATE DlVINF Regulatiox of Sacrifice? ...... 130-176 CHAPTER V. Do THE Early Prophets repudiate Divine Eegulatiox of Sacrifice? 177-222 CHAPTER VI. Is .EzEKiEL A Sacrificial Pioneer ? What of his Closing Vision? 223-256 CHAPTER VII. WellhausEn's Ezekelian Romance ..... 257-286 CHAPTER VIII. The Materials of Sacrifice, and their alleged Extra- ordinary Evolutions ....... 287-363 CHAPTER IX. Burnt-offerings, Peace-offerings, and Sacrificial Meals . 364-434 CHAPTER X. The alleged Lateness, and Enormous Importance, of the Sin and Trespass Offerings ..... 435-463 CHAPTER XL A Dream of the Priestly Code ..... 464-503 Conclusion . . 504-506 PART I, SANCTUARY. EXPLANATORY. The following Chapters, whicli constitute Part I., appeared originally as a series of four articles in The Thin'ker magazine, for IS'ovember and December 1893, and for March and April 1894. They appeared under the title, " One God, One Sanctuary : Is Wellhausen right ? " and they are here incorporated, with the kind permission of the publishers of the magazine. The chief change is that the third and fourth articles are joined as one in Chapter III., an arrangement which the exigencies of space did not permit when they were appearing in The TJiinker. For the same reason, a few extracts from Wellhausen are given as " Notes " at the close, whose incorporation would have been rather cumbrous on the pages of the magazine. CHAPTER I. OXE TEMPLE OX ZIOX — OXE TABERXACLE AT SHILOH. WE purpose, in the three following chapters, to canvass the evidence offered by Wellhausen for the views pro- pounded in Chapter I. of his Prolegomena to the History of Israel. He entitles this chapter " The Place of Worship," and he con- ducts the argument in a manner to make it quite independent of the arguments and conclusions in the chapters that follow : it therefore lends itself very readily to exclusive treatment. Not only so, but he himself proclaims the positions, which he attempts to prove in this first chapter, to be the most important and fundamental in the whole book. His words are : " My whole position is contained in my first chapter : there I have placed in a clear light that which is of such importance for Israelite history, namely, the part taken by the prophetical party in the great metamorphosis of the worship, which by no means came about of itself " (p. 368).* Wellhausen himself thus leads us to attach overwhelming importance to his " first chapter " : nothing should be unwarrantably assumed, nothing essential should lean except on the strongest evidence — for his " whole position " is at stake. What he endeavours to establish is that the idea of " One God, One Sanctuary" was never heard of in Israel till the reign of Josiah, and that it was never firmly and permanently * The quotations throughout are from the English translation of the Prolegomena, published by Messrs. A. and C. Elack, Edinburgh. A 2 4 ."SANCTUARY AND SACPdFICE. embodied in the nation's practice till their return from the Exile in Babylon. If he cannot prove this, then, by his own admis- sion, his whole edifice of critical history becomes a ruin. Xow, while we are unconvinced by his reasoning, it would be impossible to acknowledge too warmly the fairness of the method of investigation which he is professedly to follow. He is to take nothing for granted ; he is to be guided solely by the contents of the historical and legal documents of the Old Testament themselves. First, he will take the history, and demonstrate three clearly-marked stages of develoi3ment in the views of Israel regarding centralisation of worship. Then he will take the legal enactments, and demonstrate that they con- sist of three separate codes, of diverse authorship and widely- sundered dates, and that these three codes contain regulations as to the place of worship precisely coincident with the three stages of the nation's practice as already historically fixed. If he can soberly and fairly conduct such a demonstration, his method is unexceptionable, and his conclusion most important. Our complaint is that, instead of demonstration, he treats us mainly to unsupported assertion, and to ignoring of the history. Reserving for subsequent treatment other characteristics of his Chapter I., we shall first notice, what we think can be easily made emphatic, that his views are at diametric variance with the evidence of the witnesses on whom he starts with promising to rely. In settling the law and practice of Israel- itish worship, he is to be guided by references thereto in the historical and prophetical books of Scripture. We venture to urge that nothing could be less readily demonstrated from these books than the notion that a central sanctuary was utterly unthought of in Israel till the days of Josiah. There is a most familiar threefold embodiment of a central sanctuary, which cannot, without the most signal violence, be eradicated from ONE TEMPLE ON ZION. 5 these books. We refer to the Temple on Zion, to the house of God in Shiloh, and to the tabernacle erected in the wilderness. It is only by repudiating and revolutionising, instead of by honouring and acquiescing in, the statements of Scriptural writers, that these three impediments in Wellhausen's path can be got quit of. Let us look at each in turn. I. The statement that no central sanctuary was ever thought of till Josiah's reign is surely in startling disagreement with the freely acknowledged fact that the splendid Temple of Solomon had been erected on Zion some four centuries before. Without quoting, meantime, from the author of the Books of Chronicles, whose most unhesitating statements Wellhausen has no scruple in deriding as false, it is made abundantly clear, by the authors of the Books of Samuel and Kings, that the Temple was designed as a glorious centre, towards which the worship of all Israel might converge. When David brings up the Ark of God to Zion, it is no mere local ceremony, but one in which " all the house of Israel " (2 Sam. 6. 15) are interested and represented. And when he proposes to Nathan that a suitable dwelling should at last be erected for so venerated a symbol of God's presence, the proposal is dealt with as involving no necessary limitation to Judah, but as one which " any out of the tribes of Israel, whom I commanded to feed My people Israel " (2 Sam. 7. 7) might, in any past age since the Conquest, have as reasonably preferred. And, when the Temple comes to be built, it is not the men of Judah who alone build it, or derive benefit from it : it is by " a levy out of all Israel, and the levy was thirty thousand men, and Solomon sent them to Lebanon" (1 Kings 5. 13), that the materials are obtained : God's promise " concerning this house which thou art in building," is that all Israel shall be blessed by His residence in 6 SANCTUARY AXB SACRIFICE. it, "I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will not forsake My people Israel " (1 Kings 6. 12, 13) : when the dedi- cation takes place, Judah is not even specially named, it is " the elders of Israel, and all the heads of the tribes, the princes of the fathers' houses of the children of Israel " (1 Kings 8. 1), whom Solomon assembles : it is " when Thy people Israel pray toward this place," and not toward any other spot in Palestine, that they are to be heard, and forgiven, and delivered ont of all their troubles : nay, even distant nations are to hear and acknowledge Zion to be the glorious central residence of Jehovah, "the stranger that is not of Thy people Israel, when he shall come out of a far country for Thy name's sake .... when he shall come and pray toward this house ; hear Thou in heaven Thy dwelling-place, and do according to all that the stranger calleth upon Thee for ; that all the peoples of the earth may know Thy name to fear Thee, as doth Thy people Israel, and that they may know that this house which I have built is called by Thy name " (1 Kings 8. 41-13) : and when the assembled congregation of all Israel have been sent away, the seal of Divine ax3ceptance on the dedication is thus con- veyed, " I have hallowed this house which thou hast built to put Mj name there for ever ; and Mine eyes and Mine heart shall be there perpetually " (1 Kings 9. 3). By what language could it have been more emphatically proclaimed that the Temple was established as a central sanctuary for all Israel hundreds of years before Josiah was born ? We need not argue as to the meaning to be attached to the above language, for Wellhausen attaches the same meaning to it as ourselves ; he acknowledges that the author of the Books of Kings regards the Temple as "in its nature unique," as erected not from political, but from religious, motives, and as invested with a sacredness and exclusiveness, with which none of all Israel's " other holy places " might compete. ONE TEMPLE ON ZION. 7 How, then, does he get quit of the above view of the Temple, embedded so ineradicably (as one would think) in the Scripture history ? It seems to us that he gets quit of it in two ways, (1) by a bold assertion, and (2) by a contradictory inference, 1. As to his bold assertion. It is this : " The vieiv^ hoivever^ is unMstorical ; it carries back to the original date of the Temple, and imports into the purpose of its first foundation the significance which it had acquired in Judah shortly before the Exile" (pp. 20, 21).* This certainly is a statement of sufficient sweep and decision. But on ivhat does it rest ? So far as direct authorisation is concerned, it rests on absolutely nothing. It hangs (to use one of his own similes) " in the air," having no connection with terra firma at all. Wellhausen does not profess to offer a tittle of direct evidence that the statements of the author of Kings are misleading ; nor has he an atom of proof that these statements contradict any earlier form in which the narrative was given to the world. Further, no subsequent Scripture author denies that Solomon intended the Temple as a centre of worship for all Israel, nor charac- terises the circumstantial narrative of its gradual preparation, and costly erection, and splendid inauguration as an unhis- torical invention. And we need hardly add that no heathen author is forthcoming to credit Solomon with different views from those which the author of Kings, with such overwhelming emphasis, ascribes to him. So far as responsible testimony is concerned, we have nothing but the ipse dixit of a German professor, writing more than two millenniums after the events, for the above-quoted tremendous imputation of historical in- accuracy. It seems part of the " science," in which our advanced critics indulge, that the more utterly bereft their statements * See Note A. 8 8ANCTUABY AND SACBIFICE. are of support or proof, they compensate this by a proportional scornfulness, and indubitableness, of bold assertion. 2. But, in default of any direct coiToboration, we said that Wellhausen seeks to fortify his extraordinary charge by a con- tradictory inference. He infers the unhistorical character of the Temple narrative from the absence of ivhat he thinks ought to have followed it in the subsequent history. " We nowhere read that that king (Solomon), like a forerunner of Josiah, m order to favour his new sanctuary, sought to abolish all the others Never once did Solomon's successors make the attempt (which certainly would have been in their interest) to concentrate all public worship within their own temple. . . . The high places were not removed ; this is what is regularly told us regarding them all" (p. 21). That is to say, Well- hausen weaves out of his own fancy what kind of nan-ative ought to have followed the alleged centralisation by Solomon, and, because this subjectively fixed narrative is not forth- coming, the plainest and most multiplied direct historic state- ments are to be thrown aside. Neither Solomon nor his successors abolished the high places and other seats of worship throughout their dominions, so as to secure a monopoly of honom- for their own temple ; therefore the story of Solomon having intended to specially centralise all Israel's worship at Jerusalem must be dismissed as the daring invention of an unscrupulous romancer. What is the worth of this confident argument ? We think we can prove it, out of Wellhausen's own mouth, to be absolutely worthless. (1) But first we would remark on the great slur which our infallible critic casts on the author of the Books of Kings in imputing to him such intellectual incapacity. If the state- ments that the high places were not removed are irreconcilable with Solomon's declared object in building the Temple, was it beyond the mental endowment of the author of Kings to detect ONE TEMPLE ON ZION. 9 the irreconcilableness ? Is the contrariety so recondite that it needs a parturiunt monies, on the part of " scientific " criti- cism, to make it issue from its dark recess ? Was it not plain to the author himself that, in his record of each succeeding reign, he was framing the instrument of his own exposure ? He did not stick at trifles ; he could take the most daring liberties with facts ; he could write down the most deliberate and manifold falsification of Solomon's actings. Why did he not carry the falsification a little further to keep himself consistent ? Would it not have been as easy to say that the high places were removed in succeeding reigns, or that earnest efforts were made to abolish them, as to say regularly that they were not removed ? If he could not help di'opping such stultifications at every step of his narrative, might he not have copied Jeremiah, and cried up to the God of truth, who was employing him for such wanton work, " Ah ! Lord God, I cannot forge history, for I am a child " ? Is not the conviction forced upon us that the statements that the high places were not removed must be somehow consistent with the declared origin of the Temple, else such glaring self -exposures would not have been left on record by the forger ? (2) But we have said that Wellhausen virtually contradicts himself in the argument on which he so complacently relies. He seeks to discredit a Scripture author for making contra- dictory statements. We submit that, within the compass of his own first chapter, which we are reviewing, he falls into his own pit, and makes quite contradictory admissions. It is his p. 21 which we are criticising. Let us go forward six pages, to his p. 27, and what do we find ? We there find him holding that, though Solomon had attempted no centralisation of worship through the abolition of high places, Josiah not only attempted, but accomplished, that feat. He now places implicit confidence in the author of Kings. The narrative of 2 Kings 23 10 SAXCTUAEY AND SACRIFICE. as to the rooting out of all idolatry, and the abolition of all high places through the length and breadth both of Judah and Samaria, is unreservedly accepted. And the existence of a law (the newly-invented Deuteronomy, as he holds it to be), sanc- tioning this national revolution, is expressly declared. Not from regard to Josiah, but from a universally accepted command from God through Moses, the whole of the local sacrificial places throughout Israel disappeared at one fell swoop, and Jerusalem became the exclusive seat of sacrificial worship. Now, how long did this mighty change endure ? According to the argument Ave are reviewing, such a change should have borne permanent fruit, and coloured all the future history. The reason why Solomon's aims in dedicating the Temple are treated as a romance is that the subsequent history admits the continuance of the high places. We should expect, therefore, that the root-and-branch reformation by Josiah would have left an ineifaceable mark, not only on his own, but on succeeding reigns. Is it so ? Wellhausen makes the most prominent confession that the reformation by Josiah had no permanence whatever ! " After Josiah's death we again see Bamoth appearing on all hands, not merely in the country, but even in the capital itself. Jeremiah has to lament that there are as many altars as towns in Judah" (p. 27). If this could be the swift result, in a few years, of the entire sweeping away of these " altars," with what consistency can the Temple narrative, by the same author of Kings, be discredited, merely because, in the case of Solomon's immediate successors, " the high places were not removed ; this is what is regularly told us in the case of them all" (p. 21)? Josiah' s reformation was "new" and " vigorous " and " deeply cutting " ; it was safe-guarded by " a written law, that had been solemnly sworn to by the whole people, standing ever an immovable witness to the rights of God" (p. 27) ; and yet, with all its actuality, and thorough- ONE TEMPLE ON ZION. 11 ness, and Divine enforcement, it disappeared like a morning clond before the rebelliousness of Jndah. Why may not Solomon's aspirations after a pure and divinely-accepted wor- ship have suffered a like speedy and general eclipse ? We can conceive no reconciliation of the two contradictory positions — first, that Solomon's dedication prayer is a fiction, because by his successors " the high places were not removed " ; and secondly, that Josiah's reformation was real and universal, although he was hardly in his grave before there were again " as many altars as towns in Judah." (3) But we shall make another quotation from Wellhausen's first chapter. Let us go back two pages, from p. 21 to p. 19, and we there read, " No king afte7^ Solomon is left uncensured for having tolerated the high places " (p. 19). He is founding on the immunity from such "censure" which Samuel and others lefore Solomon enjoyed, though they sanctioned "the multiplicity of altars and of holy places " ; and he argues that such " multiplicity " had become illegal after the building of Solomon's Temple, and was therefore the object of unvarying " censure." What is this but unwittingly to admit what he is straightway to use his greatest plainness of language in deny- ing ? What can these recurring " censures " mean, unless there were a condemnation of the high places, and a centralisation at Jerusalem, proclaimed by Solomon ? If the toleration of the high places by Solomon's successors had been recorded as a matter of course, with no hint of its being strange or wrong, Wellhausen might have had something to found on ; but when such toleration is habitually "censured," have we not the strongest possible recurring confirmation of the truth of the Temple narrative ? If Wellhausen will search candidly he will find more circular reasoning and self-stultification on his own pages than on the scornfully treated pages of the author of Kings. He acknowledges that these "censures" are intended 12 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. to prove, and that they are fuUp calculated to prove, legitimacy of sanctuary ; and he has not a rag of warrant for his subse- quent insinuation that these " censures " are forgeries. (4) We would just add that, apart from his own pages, the inconclusiveness of Wellhausen's confident argument is capable of very varied illustration. Because his successors tolerate the high places, therefore a Divine testimony against them through Solomon cannot be credited : that is his argument. Will he hold that the first commandment was obviously unknown to Solomon, seeing that we read " Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites" (1 Kings 11. 5)? Will he hold that the seventh commandment must have been unknown to Solomon, seeing it is said, " King Solomon loved many strange women," "and he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines " (1 Kings 11. 3) ? Will he hold that the second commandment had not been spoken from Sinai, in view of the fact that, a few weeks after, the people are found, with the future high priest at their head, worshipping a golden calf at the very base of the smoking mountain ? Will he hold that Israel's triumphant song at the Eed Sea is an incredible romance, in view of the fact that, only a few days thereafter, the people are found murmuring against God and against Moses, and proposing to return to Egypt ? Such questions might be multiplied at pleasure, and they show how precarious is the argument which sweeps away Solomon's appointment of exclusive honour for the Temple, merely because there is no scrupulous abolition of the high places on the part of his successors. We have read that "the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked " ; and a little deeper recog- nition of this elementary truth might have saved Wellhausen from leaning on the broken reed of the argument we are considering. ONE TABERNACLE AT SHILOH. 13 We have dealt with the post-Solomonic continuance of idols and high places in Juda\ as being the chief strength (if any) which the argument possesses : if their continuance in Judah is quite compatible with the centralisation implied in the Temple narrative, then a fortiori their continuance in Northern Israel, after the disruption under Jeroboam, will not avail to discredit that narrative. We have shown that Wellhausen has not a solitary witness, sacred or profane, to support his dictum regarding that narrative, "the view, however, is unhistorical " ; and we have urged that the inference from the subsequent his- tory in Kings, by which alone he would prop that dictum up, is of the flimsiest and most inconclusive kind. II. But we said that the Temple narrative is only one of thi-ee leading landmarks, which are inconsistent with the preposterous idea that a unity of sanctuary was first heard of in Josiah's day. And the second of these landmarks is the establishment of the house of God in Shiloh. For this remoter event, there is not the same fulness of description, as for the erection of the Temple, yet the evidence seems both direct and sufficient. Take the following full and unambiguous testimony from Jeremiah : " But go ye now to My place which was in Shiloh, where I caused My name to dwell at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of My people Israel. And now, because ye have done all these works, saith the Lord, and I spake unto you, rising up early and speaking, but ye heard not ; and I called you, but ye answered not : therefore will I do unto the house, which is called by My name, wherein ye trust, as I have done to Shiloh " (Jer. 7. 12-14). We venture to say that, if the foregoing words had coincided with Wellhausen's views, he would never have been weary magnifying their ex- plicitness, and insisting on their invincible force. He would 14 SAXCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. have pointed out that no words could more clearly prove the recognised belief of all Israel, in a jwe-exilic age, that the unity of sanctuary in Canaan originated, not in the days of Josiah, but in those of Joshua. He would have urged that the words "where I caused My name to dwell at the firs V unmistakably imply a "first" centralisation at Shiloh after the Conquest, and a subsequent centralisation at Jerusalem, by which that " first " was superseded. He would have shown that the house at Shiloh stood long as a precursor of the Temple, but that it had to be overthrown (as had the Temple afterwards) for the wickedness of the people. And he would have called on us, either to blot out history altogether, or to accept this straight- forward and unhesitating witness. Inasmuch, however, as the words do not coincide with Wellhausen's views, how does he treat them ? He treats them to an utter repudiation ! Reverting again to his weapon of bold assertion, he declares : " Any strict centralisation is for that period inconceivable, alike in the religious as in every other sphere" (p. 19). That is to say, Jeremiah may be in- spired : he may be well acquainted with the unquestioning immemorial views of his people as to their early history : but if he states what an advanced critic thinks out of place, he must be straightway dubbed as penning pure nonsense — what is absolutely " inconceivable " ! Whether are we to pin our faith to Wellhausen or to Jeremiah ? 1. Wellhausen is again in the position, so far as direct counter-evidence is concerned, of not having a single witness to join him in repudiating Jeremiah. Not one responsible statement is forthcoming from any quarter to the effect that the alleged centralisation at Shiloh is a fiction. 2. But not only has our critic no one to join him in giving the lie direct to Jeremiah, he is further in the extraordi- nary position of himself patronising this same Jeremiah, and ONE TABEENACLE AT SHILOH. 15 founding on him as a most excellent witness, only a few pages further on in his treatise ! On p. 58, he quotes from the same 7th chapter of Jeremiah as we have quoted from, ver. 22, as follows : " For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices." Here is Jeremiah professing to speak with plain authority of God's dealings with Israel as far bach as the Exodus. Wellhausen clutches at his evidence as reliable, and parades it as proving that " Jeremiah is unacquainted with the Mosaic legislation as it is contained in the Priestly Code " (p. 59). >ye think it i)roves no such thing, but that is not meantime the question ; the single point w^e fix on is that, as far as it suits his peculiar views, Wellhausen is willing to place full credit in Jeremiah as a witness. And be it noted that the two testimonies are borne by the prophet in the same chapter, and that the accepted testimony refers to the much farther back event, namely, to what happened " in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt." N'ow, with what consistency can Wellhausen accept Jeremiah's witness in ver. 22 as to what happened so far back as the days in the wilderness, and yet reject as " inconceivable " his more explicit witness in ver. 12 of the same chapter as to what happened two generations later, when God " caused His name to dwell " at Shiloh ? We may add that Jeremiah has a recapitulation of the prophecy of his seventh chapter, so far as it commemorates Shiloh, in his twenty-sixth chapter. He there stands in the court of the Lord's house, and proclaims : "If ye will not hearken to Me, to walk in My law . , . then will I make this house like Shiloh, and will make this city a curse to all the nations of the earth " (Jer. 26. 6). The priests and the pro- phets are enraged at his insinuating that the Temple on Zion could ever share a desolation, similar to that of God's first 16 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. house at Shiloh ; and the rest of the chapter narrates their con- spiracy against Jeremiah's Ufe in consequence. Their language, " Why hast thou prophesied in the name of the Lord, saying. This house shall be like Shiloh ? " virtually adds them to Jeremiah as additional witnesses that the first establishment of centralisa- tion at Shiloh was an elementary principle of their history. 3. We have to urge, further, that Jeremiah has other Scrip- tural ^Titers confirming his express statements, though Well- hausen has none to confirm his. The testimony of the writer of the seventy-eighth Psalm is as express and unchallengeable as that of Jeremiah. This is a historical psalm, which founds its warnings on a retrospect of Israel's history, from the days of Moses to the days of David. It is ascribed, with every appear- ance of good warrant, to Asaph, and may be regarded as summing up the views of a writer of (say) the tenth century, regarding the chief landmarks of past national history. Among these landmarks we find the forsaking of Shiloh commemorated, precisely as Jeremiah, in the seventh century, commemorates it. The idolatries, which were multiplied on the high places, after the conquest of Canaan, led to God's withdrawal from Shiloh, and to His letting the ark be carried into captivity. " For they provoked Him to anger with their high places, and moved Him to jealousy with their graven images. When God heard this. He was wroth, and greatly abhorred Israel : so that He forsook the talernade of Shiloh, the tent which He placed among men : and dehvered His strength into captivity, and His glory into the adversary's hand" (Ps. 78. 58-61). Nothing could indicate more clearly the unquestioning belief of the whole nation that God's tabernacle had been first set up at Shiloh. An " Inconceivable " from Wellhausen is but a shadowy (that we say not an utterly contemptible) rival against such a witness. 4. We have heard the echoes of the seventh and of the tenth ONE TABERNACLE AT SHILOH. 17 centuries. Bat, in narratives which deal with events prior to the arising of kings at all, we have similar satisfying indications that centralisation at Shiloh had been well known from the first. The authors of Judges and of 1 Samuel treat it as a matter of undoubted notoriety that, for a lengthened period, Grod's special dwelling was at Shiloh, and that Israel went up from their various cities to yearly sacrifices there. " All the time that the house of God was in Shiloh " (Judg. 18. 31), and, " There is the feast of the Lord from year to year in Shiloh " (Judg. 21. 19), are corroborations of Jeremiah's, and of Asaph's, witness of the most undesigned but conclusive kind. " This man went up out of his city from year to year to worship and to sacrifice unto the Lord of hosts in Shiloh " (1 Sam 1. 3) — there is the most natural and unmistakable continuation of the same witness ; and the following chapters are replete with indications that Shiloh is the recognised centre of Israelitish worship. They speak of " all the Israelites coming thither " (2. 15) ; they speak of the presiding priest there being chosen to represent " all the tribes of Israel," and as being " My priest," and " going up unto Mine altar," in an obviously exclusive sense (2. 2S) ; they speak of the place of worship there as " the temple of the Lord " and as His " habitation," with a significance that obviously contemplates all Israel (2. 29 ; 3. 3, &c.) ; they speak of " the ark of the covenant of the Lord of hosts, which sitteth upon the cherubim " (4. 4), which Israel and Philistia alike recognise as the supreme symbol of God's presence (4. 8), and whose established location was in Shiloh. May we not retort on Wellhausen his own word, and say, that it is " inconceivable " that of any other place in all Israel, except Shiloh, such things as the foregoing could in these ages have been predicated ? 5. Here, as in the case of the Temple, Wellhausen's great refuge is to point to instances of worship, and of sacrifice, S 2S93. B 18 SANCTUABY AND SACBIFICE. offered in other places, during the period when they are held to have been centralised in Shiloh, and infer from this that the centralisation was a fiction. But (1) we have already seen that Josiah's centralisation was no fiction, though it was almost immediately disregarded by all Judah. If there could be " as many altars as towns in Judah " a few years after a most solemn and undoubted centralisation at Jerusalem, why might not a centralisation at Shiloh have been followed by an equally lax remembrance, on the part of the Israelites, of that much smaller city " which God had chosen to place His name there" ? (2) Besides, how could we expect to find Shiloh duly honoured, durmg a period which the historian reprobates as one long suc- cession of unfaithfulnesses and idolatries ? The period of the Judges is so reprobated. Every succeeding record is how " the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord," how they " followed other gods, of the gods of the peoples that were round about them," how " they forsook the Lord, and served Baal and the Ashtaroth." Is it reasonable to expect to read of Grod's pure and stated worship in the midst of such narratives ? Might we not rather be surprised by the few references we have to the ordained pre-eminence of Shiloh ? (3) The succeeding period, from Samuel to Solomon, was, in great measure, so far as centralisation of worship was concerned, a period of inter- regnum and anarchy. The ark was captured by the Philistines, and, though sent back, was never re-established at its central seat : and, " for the wickedness of My people," the house at Shiloh was suffered to go to ruin. The sacrificial practices, during such a period, are obviously inapplicable, as illustrations of what may have been the normal requirements of God's law. (4) It seems highly illogical to refer to such miraculous appear- ances, as that to Gideon when he was commissioned as judge (pp. 22, 55, 64), as though they turned places like Ophrah into "sanctuaries" as eminent as Shiloh, and illustrated the pre- ONE TABEBNACLE AT SHILOH. 19 scribed method and materials of sacrifice. Such services were almost as exceptional as David's eating of the shew-bread, or Abraham's sacrifice of his son. How could Gideon have been asked to go from " the oak that was in Ophrah," in order to sacrifice at Shiloh, at a time when the whole nation (including his own father's house) was steeped in idolatry, and when the people, even though they had been inclined for the yearly pilgrimages, were hiding in the dens and caves of the mountains, and could not, for fear of Midian, come forth even to reap their fields (Judg. 6. 2-Q and 25-27) ? And are we not expressly told, when he seems to have made an attempt to centralise idolatrous worship at Ophrah, that his conduct "became a snare unto Gideon, and to his house " (Judg. 8. 27) ? There is nothing, therefore, in the record of occasional sacrificial services away from Shiloh, when read in the light of the exceptional circumstances of the kingdom, to throw the least discredit on the design and appointment of Jehovah to have His worship first centralised at Shiloh, after the settlement in Canaan. 6. It will be seen that we have not yet quoted a most explicit testimony from the Book of Joshua, as to the establishment of centrahsation at Shiloh. What could be more natural, and satisfying, than the following, after the Conquest has been narrated : " And the whole congregation of the children of Israel assembled themselves together at Shiloh, and set up the tent of meeting there " (Josh. 18. 1) ? Wellhausen seems dis- posed to ignore the author of Joshua as a witness ; at least, in entering on his theme, he announces he is to consider the historical books, only "from the period of the Judges onwards " (p. 17). On this two remarks seem fair. His theory, which he professes to derive from the history, can survive, only by repudiating the unambiguous testimony of the only recognised history of Israel, during one of the most critical periods of B 2 20 8ANCTUABY AND SACBIFICE. their experience. The other remark is that he is capable of accepting testimony from the author of Joshua, after his own fashion, when it suits him. He professes to learn from Joshua (pp. 18 and 22) that Gilgal became " an important centre of worship" as soon as Canaan was entered — though there is no such testimony in the book ! He professes to learn from Joshua (p. 38) that the altar which the eastern tribes erected at Jordan was intended as a place for worship and sacrifice — though the book testifies the contrary with the most emphatic repetition ! He thus manufactures " centres " of worship, out of his own unauthorised imaginings, in order to rival and discredit Shiloh. The eastern tribes expressly declare that their altar is " not for burnt-offering, nor for sacrifice," and that they do not mean it to be in the least co-equal with God's recognised central altar at Shiloh — " the altar of the Lord our God which is before His tabernacle" (Josh. 22. 22-29). Wellhausen tells us this is pure romance ; without a shred of 2Jroof he infers their altar was as much intended for sacrifice, as was the altar at Shiloh ; but their doings experienced "metamorphosis" from some daring writer, many centuries afterwards, who wanted to pretend there had been a unity of sanctuary from the beginning, and who, therefore, wrote down the untruth that these tribes erected their altar "with no intention that it should be used, but merely in commemoration of something " (p. 38). And, instead of execrating such forgery, he patronisingiy calls it " the same simple historical method " (p. 37). Certainly, by such a "simple method," one may make anything of anything. It will be quite obvious from the above why Wellhausen should start his investigation not " from the period of Joshua," but "from the period of the Judges onwards" (p. 17). Yet we see he can slip in proofs from Joshua, though without warrantable- ness and candour, when it suits him. In the Book of Joshua, ONE TABEENACLE AT SHILOH. 21 we have the exclusive record, which Israel have handed down, of their conquest of Canaan, and, embedded therein, we have the clearest declarations of the special centralisation of their worship at Shiloh ; in the Books of Judges and Samuel, we have indications, almost more in number, and in force, than the degeneracy of the times might have rendered probable, that such centralisation had been established from the first ; in one of the longest and earliest of the historical psalms, we have Asaph treating the centralisation at Shiloh, and its subsequent discontinuance, as among the most familiar and indisputable facts of Israelitish history ; and in Jeremiah, a witness whom Wellhausen implicitly trusts, in the same chapter, for even earlier events, we have it treated as a historical truism, which no Israelite could think of questioning, that God " caused His name to dwell in Shiloh at the first," when He had settled Israel in the land of promise. And at this overwhelming proof of centralisation Wellhausen calmly scoffs — " It is for that period inconceivable " ! Clearly, instead of sitting at the feet of the historians of Israel, he rather guides their hand as they write, and imperiously prescribes for them what witness they shall bear. The erection of the Mosaic tabernacle, as well as the con- sideration of other aspects of Wellhausen's theory of Sanctuary, still remain for notice. ( 22 ) CHAPTER II. ESTABLISHMENT OF CENTRALISATION AT SINAI — "evolutio a NON EVOLVENDO." III. WE proceed now to the third (though it is historically the first) of the three classical embodiments of national sanctuary in Israel — the tabernacle, containing the ark of the covenant, erected by Moses in the wilderness. Wellhausen's treatment of this branch of the subject is so astounding, in its utterly unsupported assumptions, and in its wholesale imputations of falsehood to the writers of Scripture, that we always feel a difficulty in realising that he can expect his views to be soberly accepted by any Bible student. Nothing in the whole of the Old Testament is more indubitably, more minutely, and more solemnly asserted and described than the erection of the Mosaic tabernacle. Next to the delivery of the Decalogue, it is the main outstanding event in Israel's first year of national emancipation. No less than thirteen entire chapters (Exod. 25 — 31 and 35 — 40) are devoted to a most cir- cumstantial account of its contrivance, and execution. Its precious materials, its cunning workers, its hearty contributors, its every division and curtain and vessel, its time in making, and its splendid inauguration, are all there most explicitly detailed. Its habitual journeying before the people, as their divine guide, from point to point in the wilderness, is narrated (Exod. 40. 3G-38 ; Num. 10. 11-12 and 33-36). Its fixture by Joshua at the close of the Conquest is briefly chronicled as a matter of course (Josh. 18. 1). At the birth of Samuel, it is, CENTRALISATION AT 8INAL 23 equally as a matter of course, referred to as standing where Joshua fixed it (1 Sam. 2. 22). When the Temple is finished, the priests and Levites introduce it, amid unparalleled solemnity and rejoicing, into what is henceforth to he God's more perma- nent and hallowed dwelling (1 Kin. 8. 4). If anything seems embedded immovably in the history of Jewish worship, it is the giving of the divine pattern for the sanctuary, and the elaborate execution thereof in the wilderness, " as the Lord commanded Moses." How does Wellhausen make all this square with his idea that a central sanctuary was never heard of till Josiah's day ? He again calmly repairs to his armoury of bold assertion, and brings forth from it the following : " The tahernach rests on a historical fiction ! " (p. 39) : " Hebrew tradition^ even from the time of the judges and the first kings, for which the Mosaic taberna(;le was, strictly speaking, intended, Tcnows nothing at all alout it ! " (p. 39). That is to say, the most deliberate and circumstantial narrative in the Old Testament, embodying a universal belief, for centuries before Christ, of the Jewish nation regarding their early worship, has been discovered in the nineteenth century to have not one atom of truth in it from its first syllable to its last ! No tabernacle ever existed. Neither Moses, Joshua, Samuel, nor Solomon, ever set an eye on it. No board of it was ever shaped, and no bolt in it was ever driven. The whole edifice is a " fiction " — it is as much " the unsubstantial pageant of a dream " as Homer's divine dwellings on Olympus, or Bunyan's Significant Rooms in the house of Interpreter ! How then did it come to be so earnestly, and graphically, related in the Word of God ? Wellhausen can tell us at once. About a thousand years after the death of Moses, a band of literary conspirators came back from Babylon to Judea, and achieved the most daring and successful mis-narration of facts, 24 SAXCTUARY AND SACBIFICE. which it ever entered into man's heart to conceive. They had their temple to re-build ; and, though they knew quite well there had been no central sanctuary in Israel till about thirty years before the Exile, they thought it would look well, and would tend to glorify the history of their race, to pretend that, from their very birth as a nation, they had known, and acted on, the principle of One God, One Sanctuary. " The principle had become part of their very being that the one God had also but one place of worship " (p. 28). They felt " unable to think of religion without the one sanctuary" (p. 36). How then could they " think " of Moses as possessing a single grain of " religion," seeing that he left this absolute fundamental of a unity of sanctuary, utterly unrevealed to the tribes which he led ? They felt a necessity laid upon them to hide the spiritual nakedness of so illustrious a founder. And they decided that the surest and most glorious plan for effecting this would be to invent a fiction, and get it smuggled into their sacred oracles, that Moses knew quite well about a unity of sanctuary, and had, with utmost minuteness, at amazing cost, and under express divine guidance, superintended the construction of a central sanctuary, w4iich he caused to go before the tribes, as their guide and glory, during the forty years in the wilderness, and which he left to accompany them into Canaan, as the sure pledge of divine presence and divine protection. The Captivity burned into their intellect the principle that " God has but one place of worship" ; but it did not burn into ih^iY conscience the principle that God has but one standard of utterance, and that the standard of unening truth, — that God has but one feeling for conscious deceivers, and that the feeling of utter abhorrence. The Captivity left them free to write down, in God's name, with thousand-fold empliasis, the thing that is not : and, under some mysterious spell, the wliole of their fellow countrymen, on the instant, and ever after, agreed to swallow the incomparable CENTRALISATION AT SINAI. 25 "fiction," and to make all ages, till the Wellhausens arose, believe that a tabernacle, which no man ever gazed upon, was originally prescribed on Sinai, and became the most patient and loving achievement of all the camp of Israel in the first year of their emancipation. We cannot resist quoting the title ascribed to the "fiction," and the character ascribed to its authors. The beautiful euphemism, by which the " fiction " is hallowed, is — " maMng the Temple portaUe ! '' "The Temple is regarded as so indis- pensable, even for the troubled days of the wanderings before the settlement, that it is made portable, and, in the form of a tabernacle, set up in the very beginning of things. For the truth is, that the tabernacle is the copy, not the prototype, of the Temple at Jerusalem " (p. 37). And a still finer touch is added, when the authors are characterised. They are " the pious ones " — nay, emphatically, they are " onl?/ the pious ones " (p. 28) — further still, they are " those who had given themselves tip, lody and soul, to the reformation ideas" (p. 28). None hut these could be found equal to such a deliberate and fatal poisoning of the very fountains of truth ! The rest of the nation, " perhaps the majority, totally gave up the past " (p. 28), and wandered away, with such remnants of common honesty as still clave to them, to be " lost among the heathen " (p. 28), and never attempted any utter falsification of the annals of their race. None but the " pious," and the " body and soul" reformers, could lay sufficiently violent hands on truth, and multiply command after command in God's mouth for Moses, every syllable of which was " fiction." Every student of Wellhausen knows that we are not magni- fying by a hau-'s-breadth his frightful charge against certain writers of Scripture. He treats them, with coolest scorn, as deUberate and designing fabricators. The Exile led them, instead of respecting, and transmitting, their national records, 26 SAXCTUABY AND SACBIFICE. to "treat in the freest possible manner, in accordance with their own ideas, the institutions of the bygone past " (p. 49) ; and he actually adds, " For what reason does Chronicles stand in the canon at all, if not in order to teach us this " (p. 49) ? A book "stands in the canon" for the express purpose of teaching free and wholesale unveracity to be permissible in the service of the God of truth ! He describes their aim to be that of " completely altering the ancient history " (p. 36), and again *' to idealise the past to their hearts' content " (p. 38). Instead of giving the true Mosaic legislation, they devote themselves to its " artificial and ideal repristination " (p. 38). To call a spade a spade does not seem to be "scientific"; so, instead of free forgery, let us speak of " artificial repristination ! " But it is time to ask, where are the overwhelming proofs of such a charge ? They ought to be like bars of adamant, but, instead, we find them ropes of sand. 1. Wellhausen is again in the position of not having a single direct statement from any writer, sacred or profane, in support of his extraordinary view. The tabernacle is nowhere pronounced a " fiction." We have nowhere a description of Mosaic worship, from which the tabernacle is conspicuous by its absence. No historian, nor X3rophet, nor psalmist throws the slightest positive discredit upon it. A Xew Testament writer treats, it as indubitably historical, and regards it (Heb. 9) as a carefully constructed type of our divine redemption. The conspirators, who essayed its imaginary erection, are altogether unknown, and unrefen-ed to. It is well thus to make manifest the utter absence of positive support, which Wellhausen has to face. 2. But he is, further, in the very awkward position of having to admit that one most essential part of the alleged " fiction " is undeniably true. The most important content of the taber- nacle was the ark of the covenant of the Lord in ifcs most holy place. AVellhausen cannot get rid of the auJ^' ^aity of the ark : CENTRALISATION AT SINAI. 27 he acknowledges there is " early testimony " (p. 45) for it : nay, he admits that it " had a certain right to be considered the one genuine Mosaic sanctuary " (p. 27). In this he only folloAvs Kuenen, who describes Moses as '^raising the arh to te Israel's central sanctuary " {Relig. of Israel, vol. i., p. 290). Centrality of worship from the first is inseparable from the acknowledged existence of the ark. No family, not even any tribe, in Israel could construct arks for themselves : there was but one ark, recognised and umiv ailed, the symbol alike of the unity of the nation, and of the unity ^of their God and their worship. While the ark remains, therefore, what better is Wellhausen, though he could " idealise " the tabernacle ? He has only stripped off the clothes and left the living body : he has only thrown away the husk, and left untouched the kernel. No " artificial repristination " will get rid of the ark : it stands " pristine " before all his sophistry, and by its grand " pristination," it knocks his whole theory to pieces. We would add that, while Wellhausen treats as " fiction " the minute account of the construction of the ark which Scripture gives, he cannot give the least clue as to its true construction. He cannot tell in what place, nor in what year, nor by what hands it was fashioned, nor what strange circumstances induced all the tribes to a common acknowledgment of such a mystic and all-binding symbol. How could such a fundamental marvel drop out of history ? 3. We have an express historic affirmation of the existence of the tabernacle in 1 Sam. 2. 22. If that one verse stands, Wellhausen's " whole position " is annihilated. But he says it is "badly attested," and "open to suspicion" (p. 41), and he therefore declares it " an interpolation " (p. 43). The Eevisers of the Enghsh Version not only regard the verse as genuine, but do not even introduce a marginal doubt of its genuineness. The American Revisers concur with them in accepting the 28 SAXCTUABY AND SACBIFICE. verse. A verse, thus amply attested by the scholarship of the day, must be suppressed, else Wellhausen has no case. Surely this may show the perilous self-confidence of his " science." 4. "We have an equally express testimony to the existence of the tabernacle or tent of meeting in 1 Kings 8. 4, where its introduction into Solomon's Temple is mentioned, " And they brought up the ark of the Lord, and the tent of meeting, and all the holy vessels that were in the Tent ; even these did the priests and Levites bring up." The risky and capricious character of Wellhausen's " science " is well illustrated by his handhng of this verse. There are two references to "the Tent " in the earher chapters of 1 Kings : " And Zadok the priest took the horn of oil out of the Tent, and anointed Solomon " (1 Kings 1. 39) : " And Joab fled into the Tent of the Lord, and caught hold on the horns of the altar " (1 Kings 2. 28). Here are what Wellhausen regards (pp. 43, 44) as two absolutely conclusive arguments in regard to these three quotations from 1 Kings, {a) *' The Tent of meeting " in 8. 4 must be the same as " the Tent " in 1. 39, and " the Tent of the Lord " in 2. 28 ; and, as the Tent in the two latter quotations is necessarily the temporary covering for the ark W'hich David erected on Zion, therefore the reference in 8. 4 must be to David's temporary structure also. {V) If the Tent in 8. 4 refers to the Mosaic tabernacle, then it is out of all harmony with the context, and must be discarded as an interpolation. Are these arguments cogent ? (1) What necessity is there for the Tent being the same in all these quotations ? We think it is the same, but w^e demur to its being necessarily so. There is an interval of eleven years between the event in 8. 4, and the events in 1. 39 and 2. 28. It is quite conceivable the WTiter might have occasion to refer to different tents at such different periods. (2) The tent in 1. 39 and 2. 28 is neither necessarily nor CENTBALISATION AT SINAI. 29 probably David's Zion tent. Where are we ever told that the holj anointing oil of 1. 39 was stored up in the tent which stood on Zion during the last year or two of David's life ? Where are we ever told that the central altar, to whose horns the homicide might flee, as in 2. 28, was transfeiTed to that Zion tent ? The overwhelming probability, in both cases, is that the Mosaic tabernacle is meant. If so, then, on Wellhausen's own premisses, the tent in 8. 4 must, a fortissimo, be the Mosaic tabernacle also ! Only thus can his contextual harmony be secured. (3) The statement in 8. 4, that " they brought up the ark of the Lord, and the tent of meeting, and all the holy vessels that were in the Tent," seems most naturally interpreted by regard- ing the ark and the tent as brought up from different localities (the one from Zion, the other from Gibeon) ; else the ark should not have had first and separate mention, but might have been regarded as a content of the tent, being one of its " holy vessels." It is thus treated, when the construction of all has been narrated, in Exod. 40. 2, and 17-18. (4) Wellhausen freely acknowledges that the expression, " tent of meeting," in 8. 4, is most inapplicable to David's tent, and naturally suggests the Mosaic tabernacle. Keeping these four comments in view, it will be seen how utterly insecure is Wellhausen's assumption that the tent in 1. 39, and 2. 28 must be David's tent, and how unwarranted is his imperious dictum that 8. 4 must be rejected as an interpola- tion. And yet, if 8. 4 be no interpolation, his " whole position " is again blown away like a cobweb. 5. We saw how Wellhausen could invent imaginary centres of worship as rivals for Shiloh ; so we find also he can invent imaginary receptacles for the ark as rivals to the tabernacle. He quotes God's words through Nathan, to David : " I have not dwelt in an house since the day that I brought up the children of Israel out of Egypt, even to this day, but have 30 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE walked in a tent and in a tabernacle " (2 Sam. 7. 6), and com- ments thns : '' As David's tent does not date back to the Exodus, Xathan is necessarily speaking of changing tents and dwellings " (p. 45) : and again " The ark has not as its correlate a single definite sacred tent of state, but is quite indifferent to the shelter it enjoys — has frequentlg changed its abode, but nevei- had any particularly fine one" (p. 45). Compare Well- hausen's commentary ^vith Nathan's original, and it will be at once seen what a huge addition the critic foists into the prophet's words. Nathan speaks of " a tent," and of " a taber- nacle " : Wellhausen pluralises this into " changing tents," and " frequent abodes." There is not an atom of suggestion from Xathan that God had even once " changed His tent " in the whole period from Moses to David ; nor does he give the least hint whether the one tent was " particularly fine " or not. Be it added that, after thus inventing these "changing tents," Wellhausen cannot produce the slightest reference to any one of them from all the historical \^Titers on whom he would fain rely. He makes no pretence to have discovered a solitary I'cference to them. May we not, therefore, retort on him his own daring words, and say, " Wellhausen's changing tents rest on a historical fiction ! " " Hehrew tradition hioivs nothing at all ahout them I " Is it not fair to urge that, if he can hold to the reality of these " changing tents," though they are not once referred to, it is just as possible to hold to the reality of the Mosaic tabernacle, even though it were (as we have shown it is far from being) equally unrefen-ed to ? 0. We saw also how Wellhausen could slip in evidence from Joshua, though apparently bent on ignoring hiin ; we now find him doing the same with the Chronicler. When he cannot get his "changing tents" acknowledged anywhere, he actually takes refuge in 1 Chronicles, and professes to have encountered there a veritable confirmation of his views. Nathan's words CENTRALISATION AT SINAI. 31 are thus given in Chronicles : " I have gone from tent to tent, and from (one) tabernacle (to another)" (1 Chron. 17. 5). Wellhausen regards these words as implying a multiplicity of tents, and, therefore, eulogises the Chronicler's skill, and says of him, " the reading of the parallel passage in 1 Chron. 17. 5, therefore, correctly interprets the sense " (p. 45). But, in the first place, these words do not imply a plurality of " changing tents " ; if they did, Wellhausen must hold that a series of tents were simultaneously pitched at convenient distances through the wilderness, and that the Deity then walked, like a magnified human being, from the one tent to the others in succession, in the presence of all Israel. The language is the language of metaphor, and, to such an absurd literalisation of it, it were enough to answer, " When I was a child, I spake as a child." The words, both in Kings and Chronicles, are most amply elucidated by the representation of one tent or tabernacle for Jehovah, which was habitually carried before the people throughout their desert journeys, and which was regularly pitched as (metaphorically) Jehovah's " resting-place " at every spot where the people halted. How would Wellhausen answer if we insisted on literalising the language of Kings " from the day that I brought up the children of Israel out of Egypt even to this day, I have walked in a tent," and maintained that Jehovah had been engaged in one iin-haUing icalk, with no wilderness or other rests, from the Exodus to the " this day " of Nathan ? But, leaving such puerility, our further remark is that Wellhausen is debarred, by his own reiterated verdicts, from seeking responsible evidence from the Chronicler. He treats him as a deliberate fabricator, who was quite untrammelled by truth in what he wrote, and whose aim was the " completely altering the ancient history." He even asks, " For what reason does Chronicles stand in the canon at all, if not in order to 32 SASCTUABY AXD SACRIFICE. teach us tins?" (p. 49). And yet, when he cannot get a solitary rag elsewhere to cover the nakedness of his " changing tents," he suddenly throws a garment of credibility around the Chronicler, and walks arm-in-arm with him as " Correct Interpreter ! " We do not deny that this may be " science," but it is surely the "science" of facing both ways, or of blow- ing hot and cold, at one and the same instant of time. We have urged that Wellhausen does not " correctly interpret " the Chronicler ; and we have urged further that, even though he could achieve a " correct interpretation " of him, he is barred from founding on it as veritable history. 7. This seems the most appropriate place for showing that the existence and notoriety of the tabernacle, as first built by Moses, and as still known and honoured by David and Solomon, are most expressly asserted in the Books of Chronicles. The author describes David as leaving "Zadok the priest, and his brethren the priests, lefore the tabernacle of the Lord in the high place that was in Giheon " (1 Chron. 16. 39). When David sacrifices on the threshing-floor of Oman, the author excuses him, " For the tahernacle of the Lord^ which Moses made in the tvilderness, and the altar of burnt offering, were at that time in the high place at Gibeon. But David could not go before it to inquire of God, for he was afraid because of the sword of the angel of the Lord " (1 Chron. 21. 29, 30). At the outset of Solomon's reign, it is said of him, " So Solomon, and all the congregation with him, went to the high place that was at Gibeon ; for there was the tent of meeting of God, ichich 3Ioses the servant of the Lord had made in the ivilderness " (2 Chron. 1. 3). If one wants to see a string of lame and inconclusive comments, set off with an air of calm infallibility, let him read what Wellhausen says (pp. 40, 41) of the above three quotations.* ♦ See Note B, for WeUhausen's criticisms in full. CENTRALISATION AT SINAI. 33 (a) He first, by a strange freak, fixes on the third quotation, and transforms it into the /irst, calling it " the point from which it (the history) starts" (p. 40). We submit that the days of David preceded the days of Solomon, and that, if the three quotations are to be bracketed as a continuous " his- tory," then the " start " is with what is said of Zadok in 1 Chron. 16. 39— else the history "starts," and then travels backwards. (b) He further declares that, in the third quotation, "the Chronicler designates the tabernacle at Gibeon by the name of Bamah," or " high place " (p. 40). A moment's glance at the quotation will show that " the Chronicler " does no such thing ; he describes the tabernacle as located on the high place at Gibeon; but he does not describe it as itself constituting a high place. This, therefore, which he magniloquently calls a contradictio in adjecto is only a contradictio in Germano intelledu. When it is said " there is by the sheep gate a pool," the pool is not thereby " designated " a gate. When it is said " the ark rested on Ararat," the ark is not thereby " desig- nated" a mountain. This may seem childish, but it is ren- dered necessary by the fact that the nan-ative is said to be '' 'particularly '' (p. 40) discredited by the charge we are rebutting. (c) He also declares that the third quotation " is in contra- diction " (p. 40) with the following : " Only the people sacrificed in the high places, because there was no house built for the name of the Lord until those days. And Solomon loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of David his father; only he sacrificed and burnt incense in the high places. And the king went to Gibeon to sacrifice there ; for that was the great high place : a thousand burnt offerings did Solomon offer upon that altar " (1 Kings 3. 2-4). There is not the slightest " contra- diction " between the two narratives ; they may be explanatory, S 2893. ^ 34 SANCTUARY AXD SACRIFICE. or supplementary, of each other, but they are to no extent " contradictory." The wi'iter in Kings shows that, while high ]»laces abounded through the land, there was something asso- ciated with Gibeon which gave it signal pre-eminence over them all, entitling it to be styled " the great high place," and that it was /or that reason that Solomon chose Gibeon for the solemn national gathering and sacrifice, which inaugurate his reign. Whence this strange, and evidently universally acknowledged, pre-eminence of Gibeon ? What more natural explanation (indeed, any other is hardly conceivable) than that which the supplement in Chronicles suggests, viz., that the Mosaic taber- nacle, the once honoured workmanship and glory of all the tribes, was there, with the great national altar of burnt offering beside it ? The writer in Kings leaves the reason for the asserted pre-eminence of Gibeon undetailed ; but that so7ne strong reason existed, his words unmistakably imply. Reject the explanation in Chronicles, and what other is forthcoming ? Both narratives are naturally and exhaustively represented by the statement that Solomon sacrificed upon the brasen altar which was before the Mosaic tabernacle, which tabernacle w^as then, and had for some time been, located on the high place at Gibeon. There is a very satisfying harmony between the narratives: to talk of inevitable "contradiction" between them is criticism run wild. {(1) Without a shadow of proof, and entirely out of the depths of his own subjectivity, Wellhausen declares (p. 41) that the reference to the Mosaic tabernacle in the third quotation must be an interpolation. It is just the Chronicler at his old tricks again : he fancied it would look well to make " the young and pious Solomon " (p. 41) offer worship at the proper legal centre, and so he invents a Mosaic tabernacle, and de- liberately foists the " fiction " into the text ; but he knows quite well the tabernacle never existed, and it would be idle to CENTRALISATION AT SINAL 85 attach the slightest credit to his words. Further down, he treats the Chronicler to a general and unmitigated repudiation, by declaring that his history " ought to be left altogether out of account where the object is to ascertain what was the real and genuine tradition " ! (p. 41). Yet this is the same critic who (we have just seen) is ready to pat the Clu'onicler on the back, and call him "Correct Interpreter," when he wants some imaginary acknowledgment of his " changing tents." If he could be " correct " about these " tents," why might he not also be " correct " about the reason why " that was the great high place"? (e) Wellhausen then fells the three quotations by a common blow as follows : " Along with 2 Chron. 1. 3 seq. also fall the two other statements (1 Chron. 16. 39 ; 21. 29), both of which are dependent on that leading passage, as is clearly revealed by the recurring phrase, the Bamah of Gibeon " (p. 41). We have already adverted to the retrograde style of writing history, which makes statements in fi^st Chronicles " dependent " on a statement occurring, several chapters subsequently, in second Chronicles ; and we cannot, by any stretch of imagination, see why " the recurring phrase, the Bamah of Gibeon," should ha\'e the least effect in making the first two statements " dependent " on the third as " leading " : if it entailed any subordination, it would surely have made the second and third statements "dependent" on, and ampHative of, the first. Although, therefore, the third statement were to ""fall," it is a ludicrous inconsequence to say that the first two statements must " fall along with it." But we have shown that the third statement does not " fall " — Wellhausen utterly fails to weaken or overturn it : so the three statements are left " un-f alien " and incontro- vertible, and they justify our declaring it the universal belief of the Jewish Church that the erection and long continuance of the Mosaic tabernacle were indisputable truisms. C 2 3G SANCTUARY AND SACBIFICE. 8. The only other criticism we offer on Wellhausen's taber- nacle romance is that his doctrine of " artificial repristinatiou " is in glaring conflict with the analogy of the rest of Scripture. He says the post-Exilic writers were thoroughly aware of the dense ignorance of Moses, but they compassionated that igno- rance, and covered it up from the knowledge of all future ages })y a brilliant " fiction." But that is not how the writers of Scripture generally go to work : if God's servants err, they record the eri'or, instead of " repristinating " it into faithfulness. If Abraham tells lies, they are not " repristinated " into truth. If Jonah proves a coward, he is not " repristinated " into the courageous prophet. If Moses so dishonours God as to be kept out of Canaan, or if his brother makes an idol ; if the twelve disciples are filled with carnal Messianic views, or if the boldest of them denies with oaths his Blessed Master, — there is no " artificial repristinatiou " for any of such shortcomings, but only a plain writing of them down, that they may be sad warnings ever after to " him that thinketh he standeth." Is it only the post-Exilics that must have perfect saints ? If Moses was wandering for forty years through the wilderness, without " the faintest suspicion " (p. 21) that a unity of sanctuary was fundamental, would we not expect his imperfection to be plainly told, instead of its being, with incredible absurdity and astuteness, " repristinated " into a tabernacle ? The names of the " repristinators," and the motives they acted from, and the place of their assembly, and the circumstances in which they palmed their " repristinatiou " off on all " the pious ones " of their age, are utterly and absolutely unchronicled on any page of history. And yet, with domineering dogmatism, we are asked to accept that "repristinatiou" as one of the surest facts of history. We have dealt at considerable length with the acknowledged contradiction between Wellhausen's view and the three classical EVOLUTIO A NON EVOLVENDO. 37 embodiments of unity of sanctuary, which are embedded in the historical Jewish Scriptures, as they have been handed down to us ; and we have canvassed the considerations, on whose strength he asks us to put the belief of the nation, and the plainest historical statements, utterly aside. He professes to be found- ing on history ; but his whole performance is just a tearing of history to tatters. His call to us is, " Ye beUeve in the Jews- believe rather in me " ; but he does not give us a particle of warrant for such change of faith. There are other aspects of his theory, as enunciated in Chapter I., which may be more briefly glanced at. To one of these we shall devote the remainder of the present chapter. A grand display of Evolution is always paraded as a signal chamcteristic and recommendation of Wellhausen's views ; and, undoubtedly, this accounts for much of their popularity. What are we nowadays if we are not evolutionists ? All law, all history, all science, must they not be passed through the evolution crucible, and be shown to have risen from the small germ and beginning, through gradual and improving forms, to the complex and harmonious issue? Is not the battle nine- tenths won, if we profess to show a regular gradation, a natural dependence, an appropriate culmination ? This is what Wellhausen undertakes to show. In past ages, all readers of the Old Testament, including the Jews themselves, have been utterly misinterpreting Jewish history ; they have been driving the cart before the horse, they have been treating the man as though he were the child, they have been founding the building on the copestone. He will abolish such folly, and will show the history rising, by a pleasing sequence, from Mosaic germs to post-Exilic fulness. In especial, as regards the establishment of unity of sanctuary, he will show it as " a slow growth of time" (p. 17) ; he will "trace the process" (p. 17) ; and, in 38 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. tracing it, he will *' distinguish several stages of development " (p. 17). Now, we must beware of magnifying evolution over-much. It is a most real and noble discovery among processes through- out the universe without number. But we are not wan-anted in elevating our power to trace an evolution into an exclusive test of truth. If we see things, in nature or in history, with absolute plainness, we are not to disbeHeve them, merely because our finite vision cannot meantime trace an evolution in what we see. But this is not our answer to "WeUhausen : we do not need to shelter iu such an answer. Our answer is that there is not the slightest vestige of evolution, in the pompous neo-history, which he parades. If he will have that neo-history classed as evolutionary, it must be on the opposite principle from Incus a nmi lucendo ; for it is evolutio a 7ion evolvendo. What are the Facts ? 1. Roughly speaking, Wellhausen may be said to be deahng Avith a period of a thousand years, from the Exodus to the Return from Babylon. The great fact, which he labours to establish, is that, during nine- tenths of that period (viz., from the Exodus to the times of Josiah), all Israel remained on an unvarying dead level, so far as the knowledge of a unity of sanctuary was concerned ! They made no progress — not even " a pious desire " for such progress existed — " throughout the v^hole of the earlier period of the history of Israel, the restriction of worship to a single selected place was unknown to any one even as a pious desire " (p. 22). "With what more unmitigated emphasis could the slightest traces of evolution be denied ? The above quotation refers to about nine centuries of the millennium with which Wellhausen deals, and it embraces " the whole " of these nine centuries, and it allows no exception in regard to " any one," among, all the twelve tribes, while these EVOLUTIO A NON EVOLVENDO. 39- centuries were running ; and it stigmatises them as utterly unprogressive, and, therefore, utterly un-evolutionary ! Men like Solomon and Hezekiah (whose centralisations are denied) remained as un-evolved, and as devoted to multiplicity of altars, as any " nomad " around Sinai. Elijah, " that great zealot for purity of worship " (p. 21), regarded the throwing down of the abounding altars, not as a pleasing adumbration of approaching unity, but " as the height of wickedness" ! (p. 21). 2. What succeeded to this mighty monotony ? Under josiah, in 621 B.C., a forged Deuteronomy is suddenly sprung (in the name of Moses) on the nation, and, with marvellous rapidity and incredible docility, the free worship of nine cen- turies is all at once, and by the whole kingdom, thrown away for centralised worship. What no previous reformer foresaw or longed for, what Elijah deplored as " the height of wicked- ness" (p. 21), what even Isaiah in the same century "does not desire " (p. 46), but counteracts, is instantaneously installed as the height of piety, and as alone legal and desirable — and all this when a forger calls to it ! Where here is the visible leavening of the centuries ? where the " slow growth of time " (p. 17), and "the several stages of development" (p. 17), which Wellhausen, ia his opening sentences, bound himself to exhibit? By his own admission, the reformation by Josiah " in every res])ect figures as a neiv first step upon a path until then ahsolutehj untrodden'' (p. 46). Is it possible to use language more expressly cutting that reformation off from all natural gradation out of the past ? Instead of a " slow growth," it resembles one of those cataclysms in nature, of which the geologist is so jealous. It is like some midnight coruscation, rendering thick darkness visible, rather than an evolutionary light, " that shineth more and more unto the perfect day." 3. How did the reformation by Josiah lead up to what followed it ? Only by the crab-like evolution of moving back- ^0 SjyCTUJEY AXB SACBIFICE. wards. The midnight blaze goes out as suddenly as it flamed forth, and the darkness of the nine centuries reigns supreme atrain. A few years after Josiah's death " there are as many altars as towns in Judah " (p. 27). And by 586 B.C. there is nothing for it but to pack the unevolvable heretics off to Babylon. Is this cataclysm or evolution ? The whole period, from the Exodus to the Captivity, is represented (as far as belief in unity of sanctuary is concerned) as a period of un- evolutionary darkness, broken only by a fitful gleam (from 621 B.C. to 608 B.C.) of thirteen years. 4. How does evolution display itself on the return from Babylon ? Wellhausen seems completely to have forgotten, for the moment, that he is a pledged evolutionist, when dealing with this stage ; at all events, he uses language which seems expressly to exclude evolution. " The new generation had no natural, but 07il7/ an artificial, relation to the times of old*' (p. 28). We thought the key to evolution was that each stage is linked by a " natural," and not by a merely " artificial " or foreign or miraculous, bond to all the stages which preceded. He says the establishment of unity of sanctuary was effected by " a breach of historical continuity, than which it is impossible to conceive a greater " (p. 28). We thought it was in " his- torical continuity," and not in the most violent " breaches " of it, that evolution was to be traced. He says that to get the people to hallow only one place of worship " required a complete breaking off of the natural tradition of life, a total severance of all connection with inherited conditions " (p. 28). We thought that a faithful following out of " the natural tradition of life," and a due development of "inherited conditions," were indis- pensable to evolution. He gives us no glimpse of the evolu- tionary workings in the people's minds in Babylon regarding unity of sanctuary, he leaves them shrouded in darkness ; and he acknowledges that the unity, which they established on EVOLUTIO A NON EVOLVENDO. 41 their return, was at diametric variance with (instead of being- evolutionary of) arrangements " with which from ancestral times the hoUest memories were associated " (p. 28). 5. Apart from the foregoing specific absurdities in Well- hausen's pretended evokition, we would urge, in general, that his view implies a radical mistake, as to the inherent value of centraUsation of worship, and a consequent reversal of what might be a natural and seemly evolution, in relation thereto. Centralisation is not a mark of spiritual advancement to be pressed forward to, it is one of the "beggarly elements" of Judaism, to be left further and further behind. Wellhausen's whole romance is practically founded on the idea that to shut God's worshippers up to one place of worship and sacrifice, is a grand goal to have reached — a goal on whose attainment it was no labour lost to have expended the " slow growths " of a thousand years. Nothing could be wider of the mark, nor more at variance both with common sense and Scripture. Centralisation was one of the "imperfections," one of the "signs for the time then present," part of the "yoke" which was bound around the necks of the Jews, from the moment that God first entered into His temporary national covenant with them. As such, it is embedded in what Wellhausen styles the Book of the Covenant from the first. It is"^'/z altar," and not a plurality of altars simultaneously, which that code sanctions ; and a common sanctuary is indispensable to its requirement that three times in the year all the males would have to present themselves, in united worship, before the Lord. Centralisation was established by God's own voice from Sinai, and not by an unknown forger in Josiah's day. See in what a fantastic position Wellhausen's interpretation of the Book of the Covenant lands him, as an evolutionist. He declares that that Book sanctions accepted sacrifice everywhere : there is no restriction of places ; the worshipper may raise his altar where 42 SAXCTUARY AXD SACRIFICE. he pleases — "in everyplace" — and God will record His name and bless him ; He, who is everywhere present, may be every- where waited on with seemly sacrifice. But what is this except to realise the sublime truth, which Jesus announced to the woman of Samaria, the coming of the day when, not on Zion, nor on Gerizim, but everywhere, where there are broken contrite spirits. He, who is a Spirit, may be worshipped in spirit and in truth ? Wellhausen makes his evolution start from a prac- tically perfect view of worship ; he makes the " nomads " of the wilderness anticipate the liberty proclaimed by Jesus at Jacob's well. He does not show us the evolution of a germ of im- perfect semi-materialist Jahve-worship, confined at fiirst to some particular town or mountain, and, by a slow growth, expanding till it takes in all Palestine, and then all the world. Nay ! the culmination of a true evolution begins in the desert, where the wanderers are quite aware of the worshipper's freedom, and of the Deity's omnipresence, a^ regards " every place " — it takes long centuries of inscrutable evolving on the pai't of Judges, and Kings, and Prophets, before, in Josiah's day, a stiff-necked nation can at last reach the germ, viz., that Jehovah can be acceptably worshipped in one place only. The accompKshed author of the Preface (Professor Robertson Smith) promises us "the intense pleasure of following institutions and ideas in their growth " (p. ix.). Our feelings are certainly " intense." We have urged that our power to trace an evolution must not be magnified into a necessary test of truth. But we urge, with equal confidence, that Wellhausen's pretended evolution is a fiasco. His theory is as much at variance with a natural and intelligible evolution, as it is contradictory of the express historical statements of the Jewish Scriptures. ( 43 ) CHAPTER IIT. (A) THE LUDICROUS DATING OF THE THREE CODES — (B) MULTIPLIED CONTRADICTIONS. WE have now compared Wellhausen's theory of sanctuary with the general tenor of the Jewish records, and we have found him utterly unwan^nted in his entire subversion of these records. If they are false, he has yet to prove their falsity. He cannot reasonably ask us to cast aside the plain, and manifold, and universally accepted testimony of a succession of historians, merely because he chooses to fancy " I understand more than the ancients." We have also compared his theoiy with the important doctrine of evolution, and we have found that evolution scouts the least association with such an egregious process as he describes. In this chapter, we shall now endeavour to give pointed illustration of what we regard as the two leading and abiding characteristics of all his pages — their Imaginariness, and their Contradictoriness. Confining ourselves, as hitherto, to his chapter on " The Place of Worship," we propose to show (A) the imaginariness of its main positions ; and (B) the frequent contradictoriness of its assertions. (A) Nothing strikes one more forcibly, on almost his every page, than the free-and-easy romancing, to which he treats the materials before him. Where we expect quotation, we get invention ; where we expect proof, we get dogmatism. We shall confine our illustrations of this to the three diverse codes 4t SAyCTUABY AND SACRIFICE. of ritual, which he declares the Pentateuch to contain, and wliose dates he undertakes to fix, with their regulations as to "sacrificial places" as his exclusive guide. If he has not proved the originations of these codes, it will be universally felt that he has proved nothing. To our thinking, he has not given a shadow of proof of his origination of any of the three. He is very fond of crying out, " Not a trace," or " Not the faintest trace," about things whose existence he scouts ; and they are frequently things which, though he cannot see them, are extremely visible to other people. We shall boiTOW his own phraseology, and shall venture to specify the " not-a-trace " characteristic as the most outstanding of the characteristics of his argumentation on the codes. Let us take the three codes in succession. I. The first code extends from Exod. 20. 22 to 23. 33, and it contains the following regulations : " Gods of silver, or gods of gold, ye shall not make ; an altar of earth thou shalt make unto Me, and shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt offerings and thy peace offerings, thy sheep, and thine oxen : in every place where I record My name I will come unto thee, and will bless thee. And if thou make Me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stones ; for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it. Neither shalt thou go up by steps unto Mine altar, that thy nakedness be not discovered thereon" (Exod. 20. 23-26). Our German leader undertakes, from the terms of these verses, to fix the period at which they, and the three chapters which follow them, were promulgated as a code. Most readers, after glancing at the verses, will look forward with intense wonder- ment for the indications of time which he is to pick out. AVhat are they ? 1. The date he announces is "(say) in the first centuries of the divided kingdom " (p. 32). That is his entire description of THE DATING OF THE CODES. 45 the date! Was ever a date delivered of a more flexible and evanishing kind, or containing more practical proof that the fixer of it is himself in complete ignorance regarding it ? He does not give us a year, nor a decade, nor a lifetime, bat leaves us with " centuries " to roam through. And all this in the name of exact " science." We may safely say he gives " not a trace " of definite date. 2. It is only a following of this out to add that other points, essential to the origination of the code, are left in the same impenetrable mystery as the particular year when it appeared. Who was its author ? In what reign did it appear ? Was it issued in the northern, or in the southern, portion of "the divided kingdom " ? What circumstances called for its issue ? Was its author known to, or acknowledged by, any prophet ? How was it received and observed by the generation that first heard of it ? On not one of these questions can Wellhausen cast the sHghtest ray of light. He has " not a trace," he has " not the faintest trace," of a clue to any of the circumstances of its origination. And yet he would fain pose as having fixed its date with oracular certainty. In the want of paternity, and of other essentials, his code beats Melchizedek hollow. 3. It might seem that the indefiniteness of the foregoing origination of the code could not be outstripped in absurdity ; but, when we proceed to contemplate the reason assigned for the invisible origination, we do feel that we are being taken down to a still profounder depth of " scientific " nescience. We are dealing with pp. 30-32 of Wellhausen's book ; and we make this prominent (in view of the strength of our language), that we may be instantly exposed, if we misrepresent him by a hair's breadth.* We say advisedly, then, that on these pages, which form his whole Scripture-narrative basis for the origination of his code — he brings forward nothing but instances of worship, * See Note C. 40 SAXCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. far back in patriarchal days, on the part of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. He devotes two whole pages to quoting how these patriarchs went about through Palestine, building altars, and digging wells, wherever they came ; and, with " not a trace " of proof or explanation, he clinches these quotations by saying that they demonstrate a code in the heart of Exodus, written by the same author, to have been drawn up by him in some of the " centuries " subsequent to Rehoboam ! His words are, "All this" {i.e. all the preceding detail of imtriarclial worship) "is only to be understood as a glorification of the relations and arrangements of the cultus as we find them (say) in the first centuries of the divided 'kingdom''' (p. 32). The worship of the patriarchs, eight centuries before, proves a code in Exod. 20-23 to have a post-Rehoboam origin. That is the naked argument. Are we not justified in saying that there is " not a trace," that there is " not the faintest trace," of reason- able connection between the premisses and the conclusion ? Be it added that Wellhausen does not believe in the truth of these patriarchal narratives. He puts them on the same plat- form of romance as we have already seen him put the Mosaic tabernacle. He laughs at them as mere " legends," invented by a fearless forger to "glorify the origin of the sanctuaries to which they are attached, and to surround them with the nimbus of a venerable consecration " (p. 31). Is it not splendid reading ? A writer (with " not a trace " of his existence), from motives (with " not a trace " of their having been cherished), invents "legends" (with "not a trace" of the invention) to glorify " relations and arrangements " of worship (with " not a trace " of what these " relations and arrangements " were). And we must either swallow this incomparable " not- a-trace " fiasco, or pass life " outside the pale of scientific scholarship." 4. We might occupy the whole of the present chapter THE DATING OF THE CODES. 47 with noting other accumnlating inconsistencies in Wellhausen's origination of Exod. 20—23. Bnt we think it will be enough if we merely name, without expandmg, the following :— (a) The essence of his theory, as he has occasionally to acknowledge, requires that, so far as altar-building and cen- tralisation are concerned, the whole period from Moses to Josiah be regarded as homogeneous, with not " even a pious desire," on the part of " any one," for change. If so, how can he guess (for his " science " is here mere subjective guess-work) on " the first centuries of the divided kingdom," instead of any other of the " centuries " of that mighty period, for the origi- nation of its code ? On Ms oicn theory, would not a Mosaic authorship be more apt, chronologically, than a post-Rehoboam authorship ? (h) Wellhausen is perpetually insisting that each code must correspond with the praxis of the period of its promulgation. Look at the first edict of his "Jehovistic" code: "Ye shall not make [other gods] with Me : gods of silver, or gods of gold, ye shall not make unto you" (Exod. 20. 23). How does this fit the praxis of " the first centuries of the divided kingdom " ? The great event, with which these " centuries " start, and which colours their whole course, is thus described : " Whereupon the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold; and he said . . . Behold thy gods, 0 Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And he set the one in Bethel, and the other put he in Dan " (1 Kings 12. 28, 29). How can the law, "Gods of silver, or gods of gold, ye shall not make" be said to "have its root i?i, mid to give sanction to, the usage " (p. 30) of a period, which has the worshipping of "gods of gold" as its most flaming characteristic ? {c) According to Wellhausen's view of " In every place where I record My Name I will come unto thee," we should expect, in 48 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. the history of his " first centuries," a succession of appearances of Jehovah at distinct places, and the hallowing of such places thenceforth as new seats of worship. But there is "not a trace " of such new selections in the whole history in the Kings. {d) When, dealing with these " first centuries," he talks of " the relations and arrangements of the cultus as we find them," we instinctively ask — Where do "we find them"? There is no outline of them in Scripture. We know, quite incidentally, that God had seven thousand true worshippers, unknown to Elijah ; we know that he had faithful prophets, whom Obadiah hid by fifties in a cave ; but of any definite and comprehensive outline of their " cultus," there is " not a trace " in the whole record. Nay, our author emphasises this elsewhere ; these " first centuries " are included in the period, of which he writes, " For reasons easily explained, it is seldom that an occasion arises to describe the ritual" (p. 55). Need we add that, taking the nation as a whole, the sad summing-up of their praxis, during these " centuries," is as follows : " They rejected His statutes, and His covenant that He made with their fathers, and His testimonies which He testified unto them ; . . . . And they forsook all the commandments of the Lord their God, and made them molten images, even two calves, and made an Asherah, and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served Baal" (2 Kings 17. 15, 16) ? This shows that "the arrange- ments of the cultus," which a post-Rehoboam author would see around him, were a flagrant violation of God's " statutes " and God's "testimonies," given in previous ages ! {e) Wellhausen's interpretation of " An altar of earth thou shalt make," and " If thou make Me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of he\vn stones," compels him to hold that the only altar, allowable during his " first centuries," was one of " earth " or of " unhewn stones of the field," and also that THE BATING OF THE CODES. 49 *' such an altar falls to pieces just as readily as it is built " (p. 29). Take the chief altar worshipped at during these " centuries " — that of Jeroboam at Bethel — there is " not a trace" of its being built either of "earth" or of "unhewn stones " ; the emphatic judgment which descended on it — "the altar was rent^' — rather suggests some other material; and, instead of "readily falling to pieces," it was predicted (1 Kings 13. 2) not to fall till Josiah's day : " Moreover the altar that was at Bethel, . . . even that altar and the high place he [Josiah] brake down" (2 Kings 23. 15). (/) "Wellhausen declares that the regulations of his code, and the story of the patriarchs, are "in perfect correspondence" (p. 30). Yet, in his very next two sentences, he gives two references which prove that the "correspondence" is the re- verse of " perfect " ! (1) There is " not a trace," in the code, of " setting up memorial stones, planting trees, digging wells." Yet these, he says, " the fathers of the nation " are described as attending to, as habitually as to "erecting altars." (2) He numbers up " Shechem and Bethel in Ephraim ; Hebron and Beersheba in Judah ; Mizpah, Mahanaim, and Penuel in Gilead," as places over which a post-Rehoboam forger throws a patriarchal halo in G-enesis, in order to glorify " famous seats of worship "in his own day. But Wellhausen never seems to have bethought himself that there is "not a trace" of any direct glorification of Jerusalem in all Genesis. Yet surely, to a post-Rehoboam forger, Jerusalem would immediately have presented itself, as entitled, above every other place, to his "nimbus of a venerable consecration." We are told, as a solemn secret, that these Genesis tales are for present service : " they are no mere antiquarian facts, but full of the most living significance for the present of the narrator " (p. 30). But the most dominating objects in " the present of the narrator " were Jerusalem and its Temple : why no " nimbus " for them ? S 2S93. D 50 SAXCTUABY AXD SACBIFICE. We have jotted down other difficulties ; but is there any need for belabouring a mere phantom further ? Surely the facts (1) that he has not one atom of positive proof for the origina- tion of his first code ; (2) that he has to leave us weltering through the wide bog of " centuries " for the date of its origi- nation ; (3) that his only proof (!) that it did originate, in some undiscovered crevice of these " centuries," is the fact that the patriarchs are described as building altars freely anywhere, a thousand years lefore these " centuries " began ; — are enough to warrant us in hurrying on, without more ado, to see if he has any better proof for the origination of his second code. 11. AVe shall not say that the second code exceeds the first — but we place it very high among the achievements of the " Higher Criticism," when we admit that it equals the first — in the daring disregard of facts, and in the startling invisibility of reasons, with which Wellhausen has surrounded its origin. His second code, as is well known, is the Book of Deuteronomy, 'especially chs. 12 — 26, which form its .more exclusively legis- lative section. At the opening of this section, we read as follows : " Unto the place which the Lord your God shall choose out of all your tribes to put His Name there, even unto His habitation shall ye seek, and thither thou shalt come : and thither ye shall bring your burnt offerings, and your sacrifices. ... Ye shall not do after all the things that we do here this day, every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes : for ye are not as yet come to the rest and to the inheritance, which the Lord your God giveth thee. But when ye go over Jordan, and dwell in the land which the Lord your God causeth you to inherit, and He giveth you rest from all your enemies round about, so that ye dwell in safety : then it shall come to pass that the place which the Lord your God shall choose to cause THE DATING OF THE CODES. 51 His Name to dwell there, thither shall je bring all that I command you ; your burnt offerings, and your sacrifices, your tithes, and the heave offering of your hand, and all your choice vows which ye vow unto the Lord" (Deut. 12. 5-12). This is the law of the central sanctuary ; and, out of the above verses containing that law, Wellhausen undertakes to extract proof of the almost inconceivable date, at which he holds it was first delivered. We again name the pages (pp. 32-34) of his book which contain the arguments we are now reviewing.* 1. We would first note that the above verses fix unmistakably the date, when the law, which they contain, was delivered, viz., hefore Israel "go over Jordan," and while they are "not as yet come to the rest " of Canaan. Not once, but with sevenfold iteration, is that date asserted. Wellhausen declares the asser- tion to be utterly and absolutely false. He says the Law was never heard of till seven hundred years after Israel had " gone over Jordan " ; and it was first spoken, not by Moses in Moab, but by Josiah in Jerusalem ! Let this utter trampling on the authority of Scripture be put, as it deserves, in the forefront. He promised, in beginning, to trace " the historical course of the development" (p. 17) from the books of Scripture. Here he is treating the most solemn witness of one of these books with utter scorn. 2. Where, then, it may be wonderingly asked, does he find any reference to Josiah in these verses we have quoted ? It might seem that no microscope could reveal the " faintest trace " of such a reference ; but they see very small (when it suits them) in Germany ; and Wellhausen sees an incontestable proof of a Josian reference in the foUoAving clause : " Ye shall not do after all the things that we do here this day, every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes." These words contain the whole of what he says amounts to an absolute demonstration * See Note D. D 2 52 SANCTUARY AND SACBIFICE. that they, and the suiTounding context, were first addressed to Israel by Josiah. How does he make it out ? He discovers from the words (and we cannot fancy any tyro disagreeing with him) that the legislator is prescribing, as the people's duty, wliat he sees to be at variance with the people's practice. Or, in liis own more magniloquent language, " The above law is in conscious opposition to ' things that we do here this day,' and throughout has a polemical and reforming attitude towards existing usage" (p. 33). And, without a break, he adds, "It is rightly therefore assigned by historical criticism to the period of the attacks made on the Bamoth by the reforming party at Jerusalem" (p. 33). Was there ever a ''' therefore'' penned more utterly unwarranted by what precedes it ? We have given the marvellous reasoning in full. The two sentences we have quoted are enough, in Wellhausen's opinion, to demonstrate that Deuteronomy originated under Josiah. Most people will think that a more ludicrous inconsequence was never written. Here is what his argument, stated as a syllogism, amounts to : " (1) The above law condemns existing usage ; (2) at no period did existing usage require to be condemned, except in the days of Josiah ; (3) therefore the above law must have been promulgated in Josiah' s reign." It is the second of the foregoing premisses, which contains the huge petitio principii, that covers the whole argument with ridicule. Can " historical criticism" disprove that "existing usage" might need "re- form," at the close of those " forty years long in the wilderness," during which God "was grieved with that generation" (Ps. 95. 5)? That is the intelligible period (when "they have not known My ways") in which the Law proclaims its own delivery. Can " historical criticism " disprove that " ex- isting usage " needed " reform," on the lines of Solomon's prayer at the Temple dedication? Wellhausen himself acknow- ledges that occasion to have been so "polemical," that "no THE DATING OF THE CODES. 53 king after Solomon is left uncensured" (p. 19) ! Can "his- torical criticism " disprove that " existing usage " needed " reform " at the hands of Hezekiah, of whom it is testified (Jby the same author ivho describes Josiah's ^^ reform^'') that " he removed the high places, and brake the pillars, and cut down the Asherah " (2 Kings 18. 4) ? Nay, could " historical criticism " disprove that " existing usage " may have been utterly reprobated, in the seven centuries before Josiah, by prophets in their many most real, though unrecorded,''^ polemics"? There is not an atom of direct statement, nor of rational logic, to lead us from the mere bald generality, " Ye shall not do after all the things that we do here," to pin the Law down to any age whatsoever. And yet, on this caricature of " historical criticism," we are asked to repudiate the Biblical history, which Jews and Christians alike have immemorially accepted, and to embrace the hallucination that Deuteronomy was an audacious forgery, seven centuries subsequent to Moses. Here, as in the case of the first code, we shall much condense several other objections that might have been urged at length. They are such as follow : — 3. What kind of "historical criticism" is it, with "not a trace " of positive warrant, to accept one half of a sentence as true, and to reject the other half as false ? Wellhausen is driven to this. The first half (" Ye shall not do as we do here "), so far as it implies the people's present unfaithfulness, he clutches at as true, and makes it the very pivot of his theory ; the other half ("Ye are not as yet come into Canaan"), so far as it implies the people's present situation, he scouts as a deliberate concoction. 4. He founds on the " admitted fact " that Deuteronomy has " a literary dependence on the Jehovistic code " (p. 33), as confirming the view that Deuteronomy originated under Josiah. But there is here a vast begging of the question. He must 54 SAXCTUAJRY AND SACBIFICE. first prove, whereas, as we have seen, he has only asserted, with " not a trace " of proof, that the Jehovistic code originated "in the fii'st centuries of the divided kingdom." The said "literary dependence" is at least as explicable on the view that the Jehovistic code was promulgated at Sinai, and Deuteronomy forti/ years later in the plains of Moab, and loth ly the same author. 5. The same begging of the question adheres to his statement (for it would be mockery to call it proof) that Deuteronomy alone was the book found by Hilkiah. One Avould think that some advanced critics had been present in the Temple, and seen the book picked up, they speak with such confidence of its contents. In reality, here is all they have to say for themselves : " From this ''—i.e. from the origination (the itttm'ly imaginary origination, as we have shown it) of Deuteronomy under Josiah — " the step is easy to the belief that the work whose discovery gave occasion to King Josiah to destroy the local sanctuaries, was this very Book of Deuteronomy " (p. 33). Was ever a neater circle described ? Why, " the step is easy " to number- less utterly erroneous "beliefs," if we are determined, with "not a trace " of jDroof, to entertain them. Let the Bible student take special note of the points just emphasised, in view of the axiomatic certainty, with which the late date of Deuteronomy is being continually proclaimed to him. That book belongs to the Josian era, because it tries to improve the people's practice ! That book was picked up alone by Hilkiah, hecause this is an " easy " inference from its origination under Josiah ! " Easy steps " are proverbially unsafe. " Facilis descensus ! " 6. We are unwilling to leave the second code without further showing, from Wellhausen's exposition of it, how many practical interpolations an advanced critic can foist into a single sentence, and with what reckless Hcence he can treat the materials of Scripture. The sentence occupies the foot of p. 33 and the top THE DATING OF THE CODES. 55 of p. 34.* If that sentence be carefully weighed in the light of what precedes it, it will be found to embrace the following : — (a) From the words, "In the place which the Lord shall choose in one of thy tribes, there thou shalt offer thy burnt offerings : . . . notwithstanding thou mayest kill and eat flesh within all thy gates" (Deut. 12. 14, 15), Wellhausen deduces (1) that, during all the centuries lefore Josiah, slaying a beast without sacrificing it " had been forbidden " to Israel through- out all Palestine ; (2) that slaying without sacrificing was legal for 07ily thirty years of Israel's pre-Exilic occupancy of Pales- tine. There is " not a trace " of sanction for these deductions in the Scripture history. (h) From the words, "And if a man lie not in wait, but God deliver him into his hand ; then I will appoint thee a place whither he shall flee " (Exod. 21. 13), Wellhausen deduces (1) that all the Canaanitish high places which Israel adopted, and all the additional high places which they extemporised for themselves, were places of "asylum," to which the manslayer might flee ; as " every town had its Bamah " (p. 21), "asylum " was thus uni- versal ! (2) that " the horns of the altar " in " the tent of the Lord," to which Joab fled (1 Kings 2. 28), merely shared the privilege of "asylum" with all the "altars" of Palestine; (3) that Josiah " abolished these rights of asylum " ; (4) that the appointment of six cities of refuge, in Deut. 19. 1-13, was intended to compensate for the " asylums " which Josiah thus "abolished." There is "not a trace" of sanction for these deductions in the Scripture history. (c) From the four verses, Deut. 18. 6-8 and 16. 11 (which, to save space, we leave the reader to turn up and read), Well- hausen virtually deduces (1) that the " Levite" spoken of had been a " priest " in some " sanctuary " which Josiah had * The sentence will be found, with its preceding context in full, in Note D, It is the sentence beginning thus : " This is seen, for example, when he permits slaying without sacrificing," &c. 56 SASCTUAIiY AND SACRIFICE. " suppressed " ; (2) that when he came to stay permanentlij at Jerusalem, it was not " the desire of his own soul " that brought Uim, but the "invitation of 'provincials' coming on their sacrificial pilgrimages " : (3) that these " provincials " were " recommended " thus to pity his destitution, caused by Josiah : (4) that the " portion to eat " which he received was a " providing " for his lost livelihood in a "suppressed sanctuary." There is " not the faintest trace " of these deductions in the four verses we have named. We thus make out a catch of ten interpolations in one sen- tence ! In view of the swelling arrogance of the " Higher Criticism," it is well to notice what a daring absurdity it some- times amounts to, when it is patiently taken to pieces. And, after treating us to a string of interpolations like the above Wellhausen winds up by proclaiming, "A judgment pronounced in accordance with the facts can therefore assign to it " {i.e. to Deuteronomy) " an historical place, only within that movement of reformation which was brought to a victorious issue by King Josiah" (p. 34). The "facts" are those of which we have shown, in detail, there is " not a trace " in the record. It is fair to add that the conjunction " therefore " has to groan under very heavy burdens, when a " Higher Critic " pens it. AVe trust we have shown there is not even a semblance of convincingness in the dating of Deuteronomy. III. We now come to the last of our author's three codes, the notable Priestly Code, which embraces Exod. 25 — 40 (omitting 32 — 34), all Leviticus, and large sections of Numbers. Our author indeed does not equalise the whole of his code ; for he holds that Lev. 17 — 26 occupy a position of priority to the rest, having been drawn up in a period of " transition " (p. 35, note 1), which lies between the issuing of Deuteronomy and THE DATING OF THE CODES. hi the issuing of the Priestly Code. This priority of Lev. 17—26 is the merest guess-work: he offers "not a trace" of proof for it. And it embodies the anachronism that "the tent of meeting" is described (Lev. 17. 4, 5, 9) as standing, and as universally honoured, before the command for its construction was ever delivered. What clumsy redactors and forgers the German subjectivity introduces us to in the authors of Scripture ! Wellhausen deals with this code on pp. 35-38.* We have already dealt with that " making the temple portable," and that " artificial repristination of the past," and that " abolition of the Jordan place of worship of the two and a half tribes," which are among the choicest curiosities of these pages; and we have urged that there is " not a trace " of proof for any of these peculiar processes. We shall only now, in as condensed a form as possible, notice a further argument, for which he claims overwhelming certainty, for fixing the date of the Priestly Code. That argument is that we must regard the centrality of wor- ship (which the whole code presupposes) as universally observed at the time of its delivery ; and, as such universal observance never existed till after the return from Babylon, therefore the code must have a post-Exilic origin. That argument is re- iterated over these pages in the most varied and unhesitating terms. Both Deuteronomy and the Priestly Code, he says, favour a central sanctuary; but Deuteronomy enforces it in opposition to existing usage, in opposition to " the things that we do here, this day," and, for that reason alone, must have originated under Josiah ; the Priestly Code, on the other hand, has no such antagonistic reference to " the things that we do here," it has the people's practice (as to centraUty) in complete concord with its requirements, and, /or that reason alone, "its ^See Note E. 58 SANCTUABY AND SACRIFICE. place is after Deuteronomy, and in the thii'd post-Exilian period of the history of the cultus *' (p. 38). " Deuteronomy is in the midst of movement and conflict ; it clearly speaks out its reforming intention, its opposition to the traditional ' what we do here this day ' ; the Priestly Code stands outside and above the struggle — the end has leen reached, and made a secure possession. On the basis of the Priestly Code no reformation would ever have taken place, no Josiah would ever have observed from it that the actual condition of affairs was per- verse and required to be set right ; it proceeds as if everything had heenfor long in the hest of order " (pp. 35, 36). That is the grand vaunted demonstration, that all past ages have been living in a realm of " fiction " as regards Jewish history, and that the sacrificial regulations of Leviticus, instead of being Mosaic, must be held to be post-Exilic. What is the worth of the demonstration ? 1. We may again best show the utter inefficacy of Well- hausen's logic by patting, in the form of a syllogism, what it amounts to. It amounts to this : " (1) A Jewish law could be delivered only at a period when the proprieties and require- ments of said law were being duly observed by the Jewish people ; (2) the Jewish people never universally reverenced the law of central sanctuary till after their return from Babylon ; (3) therefore the Priestly Code, which is based, at its every turn, on the hallowing of a central sanctuary, must be post- Exilic in its origin." Here it is the first, or major, premiss (and not, as in the previous syllogism, the second, or minor, premiss) which embodies the immense petitio princijni, which vitiates the whole reasoning. Neither a Jewish law, nor any other law, necessarily presupposes universal compliance with its terms, at the time of its first delivery. The very opposite might be more reasonably presupposed ! In our fallen world, the scope of law is to denounce and to correct, much more than to THE DATING OF THE CODES. 59 commend and to stereotype, a people's practice. In what age, or to what people, could the Decalogue ever have been delivered, on Wellhausen's view ? He virtually transforms every legis- lator into a mere historian, and goes far to abolish the need for the legislation altogether. And yet, if the ridiculous axiom in his major premiss falls, his whole dating of the Priestly Code is left (to use his own choice sarcasm) " holding itself up in the air by its own waistband " (p. 39). 2. That Wellhausen has to lean entirely on the above axiom may be at once proved by any reader, with his Leviticus in his hand. Scrutinise the code in Leviticus as you may, and you will get " not the faintest trace " of any statement as to whether its requirements were being habitually obeyed, or were being habitually disregarded, by the people. It shows what ought to have leen; but to find what actually ivas, we must search elsewhere than in the code. One would think, from the quotations we have given from Wellhausen, that the code was brimful of proofs that it was universally honoured when delivered, "the end has been reached," "everything has been for long in the best of order." In reality, there is "not a trace " of such proofs, " not a trace " of how " everything had been for " a single day ! Or, if we qualify that statement, it is to add that, on one day, Aaron's own sons, Nadab and Abihu, transgressed the code, and had to be destroyed by fire (Lev. 10. 1-5) ! If that was" the actual condition of affairs" in the very high priest's house, by what authority can we infer that every ordinary house throughout Israel was faithfully observing the Divine regulations ? 3. Wellhausen can also be presented with the following reductio ad alsurdum. Having declared (with, as we have just seen, " not a trace " of proof) that the centralisation of the Priestly Code had been "for long" honoured when it was delivered, he draws the following inference : " Therefore, by all 60 SANCTUABY AND SACBIFICE. the laws of logic, it can no more belong to the first period than Deuteronomy does " (p. 35). That is to say, " the first period " is characterised by a multiplicity of sanctuaries ; therefore a code, which tolerates only one sanctuary, is debarred, " by all the laws of logic," from having originated in that "first period." But how, then, can he evade the following ? " The first period " is characterised by the " making of molten images, even two golden calves ; " therefore a code, whose very fore- front (Bxod. 20. 23) sternly prohibits " gods of silver and gods of gold," is debarred, " by all the laws of logic," from having originated in that " first period " (or " in the first centuries of the divided kingdom ") ! Could anything show more clearly what a house of cards, what a tissue of dissolving inconsistencies, Wellhausen's most vaunted arguments amount to ? 4. It will now be abundantly manifest how pointless is the criticism, " No Josiah would • ever have observed from it that the actual condition of affairs was perverse " (p. 35). It is not the essential province of a code to record what "the actual condition of affairs " /s, but only what " the actual condition of affairs " should he. A Josiah, like any other body, would have to ascertain " the actual condition of affairs " from his own personal observation ; and, having so ascertained it, it was as open to him to compare it with the Priestly Code, as to compare it with Deuteronomy. Centralisation is required under all the three codes ; but it is not necessary for them, qua codes, to specify how far the centralisation was observed, or neglected. Other comments might be added on Wellhausen's origination of the Priestly Code ; but those just offered may, perhaps, suffice for associating it, in an utter imaginariness, with his "making the Temple portable," and with his "artificial repristinations " of the thousand years. We have thus patiently dissected the arguments in his pp. 29-38, and we submit, with confidence, that they contain "not SELF-CONTRADICTIONS. 61 the faintest trace" oi proof (1) that Exod. 20 — 23 originated " in the first centuries of the divided kingdom " ; nor (2) that Deuteronomy originated under Josiah ; nor (3) that Exod. 25 — Lev. 9 originated subsequent to the Exile. If so, what becomes of his " whole position," which is avowedly contained in his " first chapter " ? If it depends on his sure dating of the codes, it is an entire — Imagination, (B). There are still some other aspects of his theory (notably the practical denial of the supernatural in prophecy and history, that runs through his pages) that are open to remark. But we shall, as proposed, confine our further remarks to a few illustra- tions of what we have termed the frequent contradictoriness of his assertions. Not only do they often contradict Scripture and probability, they also very often contradict one another. In his Introduction (p. 3) Wellhausen gives us a bit of his " personal experieuce," telling us how, in his " early student days," he was " attracted by the stories " of the Old Testament, and read himself " well into the historical and prophetical books " ; but he could get no peace ; his whole " enjoyment " of the books " was marred by the Law," which " intruded itself uneasily like a ghost," so that " he was troubled with a bad conscience, as if he were beginning with the roof instead of the foundation." At length, in 1867, he was incidentally apprised of the theory of G-raf, that the Law was posterior to the Prophets, and at once his whole spirit leaped forth towards this theory, as the effectual solvent of his uneasiness, and the instantaneous irradiator of the Old Testament with welcome and consistent light. We venture to offer a bit of " pereonal experience " too. In reading Wellhausen's own pages, we felt as if we were plodding through a jungle, where free and in- telligible stepping was impossible ; and we took our pen, and 62 SAXCTUABY AND SACBIFICE. marked down, as headings, " Bold Assertions," " Daring De- fiances of Scripture," " Arguments from Silence," " Self- Contradictions," " Petitiones Principii " ; and we then read over his Chapter I., jotting down illustrations of the above headings, as they successively arose. The result, as shown on the paper still lying before us, is that we netted an average of twenty entries under each heading. Such a " personal experi- ence " may show that Wellhausen himseK may unawares raise as many " ghosts," and cause as much " uneasiness" to others, as the shameless redactors of Scripture did, in his "early student days," to him. But, without more ado, let us close with a few disjecta memhra,, in the form of happy samples of contradictoriness, which do not happen to have previously occurred for notice. 1. On p. 18 Shiloh is said to have acquired importance as a centre of worship " forthwith " on Canaan being entered. On the very next page (19) this importance is said not to have emerged till " towards the close of the period of the Judges " ! Which statement is true ? 2. On p. 23 Gilgal and Bethel and Beersheba are declared to have been for long " Jehovah's /az^ownYe seats of worship." On p. 28 the express object of the Captivity is said to have been to induce the people to regard these sanctuaries as " heretical cen- tres of iniquity " ! What kind of Divine consistency is this ? 3. On p. 24 he declares that " the great house of God upon Mount Zion had alwat/s overtopped the other shrines in Judah" (and so on other pages). But on p. 21 he denies all supremacy to Jerusalem ; he declares the Ephraimites flocked through Judah to worship God elsewhere, but they treated the capital with contempt : " Jerusalem they left unvisited " ! Can any ingenuity reconcile these two views of the holy city ? 4. On p. 24 he dates Jerusalem's chance from the fall of Samaria ; it was only " thereby " that " the field was left clear 8ELF-C0NTBADICTI0NS. G3 for Jerusalem." But on p. 27 he claims a natural supremacy for Jerusalem ages before Samaria had been built ; " the found- ing of Jerusalem belonged to the proudest memories of the Israelite history " ! Why, then, to be consistent, does he not hold " the field was clear for Jerusalem " before the kingdom had been divided at all ? Or why does he not hold that " the field was left clear " for those other shrines of Judah, in com- parison whereof "Jerusalem was left unvisited" ? To clothe with verity all his statements about Jerusalem is impossible. Which of them are true ? 5. He defines the attitude of the tabernacle to the Priestly Code as follows : " It [the tabernacle] is the basis and indis- pensable foundation, without which all else [in the Priestly Code] would merely float in the air " (p. 35). In the light of this definition, compare the two following criticisms. On p, 41 he declares the tabernacle " has not yet fermeated the historical view of the author" of Chronicles. On p. 49 he declares the code of the tabernacle " asserts its influence everyivliere over the nan-ative [of Chronicles] in only too active and unmistakable a way." Can there be a clearer contradiction than between these two statements ? 6 . In the case of the Priestly Code, he lays down a canon of legislation, which, if vaUd, would quite discredit his origination of Deuteronomy. The priestist sanctions the practices which he sees around him, because " everything that is actual ordin- arily seems natural " (p. 36). Why did this principle not act with the Deuteronomist ? Why did he not legitimise " the thmgs that we do here " .? Why did the " actual " seem " unnatural " to him ? Such a query is enough to pierce the wind-bag of his alleged great difference between the two law- makers. It is the idlest imagination. 7. On p. 29, where he is expounding the altar of Exod. 20. 24, 25, its temporariness is emphasised : " Earth and unhewn U SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. stones of the field can be found everywhere, and such an altar falls to pieces just as readily as it is built." On the very next page (30) its i)ermanence is postulated : " The altar built by Abraham at Shechem is the altar on which sacrifices still continue to be made." And so on p. 31 : "The theophany must be regarded as destined to he continued at this spot, and also as the first and strongest expression of the sanctity of the soil." Evanescence, illustrated by permanence — the " science " of homogeneous contraries ! 8. On p. 30 he declares the above law will not admit of "indifferent and casual localities," but must have "immemori- ally holy places." On p. 21, under the same law, he declares " every town might have its Bamah," and fui'ther, " People sacrificed without hesitation whenever occasion and opportunity presented themselves " ! 9. On p. 31 the stories of patriarchal sanctuaries are described as " these legends," and as intended only to " sun-ound with a nimbus" the sanctuaries of the divided kingdom. But on p. 18 he has founded on these patriarchal sanctuaries as undoubted realities : " Many of the most important sacrificial seats were already in existence at the date of the immigration ;" the patriarchal sanctuaries " had been found by the people when they came " ! 10. In the Song of Moses we read, *' Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of Thine inheritance, the place, 0 Lord, which Thou hast made for Thee to dwell in, the sanctuary, 0 Lord, which Thy hands have established" (Exod. 15. 17). If that verse stands, Wellhausen's theory is gone. So (1) he declares the third clause, " the sanctuary," etc., to be " out of place," and rejects it ! (2) He then declares the first clause can have no reference to Mount Zion ; " for the mountain of the inheritance can only he i\\Q mountainous land of Pales- tine" (p. 22, note 1). If he can cut and carve and contradict SELF- CONTRADIC TIONS. 6 5 Scripture with superlative dogmatism like this, what power can bind him ? 11. But he contradicts himself as well as Scripture. On p. 25 we read, "The holy mount was to him [Isaiah] the entire city." If a " mountain" can thus mean a city, by what au- thority can he say that the mountain ^' can only be'' all Palestine, in the Song of Moses ? He adds that Isaiah's con- temporaries were better up in the prophet's writings than Isaiah himself ; tJiey knew that " the holy mount " was Zion, with its Temple, and was not " the entire city " ! Apparently, Wellhausen expects all this to be read seriously. 12. In all seriousness, too, so far as appears, he argues that David could not have had the Mosaic tabernacle in his eye as the ark's abode, because " it [the tabernacle] could not appro- priately be contrasted with a timber erection" (pp. 44, 45) ! As David's "house of cedar" was "a timber erection," the tabernacle, being made of "timber," was no "appropriate contrast" to it; that is the profound argument. (1) Has Wellhausen not read that to build David's " house of cedar," Hiram not only sent "cedar trees and carpenters," but also " masons " (2 Sam. 5. 11.) ? (2) Has he not read that Solomon's cedar temple " was built of stone made ready at the quarry " (1 Kings 6. 7) ? (3) Has he not read that Josiah not only appointed "carpenters," but also "builders" and "masons," for " buying timber and liewn stone to repair the house " (2 Kings 22. 6) ? We are well assured it is no " timber " head that suggests the argument we are confuting ; but the argument itself is very wooden. 13. The following is one of his coolest contradictions of Scripture. Hezekiah, long before Josiah, is recorded to have evinced a zeal for Zion as God's chosen sanctuary, by "removing the high places, breaking the pillars, and cutting down the Asherah " (2 Kings 18. 4). If that is true, Wellhausen's house S 2S93. E 66 SANCTUARY AND SACBIFICE. of cards collapses. How does lie protect his house ? By calmly decreeing that no reformation under Hezekiah ever took place ! (1) But how, then, is he to believe in Josiah's reformation ? The same historian gives Hezekiah's in ch. 18, and Josiah's in ch. 23. If he is forging falsehoods in the one chapter, why not also in the other ? (2) Oh, but, says Wellhausen, Hezekiah's attempt "passed away without leaving any trace." But we have shown that Josiah's also passed away without leaving any trace. A few years after Josiah's death "there are again as many altars as towns in Judah " ! If Josiah's could be actual without being permanent, why not Hezekiah's also ? (3) But, he adds, there is no reference to Hezekiah's reformation when Josiah's is described, and the latter figures as an entirely " new first step " (p. 46). Xo such language is used. The praises bestowed on the two kings are almost identical. It might as well be said that the words, " After Hezekiah there was none like him among all the kings of Judah," amount to a clear disproof of Josiah's reformation. A critic must be fit for self-confidence, and for dogmatism, of the extremest kind, who can deny centralisation by Solomon, and centralisation by Hezekiah, on the ludicrously intangible grounds that Well- hausen does. 14. Some may think the following the most amusing among the disjecta membra which we are engaged in turning over. He closes his sketch (in pp. 17-22) of his first mighty period — from Moses to Josiah — by stating that the ruling thought throughout it was that, not Jerusalem nor Bethel, but Palestine as a whole, was Jehovah's seat, or place for recording His Xame. Now, whom does he fix on as most accurately expressing the highest religious thought of Israel, throughout that period ? After the reader has tried to guess, let him read that he will best learn the devout conviction of (say) twenty-five generations of the faithful in Israel, by listening to — Naaman the captain BELF- CONTRADICTIONS. C7 of the hofst of the king of Syria ! In 2 Kings 5. 17 Naaman says, " Let there be given to thy servant two mules' burden of earth ; for thy servant will henceforth offer neither burnt offering nor sacrifice unto other gods, but unto the Lord." On this Wellhausen gathers himself up to say, " After all, the ruling idea was that which finds its most distinct expression in 2 Kings 5. 17, — that Palestine, as a whole, was Jehovah's house, His ground and territory " (p. 22). As if Naaman were not enough, he must take us down in a footnote, and clinch the Syrian with the first murderer : " In Gen. 4. 14, 16, when Cain is driven out of the land [Canaan], he is driven from the presence of Jehovah." That is to say, Cain dwelt in Palestine, and, because his banishment removed him from God's presence, therefore the idea of any single central sanctuary was foreign to Israel ! Surely the Cain-Naaman theory of Israelitish worship ought to be the next achievement of "scientific" scholarship. 15. Our jottings are not exhausted. But, instead of pur- suing them, we shall take leave of Wellhausen by quoting one sentence from his Chapter L, with which (there are not many such) we can express cordial and unqualified agreement. It occurs on p. 46, where he begins a six-page onslaught on the views of Theodor Noldeke, who, like himself, belongs to what should be called the " Imaginationist " school of critics, as opposed to the Traditionalist. These Imaginationists are far from seeing eye to eye. Wellhausen is as hearty in worrying his brother Imaginationist Xoldeke, as in trying to worry the Traditionalists. He devotes the first half of p. 46 to a quota- tion of Noldeke's views, and he then begins their demolition by saying, in a tone of sneering reprimand, "What must have happened is of less consequence to know than what actually took place" (p. 46). Noldeke has been multiplying his " musts " — has been spinning, out of his own fancy, what he opines " must " have been the course of thought about a central E 2 QS SANCTUAEY AND SACBIFICE. sanctuary. Wellhauseii pulls him sharply up, and virtually says, "No more of these 'musts' ! We don't want you to sit in Germany, in this nineteenth century, and tell us what ' must ' have been the course of Jewish history : let the actual history declare itself ; tell us ' what actually took place.' " To the above comment of Wellhausen we subscribe our heartiest assent. A truer aphorism critic never uttered. But let us, at the same time, remind him of the remonstrance, " Thou that teachest another, teachest thou not thyself ? " or, of the words of a Higher still, " Physician, heal thyself." "Wellhausen's whole performance is just a telling us " what must have happened " ; and he far out-Noldekes Noldeke in the execution; he gives us nothing but an "artificial repristination " of the freest and the wildest kind — an "idealisation of Jewish history to his heart's content " (p. 38). Inspiration is nothing to him ; the utter absence of corroboration is nothing to him ; the most undoubted institutions and express historic statements are nothing to him. With his private patent for " all the laws of logic," he brushes them aside, and then enunciates to us " what must have happened " ! We could borrow from his own choice vocabulary of vituperation in his Chapter I., and tell him that his theory is " the cobweb of an idle brain " ; that, instead of rooting itself in the ground, " it holds itself up in the air by its own waistband " ; that, instead of being treated as responsible history, " it ought to be left altogether out of account." It is, in fine, of vastly " less consequence to know than what actually took place." We have made no quarrel with the strength, nor with the scorn, of Wellhausen's language. If the Old Testament be the fatuous concoction which he makes out, he might add edge to his scorn, and be guiltless. What we have complained of is that he gives " not the faintest trace " of jproof for positions INCONSISTENT DOGMATISM. 69 which, with overwhelming dogmatism, he yet proclaims to be as certain as that night follows day. He would turn the Old Testament wi'iters into a pack of incompetent and unblush- ing forgers. In reality, almost every page of his own Chapter I. (which contains his "whole position") is honeycombed with inconsistency and with assumption. He agrees neither with Scripture, nor with probability, nor with himself. He is like the great Syracusan, with the cry, £^U irov -13a, 1G6-I8a, 22-26, 31-34, 35a ; 17. 1 (part) ; 19. 1, 2a; 24. 156-18a; 25. 1— 31. 17, 18 (doubtful) ; 34. 29-32, 33-35 (?) ; 35—40. ATTITUDE OF PEIESTLY CODE. 117 (1) We shall first assail the citadel, through a strong and excellent piece of ammunition, which our author himself supplies. When dealing with another document, and with the practices of another period, he urges, as a plea for our com- parative ignorance of these practices, the following : — " For reasons easily explained, it is seldom that an occasion arises to explain the ritual " (p. 55). One shot from that gun lays his citadel in ruin. In that quotation, our author has slipped away from the new " science," and is writing, for the moment, as a mere sensible orthodox critic. If a document is so constructed as not to afford " occasions " for describing certain practices, we cannot appeal to its silence, as proving the non- existence of these practices. That is all that is required to destroy his own argument (or citadel) with which we are dealing. In his " List of passages " from Genesis, not a solitary " occasion arises," where a description of sacrificial customs (if they existed) was necessarily called for, or where its absence is, in the least degree, striking. If there had been such "occasions," with what unrivalled lucidity would our subtle critic have enforced them ! He does not name even one. (2) This will be the better appreciated, if we just call up before us the extremely attenuated dimensions, to which he reduces the Priestly Genesis, (a) Of the many centuries, from the Creation to Abraham, all that he leaves (apart from several verses on the Flood) is a few fists of names, "the generations of the heavens," "the generations of Adam," "the generations of Noah," "the generations of the sons of Noah," " the generations of Shem." Will it be pretended that, in these dry catalogues, any mention of sacrifice was likely ? (ft) Then, from Abraham to the death of Joseph, what have we ? The only continuous narratives left of Abraham are the circumcision of Ishmael, and the buying of the cave of Machpelah : the rest of his history is fitted into about a 118 SANCTUABY AND SACRIFICE. dozen verses, (c) All that is left of Isaac is his command to Jacob to go to Laban. (d) All that is told of Jacob (apart from genealogical lists) is told in less than 30 verses, {e) Let these circumscriptions be pondered for an instant, circum- scriptions which turn Genesis into the merest skeleton of a skeleton, and then say if the absence of sacrificial references, from such a narrative, can be pointed to as a " well-known " proof that sacrifice was non-existent. Had there been a denial of sacrifice, or had there been pointed descriptions of worship, with no mention of sacrifice, it would have been different ; but nothing approaching either of these situations can be pretended. (/) Nay, the only reference to their worship, which is left (if indeed it be left ?) in the whole lives of the three patriarchs, is the following : " Jacob set up a pillar in the place where He spake with him, a pillar of stone : and he poured out a drink-offering thereon, and poured oil thereon " (Gen. 35. 14). Does this look as though sacrifice were unknown ? [As a curiosity of " science,'* we may mention that, while " Gen. 35. 9-15 (9 impure) " figures in the " List of Passages claimed ly Wellhausen to belong to the Priests' Code," another adept in the same " science " gives " Gen. 35. 9-13, 15" as what he graciously decrees to be Priestly. If this means that verse 14 is thrust out, merely because of a possible sacrificial reference^ it is an excellent sample of the circles, through the describmg of which the " scientific " separation of the documents is often reached. The previous argument of the paragraph is quite cogent, without leaning on this verse at all.] (3) It is well-known that, in those parts of Genesis which Wellhausen excides from the Priests' Code, there are several references to sacrifice, by Cain and Abel, by Noah, by the patriarchs, (a) Now, if Wellhausen's critical instinct be wrong as to even one of these references, and if it was not ATTITUDE OF PRIESTLY CODE. 119 originally severed from the Priestly skeleton, his theory is disproved : this shows how largely self-confidence has to figure in upholding his theory. (Z>) Further, he of course postulates a redactor, who pieced the Priestly skeleton, and the rest of the chapters of Genesis, into a common narrative. How does he know that this redactor has not elided some sacrificial references from the skeleton ? The avoidance of " vain repetitions " might lead him, in one or two cases, to omit such references from the one document, when the other document clearly, and at once, suppHed them : and even one such omission would again be fatal to the theory. It seems clear that the redactor (assuming his existence and work) has made omissions of other matters : the Priestly skeleton will not read, in some places, as a con- nected narrative, without supplying matter from the other document, which the Priestly one therefore might also have originally contained : what possible certitude can Wellhausen have that there was not even one such sacrificial ehsion ? His certitude is either " sublime " — or " one step " lower. (4) His language suggests another very appropriate test, by which to try his theory. The Priestly Genesis says nothing of sacrifice, "although," he adds, apparently thinking here is a strong point, " although from the time of Noah slaughtering is permitted." The command to Noah, " every Kving thing that moveth shall be food for you," is assigned by "Wellhausen to the Priestly skeleton : can it be conceived, he urges, that sacrifice prevailed through ages when "slaughtering is per- mitted," without the sacrifices being noticed ? (a) If we were to say that there is " no mention " of " slaughtering," that, for aught that appears, Noah was to partake of " the living thing that moveth," only when it had succumbed, without disease, to death, we would be saying what is hterally true and nonsensi- cal, but we would not be exceeding the absurd hypercriticism of other texts, which could be shown on Wellhausen's own 120 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. pages ! (b) But we have another comment than the above. What will the reader think when we say that we have just looked carefully over every verse of Genesis, which is allowed to the Priests' Code, and we have not found recorded a sohtary instance of "slaughtering," or of the participation of animal food, from Noah to the death of Joseph, any more than from the Creation to Noah ? Will it be said that the gift of the "living thing" for "food" is a stupid interpolation, seeing that such a gift is impossible, without its existence being illustrated, in the subsequent sustenance of the patriarchal ages ? Or, if that is too verging on the comic, and if we are to believe that the gift was real, and that not a day was pass- ing, from the Flood to the close of Genesis, on which an unrecorded participation of animal food was not occurring, with what consistency can we maintain that sacrifices also may not have been occurring, not on every day, but at least on certain solemn occasions, though, in the superlatively slender chronicle of these ages, a sacrificial reference does not happen to occur ? (c) We cannot forbear adding that, when we pass out of Genesis into the Priestly part of Exodus, the only " slaughter- ing " that meets us, prior to the giving of the Law from Sinai, is the killing of the Lord's passover in Goshen : " Your lamb shall be without blemish. . . and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at even" (Exod. 12. 6). What is this but a " sacrificial act " — an act which is straight- way commanded to be renewed at " a feast by an ordinance for ever " ? To prove that this killing was not sacrificial will be no easier than to prove that black is white. After all, then, the magniloquent support which our author affects to accept from the fact " although from the time of Noah slaughtering is permitted," comes to this, that the first and only " slaughtering," which the Priests' Code chronicles, from the Flood till Israel were surrounding Sinai, is the sacrificial act of killing the ATTITUDE OF PEIESTLY CODE. 121 Lord's passover ! And, on these premisses, we are asked to believe that, while slaughtering was continual, sacrifice was non-existent. (5) We may add that other curious results will follow if our author's historical method is to prevail, (a) Does he believe that all the ages, from the Creation to the Sinaitic Law, were prayerless ages ? He ought to beheve this ; for we have read over his Priestly skeleton, and there is not a solitary reference to private or united prayer, on the part of God's people, throughout the whole period ! We instance prayer with the more readiness, because our author is fond of putting it on an identical platform with sacrifice. " Moses left the procedure in sacrifice, as he left the procedure in praijer, to be regulated by the traditional praxis " (p. 54). " Offerings and gifts are the natural and, lilce prayer^ universally current expressions of rehgious homage " (p. 56). Prayer and sacrifice are thus joined on an equal platform of instinctiveness and universaUty. If, therefore, the silence as to sacrifice proves that all the saints of Genesis were non-sacrificing saints, then the silence as to prayer proves that all the saints of Genesis were prayerless saints. (&) What better must Sabbath-keeping fare at our author's hands ? On the fore-front of the Priestly skeleton, in Gen. 2. 3, we read " God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it " : but must not that be an interpolation ? There is not a sohtary chronicle of Sabbath-keeping, to justify it, throughout the whole of Genesis ! (c) Were there ever any gatherings for united worship in pre-Sinaitic days ? " It is well known that the Priestly Code makes mention of none." id) Were there judicatories of any kind ? " It is well known that the Priestly Code makes mention of none." And so on, ad liUtum. (6) His only other proof that his Priestly skeleton disbeheves in pre-Mosaic sacrifice is from its handling of the Exodus. For 122 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICK one thing, it does not make Moses ask emancipation in order to sacrifice, — " the offering of a sacrifice as the occasion of the Exodus is omitted." {a) But what if the redactor elided it (as he demonstrably elided much) in view of its plentiful acknowledgment in the companion document which he was piecing in with the Priestly ? (J) Or, shall we say that its mention in the companion document is a gross imposition, seeing there is no mention of the performance of said sacrifice after the Exodus is realised ? (c) And does the Priestist regard Moses's devotion to sacrifice, as springing up within him as suddenly as Saul's conversion on the road to Damascus ? Before Pharaoh, he will not breathe such a subject as sacrifice : yet, only a few weeks afterwards, he is so possessed of it, as to make it the very essence of his theocracy ! Then, further, " in place of the sacrifice of the firstlings we have the paschal lamb, which is slaughtered and eaten without altar, without priest, and not in the presence of Jehovah." (ci) Why, it is the Priests' Code to which he assigns, " Sanctify to me all the first-born, both of man and beast " ! (Exod. 13. 2.) ijb) It is the Priests' Code, which he credits with such sacri- ficial fixtures as the lamb being without blemish, the careful sprinkling of its blood, its being all eaten that night, the necessity of circumcision in all who partake, the confinement to unleavened bread, the future prolongation of the ceremony in " a feast by an ordinance for ever " ; how could a sacrifice be more characteristically indicated ? (c) And if there was neither priest nor central sanctuary in Goshen, are we to forget that necessity has no law, and that Cain and Abel and Noah and Job may be said to sacrifice, without the men- tion of any priest to officiate for them, or of any tabernacle before which their altar might blaze ? And what of the Jehovist ? When he asks Pharaoh to let the people abroad for sacrifice, is he any surer of " altar," and " priest," and ATTITUDE OF PRIESTLY CODE. 123 " presence of Jehovah," in the wilderness, than in the land of Goshen ? So much for the attenuated history, alleged to be incorpo- rated in the Priests' Code, as involving a denial of sacrifice. There is not a solitary occasion specified, on which its sacrificial silence can, in the least, be described as singular : other practices, which undoubtedly prevailed, get equally scant notice : and the minute pre-ordination of the paschal festival puts the knowledge, and practice, of sacrifice beyond dispute. We began by looking towards the Citadel's "cloud-capped towers " : but, even while we look, have they not " faded, like an unsubstantial pageant " ? YII. "We have now glanced, as proposed, at the so-called Priests' Code itself, and also at the historical skeleton, which alone is alleged to have been incorporated with it, and we have found that neither supplies a scintilla of evidence that the existence of sacrifice " prior to the time of Moses " is denied : they seem both to point clearly to the opposite conclusion. There is "not a trace" of hint that pre-Mosaic ages were ignorant of sacrifice, any more than they were ignorant of sabbaths or of prayers. We have still to fulfil our intention of noticing a few subsidiary positions, in the paragraphs under review, that have not yet been touched on. (1) He urges the exclusiveness, with which his so-called Code devotes itself to sacrifice, as indicating that it is a " book " by itself, and as determining " the character of the book " : this exclusiveness authorises us to cut it out from the " books " which precede and follow it. His words are : " The Priestly Code alone occupies itself much with the subject ; it gives a minute classification of the various kinds of offerings, and a description of the procedure to be followed in the case of each." "This point accordingly presents us with an important feature by which the character of the hook can be determined." 124 SANCTUARY ANJ) SACRIFICE. The conclusion, here suggested, does not follow in the least : the facts, to which he points, are most eminently reconcileable with the traditional view of the Pentateuch. If a writer prac- tically thrashes out a particular subject, at one portion of his " book," that is surely the best of reasons for his passing hghtly over that subject, in other portions of the same " book." If a writer, for example, in the course of his history, wishes to give a definite and standing statement of the musical habits and arrangements of a people, and if he devotes several pages to such a statement, are we to insist on disentangling such a Musical Code, as a separate and independent document, from the rest of the volume, merely because his other musical references are scattered here and there, in more casual and unsystematic form ? Or, if he feels it expedient, at some stage of his history, to give a complete synopsis of all a nation's appliances and regulations for education, of its primary and secondary schools, of how its classes are composed, and its inspections conducted, and its rewards assigned, are we to disentangle such an Educational Code, and assign it to a different author, merely because " it alone occupies itself much with the subject," and because the other educational references of the volume are disjointed, and fragmentary, in comparison ? If that be precisely the innocent course which the greatly derided author of the Pentateuch has followed, if, at a memor- able and most appropriate era of the national history, he pauses to give a minute and comprehensive outline of sacrificial appointments, " a minute classification of the various kinds of offerings, and a description of the procedure to be followed in the case of each," are we to pounce on such a Sacrificial Code, and seek to imprint brands of suspicion on it, merely because the other sacrificial references of the record are less intelligible, and less complete, in form ? It is quite conceivable that the Code and the record might have had irreconcileable contradic- ATTITUDE OF PRIESTLY CODE. 125 tions, which would end all idea of their common authorship : we are merely noting now that the bare fact of sacrifice re- ceiving a specially complete and systematic treatment in Leviti- cus, does not raise a presumption, to the very slightest extent, against its being from the same pen as the rest of the record. (2) We think Wellhausen exaggerates a little also in making the contents of the Priests' Code to be exclusively sacrificial. He is right when (in the paragraphs which we are reviewing) he says that sacrifice is " a very essential element " in it, but he exaggerates somewhat when he further says " the theocracy is nothing more than the institution for the purpose of carrying on the cultus after the manner ordained by God." "The theocracy" does provide for the "carrying on" sacrificial worship, but it is a mistake to say that it does " nothing more." It contains dietary regulations of an elaborate kind, "differ- ences between the unclean and the clean, and between the living thing that may be eaten and the living thing that may not be eaten": It contains marriage prohibitions of a minute and stringent kind : It lays down quasi-medical, or sanitary, rules : It contains laws against wizards and blasphemers : It has laws inculcating social kindness and benevolence : It has far-reaching civil enactments, regarding the produce of the soil each seventh year, and regarding social and proprietary changes in the years of jubilee. The " theocracy " does regulate sacri- fice, but it regulates a vast deal more. Truth never gains by exaggeration. (3) He also makes a very hasty and illogical statement regarding his Priests' Code when he says that " so definite a sacrificial ritual, treated in the Priestly Code as the only possible one in Israel, is one which can have arisen only as a consequence of the centralisation of the cultus at Jerusalem " (p. 54). This dictum does not rest on quoted authority, we are thrown back on our inner consciousness, or sense of fitness. 12$ SANCTUABY AND SACBIFICE. to justify it : and, being thus thrown ' back, we feel that it can command from us no acquiescence whatever. It is a trans- parent begging of the question — and a begging of all pro- priety. What is to hinder a " definite ritnal " being the cause, as easily as being "the consequence," of centralisation of woi-ship ? What is to hinder a " definite ritnal," entailing centralisation, being proposed by a reformer, and then one stubborn generation to succeed another in throwing contempt on his requirements, till at last, in a wiser age, his merit is recognised, and his ritual, and its required centralisation, are simultaneously established ? We are saying nothing now of the actual course of history, we are dealing merely with con- ceivability. And what Wellhausen (merely to suit his theory) declares to be impossible, we think every man, gifted with calm reflection, will declare to be possible, in the most eminent degree. If it were worth pursuing the shadow further, we might ask why centralisation at Shiloh, or centrahsation at the tabernacle in the wilderness, might not, equally with centralisa- tion at Jerusalem, be either the cause, or the consequence, of a " definite ritual." The imperfect realisation of the aim is no disproof of the aim having been cherished. (4) The assertion is unreservedly made that, while the Book of the Covenant is indifferent to ritual, and concerns itself only with what he calls the " to whom," the Priests' Code, on the other hand, almost gives the " to whom " the go by, and lavishes all its attention on the rituahstic routine. "An altogether disproportionate emphasis is accordingly laid upon the technique of sacrifice." " One could almost suppose that even if it were offered to another god it would by means of the legitimate rite alone be at once made essentially Jehovistic." Such representations are quite unwarranted, (a) The taber- nacle and altar were standing reminders of the One and Only Object of worship, to whom every sacrifice must be offered. ATTITUDE OF PBIESTLY CODE. 127 (b) And the bare thought of turning "to another god" is execrated, and is punishable with death. " Turn ye not unto idols, nor make to yourselves molten gods : I am the Lord your God" (Lev. 19. 4). Moloch is "another god," and whosoever gives his seed to him " that soul shall be cut off from among his people " (Lev. 20. 1-6). (c) Nay there had been such a thing as sacrifices "offered to another god," but, instead of being made "essentially Jehovistic" by mere strictness of routine, they are unsparingly condemned : " And they shall no more sacrifice their sacrifices unto the he-goats after whom they go a whoring. This shall be a statute for ever unto them throughout their generations " (Lev. 17. 7). There could not be a more unsupported assertion than that the Priests' Code throws the selection of the Object of worship into the slightest comparative indifference. (5) It is well to remember that, while Wellhausen meets Leviticus in Scripture, and ascribes a certain sacrificial view to it, he has no hesitation in repudiating that view as contrary to likelihood, contrary to history, and contrary to the rest of Scripture. He makes this unmistakable in these words : "The belief tliat tlie cultns goes back to pre-Mosaic usage is unquestionably more natural than the behef that it is the main element of the Sinaitic legislation ; the thought would he a strange one that God should suddenly have revealed, or Moses discovered and introduced, the proper sacrificial ritual." This sentence will repay a Httle notice. So far as the second half of it might seem to embody our author's own view of the Priests' Code, it would be an inconsistent statement of that view : his full view, as elsewhere impUed, is not that the Priests' Code introduces " the proper sacrificial ritual," as dis- tinguished from a previously existing " improper," but that the Priests' Code introduces sacrifice as a custom that had no previous existence at all : and he dismisses such doctrine as 128 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. "unnatural." If, again, we regard that second half of the sentence, as approximating towards a statement of the true Biblical view of sacrifice, our only fault is with its opening words — "the thought would be a strange one." We see nothing " strange " about it, but everything that is reasonable and likely. No one finds fault with the Decalogue, as a comprehensive promulgation of moral requirements, delivered at what was deemed a suitable stage in the history of the Church and of the world : its requirements had been always binding, and there had been many previous partial references to them : yet " the thought is not a strange one that God should now have proclaimed, and Moses received and enforced, the proper moral summary." In like manner, "the thought is not a strange one, that God should now have selected, and Moses received and introduced, the approven Israelitish ritual." On Wellhausen's view that all the previous ages had been sacri- ficing ages, there was little short of a need-be that God should accompany His choice of Israel with clear indications of His will regarding sacrifice. So far is " the thought " from being " a strange one." (6) We add only one other remark. If his Citadel of Silence had not already vanished, we have another weapon of his own, which would have quite sufficed to dispose of it. When he is describing what he regards as the sacrificial praxis under the Judges, he makes the singular admission : " It is possible that instances may have also occurred where the rule of the Pentateuch is followed " (p. 55), i.e,, it is possible that sacrifices may often have been offered, in accordance with the Priestly Code, in the days of the Judges, though we happen to have no record of the fact in the historical Books I What is this but to " plough " with the common-sense " heifer," to which he is often so unwilling to be yoked, that mere silence does not prove non-existence ? And is not the principle (and ATTITUDE OF PRIESTLY CODE. 129 we speak of the principle only) of this admission as applicable to pre-Mosaic, as to post-Mosaic, time ? " It is possible that instances were every Sabbath occurring, in which prayer and sacrifice were offered," although, in the incredibly meagre skeleton, to which Wellhausen would confine the history, no " occasion arose to describe " them. To the question at the head of this chapter — " Does the Priestly Code deny pre-Mosaic sacrifice ? " — we now confidently leave it with every reader to return a most emphatic negative. S 2893. ( 130 ) CHAPTER lY. DO THE JEHOVIST AND THE HISTORIANS REPUDIATE DIVINE REGULATION OF SACRIFICE? WE have now examined the Priests' Code, in itself, and in its incorporated history, and in our author's subsidiary references to it, and we have searched in vain for any substantiation of the strange doctrine that it involves a total denial of pre-Mosaic sacrifice — a denial, which is alleged to place it in " extremely striking contrast " to the other codes. A theory, which thus halts on one leg, may possibly be found equally un-serviceable on the other leg ; and that this is so, we think can be easily shown. TVe shall now examine the contents of his theory, so far as it asserts the relation of the Book of the Covenant and of Deuteronomy to sacrifice, and so far as it asserts that relation to be illustrated in their accompanying history. He leaves us, as usual, in no dubiety as to the position he assumes. That position is that Moses did not interfere, to the sUghtest extent, in the regulation of sacrifice : the Priests' Code attributes everything to him, the other codes attribute nothing to him. Israel, and the rest of the world, were left to follow their natural instincts, in regard to sacrifice ; and an Israelite, under the Judges and the Kings, had not a single divine sacrificial direction to guide him, and to distinguish him, as compared with an idolater in the most benighted lands of heathendom. The only difference was that the Israelite said his sacrifices were to Jehovah, the idolater said his were to ATTITUDE OF THE JEHOVIST. 131 Moloch or Chemosh, or to beasts or stars. " Sacrifice is sacrifice : when offered to Baal, it is heathenish ; when offered to Jehovah it is Israelite " (p. 53). The Israelite was quite un-restricted as to the materials of his sacrifice ; bring anything he fancied of what he owned, and he need fear no divine displeasure with it, as unsuitable. "With respect to the matter of it, the idea of a sacrifice is in itself indifferent, if the thing offered only have value of some sort, and is the property of the offerer" (p. 61). No importance attaches to the method of offering ; the people are free to follow whatever method is right in their own eyes, and God has never stooped to prescribe any one sacrificial ceremony, as preferable to any other. " Israelite sacrifice is distinguished not by the manner in which, but by the being to whom, it is offered " (p. 54) . " It is no new matter, but a thing well known, that sacrifices are not what the Law of the Lord contains " (p. 58). There is no divine method, and all human methods are equally acceptable. The people have not yet reached the stage of laying " an altogether disproportionate emphasis upon the when, the ivhere, and the ly whom, and also in a very special manner upon the how " (p. 52) : it is only the " to whom " they have to be careful about : places, and methods, and seasons, and persons, are all un-legislated on. No one dreams that Moses ever meddled with the regulation, or with the institution, of sacrifice ; a Mosaic origin of it is never hinted at, either in codes, or in history ; Moses found that sacrifices had prevailed since the Creation, but he neither selected, nor purified, nor legislated, to any extent, in the matter. Such is the doctrine which the Deuteronomist is alleged to join with the Jehovist in holding : " With regard to sacrifice, Deute- ronomy still occupies the same stand-point as JE" (p. 54 note). This may seem odd in view of the fact that the Deuteronomist is claimed to have originated centraUsation, and that all the I 2 132 SANCTUABY AND SACRIFICE. Levitical laws are declared to be " the matured result " (p. 76) of Josiah's centralisation ; but we hold no brief for the recon- cilement of different parts of Wellhausen's evolution. AYe point, meantime, to the fact that the two codes are alleged to agree (however strangely) in the repudiation of divine interposition, through Moses, or through any other medium, in the regulation of sacrifice, and to the accompanying fact that " the historical documents dating from the pre-Exihc time " (p. 55) are declared to justify, and to re-echo, that repudiation. And we ask. Is there evidence in support of these alleged facts ? We have already, so far, given these alleged facts in his own quoted phraseology ; and, in our critical sections which now follow, we shall add other similar exact quotations from him, which will exhaust all that he has urged as to the views of the Jehovist, and of the pre-Exihc historians : our readers will thus have Wellhausen's positions, and our contraventions of them, side by side. We shall also arrange the contents of this chapter quite similarly to our aiTangement of the last. (A) We shall first compare his theory with the Codes : (B) We shall then compare it generally with the History : (C) And we shall. then notice some specialities of historical criticism, which his pages present. (A) We enter, first, on a comparison of his theory with the codes of the Jehovist, and of the Deuteronomist, whom, as we have shown, he associates on a common platform, as regards the present subject of discussion. I. We have already remarked, in the course of Chapter III., that the part of his theory, now under consideration, has no positive support whatever, in the form of express affirmation. ATTITUDE OF THE JEHOVIST. 133 either in the codes, or in the history, on which it can rely. But (as is the case with other parts of the theory) this part also is met with a variety of counter-statements, which it can only survive by ignoring, or by annihilating. Is it the case that these codes contain nothing in the shape of sacrificial direction ? that they represent the regulation of cultus as quite outside the scope of divine law ? We think the contrary can be very clearly shown. (1) TThat is that command, on the very forefront of their Jehovistic code, which Wellhausen's school are perpetually quoting, and filhng up with a vast significance, — " An altar of earth shalt thou make unto me . . . And, if thou make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stones '' (Exod. 20. 24, 25) ? what is that but a minute and careful sacrificial direction r Can it be pretended that God cannot stoop to an oversight of ritual, when He fixes the legitimacy of the very materials, on which the victims must be laid ? (2) A similar comment falls to be made on the other command, which foUows — "Xeither shalt thou go up by steps unto mine altar" (Exod. 20. '2Q). Does this look as though the people were left to the un-restricted following of their own devices ? Does it not bespeak a stringent divine oversight of sacrifice ? and is it not eminently in keeping with its having been spoken by the same hps, and in the same age, as the strict details of Leviticus ? We are not meantime enteriag on the materials, and styles, of the tabernacle altar, and of Solomon's altar : we are merely noting, as common to both Priestly and Jehovistic codes, the principle of divine interest in, and divine regulation of, cultus : and a code, which stands up for divine legitimacy, do^vn to the very steps of its altar, cannot possibly be held as scouting the divine regulation of sacrifice, as a thing incredible. (3) The same conclusion is deducible from another 134 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. injunction — "In every place where I cause my name to be remembered I will come unto thee -and will bless thee " (Exod. 20. 24). Here is divine legitimising again. There may be a question whether the translation should be " in every place," or " throughout all the place (or district) " ; but, in either case, the qualification, " where I cause remembrance of my name," implies the principle of divine choice of sacrificial locality. Sacrifices cannot be offered, with acceptance, at every place promiscuously : respect must be shown for those places, where some manifestation of the divine presence and glory shall take place : they are clearly warned that, if they do only what is right in their own eyes, in selecting places of sacrifice, their divine guardian will not " come unto them and bless them." We were grandly told that " the wliere " of sacrifice was emphasised only in the Priestly Code : here, as one of the earliest enactments of the so-called Jehovistic Code, we have " the ivhere " receiving the lawgiver's pointed attention. (4) Xeed we add that Deuteronomy (which, it is said, " with regard to sacrifice, still occupies the same standpoint as JE ") advances " the ivliere " of sacrifice, in successive regulations, into superlative prominence ? It represents God as jealous, with a special jealousy, for the locality of sacrificial observ- ances : over and over again, it enforces they must take place, only "at the place which the Lord your God shall choose." We thus have minute prescription, on a most essential point, running through and through a code, to which (it is pre- tended) the idea of divine sacrificial prescription is quite abhorrent, (5) Then, what is to be made of the precise and reite- rated commands to be careful in the offering unto God of first-fruits ? " Thou shalt not delay to offer of the abundance of thy fruits and of thy liquors. The first-born of thy sons shalt thou give unto me. Likewise also shalt thou do with ATTITUDE OF THE JEH0VI8T. 135 thine oxen, and with thy sheep : seven days it shall be with its dam; on the eighth day thou shalt give it Me" (Exod. 22. 29, 30; and so in Exod. 23. 19 ; 34. 19,20; Deut. 15. 19, 23) : we have "the ivhere'' of offering these first-fruits, again fixed as "the house of the Lord thy God" and "the place which the Lord shall choose"; and we have the kind of animal "of thy herd or of thy flock," that can alone be accepted as a "firstling," carefully prescribed, — it must not have " any blemish," and it must not be " lame nor blind." Is it not ludicrous to have a code, with such minutias of prescription in its heart, singled out as a code, that knows nothing of divine sacrificial prescription? The people are not left to their own instincts, nor to a following of primi- tive antiquity, they have a " thus saith the Lord " to compel them to the sacrifice of firstlings : they are not free to sacri- fice them wherever they choose, but " the ivliere " is prescribed : they are not left to select the firstlings by their own predilec- tion, but the characteristics of suitable victims are prescribed. (6) Then, how are we to get over the strict fixing of three periods every year, when united festival is to be kept unto Jehovah, in the place which He shall choose ? " Three times in the year shall all thy males appear before the Lord God, the God of Israel"; and the "times" are specified as "the feast of unleavened bread," "the feast of weeks," and "the feast of ingathering"; and it is enjoined "none shall appear before Me empty " (Exod. 23 and 34, and Deut. 16). We were told that "the when'' was another point, that the Priestly Code alone was scrupulous about : but here is " the when " taken in hand, and most stringently emphasised : they are not left to fix the seasons of sacrifice, as they choose ; these seasons come under a law of God. (7) Could we have two more strictly sacrificial requirements than the following?— " Thou shalt not offer the blood of My 136 SANCTUARY AND SACBIFICE. sacrifice with leavened bread : neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of the passover be left unto the morning " (Exod. 34. 25 ; see also 23. 18) ? Both these are from the pen of the Jehovist, and they both deal with "the lioiv'' of sacrifice, another of those points, with which the Jehovist is held not to inter- meddle. (8) To illustrate all the sacrificial prescriptions of Deutero- nomy were a lengthened task : and we have quoted chiefly from the Jehovist, because the poor Deuteronomist has here to " palter with us in a double sense " : he has to " occupy the some standpoint as JE," and yet he has, practically, to usher in the contradictory standpoint of PC : these are among the pleasantries of "science." The Deuteronomist enforces the various classes of sacrifice, the various tithings, the various festivals, the various priests' dues, the prohibition of high places, the prohibition of the eating of blood, and the pro- hibition of the planting of Asherahs beside God's altar : and yet, while doing all this, he " occupies the same standpoint " as a code, which regards sacrifice as no fit matter for legislation at all ! (9) There are just two deliverances of the Deuteronomist, which we shall particularise. "And thither ye shall bring your burnt offerings, and your sacrifices, and your tithes, and the heave offering of your hand, and your vows, and your free- will offerings, and the firstlings of your herd and of your flock " (Deut. 12. 6). Here we have extremely manifold sub- divisions of sacrifice : is it likely that this list had been originated by the people's own instinct, or that they had found it ready-made, and had adopted it from seme neighbour- ing heathen nation ? Or, is it not almost imperative to regard it, in great measure, as samples of a divinely-prescribed list, and to hold that it would become next to un-intelligible, if we cut it off from such a book as Leviticus, going before it ? If ATTITUDE OF THE JEH0VI8T. 137 some of the sacrifices in that list had no pre-Mosaic existence, how can we (from " the standpoint of JE ") deride the notion of a divine prescription of sacrifice ? (10) The other saying, which we particularise, of the Deu- teronomist is one, whose frequent quotations by Wellhausen it would be difficult to enumerate, and whose innocence of the significance, which he would impute to it, we have previously pointed out. " Ye shall not do after all the things that we do here this day, every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes " (Deut. 12. 8). Wellhausen regards these words as spoken under the kings : we regard them as spoken in the wilderness of Moab : take whichever period, his interpretation of them involves a heavy blow at his own " thesis." For he regards them (and, to this extent, quite rightly) as implying the divine displeasure with a long course of previous sacrificial practices, whereby the people had sought to please Jehovah. Now, according to " the standpoint of JE " (with which the Deutero- nomist is identified), Wellhausen liolds that displeasure to de an im]JOssiUUty : if only a sacrifice " be dedicated to the proper deity," it can never, because of an improper method, or because of an improper place, prove unacceptable to Jehovah : " it is nowhere represented that a sacrifice could be dedicated to the God of Israel, and yet be illegitimate " (p. 55). This magni- loquence crumbles to the dust before his own admission of the reprobation of a long course of pre-Deuteronomic sacrifices : the offering of such sacrifices to the proper deity could not save them from reprobation. In a previous connection, our author has described the praxis, which the Deuteronomist saw around him, as " the visible relics of an older state " (p. 38), with which he deemed it the part of every true reformer " to do battle " (p. 3G). But (in view of that part of the theory, which we are now criticising) we may well ask, is it for a reformer "to do battle " with what Jehovah can accept ? 138 SANCTUABY AND SACBIFICE, Such a bundle of disharmony illustrates well the ineradicable inconsistencies, with which the utterly imaginary discoveries of our author are besmirched. We have said enough to show that the Jehovist (even leaving the Deuteronomist out of view) is far from regarding sacrifice as to its " when " and its " where " and its " how," as a quite unsuitable sphere for divine legislation. His code con- tains clear and far-reaching indications that God took sacrificial ritual under His own careful, and stringent, oversight. And its prescriptions, as far as they go, are quite in keeping, as to minuteness and peremptoriness, with all the additional details, that meet us in Leviticus. The spirit that breathes through the two codes is one : and the second is the natural successor and amplifier, to which the first looks forward, and without which the first could hardly have been promulgated, as an operative sacrificial rule. We thus get concord, and seemly sequence, from Tradition, while we get only grotesqueness, and contradiction, from Imagination. II. The vanity of Wellhausen's discovery may be illustrated, out of his Jehovist and Deuteronomist, in another way. He has discovered that Israel was on the same sacrificial platform with the rest of the world, that no method could come amiss, if only the " to whom " was kept right, that any of the neighbouring nations' rituals might quite innocently, and quite acceptably, be employed, if only Jehovah, as "the proper deity," be kept in full realisation. This is enforced with fre- quent and unreserved iteration. But how does it fit in with the representations of Scripture ? Does it seem to reflect that clear and marked separation from other nations, which was to be Israel's fundamental characteristic ? " The Lord hath avouched thee this day to be a peculiar people unto Himself, as He hath promised thee, and that thou shouldest keep all His command- ATTITUDE OF THE JEH0VI8T. 139 ments ; and to make thee high above all nations which He hath made, in praise, and in name, and in honour ; and that thou mayest be an holy people unto the Lord thy God, as He hath spoken" (Deut. 26. 18, 19). Would it not be a strange reahsa- tion of that ideal, if Israel's religious observances, their altars, their sanctuaries, their ceremonies, their adorations, were to be quite un-distinguishable from those of idolaters, except only that the name " Jehovah " was to be substituted, on the lip, for " Baal " or " Ohemosh " ? Many of the sacrificial rites of idolatry were contemptible, or absurd, or impure, or degrading : never mind — just breathe, throughout their observance, the name " Jehovah," and all will be turned to propriety and profit. Is not that turning to indifference, and to superstition, and to very wickedness, a service that ought to be instinct with principle, and that ought to be charged with hallowing influence ? Was it worth while making such a separation of the seed of Abraham, if their whole difference, from the most senseless and debasing idolatrous customs in other lands, was to be the difference of a name, — if they might reproduce freely the vilest of these customs, on condition only that, over the performance, there was inscribed, or pronounced, Jehovah's name ? Surely if " the rose, by any other name, will smell as sweet," so sacrificial absurdity, or impurity, will not be at all transformed in essence by being merely styled Jehovistic. III. But we have much more to appeal to than this strong presumption, flowing from the cardinal fact of Israel's separa- tion. We have to quote express prohibitions of Israel's having any participation in the altars, and sacrificial practices, of the nations they displaced. And our quotations are from the two codes, which are said to leave the aping of heathenish ritual as a matter perfectly indifferent. (1) " Thou shalt not bow down to their gods, nor serve UO SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. them, nor do after their ivorhs ; but tlioii shalt utterly over- throw them, and break in pieces their pillars " (Exod. 23. 24). Does that mean that the whole ritual of the Canaanites or Jebusites might be pardonably retained if only Jehovah's name be introduced ? Common sense will at once decide that the " works " forbidden are their sacrificial " works," seeing that sacrifice is to be " the main part of worship." (2) The same injunction is emphatically repeated. " Ye shall break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and ye shall cut down their Asherim " (Exod. 34. 13). If the very altars may not stand, by what authority shall we say that the ceremonies, which were multiplied around these altai-s, might be embraced, and perpetuated ? (3) Here is another form of the prohibition : "That they teach you not to do after all their abominations, which they have done unto their gods ; so should ye sin against the Lord your God" (Deut. 20. 18). Their ritual is here declared to be a mass of " abominations " ; and their " abominable " essence would not be changed, by merely speaking over them Jehovah's name ; they would still remain an " abomination " and a "sin against the Lord your God." (4) We give one more quotation. " Take heed that thou inquire not after their gods, saying. How do these nations serve their gods ? even so will I do likewise. Thou shalt not do so unto the Lord thy God : for every abomination to the Lord, which He hateth, have they done unto their gods : for even their sons and their daughters do they burn in the fire to their gods" (Deut. 12. 30, 31). Though the Deuteronomist had foreseen Wellhausen's discovery afar off, we do not think he could have guarded himself from the slightest complicity with it, in more deliberate terms, than he has done in the foregoing quotation. For observe it is " the hotvy of sacrifice — " Hoiv do these nations serve their gods ? " — which he deals with, and ATTITUDE OF THE JEHOVIST. 141 which he enjoins Israel to reprobate. It is not merely that " other gods " are worshipped instead of " Jehovah," but, though you were to substitute Jehovah's name, the services themselves would still constitute "every abomination to the Lord which He hateth." These services, it is pointed out, included a most unnatural breach of the sixth commandment, " burning their children in the fire " : they might, in like manner, include horrid breaches of other parts of the Decalogue : are we to suppose that such services at once became permissible, and acceptable, by the substitution of the name of " the proper deity " ? Nay : " thou shalt not do so unto the Lord thy God " ; the euphemism that the service is " unto the Lord " does not make it cease to be " abomination." Does the reader think it almost childish to go through such elementary exegesis ? Let him remember he is dealing with a discovery, which has " produced a profound impression on the scholarship of Europe " (Preface, p. vi.). We must not grudge, therefore, to spell the alphabet. IV. It is a most natural following up of the quotations just considered, to urge that the codes, from which they are taken, almost necessitate the simultaneous existence, along with them- selves, of such a code as Leviticus, unless Jehovah is to stand convicted of gross injustice. For, if the practices of the Canaanites are thus reprobated, if the mere light of nature may thus often prove a most un-trustworthy guide, how can Israel be saved from declension, and from rejection, unless " a more excellent way " is pointed out to them ? If ritual cannot safely be left altogether to man's own devising, if, when thus left, it too generally issues in utter " abomination," would it have been fair in Jehovah to send His chosen into Canaan, without any authoritative indication of those ceremonials and sacrifices, from which He would " smell a sweet savour and be refreshed" .? 142 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. If He brands Canaanitish sacrifice with reprobation, if, in reference to " Hoiv do these nations serve their gods ? " He says emphatically " Thou shalt not do so unto the Lord thy God," is it not incumbent on Him to show how " they shall do," in the matter of sacrificial ritual, " unto the Lord their Grod," lest, in avoiding Charybdis, they merely dash on Scylla ? Now, neither Exodus nor Deuteronomy can, for a moment, be held, as giving an exhaustive, and serviceable, guide to ritual. They give several clear and far-reaching indications that ritual is a subject for divine prescription, but a systematic outline of the divine prescriptions on that subject is not presented in either Book. Neither of them, nay not both together, could instruct either priest or worshipper in " the hoiv " of any one of the several species of sacrifices, which they yet treat as well-and- universally-known usages. We understand this, if Exodus regards Leviticus as following in a few weeks, and if Deutero- nomy, in its hortatory commemorations, can take Leviticus for granted. But, if you blot out Leviticus from between them, you blot out a creation, for which both inexorably crave, and without which neither can be regarded as either fair or perfect. We venture to hold, in view of the reprobation of Canaanitish sacrifices, that the very honour and justice of God suggest (if we may not say necessitate) the gift of Leviticus to His chosen Israel. Wellhausen can thus be " hoist with his o^vn codes," and the noble naturalness and consistency of Tradition made manifest. Y. This reference to Canaanitish sacrifice suggests a not dissimilar reference to Egyptian sacrifice. When the last plague but one had been inflicted on Egypt, we read : "And Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron, and said. Go ye, sacrifice to your God in the land. And Moses said, It is not meet so to do ; for we shall sacrifice the abomination of ATTITUDE OF THE JEH0VI8T. 143 the Egyptians to the Lord our God : lo, shall we sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians before their eyes and will they not stone us ? We will go three days' journey into the wilderness, and sacrifice unto the Lord our God, as He shall command us" (Exod. 8. 25-27). We will allow Wellhausen to settle which of his imaginary authors was the writer of these verses : he allows the Priestist to have written the first three verses of Exod. 8, and also vv. 11-15 of the chapter : the rest of the chapter we shall assume that he assigns to the Jehovist, and we shall assume that he is right ; the three verses quoted are, therefore, saturated with the spirit of the Jehovist. We may have to quote the verses for another purpose subsequently : the single point, we at present fix on, is the following. Wellhausen says the Jehovist regards sacrifice as a universal human instinct, which can be simply and naturally developed by the whole world ; that the methods of realising its development are immaterial, and that divine interposition is quite un-called for. Well, here are two nations, Egypt and Israel, develop- ing this common instinct with such embittered contrariety that the one nation would almost stone the other, if the latter dared to illustrate its sacrificial praxis on the former's soil : this does not seem to enforce the Arcadian simplicities of sacrificial development, in which our author luxuriates, nor the uselessness of that divine guidance, which he repu- diates. But, worse than that : here is the Jehovistic Moses, not treating the manner of sacrifice as a thing indifferent, not satisfied if Pharaoh leaves him a free hand as to the " to whom " of sacrifice : Pharaoh says " sacrifice to your God^'' — if Wellhausen is right, that should have been eveiy- thing in Moses's eyes, he should have regarded the sacrifice "with respect to the matter of it as in itself indifferent" (p. 61), and he should never have minded what special 144 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. material offerings he presented, seeing he was empowered to present them " to the proper deity." But Moses " knows " no such doctrine : he does not feel that it is all the same what he offers, "if the thing offered only have value of some sort, and is the property of the offerer " (p. 61) ; he feels he is shut up to animal sacrifices, and to the sacrifice of those oxen, which were symbols of high veneration in Egypt, and whose slaughter would, therefore, be resented as " abomination." And, after he gets clear of Egypt, he is not to carry out sacrifice, according to his own, or the people's, pleasure, he is to follow in a divinely-iyrescrihed imth., "we will sacrifice to the Lord our God, as He shall command lis.'''' That rubric "as He shall command us " might be written over all Leviticus as its justification, and it might be written over Wellhausen's discovery as its utter confutation. Moses cannot shape " the hoiv " of sacrifice to humour the Egyp- tians before the Exodus, nor can he allow the people freely to take over " the how " of sacrifice from the Canaanites, after the land of promise shall be entered. In other words, according to the Jehovistic Moses, sacrifice is a fit subject for the "command" of Jehovah. (B) "We have thus compared the theory, that the Jehovist's G-od cannot regulate sacrifice, with the two codes that reflect the Jehovist's "standpoint." We have next to compare the theory with "the historical Books," which are said to be parallel with the Jehovist, and to reflect his "standpoint." The reader, who has agreed with us in finding the theory banished from the codes, and in finding the codes eloquent in enforcing the direct opposite of the theory, will not expect much cori'oboration of the theory, when we take him forward to the history. That harmony in the divine ac^ ^^^^^^ / ATTITUDE OF HISTORIANS. 145 over-rulings, by wliich we are accustomed to recognise and admire them, will be very deficient, if we find the inspired history affirming what the inspired legislation denies. We have found no statement in the codes that God prescribed no ritual through Moses, nor any statement that Israel were left, like the rest of the world, to their own devices, free to follow, or to reject, neighbouring customs, as they pleased, in the matter of sacrifices: we have met with statements which seem plainly to prove the opposite. It is conceivable, however, that we might meet different witness in the history ; and the matter is not to be argued on the ground of inspiration, but on the ground of independent historical inquiry; we are not to say, "the history is inspired therefore it must correspond with the legislation," we are simply to say, "the history is there, what are the representations, which it yields, regarding the discovery, which our author has made ? " What do we learn as to the origination, or the regulation, of Israelitish sacrifice, from "the historical documents dating from the pre-Exilic time" ? Our author introduces his reference to these documents by saying : " As regards those of the first (the historical) class, they represent the cultus and sacrifice on all occasmis as occu- pying a large place in the life of the nation and of the individual " (p. 55) : and he then adds, as their doctrine, that they treat the " to whom " as everything, and the question of " rite " or " non-rite " as comparatively nothing. On this we offer two remarks. (1) If the documents are proving his thesis "on all occasions," and in "large" measure, is it not singular that he should (as he does) dispose of their evidence on less than a single page, and that he has not transferred to that page the exact words of a single paragraph or verse of Sjripture ? He professes to have five whole Books of Scripture (Judges, two of Samuel, and two of Kings) "on all occasions '' S 2893. -^^ 146 SANCTVABY AND SACBIFICE. on liis side : how strange that he shonld not fortify himself by transferring to his page the exact phraseology of a single quotation from one of the five ! We shall quote, and deal with, the actual contents of his page, as we proceed : in especial, while he imprisons a few texts in parentheses, we shall disentangle them from these prison-houses, and let the reader see what they actually say : meantime, the nature of his page is as we have indicated it. (2) Our other remark respects his statement that pre-Exilic sacrifice is represented, on all occa- sions, as occupying largely "the hfe of the nation." We think this is probably true : but how does it fit in with a subsequent stupendous discovery of our author ? On p. 78, he writes : " Of old (in pre-Exilic time) ... the natural sacrificial society was the family or the dan (1 Sam. 1. 1 seq. ; 16. 1 seq. ; 20. 6). Now (after the Exile) the smaller sacred fellowships get lost, the varied groups of social hfe disappear in the neutral shadow of the universal congregation or church Qedhah^ kahal). The notion of this last is foreign to Hebrew antiquity, but runs through the Priestly Code from beginning to end." On p. 55, Hebrew antiquity regards " the hfe of the nation " as, on all occasions, occupied " largely " with sacrifice : on p. 78, " Hebrew antiquity " regards the very " notion " of such a thing as " foreign." We merely note this as a sample of the jaunty and inconsistent Imaginations, which our author amuses himself with extemporising. And we now proceed to take a responsible view of the historical documents. We shall endeavour to put before the Bible student, suc- cinctly, what is the positive evidence of these documents, on the important point before us. And, in this way, we shall give him a connected glance over a wide range of Scripture. Wellhausen, practically, leaves it un-quoted ; we shall supply his omission. ATTITUDE OF HISTOBIANS. 147 I. Our first remark is that a full view of the period, with which our author professes to be dealing, is that it is a homo- geneous assemblage of ages from the Creation to the Priestly Code : in none of these ages, would the Jehovist regard a divine prescription of sacrifice as other than preposterous. We do not, therefore, need to make the Book of Judges our starting point : we can look at any parts of Exodus, or of Genesis, which are assigned to the Jehovist. (1) Look then at the institution of the passover, as given in Exod. 12, 13, and as supplying a crucial test. We shall let our author distribute the contents of these chapters, as he pleases, among the creations of his fancy. Well, then, of Chapter 12 he gives vv. 1-21 to the Priestist, but the Priestist wrote nothing of vv. 27-36, except v. 28. This leaves, among others, vv. 22-25 to the Jehovist ; and what have we there ? We have a minute divine interest in the details of sacrifice ! The gathering of the blood in the bason, the dipping therein of a bunch of hyssop, the striking therewith of the lintel and side posts, the scrupulous abiding indoors till morning, the keeping up of the sacrifice as an annual ordinance for ever, and the careful explanation of the ritualistic details to their children's children, these most priestly requirements are all embraced in this un-priestly Jehovistic document ! (2) Look at the other chapter, 13. All that are allowed to the Priestist here are the two opening verses and v. 20. We may therefore regard vv. 3-16 as Jehovistic, and we have, in these verses, inexorable divine requirements as to the eating of unleavened bread, as to the month and the number of days of the festival, as to the consecration to Jehovah of the first-born of man and beast, and as to the victim, by which an ass's firstling could be redeemed ; and in all " time to come," the beneficence and command of Jehovah are to be given " when thy son asketh thee," as the ground of so singular sacrificial observances— " therefore I thus sacrifice to the Lord." Are we to be told K 2 148 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. that a document, with such contents, repudiates all idea of divine interposition as to sacrifice ? (3) Not a single verse of Chapter 10 is given to the Priestist ; we may therefore regard as Jehovistic the following verses (24-26) of this chapter : " Pharaoh called unto Moses and said, Go ye, serve the Lord ; only let your flocks and your herds be stayed : let your little ones also go with you. And Moses said, Thou must also give into our hand sacrifices and burnt-offerings that we may sacri- fice unto the Lord our God. Our cattle also shall go with us ; there shall not an hoof be left behind ; for thereof must we take to serve the Lord our God ; and we know not with what we must serve the Lord, until we come thither." It will be observed that sacrifice is not here a random concern, whose methods and materials may be shaped as Israel chooses ; there is a "must be" that the "flocks and herds" supply the victims ; and the whole ceremonies must remain unknown till Jehovah speaks — " we (meantime) know them not." (4) We have already quoted the similar Jehovistic verses (25-27) of Chapter 8, where it is intimated that Israel must adhere to the divinely required material for sacrifice, though it should be " abomination " to the Egyptians, and that their whole sacri- ficial arrangements must be " as the Lord shall command us." Is it not fatuous to reiterate, with every precision and vehemence that human language can supply, that a document, from which the above are extracts, " knows nothing " of divine regulation of sacrifice ? II. It may be noted also that this same document is plentiful in its acknowledgments that there is a body of divine " com- mandments," with which the seed of Abraham have, from the first, been entrusted. (1) It is the Jehovist who describes the murmuring at Marah, with the remonstrance, " If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, and wilt do ATTITUDE OF HISTORIANS. 149 that which is riglit in His eyes, and wilt give ear to ffis commandments and keep all His statutes " (Exod. 15. 2^)). (2) In the wondronsly dissected, and apportioned, chapter about the manna, the following verses are given to the Jehovist. " The Lord said unto Moses, How long refuse je to keep My commandments and My laws ? See for that the Lord hath given you the Sabbath, therefore He giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days " (Exod. 16. 28, 29). (3) It is the Jehovist who puts the following address to Isaac into Jehovah's mouth : " Abraham obeyed My voice, and kept My charge, My commandments.) My statutes, and My laivs " (Gen. 26. 5). Such quotations suggest the otherwise most natural belief that there may have been a wide variety of divine prescriptions, which it was not felt necessary to incorporate, in their every detail and development, into the inspired records. Moses can say " The Lord hath given you the Sabbath" though, in the whole previous history so far as it is Jehovistic, there is no reference to the " gift " of the Sabbath. Grod can speak to Isaac, and assume Isaac's knowledge, of "commandments" and "statutes" and " laws " given to Abraham, although (with the exception of circumcision) there is not one of all these " commandments " incorporated into the previous history. On what grounds of necessity, or of common sense, are we to conclude that, in all the pre-Exilic ages, there had been no indications of the divine will as to the materials, and the seasons, and the ceremonies, of sacrifice, {a) when we are left to suppose that His un-recorded " commandments " were many, (If) when we are expressly told that Israel can sacrifice, only " as the Lord shall command us," and {c) when sacrifice was " the main part of worship " ? III. To deny all pre-Exilic regulation of sacrifice, on God's part, is as un-warranted in view of the jwst-Mosaic, as it is in view of the pre-Mosaic, references in the historical documents. 150 SANCTUABY AND SACBIFICE. Our author leaves the Book of Joshua out of account : we need not here discuss his claim to include several portions of that book in the Priestly Code. Enough to say that, even in what he leaves as the un- Priestly portions of it, occur references (similar to some, already adduced from the preceding Books) which are " polemical " against his " thesis." We proceed, however, to the Books which he has chosen exclusively to name, — " the Books of Judges, Samuel, and Kings " (p. 55). Now, in view of the contents of our immediately preceding section, we have a clear and cogent consideration to advance in reference to the whole period covered by these Books. We have nothing, in any of them, in the least approaching a detailed outline of saciifices and their ritual, and, in these circumstances, our demand for information must be moderate ; we must be- ware of professing to have blown incontestable facts to pieces, by discharges from a mere Citadel of Silence. It is in reference to this very period that our author makes the significant ad- mission, which we have already quoted, and commended, in Chapter III. : " For reasons easily explained, it is seldom that an occasion arises to describe the ritual " (p. 55). This state- ment is at once true, and important ; and it might well make our author pause, in reference to a period that can be so charac- terised, before he professes to have overthrown the firm belief of more than twenty centuries regarding the main sacrificial characteristic of that period. His admission should surely e^'oke great caution. If Abraham, as we have just seen, could be the recipient of " commandments " and " statutes " and " laws " from God, and if nevertheless Abraham's life could be written without including a single outline of his usual routine in sacrifice, it is surely not to be pronounced incredible that Israel may have possessed Leviticus, although, in the extremely abridged summaries of their national history, there does not happen to be incorporated any elaborate description of Levitical ATTITUDE OF HISTORIANS. 151 routine. Some of the most indisputable of the people's privi- leges and habits may never happen to be mentioned in such historical abridgments. (a) The first of the Books which he names is Judges. The caution, which we have just illustrated, is very necessary here. (1) There is nothing in the least resembling formal outhnes of sacrifice in the whole Book. And surely if, under all the Judges from Othniel to Samson, not a solitary occasion occurs for describing a national Israelitish sacrifice, with what pro- priety can we insist that the narrative must afford illustrations, either of the observance, or of the disregard, of the ritual of Leviticus ? (2) Yet the narrative does give express assurance that either Leviticus, or some un-known un-discovered code in lieu of it, was reigning : for it describes the whole period, so far as religion and worship are concerned, as an abnormal and rebellious period, and, in especial, it characterises the unworthy w^orships, which they successively pursued, as a " turning aside quickly out of the way wherein their fathers walked, obeying the commandments of the LorcV (Judg. 2. 17). If so, it follows that during these ages, worship (of which sacrifice was the " main part ") was not left to be a self -evolved, nor to be a heathen-copying, affair, it was a matter regarding which " com- mandments of the Lord " could be appealed to, as established and binding. We reasonably and satisfactorily find such " commandments " in Leviticus : if they are not there, where are they ? (3) There are also several undesigned coincidences, which fit in most appositely with the establishment and know- ledge of Leviticus, though its code is never named. The Nazarite vow, which Samson takes, is nowhere described but in the Priestly Code : the vow of Jephthah aptly illustrates the practice of free sacrificial vows, which Leviticus sanctions : the high-priest, and his official " standing before the ark," which are Levitical institutes, are both known : a central " house of 152 SdyCTUARY AXD SACRIFICE. the Lord," and festival thereat " by the year," are both estab- Hshed : burnt offerings and meal offerings and peace offerings, which are adopted and regulated in Leviticus, are treated as well known : the solemn " inquiring of the Lord," which is a special Levitical arrangement, occurs four times, and the know- ledge of its method is treated as a matter of course : the ephods of Gideon and Jonathan seem, in their very corruption, to bespeak an unmistakable knowledge of the most sacred high-priestly vestment of Exodus and Leviticus. Can that be called a paltry list of recognitions, considering the nature of the narrative ? (b) The recognitions are still more varied when we go for- ward to the Books of Samuel. (1) It might be enough to quote, "Wherefore kick ye at My sacrifice, and at Mine offering, tvhich I have commanded in My habitation " (1 Sam. 2. 2d)? What clearer repudiation could we have of the strange discovery that, in the post-Mosaic ages, sacrifice was an unfit subject for divine " command " ? The repudiation is con- clusive; and its implication is such, that its introduction, of set purpose, to support priestly pretensions, may safely be pro- nounced inconceivable. (2) Then further, not only are most of the coincidences of Judges again met with, but we have references to the burning of incense, to the presentation of shew-bread, to a bullock as the appropriate sacrifice after a vow, to the observance of festivals of new moons, to the Levitical oversight of the tabernacle furniture, to the women's ministrations at the door of the tabernacle, to the prescription of recognised priestly portions of the sacrifices, all which (and the list is not exhaustive) find no explanation, nor previous reference, except in the Priestly Code ; and these are all art- lessly touched on, in the most casual and easy manner, as appointments well known to every reader. How can it be pretended, in view of such facts, that Leviticus is an incredible romance, as applied to post-Mosaic time ? ATTITUDE OF HISTOI^IANS. 153 The whole of the coincidences, from Judges and from Samuel, at which we have glanced, are quite un-noticed by Wellhausen, so far as the point now under discussion is con- cerned, viz., the credibility of divine regulation of sacrifice. He may possibly refer to them in subsequent and different connections, but here he " passes them by on the other side." IV. He is not so altogether silent on the difficulties which the Books of Kings present to his discovery. It is well-known that these Books bear recurring testimony to the wickedness of the kings, both of Israel and of Judah, in tolerating worship " on the high places " throughout their dominions. This is a clear proof that the worship of His people is not a matter out- with the " commandment " of Jehovah, for it shows that " the tvhere " of sacrifice had been jealously prescribed by Him, and that successive kings are blameworthy, in sacrificing and burn- ing incense on high places in opposition to express divine corumand. It might be thought that Wellhausen would abandon his discovery in view of such a clear confutation of its truth ; but that is not the German method ; they have " a more excellent way " : when an Imagination takes possession of them, and is confronted by conflicting facts, the method of the Germans is to protect their Imagination by a summary annihilation of the facts. In this case, "Wellhausen invents a forger in the time of the Exile, and then lays on his innocent shoulders all the statements in the Books of Kings, that threaten his discovery with death. He calmly assures us that it is only " the Exilian redaction of the Books of Kings, which reckons the cultus outside Jerusalem as heretical " (p. 55). Who this in- famous " redactor " was, what may have been his name or his residence or his surroundings or his experiences, must remain utterly unknown : Wellhaasen simply and absolutely summons that unblushing man up from the vasty deep of his own 154 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. Imagination, and then makes him the instrument of foisting a twenty-fold lie into the records of Scripture. He sees, so to speak, twenty living witnesses, standing in the Books of Kings, and crying scorn on his discovery : the only way he can silence them is by lifting the blade of the redactor and sweeping off their heads. Has he a copy, in Germany, of the Books of Kings as they existed before the " Exilian redactor " operated on them ? If so, he ought to publish it. If not, he should not malign the dead, by imputing daring and multiplied fabrications to him, ivithout an atom of proof. We are not denying the existence of an ExiUan, nor of an Ezrahite, editor ; we are merely denying (till proof is given) that he was an unblushing forger. Xo wonder that our author is able to say, further down the same page, regarding the whole period we are considering : " The important point is that the difference between legitimate and heretical is altogether wanting " (p. 55). If you have a book which contains only twenty references to you, all of which are calumnies, and, if you change the calumnies into compli- ments, you will then be able to say, " The important point is that there is not a single calumnious reference to me throughout the entire book." Or, if you have a book with only three references to America, and you expunge the three references, you will then be able to say, " The important point is that any reference to the continent of America is altogether wanting." " The distmction between legitimate and heretical " is graven, as with a pen of iron, through the Books of Kings : that " dis- tinction " meets us, though not so impressively, yet with perfect un-mistakableness, in Samuel and Judges as well : it meets us, apart from the so-called Priestist, in the very Jehovist's require- ment that " the house of the Lord thy God " shall be " thi-ee times in the year " repaired to : and it is the very acme of pre- sumption (without a shred of evidence) to " redact " it out of ATTITUDE OF HISTORIANS. 155 the Books of Kings, and then boast that "it is altogether wanting." It is as though we reasoned thus : (Question) How do we know that legitimacy of sanctuary was unknown to the writer of Kings ? (Answer) Because such legitimacy did not characterise his period, and all the references to it in his work must, therefore, be forgeries. (Question) How do we know that such legitimacy did not characterise his period ? (Answer) Because there is not a solitary genuine reference to it through- out his entire work. And it is by describing this and similarly portentous circles that a "profound impression has been produced on the scholarship of Europe " (Preface, p. vi.). y. The multiplied assertions of legitimacy of sacrificial sanctuary, though they are the most prominent, yet are far from being the only, corroborations, which the Books of Kings afford, to the view that divine regulation of ritual was both conceivable and actual. (1) We have references, in the most casual and undesigned (though, on that account, none the less clear and convincing) manner, to the trespass offerings and sin offerings, to the morning and evening oblations, to the restric- tion of the priesthood to sons of Levi, to the legitimacy of the seventh (in contrast to Jeroboam's eighth) month for festival, all which are most natural if we assume the existence of Leviticus, but all which at once become un-explained excrescences, if we relegate Leviticus to post-Exilic time. (2) There seems also a most artless and cogent overturning of Wellhausen's view, derivable from what is narrated of the perplexity of those nations, wherewith the Assyrian king peopled Samaria, after he had carried the Ten Tribes captive. They began to be de- stroyed by lions, and they sent word to the king, attributing this to their ^^ not hiowing the manner of the God of the land." (2 Kings 17. 26). So a priest is sent who ''taught them how they should fear the Lord" (verse 29). On Wellhausen's 156 SAXCTUARY AND SACEIFICE. principles, this priest should have taught that " the manner " and " the how " of sacrificial worship were things perfectly in- different; that there was no such thing as a legitimate " manner " in which " the God of the land" should be worshipped ; that He would treat it as an absurdity and an insult, to suppose that any special " how " of sacrificial cultus could have been pre- scribed by Him ; that they might adhere to whatever stupid and horrid " rites " they pleased, and, if they only practised them in honour of " the proper deity," there was no fear of the Hons troubling them. Clearly, this priest from Assyria was far behind Wellhausen in the knowledge of his own priestly praxis. (3) But there is more than this in the narrative. The priest's instructions were greatly disregarded, and the people preferred to multiply the services " after their former manner" (verse 40); and a statement is given of the gross disregard of divine appointments, to which such conduct amounted. They are stigmatised for not doing " after their statutes, or after their ordinances, or after the law or after the commandment ^chich the Lord commanded the children of Jacob whom He named Israel, saying . . . the Lord which brought you uj) out of the land of Egypt with great power .... unto Him shall ye bow yourselves, and to Him shall ye sacrifice : and the statutes and the ordinances^ and the law, and the commandment, tvhich He tvrotefor you, ye shall observe to do for evermore " (verses 34-37). Can these words be read without the unhesitating belief that they assert an ancient " written " code of " statutes " and of " ordinances," relating to worship, and prescribed by Jehovah, which the new Samaritan nations are condemned for disregard- ing ? and, if these "statutes" and "ordinances" are not identical with Leviticus and its allied documents, where are they to be found ? They were " written " in a distant past : what has become of the " writing " ? (4) Similar references to " com- mandments " and " statutes " from Jehovah, of which Israel's ATTITUDE OF HISTORIANS. 157 shameful methods of worship were a breach, abound througli the Books of King's. And how can the whole narrative of the building and inauguration of the Temple be at all explained, apart from an old-established, and universally understood, divine code of ritual ? We thus find that the whole complexion of " the historical documents dating from the pre-Exilic time " is thoroughly adverse to Wellhausen's discovery. They contain no assertion of it : and they contain manifold references, which seem quite incompatible with it. The very casual, and so clearly un- designing, nature of these references is what will give them special value in every true (if not in every " Higher ") critic's eye. There is not the slightest show of an attempt to bolster up Leviticus : there is not a single lengthened and ostentatious quotation of any of its paragraphs : but there are just those occasiortal, and easy, and unobtruding allusions, whose manu- facture of set purpose is inconceivable, and which render acquaintance with Leviticus, on the writers' part, most rational, and almost inevitable, as a pre-supposition. (C) We have thus taken that general and straightforward view of " the historical documents," which Wellhausen may be said to have almost entirely shirked ; and we have found such a view utterly uncorroborative of his " thesis." It will be a suitable and necessary complement, if we now notice a few random and contradictory assertions, and also a few choice specialties in his- torical criticism, which are his suhstitutes for the revicAV which we have just conducted. I. We shall notice first a few random and contradictory assertions. Let it be kept in view that the period, which he is 158 SANCTUABY AND SACBIFICE. professing to hold in a homogeneous grasp, is, in the Avidest sense, the pre-Exilio period ; and the doctrine which he enforces is that any divine regulation of sacrifice throughout that period is to be repudiated ; ritualistic distinctions hardly exist ; the main antithesis is " between sacrifice to Jehovah and sacrifice to strange gods''\- or, as he otherwise expresses it, it is on the being " to whom," and not on " the tvheriy the tvhere, and the by whom, and also in a very special manner upon the hoiv,''^ that all emphasis is concentred. Does he not sometimes dream, and make statements which cannot be reconciled with his own " thesis " ? We think he does. (1) A few pages forward from those we have just been quoting from (his memoiy does not generally last over many pages) we read : " What was chiefly considered was the quantity and quality of the gifts " (p. 61). This is a dogmatic repre- sentation of how " the sacrificial worship of Israel existed in the earlier {i.e. pre-Exilic) period" (p. 61). On this we offer two criticisms, {a) It is not true ; he cannot offer any evidence for it. (&) It contradicts his own dogma that the " to whom " was everything : it says the " hotv much " and the " hoiv fine " were thought of before anything else ; at least they were thought of "chiefly." (2) But we do not require to leave p. 61, ere we get a contra- dictory deliverance from our author : " The idea of a sacrifice is in itself indifferent, if the thing offered only have value of some sort" (p. 61). At one time, "quantity and quality" are everything; in the next breath, "quantity and quality" are nothing ; if " only value of some sort " is forthcoming, it is all that is needed. Not only does this latter quotation contradict the former, but it equals it in want of corroboration from " the historical documents." (3) On the same page we have another extraordinary deliver- ance. Our author lets us in to see the precise origin of SELF- CONTRADICTIONS. 1 5 9 sacrifice : it came from royal palaces : subjects used to make " gifts " to their king : and so, regarding God as " the highest King" (p. 61), they came to offer similar "gifts" to Him; hence the origin of sacrifice, whose names Tcorhan and mincha signify " gift." But then, keeping to the analogy of God as King, our author makes kno\Yn that the following rides had to be recognised : " The gift must not be unseasonably or awk- wardly thrust upon the recipient, not when the king's anger is at white heat, and not by one the sight of whom he hates " (p. 61). (a) Here again we ask, Where is there any reflection of these rules in "the historical documents".^ {h) And, suppose they were reflected, how can they be restrained from devouring our author's discovery ? The gift is not to be " unseasonably " offered ; is not that " the when " of sacriflce ? It is not to be " awkwardly " offered ; is not that " the hotv " of sacrifice ? It is not to be offered " when the king's anger is at white heat " ; is not that " the ivhen " again ? It is not to be offered " by one the sight of whom he hates " ; is not that the " ly whom " of sacrifice ? The probation of his rules would be the annihilation of his boasted finding that the " to whom " of sacrifice was everything. (4) If we just turn over to p. Q'2, what do we find ? AYe find little to support our author's view that " Israelite sacrifice is distinguished not by the manner in ichich, but by the being tv whom it is offered " (p. 54) ; for, on this p. 62, we find rigorous prescriptions as to " the manner in which " sacrifice is offered ; we find " salt must go along with flesh," that " oil must go along with meal and bread," and " wine must go along with both "; we find that flesh (not according to caprice, but) " accord- ing to rule,'' must be " put upon the altar in pieces," and corn must be " ground or baked." (a) So far as these " rules " are real, where are they prescribed except in the Priestly Code ? and why then huiTy that Code so scornfully out of pre-Exilic time ? IGO SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. (b) And, if these "rales" were established, how can the *' to ivhom " be held as the exclusive distinction of Israelitish sacrifice ? Was not " the how " most narrowly " ruled " ? (5) Pages 71 and 72 are about as suggestive as pages 61 and 62. We there find that, " according to the praxis of the older (/.e. pre-Exilic) period," there were sacrificial "rules" in plenty. " It was the rule that only blood and fat were laid upon the altar " ; it was the rule that " the people ate the flesh " ; it was the rule that "the gift must be brought entire by the offerer," and "only after that" could "the greater portion be given up to the guests"; it was the rule that the offerer must " adorn himself with clothes and ornaments," and that he has certain pre-requirements to go through, which are mysteriously wrapped up in "sanctifying himself." {a) We think these " rules " are quoted with only partial correctness : but, so far as they are real, where is there the slightest formal " prescription " of them apart from the Priestly Code ? {h) And, if Israel was subject to them through all pre-Exilic ages, with what consistency can we be told " that Israelite sacrifice was not then distinguished by the manner in which it was offered " ? There was a vast deal more " prescribed " than about " the being to ivhomy II. The quotations we have just made are chiefly from pages 61-63, which form one of two passages of the chapter on sacri- fice, which we always think of as specially given over to " dream." Returning from these to page 55, ^J^^r^ of which is all wherewith Wellhausen follows up, and fortifies, his claim that five Books of Scripture are "on all occasions" supporting him(!), we shall now notice the specialties of historical criticism which that page does present. So far as not already disposed of in this chapter, they are three in number. We shall quote them verhatim, and devote a section of criticism to each. WELLHAUSEN'S HISTOEICAL CBITICISM. 101 The first is as follows : " Alongside of splendid sacrifices, such as those of the kings, pre- sumably offered in accordance with all the rules of priestly skill, there occur others also of the simplest and most primitive type, as, for example, those of Saul (1 Sam. 14. 35) and Elisha (1 Kings' 19. 21) ; both kinds are proper if only they be dedicated to the proper deity" (p. 55). This sentence is presented as part of our author's proof that divine regulation of sacrifice was unknown from the days of Joshua (or even from the day of Creation) to the Exile. We think that the inconsequence, and the preposterousness, with which the sentence is charged, are specially remarkable. (1) We ask, first, would not a reader naturally infer from it that the historical documents are habitually describing "the kings " of Israel and of Judah, as offering up " splendid sacrifices " ? But such is not the case : they may have been doing so, but it is not recorded. Solomon is described as sacri- ficing a vast multitude of animals at the beginning of his reign, and at the inauguration of the Temple : but, apart from such exceptional procedure, we have no record of a " splendid sacri- fice," on the part of a single "king," We have only one sacrifice of Saul's described ; and it is in these laconic words, " and he offered the burnt-offering " (1 Sam. 13. 9) : what inference, as to " splendour," can be drawn from that descrip- tion ? We have David's life for forty years as king, but only two descriptions of his sacrifices ; one is " an ox and a fatling " (2 Sam. 6. 13) when the ark is being brought up ; the other is " the oxen of Araunah " (2 Sam. 24. 24) when the plague is stayed : can either of these be thought "splendid" for a "king" ? We have no inkling of the cotitents of a single sacrifice on the part of any other king ! Nay, we have not even the occasion of a single kingly sacrifice, except Josiah's passover ; and, as to it, we have not the smallest detail as to its contents or S 2893. ^ 1G2 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. surroundings ; it is merely laconically said to have been "as it is written in the Book of the Law " and never to have heen so Tcqjt since the Judges ; but, as to what were the requu'ements of its law, not a syllable is quoted. Are we not justified in saying that the four Books of Samuel and Kings lend little counte- nance to the plausible insinuation with which Wellhausen's sentence opens ? (2) Then, secondly, he will have it that " all the rules of priestly skill" attended the sacrifices of the kings. But he offers " not a trace " of proof. If the history hints little of the " splendour," it says absolutely nothing of the " priestly skill." He feels this, when he writes " presumably." It is all Imagina- tion— a "presuming" of his own. But this was what he scolded Noldeke for. "What must\\2i^^Q happened is of less consequence to know than what actually took place" (p. 46). We don't want "Wellhausen to " presume " as to " what must have happened " ; we want him to let the record declare itself. We are not denying the " priestly skill " : we merely note that it is not recorded. (3) Further still, let us grant that his "presuming" is correct, and that "all the rules of priestly skill" existed : what follows? How can he prove that these " rules " were not Leviticus ? If we let him blot out Leviticus, then, according to him, the pre-Exilic Old Testament contains no sacrificial prescriptions whatever : and yet, by his own admission, " all the rules of priestly skill " were established, and observed, through centuries of pre-Exilic time ! How can he escape from the dilemma ? -If an elaborate and splendid code of sacrificial " rules " could be reigning, though we have not the slightest outline of that code in the Books of Scripture, with what consistency can he scout the existence and establishment of the Code of Leviticus, simply if there were (as we have abundantly shown there is not) an absence of references to it in the Books of Scripture .^ WELLHAUSEN'S HISTOIilCAL CRITICISM. 163 (4) Let us now look at the other " kind " of sacrifices, which are dealt with in his wonderful sentence. We have seen " those of the kings": but he sajs there are "others also of the simplest and most primitive type." He gives two specimens, the first being " 1 Sam. 14. 35." Wellhausen does not intro- duce the words of the verse into his text : we shall introduce them into ours ; and let the reader, as he scans them, try and think if he ever saw such an illustration of ex nihilo nihil fit. " And Saul built an altar unto the Lord : the same was the first altar that he built unto the Lord": or, as the Hebrew may perhaps be rendered, " Saul built an altar unto the Lord : he began to build it as an altar unto the Lord, but he (then) said, Let us go down after the Philistines by night" (the building being interrupted by the proposal of pursuit). It is quite immaterial which rendering be adopted : for, under either, ivhere is there the slightest description of the nature of the sacrificial proceedings ? There is absolutely not a word as to the ceremonies that were gone through, and yet this verse points to a set of sacrifices different from " those of the kings " ! And he who superintends is himself the first " of the kings " ! The previous three verses describe the people flying upon the spoil of the Philistines, slaying the captured animals, and eating them with the blood : Saul forbids such eating as " sin," and compels them to bring all the animals to a great stone, and slay them there, and eat no blood. But as to what sacrificial praxis was gone through, when the animals were thus brought, 7iot a si/llahle is disclosed. The two following verses show that " the priest " is in the camp with the king, and that the high-priestly function of " asking counsel of God " can be straightway gone through. How reasonable, therefore, to think that Saul not merely forbade the eating of blood, but ordered all the animals to a common centre, in order that some "rules of priestly skill" might be attended to ! We do not need to insist on this : it is L 2 164 SANCTUAEY AND SACBIFICE. enough that the verse does not present a solitary detail which can settle whether the sacrifices were of a " primitive " or of a " splendid " kind. The j^eople had " the priest " in their midst : and they had the " sheep and oxen and calves " of a whole camp at command. (5) The other instance is " 1 Kings 19. 21," which describes Elisha's procedure, after Elijah had thrown his mantle over him, as he was ploughing in the field. " And he returned from following him, and took the yoke of oxen, and slew them, and boiled their flesh with the instruments of the oxen, and gave unto the people, and they did eat. Then he arose, and went after Elijah, and ministered unto him." It is not even stated that there was sacrificial procedure here at all, in addition to the significant renunciation, by Elisha, of his calling as a husbandman : how then can we extract, and identify, a special sacrificial praxis, from a verse which does not even name sacrifice ? And, assuming there was a sacrifice, how can it be said to be " alongside of splendid kingly sacrifices," when the king was Ahab, and the queen was Jezebel ? Not only had the disruption of the kingdoms made the legitimate worship at Jerusalem impossible, but idolatry and persecution were so rampant that Elijah thought there was not a loyal worshipper of Jehovah in all the Northern Kingdom but himself — " I only am left, and they seek my life" (1 Kings 19. 24) : how can we reasonably look for the prescribed, and accepted, routine of sacrifice, in such deplorable sm-roundings ? Nay, if we are to note the size of sacrifices, which is the more " splendid " ? that of Samuel, when " he took a sucking lamb " (1 Sam. 7. 9) and made it serve for " all Israel gathered at Mizpah," and that of Elijah when he " cut the (single) bullock in pieces " (1 Kings 18. 33), and made it serve for king and people assembled on Carmel ? or that of Elisha, who sacrificed as much as both these together, by offering " a yoke of oxen " ? He had present at WELLHAUSEN'S HISTOBICAL CRITICISM. 1G5 his sacrifice (in Elijah) the mightiest representative of God, whom the world then contained, one apparently invested, like Samuel, with plenary ecclesiastical authority, suited to the troublous and anarchical era in which he lived : we cannot doubt that whatever "rules of priestly skill" were followed, were at once accepted of God, and justified by the perilous emergency, in which the two prophets met. It is enough for our purpose, however, to point out that, if there was sacrificial procedure, the verse does not give the slightest detail thereof, and cannot therefore supply a contrast to " splendid sacrifices," alongside of it, "of the kings." ''Both kinds are proper," says our author : but the first " kind " he can only guess by "presumably," while his two texts, for the second "kind," do not furnish a single concomitant of the ceremonies. May we not say of Wehhausen, "he maketh darkness, and it is night " ? III. We said the specialties of historical criticism were three. The second is as follows : — " For reasons easily explained, it is seldom that an occasion arises to describe the ritnal, bnt when such a description is given it is only with violence that it can be forced into accordance with the formnla of the law. Most striking of all is the procedure of Gideon in Judges 6. 19-21, in which it is manifest that the pro- cedure still usual at Ophrah in the time of the narrator is also set forth. Gideon boils a he-goat and bakes in the ashes cakes of unleavened bread, places upon the bread the flesh in a basket and the broth in a pot, and then the meal thus prej^ared is burnt in the altar flame " (p. 55). The first half of the first of these three sentences is already becoming an old friend : we have twice quoted it with much commendation. It enables us to associate Wellhausen along with ourselves in holding that the Scriptural documents (apart from the Priestly Code) are very scant in their sacrificial 1C6 SAXCTUAEY AND SACRIFICE. references. Anything that can be said to approach to a descrip- tion of the established Israelitish ritual does not occur in the whole of the Books of Judges, or of Samuel, or of Kings. Not one of the judges is described as conducting a national sacrifice : any reference to Samuel sacrificing is in the baldest terms, with- out a glimpse at ritual. The same is practically true of the kings, not excepting Solomon, nor Jeroboam, nor Josiah : though they are spoken of in general terms as sacrificing, the historian has never once felt it necessary to introduce a detailed statement of the minutiaa of the priestly routine that was gone through. His narrative is most abridged : and he can ap- parently rely on sacrificial procedure being too familiarly known by his readers to need delineation. Wellhausen naturally, and wisely, suggests the principle, that should guide us, viz., does " an occasion arise to describe the ritual " ? If no such " occa- sion arises," the introduction of a description might seem very suspicious, and the silence, as to a detailed code that may have been well known to be in force, is not in the least per- plexing. We can claim our author, therefore, as a witness that anything like a comprehensive reflection of Leviticus is not naturally to be looked for in the historical documents. We have urged that there are several passing, and un-pre- meditated, references, which cannot be held exj)licable apart from Leviticus ; and that is the most satisfying form of con- firmation, that can be looked for in the circumstances ; but anything like a formal synopsis of ritual neither exists, nor was probable. We cannot, however, travel far in our author's company : the parting of the ways occurs before the end of the first sentence. For, in the second half of that sentence, he is at his familiar task of opposing one Book of Scripture to another : he there states that there are descriptions of ritual that " only with vio- lence can be forced into accordance with the formula of the WELLHAUSEN'S HISTOIilCAL CRITICISM. 107 law." And here we must be prepared to meet him. If he can show such contrarieties, we must estimate them carefully, and weigh them against the instances of conformity which we have summarised, and see with which class the preponderance of pro- bability lies. The field of conflict is at once limited and clear. He does not, as we have just found him doing with " the splen- did sacrifices of the kings," leave us without a solitary sample of the class he has in view : he names an instance ; not a subordinate instance, but his strongest instance : he tells us wherein his great strength lies, and thus opens up the possible avenue to his disarmament. ''^ Most strildiKj of all is the instance of Gideon." This "instance" (we are to suppose) is so clear that the existence of Leviticus cannot possibly be reconciled with it. If we can get over this " most striking " difficulty, then other un-mentioned lesser difficulties need not so much trouble us. We accept the test, — Jerub-Gideon, let Gideon plead. And we are now dealing with what is 9,vowedly the strongest historical support to our author's extraordinary theory. (1) We have frequently pointed out that one of the most effectual confuters of Wellhausen is Wellhausen himself. And he is most eminently serviceable to us, in this way, in the matter of Gideon. He has appealed to Gideon, as the " most striking " representative of normal sacrificial praxis in Israel. Will it be believed that at the foot of p. 69 and the top of p. 70, and in this same Chapter II. on Sacrifice, he is stringing together a list of seven passages of Scripture, beginning with Gen. 8, ending with 1 Kings 18, and containing (in the middle of the list) Gideon's sacrifice as in Judg. 6 ; and, as soon as he has finished the list, what is the first comment which he makes on it ? His first words are these : " Moreover all the examples just cited are extraordinary or mytliiral in their character " (p. 70). That is to say, Gideon's sacnfice c-innot 168 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. represent the " ordinary " Israelitisli custom, — for it is " extra- ordinary"; it does not even represent anything that actually happened in Gideon's own experience — for it is "mythical." He adds other comments on the seven passages, which we shall come, in good time, to consider : our present business is solely with the application, to one of these seven, of the verdict which he passes on them all, that they " are extraordinary or mythical in their character." We do not agree with him as to " mythical," we accept the narrative of Gideon as actual history : but, if for " mythical " we substitute " mu-aculous," our view is that the narrative "is extraordinary or miraculous in its character " : but, for our present argument, it is really immaterial which of the two adjectives is retained. AYe urge that it is a most inconclusive bit of " science " to find the " most striking " illustration of Israel's usual sacrificial procedure, in a narrative wliich is confessedly quite " extraordinary'' If we are wont to urge that " the exception proves the rule," we mean that it proves it by making prominent something that conflicts with " the rule." If we hold that the instance of Gideon's sacrifice is exceptional, we must hold that it has some marked difference from established praxis. We cannot hold by Ijotli of our author's representations of that sacrifice, for they are contradictory ; and, having to make our choice, we have no hesitation in electing to join him in the second of his representa- tions, and holding that it is " extraordinary." Gideon's age was one in which, instead of God's required ordinances being universally and loyally observed, the whole nation had turned their back on God and were dishonouring His requirements : how could we expect legitimacy of sanctuary, and of priesthood, and of ceremony, to be illustrated, in such abnormal circum- stances ? Gideon did not live in a favoured faithful comer of the land : the evil practices are in his own house : his first duty is " throw down the altar of Baal that thy father hath, and cut WELLHAUSEX'S HIS TOXICAL CBITICISM. IGD down the Asherah that is by it." Though he had been alone faithful among the faithless, he cannot journey freely through the land to seek any high-priest, or house of God : the Midian- ites have come into the land to destroy it " as locusts for multitude ; both they and their camels were without number ": " and because of Midian the children of Israel made them the dens which are in the mountains, and the caves, and the strong- holds": "and the Midianites destroyed the increase of the earth, and left no sustenance in Israel, neither sheep nor ox nor ass": Gideon has some scanty "sustenance," which has eluded the eye of the oppressor, and he is " in the winepress, hiding it from the Midianites, and threshing it," when God appears to him : how could a man, in such circumstances, arise, and go to Shiloh, and seek some son of Aaron, and have all the niceties of Levitical ritual gone through ? In emergencies, God can act, and can authorise His people to act, when, and where, and how He pleases : the shew-bread may be eaten rather than God's anointed should starve : Sabbath labour may be performed rather than the ass in the pit should die : and surely the requirements of brazen altar, and priestly raiment, and other accessories, may be suspended, when the worshipper is absolutely debarred from their observance, and when God Himself is supernaturally present, to give express sanction to the special ceremony that shall be gone through. We might as well look for the usual proprieties of ritual among the exiles in Babylon, as look for them " in Midian's evil day " from Gideon in the winepress of Ophrah. We emphasise this instance all the more, because the student of Wellhausen is aware how habitually it is resorted to on his pages ; repeatedly, when he has hardly a rag to cover the nakedness of his discoveries, Gideon's sacrifice is the house of refuge, to which he hurries them for shelter : here he parades it as the " most striking " proof of the impossibility of Leviticus 170 SJXCTUABY AND SACBIFICE. having been Mosaic. We deem it right, therefore, once for all, to make prominent the exceptional circumstances, in which Gideon was placed, and the special divine dii^ection, under which his service was performed ; and also to point out that, in another connection, Wellhausen has himself branded the whole narrative as " extraordinary or mythical in its character." We may fail to " prof oundly impress the scholarship of Europe," but we may have a chance to carry ordinary mortals along with us, in urging that what is avowedly " extraordinary " cannot reasonably be quoted as the " most striking " reflection of what is " ordinary." (2) What has just been urged may seem sufficient to dispose of the point wherein our author has confessed that his great strength lies. But a few briefer comments may be added. Another contradictoriness, that cleaves to his theory, is the following : Gideon, like the other judges, belongs to " the older period," whose appropriate code, according to Wellhausen, is the Book of the Covenant in Exodus : this book governs, and reflects, his pre-Deuteronomic period : it mast not therefore le contradicted by the established practices of that period. But its opening requirement, of which Wellhausen will never let go his hold, and which he subjects to infinite quotation, is that, in order to sacrifice worthily, the worshipper must build for God- an altar, either of " earth," or of " un-hewoi stones." But, in the case of Gideon's sacrifice, no altar of either kind is built ; nay, no altar whatever is prepared .; God bids him put the flesh and cakes on " this rock " hard by ; the sacrifice is offered and con- sumed, and God has departed out of the offerer's sight, before (in acknowledgment of a further revelation promising him " Peace ") Gideon at last bethinks him of hailding an altar on the rock : " Then " (after the sacrifice is over, and completed) " Gideon built an altar there unto the Lord and called it Jehovah-Peace " : and even tlien we are not told whether the WELLHAUSEN' 8 HISTORICAL CBITICISM 171 Jehovistic materials were attended to. Clearly, therefore, Gideon offers his sacrifice in disregard of a fundamental re- quirement of the code, which our author holds to have been binding on him. Is not this a " most striking " result ? Will it be said that the circumstances were "extraordinary," and that there was no time to build a formal altar at all ? We will grant such a reasonable contention ; but we will follow it up by asking. How could the " extraordinary " circumstances not justify God in absolving Gideon from the Priestist, with the same ease as He absolved him from the Jehovist ? (3) In the quotation, which we are criticising, occurs the following : " It is manifest that the procedure still usual at Ophrah in the time of the narrator is also set forth." The reader should pause for a moment over that, as an excellent specimen of Wellhausen's style. It is the style in which the whole book is ^vi'itten. The narrative gives no indication of " the narrator's " personality, nor of his " time," nor of his surroundings, nor of his " procedure," nor whether his procedure was " usual " throughout Canaan. Yet that, in sketching Gideon's sacrifice, he is sketcliing the ritual universally followed in his own day, — " it is manifest " ! Whence the " manifest " ? It is a pure Imagination, without a grain of evidence to support it. " First fix on your favorite whim — then make the wish father to the thought — establish the whim — and say. It is manifest" — that is the Wellhausenian recipe for writing history. Shall we say that a Herodotus, or a Livy, or a Macaulay, cannot record the procedure of their previous genera- tions, without being held to describe the Greek, or the Roman, or the Enghsh, procedure of " their own time " ? (4) We have already refeiTcd to our author's comment on Gideon's sacrifice on p. 70, where he writes regarding it, and six other sacrifices which he brackets with it, as follows : " All the examples just cited are extraordinary or mythical in tlier 172 SANCTUABY AND 8ACBIFICE. character, a circumstance that may not affect the evidence of the existence of the custom in itself, but is important as regards the statistics of its frequency " (p. 70). Observe the words we have italicised. He here holds that Gideon's sacrifice is of such a kind that " statistics of frequency " cannot well be built on it. But, on p. 55, he is not only building " statistics of fre- quency " on it, but he is asking us to behold in it the " most striking " exemplar of Israel's sacrificial praxis from Joshua to the Exile ! ! And, instead of being " infrequent," it is " still usual at Ophrah in the time of the narrator " ! (5) "We might add (though surely we have said enough) that Gideon seems in ignorance, and thus gi-eatly in need of direction, as to the method of his sacrifice. God needs to guide him, and apparently to. make him alter his intended procedure, and show him ivhere and hoiv to dispose of the various portions of the sacrifice. How is this exjDlicable, if Gideon was going through a "most striking" illustration of what was "usual at Ophrah" ? And how does it fit in with our author's view that the " to whom'' of sacrifice was everything, and that "the ivhere'" and " the how " were out- with the sphere of divine regulation ? lY. We have still the last of the specialties of historical criticism to glance at. Combining p. 55 with p. 54, our author introduces what we cannot help calling a very curious historical trinity of sacrificers, in support of his views. We saw, as regards Oneness of Sanctuary, how he sought help from Cain and Naaman : he now adds Balaam to these, and so forms (as we view it) his curious trinity. It may be wondered how these three worthies can be induced to thi'ow any light on the era of Leviticus, or to declare whether pre-Exilic Israel had any divine code of ritual to guide them. But our author extracts testimony from each of the three, and he does it with such decision, and with such self-satisfaction, as would make us WELLHAUSEN'S HISTOBICAL CBITICISM. 173 suppose they are able, un-aided, to prove his case. We would uot like, iu our own language exclusively, to represent him as relying on these witnesses, lest we be thought to caricature. ^Ye shall, therefore, follow our usual course by giving his citation of their evidence in his own words : " Cain and Abel sacrificed in the same v:ay as was usual in Palestine thousands of years afterwards. Balaam the Aramsean understands just as well as any Israelite lioio to offer sacrifices to Jehovah that do not fail of their effect" (p. 54.), "Naaman (2 Kings 5. 17), it is to he swpposed, followed his native Syrian ritual, but this does not in the least impair the acceptability of his offering" (p. 55). There is here the usual ring of certainty. There is no halting between two opinions : in brief unhesitating terms our author cites the three witnesses as clinching his " thesis." It is thought very unwise, in military tactics, to expose too many points of attack to the enemy : there really seems no necessity for Wellhausen to have perilled his thesis on such fantastic supports as the above three quotations constitute : but he has chosen so to peril it, and, on the principle faJsus in iino^fcdsus in omtiiMis, he has thus exposed it to several annihilations. (1) The example of Cain, by which he chooses to stand or fall, at once overthrows him. The " thesis " he is supporting embraces the tenet that the material and manner of sacrifice are indifferent, and that it cannot fail " if only it be dedicated to the proper deity." But, if the Jehovistic narrative tells 116 anything, it tells us that Cain's offering was to the proper deity, and yet that it was rejected ! AVhere then is the " thesis " ? (2) The example of Balaam seems equally destructive. Our author assumes (what we shall concede) that Balaam's sacrifices were to the proper deity, but he assumes (what we cannot grant) that Balaam's sacrifices were accepted of God. The idea 174 SANCTUAEY AND SACRIFICE, of Grod's acceptance of them seems a sheer turning of the whole narrative upside down. On his waj to the sacrifices, God's language to him was, " thy way is perverse before Me " : and the prayer (that He would curse Israel), which was the essence of all the sacrifices, was indignantly and persistently rejected. Balaam's sacrifices were a mixture of such hypo- crisy, and covetousness, and malice, that they could not be other than " the sacrifice of the wicked, which is abomination to Jehovah." If they were to the proper deity, their failure (which so exasperated Balak) is another annihilation of the " thesis." (3) Our author's description of the sacrificial methods of Cain and Balaam is pure and utter dogmatism. He tells us that Cain's method was identical with the method of the Israel- ites " thousands of years afterwards " in post-Mosaic ages. How does he know ? We have " not the faintest trace " of a description of the ceremonies Cain went through. He tells us that Balaam was as well versed in " the hoir " of sacrifice as Solomon or the high-priest (" any Israelite "). How does he know ? We have no description of Balaam's ceremonies. He seems to have thought that multi^Dlying altars and gifts (apart from the " to whom ") would concihate Jehovah. He seems to have thought that changing from place to place (" the tchere " of sacrifice) would be of consequence. (4) His " thesis " will hardly state consistently. It is that " sacrifice is distinguished not dij the manner in which, but by the being to whom." But, in the examples, it is " the same ivay " as Israel that Cain follows ; it is " how to offer " like Israel, that Balaam understands. In the examples, " the man- ner " seems almost everything ; in the thesis, " the manner " is nothing. (5) He has again to rely on Imagination, pure and simj^le, in the case of Naaman. He says Xaaman's sacrifices in Syria were WELLHAUSEN'S HISTOBICAL CBITICISM. lliy " accepted " of God. How docs he know ? AVe are not even told whether tlie impulsive Naaman maintained his resolve to sacrifice to Jehovah at all, far less that God accepted his offerings. How utterly imaginary are our author's props ! Then again, assuming that Naaman sacrificed and was accepted, our author tells us he followed a Syrian, and not an Israehtish, ritual. How does he know ? All he can answer is, ''''it is to le siqjposed he followed his native Syrian ritual." "It is to be supposed ! " Why, this is just Xoldeke over again ! We don't want to be told what Naaman " must have done," nor what " it is to be supposed " that Naaman did ; we want to be told " what actually took place " (p. 46). Then, as to probability, we venture to urge that it is an utterly improbable Imagination that Xaaman followed a Syrian ritual in worshipping an Israel- itish God. If he depended on Israel for the very earth (" two mules' burden " of it) to make his altar of, or to place his altar on, is it likely that he would not depend on Israel, in the far higher matter of ritual ? And, if he did follow an Israelite ritual, that simple fact is again fatal to Wellhausen's theory I Could anything illustrate better the sublimity of his certitude as to his own Imagination ? We might say more ; but really we prefer to leave this Cain-Balaam-Naaman sacrificial trinity to wander through- out " the scholarship of Europe," and work what wonders they will. Further pursuit of them were folly. We have thus examined the Jehovistic and Deuteronomistic codes, and we have found the possibility of divine prescriptions of ritual a marked characteristic of both : We have found also that, instead of leaving Israel to mix sacrificially with the whole world, they both enforce resolute separation from heathenish sacrificial customs : We have examined those portions of history, which our author metes out to accompany these codes, and we 176 SAXCTUABY AND SACRIFICE. have found them replete both with pre-Mosaic, and with post- ^losaic, indications of divine regulation of sacrifice : And, having carefullj scrutinised some of our author's specialties of historical criticism, we have found them far from convincing. He holds further, however, that the Early Prophets are on his side. We must, therefore, follow him on from the Historians to the Prophets. ( 177 ) CHAPTER V. DO THE EARLY PROPHETS REPUDIATE DIVINE REGULATION OF SACRIFICE ? rnO the question at the head of this chapter Wellhausen J- returns an answer, which, for absohiteness of certainty, and for wealth of professed Scriptural demonstrations, could not be surpassed. Neither in his waking hours, nor when " dreaming," did any early prophet " ever once " acknowledge such an unworthy principle as that God could have delivered a sacrificial command. We shall give this extraordinary doctrine at once, and at great length, in our author's own words : — " The impression derived from the historical books is confirmed by the prophets. It is true that in their polemic against confound- ing worship with religion they reveal the fact that in their day the cultus was carried on with the utmost zeal and splendour, and was held in the highest estimation. But this estimation does not rest upon the opinion that the cultus, as regards its matter, goes back to Moses or to Jehovah Himself, gives to the theocracy its dis- tinctive character, and even constitutes the supernatural priesthood of Israel among the nations, but simply upon the belief that Jehovah must be honoured by His dependents, just as other gods are by their subjects, by means of offerings and gifts as being the natural and (like prayer) universally current exjDressions of rehgious homage. The larger the quantity, and the finer the quahty, so much the better ; but that the merit arising from the presentation depends upon strict observance of etiquette regarded as Jehovah's law is not suggested. Thus it is that the prophets are able to ask whether then Jehovah has commanded His people to tax their energies with such exertions ? the fact presupposed being that no such command exists, and that no one knows anything at all about a ritual Torah. Amos, the leader of the chorus, says (4. 4 seq.), * Come to Bethel to sin, to Gil gal to sia yet more, and S 2893. M 178 SANCTUAEY AND SACRIFICE. bring your sacrifices every morning, yonr tithes every three days, for so ye like, ye children of Israel.' In passing sentence of rejection upon the value of the cultus he is in opposition to the faith of his time ; but if the opinion had been a current one that precisely the cultus was what Jehovah had instituted in Israel, he would not have been able to say, ' For so ye hke.' ' Ye,' not Jehovah ; it is an idle and arbitrary worship. He expresses him- self still more clearly in 5. 21 seq. ' I hate, I despise your feasts, and I smell not on your holy days ; though ye offer Me burnt- offerings and your gifts, I will not accept them; neither do I regard your thank-offerings of fatted calves. Away from Me with the noise of thy songs, the melody of thy viols I will not hear ; but let judgment roll on hke waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream. Did ye offer unto Me sacrifices and gifts in the wilderness the forty years, 0 house of Israel ? ' In asking this last question Amos has not the slightest fear of raising any controversy ; on the contrary, he is following the generally received belief. His polemic is directed against the praxis of his contemporaries, but here he rests it upon a theoretical foundation in which they are at one with him, — on this, namely, that the sacrificial worshiiD is not of Mosaic origin. Lastly, if 2. 4 be genuine, it teaches the same lesson. By the Law of Jehovah which the people of Judah have despised it is impossible that Amos can have understood anything in the re- motest degree resembhng a ritual legislation. Are we to take it then that he formed his own special jmvate notion of the Torali ? How in that case would it have been possible for him to make himseK understood by the people, or to exercise influence over them ? Of aU unlikely suppositions, at all events it is the least likely that the herdsman of Tekoah, under the influence of pro- phetic tradition (which in fact he so earnestly disclaims), should have taken the Torali for something quite different from what it actually was. " Hosea, Isaiah, and Micah are in agreement with Amos. The first-mentioned complains bitterly (4. 6 seq.) that the priests culti- vate the system of sacrifices instead of the Torah. The Torah committed by Jehovah to their order, lays it on them as their vocation to diffuse the knowledge of God in Israel, — the knowledge that He seeks truthfulness and love, justice and considerateness, and no gifts; but they, on the contrary, in a spirit of base self- seeking, foster the tendency of the nation towards cultus, in their superstitious over-estimate of which hes their sin and their ruin. ' My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge ; ye yourselves (ye ATTITUDE OF EABLY PEOPHETS. 179 priests !) reject knowledge, and I too will reject you that ye shall not be priests nnto me ; seeing ye have forgotten the law of your God, so will I also forget you. The more they are, the more they sin against me ; their glory they barter for shame. They eat the sin of my people, and they set their heart on their iniquity.' From this we see how idle it is to believe that the prophets opposed ' the Law'; they defend the priestly Torah, which, however, has nothing to do with cultus, but only with justice and morality. In another passage (8. H seq.) we read, ' Ephraim has built for himself many altars, to sin; the altars are there for him, to sin. How many soever my instructions {torotlidi) may be, they are counted those of a stranger.' This text has had the unmerited misfortune of having been forced to do service as a proof that Hosea knew of copious writings similar in contents to our Pentateuch. All that can be drawn from the contrast ' instead of following my instructions they offer sacrifice ' (for that is the meaning of the passage) is that the prophet had never once dreamed of the possibility of cultus being made the subject of Jehovah's directions. In Isaiah's discourses the well-known passage of the first chapter belongs to this con- nection : ' To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto Me ? saith the Lord. I am weary with the bumt-offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts, and I dehght not in the blood of bullocks and of lambs and of he-goats. When ye come to look upon My face, who hath required this at your hands? — to trample my courts ! ' This expression has long been a source of trouble, and certainly the prophet could not possibly have uttered it if the sacrificial worship had, according to any tradition whatever, passed for being specifically Mosaic. Isaiah uses the word Torah to denote not the priestly but the prophetical instruction (1. 10 ; 2. 3 ; 5. 24; 8. 16, 20; 30. 9) ; as both have a common source and Jehovah is the proper instructor (30. 20), this is easily exphcable, and is moreover full of instruction as regards the idea involved; the contents of the Priestly Code fit badly in with the Torah of 1. 10. Lastly, Micah's answer to the people's question, how a return of the favour of an angry God is to be secured, is of conspicuous signifi- cance (6. 6 seq.) : ' Shall I come before Him with bumt-offerings, with calves of a year old ? Is the Lord pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil ? Shall I give my first- bom for my transgression, the fruit of my body as atonement for my soul?— It hath been told thee, O man, what is good, and what Jehovah requireth of thee. I^ay, it is to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly before thy God.' Although the blunt M 2 180 SANCTUARY AND SACBIFICE. statement of the contrast between cultus and religion is peculiarly prophetic, Micah can still take his stand upon this, ' It hath been told thee, 0 man, what Jehovah requires.' It is no new matter, but a thing well known, that sacrifices are not what the Torah of the Lord contains. " That we have not inferred too much from these utterances of the older prophets is clear from the way in which they are taken up and carried on by Jeremiah, who lived shortly before the Baby- lonian Exile. Just as in 6. 19 seq. he opposes the Torah to the cultus, so in 7. 21 seq. he thus expresses himself : ' Add your burnt- offerings to your sacrifices, and eat flesh ! For I said nought unto your fathers, and commanded them nought, in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt- offerings or sacrifices. But this thing commanded I them : hearken to My voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be My peoj^le, and walk ye in the way that I shall always teach you, that it may be well with you.' The view indeed, that the prophets (who, from the con- nection, are the ever-living voice to which Israel is to hearken) are the proper soul of the theocracy, the organ by which Jehovah influences and rules it, has no claim to immemorial antiquity. But no stress lies upon the positive element here ; enough that at all events Jeremiah is unacquainted with the Mosaic legislation as it is contained in the Priestly Code. His ignoring of it is not inten- tional, for he is far from hating the cultus (17. 26). But, as priest and prophet, staying continually in the temple at Jerusalem, he must have known it, if it had existed and actually been codified. The fact is one which it is difficult to get over. " Thus the historical witnesses, particularly the prophets, decide the matter in favoui- of the Jehovistic tradition. According to the universal oiDinion of the pre-ExiHc period, the cultus is indeed of very old and (to the people) very sacred usage, but not a Mosaic institation ; the ritual is not the main thing in it, and is in no sense the subject with wliich the Torah deals. In other words, no trace can be found of acquaintance with the Priestly Code, but, on the other hand, very clear indications of ignorance of its contents " (pp. 56-59). We have thought it right to give this extract prominently and exhaustively, because it is almost the only one, throughout his chapter on " Sacrifice," where our author is innocent of the charge, which we so often bring against him, of not allowing ATTITUDE OF EARLY PEOPHETS. 181 the express utterances of Scripture to appear on his pages. He often makes a general reference to certain Books of Scripture, which he says illustrate his views, without any specification of the chapters and the verses, on which he founds. At other times, he will give a list of chapters and verses, but he imprisons them in parentheses or in notes, without giving an actual quotation of a single sentence ; and, when we turn them up, they are found not to bear out his description of them. In the present extract, he professes to be fortified by no less than five writers of Scripture, and he gives his readers sentences of express quotation from each of the five. This suggests that, where there seems a plausible appearance of superficial support for his unusual views, he does not grudge, but is most ready, to multiply quotations : where he omits, or parenthesises, specific references, there is generally not even a remote appearance of support for his views. We think (and, in this chapter, we shall endeavour to show) that his comments on the quotations from the five writers are of the most slender and un-convincing kind : meantime, we draw attention to the fact that, when he thinks it convenient and suiting, he is quite willing to lay the language of Scripture in ample quotation before his reader. The mere statement of his doctrine might almost seem to many its sufficient refutation. His doctrine is that the early prophets abhor the sacrificial system, and that they regard it as utterly inconceivable that God could ever have delivered a single regulation regarding sacrifice. " The universal opinion of the pre-Exilic prophets " is declared to be that God's Law " deals in no sense with ritual." And this is re-iterated as the un-alterable judgment of individual prophets. " By the Law it is impossible that Amos can have understood anything in the remotest degree resembling a ritual legislation." " Hosea had never once dreamed of the possibility of cultus being made the 182 SANCTUABY AND SACRIFICE. subject of Jehovah's directions." Isaiah utters language which " certainly he could not possibly have uttered, if the sacrificial worship had, according to ani/ tradition ivhatever, passed for being specifically Mosaic.'* Micah " takes his stand " on the fact that " it is no new matter, but a thing ivell hioivn, that sacrifices are not what the Law of the Lord contains." " Jere- miah is at all events unacquainted luith the Mosaic legislation as it is contained in the Priestly Code." Might not the bare reading of such extremities of repudiation, make it seem passing strange that the Jews themselves, and all Christians for nineteen centuries, should have accepted it, as the veriest truism, that God can regulate sacrifice, and that He did regulate Israelitish sacrifice, after the most anxious and ample fashion ? For more than two thousand years all readers of the Old Testament have been walking on their heads : it is only within the last thirty yeai-s that they have been restored to their feet. The sacrificial system so permeates the Old Testament, and it is so founded on, in the New Testament, as the most apposite repre- sentation of the " great mystery of godliness," that it might almost take one's breath away to hear a Mosaic institution of sacrifice scouted, as quite incredible, and to hear it announced that the sternest and grandest of Israel's prophets never, in wildest "dream," could have imagined that God's Law could deal with ritual. Yet that is the clear teaching, which Wellhausen claims to have derived from five of these prophets, in the lengthened extract we have given from him. Now we do not ask his views to be rejected on the mere ground of their novelty. Neither here, nor on any page of this treatise, do we make the slightest appeal to Church Authority, as foreclosing investigation. If the prophets teach as Well- hausen says, we must accept the teaching, and let the conse- quences take care of themselves. We have deemed it right to point to the extreme strangeness, and new-fangiedness, of his ATTITUDE OF EABLY PBOPHETS. 183 position ; but our only controversy with him, in reply, is a critical controversy : do the Prophets, fairly and soberly inter- preted, teach as he represents ? We shall endeavour to show that the verses, which he quotes from them, are grossly mis- interpreted by him ; that he overlooks other passages in their writings, which strengthen this charge of mis-interpretation ; that his own Jehovist, and the post-Exilic prophets, are practically "polemical" against his "thesis"; and that his critical method, in the long extract we are dealing with, would often turn the impassioned language of Scripture, as well as of ordinary literature, into crude buiiesque. I. Our first criticism is that the main and over-mastering fallacy, which runs through the whole of his long extract, which we have quoted, flows from his forgetting the simple principle, Ahusus non tollit iisum, or of the similar principle, Corritptio optimi est pessima. What you see degraded and perverted, you may repudiate ; but you might admire it, if you saw it left to its native intention and efficacy. What you see is " pessima " ; but strip off its "corruptio," and there may remain an " optimum." There was a use, a seemly and beneficial use, of sacrifice ; but there was also an abuse, a vile and God-dis- honouring abuse, of sacrifice ; we may anathematise the latter, without laying one finger of violence on the former. Sacrifice was,, at first, God's precious gift and comforter ; but the prophets saw it perverted from its noble aim, loaded with super- stition and corruption, turned into the symbol of man's vanity and baseness, and made the means of robbing the Most High of His most essential claims and prerogatives. Seeing it thus, they made war upon it, and called the people back to " weightier matters," and cried out that all outward " oblations were vain," unless the offerers "ceased to do evil and learned to do well." Sacrifice, in its fearful degradations, they abhorred : but they 184 8ANCTUAEY AND SACRIFICE. never utter a syllable to imply that, if used aright, it may not be a ready fosterer, at once of human comfort, and of divine glory. It is curious that liere (as so often) our author's better self seems to rebel against his own vagaries. He more than once drops admissions, which suggest the very correction of his views, which we are now enforcing. Thus, in one of the paragraphs we are reviewing, he speaks of the cultus of the nation as that, " in their superstitious over-estimate of which lies their sin and their ruin." You have there the whole truth of the matter in a nut-shell : Sacrifice, in itself, is neither "sin" nor "ruin"; it is the " superstitious over-estimate " of it, that works all the mischief. So again, when speaking, in another passage, of "the sharply accentuated reproach" of Hosea, he describes it as being against " the popular propensity to supei^stitious and impure religious service" (p. 73, note 2). There also we have the whole explanation suggested, on most natural and orthodox lines : it is the " superstitions " and " impurities," that have over-run the sacrificial worship, that have made it hateful both to God and to prophet. No one can read his extracts from the Prophets, without feeling that this is traced, as with a sun-beam, as their inevitable meaning. They are, almost without excep- tion, worded in such a manner, and full of such references, as would make them hardly intelhgible, apart from a prior estab- lishment of that Levitical Code, whose " abusus " they expose, yet whose non-existence they are held to j^rove ! There is not mi approach to a statement that sacrifice is essentially evil., in any of the five. (1) He takes Amos first, and makes three references to him. {a) In 4. 1-5, the prophet denounces the people for their multi- plied oppressions and sensualities, and indicates that, so long as these are adhered to, the multiplication of Temple services will ATTITUDE OF EAELY FBOPHETS. 185 not avert God's threatened judgments. Does that imply that Temple services would still be rejected, if the worshippers were pure and faithful ? That is the grotesque inference which our author extracts from the passage. It is the people's " oppres- sions of the poor," their continual cries " Bring, and let us drink," that make their most solemn services, at their seats of worship, un-acceptable to God : but there is not the slightest implication that God has not prescribed a worthy ritual for them. Nay, the fourth and fifth verses can only be understood as an ironical parody of the people's religious observances, showing how, in their self-will, they were out-doing, and trans- gressing, the actual Levitical Code, which God had prescribed for them ! There are four ^rol able im^pUcations of that Code in the verses. Our author's comment on the concluding clause is inexcusably misleading for a reader not conversant with Hebrew : " For so ye like " : his comment is, " ye," not Jehovah. Would not any reader infer that the pronoun " ye " occupies an emphatic place ? In the original, there is no pronoun at all ! {1)) His second quotation from Amos (5. 21-27) is equally un-serviceable for him. The reason, why the " feasts " and the " sacrifices " are displeasing, is because of the incorrigible wickednesses, denounced in the previous context, of those who observe them. " I know how manifold are your transgressions, and how mighty are your sins ; ye that afilict the just and take a bribe, and that turn aside the needy in the gate from their right ": as long as that, and similar, descriptions are true of the people, they need not expect the multiplication of sacrifices to commend them to God : He will " hate " and " despise " the very presentation of sacrifices, from such un-holy and dishonor- able intruders in His courts. But there is no intimation that the sacrifices will continue to be " hated," if the worshippers have once cast away their evil and oppressive practices : on the 186 8ANCTVARY AND SACRIFICE. contrary, when, in this very context, the prophet points out a more excellent way to them, his call to them is not " Give up your sacrifices," but " Give up your evil-doing " ! " Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish judgment in the gate : it may be that the Lord, the God of Hosts, will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph." The prophet's language in verses 21-23 is a most natural implication of his knowledge of Leviticus ; and his whole invective is that obstinate and multi- plied transgressions will render Levitical ritual of none avail. The question, in the subsequent verse 25, " Did ye offer unto Me sacrifices and meal-offerings in the wilderness forty years, 0 house of Israel ? " our author supposes to be answered in the negative, and coolly infers that the only meaning can be that no sacrifices had been ordained by God ! We may grant him that a negative answer is to be assumed, but his inference seems quite unwarrantable. The natural pre-supposition is that God had ordained a proper ritual for them ; and, to the question " Did you worthily attend to My rules of service (when they were newly delivered) in the wilderness ? " the answer is " Xo," and the following verse 26 (which Wellhausen omits !) gives the offensive idolatries, to which the people, at that era, addicted themselves, instead of loyally adhering to God's appointments ; " No ! but you carried about the tabernacle of your Moloch, the shrines of your idols, a star for your god ! which ye fashioned for yourselves." Taking the two verses together (instead of smuggling the second out of exis- tence !) the first points to the acceptable services which God had enjoined, and the second points to the worship of Moloch and of the host of heaven, which the people preferred to God's requirements, and which turned any professed service of Him into abomination. The doctrine, therefore, " I hate, I despise your feasts," is as old as the days of the wilderness, and the reason for it is the same. Their idolatries in the wilderness are ATTITUDE OF EARLY PROPHETS. 187 described elsewhere in these words, " Yea, they joined them- selves unto Baal-peor, and ate the sacrifices of the dead.'^ Stephen, in the New Testament (Acts 7. 41-53) quotes the two verses of Amos (now before us) and gives them their only natural and intelligible meaning, as pointing to a forsaking of divine prescriptions for detestable human inventions. "Ye who received the Law amid squadrons of angels, and kept it not." "Eeceiving" Leviticus at Sinai is the inevitable pre-supposition of Amos's reproof. (c) We cannot criticise what our author says of the expression " the Law of the Lord " in Amos 2. 4. All he says is " It is impossible " that it can have a certain meaning ; but he does not give us the slightest inMing wherein the " impossibility " consists. We feel it " impossible " to criticise an un-revealed " impossibility." And we may add that what we have already derived from Amos 4 and 5 shows that " it is impossible " to conceive the prophet ignorant of divine ritual. (2) Our author gives two quotations from Hosea. (a) Of the first, viz., 4. 6-8, he says : " the prophet complains bitterly that the priests cultivate the system of sacrifices instead of the LsbW (Torah).'' Li the verses, neither "sacrifices" nor their "system," is ever mentioned ! What kind of demonstration is this ? Let him read the previous verses (1-5), and he will find that the people are denounced, not because they " cultivate the system of sacrifices," but " because there is no truths nor mercy ^ nor knowledge of God in the land ; there is nought but swearing^ and hreaTcing faith, and hilling, and stealing, and committing adultery " ; it is lives like these that rouse God's indignation, and which no multiplication of sacrifices can render acceptable. Let him read the immediately following verse (9), and he will find the same : " I will punish them for their tvays, and reward them their doings " ; the " bitter complaint " is against the 188 SANCTUARY AND SACEIFICE. monstrous wickednesses of the people. Those who thus trampled on the primary, and highest, precepts of the Law, would not shrink from transgressing its subordinate require- ments of ritual ; and the illegitimacy of their worship seems obviously implied in the second half of the chapter (12-19). Enough that, in the verses which our author quotes, there is not the faintest approach to a statement of his principle that God's Law " can have nothing to do " with His people's worship : it may have to do with far higher things, but it may have to do with that as well. We may add that the clause " T will reject thee from being a priest to Me " is clearly addressed, not to the priests as a class, but to the people as a whole, and points to the forfeiture of the fundamental Mosaic privilege, " Ye shall be a kingdom of priests unto Me, an holy nation " (Exod. 19. 6). There are probably two other Mosaic references : " Thy people are as they that strive with the priest" seems to rest on the Mosaic ordinance as to incorrigible evil-doers : and the first half of verse 8 (though its meaning is very uncertain) may have its phraseology suggested by the Mosaic ordinance of sin- offering. So far is Hosea from " knowing nothing " of the Mosaic legislation ! (Jb) Our author's treatment of his other quotation from Hosea (8. 11, 12) is conspicuous at once for extreme tenuity, and for audacity. The prophet says, "I may weite for him the manifold injunctions of My laws " : Wellhausen translates, " How many soever My instructions may be " ! And, having thus emasculated the words, he criticises them thus : " This text has had the unmerited misfortune of being forced to do service as a proof that Hosea knew of copious writings similar in contents to our Pentateuch." No doubt the text proves that Hosea knew of " copious legal writings " ; but, if you suppress all reference to the " TOting," it is no longer the same text. ATTITUDE OF EARLY PBOPHETS. 189 WelUiansen elides the only verb, the verb " to write," which the clause contains, and then boasts that there is no reference in the clause to " writing " ! That is not a game, which it re- quires much cleverness to play at. We are tempted to ask if it be not his own literary failings, that have led him to impute such awful " redactions " to the Jewish writers ? Clearly, *' redaction " did not end with the Exile. The only " unmerited misfortune," which we know the above text to have experienced, is to have had its meaning so shamefully suppressed by its professed exegete. Here also, why (as in Amos 5) does our author stop his quotation so soon ? Had he quoted the very next verse, he would have let his reader see that Hosea makes God speak of " the sacrifices of Mine offerings," words which clearly imply a divine regulation of sacrifice ; and he would have let his reader see also that the reason why " the Lord accepteth them not," even though they bring His own appointed sacrifices, is because of " their iniquity " and " their sins." By teaching thus, Hosea puts himself in exact line with all the prophets. (3) His reference to Isaiah (1. 10-20) is a piece of sorry weakness. Instead of needing recondite Hebrew scholarship, we venture to urge that the attainments of any average Sabbath school teacher are sufficient to enable the passage to be read without the experience of any stumbling-block. There is not the slightest reference to the origin of sacrifice in the whole passage. The prophet's whole indignation is concentred on the monstrous wickednesses, with which the offering of sacrifices is accompanied. Let the sacrifices be never so appropriate, sach externahties can never be acceptable, so long as the whole heart, and the whole life, are full of unrighteousness and evil. God will not be mocked with the shadow for the substance. How clear is this made when we look at the nature of the 190 SANCTUABY AND SACRIFICE. reformation, which the prophet demands ! His call is not, Give tq) your sacrifices, but Serve God in honester cincl purer lives ; " Wash you, make you clean ; put away the evil of your doings from before Mine eyes ; cease to do evil, learn to do well ; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow." Further down, he does not say, If you will give up sacrificing, all ivill le ivell ; nay, he says, " If ye be willing and ohedieitt, ye shall eat the good of the land ; but if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword." Such a prescription of remedies fits in most accurately with the diagnosis of the disease, given in verse 4, " ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evil-doers, children that deal corruptly ; they have/<9r6r^7r^?^ the Lord, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are gone away backward." No multiplication of divinely-appointed sacrifices will justify a people, against whom such charges can be established. That is the inevitable meaning of the prophet's verses, a meaning which it almost requires wilful perversity to miss. It is curious that here again (as in Hosea and Amos) our author stops his quotation so soon. He quotes only verses 11, 12, but had he gone on and quoted verses 13, 14, he would have shown the passage to be so saturated with Levitical phraseology, as to put Isaiah's reference to the divinely appointed Code beyond all reasonable question. " Incense " (ketoreth), "new moons" {chodhashim) , "proclaiming convo- cations " {hara mikra), " set feasts " (moadhim), " solemn assembly " Qatsarah), are among the most distinctive and fun- damental of the sacrificial expressions of Leviticus, and they are all crowded into these two un-quoted verses ! They prove Isaiah's knowledge of, and reference to, Leviticus to demonstration. We will just add that the opening expression of the whole passage (" of what worth to Me ? ") in verse 11, may be shown, ATTITUDE OF EABLY PBOPHETS. 101 from the analogy of another occurrence of that identical expression, not to imply that the sacrifices, of which it is here used, are necessarily evil and hateful. The words are lammah U; and the same words occur in Gen. 27. 46. In Isaiah, God says, " Of what worth to Me your (very) sacrifices ? " in Genesis, Eebecca says, " Of what worth to me my (very) life ? " — if Jacob take a wife of the daughters of Cheth, she would rather die than witness such a union ; so she says to Isaac, " Of what use would life be to me then ? " But surely this does not imply that her "life" was an evil to be repro- bated ! or that it was not a precious and divine " gift," to be jealously preserved ! So, if God sees His worshippers multi- plying murders and oppressions and rebellions, He cries out, " Of what use to Me, in such circumstances, are the very sacrifices you offer to Me ? " But this does not imply that these " sacrifices " are necessarily evil, any more than was Rebecca's "life." "I am weary of my life because of the daughters of Cheth," says Rebecca : and so God says, " I am weary to bear your appointed feasts " — when I survey your abominations. (4) The interrogatory of Micah (" He hath made known to thee what is good : and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God ? "), which our author says is of " conspicuous signifi- cance," is certainly " conspicuous " for its refutation of his own absurdity. Instead of disproving a divine regulation of sacri- fice, the interrogatory is almost an exact quotation from Deuteronomy, a book which is saturated with divine sacrificial requirement ! " And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all His ways, and to love Him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul ? . . , , Circumcise the 192 SAXCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. foreskin of your heart .... He loveth the stranger ; love ye therefore the stranger, for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt" (Dent. 10. 12-20). If these can be put forward, as the leading landmarks of duty, by a Code which represents G-od as scrupulous in the regulation of burnt-offering and heave- offering, of tithe and firstling, how fatuous to point to Micah's recognition of the same leading landmarks as a proof that he regards procedure in sacrifice as an impossible subject for a divine law ! (5) The last of his five prophets is Jeremiah. He points to two texts from him. {a) "In 6. 19 seq. he opposes the Tor ah to the cultus." He does no such thing. He opposes the Torah to the frightful wickednesses of the people. The sur- rounding context emphasises these wickednesses, " Every one is given to covetousness " : "every one dealeth falsely": "they have committed abominations": "they are all grievous re- volters, going about with slanders " : " they all of them deal corruptly." It is these practices that are "opposed to the Torah " in its main and fundamental requu'ements, and a pseudo-zeal for its lesser requirements will not render such evil- doers guiltless. (h) His other quotation has precisely the same significance. " I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt-offerings or sacrifices ; but this thing I commanded them, saying. Hearken unto My voice, and I will be your Grod, and ye shall be My people." We have here a clear declaration that God's great requirement, at the Exodus, was not sacrificial, but moral : and no declaration could fit in more harmoniously with the whole Mosaic narrative and legislation. Sacrifice is men- tioned as a reason why Pharaoh might let the people leave Egypt for three days ; but the nari'ative never treats that ATTITUDE OF EARLY PROPHETS. 193 sacrifice as G-od's chief requirement of the people : so subordi- nate is it that, when the emancipation is accomplished, the narrative does not even state whether that sacrifice was attended to or not ! And, when the Red Sea is crossed, there is a National Song, but not a National Sacrifice, recorded. A few days afterwards, at Marah, he lays down a covenant for the people, of which the condition is not, "If ye will multiply sacrifices," but " If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy G-od, and wilt do that which is right in His eyes, and wilt give ear to His commandments " — probably the very passage which Jeremiah quotes. When Sinai is reached, the same pre-eminence h assigned to moral obedience : " Now, therefore, if ye will obey My voice indeed, and keep My cove- nant." And when, in the next chapter, " My voice " is heard by the whole trembling camp amid the thunderings and the lightnings, what is its primary message ? Not a round of sacrifices, but the grand promulgation of the Ten Command- ments ! These only do all the people hear uttered through God's own " voice ": these only are traced by God's own finger on the rocky tablets : these only are afterwards enshrined in the Ark as God's abiding " testimony." Jeremiah, therefore, is most accurately reflecting the Mosaic narrative of the Exodus, when he represents " Hearken unto My voice, and I will be your God " as the very basis of the national covenant. The narrative does not ignore sacrifice : it makes Moses say to Pharaoh " we can sacrifice only as the Lord shall command us " : after the Ten Commandments are delivered, it makes Moses receive divine commands as to " altars of earth or un- hewn stones " for the "sacrificing of sheep and oxen " : but the chief and all-embracing importance is assigned, not to Sacrifices, but to the Moral Law. These two principles, the supremacy of moral obedience, and the complete subordination of ritual, are the full explication and justification of Jeremiah's words. S 2833. N 194 SANCTUARY AND SACEIFICE. When Paul says " Christ sent me not to baptise, but to preach the Gospel," does he mean that baptism is evil ? Shall we parody Wellhausen, and say, " No stress lies upon the positive element (the Gospel) here : enough that at all events Paul is unacquainted with baptism, as a Christ-appointed ordinance " ? We know that Paul submitted to the ordinance, and preached the ordinance, and administered the ordinance, which he might seem, in the above quotation, to scout : his full and simple meaning is that the Gospel is infinitely more important than baptism. And so, when Jeremiah says, " God's great require- ment at the Exodus, was not sacrifice, but moral obedience," we naturally and fully explain him, when we learn that the Ten Commandments are infinitely more important than all Leviticus. We have thus examined (much more fully and seriously, we think, than our author himself) every one of his quotations, and we have urged that they do not supply the faintest proof that the prophets regard sacrifice as incapable of divine regula- tion. It is the " superstitious over-estimate " of sacrifice, which they denounce : they will not allow the minors and subordinates of the Law to compensate for the repudiation of that Law's principal requirements : it is the horrid wickednesses, by which sacrifice is accompanied, and not the mere act of sacrificing, that rouse their fierce invective. If we do not close the present chapter here, but proceed with some further considerations, it is not because we think the foregoing arguments defective, but because it may be well to give the Bible student some additional positive outlines of the teaching of Scripture on the important topic in hand, — outlines which will, at the same time, converge in further accentuating the utter ineificacy of Wellhausen's " thesis." JEREMIAH. 195 11. We shall first notice a few other utterances of prophets, which are not quoted by Wellhausen, but the mere reading of which will at once corroborate the correctness of our interpreta- tion of the passages, already criticised. (1) The last two passages quoted were Jer. 6. 19 and Jer. 7. 21. Mid-ivay letweeii these^ occurs the following : " Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye have not known, and come and stand before Me in this house which is called by My name and say. We are delivered ; that ye may do all these abominations " (Jer. 7. 9, 10) ? This shows clearly that there is a national service, recognised and appointed hy God Himself, a service, which cannot be rendered at a multitude of high places indefinitely, but which God has rigorously associated with a definite " house," which is " called by My Name " : the context, of course, abundantly shows this " house " to be " the Temple " on Zion, with its ark and mercy- seat, its altar and priesthood. The quotation also makes it clear (one would fain think even to babes and suckhngs) that it is not the want of a divine appointment that vitiates a national service in the Temple, but the notorious breaches of both tables of the Decalogue, by which the worshippers were characterised. Let them cease turning " this house " into a " den of robbers " (see next verse), let them cease from those immoral "abominations" which were turning His covenant with Israel to utter folly, and then they need not fear but "this house," whose service He has chosen and regulated, may be acceptably enough approached. How could He call a "temple " by His "name," without fixing its priesthood, and its sacrifices.^ And how could Jeremiah make it more un-mistakeable that it is moral pollutions ("stealing," "murder," "adultery," and "falsehood") and idolatries ("incensing to Baal," and "walking after other gods "), and not the mere fact of Temple-entrance N 2 196 SANCTUARY AND SACBIFICE. or sacrifice, that constitute the " abominations," which he de- nounces ? His two verses just read like an ancient repudiation of the modern doctrine of Indulgences. " We are delivered " — we have purchased deliverance or indulgence^ by our formal Temple-services, and may now fill our daily lives with what " abominations " we please. (2) Two verses after our last quotation, we read : " But go ye now unto My place, which was in Shiloh, where I caused My Name to dwell at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of My people Israel" (Jer. 7. 12). Jeremiah's understanding of his country's history is that the " Temple " was not the "first" instance of G-od's having interposed, to regulate national service : instead of leaving Israel to settle how they would serve Him, " just as other gods are served by their subjects " (p. 56), he had " at the first " expressly established legitimacy of service at Shiloh : and the reason, why the services there were un-acceptable, was, not the want of divine appoint- ment, but " the wickedness of My people Israel." Let it be kept in view that, if Jeremiah is right as to Shiloh, that single fact is enough to annihilate Wellhausen's " whole position." And, in the same seventh chanter of Jeremiah^ we have just seen how he professes to glorify Jeremiah, as a competent witness of what occurred in the days of Moses. How can he reject his express testimony, borne in the same chapter, to what occurred in the nearer age of Joshua .? Centralised legitimate services at Shiloh are expressly asserted by Jeremiah, and they are the clear confutation of the Prolegomena. (3) Let us go back from Jeremiah to Hosea, and we read the following : " For I desire mercy, and not sacrifice ; and the knowledge of God more than burnt-offerings " (Hos. 6. 6). AYe could not have a plainer support for (what we have styled) Wellhausen's " orthodox " suggestion, that it is the " supersti- tious over-estimate " of sacrifice, which is cdone condemned. HO SEA, SAMUEL, AND JESUS. 197 ** Burnt-offerings " may be acceptable enough in their own place, but, if they are made pre-eminent, if they are put before that " knowledge of God," as a Moral Governor, which is the deepest foundation of His covenant with Israel, then they have become as a husk without a kernel ; then, being presented as a cover for " abominations," they can only be reprobated. God may " desire " burnt-offerings, but He may desire something else infinitely " more." (4) Go still further back to Samuel (whom " all Israel knew to be established as a prophet of the Lord ") and we read : " Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt-offerings and sacri- fices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord ? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken, than the fat of rams " (1 Sam. 15. 22). We have here precisely the same teaching : God may have a subordinate " delight " in sacrifices, but He has a more primary and ineradicable " delight " in obeying the prescriptions of " the voice " from Sinai : it were irrational presumption to suppose that " the fat of rams " can please the Thrice-Holy One, where moral obedience is withheld. (5) The greatest of all Israel's prophets, in the New Testa- ment, points back to our quotation from Hosea, as an abiding principle to guide His own contemporaries : '* Go ye and learn what that Scripture meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice " (Matt. 9. 13 ; 12. 7). Our Lord certainly lived under the Priestly Code : He observed its "feasts" : He enforced a jealous respect for its "offerings which Moses commanded" : but does this put Him out of sympathy with Hosea .? Nay, He cannot find His own stand-point, as to sacrifice, more appositely expressed than by a quotation from Hosea ! So much for the hallucination that a knowledge of the Priestly Code would have made the early prophets reverse their teaching. The most celebrated hallower of the Priestly Code takes His sacrificial stand-point (twice over) from Hosea. 198 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. (G) We shall make only one other reference, in this con- nection, and it is to the Prophet Joel. We do not, indeed, need to rely, in the least, on this prophet, for Wellhausen's pro- phetic position receives a plethora of refutation, quite apart from Joel. It is right to mention, however, that, until quite recent years, Joel has been classed as one of the very earliest of the prophets, older even than Amos or Hosea. There seems no good ground for rejecting this classification, which his position in the Canon seems to indicate as the settled belief of the Jewish Church : and, if this classification prevails, the early knowledge of the Priestly Code seems undoubted : his allusions to "the ministers of the altar," to the "blowing of the trumpet," to the " meal-offering " and the " drink-offering " of " the Lord's house " make it clear that he was acquainted with the so-called Priestist. Whether it be in order to get clear of these demonstrations or not, there have been laboured efforts recently, by the " Higher Critics," to bring Joel down to a much later date, and even to post-Exilic times. It seems umiecessary to cumber our pages with this discussion, because (as explained) the refutation appears complete, without Joel. The facts stated, however, may be useful in illustrating the absolute unwavering- ness, with which the " critics " have to rely on their subjective inferences ; for, if Joel lived when his own fellow-countrymen seem to have thought he lived, Wellhausen's whole edifice collapses. The following, from the article " Joel," in the Encydopmdia Britannica, by the editor, is at once an excellent approach to circular reasoning, and also an excellent indication of the for- midableness of Joel as a witness : "In fact all who place the Levitical legislation later than Ezekiel are agreed that the Book of Joel is also late " ! i^nd so " All who place the building of Troy in the Christian era are agreed that the book of Homer is also late." It is also urged (in the same ai'ticle) that the THE JEHOVIST. 199 rebuilding of "the walls" of Jerusalem hij Nehemiah must have preceded Joel's day, seeing that the prophet (2. 9) says of the invaders " they run upon the ivall " ! Had the city no " walls " before the Captivity ? And how did Nehemiah view " the walls that were hroTcen down " (2. 13), if they had not once stood^ as an ancient and stable defence of the city ? There seems nothing to shake the probability that Joel was the earUest prophet in Judah, contemporary with Hosea in Israel ; and his successive references to a divinely centralised and regulated service in the Temple are indisputable. III. Our next criticism, on Wellhausen's prophetic position, is founded on the contents of his Jehovistic Code. The various parts of his " thesis " must hang together ; else they are not fit for acceptance. Now, part of his " thesis " is that, during all the ministries of the five early prophets, whom he quotes, the Jehovistic Code was a well-known document. We saw that he fixed its promulgation "in the first centuries of the divided kingdom " (p. 32) ; and he holds that it came out rather before the prophets, than after them. He must, therefore, hold that the denunciations of the people's sacrifices, in which the prophets indulge, is quite compatible with their knowledge, and their recognition, of Exod. 20 — 23 and 34, as divine law. But what have we in these chapters .^ We have clear sacrificial regula- tions laid down as from God. "An altar of earth shalt thou make unto Me, and shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt-olferings and thy peace-offerings." "Three times shalt thou keep a feast unto Me in the year." " Thou shalt not offer the blood of My sacrifice with leavened bread ; neither shall the fat of My feast remain until the morning." He cannot, therefore, escape the dilemma that the sacrificial denunciations, on which he builds, co-existed with the divine prescription of altar, and sacrifice, and feast, and ritual detail. With what consistency, 200 SAXCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. therefore, can he urge that they could not co-exist with Leviti- cus ? His point is that " anything in the remotest degree resembling a ritual legislation" (p. 57) could not have been known to the prophets ; that they could " never have once dreamed of the possibility of cultus being made the subject of Jehovah's directions " (p. 57) : and yet, on his own showing, there was a code, with feasts and sacrifices pointedly regulated by Grod, reigning all the while ! lY. We shall next ask the Bible student to accompany us to the post-Exilic prophets, and see if we discover any un-mistake- able contrast between their teaching and the teaching of their early predecessors. The spirit of Ezekiel and of the Priestly Code has risen up as a wall of separation between the two groups (between the earlier, and the later, prophets) : should we not naturally expect this out-standing fact to be reflected in their writings ? If the evolution is not a farce, it should show itself here. It will not be difficult to show that, instead of contrast, there is seemly harmony between the two groups. (1) We take first Zechariah, and we confine ourselves to Chapters 1 — 8, regarding whose date no critical difficulty has been raised. We point, first, to the fact that, throughout these chapters, the prophet does not make a solitary reference to Levitical ordinances, as if they were creations of his own day, and as if they cut his contemporaries off from what had been Jehovah's arrangements, under former prophets. This fact is, of itself, significant. But there is more than this. He ex- pressli/ identifies his own mission as a prolongation of the cries of " the former prophets " : " Should ye not hear the words which the Lord hath cried by the former prophets, when Jeru- salem was inhabited and in prosperity ? " (Zech. 7. 7.) And, when he straightway follows up that appeal by a declaration of ZECHABIAH. 201 his own in Jehovah's name, what is it but this : " And the word of the Lord came unto Zechariah, saying, Thus hath the Lord of hosts spoken, saying. Execute true judgment, and show mercy and compassion every man to his brother ; and oppress not the widow nor the fatherless" (7. 8-10) ? What is this but Micah's " do justly and love mercy and walk humbly with thy God " ? Shall we say that it proves that it was " well- kno^vn " to Zechariah " that sacrifices are not what the Law of the Lord contains " (p. 58) ? That ought to be Wellhausen's verdict on a prophet, who wrote long after Ezekiel ! His " Thus hath the Lord of hosts spoken " is identical with Micah's " He hath shown thee, 0 man, what is good." Clearly, one Law suffices for them both. With equal emphasis, in the following chapter, when he gives to the restored of Judah an outline of how they may best retain the divine blessing, he does not bid them observe carefully a newly-established Levitical ritual ; he has a more excellent way for them : " These are the things which ye shall do ; speak ye every man truth with his neighbour, execute the judgment of truth and peace in your gates ; and let none of you imagine evil in your hearts against his neighbour ; and love no false oath ; for all these are things that I hate, saith the Lord " (8. 16, 17). If one, steeped in the atmosphere of Priestism, can thus enforce the Moral Law as God's main requirement, to the practical effacement of a new (as our author deems it) and elaborate ritual, shall we be told that an Isaiah, or an Amos, could not know Leviticus, when they make " seeking judgment and relieving the oppressed," *' hating the evil and loving the good and establishing judgment in the gate," as requirements, so paramount that the disregard of them turned " solemn assem- blies," and the " fat of fed beasts," to " abomination " ? Zechariah avowedly prolongs the cry of "the former prophets," instead of proclaiming that their Law is now abrogated : hke 202 SANCTUABY AND SACEIFICE, them, he teaches (8. 19) that it is only through " loving truth and pmce " that even appointed " feasts " can be acceptably observed : he has not the slightest implication, or glorification, of a new-discovered priestism : and, in a post-Exilic age, he makes '' hearkening to G-od's voice" the pivot of acceptance, with the same supremacy as Jeremiah assigns to it in God's dealings with the fathers at the Exodus. Morality thus reigns unchanged from Exodus to Exile. AYe shall just add that, between the two quotations we have given, Zechariah describes God as " jealous /<3r Zion with great jealousy " : and how does He show His " jealousy " for that priestly hill ? Is it through a divinely-prescribed ritual being, for the first time, set up on the mount ? Nay, it is the hallow- ing of Moral Law, that is to be the pre-eminent splendour of the mountain : " I am returned unto Zion and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem ; and Jerusalem shall be called the city of truth ; and the mountain of the Lord of hosts the holy mountain" (8. 2-3). If Levitical ritual was a new thing, clearly "truth" and "holiness" were older and better far. Nothing could show more clearly the identity of Zechariah's stand-point with that of the Isaiahs and Micahs of former days. It is not "the ivhen, and the luliere, and the lioiL\ of sacrifice" that he regards as the chief glory of Zion, even under Ezekiel's "programme"; it is "truth," and "compas- sion," and " love," and " hohness." (2) His contemporary, Haggai, is full of the re-building of " the Lord's house," but he drops no hint of an elaborate divine ritual being about, for the first time, to be introduced into it. AYhy is he so silent about a revolution, which he must have known ? Is it not odd that Wellhausen can see the revolution so clearly, and Haggai should " know nothing " of it ? AVhy does he not urge the inauguration of Ezekiel's HAGGAL 203 " programme " ? He has to multiply considerations to make the builders shake off their lethargy: he speaks of "this house," which they are in building, being " filled with glory," and far echpsing the " former house " : why does he never once dwell on the introduction of that mysterious creation from Babylon, which the first Temple never knew, but which our " Higher Critics " have discovered, in the second Temple, as the very alpha and omega of its existence ? Was it fair to leave the acme of the evolution of a thousand years so un-utiHsed, and so un-celebrated ? — specially, when he was actually in search of arousing novelties, to stir a waning enthusiasm ! It is even worse when we add that he does, on one occasion, draw an illustration from small ritualistic details in Leviticus, and then applies them in language, whose sacrificial tone and stand-point are identical with those of our author's five chosen witnesses among the early prophets. In 2. 12, 13, he refers to some minute Levitical laws of defilement, obviously not as new inventions, but as well-known and immemorial prescriptions. Be that as it may, he follows up the reference by saying, in verse 14, " So (i.e. so defiled) is this people unto Me, and so is every work of their hands ; and that which they offer there (i.e. at the altar) is unclean." Whether the Law was as old as Moses, or only as old as Ezekiel, really matters not; it was undoubtedly known, and reigning ; and yet here is Haggai denouncing offerings, presented under that divinely appointed Law, as unworthy of divine acceptance, and rejected by God as *' unclean " ! Shall we take up Wellhausen's parable, and say, "Certainly the prophet could not possibly have uttered such language if the sacrificial worship had, according to any tradition whatever, passed for being specifically Mosaic (i.e. of divine appointment)." That is what he says, when Isaiah describes the sacrifices as "vain": why does he not say the 204 SAXCTUABY AND 8ACEIFICE. same, when Haggai describes them as " un-clean " ? The stand-point of the two prophets is identical : sacrifices may be never so legitimate, but, if the lives and works of the offerers be " abomination," God will " hate " and will " despise " their very offerings. (3) It will not be difficult to show how, on this point, Malachi re-echoes the sentiments of all his predecessors in pre- Exilic days. With scorching indignation, he denounces the priests and their sacrifices, though they were of undoubfed divine appointment. Take as a sample : " I have no pleasure in you, neither will I accept an offering at your hand" (Mai. 1. 10). Could language show more clearly that Leviticus may be estab- lished, in all its minuteness, and in the name of God, and yet that priest and people may be so unholy in heart and life, that God will take " no pleasure " in them, and ^vill not " accept an offering " at their hand ? That is precisely the moral teacliing of the stern old prophets, — teaching, we are assured, that ren- dered their acquaintance with Leviticus incredible ! We may add that, while Malachi glorifies the priests of his day as inheritors of "God's covenant with Zm," it is not ritualistic, but moral, faithfuhiess, which he describes as the chief glory of Levites. " My covenant with him was Ufe and peace : . . . The law of truth was in his mouth, and un- righteousness was not found in his hps ; he walked with Me in peace and uprightness and did turn many away from iniquity " (Mai. 2. 5, 6). Leviticus, we are to suppose, was to Malachi a full-blown novelty, it was an un-exampled thing in divine pre- scriptions, compared with all pre-Exilic experience ; and yet even "Levi" he presents as signalised, not by "burnt-offerings" and " calves of a year old," not by " thousands of rams " and *' ten thousands of rivers of oil," but by " truth " and " peace " and " uprightness." Why might not Jeremiah and Micah and MALACHL 205 Isaiah equally know Leviticus, and yet give morality the same pre-eminence as the post-Exilic Malachi ? We may add one more quotation, to show that, instead of regarding perfection as coming through Leviticus, it is through a divine " purification of the sons of Levi " • that Malachi expects acceptable service, or " offerings in righteousness," to be secured. " Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord, as in the days of old, and as in ancient years'" (Mai. 3. 3, 4). Could we wish more suggestive proof at once of the antiquity of sacrifice (it belongs to " the days of old "), and of Malachi's identity of moral stand-point with his prophetic predecessors ? There is " not the faintest trace," on the pages of any post-Exilic prophet, of the fantastic doctrine that divine regulation of sacrifice began with Ezekiel. And, than this, there could not be a more significant confutation of our author's " thesis " regarding the early prophets. Y. Before leaving the post-Exilic prophets it occurs to us to give the Bible student a sample of how easy it were to multiply such feats of Imagination, as constitute his chief stumbling- block on the pages of Wellhausen. In this section, we shall point to a momentous discovery, obtained by the methods of exact " science," though it has not yet figured on any of the pages of the " Higher Criticism." And, if we are engaged in trying to demolish many of Wellhausen's imaginary positions, it may be some compensation if we supply him with a real stronghold, from which he cannot be driven. The discovery, to which we refer, is that the Book of Leviticus was unknown to Malachi, and that its proper place is at the very close of the Old Testament Canon. We reach this remarkable result a« follows. (1) The prophet Malachi rebukes the priests of his day, with sustained scorn, for placing unsuitable, because imperfect, animals on God's 20G SANCTUARY AND SACBIFICE. altar : instead of using tlie best and most an-blemished animals, they sacrificed the " blind " and the " lame," and the " sick," and the "torn" (Mai. 1. 6-8 and 13, 14). This was a daring breach of Leviticus : " Whatsoever hath a blemish, that shall ye not offer": "It shall be perfect to be accepted": "Blind or broken or maimed or having a wen or scurvy or scabbed ye shall not offer these unto the Lord" (Lev. 22. 20-22). Now, Malachi never makes the slightest appeal to these prohibitions : can it le believed that he knew Leviticus, and was silent regard- ing them ? If divine regulation of sacrifice was unknown to previous ages, if it was only recently that Grod had come forth in a character which the holiest of former prophets would have abhorred, and if He could now be quoted as taking an interest in sacrifice, down to the very sex and vigour of the victims, is it conceivahle that Malachi would not have utilised this apt and un-exampled fact, in his "polemic" against the priestly praxis of his day ? (2) This presumption rises to certainty, when we consider that Malachi does seek to "fill himself with argument," though he leaves the foregoing resistless argument un-used. He appeals to natural reason, to the usages of ci^il society, to secure the condemnation of the priesthood. " Present it now unto thy governor : will he be pleased with thee ? or will he accept thy person ? saith the Lord of hosts " (Mai. 1.8). Malachi here confines himself to analogical reasoning : he fancies a " bhnd " or " broken " beast offered to a mere earthly prince or governor, and how soon would it be scorned ! Shall we then profane the Prince in Heaven by offering Him what were contemptible in a fellow-earthworm's eye ? Would Malachi thus have perilled his case on a prolaUUtij, if he knew that he had the re-iterated statements of a Leviticus, giving him a " thus saith the Lord," for victory ? (8) Nay, his argument, in the above-quoted verse, suggests a MALACHI. 207 firmer defence still, behind which we can entrench ourselves. Observe the concluding clause, " AYill he accept thy person ? saith the Lord of hosts.'' G-od is introduced as speaking, but He evidently feels that His province of conviction is limited : it will never do for Him to issue a sacrificial command : but He will go the furthest that He may : He will j)oint out the unsuitableness of " lame " or " torn " offerings for a mere earthly " governor," and trust to the sanctified common sense of the priesthood drawing the appropriate inference, as regards Him- self. As though He had said : " It has been known since the world began, it has been known since Abraham was called, and since Moses legislated, that I cannot interfere with sacrifice ; I must leave Israel, on this matter, to treat Me as ' other gods ' are treated by their ' subjects ': I would make My old prophets turn in their graves, if I prescribed * anything in the least degree resembling ritual ' : but there is nothing to prevent Me pointing out human analogies : and I therefore do what I can to secure propriety, by inviting earnest attention to the pro- prieties of earthly courts." Can it, for one moment, be imagined that God would occupy such a low and ineffective platform, if He had a higher and more convincing platform on which He could securely place Himself ? If it was quite in His power to issue sacrificial prescriptions, and if a book existed, in which He had multiplied such restrictions in the most stringent manner, can we suppose that civil proprieties would have been left to plead alone ? and that neither God nor His prophet would have strengthened these proprieties by the unapproach- able sanction of a divine command ? (4) The conclusion is inevitable : Malachi " knows nothing " of Leviticus: neither here, nor in his reference to " tithes " does he ever quote it. ^^ There is no other possibility ; for he cannot have forgotten ^Y" (p. 66). We thus reach a position distinctly in advance of Wellhausen, a position of " Highest," and not of -208 SAXCTUARY AND SACBIFICE. " Higher," criticism : Wellhausen ventured far, but his courage failed him of the goal. The true view of the Levitical Law, in which alone " science " can rest, is that not merely Moses and Samuel, not merely David and Josiah, not merely Ezekiel and Ezra, had never heard of it, but that Malachi, the last of the prophets, the writer of the closing instalment of Old Testament Scripture, had laid aside his pen, before this much-misunder- stood Leviticus was introduced to Israel. We commend the foregoing "scientific" analysis (or con- glomerate of nonsense, whichever he prefers to call it) to the Bible student, as a very favourable specimen of the " fantastic tricks," which " critics, dress'd in a little brief acumen," may " play " with Scripture (or with any other book) when they surrender themseves to — Imagination. And we seriously aver that our proof, that Leviticus is not merely post-Exilic, but post-Malachian, is not a whit more fatuous, than the proof that Joel was post-Nehemian because he describes the enemy as running upon " the ivall,'' nor than the pompous proofs (with which we are at present occupied) that Leviticus is post- Jeremian, and post-Isaian, because these prophets represent God as repudiating the sacrifices of hypocrites. YL In this section, we shall notice some other difficulties, or contradictions, which seem to surround our author's prophetic exegesis : and then, in a concluding section, we shall illustrate how unwarranted is his literalisation of the early prophets' language. First, as to some remaining difficulties, or contra- dictions. (1) How is his view of prophetic teaching reconcileable with another fundamental part of his theory, that sacrifice is a natural duty of man, constituting " the main part of worship " all the world over ? If that be a true view of sacrifice, " why should it be thousfht a thins: incredible " that God should WELLHAUSEN'S INCONSISTENCIES. 209 regulate it ? He makes the prophets shrink, as from the touch of pitch, from the bare notion that God could prescribe a ritual. Why such shrinking ? AVould God have been for- getting His dignity, or acting unreasonably, in affording ritualistic guidance ? The position is surely extremely singular — so singular that our author cannot avoid contradiction, on the same page, in stating it. Sacrifice "is an idle and arbitrary worship" (p. 57), but, on the same page, sacrifice is a worship which " ymist be," and it is " the natural and (like prayer) universally current expression of religious hom- age " (p. 57). Assuming the latter view to be correct, why should God shrink from regulating it ? The other " re- ligious homage " to which he refers, that of " prayer," was susceptible of divine regulation by Him who said, " After this manner, therefore, pray ye." Why should the prophets deem it a perfect enormity to think that God could have said to Moses in the wilderness, " After this manner, therefore, sacrifice ye " ? The probability, and the seemliness, and the very rationality seem to pull one way, but the fearful " roars " of these early prophets tug the other way ! People are apt to think of our " Higher Critics " as great zealots for righteousness, as snapping the bands of superstition, and as pioneering us into a land of truth, and consistency, and reality : it would be nearer the mark often to represent them as causelessly inventing vapid contradiction. (2) His exegesis seems also to start up other contradictions from the verses with which it deals, {a) If he is faithful to it, he must hold that " the Sabbath " was an abomination in God's sight, for Isaiah includes it with " the blood of bullocks " and " incense " and " new moons," as things abhorrent in God's sight ! Shall we say that " Isaiah certainly could not have uttered such language if the Sabbath appointment had accord- ing to any tradition whatever dated from Creation " (p. 58) ? S 2893. 0 210 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. (b) Then " prayer " also, that " natural and universal religious homage," must be held execrable in God's sight, for Isaiah makes the prayers of the people as hateful to God as the "bumt-oiferings of their rams." "And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide Mine eyes from you : yea, when ye make many prayers I will not hear : your hands are full of blood." Unless our author is to be allowed a standing patent for inconsistency, he cannot escape the conclusion that Isaiah holds prayer, as an ordinance, to be hateful to God. (c) Public gatherings for worship must also be held to be condemned, for both Amos and Isaiah rank " solemn assemblies," and " feasts," among the iniquitous objects of God's hatred, (d) Musical accompaniments in God's service must also, in the prophetic teaching, have shared God's hatred : for, immediately after repudiating "feasts" and "solemn assemblies," Amos intro- duces Jehovah as crying, " Take thou away from Me the noise of thy songs ; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols." The Psalms encourage a " loud noise " on God's behalf ; and the " noise " of the grateful worshippers " was heard afar off " in Ezra's day. But the prophets knew better, (e) Even entrance into the Temple must be voted hateful, for Isaiah and Jeremiah include " appearing before Me," and " trampling My courts," and " standing in this house which is called by My name," among the reprobated services. How can " I " choose a house, and give it " My " name, if it is sinful for its sacrifices to enjoy " My " choice and regulation ? If Wellhausen were to urge that "Temple" and "songs" and "solemn assemblies " and " prayers " and " Sabbaths " were quite ac- ceptable to God, if used aright, and that it is only their intolerable abuse that the prophets condemn, we would at once agree with him : but we would immediately follow up our agreement by asking. Why not apply the same reasoniny to " sacrifices " ? OJ^NESS OF THE ''LAW." 211 (3) He is confronted also with the fact that the prophets, from whom he quotes, are unanimous and decided in pointing to a recognised " covenant " and " Law of God," of which the people's evil practices are a repudiation, God had not "left Himself without a witness." " Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom ; give ear unto the Law of our Ood, je people of Gomorrha" (Isai. 1. 10). "I will bring evil ui3on this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not hearkened unto My words ; and as for Jfi/ Laiv they have rejected it" (Jer. 6. 19). " I will not turn away the punish- ment thereof ; because they have rejected the Law of the Lord, and have not kept His statutes " (Amos 2. 4). " Seeing thou hast rejected the Law of thy God, I also will reject thy children" (Hos. 4. 6): "he cometh against the house of the Lord, because they have transgressed My covenant, and trespassed against My Latv " (Hos. 8. 1). These are but samples ; and they show conclusively that the prophets can appeal to it, as an elementary matter of notoriety with every IsraeUte, that God has ennobled the people with a national " covenant," and that, side by side with that covenant, as its reflector and guardian, there is an established " Law " of God, which makes known to them His will. What can Wellhausen make of the contents of that " Law " ? and where can he identify it ? Every prophet assumes the people's familiarity with it : is there any crevice of Scrip- ture, where Wellhausen can spread it out for us ? We have already, in criticising his quotations from Jeremiah, explained what " Law " is obviously referred to, and what the Jehovistic narrative suggests as to the comparative importances of its contents. The Jehovist (under whose legislation the prophets flourished) gives the Moral Law un-approachable importance, as the very essence of the covenant : he does follow afterwards with sacrificial, and other, rules, but it is ready, heart-felt, and un-deviating obedience to God's " voice," as their 0 2 212 SANCTUARY AXD SACRIFICE. moral guide, which he has signahsed as the chief glory and basis of the covenant. The quotations from the Prophets are just an echo, and enforcement, of this sound Jehovistic teaching. If people trample on every principle of morality, and trust to a mere " multitude of sacrifices," well may Isaiah pull them up, and ask if that amounts to a proper "hearing of the uwrd of the Lord," to a due " giving ear to the Law of our God." It was not " if ye will multiply sacrifices," but " if ye will obey My voice and keep My covenant " (of which " covenant " the Ten Commandments are straightway given as the most noble em- bodiment), that Israel are to become " a peculiar treasure unto Jehovah from among all peoples" (Exod. 19. 6). The enlarge- ment of the Jehovist's sacrificial condensations into Leviticus does not, in principle, affect the prophet's challenge by a hairs- breadth. Nay, it adds a needed naturalness to the situation, which he describes. For it is just the details of the Priestly Code that render conceivable that delusion of the people, which the prophet reprobates. The Jehovist, though clearly sacri- ficial, does not give such details as " incense " and " new moons " and " lambs " and " he-goats," which, a few weeks after him, the Priestist gave : and it is the very giving of these details, by the Priestist, that explains how the people might take the husk for the kernel, and imagine they were " doing God service," and were sure to stand pre-eminent in His favour, when they were multiplying " oblations " and " assem- blies," ivhich He had Himself so carefuUij prescribed. The answer is that they were seeking to cover themselves with a few fringes, while wanting the warmth and substance, of the mantle : they were mistaking a temporary parapet, for the stable foundation, of the building : the fringes and the parapet are not wanting in " legitimacy," but they are very subordinate mattei's. And it is for exalting the material, and the sub- ordinate, over that which is spiritual and primary, that Isaiah's ONENESS OF THE ''LAW." 213 contemporaries are condemned. So mucli for the sorry sneer : " The contents of the Priestly Code fit badly in with the Torah of Isa. 1. 10 " (p. 58). If it were necessary, we might omit the Jehovist, and urge that it is the Priestist who writes (or adopts), "Ye shall be holy, for I am holy": it is the Priestist who writes, "Ye shall fear every man his mother, and his father, and ye shall keep My Sabbaths " : it is the Priestist who writes, " Ye shall not steal ; neither shall ye deal falsely, nor lie " : it is the Priestist who writes, " And ye shall not swear by My name falsely " : it is the Priestist who writes, "Thou shalt not oppress thy neighbour, nor rob him ; thou shalt not curse the deaf, nor put a stumbling block before the blind, but thou shalt fear the Lord thy G-od" : it is the Priestist who writes, "Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment : thou shalt not go up and down as a talebearer : thou shalt not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge": it is the Priestist who writes, "Thou shalt love the stranger, that sojourneth with you, as thyself : just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin shall ye have : I am the Lord your God." These laws are all taken from Leviticus, originated, or adopted, by our author's so-called Priestist. He writes as though the Priestly Code met us in Scripture, as a petrified sacrificial fossil, utterly dissociated from all reference to the fundamental principles of morality. A more complete mis- representation of Scripture could not be penned : the essentials of morality are commemorated in the Code itself, and it is avowedly associated with their still more stupendous promulga- tion from Sinai. "The Torah of Isa. 1. 10," as he magnilo- quently phrases it, instead of conflicting with any Scripture Code, " fits ?nost admiraUy in with " the one harmonious Law of Moses, developed from Exodus to Deuteronomy. " Burnt- offerings," and " incense," and " feasts " are included in, and regulated by, that Law ; but "ceasing to do evil" and "learning 214 SANCTUABY AND SACBIFICE. to do well," "making you clean" and "putting away the evil of your doings," " seeking judgment " and " relieving the oppressed," these, for wliich Isaiah thunders forth his appeal, are the primary foundation of Israel's national covenant and Law ; they embrace that " hearkening to God's voice," through which alone they could become " a kingdom of priests to Him, and an holy nation"; they are an unmistakeable summary of those Ten Commandments, which the " voice," with so pre- eminent sacredness, proclaimed, and which were enshrined, in the ark of the covenant, as Israel's abiding witness for God's will. The " Priestly Code " was in- full swing, when one of the scribes asked the greatest of all Israel's prophets " What com- mandment is the first of all ?" And "the Torah of Isa. 1. 10 " was in full view of Jesus, when He answered, " The first commandment is, Hear, 0 Israel : the Lord our God, the Lord is One : and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. The second is this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." He did not point His questioner to the Day of Atonement, nor to the Feast of Tabernacles, nor to the morning and evening burnt-offering : He pointed him to that love to God and to his neighbour, which is the highest fulfill- ing of the Law. And He drew from him the acknowledgment, " Thou hast answered well, and to love God with all the heart, and to love his neighbour as himself, is indeed much more tlian all whole burnt-offerings and sacrifices." That is the prophetic position, which Wellhausen, in the greatness of his exegesis (?), so utterly caricatures. The "burnt-offerings" and the " sacrifices " are in the Law ; but there are elements in that Law, which dwarf them into nothingness, and transcend them infinitely. It is on that infinite transcendence that the pro- phets (anticipating Jesus and Hi& questioner) take their stand. It will hardly l)e denied that Jesus was post-Exilic, and that ONENESS OF THE ''LAW." 215 He thus gave his answer in the full blaze of the Priestly Code. And we have shown that it is the very establishment of that Code, long before Isaiah's day, that lends its chief possibihty, and speciousness, to the popular delusion, which he condemns. Wellhausen's attempt seems thus quite uncalled for, and indefensible, to deny to " the Law of the Lord " its usual and recognised meaning, when the prophets make mention of it. *' The Law " was one of the most estabUshed, and familiar, of technical names among the Jews, and pointed to the terms of the national covenant, communicated to the people through Moses : another extension of its technical use was to apply it to those Books, in which the terms of the covenant were enshrined, so that the Pentateuch was technically spoken of as "the Law," from the fact that the law of Moses was its central content. Wellhausen, apparently, would fain evaporate " the Law " into a succession of unrecorded oral instructions ; but this is a pure evasion of the well-know^n formal Code, which the prophetic references imply. They point to a known and definite " Law," and, if it is denied to be the Law of Moses, we can know it only through — Imagination ! And we have shown abundantly that, by applying the references to the Law of Moses, we get an interpretation, which rolls a flood of consistent significance, through every crevice of the prophetic appeals. Let Wellhausen only accept an elementary appreciation of the relative impor- tances of different parts of " the Law," at the hands of his own Jehovist, and then " a little child might lead him " over his pages of prophetic mis-appreciation, and re-adjust the criticisms to propriety. He would not then write that the Law " seeks truthfulness and love, justice and considerateness, and no gifts''; he will write only, "the Law seeks truthfulness and love, justice and considerateness, far more than gifts. " He will not write "It is no new matter, but a thing well-known, that sacrifices are not what the Law of the Lord contains"; he will 216 SANCTUARY AND SACBIFICE, write only, " It is a thing well-known that sacrifices are not what the Law of the Lord prmarili/ cmd principall?/ contains." For one, who systematically tramples on the Law's primary demands, sacrifices will be utterly unavailing, they will even become "abomination": and so it is written "the prayer of the wiclced'' and "the sacrifice of the iviclcecV^ are both "abomi- nation to the Lord." VIL Our only other criticism, on Wellhausen's prophetic method, is to illustrate the absurdities, to which it would lead, if it were consistently carried out elsewhere. He takes the language of vehement emotion, and persists in interpreting it with the same literalness, as though it were the driest of prosaic narratives. God, seeing the dearest foundations of rehgion overturned before His eyes, breaks out, in un-controll- able fury, "I hate, I despise your feasts": "Incense is an abomination unto Me " : " Bring no more vain oblations " : Wellhausen persists in emasculating these words of all hyper- bole, and of all high-strung passion, and in finding in them a plain matter-of-fact announcement that God could never have anything to do with the regulation of festival or sacrifice. Carry out such exegesis, and whither would it lead ? It would lead us to prove from the words, " For I could wish that I myself were anathema from Christ," that the Apostle Paul was indifferent to his soul's everlasting well-being ; albeit we know that he counted every other " wish " but vanity, in comparison of " winning Christ and being found in Him." In the same way, it would lead us to prove from " I seek not yours but you," that the apostle did not regard Christian benevolence as a duty; for is not the plain meaning of the words this : "As an apostle of Christ, I seek not your goods nor your possessions, but only yourselves, for my Master " ? And how could such language be used by one who taught that "they who serve the altar IMPASSIONED LANGUAGE. 217 should live by the altar," and that it is every Christian's indispensable duty to give, as God prospers him, to extend His cause, and to help His poor ? Or, when another apostle says, *' The Law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ," are we to parade these words as a proof that God's " grace " and " truth " were utterly unknown, before Jesus was born ? That is what Wellhausen's prosaic "science" would lead us to : he would hold it to be the teaching of John that "it is a thing well-known that grace and truth are not what the Old Testament Scriptures contain." Or may we not take the words comparatively ? May we not remember his Jehovist's teaching of God, as " keeping mercy for thousands," and as " plenteous in truth " (Exod. 34. 6-7) ? and may we not understand the words sufficiently, when we realise that, when God sent forth His Son, He threw all previous manifesta- tions of His " grace " and " truth " into the shade ? There is hardly a limit to the similar quotations, that might be made. Take the following from the Sermon on the Mount. When it will be said, " Have we not prophesied in Thy name ? and in Thy name cast out devils ? " and when the answer is given, " Depart from Me, ye that work iniquity " (Matt. 7.) ; does that mean that " prophesying " and " casting out devils " are " works of iniquity," which Christ must condemn ? That again is Wellhausen's lead: he must hold that "prophesying" and " casting out devils " could not, in any sense, be counte- nanced, or commanded, or regulated by One who uses such language of repudiation regarding them ! Could he have a clearer proof that it is not the formal material of works or services, that may vitiate them, and make God hate them, but the hollowness and unworthiness of the motives from which they flow, and of the habits with which they are associated ? His express commands were " In My name ye shall cast out devils," " Go ye into all the world and prophesy " ; but 218 SANCTUABY AND SACRIFICE. occupations, which are acceptable and enjoined, may be turned to "works of iniquity," leading to "everlasting fire," by the insincerity, and horrid wickedness, of those who engage in them. Would it be possible to state an analogy, more absolutely complete, to the rej)udiations of sacrifice, on which Wellhausen builds? It is not the mere "sacrifice," any more than the mere "prophesying" or "casting out devils" that is condemned: it is the selfishness, and the oppression, and the hypocrisy, and the wickedness, by which the whole of the three excellent services are accompanied, that makes God say, " I hate them." What a wealth of similar illustration might be drawn from the noble strains of 1 Cor. 13 ! If Wellhausen were to come, with his rigid Uterahsm, and tone down the apostle's rapt enthusi- asms, and word-failing adorations, and beggaring comparisons, into cold actualities of statement, what a false and sorry esti- mate would he induce us to put on " the tongues of angels " and on the " knowing all mysteries " and on the " having all faith " and on the " bestowing all our goods to feed the poor " ! Let him give to an old prophet the same freedom of passionate superlative, and of ecstatic admiration, which, we presume, he will accord to a New Testament apostle. We know no passage,, which resembles better the prophetic denunciations of sacrifice, and at the same time illustrates so well the iuexcusableness of Wellhausen's interpretation of them, as our Lord's withering denunciation of the Scribes and Pharisees, in Matt. 23. A quiet meditation over that chapter might induce Wellhausen to un-say all that he has penned about the impossibility of the prophets believing in a divine regulation of sacrifice. Many of the services, in which the Pharisees abounded, were not essentially God-dishonouring ; on the contrary, they could claim divine approval or origination : but they were turned into a virtual mass of " uncleanness " and " um*ighteousness," because of the worldliness, and oppression, IMPASSIONED LANGUAGE. 219 and hypocrisy of those who engaged in them. There was nothing wrong in seeking to be missionaries, in " compassing sea and land " to bring in " all the famihes of the earth " as '• proselytes" ; it was one end for which Israel, as the "kingdom of priests," existed. Neither was there anything wrong in " cleansing the outside of the cup and of the platter " and in " appearing outwardly righteous unto men";, nor in calling a man "father" or "master" upon earth ; nor in "paying tithes," out of garden herbs, as well as out of harvest fields ; nor in honouring the worship both of "synagogue" and "feast" ; nor in revering "the prophets" and "the righteous," and " building their sepulchres," and " garnishing their tombs." These, and other, Pharisaic practices are reprobated by our Lord, in language, whose overflow of moral indignation it would be hard to parallel. Are we to conclude that these practices were intrinsically evil ? Or might not even a child explain to us that it is the malicious hearts and selfish aims, by which the practices were accompanied, that piled up the "Woes unto you," and "Ye blind guides," and "Ye serpents, ye offspring of vipers " ? To honour " feast " and " synagogue " was our Lord's own regular habit : it was the ambition, and the ostentation, by which the Pharisaic services were over-run, that made their professed " love " of such assemblies be so scorned by our Lord. Varieties of " tithes " received express divine sanction in both Priestist and Deuteronomist, whose writings our Lord acknowledged : He does not therefore condemn the "paying tithe of mint and anise and cummin," as being an intrinsically evil service ; He condemns it, only because of its horrid accompaniments — "ye have left undone the weightier matters." That is the very prophetic position : " Sacrifice, offered from a holy heart, and ennobled in a righteous life, is at once seemly and divine : But ye have left undone the weightier matters : ye have forgotten to seek judgment, and 220 SAyCTUARY AND SACRIFICE, to relieve the oppressed ; ye have forgotten to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God." The coincidence between Jesus and the prophets is complete. And their common stand-point could not be more accurately, and instructively, summed up, than in the words, " these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone." "These" which are the very indestructible foundations of moral excel- lence, " these " which are principles, as enduring as the rock on which God's finger wrote them, " these " which are the holiest reflection of that image of God, in which man was created, and by which alone he can be blest, "these ought ye to have done": you should have made it your very meat and drink to under- stand and follow " these " ; whatever else your service lacked, you ought to have made sure that it comprehended " these " ; the Lofty One, who inhabiteth Eternity, can never accept you without "these," for they are the first, and chief, answer to the question, " Wherewith can I come before the Lord, or bow myself before the high God ?" At the same time, while " these ought ye to have done," remember what is added, " and not to leave the other un-done." Tliat is the due si(l)ordinateness for all merely outward and positive ceremonials : they are not to be kicked at, and abolished, they are "not to be left un-done": our Lord scrupulously attended to them as part of His "fulfilling all righteousness": "sacrifice" and "feast" and "jubilee" and "tithe," don't leave them "un-done"; there is a divine wisdom in their temporary appointment, and in their con- scientous observance : But don't misplace them ; never make them the alpha and omega of a religious life ; never offer them to God, as a substitute for that love to Himself with the whole heart, and that love of your neighbour as yourself, which are, in God's sight, " much more than all whole burnt-offerings and sacrifices." The two parts of our Lord's principle, " to do the essentials," and " not to leave un-done the un-essentials," will WELLHAUSEN'S PBOPHETIC FAILURE. 221 irradiate, with consistent and pleasing light, every prophetic utterance, which Wellhausen quotes. The prophets give love and peace and truth, the foreground ; and, if these are trampled on, " the fat of fed beasts becomes abomination," " it becomes iniquity even the solemn assembly." We have thus endeavoured, with all fulness and candour, to investigate Wellhausen's discovery that the early prophets abhor, as what cannot "in wildest dream" or "in remotest degree," be tolerated, the idea of divine regulation of sacrifice. We might have been content with refuting his most slender exegesis of the specific quotations, which he gives : but we have deemed it expedient to give also such a view of the rela- tion of his so-called Codes, and such a comparison of the sacrifi- cial teaching of post-Exilic with pre-Exilic prophets, as we think may be eminently helpful to the Bible student, amid the clanging controversies of the hour. In reference to Well- hausen's new reading of the prophets, our chief feeling is one of amazement that a critic of so unexampled subtlety should have put his pen to such a discovery, or that anyone can be so shortsighted as to expect the discovery to prove more lasting than the many similar critical vagaries, which have been be-lauded as successive importations from Germany. We have tested his discovery by the ready principle, Alnisiis non tollit vsum : and, in every quotation which he gives, we have shown that the "use" supplies the natural key of elucidation, and that it is the '^ siqjerstitious over-estimate'' (to use his own happy admission) of sacrifice, which the prophets condemn. We have shown that he omits other quotations, which demon- strate the theory of " the superstitious over-estimate " to be the unquestionably true one. We have shown that his discovery is in naked contradiction to the Jehovistic Code, which is acknowledged to have been reigning at the time. We have 222 SANCTUARY AND 8ACEIFICE. shown that, so far as the supremacy of moral teaching is concerned, the post-Exilic prophets, who were dominated by priestly influence, stand shoulder to shoulder with " the former prophets." And we have shown, in detail, several subsidiary contradictions, with which our author's theory has to reckon, as well as several of the fantastic conclusions, to which it would lead, if we adhere to its ultra-literal rendering of hyperbolical language. Jeremiah has no active desire for fluidity, when he cries, " Oh that my head were waters ! " The moralist has no indifference to the stability of the heavens, though he cries to them " Fiat Justitia, mat coehim " : And so God may be well- pleased with sacrifice, w^hen it is humbly and gratefully pre- sented, though, when He sees it loaded with corruption. He cries, "I hate, I despise your feasts." On the whole, Wellhausen " among the prophets " is about as memorable a sight, as when the first king of Israel was " among them." We now proceed to deal with his extraordinary manipulation of one of the later prophets — the Prophet Ezekiel. ( 223 ) CHAPTER VI. IS EZEKIEL A SACRIFICIAL PIOXEER ? WHAT OF HIS CLOSING VISION ? WELLHAUSEN'S discussion of the Old Testament writers might recall, with some vividness, the Advent to earth of Him, who said, " I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law ; and a man's foes shall be they of his own household." The Old Testament writers had experienced, throughout the rolling centuries, " how plea- sant it was to dwell, as brethren, in unity " : they lived in the same " household " : they appeared to believe in a common history, to chronicle a common revelation, to rejoice in a common hope ; there seemed to be one primal legislator, whom they all acknowledged, one over-ruhng purpose, which they all helped to develop, one common inspiration, which gave to their writings continuity, and complementariness, and pleasing harmony. Wellhausen comes, and "peace" in- stantaneously flies off : the ''household " is transformed at once into Ishmaelites, where " every man's sword is against his fellow": code rises up against code, and programme against programme : the historian casts the prophet into prison, and the prophet puts the historian to death : the opening of a Book of Scripture has become like the opening of a Trojan horse, from which fly forth a crowd of forgers and redactors, to capture the very citadel of truth : faith and mutual respect have disappeared, and, among canonical writers, " a man's foes are they of his own household." 224 SANCTUARY AND 8ACBIFICE. We are not advancing this as a plea to shut the critical month : far from it : we hold with an apostle " let truth pre- vail, though every Old Testament writer become a liar." But the realisation of the foregoing facts may fairly enough quicken our interest in the critical aims, and may make us re- solve that nothing but cogent proof will induce us to welcome so extraordinary conclusions. It will hardly do to gibbet all the sacred writers as engaged in a free fight for mutual extermina- tion, at the call of nothing stabler than un-provoked and un-sup- ported Imagination. Yet this is, practically, the whole support, on which " the new school " leans, as one after another of its demonstrations pass in review. The writers themselves never announce their contrarieties : they seem to know each other, and to respect each other : and their nation " knew nothing " of their discord : we have to accept it all as a modern secret. In particular, as regards sacrifice, we have already hitherto found the main buttresses of Wellhausen's position to be im- posing ornaments of sand. We have found neither the Priestly Code, nor its history, supplying the slightest repu- diation of pre-Mosaic sacrifice : ■ We have found, as regards possibility of divine prescription of sacrifice, entire unison between Jehovist, Priestist, and Deuteronomist : Not from its depths, but from its very surface, we have found the Jehovistic Code crying out against the strange mis-interpretation that would be foisted on it : We have found the cry continued by the historians : And, when we have accompanied our author to the early prophets, we have found them utterly unwilling to yield a morsel of plausible support for his far-fetched Imagination. It cannot, therefore, be supposed that we go forward, with much of interest or of hope, to survey the active ca>ise of a transformation, which has been clearly shown never to have occurred. If we have found the alleged victim of a murder to be in the best of health, and to have been WELLHAUSEN ON EZEKIEL. 225 ^posed to no assault, we cannot feel much interest in an offer of a full and precise description of the actor and the conspiracy, through which his life was lost. If we have found an in- telligible continuity in a nation's experience, and that they never passed through certain alleged strange contradictions of belief, the account of how they were led to welcorae these contradictions, ceases to be of interest. So, in reference to our author's discovery of Priestist opposing Jehovist, and of historian crying out against prophet, if we have found that there was no such inter-necine conflict, no such un-natural evolution, as he dreams of, the account of how it all came about has its value much discounted. It is in this way that we feel our author's treatment of Ezekiel suffers considerably. He parades Ezekiel before us, as the historical accomplisher of what has already been historically shown to be little short of hallucination. The long relegation of sacrifice to natural instinct in Israel, the extreme jealousy with which the prophets fight (as if it were their last stronghold) for God's non-participation "in the remotest degree with ritual legislation," are at last seen to be blunders, are at last made to yield to more reasonable arrange- ments, " by the priest in prophet's mantle " (p. 59), by *' Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chebar." It is said, " Sweet are the uses of adversity " : and so his own, and his nation's, " adver- sities" were the means of awakening Ezekiel to the delusion, which the Isaiahs and the Hoseas of a bye-gone day had cherished regarding Jehovah, and of leading him, at last, to originate divine fetters for Israel, from which all the faithful of previous ages would have shrunk appalled. Formerly, sacri- ficial accompaniments and ceremonies might be fixed, and varied, at the offerer's will ; if he only said they were to Jehovah, all was right ; he was " a law to himself " : But the Captivity S 2893. ^ 256 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. turned him into a slave indeed ; it sent him back to Israel, in the iron grasp of sacrificial law, no longer free to settle, as he chose, " the ivlien^ the wliere, and the hy ivliorn^ and also in a very special manner the liow^ of sacrifice," but bound to con- centrate his whole attention on the observance of prescribed sacrificial etiquette. The result of Ezekiel's " Vision " was that joj and freedom were no longer the rule, but a " strict and accurate compliance with the restrictions of an ordinance " (p. 78). Formerly, the Hebrews' reUgion "was the blossom of life, the heights and depths of which it was its business to transfigure and glorify " (p. 77) : under the iron heel of Ezekiel, it passed, at last, into a State-ordered formalism, into a round of dry observances, " which have simply been enjoined so once for all, without any one being in any way the better for them" (p. 79, note 1). Let there be no mistake about the revolution which Ezekiel heralded : it was a revolution from freedom to bondage, and from life to death. AVellhausen does not deem it necessary to devote much space to 2)rore the grand historic function, which he assigns to Ezekiel. His whole proof and illustration of it occupy less than two pages (pp. 59, 60). No doubt he has frequent other references to it, and amplifications of it : but these two pages embrace all that he here deems needed of formal introduction and proof. We shall first give an exhaustive quotation of his reasoning : — " In this matter the transition from the pre-Exilic to the post- Exilic period is effected, not by Denteronomy, but by Ezekiel the priest in prophet's mantle, who was one of the first to be carried into Exile. He stands in striking contrast with his elder con- temporary Jeremiah. In the picture of Israel's future which he drew in B.C. 573 (chaps. 40 — 48). in which fantastic hopes are indeed built upon Jehovah, but no impossible demand made of man, the Temple and cultus hold a central place. Whence this sudden change? Perhaps because now the Priestly Code has suddenly awakened to fife after its long trance, and become the inspiration of Ezekiel? The explanation is certainly not to be WELLHAU8EN ON EZEKIEL. 227 sought in any sucli occurrence, but simply in the historical circum- stances. So long as the sacrificial worship remained in actual use, it was zealously carried on, but people did not concern themselves with it theoretically, and had not the least occasion for reducing it to a code. But once the Temple was in ruins, the cultus at an end, its personnel out of emj^loyment, it is easy to understand how the sacred praxis should have become a matter of theory and writing, so that it might not altogether perish, and how an exiled ^Driest should have begun to paint the picture of it as he carried it in his memory, and to publish it as a programme for the future restora- tion of the theocracy. Nor is there any difficulty if arrangements, which as long as they were actually in force were simply regarded as natural, were seen after their abolition in a transfiguring light, and from the study devoted to them gaiued artificially a still higher value. These historical conditions supplied by the Exile suffice to make clear the transition from Jeremiah to Ezekiel, and the genesis of Ezekiel 40—48. The co-operation of the Priestly Code is here not merely unnecessary, it would be absolutely discon- certing. Ezekiel's departure from the ritual of the Pentateuch cannot be explained as intentional alterations of the original ; they are too casual and insignificant. The prophet, moreover, has the rights of authorship as regards the end of his book as well as for the rest of it ; he has also his right to his picture of the future as the earlier prophets had to theirs. And finally, let its due weight be given to the simple fact that an exiled priest saw occasion to draft such a sketch of the Temple worship. What need would there have been for it, if the realised picture, corresponding completely to his views, had actually existed, and, being already written in a book, wholly obviated any danger lest the cultus should become extinct through the mere fact oL' its temporary cessation P " Here again a way of escape is open by assuming a lifeless existence of the Law down to Ezra's time. But if this is done it is unallowable to date that existence, not from Moses, but from some other intermediate point in the history of Israel. Moreover, the assumption of a codification either as preceding all praxis, or as alongside and independent of it, is precisely in the case of sacrificial ritual one of enormous difficulty, for it is obvious that such a codification can only be the final result of an old and highly developed use, and not the invention of an idle brain. This consideration also makes retreat into the theory of an illegal praxis impossible, and renders the legitimacy of the actually subsisting indisputable" (pp. 59, 60). P 2 228 SANCTUABY AND SACRIFICE. The above is the whole demonstration, which "W^ellhausen offers to us, that the views of Isaiah and Jeremiah have now passed away, and that, sacrificially, " all things have become new." After he has very carefully scanned the demonstration, we invite the reader impartially to weigh the charges of utter Imaginariness, and of manifold Contradiction, to which we now proceed to show that we think it liable. In supporting these charges, we shall enter into a very thorough, if also somewhat lengthened, criticism of the above quotation : and we shall trust to the desirableness of our doing so commending itself to the Bible student, as our views develop. Although the view, asserted in the above quotation, is slipped in so easily and insinuatingly by our author, it contains one of the most essential foundations of the Prolegomena^ and, there- fore, must be most rigorously scanned. If Ezekiel fails him, all is gone. Our criticism of his Ezekielianism will lead us, first, into a positive investigation of the contents of Ezekiel's Book (with which the present chapter will be occupied), and then into a negative determination of the inefficacy of Well- hausen's references to Ezekiel (with which the next chapter will be occupied). Our canvassing of the contents of the Book will of course bear mainly on its attitude to sacrifice : and, in tliis chapter, we shall (A) notice some general aspects of that attitude, and (B) then consider specially the bearing of the Closing Vision (in chapters 40 — 48) on that attitude. We shall thus substantially answer the two questions that form the head- ing of this chapter. (A) I. In considering the general question of Ezekiel's sacrifi- cial attitude, we are at once struck by the utter adsence^ on his part, of any statement as to a vast change in the divine sacrifi- cial dealings, which is about to be introduced into the world. EZEKIEFS GENERAL ATTITUDE. 229 There is no announcement that what has been unknown, and for reprobation, hitherto is now to be estabhshed as a seemly and indispensable observance. Every reader of Ezekiel knows that he is perpetually appealing to the past history and worship of his people ; but there is not the vaguest intimation forth- coming, from his whole Book, that a system, hitherto concealed from previous ages, was now to be suddenly and fully disclosed by himself. He never hints that methods of sacrifice have hitherto been absolutely indifferent ; that the " where " and the " how " of Babylon, or of Moab, have hitherto been as accept- able as the "where " and the " how " of Israel, if only the " to whom " be kept right : he never hints that the divine statutes have hitherto been kept religiously free of the slightest ap- proach to sacrificial reference : nor does he announce that, with himself, a new era is to begin, a new view of the divine attitude, a new view of the people's responsibiHty, a new esti- mate of the value of outward worship. Yet, if all these are realities, would it not have been reasonable to look for some express statement of their being so ? We think the reasonableness of this expectation may be shown from analogous cases. When a great and memorable change in the manifestation of the divine name occurred, the history contains a very definite specification thereof : " God spake unto Moses, I am Jehovah : and I appeared unto Abra- ham unto Isaac and unto Jacob as God Almighty, but by My name Jehovah I was not known unto them. . . . Wherefore say (now) unto the children of Israel, I am Jehovah, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians " (Exod. 6. 2-6). Would not some announcement like this (if our author's view be valid) have been suitable in Ezekiel's mouth ? and might he not have introduced God, as saying, " In all pre-Exilic time, I shrank from any regulation of sacri- fice, as a thing to be reprobated ; I scrupulously left Israel to 230 SAyCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. follow their own devices and desires, like the rest of the world ; but now a new ]3age in divine procedure falls to be written ; henceforth a ' thus saith the Lord ' will settle every smallest detail of sacrificial cultus : and, for the first time in history, I announce to Ezekiel by the river Chebar that this momentous facing-about is to be accomplished." Is not the complete change of sacrificial attitude as worthy of being thus expressly commemorated, as the change of name from God Almighty to Jehovah ? So again, if Grod breaks through all the habitudes of the past, and speaks luith an audihJe voice so that a whole nation may hear and fear him, is not the unexampledness of the privilege commemorated : " Did ever people hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as thou hast heard, and live " (Deut. 4. 33) ? Or again, if God is to intro- duce a momentous change in the matter of sanctuary, if, after having, for ages, " walked in a mere tent and tabernacle," He is, at last, to " desire Zion for His habitation," and to be accommodated, with suitable splendour, there, do we not find the contemplated change very explicitly commemorated ? "Ye shall no longer do after all the things that we do here this day : . . . but, when ye go over Jordan . . . take heed to thyself that thou offer not thy burnt-offerings in every place that thou seest : but, in the place which the Lord shall choose in one of thy tribes, there thou shalt offer thy burnt-offerings, and there shalt thou do all that I command thee" (Deut. 12). " I have not dwelt in an house since the day that I brought up the children of Israel out of Egypt unto this day. . . . But now thy seed shall build an house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever" (2 Sam. 7). Was it of less moment for Ezekiel to have announced that God's past indifference to sacrificial cultus was now to cease, and that, for the first time in Israel's, or the world's, history. He was to prescribe the " when " and the " where " and the " how " EZEKIELS GENEBAL ATTITUDE. 231 of sacrifice ? If that past indifference was a reality, and if Ezekiel was raised up, as the issuer of new proclamations to efface that indifference, it must be conceded that these facts receive no formal statement by the prophet, but have been suppUed entirely by his readers' Imagination, II. It is a most important following out of the foregoing considerations to add that Ezekiel's position, as introducing a new departure in sacrificial legislation, is quite un-announced, not only by himself, but by all his post-Exilic successors, Cyrus does not found his decree on the fact that the God of heaven has, at last, through Ezekiel, issued prescriptions regarding Israelitish cultus and sacrifice, and that it behoves him to hasten on the restoration of those, who may realise, in Judah, what has thus been first so unexpectedly and wondrously re- vealed in Babylon. And when Zerubbabel and Joshua headed the newly-returned captives, " gathered as one man to Jeru- salem," it is not to glorify Ezekiel, nor to make mention of his new revelations, nor to carry out a sacrificial programme, that God had for the first time legalised through him : neither Ezekiel, nor his new law, receives the slightest notice from them : they look much further back for guidance : they " build the altar of the God of Israel," they offer " the daily burnt-offerings by number according to the ordinance^'' they keep " the feast of tabernacles as it is ivrittenj'' but the preface, and the warrant, for all these transactions do not date from the Exile, they are all according " as it is written in the law of Moses the man of God " (Ezra 3). Then again, a century later, when the building of the Temple and the city walls has been completed, and the people are again " gathered together as one man into the broad place before the water gate," to be reminded of their duty toward God, and of the ordinances, through which the restored Temple must be honoured, there is 2:32 SANCTUAEY AND SACRIFICE. not the faintest reference to Ezekiel, there is no word of now estabhshing what he had been the first to hear, and enforce, from Jehovah ; they acknowledge no obligation to him, they cany out no instruction from him : again the command is, " Bring the Book of the Law of Moses, which the Lord had commanded to Israel : . . . And he read therein before the broad place, that was before the water gate, from early morning until mid- day : . . . And, on the second day, they found written in the law how that the Lord had commanded by Moses, that the children of Israel should dwell in booths in the feast of the seventh month ; and that they should publish and proclaim in all their cities and in Jerusalem, saying. Go forth unto the mount and fetch olive branches " (Neh. 8). Is it conceivable that, if God's first sacrificial prescriptions had been uttered through Ezekiel, the post -Exilic historians would have left the chosen instrument so absolutely un-honoured in their narrative ? The post-ExiHc prophets are at one with the post-Exilic historians in ignoring all knowledge of a new Ezekielian Law. Read through Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, and the new priestly revelation to Ezekiel does not once receive the slightest notice. They make plentiful reference to ancient covenant and commands of God, but His beneficence, in visiting Babylon, and in there making known, for the first time, sacrificial prescriptions to Ezekiel, seems utterly un-realised, is at least utterly un-mentioned, by all three. Haggai bids the people remember "the word that I covenanted with you when ye came out of Egypt " (2. 5) ; and Malachi is still more definite, " From the days of your fathers, ye have turned aside from Mine ordinances, and have not kept them : . . . Remember the law of Moses My servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, even statutes and judgments " (3. 7 ; 4. 4) : but neither of them mentions Ezekiel, as having done anything to revolutionise the worship of their country, as EZEKIELS GENEEAL ATTITUDE. 233 having introduced a divine attitude towards sacrifice, from which all former prophets would have recoiled. It will be observed that it is not an argument from mere silence that we are drawing from the historians and prophets, that succeed Ezekiel. It is not merely that they do not mention him, nor his alleged work : this might be exphcable, on the ground that " occasion had not arisen " to describe them. But it is more than this : " occasion does arise " to refer to the codifying, and to the codifier, of sacrifice : and, with one consent, they pass Ezekiel by, and ascribe the work (as a mere truism of history) to another. We have already indicated that, in thus passing by Ezekiel, they are only following the prophet himself ; for he puts in no claim for legislative honour : he never describes himself as at the parting of the ways, abrogating the old, and introducing the new. We are reserving to the second half of this chapter a more detailed notice of his Closing Vision. Meantime, we make on it this general remark : Whatever were his aims in there making so multiplied references to Temple service, it is quite clear that, in detailing sacrificial usages, he is employing terms, which, he is well assm-ed, will be intelligible and familiar to every reader : he is not instituting a new code, but, for some weighty purpose, commemorating several requirements of a known code. We give but one instance, not simply because it is the earliest sacrificial reference in his "Vision," but because it deals with a branch of sacrifice, which Wellhausen is never weary of insisting was quite unknown till Ezekiel's day. The prophet opens his Vision with a description of the wall of the house, and of its outer and inner courts, and, in the most artless manner, proceeds : " And in the porch of the gate were two tables on this side, and two tables on that side, to slay thereon the burnt offering and the sin offering aiid the guilt offering" (40. 38,39). According to Wellhausen, 234 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. that is the first time that " sin offering " and " guilt offering " had been written of, as special branches of sacrifice, in the whole history of Israel. Can any one believe it ? Is there the faintest suggestion of it in the passage ? Can any one read the words, without the conviction that the prophet is specifying offerings, which he can rely on every reader comprehending as old and established institutions ? Whatever may have been his aim in filling fully two chapters with sacrificial arrange- ments, they are intelligible, only on the idea that sacrifices have been ordained of old, and that he is not delivering a sacrificial programme, as from Jehovah, for the first time. He nowhere defines, nor introduces as new, any of his sacrifices. He nowhere poses, as breaking a divine silence, by which, for a millennium, the faithful in Israel had been perplexed, and as, at last, giving legislation, where formerly was un-restrained self -pleasing. He has been content, for ages, to pass as " a prophet, without legislative honour, in his own country": it is only in modern Germany that his brow has been encircled by a legislative efflorescence, which neither a Zerubbabel nor a Haggai, neither an Ezra .nor a Malachi, would accord to him — and which he never claimed for himself. III. We go further, and add that, besides resembling the post-Exilics in their legislative ignoring of himself, Ezekiel fur- ther joins them in enforcing, as having ever existed in Israel, a definite recognised Code of divine commandments and statutes : and his references to these statutes are such, that sacrificial enactments cannot, with reason, be eUminated from them. In truth, he merely re-echoes the fundamental cry of every prophet without exception, that God has ennobled Israel by entering into a gracious and endearing covenant with them, and that, as the pledge of this covenant. He has given them a definite and elaborate revelation of His laws. What can be EZEKIEL'S GENERAL ATTITUDE. 235 more unmistakeable than this : " This is Jerusalem ; I have set her in the midst of the nations. And she hath rebelled against Mij judgments^ in doing wickedness more than the nations, and against My statutes, more than the countries that are round about her : for they have rejected My judgments, and as for My statutes they have not walked in them " (Ezek. 5. 5, 6) ? Could the choice of Israel, and the formal delivery of Law to Israel, be more explicitly asserted ? And, lest it should be said that the Law had no reference to cultus, what can we make of the following, in the same context : " Where- fore, as I Uve, saith the Lord God, surely because thou hast defiled My sanctuary with all thy detestable things, and with all thine abominations, therefore will I also diminish thee ; neither shall Mine eye spare, and I also will have no pity " (5. 11) ? Does not this imply that the " statutes " and " judg- ments " of the 6th verse included arrangements for worship, included in especial a legitimate central sanctuary, and that all the " abominations " of the nation's cultus were clear transgres- sions of divine laws ? How, again, is it possible to exclude manifold divine regulations of worship from the following : " Thou hast despised Mine holy things, and hast profaned My Sabbaths. . . . Her priests have done violence to 3Iy Laiv, and have profaned Mine holy things ; they have put 710 difference between the holy and the common, neither have they caused men to discern between the unclean and the clean, and have hid their eyes from My Sabbaths, and I am profaned among them " (22. 8, 26) ? Can anything short of wilful blind- ness exclude from such a passage divine prescriptions of cultus ? "We have previously seen how our author gets quit of the multiplied testimonies of the Books of Kings to a divinely fixed legitimacy of sanctuary, by merely crying out " Re- dactor " : but, we now ask, what better is he of this feat, so long as Ezekiel stands " un-redacted " ? A central sanctuary 236 SANCTUABY AND SACBIFICE. literally permeates Ezekiel, not merely the Closing Vision of chapters 40 — 48, but the succession of messages, which the first half of his Book (chapters 1 — 24) contains. " My sanctu- ary " is continually appealed to by Jehovah, as an ancient and un-mistakeable ordinance. " The mountains of Israel " are specially prophesied against, as having been turned into un- warrantable rivals of Jehovah's sanctuary : "And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when their slain men shall be among their idols round about their altars, upon every high hill, in all the tops of the mountains, and under every green tree, and under every thick oak, the place where they did offer sweet savour to all their idols" (6. 13). "In this moreover have your fathers blasphemed Me," in that they have committed a tresjMss against Me." Now mark wherein the " trespass " consists. " For when I had brought them into the land which I lifted up Mine hand to give unto them, then they saw every high hill, and every thick tree, and they offered there their sacrifices, and there they presented the provocatmi of their offering, there also they made their sweet savour, and they poured out there their drink offerings" (20. 27, 28). Has not God an ancient jealousy for the " where," as well as for the " to whom," of sacrifice ? The passage proves, with over- whelmmg clearness, that the " trespass " (or violation of divine Law), on the part of the ancient Israelites, was not con- fined to morality, but was abundantly illustrated in their sacrifices. We give only one other striking instance. How can Wellhausen's theory survive the translation of the names, Oholah and Oholibah, in Ezek. 23 ? Oholah is the sanctuary in Samaria, and signifies "/^er tent,'' ^.e., the unauthorised tent of her own devising and constructing : Oholibah is the Temple on Zion, and signifies " My tent in her,'' i.e., the place, which I have solemnly chosen to record My name, and where alone, in strictness, national worship can be acceptably offered. Let EZEKIELS GENERAL ATTITUDE. 237 Wellhausen, therefore, " redact " every shred of legitimacy out of Kings at his will, yet here is his own chosen Ezekiel, with a perverse legitimising of Zion, remaining to vex him. Other cities and hills may have their own tents, Zion alone has Jehovah's tent : the sweetest savour, and the fattest offerings, at other seats of worship, were a " trespass " of " your fathers " against Jehovah. We would just add that Ezekiel is not more express as to the existence of prior divine legislation, than as to the era, and the situation, in which great portions of the legislation were delivered. He assigns them to the age of Moses, and to the wilderness of Sinai. Wellhausen may romance about a Jeho- vist, who published " in the first centuries of the divided king- dom," or about a Deuteronomist, who forged, and startled, in the age of Josiah, or about an Ezekiel, who, at last, ushered in a " transition," a new departure, in legislation ; but Ezekiel him- self will not touch these German discoveries with the tip of his pen, he " knows nothing " of them, he goes back to where Haggai and Malachi are proud to follow him, to " the word that I covenanted with you when ye came out of Egypt," to " the law of Moses My servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, even statutes and judgments," and thus he writes : " So I caused them to go forth out of the land of Egypt, and brought them into the mlderness. And I gave them My statutes, and showed them My judgments, which if a man do he shall live in them. Moreover also I gave them My Sabbaths : . . . But the house of Israel rebelled against Me in the wilderness : they walked not in My statutes, and they rejected My judgments" (Ezek. 20. 10-13). Here is testi- mony, implying the memorable delivery of a great amount of divine legislation, a thousand years before Ezekiel's day, as soon as Egypt was escaped from : will Wellhausen ransack his subjectivity, and tell us definitely what that legislation was ? or 238 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. will he, at least, give us "the faintest trace" of j^roo/that that legislation could not, " in the remotest degree," concern the worship of Israel ? It could not be Leviticus, for it is post- Exilic : It could not be Deuteronomy, for it is Josian : It could not be the Jehovistic Code, for it is post-Solomonian : And, after he has thus originated all the actual Codes centuries subsequent to the date, to which Ezekiel goes back, can he tell us what these plentiful divine " statutes " and divine " judg- ments " were, which Ezekiel makes the very sheet anchor of his country's history, and which he can clearly rely on every reader of his prophecy at once recognising even " as household words familiar " ? There was plentiful divine legislation (Ezekiel being witness) in the age of Moses : what faintest shadow of proof have we that Ezekiel's Law of Moses was not coincident with our own ? If it was different, what has be- come of it ? "We have thus shown that the pre-supposition of all Ezekiel's reproofs is a definite covenant, and a definite Law, administered in Israel since the Exodus. He never hints that the peoj^le's rehgious worship has been all along out- with Jehovah's regula- tion, and that he himself is to be the first to " burst into the lonely sea " of divine sacrificial prescription. God has sjDoken already in " My statutes " and " My judgments," which deal with " Mine incense " and " Mine oil," with " My priests " and "Mine ahar," with "My Sabbaths," "My sanctuary," and " Mine holy things " : and it is surely passing strange that the witness to all this should himself be the first to conceive, and to proclaim, that priestly legislation can, to any extent, come under Jehovah's care. (B) So much for the general question of Ezekiel's sacrificial attitude. Is it at all impaired by anything he has written EZEKIEUS CLOSING VISION. 239 in chapters 40—4:8 ? To this question we now address our- selves, and shall endeavour to show that, in these chapters, Ezekiel makes no approach to describing himself as the first of sacrificial legislator'^ — or as a literal legislator at all. We are not to be supposed so presumptuous as to imagine that we can walk round about Ezekiel's city, and enter all the chambers of his Temple, and walk by the banks of his healing waters, and tell all he felt when " the hand of the Lord was upon him," and explain what was the divine scope in all the manifold parti cularisations of the Vision. We cannot doubt that the prophet would be restrained from a full appreciation of what he saw, as well as his modern interpreter : he would " search what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ (in giving him the glorious "Vision) did signify." But, though disclaiming a perfect realisation, this does not imply that we can learn nothiug as to its general import and purpose, from a reverent review of its contents and surroundings. It may be non omnia possumus : yet it may be possible to learn much — enough to redeem the Vision from the paltry Imaginations that would profane it. Keeping the question of Sacrifice specially in view, we proceed to offer a few criticisms on the Vision. I. The proj)hecies of Ezekiel are arranged by the prophet himself in three very natural and intelligible groups. The first group is chapters 1 — 24, delivered from the fifth year of his captivity to the beginning of the siege of Jerusalem, and con- sists of warnings and denunciations, for the people's wickedness. The second group is chapters 25 — 32, delivered during the siege of Jerusalem, and consisting exclusively of judgments threat- ened against heathen nations. The third group consists of chapters 33 — 48, and extends from the capture of Jerusalem, in B.C. 587, to B.C. 573, and is taken up with a succession of glow- ing metaphorical descriptions of a future Eestoration, and 240 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. Abundance, and Triumph, and Faithfulness, in which God's deahngs with His people will culminate. It will thus be seen that the eight closing chapters, while, in one sense, a separate Vision, are, in another sense, a meniber in a group of similar, and related. Visions. (1) There is the Vision of Israel as a flock, whom false shepherds have left to "wander through all the mountains," " scattered upon all the face of the earth " : and God resolves, " I myself will search for My sheep . . . And I will bring them out from among the peoples . . . I will feed them with good pasture, and upon the moun- tains of the height of Israel shall their fold be : . . . And I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, even My servant David, and he shall be their shepherd. And I the Lord wiU be their God, and My servant David prince among them : I the Lord have spoken it " (34). (2) Another Vision compares the house of Israel, with their hope and liberty extinguished, to a valley filled with dry bones: but the day comes when God's Spirit breathes upon the slain, and they stand upon their feet " an exceeding great army " : " and ye shall know that I am the Lord when I have opened your graves, and caused you to come up out of your graves, 0 my people : and I will put My Spirit in you, and ye shall live, and I will place you in your own land ; and ye shall know that I the Lord have spoken it and performed it, saith the Lord " (37). (3) Another Vision represents heathen oppressors, as Gog and Magog, "coming from their place out of the uttermost parts of the earth," to make war upon Israel, restored securely in their own land, " to take the spoil and to take the prey ": but God is heard crying " behold, I am against thee, 0 Gog, and I will turn thee about," and He accomplishes such an utter rout of the invaders, that He invites " the birds of every sort, and every beast of the field," to come to His " great sacrifice of the dead on the mountains of Israel : ye shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the EZEKIEVS CLOSING VISION. 241 blood of the princes of the earth " (38, 39). (4) The last Vision, which seems at once considerably later, and more elabo- rated, than the others, occurs on " a very high mountain " in the land of Israel, " whereon was as it were the frame of a city on the south "; and the chief glory of the city is the Temple, whose walls and courts and chambers and furniture are most carefully described : and into this Temple a magnificent efful- gence of the divine glory, seen in vision, enters, with the announcement, " this is the place of My throne, and the place of the soles of My feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel for ever": and then "all the ordinances of the house and all the laws thereof," and " a holy oblation of land " on each side of it, and an exact " dividing by lot for an inheritance " of the rest of the land among the tribes, and the issuing of a wondrous river of fertility eastward from the altar, are described: and prince and priests and people are enjoined to multiply joyous and acceptable sacrifices in the Temple of that city, whose enduring name shall be ^' Jehovah-is-There."" From this summary, it will appear that the closing group of glowing pictures combine in emphasising the sure dawning of future days of restoration and gladness, of signal privilege and of faithful service, by which the people should strive to comfort themselves, even amid their present un-exampled oppression and desolation. What Israel were to experience, forty or fifty years after the prophet wrote, cannot be held to exhaust the vista of future splendour and blessing, that opens before him : so far from exhausting his words, he does not even refer to the proclamation of Cyrus, nor to the builders of Zerubbabel, nor to the weakening of their hands, and the frustration of their purpose, by which they were beset : it is not any isolated inci- dent, nor any single generation, of the future, that fills his eye ; he is pointing to the glorious consummation, in which the true Israel, the true seed of Abraham, are to be exalted, when the S 2893. Q 242 SANCTUARY AND SACBIFICE. true " David " shall have been raised up as " the good Shep- herd," when the true " Temple " shall have been constructed as " an habitation for God through the Spirit." The restora- tions under Zerubbabel and Ezra were but partial, and un-satisfying, beginnings of a Resurrection, and an Ingather- ing, and a Purification, which God fulfils to His universal church in many ages, in many degrees, and in many ways. Not one of Ezekiel's glowing pictures can be fixed down as descriptive of one historical crisis, and of that crisis alone. They are full of a general and glorious blessedness, to which all the true Israel are served heirs. Such promises as these— "a new heart will I give you " ; "I will put My Spirit in you, and ye shall live, and come up out of your graves " ; *' David My servant shall be their prince for ever " ; " I will be magnified in the sight of many nations " ; "I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel for ever " ; " every living crea- ture, in every place whither the rivers come, shall live " ; " the fruit of the tree shall be for meat, and the leaf thereof for healing " — these are promises, which swell as key-notes, tlu'ough his whole succession of Apocalyptic anthems (33 — 48) ; they are promises, whose foundation was "the exceeding riches of God's grace," in every age that was to follow — promises, there- fore, through which not only the exiles by Chebar might be revived, as they " saw them through a glass darkly," but which, in their inexhaustible fulness, are held forth to the Church's believing admiration still, so that by them (as by the promise to Abraham) " all the families of the earth may more and more be blessed." II. That we are justified in this wide, and enduring, appli- cation of Ezekiel's Visions seems implied in the fact that, long after the ransomed from Babylon have been again driven, in fiercer judgment, to the ends of the earth, the imagery of EZEKIEVS CLOSING VISION, 243 Ezekiel still hovers around another exile, in Patmos ; and the glorious future of the Church is set forth, on the glowing pages of the Apocalypse of John, in Visions, which it is impossible not to associate with the group we are reviewing. We have a similar Vision of all hostile nations " as Gog and Magog, gathered from the four corners of the earth," to war against the saints, and suffering a tremendous divine overthrow. We have a similar Vision of the redeemed " gathered out of all tribes and kindreds," and of Him, w^ho is the root and offspring of " David," acting as their " Good Shepherd " who " shall feed them and lead them to living fountains of water." We have a similar Vision of " a river of water of life, bright as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb : and on this side of the river and on that was the tree of Hfe, bearing twelve manner of fruits, yielding its fruit every month : and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations ": this is almost a literal transcript from the last chapter but one of Ezekiel. And, to name only one other, we have a similar Vision of a resplendent and symmetrical city, when the prophet was " carried away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high," and when an angel there " showed him the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, and having the glory of God " ; and the angel " has a golden reed in his hand to measure the city " ; and its walls and gates and foun- dations are set down with loving exactitude ; and the grand truth, symbolised by all, is given as this, " Behold, the taber- nacle of God is with men, and He shall dwell with them, and they shall be His peoples, and God Himself shall be with them and be their God." What is this but Ezekiel's surpassing divine glory, entering, and filling, an Ideal Structure, whose enduring title thenceforth is " Jehovah-is- There " ? The analogies, thus indicated, are at once numerous, and un- mistakeable, and close. They lean on a common Inspiration, Q 2 244 SANCTUARY AND SACBIFICE. and they point to a common Future. And, in view of them, can it be doubted that He, whose " manifold wisdom " " sees the end from the beginning," has employed both Ezekiel and John, in similar striking and instructive metaphors, and in such modifications as suited their respective eras, to give assurance of His Omnipotent Reign of Grace, feebly adumbrated by a reviving Judaism, more memorably developed when the Word was made flesh, gradually unfolding as the heathen become Christ's heritage, and at last to be openly beheld and celebrated, when a multitude that no man can number shall be assembled on the mountains of Israel, when the dry bones of the dead, small and great, shall stand an exceeding great army before the great white throne, when the city " Jehovah-is-There " shall be thronged with worshippers that rest not day nor night from serving Him, and when the river, whose streams make glad the city, shall flow full and refreshing and fertilising for evermore ? III. The positive guidance, which we thus derive from the contents, and connection, of the Visions themselves, and also from their obvious free prolongation in the New Testament, may be said to be reflected, in negative form, in the utter abstinence of Ezekiel's Jewish successors from treating him as a prosaic legislator, fixing authoritatively breadths of porches, and num- bers of gate steps, and lengths of chambers, and kinds of animals for sin-offering, and priestly garments, and the tribal divisions of Canaan, and the square boundaries of Jerusalem. These are the details of which the Vision is full ; and, as regards none of these, is Ezekiel ever spoken of as the patron or the guide. The Christian Church has never taken the number of gates, and the precious materials, and the precise measurements of the Apocalyptic Jerusalem, either as fixing, with literal accuracy, our heavenly hopes, or as needing to be literally reflected, in any EZEKIEL'S CLOSING VISION. 245 earthly structures, which we build to the divine honour : she has been content to see in the Vision the pledge of a future inheri- tance of splendour and of purity, such as cannot " yet appear." And all the evidence at command leads to the conclusion that the Jewish church accepted Ezekiel's lofty Vision in a precisely similar manner : it was a pledge to them that God's promise to the seed of Abraham would yet meet with unspeakably glorious f ulfQments, a clear witness, along with the seven chapters which precede it, of the abounding prosperity and purity of the Messianic days, for which they longed. But they never made any attempt to literalise it, or to exhaust it, by applying it to the efforts, and to the fortunes, of the returned exiles, within a century of the time when the prophet wrote. They never speak of it as a sacred duty to make their second Jerusalem precisely after the fashion of Ezekiel's " frame of a city on the south": they never speak of having to lay off their second Temple in accordance with Ezekiel's " man like brass, with a line of flax in his hand, and a measuring reed," and of assigning to its courts, and to its chambers, and to its galleries, and to its cooking houses, their sizes and situations, precisely as his Vision fixed them : they never speak of having to locate the tribes, and assign their princes' residence, and trace out the new borders of Canaan, in conformity with the inexorable regula- tions laid down by Ezekiel. They plan and build, they worship and sacrifice, they fix dwellings and borders, and, in none of all these matters, do they proclaim themselves debtors to a Law, seen " in the visions of God " by the prophet of the Captivity. Such evidence may be but negative, yet it seems overwhelm- ing, that neither Ezekiel nor the people regarded his Vision as a hard-and-fast catalogue of prescriptions and ceremonies, to be rigidly carried out, on their first re-entering Canaan. Is it conceivable that they should never have traced their patriotic '24:Q SANCTUARY AND SACBIFICE. labours to the elaborate revelations given through him, that not one solitary reference to him should occur in connection with Temple precincts and city walls and peophng of the land, that, when their long and dangerous work was over, there should not be the shghtest commemoration of Grod's word by Ezekiel being now at last auspiciously fulfiUed, if they had re- garded their Jerusalem as the full embodiment of the city '' Jehovah-is-There,'' if they regarded the resplendent divine glory, and His people's holy services, and the universal heal- ing of the waters, as mainly, and sufficiently, reaUsed in the comparatively tame achievements of a Zerubbabel, or of a Nehemiah ? lY. This ignoring of Ezekiel as a legislator becomes further intelligible, and Wellhausen's ascription of far-reaching legis- lative intents to him becomes indefensible, when we consider that the Vision can be shown, in many particulars, to be abso- lutely incapable of hteral fulfilment. Not only did the returned exiles make no mention of Ezekiel's Vision, but they would have found the details of his Vision incapable of realisation, if they had made the attempt. We shall give several illustrations of this incapability, selected in such a manner as to show that it is characteristic, not of one section merely of the Vision, but of all its sections. Our author would not go to ^sop's Fables, and, while treating ninety-nine of them as fiction, ask us to accept the hundredth as matter of fact. Neither should he go to Ezekiel's storehouse of Ideals, and select one of them (to suit his whim) as the most pronounced embodiment of the Real. The following are samples of the Ideality of the Vision : (1) Suppose the returned exiles had looked to Ezekiel's Vision for direction as to the site of their restored city and Temple, they would have found that even this elementary point EZEKIEL'S CLOSING VISION. 247 is left quite un-defined, and un-discoverable. All they would have found was this : " In the Visions of God brought he me into the land of Israel, and set me down upon a very high mountain." What definite clue could be extracted from that ? They might have wandered from Dan to Beersheba, without any certainty as to when the scene of Ezekiel's Vision was before them. If it suited Wellhausen, he would soon tell us that there is no fixing here of any definite locality, that nothing but unconscious ^^repossession makes us hurry to identify the scene with Zion, that such a petty eminence as Zion cannot possibly be shadowed forth as "a very high mountain," and that thus, on the very threshold of the Vision, we have the clearest demonstration of its quite indefinite and ideal character. Of any exclusive reference to a literal Jeru- salem, and to a literal Zion, Ezekiel "knows nothing": and, if the very foundation be ideal, how can the superstructure be made material and real ? (2) The same reasoning applies to the dimensions of the city as to its site. By no possibihty can its dimensions be made to correspond with those of Jerusalem. It is to be an exact square, each side four thousand five hundred reeds, so that " it shall be eighteen thousand reeds round about." This seems to represent fully thirty-six miles, and, if so, it is more than eight times the size of Jerusalem ! Josephus reckons the circuit of the city in his day to be little more than four miles. Do not such facts turn to utter folly the attempt to Kteralise Ezekiel's Vision ? Will Wellhausen hold that Zerubbabel was a trans- gressor, in not squaring, and sizing, the city, as " the Visions of God " directed ? (3) The same impossibility of literal realisation adheres to the minute and exact measurements of the holy oUation of land, in the midst of Israel, for the Levites, for the priests, for the Temple, for the city, and for the prince. The whole is a purely 248 SANCTUARY AND SACBIFICE. symbolic picture, which no ingenuity could have actualised in Canaan : it represents the city and its suburbs (alone) as about forty miles by eight : " Ye shall appoint the possession of the city five thousand (reeds) broad and five and twenty thousand long, side by side with the oblation of the holy portion : it shall be for the whole house of Israel," "it shall be for common use, for the city, for dwelling and for suburbs." The portion of territory, thus rigidly defined, is styled the Lord's " heave-offering." No such " offering " ever was, or could have been, Hterally presented to Him in Judah. (4) We add next that, while the city and its adjacent land are thus " polemical " against being literally understood, the rest of Canaan, as a tvhole, is equally " offended " at Ezekiel's measuring reed : it will not shape itself into conformity with it at all. Whoever carried out the precepts of Ezekiel's " Tor ah,'' in their stern literality, would have had to take up the Jordan in the hollow of his hand, and carry it Eastward, and straighten its course : he would have had to deal likewise with the Mediterranean, and make an extensive rectification of its Eastern waters ; he would have had to accomphsh sundry other geographical feats, too many to mention. Ezekiel idealises the whole land, as completely as he idealises Zion, if he intends it for the un-defined " very high mountain." He is not laying down arrangements, to be slavishly and literally followed, he is giving general and symbolical illustrations, whose main aim is to estabhsh the people, and every coming age as well, in the assurance of essential spiritual truth and hope. (5) Xeed we add how apphcable the same criticism is to the description of " the glory of the God of Israel coming from the way of the East, and His voice was like the sound of many waters, and the earth shined with His glory : and the glory of the Lord came into the house by the way of the gate whose prospect is toAvard the East " ? Was there ever any such EZEKIEL'S CLOSING VISION. 249 entrance of the divine glory by any Eastern gate which the returned exiles set up ? (6) And what of another equally memorable association with that Eastern gate ? What of the " waters issuing from under the threshold of the house Eastward," which rose till they were " waters to swim in a river that could not be passed through," the direction of whose flow, and the produce of whose banks, and the efficacy of whose healing virtue, are all so carefully enforced on the prophet by his guide with the measuring reed ? Beneath the rock of the Temple hill there was a most useful spring, " the waters of Shiloah that go softly," but, if that is had in view at all, how completely is it exceeded, and forgotten, in the broad fertilising river, which so clearly shadows forth the " fulness of the blessing of the Gospel," to which Jew and Gentile alike, " whosoever will, may come and take freely of the water of life " ! By no possibility could that river, so prominent, and so minutely described, in the prophet's Vision, have been actualised by the returned exiles. That river is as circumstantially, and lovingly, outlined as any section of the Vision, yet it has only an ideal flow. N"ow, here is our argument from these extended illustrations. When every successive landmark of the Vision is thus incapable of literal execution, when the site is ideal, when the house is ideal, when the city is ideal, when the divine glory is ideal, when the prince's residence is ideal, when the divisions of the land are ideal, when the river flowing from the sanctuary is ideal, with what consistency, or authority, can we strip off this ideal character from the sacrifices, which are represented as offered in this ideal house, for this ideal people, by this ideal prince ? Where all else is symbol, how is hard hterality to be affixed to the sacrifices ? There is not the slightest hint of a descent from symbolism in that department of the Vision, and in that alone. If Ezekiel was to write to be understood, it 250 SAXCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. was natural for him to represent the future and glorious divine service, on which he expatiates, under the figures of Temple and priest and sacrifice. John, in Patmos, might say of the New Jerusalem, which he beheld in vision, " I saw no Temple therein," for he wrote for an age, when Judaism and its Temple had waxed old and vanished away : but, for Ezekiel's age, a glorious divine service would hardly have been apprehensible, unless cast in the moulds of sacrifice. The 51st Psalm, while realising the inadequacy of mere material offerings (" Thou requirest not sacrifice, else would I give it ; Thou delightest not in burnt-offering "), yet looks forward to " sacrifices of righteousness," offered in "Zion," as the readiest available symbol of future accepted faithfulness ('Hhen shalt Thou delight in burnt-offering and whole burnt-offering : then shall they offer bullocks upon Thine altar "). And so Ezekiel, in the midnight of captivity, cannot describe the dawning of better days, without most naturally employing the mountain of God's holiness, and the city of our solemnities, and the altar with its costly offerings, as emblematic of that future inexhaustible blessedness, of which God mspired him to give assurance. But he noivhere indicates that the sacrifices are less ideal than the mountain, and the city, and the inheritance, and the prince, with which they are associated. He does not even mention the ending of the Captivity, and the return to Zion, and the repair- ing of the walls, so far is he from having that era exclusively in his eye. There are ideality, and symbolism, stamped un- mistakeably from end to end of his Vision ; and it is mere wanton self-pleasing, instead of consistent criticism, to separate from a host of Ideals one quite undistinguished from the rest, and compel it to wear a garb of Realism. V. A conclusive corroboration of what has just been urged is derived by looking at the future worship in the second EZEKIEL'S CLOSING VISION. 251 Temple. We have compared the sacrifices with the other con- tents of the Vision : compare them now with the sacrifices of those, for whom the Vision is declared to have served as a " programme." Assume the truth of this " programme " fancy ; assume that, for the first time in Israel's history, a ritual Law was at length written down in God's name by Ezekiel ; assume that a specially august revelation of the divine glory was vouchsafed to him, as a preliminary to his carefully noting down what must be the sacrificial praxis of a post-Exilic Temple ; assume this, and is it conceivable that " they of the Captivity " should not merely have left his novel and solemn direction of them absolutely un-referred to, but should have established essential ordinances, which do not receive the remotest notice, or sanction, from his Vision ? Yet that they did so is quite notorious. We shall specify a few examples. (1) Ezekiel never names a high-priest, yet that was by far the most influential Jewish functionary of post-Exilic time. Are we to suppose that Ezekiel was selected to prescribe for the people '^ all the ordinances of the house, and all the forms thereof, and all the laws thereof," and yet that he has omitted all reference to the chief est of all ? (2) The Day of Atonement does not get the slightest notice from Ezekiel, that day, on which alone the most holy place was entered, and the mercy-seat was sprinkled, and all the people's forgetfulnesses, for the past year, were confessed and expiated. Is this conceivable on the theory that he was receiving a definite, and authoritative, programme for the people's future service ? (3) The Feast of Pentecost is not referred to, — that feast which was afterwards signalised as the occasion of the baptism of the Christian Church with the Promise of the Father : (4) nor are the feast on the first day of the seventh month, the memorial of blowing of trumpets, and various other undoubted sacrificial laws of Judaism, at all referred to. 252 SAKCTUAEY AND SACRIFICE. "We are not urging, nor do we, in the least, need to suppose, that these laws and appointments were unknown to Ezekiel. We can readily believe that he was quite familiar with them, though he was not instructed to incorporate the whole of Leviticus in liis Vision. It is susceptible of proof that he was acquainted with ordinances of Leviticus, which he has not formally prescribed. We see, for example, that, though the laws of the jubilee year are not laid down, there is an incidental reference, which implies his knowledge of them : " but if the prince give of his inheritance a gift to one of his servants, it shall be his to the year of liberty ; then it shall return to the prince " : could anything show more clearly that he can rely on his readers' famiharity with the details of the Levitical Code ? So, again, when he uses the expressions, " in all the appointed feasts of the house of Israel," and "when the people of the land shall come before the Lord in the appointed feasts," we do not say that it is demonstrated, but we do say that it is rendered a most natural inference, that he knows of more than the two feasts (Passover and Tabernacles) which he has specified, and that he can rely on the people's familiarity with " the set feasts of the Lord, even holy convocations," prescribed in the Law of Moses. Other similar apparent pre-suppositions might be noted. We need not doubt, therefore, but the High Priest, and Day of Atonement, and Pentecost, were quite familiar to him, though they are not legislated for in his Vision. We have already urged that the employment of sacrificial ritual was a practical necessity to him. In describing the glorious future of the divine kingdom, beginning feebly with a restored Israel, but, in its deepest meaning, extending far into ]\Iessianic days, he could hardly write intelligibly, without pre- senting the faithful worship of the kingdom in the drapery of Mosaic ordinances : he freely uses these ordinances, not exhaustively, but in many prominent particulars, specially, EZEKIELS CLOSING VISION. 253 perhaps, such as may fitly symbolise the pure hearts, and united praises, and un-interrupted zeal, wherewith He, who is a Spirit, would be worshipped everywhere in spirit and in truth. The principle, that guided the sacrificial selections, is not revealed to us, was probably not fully revealed to himself ; and we cannot be wise above what is written. His Vision seems natu- rally read, as embodying selected rites from a well-known ritual, yet, at the same time, as marked by such variations aud omissions, as would readily suggest, to his reflective reader, that the ultimate satisfaction of God will not be in " the letter that killeth, but in the spirit that giveth life." We can thus reasonably explain, on the one hand, why his legal references should be so abundant, and, on the other hand, why his fellow- countrymen should so entirely ignore him as a legislator, and why they never dream of any exact re-production of what he saw "in the Visions of God" only, when he was "set down upon a very high mountain." VI. It only remains for us to ask. If our author regards " all the laws of the house " as equivalent to " all the laws of the second Temple," what can he make of the glaring disparity be- tween the Priestly Code and Ezekiel's Vision ? How could the people afterwards trifle with, and go beyond, a " programme," that had been communicated with such unparalleled solemnity ? Our author's assertion is that the Priestly Code " corresponds COMPLETELY " to Ezekiel's vision, and is its " realised pic- ture " ! (p. 60.) His further assertion is, " Ezekiel's departure from the ritual of the Pentateuch cannot be explained as inten- tional alterations of the original : they are too casual and insig- nificant (p. 60). That is to say, the Pentateuchal ritual and the Ezekielian ritual are practically identical documents, " corre- sponding completely," the variations being " too casual and insignificant " to make a fuss about. 254 SAXCTUAEY AXD SACRIFICE. It is impossible not to marvel at such a daring inconsistency of statement. (1) When it suits him, he can make the high- priesthood little short of the pivot of the whole priestly legis- lation : " The copestone of the sacred structure, reared by the legislation of the middle books of the Pentateuch, is the high- priest " (p. 148) : " 0?ili/ in the high priest, at a single point and in a single moment, has Israel immediate contact with Jehovah. The apex of the pyramid touches heaven " (p. 149). Is it not effrontery for the writer of these sentences to have written (120 pages earlier in the same volume) that, though Ezekiel had elided the high-priesthood from the Pentateuch, the alteration would have been only "casual and insignifi- cant " ? (2) In like manner, irhen it stats him, he can make the Day of Atonement incomparably the most memorable of all days in the Priestly Code : " In the Priestly Code, in a certain sense the great Day of Atonement is the culmination of the tvhoJe religious and sacrificial service " (p. 80) : " In the Priestly Code, the great fast in the tenth of the seventh month has become the holiest day in all the year^' (p. 112) : " unless a man has wholly cut himself adrift from Judaism, he keeps this day, however indifferent he may be to all its other usages and feasts" (p. 112). What is to be thought of the same writer, on his previous p. 60, declaring that, though Ezekiel had omitted the Day of Atonement in a reheai-sal of the Pentateuch, the alteration would have been but " casual and insignificant " ? (3) It could be shown also how ready our author is, as occasion calls, to glorify the antiquity of Pente- cost as a feast : " Easter is the opening, as Pentecost is the closing, of the seven weeks' joy of harvest " (p. 87) : it is one of those indispensable annual festivals " the occasions for which recur regularly with the seasons of the year " (p. 89) " which rest upon agriculture, the basis a^t once of life and of religion " (p. 91). Is it not strange that Ezekiel should "know EZEKIEL'S CLOSING VISION. 255 nothing" of a festival, so ancient, and so inseparable from God's gifting the Holy Land to Israel, and that, even though he had struck out that festival from his version of Mosaic Law, the alteration was but " casual and insignificant " ? It is impossible for Wellhausen to avoid the conclusion that, if Ezekiel was the first to draw up a sacrificial ritual for the restored of Judah, then not only is it a ritual which neither historian nor prophet, in their thanklessness, ever deign to notice, but it is- also a ritual, which is lamentably imperfect regarding matters so vital as to involve " the cojJestone of the sacred structure^'' " the culmination of the ivhole servke^^ " the holiest ceremonies of all the year^' and " the lasts at once of life and of religion.^' Talk of swallowing a camel ! why, the writer who can assert that Ezekiel's Law is inconceivable, as a re- modelling of Pentateuchal Law, because the alterations are " too casual and insignificant," is, by that assertion, swallowing not one but a hundred camels, and yet he is the writer whose habitude, on almost every page, is to be " straining out " the tiniest of " gnats." We have thus endeavoured to show that the closing chapters of Ezekiel contain no approach to a declaration that they are laying down buildings, and offerings, and tribal divisions, which would fall to be literally executed, as soon as the decree of Cyrus should take effect ; that the prophet never describes himself as the pioneer of a new departure in sacrificial law ; that none of his post-Exilic successors ever point to him as their new sacrificial guide, or as a sacrificial guide at all ; that he himself points to Moses in the wilderness, as the deliverer of " statutes " and " judgments," whose transgression have caused the Captivity ; that his Closing Vision is stamped, all through, with a glowing symbolism, any attempt to actualise which in Canaan would have been manifoldly impracticable ; and that, 256 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. from Lis specimens of sacrifice in particular, there are absent sundry elements, whose indispensableness for the second Temple our author, when occasion serves, uses the strongest language in emphasising. The attempt, therefore, to set up Ezekiel as a new sacrificial legislator, throwing discredit on the most vehement repudiations of earlier prophets, and sketching what must henceforth be a new and binding Law for Judaism, is an attempt, to which neither his own Book, nor the Books of his successors in the canon, lend the slightest countenance. ( 257 ) A' CHAPTER YII. wellhausen's ezekelian romance. LL this time, while the previous chapter was being read, we count it no marvel though the question has often been rising to the reader's hps, " What of those two pages of WeUhausen, into which you said his views are compressed, and which you advised us to scan most carefully, before going on to read your strictures ? " We pointedly suggest that question now, and we acknowledge, at the same time, that we have as yet made only one quotation (viz.^ that as to " alterations " being " too casual and insignificant "), towards the close of our last chapter, from the two pages referred to. Why has this been ? Our answer is simple and (we think) such as to expose very suitably the mingled bluster, and evasiveness (elsewhere as well as here), of our author's tactics. He will often give pages of quotation, when they seem to offer a superficial succour to his views : at other times, when his pronouncements are most dogmatic, and when they would be "polemical" against quotations, no quotations are forthcoming. That is what strikes us in his treatment of Ezekiel. The reason, why we have made no quotations from his two pages, is, because they contain prac- tically no presentation whatever of the contents of Ezekiel, and we have had, therefore, in the preceding chapter, to svppihj his extraordinary and transparent evasion. He makes Ezekiel the great inaugurator of a change in divine procedure, wliich would have been the abhorrence of all previous prophets : before swallowing such a representation, is it not reasonable to expect very full and definite proof of its warrantableness ? May we S 2893. K 258 SANCTUARY AND SACBIFICE. not expect some quotations from Ezekiel, showing that God has appeared to him, with the above extraordinary design ? May we not expect some quotations, contrasting the freedom, that has hitherto reigned, with the bondage, that is henceforth to be set up ? May we not expect quotations, in which he warns the peo23le that, while they may ere long get free of Babylonian fetters, he is himself forging worse ritualistic fetters for them, " a yoke which neither they nor their children will be able to bear," when they return to Zion ? May we not expect some quotations, showing his clear commission, illustrating the in- flexible terms in which he lays down his rules, and giving some specification of the period, and of the circumstances, when these rules are to acquire their binding force ? Yet of such quota- tions Wellhausen's two pages are absolutely barren. He does not give a solitary quotation from the Book of Ezekiel : he devolves on the prophet the most extraordinary transformation of Israel's condition, as worshippers of Jehovah, but he does not quote from him a single intimation of the change, nor a single sample of how the new worship is to be in contrast with the old. Had there been a single statement, from Ezekiel's pen, of how he differed from Isaiah and Hosea in his attitude to sacrifice, of how G-od had singled him out to revolutionise the estabhshed usage of all previous ages, that statement would have been written, and written ten times again, on Wellhausen's page. But he can present nothing of the kind. He names Ezekiel as the greatest of transmogrifiers, but he does not allow the boards of his Book to be opened, lest we should see how the prophet himself describes the new part, which he thus plays. He puts Ezekiel into the witness-box, to testify to a unique national experience, but, before we get a word from the prophet's lips, he has hurried him out of the witness-box, and we have to take Wellhausen's (characteristically dogmatic) assurance for what the prophet's testimony would have been, WELLHAUSEirS EZEKELIAN EOMANCE. 259 had he been allowed to speak ! In plain terms, not a single quotation from the eight closing chapters of Ezekiel, nor from any other part of Ezekiel's Book, is given on the two pages of Wellhausen, with which we are now occupied. Let any one turn back, and read again our exhaustive quotation of the two pages, and confute us, if he can. It is for these reasons that we have felt compelled, in the preceding chapter, to open Ezekiel's Closing Vision, to open his whole Book, to open the Books of those who succeed him, to see if there is any confirmation of the extraordinary character, in which our author presents " the priest in prophet's mantle," as a marvellous innovator in the department of sacrifice. The innovation is declared to be at once "striking" and " sudden" (p. 59). Surely then it ought to be easily, and abundantly, illustrated, and proved, from the records. Yet, instead of that, when we have insisted on opening them, we find that the prophet prefers not the slightest claim to be an innovator ; we find that no subsequent writer quotes him, as having made the slightest fixture in sacrificial praxis ; we find the returned exiles never dreaming that they have a Law of Ezekiel to remember, and to execute ; we find his so-called " picture " an incorrect, and essentially defective, picture of their praxis ; and we find it is all included in a Grand Symbolical Vision, which, is never once prescribed as hterally binding, and which, it has been shown, in manifold parts, it would have been abso- lutely impossible for the Israehtes, or for any one else, to have actuahsed in the land of Canaan. What is to be thought of a writer, who never faces such circumstances, who offers no explanation of them, who does not give the slightest deline- ation, nor examination, of a single chapter of Ezekiel, asking us, on his mere ipse dixit, to regard Ezekiel as a notable sacrificial legislator, and then hurrying on, with a triumphant quod erat demonstrandum^ without a scintilla of demomtration ? B 2 260 SANCTUARY AND SACEIFICE. Every one, who is versed in Wellliausenianism, is aware of the clamant need for our dwelling, so emphatically, on the in- adequacy of the proof, which our author offers, for the unique mission, which he assigns to Ezekiel. This mission is one of the certainties, which are made to run as indisputable axioms, from end to end of Wellhausen's volume. We have seen how ready he is to solicit succour from Cain and Naaman : we have seen what a God-send he is ever ready to find in Gideon : but Ezekiel is more frequently, and more imperiously, appealed to than all the three ; he is perpetually spoken of, as a new in- structor compared with earlier prophets, as one who laid down new views, and new laws, of Israelitish sacrifice. It is well, therefore, at this our first encountering Ezekiel on Wellhausen's pages, to take his view of him to pieces, and show that it rests wholly on — Imagination. Having thus sufficiently noted 2vhat is not to be found on Wellhausen's two pages, let us now, in a few short paragraphs, consider tvhat is to be found on them. Are the representations there made consistent with fact ? and are they consistent with Wellhausen's representations elsewhere ? We shall endeavour to deal with the creations of his fancy, even more exhaustively than we have dealt with the positive contents of Ezekiel's Book. And, as we do so, we shall not be unmindful of othei' parts of his theory, with which his Ezekelianism has great need to be contrasted. I. The following is his " simple " explanation of " the his- torical circumstances," which ought at once to reconcile us to his view of Ezekiel : — " So long as the sacrificial worshijj remained in actual use, it was zealously carried on, but peoi:)le did not concern themselves with it theoretically, and had not the least occasion for reducing it to a code. But once the Temple was in ruins, the cultus at an end, its WELLHAU SEN'S EZEKELIAN BOMANCE. 261 personnel out of employment, it is easy to uiiderstand how the sacred praxis should have become a matter of theory and writing, so that it might not altogether perish, and how an exiled priest should have begun to paint the picture of it as he carried it in his memory, and to publish it as a jDrogramme for the future restora* tion of the theocracy " (pp. 59, 60). It will be observed, from the above, that the reason why Ezekiel was the first to codify sacrifice, was, because he was the first prophet who lived in an age when such codification would be natural. Other prophets long before might have had the start of him, but they never had a reasonable opportunity. Sacrifice may be inaugurated, and may become practised by a whole nation, Avithout any necessity for a code. One gene- ration may transmit its sacrificial customs to another for a thousand years, national festivals may come regularly round, with " the greatest splendour," and with " all the rules of priestly skill," and yet it would be absurd to suggest the need of any ritual for the guidance of a priesthood. It is only when the nation has ceased to be a nation, and when its sacrifices have ceased to be offered, that any idea of codifying its ritual, for preservation, could reasonably enter into a legislator's mind. Ezekiel was the first, who experienced such surround- ings ; therefore it was the most natural thing in the world that he should be the first to take to the writing out of sacrificial laws, which it had never entered into the head of priest or prophet or king, in all past ages, to write out. Such is the " explanation." We shall at once state three objections, which are fatal to it. (1) It is pure Noldeldsm. It tells us what ought to happen, or what " must have happened," in the matter of sacrificial codification. But we would rather have been told " tvliat actually took place" {p. 46). Instead of a bushel of " musts," we would have preferred a single grain of Scriptural fact. Instead of an imaginary di'eam of what people might feel 262 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. " occasion for," or of what " it is easy to understand " might pass through Ezekiel's mind, we would have preferred some small morsel of statement, % the prophet himself, that he was striving to save a vanished ritual from " perishing," and that he was assuming a codifying attitude, which was " polemical " against all the prophets who preceded him. Of this our author can give us not a shred. (2) Our second objection to the " explanation " is that it is anti-WeJlhausenian. In offering it, has our author no regard to the principles, on which he has represented the Jehovist, and the Deuteronomist, as framing their legislation ? Along with a variety of other laws, the Jehovist has regulations as to the materials and steps of the people's altars, the periods of their feasts, and the exclusion of leaven from their j^assovers. Even a moiety of his regulations are enough to enable our author to fix the Jehovist's date. Xow, in fixing it, on what principle does he proceed ? He proceeds on the principle that the Jeho- vist must be held as photographing the religious worship which he saw in full and regular swing around him ! — not as waiting till " the Temple is in ruins," and the "altars of earth " have been abolished, but as sitting down to write " a glorification of the relations and arrangements of the cultus " (p. 32) as they existed in his own age, and as ihQYohj proving his age to be " the first centuries of the divided kingdom " (p. 32) ! Why was there no one to whisper the Wellhausenian secret to the Jehovist, and tell him he was doing what there was " not the least occasion for," and that he should never make "the relations and arrangements of the cultus " " become a matter of ^vTiting," till their day is past, and they are like to be for- gotten ? The Jehovist does not " paint a picture " from "memory," he must be held as refiecting, in his Code, "a glorification of present cultus." And what of the Deuteronomist ? AVe only require him to WELLHAU SEN'S EZEKELIAN ROMANCE. 263 supply the copestone of absurdity. For, if Ezekiel " paints " the past, and if the Jehovist " paints " the present, the Deuter- onomist " paints " the future ! The Deuteronomist neither sees, nor has read of, the arrangements of worship, which he prescribes ; he legislates only in hope ; his indignation is roused by "the things (in worship) which we do here this day " ; he cannot photograph these ; his age is fixed by the fact that he writes a legislation, which is " only in its birth- throes " (p. 38), which " has still to struggle for the victory against the praxis of the present " (p. 38). Had he known the secret of " Higher Criticism," he would never have penned such legislation ; he would have waited till the " cultus," which he favoured, had been established, and had then faded, and was in peril of being utterly forgotten, before he made it " become a matter of theory and writing." (3) Our third objection is that the " explanation " is not only " polemical " against Wellhausen, but that it is also " polemical " against common sense. It lays down a principle, which is gro- tesquely improbable. We appeal to any reader of ordinary intelligence whether it is usual for nations, or for legislators, to wait till nationality is effaced, and till laws have passed away, before they think of writing them down, " so that they may not altogether perish." Is it not usual for the great founders of nations to start them on their career with the wisest code of laws that they can conceive ? And is it not usual for these laws to be expanded, and developed, in accordance with the nation's advancing experience ? Are there any instances on record, where sacrificial laws, or any other kind of laws, have reigned, for centuries, among a literary people, and have been deliberately left un-codified, till national effacement had oc- curred, and till a fear arose that their "memory" might " altogether perish " ? It may be that such procedure is not absolutely inconceivable ; but mere conceivability is not the 264: SANCTUABY AND SACBIFICE. slio:htest proof of its utterly improbable occurrence : and neither Ezekiel, nor his contemporaries, nor his successors, give us the least hint that he is making up for such extraordinary omis- sions, on the part of all who had preceded him. II. "We said there were three objections to " the explanation " by Wellhausen, which we are criticising, and we have stated them. These objections were founded on the legislative indo- lence, which he ascribes to all the leaders of Israel, in pre- Ezekelian days. But there is still a fourth objection, of a totally different kind, suggested by the concluding clause of " the explanation." How could Ezekiel hiow that the laws, which he was so laboriously writing down, would ever be needed ? Our author tells us, in that concluding clause, that he " pubHshed them as a programme for the future restoration of the theocracy "! Surely, when he was penning these words, Wellhausen resembled Peter on the Mount, who " spake, not knowing what he said." Do not these words amount to a covert appropriation of that tcretched super-natiircdism^ whose extirpation might almost be regarded as the main object of the Prolegomena^ How could Ezekiel possibly know that there would ever be a " restoration ".^ He was " one of the first to be carried into exile " (p. 59) ; instead of betterment, the troubles of the remnant multiplied after his departure, till the city was utterly laid waste ; year after year was leaving them by the banks of the Chebar, without a sign of hoj^e ; how could Ezekiel possibly be convinced that the grasp of Babylon would relax, that the city " Jehovah-is-Tliere " would replace Jerusalem, that a new Temple, " the place of My throne, and the j^lace of the soles of My feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel for ever," would arise, and that prince and priests and people would be again thronging to the annual festivals with un,bounded gladness ? WELLHAU SEN'S EZEKELIAN BOMANCE. 265 We know with what unspeakable scorn the idea of miraculous foresight can be treated, when occasion serves. The record of a man of God telling Eli, long before, of the priesthood of Zadok, is instinctively repudiated as fiction, it shows the passage " cannot have been written long before the Exile " (p. 126) : the record of another man of God telling Jeroboam that a king of David's house, Josiah by name, would long afterwards destroy his temple, is dismissed as " the most unblushing example of historical worthlessness " (p. 285) : we are perpetually told that the Deutero-Isaiah must not only have been Exilic, but that he could only have written towards the very close of the Exile, when Cyrus's name and advancing power were in every- body's mouth : why is Ezekiel to be accorded a privilege, which, to these three prophets, is scornfully denied ? His sure foresight of a restored Temple is not a whit less extraordinary and miraculous than the foresight of Zadok, or of Josiah, or of Cyrus. He saw no indication of a Medo-Persian empire rising to supremacy : he saw nothing to foreshadow the down- come of the colossal strength of Babylon : he knew that the Ten Tribes had been scattered for 150 years, with no sign of a " restoration " : he saw no likelihood of his dispirited exiles, either in themselves, or with neighbouring aid, being able to measure swords with the oppressor : what certainty could he have that, ere two generations had passed, Cyrus would have risen up, Nebuchadnezzar's empire would have been shattered, and Zerubbabel and Haggai would be busy, amid the ruins of Jerusalem, encouraging a neither very imposing, nor very hearty, host of returned exiles ? And yet, without the absolute certainty of such occurrences as these, how ludicrous to picture the oppression ended, to picture " the frame of a city on the south of an exceeding high mountain," and to " publish " an elaborate "programme" (such as his nation had never known before) for the future sacrificial praxis of that imaginary city ! 266 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. We, of course, believe (as poor traditionalists must swallow anything) that Ezekiel was infallibly assured of a "restora- tion " : but, on the naturalistic grounds, which monopolise, and inspire, every page of his Prolegomena, how can Well- hausen believe it ? If the prophecy on Eli's sons, a few years at most beforehand, " in one day they shall die both of them," was an incredible " anticipation," showing the passage con- taining it to be of "recent date" (p. 49), how was is possible for Ezekiel to " anticipate " a " restoration of the theocracy," seeing that his prophetic functions ceased, while the fortunes of his nation were only deepening into darker gloom, and while the might of Nebuchadnezzar, their oppressor, seemed as immovable as ever ? Wellhausen would have covered such an " anticipation " with scorn, had it not been that his farce of an Ezekehan " programme " necessarily embraces it. The very fact, that he has to array himself in such ultra-supernatural raiment, is surely a grotesque commentary on the lofty inex- orableness, with which he is ever sweeping the supernatural from his pages. Be it noted, at all events, that his first sacri- ficial legislator not only waits, till both nation and praxis are annihilated, before he begins to codify, but that he codifies for a community, and for a situation, which are non-existent, and of whose future arising (except on supernatural grounds) he can have no possible knowledge. III. We pass next to what immediately follows the "expla- nation," which we have just criticised. As if fearing that the " explanation " would not be easily swallowed, our author adds an insinuating plea for it, as follows : — " ISTor is there any difficulty " {i.e. in accepting the foregoing explanation) " if arrangements, which as long as they were actually in force were simply regarded as natural, were seen after their abolition in a transfiguring fight, and from the study devoted to WELLHAUSEN'S EZEKELIAN ROMAXCE. 267 them gained ai-tificially a still higher value. These historical condi- tions supplied by the Exile suffice to make clear the transition from Jeremiah to Ezekiel, and the genesis of Ezekiel 40—48 " (p. 60). We would not be afraid to leave these sentences, without comment, to the appreciation of any reader, who has followed what we have already written. Yet, in view of the certainty and importance, which our author seems to assign to them, it may be well to show how fruitful they be made of illustrations of the utter incongruousness of his views, and how far we are from needing to shirk any argument, which he has chosen to advance. He thinks there is not " any difficulty "; our feeling is that the " difficulties " are legmi : and we think the follow- ing strictures will make tolerably evident the random incon- sistency, with which our author writes. (1) The whole quotation is just a bundle of "«/s," for that little conjunction ("«/") governs all the predicates. If the people merely regarded praxis as " natural " before the Cap- tivity : If sacrificial arrangements appeared " in a transfiguring light " in Babylon : If a long course of " study " was expended on sacrifice by the exiles : If the value of sacrifices was " artifi- cially " heightened in their eyes. These may be a succession of happy (or, as we think, very ^mhappy) guesses ; but they are certainly nothing more than guesses. Certain on-goings in Babylon are imagined : the conditions of the Exile are said to render these on-goings conceivable ; but, for the fact that these on-goings actually occurred^ we have not a grain of positive evidence. Our author may hold that they are likely Imaginations, but he cannot deny that they are purely — Ima- ginations. There is no approach to a direct enforcement of them throughout Ezek. 40 — 48. (2) It is equally obvious to urge that this quotation, and the immediately preceding one which we have analysed, com- bine in showing that the exiles brought back nothing neii\ 268 SANCTUAEY AND 8ACBIFICE. or strange, with them, in the matter of sacrificial praxis, when Cyrus sent them home from Babylon. They were only bringing back a "sacrificial worship" (p. 59) which had, throughout previous ages, " remained in actual use " (p. 59) ; they were only re-establishing " arrangements " (p. 60) which, as part of immemorial custom, had been "actually in force" (p. 60). The worship was the same ; only, while no body had ever before thought of a written description of it, Ezekiel had now written it down. There is no wide gulf between pre-Exilic and post-Exihc sacrifice ; the latter is just the former, saved from "perishing," freshly written down from "memory," restored to an " actual force and use," which Nebuchadnezzar had, for a time, interrupted. This identity may be intelligible to a fossil traditionalist ; but how is it intelligible to a believer in (what we have styled) Wellhausen's Arcadian dream of sacrifice, on pp. 76-78 ? There, as regards the occasions, and the contents, and the offerers, and the aims, of sacrifice, pre-Exilic is painted as unlike to post-Exilic as kernel to husk, or as life to death ! (3) May it not be asked, too, in view of this identity, what practical necessity there was for EzekiePs " programme " ? If he knew of the " restoration," he would also know that about half of the seventy years of the Captivity were run. There were not to be centuries of intermitted, and un-remembered, ritual : when the foundation of the second Temple was laid, there were to be " nicmy of the priests and Levites and heads of fathei's' houses, old men that had seen the first house " (Ezra 3.12). If these "many priests" could remember "the first house," could they not remember the details of its praxis too ? What was the use of Ezekiel, as an outrage on all previous beliefs, bringing in the innovation of sacrificial laws being written down, and divinely fixed ? They had extemporised these laws easily enough in every post-Mosaic age : why might not the same free extemporising prove reliable again, specially WELLHAUSEN'8 EZEKELIAN ROMANCE. 269 when " many " survivors from the " first house " were present at laying the foundation of the second ? None of the Judges ever thought of codifying praxis, " as they carried it in their memory," amid the lengthened oppressions of Moab, or of Midian, or of Philistia : Elijah never thought of codifying praxis " to save it from altogether perishing," though he felt that God's true worship was so abrogated that "I only am left " : and Ezekiel might safely enough have trusted to the "memory" of the "many priests," who were to return so soon under Cyrus, to save pre-Exilic usage from "perishing." There was no need-be for his codifying what had been well enough invented, and preserved, for hundreds of years : nor does he ever say that he is bringing in the unexampled innovation of making sacrifice "a matter of theory and writing." (4) But our author's thesis is "polemical" against itself from another point of view. What kind of " actual use " was it that Ezekiel and the people could treasure, in so sadly affectionate memory, and could be so bent on preserving ? It was the vile and abominable practices that had cost them their national existence ! " They have defiled My holy name by their abominations which they have committed : wherefore I have consumed them in Mine anger " (Ezek. 43. 8) : that is a "memory," from the very heart of his Vision. "Surely be- cause thou has defiled My sanctuary with all thy detestable things, and with all thine abominations, therefore will I also diminish thee" (5. 11). "Her priests have done violence to My Law, and have profaned Mine holy things ; they have put no difference between the holy and the common, neither have they caused men to discern between the unclean and the clean, and have hid their eyes from My Sabbaths, and I am profaned among them" (22. 26). The pre-Exilic "actual use" had been a mass of abominations : how could Ezekiel look back on 270 SANCTUABY AXD SACRIFICE. these with pleasure, and write them down (in case they should "perish" !), " as a programme for the future restoration of the theocracy " ? The retrospect of praxis was a retrospect of what was despicable and God-dishonouring : how could the fond stereotyping of that ensure propriety, and divine accep- tance, when Canaan should be re-entered ? Our author cannot urge that the " actual use " was a dedensioii from a sounder and divinely appointed cultus, and that it was on this latter cultus that Ezekiel looked back : for, according to him, divine regu- lation of sacrifice is a pre-Exilic impossibility. It is difficult to avoid the conviction that he is again unconsciously mas- querading in traditionalist clothes : for how could he possibly represent Ezekiel as glorifying pre-Exilic praxis into a continuing and divine post-Exilic requirement, if not the slightest revela- tion of the divine will, regarding sacrificial worship, had hitherto taken place ? And how could Ezekiel " carry in his memory " with utmost veneration, and prescribe, for the ran- somed from Babylon, as an acceptable " programme," practices, which prophet after prophet had denounced as "vanity " and " iniquity," and which the Most High had anathematised with the awful plainness of " I hate, I despise " ? (5) The " polemic " of the thesis against itself is not yet ex- hausted. Here is another aspect of it. Was it not a work of super-erogation for Ezekiel to look away back to Israel's abolished praxis, when he might as acceptably have occupied himself with the Babylonian praxis around him ? Part of the thesis is that one praxis is as good as another ; Jehovah pre- scribes nothing on the subject ; Balaam's Aramean praxis, and Xaaman's Syrian praxis, and Cain's antediluvian praxis, command Jehovah's acceptance as surely as the Israelitish praxis of a Solomon or a Josiah ; the " to whom " is every- thing, the "how" is perfectly indifferent. What was the use of thi'owing a superstitious halo over the Israelitish " how " WELLHAUSEN'S EZEKELIAN ROMANCE. 271 (even supposing it had hitherto proved acceptable) ? Would it not have been a worthy means of conciliating the oppressor, and at the same time of spreading the truly cathoUc doctrine " that Israelite sacrifice is distinguished not by the manner in which, but by the being to whom, it is offered " (p. 54), if Ezekiel had treated the Babylonian " how " as both innocent and available, instead of, for the first time, raising a sacrificial wall of separation between Israel and all other nations ? Still further, according to the thesis.^ as he looked back to Palestine, Ezekiel " carried in his memory " that there had been, not one, but diverse sacrificial styles ; and he also " carried in his memory " the fact that any of the styles was " proper if only they be dedicated to the proper deity " (p. 55). How could such a retrospect enable him to fix on " the sacred praxis " (p. 60), which he should specially revere ? And how could he reconcile the " memory " that that praxis was " proper," with the " memory " that that same praxis was what " I hate and I despise " ? It may suit Wellhausen to forget, or to bury for a time, certain elements of his thesis ; but we insist on " carrying them all in our memory," so that the antics of his truly wondrous evolution may be adequately realised. (6) There is just one other of the Imaginations, in the quo- tation we are dealing with, on which it seems desirable to add a few comments. It will be observed that our author holds it was " from the study devoted to the sacrificial arrangements," by the people and by Ezekiel, in Babylon, that they came to be " artificially valued," and, at last, to reach codification. This " study " is here, practically, made the germ of the whole evolution. Let us, therefore, consider it a little. (a) Would it not have been well to have had some slight statement that the " study " ever took place ? But there is not the faintest statement to that effect. Its occurrence is conceivable, but that does not hinder it from being pure— 272 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. Imagination. Our author is not building out of historical statements, but out of his own fancies. (h) Nay, we urge that he is here building in spite of his- torical statements. If we give heed to Ezekiel, he seems to intimate that (in that early part of the Captivity, during which he flourished) the people were the reverse of lamenting after Jehovah, and of giving themselves to sacrificial " study," and of living again, in imagination, in a re-built Jerusalem. " They and their fathers have transgressed against Me even unto this very day. And the children are impudent and stiff-hearted." . . . " And thou, son of man, be not afraid of them, neither be afraid of their words, though briers and thorns be with thee, and thou dost dwell among scorpions ; be not afraid of their words, nor be dismayed at their looks, though they be a rebellious house." " All the house of Israel are of an hard forehead, and of a stiff heart." That is the divine witness concerning them, while Ezekiel prophesied. Easy for our author to fall asleep and dream of the people's fond yearn- ings after a vanished cultus ; but, when he awakes, let him open his Ezekiel, and he will find that they are spiritual "scorpions," that they are full of "rebelliousness," that the prophet must become " as an adamant harder than flint," in order to give them their deserts. What a travesty to repre- sent such people, as so immersed in sacred " study," as at last to produce (a thing unheard of in Israel before) a sacrificial code ! (c) And there is no proof that sacrificial arrangements con- stituted the absorbing " study " of Ezekiel himself, any more than of the people. We have no clue as to what his habitual " studies " were, as the years of the Captivity rolled by. Shall we say that he was given up to the " study " of ethnical relations, seeing that eight of his chapters (25 — 32) are devoted to the fortunes of distant nations ? Or shall we say that the " study " WELLHAUSEN'S EZEKELIAN ROMANCE, 278 of Babylonian symbolism had engrossed him, seeing that winged semi-human creatures figure so prominently, in his Vision of the divine splendour ? Either of these statements would be as warrantable as to say that he had filled the fourteen years, after Jerusalem was wasted, with the " study " of Israelitish praxis. Nay, we have to add that his own state- ment is that his description of the restored Temple arose, not as the result of his gradual and melancholy musings throughout fourteen years, but as the result of a definite miraculous experience, on a well-remembered day, in an equally well- remembered month and year. " In the beginning of the year, in the tenth day of the month, in the fourteenth year after the city was smitten, in the selfsame day, the hand of the Lord was upon me, and He brought me thither. In the Yisions of God brought He me into the land of Israel, and set me down upon a very high mountain, whereon was as it were the frame of a city on the south " (Ezek. 40. 1, 2). Here, it is a sudden divine rapture and revelation, and not a process of mournful " study " after the abolition, that originates the Vision in chaps. 40 — 48. Our author's fancy seems " f)olemical " against Ezekiel's fact. (d) Let us compare this theory of the "study" with an analogous case. Are we to suppose that John's Vision of " the holy city Jerusalem " was the fruit of his long mournful " study " of the departed glories of the earthly city, as he " carried them in his memory," after the Eomans had levelled the city with the ground ? That would be as reasonable as to suppose that Ezekiel's vision sprang from his own " study." John is equally express with Ezekiel in tracing his Vision to a definite divine visitation and favour. " There came one of the seven angels, who had the seven bowls, who were laden with the seven last plagues ; and he spake with me, saying. Come hither, I will show thee the bride, the wife of the Lamb. And he carried me S289 S 274: 8ANCTUABY AND SACRIFICE. away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God" (Rev. 21. 9-11). John's " study," in advancing years, so far as we have an inkling of it, was not so much about foundations of precious stones, and rivers bright as crystal, as of the practical holiness of the Chiistian life : as long as he was able to be carried to the place of worship, the " study " w^hich he sat in his chair, and commended to the worshippers, was just an echo of his third epistle, "httle children, let us love one another": he left the glory of the new Jerusalem with " it doth not yet appear what we shall be." (e) Lest we be mistaken, let us add that we think it quite likely that Ezekiel, an exiled priest, would often recall his ritualistic labours ; but, if he be held to have made a " devoted study " of sacrificial praxis, we would suggest that this is much more reconcileable with the traditional view, that his country- men had possessed a written ritual for ages, than with the imaginationist view, that they had not a single page of such written ritual before Ezekiel's day. To " study " a " memory" may not be impossible ;- but it is neither so natural, nor so easy, as to "study" a book {liter a scri^Jta). We can under- stand Ezekiel, with a full knowledge, and a hfe-long *' study," of Leviticus, making the substance of its regulations the frame- work of his Yision (for how else could a future perfect worship be intelligibly described for his immediate readers ?), and, at the same time, freely making such alterations, as would at once fit, and prove, the quite ideal and trans- Judaic character, which is the very essence of the whole Yision. But we can hardly understand his chapters 40 — 46 arising, as the result of twenty- five years' " study " of utterly abolished practices, if he had not a fragment of manuscript, on which any of these practices were sketched. Besides (as already urged) what temptation had he WELLHAU SEN'S EZEKELIAN EOMANCE. 275 to " study " such an " actual use" as he could remember in Judah ? Had that " actual use " any divine sanction to invite his " study " ? Had it not rather emphatic divine reprobation ? Was it not that " actual use " that had brought himself, and his fellow captives, to the banks of the Chebar ? How could they expect, by " studying " and re-enacting such a " use," to secure prosperity, in a " restored theocracy " ? It is the most incon- sistent Imagination conceivable, that Ezekiel was the first to engage in codification, 'and that he began the work by " studying," and codifying, an un- written, and abolished, praxis for his successors, which had cost their predecessors their national existence. lY. It will be observed that our author derives another proof (as he deems it) that Ezekiel preceded Leviticus, from the identity of the two Codes, which the Books contain. He thus writes : — " And finally, let its due weight be given to the simple fact that an exiled priest saw occasion to draft such a sketch of the Temple worship. What need would there have been for it, if the reahsed picture, cori'esponding completely to his views, had actnally existed, and, being already written in a book, wholly obviated any danger lest the cultus should become extinct through the mere fact of its temporary cessation?" (p. 60). Though it is somewhat like " slaying the slain," we shall patiently point out the overflow of fallacy, which this quotation enshrines. (1) He says that Ezekiel professes to give " a sketch of the Temple worship." Ezekiel professes to give no such thing. It is not " a sketch of the worship of the literal city, Jeru- salem" (then lying in ruins), that he gives, but "a sketch of the worship of the metapliorical city, Jeliovali-is-Tliere^'' a worship of a far grander and more enduring kind. We have already enlarged on the significance of this. The "simple 8 2 27G SANCTUABY AND SACRIFICE. fact," therefore, to whicli he asks us to give " due weight," is a '' simple Imagination." (2) He is equally unwarranted in telling us that Ezekiel " saw occasion " to give the sketch. This amounts to an insinuation that the sketch originates in the prophet's sense of ntness, in his own musings and devisings. He himself asserts the opposite. It is to special (and, apparently, sudden and un- expected) divine rapture and illumination, that he traces the sketch. He never represents himself as having, of his own re- flection, " seen occasion " for the sketch. But he has a most vivid remembrance of " that selfsame day^'' on which the sketch was revealed to him, when he was carried up, and " brought in the Visions of God, to the land of Israel." We have thus a second " fact " of our author's, which passes into " Imagination." (3) It is painful to have to make a similar criticism on a third " fact," in the foregoing short quotation. Our author is equally unwarranted in saying that the Code of Leviticus " corresponds completely " with the sketch of Ezekiel. There are great resemblances between the two, but we have pointed out, in detail, some most marked divergences. Fancy what pages of scorn Wellhausen would indite, if it suited him to expose an opponent for saying that the Priests' Code and Ezekiel are in absolutely " complete correspondence " ! (4) It will be observed that he regards the fact of laws being " already written in a book," as " wholly obviating any danger " of the extinction of the cultus, which they prescribe. He does not always hold the " being written in a book," as a sure safeguard for the knowledge, and observance, of la\rs. The laws of Deuteronomy were " written in a book," a book solemnly sworn to by king and people : but did this " wholly obviate the danger " of their practical effacement ? Our author, with some pomp, has described Deuteronomy as "a ivritten WELLHAUSEN'S EZEKELIAN BOMANCE. 277 law, that had been solemnly sworn to by the whole people, standing ever an immoveable witness to the rights of God " (p. 27). But what better were " the rights of God " of this " immoveable witness " ? Before they had been twenty years " written " down, they had grim need of re-enforcement, and wei*e systematically defied throughout Judah (p. 27) ! It was the defiance of this " written " and " immoveable witness " to divine "rights," that had brought the people to Babylon* Ezekiel, therefore, had not e-xperience on his side, if he argued that to get laws made " a matter of writing " was either a new, or a sufficient, guarantee for their observance. It occurs to us to remark that Ezekiel may possibly have felt, when the offering of the sacrifices could no longer be beheld in Babylon, when the national rehearsals of the Law could not there take place, and when the multiplying and cir- culation of the Pentateuch were at a stand, that the incorpora- tion, which he was directed to make, of several sacrificial re- quirements into his Book, would be a salutary aid to piety. We. do not need to hold (nor do we hold) that such an "obvi- ating of danger " was an actual part of Ezekiel's calculation ; but we do suggest that it has more of probability, than some absurdities, which our author omnisciently announces as un- doubted facts. (5) It is observable, in the quotation we are analysing, that our author again assumes that Ezekiel knew as well as we do that the Captivity would soon end, and that a restoration would follow. The city was finally captured in 587 ; Ezekiel wrote his Closing Vision in 573 ; the people were showing no signs of penitence, nor was Nebuchadnezzar's might showing any sign of waning ; and yet, in such suiToundings, our author treats it as an elementary certainty, famihar to every exile, that it was " the mere fact of the temporary cessation " of their ritual, that they were confronted with. We have akeady asked, how, 278 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. except as a strong supernaturalist, can our author hold that positic n ? And we now ask, if Ezekiel knew so well how " temporary " the " cessation " was to be, why does not our author hold that the presence, at the founding of the second house, of "many priests," who remembered the first house, would " wholly obviate any danger lest the knowledge of pre- Exihc cultus would become extinct," and would thus turn to vanity the design, which he attributes to Ezekiel's " pro- gramme " ? What a sad want of adherence the various parts of the " thesis " have to one another ! We (0) notice, for criticism, only one other part of the quota- tion before us. Our author asks, "What need would there have been for it " ? z.e., what need would there have been for Ezekiel's programme, if Leviticus existed ? This is surely a very lame argument. (a) Does he not see that such a question cuts both ways, and may be as warrantably reversed, " What need would there have been for Leviticus, if Ezekiel's programme had existed " ? The singular circumstance meets us of the incorporation into the same Bible of two sacrificial outlines, having much in common : whichever may be fixed as the first, the question will recur, what occasion was there for the second ? The fixing of Ezekiel's as the first does not at all end the strangeness. (J)) But we ask, does it not increase it ? Part of our author's " thesis " is that Ezekiel felt necessity laid upon him to stereo- type pre-Exilic praxis. Well, was not Ezekiel, being himself a pre-Exilic priest, a surer witness to pre-Exilic laws, than those, who lived a century later, and who had never seen a pre-Exilic sacrifice ? What right had these latter, as unknown inter- ponei-s, to alter the regulations of such a distinguished priest and prophet as Ezekiel ? If Ezekiel faithfully prescribed "what he carried in his memory," would not decided devia- tions therefrom involve the nation in illegality ? WELLHAUSEN'S EZEKELIAN BOMANCE. 279 (c) This is not the only instance of similar documents being incorporated, in different Books of the Bible. "What need would there have been for" the Deuteronomist inserting a second edition of the Decalogue in his work, " if the realised picture corresponding completely to his views " was " already written in a book," having been included, centuries before, by the Jehovist in Exodus ? *• What need would there have been for " the Jehovist writing Exod. 34, if Exod. 23 was " already written " ? " What need would there have been for " the author of Kings including so much about Hezekiah and Sennacherib, which was "already written" in the Book of Isaiah ? " What need would there have been for " the narra- tive of Paul's conversion, in Acts 22, if it was "already written " in Acts 9 ? or for John's narrative of the trial and death of Jesus, if it was "already written" in the other Gospels ? That Ezekiel, therefore, should incorporate consider- able sections of what was " already written," would have been no unexampled phenomenon in Scripture. (d) We have already shown that the prior existence of Levi- ticus accounts, most reasonably, both for the similarities, and for the dissimilarities, to it, in Ezekiel's Grand Symbolic Vision, considered as posterior. And, on the other hand, if we take our author's view that Ezekiel is laying down from " memory " a literal and authoritative " programme for the future restoration of the theocracy," any adequate explanation of the subsequent invention, and estabUshment, of the Priests' Code becomes an impossibility. V. We have now considered three arguments, on which Wellhausen may be regarded as relying, in his two pages on Ezekiel. There is first the argument from " national efface- ment": codification could not, with any propriety, have taken place, till the Captivity had ended the cultus, and laid " the 280 8ANCTUABY AND SACBIFICE. Temple in ruins." Then there is the argument from " devoted stud J " : the captives so surrendered themselves to sacrificial contemplations, that they, at last, produced (a marvel unknown before) "praxis as a matter of writing." Then there is the argument from " complete correspondence " : Leviticus and Ezekiel correspond to each other, and this simple fact settles the posteriority of the former. We have endeavoured to guide the Bible student to an appreciation of these arguments, at their true value. There are still a few minor points, which our author tries to make in his two pages, which, as we wish to treat these two pages exhaustively, we shall dispose of in this concluding section. (1) What kind of rehgious guide have we in Ezekiel if, instead of writing what is sober and trustworthy, he revels in what is "fantastic "? But does not our author offer him this compliment ? Consider the following statements, and query : — "In the picture of Israel's future which he drew in e.g. 573 (chaps. 40 — 48), in which fantastic hopes are indeed built upon Jehovah, but no impcssible demand made of man, the Temple and ciltus hold a central place. Whence this sudden change ? " (p. 69), (a) Did Ezekiel, then, hold up, to the " hope " of Israel, expectations, which were " fantastic ".? And, though he built them " upon Jehovah," was the foundation insecure ? (b) Then, as to " no impossible demand made of man," does he mean that all the prescriptions, throughout chapters 40 — 48, could have been literally executed in the Canaan of the prophet's day ? If so, he writes unwarrantably ; for Jerusalem and its environs, and the Mediterranean and the Jordan, turn many of these prescriptions (viewed Hterally) into " impossible demands." (c) Then, as to his query, " Whence this sudden change ? " WELLHAUSEN'S EZEKELIAN BOMANCE. 281 Why, on his own showing, there was, in one view, 7io sulstantial " change " whatever ; for Ezekiel was only putting into his '' picture " a " Temple and cultus," which had, through previous ages, " remained in actual use." The only " sudden change " is when our author, who, from the top of p. 56 to the middle of p. 59, has held up " the Temple and cultus " for the anathemas of the prophets, should (apparently with no sense of stultifica- tion), at the middle of p- 59, straightway introduce another prophet, treating that " cultus " as worthy of his venerating " memory," as worthy to be saved from " perishing," as worthy of the new honour of being " written down," and " published as a programme for the future restoration of the theocracy." That is a " sudden change " indeed. Both " Temple " and " cultus " are pre-supposed, and pointedly referred to, by former prophets. And Ezekiel, instead of "changing" them, was (according to our author) trying to be as faithful to them as his " memory " would permit ! (2) The traditional view is solemnly declared to be an in- vasion of Ezekiel's " rights of authorship " : — " The prophet, moreover, has the rights of authorship as regards the end of his Book as well as for the rest of it " (p. 60). That is to say, we are turning Ezekiel into a mere copyist, if we place Leviticus before him. But has not the Priestist " rights of authorship " as well as Ezekiel ? Merely to cry out " rights of authorship " does not advance us a hairsbreadth to settle the priority, as between the two. Moreover, has not an author " rights of self-explanation " as well ? And we have seen that the " self -explanation," which Ezekiel gives, at the outset of the Vision, lends not the slightest countenance to what Wellhausen coolly assumes as the whole object of the Vision. He is neither writing from " memory," nor copying Leviticus, but carefully writing down what "a man, whose 282 SAKCTUABY AND 8ACEIFICE, appearance was like the appearance of brass," told him to " set his heart upon." (3) Our author's short concluding paragraph alone remains for notice. Observe the curious figure which the epithet " lifeless " cuts, in the opening sentence of that paragraph : — " Here again a way of escape is open by assuming a lifeless existence of the Law down to Ezra's ■t;jnie" (p. 60). This is written in pity of his opponents ; but he ought to reserve his pity for his own " thesis." For, what is his own " assuming " as to the substance of " the Law " throughout ? He virtually " assumes " that there was " a living existence of the Law," ^.^., of the Priests' Code, in pre-Exilic ages ! He holds that Ezekiel set himself to codify what had long been pre-Exilic praxis : but he holds also that the divergences between his " programme " and the Priests' Code are " too casual and insignificant," to make much ado about : therefore the Code, which Ezra set up, had been " in living and effica- cious existence" long before the Exile, — the only curiosity being that it had not been made " matter of writing." It is impossi- ble to resist this inference : and it embodies a view of the history of his wonderful Priests' Code, which may generally have escaped Wellhausen's admirers — and perhaps himself. This view of it will re-appear immediately. We need hardly add that " a lifeless,^'' i.e., an inoperative, " existence of the Law " (both moral and ritual) is stamj^ed too sadly, and ineffacably, on almost every page of Old Testament history. But for the fact that " the Law " was trampled into " lifelessness," there would have been no Captivity. (4) The remainder of our author's concluding paragraph is a? follows : — " But if this is done " (i.e. if a lifeless existence of the Law is assumed) *' it is unallowable to date that existence, not from Moses, WELLHAUSEN'S EZEKELIAN ROMANCE. 283 but from some other intermediate point in the history of Israel. Moreover, the assumption of a codification either as preceding all praxis, or as alongside and independent of it, is precisely in the case of sacrificial ritual one of enormous difficulty, for it is obvious that such a codification can only he the final result of an old and highly developed use, and not the invention of an idle brain. This con- sideration also makes retreat into the theory of an illegal praxis impossible, and renders the legitimacy of the actually subsisting indisputable " (p. 60). (a) We quite accept the date of the Law as " from Moses," without seeking any " other intermediate point in the history." Nevertheless, our author's "unallowable" has no logical support. (h) It is not for Wellhausen, nor for any other body, to sit down, three thousand years after the event, and proclaim dog- matically what course codification must have run. That is what he does in the above quotation ; but it is pure NbJdeldsm (p. 46). He must find,/ro/?? evidence, what developments the human mind (which has many strange vagaries) has pursued, and thus settle " ivliat actuaJhj took place " (p. 46). The above quotation is another excellent illustration of how Well- hausen's whole method is just an annihilating of the clearest of evidence by the most un-supported, and improbable, of subjec- tivity. He fixes dogmatically what " CAN only be," instead of humbly" asking at history " ivhat took place ? " (f) When we attribute codification to Moses, we are not attributing it to an " idle brain," but to one of the most active, and overwhelmingly burdened, " brains," that the world has ever seen. It is a much nearer approach to an " idle brain," to attribute codification to an " exiled priest " (p. 60), who had been sitting seven and twenty years " out of employment " (p. 60), by the banks of the Chebar ! {d) The delightful climax is again reached, when the Priests' Code is (unawares, we fear) pronounced to be the only " legiti- mate " ritual that ever existed in Israel ! Our author has found 284 SAXCTVARY AND SACBIFICE. " illegal praxis (before the Exile) impossible " ; he has found that the then " actually subsisting " praxis was " indisputably legitimate ": but {we remember, though he may forget, that) he has also found that " actually subsisting praxis " to have been what Ezekiel set himself, with such assiduity, to remember and to codify : and he has also found that the differences between Ezekiel and Ezra are " too casual and insignificant " for serious concernment : therefore the Priests' Code, as set up by Ezra, was virtually identical with the " actually subsisting "praxis in pre-Exilic days, and was then (as well as in Ezra's day) " indisputably legitimate " ! Is it not worth a good deal of toil, and of hard verbiage, to have reached such a happy con- summation ? " The imaginationist wolf and the traditionalist lamb may now lie down together, and a little child may lead them." Could anything show more clearly what a tissue of inconsequence, and of contradictoriness, Wehhausen's un- checked Imaginations amount to ? If we charged "Wellhausen with evading Ezekiel, with attri- buting to him the most extraordinary transmutation of sacrificial history, and yet never allowing the boards of his Book to be opened, that a single sentence of definite corrobora- tion might be forthcoming, we think no one, who has read this and the preceding chapters, will try the tu quoque on us, and charge us with evading Wellhausen. We have tried to com- pensate for his evasion by an attentive scrutiny of the contents, and of the scope, of Ezekiel's Book, especially of its eight closing chapters. And we have then dealt with his two pages, on which all definite quotation of Ezekiel is practically ignored, and we do not feel that we have left a single representation, which these pages contain, un-examined and un-exposed. Our inquiries have all converged to the conclusion that the singular part, which Wellhausen assigns to Ezekiel (a part, which is WELLHAUSEWS EZEKELIAN ROMANCE. 285 neither directly announced by the prophet himself, nor cele- brated by the returned exiles, nor remotely refen^ed to by any subsequent Jewish writer) has had its creation in Germany, and not in Babylon. We have found " not a trace " of proof that he was " polemical " against all former prophets, or that he w^as "doing a new thing" in sacrifice, "at the w^hich the ears" of every early prophet "that heard it would have tingled." In a word, Wellhausen's Ezekelianism is a dream, and not a sober demonstration of facts. We have treated it with the utmost carefulness, because, as already stated, he attaches to it un-limited weight, and because he introduces it, as if axiomati- cally true, at every turn of his Prolegomena. It is not too much to say that, if Ezekiel be not the new national guide in sacrifice, of whom Wellhausen has dreamed, his Prolegomena must almost instantaneously collapse. Hence the justification of the time, and of the space, which we have devoted to " Wellhausen's Ezekelian Romance." There is one argument from Ezekiel which we cannot answer. If it be insisted that the matter is too clear for difference of opinion ; that the instinct of " scientific " scholar- ship has infallibly settled the question ; that " almost every younger scholar of mark is on the side of Wellhausen"; that none but the " hide-bound " and " fossils " and " moles " of an effete superstition can think of differing from him ; then that is the argument of essential and superlative Dogmatism, that is the argument of un-reasoning I-am-Sir-Oracle Authority, which our new "science" reprobates, but without which our new " science " cannot, for one moment, live : and, before that argument, we are dumb. But if, leaving the region of mere conceit and dogmatism, our critics will enter the field of candid and responsible ratiocination, and if they will there prove to us such points as Ezekiel's claim to be a sacrificial revolutionist, 286 SANCTUABY AND SACBIFICE. his avowal of antagonism to former prophets, his design to regulate circumstantially the necessary procedure of the restored under Cyrus, the exiles' acceptance of his guidance, the com- memoration by post-Exilic prophets of the enduring aid he had rendered to ritual, the possibility of his purely Vision-beheld prescriptions being actualised in Canaan, then we trust we shall be ready to cry Peccavimiis, to keep our eyes henceforth open to the clear realities, and to acknowledge that we have assailed Wellhausen in vain. Meantime, " we have not bowed our knee to the image of " — Authority^ and we use our freedom to say that Wellhausen's Ezekelianism is as flimsy an Imagina- tion as was ever penned. ( 287 ) CHAPTEE VIII. THE MATERIALS OF SACRIFICE AND THEIR ALLEGED EXTRA- ORDINARY EVOLUTIONS. WE have now exhausted the first of the two great central topics, round which we explained that Wellhausen's peculiar views of sacrifice may be regarded as grouping them- selves. That topic has been the General Attitude of the Deity towards Sacrifice, so far as that Attitude can be regarded as disclosed by the (so-called) warring writers of Scripture : and we have discussed it in chapters 3 — 7. The second topic is the Special Peculiarities and Developments, which Wellhausen attributes to Sacrifice, throughout the long course of Israelitish history. And with this we shall now be occupied, in our remaining chapters. We may say, in general, as regards the second great topic thus presented for discussion, that the sacrificial developments, which he here presents, will perhaps be regarded as neither so astounding, nor so far-reaching, in character, as some of those, which we have just been engaged in discussing. We have found these latter to involve such a practical assertion of Naturalism as the only guide for pre-Exilic Israel, such a practical abstention, on God's part (throughout rolling cen- turies), from all regulative interest in "the main part of worship," such an extraordinary manipulation of the funda- mental watchwords of the early prophets, such a singular, and un-demonstrated, assignment of a sacrificial revolution to Ezekiel, and such a general setting of Moses against prophets, 288 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. of prophets against tliemselves, and of redactors against all, that we have felt bound to enlarge on the inquiry, " how can these things be " ? and to see if the Old Testament be indeed the tissue of hitherto un-discovered contradiction and decep- tion, which the Prolegomena would represent. The Law, and the History, and the Prophets are all so subversively handled, that we feel confident no one, interested in the comparative study of the Books of the Old Testament, will regard us as having exceeded the call of propriety, in the somewhat length- ened investigation, which we have conducted. Our author's frequent habit is to throw so much of serious, and un-supported, assertion into a single sentence, that it requires a considerable course of patient quotation and reasoning, to un-ravel and to correct him. Though we have found this very notably in his metamorphosis of Ezekiel, we have encountered it, to a con- siderable extent, in his criticism of the historians, and of the other prophets, as well. The other developments which he presents (under what we call the second central topic) do not involve such a funda- mental overturning of the Jewish Records from end to end. He states them plainly and notably enough ; and he makes them sufficiently disparaging to the penetration, and to the integrity, of some of the sacred writers ; but several of them are of subordinate importance, and may admit of, proportionally, briefer treatment. He professes to have discovered sundry developments in the materials, that came to be used in Israel- itish sacrifices, the Priestly Code showing an advancement, over previous usages, in sacrificial materials and preparations. He has also discovered a new relative importance as between the peace offering and the limit offering, the former being pre- dominant in all pre-Exilic ages, while the latter was treated as subordinate, till the Priestly Code ushered it into new indepen- dence and prominence. He discovers also that sin and trespass *• AN ARCADIAN DREAM. 289 offerings are a quite late invention, first fixed by Ezekiel, after- wards elaborated into " enormous importance " in the Priestly Code. And, in general., he disco\»ers that the Priestly Code is characterised by a compulsion, by a gloom, by a rigidity, and by an abstraction, which mark it notably off from previous sacrificial praxis in Israel, It will thus be seen that he need not be regarded as having " spent his strength in vain and his labour for nought," if his supposed sacrificial dis- coveries can be verified. But, whether these discoveries are Realities or Imaginations, is now the matter for our con- sideration. In the present chapter, we shall discuss a four-fold evolution, which he asks us to recognise, in the materials of sacrifice, after we have offered a few remarks on a general sacrificial " sketch," which he presents as preliminary thereto. (A) The " sketch," to which we refer, is of a specially imagina- tive kind. We have already referred to it as one of the two passages (the other being pp. 76-79), in his chapter on Sacri- fice, which we always think of as the two Arcadian dreams ; for, in them, he seems absolutely to turn his fancy into " the wind which bloweth where it listeth," and to pen whatever " sketches " strike him as most attractive, or convenient. At the close of the " sketch," he writes the following sentence ; " The features presented by the various literary sources har- monise with the foregoing sketch" (p. 63). Would not any one expect that sentence to be followed up by quotations from the " literary sources," showing how they reflect the '' sketch," that had just been given? Instead of that, the very next sentence is this : " But the Priestly Code exhibits some pecu- liarities by which it is distinguished from the pre-Exilic remains in matters sacrificial " (p. 63). We are going to devote this S 2893. - T 290 SANCTUARY AND SACBIFICE. whole chapter to these alleged "peculiarities " in the " Priestly Code "; but what we notice now is that this reference to these " peculiarities " constitutes a i^rovoking change of subject, and mocks our expectation of ample quotations, from the " literary sources," which would have established their "harmony " with the " sketch." Most of its elements are accompanied with no pretence of Scripture proof : a few are connected with a paren- thetical imprisonment of some texts, which, on being turned up, lend no support to our author's peculiar " thesis " : not a single quotation from Scripture occurs, in full, throughout the " sketch." On previous pages, we have made quotations from it, our criticisms of which we shall not here repeat. There are some other portions of it, at which we shall very briefly glance, before going forward to those alleged evolutions of sacrificial materials, which are the proper subject of this chapter. I. On the vexed question of the origin of sacrifice, the " sketch " decides dogmatically. It was an aping of earthly courts : kings got presents, and so the heavenly King came to be sued to with presents too : — *' Both nouns and both verbs are used originally for the offering of a present to the king (or the nobles) to do him homage, to make him gracious, to support a petition (Judges 3. 17 seq. ; 1 Sam. 10. 27; 1 Kings 5. 1 [A.V. 4. 21]), and fro^n this are employed with reference to the highest King (Mai. 1. 8) " (p. 61). But the "literary sources" represent sacrifice as existing in the days of Cain and Abel, before " kings" or "nobles" were ever heard of ! Sacrifice, therefore, cannot have originated from the practice of earthly courts. And what a ludicrous witness is Malachi, the last of post-Exilic prophets (in a passing reference to earthly governors), to the origin of sacrifice ! AN ARCADIAN BREAM. 201 II. The "sketch" represents the material of sacrifice as indifferent, if the offerer values it, and has neither borrowed it nor stolen it : — " With respect to the matter of it, the idea of a sacrifice is in itself indifferent, if the thing offered only have value of some sort, and is the property of the offerer " (p. 61). But "the literary sources" are "polemical" against the "sketch" again. They represent Cain's offering (and not merely Cain himself) as failing to secure the divine " respect ": " but unto Cain and to his offering the Lord had not respect " : and yet " the thing offered " was Cain's own, " the fruit of the ground " ; and, as the produce of his own " tilling," it had doubtless " value of some sort." Not always, therefore, was " the matter of it in itself indifferent." Was the sacrifice " the property of the offerer," when Abraham, apparently by chance, saw a ram caught in a thicket ? Was the sacrifice, " with respect to the matter of it," quite indifferent, when Moses in- sisted that it " MUST " be from " our cattle " ? No other department of " the property of the offerers " would do. III. The " sketch " explains also that it was the exemplar of human eating, and of human drinking, that fixed the original form of sacrifice to be edibles : — " But it is quite in harmony with the naivete of antiquity that as to man so also to God that which is eatable is by preference offered ; in this there was the additional advantage, that what God had caused to grow was thus rendered back to Him " (p. 62). Is there not a fine tripping superiority about tliis display of " advantages " ? But alas ! " the literary sources " are again " polemical." Abel offered, not what was " eatable by man," but what man ivas forbidden to eat, " the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof " ! Noah offered " of every clean beast and of every clean fowl " ; and yet the Priestist assures us that slaughtering, and eating flesh, were not permissible till after the T 2 292 SANCTUARY AND SACBIFICE. Flood ! It could not, therefore, be, in Noah's case, that " as to man so also to God that which is eatable is by preference offered " ; for Noah had never seen a human being eating "beasts," or "fowls." Will it be suggested that we are going too far back for illus- trations, and that it is IsraeUtish sacrifice, and not antedi- luvian sacrifice, that our author is " sketching " ? That plea will not avail him : for, though he might often well entreat, " remember not past ]jages" we persist in remembering how, on p. 54, he wrote, " Noah the father of all mankind built the first altar after the Flood, and long before him Cain and Abel sacrificed in the same way as was usual in Palestine thousands of years afterwards." We are, therefore, only " hoisting him TN'ith his own petard," when we aj)peal to Noah, to Cain, and to Abel, as illustrating the views, and usages, of " antiquity," in the matter of sacrifice. And, taking them as our guides, we c^n assert that, while it may le " quite in harmony with the naivete of a German critic sitting in his arm chair," it is not " quite in harmony with the naivete of Hebrew antiquity," to delineate the origin of sacrifice, as he has done. He is just stringing off a few naked, and un-supported, fancies. If (in the case of any of them) he hits the truth, it is by accident, not by Scripture guidance. ly. The " sketch " further says magniloquently : — " The manner in which the portions pertaining to God are con- veyed to Him varies. The most primitive is the simple ' setting in order ' {'araMi, struere) and ' ponring out ' {shajjhal-h, fundere) in the case of the shewbread and drink offerings ; to this a simple eating and drinking would correspond, Bnt the most usual is burning, or, as the Hebrews exjDress it, ' making a savour ' (hiJctir), to which corresponds the more delicate form of enjoA^nent, that of smelHng. Originally, however, it is God Himself who consumes what the flame consumes " (p. 62). So far as substantiations, by chapter and verse, are concerned, AN ARCADIAN DREAM. 203 we have here a mere bundle of Imaginations. (1) On the previous page, hahribh and haggish are given, as the appro- priate verbs for offering a sacrifice : here, they are thrown aside for ^arakh and shaphaJch and MJctir, But 7io7ie of the five are to be found in connection with " the most primitive " offerings of sacrifice, which are recorded ! We have just quoted our author as urging that Cain and Abel and Noah knew hoiv to offer accepted sacrifices " thousands of years " before Israel entered Palestine : their method therefore is surely " the most primitive." Yet the only verb used of the first two is vagabhe ; and the verbs used of the third are vmjikJcach and vagaaJ. (2) His criticism of 'araJch, as denoting the conveyance of the sacrifice, is quite erroneous : it is used of any preliminary arranging that is needed, lefore the conveyance begins. Abra- ham may surely be regarded as "most primitive": but, in Gen. 22, 'aralh is used to describe, not the conveyance of the sacrifice, but the mere preparatory work of arranging the ivood on the altar! "Abraham built the altar, and set in order (fjaaroJch) the bits of wood " (Gen. 22. 9). Shall we say " To this a simple eating would correspond " ? or shall we draw the line at offering "wood" as an "edible " to the Deity ? After the wood is duly arranged, vagasem and lishchot are applied to Isaac, and vayaal to the ram. Take another ancient instance. Balaam (" the Aramean who understands just as well as any IsraeUte how to offer sacrifices," p. 54) uses 'aralh, not for the conveyance of the sacrifices, but for the preliminary pre- paration of his altars, " I have prepared me seven altars " : but, when the offerings are conveyed, the verb (as in Abraham's case) is vayaah In like manner, on Mount Carmel, the only use of 'araWi, in connection with Ehjah's sacrifice, is " And he set in order {gaarokh) the bits of wood " : the conveyance of the sacrifice, on the other hand, is through the fire of the Lord 294 SAXCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. falling, and consnniing it. There is not a single instance of the conveyance of a sacrifice by ''aralch ! For the Priestly Code uses ^aralih^ precisely as in the foregoing instances, in the sense of arranging the pieces of wood, or arranging the pieces of the flesh upon the wood, but not for the sacrificial conveyance. So far as the use of ^arahh is concerned, therefore, there is nothing to prevent the Code being a " most primitive " docu- ment ! (3) He is equally mis-leading as to shapliahh. In the " most primitive " drink-offering recorded, in Gen. 35. 14, there is no use of this verb : but vayasseJcli and vayitso'k are used. In the Codes, the sacrificial use of shaphaMi is for the pouring out of blood at the altar of burnt-offering, but not for the presen- tation of drink-offerings. Its only connection with the latter is once in a rebuke of lewd idolatry, " to the smooth stones of the valley hast thou poured a drink-offering " (Isai. 57. 6) : if Wellhausen regards that passage as Exilic, how can he, on the basis of that solitary use, tell his readers that shaphaJch is the standing " most primitive " verb for describing " drink- offerings " ? It is the hiphil of nasaJch that generally describes them. (4) It will be seen that our author slips in " the shewbread," as a sample of " most primitive " offerings. How can he derive such a view from " the literary sources " ? The " literary source," which introduces the shrewbread, is the Priestly Code, which (instead of being " most primitive ") he regards as post-Exilic ! And the use of 'araJch, in connection with the shewbread, is quite similar to its use in connection with Abraham's and Elijah's sacrifices : it is used for the arranging of the twelve loaves, in two piles, on the Golden Table ; but it is not used for the sacrificial conveyance of these loaves from the altar, for the very sufficient reason that they never reach the altar at all : what reaches the altar is the frankincense , placed as a memorial AX ABCABIAN DREAM. 295 on the top of each pile, and removed every Sabbath by the priests, to constitute an offering by fire on the altar. (5) One might infer, from our author's language, that he can point to numerous instances, in which hiJctir is used for the conveyance of ancient sacrifices : for he says it is " the most usual term." What are the facts ? He has hardly an instance (apart from "before they burnt the fat," in 1 Sam. 2. 15) in which the conveyance of an ancient sacrifice is denoted by MTctir. He might have plenty of instances, if he would let the history speak for itself ; but, by bringing down the Priestly Code and the redaction of Kings to the Exile, his statement is left in the un-corroborated condition, which w^e have described. Practically, he is just masquerading in the traditionalist clothes, W'hich he is crying out that he repudiates. " The most usual term " ! — and yet (except as a traditionalist) he has hardly one undoubted ancient use of it, to which he can point. In view of the foregoing, the Bible student will probably think thrice before blindly following Wellhausen as a Hebraist. Y. Another teaching of the " sketch " is that, of old, there was an absolute equality between all sacrifices, and that animal sacrifices, with the sprinkling of blood, were not a whit more efficacious than others : — " As regards the distinction between bloodless and bloody offer- ings, the latter, it is well known, are preferred in the Old Testa- ment, but, strictly speaking, the former also have the same value and the same efficacy. The incense-offering is represented as a means of propitiation (Lev. 16 ; Num. 17. 12 [A.V. 16. 47]), so also are the ten thousands of rivers of oil figuring between the thousands of rams and the human sacrifice in Micah 6. That the cereal offering is never anything but an accompaniment of the animal sacrifice is a rule which does not hold, either in the case of the shewbread or in that of the high priest's daily minchah (Lev. 6. 13 [A.Y. 20] ; Neh. 10. 35) " (pp. 62, 63). He has not a scrap of proof, from any of the "hterary 296 SAXCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. sources," in supj)ort of the above element of his "sketch," that bloodless and bloody offerings are identical in value. But there are abundance of indications that such doctrine is un- warranted. The bloodless offering of Cain and the bloody offering of Abel are not described as identical in value : to the one "God had respect," to the other " God had not respect ": all the grounds of the two diverse divine judgments are not recorded, but we have enough to show the wanton unwarrant- ableness of Wellhausen's words. He is bound to deny the " same value " to the two sacrifices, seeing the " to ivliom " was the same in both. He meets the same difficulty in what passes between Moses and Pharaoh : Moses does not believe in the " same value " theory : bloodless sacrifices will not do equally well with animal sacrifices : " our cattle shall go with us, for thereof must we sacrifice." The inherent superiority of "bloody offerings," on the principle " it is the blood that maketh atone- ment, for the life is in the blood " is not only reflected from every page of the Priestly Code, but is the inevitable inference, regarding all Old Testament sacrifices, from the first. Lev. 16 attributes to tJie blood of the two sin-offerings the whole three-fold atonement of the ritual, which it prescribes. In Num. 16. 47, Moses sees the people being swept off by the thousand, and, as the readiest available service of deprecation, he bids the high-j^riest huiTy, and burn incense between the living and the dead : had he waited till a sin-offering was pro- cured, and slain, and flayed, and sacrificed, and its carcase burned outside the camp, the plague might have been over half the camp : to infer the strict equality of all sacrifices, from such an ej^isode, bespeaks, surely, a desperate cause. The same seems bespoken by the reference to Mic. 6 : why, only a few pages back, he was quoting that passage as proving that all the sacrifices, named in it, were valueless in God's sight : now he quotes it to prove that they are all " efficacious," and that the ^V ARCADIAN DREAM. 297 "oil" has "the same vahie and the same efficacy "as the " rams," and the " calves," and the " children " ! His renewed reference to the shrewbread is equally pointless : let him pro- duce one text, declaring the " value and efficacy " of the shew- bread, and another text, declaring the " value and efficacy " of the burnt-offering, and then let him exhibit the two " values and efficacies " as identical : this he cannot do — nor anything approaching it. yi. The " sketch " has a further concluding paragraph re- garding blood. Its essence is, so far, dealt with on other pages. We may here quote one or two of its assertions. It begins : — " When a sacrifice is killed, the offering consists not of the blood but of the eatable portions of the flesh. Only these can be de- signated as the ' bread of Jehovah '" (p. 63). Where can he support such language from the " literary sources " ? They are quite irreconcileable with it. In the case of all peace-offerings, and sin-offerings, and trespass-offerings, the "eatable portions of the flesh" never reach the altar at all ! It is only in the case of the burnt-offering, which he says was quite subordmate till Exilic days, that the eatable portions are burnt on the altar : and, even in the case of the burnt-offering, i\\Q first requirement is, " Aaron's sons shall present the llood^ and sprinkle the blood round about upon the altar." " Only these " {i.e.^ only the eatable portions) " can be designated as tlie Iread of Jehovah^' I Let him read Ezek. 44. 7, " when ye offer MY BREAD, THE FAT AND THE BLOOD ": here His " bread " is designated, to the exclusion of " the eatable portions." Let him read Lev. 21. 6, 21, 22 : he will there find that what is hurnt on the altar is pre-eminently "the bread of his God," and that "the eatable portions " are only in a less sacred sense " God's bread." Is it not effrontery to describe such a " sketch " as " harmonising " with the " various literary sources " ? 298 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. He savs :— " ISTot by any means every meal indeed, but every slaiigbtering, came to be a sacrifice " (p. 63). "What then becomes of " the same value and the same effi- cacy " doctrine, which he has just been proclaiming-, as reign- ing till Leviticus and N'ehemiah ? Or, what becomes of the Deuteronomist's proclamation that " every slaughtering " Avas not " a sacrifice," but that in general (when slaughtering took place) the blood, instead of being treated sacrificially, was to be "poured out on the earth like water" ? We are also told : — " The atoning efficacy of the gift began to be ascribed mainly to the blood and to the vicarious value of the life taken away " (p. 63). Can he give us the slightest clue to the date of that " be- gan " ? How long had animal sacrifices reigned, till their most fundamental and obvious characteristic even " began" to be appreciated? Has he "the faintest trace "of proof that the " efficacy " of the blood was not recognised from the days of Abel ? or that " Noah the father of all mankind " was not aware of it ? Though it comes between the last two quoted sentences, we give the following last, as constituting a real treasure : — " What was primarily aimed at in it was a mere restoration of His own to the Deity, but there readily resulted a combination with the idea of sacrifice " (p. 63). On the previous page, the last four words " the idea of sacri- fice'' have been defined as indicating "that what God had caused to grow was thus rendered back to Him." Suhsti- tatincj this definition,, the foregoing j)ompous revelation assumes this form : " What was primarily aimed at in it was a mere restoration of His own to the Deity, but there "SOLETH" AND " KEMACHr 299 readily resulted a combination with the idea that what God had given was thus rendered back to Him ! " We could not part with the " sketch "at a more suitable culmination. (B) We now proceed to the proper subject of this chapter, which is " The Materials of Sacrifice, and their Extraordinary Evo- lutions." Wellhausen presents these evolutions as four in number, and we shall give a separate, and patient, treatment to each. We fear that som.e of them may strike ordinary readers as not being of a very serious, if even intelligible, kind ; but we shall always give them in their discoverer's own words, so that nothing may be wanting for their appreciation. The first is founded on the Priestly Code's employment of the term " fine flour " (soleth), in connection with sacrifices, which our author regards as implying a development of a strong and undoubted kind. He holds that, in previous ages, *' ordinary flour " or meal (Jcemach) was the material invariably used, but that, in all the later (Priestly) literature, soleth^ as a mark of advancement, is made to take the place of hemacli. So well understood was this that (he says) the Septuagist trans- lators, when they found lemach in 1 Sam. 1. 24, would not pollute their Greek version by translating such a material, but compassionated the ignorance of the author of Samuel, and translated him as though he had written soletli. Here is our author's precise statement of this discovered evolution : — " In the first place, it is characterised in the case of bloodless offerings by a certain refinement of the material. Thus in the meal-offerings it will have soletli (simila), not kemach (far). In the whole pre-ExiHan literature the former is mentioned only three times altogether, but never in connection with sacrifice, where, on the contrary, the ordinary meal is used (Judges 6. 19 ; 1 Sam. 1. 24). 300 SANCTUABY AND SACRIFICE. That t'his is no mere accident appears on tKe one hand from the fact that in the later literature, from Ezekiel onwards, kemach as sacrificial meal entirely disappears, and soleth invariably takes its place ; on the other hand, from this that th« LXX (or the Hebrew text from which that version was taken) is offended by the illegality of the material in 1 Sam. 1. 24, and alters the reading so as to bring it to conformity with the Law " (p. 63, 64). We have here abundance of confidence, but, when the state- ments are sifted, the conclusion becomes quite imaginary. I. It will be observed that there is no assertion, either in any code or in any history, of the change for which our author contends. If a new material was being used, ever after Ezekiel's day, as a clear, and intended, improvement in divine service, it is a change, of which no Jewish writer whatever gives the slightest positive hint. Ezekiel says " let it suffice you of manT/ past practices," but he does not include the use of Tcemach among them : nor does the Priestly Code : nor do the post-Exilic historians. II. We offer a still more awkward criticism, when we say that an undoubted prescription of the use of Jcemach stares us in the face in the heart of the Priestly Code ! With our author as guide, we have to regard the first nine chapters of Numbers as entirely belonging to the Priestly Code : there is not a single interpolation throughout them. Well, in Numb. 5. 15, we read : " then shall the man bring his wife unto the priest, and shall bring her oblation for her, the tenth part of an ephah of barley meal.^^ The word in the original for " meal " or " flour" is not soJeth, but Jcemach ! The statement, therefore, that " Tcemach as sacrificial meal entirely disappear, and soleth iavariabhj takes its place " is unwarranted. One such incon- trovertible occurrence of 'kemach levels our author's imaginary edifice with the oTound. "SOLETH" AND '' KEMACH." 301 III. We put the coi3estone on this quotation, by advancing the following further consideration. It will be seen above that our author proves the certainty of soleth being the subsequent, and legal, material, from the fact that the Septuagint is " offended at the illegality " of Jcemach, when it finds it in 1 Sam. 1. 24, and translates it as if it were soleth. We turn up our Septuagint at JViimb. 5. 15 ; and what do we find ? We find that the Septuagint is ?io^ here "offended at the illegality " of hemach occurring in the heart of the Priests' Code, but translates it, not as if it were soleth, but by the usual synonym for hemach! By applying, therefore, his own chosen touch- stone of the Septuagint, the notion that it regards Tcemach as an incredible sacrificial material turns out to be a mere German Imagination. But this may not prevent it "profoundly im- pressing the scholarship of Europe." It is hardly necessary to multiply other criticisms on the quotation from our author, with which we are dealing. But it would be quite possible to do so. Thus, ly. It will be seen that our author does not (because he cannot) contrast the language of one Code with the language of another Code. If he could have shown that the Jehovistic Code, and the Deuteronomistic Code, in repeated prescriptions, invariably prescribed Tcemach, and then, as a sudden contrast, that the Priestly Code as invariably prescribed soleth, there might have been some ground for the statement that the latter had " taken the place " of the former. But nothing of the kind can be shown. Neither Icemach nor soleth occurs so much as once in either the Jehovistic, or the Deuteronomistic, Code : apparently they can rely on many details of sacrificial material being found outside of themselves. This may be a good enough corroboration of the supplementary character of the Codes, and of the separate aims, and occasions, of their delivery, 302 SAXCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. on the traditionalist view. It, at all events, enables us to urge that the mere silence of the Jehovist, and of the Deuteronomist, is no disproof of the idea that they would have used precisely the same sacrificial phraseology for " flour," as the Priestist does, had they had occasion to refer to it. Y. If our quotation from Wellhausen be again attentively scanned, it will be seen that he does not (because he cannot) contrast the Israelitish praxis of two different periods, any more than the Israelitish legislation of two different periods, in the matter of sacrificial " flour." Subsequent to the date, to which he assigns the Priestly Code, there is not a solitary instance recorded of whether an actual sacrifice was accom- panied by soleth^ or by kemach. One might think, from his language, that instances had been very plentiful, in which Teemach, as a matter of course, was recorded as invariably used in sacrifices, and then, at a given era, a sudden contrast arose, in the substituted use of soleth. But not the remotest approach to this is supplied by the history. YI. His whole historical references are contained in the brief clause, " on the contrary, the ordinary meal is used (Judges 6. 19 ; 1 Sam. 1. 24)." That is to say, what is there stated of Gideon and Hannah is enough to settle the flour that was used in all sacrifices, from Moses to the Exile. Take Gideon's first. (1) Have we not seen that Wellhausen (when it suits him) declares " this example to be extraordinary and mythical in its character " (p. 70)? How then can he appeal to the "extra- ordinary," as a sample of the " ordinary " and established praxis ? (2) How could we expect from Gideon a faultless observance of the ritual, and of the materials, of Leviticus, amid the "SOLETH" AND " KEMACH." 303 absolute anarchy, civil and ecclesiastical, by which he was surrounded ? (3) But there is not even a certainty that Gideon intended a formal sacrifice when " he went in, and made ready a kid, and unleavened cakes of an epiah of Jcemach.'^ A refreshment for his wondrous visitor seems to have been uppermost in his mind : it is the visitor who unexpectedly treats the victuals sacrificially. (4) Gideon is much in the position of Abraham when three visitors, one of whom spoke and acted as Jehovah, appeared to him : Abraham invited them to accept rest and refreshment, and, among other preparations, he bids Sarah make ready " three measures of fine meajy Now what is the material in the original ? It is " three measures of kemach soleth,'' — a coinMnation, in di iirimiiive offering to God, of the two materials which Wellhausen would fain set up as marking widely sundered sacrificial epochs ! This Abrahamic procedure is described by the Jeh ovist, who believes in sacrifice as primeval : thus viewed, does it not turn to considerable ridicule the grand discovery that soleth could have no connection with divine service, till post-Exilic time ? Gideon bakes Tcemach for his visitor : Abraham, in precisely similar circumstances, bakes Icemach soleth for his three visitors : our author declares that the Abrahamic baking is not " in connection with sacrifice," and, in the very same sentence, he clutches at the Gideonite baking, as an infallible index of what tvas sacrificial baking, by the worshippers during a thousand years. We venture to ask the Bible student to regard such reasoning as hardly fit for serious treatment. YII. His other instance is 1 Sam. 1. 24, where Hannah is described as putting up in Elkanah's house, "one ephah of Icemach,'' to be taken up, along with " three bullocks and a 304 SAXCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. bottle of wine," when she at last re- visited " the house of the Lord in Shiloh." (1) And, if she did sacrifice with Jcemach in pre-Davidic times, is she any worse than the Priestist, who, in post-Exilic times, specifies Jcemach as an essential part of an important divine sacrifice in Num. 5. 15 ? (2) Is she any worse than Abraham, who, in a far earlier age, combines soleth with 'kemacli for divine refreshment ? (3) Instead of saying that the Septuagint is " offended at the illegality " of Hannah's hemach^ would it not be better for us to say that the Septuagint (by translating Icemach as aX^vpov in Num. 5, and as o-e/x,i8aAt§ in 1 Sam. 1) puts itself in line with the Jehovist, in his reference to Abraham's " fine meal," and shows itself " unconscious of the development," wliich was to remain un-discovered till Wellhausen's day ? (4) If we were to try, for a moment, to Germanise, we would point out that, when Hannah gets to Shiloh, although the offering of the bullock is recorded, there is no record of the offering of the Icemach^ and that this makes it manifest that Eli had been " offended at the illegality " of the meal, which she brought, and had interposed, to secure " conformity with the Law," by rejecting that part of her offering ! This would hardly be so ridiculous as to represent the Septuagint, a thou- sand years after Hannah's day, as " offended at the illegality " of her meal, and putting her in line with Leviticus. We have no need, however, thus to go a- Germanising. For we have shown abundantly that, neither by contrasted historical sacrifices, nor by contrasted ritualistic prescriptions, can the grand Priestly advance in sacrificial material be made out. YIII. We will now conclude by giving a historical statement, which is much more express and comprehensive than anything that can be deduced from Gideon and Hannah. It is from no HOW TO EVOLVE ''RAW MEAL." 335 less a sacrificial authority than Ezekiel. In his sixteenth chap- ter, he is describing the sacrificial mal-practices of Israel after the Exodus : they gave to idols the offerings, which Jehovah had prescribed for Himself. Among other details, he mentions the sacrificial meal which they were using in these early ages, and it was not kemach^ but soleth I " My Iread also, which I gave thee, fine flour (soleth)^ and oil, and honey, wherewith I fed thee, thou didst even set it hefore them for a sweet savour, and thus it was, saith the Lord God " (Ezek. 16. 19). Ezekiel is a main proof of the evolution ; it is " from Ezekiel onwards" that soleth, as the alone legal material, is to be recognised as set up. Why, then, does Ezekiel not only not describe soleth as " taking the place " of Icemach, but actually describe soleth as the habitually used sacrificial material of Israel, after their first settlement in Canaan ? Such pretences of evolution resemble playing at puerility, rather than serious investigation. (C) Our author's materialistic developments are four in number. We shall take the fourth second, because it deals with the same material, viz., " meal," with which we have just been occupied. We do not lose any of the connection of the evolution, by this slight transposition ; for the four evolutions are not presented as a series rising out of each other ; they are independent of each other, and each is a separate study. The development, which we thus consider next, is not in the material, but in the method of its treatment. In previous ages, meal, before coming to the altar, went through a process of preparation, being generally baked : but the Priestly €ode disparaged such processes, and developed a desire that meal be offered, in its raw state, to God. Further, leavened bread might formerly be freely sacrificed, but the Priestist expelled leaven from the meal : against all comminglings, or cookings, S 2893. U 30G SAXCTUAEY AND SACRIFICE. of the meal he set his face : he could not get it too raw ; " the raw condition as much as possible " was his prevailing- motto. We shall again let our author himself state this curious evo- lution : — *' The phenomenon that in the Law meal is by preference offered raw, while in the earher period, even as an adjunct of the burnt- offering, it was presented baked, belongs to the same category. The latter is the case in Judges 6. 19 at least, and the statement of 1 Sam. 1. 24 is also to be understood in the same sense ; the sacrificer brings meal along with him in order to bake it into riiaccah on the spot (Ezek. 46. 20). But he may bring along with him common, that is, leavened, cakes also (1 Sam. 10. 3), which seem originally by no means to have been considered unfit to be offered as in Lev. 2. 11- For under this law of Lev. 2 even the pre- sentation of the shewbread would be inexplicable, and moreover it is certain that at first the loaves of the Feast of "Weeks were offer- ings, properly so called, and not merely dues to the priests. Ac- cording to Amos 4. 5, leavened bread was made use of precisely at a particularly solemn sacrifice, and a reminiscence of this usage has been preserved even in Lev. 7. 13, although of coiu'se without any practical weight being attached to it. Moreover, maccali also means, proj^erly sj^eaking, only the bread that is prepared in haste and in the most primitive manner for immediate use, and originally implies no contrast with leaven, but simply with the more artificial and tedious manner of producing ordinary bread. In the Priestly Code the materials are finer, but they are as much as possible left in their raw condition ; both are steps in advance " (pp. 68, 69). It will not be difficult to show how to appraise these self- complacent dogmatisings at their true worth. I. The first criticism, that may occur to a reader, is that it is a very singular sort of evolution, which he is asked to recog- nise. Would we not expect evolution to bring meal forward from a " raw " to a prepared state, instead of un-doing its advancement, and making it recede from a palatable state to a " raw " ? Have we not been told that sacrifice to God is con- ducted on the analogy of what is best for man — " as to man so HOW TO EVOLVE '' BAW MEAL." 307 also to God, that which is eatable is by preference offered " ? Now " man " does not like his meal raw, he likes it cooked in some fashion : if "God" is to be similarly viewed, would not the liighest, and most delicate, style of cooking* be the natural acme of sacrificial evolution ? Certainly, evolution " moves in a mysterious way," if, after having enjoyed His meal baked for a millennium, the Priestist is right in representing God as suddenly retrograding to a liking for the " raw condition as much as possible." Yet we are dogmatically told that this retrograde movement is a " step in advance." II. It may be a relief to some, when we next add that this grotesque evolution is nowhere asserted in Scripture. The Priestist nowhere asserts that the offerings of previous ages are being improved on by him, in the matter of "meal"; nor does any other writer assert this for him. His Code " knows nothing " of the German claim now made for it, just as Ezekiel "knows nothing " of the distinction of first sacrificial penman, recently discovered for him. Is it not odd that Wellhausen's discoveries are all so un-announced ? Might we not have ex- pected some passing abrogation of former praxis, and some modest statement that new arrangements were now to reign ? But " not a trace " of either can be shown. III. We go a vast deal further, however, and urge that " the phenomenon that, in the Law, meal is by preference offered raw" is utterly "polemical" against the contents of the Priestly Code. (1) By "the Law" he means the Priestly portions of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. AAliat is the first reference to the offering of " meal," which Ave find in these portions ? It occurs in Exod. 29, where we have nearly a whole chapter devoted to a minute specification, by God to Moses, of the U 2 308 SAXCTUABY AXB SACRIFICE. various ceremonies, and offerings, that are to attend the con- secration of Aaron and his sons, " to hallow them, to minister unto Me in the priest's office." They are to extend over seven days, and may be regarded as a Grand Inauguration of the whole Levitical system. The materials for meal offering are thus delineated : " take unleavened bread, and cakes unleavened mingled with oil, and tcafers unleavened anointed with oil : of fine wheaten flour shalt thou mahe them " (Exod. 29. 2) : " Also thou shalt take one loaf of bread, and one cahe of oiled bread, and one wafer, out of the basket of unleavened bread that is before the Lord ; and thou shalt put the whole upon the hands of Aaron," &c. (29. 23). The execution of these commands is minutely detailed in the 8th chapter of Leviticus, when the tabernacle has been set up, and all the congregation assembled at its door. " And out of the basket of unleavened bread, that was before the Lord, Moses took one unleavened cake, and a cake of oiled bread, and one wafer, and put them on the fat, and upon the right shoulder : and he put all upon Aaron's hands, and upon his sons' hands, and waved them for a wave offering before the Lord. And Moses took them from off their hands, and burnt them on the altar upon the burnt offering : they were consecrations for a sweet savour : it is an offering made by fire unto the Lord" (Lev. 8. 26-28). This may be called the most signal instance of a minutely commanded, and actually executed, sacrifice, which " the Law " contains. Does it show that " meal is by preference offered raw " ? Nay, it insists on the "making" of the meal into "loaves" and " cakes " and " wafers " ! Xot only is " the phenomenon," on which our author dilates, non-existent : it is positively laughed to scorn. (2) While that is the inauguration of the Levitical system, let us look next at the standing regulations, for future meal- offerings, which " the Law " contains. These are to be found HOW TO EVOLVE "BAW MEAL." 309 in the 2nd chapter of Leviticas, which is wholly devoted to an enumeration of them. There are four states, in which " meal " or " fine flour " may be brought to the altar : (1) it may be brought raw, accompanied with oil and frankincense : (2) it may be prepared in the oven, and brought in the form of cakes, mingled with oil : (3) it may be prepared in the flat plate, or baking pan, with oil : (4) it may be prepared in the frying pan, with oil. All these four states are laid down, as equally open to the worshippers : not a word is used to indicate one of the states as more acceptable than the others. How, again, does this square with " the phenomenon " of our author ? On its very fore-front, " the Law " proclaims the " oven," the " flat plate," and the " frying pan," as legal instruments for prepar- ing " meal " for the altar. These utensils are quite " polemical " against our author, and his " raw condition as much as possible." (3) A further prominent enactment of " the Law " is a " perpetual meal offering," to be offered every day by the high priest, "half of it in the morning, and half thereof in the evening." This is prescribed in Lev. 6. 19-23. Now, in what state is the " meal " to be brought to the altar, in the case of this important, and enduring, oblation ? " On a Italcing pan it shall be made with oil ; when it is soaked (fried) thou shalt bring it in ; in baken pieces thou shalt offer the meal-offering for a sweet savour unto the liord " (Lev. 6. 21). Does not this cast a further lurid light on " the phenomenon " ? A sacrifice, established daily " by a statute for ever," does not prefer meal " offered raw," but " made on a baking pan with oil." (4) " The Law " prescribes another class of sacrifices " for thanksgiving," whenever a worshipper may be disposed to offer such. In what state is such a worshipper to bring the " meal "? " He shall offer with the sacrifice of thanksgiving unleavened cakes mingled with oil, and unleavened wafers anointed with 310 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. oil, and cakes mingled with oil, of fine flour soaked (fried). With cakes of leavened bread he shall offer his oblation, with the sacrifice of his peace offerings for thanksgiving " (Lev. 7. 12, 13). Though the 12th verse could (which it cannot) be shown to be "an interpolation," the 13th vei-se still exhibits the meal, not " offered raw," but prepared in " cakes." (5) Another prominent sacrificial prescrijition is that for the Nazirite. How is he to offer his " meal " ? " He shall offer his oblation unto the Lord .... a basket of unleavened bread, calces of fine flour mingled with oil, and unleavened wafers anointed with oil " (Num. 6. 15). Surely we have quoted enough. " The Law " cries out, with tenfold emphasis, against our author's " phenomenon." He may impress readers who take him entirely on trust : but, if we take the precaution to turn up Scripture, and verify his " phenomena," they become mere — Imaginations, It is obviously unnecessary to investigate (even though we had materials for the investigation) what was the pre-Exilic praxis, in the presentation of "meal." For, though it could be shown that the frequent practice was to present it baked, we have abundantly shown that this implies no startling divergence from the regulations of the Priestly Code, which, in prominent and ever-recurring sacrifices, prescribes baked bread for the altar. A proof, therefore, that the pre-Exilics generally baked their sacrificial bread, would not put them into antagonism with the Priestly Code, but would be eminently harmonious with the traditional view that the Priestly Code had been their guide from the days of Moses. The disparity in practice has disappeared : the evolution, therefore, has vanished into smoke. Although further criticism of the above quotation has only an academic interest, so far as regards the development from " baked " to " raw," it may nevertheless be adviseable to add a HOW TO EVOLVE "BAW MEAL" -311 little of such further criticism, as supplying the Bible student with a correct view of a few texts, named by our author, and as showing the almost incredible looseness of our author's reason- ing. We shall do this very briefly. IV. It will be seen that he again points to Hannah and Gideon, as summing up the pre-Exilic millennium. All that is said of Hannah is that she took up " one ephah of meal " to Shi] oh : but whether, when she came there, she " baked " it, or offered it " raw," we have not the slightest information ! And yet her action is to prove that pre-Exilics, for a thousand years, baked all their sacrificial meal ! Is this " historical criticism "? Our author says " it is to be understood " she baked it ; but he does not give us a morsel of evidence, in support of this " un- derstanding." We don't want NdJdeldsm of this kind. We have already pointed out that Gideon's action is " extra- ordinary," and that, in the similar action of Abraham, our author holds it is not "in connection with sacrifice " at all. We have pointed out also that Lev. 2 gives ample choice between baked and raw meal for sacrifice. The assumption, therefore, that Hannah and Gideon both " baked " their sacri- ficial meal would be no proof that thousands of other pre-Exilic worshippers did not avail themselves of a permitted choice of "raw." V. His quotation from Ezekiel is not only as singularly inept as that regarding Hannah, but may even be turned into positive evidence against his " thesis," on the understanding that he is not to suppress, for the time being, any particular part of his thesis, whenever it would be inconvenient. Ezekiel's guide brings him to the priests' holy chambers, and shows him " a place on their hinder part westward," and says, " Tliis is the place where the priests .... shall bake the meal offering " 312 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. (Ezek. 46. 20), Now, according to one part of the "thesis," Ezekiel is " publishing a programme for the future restoration of the theocracy " (p. 60), The quotation, therefore, proves that, when Israel have returned from Babylon, and the theo- cracy is restored, meal, instead of being " offered raw," is to have a separate building at the Temple, where it is to be " baked by the priests." Instead of supporting the evolution, it proves post-Exilic baking ! YI. His attempt to show a contradiction between 1 Sam. 10. 3 and Lev. 2. 11, is an entire failure. Lev. 2. 11, forbids any meal offering, mingled with leaven, to be hu7iit on the altar. 1 Sam. 10. 3 does not give the least hint as to whether its three loaves were leavened, or unleavened : it does not even say they were the destined materials for sacrifice : and two of them are given away to a chance traveller. Further, if the three men in 1 Sam. 10. 3 were carrying up " loaves " for sacrifice, while Hannah in 1 Sam. 1. 24 was carrying up "meal" for sacrifice, does not this harmonise with all four being under the Priestly Code, which sanctioned such options ? YII. His attempt to set the shewbread against Lev. 2. 11, is equally futile. He would first have to prove that the shew- bread was baked tvith leaven : there is not the least hint of this in the account of its preparation in Lev. 24. 5-9. He would then have to prove that the shewbread was hurnt on the altar : this we know it never was : it was eaten, as most holy, by the priests. YIIL His statement that the wave loaves of Pentecost were not " at first " (like the shewbread) a due of the priests, but were treated as proper " offerings " for the altar, is abso- lutely un-su2Jported. There is not a tittle of proof of it in either Law or History. Yet he says, "It is certain." Such HOW TO EVOLVE ''BAW MEAL." 313 is the sublime manner, in which his Imagination concocts history. IX. His mis-representation of Amos 4. 5 is complete. The prophet is in the midst of a most withering denunciation of the superstitious over-devotion of his countrymen, and ironically invites them to multiply their self -devised observances,— coming to sanctuaries which God never chose, executing tithings at variance with God's requirements, mingling leaven with sacri- fices which God had forbidden, ostentatiously publishing what the right hand should hide from the left. And, out of such an ironical catalogue of offensive icorship, our author picks " leavened bread as made use of precisely at a particularly solemn sacrifice " ! X. He caps this by revealing that Lev. 7. 13 (enjoining leavened cakes in connection with a sacrifice of thanksgiving) is " a reminiscence of this usage " in Amos 4. 5. His inter- pretation of Amos 4. 5 is a burlesque : and, though it were true exegesis, he has not a shadow of a shade of proof that that verse was present to, and inspiring, the writer of Lev. 7. 13. In fact, he has hardly ever an atom of reality to guide him, but JQst pens pure and inconsistent Imaginations, as fancy strikes. We think we have dealt sufficiently with the Priestist's " step in advance " in the preparation of sacrificial " meal." He never indicates any preference for the " raw " condition, and he multiplies instances of its presentation in a cooked state. And the texts, which our author names without quoting, lend no support to his thesis. (D) The next evolution, or " step in advance," which we have to consider, is extremely similar to the one just disposed of. It 3U SANCTUABY AND SACRIFICE. refers to animal sacrifices. In pre-Exilic ages, God used to get His portions of the flesh of animals boiled, before coming on His altar, just as men prepared flesh, by boiling, before par- taking of it. But the Priestist put an end to this : God " no longer " got the benefit of pots and caldrons, but had to accept . his flesh " raw," as it was cut from the carcase. Hear again our author : — " We may in like manner venture to regard it as a kind of refine- ment, though rather a refinement of idea, that the flesh of the sacrifice in the Priestly Code is no longer boiled, but consigned to the altar flames in its raw condition. Such was not the ancient custom, as is seen, not only from the case of Gideon already cited (Judges 6), but also from the procedui-e at Shiloh, described in 1 Sam. 2, where the sons of Eli will not wait until the flesh of the sacrifice has been boiled, and the altar pieces burnt, but demand their share raw for roasting. The meal which the Deity shares with men is prepared in the same way as for men. This naive conception gave way before advancing culture, and that at a com- paratively early date. It is possible that another cause may also have co-operated towards this result. The old method of preparing flesh in general use among the people, at a later period also, was by boiling. The word hashal (to seethe in water) occurs with extreme frequency ; tsalaJi (to roast), on the other hand, only in Exod. 12. 8 and Isa. 44. 16, 19. All sacrificial fiesh (beslicdah) was boiled, and there was no other kind. But among persons of the upper class roasting must also have come into use at an early jDeriod. ' Give flesh to roast for the priest; for he will not take sodden flesh of thee, but raw,' says the servant of the sons of Eli in 1 Sam. 2. 15. The fact that in the interval the custom of boiling had gone generally somewhat out of fashion may accordmgly have also contributed to bring about the abandonment of the old usage of offering the sacrificial 2:>ortions boiled. In any case this is the explanation of the circumstance that the paschal lamb, which originally was boiled like all other offerings, could, according to the express appointment of the Priestly Code, be roasted only " (pp. 67, 68). The sifting of this paragraph wiU not detain us long. I. It has a precise family likeness to the last considered evolution, in three respects. HOW TO EVOLVE '^RAW FLESH." 315 (1) Is it not strange to profess to go fonvard from " boiled " flesh to " raw " ? Is not that rather going hacktvard? (2) The evolution is the more inscrutable, as it proceeds on opposite lines, in the instances of God and man. Man was to be the exemplar for the divine experience : " the meal, which the Deity shares with men, is prepared in the same way as for men." But this principle is cast away : man is made to evolve forward, by " advancing culture," from " boil " to " roast," but " the Deity," instead of being allowed to accompany him, is made to evolve backward from " boil " to " raw." Is it not sad puerility ? (3) The third likeness between this and the last evolution is the rigid silence of Scripture regarding them both. Neither Ezekiel, nor Zerubbabel, nor Ezra gives the least hint of the " refinement " that has, at last, dawned on the Jewish mind, in the matter of sacrificial "flesh." Why are all these clear transitions so un-announced ? Why is it not worth while for some legislator, or some historian, to give some passing sort of commemoration of a " refinement " in divine service, whereby the ignorance of the past thousand years was now to be left behind ? But no ! if they know it, they never mention it. II. It has also to be urged that the paragraph, we have quoted, is a mere mass of (what we have already characterised as) Noldelmm (p. 46). The sin of Noldeke was telling us " what must have happened," instead of " tvliat actually tooJc place.''' But this is just what our author is at perpetually. In this paragraph, it is " mat/ " and " nmsf,''' at every turn. " Another cause m^?/have co-operated " : this is mere guessing: we don't want to know " what may,'''' but " what did.'' " Roasting tnust have come into use at an early period "; away with these " musts " ! Tell us what did " come into use." ''This fact" (a conjectured fact only) ^^may also have con- 316 SAXCTUABY AND SACBIFICE. tributed " (to the abandonment of the " boil ") : we don't want these conjectures and " mcujs^'^ we want the actual " history " of the "boil." In a footnote to the paragraph, we read, "Accordingly one must understand ^asali also of boiling (Judg. 6. 19)": this is a criticism on " Gideon made ready {yaas) a kid": but we don't want to know what we ''*must understand " about the making ready, we want to know " what actually took place ": else the " boil " is an Imagination. The whole paragraph is NoldeMsm, pure and simple. III. The doctrine of our author that, in all pre-Exilic time, flesh was boiled, before being put on God's altar, and that the boiling ceased, when the people came back from Babylon, is an absolute assumption : there is not a grain of proof for it. Not a single reference is ever made to the cooking of the parts of sacrificial flesh, which the Deity was to receive : and it seems a natural, and inevitable, inference that it was, in all ages, placed raw upon the altar to be burnt. Is it conceivable that Elijah boiled his bullock on Mount Carmel, before elevating it to the altar ? Or that Abraham had a caldron at hand, in which to boil the ram, when he saw it caught in the thicket ? Is it recorded (or likely) that Solomon boiled his thousand burnt offerings, before he presented them to Jehovah ? Or that Balaam had requisitioned seven boiling-houses, as well as seven altars, on the mountains of Moab ? Are we led to think that Abel boiled his firstlings ? or Noah his clean beasts and fowls ? There h ?iot a shred of evidence for Wellhausen's dogmatic pro- nouncement, that all pre-Exilic sacrifices had to be boiled, before reaching the altar. lY. It may almost provoke a smile to find him again re- ferring to Gideon (who is surely entitled to be called his " Fail- me-never ") and to the practices, in Hannah's day, at Shiloh. HOW TO EVOLVE ''RAW FLESH." 317 (1) As regards Gideon, we have just seen that there is not the slightest necessary fixture of " boiling," in regard to his action. It is merely said, in the most general possible terms, " Gideon made ready (yaas) a kid." It is only through NoldeMsm that " boiling " comes in : our author says we " must understand " yaas of boiling. This is arrant dogmatism : yaas no more necessarily implies boiling, than it necessarily implies frying, or any other flaying, or cooking, process. If we assume he cooked his kid, this supports the idea that, as in the similar case of Abraham, a refreshment for his visitor embraced more than half his intention : this view is further supported by the mention of " the liquid," which he placed in " the pan " or pot. There is nothing to define the nature of this liquid {maralc) : and there is only one other, equally indeterminate, use of it (Isa. 65. 4). Assuming it to be obtained from the cooking of the kid, this would not settle whether the process had been roasting, or frying, or boiling. (2) As to the practices at Shiloh (in 1 Sam. 2), they not only give no support to Wellhausen, but are unmistakeably against his thesis. There is not the slightest implication there that the altar 2neces were boiled. In verses 13, 14, it is clearly the non-altar jiieces which are being seethed for a feast to priest and worshippers, amid which the priest's flesh-hook is prematurely thrust. This is made still clearer by the aggra- vation of the priestly greed, which is straightway added in verses 15, 16, viz. that, at an earlier part of the procedure, and defore the altar-pieces and non-altar pieces had been separated, and the former burnt, the priest's profanity was for helping himself, before God's appointed share had been burnt on the altar : and the worshipper scouts such a proposal as unseemly. Burning, but not boiling, is what the passage unmistakeably asserts of altar-pieces. The Bible says, " Yea, before they burnt the fat (clielehh) " : AVellhausen says, " until the flesh of the 318 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. sacrifice has heen hoiled, and the altar pieces burnt " ! That is a fine sample of his audacious interpolations. And he would fain have them pass for " criticism." Y. We invite the Bible student, further, to take a com23rehen- sive view of the different uses of the Hebrew verb hashal in Scripture, with a view to appreciate the flimsiness of Wellhau- sen's exegesis of it. He declares it is confined to the specific sense of boiling in water, but the Hebrew usage of Scripture is quite against this. It carries only the general sense of cooking, or dressing, or ripening ; but what, in any case, may be the special process of cooking or preparing, can be known only from added words, or from circumstances supplied by the context. (1) Joel (3. 13) uses it of the harvest being made ready : " put ye in the sickle, for the harvest has become ready " or " has ripened " {U Mshshal katsir) : the harvest does not ripen by " boiling." The butler, in telling Joseph his dream, uses the hiphil of dash a I in the same sense : " my clusters made grapes to rij^en " (hibheshihi, Gen. 40. 10): but he did not see the clusters " boiling " over a fire. (2) Another modification of the general sense of cooking, or preparing, is that of baking : lashal occurs in this sense also. Tamar dresses food in presence of her brother Amnon, " and she prepared (tebhashshel) cakes " (2 Sam. 13. 8) : clearly, the preparation meant is " baking," not " boiling." So of the manna in Num. 11. 8 : they prepared (dishshehi) it, and made cakes of it. (3) Another modification of the general idea of cooking is that of roasting : bashal is applied in this sense to the pass- over : "thou shalt prepare it and shalt eat it" (lishshalta ve \ichaJta, Deut. 16. 7) : it is certain that the preparation here meant is "roasting": "eat not of the passover raw, nor cooked at all in the water, but roast with fire " (Exod. 12. 9). HOW TO EVOLVE "BAJV FLESH." 319 Wellhausen would fain insinuate (in footnote 2, p. 68) that Exodus is here abrogating Deuteronomy ! But he has not a shade of warrant for such insinuation : and even this insinu- ation would fail him, when he encounters 2 Chron. 35. 13. Even if he thinks the Deuteronomist boiled his passover, he will acknowledge that the late Chronicler roasted his, and wished to represent the passover as having been roasted from the first. In view of this, consider the following : " And they prepared (t/ebhashshehi) the passover with the fire according to the ordi- nance ; and the (other) holy (offerings) they prepared (bis/i- shelu) in pots and caldrons and pans " (2 Chron. 35. 13). This verse is decisive as to the comprehensive sense of Mshal : it is applied first to the passover, where it must mean "roasting": and it is then applied to cooking in a variety of utensils, where it may include " boiling," " stewing," and " baking." Well- hausen's dictum^ that lashed can refer to " boiling " only, would turn the above verse to nonsense. (4) Of course, this exegesis does not exclude the sense of " boiling." Bashal is clearly sometimes used in that sense also. When it is said " cook (bashal) in the water " or " cook (bashal) in its mother's milk," the cooking is evidently " boil- ing." So when Ezekiel (24. 5) is told to " set on the caldron and pour water into it," and fill it with choice pieces, and " cook well {bashelii) their bones," the cooking is again evi- dently boiling. (5) There are instances (such as 1 Kings 19. 21 ; 2 Kings 6. 29 ; Ezek. 46. 20) where there is nothing in the context to quite settle the special process of cooking intended, and where, consequently, different conjectures may be formed. Our author's exegesis of bashal is thus quite unwaiTanted, and has much the appearance of being extemporised for the occasion. To say that it occurs " with extreme frequency " in the sense " seethe in water," is perfectly misleading : though all 320 SANCTUABY AND SACRIFICE. the occurrences of Mshal (in its diverse significations), in the Old Testament, were numbered up, they would not be "ex- tremely frequent," for they would only be alout twenty: in three of them, the words " in its motlier's milk " are added, and in only one are the words " in the water " added, " eat not of it raw, nor cooked (boiled) at all in the water": the words "in the water " would have been superfluous, if the verb necessarily signified boiling. A general appreciation of sucli figures is quite possible, without any special Hebrew scholarship. The verb has the general signification of " cooking " or " making ready," but what special preparatory process is meant, must be settled, in each case, by the context, or by other considerations. Many may feel it a welcome support to common sense, as well as to the credit of Scripture, that the grand Priestly de- velopment, from "boiled" flesh to "raw," in the experience of "the Deity," turns out to h^— Imagination. (E) AYe now come to the last of our author's materialistic evolu- tions, to which, however, we shall have to devote more space than to the other three combined, both because of the length at which our author dwells on it, and also because of the extra- ordinary alleged circumstance that this evolution, in its course, has produced the un-authorised invention of a piece of taber- nacle furniture. The sacrifice referred to is that of incense, and the piece of furniture referred to is the golden altar of incense. AVe shall give them separate treatment, and in the order in which our author presents them. We shall take first the sub- stance of the sacrifice, the incense itself. Our author holds that the sacrifice of incense was utterly un- known till the day of Jeremiah. He cannot tell how Jeremiah, or his contemporaries, extemporised it, but he is certain that all the ai^es before Jeremiah never heard of such a sacrifice. The THE ANTIQUITY OF INCENSE. 321 early prophets could not have failed to give it prominence on their pages, had they known it to exist. To the successors of Jeremiah, on the other hand, he holds that incense was a notorious institution. Both the history, and the prophecy, be- come full of it. And the lateness of the Priestly Code is shown by its glorifying this late form of sacrifice. Here is how he sets forth this remarkable innovation, which was never suspected till a few years ago : — " So also a striking preference is shown (in the Priestly Code) for incense. With every meal-offering incense is offered upon the altar; in the inner sanctuary a special mixture of spices is em- ployed, the accurately given recipe for which is not to he followed for private purposes. The offering of incense is the privilege of the higher priesthood ; in the ritual of the great Day of Atonement, the sole one in which Aaron must discharge the duties in person, it occupies a conspicuous place. It has an altogether dangerous sanctity ; Aaron's own sons died for not having made use of the proper fire. It is the cause of death and destruction to the Levites of Korah's company who are not entitled to use it, while imme- diately afterwards, in the hands of the legitimate high priest, it becomes the means of appeasing the anger of Jehovah, and of staying the plague. Now of this offering, thus invested with such a halo of sanctity, the older literature of the Jewish Canon, down to Jeremiah and Zephaniah, knows absolutely nothing. The verb hatter is there used invariably and exclusively of the hurning of fat or meal, and thereby makhig to God a sweet- smelling savour ; it is never used to denote the offering of incense, and the substan- tive Icetoreth as a sacrificial term has the quite general signification of that which is burnt on the altar. In enumerations where the prophets exhaust everything pertaining to sacred gifts and hturgic performances, in which, for the sake of lengthening the catalogue, they do not shrink from repetitions even, there is not any mention of incense-offerings, neither in Amos (4. 4 seq., 5. 21 seq.) nor in Isaiah (1. 11 seq.) nor in Micah (6. 6 seq.). Shall we suppose that they all of them forget this subject by mere accident, or that they conspired to ignore it? If it had really existed, and been of so great consequence, surely one of them at least would not have failed to speak of it. The Jehovistic section of the Hexateuch is equally silent, so also the historical books, except Chronicles, and S 2S93. X 322 SANCTUABY AND SACEIFICE. go tlie rest of tlie projDliets, down to Jeremiah, who (6. 20) selects incense as the example of a rare and far-fetched offering : ' To what jDurpose cometh there to Me incense from Sheha, and the precious cane from a far country ? ' Thenceforward it is mentioned in Ezekiel, in Isaiah (40 — 67), in ISTehemiah, and in Chronicles; the references are continuous. The introduction of incense is a natural result of increased luxury; one is tempted to conjecture that its use must have first crept into the Jehovah worship as an innovation from a more luxuriously-developed foreign cultus " (pp. 64, 65). We have here just a fresh series of hasty, and iin-snbstantiated, assertions, which we shall endeavour patiently to expose. I. It will be seen, at a glance, that his discovery is again entii'ely destitute of positive evidence in its support. What he holds to have taken place is nowhere stated, in Scripture, to have taken place. He names Jeremiah and Zephaniah and Isaiah and Xehemiah, but he cannot produce the slightest approach to a statement, by any of them, that all the pre-Jeremian ages were ignorant of incense. Their ignorance is merely an Imagi- nation of his own, because the offering is not commemorated, with the specialty, that he feels inclined to demand. II. We shall ui'ge immediately that there are clear references to incense in " the older literature." But, first, we have to point out a notable confusion of phraseology, which Wellhausen has introduced into the foregoing quotation. Would not any reader of his words at once, and inevitably, conclude that the "incense," which is offered "with every meal-offering,"^ is, practically, the same as the " incense," which figures on " the great Day of Atonement," and whose offering is " the privilege of the higher priest-hood " .? He does not seem to speak of two offerings, but " now of this offering,'' in the singular. In reality, he applies the word " incense " to two very different materials. We shall show this by giving the Hebrew words in English THE ANTIQUITY OF INCENSE. 323 letters, in such a manner that the Bible student, without any special knowledge of Hebrew, may appreciate what we urge. The Priestly Code deals with two substances, both of the nature of spices, which, however, are different in themselves, and which are also put to extremely different uses. The one is UNionah, and the other Moreth. (1) Lehhonah^ as a separate substance, is named only six times in the Code. It is named thrice in Lev. 2 (verses 1, 15, and 16), where it is prescribed, as an adjunct to meal-offerings. It is named once in Lev. 24. 7, where it is prescribed, as an adjunct to the shewbread. The other two references are nega- tive : in Lev. 5. 11, it is forbidden to be put on the sin-offering, though the sin-offering be of meal : in Num. 5. 15, it is for^ bidden to be put upon the woman's jealousy offering, though that offering be of meal. These are its whole occurrences : it will be seen that it is never presented as a separate offering, but only as an adjunct, on the top of other offerings : and its destiny is always to be burnt, outside the tabernacle, on the altar of burnt-offering. (2) Ketoreth, on the other hand, is both more elaborate in its nature, and also more independent, and sacred, in the uses, to which it is put. Its composition is described in Exod. 30. oi- 38, where it is prescribed to be made of equal weights of foul- different materials, the whole well seasoned with salt. The four materials are 7iataph, shecheleth^ cheWenah, and pure leblwnali : it will thus be seen that Mho?iah, instead of being identical with Jceforeth, is only (and in its purest form) one of its four ingredients. Ketoreth is further separated off from lelJionah, by the fact that it never reaches the altar of burnt-offering out- side : it has a golden altar entirely to itself, inside the taber- nacle : it is presented there, as an independent offering, every morning, and every evening, by the high-priest, " a perpetual incense before the Lord throughout your generations." It is X 2 324 SANCTUABY AND 8ACBIFICE. this Icetorethy also, which the high-priest takes with him, once a year, into the Holy of Holies, to be burnt before the mercy-seat and the ark of the testimony, while he is making the great annual atonement, "that he die not": the cloud of 'ketoreth is his safeguard. III. Now, having made this vast distinction, we tmst, sufficiently clear, note what our author insinuates as to the " origin of hetoreth. Would not any reader of his sentences infer that this material — " this offering^ thus invested luith such a halo of sanctity " — after being utterly ignored by the "older literature," suddenly bursts into prominence, and is abundantly witnessed to, in " Jeremiah and Zephaniah " ? Well, the in- controvertible fact is that, while Tcetoreth does occur in " the older literature," there is not so much as a single occurrence of it, in the whole either of Jeremiah, or of Zephaniah ! We can be corrected in an instant, if we offer such 'an exposure without warrant. Neither of these two prophets once refers to the high-priest's daily offerings of ketoreth^ in the holy place : neither of these two prophets once refers to the high-priest's carrying of ketoreth in before the mercy-seat, on the Great Day of Atonement : neither of these two prophets once uses the word ketoreth at all. Such a fact, though it stood alone, might make any prudent searcher after truth resolve, that he will never read a page of Wellhausen, Avithout the most ex- emplary caution. lY. There is, however, more and vrorse (if worse be possible) than this. Jeremiah does, in one passage, use a substantive, which is from the same root as ketoreth., and which may be regarded as having a very similar meaning ; but he uses it in such a way, as to show that " incense-offering,^'' instead of heing a new invention, had heen an old, and ividely prevalent, THE ANTIQUITY OF INCENSE. 325 practice^ Jong hefore his oivn day '! The passage is the following : *'• The incense (Jcator), that ye burned in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, ye and your fathers, your kings and your princes, and the people of the land, did not the Lord remember them, and came it not into His mind ? So that the Lord could no longer bear, because of the evil of your doings, and because of the abominations which ye have com- mitted ; therefore is your land a desolation, and an astonish- ment, and a curse, without an inhabitant, as at this day. Because ye have burned incense, and because ye have sinned against the Lord, and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord, nor walked in His Law, nor in ffis statutes, nor in His testi- monies; therefore this evil is happened unto you, as at this day" (Jer. 44. 21-23). It is important to take a strict estimate of the force of this quotation. (1) The whole of the 44th chapter, which seems a closing message of Jeremiah to his countrymen, is a denunciation of the rebellious remnant in Egypt, for the persistency, with which they " burn incense to the queen of heaven, and pour out drink offerings to her." And the foregoing quotation seems (verse 15) to have been addressed to a "great assembly " (gathered probably for festival), " in Pathros, in the land of Egypt," when they persist, in spite of the prophet's re- monstrances, in completing the idolatrous programme, in honour of the queen of heaven, which had brought them together. Now, one conspicuous part of the programme, which almost every verse of the chapter reprobates, is the offering of incense : the verb repeatedly occurs {katter), but the substantive occurs only, as noted, in verse 21 ; and there is no other occurrence of it, in Jeremiah. The substantive is Tiator (as it may be pointed instead of Tcater or Icitter), which is just the masculine form, of which Icetorah (used once in Deuteronomy) and Moreth are the feminine forms : which- 320 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. e\"er punctuation be followed, its close relation to Tietoreth is obvious; and there can be no doubt that the same kind of sacrifice is being referred to. (2) The crucial point, then, for our present inquiry, is, AVhat does Jeremiah indicate as to the origination of the offering of Icator^ or Jcetoretli^ in Israel ? Does he regard it as a new sacrificial development, coming into prominence in his own day ? Or does he regard it as an ancient institu- tion? The most superficial reading of his 44th chapter will show that he regards the offering of incense, as having been general in Israel, ages and ages hefore his oicn time. It is not his contemporaries who have taken to the practice : nay, it is tlieir " fathers," their "kings," and their "i)rinces," through a long succession of rebellious periods, that have provoked the Almighty, by this mis-direction of incense to the queen of heaven. It is a practice, which God has made the subject of sharpest, and prolonged, invective, a practice, regarding which He uses these words of indignant pathos ; " Howbeit I sent unto you all My servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them, saying, Oh, do not this abominable thing that I hate" (verse 4). Instead of the prophets before Jeremiah being un-familiar with incense-offering, they have ^^ alV pre- ceded Jeremiah, in denouncing the people's perversion of God's " statutes " regarding it ! WeJlhansen says these prophets " knew absolutely nothing " (p. 64) of incense -offering : God says they " knew " it so well, that one main purpose, for which they were " all " sent, was to denounce its mis-use as " the abominable thing that I hate." Our author would glorify Jeremiah as the discoverer of incense : Jeremiah casts the glory from him, and grinds our author's " thesis " to powder. (3) It wiU be observed that God not merely " hates " the age-long offering of incense to the queen of heaven, but He can describe it as a contravention of His own "Law" and THE ANTIQUITY OF INCENSE. 327 " statutes " and "testimonies" (verses 10 and 23). What account can Wellhausen give of this ? He cannot point to ancient " statutes," of which Jeremiah can claim the idolatrous offering of incense to be a breach. On the basis of a poor, and despised, traditionalism, the explanation is complete, (a) The people were breaking the " statute " as to the " to ivlwni,'' by offering it to the queen of heaven, instead of to Jehovah. {h) They were breaking the " statute " as to the " ivhere,'' by offering it in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, instead of on the golden altar before the veil, (c) They were breaking the " statute " as to the " hy whom.,'' for it was being offered by ordinary worshippers, and even by their wives (verses 15 and 20), instead of by the higher priesthood, (d) And, very possibly (though it is not recorded), they would break the " statute " as to the four materials, in equal weights, of which the ketoreth should have been composed. Tradition, therefore, sheds a harmonious light over all the prophet's verses : and Jeremiah (his own selected witness) virtually says to his would-be German patron, '' de me fahida yiarratur." V. Of Zephaniah, his other originator, even less need be said. He never once mentions either lelhonah, or 'ketoreth, through- out his short prophecy ! To get an appreciation of Wellhausen's proofs^ one could not do better than to read through Zephaniah (which may be done in a few minutes), and then ask, where is there any reference to that " offering, invested tvith such a halo of sanctity,'' for whose first beginnings we are referred to Zephaniah ? where does he enter into the least detail of Israehtish sacrifice ? from what verse could we derive the faintest picture of what had heen, or of what then ivas, the sacrificial praxis ? There is no outline of sacrificial customs, nor any statement of the introduction of a new custom. Anl yet, if one did not turn up his Zephaniah, he would suppose, 328 SANCTUARY AND SACBIFICE. from Wellhaiisen, that the prophecy points to a landmark in sacrificial history. In a footnote, on p. 65, we read, " compare Zeph. 3. 10." Does this afford the clue to Zephaniah's sacrificial position ? We shall give our readers the verse in full. The prophet is celebrating the glory of a latter day, when God is to visit " all the earth," with the result that " all peoples shall call upon the name of the Lord, to serve Him with one consent " (verse 9) : and he adds this description of that glory : " From beyond, by the streams of Cush, those who worship Me, even the daughter of My dispersed, shall bring My meal-offering" (verse 10). We have here the very alphabet of prophetic phraseology, to denote the flocking of converts, from afar, into the Christian Church. Who could extract from it a radical distinction between Israel's pre-Zephanian, and post-Zephaniau, sacrifices ? The word for " those who worship !Me " {^atharai) may be rendered " those who supplicate Me" " those who perfume Me": and some, with much apparent warrant, would make it the object, instead of the subject, of the verb, " from beyond, far as the rivers of Cush, they shall briilg My suppliants. My dispersed ones, as My meal offering," just as Isaiah regards converts as themselves constituting an offering, "they shall bring all your brethren, out of all the nations, as a meal offer- ing unto the Lord, on horses and in chariots " (Isa. 66. 20). We need not discuss this : it is sufficient for our jxirpose that no possiUe translation can introduce into the verse the smallest approach to a proof of a new sacrificial develoj)- ment arising in Zejihaniali' s day. What, then, becomes of Wellhausen's misleading insinuation that Zephaniah stands co-sponsor with Jeremiah, for a new, and specially sacred, sacrifice, of which all previous prophets "know absolutely nothing " (p. 64) ? The name Zephaniah signifies " the Lord shall hide." Does THE ANTIQUITY OF INCENSE. 329 the name indicate that " the Lord shall hide '' a sacrificial development in the prophecy, to which no reader shall pene- trate till Wellhausen's day — and which, to be truthful, we must add, remains " hidden " still ! It may seem that we have sufficiently criticised our present quotation from Wellhausen. If Zephaniah is dumb as to any new discovery of the offering, and if Jeremiah, instead of treating it as neit\ treats it as known to, and abused by, the " kings " and " princes " of ly-past ages, and refers to " all My servants the prophets," as having denounced the abuse of it, is it not a pretence, almost too preposterous for serious treatment, that the offering remained unknown till these two prophets' times ? A few further criticisms, however, may be appropriate, in showing the Bible student the importance which Scripture attaches to this species of sacrifice, and in showing him also how un-moved he may often afford to be by Wellhausen's most unhesitating assertions. YI. Let us notice, then, the following declaration : — " In the older literature of the Jewish Canon, the substantive Jcetoreth, as a sacrificial term, has the quite general signification of that which is burnt on the altar." (1) Ought not the writer of that sentence to be able to pro- duce, from " the older literature," specific instances of sacrificing, where Jcetoreth has the meaning, which he asserts ? He cannot do so. There is not a single actual case of sacrificing (through- out ''the older hterature "), in connection with which "the substantive ketoreth " occurs ! If its occurrence be a pure Imagination, how can its " signification" be fixed ? (2) Apart from specific sacrifices, there are only two occur- rences of ketoreth, throughout the whole history, and prophecy, of the "older literature," and, in both, its only reasonable interpretation is to regard it as signifying incense. The two 330 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. passages are 1 Sam. 2. 28, and Isa. 1. 13. The former of the two has the singular advantage, that it not only necessarily leads us to regard Icetoreth as signifying incense, but it actually (in two i^revious verses, 15 and 16, of the same chapter) repre- sents " that which is burnt on the altar," not by hetoreth, but by chelelh — the very word which habitually recurs in the Priestly Code ! It is prescribed in Lev. 3 that, of peace offerings, the parts which the priest shall burn are " the cheWbh that covereth the inwards, and all the chelel)]i that is upon the inwards, and the two kidneys and the chelehh that is on them, and the caul upon the liver." Now, in 1 Sam. 2, when the ordinary sacri- fices of the people are being dealt with, " that which is burnt on the altar" is carefully denominated chelehh: in verse 15, " before they burnt the chelehh'': in verse 16, " they will surely burn the chelehh presently." Notice the marked distinction in verse 28. There, a man of God is reminding Eli of the four great sacrificial prerogatives, bestowed on his forefather, at the Exodus : " did I choose him out of all the tribes of Israel to be My priest, (1) to sacrifice upon Mine altar, (2) to burn Jcetoreth, (3) to wear an ephod before Me? and (4) did I give unto the house of thy father all the offerings of the children of Israel made by fire " ? We have indicated, by figures, the clear four-fold privilege which is here commemorated : (1) The first is "to sacrifice upon Mine altar," and the verb " to sacrifice " (Icicdoth) is the general term applied to all sacrifices (whether burnt-offerings, or meal -offerings, or peace-offerings, or sin-offerings) that reached the great altar of burnt-offering : (2) the second is " to burn Icetoreth,'' the tech- nical term, as we have already shown, for the daily burning of incense on the golden altar before the veil, and for the burning of it, once a year, in the Holy of Holies, on the great Day of Atonement : (3) the third is to inquire of the Lord by means of the ephod, with the Urim and the Thummim : (4) the fourth. THE ANTIQUITY OF IXCEXSE. 331 is to receive, for sustenance, those portions of the various sacri- fices, that were not burnt on the altar of burnt offering-, nor l)urnt outside the camp. In view of such obvious explanations, what can be' thought of our " critic " declaring- that, in this first of its only two occurrences, ketoreth can mean only w^hat reaches the great altar of burnt offering ? (3) The other occurrence of the word (Isa. 1. 13) is equally dead against his dogmatism. Notice how chelebh and Jcetoreth are again separated : " To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto Me ? saith the Lord : I am full of the burntr offerings of rams and the chelehh of fed beasts : and I delight not in the blood of bullocks or of lambs or of he-goats Continue not to offer a meal-offering of vanity ; (even) hetoreth is abomination to Me" (Isa. 1. 11 and 13). The 11th verse sums up the sacrificial uses of the flesh and blood of burnt- offerings, of peace-offerings, and of sin-offerings : the 13th verse, practically, completes the list, by adding the meal-offering and the incense-offering. With such a clear and intelligible distinc- tion, on the very surface of the verses, by what authority can Wellhausen maintain that Tceioreth has the same reference as chelebh ^ We have seen that Isaiah's successor, Jeremiah, re- gards kator (which is just the masculine of hetoreth) as having been offered, though in most offensive manner, by the " kings " and "princes" of former ages : Isaiah merely puts himself in line with Jeremiah, by declaring the offering of hetoreth, in his day, to have been so offensively conducted, as to become an "abomination " to Jehovah. Again, we have Tradition irradi- ating Isaiah, and uniting the two prophets in harmony : it is only Imagination that makes difficulty, and discord. YII. The antiquity of incense is also clear from manifold declarations of the Books of Kings. The recurring charge against the wicked kings is that they were still "sacrificing 332 SANCTUARY AND SACBIFICE. {mezablecliim), and burning incense {mekatterim), on the high places." Neither verb has an accusative after it, as object : the objects are left to be supplied, and are clearly animals in the case of zaWiach^ and incense in the case of Tcatar. In a foot- note, our author acknowledges, regarding Tcatar {hiJdir), that " in the Priestly Code, when used without a qualifying phrase, it generally means incensing." The same remark applies to Jeremiah : he uses the verb 17 times (10 of which occur in his 44th chapter, on which we have already commented) : in 16 of these 17 times, he uses the verb " without a qualifying phrase," and in the sense of " incensing." It is impossible, with the slightest regard to consistency, to apply a different rule of in- terpretation to the Books of Kings, when the verb is there also (as in Jeremiah) " used without a qualifying phrase." These Books, therefore, carry the incense-offering incontrovertiUy back to the days of Solomon. VIII. The laboured way, in which our " critic " lashes his sides over Amos 4, Isaiah 1, and Micah 6, can only provoke a smile. The chief of them, Isaiah 1., has hetoreth staring him in the face, and we have just shown that its only reasonable inter- pretation is incense. As to Micah, we are asked to suppose that the queries " Shall I meet the Most High with burnt-offerings, calves of a year old .^ Will the Lord delight in thousands of rams, in myriads of oil-streams ? Shall I give (Him) my first- born for my iniquity, the fruit of my body as an expiation for my soul " ? embrace, with absolute inclusiveness, all the acceptable sacrifices known to Micah. If so, we must conclude that the sacrifice of children was an accepted Israelitish sacri- fice, in that prophet's day, and that he knew nothing of meal- offerings, and peace-offerings, and sacrifices of first-fruits and fowls. As to Amos 4. 4, we have already shown that it is an ironical invitation, parodying some of the chief sacrificial THE ANTIQUITY OF INCENSE. 333 transgressions of the people ; and it is, obviously, far from au inclusive list. IX. Ezekiel, whom Wellhausen names without quoting, not only gives his fancy no support, but disproves it. Ketoreth occurs three times in Ezekiel. In 16. 18, and in 23. 41, the expressions " My ketoreth and Mine oil " refer to the squander- ing on idols, in past ages, of what should have been scrupu- lously reserved for Jehovah ; so that Ezekiel, like Jeremiah, proves, twice over, the antiquity of incense ! In 8. 11, the prophet is asked in vision to look through a hole in the wall, and see 73 men offering incense (as " abomination ") in the Temple : but not the least hint is given as to whether incense be an ancient, or a modern, institution. While Ezekiel's positive evidence, so far as it goes, is thus entirely " polemical " against Wellhausen, why has our author nothing to say of Ezekiel's negative evidence ? If Micah's silence regarding ketoreth, when he is classifying " calves " and " oil " and " firstborn," proves that ketoreth was unknown to Micah, what shall we make of the more portentous fact that, in the grand Closing Vision of Ezekiel, the sacrifice of ketoreth is never once referred to ? Should not this prove conclusively that, in " the restored theocracy," Ezekiel regarded the sacrifice of ketoreth as destined to find no place, and that his only actual knowledge of it was in the far-back idolatries of Israel ! Could anything show more clearly the absurdities, that may be drawn from Arguments from Silence ? This remarkable silence of Ezekiel's Vision Wellhausen never touches on. Would not any one, reading his reference to Ezekiel, conclude that ketoreth must figure prominently in his "programme," and that he would make it clear that it was a recent invention? The prophet does the very opposite. 834 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE^ X. Onr author's appeal to Nehemiah is as bootless as his appeal to Ezekiel. There is not a single occurrence of Jcetoreth in the whole thirteen chapters of Nehemiah ! He has a soli- tary reference to leMonah, but not one to hetoreth. When he was absent in Babylon, he tells (13. 4-9) how the high-priest had profaned the Temple by allowing Tobiah to use, for house- hold purposes, a chamber, in which " the meal-offerings, and the leblionah^ and other vessels, and the tithes of corn," and other sacriiicial requisites, used to be stored : on his return from Babylon, he caused the chamber to be cleansed, and Tobiah's household stuff cast out, and " the meal-offerings and the lelhonah^'' &c., to be re-instated. The leblionali is here closely associated with the meal-offerings, and we saw that to be burnt along with these was one of the main purposes, for which it was destined. But this implies not the slightest reference to ketoreth^ which was an independent offering, which had an altar of its own to be burnt on, and which was a compound of carefully-prescribed materials. If we were again to argue from silence, like Wellhausen, we would ask, Is it conceivable that Nehemiah, when he is numbering up the sacrificial requisites that are stored in the Temple, should mention meal-offering, and Wbhonah, and wine, and oil, and tithe, and heave-offering, and yet leave IcetoretJi un-mentioned, if Jcetoreth had been known to him ? If Jcetoreth was being daily offered, " with all the Jialo of sanctity " which the Priestly Code describes, is it conceivable that Nehemiah should have passed it over in absolute silence ? Yet that he has so passed it over is indisputable. The result, therefore, is that we have not a single Jiistorical statement of the actual offering of ketoreth in the wJiole post-Exilic literature of the canon! Does not such a fact pour utter ridicule on our author's representa- tion that the post-Exilic "references to it are continuous" (p. 65) ? If there could be (as we agree with our author THE ANTIQUITY OF INCENSE. 835 in holding that there were) thousands of post-Exilic offerings of it, without their being once referred to, by what authority shall we deny its pre-Exilic use, in spite of the clear implica- tions in Jeremiah, in Ezekiel, in Hosea, and in Kings, that it was an ancient appointment of God, that had been, from age to age, abused ? XI. The only other prop, that our author tries to lean on, are two references, by Jeremiah, to Wbhonah. (1) In 41. 5, he mentions fourscore men as going up from Shechem, from Shiloh, and from Samaria, " with meal -offerings and lehlionali in their hand, to bring them to the house of the Lord." Here again the Wbhonah is naturally associated with "meal -offer- ings," as their prescribed adjunct : but this does not mean that these pilgrims were carrying up hetoreth^ whose peculiar composition was forbidden to private persons, on pain of death. (2) The other reference is when the same prophet asks, " To what purpose shall lebhonah come to Me from Sheba, and sweet cane from a distant land ? " (Jer. 6. 20.) There is not the slightest hint here of the recency of such offerings : on the contrary, it is their antiquity that gives best point to the prophet's a23peal : " What use to expend your care on the material minutm of sacrifice ? what use to worship the outward letter of My regulations, and even to accomplish distant journeys to make sure of My prescribed materials, so long as the weightier matters of My Law are forgotten, so long as your lives are so full of falsehood, and of covetousness, and of oppression, as to make your very sacrifices " abomi- nation " ? We have thus gone over every morsel of evidence, w^hich Wellhausen offers, for the late introduction of incense, with the 336 SANCTUAEY AND 8ACEIFICE. view of showing the Bible student that a candid examination of the very writers, whom he quotes, is all that is needed to refute his most authoritative dicta. There is not, in the canon, a single post-Exilic instance of the offering of Tcetoreth ! And, in pre-Exilic ages, instead of earlier wiiters " knowing abso- lutely nothing" of it, we have it expressly named, and its offering most manifoldly implied, in " the older literature." Zephaniah, one of its inventors, never names it. Ezekiel and Jeremiah, his colleagues in the invention, use language which implies it to have been an ancient ordinance, which Israel had been wickedly abusing, " from the day of thy nativity." And Ezekiel has no fear that its observance will die out, though he leaves it un-mentioned in his Symbolic Vision. We will conclude this defence of the antiquity of incense by pointing out that, in the closing sentence of the quotation, with which we have been dealing, Wellhausen goes far to confess to the chcirge, which we are uniformly constrained to bring against him, the charge, namely, that he is founding on Imagination, and not on evidence. In that sentence, he, practically, tells us he is merely guessing at the making of history ; it is not solid proof he is giving us, but mere " conjecture." " The introduction of incense is a natural result' of increased luxury ; one is tempted to conjecture that its use must have crej^t into the worship of Jehovah as an innovation from a more luxuri- ously-developed foreign cultus." Is it possible that our author could pen such a sentence, without seeing himself reflected, to the life, as in the glass of Noldeke ? " 3Iust have crept into the worship " — away with these " musts " ! " What must have happened is of less con- sequence to know than ivhat actuaUy took jjJace " (p. 46). The sentence is a practical confession that our author hioivs absolutely notlmig (to retort on him his own words) either as THE ANTIQUITY OF INCENSE. 337 to the date, or as to the surroundings, of that late introduction of incense, about which he is so dogmatic. We might add, if we iviU play at Noldekism, might not incense " have first crept into the worshijD of Jehovah " in Solomon's day, far more probably than in Josiah's day ? " Foreign luxury " was rampant in the court, and in the worship, of Solomon : " he ruled over all the kingdoms from the Eiver unto the border of Egypt " : " once every three years came the navy of Tarshish, bringing gold and silver, ivory and apes and peacocks : " " and all the earth sought the presence of Solomon , . . and they brought every man his present, vessels of silver and vessels of gold, and raiment, and armour, and spices, horses and mules, a rate year by year" (1 Kings 10. 22-25). The word, here rendered "spices," is the identical word, em- ployed in Exod. 25. 6, when Moses is asking the people to contribute materials, for the tabernacle, and for its service : "(ye shall take of them) oil for the light, and spices for the anointing oil, and for the sweet ItetoretliP Year by year, therefore, we have the materials for the Mosaic Icetoreth, not even needing to be trafficked for, but brought, as "presents," by " all the earth," and laid at Solomon's feet ! Is it not fatuous to have a nineteenth century German " conjecturing " that Tcetoreth must have " crept into the Jehovah worship as an innovation from foreign cultus," by means of Jeremiah and Zephaniah, in the days of Josiah, a king who expelled " foreign cultus," and restored "the Jehovah worship" to its purity? If we are to " conjecture," let us, at least, be reasonably probable in our " conjectures," and not fly four centuries down from probability. But we have abundantly shown that our author is " con- jecturing " after causes for events, that never occurred. There is not an atom of proof that the Israelitish offering of incense hegan in Jeremiah's day : Jeremiah himself points to it 3 S 2893. Y 338 SANCTUARY AND SACBIFICE. existence, through long previous ages. These words, " one is tempted to conjecture,'' might be wi'itten, as an appropriate scroll, at the top of almost every page of Wellhausen's Pro- legomena. His whole work does not give the results that straightforward investigation has supplied him with, it gives merely the accumulations of what he has been " tem])ted to conjectured And his infirmity is that he falls very readily into that " temptation." (F) "We said that, in connection with the introduction of incense, "Wellhausen has discovered the imposition, on an unsuspecting world, of a belief in a piece of tabernacle furniture, which Moses never ordered, and which Ezekiel never saw in vision. And, having considered what he has been " tempted to conjec- ture " about incense, we have now to consider what he has been " tempted to conjecture " about its correlate, the golden altar for incense. His " conjecture," or rather his undoubting certainty, is that the construction of that altar is a pure invention. Is it not amazing what a hot-bed of chicanery our author has discovered the oracles of God to be ? He takes us inside the door of the holy place, and tells us that the golden altar, which every Jew believes to be standing there, is a pure — Imagination ! That altar is a shadow ; it never had substan- tial existence. Some forger tacked it on, in Exod. 30, to the commands, which God is represented as giving to Moses, for the construction of the tabernacle, and of its vessels. It must have been commanded earlier, he says, if it was ever commanded at all. And, had it existed, he holds it must have figured at Aaron's consecration, in Lev. 8, and on the great Day of Atonement, in Lev. 16. He concludes that this golden altar of incense is " everywhere unknown," and that " the altar of FORGING AN ALTAH. 339 burnt-offering is the only altar." Here and there, in the Priestly Code, some clumsy forger stuck in an altar of incense, which never had existence. That we are not mis-representing our author, will be evident from his own words, which follow : — " But the importance which it has attained in the ritual legisla- tion of the Pentateuch is manifest above all from this, that it has led to the invention of a peculiar new and highly sacred piece of furniture, namely, the golden altar in the inner tabernacle, which is unknown to history, and which is foreign even to the hernel of the Priestly Code itself. "We expect to find the altar of incense in Exod. 25—29, but find it instead as an appendix at the beginning of Exod. 30. Why not until now ? why thus separated from the other furnishings of the inner sanctuary ? and not only so, but even after the ordinances relating to the adornment of the priests, and the inauguration of the divine service ? The reason why the author of Chaps. 25—29 is thus silent about the altar of incense in the passage in which the furniture of the tabernacle, consisting of ark, tahle, and candle- stick, is described, is, that he does not know it. There is no other possibility ; for he cannot have forgotten it. And the phenomenon is rei^eated ; the altar of incense occurs only in certain portions of the Priestly Code, and is absent from others where it could not possibly have been omitted, had it been known. The rite of the most solemn atoning sacrifice takes place in Lev. 4 indeed on the golden altar, hut in Exod. 29, Lev. 8, 9, without its use. A still more striking circumstance is, that in passages where the holiest incense-offering itself is spoken of, no trace can be discovered of the corresponding altar. This is particularly the case in Lev. 16, To burn incense in the sanctuary, Aaron takes a censer, fills it with coals from the altar of burnt-offering (verses 12, 18-20), and lays the incense upon them in the adytum. Similarly in Lev. 10, Num. 16, 17, incense is offered on censers, of which each jn-iest possesses one. The coals are taken from the altar of burnt-offering (Num. 17. 11 ; A.Y. 16. 46), which is plated with the censers of the Korahite Levites (17.3,4; A. V. 16. 38, 39) ; whoever takes fire from any other source, incurs the penalty of death (Lev. 10. 1 seq.). The altar of incense is everywhere unknown here ; the altar of burnt-offering is the only altar, and, moreover, is alwavs called simply the altar, as for example, even in Exod. 27, where it Y 2 340 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. would have been specially necessary to add the qualifying expres- sion. Only in certain later portions of the Priestly Code does the name altar of burnt-offering occur, viz., in those passages which do recognise the altar of incense. In this connection the command of Exod. 27 as compared with the execution of Exod. 38 is charac- teristic " (pp. 65, 66). We also give a footnote, in which he seems to fear that his objection, founded on the mere non-appearance of the altar, till Chap. 30, will be ridiculed as vain, and in which he, therefore, extemporises some curious princijjles of composition for the writer, of which principles the writer himself makes no mention : — " There is a peculiar perversity in meeting the objection by alleging other singularities in the ordinance, as for example, that the vessels of the tabernacle are appointed (chap. 25) before the tabernacle itself (chap. 26). This last is no eccentricity; the order in commanding is first the end, and then the means ; but in ohey- ing, the order is reversed. In like manner, it is not at all sur- l^rising, if subsidiary implements, such as benches for slaughtering, or basins for washing, which have no importance for the cultus, projjerly so called, should be either passed over altogether, or merely brought in as an appendix. The case is not at all parallel with the omission of the most important utensil of the sanctuary from the very passage to which it necessarily 'belongs''' (i3. 66, note 1). What an extraordinary piece of patch-work that Priestly Code is ! Xot only is it, as a whole, a forgery, attributing to Moses what Moses never heard of, and flanked, on either side, by other Codes, against which it is " polemical," but it is, in its details, "a house divided against itself"; it has " a kernel," and an " older corpus," and " later portions," and gross " inter- polations," so that any serviceable idea of its origin is, practi- cally, un-attainable : " cut it down, why cumbereth it the holy ground " ? The free onslaught on its verity, and on its consis- tency, in the two foregoing quotations from Wellhausen, it will not be difficult to turn aside. It will be seen that he marshals, FORGING AN ALTAB. 341 with great confidence, three main arguments against the reaUty of the altar of incense : first, there is no historical corrobora- tion of its existence : secondly, its appearance, in Exod, 30, is inconsistent with a principle of " means " and " end,'' and, unwarrantably, asks us to receive it, in a mere ''appendix'': thirdly, it could not have existed, without being mentioned in Lev. 8, 9, and 16. We shall take these three arguments in order. I. His first argument against the altar is that it is " un- known to history," i.e., it is not referred to, in the other Books of Scripture, in the way he thinks it ought to have been. (1) Our first preliminary answer is that this is the familiar, and shadowy, argument from mere silence again. An express historic statement is repudiated, merely because subsequent historic references to it, such as our author is inclined to call for, are wanting. This will come in, for further notice, as we proceed. (2) Will our author hold that the "Veil" {parocheth), separating the holy place from the Holy of Holies, is a myth ? that it was never woven, and never hung ? He may as well hold that, as deny the reality of the altar of incense. For, apart from the dii'ections about the " Veil," in the Priestly documents, it is never mentioned in the whole Old Testament. It is " unknown to history " ! (3) Will he hold that the "Plate" {Tsits) of pure gold, which had engraven on it, like the engravings of a signet, " Holy to Jehovah," was a myth ? What " halo of sanctity " could be greater than that, with which this " plate " is invested (Exod. 28. 36-39) ? The forgiveness of the sins, in worship, of the whole "camp of Israel, depended on the due wearing of that " plate " by the high-priest. It was to be as enduring a means of retaining the divine favour, as the daily morning and evening 342 JSAJCTUABY AND SACBIFICE. .burnt-offerings : " it shall be always on his forehead that the}^ may be accepted before the Lord." Yet to " this 2^^((te, thus invested with such a halo of sanctity^'' not a solitary refer- ence, however slight, occurs in the whole Old Testament, apart from Moses's original command to make it for Aaron ! It is " unknown to history ! " (4) Will he hold that the " Robe " {MeU\ appointed to be worn above the ephod, was a myth ? Its construction is minutely described, and it was to have " golden bells " between its " pomegranates," the sound of which was to iireserve the high-jjriest from death, when he went in to, and out from, the holy place (Exod. 28. 31-35). Yet neither the " robe," nor its " golden bells," are again referred to, in the whole Old Testa- ment. They are " unknown to history " ! Although, there- fore, it were the fact that there is nothing, in the subsequent " history," to assert, or to imply, the " altar of incense," that would not prove that it was " unknown," and that it was not being daily sacrificed on, from one generation to another. II, But we proceed to show that the altar is far from being as " unknown to history," as our author represents. It is distinctly mentioned (not merely in Chronicles, but in Kings) at the erection of Solomon's Temple. In 1 Kings 6 it is stated, twice over (in verse 20, and then in verse 2'2), that there was an "altar," connected with the holy place, quite away from the altar of burnt-offering, and that he overlaid its cedar with gold — " the whole altar that belonged to the oracle he overlaid with gold." How could the altar of incense be more explicitly acknowledged ? It is expressly called the " altar " again, in the following chapter, when a summary is given of the golden vessels, constructed by Solomon : " And Solomon made all the vessels, that were in the house of the Lord : the golden altar, and the table, whereupon the shew- FOBGING AN ALTAB, 343 bread was, of gold : and tlie candlesticks, five on the right side, and five on the left, before the oracle, of pure gold ; and the flowers, and the lamps, and the tongs of gold," &c. (1 Kings 7. 48-50). Does this look as though an " altar," inside the sanctuary, was " unknown " in Israel ? Our author refers to these verses, on p. 67, and how does he evade them ? With the help of Imagination, he has no diffi- culty whatever. (1) He suggests (without a particle of proof) that " the golden altar," in 6. 20, means the table for shew- bread ! This is both un-asserted, and untenable. The great altar of burnt-offering is sometimes, metaphorically, called God^s " table " (as in Malachi, where the victims are also called His " bread ") ; but a mere table is never treated, nor designated, as an altar. (2) Then, the fact that loth are mentioned, in 7. 48, is overthrown by the never-failing device of cm inteiyo- Jation ! " Nothing is less improbable than that some later transcriber should have interpolated the golden table in 7. 48, regarding it, in accordance with the Pentateuch, as distinct from the golden altar, and therefore considering its absence as an omission " (p. 67). But this " transcriber," and his mental operations, are pure and absolute guesses : there is not the veriest shade of evidence, in support of either. And if random guesses are to extinguish plain historic statements, historic cer- titude is gone. Besides, why did the "transcriber" not " in- terpolate the golden table" into Chap, 6, as well as into Chap. 7, so as to make hoth chapters orthodox, and "in accordance with the Pentateuch"? Is it fair to invent cunning, and unscrupulous, " transcribers," and yet leave them destitute of the very rudiments of intellectual observation ? Let us add that the verses, just quoted, suggest another caustic comment on Wellhausen's pretence that the altar of incense is « unknown to history." Among the utensils, which he regards as originaUy (and not by way of surreptitious "appeudix") 344 SANCTUARY AND SACBIFICE. prescribed in the Priestly Code, is the golden candlestick, with its knoj^s, cups, branches, &c. This was the very article, which, stood leside the altar of incense, in the holy place. Now, wherein does the evidence of " history," in favour of the one^ differ from the evidence of "history," in favour of the other? From the days of Moses, to the day when Nebuchadnezzar burned the Temple, the only reference to the golden candle- stick is that which we have just quoted from 1 Kings 7. 48 ! If the altar of incense is " unknown to history," though it is twice attested in 1 Kings, are we to say that the candlestick is " known to history," when it is only once attested there ? Further, it is vain to urge that the "golden table" is an intruder, in 1 Kings 7, seeing it is not specified in Chap. 6 : for, by the same reasoning, the candlesticJc must be eliminated from 7. 48, seeing it also is not mentioned in 6. 20-22 ; and it would thus be left utterly "unknown to history," like the " Veil," and the " Plate," and the " Eobe," to which we have already referred. We have made it abundantly clear that Wellhausen has nothing but wild Imagination to oppose to the twice-pre- sented evidence of Kings, that God's sanctuary did contain a " golden altar," in the days of Solomon. III. But the emphatic testimony, from the author of Kings, does not stand alone. (1) There are two clear implications of the golden altar, in the Book of Ezekiel. In 9. 2, his guide shows him six men, coming from the upper gate, with battleaxes, and a seventh, with an ink-horn, and he adds : " And they went in and stood beside the brazen cdtar.'' Why is the altar designated " the brazen," if there was no altar, of a different material, from which to discriminate it ? Let us remember it is a priest, who had officiated in the Temple, who uses the words. FOBGING AN ALTAR. 345 The same thing is impUed in his Closing Vision. "We demur to quoting that Vision, as a precise outline of actual sacrificial arrangements in Israel ; but his symbolism is essentially, and manifoldly, drawn from the Temple-worship, and, if he indi- cates the tAVO altars, this is a strong corroboration of their actual existence in the Temple. That he does indicate two altars, is undeniable. He indicates one (just as Moses and Solomon do) in the court, outside the house : " and he measured the court, an hundred cubits long, and an hundred cubits broad, foursquare ; and the altar was before the house " (Ezek. 40. 47). When he is led further in, he comes to the other altar : " the altar was of wood, three cubits high and the length (top ?) thereof two cubits ; and its corners, and its length (top ?), and its ivalls, it had of wood : and he said to me. This is the table that is before the Lord " (Ezek. 41. 22). On p. 67, our author holds that the only reference, in this verse, is to the shewbread table ; but this is mere un-substantiated assertion. He would also translate tiammizbeach Ws, "an altar of wood"; but this is indefensible ; as a professor of Oriental Languages, he knows that the article prevents mizbeacli being in the construct state. It may also be noted that the shewbread table is not described, in Exod. 25, as having " ivalls^' but the golden altar, in Exod. 30, lias "walls." Ezekiel gives his altar " walls," and uses the identical word, Uroth^ as is used in Exod. 30. Clearly, it is a second " altar," which Ezekiel sees in vision, and, as far as a vision can be appealed to, he is quite " polemical " against the altar of incense being " unknown to history." (2) The evidence of Chronicles is also clear in favour of the historicity of the altar. Our author varies in his treatment of the Chronicler : at one time, he denounces him as an unmiti- gated romancer : at another time, he appeals to him for countenance, and for proof. We quote him now, because, in the matter of incense, it will be remembered we were sent to the 34& SANCTUARY AND SACBIFICE. Chronicler for credible testimony. " Thenceforward incense is mentioned in Ezekiel, in Isaiah (40 — 66), in Xehemiah, and in Chronicles ; the references are continuous " (p. 65). Now, if we are to take the Chronicler's guidance regarding incense, we must follow that guidance fully. What then does he tell us ? He tells us that the altar of incense was quite well known to David, and that it was one of the articles, for whose construction he laid up in store for Solomon : " and for the altar of incense refined gold by weight" (1 Chron. 28. 18). He tells us that the altar of incense was quite well known to Uzziah, and that it was for going in to offer incense upon it, that this king was struck with leprosy : " he went into the Temple of the Lord to burn incense upon the altar of incense" (2 Chron. 26. 16). He also mentions both altars (of burnt-offering and of incense) together, as having, from the first, been ministered on by Aaron and his sons (] Chron. 6. 49). Xow, it will hardly do to tell us to rely on what the Chronicler says of incense, in days subsequent to Jeremiah, and, at the same time, to tell us to treat him as a deliberate story-teller, in what he says of incense in the days of Aaron, and of David, and of Uzziah. The Chronicler proves, in the clearest (and most undesigning) manner, that the altar of incense is not " unknown to history." (o) It is fair to urge, further, that the existence of the altar of incense, so far from being an unexpected offence, is really a harmonious correlate to the ascertained facts of Israel's history. We have seen that Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, and Hosea, and the author of Kings, all point to the offering of incense, as an ancient (though generally abused) ordinance, in Israel. If so, the want of an altar of incense would be a historical anachron- ism. The true " history " of Israel demands the altar of incense. And we have shown that it supplies it. FOBGIKG AN ALTAR. 347 (G) Our author's second argument, against this altar, is drawn from its being prescribed in Exod. 30, instead of in Exod. 25. This latter chapter (25) is " the passage in which the furniture of the tabernacle, consisting of ark, table, and candlestick, is described"; it is, therefore, "the very passage to which it (the altar of incense) necessarily belongs." To put it into Chap. 30 violates the principle of "means" and "end." Besides, Chap. 30 is a mere " appendix," and, as such, is an unsuit- able receptacle for such a dignified article as the golden altar, I. The separation of Exod. 30 from Exod. 25—29 is a pure Imagination, on the part of Wellhausen. The contents of Exod. 30 are an essential jmrt of the divine instructions to Moses, and the suppression of them would throw the fulfilment of these instructions (in Exod. 35—39) into iuexplicable disorder. The construction of the altar of incense is included, not as an ap- pendix, but in the heart of the other utensils (Exod. 37. 25-28). When everything is finished, and ready to be presented to Moses, the altar of incense again figures in the heart of the summary of things presented (39. 33-41). When Moses rears up the tabernacle, and puts all the articles in their places, the altar of incense is again in the heart of them (40. 18-33). Now, to make out his point, Wellhausen must hold that these inser- tions of the altar of incense are forgeries too. But they do not correspond with the style of forgery, followed in Chap. 30. We are asked to accept a forger, who cunningly conceals his work, by three unexceptionable entries, in the fuJflment of God's orders, but who writes down his folly, and his exposure, by a glaring mis-entry, in the delivery of God's orders. If it was forgery he was at, what necessity was laid upon him to insert the altar of incense, in Chap. 30, instead of in Chap. 25 ? We 348 SANCTUAEY AND SACBIFICE. venture to pose, as " Higher Critics," for a moment, and to reject this forger, on the ground of diversity of plan. II. As to the grand argument that the ordering of vessels, and the construction of vessels, must figure in ^'reversed'" enumerations, as being " means " and '' end," it will not stand a moment's investigation. The vessels (he says) are "com- manded " before the tabernacle, as being " the end " (25), but they are " constructed " after it, as it is " the means " (37). "Why, if we take him to 31. 7, we have God summing up the commands, and he puts the tabernacle (as a command) before the vessels ! If we take him to 35. 10-12, we have Moses, for the first time, rehearsing the commands to all the congregation, and he puts the tabernacle, with all its boards and pillars (as commands), before all the vessels ! Is there not a " peculiar perversity " in both God, and Moses, showing themselves so ignorant of Wellhausen's principle ? If our author's principle of " means " and " ends " were worth anything, it should apply to the altar (the *' end "), and the hangings of its court (the " means ") to enclose it. Well, in 27, all seems right, the altar first, and the court-hangings after- wards : but alas ! for our author's principle ; " the order is not reversed," but is maintained, in 38, when the fulfilment comes, the altar first again, and the court hangings afterwards. If the principle had any weight, it should have been honoured at the Flood. The command to Noah to single out, for pre- servation (the " end "), his family and clean animals and food, should have come first, and the command to build the ark (the " means ") should have come second. But the Jehovist was as ignorant of the recondite principle as the Priestist ! In fact, it is quite absurd to suppose that we have any fixed delineation, in 36 — 39, of the order, in which the various articles were constructed. A multitude of workers were engaged, and, FORGING AN ALTAE. 349 surely, common sense would suggest that they Avrought busily, and simultaneousli/. " Let every wise-hearted man among you come and make all that the Lord hath commanded." "All manner of workmanship " was going on. There were " weavers," and " embroiderers," and " carpenters," and " carvers," and " engravers," and " smiths." Did all the other workmen stand idle, while the weavers began with the ten curtains, and the smiths with the clasps of gold ? By-and-bye, did the weavers join the idlers, while the carpenters came forward to make the boards ? By-and-bye, did the weavers get their hand in again at the veil, &c., &c. ? That is the farce, which we must conjure up, if we suppose that each particular vessel had to be finished, defore a fresh vessel was adventured on. Surely, we may believe there were carpenters enough, to allow some of them to be busy with the boards, while others were busy with the ark ; and what matters it which had their work first completed ? Though the tent-curtains d^vQ first mentioned, may not the court-hangings, which are last mentioned, have been embroidered simultaneously? All we are assured of is that every detail was duly executed, and that Moses then, by God's command, set up all, in their appointed places. III. The principle, by which the ^^ appendix^' theory is sought to be supported, is as inconclusive as the principle about " means " and " end." He says all the other contents of Chap. 30 figure naturally there, as an appendix, but the altar of incense is "the most important utensil of the sanctuary," and, if commanded at all, it must have been commanded in Chap. 25, "the very passage to which it necessarily 'belongs.'" We have already urged that the various chapters form one " passage," and that there is no sacred, nor uniform, principle, attaching to the enumerations at all. (1) But, on our author's ground, how can the " veil of blue ' 350 SANCTUABY AND SACRIFICE. be absent from Chap. 25 ? That chapter mentions several articles, but there is no intimation that they are to occupy very different apartments, some of them to be in the holy place, and others in the Holy of Holies. They were to have a separating veil, which had to do with one of the deepest solemnities of Judaism, and the rending of which was to be the signal that the whole Jewish system had passed away. "Why are the articles grouped together, with no hint of their essential separation ? The veil is never mentioned till the close of Chap. 26, and, even then, there is no hint of the difference of honour, attaching to the vessels, which it separated. Shall we say that " the author of Chap. 25 does not hnoiv " (p. 66) of the veil, and of its uses ? Shall we say, " there is no other iwssilility ; for he cannot have forgotten them " (p. 66) ? i (2) The "appendix" itself is "polemical" against our author's principle. In verses 1-10 of Chap. 30, is the com- mand to make the altar of incense, and for Aaron to burn incense of sweet spices on it. But the command for the mixture of these sweet spices is not given till far down in the chapter, verses 34-38. Between the two commands, a variety of un-r elated matters are commemorated, the atonement-money, the brazen laver, and the anointing oil. Are not the sweet spices, in being thus separated imm. verses 1-10, "omitted from the very passage to which they necessarily leloncj " ? Either Moses, who wrote the whole chapter, or the forger, who put in verses 1-10, did not respect our author's principle. (3) Here is another want of respect for the principle. In 29. 4, Moses is told to bring Aaron and his sons " to the door of the tabernacle, and wash them with water." But the com- mand to " make a laver of brass, and put water therein," is not given till 30. 17-21. Between the two commands, we have again a variety of un-related matters prescribed, the continual burnt- offering, the altar of incense, and the atonement-money. Shall FORGING AN ALTAE. 351 we not say that the laver of brass is " omitted from the very passage to which it necessariJf/ heJongs " ? (4) It is the same with the anointing oil. Aaron is to be anointed with it in 29. 7, bnt the command to make it does not come till 30. 22-33. The two commands are separated by the laver, by the tax, by the incense -altar, and by the bnrnt-offering. (5) We must also call upon Chap. 30 to rebuke our author for the estimate, which he mis-places on its contents. He says that (apart from the altar of incense) these contents are " sub- sidiary implements," that they "have no imjjortance for the cultus properly so called," and that they are, therefore, such as may be " either passed over altogether, or merely brought in as an appendix." Let us look at the descriptions, and see. («) The first is the payment of the specified ransom, which is, on the one hand, to save the people from " the plague," and to " make atonement for their souls," and, on the other hand, is {in our author'' s oinnion, though not in our's) to make pro- vision for the conduct of the whole Temple service (11-16). {b) The next is the construction, and filling, of the laver, the neglect of which by Aaron (whensoever he approaches the tabernacle) ispumshable by death : " it shall be a statute for ever to them, even to him and to his seed, throughout their genera- tions " (17-21). (c) The next is the anointing oil, which has to be prepared with the utmost nicety, and by which every minister, and every vessel, in the sanctuary, have to be conse- crated : a compound which is to be, not " holy," but " most holy," which dare not be poured " on the flesh of man," and whose composition cannot be imitated, on pain of death (22-33). (d) The last is the incense {Icetoreth) of sweet spices, which also is, not " holy," but " most holy," and some of which was to be placed before the very mercy-seat, " where I shall meet with thee " : a compound also which dare not be imitated, on pain of 352 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. death, and wliich is habitually treated, as the medium of a most sacred approach to Jehovah (34-38). What is to be thought of an author, characterising prescriptions, of wMcli such things as the above can de said, as " subsidiary," as practically of " no importance," and as fit only to be " passed over," or thrust into " an appendix " ! The least tampering with three of them is punishable by death : and, on the fourth, depend deliverance from the plague, and (according to Wellhausen) the mainten- ance of the whole service. Wellhausen has thus " not the faintest trace " of proof, either that Chap. 30 is " an appendix," or that verses 1-10 have been " interpolated " into it, or that these verses are in improper company. Might we not ask him, Is he not making an un-Pharisaic distinction, in sacredness, between the altar and the incense that is burnt on the altar ? If the sweet spices themselves are a mere triviality for an " appendix," by what logic can the super-eminent importance of their altar be possibly reconciled therewith ? ly . Having thus dealt with our author's frivolities regarding the position, and the contents, of Exod. 30, it does not seem difficult to close by now turning the tables on him, and showing that the literary arrangement, which his subjectivity repudiates as incredible, is a quite natural, and seemly, arrangement. We do not, indeed, feel it at all necessary to j^rove any deep design, on the part of the writer of Exodus, in settUng the position, which he has assigned to the altar of incense, in Exod. 30. 1-10. There was, quite possibly, hardly any design, and its absence would be little strange. We think it quite conceivable, how- ever, that a natural enough design may have operated, in fixing where the altar of incense is first brought in. (1) After the prescription of various articles, in 25, 26, God proceeds to deal with the great altar of burnt-offering. In FORGING AN ALTAR. 353 27, He prescribes the altar itself, and its enclosing court : in 28, He prescribes a priesthood, with their robes, to minister at it : in 29, He prescribes (1-37) rites of most solemn inaugura- tion for the priesthood and the altar, closing (38-46) with a prescription of the perpetual daily sacrifices, that were to be offered, morning and evening, upon that altar, throughout their generations. Having thus, practically, devoted three chap- ters to the great central altar of the system, was it unnatural that God should straightway pass to the prescription of another, quite different, altar, less prominent, and more restricted in its uses, which the system was also to embrace ? This He straightway does, in the beginning of Chap. 30. The altar, with which all the people were to be familiar, and on which all kinds of their sacrifices were to be freely offered, is first, at great length, disposed of (its court, its priests, its consecration, its unalterable daily sacrifices) : and a shorter description is immediately given of a less important altar, which none of the people were to see, and to which none of their ordinary sacri- fices were to be brought, but which had nevertheless an important ceremonial purpose to subserve. Had it suited Wellhausen's " thesis," we venture to think he would have glorified the naturalness of this arrangement, in very decided terms. (2) Not only have we thus the concatenation of the two altars, but we have also the near, and appropriate, conjunction of the two priestly occupations, by which every morning and evening were to be signalised, in the sanctuary. The closing verses of 29 specify the burnt-offerings, with meal-offerings, and drink-offerings, which were to be laid on the altar of burnt-offering, every morning, and every evening : the opening verses of 30 deal with another priestly service, that has to be rendered, at the beginning, and at the close, of each day. " Aaron shall burn thereon incense of sweet spices : every 354 SAKCTUABY AND SACRIFICE. morning, when he dresseth the lamps, he shall hum it. And, when Aaron lighteth the lamps at even, he shall burn it, a per- petual incense before the Lord throughout your generations " (30. 7, 8). Is not this a natural enough sequel to the other service, which had just been described as follows : " The one lamb thou shalt offer in the morning, and the other lamb thou shalt offer at even : ... it shall be a continual burnt- offering, throughout your generations " (29. 29, 42) ? There are to be two perpetual priestly offerings, presented, every morning and every evening, on their respective altars : is it an unnatural, and incredible, arrangement that they should be prescribed, in immediate succession ? (3) We would add that this arrangement allows an essential contrast between the two altars to be very appositely comme- morated. The precise materials, and quantities, in which burnt- offering, meal-offering, and drink-offering are to be daily offered, on the great altar, have just been specified : this leads on to an injunction that none of these tliree kinds of offerings must ever reach the other altar. " Ye shall offer thereon neither burnt-offering, nor meal -offering ; and ye shall pour no drink-offering thereon " (30. 9). Does not the one passage connect most naturally, and instructively, with the other ? And would these relations have been so aptly suggested, had the altar of incense been placed in 25 ? Wellhausen looks only at (what we may call) the geography of the sanctuary : had he looked at its chronology, and at its praxis, as well, he might never have discovered the " appendix." We are far from urging that the above relations, between the close of 29 and the commencement of 30, are either possessed of importance, or are capable of proof. We merely suggest them as showing the unwarrantableness of Wellhausen's dogmatism that no reasonable author could, possibly, have placed the open- ing verses of 30, where they are. This is a point, which it FORGING AN ALTAR. 355 needs no Hebrew scholarship to canvass. Let the Bible student, therefore, though he know nothing but his English version, now ponder Wellhausen's argument that, if 25—31 were spoken by one and the same God, the opening verses of 30 must *' necessarily " have appeared in 25; that there is " nopossi- bilitt/'^ of His having spoken them, where they stand, in 30. It is an excellent sample of the houses of cards, with which our author bestrews almost his every page, and of the lofty certitude, with which he straightway declares these houses to be "scientifically," and immoveably, constructed. (H) Our author's third, and last, argument, against the altar of incense, is that it is not referred to, in Lev. 8, 9, nor in Lev. 16, and that this circumstance proves conclusively that it was unknown to the writer of these chapters. Neither our author's acumen, nor his dictatorial utterance, can here again save his reasoning from the charge of glaring inconsequence. We shall take the two sacrificial narratives, on which he builds, in succession. I. He states his argument, in regard to the first, as follows : — " The altar of incense occurs only in certain portions of the Priestly Code, and is absent from others where it could not possibly have been omitted, had it been known. The rite of the most solemn atoning sacrifice takes place in Lev. 4, indeed on the golden altar, but in Exod. 29, Lev. 8, 9, without its use" (p. 66). (1) The simple answer to our author is that he is here stating the thing that is not. The atoning sacrifice in Lev. 4 does not "take place on the golden altar." Let any one read the chapter, and see. The chapter describes four classes of sin-offerings, and the whole four are offered Z 2 356 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. on the altar of burnt-offering ! In the first, and second, classes, some of the bloo.1 is put on the horns of the golden altar, but the whole of the sacrificial portions, for Jehovah, are consumed on the altar of burnt-offering. In the third, and fourth, classes (which would include the vast majority of actual sin-offerings) the golden altar is never once referred to ; the blood-sprinkling, and the flesh-burning, are both assigned to the altar of burnt-offering. Can anything exceed the inaccuracy, which makes the whole account of Lev. 4 be that its sacrifice "takes place on the gold^^n altar" ? The burning of flesh, on that altar, would have violated its fundamental law, in Exod. 30. 9. (2) The first, and second, classes of sin-offerings, in Lev. 4, are for quite exceptional occasions, which would, probably, be of rare occurrence. The first occasion is when an anointed high-priest has, unwittingly, sinned in holy things, in such a manner as to entail guilt on the whole congregation : the second occasion is when the whole congregation have them- selves, unwittingly, gone astray, by violating some divine pro- hibition, and the transgression has remained hid from them, for a time, and has, at last, been brought to their knowledge. Neither of these occasions is described as having arisen, in Lev. 8, 9. The attempt, therefore, to set up these chapters as a contradiction to Lev. 4. is quite futile. Instead of saying "the altar could not possibly have been omittecl^'' it would have been literal truth to say " the altar could not possibly have been mentioned'" in Lev. 8, 9, if Lev. 4 were taken as guide ! (3) It is hardly necessary to add that Exod. 29 is not a separate sacrifice at all. It merely commands what Lev. 8, 9 describe, ?i^ fulfilled. And their ceremonial is not an ordinary recurring one, but a unique inauguration function, which never needed to be repeated. The first part (8) is conducted by FORGING AN ALTAR. 357 Moses, and takes place hefore Aaron has been empowered to exercise any priestly fnnction whatsoever ; the second part (9) takes place, apparently (Lev. 9. 23, 24), lefore Aaron has been permitted to enter, with his anointed robes, inside the sanctuary at all. To say that this must exactly square with every detail of the future ordinary sin-offering, is ridiculous. It might as well be urged that the existence of " the veil of the sanctuary" is disproved by Lev. 8, 9, seeing they never mention it, whereas it is twice required to be sprinkled with blood, in Lev. 4. II. The other sacrificial narrative, on which Wellhausen founds, is Lev. 16. We have already quoted his sentences, beginning " a still more striking circumstance," &c., in full. His point is that, although an incense offering is a prominent part of the services, on the great annual Day of Atonement, the altar of incense is never mentioned, in the chapter recording these services, and its existence is, in such circumstances, in- conceivable. Such an argument proves him to be either very hasty and careless, or very unfair, as a Bible student. (1) We presume him to be aware that the Priestly Code, so far as it describes the golden altar, describes it as placed in the outer room of the sanctuary, and separated, by a thick veil, from the inner room. Now, if he had read Lev. 16 Avith moderate care, he would have found that the object of the special burning of incense, on the Day of Atonement, is that its cloud may supply the high-priest with 2i ^protection from the resi3lendent divine glory, ivlien lie goes into the inner room. He is warned (verse 2) that he dare not enter, and face that divine glory, on any ordinary occasion ; " for I will appear in glory upon the mercy-seat." And, on this solitary day in the year, when he may venture in, he is required to shield himself from the divine glory by burning incense — "that the cloud '858 SANCTUAEY AND SACRIFICE. of the incense may cover the mercy-seat that is upon the testimony, that he die not" (verse 13). Eemember, he is inside the veil, and the golden altar is outside the veil : had he merely burnt incense on that cdtar, his days of service would have been ended, for he would have been struck dead before the mercy-seat. It is the mercy-seat, which the cloud of incense must cover ; it is essential, therefore, that the high- priest disregard the golden altar, and " take a censer full of coals of fire," and have "his hands full of sweet incense," and " put the incense upon the fire," when he passes within the veil (verse 12), else the mercy-seat will remain un-covered, and his doom will be sealed. The very ignoring, therefore, of the altar, throughout that day's unusually solemn cere- monial, is the clear attestation of the writer's wisdom, and consistency : he had no more occasion to mention it, than to mention the golden candlestick, or the shew-bread : he knows what he is writing about, and he Avrites with the ease, and with the fearlessness, of conscious truth : had he sent the high-priest to the altar of incense, he would have been send- ing him (when he passed the veil) to his death, and would have been writing down his own inconsequence and incompe- tence. But what is to be thought of Wellhausen, overlooking such alphabetical elements as these, on the very surface of the legislation ? (2) The foregoing is all the answer that Wellhausen needs. But it may be interesting to add that the altar of incense (instead of being non-existent) would, undoubtedly, be acknow- ledged, and used, at oth&r iiarts of that day's priestly services. Lev. 16 does not recount all that passed, in the sanctuary, on the Day of Atonement : it recounts only the special services of atoning, and of hallowing. For example, it tells of special sin- offerings and burnt-offerings, but it does not tell of the usual burnt-offering of a lamb that morning, with its meal-offering FOBGTNG AN ALTAR. and di'ink-offering : nor does it tell of the imial burnt-offering of a lamb that evening, with its meal-offering and drink-offer- ing : yet we are expressly assured, in Num. 29. 11, that all these latter offerings took place that day as usual, just as they took place (in addition to special offerings) on passovers, and on pentecosts, and at new moons. In like manner, it is in- dubitable that the law would continue in force, on that, as on other, days—" he shall burn thereon incense of sweet spices : every morning, when he di^esseth the lamps, he shall burn it. And, when he lighteth the lamps at even, he shall burn it, a perpetual incense before the Lord throughout your genera- tions " (Exod. 30. 7, 8). " For everything there is a season " : and the seasons, for the golden altar, on the Day of Atonement, were the morning, and the evening, of that day : but to have introduced it into the special ceremonial of atonement would have been to expose the high-priest to death. If Wellhausen, instead of tilting, with annihilating arrogance, at the bulwarks of Scripture, would submit them to a sober straightforward investigation, he would find that the author of Leviticus has a significance, and has a consistency, in his successive chapters, such as hardly a single page of Wellhausen's own huge volume presents us with. (3) AVe shall only notice how one other delicate (but all the more striking, because so clearly undesigned) mark of veracity emerges, from comparing the atoning details of Lev. 16 with a law, regarding the altar of incense, given in Exod. 30. Vl That law is : " And Aaron shall make atonement, upon the horns of the altar of incense, once in the year : with the blood of the sin-offering of atonement, once in the year, shall he make atonement for it, throughout your generations : it is most holy unto the Lord." This, obviously, refers to the Day of Atone- ment ; but, when we read over the procedure of that day, we do not find the altar of incense even once specifically mentioned: 360 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. naj, we find another altar (that of burnt-offering) expressly described, as being cleansed that day with atoning blood, " And he shall go out unto the altar that is before the Lord, and make atonement for it ; and shall take of the blood of the bullock and of the blood of the goat, and put it on the horns of the altar round about. And he shall sprinkle of the blood upon it with his finger seven times and hallow it from the uncleanness of the children of Israel" (Lev. 16. 18, 19). Have we not here a grand contradiction ? The Priestist, in Exod. 30, looks forward to the Day of Atonement, and prescribes cleans- ing for the golden altar : but, when he comes to Lev. 16, he lapses into forgetfulness, and describes the altar of burnt- offering as being alone cleansed instead. This is a good speci- men of the plausible superficialities, on the strength of which " science " claims to have torn our Scripture Eecords to tatters. For it is this mere silence, which leads Wellhausen to the dog- matic certainty that the altar of incense is " here everywhere iinhioivn.'''' But look, now, at the legislation more narrowly, and a pleas- ing consistency will emerge. The comprehensive cleansing, provided for in Lev. 16, is distributed over three departments ; first, over the holy place where only the high-priest may enter ; second, over the rest of the tabernacle (the outer room), where the ordinary priests may minister ; and third, over the great altar of burnt-offering, outside the tent, to which people, and priests, alike had access. These are successively prescribed: and that the legislator has this threefold division in view, is made further clear by his summary, as he looks back, " And when he hath made an end of atoning (1) for the holy place, and (2) the tent of meeting, and (3) the altar " (verse 20). (a) Xow, how could the second of these atonings be carried out, except by dealing with the sacred utensils of the " tent " ? Can any other method of carrying it out be conceived .^ And, FOBGING AN ALTAR. 3G1 if that method was followed, then the altar of incense (as one of the chief utensils of the " tent ") shared in the sprinkling of blood, and so fulfilled the law of Exod. 30. 10. {b) We are not left to mere conjecture, however, on this point : we have direct assertion. The legislator tells how i\i.Q first of the three atonings, viz. that for " the holy place," was to be carried out ; and it was by sprinkling blood upon its most sacred furniture (verses 14 and 15), upon the mercy-seat, and before the mercy- seat. All he then says regarding the second atoning is that it is to be carried out similarly to the first : ^'' So shall he do for the tent of meeting, that dwelleth with them, in the midst of their uncleannesses " (verse 16). The "tent " is to be atoned ioi\ precisely as the " holy place " was atoned for : but the holy place was atoned for by a seven-fold sprinkling of its most sacred furniture : therefore the most sacred furniture of the tent received a seven-fold sprinkling also, (c) We might point (though it is not necessary for our argument) to a close analogy, supplied by Exod. 40. 9. The anointiny of the whole taber- nacle, and of the great altar outside it, are there prescribed. The tabernacle is treated as a whole, instead of as divided into two rooms, and the anointing is carried out, by being applied to its sacred furniture — just as the atoning is applied to the furniture, in Lev. 16. " And thou shalt take the anointing oil, and anoint the tabernacle and all that is therein, and all the furniture thereof ; and it shall be holy. And thou shalt anoint the altar of burnt-ofi:'ering and all its vessels and sanctify the altar : and the altar shall be most holy. And thou shalt anoint the laver and its base, and sanctify it" (Exod. 40. 9-11). If we read, with fairness, and with care, we thus find a natural, and pleasing, harmony underlying the two parts of the legisla- tion, which we are comparing. The altar of incense may be " everywhere un-mentioned,'' but it is not, on that account, " everywhere unlcnown,'" throughout Lev. 16 : it was, un- S62 SANCTUARY AND 8ACBIFICE. doubtedly, used for tlie " perpetual incense before the Lord " on the morning, and on the evening, of the Day of Atonement, when the lamps were dressed : it could not be used, in the sub- sequent special ceremonial, for its use then w^ould have defeated the avowed purpose of the cloud of incense : ' and it, undoubt- edly, shBcrad tiie sev^i-fold sprmkling, wliicli the sacred furni- ture of the tabernacle that day received, and so fulfilled the law of Exod. 30. 10. III. From all that has just been written, it follows that "the altar," specifically mentioned, throughout Lev. 16, is the altar of burnt-offering. It is identified, as " the altar which is before the Lord," and as "out of" the tabernacle, and as having " coals of fire " upon it : and, after being thus fixed, can be spoken of as " the altar." In passages, where only one altar is dealt with, and where it is styled " the altar of the Lord," or " Thine altar," or " the altar," it is, manifestly, the altar of burnt-offermg that is to be understood, as being by far the better-known, and the more variously employed, of the two. Where, on the other hand, a reference is stated, or implied, to both altars, qualifying j^hrases are added, appropriate to each. Throughout Exod. 27, only one altar is in view ; it suffices, therefore, to style it " the altar " : but, in Exod. 35. 15, 16, where the two altars are quoted, in successive verses, the one is " the altar of incense," the other " the altar of burnt-offering ": so, in Exod. 39. 38, 39, the one is " the golden altar," the other is "the brasen altar": and, in Exod. 40. 5, 6, the one is "the golden altar for incense," the other is " the altar of burnt- offering." At the beginning of Leviticus, the altar is specified as "the altar which is at the door of the tent of meeting " (Lev. 1. 5), and is then, throughout the rest of the chapter, and also throughout Chaps. 2 and 3, styled simply "the altar." In Chap. 4, on the other hand, where both altars have to be PO:R€^lNa AN ALTAR. 363 mentioned, the one is " the altar of sweet incense," the other is "the altar of burnt-offering." A similarly intelligible, and reasonable, phraseology characterises all the Scripture Tefesrences to the altars. And thus Wellhausen's pronouncement that the altar of burnt -offering is " the only altar," and that it is invariably styled " simply the altar,'' is just his usual blend of dogmatic inaccuracy. We shall have occasion to show that he mingles inaccuracy with inconsistency, on this matter, in the course of the following chapter. "We now leave our readers, with considerable confidence, to look back, and settle whether the extraordinary evolutions, from Tcemach to soleth, from " baked " meal to " raw " meal, from " boiled" flesh to "raw " flesh, and from "fat " to "incense," are either natural in themselves, or complimentary to the Deity, or, in the least, suggested by Scripture. Our only fear is that we may seem .to have expended too much space on such puerilities. ( 364 ) CHAPTER IX. BURNT-OFFERIX&S, PEACE-OFFERINGS, AXD SACRIFICIAL MEALS. WE have now considered Wellhausen's general " sketch " of the origin, and aims, and methods of Israelitish sacrifice, and also his four-fold (or, as it turns out in his hand, five-fold) evolution of sacrificial materials. But we said he has also discovered evolutions in the divisions^ or classes, of sacri- fice ; and to these, as proposed, we must now advert. The main divisions are the peace-offering, the burnt-offering, and the sin-offering ; and he holds that these did not come into observance simultaneously, but were successively evolved, in the order just given. His first discovery is that the peace- offering had a priority, and a long superiority, to the burnt- offering ; and to this he devotes pp. 69-72, discussing first the statistics of their occurrence, and then their respective tendencies to promote sociality among the people. We may fully, and satis- factorily, overtake the representations, which he thus makes, by considering (A) his extraordinary manipulation of the statistics of burnt-offerings and peace-offerings ; (B) the equally extra- ordinary charge of non-socialty, which he brings against the Priestly Code ; (C) his exaggerated estimate of the sacrificial meal, and the flimsy proofs, which he offers, of that estimate ; (D) a notable omission, and a suggestive cichnission, which occur in his paragraphs. We shall take these divisions in turn ; and, in each, we shall, as usual, give our author's exact words, while we criticise him. BUSNT-OFFEBa'GS AND PEACE-OFFEBINGS. 305 (A) We have named the first division his extraordinary manipu- lation of the statistics of burnt-ofiferings and peace-offerings. Our readers may perhaps regard " manipulation " as a mild word, whereby to characterise his processes, after they have deliberately pondered what we have to urge. The great point, which he labours to establish, is that, in all pre-Exilic time, the burnt-offering occupied a very subordinate position, and had hardly an independent place at all. It was, practically, a mere appendage of the peace-offering. When they occur together, the animals, constituting the peace-offering, are always in the plural, and in the majority : but it is only on unusual, and very great, occasions, that the burnt-offering is allowed to put in a modest appearance at all : the ordinary, and established, expe- rience of Israel is confined to peace-offerings. Let our author again announce his discovery himself : — " There is another and much more important difference in the case of the animal sacrifice. Of this the older practice knows only two kinds apart from extraordinary varieties, which may be left out of account. These two are the burnt-offering {'oJah) and the thank-offering {shelem, zehhach, zehhach-shelami'tn) . In the case of the first the whole animal is offered on the altar ; in the other God receives, besides the blood, only an honorary portion, while the rest of the flesh is eaten by the sacrificial guests. ISTow it is worth noticing how seldom the burnt-offering occurs alone. It is neces- sarily so in the case of human sacrifice (Gen. 22. 2 seq. ; Judges 11. 31 : 2 Kings 3. 27 ; Jer. 19. 5) ; otherwise it is not usual (Gen. 8. 20; IS^um. 23. 1 seq.; Judges 6. 20, 26, 13. 16, 23; 1 Sam. 7. 9 seq. ; 1 Kings 3.4, 18. 34, 38) ; moreover, all the examples just cited are extraordinary or mythical in their character, a circumstance that may not affect the evidence of the existence of the custom in itself, but is important as regards the statistics of its frequency. As a rule, the 'olah occurs only in conjunction with zebhachim, and when this is the case the latter are in the majority and are always in the plural, while on the other hand the first is frequently in the 366 SANCTUABY AND SACRIFICE: singular. They supplement eacli other like two corresjDonding halves ; the 'olah is, as the name implies, properly speaking, no- thing more than the part of a great offering that reaches the altar. One might therefore designate as ^olah also that part of a single animal which is consecrated to the Deity ; this, however, is never done ; neither of the blood nor of the fat {hater) is the verb he'elah used, but only of the pieces of the flesh, of which in the case of the minor offering nothing was burnt. But the distinction is merely one of degree ; there is none in kind ; a small zehhach, enlarged and augmented, becomes an 'olah and zehhacJiim; out of a certain number of slaughtered animals which are eaten by the sacrificial company, one is devoted to God and wholly given to the flames. For the rest, it must be borne in mind that as a rule it is only great sacrificial feasts that the historical books take occasion to mention, and that consequently the burnt- offering, notwithstanding what has been said, comes before us with greater prominence than can have been the average case in ordinary life. Customarily, it is certain, none but thank-offerings were offered; necessarily so if slaughtering could only be done beside the altar. When mention is made of a simple offering in the Books of Samuel and Kings, that it is a thank-offering is matter of course. 1 Sam. 2. 12 seq. is in this connection also particularly instructive" (pp. 69-71). To this paragraph are appended two notes, the first after the words, " 1 Kings 3. 4, 18. 34, 38," and the second after the words, " the first is frequently in the singular." The notes are as follow : — " 1. In the above list of passages no notice is taken of the sacrifi- cmm juge of 2 Kings 16. 15. The statement of 1 Kings 3. 4 is per- haps to be taken along with 3. 15, but does not become at all more credible on that account. Of course it is understood that only those passages are cited here in which mention is made of offerings actually made, and not merely general statements about one or more kinds of offering. The latter could very well fix attention upon the 'oJah alone without thereby throwing any Hght upon the question as to the actual practice. " 2. Exod. 10. 25, 18. 12, 24. 5, 32. 6 ; Joshua 8. 31 ; Judges 20. 26, 21. 4 ; 1 Sam. 6. 14 seq., 10. 8, 13. 9-12 ; 2 Sam. 6. 17 seq., 24. 23- 25 ; 1 Kings 3. 15, 8. 63 seq. ; 2 Kings 5. 17, 10. 24, 25. The zeugma in Judges 20. 26, 21. 4 is inconsistent with the older usus loquendi. The proper name for the holocaust appears to be chalil (Deut. 33, BUBNT-OFFERINGS AND PEACE-OFFERINGS. 3G7 10 ; 1 Sam. 7. 9) not olah. It is impossible to decide whether the sacrificial due in all sorts of zehhach was the same ; but most pro- bably it was not. Probably the shelamim are a more solemn kind of sacrifice than the simi:)le zehhach. The word/af is used in Gen. 4. 4 ; Exod. 23. 18 in a very general sense. It is not quite clear what is meant by the blessing of the zehhach in 1 Sam. 9. 13 ; per- haps a kind of grace before meat" (p. 70, notes 1 and 2). Let US now attentively consider this omnium gatherum of texts, and of assertions, for which the texts supply no basis. I. He says the pre-Exilics knew " only two kinds " of sacri- fice, but there were " extraordinary varieties." We see no need for making much of this, yet we cannot forbear asking, 2ohcft were these " extraordinary varieties " ? We have not the re- motest idea what, or whose, sacrifices they embrace. Who offered them ? Where are they recorded ? What are their exceptional, or "extraordinary," marks? Where is any standard discoverable, by which (on Wellhausen's premisses) " ordinary " and " extraordinary " can possibly be discriminated, in pre-Exilic sacrifice ? Has he not told us that " all Unds were proper, if only they were offered to the proper deity " (p. 55) ? Our surprise is deepened when, after the " extraordinary " have (as we thought) been subtracted, or " left out of account," we are confronted with a whole army of them, a few sentences further down. It will be noticed that a string of seven occur- rences of the 'oJah, ranging from Noah to Elijah, is given (in not one of which are ritualistic details, in the least, revealed, and in not one of which, therefore, is " variety " from estab- lished praxis predicable), and yet, to our bewilderment, they are all dubbed " extraordinary ": "all the examples just cited are extraordinary or mythical in their character." What is the " ordinary " standard, from which they all vary ? Verily, the whole hotch-potch is " extraordinary." 368 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. II. It will be observed also tbat our author asks us to regard tlie three expressions, zebhach, skelem, and zehhach skeJamim, as co-extensive in meaning, and as restricted to signify " the thank-offering." This is not warrantable, as a piece of Hebrew criticism. Few words have a wider, and more general, reference than is often assigned to the verb zadhach, and its substantive zedhach, in the Old Testament : to restrict them to the " thank- offering," is quite imaginary. Zabhach may be used for " to slaughter," in the most general sense, without any sacrificial reference : when the Deuteronomist proclaims liberty to slaughter animals freely throughout Canaan, it is this verb he uses, " notwithstanding thou may est zabhach^ and eat flesh, within all thy gates, after all the desire of thy soul " : when the witch of Endor feasts Saul, this verb describes her action, " she had a fatted calf in the house, and she hasted, and zabhach-ed it " (if we may coin such a mixture of language, for the sake of the English reader). Further, when there is a clearly sacrificial reference, there is no restriction to the killing, and offering, of " the thank-offering." In 1 Kings 3. 4, it is said, " Solomon went to Gribeon in order to zabhach (sacrifice) there " : here, the word is used of sacrifice, in the most general possible sense : and the rest of the verse shows that Solomon's zebhach was actualised in a thousand " burnt-offerings " Qoloth) — the very kind of sacrifice Qolah), which, Wellhausen tells his readers, is essentially discriminated from zebhach ! He likes to treat the Jehovist, as the patron of the " early period ": well, the Jehovist uses zabhach^ precisely as it is used of Solomon : " he that zabhach-eth (sacrific-eth) unto any god save unto Jehovah only, shall be destroyed " (Exod. 22. 20) : here it clearly comprehends sacrifices, of whatsoever Jcincl. Vie have the same in Exod. 20. 24, *' thereon thou shalt zabhach thy burnt-offerings {'oloth) and thy peace-offerings (shelamim) '' : here zebhach is, practically, the root, from which 'olah and BUBNT-OFFEPtlNGS AND PEACE-OFFERINGS. 369 shelem are the branches. We have the same, in Exod. 32. 8 : God says to Moses, " they are zahhach-ing (sacrific-ing) to the . golden calf," while the sixth verse shows that thi& '"' zahhach- ing " included burnt-offerings QoJoth) and peace-offerings (shela- mim). It has clearly the same reference, in 1 Sam. 2. 13, " when any man was zadhach-mg (kill-ing, or sacrific-ing) a zebhach (sacrifice) ": here, we have both noun, and verb, used to denote sacrifice, in the most comprehensive generality : and the subse- quent narratives show that dnrnt-offerings, and peace-offerinf/s, abounded. We have a similar use of the noun, in the case of Jehu, " I have a great zebhach (sacrifice) for Baal " (2 Kings 10. 19): and the following verses show that this zebhach included burnt-offerings. What more comprehensive reference to sacri- fice could there be than the following, " The zebhach (sacrifice) of the wicked is Jehovah's abomination " (Prov. 15. 8) ? or than this, " there is one event to all, to the upright and to the base, to him that zabhach-eth. (sacrific-eth), and to him that, za- bhach-eth (sacrific-eth) not? or (where the noun again occurs) "draw nigh to Ksten rather than to present the zebhach (sacrifice) of the worthless" (Eccles. 5. 1)? Examples might be multiplied : but we shall just add that this general signification does not characterise the " early period " only, but descends to late Hebrew also : when Zerubbabers ad- versaries hear of him founding the Temple, they send him word, " Let us build with you ; for we seek your God ; and we do (not ?) zabhach (sacrifice) to Him since the days of Esarhaddon " (Ezra 4. 2) : When Sanballat hears of Nehemiah building the wall, he mocks him thus, " What are these feeble Jews doing ? Will people let them alone ? AYill they be zabhach-mg (sacrific- ing)" (Neh. 4. 2) ? Thus, from beginning to end of Hebrew lite- rature, zabhach can be used to denote sacrifice, in the most general sense. It seems also to carry sometimes a more restricted signification, whose explanation seems easy : zebhach shelamim S £893. A A 370 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. (or, in the plural, zihhche shelamim) means, " a sacrifice (the generic term) of peace-offerings (the specific term) " : but it came to be abbreviated, sometimes into zeMacMm, and some- times into shelamim : thus, even its restricted sense flows from, and bears witness to, its original, and comprehensive, import. Our author is equally misleading as to shelem^ or shelamim. There are three special classes of shelamim^ (1) those that re- sult from a vow {)iedher)^ (2) those that result from free will {judhahhah), (3) those that result from thanksgiving (todhah). Thus "the thank-offering," instead of being a sufficing synonym, both for shelamim, and for zebhach, is truly only one of the varieties of the shelamim ; and the shelamim themselves are, strictly, only a branch from zel)hach : and the characteristic name for " the thank-offering " is todhah. We think even the mere English reader will now be in a position to look back, and shrug his shoulders over the guidance, which Wellhausen offers him, regarding these three Hebrew words. We often find that our author is the happiest corrector of himself, and we think we can show him to be so, in the present instance. We have just been emphasising how, on p. 69, he erroneously restricts the zebhach to one " kind " of sacrifice, and that the "thank-offering": but we have only to turn over to p. 70, and read the notes at the foot of it (we have given them in full), to find him lapsing into accuracy, and writing as follows : — " It is impossible to decide whether the sacrificial due in all sorts of zehhach was the same ; but most probably it was not " (p. 70, note ^). " All sorts " / Then the " sorts " were, not one, but many : that is just what we have been proving. He also, in the same note, helps to dispose of his own rash representation, that zebhach and shelamim are synonymous : — " Probably the shelamim are a more solemn kind of sacrifice than the simple zehhach" (p. 70, note *). BUllNT-OFFERINGS AND PEACE-OFFERINGS. 371 We think this guess is not "probable": but, on the footing of that guess, why did our author jumble all the three sacrifices (shelem,zebhach, and zebhach sheJamim) into one un-distinguish- able " kind " of sacrifice, and that " the thank-offering " ? Who can feel the slightest certitude, in following such a guide ? III. It may be well here, in connection with his exegesis of these three sacrificial terms, to show what a tautology his rea- soning culminates in, towards the close of the quotation, which we have given, from his text. He argues :— " Where mention is made of a simple offering in the Books of Samuel and Kings, that it is a thank-offering is matter of course " (p. 71). Now, for one thing, we desiderate a definition of what he means by "a simple offering," and where there are any records of such. Samuel and Kings are not wanting, in definite specifi- cations of the " kinds " of sacrifice, they refer to ; and the in- stances are quite exceptional, where we have to conjecture what the "kind" was. At Beth-shemesh (1 Sam. 6), it is 'olah that is first offered, and then 'oloth and zebhachim. At Mizpah (1 Sam. 7), it is 'olah that is offered. In connection with Gil^-al (1 Sam. 10, 11, 13, 15), reference is made to 'olah or 'oloth (thrice), to zebhach or zebhachim (twice), to shelamim (twice), to zibhche-shelamim (once). At Araunah's threshing floor (2 Sam. 24), 'olah is twice mentioned independently, and then 'oloth and shelamim are united. At Gibeon, and Jerusalem (1 Kings 3), Solomon offers 'o/o^A independently, and then 'oloth and shelamim in unison. At the Dedication (1 Kings 8), he offers "-olah^ minchah, and shelamim. On Carmel (1 Kings 18), Elijah offers 'olah. At Samaria (2 Kings 10), Jehu offers 'oloth and zebhachim to Baal. At Jerusalem (2 Kings 16), Ahaz offers 'olah, minchah^ neselch, and shelamim. And there (2 Kings 23), Josiah keeps the passover, loesach. That is a tolerably complete A A 2 372 SANCTUABY AND SACRIFICE. list of the sacrifices in Samuel and Kings, where a general indication of the " kinds " is given. Now compare with this the two following : "When Saul comes to Zuph (1 Sam. 9), he is told " the people have a zelhach to- day, in the high place " : When Samuel is sent to Bethlehem (1 Sam. 16), he says to Jesse's house, " Sanctify yourselves, and come with me to the zebhach^^ i and assume that these are what "\Yellhausen means by " a simple offering." We then suggest to him the three following inquiries : — (1) What "faintest trace" of proof has he that the sacrifices, on these two occasions, were "thank-offerings," and thank- offerings exclusively ? What " faintest trace " of proof has he that confession of sin, and earnest supplication, and atonement by blood, did not mingle with the ceremonies, on both occasions ? (2) But, even assume that he is right that they were only " thank-offerings," whether are we to learn the sacrificial praxis of Israel, for the period from Samuel to the Exile, from these tivo instances, or from the far longer, and more definite, cata- logue, which we have already given, of sacrifices, among which the ^oJah holds such a prominent, and ever-recurring, place ? Even though Zuph and Bethlehem gave themselves up to nothing but " thanks," on these two occasions, does that advance us, by a hair's breadth, towards displacing the ''olali from the central, and independent, position, which " the Books of Samuel and Kings " assign to it ? (3) Our worst query remains. Is not our author leaning absolutely, and entirely, on SLpetitio 2)rmcipUy in the argument we have quoted ? Has he not, on p. 69, laid down, without a particle of proof, that zeWiach is synonymous with "thank- offering " ? How, then, can he prevent his argument assuming the following eminently circular, or tautological, form ? " Where mention is made of a simple thanh-offering in the Books of Samuel and Kings, that it is a thanlc-offering is a matter BUJRNT- OFFERINGS AND PEACE-OFFEEIXGS. 373 of course." Of course it is. But, when thus viewed, while the sentence may "impress Europe," it may shed but scant irradiance over ordinary readers. He adds, (and concludes) laconically : " 1 Sam. 2. 12 seq. is in this connection also particularly instructive." We have already shown that, in that passage, zeUtarli (both verb and noun) points to sacrifice, in the widest possible generality : neither in the word itself, nor in any of the concomitant cir- cumstances, is there the slightest restriction to " thank-offering." The same criticism applies to the use of zelhach in 1 Sam. 1. Our author depends on Imagination, and on Imagination alone. IV. We hurry on to other points, in the quoted paragraphs, which clamantly call for notice. Let especial note be taken of the following words : — " In the above Hst of passages, no notice is taken of the sacriji- cinmjuge of 2 Kings 16. 15" (p. 70, note '). A finer specimen of Wellhausen's method, than these words supply, could not be desired. He passes over one of the most decisive, and comprehensive, references to Israehtish sacrifice, in absolute silence. Had he quoted the verse, it would have covered his whole argument with utter ridicule, so he " takes no notice " of it. The verse is as follows : " And king Ahaz commanded Urijah the priest, saying, Upon the great altar burn the morning 'olah, and the evening minckah, and the king's 'olah and his minchah, with the 'olah of all the people of the land and their minchah and their nesaMiim (drink- offerings) ; and sprinkle upon it all the blood of the 'olah, and all the^blood of the zehhacli ; but the brasen altar shall be for me to inquire by." Here, in the heart of the royal period, we have the 'olcih prominent, fundamental, and continual, among Israelitish offerings, while our author's laboured effort is to prove that the 'olah never came into prominence, till after 374 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. the Exile ! The evidence is introduced, in the most easy and artless manner : Ahaz saw an altar at Damascus, which took his fancy, and he sent word to his own high-priest, at home, to make a precisely similar altar : when he returns to Jeru- salem, the above verse specifies the portions of the Temple ritual, which he ordered to be associated with liis new altar : a more undesigned corroboration of what was Israel's esta- blished sacrificial praxis could not be desired. It is most significant to add that the immediately preceding verse, 2 Kings 16. 14, is quoted by Wellhausen, on p. 37, as veritalle Mstory, connecting " the brasen altar " (which Ahaz displaced) with " the brasen altar which Solomon cast." If we are to take verse 14 as historiccd, how are we to regard verse 15 as nn-historical ? Not the slightest explanation is forthcoming. Verse 15 would blow his theory to pieces, therefore " no notice is taken "of it ! Let the Bible student understand that this is what is meant by proving one's case from history. Y. A similar treatment of history occurs in the sentence, which immediately follows : — " The statement in 1 Kings 3. 4 is perhaps to be taken along with 3. 15, but does not become at all more credible on that account." " The statement in 1 Kings 3. 4 " is another clear, and emphatic, disproof of our author's theory ; so it is coolly dismissed, as not " credible." But tvhy is it not " credible " ? No answer is given. The statement is as follows : " And the king went to Gibeon to sacrifice there : a thousand burnt- offerings {^olotli) did Solomon offer upon tbat altar." Here, at the outset of Solomon's reign, the ^olah is in un-mistakeable knowledge, and honour, in Israel. When he returns to Jeru- salem, his worship is again commemorated, both ''olcdi and shelamim being specified : " And he came to Jerusalem and BURNT-OFFEUINGS AND PEACE-OFFEBINGS. 375 stood before the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, and offered up ''oJoth, and presented shelamim^ and prepared a feast for all his servants." When confronted with this additional proof of the early prominence of the ''olali, all that our author can cry out is — " Not at all more credible " ! But whence the "incredibility" arises, we have not a word of explanation. We have quoted him in full, and our readers can judge if we are mis-representing him. YI. Before leaving the note, from which the last two quotations are made, we may notice its further statement : — " Of course it is understood that only those passages are cited here in which mention is made of offerings actually made, and not merely general statements about one or more kinds of offerings." He is here professing to reveal part of his method, which is to found only on definitely completed sacrifices, and never on general descriptions of the kinds of sacrifice. On this we have two remarks to offer. (1) First, he is telling us a secret, which is not worth divulging. A general description of sacri- fices is as good evidence as a brief reference to some individual sacrifice. The only question, in either case, is. What is the trustworthiness of the narrator ? (2) Our second remark is that he does not adhere to the method, which he thus parades. («) His very next quotation, two lines further down, is " Exod. 10. 25," which reads as follows : " And Moses said. Thou must also give into our hand sacrifices and burnt-offerings, that we may sacrifice unto the Lord our God. Our cattle also shall go with us ; there shall not an hoof be left behind ; for thereof must we take to serve the Lord our God ; and we know not with what we must serve the Lord, until we come thither." Is this an " offering actu- ciUij made " ? Or is it not the most " general statement about one or more kinds of offering " ? The speaker acknowledges 376 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. he " knows not," till he get more light, how to go about the "service " ! And we have no record, when Egypt was left, of the offerings being " actually made." {h) Go down other two lines, and we find, as another quotation, " 2 Kings 5. 17," which reads as follows : "And Naaman said. If not, yet I pray thee let there be given to thy servant two mules' burden of earth ; for thy servant will henceforth offer neither burnt- offering nor sacrifice unto other gods, but unto the Lord." Is this an " offering actuaUy made " ? Or is it not the most " general statement " possible, of a mere inclination to sacrifice? We have no record of Naaman's safe return to Syria, nor of his " actually making " a single sacrifice, (c) A few lines further down, at the top of p. 71, we find, as a further quotation, " 1 Sam. 2. 12 seq." In these verses, we read " the custom of the priests with the people was that, ivhen any man offered sacri- fice": and again, "the priest's servant came and said to the man that sacrificed." Is it possible for human language to supply references, more " general," and more utterly disso- ciated from a record of specific offerings, " actually made " ? Neither the person of a single offerer, nor the " kind " of a single offering, is mentioned, throughout the passage. We have said the point, thus illustrated, is of no practical consequence. In our view, Wellhausen is perfectly entitled to quote, and argue from, the three passages we have just referred to : but he is not also entitled, a few lines previously, to deny them all status, and value, as evidence. We have gone over them, merely as illustrating the hasty, and habitual, inaccuracy (a consequence doubtless of the pure Imaginariness of his system), from which it seems impossible for our author to escape. When he multiplies texts, without quoting one of them, and when he strings off declarations, as matters "of course," it is then that his utterances have most need to be sifted, and watched. BUBNT-OFFEBINGS AND PEACE-OFFERINGS. 377 yil. Let us now look at the plain, and overwhelming, evidence, which the historical Books present, of the antiquity of the 'oJah, and by the presentation of which they utterly ridi- cule our author's position. His discovery is that the shelamim are the primitive offering, and that the 'olah becomes, only post-Exilically, prominent. What are the facts ? We have only one kind of offering, specified as observed by Noah, and it is the 'olah (Gen. 8. 20). We have only one kind of offering, commanded to Abraham (Gen. 22. 2), and only one kind, presented by Abraham (Gen. 22. 13), and, in both instances, it is the 'olah. Neither in Genesis, nor in Exodus, are shelamim once mentioned, till God has spoken to Moses from Sinai : it was possibly, therefore, among the Sinaitic ordinances, that they first arose, as a special class. Moses asks Pharaoh (Exod. 10. 25) to give him materials for 'oloth and zebhachim (but shelamim are not specified). Jethro, a Midianite worshipper (Exod. 18. 12), offers 'olah and zeUa- chim (but shelamim are not specified). As soon as God speaks from Sinai, the shelamim appear, as a recognised class, and continue so, throughout the history. The Jehovistic Code, which our author (whimsically) assigns to the royal period, brackets ' oloth and shelamim together (Exod. 20. 24) : that is the first occurrence of shelamim^ in the whole Bible. Balaam (" the Aramean who understands as well as any Israelite how to offer sacrifices to Jehovah," p. 54) offers only one kind of sacrifice, and it is 'olah (Num. 23. 3, 15, 17). The Deuterono- mist, whom our author assigns to the later royal period, does not seem to exhaustively enumerate oblations, but, in one passage (Deut. 12. 7), he groups 'oloth and zehhachim, along with sundry minor offerings ; and, in another passage (Deut. 27. 6), he groups 'oloth and shelamim together, in this follow- ing the Jehovist, and a general habit of Scripture writers. Joshua follows this phraseology, 'oloth and shelamim^ at i\Iount 378 SANCTUABY AND SACRIFICE. Ebal (Josh. 8. 31). Only one kind of sacrifice is commanded to Gideon, and it is ^olcfh (Judg. 6. 26). Only one kind of sacrifice is attributed to Jeplithah, and it is 'olah (Judg. 11. 31). Only one kind of sacrifice is commanded to Manoah, and it is ^olah (Judg. 13. 16). At Bethel, the Israelites sacrifice 'oloth and sheJamim (Judg. 20. 2(j). There, they again repeat 'oloth and shelamim (Judg. 21. 4). At Mizpah, Samuel offers only one kind of sacrifice, and it is ^olah (1 Sam. 6. 10). At Gilgal, 'oloth and shelamim are grouped, as usual (1 Sam. 10. 8), though the ''olah seems promi- nent (1 Sam. 13. 9, 10). When David brings up the ark, he offers 'oloth and shelamim (2 Sam. 6. 17, though the ^olah is perhaps the exclusive reference, in verse 13). At Araunah's threshing-floor (2 Sam. 24), the '•olah is exclusively mentioned, in verses 22 and 24, and the conjunction of 'oloth and shelamim follows, in verse 25. At Gibeon, Solomon offers only one kind of sacrifice, and it is ^olah (1 Kings 3. 4). At Jeru- salem, he offers 'oloth and shelamim (1 Kings 3. 15), and, at the dedication, ''olah, minchah, and shelamim (1 Kings 8. 64, though the shelawiim seem prominent, in verse 63). Only one sacrifice, by Elijah, is recorded, and it is ^olah (1 Kings 18. 38). Jehu (2 Kings 9. 24, 25) offers zehhachiyn and ''oloth, and Ahaz (2 Kings 16. 13-15) offers '■oloth and shelamim, though both seem to give prominence to the ^olah. Is it possible to survey such a catalogue, without being lost in wonder that it should have been reserved for the nineteenth century to cliscover that the ^olah was never ijrominent, in Israel, till after the Exile f The only plea, which we can imagine, for Wellhausen is, " I could not see for the greatness of the light.'" The " light," in the form of evidence for the antiquity of the ''olah, is quite overpowering. The ''olah is the only specified kind of patriarchal sacrifice : it is men- tioned, with prominence, and with apparent exclusiveness, in BUBNT-OFFEBINGS AND PEACE-OFFEniKGS. 379 several of the subseqiient passages : and there is not one of them, in which it is dealt with in a manner to imply the slightest subordination to shelamim. It is, clearly, one of the best known, fundamental, and ancient offerings in Israel, and in the world. VIII. How does our author get quit of the foregoing over- whelming mass of evidence ? He has no difficulty, nor diffidence, whatever, in annihilating it all. We saw how he could shut his eyes to the Scripture usages of zelliacli^ and offer it, as a synonym for " thank-offering." We shall now see how he can solemnly point his reader to twenty-seven Scripture texts (without quoting tlie ivords of one of them !) and claim them, as^roi'm^ what Scripture quite re^nidiates. He presents them, in three lots, first a lot of four, then a lot of seven, and then a lot of sixteen. We shall criticise them, according to his own arrangement. (1) He first points to an inability, which, he says, a general survey of these texts demonstrates, on the part of the ''oJah^ to stand on its own legs : it must always have company : and this is an inherent sign of weakness. Here is his statement : " ISTow it is worth noticing how seldom the ' olali occurs alone." We venture to think that a more astounding statement than this has been seldom penned. He is canvassing whether the ^olali^ or the shelamim, is the more prominent sacrifice ; and he points us to twenty-seven texts, as the basis for his decision. We have read over the whole twenty-seven (and we ask the reader to follow our example), and we find that, in not one of them, do the shelamim " occur alone," whereas, in eleven of them, the ^olah does " occur alone " ! Was there ever such a caricature of criticism ? If the fact of " occurring alone " is a proof of strength, and of superiority, then the 'olah beats the shelamim by U to 0. 380 SANCTUARY AND SACBIFICE. (2) Our author's immediately succeeding statements remind us of nothing so much as the Irishman's plea to a charge of theft, ''Not guilty ^mj lord, but — I promise I'll never do it again y He has just pointed to the fact that the 'olah can hardly "occur alone," as a proof of its inferiority: What is his very next effort ? It is to try to offer ample explanations of the many induhitaUe instances^ in which the ''olaJi does " occur alone " ! Let us look at his explanations. They are of the very feeblest kind. He says ; "It is necessarily so [i.e., it is necessarily alone) in the case of human sacrifice (Gen. 22. 2 seq. ; Judges 11. 31; 2 Kings 3. 27; Jer. 19. 5) " (p. 69). This is the first of the three lots, into which the texts are divided. These four texts are grouped into a common lot, as being all concerned with " human sacrifice." (a) What conceivable support can our author's "thesis" get from such a plea ? We may, surely, assume that, when " human sacrifices " were offered, they were the most solemn^ and precious, which the worshipper felt he could present. If so, and if there was " necessity " that they take the form of 'olah, and that the 'oJali be ''alone'' is that a proof of the inferiority of the 'olah f Is it not rather the strongest possible indication of its ancient pre-eminence ? Surely, in the case of the most awful, and touching, of ancient sacrifices, a form, which is utterly subordinate, will not be put forth into pro- minent, and exclusive, honour. By drawing attention to the fact that these four sacrifices are "human," our author (if anything) greatly adds to the dignity of the 'olah^ rather than impairs it. (jb) The four instances are those of Abraham, of Jephthah, of the king of Moab, and a general charge, against previous kings and worshippers, by Jeremiah. Our author's position is BUE NT-OFFERINGS AND PEACE-OFFERINGS. 381 that all these worshippers were in the way of disparaging the 'olah, that it was by " other kinds " of sacrifice their religious life w^as usually signalised, and that they had recourse to the un-honoured '•olcih^ in these instances, merely because it was their own children that were being sacrificed. But the reading of the four texts does not supply a scintilla of corroboration for these views : they are spun entirely out of our author's — Imagination, Genesis gives us no outline of the usual " kinds "" of offering, nor of the usual ritualistic details, with which Abraham, or any other patriarch, was occupied : the 'olah alone is specified, for Noah, and for Abraham. Xo individual judge has the usual routine of his sacrificial life spread out in detail, in the Book of the Judges : the 'olah alone is specified, in con- nection with three of them, Gideon, Jephthah, and Samson's father, though we are assured that shelamim were also known. We need hardly say that of the ordinary worship of Mesha, king of Moab, we know nothing : our only record is his offeiing his eldest son, for ^olah. The idea that offerings of a more popular, or more appropriate, or more splendid kind had to be set aside, on either of these three occasions, has no evidence whatever in its support. The idea is specially inept in the case of Abraham : for the " human sacrifice " was never carried out : when " the ram " was sacrificed, why did not Abraham, and Isaac, and the young men revert to Well- hausen's standing, and appropriate, "thank-offering," for the happy issue, that had been vouchsafed ? Why is the ^olah still adhered to ? (c) Each of the three special cases confirms what we have suggested, as probable, on general grounds, regarding the vast importance of the occasions, when " human sacrifice " would be had recourse to. Abraham's, avowedly, represents the most august occasion, which even Jehovah can prescribe, whereby faith shall be tested, and the "fear of God " shall be displayed : 382 SANCTUAEY AND SACRIFICE. Jephthah's represents a promise, made when bis own fame, and his nation's very existence, hung trembhng on the chance of battle : Mesha's represents the up-going of his whole soul, out of the depths, to Chemosh, that he would save him, in the direst of extremity. We will require something stronger than a jaunty qjse dixit from Wellhausen to convince us that, at crises of trial such as these, an un-familiar, and un- important, style of offering, instead of the most fundamental, and hallowed, style, which praxis could supply, was selected as suitable. {d) His fourth instance, from Jeremiah — " they have filled this place with the blood of the innocents, and have built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire for 'oloth unto Baal, which I commanded not, nor simke it, neither came it into My mind " — makes the offering of human 'oloth a general characteristic of " their fathers and the kings of Judah," in past ages : instead of dwarfing the ^olah, therefore, it rather augments its prominence, and antiquity ! In this context, moreover, mention is made of " burning incense," and " pouring out drink-offerings," so that Wellhausen has no warrant here for asserting that the human ^olali was " necessarily " iin- accompanied by any other ceremonial. And, while Jeremiah describes the offering of their sons and daughters, as ^olah, Ezekiel employs zebhacli to describe the same offering — " and ye zahhach-Qdi (sacrificed) your sons and your daughters for them to devour " (Ezek. 16. 20). In this, the writer of the 106th Psalm accords with Ezekiel : speaking of Israel's human sacrifices, after the conquest of Canaan, he says — " And they zahhach-ed (sacrificed) their sons and their daughters to idols. And they poured out innocent blood, the blood of their sons and their daughters, whom they zadhach-ed (sacrificed) to the images of Canaan " (Ps. 106. 37, 38). It did not suit our author to quote these two last descriptions of the " human BUBNT-OFFERINGS AXD FEACE-0FFEBi:SG8. 383 sacrifice," for they show that zaNiacli, instead of always mean- ing to make " a thank-offering," originally (as we have con- tended) signified to sacrifice, in the most wide and general sense, of which ^olah might be one development, and sheJamim might be another. It thus appears that all these four quotations, which our author presses into a parenthesis, without quoting a syllable of any of them, not only do not support his thesis, but militate most strongly against it. IX. The second lot of texts consists of seven. They are grouped together in the following sentence, where they are appealed to, as proving the inferiority of the 'olah, and as illustrating its ordinary inability to " occur alone " : — " Otherwise it {i.e., the solitary occurrence of the 'olali) is not usual (Gen. 8. 20 ; Num. 23. 1 seq. ; Judges 6. 20, 26, 13. 16, 23 ; 1 Sam. 7. 9 seq. ; 1 Kings 3. •^, 18. 34, 38) ; moreover, all the ex- amples just cited are extraordinary or mythical in their character^ a circumstance that may not affect the evidence of the existence of the custom in itself, but is important as regards the statistics of its frequency " (pp. 69, 70). (1) In considering this conglomerate, let it be remembered we are dealing with a writer, whose first ground, for disparaging the 'olali^ is that it can hardly " occur alone." But what have we here ? We have a list of seven references to sacrifice, ranging from the Flood to the reign of Ahab, and, in every one of them, the "olah " occurs alone,''' and, among the offerers of, it, are some of the most illustrious names, in Scripture history. Could a stronger demonstration be desired of the antiquity, and of the prominence, of the 'olah ? Surely, to borrow our author's words, such a fact " is worth noticing," and indeed suffices to turn his onslaught on the 'olah into an utter farce. The names of the offerers are Noah, Balaam, Gideon, Manoah, 884 SANCTUARY AND SACEIFICE. Samuel, Solomon, Elijah. In the case of five of them, no other offering than the ^olah is ever recorded. (2) But, says our author, their conduct "is not usual." Their examples are " extraordinary or mythical." Where has he ascertained this ? He vouchsafes no reply. The history gives no hint that these worshippers are diverging from the ordinary praxis of their contemporaries. If Xoah's sacrifices were " not usual " before the Flood, where have we any record of his " usual " sacrifices ? If Balaam's sacrifices were " not usual " at Pethor, how can we ascertain his " usual " sacrifices, when he was at home ? It is enough, therefore, to meet the assertion of " not usual," by characterising it as un-supported, and incredible, dogmatism. (3) But we have a further reply. These ivorshipjwrs are the verg men, to whom Wellhausen, when it suits him, points us, as examples of what was " usual," and " ordinary," and as settling, authoritatively, what was practised in their day ! We have not forgotten p. 54, where " Xoah the father of all mankind " is appealed to as proving, against the Priestist, that sacrifice " is as old as the world itself." On the same page, " Balaam the Aramean " is, unquestioningly, commended for being as correct, in the offering of sacrifice, " as any Israelite." Not on one page, but on a score of pages, Gideon is dragged in, as a sure index of ancient praxis — of " what is demonstra'blg the oldest ritual" (p. 62). On p. 21, Elijah is "that great zealot for purity of worship," and he is, unhesitatingly, to be relied on, for what is " ordinary," and permissible. On the next page to our present quotation, p. 71, Samuel is laid hold of as an indubita- ble illustration of what " usually " passed, at sacrificial feasts : on p. 70, at Mizpah, he is a " myth "—on p. 71, at Zuph, he is a reality ! Where it does not suit Wellhausen, he scouts the practice of these worshippers, and cries out — " Not usual," " Extraordinary," " Mythical " ! Where it will suit his whim BURNT- OFFEIilNGS AND PEACE OFFERINGS. 385 for the moment, he takes these same worshippers under his wings, and makes their conduct the very corner-stones of his reasoning ! It is, surely, unnecessary to say more. The fact of " occurring alone " is thus a distinction, which the ^olali obtains, in no less than eleven out of our author's twenty-seven quotations. Where " human sacrifice " is dealt with, that fact greatly adds to the superior dignity of the ^olali, instead of detracting from it : and the other seven instances present a resistless series of testimony, from worship- pers, whose indubitable suitabiUty is amply attested by Wellhausen himself. X. We have still the third lot of texts, consisting of sixteen, to consider. Our author condenses the instruction of these texts into three lines, but he does not admit a single woi'd from any of the sixteen into his text. An investigation of them (which he thus avoids) may be useful to the Bible student, in giving him a positive view of the Scripture references to Israeh- tish sacrifice, and it will also supply another excellent test of the value of Wellhausen's summaries of Scripture history. The sentence, with which we now proceed to deal, is the following : — " As a rule, the 'oJah occurs only in conjunction with zehhachim, and, when this is the case, the latter are in the majority and are always in the plural, while, on the other hand, the first is frequently in the smgular— Exod. 10. 25, 18. 12, 24. 5, 32. 6 ; Joshua 8. 31 ; Judges 20. 26, 21. 4 ; 1 Sam. 6. 14 seq., 10. 8, 13. 9-11 ; 2 Sam. 6. 17 seq., 24. 23-25; 1 Kings 3. 15, 8. 63 seq.; 2 Kings 5. 17, 10. 24, 25 " (p. 70). We have already shown how the texts are given, in a note appended to the sentence. We should imagine few sentences have been ever penned, that were literally so over-run, by their author, with phylacteries : it seems absolutely to revel in S 2893. B B 386 8ANCTUABY AND SACBIFICE. demonstrations. But there maybe sucli a thing as " protesting too much " : and we do not think the sentence finds any " safety," in the " multitude of counsellors," by whom it pro- fesses to be surrounded. Any one will admit that, if the sentence be true, it ought to be manifoldly, and indubitably, re- flected, in such an array of texts. Our inquiry will now be, Is it so reflected ? As we are dealing with a writer, who claims, towards the close of the nineteenth century, to have revolutionised the arrangement of our Scripture Records, and as we are offering a crucial test of his reliability, as a critic, we deem the point of sufficient importance to waiTant us in putting the sentence, and the texts, in parallel columns ; and, by retaining the sacrificial Hebrew words in English letters, the Bible student, though not a Hebrew expert, will be enabled to judge quite well of the force of the arguments. Before quoting, we have this general criticism to make, as warranted by the texts, viz, both ^olah and zelhach may be used in a coUective sense, to signify more animals than one : their occurrence, in the singular, therefore, does not prove that only one animal is meant, unless the con- text otherwise restricts the offering to one animal. For example, in 1 Kings 8. 63, Solomon's peace-offerings {shelamim) are described by zelhach, in the singular — " Solomon sacrificed the zebhach of peace-offerings " — but the verse assures us that this zehhach consisted of a hundred and forty two thousand animals. In like manner, Jehu, in 2 Kings 10. 18-25, sum- mons all the worshippers of Baal, from the ends of the land, that they may join in a round of sacrifices, which shall out-do the most splendid of the reign of Ahab ; but he sums up the whole by zelliacli, in the singular — " I have a great zehhach for Baal" (verse 19) : a httle further down, this develops into, — *' and they went in to offer zelhacMm and '■oloih " (verse 24) : ^vhile, in the very next verse, we have a summation by ^olah BUBNT-OFFEHINGS AND PEACE-OFFERINGS. 337 in the singular — " and it came to pass as soon as he had made an end of offering the ^olah'' (verse 25) : thus, in this passage, we have both nouns used in a collective sense, and both nouns used also in the plural. In 1 Sam. 6. 14, ^olah is in the singular, though we are expressly told it includes more than one animal — " they offered the kine for an ^olah.'' In 2 Sam. 24. 22-25, Araunah sums up his cattle by ^olah, in the singular — "Behold the cattle (oxen), for the 'olah " (verse 22): but this immediately develops into ^oloth^ in verse 24, and again, in verse 25, — " and David offered ^oloth and shelamimy We have not gone beyond our author's sixteen texts, for illus- tration : but the same usage is common to all Hebrew writers. To give only one instance : in Num. 29. 13, twenty -nine animals are represented by ^olah, in the singular — "ye shall offer an ''olah^ thirteen young bullocks, two rams, fourteen he- lambs of the first year." Of course, if the context specify only one animal, as Avhen Elijah offers a bullock, or Abraham a ram, that is a different matter : but neither zeNuich, nor 'o/«A, in themselves, imply only one victim. In their plurals, while 'oloth and zehhachim both imply more victims than one, shela- mim does not necessarily do so : throughout Lev. 3 (verses 1, 7, and 1 2) shelamim is regularly plural, while the victims are regularly singular. We do not object to our author quoting Joshua, though he so often ignores him. Nor shall we object to his including Naaman, and the golden calf worshippers, and Jehu sacrificing to Baal, among illustrations of true Israelitish sacrifice. Assume that he is right in all this : assume also that he is (though he is far from being) right, in holding that zedhachim must always be re- stricted to "thank-offering": only, keep in mind that both zelhach and 'olah may be used as collectives, and that they do not imply the shghtest proof that only one animal is meant, unless the context expressly states so. BB 2 388 SANCTUABY AND SACBIFICE. Let US now make tlie comparison, which we have proposed. " The BuU:' First Example of " The Eule." " As a rule, [the 'olah occurs " And Moses said, Also thou only in conjunction with zehha- shalt give us in our hand zehlia- chirii], and, when this is the case, chhn and 'oloth, and we shall the latter are in the majority sacrifice unto the Lord our God" and are always in the plural, (Exod. 10. 25). while, on the other hand, the first is frequently in the singu- lar." It is enough to note here : (1) Both words are in the plural ; (2) there is no indication of which are "in the majority": (3) there is no indication of the subordination of 'oJah to zebhach. We cannot forbear adding that Wellhausen knows more of the intended sacrifices than Moses himself : AVellhau- sen knows which sacrifices are to be " in the majority," but Moses confesses general ignorance as to the arrangements : " we know not how we shall perform the service to Jehovah, till we come into the wilderness " (verse 26). " The Bide." Second Example of " The "As a rule, [the 'olah occurs Bide." only in conjunction with zehha- "And Jethro, Moses's father- c/am],and, when this is the case, in-law, took an 'o?a/t and zehha- the latter are in the majority cliim for God; and Aaron and and are always in the plural, all the elders of Israel came to while, on the other hand, the eat bread with Moses's father- first is frequently in the singu- in-law before God" (Exod. 18. lar." 12). We note : (1) ^olah is in the singular, and zeMacMm in the plural : (2) but '■olah may be collective, and the context does not give the slightest suggestion that only one animal is here meant : (3) there is, therefore, nothing to show which are " in the majority ": (4) nor is there any statement of subordination. The foregoing is sufficient : but, on our author's principles, we may add that, so far as prolabiUty goes, it points, almost inevitably, to a multiplicity of victims, for the ^olali. Jethro's object is to emphasise the fact that it has been shown, on a stupendous scale, that " Jehovah is greater than all gods " BURNT-OFFEBINGS AND TEACE-OFFERINGS. 389 (verse 11) : now, the zehhacJiim, according to AVellliausen, are, only to a small extent (" an honorary portion "), bestowed on God, they are mainly for "the sacrificial guests " : the "great- ness of Jehovah," therefore, has to be concentred in the 'oJak, a fact which is at the furthest remove from proving that only one animal is offered. " The Rule." Third Example of " The Buhr "As a rule, [the 'olah occurs "And he sent the young offi- only in conjunction with zehha- cers of the children of Israel, chini], and, when this is the case, and they sacrificed 'oloth, and the latter are in the majority offered zehhachim, as peace-of- and are always in the plural, ferings (shelamim), to Jehovah, while, on the other hand, the first (namely) oxen" (Exod. 24. o). is frequently in the singular." Here (1) both ^olah and zeMach are in the plural : (2) there is no indication of which are " in the majority " : (3) nor is there the slightest trace of subordination. We may note that zehhachim and shelamim are here in apposition, and not com- pounded together : had they been compounded, the form would have been zibhche shelamim. This is the first occurrence of shelamim, in the Old Testament, and it occurs immediately after Moses has had the divine institutes rehearsed on Sinai. It is possible (though we neither insist, nor urge as important,) that it may represent a special sacrificial development, pre- scribed through Moses. It is enough that we have shown that the text does not yield an atom of support to our author's " thesis." " The Bide." Fourth Example of " The " As a rule, [the 'olah occurs Bule." only in conjunction with zehha- " And they rose early on the chini], and, when this is the case, morrow, and they sacrificed the latter are in the majority 'oloth, and they presented she- and are always in the jilural, lamim, and the people sat down while, on the other hand, the for to eat and to drink, and first is frequently in the singu- (then) they rose up to sport " lar." " (Exod. 32. 6). Here (1) both 'olah and shelem are in the plural : (2) there 390 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. is nothing to show which are " in the majority " : (3) nor is there any trace of subordination. If the last text was the first introduction of shelamim^ they are perhaps quoted now, as a well recognised class, without the additions of the former text : but our argument does not need, in the least, to lean on this. " The Elder " As a rule, [the 'olah occurs only in conjunction with zehha- chini], and, when this is the case, the latter are in the majority and are always in the plural, while, on the other hand, the first is frequently in the singu- lar." Fifth Exami^le of " The Ruler "Then built Joshua an altar to Jehovah, God of Israel, on the hill of Ebal (according to what Moses the servant of Je- hovah commanded the children of Israel, as written in the book of the law of Moses), an altar of shcdem (perfect) stones, on which no one had lifted iron : and they sacrificed on them 'oloth to Jehovah, and they of- fered shelamim" (Josh. 8. 31). Here (1) both ''olaJi and shelem are in the plural : (2) there is nothing to show which are "in the majority: " (3) nor is there any trace of subordination. Our author's thesis is thus here quite unsupported. It is curious to note that shalem^ in the adjective form, is what is here employed to describe the stones of the Jehovistic altar, though this has, probably, no reference to the sacrifices of shelamim upon it. It suggests, as the ideas originally associated with the root shelem^ " perfect " " entire," " safe," " peaceful." As applied to stones, it may indicate entire, or un-dressed : as applied to sacrifices, it may indicate entireness of delight in, and consecration to, God. " The Bider " As a rule, [the 'olali occurs only in conjunction with zehha- ch im,'] and, when this is the case, the latter are in the majority and are always in the plural, while, on the other hand, the first is frequently in the singu- lar." SMh Example of " The RuJe." "And all the children of Is- rael went up, and all the people, and they came to Bethel, and they wept, and they sat down there before Jehovah, and they fasted on that day till the even- ing, and they sacrificed 'oloth and shelamim before Jehovah" (Judg. 20. 26). BUBNT-OFFERINGS AND PEACE-OFFERINGS. 391 Here (1) both ^olah and shelem are in the phiral : (2) there is nothing to indicate which are " in the majority " : (3) nor is there any trace of subordination. Thus our author's thesis gets no support. ''The Ruler "As a rule, [the 'olah occurs only in conjunction with zehha- chim'], and, when this is the case, the latter are in the majority and are always in the plural, while, on the other hand, the first is frequently in the singu- lar." Seventh Example of Hide." The " And it came to pass on the morrow that the people awoke early, and they built there an altar, and they sacrificed 'oloth and shelamim" (Judg. 21. 4). This is identical with the last example, and needs only the identical comment. " The Billed "As a rule, [the 'olah occurs only in conjunction with zehha- cMth], and, when this is the case, the latter are in the majority and are always in the plural, while, on the other hand, the first is frequently in the singu- lar." Eighth Example of Rule." The " And the cart went into the field of Joshua the Bethshemite, and it stood there, and there a great stone (lay). And they broke up the wood of the cart, and the kine they sacrificed as an 'olah for Jehovah. "And (it was) the Levites (who) had lifted down the ark of Jehovah, and the box that was with it, in. which were the utensils of gold, and they plac- ed them on the great stone. "Then the men of Bethshe- mesh sacrificed 'oloth, and of- fered zehhachim, on that day to Jehovah " (1 Sam. 6- 14 seq.). This quotation is quite " polemical " against our author. It mocks his thesis altogether. There seem to be two sacrifices mentioned. (1) The first is, 392 8ANCTUABY AND SACRIFICE. probably, offered by tlie Philistines, wlio dispose of the cart and kine, which are their own property, in honour of Jehovah : (2) they use ^olah in the singular, but the context expressly bears that it includes more than one animal : (3) they associate no other " kind " of offering with the ^olah^ so that its antiquity, and independence, are here established. The thesis thus gets two death-blows from these Philistines. The second sacrifice appears to be offered by the inhabitants of the priestly city of Bethshemesh. (1) They use both 'oJah and zebhach in the plural : (2) there is nothing to indicate which are " in the majority " : (3) nor is there any trace of subordination. The first sacrifice contradicts our author's thesis : the second gives it no support. " The EuUr Ninth Examjjie of " The BuUr "As a rule, [the 'olah occurs "And go down before me to only in conjunction with zehha- Gilgal, and, behold, I am coming chiin], and, when this is the case, down to thee to sacrifice 'oJoth the latter are in the majority and to offer zihhche shela- and are always in the plural, mim" (1 Sam. 10. 8). while, on the other hand, the first is frequently m the singu- lar." Here (1) both ^oJah and zebhach (the latter compounded with shelamim) are in the plural : (2) there is nothing to show which are " in the majority " : (3) nor is there any trace of subordination. The thesis thus gets no support. " The BuUr Tenth Example of " The Bule." "As a rule, [the 'olah occurs "And Saul said. Bring to me only in conjunction with zehha- the 'olah and the slielamim. cMm\ and, when this is the case, And he sacrificed the 'olah. And the latter are in the majority it came to pass as he finished and are always in the plural, sacrificing the 'olah, that he- while, on the other hand, the hold Samuel came. And out BURNT-OFFERINGS AND PEACE-OFFERINGS. 393 first is frequently in tlie singn- went Saul for to meet him, and lar." for to do homage to him. And Samuel said, What hast thou done ? And Saul said, Because I saw that the people were scat- tering from me, and thou earnest not at the termination of the days, and the Philistines were gathered at Michmash, then said I, ISTow down shall come the Philistines upon me, and the presence of Jehovah I have not sought. Then took I courage, and sacrificed the 'olah " (1 Sam. 13. 9-12). Here (1) 'olah is in the singular, and she! em in the plural : (2) but it is recognised Hebrew usage that shelamim (plural) may be associated with one animal only (in Lev. 3. 7 with one lamb, in Lev. 3. 12 with one goat), and there is nothing, in our present context, to fix whether it includes one animal only, or several : (3) on the other hand, ^olah is frequently collective, and there is nothing, in this context, to restrict it to one animal only : (4) there is thus not the least indication which are " in the majority " : (5) there seem very decided indications that the 'olah is the superior sacrifice of the two, for it is used three times over to describe (apparently) the whole propitiatory pro- cess. This quotation, therefore, not only gives no support to the thesis, but goes far to suggest that the thesis is the reverse of truth. «' The Rider Meventh EicamjjJe of " The " As a rule, [the 'olah occurs Rule." only in conjunction with zehha- "And they brought in the c7iim], and, when this is the case, ark of the Lord and set it in the latter are in the majority its place, in the midst of the and are always in the plural, tent which David had pitched while, on the other hand, the for it. And David sacrificed first is frequently in the singu- 'oloth before the Lord and she- lar." lamim. And David ended the sacrificing of the '■olah and of the shelamim, and he blessed the people in the name of the Lord of hosts " (2 Sam. 6. 17 seq.). 394 SANCTUABY AND SACRIFICE. Here (1) both ^olah and shelem are in the plural : (2) there is nothing to indicate which are " in the majority " : (3) nor is there any sign of subordination : (4) there is, however, a clear disproof of our author's thesis, so far as it rests on the meaning of ^olah, in the singular ; for the 'olofh (plural), in verse 17, are immediately described by ^olah (singular), in verse 18. Nothing could more convincingly prove the collective sense of 'olah than such an interchange of use, by the same writer, in describing the same sacrifice. The use of the article before ^oJah, in verse 18, renders the reference to the same sacrifice the more indubitable. It almost looks as though some " redactor " had foreseen Well- hausen's thesis, and had purposely varied the phraseology, to make sure of turning the thesis to absurdity. " The Rule." "As a rule, [the 'olah occurs only in conjunction with zehha- chwi], and, when this is the case, the latter are in the majority and are always in the plural, while, on the other hand, the first is frequently in the singu- lar." Ttvelfth Example of " The Rule." " And Araunah said unto Da- vid, Take and sacrifice, my lord, oh king, what seems good in thine eyes. Behold, the cattle for the 'olah, and the threshing instruments, and the implements for the cattle, for the pieces of wood. The whole gives Arau- nah, O king, to the king. And Araunah said to the king. May the Lord thy Grod delight in thee. Then said the king to Araunah, 'No ; for I will assur- edly buy from thee at a price; and I shall not sacrifice to the Lord, my God, 'oloth gratui- tously. Then took David the threshing-floor and the cattle for fifty silver shekels. And there David built an altar to the Lord, and he sacrificed 'oloth and shelamim (2 Sam. 24, 22-24). BUENT-OFFERINGS AND PEACE-OFFERINGS. 395 This quotation is, on three grounds, irreconcileable with our author's thesis. First, both Araunah and David seem clearly to regard the ''oJah, not as a subordinate, but as a pre-eminent, sacrifice. Araunah, in verse 22 (why does our author omit this verse ?), and David, in verse 24, make a general reference to the sacri- fices, and they both sum them up as 'o/ff/i, and ^olotli. Is such language conceivable, if the ''olah had been a mere occasional appendage to the shelamim ? Such language clearly establishes the solemn prominence of the 'olah. But, secondly, the passage proves that ^olah, in the singular, cannot be restricted to mean one animal only. Araunah points to all his cattle, as unitedly fit to form an ''olah : and this is interchanged with 'olofh, when the sacrifice is offered. Thirdly, in the last verse, both ^olah and shelem are in the plural ; and there is nothing to indicate which are " in the majority." Thus, two parts of the thesis are contradicted ; and a third part gets no support. " The B^de." Thirteenth Example of " The "As a rule, [the 'olah occurs Rule." only in conjunction with zehha- [" And the king went to Gi- chim], and, when this is the case, beon to offer there ; for that was the latter are in the majority the great high-place. A thou- and are always in the plural, sand 'oloth did Solomon sacri- while, on the other hand, the fice on that altar" (1 Kings 3. first is frequently in the singu- 4).] lar." "And Solomon awoke, and behold it was a dream. And hp went to Jemsalem, and he stood before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. And he sacrificed 'cloth and he presented shela- mim. And he prepared a feast for all his servants " (verse 15). 396 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. We have already dealt with his treatment of the first of these verses (verse 4). He coolly dismisses it as "not usual," and as "mythical," without a shred of warrant. It has as good a historical claim, as any verse in all Kings. The only apparent ground for his dislike to it is that it utterly shatters his thesis. It shows the ''olali to occupy a most prominent, and indepen- dent, place among Israelitish sacrifices. And its witness is un-impaired. In verse 15, both ''olah and shehm are in the plural ; and there is nothing to show which are " in the majority." Thus, while the thesis is pulverised, in the one verse, it is quite un-supported, in the other. " The Rule." Fourteenth Example of " The "As a rule, [the 'olah occurs Rule.'' only in conjunction with zehha- " And Solomon offered, as tbe chun], and, wlien this is the case, zehhach of the shelamim, which the latter are in the majority he offered to the Lord, cattle and are always in the plural, 22,000, and sheep 120,000. On while, on the other hand, the that day Solomon sanctified the first is frequently in the singu- middle of the court which was lar." before the Lord's house, because he presented there the 'olah, and the mincliah, and the fat of the shelamim, for the brasen altar which was before the Lord was too small to hold the 'olah and the minchah and the fat of the shelamim''' (1 Kings 8. 63, 64). Here (1) both ^oJah and zelhach are in the singular : (2) our author's statement, that zebliacli is " always in the plural," is thus incoiTect : (3) zehhach is expressly stated to include many thousands of victims, and ''olah is also, clearly, used collectively, though its number of victims is not specified : (4) the expla- nation, that the brasen altar was too small for the hosts of victims that day, would seem ridiculous, if the first two {^olah B URXT- OFFEBINGS AND TEA CE- OFFERINGS. so: and miiichali)., of the three kinds of sacrifice specified, consisted of only one animal each : (5) the zebhach shelamim appears to have been unusually numerous at the Temple dedication : (6) on a less important occasion (1 Kings 3. 4), the ''olah numbered 1000, and here it is twice placed first, in summaries of the sacrifices. Thus, while the quotation discredits some parts of the thesis, it supplies proof for no part. " The Rule:' " As a rule, [the 'olah occurs only in conjunction with zehlta- chhn], and, when this is the case, the latter are in the majority and are always in the plural, while, on the other hand, the first is frequently in the singu- lar." Fifteenth Exam'ple of " The Bule." "And Naaman said, If not, yet let there be given to thy servant two mules' burden of earth, for thy servant will no longer offer 'olah and zehhach to other gods, but only to the Lord" (2 Kings 5. 7). Here (1) ^olah and zelhacli are both in the singular : (2) the statement, therefore, that zebhach is " always in the plural," is inaccurate : (3) both nouns may include a number of animals, and there is nothing to settle which are " in the majority " : (4) the verse does not describe any actual sacrifice, nor does it give particulars of any intended sacrifice, on Xaam'an's part. It is difficult to conceive how our author could deliberately name such a verse, as proving the inferiority of the ^oJah to the zehhach. It does not make the most distant approach to such proof. " The Ruler "As a rule, [the 'olah occurs only in conjunction with zehha- chini], and, when this is the case, the latter are in the majority and are always in the plural, while, on the other hand, the Sixteenth Example of " The Rule:' " ]^ow therefore call unto me all the prophets of Baal, aU his worshij^pers, and all his priests : let none be wanting : for I have a srreat zebhach for Baal. . . . 398 8ANCTUABY AND SACBIFICE. first is frequently in the singn- And they came into the house lar." of Baal, and the house of Baal was tilled from one end to an- other. . . . And they went in to present zehliachim and 'oloth. . . . And it came to pass, when he had ended the presenting of the 'olah, that Jehu said to the runners and to the captains, Go in, slay them, let not a man come out" (2 Kings 10. 19-25). Here (1) zeWiach is used, in verse 19 (why does our author omit this verse ?), in the singular, to describe a sacrifice, which is afterwards, in verse 24, distributed into zehhacMm and ''oloth : (2) in like manner, the zelhachim and ^oloth of verse 24 are generalised, in the very next verse, by ^olah^ in the singular : (3) thus the collective sense of loth singulars is established by the very passage, into which our author would fain thrust the doctrine, that these singulars can mean one animal only! (4) in verse 24, both 'olah and zehhach are in the plural, but there is nothing to fix which are " in the majority." The thesis thus gets ample discredit, and no support, from this quotation. If Wellhausen knows the precise numbei-s of victims, which Jehu offered, he has derived the knowledge from his own "subjectivity." By the foregoing patient quotation, and analysis, of the sixteen texts, we give the Bible student a positive, and connected, view of the sacrificial phraseology, employed by the writers of Scrip- ture, in a notable series of references, ranging from Moses to Jehu ; and we have endeavoured to represent the Hebrew words in such a way as to make him comparatively independent of special familiarity with Hebrew. It gives him, at the same time, a serviceable, and extended, illustration of the trustworthi- ness of the representations, by which it has recently been so BURNT-OFFEBINGS AND PEACE- OFFEBINGS. 399 boastfully proclaimed that the sacred volume has been turned upside down. Who could imagine that a writer would lay down a critical " Rule," with such precision, and tack on to it a series of sixteen texts, as the sphere of the induction, whence the " Rule " has been evolved, if there is, practically, not one text, out of the sixteen, that gives the "Rule" the least support ? We have endeavoured to show that that is the precise attitude of separation between Wellhausen's " Rule " and his texts. It will be observed that, in our sixteen quotations of it, we have put within brackets the words ["occurs only in con- junction with zebhachim "]. The object of this is to indicate that tJiat part of his rule has already been dealt with, and disproved. The eleven of his texts, on which we previously commented, show abundantly that the 'olaJi does not " occur only in conjunction with zelhachim^'' but occurs, in a memor- able succession of sacrifices, from Noah to Elijah, as a pro- minent, and independent, offering, and without the slightest hint of "conjunction with zelhachim.'' We trust we have now shown that the rest of his " rule " is equally imaginary. Instead of the zelliacli being " always in the plural," and the ^lali " frequently in the singular," the zehhach, in two of his sixteen texts, occurs in the singular only, while the ^olafi, in thirteen of his sixteen texts, occurs in the plural : there are two singular uses of zehhach, and three singular uses of ^olah : these are plain facts, which any one can verify, and appreciate : how fantastic to build his critical "rule" on such foundations! We have shown also, without over-stepping the limits of his sixteen texts, that both 'olah and zeWiach are used collectively, and do not therefore, in the singular, imply that only one victim is being sacrificed. We have shown also that there is no statement, throughout the whole of his texts, from which the relative numbers of the ^olah, and of the zehhach, can be ascertained, so as to settle which are " in the majority." We 400 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. would add that the mere "majority" of victims, though ascertained, might be far from the only factor, in settling the scope, and the importance, of offerings. And, taking his twenty-seven texts as a whole, it will surely be a wonder to many that our author should have ventured to point to them, as proving the great inferiority of the 'olah : their united suggestiveness, on the contrary, leads us to regard the ''olah^ with great confidence, as one of the most ancient^ and one of the most prominent^ at once of Jewish, and of human, sacrifices. XI. We have only one other section of criticism to devote to the important paragraph from Wellhausen, with its accom- panying notes, with which we have been so pointedly dealing. We have been considering it, so far as it professes to rest on texts : but we may also consider it, so far as it affects to be quite independent of texts, and rests solely on WeJlhausen's autliority. First, he delivers an explanation, ex cathedra^ of the relations between the 'olah and the zehhach : and secondly, he explains a notable sacrificial deficiency, in the Scriptural historians, and supplies that deficiency out of his own know- ledge. Both points are eminently curious, and characteristic. (1) Let us look, first, at his authoritative revelation of the relations between the ^olah and the zelhach. It is this : — '* They supplement each other like two corresponding halves ; the 'olah is, as the name implies, properly speaking, nothing more than the part of a great offering that reaches the altar. One might therefore designate as 'olah also that part of a single animal which is consecrated to the Deity ; this, however, is never done ; neither of the blood nor of the fat {hater) is the verb he'elah used, but only of the pieces of the flesh, of which in the case of the minor offering nothing was burnt. But the distinction is merely one of degree ; there is none in kind ; a small zehhach, enlarged and augmented, becomes an 'olali and zehhachim ; out of a certain number of slaughtered animals which are eaten by the sacrificial company one is devoted to God and wholly given to the flames " (p. 70). BUENT-OFFERINGS AND FEACE-0FFERING8. 401 We need not linger over this. It is merely an innocent bit of romance, and the author expressly acknowledges as much. He gives a derivation of the meaning of 'olah^ which Scripture does not give, and which seems opposed to Scripture ; and then, in view of that derivation, he tells us how " one mighty therefore," treat the ''olah^ on a great variety of occasions. But, it will be observed, he immediately acknowledges that the Scriptural writers . never adopt, nor sanction, these views : " this, hoivever, is never done " : he is advocating what he acknowledges has no warrant from Scripture, and we need not, therefore, pursue him : we have plentiful occupation in dealing with him, when he claims Scripture on his side. "We will only say that his pretended evolution of the 'olah, out of a primitive zehliach, rising (like a Scottish stipend) by successive " augmentations," leaving " smallness " further and further behind, and, at last, reaching such "great" pro- portions, that a whole animal may now be spared " to God " and " to the flames," is a pitiful, and absolutely un-authori- tative, burlesque, for which there is not a tittle of warrant, from Genesis to Malachi. And, with that unchallengeable comment, we leave it. Or, if we add a word, be it this : what incorrigibJe selfishness these early worshippers were possessed by ! The honour of God had nothing to do with the starting of their sacrifice, it was merely for the delectation of " the sacrificial company " : Not, apparently, till they had gorged themselves to (and beyond) their full, did they, at last, bethink themselves that a few crumbs might now be thrown towards Heaven : when the " slaughtered animals " had become plentiful enough, " one " might, at last, be " devoted to God." (2) His other revelation is regarding a marvellous deficiency in the Jewish historians, a deficiency which it has been re- S 2S93. C C 402 SANCTUABY AND SACBIFICE. served for himself, in these latter days, to supply. He thus presents it : — " For the rest, it must be borne in mind that as a rule it is only great sacrificial feasts that the historical Books take occasion to mention, and that consequently the burnt-offering, notwithstand- ing what has been said, comes before us with greater prominence than can have been the average case in ordinary life. Customarily, it is certain, none but thank-offerings were offered ; necessarily so if slaughtering could only be done beside the altar" (pp. 70, 71). {a) Our author here insinuates that the Bible does not give data., sufficient to settle the " ordinary " sacrifices of Israel : it is exceptional splendours, rather than regular routines, which it describes. But some will question if Abel's firstlings, and Abraham's ram, and Gideon's kid, and Job's offerings for his sons, to name no others, can be accurately thought of, as " great sacrificial feasts," and if they must not rather have been eminently in keeping with the ordinary routine of ancient sacrifice. The Eecords, instead of obliterating, seem rather, often and excellently, to suggest the people's domestic ex- perience. {!)) But let us assume that it is only " great feasts," which the history details. What, then, does our author wish us to ima- gine ? He wishes us to imagine that, in their great gatherings as a nation, the people elevated into honour, and prominence, and independence, a kind of offering which was treated with comparative contempt, which came in only as an occasional appendage, which was repeatedly never acknowledged at all, in their " ordinary life." Is this a natural evolution ? If the 'oJah was so prominent, in their united worship, is this not putting on it a mark of signal honour ? And what proof have we that the scattered Zuphs and Bethlehems neglected this honorable sacrifice ? Or, would the " clans," and the " cor- porations," of the Arcadian dream (pp. 76-78) neglect it ? If they killed a " calf," whenever an " honoured guest " arrived BUBXT-OFFERiyaS AXD PEACE-OFFERINGS. 403 (p. 76), would they ffrmJfje "a whole animal," when they visited Jehovah's " high place " ? (c) Then think how provocative this view of our author is, after what we have just been engaged with. What was the use of making us wade through the seven and twenty texts, from Xoah to Jeremiah, if they are, practically, beside the mark, if they are comparatively valueless to settle the point at issue ? We are now told that they clearly differ from what " can have been the average case in ordinary life." " Can have been the case ! " This is pure Nolclehism, " What can have been the average case is of less consequence to know than what actuaJly to olc place ^^ (p. 46). But, if Wellhausen is now right, and if the cases quoted cannot guide us to the ordinary pre-Exilic sacrifice of an Israelite (which is what we want to arrive at), ivhy were the texts ever spread out, in such multiplicity, at all ? Clearly, Wellhausen feels (what has been abundantly proved) that the ''olah holds its own triumphantly through the texts, that its prominence is indubitable, on the basis of these texts. He, therefore, virtually throws the texts overboard, and declares they " can " be no serviceable guide to " ordinary " praxis. (d) And tvho shall speak^ where the texts are silent ? AVho shall now supply what all Jewish historians have omitted ? How can " the average case of ordinary Jewish life " be now ascertained .^ Here we reach the acme of Imagination. " Cus- tomarily^ it is certain none but thank-offerings were offered." If so, why was this truth so long withheld ? This *' customarily, IT IS CERTAIN " rests, simply and absolutely, on Wellhausen 's dogmatism : the texts have been deliberately disparaged, as not meeting " the case " : and, when they are gone, we have nothing but thei^se dixit of a German professor, telling us what " it is certain " was the " custom " of Israelitish sacrifice, from Moses to the Exile. This is what the " Higher Criticism " generally C C 2 404 SANCTUAEY AND SACRIFICE. ends in, when it is run to earth : let us sit in our nineteenth century arm-chairs, and dream any extravagant dream, that suits us, about Jewish history, and, at the close of the narration, permit us to add, " It is certain." That is about it. But we fear an unbelieving world will persist in asking Wellhausen the grounds of his " certainty " — specially when he acknowledges that the instances, which " the historical Books take occasion to mention," are " polemical " againt his view. (e) He adds : " necessarily so (i.e. necessarily none but thank-offerings) if slaughtering could only be done beside the altar." The words seem obscure, and we are not sure of their drift, though it matters, practically, nothing. Do they mean that people could sacrifice without altars ? Do they point to a wide dissociation of " thank-offerings " from victims for " the altar " ? If so, they seem hardly in keeping with the opening sentences of his paragraph, which restrict the discussion to "the animal sacrifice." Besides, how could animal "thank- offerings " ever be un-procurable, on AYellhausen's view ? According to him, " slaughtering beside the altar " means slaughtering anywhere, or everywhere : for " every town had its hamah,'" and the people could " build altars, and sacrifice, ivherever they pleased.'" He does not believe that such a place as "the altar" had any existence. The expression looks like another momentary lapse into orthodoxy on his part; but the settlement is of no importance whatever to our argu- ments. On the traditional view, there was no difficulty about " slaughtering," from the entry into Canaan till the Exile ; it " could be done " legally anywhere. In opening this chapter, we said that Wellhausen discussed the statistics of the occuiTences of the burnt-offering Qolah)^ and of the peace-offer higs (zehhach^ shelamim), as establishing a SACRIFICIAL MEALS. 405 clear priority, and a long superiority, for the latter. We have looked exhaustively at all the statistics offered, and have endeavoured to show that they demolish, instead of establishing, his " thesis." But we said that he next discussed the respective tendencies of the ''olah, and of the shelmnim, to represent, and to promote, socialihj among the people, and we have now to consider his representations, on this head. He holds that, in pre-Exilic time, a sacrifice was not so much an altar offering^ as a social meal : so sacrificially possessed were the Israelites, that their every meal became a sacrifice : every " high place " was a refreshment room, where scenes of intemperance might lamentably prevail. A sacrifice, in those days, signified simply eating and diinking and being merry ; reciprocal fellowship was its whole origin, and pervading aim ; it w^as only when the "feast" attained "very great" dimensions, that the thought of an animal being " given to Jehovah " occasionally occurred. The Priestly Code changes all this: it practically ends the sacrificial meals, and sociality, of Israel : it glorifies the burnt- offering, which all goes to disappear in smoke from Jehovah's altar : it makes the Israehte realise that " eating bread in God's presence" has become a thing of th« past. This glaring contrast is thus presented : — " From what has been said it results that according to the praxis of the older period a meal was almost always connected with a sacrifice. It was the rule that only blood and fat were laid upon the altar, but the people ate the flesh; only in the case of very great sacrificial feasts was a large animal (one or more) given to Jehovah. Where a sacrifice took place, there was also eating and drinking (Exod. 32. 6; Judges 9. 27; 2 Sam. 15. H seq. ; Amos 2. 7) ; there was no offering without a meal, and no meal without an offering (1 Kings 1. 9) ; at no important Bamah was entertain- ment wholly wanting, such a Aeo-x^? as that in which Samuel feasted Saul, or Jeremiah the Rechabites (1 Sam. 22 ; 9. Jer. 35. 2). To be merry, to eat and drink before Jehovah, is a usual form of speech down to the period of Deuteronomy ; even Ezekiel 406 SANCTUABY AND SACRIFICE. calls the ciiltns on the high places an eating upon the mountains (1 Sam. 9. 13, 19 seq.)' and in Zechariah the pots in the Temple have a special sanctity (Zech. 14. "20). By means of the meal in presence of Jehovah is established a covenant fellowship on the one hand between Him and the guests, and on the other hand between the guests themselves reciprocally, which is essential for the idea of sacrifice and gives their name to the shelamim (com- pare Exod. 18. 12, 24. 11). In ordinary slaughterings this notion is not strongly present, but in solemn sacrifices it was in full vigour. It is God who invites, for the house is His ; His also is the gift, which must be brought to Him entire by the offerer before the altar, and the greater portion of which He gives up to His guests only after that. Thus in a certain sense they eat at Grod's table, and must accordingly prepare or sanctify themselves for it. Even on occasions that, to our way of thinking, seem highly unsuitable, the meal is nevertheless not wanting (Judges So. 26, 21. 4; 1 Sam. 13. 9-12). That perfect propriety was not always obse.rved might be taken for granted, and is proved by Isa. 28. 8 even with regard to the Temple of Jerusalem; 'all tables are full of vomit, there is no room.' Hence also Eli's sus- picion regarding Hannah was a natural one, and by no means so startling as it appears. " How different from this picture is that suggested by the Priestly Code ! Here one no longer remarks that a meal accompanies every sacrifice ; eating before Jehovah, which even in Deuteronomy is just the exj)ression for sacrificing, nowhere occurs, or at all events is no act of divine worship. Slaying and sacrificing are no longer coincident, the thank-offering of which the breast and right shoulder are to be consecrated is something different from the old simple zehhach. But, precisely for this reason, it has lost its former broad significance. The mizheach, that is, the place where the zebachim are to be offered, has been transformed into a mizhach ha-'olah. The burnt-offering has become quite independent and comes everywhere into the foreground, the sacrifices which are unconnected with a meal altogether predominate, — so much that, as is well known, Theophrastus could declare there were no others among the Jews, who in this way were differentiated from all other nations. Where formerly a thank-offering which was eaten before Jehovah, and which might with greater clearness be called a sacri- ficial meal, was prescribed, the Priestly Code, as we shall afterwards see, has made out of it simple dues to the priests, as, for example, in the case of the fii'st-born and of firstlings. Only in this point SACRIFICIAL MEALS. 407 it still bears involuntary testimony to the old custom by applying the names of Todhah, Nedher, andNedhahhah, of which the last two in particular must necessarily have a quite general meaning (Lev. 22. 18 ; Ezek. 46. 12), exclusively to the thank-offering, while Milluim and paschal sacrifice are merely subordinate varities of it" (pp. 71, 72). It will be observed that these two paragraphs are, at first, introduced, as though they were a mere necessary complement of what had gone before — " from what has been said it results." Now, if we have dealt successfully Avith " what has been said," and have shown its futility, we might plead that what " results" from it must share its overthrow, and that all the criticism, needed for these two paragraphs, is to change the opening formula, " according to the praxis of the older period," into the correcter formula, " according to the un-siqjported fancy of Wellhausen.'^ It appears to us, however, that he does not present these paragraphs, as a mere " result " from the pre- ceding, but endeavours to bolster them up with a measure of additional, and independent, proof. And, in any case, a con- sideration of them will be useful in guarding the Bible student against the mis-use, and mis-representation, of sundiy import- ant sacrificial references in Scripture. The two fallacies, that pervade, and vitiate, the paragraphs, are (1) that the symbolical fellowship of a meal was the main, if not exclusive, aim, and idea, of pre-Exilic sacrifice ; and (2) that the so-called Priestly Code frowns on sacrificial sociality. In the sections of criticism, which we proceed to append, we may most effectually prick the pretentious bubble, by attacking the second fallacy first. When this second fallacy has been exposed, it will be found that Wellhausen's whole argument has become, in his hands, a broken reed, which even the truth of his first fallacy would not join together again. We take first, then, the extraordinary charge of non-sociality, which he brings against the Priestly Code. 408 SANCTUAEF AND SACBIFICE. I. It is an un-mitigated delusion, and inis-representafion, to say that the Priestly Code discourages sacrificial meals, among the people of Israel. It necessitates, and encourages, such meals, in tlie most emphatic terms. If we were to stop here, the reader might feel he is only getting one assertion against another assertion ; Wellhausen says one thing, and we say another. But we shall not stop with mere assertion. Though Wellhausen offers no extracts from the Code, from which his view of it can be derived, we shall endeavour to substantiate the opposite view by abundant, and definite, quotation of its contents. (1) The first five chapters of Leviticus are occupied with the altar-ritual, prescribed for each of the leading divisions of sacrifice (burnt-offerings Chap. 1, meal-offerings Chap. 2, peace-offerings Chap. 3, sin and trespass offerings Chaps. 4, 5). The two following chapters, 6, 7, are mainly occupied with pre- scribing the disposal of those portions of the sacrifices, that were not consumed, as fiery offerings unto Jehovah, upon the altar. It is with the ''olah, and with the shelatnim, that we are chiefly concerned. Regarding the flesh of the 'olah, no additional prescription was needed, for it had all been burnt on the altar, except the skin, which became the priest's (Lev. 7. 8). But, in the case of the shelamim, it is made a standing ordinance that, after two rich portions (the wave breast and the right thigh) have been made over to the priests (7. 28-34), all the rest of the animals shall be used, to provide a meal for the worshii^pers. " And the flesh of the sacrifice of his peace-offerings for thanksgiving shall be EATEN on the day of his oblation : he shall not leave any of it until the morning" (7. 15). This is the law, for the first of three " kinds " of shelamim, which are specified (viz. the todhah or thank-offering). For the other two " kinds " (viz. the nedher or vow, and the nedhahhah or free-will offering), the ordinance is identical in substance, but more extended, as to time : the WAS THE PBIESTIST UK-SOCIAL? 409 flesh is again to be eaten by the worshippers, but the feast may be prolonged over t\Yo days, instead of one : " But if the sacri- fice of his oblation be a vow, or a free-will offering, it shall BE EATEN On the day that he offereth his sacrifice ; and on the morrow that which remaineth of it shall be eaten : but that which remaineth of the flesh of the sacrifice on the third day shall be burnt with fire" (7. 16, 17). Then the wide privilege of participating in these feasts is thus stated : " And as for the flesh EVERY ONE that is clean shall eat thereof" (7. 19). Thus we have the materials for the people's meals, the duration of the meals, the participators of the meals, all rigorously ordained^ in the very fore-front of a Code, which, we have been told, has abrogated, and frowned upon, all such accompaniments of sacrifice ! (2) The Code is replete with indications to the same effect. Lev. 17. 1-7 prescribes that no ox, nor lamb, nor goat shall be killed, without being first brought to the door of the tabernacle (verses 3, 4) ; that it shall there be sacrificed, as a sacrifice of shelamim (verse 5) ; and that its blood shall be sprinkled, and its fat burnt, on the altar (verse 6). What becomes of the flesh ? Indisputably, it is distributed between priests and wor- shippers, in the proportions laid doivn jjreviously in the Book. The legislator can thus treat the sacrificial meals, without his express re-mention of them, as sure to be mentally supplied by any capable reader. Wellhausen, on page 50, regards these verses, as forbidding, throughout Palestine, a slaughtering, which had previously been permitted by Deuteronomy, in the dags of Josiah. Such a view is almost incredibly fantastic, and has not the slightest vestige of proof: but the holder of that view cannot, in the same breath, appeal to the Priestly Code, as virtu- ally abolishing sacrificial meals, in the post-Josian ages. Such meals are an inevitable, and standing, postulate, in these verses. (3) In a re-enforcement of sundry laws, in Lev. 19, we find 410 SANCTUABY AND SACRIFICE. the following : " And when je offer a sacrifice of shelamim unto Jehovah, ye shall offer it that ye may be accepted. It shall BE EATEN the Same day ye offer it, and on the morrow ; and, if aught remain until the third day, it shall be burnt with fire " (verses 5, 6). Is this a Code, characterised by the fact, that " meals accompanying sacrifices," or " eatings before Jehovah," are now unknown ? (4) A similar re-enforcement is the following : " And when ye sacrifice a sacrifice of thanksgiving (iodhah) unto Jehovah, ye shall sacrifice it that ye may be accepted. On the same day IT SHALL BE EATEN : ye shall leave none of it until the morn- ing : I am Jehovah " (Lev. 22. 29, 30). Here, it is not she- lamim in general, but the first of the three previously specified " kinds " of them, viz. the todhah, that is rehearsed. And the legislative harmony is maintained, in the fact that the " eating " has all to be done on the first day, and none on " the morrow." (5) In Lev. 23, after the various " set feasts," throughout the year, have been described, it is significantly added that these are additional to, and independent of, another set of sacrificial observances, by which all portions of the year may be signal- ised : they are in addition to " your gifts, and in addition to all your vows, and in addition to all your free-will offerings, which ye give unto the Lord " (verse 38). In Num. 29, after the annual set burnings on the altar have been specified, a similar recognition is made of voluntary sacrifices, that may come up, at all periods of the year, in the form of " burnt- offerings, and meal-offerings, and drink-offerings, and peace- offerings " (verse 39). And, by the ordinances already quoted, all shelamim had to be accompanied by meals. Are we not warranted, therefore, in characterising the disappearance of sacrificial meals, under the Priestly Code, as an unmitigated delusion ? The support, which the foregoing facts accord to the tradi- WAS THE PBIESTI8T UNSOCIAL? 411 fioiud view of the Penteteuchal Codes, hardly needs enforce- ment. If we meet (as Wellhausen insists) with frequent references to meals, in connection with pre-Exilic sacrifices, that is no surprise, nor stumbling-block, to us ; that is merely a confirmation of the plain truth that the Priestly Code is the utterance of Moses : the Code implies a multiplicity of sacri- ficial meals, so that the occasional statement, or implication, of such meals, in the history, is merely a pleasing, and satisfying, proof that we are following a consistent, though un-pretentious, guide. The Code does not accompany all sacrifices with meals : the ritual of the burnt-offering, and of some sin-offerings, leaves no flesh over, for consumpt by any one : but, in the case of thank-offerings, and votive-offerings, and free-will offerings (into which the shelamim are distributed), abundance of flesh is reserved from the altar for consumpt, and meals on that flesh are obligatory. IT. In intimate connection with the foregoing mis-represen- tation,! is the following, which is just a repetition of it, with additions : — " The burnt-offering has become qiiite independent, and comes everywhere into the foreground, the sacrifices which are uncon- nected with a meal altogether predominate." (1) Our author has failed to show the least " dependence," or subordination, of the 'olah, in comparison with shelamim, in pre-Exilic history. The latter seldom " occur alone," but the former frequently does : if this fact be a proof of " inde- pendence," then the 'olah did not need to wait to " become " independent, under the Priestly Code ; it had been " quite independent," from the first. (2) The Code gives " quite independent " prescriptions of the four classes of sacrifice, in the four opening chapters of Leviticus, and does not, in any way, subordinate the shelamim 412 SANCTUARY AND SACBIFICE. to the *'ola'h. If it be said that the ^olah gets the place of honour, and is " in the foreground," seeing it occupies the j^rs^ chapter, and slielamim the third, we may point out that it usually gets a similar " foreground," in the pre-Exilic history. The sacrifices are very frequently conjoined, and the usual order of mention is " burnt-offerings and peace-offerings," an order, which is very seldom reversed. This idea of j^rominence is perhaps confirmed by the fact that, when a single term seems used, in a comprehensive, and representative, sense, to denote all the sacrifices that have been offered up, it is generally ^olah that is so used : as far as "foreground" goes, therefore, the historians might be supposed to accord it to the 'olah. We do not urge this, as demonstrated ; but we do urge it as shoAving the absurdity of pretending that the historians have kept the ^olah " in the background," as a mere subordinate, and oc- casional, offering, and that it had to wait for honour till a post- Exilic forger bade it " come into the foreground." It receives the same prominent, and honourable, mention in history, and in Code : and the manner, in which the historians combine it with shelamim, is in absolute harmony with the idea, that the Code was well-known to them, as a Mosaic institute. (3) We have already shown that sacrifices, " connected with a meal," are not ignored in the Code. They are repeatedly prescribed, as a standing ordinance, and in terms, which imply their most manifold occurrence. Further, in some of the pre- scriptions, the burnt-offering is not even associated with them, far less is it asserted to ''''predominate " over them. In the successive descriptions of ritual (Lev. 1 — 4), no superior mark of frequency, or of honour, is assigned to any class of sacrifice. Elsewhere, in individual verses (Lev. 7. 37 ; Num. 10. 10, 15. 3 and 8, 29. 39), summaries of the classes of sacrifice, in whole or in part, are given, without the slightest discrimination of superiority, in favour of any class. In the records of individual " MIZBA CH HA-' OLAH:' 413 sacrifices, sometimes one class, sometimes another, might be thought to have prominence. Let us quote only one instance, and it shall be the most minutely, and elaborately, described sacrifice (as to contents), throughout the Priestly Code. Num. 7, the longest chapter in the whole Bible, describes the offerings of the twelve princes of Israel, at the dedication of the altar : these include burnt-offerings, and peace-offerings : and tvhat are their proportions ? The animals for the burnt- offerings number thirty-six, and the animals for peace-offerings number two hundred and four (verses 87, 88) ! Now, by the Code, every one of these two hundred and four animals had to be " connected with a meal." Is it not grotesque, with such a conspicuous record, on such an outstanding occasion, in the heart of the Priestly Code itself, to be told that this Code brings the burnt-offering " everywhere into the foreground," and that " the sacrifices which are un-connected with a meal ALTOGETHER PREDOMINATE " throughout it ? Our only diffi- culty is in reaUsing hoto Wellhaiisen can believe in his own Imaginations, III. We have another element of his " thesis," still to notice here. He says that the manner of designating the altar, in the Priestly Code, flows from the disappearance of the sacrificial meals, and from the new predominance of the ^olah. We think he lays himself open to an extraordinary exposure, on this head. His words are : " The mizheach, that is, the place where the zehhachim are to be offered, has been transformed into a mizhach ha-'olah " (p. 72). (1) We ask the Bible student's careful attention to the first comment, which we are to make, on this clear, and undoubting, statement. The statement is delivered, as though it were the veriest common-place of criticism, as though it embodied what lies on the very surface of Scripture, and can be impugned by 414 SANCTUABY AND SACBIFICE. none. We have only to turn back from Wellhausen's p. 72 to Wellhausen's p. 66, in order to prove, on Wellhausen's authority, that the statement is a sheer romance. On p. 66, Wellhausen (as already fully quoted by us) is engaged in the singular task of dissolving the solid altar of incense into un- substantial air — it is a mere "invention" — it was never ordered, nor made : and, as one of the proofs of its non- existence, he urges that the iin-icarrantaUe term " the altar of burnt-offering " {mizlach lia ^olah) has been introduced, for distinction's sake, by the forger, into those portions of the Priestly Code, into which the altar of incense has been foisted by him. He denounces the term " the altar of burnt-offering " as utterly unknown to the Priestly Code, and as a mere trans- parent interloper, occasionally smuggled in, to keep another interloper (the altar of incense) company. The charge is so extraordinary, that we reproduce his exact words : " The altar of incense is everywhere unknown here ; the altar of burnt-offering is the only altar, and, moreover, is always called simply the altar, as for example, even in Exod. 27, where it would have been specially necessary to add the qualifying expression. Only in certain later portions of the Priestly Code does the name altar of hiirnt-offering occur, viz., in those iiassages ivhich do recog- nise the altar of incense" (p. QQ). It will be seen here that the term " altar of burnt-offering " is quite un-suitable, and un- warrantable : its " only " use (mark the decisive " only ") is to gild an occasional forgery : the original, and proper. Priestly Code scouts it. Turn now to p. 72, and this repudiated term "altar of burnt-offering" has be- come legal, and notable, and warrantable ; it is now a worthy, and credible, characteristic of the Priestly Code ; it emerges, at the very time when the actual experiences of Israel call for it ; it is not only a right expression, but it felicitously vouches for an important sacrificial evolution, which the process of the ages has brought round ! On p. 66, it is a mere absurd mis- " MIZBACH HA-'OLAHr 415 nomer, tacked on to a forged piece of fumitare, it never once occurs in the true Code : on p. 72, it has lost all association with the altar of incense, it is now one of the best indicators of the period, and of the provisions, of the Code, and goes to prove how the burnt-offering has, at last, emerged from an age-long state of " dependence," and has now attained to universal " predomi- nance " ! We ask if the Bible student could desire a clearer sample of the "fantastic tricks before High Heaven," with which the " Higher Criticism " is replete. Not only is Well- hausen's every page, and almost his every clause, an Imagi- nation, but he scatters his Imaginations, with such jaunty haste, that he has forgotten, six pages forward, what the last one was. He ought not to leave his own offspring up-protected so soon. If it was wrong of Israel to make the offspring of their lody pass through fire to Moloch, it is equally wrong of Wellhausen to cast out the offspring of his hrcdn in such a fashion. (2) Having thus answered the argument from Wellhausen himself, it may be still more serviceable to the Bible student, as supplying a further insight into Scriptural phraseology, if we now answer the argument from Scrq)ture. The argument implies that the recognised, and standing, name for the altar, throughout the Priestly Code, has become " the altar of burnt- offering," and that the use of this new name indicates how " the burnt-offering " had risen to prominence, post-Exilically. The premisses, from which the conclusion is drawn, are un- sound. It is not the case that there is a free, and general, use of the name " altar of burnt-offering," in the Priestly Code. Practically, there are only two such uses of it. In the account of its construction (which may be called the one use), in the closing chapters of Exodus, the name " altar of burnt-offering " several times occurs, for discrimination, when the )ther altar, ." the altar of incense," is in close contiguity. In the account 416 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. of the ritual of sin-offerings (which may be called the other use), in Lev. 4, there are some successive occurrences of the name " altar of burnt-offering," again evidently for discrimi- nation, because this is the only Levitical ritual, in which the other altar, " the altar of incense," is associated with it, in the sacrificial procedure. In other words, when the construction of the two altars, or the use of the two altars, has to be recorded side by side, the discriminating addition is appended to the name : elsewhere, throughout the Code, the name " altar of burnt-offering" does not once occur. In Lev. 1, where the ritual of the various types of " the bm-nt-offering " is given, surely we might make sure to meet with the newly imposed name " altar of the burnt-offering " : but the name does not once occur, throughout the chapter ! The altar is introduced, in this, its first, mention in Leviticus, as " the altar which is at the door of the tent of meeting" (Lev. 1. 5) : it is here defined by its position : and, having been thus identified, it is spoken of, throughout the rest of the chapter, simply as " the altar." In Lev. 2, where the ritual of the various types of the minchah is given, the name " altar of the burnt-offering " does not once occur : it is throughout simply " the altar." In Lev. 3, where the ritual of the various types of shelamim is given, the name " altar of the burnt-offering " does not once occur : it is throughout simply " the altar." "We have already noticed Lev. 4. We have just to add that, throughout the whole of the remaining chapters of Leviticus (5 — 37), and throughout the whole of the chapters of Numbers (1 — 36), the name " altar of the burnt-offering " does not once occur : the recognised, and satisfying, designation is simply " the altar." To show the strong nature of this induction, we shall just take one instance from either Book. From Leviticus, we select Lev. 6. 9-13 : in these five verses, the altar is named six times, and, in all, it is simply " the altar," not once " altar of the burnt-offering " : " MIZBACH HA-'OLAH." 417 this is the more remarkable, because here (as in Lev. 1) it is the law of ^'t/ie burnt-offering,''' that is being dealt with. From Numbers, we select Num. 7, because, as already said, it is the most extensively described offering, in the whole Code, and includes sacrifices of all kinds : the altar falls to be designated six times, and it is always simply " the altar," not once " the altar of the burnt-offering." What can the reader think 7ioiv of Wellhausen's alleged " transformation " ? Would not any unwary, and un-instructed, reader of his page conclude that the 'Hransformed " name, mizhach ha-''olah, was freely characteristic of the Code, from end to end, so much so that its new use amounts to a clear indication of an important sacrificial evo- lution ? We have shown abundantly that a more misleading insinuation could hardly have been penned. (3) If it were worth while, it could easily be shown that, in what we have called the two uses of " the altar of the burnt- offering " (in Exodus, and in Lev. 4), the name does not appear to be prized as a new, and exclusive, or even as a desirable, one, but rather as a somewhat cumbrous representation, from which the writer is glad to escape. In the closing chapters (25 — 40) of Exodus, a great preference is shown for the name " the altar " : it occurs much more frequently than " the altar of the burnt-offering," which is used only when proximity to "the altar of incense " necessitates. The same principle pervades Lev. 4 : proximity to " the altar of incense " leads to the discrimination " the altar of the burnt-offering," but the writer seems ready (verses 20, 26, 30, 31) to revert to the commoner, and apparently the more honoured, name " the altar." In the famous "appendix" chapter (Exod. 30), though the first ten verses are wholly occupied with the order for "the altar of incense," the intervention of verses 11-16, regarding the atonement-money, seems quite sufficient to break the association with it, and, when the writer resumes, at verses 17-21, he S 2893. D D 418 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. refers to the other altar, three times over, simply as " the altar." More striking still, in Num. 4. 4-16, describing the service of the Kohathites, in arranging the furniture of the tabernacle for a march, while verse 11 describes their covering " the golden altar" with a cloth of blue, &c., the intervention of verse 12, dealing with all the vessels of the ministry, seems enough to break the association, and, in verses 13, 14, the other altar, the central hope and pride of Israel, is dealt with, under its familiar, and ever recognisable, title — *' the altar." We may thus say of Wellhausen's " transformation" borrowing his own phrase- ology, that the Priestly Code, on which he professes to found it, " Tinoivs nothing " about it, and that " it liolds itself iip in the air hy its own ivaistland'''' (p. 39). (4) We will just add that, outside the Code, the "trans- formation" lacks that corroboration, which would seem essential to its truth. If a new name, and a new era, have arisen, why do not Ezra, and Nehemiah, reflect the " trans- formation " ? They lived, and wrote, when it was an accom- plished fact : why do they so utterly ignore it ? They speak of " the altar," " the altar of the house of your God," " the altar of the Lord our God," but they never once name it " the altar of the burnt-offering." This is the more notable, be- cause (as in Lev. 1) Ezra, in two of his references, is dealing with " 'burnt-offering s^ If the "transformation" is so close at hand, why does not Ezekiel, who adumbrates so many things, adumbrate this ? He refers repeatedly to " the altar," and calls it once " the brasen altar," but he never names it " the altar of the burnt-offering." Why do the post-Exilic prophets " know nothing " of the " transformation " ? Zechariah can speak of "the altar," and Malachi (whose date is indisputable) can speak of "mine altar," and of "the altar of the Lord," but there is not a single occurrence of the epoch-making " the altar of the burnt-offering." In post-Exilic days, we have still the SACRIFICES AND MEALS. 419 hallowed, and sufficing, name " the altar," just as in the days of Judges, and of Kings. With what rapidity, and power, would these prophetic pickings have been marshalled, on Wellhausen's page — if it had suited him to ;parade them I (C) We have thus endeavoured to expose the second of Well- hausen's fallacies first, because, if we succeed in doing so, the whole of his boasted argument turns to a handful of sand. The foundation of his argument is that the Priestly Code frowns on sacrificial meals, that it makes the burnt-offering (which supplies no flesh for meals) everywhere predominant : and it is then inferred, from this, that that Code could not have been in operation, through a period, wherein meals seem to be an established rule. We have shown that the Code nowhere asserts, for the burnt-offering, the exclusive prominence, which is thus claimed, and that, instead of ignoring, it recognises, and enacts, a multitude of sacrificial meals. If so, how can the occasional references to such meals, in the pre-Exihc history, afford the famtest presumption against the Mosaic origin of the Priestly Code ? They only illustmte, and confirm^ that origin. While we might rest in the result, thus attained, it may yet help to present right views of sacrifice, and also to redeem sundry passages of Scripture from mis-interpretation, if we now turn to \m first fallacy, which is that the symboUc fellow- ship of a meal was the main, if not exclusive, aim of pre- Exihc sacrifice. We shall show that this is a false estimate of sacrifice, and that the proofs, offered of it, are quite shadowy. I. Wellhausen's picture of the absolute prevalence of sacri- ficial meals is a gross exaggeration. We have no statement that the people were so swallowed up of sacrificial zeal, that DD 2 420 SAI^CTUARY AND SACBIFICE. they could never partake of a meal, without presenting a sacri- fice : yet, says our author, " there was no meal without an offering " ! Not only were there innumerable meals without sacrifices, but many notable sacrifices are specified, where there is neither a statement, nor an implication, of meals. Abraham at Moriah, Gideon at Oj^hrah, Solomon at Gibeon, Elijah on Carmel, are only prominent samples of sacrifices, where there is no implication of a " sacrificial company " of feasting " guests." The history suggests that " eating before the Lord " would be a recognised privilege ; but there is nothing to fix the fre- quency of its occurrence, nor the details of its execution. II. Another criticism,, to which his " picture " (as he calls it) is open, is that it is hardly filled in, from the pre-Exilic history, at all ; it is derived from two sources mainly, the one being his own fancy, and the other being the Priestly Code, whose existence, for the pre-Exilic period, he repudiates ! (1) He says it was " only in the case of very great sacrificial feasts that a large animal (one or more) was given to Je- hovah " : there is not an atom of support for this statement, in the whole Old Testament ; it rests wholly on — Imagination. (2) He says it is the " fellowships between God and His guests that give their name to the shelamim'': this may, conceivably, be true, but there is no proof of it from Scripture. (3) He says, " in ordinary slaughterings this notion is not strongly present," and yet, a few sentences before, he has said " there was no ineal without an offering": the statements seem rather "polemical" against each other, and both have to rest, mainly, on his own fancy. (4) He says in the older period " it was the rule that only blood and fat were laid upon the altar, but the people ate the flesh " : tve believe this, and we derive it from the Priestly Code, which regulated " the older period ": lutivhence can WeU- haiisen derive it ? In the whole pre- Josian records, where can he SACRIFICES AND MEALS. 421 lay his finger on a definite hard-and-fast " r?^/e," suoh as has just been quoted ? The Jehovistic Code cannot supply him with it : the only two sacrificial " rules," in that Code, are that the passover must not be eaten with leaven, nor any of it left till the morning. Our author is just masquerading in the clothing of the Priestly Code, whose existence, for that ancient period, he denies ! Partial, and (on our view) natural, echoes of " the rule " may be found, here and there, in the history : but no approach to a full, and formal, statement of " the rule " can be found, outside the Priestly Code. (5) In like manner, he says, "the gift must be brought entire by the offerer before the altar, and the greater portion of it God gives up to His guests only after that." This is just another cool, and whole- sale, appropriation from the Priestly Code, whose existence is scouted ! The whole pre-Josian records furnish no detailed outline of what " must " thus be attended to. On the tradi- tional view, the records are natural, and orderly : on the Wellhausenian (or imaginationist) view, they are turned into a topsy turvy " mingle mingle." III. A still more serious objection to the " picture " is that it errs, essentially, in making social fellowship, at a common table, the primary essential of sacrifice. The history excludes such a view, by the prominence it gives to sacrifices, where no meal is implied. The history further excludes such a view, by the fact that, in several instances, where a meal may seem probable, it is clearly the prior ritual, around the altar, that is regarded as the most important part of the sacrificial procedure. In this, the Code has a satisfying, and natural, accordance with the history : the ritual at the altar is what is most prominently, and most anxiously, prescribed ; the meals receive subordinate, and less minute, specification. This appears to receive a special, and very striking, corroboration, from the regulations 4i?2 SANCTUABY AND SACJRIFICE. of Lev. 21. 16-24. It is there prescribed that no priest, who hath a blemish (who is blind, or lame, or broken-handed, &c.), shall be allowed to officiate at the altar, " let him not approach to OFFER the bread of his God " : but it is prescribed that no such blemish shall disqualify him from participating in the priestly meal, which follows the sacrifice, "he shall eat the bread of his God, both of the most holy, and of the holy." Does not this indicate, unmistakeably, that the " offering " of the sacrificial flesh is a much higher, and more sacred, act than the subsequent " eating " of other portions of it ? Is not the same thing indicated by one of the very texts, which our author, so curiously, quotes ? Zechariah, predicting a period of increased, and universal, sanctity, speaks of common things taking on a holy character, " in that day there shall be upon the bells of the horses Holy unto the Lord ; and the pots in the Lord's house shall be like the bowls before the altar " (Zech. 14. 20). Surely, no one can read this, without seeing that " the pots," which we may grant our author might be for the sacrificial meals, have, inherently, a much lower sanctity than the vessels, which are used, for loftier purposes, " before the altar P Thus, with a great show of quotation, our author just goes on evading, or contradicting, the teaching of the very passages, with which he professes to be occupied. Meals might be frequent, and pleasing, enough ; but it is un-Scriptural to represent them, as the main idea, or constituent, of a Jewish sacrifice. In fact, on our author's view, there seems no need for the " meals " having had, primarily, any connection with " the altar " at all. The meals never reach the altar : sacrifice is, very much, a curious blend of sociality, and of selfishness, with God left out of account : it is " only " when an inconvenient superfluity of animals emerges, that the happy thought occurs of parting with one (albeit a " large " one) " to Jehovah." SACRIFICES AND MEALS. 423 There seems very little occasion for " altar," or for " priest," in connection with what Wellhausen would treat as the essen- tial aim, and accompaniments, of sacrifices : and a sense of this might have suggested to him that he has, surely, misunderstood the drift of the documents he is explaining. The Decalogue puts Grod " in the foreground," devoting its whole first table to His honour : The Jehovistic Code puts God " in the fore- ground," making burnt-offerings, on His altar, its first require- ment : The Son of Man puts God " in the foreground," bidding us "seek first His Kingdom and righteousness": Wellhausen might almost be said to relegate God " to the back- ground," to be thought of, and to be helped, after our neigh- bours, and ourselves, have well eaten and drunk. In Scripture, the meal is a subsequent, and subordinate, concomitant of sacrifices : with Wellhausen, it is their great, and inclusive, scope, and, practically, supersedes the altar. IV. We have only further to notice a string of texts (fully a dozen of them), by which our author professes to have been influenced, when he was writing his rhapsody on the sacrificial meal. The whole of these texts, combined, do not approach any proof of his " thesis." We might almost call it the customary index of their pointlessness, that he, practically, leaves them all un-quoted, and imprisons them in parentheses. If we merely note their number, and hurry on, supposing that no one will present such an array of texts, without warrant, we may be convinced : but if we turn up the texts, and ponder them, we will be amazed at the slender cobwebs, on which our author rears his portentous superstructures. Let us criticise them in turn. (1) "Where a sacrifice took place, there was also eating and drinking (Exod. 32. 6 ; Judges 9. 27 ; 2 Sam. 15. 11 seq. ; Amos 2. 7)." If the position of these four texts is to be 424 SAKCTUAEY AND SACRIFICE. justified, they ought to embrace a law, rendering sacrifice illegal, apart from a meal ; or they ought to be samples, to which all other sacrificial passages in Scripture conform, of the association of sacrifice and meal. Neither of these representations can be maintained for a moment. There is not a legal, and accepted, sacrifice among the four : they are the festival of the golden calf, the idolatrous vintage festival of the Shechemites, the pretended votive festival of Absalom, and a denunciation of renegade worship, by Amos. Is it reasonable to confine these four topics, in a parenthesis, and leave the unwary reader to suppose that they supply a basis, for settling the quod semper^ quodulique, quod ah omnibus of Israelitish sacrifice ? Why, the first of the texts specifies- " lurnt-offerings " as well as " peace- offerings ! " and it puts the burnt-offerings first : might we not then conclude that " where a sacrifice took place, there was also " always a burnt offering ! Nay, this same text specifies " games " as well as a " meal " — " the people sat down for to eat and drink, and rose up for to play " : might we not then conclude that " where a sacrifice took place, there was also " always — sports or dancing ! The quotation, from Amos, is " and they lay themselves down beside every altar on pawned clothes, and in the house of their God they drink the wine of such as have been fined " : shall we then conclude that " where a sacrifice took place, there was also " invariably, at every altar, a lying down on pawned clothes ! A more pitiful pretence of demon- stration, than these four texts are put forth for, is hardly con- ceivable. All they suggest is that sacrifices were sometimes associated with feastings. But this, instead of a repudiation of the Priestly Code, is in absolute coincidence with a know- ledge of it, for it prescribes frequent sacrificial meals as im- perative ! It specially does so, in the case of sheJamim (which are associated with the golden calf), and of nedher (which is attributed to Absalom). Need we repeat that a much longer SACRIFICES AND MEALS. 425 list of texts might be given, where no " eating and drinking " are referred to ? (2) Still more futile is the following. " There was no offer- ing without a meal, and no meal without an offering (1 Kings 1. 9) ." Should not that one text be overpoweringly charged with sacrificial reference, and with sacrificial prevalence ? Should it not announce that, every day of every year, the Israelites were as busy at sacrifices, as at meals, and that they, practically made the two inseparable ? Yet what do we find, when we turn up the text ? We find there is no clear mention of sacrifice, in the whole context ! if there was a sacrifice, it is entirely matter of inference : assuming that there was, there is not the slightest indication whether it represents what was common, or what was rare, in Israel I The context describes Adonijah, when conspiring for the kingdom, as " slaying sheep and oxen and fatlings, and inviting all his brethren the king's sons, and all the men of Judah": the verb (zabhach) may mean either "slaying," or "sacrificing": it is mere conjecture that it can possibly mean " sacrificing " here : there is (apart from the verb) no sacrificial reference, in the narrative : and the feast is described (verse 25) as " eating and drinking before Adonijah," not as " eating and drinking before Jehovah." Assume, how- ever, that the feast of this ambitious rebel had some un-recorded sacrificial associations, how is it possible, out of this tiny morsel of history, to evolve a theory of all the sacrifices, and of all the meals, of all the generations of Israel ? That is what our author accomplishes. He says " there was no offering without a meal, and no meal without an offering": and he points us to the feast of Adonijah, in proof. (3) "At no important Bamah was entertainment wholly wanting, such a Xiaxn as that in which Samuel feasted Saul, or Jeremiah the Eachabites (1 Sam. 9. 22 ; Jer. 35. 2)." Because there happened to be a sacrificial meal a-going, on the 426 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. day when San] arrived at Zupli, is that any proof that similar " entertainment " was waiting, for chance visitors, at Zuph, in the other 364 days of the year ? And, though it were, what remotest connection has it with proving Wellhausen's^:)eci/7mr vieirs of the burnt-offering ? And how does he know that Zuph was an " important " place of worship ? And what help would the knowledge, though he had it, give him ? Then, because Jeremiah, in order to secure a symbohcal basis for a stern reproof, receives a divine command to take the Rechabites into a chamber of the Temple, beside the chamber of the princes, and to set bowls of wine before them, is that any proof that the Temple was a place of " entertainment," into which visitors might be freely brought, throughout all the days of the year ? And, though it were, is that any proof that " hurnt-offerings " were not as regidarhj associated every day with the Temple worship, as were " bowls of wine " ? And, if it be no such proof, then Jeremiah's offering wine to the Rechabites is utterly, and absolutely, inoperative, in yielding a single grain of support to Wellhausen's thesis. We might suggest other queries, e.g.^ how can Jeremiah be said to have " feasted " the Rechabites, when they decUned to taste a single drop out of his " bowls " ? And how can they be so lauded for repudiating the temptation of the bowls, if these bowls were part of a divinelij inescribed sacrificial meal ? But we confine ourselves to this further query : How can Wellhausen escape the charge of glaring anaclironism^ in pointing to Jeremiah and the Rechabites, as illustrating the same iJeriod^ as the meeting of Saul and Samuel at Zuph ? Jeremiah's strange command, as to the Rechabites, was received after JosiaKs death ; it is expressly stated to have been re- ceived "in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah" (Jer. 35. 1). Now "the turnmg-point in the history of the sacrificial system was the reformation of Josiah : SACRIFICES AND MEALS. 427 what we find in the Priestly Code is the matured result of that event" (p. 76). If there were any reality in this lofty pronouncement, if it were the case that " the reforma- tion of Josiah " had cut us adrift from the saxirificial system of "the older period" (of which the sacrificial meal was the essence), would it not be passing strange, in the reign of Josiah's son and successor, to find Jeremiah *' polemical " against Josiah, and fostering, by divine command, the central characteristic of the system, against which Josiah had done battle ? We found it difficult to make p. 66, and p. 72, " lie down " in harmony : we will not find it much easier to make p. 71, and p. 76, " feed together." P. 76 gives us *' the turning-poijit^' : p. 71 gives us two orthodox examples of sacrifice, on opposite sides of " the turning-point," bracketed together in illustration of the normal praxis of one undivided period ! It is difficult to treat with patience such a pretentious, and inconsequent, imposition. It has not a rag of reality to cover it, from the sole of the foot to the crown of the head. (4) We have already shown that his quotation, from Zechariah, destroys his thesis, instead of supporting it ; for " the pots in the Temple " (which may be assumed as for meals) have, avowedly, a less sacred function to subserve, than the "bowls lefore the cdtar'': they are not, therefore, related to the chief essence of sacrifice : to equalise them with the " bowls," is the index of a revolution. Besides, Zechariah is not describing the praxis of his own day, he is describing the changes of a glorious Messianic future, when all the nations shall be going up to keep the feast of tabernacles, in God's honour, at Jerusalem ! And, though it were his own day, yet if his day were post-Josian, our author would be landed in the same anachronism, as with Jeremiah and the Eechabites. The quotation can impress none, except those who hurry on, without verifying it. 428 SANCTUARY AND 8ACBIFICE. (5) " Even on occasions that, to our way of thinking, seem highly unsuitable, the meal is nevertheless not wanting (Judges 20. 26, 21. 4 ; 1 Sam. 13. 9-12)." Let any one turn up, and read, these texts, and he will find there is not even a partial description of a " meal," in any of the three ! He will find also that " the lufnt-offering ^' instead of being ignored, figures " in the foreground," in the whole three ! The only way to prove i]iQ prolaUlity of meals, on these three occasions, is by recognising the existence of the Priestly Code (which prescribes meals along with "peace-offerings"), throughout their period. But Wellhausen cuts himself off from the possiMity of such proof, by his fantastic relegation of the Code to post-Exilic time. (6) " That perfect propriety was not always observed might be taken for granted, and is proved by Isa. 28. 8 even with regard to the Temple of Jerusalem : all tables are full of vomit, there is no room." What conceivable support could this (though granted) give to the thesis ? If the meals, that fol- lowed after a sacrifice, became scenes of intemperance, is that any proof that the meal was the main essence of sacrifice ? or is it any proof that the " burnt-offering" was a mere appanage of the "peace-offering"? But further: there is not the slightest special reference to the people's sacrificial meals, in the whole twenty-eighth chapter of Isaiah, as any one may see by glancing over it ! The prophet is denouncing the shameless intoxications (whether literal, or spiritual, or both) in which Judah is following Ephraim to her ruin, and in which all classes, notably the priests and prophets, are involved. (7) " Hence also Eli's suspicion regarding Hannah was a natural one, and by no means so startling as it appears." If Hannah was enjoying a sacrificial meal, at Shiloh, she was doing what she was encouraged, and required, to do, by the Priestly Code. And what has " Eli's suspicion " of her to do SACRIFICES AND MEALS. 429 witli the relative importance of " burnt-offerings " and " peace- offerings " ? We cannot forbear adding : If " Eli's suspicion " proves the meal to have been the main essence of sacrifice, in the days of the Judges, does not a similar " suspicion," on a still grander occasion, — " these men are full of new wine (Acts 2. 13) " — prove that meals were still the main essence of sacrifice, five centuries after the Exile, and when the Priestly Code was certainly in un-disputed sway ! That is what might come of embracing tomfoolery, in lieu of sober reasoning. We have thus run over his array of fully a dozen of texts, with the view of assuring the Bible student that they do not supply one iota of contradiction to the traditional view of Jewish sacrifice. They figure, in Wellhausen's paragraph, as a roiu of deceivers, stuck into successive parentheses, without being allowed to speak a word : we have torn cloivn the jaunty descriptions, with which he had mantled them, in order to find beneath what testimony they offer regarding themselves : and there is not one of them, that yields a pin-point of evidence, in support of his fantastic " thesis." (D) We have thus, with considerable patience and detail, can- vassed Wellhausen's extraordinary discovery of the evolution of the burnt-offering out of the peace-offering, and we are not aware that we have left un-sifted a single statement, or text, that he has put forward to support it. The result is that the pretended evolution turns out a mere dream, or Imagination. It has no support from probability, nor from Scripture. The burnt-offering holds its own, as a recognised, and fundamental, method of approaching the Deity, from the earhest ages : and every historical reference to it, in the Old Testament, is in har- mony with the origin of the Priestly Code, as being Mosaic. We shall now conclude this lengthened chapter, as proposed, 480 SANCTUABY AND SACRIFICE. by pointing out first a notable omission, and secondly a sugges- tive admission, which our author makes, in the paragraphs, which have been under review. I. (1) We may present the omission, by borrowing a query from Zechariah, " The Pro;phets, where are they " ? Why does Wellhausen make no appeal to the usus loquendi of the earlier prophets of Israel ? If the shelamim, with their meals, were the main constituent of sacrifice, while these prophets hved, and if they knew the ''olah, merely as an occasional appanage of the shelamim, might we not expect these facts to be reflected, in the sacrificial phraseology of their prophecies ? Nothing approach- ing such a reflection can be found. The turnt-offering is as- signed a prominence, and an antiquity, which their readers can be assumed as ready to acknowledge. There is nothing to sug- gest that it was only to come into "independence," and into " the foreground," centuries after they wrote. They seem in total ignorance of the sacrificial praxis, which Wellhausen has discovered, as their life-long environment. (2) The following somewhat singular fact is worth notice. Those, on whose diction our author has founded, as " the older prophets," are Isaiah, Amos, Hosea, Micah, and Jeremiah (pp. 56-59). Each of these writers mentions %lah, in a way which implies its antiquity, and its independence ; but, in the writings of the whole five, there is only one express mention of shelamim ! And, in that one mention (Amos 5. 22), it is shelem in the singular, and in a manner, which pulverises our author's view that a singular should only mean one animal — " the peace offering (singular) of your fat beasts (plural) I will not respect." Has not our author told us that it was " what is essetitial for the idea of sacrifice," in that olden period, that " gives their name to the shelamim^' (p. 71).^ And yet, in the five prophets of that period, the specially bestowed, and significant, " name " ''THE PROPHETS: WHERE ARE THEY V 431 occurs only once, and in the singular ! Nay, has nob our author (p. 65) pointed us to Amos, to Isaiah, and to Micah, as specifying, in three classical passages, every hind of sacrifice, that was known in their time — as " exhausting everything per- taining to sacred gifts and liturgic performances, in which, for the sake of lengthening the catalogue, they do not shrink from repetitions even " ? And yet, in tivo of the three " catalogues," which are thus " exhaustive," and wliich " do not shrink from repetitions even," the name shelamim does not once occur, either in singular, or in plural ! Shall we add that, in one of the three "catalogues" (Micah 6. 6-8), the 'olah is the only animal sacrifice that is named ! nay, that it embraces a twofold impli- cation of the ^olah, for " the fruit of my body " evidently points to a human burnt offering ! "We are far from (we are the reverse of) urging that shelamim were unkiwwn in these prophets' days : we are only illustrating how abundantly our author may be " hoist with his own " Argument from Silence, and what a curious company his Imaginations constitute, when they are summoned, from their respective pages, to look at each other. Undoubtedly, peace-offerings would be quite abundant in the days of these old prophets, though, in four of them, there does not happen to be a single verse, where occasion occurs to name shelamim : and we cannot doubt that zebhach, while sometimes (as apparently in Isa. 1. 11 ; Hos. 3. 4, 6. 6) carrying the general idea of sacrifice by slaughter, has at other times (as apparently in Jer. 6. 20, 7. 21) a special reference to the established varieties of peace-offerings — a circumstance eminently harmonious with our view of the Priestly Code. Still the facts of the use, by these five prophets, of the name shelem (a name reflecting " the essential idea for sacrifice"), are, as we have stated them. (3) Apart from " the older prophets," what of the " tran- sition'' prophet? Ezekiel, by supposition, has outlived the 432 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. pre-eminence of the sheJamim: and he is writing, from his exile, an outhne of a system, in which the ^olah " shall have become independent, and shall come everywhere into the fore- gronnd." And yet, in " publishing a programme for the re- stored theocracy," he freely speaks of shelamim as a prominent, and established, class ! The five prophets, in whose times they were quite predominant, have but one solitary, and singular, mention of them: the prophet, whose "programme" is to dwarf, and to subordinate, them, establishes them in perma- nent honour ! (4) And what of the post-Exilic prophets ? The?/ must have known the 'olah, as " everywhere in the foreground," for they were the confederates of the Priestly Code. And yet it so happens that the 'oJah is 72 ot once nmned by any post- Exilic prophet ! Are we to infer that these prophets " know nothing'' of it? that they could not have seen it everywhere predominant, without having somehow named it ? By no means : common sense, and the express statements of the post-Exilic historians^ necessitate their knowledge of it. But the fact stated is another illustration of the absurdity of the Argument from Silence. Malachi refers repeatedly to animal sacrifices, but he never once names any, as ''olcih. His frequent expression for sacrifice is minchah, a word which is as old as the days of the first recorded sacrifice, when Abel sacrificed " the firstlings of his flock." We may thus connect the last Book of the Old Testament with the first, and ask our author: If Malachi, who saw the ^olah " everywhere in the foreground," habitually describes animal sacrifice, as mincJiah, is it not eminently credible that Abel's animal sacrifices may sometimes have included 'olah too, seeing they are described in Oenesis, as minchah ? This might perhaps help our author to an earlier, and wiser, view of the origin, and of the permanence, of the burat-offerint^. " OUR WAY OF thinking:' 433 By this rapid survey of prophetic diction, we mean to fortify the Bible student in the possession of what Wellhausen has withheld from him. We entertain no doubt whatever that the foregoing significant facts were as clearly present to Well- hausen's mind, when he was penning the Prolegomena^ as they are, at this moment, to ourselves. Why does he ignore them in his pages ? " The Pro^jhets, where are they ? " II. So much for our author's notable omission. We said also he makes a suggestive admission^ which is worth pointing out. Twice over, in the paragraphs which this chapter reviews, he, practically, acknowledges that his own sense of fitness is "po- lemical " against the divine sense of fitness (so far as the latter may be held as reflected from . the writers of Scripture). (1) He tells us what ought to be the force of ''oJah, as fixed by its derivation, and what, therefore, is a natural, and legitimate, use of it : but he adds that the writers of Scripture discountenance his grammatical dictum, they will not act on what he holds to be self-evident — " this, however, is never done " (p. 70) : he has a sure theory about the use of ^olah, but they " know nothing " of it. (2) Then he quotes three texts (last line, p. 71, and top, p. 72), where the Israelitish law of sacrifice seems to have imposed meals on the people, but where, if he had been the legislator, nothing so out of place would have been prescribed: the legislator's sense of propriety was but limited, it had not the perfection, that has noiv been reached : the people are described as at sacrificial meals, not only when they are " unsuitable," but unsuitable in a " high " (;[egi.ee — " even on occasions that, to our way of thinking, seem highly unsuitable, the meal is nevertheless not wanting " : Wellhausen, had he had the arranging, would have seen the " high " unsuitableness of the meal, but the imperfect con- ductors of the Scripture narrative were comparatively ind. S 2893. E E 434 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. He thus admits that " our way of thinking " may often be one thing, while the "Scriptural way of thinking" may be another thing ; and such admission seems to justify us, in saying, WeUhausenum est errare. If "owr way of thinking" be at fault, in these two instances, who can tell in how many un-realised instances it has been similarly at fault ? We seem here to come very close to the root of the matter — just as we aj^peared to come very near it, when we found that he had been '"'temjJted to conjecture.''^ Our author would need a perfectly superhuman power, in divining the motives, and in tracing the eccentricities, of men: practically, it is his own subjectivity, that is the test of everything. If, instead of cherishing that fatal, and exaggerated, trust in " our way of thinking," he had been content, humbly and straightforwardly to enquire, " What saith the Scripture ? " he would hardly have penned a page of his Prolegomena. ( 435 ) CHAPTER X. THE ALLEGED LATENESS, AND ENORMOUS IMPORTANCE, OF THE SIN AND TRESPASS OFFERINGS. WE now proceed to Wellhausen's next discovery of evolu- lution, among the " kinds " of Israelitish sacrifice. It is an evolution, of the usual nebulous, and undemonstrable, kind, through which he detects the sin-offering (ckaftath), and the trespass-offering (asham), prescribed in Lev. 4, 5, as having passed. These offerings, he tells us, appear, with extraordinary frequency and vigour, in the Priestly Code ; but they were quite unknown in pre-Exilic time ; there is not the slightest trace of them, prior to Ezekiel. There may have been " fines," he says, payable for sins to the priests, in previous ages, but there was nothing, in the remotest degree, resembling the Priestly sin or trespass-offering. Even in the Code, these offerings had not been known, nor prescribed, from the first : he divides Leviticus into two halves, and says the second half was in force, a good while before the first half had any exis- tence : in this second (and earlier) half, he holds there is not the slightest knowledge, nor recognition, of sin and trespass offerings : nay, he can sub-divide the first half into " primary," and " secondary," passages (a distinction, of which the poor Jews knew nothing), and show the sin or trespass-offering to be such a late invention, that it is only in the " secondary " passages that it, at last, crops up. This kind of offering frowns utterly on " meals " : the old joyousness of previous sacrificial usages has been quite stamped out ; nothing, in the E E 2 430 SANCTUARY AND SACEIFICE. east resembling " meal," or merriment, can now be tolerated. Our author states this discovery, as follows : — " What the thank-offering has lost, the sin and trespass offerings have gained; the voluntary private offering which the sacrificer ate in a joyful company at the holy place has given way before the compulsory, of which he obtains no share, and from which the character of the sacred meal has been altogether taken away. The burnt-offering, it is true, still continues to be a meal, if only a one- sided one, of which God alone partakes ; but in the case of the sin- offermg everything is kept far out of sight which could recall a meal, as, for example, the accompaniments of meal and wine, oil and salt ; of the flesh no portion reaches the altar, it all goes as a fine to the priest. ISTow, of this kind of sacrifice, which has an enormous importance m the Priestly Code, not a single trace occurs in the rest of the Old Testament before Ezekiel, neither in the Jehovist and Deuteronomist, nor in the historical and prophetical Books. 'Olah and zehhach comprehend all animal sacrifices, 'olah and minchaJi, or zehhach and minchah, all sacrifices whatsoever ; no- where is a special kind of sacrifice for atonement met with (1 Sam. 3. 14). Hos. 5. 8 does indeed say ' They eat the sin of my people, and they are greedy for its guilts,' but the interpretation which will have it that the priests are here reproached with in the first instance themselves inducing the people to falsification of the sacred dues, in order to make these up again with the produce of the sin and trespass offerings, is either too subtle or too dull. It would be less unreasonable to co-ordinate with the similarly named sin and trespass offering of the Pentateuch the five golden mice, and the five golden emerods with which the Philistines send back the Ark, and which in 1 Sam. 6. 3, 4, 8 are designated ash am, or, still better, the sin and trespass monies which, according to 2 Kings 12. 17 (A.Y. 16), fell to the share of the Jerusalem priests. Only the fact is that even in the second passage the asham and chattath are no sacrifices, but, more exactly to render the original meaning of the words, mere fines, and in fact money fines. On the other hand, the chattath referred to in Micah 6. 7 has nothing to do with a due of the priests, but simply denotes the guilt which eventually another takes upon himself. Even in Isa. 53. 10, a passage which is certainly late, asham must not be taken in the technical sense of the ritual legislation, but simply (as in Micah) in the sense of guilt, borne by the innocent for the guilty. For the explanation of this prophetic passage G-ramberg has rightly had recourse to the narra- SIN AND TBE8PASS OFFERINGS. 437 tive of 2 Sam. 21. 1-14. 'Upon Saul and upon his house lies blood-guiltiness, for having slain the Gibeonites ' is announced to David as the cause of a three years' famine. When asked how it can be taken away, the Gibeonites answer, ' It is not a matter of silver and gold to us with respect to Saul and his house ; let seven men of his family be delivered to us that we may hang them up unto the Lord in Gibeah of Saul upon the mountain of the Lord.' This was done ; all the seven were hanged. " Asham and chaUath as offerings occur for the first time in Eze- kiel, and appear not long before his day to have come into the place of the earlier pecuniary tines (2 Kings 12. 17 [16]), which perhaps already also admitted of being paid in kind; probably in the seventh century, which seems to have been very open to the mys- tery of atonement and blood-shedding, and very fertile in the in- troduction of new religious usages. The sin and trespass offerings of the Pentateuch still bear traces of their origin in fines and penal- ties ; they are not gifts to God, they are not even symboHcal, they are simply mulcts payable to the priests, partly of fixed commu- tation value (Lev. 5. 15). Apart from the mechanical burning of the fat they have in common with the sacrifice only the shedding of blood, originally a secondary matter, which has here become the chief thing. This circumstance is an additional proof of our thesis. The ritual of the simjple offering has three acts : (1) the presenta- tion of the living animal before Jehovah, and the laying on of hands as a token of manumission on the part of the offerer ; (2) the slaughtering and the sprinkling of the blood on the altar; (3) the real or seeming gift of the sacrificial portions to the Deity, and the meal of the human guests. In the case of the burnt-offer- ing the meal in the third act disappears, and the slaughtering in the second comes into prominence as significant, and sacred, inas- much as (what is always expressly stated) it must take place in the presence of Jehovah, at the yiorth side of the altar. In the case of the sin and trespass offering, the third act is dropped entirely, and accordingly the whole significance of the rite attaches to the slaughtering, which of course also takes place before the altar, and to the sprinkling of the blood, which has become peculiarly deve- loped here. It is obvious how the metamorphosis of the gift and the meal into a bloody atonement advances and reaches its acme in this last sacrificial act. " This ritual seems to betray its novelty even within the Priestly Code itself by a certain vacillation. In the older corpus of law (Lev. 17—23) which has been taken into that document, all 438 SANCTUARY AND SACBIFICE. sacrifices are still embraced under one or other of the two heads ze- bhach and 'olali (17. 8, 23. 18, 21) ; there are no others. The a sham indeed occurs in 19. 21 seq., but, as is recognised, only in a later addition ; on the other hand, it is not demanded in 22. 14, where it must have been according to Lev. 5 and Num. 5. And even apart from Lev. 17 — 26 there is on this point no sort of agreement between the kernel of the Priestly Code and the later additions, or " novels," so to speak. For one thing, there is a difference as to the ritual of the most solemn sin-offering between Exod. 29, Lev. 9 on the one hand, and Lev. 4 on the other; and what is still more serious, the ^res^jass-offering never occurs in the primary but only in the secondary passages, Lev. 4 — 7, 14 ; Num. 5. 7, 8, 6. 1> 18. 9. In the latter, moreover, the distinction between asliam and chattath is not very clear, but only the intention to make it, perhaps because in the old praxis there actually was a distinction between kesepli chattath and Jceseph asham, and in Ezekiel between chattath and asham" (pi^. 72-75). We have here another illustration of that royal road to demonstration, in which Wellhausen and his school delight. They make assertions, with an assurance, which is perfectly un- limited, and which leads the reader, almost unconsciously, to conclude that their assertions must be true, and that it would be almost insulting their veracity, to think of verifying them. AVe have found this notably, and abundantly, in the previous chapter, and we find it here again. We shall first bring together, in a few paragraphs, some samples of the contradic- toriness, by which the paragraphs, which we have just quoted, are over-run ; and we shall then look at the " thesis," of which they are presented, as supplying " proof." T. Take the following, as illustrations of the difficulty of reconciling the paragraphs with Scripture, and with Well- liausen : (1) He says the sin-offering (chattath) was quite unknown to the writer of Lev. 17—26. Why, the writer expressly names it, in Lev. 23. 19 ! " x\nd ye shall offer one he-goat for SIN AND TBESPA8S OFFERINGS. 439 a sin-offering (chattath) and two he-lambs of the first year for a sacrifice of peace-offerings." (2) He says the trespass-offering (asham) was unknown to the writer of Lev. 17 — 26. But the writer expressly names it, three times over, in Lev. 19. 21, 22 ! Wellhausen has noticed this ; so he coolly decrees that the writer 7iever tvrote these two verses — they are "« later addition^'' \ Of this he does not offer the faintest particle of proof. The asham., therefore, remains, as distinctly known to the writer. (3) He says the burnt-offering is " significantly " discrimi- nated from other offerings, by the fact that the Priestly Code requires it to be slain " at the north side of the altar ^^ and that this fact is so essential, that it "is always expressly STATED." Will it be believed that, in the three statements of the ritual of the burnt-offering, which the Code (Lev. 1) con- tains, the killing " at the north side of the altar " occurs, in only one of the three statements ? A fact, which " is always exijvessly stated," is stated only once in three references ! In order to help the Bible student to appreciate the solemn pre- cision, with which Wellhausen announces facts, we may add that killing " at the north side of the altar" is, except in the single case just mentioned, never once particularised, through- out the whole Priestly Code, in connection with any sacrifice ! What a commentary on his " alivays expressly " ! There is even more than the above : the accompanying (and equivalent) expression ''^'before the Lord,'^ or '^ in the presence of Jehovah^'' instead of h^mg ^oeculiar to the burnt-offering, is ap- plied, with unfailing regularity, to the slaughter of the other sacrifices, to the peace-offerings, throughout Lev. 3, and to the sin-offerings, throughout Lev. 4 ! There are no slaughterings, in Lev. 2, to which it could be appUed. Is it possible to read such facts, without exclaiming, What a pompous imposture ! The killing at the "north side of the altar " was, evidently, a usage, 440 SANCTUARY AND SACEIFICE. common for all sacrifices, and was a quite subordinate arrange- ment, a matter of mere convenience, rather than of " signifi- cance." And yet we have a nineteenth century German pointing us to it, as a subtle trace of a "significant, and sacred," evohition ! (4) On a previous page, he says, " the small body of legisla- tion, contained in Lev. 17 — 26, is the transition from Deuter- onomy to the Priestly Code " (p. 35, note ^) : this implies that this " small body " could not have seen the light, earlier than the beginning of the sixth century. Now, compare this with the paragraphs we are criticising. He says that the sin and trespass offerings, first mentioned by Ezekiel, had come into observance, somewhat before Ezekiel's time, and " probably in the seventh century, which seems to have been very open to the mystery of atonement and blood-shedding." But he also says (as already quoted) that the sin and trespass offerings are utterly unknown to the writer of Lev. 17 — 26, and that any mention of them, on his pages, can only be regarded as " in a later addition.''^ Putting the three pronouncements together, we are asked to believe that the sin and trespass offerings, which were ordained iii the seventh century, h^Ye their recent date proved by the fact that it is impossible to find them in a Code, whose earliest date is the beginning of the sixth century ! Could anything show more clearly the tissue of contradictory, yet in- fallible, Imaginations, of which Wellhausen's pages are made up? (5) Before leaving this " small body," we note that he describes it, as " talcen into that document (the Priestly Code)." But what proof has he of this " taking into " ? He offers " not the faintest trace " of proof. Both on p. 35, and on p. 75, he treats this " taking into " as an indubitable fact, and he uses it, throughout his volume, whenever it seems to suit, as a sufficient basis for important conclusions ; but he cannot present an atom of proof, in support of it. And we SIN AND TBESPASS OFFEBINGS. 441 have just seen, besides, how " polemical " it is against another of his own Imaginations. (6) Eegarding " the sin and trespass oifferings of the Penta- teuch," he says "they are simply mulcts payable to the priests, partly of fixed commutation value." There are two glaring contradictions of Scripture here. First, his description of what the sin-offering " simply " consists of, is utterly un-warranted. The animal sin-offering is described, in great detail, from Lev. 4. 1 to Lev. 5. 10, and the reference to a "mulct to the priest" is never once introduced ! There is (1) the laying of the sacrificer's hand, on the head of the sin-offering ; (2) the killing of the sin-offering, before the Lord ; (3) the sprinkling of the blood, either in the sanctuary, or on, and around, the altar ; (4) the taking of the most sacred portions, the fat, the kidneys, and the caul above the liver, and burning them on the altar of burnt-offering : these are the essential acts, that make up the sin-offering. The circumstance, that the rest of the flesh goes to the priest, and to his family, is so subordinate, that it is not once referred to : it comes in afterwards, as a supplementary regulation, in Lev. 6. 24-30 : nay, the last of these verses (6. 30) prescribes that two out of the four sin- offerings, described in Lev. 4, shall 7iot go to the priest at all, but shall, in accordance with Lev. 4, be burnt outside the camp ! In view of such facts, is it not ludicrous to describe " the sin-offering of the Pentateuch," as a mere " mulct " to the priest ? (7) The other contradiction is when he describes the trespass-offering as "simply a mulct to the priest, partly of fixed commutation value." {cC) Here, also, the giving of flesh to the priest is no part of the sacrifice proper, as described in Lev. 5. 14 — 6. 7, but is given, as a supplement to a further description of the sacrifice, in Lev. 7. G, 7. Qi) But, besides that, in a variety of instances (Lev. 6. 2, 3), where a trespass- U2 SANCTUABY AND SACBIFICE. offering has been rendered necessary, it is not " to the priest " that the " compensation " is payable, it is expressly made payable to the person ivronged: " he shall even restore it in full, and shall add the fifth part more thereto : unto Mm to whom it appertaineth shall he give it, in the day of his being found guilty" (Lev. 6. 5). A similar enactment is repeated, in Num. 5. 6-8 : restitution is to be made " unto him in respect of tvhom he hath leen guilty " : only in cases, where " no kinsman " is available, shall the restitution be " the priest's." The only case, in which restitution is directly to the priest, is when the sacred dues have been tampered with (Lev. 5. 15, 16). Li view of these, not recondite, facts, what can be thought of an author, who assures us, in the most confident terms, that the whole account of " the trespass-offering of the Pentateuch " is that it is " simply a mulct to the priest " ? Can any one feel safe, in following such a guide ? (8) He says of the flesh of the animal sin-offering that ^'' no portion reaches the altar, it all goes as a fine to the priest." We have' just shown that the most sacred " portions," viz. the fat, the kidneys, and the caul above the liver, inexorahhj " reach the altar": and we have shown that, in two out of \h^ four sin- offerings, in Lev. 4, " the priest," instead of getting " aU," does not get the slightest portion, of the rest of the flesh. Again, where is our author's accuracy ? He might take a lesson in language from Ezekiel. The great privilege of the sons of Zadok is to be this, " they shall stand before Me to offer unto Me the fat and the blood, saith the Lord God" (Ezek. 44. 15). God ennobles these por- tions by calling them His " bread," " when ye offer My bread, the fat and the blood " (Ezek. 44. 7). Can we fancy Ezekiel declaring that a " mulct to the priest " is the whole account of a sin-offering, and insinuating that " no portion " of its flesh " leaches the altar " .^ Sm AND TBESPASS OFFERINGS. 443 (9) On p. 62, he tells us that sacrifice took its rise from the analogy oi human eating, "as to man so also to God that which is eatable is by preference offered." In the paragrapjis before us, this process, after ages of evolution, ends in a " peculiarly developed sprinkling of the blood," becoming God's supreme enjoyment, in sacrifice: the evolution "advances and reaches its acme in this last sacrificial act." But the Priestist (p. 54) has made the eating of blood, ly tnan, to have been forbidden, since the days of Noah ; and he re-iterates the prohibition, on pain of death, throughout his Code. We are asked to believe, there- fore, that sacrificial evolution started in God's receiving, by analogy, a portion of human " eatables," and that it " reached its acme " in God's receiving a specially luscious meal of what had been absolutely forbidden, as an " eatable," to man, since the days of Noah ! No wonder that " Europe " is " profoundly impressed," when such incoherence is palmed off, as evolution. (10) In the above paragraphs, he makes " the slaughtering, and the sprinkling of the blood on the altar," essential parts of the "simple offering," /rom the first. "The blood," therefore, was no new meal for Jehovah ; He had it all along. But we have just seen that he points to " the sprinkling of the blood " as the post-Exilic " aone,'' so that his " acme " is, practically, identical with his germ ! No wonder he says ''iJecuUarly de- veloped." The " peculiarity " is indescribable. (11) On p. 80, he says, "in the Priestly Code the peculiar mystery of all animal sacrifices is atonement by Mood''' Per- haps so, but he has not got the information from the Code, Lev. 3 gives a catalogue of three forms of " animal sacrifice," and "atonement by blood " is not specified, as an effect of any of them. There are three similar forms, in Lev. 1, and "atone- ment " is specified, in connection with only one. (12) In the above paragraphs, he describes the third of " three acts," of which the " simple offering " used to consist, 444 SAyCTUAHY AND SACRIFICE. as follows, " (3) the real or seeming gift of the sacrificial portions to the Deity, and the meal of the human guests " : and he then adds, " in the case of the sin and trespass offering the third act is dropped entirely." "We have already shown that there is here a glaring contradiction of Scripture : the well- known " sacrificial portions to the Deity " are " the fat that covereth the inwards, and all the fat that is upon the inwards, and the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them, which is by the loins, and the caul upon the liver"; and these "portions" are as inflexihly required to be given "to the Deity," in the case of sin-oiferings (Lev. 4), and in the case of trespass-offerings (Lev. 7. 3-5), as in the case of peace-offer- ings (Lev. 3) ! What can be thought of an author, who tells the unwary reader that the " gift " of these " portions " is " drojjped entirely " ? But we shall show that he contradicts Wellhausen, as flatly as he contradicts Scripture. On p. 78, we actually have " sin- offerings, and trespass-offerings," described as sacrifices, " of which God received eveeythixg " ! " Those sacrifices were preferred of which God received everything and man nothing — burnt-offerings, sin-offerings., and tres^niss-offerings " (p. 78). On p. 74, sin-offerings are those, in which portions for the Deity are ''^ dropjoed entirely'': on p. 78, these same sin-offer- ings are those, in which the Deity " received everything'' Can a grosser contradiction be conceived ? We think we have sufficiently illustrated the difficulty of re- conciling the paragraphs, which we are criticising, either with Scripture, or with Wellhausen. Our author really hardly re- sembles a responsible investigator at all : he is more like a child, sporting among valuables, and "chucking" them about at its pleasure. II. We think what has already been urged amounts to a SIX AND TRESPASS OFFERINGS. 445 most ample discrediting of Wellhausen's " discovery," regarding the sin-offering. He presents an evolution of it, which is at once invisible, and incomprehensible. But we said that, after congregating the contradictions of the paragraphs, into a com- mon assembly, we would glance at some aspects of the " thesis," which they are intended to support. From the opening of the paragraphs (say the first three sen- tences, and specially comparing the second ' sentence with the third), we are led to suppose that the Priestly Code has not only enacted sin-offerings, as a, practically, new branch of sacrifice, but that it invests them, throughout its length and breadth, with "«/? enormous im-ijortemce'' The old "volun- tary," and " joyful," offerings have had to disappear : the burnt-offering has not been quite so effaced, for it " still con- tinues": but the impression, left upon the reader, is that a new " kind of sacrifice " holds everywhere the foremost, and pre- dominant, place, and that the sin-offering is the great, and significant, characteristic of the Priestly Code. Such is the scope of the three sentences, to which we refer : it will not be difficult to show that the " enormous importance," which is thus con- jured up, is, to a great extent, a mere Imagination of AVell- hausen's. We shall endeavour to give abundant proof of this charge. (1) The opening chapters of Leviticus (1. 1 — 6. 7) prescribe, in detail, and in succession, the rituals for Israelitish sacrifices, under five classes, the ^olah, the tninchah, the zehhach-sheJamim, the chattath, and the asham. But there is not the slightest statement as to which of the five excels the others in " import- ance," nor as to which of the five is to be most frequently offered. By ivhat authority, therefore, can it be pretended that the Code assigns to the fourth, and to the fifth, classes " an enormous importance " ? According to Wellhausen, the fourth, and the fifth, occur in 446 SANCTUARY AND 8ACBIFICE. " secondary " additions to the Code, while the first three occur in "primary" parts, which constitute "the kernel," of the Code. We regard this distinction as purely imaginary, and as having no w:arrant : but, if it ivere warranted^ the consequence would, surely, be that, on Wellhausen's own premisses, the first three classes occupy a more fundamental, and more recognised, position than the fourth, and the fifth ! A surer index of relative "importance" is perhaps derivable from the following consideration. The first three classes seem left open to the free choice of the people, whenever a free-will offering, or the making of a vow, may be suggested to them, by the varying experiences of life : there is no specification of cir- cumstances, nor of situations, to which the offerings must be confined : they are prescribed with the utmost generality and freedom. The fourth, and the fifth, classes, on the other hand, are rigorously confined to occasions, where the off erers have been guilty of sinning by shegJiagliah. The import of this expression is sinning by inadvertence, or ignorance, or miscalculation. It is the same word as is used (and this is the other principal use of it in the Hebrew Bible) in connection with the homicide, for whom the city of refuge is provided : the protected man- slayer is he only who has killed his neighbour in shegliagMli, i.e. who has killed him without settled purpose, without ill-will, with- out deliberate effort. He, who kills his neighbour in sheglia- ghcdi^ has the city of refuge to flee to : he, who hurts Jehovah's holy things, or his neiglibour's property, in sliegltagludt, has the sacrifices of Lev. 4, 5 to have recourse to : to these occasions the cliattath and asliam offerings are confined. We venture to urge that this marked limitation of the fourth, and of the fifth, classes of offerings, if it points to anything at all, points to their occupying a much more subordinate, and less general, position, than the first three classes occupy. Thus, a full, and unbiassed, consideration of the opening chapters of Leviticus, which con- SIN AND TRESPASS OFFERINGS. 447 sfcitufce the main basis of the Code, is quite " polemical " against Wellhausen's pretence that the sin and trespass offerings are the alpha and otnega of its legislation. (2) The same conclusion will be reached, by attending to a most comprehensive, and significant, passage, which immediately follows the chapters, to which we have just referred. We refer to Lev. 6. 8-13. The legislator here gives an outline of the most frequent uses to which, from day to day, and from year to year, the fire on the altar is to be devoted. And, in this outline, the sin and trespass offerings are never once referred to ! The fire is to be kept continually burning, " it shall never go out ": but the main uses, to which it is put, are the burning of an ^olah twice every day, and the burning of the fat of the people's shelamim, whensoever they offer them, throughout the year. Is this in consonance with the overflowing profusion of chattfwth, in the Code, which our author asserts ? And is it not an utter annihilation of his dream that the " voluntary " peace- offerings (shelamim) have been frowned out of existence by the Priestly Code ? We are not urging that the sin-offering did not exist : we are only pointing out that it did not (any more than the minchah) occupy such a commanding position, as to be necessarily named, in a condensed outline of the main uses of the altar. We cannot pass from this, without adding how it illustrates the absurdity of our author's Argument from Silence. It will be observed that he uses the words "only in the secondary passages Lev. 4—7, 14 ; Num. 5. 7, 8, 6. 1, 18. 9." The chapters, embraced in " Lev. 4—7," (though, in a note, our author, with his usual infallibility, assures us that more loi- hiown writers than one, though " of the same school " ! had been at the making of Chaps. 4, 5) are thus bracketed together, as a " secondary passage." The fact (if fact it were), that it is " secondary," would strengthen our argument ; for it would 448 SANCTUARY AND SACBIFICE. mean that the sin-offering has now been definitely established. Here, then, is what we find : In a " passage," where the sin- offering is unmistakeably known, and which indeed includes the only rituals, for sin and trespass offerings, to be found in the Bible, we find a terse comprehensive summary of the daily uses of the Jewish altar, and, in this summary, while ^olah and shelamim are expressly specified, neither sin-offering, nor trespass-offering, receives any special mention ! Shall we mount the " Higher Critic " stilts, and proclaim that this momentous " rubric " is proof that its author " hnows 7iot]iing " of the sin-offering ? We cannot well do this : for the " Higher Critic " presents the four chapters (4 — 7) as sharing together a common " lateness "; and every chapter of the four is redolent either of chattath^ or of asham ! We commend these facts to the Bible student, as an excellent illustration of the vanity of the Argument from Silence. (3) That we are not unduly straining these facts, may be inferred from the circumstance, that similar facts, leading to a precisely like conclusion, meet us elsewhere in the Priestly Code. Num. 29. 39 is notable, in this connection : " These shall ye offer unto the Lord in your solemn assemblies, in addition to your (ordinary) vows and your freewill-offerings, for yonv ^oJofh, and for your minchafhofh, and for your nesakhim (drink-offer- ings), and for your shelamim.'" There, the ordinary sacrifices of Israel, throughout the year, are summarised under four heads, and the chattath is not one of the four ! Shall we say that the writer " knows nothing " of the chattath ? This would be too absurd : for the two preceding chapters give an account of the fiery offerings at all the monthly, and at all the annual, feasts of Israel, and the chattath figures in every one ! Just as the chattath is made emphatic, in Lev. 4, 5, though it is not in- cluded in the rubric Lev. 6. 8-13. We have the same, in Lev. 23. 37, 38. Here, we have two Sm AND TRESPASS OFFERINGS. 449 catalogues, and the chattath is not named, in either. Yerse 37 sums up the sacrifices, at the annual feasts, as ^olah, and minchah, and zebliadi^ and nesalchim. Shall we say that the writer " knows nothing " of the chattath ^ Nay ; for he has expressly named it, in the course of the chapter, and we have seen, from Num. 28, 29, that it is a recognised due, at all the feasts. (4) The facts we have just presented are a further effectual overthrow of the fanciful view, which our author lays down as proved, regarding what he whimsically styles the "older corpus," or the " small body," of legislation, in Lev. 17 — 26. It will be observed that he points to Lev. 17. 8 (which mentions ''olali and zehhach), and to Lev. 22. 18-21 (which mentions %lah and shelamim), as proving that chattath was unknown to the writer. This proof is at once shattered by the three counter-proofs we have just given, from passages where the chattath was demon- strably known to the writer, though he has not specialised it, in his summaries. Our author would not be a whit more absurd, though he carried his "higher" criticism, a few verses "higher" up, till he reached Lev. 17. 5, and should hold verse 5 as " polemical " against verse 8, as proving that ^olah is an inter- polation in verse 8, and that we have here a fragment, whose only " known " sacrifices are shelamim ! He might also con- sider 19. 5, and 22. 29. (5) The induction of Priestly sacrifices, which we have just carried through, is strikingly confirmed by the sacrificial re- enforcements, with added accompaniments, in Num. 15. The analogy between this chapter and the five opening chapters of Leviticus is very marked. In verses 1-16, in accordance with established Hebrew usage, all the sacrifices, throughout the year, which the people may be led to present, either volun- tarily, or in fulfilment of vows, are generaUsed, under the heads ''olah and zebhach ; and some regulations, specially as to accom- panying meal- offerings and drink-offerings, additional to those S 2893. ^ ^ 450 SANCTUABY AND SACRIFICE. of Leviticus, are now laid down : then, in verses 22-29, just a? in Leviticus, follow references to transgressions, committed in sheghaghah., by the congregation, or bj individuals, and it is here only that the chattath is introduced : then, in verses 30, 31, an express statute is added that blasphemous transgressions, other than those of slieghaghah, are punishable by death. We have thus the same relative subordination of the chattath^ in this shorter supplement, as in the more detailed, and funda- mental, legislation of Lev. 1 — 4. And the whole induction shows that the generalisation of Israelitish sacrifices, under ''olah and shelamim, is not the slightest proof that cliattath is unknown to the writer, but is, on the contrary, a very signifi- cant, though indirect, refutation of the position, which Well- hausen assigns to chattath^ in the Priestly Code. (6) The only other argument, from the Code, which we shall present, in discount of the " enormous importance,^^ which Wellhausen erroneously assigns therein to the chattath, is drawn from the statistics of the different kinds of sacrifice, which the Code supplies us with. We are never told, in Scripture, to estimate the value of varying sacrifices by the mere heads of cattle, that are offered : but our author believes in this test : we saw how he tried (though he tried in vain) to prove the pre-eminence of zehhachim over ''oJoth, by showing that the former were " always in the majority," — his " majority " was never forthcoming: we shall have no difficulty, however, in accepting the argument out of his own mouth, and in using it to annihilate his (already annihilated) discovery, regarding the sin-offering. Be it observed that it is his doctrine, in the special paragraph we have quoted, with which alone we are dealing : if (as often happens) he has sounder doctrine, on other pages, we have meantime nothing to do with that. We are dealing with his statement that the " voluntary " offerings (to which category ''olah and shelamim belong) have been SIN AND TRESPASS OFFERINGS. 451 thrown into the shade by the "compulsory" offerings (to which category chattath and asham belong): and our inquiry is, Is the chattath the predominant sacrifice (so far as numbers indicate predominance), throughout the Priestly Code ? We have to look for answer to Leviticus, and to Numbers, but specially to the latter Book, as it is in it alone that we have the detailed enumerations of the numbers of victims, at the daily, weekly, monthly, and annual sacrifices of Israel. We may just say that, so far as Leviticus gives numbers, they do not support our author. At the consecration of Aaron (Lev. 8), three animals are sacrificed, but none of them is dtat- tafh. At the ceremonial of inauguration (Lev. 9), seven animals are sacrificed, three for 'ohh, two for sheJamim, and two for chaUath, The impurity offering (Lev. 12) is one lamb for 'olah, and one pigeon for chattath. The chief sacrifice of the cleansed leper (Lev. 14) is one animal for asham, one for 'oJah, and one for chaUath. On the Day of Atonement (Lev. 16), when expiation is in the ascendant, there are three animals for chattath, and two for 'olah. At the set feasts (Lev. 23) there are, at firstfruits, one animal for 'olah, and, at Pentecost, nine animals for 'olah, two for shelamim, and one for chattath. These are all the statistics in Leviticus. Will anyone say that they afford the remotest countenance to our author's " thesis " ? We said, however, that the statistics are more elaborate, and striking, in Numbers. The Nazirites' offering (Num. 6), and the wave-offering of the Levites (Num. 8), show indeed no pre- dominance, the former being one animal for 'olah, one for chattath, and one for shelamim ; the latter being one for chat- tath, and one for 'olali. But there are two sacrificial catalogues, in Numbers, which are unspeakably " polemical " aganist the ''thesis." The one occupies a long chapter of eighty-nine verses, Num. 7, and gives details of the sacrifices, which - the F F 2 452 SANCTUARY AND SACBIFICE. princes of Israel, the heads of their father's houses," offered for "a dedication gift of the altar in the day when it was anointed " : and how do the different kinds of sacrifice stand ? The grand total is two hundred and four animals for shelamim, thirty-six animals for ^olah, and twelve animals for chat- tath! The other catalogue is in Xum. 38, 29, where the various stated offerings made by fire unto the Lord are given. In view of our author's pretence that the chatMli has risen to a prominence, that is quite " enormous^^' in the Priestly Code, let the following facts be calmly weighed : — {a) Every day throughout the year, two animals have to be sacrificed on the altar (apart from all special sacrifices), but they are both as ''oJah : the chattath has no share in the con- tinual daily tribute, which the united people symbolically. offer to Jehovah (Num. 28. 3-8). {Jj) Every Sabbath day throughout the year, in addition to the above-mentioned ''olah, two other animals are sacrificed, but both are again 'olah : the Sabbath, which is the chosen sign of the people's sanctification for Jehovah, is un-distinguished by any stated connection with chattath (Xum. 28. 9, 10). (c) At every new moon throughout the year, in addition to the daily sacrifices, ten animals were sacrificed as ^olah, but only one as chattath (Num. 28. 11-15). (d) At the feast of unleavened bread, on its first day, ten animals were offered as ^oJah, and one as chattath : these numbers were to be repeated, on each of the six following days of the feast ; this feast, therefore, supplied seventy animals for ^olah, and seven for chattath (Num. 28. lG-25). (e) At the feast of weeks, there were to be ten animals for 'olah, and one for chattath (Num. 28. 26-31). (/) At the seventh new moon, or feast of trumpets (in addition to the daily, and monthly, sacrifices), there were to be nine animals for ^olah, and one for chattath (Num. 29. 1-6). Sm AND TEESPASS OFFERINGS. 453 (g) On the tenth of the seventh month, or Day of Atonement (in addition to the daily, and the special atonement, sacrifices), there were nine animals for ^olah, and one for chattath (Num. 29. 7-11). (h) At the feast of tabernacles (in addition to the dai^v sacrifices), there were to be twenty-nine animals for ^oJak, and one for chattath, on the first day : on each of the following six days, there was to be a graduated fall in the number of animals : the result, for the whole seven days, was one hundred and eighty-two animals for ^olah, and seven for chattath (Num. 29. 12-34). (i) On the eighth day of holy convocation, which closed the feast of tabernacles, there were to be nine animals for ^olah, and one for chattath (Num. 29. 35-38). In addition to the foregoing, there were a minchah, and nesaJchim, daily : there was also a special minchah, with every animal of the burnt-offerings : and the catalogue is exclusive of the uncounted sacrifices, which the " vows," or the " freewill," of the people (Num. 29. 39) might lead them to present for 'olah, or for minchah, or for nesahhim, or for sheJamim, through- out the year, or in the set feasts. We have confined ourselves to the statistics of the victims, because our author regards, as a test of eminence, which sacrifices are " in the majority " (p. 70). If he were to pronounce the chapters in Numbers part of a " secondary " amalgam, this would only prove that they present the final relative position, which the chattath (after all concoctions) was made to assume ! And, in Num. 7, when we can compare shelamim, and 'olali, and chattath, the cliattath is quite dwarfed by the shelamim ; while, in Num. 28, 29, which give materials for comparing 'olah and chattath only, the cliattath is as effectually dwarfed by the 'olah. So much for the absolutely "enormous" prominence, into which the Priestly Code elevates the chattath. 454 SANCTUABY AND SACRIFICE. III. We need not now dwell, at any length, on Wellhausen's tenet that the Priestly Code frowns on " sacrificial meals." He presents this tenet as self-evident, throughout the para- graphs we are criticising, but what we have already advanced seems enough to stamp it as a pure Imagination. The Code prescribes shelamim, with the same prominence, and minuteness, as it prescribes 'oiah, or minchah, or chattath ; and it prescribes that, in all classes of shelamim^ a sacrificial meal, by the offerers, shall follow. How preposterous, therefore, to tell a credulous public (in the hope that they will not turn up their Bibles ?) that the Code inaugurates an Era, from which the joyousness of the sacrificial meal has disappeared ! We have seen the shelamm (which entail meals), included in sacrificial generalisations, from which the chattath is excluded. And, in the longest sacrificial chronicle in the Code, Num. 7, we have found the shelamim out-numbering the chattath^ in the pro- portion of seventeen to one. We might add (if it were not slaying the thrice slain) that the Code is not in the way of rei3resenting the chattaih, as being offered alone : its habitual representation is that other kinds of sacrifice go along with it : and, among these, the slieJamim (which entail meals) occupy an honoured place. Xay, we might add that the chattath itself provides sacrificial meals, in two aspects of them. (1) Our author describes the burnt-offering as " a meal, if only a one-sided one, of which God alone par- takes." In that sense, every chattath was " a meal '* : for the sacred sacrificial portions, the fat, &c., and the blood, which Jehovah hallows, by styling them " My bread," had invariably to be presented to God, and burnt on the altar. (2) In the case also of every chattath^ offered by a ruler, or by any of the people, the rest of the flesh (after God's "bread" had been taken away from it) went as a meal to the priests, and to their families. A glance at Lev. 22. 1-1 G will show how numerous SIN AND TRESPASS OFFEBINGS. 455 were the " human guests," for every such meal. The difference between shelamim and chattath, therefore, is that, while the former furnished three meals, the latter furnished only two. In both, the divine meal comes first, being evidently the essential, and fundamental, act of the sacrifice : in both, more- over, the divine meal is identical, consisting of those hallowed portions, which are called emphatically " the bread of GodP The rest of the victim is distributed, in shelamim, between priest and worshipper, and, in chatfath, goes wholly to the priest. In view of such elementary facts, what can be thought of an author, torturing language to express the absolute isola- tion, which the Priestly Code observes, from sacrificial meals ? IV. We need also now add but little on our author's delusion, that the sin-offering first comes to be known, in the days of Ezekiel. He has not an atom of positive proof, in support thereof. His only appeal is the never-failing appeal to Silence : he says nobody mentions it before Ezekiel. (1) But has he not suggested, in another connection, that if " it is seldom that an occasion arises to describe the ritual " (p. 55), the absence of details of the ritual need not surprise us ? He cannot point to a single instance, where " occasion arises to describe " the sin or trespass offering, and where such description is wanting. And, failing such "occasions," mere silence is no argument whatever. (2) Specially, he must show that sins of sheghaghah (for which alone the sin and trespass offerings are prescribed) occur, and are atoned for, without the chattath, or the asham, being brought into the ritual. This he cannot, to the least extent, accomplish. (3) We may test his silence argument, in another way. {a) He must acknowledge that the woman's impurity offering (Lev. 22), the leper's offering (Lev. 14), the Nazirite's offering 456 SANCTUABY AND SACRIFICE. (Num. 6), are imbedded in the Priestly Code : he is committed, therefore, to hold that, as " sacrificial ordinances," they were ^''scrupulously followed by the post-Exilian time" (p. 82). But can he point to the slightest evidence, in any "post- Exilian " prophet, or historian, that the above-quoted " ordi- nances " were either known, or " followed "? He cannot do so — simply because no " occasion arises to describe " them. With what consistency can he dogmatise that sin and trespass offer- ings are unknown in post-Mosaic ages, simply leccmse they are un-mentioned "in the historical and prophetical Books" — if no " occasion arises to describe " them ? {h) He assigns the Jehovist to Eehoboam's age, or thereby : can he point to a single post-Rehohoam instance of the man-slayer fleeing to "the appointed place," as the Jehovist prescribes ? (c) He assigns the Deuteronomist to Josiah's age : can he point to a single p)ost-Josian instance of the seventh year of release, which the Deuteronomist prescribes ? We might cover whole pages with similar questions. V. Hitherto we have been assuming the truth of Wellhausen's statement, that the sin and trespass offerings are utterly un- mentioned " in the historical and prophetical Books," and we have shown that that assumption need not negative their an- cient appointment. But they are not un-mentioned. (1) We have a double mention of them, both of chattath and of asham, in 2 Kings 12. 16 : and there is a further recognition of the money interest in these offerings, which the Code (Lev. 5. 14-16 ; Num.5. 5-10) occasionally gave to the priest : "But the money for trespass-offering {asham), and the money for sin- offerings {chattaoth), were not brought into the Lord's house : these went to the priests." Says Wellhausen, " these are no sacrifices ": to which it is enough to reply, they are as clearly sacrifices, and dependent mainly on the texts we have quoted Sm AND TBESPASS OFFEBIXGS. 457 as language can make them. (2) Besides that three-fold cor- roboration, there is a similar one, in 1 Sam. 6. 1-8 : the Philis- tines send back a propitiatory gift to Jehovah, for having de- tained His ark ; and as this is, practically^ an offering for having sinned unwittingly in Jehovah's holy things, the historian, three times over, designates it an asham, an unmistakeable accom- modation of the Levitical ordinance. Now, what references have w^e in the Jjost-Exilic historians ? To keep Wellhausen right, they ought to be abundant : else what is his argument from silence worth ? But, at the most, they are barely equal to the pre- Exilic references ! There are a three-fold reference by Ezra, and a single reference by Nehemiah. (1) Ezra includes a chattath (or chatfaah) among the sacrifices offered at the dedication of the second Temple, and w^lien his own company of exiles afterwards came up (Ezra 6. 17, 8. 35) : (2) and, when several of the people have been convicted of marrying strange wives, he says "and they gave their hand that they would put away their wives ; and being guilty (they gave) a ram for their ashmah " (Ezra 10. 19). (3) Nehemiah includes chattaofh among the ordinances, which the people bound themselves to maintain, by contributing a third part of a shekel each (Neh. 10. 33). " Xot a trace " of reference to sin or trespass offering occurs, in the post-Exilic " historical Books," beyond those now mentioned. And, in one of them, Ezra (8. 35), after specifying one hundred and eighty-five animals for 'o/o^/i, and only twelve foi'SicIiattafhy adds " all this was a 'olah to Jehovah "; showing how Hebrew usage may often include the subordinate chattath in the more comprehensive ^olah ; and showing also how far ^olah, in the singular, is from necessarily meaning a single victim. If we were to affect Wellhausenianism, for an instant, we might dis- credit another of the above meagre list of texts, in the following way : it will be observed that he discredits Lev. 22. 11, because 458 SANCTUARY AND SACEIFICE. it mentions the trespass restitution, without " demanding " the trespass sacrifice: on the same principle, we might discredit Ezra 10. 19, because it mentions the trespass sacrifice, without recording that it was " icithoid blemish,''^ and that it had been strictly " accor cling to thejmesfs estimation ! " We do not seek to discredit either text in so absurd a fashion : we are only illustrating what shadows our author marshals as arguments. In neither passage, is there the slightest profession to include all the accompaniments of a trespass-offering : and both writers can trust to their readers readily supplying much, from a well- known Code. We have shown that the pre-Exilic, and the post-Exilic, " historical Books " are, practically, on an equality, so far as very shght references to the sin-offering are con- cerned : but this equality is fatal to the poor " thesis." YL After the historians, what of the Prophets ? He says the silence is profound, " in the historical and projjlietical Books." We shall, therefore, compare early with post-Exilic, in the case of prophets, as we have just done, in the case of historians. Tlwee early prophetic passages have been regarded by some commentators, as implying reference to sin or tres- pass offering. (1) AVe think no wise critic will point to Hos. 4. 8, as de- monstrating Hosea's knowledge of sin-offerings. A good cause should never be made to lean on doubtful props. And we think it is impossible to say dogmatically, whether chattath, in that verse, should be regarded as signifying "sin," or as signifying "sin-offering." At the same time, the general con- struction of ammi, as a genitive after chattath, seems very ques- tionable : and if it were (though we hardly urge it is) per- missible to render, " Sin-offering do my people devour, and to their (similar) perversities they lift their soul," the meaning might be that the people presume to put themselves on an SIN AND TRESPASS OFFERINGS. 459 equality with the priests, in eating the flesh of the sin-offering : and it is certainly noticeable that the immediate consequence of verse 8 is said to be the establishment of the principle " like people, like priest," Ammi is the subject, in verse 6, and has there also a plural verb, and the introduction of the priests, as the subject, in verse 8, is a sudden, and unlikely, change. Verse 10, also, condemns an "eating," whose guilt is " leaving off to taJce heed to JeJwvah," We are far from urging that the suggested translation conveys, with any probability, the prophet's meaning : the verse is obscure, and all its conjectural translations are surrounded with difficulty. It seems, on the whole, best to take mntrii as subject, and translate chattath as " sin." But, of course, Wellhausen is in this exposed position, that, so far as "sin-offering" is a possible rendering, his " thesis " is quite demolished, (2) A very similar criticism falls to be passed on Mic. 6. 7. " Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin (or sin-offering) of my soul ? " It would be most unwise to hold that chattath must here mean " sin- offering." We think the symmetry of the verse rather calls for the meaning "sin": "shall I give the produce (child) of the body for the produce (sin) of the soul ? " A sin-offering is the produce, not of the soul, but of God's Law. At the same time, the whole drift of the passage affords a strong inferential proof that sin-offerings were well-known to Micah. He regards " sin," as the great bar to an acceptable approach to God, but he knows that God has appointed symbolical ceremonies, where- by the sweeping away of that bar is represented ; and he asks, in his impassioned rhetoric, " Shall I even out-do Jehovah's call, and sacrifice to Him the dearest of my household, instead of the mere irrational victims, to which His Law restricts me ? " The structure of the passage points clearly to Micah's know- ledge of atoning sacrifices for sin. 460 SANCTUARY AND 8ACBIFICE. (3) In the case of Isaiah, the reference to sacrificial ritual is un-mistakeable, " When Thou shalt make His soul an asham (a guilt offering)," or " when His soul shall present an asham " (Isa. 53. 10). Either translation implies a reference to the Levitical Law, which all readers may be trusted at once to recognise. Our author's parallel, from the hanging of Saul's seven sons, may safely be said to be much weaker than any tra- ditionalist's founding on Hosea, or on Micah. Hanging is not synonymous with bleeding on the altar : human sacrifi.ces are rigorously forbidden by the divine Law : when the Gibeonites say " it is not a matter of silver or gold for us," they perhaps show a deeper knowledge of the Priestly Code, than Wellhausen possesses, for the Code enacts (Num. 35. 31-33) that monefj atonements shall, on no account, be accepted, to let a murderer escape, nor to let a homicide leave the city of refuge, till the high-priest's death. Our author tries further to impair Isaiah's testimony, by saying the passage is "certainly late": but that, of course, is a begging of a very large question. Now, what have we to set against the foregoing, from the post-Exilic " prophetical Books " ? Our author should have answered this question for his readers, but he never touches it : we must, therefore, supply the information. There is not the slightest sjjeci/ication^ however slight, of either chattath, or of asham, on the pages of any post-Exilic prophet ! "Wellhausen knew that fact, as well as we do, when he was penning his Prolegomena : why does he not make it prominent, on his pages ? What is the use of founding on the silence of pre- Exilic prophets, if the silence remains absolutely un-broken by post-Exilic prophets ? To make his argument worth a straw, he should have shown clear references to the chattath, in post-Exilic prophets : he cannot show even one. Blot out, therefore, all mention, or implication, of chattath, or of asham, from Hosea, from Micah, and from Isaiah, and you have only reduced SIN AND TRESPASS OFFEBIXGS. 4C1 them to the same platform, as their post-ExiHan successors : and the "prophetical" argument from silence vanishes into smoke. YII. We shall conclude by showing how the argument from silence looks, when tested by Ezekiel (the go-between, or " transition," connecting early and post-Exilic prophets), and by his contemporary Jeremiah. (1) We have already noted how AYellhausen contradicts him- self by declaring cliattath and asliam to have arisen, " probably in tlie seventh century^ which seems to have been very open to the mystery of atonement and blood-shedding." Apply this to Jeremiah. He prophesied well into the sixth century. But, in the whole of his fifty-two chapters, there is not a single mention of either chattath, or of asham I Again, what is the argument from mere silence worth ? (2) What is thus noted of Jeremiah is really, of itself, suffi- cient answer to the vast conclusion, which our author draws, from the fact that Ezekiel mentions the cliattath, while his pro- phetic predecessors (according to our author) do not mention it. If Ezekiel's own contemporary, who, as a priest, was bound to know the cliattath, can write fifty-two chapters, without once specifying it, why may not Ezekiel's predecessors have been equally cognisant of the chattath, although, in the course of their muclifeiuer chapters, " no occasion arose to describe it " ? (3) It is a further disparagement of our author's position, when we reflect that Ezekiel never makes the slightest state- ment, or implication, that cliattath was being introduced by him, as a new thing, in his day : he never implies that previous ages were ignorant of it : he takes for granted that his every reader will understand its meaning, and its ritual, with the same famiharity as they understand the meaning, and the ritual, of 'oM, or of shelamim : he refers to it, with the same easy certainty of being understood, as does the writer of 462 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. 1 Samuel, or the \mter of 2 Kings : the statement that it was never known, as a legislative enactment, till it figures on his pages, is an utterly un-proved, and an utterly un-suggested, Imagination. (4) It might be pointed out, too, what a singular romance it makes that he should have introduced the chattath, for the first time, into legislation, when he had no possible opportunity of ever seeing it offered, when he was living far away from a desolated Temple, when he was weeping, by the banks of the Chebar, over all the sacrificial praxis of Israel as in abeyance ! He makes no distinction between ^olah and cliattath, the one as old, and the other as new : if, therefore, he is " painting what he carried in his memory," the alleged novelty of the chattatli is absurd. (5) For it is to be noted (though we do not need to lay any argumentative stress on the circumstance) that it is exclusively in the Ideal Vision^ that forms his closing chapters, that Ezekiel names the chattath ; he manages to write thirty-nine chapters, as Jeremiah writes Jiftf/-tu'o, without any mention of it. And, in view of this, we put these alternative queries— ^^rs^, If, in this Ideal Vision, he is " painting the picture, as he carried it in his memory " (p. 60), of chattaoth, that had once attracted, and delighted, him in Judah, tvhy ivas it that no prophet, that had gone hefore him, ever dropped the slightest reference to them ? — secondly., If, in this Ideal Vision, he is, at the same time, " pub- lishing the programme " of the chattaoth " of a future the- ocracy" (p. 60), why is it that no prophet, that comes after him, ever names the wondrous innovation .^ The unlucky Prophet of Transition is beset by the disparaging silence of brother prophets, both before and behind ! (6) We would just add that, though Ezekiel happens several times to name the chattath^ in his Vision, he also, in the course of that Vision, uses sacrificial generaHsationSy which do not SIN AND TRESPASS OFFERINGS. 463 include the chatfath, and which are eminently in keeping with similar generalisations, in other parts of Scripture. Wellhausen might as well point to Ezek. 43. 27, or to 44. 11, or to 46. 2 and 12, as to some passages, outside Ezekiel, to which he has pointed, and hold that they are interpolations, incorporated into the Vision, from a " source," that " knew nothing " of the chatfath ! In Ezek. 40, is it possible to compare verse 39 with verse 42, without seeing that chattath and asham may often be included under zebhacli^ just as we saw, from Ezra 8. 35, they may often be included under ^olah .? And, out of the heart of the Priestly Code itself, we have given three generalisations, from which the chattath is excluded, but whose contexts unmis- takeably prove that the chattath was known to the writer. On the whole, it might be thought that the discovery, that the burnt-offering was but a puny appendage to the peace- offering, till the people came back from Babylon, was about as big a mare's nest as could be stumbled into. But we incline to think that the discovery, that the sin-offering was, practically, an Ezekelio-Babylonian invention, considerably out-mares it. It is an Imagination, which has not a shred of proof, nor of pro- bability, in its support. The reader, who is content to swallow Wellhausen's sentences, without check or verification, may accept his " thesis," about the sin-offering : Our advice to him is a very simple one, " To the law, and to the testimony " ; open the Boohs, and especially, open the Code, and — refutationem si qiiaeris, circumspice. ( 464 ; CHAPTER XL A DREAM OF THE PRIESTLY CODE. WE have already made very manifold quotations from the concluding pages (pp. 76-81), in which AYellhausen sums up his evolution of the sacrificial worship of Israel : and we have shown the strange (and, practically, incredible) marks of the evolution, which he professes to trace. We have shown, also, how strangely many of his statements, in these pages, con- tradict his own statements, on preceding pages ; how repugnant they, at the same time, are to probabihty ; and how glaringly they belie the Scriptures, on which they profess to be based. As almost every paragraph, in these pages, has been more or less dealt with in this way, it would be out of place to repeat ourselves, by a lengthened re-quotation of them, and by a recon- sideration of their whole contents, now. We have styled them one of his two Arcadian dreams : for their characteristics are absolute dependence on self, and habitual disregard of available appropriate evidence, in framing their contents. They are in- tended to present a contrast between " early praxis " and the " sacrificial Law." Of the former (if we suppose the Priests' Code blotted out) Scripture gives us nothing but the meagrest possible glimpses, or outlines : but this is no bar to Yf ellhausen's attaining to a perfect knowledge of it : he has some un-men- tioned sources of information within himself, and so he can go on with a glib narrative of the origin, and aims, and accom- paniments, of sacrifice, as unhesitatingly as though he had lived through all the generations from Abel to the Exile, and had surrounded every altar, pondered every ritual, and read the A BREAM OF THE PRIESTLY CODE. 465 aspirations of every worshipper's heart. Of the latter (the " sacrificial Law "), he tells us that it is contained in the Priests' Code, and he then gives us a sketch of its salient outlines, which is hardly explicable, except on the supposition that he knows the Priests' Code, only as a sealed, and locked-up, volume, and that authority has not yet been given him to open it, and to survey its characteristics. It is not an erroneous view of doubtful, and disputable, passages that one has to tax him with, but with an ignoring of fundamental, and unmistakeable, char- acteristics of the Code. We offer to convict him of a series of plain, and inexcusable, mis -representations of that Priestly Code, whose post-Exilic origin may be described as the mighty focus, towards which all his boasted discoveries converge. And we shall, as before, do so on a plan, which will not involve fami- liarity with Hebrew, as a necessity to its comprehension, but which will put our arguments, and our illustrations, well within the reach of the ordinary English reader. He does not arrange, and divide, his analysis (or, as we prefer to call it, his dream) so " scientifically," as we have done for him : we have made a most thorough study of his pages, and it seems to us that seven, chief scenes moved before him, in succession, in his dream, and we shall notice them in turn. As we do so, the truth of our statement, that we have already largely dealt with his con- cluding pages on sacrifice, will become apparent. I. The first scene of the vision involves his already-exploded craze about " sacrificial meals." He saw all the ages, before the Exile, addicted to these, glorying in these, and blest by these ; a sacrifice to them was a social meal, and nothing more. But then he saw a Priestist arise, who swept away these emblems of sociality, and almost shattered the sacrificial tables in pieces : he decreed that " eating flesh " was no longer to be a part of the "business of worship," but was to be a mere "at S 2893. ^ ^ 466 SANCTUABY AND SACBIFICE. home ": lie decreed that "a sacrifice, combined with a meal," must intrude no longer, but must " fall completely into the background": he decreed that "sacrifices, of which man received nothing," were now to be exalted, and to " come to the front, with the utmost possible purity." Is it necessary to dissect, at any length, this pitiful pretence, in view of what we have already written ? Our author does not fortify either side (either the pre-Exilic, or the post-Exilic, side) of the foregoing Imagination, with the slightest proof, from Scripture. He cannot produce a single text, to show that the aim of early sacrifices was (as he pretends) the " consecration " of mere " earth!?/ relationships," and that the rectification of man's divine " relationship " may not have been their primary, and chiefest, aim. And, as to the other side of his picture, we have already shown that the Priests' Code, so far from, practi- cally, frowning sacrificial meals out of existence, encourages them, and prescribes them, in the most prominent, and un- mistakeable, terms. It gives to peace-offerings, with their various sub-divisions, a most honoured, and repeated, mention, and it prescribes that, in the case of all of them, a sacrificial meal shall follow. It prescribes also the varying times, within which the meal must be concluded. Are we unwarranted in stigmatizing, as a dream^ the doctrine that, in contrast with a previous social era, the Priestly Code makes the meal " fall completely into the back-ground " ? We shall here only, before passing on, notice a minute special contrast, which our author professes to have discovered, between the Deuteronomist and the Priestist. He says : — " In Deuteronomy, in vnarked opposition to what we find in the Priestly Code, to eat and be merry before Jehovah is the standing phrase for sacrificing " (p. 77). Who could be so heartless as think of verifying such a statement ? it is delivered with such artless ease, as a mere A DBEAM OF THE PRIESTLY CODE. 407 elementary circumstance, which the most superficial reader of Scripture must know : it is not a doubtful, but a " marked," characteristic, to which it refers. Yet it is a mere — Imagination / The "opposition" between Deuteronomist and Priestist has no existence. A few sentences will show that they are quite at one. (1) In view of the people soon entering Canaan, Deuteronomy- prescribes that their "holy things" are not to be offered "within any of thy gates," but in that central sanctuary, wheresoever it may be, " which the Lord thy God shall choose to place His name there." The killing of their various sacri- fices, and also the eating of them (so far as they were prescribed to be eaten), must take place at the central sanctuary : "there ye shall eat them before the Lord your God, and ye shall rejoice in all that ye put your hand unto, ye and your households, wherein the Lord thy God hath blessed thee " (Deut. 12. 7 ; 14. 26 ; 15. 20). (2) But tliis is just an echo of the sacrificial phraseology of the Priestly Code. We have seen that it also associates both the " kilUng," and the " eating," with the central tabernacle. The " killing " must take place " in the presence of the Lord at the door of the tabernacle " : and, so far as the flesh is eatable, the sacrificial feast must straightway follow, " the flesh shall be eaten on the day of his oblation." (3) The correspondence between the two codes is not only thus obvious on a general view, but is equally obvious in details. Both codes prescribe what flesh may be " eaten," and what flesh may not be eaten ; and their prescriptions are identical ! The Deuteronomist prescribes that no part of burnt-offerings can be " eaten " ! the flesh must wholly ascend in the altar flame : " thou shalt offer thy burnt-offerings, the flesh and the blood, upon the altar of the Lord thy God " (Deut. 12. 27). But this is just what the Priestist had prescribed before him : " Aaron's GG 2 468 SANCTUAEY AND SACBIFICE. sons, the priests, shall offer the blood . . . and the priest shall burn the ivhole flesh on the altar " (Lev. 1. 5, 9). The Deuter- onomist prescribes that the blood of peace-offerings shall be poured on the altar, but the flesh shall be eaten by the wor- shipper : " The blood of thy peace-offerings {zehhachim) shall be poured out upon the altar of the Lord thy God, but thou shalt eat the flesh " (Deut. 12. 27). What says the Priestly Code ? " Aaron's sons, the priests, shall sprinkle the blood upon the altar " (Lev. 3. 2) : " and when ye offer a sacrifice of peace- offerings, it shall he eaten on the same day that ye offer it, and on the morrow " (Lev. 19. 5, 6). Where is the " marked oppo- sition " ? There is minute, and " marked," agreement ! (4) The same carefully -discriminated phraseology is repeated by the Deuteronomist, in Deut. 27. 6-9, when prescribing the sacrifices, for Mount Ebal. " Thou shalt offer (Jia^alitha) upon that altar burnt-offerings unto the Lord thy Grod " (verse 6). He here uses the verb, regularly used by all Hebrew writers, regarding the burnt-offering, and prescribes none of it for "eating." He then prescribes the peace-offering : "And thou shalt sacrifice (zahhachta) peace offerings, and shalt eat there ; and thou shalt rejoice before the Lord thy God" (verse 7). Thus, " eating," instead of being " the standing phrase for sacrificing," in Deuteronomy, cannot there be applied to the burnt-offering, but is confined to the peace-offering alone — " in marked ageeement with the Priestly Code." (5) Having thus shown that " eating " is not the Deuterono- mist's " standing phrase for sacrificing," we may show, in a word, what his "standing phrases " (so far as, in his very few references, he can be said to have any such) are : He applies za- hhach to sacrifice, when he is speaking of it, in quite general terms. "Thou shalt not zalhach (sacrifice) unto the Lord thy God an ox, or a sheep, wherein is a blemish " (Deut. 17. 1). There is nothing here to restrict the rubric to any special " kind " A DREAM OF THE PBIESTLY €ODE. 409 of sacrifice : and it is perhaps the only clear case in Deuterono- my, where such a thoroughly general reference is predicable : the use of zabhach, in such circumstances, we have already shown to accord with a universal Hebrew usage. He can also use the same verb (as all other writers also use it) when there seems a special reference to peace-offerings : " This shall be the priest's due from the people, from them that zabhach (sacrifice) a ze- hhach (sacrifice), whether it be ox or sheep" (Deut. 18. 3). When he applies a special verb to the burnt-offering, it is neither " eat," nor zalhach^ but Melah^ the same verb as other writers apply to that sacrifice. Let the Bible student consider that, in the above paragraphs, we have pointed him to every occurrence of the phrase " eating before the Lord " in Deuteronomy, besides giving him a glimpse of the other sacrificial phraseologies of its author, and he will then be in a position to estimate the trustworthiness, or the candour, of "Wellhausen. When he offers not a shred of quotation, it is then that his dogmatisms are almost always specially baseless. Two Boolcs "in marked opposition" ! — when a little simple investigation shows they are " in marlced agreement ! " The only palliation for him is that he is speaking — in a dream. 11. The second scene, in his vision, is equally illusory. In pre-Exilic time, he saw sacrifice invariably connected with definite, and suitable, occurrences, in the experience of the worshippers. Whether it was a " war," or an " agreement," or an " honoured guest," or an " important undertaking," there was always a fresh, and actual, " occasion, arising out of daily life," that impelled to the sacrifice, that was "inseparable" from it, that " gives to it meaning and character ": he saw the people, in their scattered homes, literally hungering and thirsting after sacrifice, ready to " seize on the spot any occasion 470 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. that casually offered itself for a sacrificial meal." But then he saw the Priestist arise, and ruthlessly aiolish this happy identity " between spiritual earnestness and secular joyous- ness " : he ended the dependence of sacrifice on " earthly re- lationships," and established a " divorce between sacred and secular": he " deprived sacrifice of its natural nourishment," which "the exigencies and objects of the daily life" had hitherto supplied : by his decree, " hfe and worship fell apart," and " the warm pulse of life no longer throbbed in sacrifice to animate it." (1) It is enough to say that, in piHng up such grandilo- quence, TTellhausen has not an atom of Scripture evidence to support it with, he is merely piling up a tissue of pretentious Imaginations. The Priestly Code recognises the vicissitudes of life, and 'provides for the presentation, and variation, of sacrifice, according as men''s needs, and experiences, may dictate, in the most manifold possible manner. If that be so, our author's utter contrast at once turns to a dream. That it is so, a slight examination of the Code will very readily reveal. Let us look shortly, and straightforwardly, at its contents. The opening chapters of Leviticus, instead of shutting out individualism, are full of individualising opportunities, and choices, of sacrifice. " When any of you offereth an oblation unto the Lord" (Lev. 1. 2), is the language, in which all, and each, are invited to the altar : they are also left free to settle whether their feelings and circumstances call for an '•olah (Chap. 1.), or for a minchah (Chap. 2), or for shelamim (Chap. 3): and, under each, they are left to select the animals, and the materials, of their sacrifices, according as their ability may render proper. The priests are bound, by these chapters, as to the rituals they shall conduct: but the thought of the sacrifice, and the occasion of the sacri- fice, and the special aim of the sacrifice, and the very kind, and content, of the sacrifice, are, practically, left to be wholly fixed A DBEAM OF THE PRIESTLY CODE, All by the position, and by the experience, of the offerer. " Life and worship," instead of becoming utterly un-connected, could not be left in a freer relation, than they are in these chapters, to act, and to re-act, upon one another. And these chapters contain the staple of Israelitish sacrifices. (2) It makes this point the clearer, and our author's mis- interpretation the more glaring, when we add that a sample of one of the three sacrifices, in these chapters, is subsequently pre- scribed for national, or non-individual, purposes (if we may coin such a word), and is required to be offered, every morning and every evening, through all the years of all their generations. But what relation (in Lev. 1 — 7) does this non-individucd sta- tute occupy to the free individualising statutes ? It is thrust into what our author would probably (and with considerable reason) call an appendix, in Lev. 6. 8-13, where the continual burnt-offering (" two lambs of the first year day by day con- tinually," as already specified in Exod. 29. 38-41), is secured, and honoured, by the regulation, " fire shall be kept burning on the altar continually : it shall not go out." This is an offering, which no i7idividual presented : it had no connection with the daily life, so far as the special experiences of indivi- duals were concerned : whether the circumstances of the nation, and of its individuals, were prosperous or adverse, that offering remained un-suspended, and un -diversified. But, instead of being on the forefront of Leviticus, it occupies a subsidiary position in Chap. 6, while chapter after chapter have teen devoted to those special offerings, which the vicissitudes, and emergencies, of life may, as the ages run, call forth from indivi- dual worshippers. We are not disparaging the great significance of the daily 'olah, enacted in Exod. 29, and re-quoted, with such care, throughout Num. 28, 29 : we are only noting the absurdity of characterising the Code, as utterly severed from the daily occasions of life, when it relegates this non-individual 472 SANCTUABY AND SACRIFICE. statute to a few verses, in Chap. 6, after all the previous chapters of Leviticus have been devoted to the choices of sacrifices, which are offered, for the varying feelings, and fortunes, of individuals. (3) For we have to note that Lev. 4, 5 are even more minutely, and more avowedly, individualistic than Lev. 1-3. The sin and trespass offerings are not prescribed, as dry national tributes, offered in the absence of individuals, and apart from the actual experiences of life. They are connected, at every turn, with definite transgressions, and they are adapted, with utmost care, to the varying situations, and fortunes, of different transgressors. Chap. 4 enumerates four different classes of transgressors, and its sacrifices are to be offered, only when the actual experiences of life bring any of these classes into specified fault. And where could more definite catalogues of actual transgression be found than in Lev. 5. 1-4, and in Lev. 6. 1-3 ? How preposterous to say of a Code, with such contents, that " a separation between it and the daily life " is its main charactistic ! (4) What we thus find, in the great foundation statutes, so to speak, of the Code, in Lev. 1 — 7, is reflected, with equal pre- cision, in its other parts. (a) It is notably so in Num. 15, a chapter, which we have already styled a short summary of Lev. 1^7, with a few addenda of sacrificial accompaniments. Where could daily life, and actual experience, be more freely recognised, as supplying the occasions of sacrifice, than in verses 1-3, and in verses 8 and 14, of that chapter ? The " set feasts " are not overlooked, but the individual occasions of sacrifice are there acknowledged, with even greater emphasis. The fulfilment of " vows," and the operations of " freewill," are there assumed, as the occasions of un-numbered sacrifices, of sacrifices which the " sojourning stranger," equally with the "home born," may present, of sacri- A DBEAM OF THE PBIESTLY CODE. 473 fices, which may range over the forms of ''olah^ or of zehhach, or of shelainim, according to special exigency, of sacrifices, which are to be " statutes for ever throughout your generations." Is it possible to nail the sacrificial system more firmly to the varying "vicissitudes of life," than these verses (Num. 15. 1-16) do ? We have the same principle continued, in verses 22-31 of the chapter, where (as in Lev. 4, 6) sin-offerings are associated only with definite shortcomings, in the experience, either of the con- gregation, or of individuals. (b) Precisely the same arrangements are recognised, with equal prominence, in Num. 27. 39. In two chapters, the numbers of victims, to be burnt on the altar, on the various days of all the set feasts, have been catalogued : and then the ordinary individual sacrifices, whose number, and contents, can only become known, as the successive exigencies of life suggest them, are re-commemorated in these words : " These (the victims enumerated in the two preceding chapters) ye shall offer unto the Lord in your set feasts, in additio?i to your vows, and m addition to your freewill offerings, for your ^oloth, and for your minchathoth, and for your nesaJchim, and for your shela- mim.''^ Here again, the stated or national, and the varying or individual, sacrifices are recognised, with equal authoritative- ness, as occurring throughout the year. The fulness, which Lev. 1 — 5 accords to the latter class. Num. 28, 29, may be regarded as according to the former class. The two classes co- exist, throughout the Code. (c) An almost identical proof of their co-existence is supplied by Lev. 23. 37, 38. In this chapter, a catalogue, which has much in common with that in Num. 28, 29, is given : the catalogue here, however, is rather of the days of holy convoca- tion, than of the altar victims : and, at the conclusion of it, an addendum, emphatically re-commemorating the individual sacri- fices, which Ufe's varying experiences were always calling for, 474 SANCTUARY AND SACEIFICE. takes this form : " These (the days enumerated, in the previous thirty-six verses) are the set feasts of the Lord, which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations (to offer an offering by fire unto the Lord, a ''olah^ and a minchah, a zelhach^ and nesalchim, each on its own day) : in addition to the Sabbaths of the Lord, and m addition to your gifts, and in addition to all your vows, and in addition to all your freewill offerings which ye give unto the Lord." Here we have " gifts," and " vows," and freewill," which depend entirely on the offerer's varying feelings and cir- cumstances, recognised as regularly, and notably, contributing to Israel's offerings, throughout each year. (d) In the immediately preceding chapter. Lev. 22. 18 and 21, we have it, as an established arrangement, that the re- sponsible discretion of the people (their "vows" and their "freewill") shall settle when it becomes them to present their sacrifices, and that these sacrifices shall range freely over the recognised generalisations of 'oM, and of shelamim. Is this to make " hfe and worship fall apart " ? (e) The same responsible, and regulated, freedom underlies Lev. 17. 8, 9, 19. 5-8, 22. 29, 30, and (to come back to the opening chapters) 7. 11-18. (5) Thus, whether we look at its "kernel," or at its "older corpus," or at its " later additions," we find the Priestly Code everywhere recognising, and based on, the people's varying ex- periences, and desires. " Spontaneity," and the " daily Hfe," instead of being banished from it, are acknowledged, and en- shrined, in it, from end to end. There are fixed tion-individual sacrifices each day, each Sabbath, each new moon : but these are not exclusive of, they are avowedly contemporaneous and harmonious with, individual sacrifices, which the special cir- cumstances, and the special aspirations, of the various classes of the people may be suggesting, throughout the year : the general sacrifices can never be catalogued, without the writer being A DREAM OF THE PRIESTLY CODE. 475 careful to remind us that they are exclusive of the hosts of voluntary, and therefore unsi^ecifiable, offerings, which each year's experience may bring to the altar — they are " in addition to all your gifts, and in addition to all your vows, and in addition to all your freewill offerings." When, therefore, Wellhausen says that the general sacrifices exclude the individual, he is plainly, and inexcusably, belying the Code, whose contents he professes to expound. His absurdity will best be seen, by placing what he says, and what he should say, side by side : — What He Says (in accordance What He Should Say {in ac- with fancy). cordance with Scripture). " But now the dominant posi- " But now the permanent posi- tion of the daily, Sabbath day, tion of the daily. Sabbath day, and festival tamidh means that and festival tamidh means that the sacrificial worship had as- this part of the sacrificial wor- sumed a perfectly firm shape, ship had assumed a perfectly which was independent of every firm shape ; but it does not special motive and of all spon- mean the extinction of other taneity " (p. 80). parts of the sacrificial worship, which afforded the freest scope for every special motive, and for all spontaneity" (p. — in his next edition ?) It will be seen that Wellhausen carries the unwary Bible student captive, by slipping in " the sacrificial worship,^'' as if it were exhaustively represented in the daily, weekly, and monthly fixtures. We have shown that these are ov\j part of "the sacrificial worship," and that the Code recognises the other parts, with never-failing prominence. We thus overthrow our author's pretentious asseverations, by having recourse to the recondite principle — the whole is greater than its part, (6) In view of what has now been shown, it will be seen that the prevalence of "spontaneity" in sacrifice, in pre-Exilic time, is eminently harmonious with the view that the Priestly Code was reigning, and was regulating that "spontaneity," in 476 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. all post-3fosaic ages. If we gi'ant our author that " once cultus was spontaneous," that it reflected " special purposes and occasions," that is was " in most intimate, and manifold connec- tion with ordinary life," that is just what should have been, if the Priestly Code was known to the worshippers ; for it leaves the people free to come to the altar, with varying sacrifices, according as their varying aspirations and dangers and experi- ences, and as their very accidents and diseases, may suggest. We think our author ridiculously exaggerates the prevalence of sacrifice, and its emergence from the exigencies of the daily life, as shown in pre-Exilic history ; but, though the illustrations were as plentiful as he holds out, they would not be, to the slightest extent, "polemical" against a knowledge of the Priestly Code. We would point out, too, that the indications, in the pre-Exilic history, are not confined to special, and voluntary, sacrifices, as successive emergencies may suggest them ; there are equally plain indications of the knowledge, and of the observance, of the fixed seasons for sacrifice. Daily oblations are recognised, as an established rule, in the story of Elijah on Carmel, and in Ahaz's directions to Urijah : sabbaths and new moons are in- dicated, as fixed seasons for religious pilgrimage or festival, in the conversations between the Shunammite and her husband, and between Jonathan and David. We thus have the same mingling of fixed and of variable, of general and of individual, sacrifices in the history^ as we have abundantly shown to exist in the Code. The daily, and monthly, oblations are, clearly, independent of any special " exigencies," to render them rea- sonable. We will even run so utterly counter to our author's dream, as to say that neither the pre-Exilic history, nor the Jehovistic Code, recognises " spontaneity " in sacrifice, with half the de- cisiveness, tvhereivith that " spontaneity " is recognised in the A DREAM OF THE PBIESTLY CODE. 477 Priestly Code ! (a) As regards the Mstorij, we do not know a more circumstantial rubric than this : " And the custom of the priests with the people was, that, when any man was zabhach-ing (sacrific-ing) a zelhach (sacrifice), the priest's servant came " (and took of the flesh with a flesh-hook, 1 Sam. 2. 13). That rubric is quite in accordance with spontaneity in sacrifice, and, possibly, suggests it : but it does not assert it : it merely says, in the most indefinite terms, when any one presented an offering : if we had no other guide than that, we could not say, with absolute certainty, whether the seasons, and the kinds, of offerings depended on the inclination of the offerer, or were crystallised for him, in un-alterable rules. (6) As regards the Jehovistic Code^ apart from the three feasts, we do not know a more circumstantial rubric than this : " An altar of earth shalt thou make unto Me, and shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt- offerings and thy peace-offerings, thy sheep and thine oxen " (Exod. 20. 24). But what light does this text throw on the special point before us, viz., whether were these burnt -offerings and peace-offerings to be presented, when the offerer felt inclined, or when some inflexible rule compelled him ? It is quite com- patible with his freedom, but it neither states, nor vindicates, it. We gather from it that sheep and oxen are to be sacrificed, but we cannot gather from it whether they are to be brought at un- alterable seasons, or as the varying occasions of daily life suggest. (c) It is to the Priestly Code we must turn for clear, and com- 'prehensive, and manifold, indications of " spontaneity " in sacrifice, i.e., of the people's privilege to come, throughout the year, with varying sacrifices, as heart and experience may move them. Our author runs riot in superlatives over six pages (with- out, however, transferring a single verse of Scripture to even one of the six pages !) in stigmatising the Priestly Code, as utterly dissociated from daily Ufe, and as utterly repressive of freedom : he would have been nearer the truth, had he said that while, on 478 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. the one hand, the Code recognises fixed appointments in Israel's worship, it is, on the other hand, the very Magna Charta of sacrificial freedom, so far as the varying inclinations, and expe- riences, of individuals are concerned. III. The length, and, we trust, the clearness, with which we have urged the two fundamental points, already dealt with, may enable us to dispose, with more rapidity and effect, of some of the points which remain. For example, what Wellhausen urges about the personality of the offerer, may almost be said to have its complete refutation, in what we have just advanced. On this point, his dream was that, in pre-Exilic time, he saw the sacrifices presented by men and women, in ordinary flesh and blood t sometimes he saw an "individual," sometimes he saw a " family," sometimes he saw a " society," but he always saw a " definite circle " of human " guests," with throbbing hearts, and with impelling experiences. The Friestist came, and he saw the worshippers straightway stripped of personal identity : he no longer saw definite individuals, surrounding the altar : the worshippers had become an etherealised, and abstract, shadow : " the smaller sacred fellowships get lost ": the indivi- dual has " lost himself," in an imaginary " universal congrega- tion " : the worshipper has become " mainly ideal," he has " be- come abstract," he has " disappeared in a neutral shadow," he has passed into*"« spiritual entity which could be kept together by no other means except worship." This abstractness of the worshippers, while it is said to be " foreign to Hebrew an- tiquity," is declared, as a quite novel characteristic, to "rww through the Priestly Code from leginning to end.^' (1) The change is certainly a marvellous one, but it is a mere — Imagination. Any one, who has read the quotations from Scripture, in our immediately preceding pages, will at once discern that, in these pronouncements, Wellhausen is merely A DREAM OF THE PRIESTLY CODE. 479 multiplying statements of the thing that is not, regarding the Priestly Code. It does not prescribe sacrifices, to be offered by "abstract spiritual entities," but by concrete individuals. " When any man of you offereth an oblation " (Lev. 1. 2), in- troduces the whole statutes : " If his oblation be a burnt- offering " (Lev. 1. 3), " When amj one offereth an oblation of a meal-offering " (2. 1), "If his oblation be a sacrifice of peace- offerings " (3. 1), " When a ruler sinneth " (4. 22), " If any one of the common people sin unwittingly " (4. 27), " If any one sin in that he heareth the voice of adjuration, or if any one touch any unclean thing " (5. 1,2), "If any one sin, and com- mit a trespass against the Lord, and deal falsely with his neigh- bour " (6. 2), — these are, surely, individualistic enough occa- sions ; and they are just a list of occasions for sacrifice, ex- tracted from the foundation statutes of Lev. 1. 1 — 6. 7. (2) In the whole of these chapters (Lev. 1. 1 — 6. 7), " the universal congregation " is only once introduced, as the subject of sacrifice, " And if the ivhole congregation of Israel shall err " (Lev. 4. 13) ! When such are the proportions of universal, and of indi- vidual, sacrifices, in these fundamental chapters, is it not prepos- terous to represent " the universal congregation," as the subject, ''^running through the Priestly Code from l)eginning to end''? It is surely the very dogmatism, and overwhelraingness, of such representations, that makes people afraid to canvass them ! ''He shall offer it," ''He shall kill it," "He shall lay his hand upon its head," " It shall be accepted for him'"' : the rivers must run backwards, before these standing institutes can be stripped of individualism. We have already explained that the Code is not confined to individualistic offerings : Num. 28 prescribes many national, or non-individual, sacrifices : and they are ac- knowledged elsewhere. But, in Lev. 1—3, which our author declares to be "the JcerneV of the Code, the sacrifices are tvholly individualistic : and, taking the wider sweep of Lev. 1. 480 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. 1 — 6. 7, the individualistic exceed the utiiversalist, in the pro- portion of nearly 20 to 1. (3) There is an equally prominent recognition of indivi- dualistic sacrifices, in other portions of the Code, (a) The Nazirite does not become an *' abstract spiritual entity," when the days of his separation are fulfilled ; he remains a concrete individual ; " he shall be brought to the door of the tent of meeting," " he shall offer his oblation," and so on. (&) The leper, after he has been shut up, and inspected, and cured, has not become a " mainly ideal " person, at the close of the process ; he is an individual still ; " he shall be brought unto the priest," " he that is to be cleansed shall wash his clothes, and shave off all his hair," and so on. (c) So with the woman, and her sacri- fice of purification : " she shall bring a lamb of the first year," " the priest shall make atonement for her, and she shall be clean." In such passages, the Code is laying down the occa- sions, and the materials, and the accompaniments, of the people's individuahstic offerings, as their varying experiences may require them. (4) Xeed we add that, at the three great annual festivals, it is not an " aMract etitiiy,'" that the Code regards as sufficient, for appearing before Jehovah ? Xay, the people must assemble in their thousands, and form " holy convocations." It is not a " mainly ideal " presence of the worshippers that will do ; it must be a corporal, and concrete, presence ; " ye shall have a holy convocation," " ye shall offer an offering," " after this manner, ye shall offer daily, for seven days," " ye shall do no manner of work." There may be sacrifices, at which " the universal con- gregation " are only ideally present : but the same Code has still more stupendous occasions, when that congregation must throng the sacred precincts, concretely, and innumerably, in projmis personis. What can he thought now of the dreamer representing an "ideal," and "abstract," universalism, as A DUE AM OF THE PHIESTLY CODE. 481 '^running through the Priesthj Code from heginning to encr? IV. The fourth scene, in his vision, is a direct offshoot from the " abstract entity," just considered, and represents the shift- ing of an ecclesiastical burden, from the shoulders of " the kings of Judah," to the shoulders of "the community." In pre- Exilio time, our author saw the kings regularly providing the fixed sacrifices, in connection with God's w^orship : further down, he saw Ezekiel confirming this kingly impost : but, when the Priestist arose, there was no king to operate upon, and so he saw him fixing the impost on the worshippers. As this point has not previously occurred for notice, on our pages, we shall quote our author's exact description of the evolution. He has emphasised that the worshippers have become "ab- stract," after the Exile, under the Priestly Code, and he continues : — " Hence the necessity for the general Temple-tax, the prototype of which is found in the poll-tax of half a shekel for the service of the tabernacle in Exod. 30. H seq. Prior to the Exile, the regular sacrifice was paid for by the Kings of Judah, and in Ezekiel the monarch still continues to defray the exj^enses not only of the Sabbath day and festival sacrifices (45, 17 seq.), but also of the tamidli (46. 13-15). It is also a mark of the date that, according to Exod. 30, the expenses of the Temple worship are met directly out of the poll-tax levied from the community, which can only be ex- plained by the fact that at that time there had ceased to be any sovereign. So completely was the sacrifice the affair of the com- munity in Judaism that the voluntary liorhan of the individual became metamorphosed into a money payment as a contribution to the cost of the pubhc worship " (Mark 7. 11> 12. 42 seq. ; Matt. 27. 6) (p. 80). We have often striven to pour contempt on our author's "^;/*(?o/s," but the fore-going would out-distance many of them, if there were a race which should prove most reckless, and ridiculous. It will be observed that, in the sentences quoted, S2S93. H H 482 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. he is professing to present a proof of "the date" of the Priestly Code, and that he derives this proof, from a critical considera- tion of six of its verses (Exod. 30. 11-lG). That his proof may be the better appreciated, we shall (as we have done with some of his previous proofs) turn it into the syllogistic form. it is this : (A) The impost, in Exod. 30, has resj^ect to " the expenses of the Temple worship," and such an impost is con- ceivable, only when the sacrificial system has become " abstract," and " completely the affair of the community." This is the major premiss. (B) Such an " abstract " fixture of the sacri- ficial system is met with, only after the Exile, when it was rigorously set up by the Priestly Code. This is the minor pre- miss. (C) Therefore Exod. 30 is post-Exilic. If the major premiss of an argument can be shown to be erroneous, and in- conclusive, on two independent grounds, and if, in addition, the minor premiss can be shown to be quite erroneous, very little credit will remain for the conclusion. We undertake to make good these three charges against the above syllogism. (1) The first content of the major premiss is that the im- post, in Exod. 30. 11-16, provides for "the expenses of the Temple Worship." But it does nothing of the hind. It, avow- edly, deals with "service at the tent of meeting^'"' and never names " the Ternj^h^ Moses is directed, when the people are numbered, to exact half a shekel from each, to constitute a heave-offering to Jehovah, to make atonement for their souls ; and the disposal of this exaction is described, in these very general terms, " and thou shalt take this money of the atone- ments from the children of Israel, and shalt appoint it for service (i.e. for some sacred use) at the tent of meeting ; and (there) shall it be to the children of Israel for a memorial in the i^resence of Jehovah, to make atonement for your souls." The particular " service," to which it is to be devoted, is not here specified : but, when we go forward to the actual making A DREAM OF THE PRIESTLY CODE. 483 of the tabernacle, and to the actual payment of the half shekels, the "service," on which the money is expended, is clearly specified, in a subsequent chapter, as follows j — **' And the silver of them that were numbered of the congregation was an hundred talents, and a thousand seven hundred and three- score and fifteen shekels, after the shekel of the sanctuary: a bekah for every man, that is, half a shekel, after the shekel of the sanctuary, for every one that went to be numbered, from twenty years old and upward, for six hundred thousand and three thousand and five hundred and fifty men. And of the hundred talents of silver were cast the sockets of the sanctuary, and the sockets of the vail ; an hundred sockets of the hundred talents, a talent for a socket. And of the thousand seven hundred seventy and five shekels he made hooks for the pillars, and overlaid their chapi- ters, and filleted them" (Exod. 38» 25-28). There is here not the slightest reference to " Temple," nor to " sacrifices." The silver shekels go to form " sockets for the sanctuary," and "hooks for its pillars." The impost is not an annual one, to provide for each year's " expenses of worship " : it is a single, and unique, exaction, taken when Moses numbers the people, and its consecration is expressly recorded to have been realised, in the provision of silver " sockets " and " hooJcs " for the sanctuary, "VYellhausen shuts his eye to all this, and asks his reader to believe that these half -shekels were " directly " intended \fy purchase fixed sacrifices, when the people came back from Babylon ! It is seldom that, even on his pages, a demon- stration, of such mingled absurdity and audacity, is to be found. We may note, as an undesigned corroboration of the naturcd- ness of the sacred use, specified in Exod. 38. 26-28, a similar narrative of " atonements for our souls," in the form of golden jewels, being brought into the tabernacle, to be " to the children of Israel for an abiding memorial in Jehovah's presence." When the immense spoil of Midian was captured, part of it was H H 2 484 8ANCTUABY AND SACBIFICE. claimed, as consecrated for Jehovali, and its disposal is thus described : — "We have therefore brought an oblation for the Lord, what every man hath gotten, of jewels of gold, chains, and bracelets, rings, earrings, and tablets, to make an atonement for our souls before the Lord. And Moses and Eleazar the priest took the gold of them, even all wrought jewels. And all the gold of the offering that they offered up to the Lord, of the captains of thousands, and of the captains of hundreds, was sixteen thousand seven hundred and fifty- shekels. (For the men of war had taken spoil, every man for himself.) And Moses and Eleazar the priest took the gold of the captains of thousands and of hundreds, and brought it into the tent of meeting, for a memorial for the children of Israel before the Lord" (Num. 31. 50-54). "We have here a precisely similar consecration (except that it is gold, instead of silver) to what we have been occupied with, in Exodus. Will Wellhausen hold that this Midianite gold went to purchase fixed sacrifices, when the people returned from Babylon ! (2) We have said enough to dispose of Wellhausen's major premiss, and, therewith, of his whole argument. But we said there were two independent demolitions, of which his major ]Da*emiss was susceptible. The other is this : Even assume that the impost, in Exod. 30, is to buy the fixed sacrifices, for a post- Exilic Temple, does this prove that vohintary sacrifices icere fovbiclden^ under the arrangements of that Temple ? It affords " not the faintest trace " of such proof. The people might be taxed half-a-shekel each, to provide for their fixed national sacrifices, but this is, surely, quite compatible, not only with the existence of their voluntary, and varying, sacrifices, but even with these latter exceeding the fixed sacrifices tenfold every year, His major premiss is, therefore, on two grounds, a per- fect hallucination. (3) We have already shown that his minor premiss is equally inconsequeut, inasmuch as the Priestly Code gives to voluntary. A BEEAM OF THE PRIESTLY CODE. 485 and to individualistic, sacrifices, unmistakeable prominence-. What becomes of a syllogism, when hoth its premisses can thus be disgracefully annihilated ? (4) It is hardly worth while to point out other weaknesses, in the sentences quoted. But his pompous utterances, about "monarch" and "sovereign," are very open to mockery. {a) He says the putting of the impost, in Exod. 30, on the shoulders of the common people, " can only be explained by the fact that at that time there had ceased to be any sovereigm*' We beg to mount the " Higher Critic " stilts, for a moment-, and to reply : "It can only be explained by the fact that at that time there had not yet arisen any sovereign." Both statements are equally good, and equally gross, caricatures of criticism. {V) It will be seen that he here maintains fixed and " regular sacrifice," to have characterised the whole period of " the kings of Judah." But the essence of his " thesis " is that national sacrifices were, dinging that 2^eriod, virtually unknown : it was the "family," or the "clan," that sacrificed, not the " universal congregation," either through itself, or through the " king." This fact shows how impossible it is to keep a merely imaginary system free from perpetual self-contradiction, (c) He quotes part of Ezek. 45, as if it contained litercd sacrificial re- gulations, to be observed by " the monarch " : he knows that that chapter lays down, with equal rigour.^ other regulations for priests, for people, and for " monarch," which no human in- genuity could render capable of literal observance in Canaan. {d) In whatever era the author of Exod. 30 may have lived, we know that Ezekiel wrote his Vision, at a time " when there had ceased to he any sovereign." And if he "published" that A^ision (as our author pretends) " as a programme for the re- stored theocracy^' he ought to have known that he was ^'- iml)- lishing " for a period, when neither " sovereign'' nor '^ monarch " would again bear sway in Judah. How preposterous to entrust 486 SANCTUAEY AND SACBIFICE. the chief regulation of Israel's future worship to a " monarch," who would never arise, and who, even while the prophet wrote, had become an official of the past ! We almost feel as though we had pursued Wellhausen's '' Temple-tax " phantom too long. The Priestly Code will not consent to be moved a thousand years down the stream of time, merely because a German author, ivlien in a dream^ mistook the " sockets " and " hooks " of the sanctuary for post-Baby- lonian sacrifices. '' Somnia longa : vita hrevisy So we must hurry on. Y. The fifth scene, in his Arcadian dream, was that he saw all previous generations, un-bound by " statute " ; he saw them shaping the sacrifices, which " every branch of life " suggested, as they pleased : but, as the ages passed, he saw a Priestist arise, who brought this happy freedom to an end ; he banished " the warm pulse of life " from sacrifice, by his stern regula- tions : ''now it is a thing of statute'''': "« manifoJdness of rites''' now reigns: ''technique is noiv the 7nain tiling^ and strict fidelity to ridmc"" : woe to any one who does not noiv " stricthj and accuratelg comply ivith the restrictions of the ordinance " ! Like the other alleged doings of tlie Priestist, this one also is a dream, and nothing more. Israel was bound by " statutes " of worship, far back as Ave can trace their history. (1) Our author l)elieves in Ezekiel : let him read his twentieth chapter, and he will find emphatic enforcement of the truth, that God gave Israel His " statutes," and His " judgments," not when they came back from Babylon, but when they had come out of Egypt iuto the wilderness ; and that these " statutes " plenti- fully concerned worship, as their very object was to give them a finer service than ''the abominations of their idols." (2) Our author believes in Nehemiah : let him read his ninth chapter, A DREAM OF THE PJRIE8TLY CODE. 487 and he will find that he occnpies the same stand-point as Ezekiel : he looks to the period of the Exodns, and of God's " coming down upon Mount Sinai," as the period, when His " right judgments and true laws. His good statutes and com- mandments," were fundamentally delivered to Israel. (?>) Our author believes in the Jehovist : he says he legislated, some four centuries before Nehemiah (though Nehemiah " knows nothing " of him !) : does not the Jehovist make worship a matter of " statute " ? will he allow the very " steps of the altar " to be as the offerer pleases ? does he not forbid, by " statute," the very " hewing of altar stones " ? does he not fix, by " statute," the number, and the seasons, of sacrificial festivals ? Our author says, " If any one (under the Priestist) in the fulness of his heart had offered in a zehhacJi shelamim jnore pieces of flesh than the ritual enjoined, it would have been the wors3 for him" (p. 78). To which we reply, "If any one (under the Jehovist) in the fulness of his heart had kept a firstling nine days, instead of seven, with its dam ; or if he had kept ten annual festivals, instead of three, to Jehovah ; or if he had left the flesh of the passover ail night until the morning, it would have leen the ivorse for him.'' " Statute " is as ineffaceably stamped on the one code, as it is on the other ; and our author could never have pronounced a divine sacrificial statute impossi- ble till after the Exile — if he had not been in Arcadia, and dreaming. (4) He often points to 1 Sam. 2. 12-17 : is it not unspeakably clear there, tha,t there are " statutes " about the "burning of the fat," and about the after-consumpt of the sacrificial " flesh " ? (5) His Jehovist points to God giving to Abraham, long before the Exodus, " My charge, My comman:!- ments. My statutes, and My laws " (Gen. 26. 5) : is it conceiva. ble there was not a '* statute " of worship, in the whole ? YI. Our author saw also, in his dream, that the pre-Exilic 488 SANCTUABY AND SACRIFICE. ages were verily "the good days of old"; he saw every altar a scene of " merry mciMng "; "oz^r hanquets for all sorts of occa- sions " were " the most obvious comparison " for what he saw ; ^'fhe ancient offerings ivere ivholly of a joyous nature^'' \ he heard nothing but " music and song^ timbrels, flutes, and stringed instruments.'''' The Priestist came, and all was changed : all " natural elements " and '\joyous meals " were banished now : the people came back from Babylon, with a ^^ neutral sJiadow,'' that would never lift : '''no greater contrast could le conceived than the monotonous seriousness of the so-called Mosaic worshijj " (i.e. of the Priestly Code). (1) It is difficult to realise how any one, with the Code before him, could pen such representations, (a) Why, it is in the Code, and in the Code alone, that we have a direct prescription of those " meals,'^ that made the days of old so enjoyable ! {h) It is the Code, that prescribes one of the grandest of sacrificial gatherings, in th.^^^ funereal (?) words : " And ye shall take you on the first day the fruit of goodly trees, branches of palm trees, and boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook : AND YE SHALL REJOICE BEFORE THE LORD YOUR GOD SEVEN days" (Lev. 23. 40). Does that look like ''monotonous seriousness " .^ Clearly, our author had not seen a Priestly In- gathering, in his dream, (c) It is strange also if he did not hear " music,^' under the Code ; for one of its most prominent ordinances is a joyous musical celebration : "In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall be a solemn rest unto you, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, an holy convocation " (Lev. 23. 24) : literally, it is " a memorial of joyful shouting^' bat such " shouting " is as remote from " monotonous serious- ness," as are the " trumpets." {iV) "We have the " trumpets " indubitably, and the Priestly Sacrifices, in general, associated with abundant " gladness," in the following prescription of the Code : " Also in the day of your gladness, and in your set A DBEAM OF THE PBIESTLY CODE. 489 feasts, and in the beginnings of your months, ye shall Mow ivith the trum2)ets over your durnt-offerinys, and over the sacrifices of your jieace-offeriuys ; and they shall be to you for a remem- brance before your God : I am the Lord your God " (Num. 10. 10). By what words could " the so-called Mosaic tuorsliip'" (so far as sacrifice is concerned) have been more comiwehensively glanced at^ than in that verse ? and was it possible to have described that worship at a more utter remove from " mono- tonous seriousness " ? (2) If our author's transition, " from gay to grave," had been a reality, and not a dream, we ought to find its darker, or graver, side, faithfully reflected in post-Exilic ivorship : for it is " from the atmosphere of the church of the second Temple that the Priestly Code draws its breath '* (p. 82) : its " ordinances are scrupidously followed by the post-Exilian time" (p. 82). AYe have tested his sketch by the Code : we shall now test it by the history. And we shall be so fair with him as to quote every example of post-Exilic worship, which the historians present. («) What then do we find in Ezra 3 ? The first half of the chapter describes the setting up of the altar, and the establish- ment of the daily, monthly, and annual sacrifices : the second half describes the laying of the foundation of the Temple, with its priestly accompaniments, which are such as these : " they set the priests in their apparel ivith trumj^ets, and the Levites the sons of Asaph icith cymhcds " ; " they sany one to another in praising and giving thanks unto the Lord " : " all the people shouted ivith a yreat shout, when they praised the liord " : " the people shouted with a loud shout, and the noise ivas heard afar offy Is that one of the scenes of " monotonous seriousness," which our author saw, in vision ? {h) What do we find, some twenty years later, in Ezra 6 ? The Temple is now finished, and we are told of the spirit, in 490 SAKCTUAEY AND SACEIFICE. which the sacrifices, at its dedication, were observed : " And the children of Israel, the priests and the Levites, and the rest of the children of the Captivity, kept the dedication of this house of God icith joy. And they offered at the dedication of this house of God an hundred bullocks, &c." In the same chapter, the spirit, in which they kept the passover, is com- memorated : " And the children of Israel . . . did eat, and kept the feast of unleavened bread seven days ivith joy ; for the Lord had made them joyful^ and had turned the heart of the king of x4.ssyria unto them." {c) What do we find, after the city is rebuilt, and the cities of Judah are inhabited, in Xeh. 8 ? Again, " when the seventh month was come " (7. 73), the people " gathered themselves to- gether as one man " (8. 1) to Jerusalem, and Ezra reads the Book of the Law to them (8. 2-8) ; and, throughout the seven days of the feast of tabernacles, "also day by day, from the first day unto the last day, he read in the Book of the Law of God" (8. IB). "With what feehngs are these memorable services accompanied ? The people are yrief -stridden, when they hear the words of a Law, which has been so dishonoured ; and the great effort of Kehemiah, and of Ezra, and of the Levites, has to be to get them to hanish yloom and melancholy, and to engage in Jehovah's service ivith overfloiiiny joy ! "This day is holy unto the Lord : mourn not nor tceep " : " Go your way, eat the fat, and drinh the sweet, and send i^ortions to him for whom nothing is prepared": "And all the people went their way to eat, and to drhik, and to send portions, and to malte yreat mirth " (8. 9-12). " And there was very yreat yladness " (8. 17). If that be a "' scnqndous following" of the Priestly Code, in what crevice of the narrative can the '^monotonous seriousness " be discerned ? (d) There is only one other post-Exilic sacrifice, whose style of observance is commemorated. After the citv, comes the city A DBEAM OF THE PBIESTLY CODE. 491 wall ; and we have an account of the worship, and of the sacrifices, "at the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem," in Xeh. 12. 27-43. What were the spirit, and the accompaniments, of the service ? " They sought the Levites out of all their places, to bring them to Jerusalem, to keep the dedication tcith gladness, both with thanlcsgivings, and with singing, with cgmbals, psalteries, and with haiys " (12. 27) : " Then I brought up the princes of Judah upon the wall, and appointed two great companies, that gave thanks and went in procession " (12. 31) : the two companies perambulate the wall, and meet in the house of God : "And the singers sang loud, with Jezrahiah their overseer. And they offered great sacrifices that day, and rejoiced; for God had made them rejoice with great jog ; and the women also and the children rejoiced; so that the jog of Je- rusalem was heard even afar off''' (12. 42, 43). Strange that not an echo of this '' great jog, '^ and ^^ singing J' and clanging " cymbcds " and '' ^psalteries,'' reached Wellhausen, in his dream ! We say advisedly that, though the post-Exilic historians had foreseen Wellhausen's pronouncement on the " monotonous seriousness''' of the Priestly Code, and had arranged their history with a view to its sure refutation, they could hardly have annihilated it, with more overwhelming emphasis than they have done. (3) Nay, these historians have covertly made the very Icings of Persia "polemical" against Wellhausen. For, has he not told us that, in those sacrifices, which have "an enormous importance in the Priestly Code " (in contrast with previous social sacrifices), " everything is kept far out of sight which could recall a meal, as, for example, the accompaniments of meal and tcine, oil and scdt" (p. 73) ?• The absence of these "accompaniments" indicates the non-social character of the Code, (a) But what says Darius ? " Moreover I make a decree . . . that of the king's goods . . . both young 492 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. bullocks and rams and lambs, for burnt-offerings to the God of heaven, tcheat, salt, tcine, and oil, according to the word of the priests which are at Jerusalem, shall be given them day hy day without fail " (Ezra 6. 8, 9). {!)) What says Artaxerxes ? " And I, even I Artaxerxes the king, do make a decree, to all the treasurers which are beyond the river, that whatsoever Ezra the priest, the scribe of the Law of the Grod of heaven, shall re- quire of you, let it be done with all diligence, unto an hundred talents of silver, and to an hundred measures of wheat, and to an hundred haths of ivine, and to an hundred laths of oil, and salt, without prescribing how much " (Ezra 7. 21, 22). These kings do not seem to have realised that all the "ac- companiments," that " could recall a meal," should be " ]i:ept far out of sight,'' in post-Exilic sacrifices. Clearly, their reading of the Priestly Code differed from Wellhausen's dreaming of it. Not, if they can help it, will " monotonous seriousness " reign, in post-Exihan Judah. YII. The last contrast, which our author dreamed of, between the free pre-Exilic worshippers, and those who groaned under the Priestly Code, was that the former were not burdened by any reference to " sin,'' in their sacrifices ; it was not to appease any " incalcidaUe ivrath of God," that they came to the altar ; " a merrymalcing lefore Jehovah " was the whole affair ; " an underlying reference of sacrifice to sin, speaking generally, was entirely absent." The Priestist, on the other hand, inaugurated a dark era of sin, and wrath, and bloody atonement ; to the " service, amid all its diversities of ritual," which he i^rescribes, " a continuously underlying reference to sin is common throughout"; he abolishes the era of " special purposes and occasions of sacrifice," and inaugurates " the 0}ie unifo7in and universal occasion — that of sin ; the one uniform and universal purpose — that of propitiation'' A DEEAM OF THE PBIESTLY CODE. 493 Any one, with but a limited knowledge of Scripture, and of human nature, might discern the foregoing, on the mere hearing of it, to be an idle Imagination. We have already animadvert- ed on much of its strangeness, in Chap. II. of this Part, and we need not here repeat ourselves. Indeed, if, in our immediately preceding paragraphs, we have proved that '^songs'' and ^^ great joxj " and " very great gladness " may be characteristics of post-Exilic sacrifices, Wellhausen would hardly care to pro- long the battle over "sm"; for it is on the alleged absence of these characteristics from the Code, that he founds his doctrine, that the Code is everywhere occupied, almost exclusively, with "sin": and, when the foundation is gone, he can maintain little practical interest in the super-structure. Yet it may not be out of place to add a few words of additional, and indepen- dent, criticism on this romantic " thesis "—specially, as the treatment of " sin " and " wrath," in the divine economy, must have a fundamental interest, for all who believe in one un- alterable scheme of redemption, from Adam's Fall till now. (1) He does not base his thesis on any support, which either branch of it can derive, from direct declarations of Scripture. We have found this to be an unfailing characteris- tic of every discovery, which he achieves. Scripture " hioivs nothing " of them. Certainly, there is no fragment, either of statement, or of implication, that sacrifice had no association with " sin," till after Jerusalem was in ruins. There is no an- nouncement that all pre-Exilic ages could come before God, like the Pharisee in the parable, merely " thanking Him that they were not as other nations were"; and that it was only on the remnant, that came back from Babylon, that the sense of " sin " began to weigh, inducing them, like the publican, to associate sacrifice with the prayer, " God be propitiated to me, the sinner." Wellhausen's thesis, practically, presupposes successive genera- tions of Enochs.) who were always " loalMng tvith God,''' whose 494 SAXCTUABY AND SACRIFICE. religion was always " inm^figuring and glorifying the lieiglits and depths of their daily life^'' who never failed in due sacri- ficial consecration of the '''' occasions presented by the vicissitudes of individual and social life ": it is just an amplification, with suitable variations, of Ovid's^ — ^'' Aurea prima sata est aetas'^ But Scripture does not supply this picture: it makes Enoch a moral miracle, even in his early age, who was surrounded by " giants in wickedness," and whose " walk " was so exceptional, that it was rewarded with — " God took him." Scripture re- presents " <^/// /^sA as corriiptiiig their u'ay''\ ''every imagi- nation of the thought of their heart as leing eviV; even His chosen Israel as " rejecting His statutes, and His covenan that He made ivith their fathers, and His testimonies that He testi- fied unto them^^ as " stecding, murdering, and committing adultery, and sicearing falsely, and burning incense unto Bacd, and ivalHng after other gods luhom they had not hiown" The notion that generations of suck worsliippers were adepts at making religion *' the blossom and the fruit of every branch of life,'' and that they never needed the slightest " underlying reference to six," in all their sacrificial services, is so prepos- terous, that it might quite safely be repudiated off-hand : neither Scripture, nor probability, gives it an atom of support. Neither do they lend the remotest countenance to the notion that, for the first time, sin began to be felt as an oppressive burden, and that, for the first time, sacrifice began to be pro- pitiatory, when Cyrus sent the dispirited exiles home from Babylon. Sin was present, in uncounted forms, and as the deepest and never-failing occasion of sacrifice, from Cain and Abel downwards. Our author's thesis is thus not only un- supported, but is most significantly, and most manifoldly, discredited, by the contents of Scripture. (2) We often find that our author is as " polemical " against himself, as against Scripture. And we seem to find this here A DUE AM OF THE PlilESTLY CODE. 495 again. There are two pre-suppositions, on his previous pages, which do not seem to consort very readily with his doctrine of " sin " and " propitiation," which we are at present considering. He is not now dreaming for the first time : in the course of Chap. VIII. of this Part, we remarked that he has two Arcadian dreams, the one we are now interpreting, and the other occupying pp. 61-63. Now, if he is to be a reliable guide, the " two " dreams, like Pharaoh's, must be " one." But they hardly stand this test. We find two collisions between them, as regards the matter now under review. In the present dream, we are finding him declare that propitiation, speaking generally, was " entirely ahsent " from pre-Exilic sacrifices, and that it was established into prominence, only after the Exile. But, in the previous dream, he told us that propitiation was included, as a realised aim, in all sacrifices from the first. We again quote his words : " As regards the distinction between bloodless and bloody offer- ings, the latter, it is well known, are preferred in the Old Testa- ment, but, strictly speaking, the former also have the same value and the same efficacy. The incense-offering is represented as a means of ^propitiation (Lev. 16 ; Num. 17. 12 [A.Y. 16. 47]), so also are the ten thousands of rivers of oil figuring between the thousands of rams and the human sacrifice in Micah Q. That the cereal offering is never anything but an accompaniment of the animal sacrifice is a rule which does not hold, either in the case of the shewbread or in that of the high priest's daily minchah'^ (Lev. 6. 13 [A.Y. 20] ; Neli. 10. 35). It will be observed that " the same efficacy " is here, not loosely, but " strictly, speaking," attributed to all sacrifices, throughout pre-Exilic time ; and that the special " efficacy " of their being " a means of propitiation " is claimed for " in- cense," for " rivers of oil," and for " the cereal offering " (apart from " the animal sacrifice "). Now, if even " meal " and "oil "were thus habitually attaining to "propitiation," what is the use of telling us, in the second dream, that reference to 496 SANCTUABY AND SACRIFICE. " sin " was, practically, " entirely absent," in all pre-Exilic sacrifices ? His admission, in the quotation we have made, opens an ample door for the plentiful multiplication of offer- ings for " sin," throughout pre-Exilic time — a multiplication, which, we have shown, exactly met the requirements of Jew and Gentile. Under that admission, Cain might have been seeking "propitiation" with his "fruit," as well as Abel with his "firstlings." (3) We said there were two seeming contrasts, as regards the matter in hand, between the two dreams. On the same page as we have last quoted from, Wellhausen expatiates on the extraordinary Semitic veneration for "blood," as containing " the substance of the life." It is well known that the sacri- ficial Law establishes a very jealous prohibition of the " eating of blood," because " the life of the flesh is in it," and lecause " God has given it on the altar to make atonement ": and it is equally known that this prohibition is not made to originate at tJie Exile, nor with Moses, but in Noah's day. What proof, then, can our author give that " atonement by blood " was not a recognised institute, from the first ? He cannot give the slightest. He admits the existence of what is a natural conse- quence of such an institute, viz., the sanctity, with which blood was regarded, and the ^^ religious scruple,''^ that was felt at shedding it : he does not say that this sanctity, and this scruple, arose at the Exile, he says they characterised " the axciext Semites " (p. 63) : they regarded life, whose substance was blood, as '^ ]u(ving something mysterious and divine ahoutit; they felt a certain religious scruple alout destroying iV (p. 63). Whence this veneration ? The fact that blood had been, all along, the recognised symbol of propitiation, is a natural, and sufficing, explanation. Wellhausen can neither disprove this cause, nor prove any other. His statement, therefore, that propitiation became prominent, only after the A JDBEAM OF THE PBIESTLY CODE. 497 Exile, is not only quite imaginary, but does not fit in well with his own emphatic enforcement that " the outpouring and sprink- ling of blood was in all sacrifices a rite of conspicuous import- ance " (p. 63). We seem left with an effect, without a cause. (4) We will now add that it is the almost inevitable in- ference, from the phraseology, and from the representations, of Scripture, that all animal sacrifices, notably the burnt -offerings, had propitiation, as one of their objects, from the first, (a) The recognition of chattafh and asham, as special forms of expiation, does not prevent other animal sacrifices being expiatory too : Ezekiel certainly recognises chattath and asham, yet he assigns " to make atonement for them (saith the Lord God) " (45. 15), as a result of minchah^ of ^olah^ and of shelamim. (b) Levi- ticus minutely details chattath and asham, yet it associates "atonement" with the ^olah also, "it (the 'olah) shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him " (Lev. 1. 4). (c) Sacrifices are generalised by 'olah, in Ezra 3. 3-6, and 6. 9, and by zalhach^ in 4. 2, and 6. 3, 10 ; but we see, from 6. 17, that this does not prevent chattath being known to the writer. {cJ) Similarly, in Ezra 8. 35, one hundred and eighty-five animals are sacrificed as 'oloth, and twelve as a chattath, and the whole are immediately general- ised, as 'olah, "all this was a 'olah unto Jehovah." {e) Nehemiah certainly knew of chattath, but, when he de- scribes all Israel as gathered to Jerusalem, and offering " great sacrifices," he generalises them all as zelhachim (12. 43). The fact, that these generalisations are post-Exilic, strengthens their significance, as against Wellhausen : we found similar generali- sations, in the Priestly Code itself : and, combined, these generalisations prove the utter wantonness of the pretence, that no '''' ^propitiatory " offerings were included, when it is so often recorded, in pre-Exilic history, that ^oloth, or ^oloth and zelfhachim, were presented to Jehovah. According to Well- S2893. I I 498 SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE. hausen, Noah coald come out of the ark, and see a desolated world, as the fruit of " sin " ; yet he was *' wholly joyous " ; even an underlying reference to sin was " entirely absent " from the sacrifice he offered. According to "Wellhausen, Gideon and Manoah could see God's anger burning fiercely against Israel, and utter misery overspreading the land, on account of " sin "; and yet they were '''' wholly joyous'''' ; even an underlying reference to sin was " entirely absent " from the sacrifices they offered. According to Wellhausen, David, at Araunah's thresh- ing floor, might know of seventy thousand of Israel, struck dead for his " sin " ; he could cry in anguish, " Lo, I have sinned^ and I have done perversely," and he could vow a sacrifice, " that the plague may he stayed " : and yet throughout he was ^' wholly joyous ^^\ even an underlying reference to sin was "entirely absent" from the sacrifices he offered. Credat Areas I (5) "We have offered the foregoing comments, because of the inherent importance of the subject, rather than in reply to any serious arguments, put forth by Wellhausen. And, returning now from these rejoinders, which his un-supported dogmatism hardly merited, we have to repeat that his only proof that " sin " (as the occasion), and "propitiation" (as the object), of sacrifice, are mainly post-Exilic, is the alleged extinction of "^oj/," and the alleged establishment of " monoto)\ous serious- ness,'^ by the Priestly Code. But, so far from joy being extinguished, we have made the post-Exilic " cymbals," and " psalteries," clang with such a tumultuous noise, as might awake any dreamer ! If " propitiation " and " joy " are incom- patiUe, then the Priestly Code froivns upon " the one uniform and universal purpose of sacrifice — that of propitiation " ; for that Code fosters aMndant joy ! It multiplies the people's shelamim, and multiplies their " meals " ; and it bids them, in the days of their gladness, " Now with tlie trumpets over their A DEE AM OF THE PEIESTLY CODE. 499 hurnt-offerings, and over their iJeace-offeringsr No one -can doubt that the psahiiist is founding on that Code, when he cries " Sing aloud unto God our strength : make a joyful noise unto the God of Jacob. Take up the j^sahn, and bring hither the timbi'el, the pleasant ha?-p with the psaltery. Blow up the trumiM in the new moon, at the full moon, on our solemn feast-day. For it is a statute for Israel, an ordinance of the God of Jacob " (Ps. 81. 1-4). If our author could prove that sacrificial joy was even a more marked pre-Exilic characteristic than he can, he would not be advancing himself a hairs- breadth in the proof, that the Priestly Code ivas not tlien reigning, and regulating. That Code can allow " very great gladness " to a Solomon, or to a Josiah, as readily as to an Ezra, or to a Nehemiah. (6) Our concluding remark, on this topic, is that, instead of being repelled by the combination, which we have demonstrated to exist in the Priestly Code, we should welcome that combina- tion, as natural and reasonable, in the extreme. A moment's reflection might convince Wellhausen that " propitiation " and " joy," so far from being incompatiUe, form one of the most pleasing conjunctions, that human experience can supply. Did he never read the opening of the 32nd Psalm ? The writer, there, is so transported with joy, that he breaks out abruptly, " Oh, the blessedness ! " (which I am contemplating). And what is that " blessedness " ? It is the blessedness, founded on ^'' propitiation,^^ — the blessedness of " the man whose trans- gression is /or_^iVe?i, and whose sin is covered^^ Let him ponder the 22nd Psalm : there, the depths of misery lead straightway on (when the propitiation has been made) to the heights of tri- umph : " Why hast Thou forsaken me ? Many bulls have compassed me: lam poured out like water": and straight- way, " I will declare Thy name unto my brethren : of Thee cometh my praise in the great congregation." We have a similar 112 500 SANCTUARY AND SACBIFICE. conjunction, or succession, in the 69th Psalm, and in several others. The 51st Psalm opens with an overwhelming sense of sin and guilt, but it represents "J9rojt?^W«/^o?^," as leading straightway on to the " restoring of the Joy of Thy salvation," and this "joy," as realising itself, in'^ offering biiUocJcs on Thine altar. ^"^ In prophecy, Isa. 53 describes the servant of Jehovah, as " despised and rejected of men," and " bearing the chastise- ment of our peace," but, before it ends, it has Him " prolonging His days," and " dividing the spoil with the strong." SiccJi 'passages are almost perfect analogies to the sacrifices of the Priestly Code. That Code does not prescribe sin-offerings, to be always offered hy themselves : it illustrates sin-offerings, and burnt-offerings, and peace-offerings, being offered simul- taneoKsly : and it is the expiations^ yoing hefore^ that render most deeply enjoyable, the " meals," and the " songs," that may follow. Our author starts at the thought of " propitiation," and thinks all must be gloom, and "monotonous seriousness "; anything like freedom, and " joy," must be " far as the east is from the west " from such a sacrifice : Instead of that, " pro- pitiation," and " joy," are " two whom God (and the Priestly Code) have joined together," and whom no short-sighted dreamer may dare to " put asunder." Had it not been for the sprinkling of blood going first, and giving a basis for the joy of atonement, some of the most exuberant of TemjDle songs would never have been pealed, some of the most blissful of Temple meals would never have been eaten. Will our author tell us that the early Christians never lay in sack-cloth and ashes, because they are described as habitually " eating their bread with gladness, and singleness of heart"? or that Paul's converts knew nothing of penitence, and of persecution, because he bids them " rejoice in the Lord alway, and agam he says, rejoice".? Will he tell us that the jailor could not " cry trem- blmg," and " rejoice believing," in the same night ? or that A DBEAM OF THE PEIESTLY CODE, 501 the oppressed of Pharaoh could not "eat bitter herbs," and glory in emancipation, at the same Exodus ? or that an Israel- ite could not present a chattath, and then, " rejoice tvith a joy unsioecikaMe^^ on the same sacrificial occasion ? He maij tell us these things, but he can only do so — wMe he stays in Ar- cadia, and dreams. VIII. We have thus taken a very deliberate, and patient, survey of the seven scenes, into which we analyse the Arcadian dream. Having done so, we find only one other significant circumstance to notice, which is that, in the closing sentences of his chapter on Sacrifice, Wellhausen names " the Christian Churchy And the mention is very suggestive. He says that the marvellous evolution, whose imaginariness and ineptitudes we have just been illustrating, had its fitting culmination, in the system, which Jesus inaugurated. It is really quite im- material into what limhus he describes his evolution, as lapsing ; for it is an evolution which never began, which never went forward, and which never ended ; he only dreamed it. Still it may well give his admirers pause, if they realise what is meant by ending his evolution in the New Testament dispensation. Here is his missing link between the Old Testament and the New : — " The worship receives, so to speak, an ahstract religious cha- racter ; it separates itself in the first instance from daily hf e, and then absorbs the latter by becoming, strictly speaking, its proper business. The consequences for the future ivere momentous. The Mosaic 'congregation' is the mother of the Christian chur'ch; the Jews tvere the creators of that idea" (p. 81). There is such a fine aroma of certitude, and of subHmity, about these forms of expression, as is very apt to be impressive. But when, apart from the general sense of awe, we ask, what in the ivorld do they mean ? the result is very disappointing. We have spread out Wellhausen's evolution (with almost more 502 8AKCTUARY AKD SACRIFICE. carefulness than he does himself) under a seven-fold division ; and we confess ourselves quite at a loss to see how it connects, in any intelligible, or slightest, manner, with the Christian dis- pensation. We have seen what ^^tlie Mosaic congregation^'' with him, means : It means a post-Exilic fossil, " in ivhich the warm jJK^-se of life no longer throllecV: It means a herd of formalists, utterly bereft of " s;pontaneity,^' and shut up to " a manifolclness of rites'': It means a ghostly gathering, who appear only as ''^ an abstract entity'' and whose worship is " mainly ideal " : It means an absent congregation, who need not leave their homes, and w^hose " sacred action came to le regarded as essential! g perfect, in leing imformed ly the priest, even though no one ivas present": It means a body of worshippers, that cannot sanctify the ''''individualising occa- sions " of Hfe, but have to realise that " life and tvorship have fallen apart" : It means a congregation, that has had to ex- change '''"merrymaking" for ^''monotonous seriousness": It means a church, that resembles a dead body without a living spirit, '^the sold ivas fled, — the shell remained." If such a farrago of imaginary discomforts be " the mother of the Christian church," we fear a great many will wish to be un- churched: certainly ^^the consequences ivill be 7nomentous." The true relation of " the Christian church " to Judaism is for other than Wellhausen dreams. We saw, in Part I., how his evolution of the " One Sanctuary " was evolutio a non evolvendo: it began with completion, and it ended with the germ: it began with nomads, realising the One God's Omnipresence, and their freedom to worship Him everywhere (the very truth, which Jesus proclaimed at Jacob's well) ; and it ended with the rigorous enforcement, that "God can be woi'shipped in one place only." It is the same with his evolution of sacrifice : It begins with perfection, with saints that sanctify the ''individua- lising occasions " of life, and, like Enoch, " walk with God," A DUE AM OF THE PRIESTLY CODE. 503 with saints that " stand fast in their liberty " and '' rejoice in the Lord alway "; And it ends in death, in a church that has become "an abstract entity," worsliipping by "deputation," glued to " technique," unable to connect " life and worship." In calling such an evolution a " dream,'* and one of the most preposterous dreams that was ever related, we are not only using what seems the most appropriate word, but we are merely borrowing the word from Wellhausen. He calls traditionalists worse than " dreamers," if they hold by the monstrous principle, that Isaiah, or Hosea, could conceive of God, as issuing a sacri- ficial command ; for he says that " never once^'' even in wildest ^' dream,'' could these prophets contemplate such an awful thing. We will not be so extreme with himself : we think an ordinary " dream " is quite sufficient to explain his unmitigated rhapsodies about the Priestly Code. ( 504 ) CONCLUSION. WE have now dealt with "Wellhausen on Sacrifice," with the same fearlessness as (and with even more fulness than) we accorded to "Wellhausen on the One Sanctuary." Our verdict is, practically, identical, in both instances. He makes out "not the faintest trace" of proof, for his main positions. His pages resemble nothing more closely than a succession of revelations from dreamland. It is difficult to reahse any one, with his " eyes waking," looking at the Law, and at the History, and at the Prophecy, and especially at the Priestly Code, and so utterly distorting them, as our author does. No one will charge us with using such serious words, without having professed to offer the plainest, and most multi- plied, vindications of them. Neither will any one charge us with criticising our author, behind his back ; for we have transferred to our own pages, in exact and exhaustive quotation, his every position, which we have assailed. The points, raised by Wellhausen, cannot possibly be regarded as trivial, or as subsidiary. They, practically, confront us with the alternatives — Is our Old Testament a succession of reliable records ? — or. Is it a bundle of impudent, and discredited, inventions ? "We have not entered on discussion, as to whether a theological respect for, and a theological benefit from, the Old Testament, be compatible with an acceptance of his con- clusions : we have observed that demonstrative assertions of this compatibility are generally received, with a significant leer, CONCLUSION. 505 by the critical Gallio, and we cannot think that the critical Gallic is wrong. A recent volume, with a notable affec- tation of ''Lux,'" was fain, on this topic, to execute a somewhat helpless retreat into " Flux." But there may be times, when ''Flux'' is treason. If you try to fuse "Christ" and "circumcision," " neither we, nor an angel from heaven " (says Paul), dare do so : if you try to make " God's truth abound," through " lies " and " evil," the same censor says, " your condemnation is just ": and, if he could be asked whether Ms God could possibly have patronised, and inspired, Wellhausen's "redactors,'' we cannot think that a fresh " A7ia- thema " would be far from his lips. We have not sought, how- ever, to weigh the theological value of Wellhausen's conclusions ; our exclusive occupation has been in assailing the truth, and the warrantableness of the definite positions, tvhich he successively pro- pounds. We have not aimed at instructing the Bible student that his faith may remain sure and comforting, although all Wellhausen's speculations were established ; we have aimed at instructing him that the bulk of these speculations may safely be cast " as rubbish to the void "—that they are an all too faithful following of the " many false and uncertain steps," which (as the editor of the Encyclopmdia Britannica assured us) his pre- decessors, in " historical criticism," had left as an example. We have taken, as samples, his speculations on " Sanctuary," and on " Sacrifice " : we have taken these, because he presents them first, and because they present such a multitude of crucial tests of his trustworthiness, as a critic, that no reader need plead insufficiency of material, for coming to a decision. The errors, charged throughout our pages, have been so numerous, and so glaring, as to put the " Higher Criticism," as represented in its most admired champion, quite effectually on its trial. At the same time, there would be no difficulty whatever, in proJofiging the charge ; for his speculations on " Feasts," and on " Priests," 506 SANCTUABY AND SACRIFICE. and on "Tithes," in his chapters which immediately follow can be shown to be of the same reckless, and un-authoritative, kind, as those, with which this volume deals. In assailing his speculations, our only weapon has been a fair, and independent, comparison of his pages with those pages of Scripture, which they profess to expound. If the fetchers-and- carriers, who "walk under his huge legs," seem sometimes afraid of contact with them, we have not dealt with their alarms : " he has been set up as our guide in the E7icyclop(P.dia Britannica " (as Mr. Gladstone truly says), and such a would-be national tribute justifies a primary dealing with himself. If an unbroken tradition, through Jew and Gentile, for twenty cen- turies, and a, practically, unanimous consent of all the Churches' Symbols, might be urged against his views, we have not sought one iota of help from such auxiliaries ; we have not made a single appeal to Church Authority. If the doctrine of Divine Inspiration, if the fact that " holy men of old spake as they were borne along by the Holy Ghost," is hardly reconcileable with his views, we have not founded on such considerations either ; we have treated the documents, not as inspired, but as ordinary, documents. If the Eternal Son, the Word made flesh, has made indubitable references to the Old Testament, which seem hardly reconcileable with his views, we have sought no help from such Authority ; we have not once sought victory, by appealing to the Veracity, and to the Infallibility, of Christ. Fair, and free, and ordinary criticism has been our only exer- cise. We have taken the Bible student to " the Bible, and the BiUe alone " : And there we have felt a firm confidence, as well as a great delight, in showing him that Wellhausen's specu- lations are an unsupported — Imagination. ( 507 ) INDEX OF THE PRINCIPAL TEXTS. Chap. Ver. PAGE Chap. Ver. GENESIS. 23. 15 18 .. 19 . 24 . 24. 3 5 4. 3-5 . 173, 175, 290, 292, 296, 298 8.20 291, 293, 298, 498 9. 3 . ... 119, 120 4 . 443, 496 25. 1 8,9 . 28. 31-35 18. 6 ... 303, 304 22. 2,13 377, 380 9 . ... 293 36-3D 26. 5 . 96 149, 487 29. 2, 23 . 35. 14 . 40. 10 . ... . . . 118, 294 ... 318 30. 1-10 1-37 EXODUS. 7,8 . 6. 2-6 . ... 229 9 8. 25-27 143 144, 148 10 . 10. 24-26 148, 377 385, 388 11-16 12. 6 . ... 120 17-21 9 . ... 318 22-33 22-25 ,. ... 147 34-38 13. 2 . ... ... 122 31. 7 3-16 .. ... 147 32. 6 . 15. 17 . ... ... 64 8 . 26 . ... 149 34. 19 . 16. 28, 29 ,. ... 149 25 . 18. 12 377, 385, 388 36. 10-12 20. 22-26 ... ... 44 15, 16 23 . .. 47,60 37. 25-28 -=> 24 48, 49, 134, 368, 377, 477 38. 26-28 24,25 ...63,64,1.33 39. 33-41 26 . ... 133 38,39 21. 13 . 55, 456 40. 1,2 .. 22. 20 ... 368 5,6 .. 29,30 ... 135 9-11 PAGE 135 136 135 140 97 ... 385, 389 97 22 342 341 308 352 347 354 ... 354, 356 360 ... 351, 481-6 351 351 ... 323,351 348 385, 389, 423 369 135 136 348 362 347 483 347 362 2d 3G2 3C1 508 INDEX OF THE PBINCIPAL TEXTS. Chap. Ver. PAGE 1 Chap. Ver. PAGE 40. 17, 18 ... 29 24. 5-9 ... 312 18-33 ... 347 7 ... 323 36-38 ... 22 NUMBERS. LEVITICUS. 4. 4^16 418 1—3 112, 443, 470 5. 6-8 ... 442 1—4 445, 479 15 300, 323 1, 1 ... 97 6. 15 310 4 ... 497 7. 1-89 417,451 5 ... 416 87,88 413 5 9 ... ... 4G8 10. 10 ... 412, 489 ll' ... ... 439 11, 12 22 2. 1-16 309, 416 33-36 22 11 ... 312 11. 8 ... 318 3. 1, 7, 12 ... 387 15. 1-16 449, 472 2 ... 368 3,8 ... 412 1-17 ... 416 22-29 450 4, 5 114, 472 30,31 450 4. 1-35 363 416, 446 23. 1-30 173-5, 383-4 6. 6-13 416 447, 471 3, 15, 17 377 19-23 ... 309 4 ... 293 7. 6, 7 ... ... 441 28. 1-31 • 452 12, 13 ... 310 29. 1-38 452-3 13 ... 313 13 ... ■ 387 15-19 408, 409 39 ... 410,412,453,473 37 ... 412 31. 50-54 484 10. 1-5 ... ... 49 35. 31-33 460 16. 1-34 357-363 17*. 1-7 ... ... 409 DEUTERONOMY. 4, 5, 9 ... 57 4. 33 ... 230 5, 8 ... ... 449 12. 5-12 51-53 7 ... ... 127 6 ... 136 8,9 ... ... 474 7 ... 377, 467 19. 4 ... ... 127 8 ... 137 5,6 ... 4ir , 468, 474 10, 11 230 21,22 ... 439 14. 15 55 20. 1-6 ... ... 127 15 ... 368 21. 16-24 ... 422 27 ... 467 22. 1-16 ... 454 30,31 140 18-21 449, 474 14. 26 ..•. 467 20-22 ... 206 15. 19, 23 135 29, 30 410, 474 20 ... 467 23. 19 ... ... 438 16. 7 ... 318 24 ... ... 488 11 ... 55 37, 38 448, 473 16 ... 135 38 ... ... 410 17. 1 ... 468 40 ... ... ... 488 18. 6-8 ... 55 INDEX OF THE PBINCIPAL TEXTS. 509 Chap. Ver. PAGE Chap. Ver. PAGE 19. 1-13 ... 55 16. 5 .. ... 372 20. 18 ... 140 28. 24 ... 368 26. 18, 19 ... 139 27. 6 ... 377 2 SAMUEL. 6-9 ... 468 6. 13 ... 161 13-17... 378, 385, 393 JOSHUA. 15 ... 5 8. 31 378, 390 7. 6 ... 30 18. 1 ... 19 6-13 .... ... 230 22. 22-29 ... 20 13. 8 ... 5 ... 318 JUDGES. 15. 11, 12 "... 423-4 2. 17 ... 151 24. 22-25 161, 371, 378, 385, 394, 6. 1-32 ... 167- 172, 498 395, 498 2, 6, 25-27 ... 19 1 KINGS. 19 303,311.316-7 20 ... 378 1. 9 ... 425 20, 26 383-4 39 .. ... 28 8. 27 9. 27 ... 19 423^ 2. 28 .. 3. 2-4 .. • 28, 55 ... 33 11. 31 ... 378 4 . 368, 420 13.16 378,380-2 18. 31 17 20. 26 ... 378, 385, 390, 428, 433 21. 4 ... 378,385,391,428,433 19 17 4, 15. 5. 13 . 6. 12, 13 20-22 7. 48-50 8. 1 . ...371, 374, 378, 395 5 6 342-4 343-4 6 1 SAMUEL. 4 . 41-43 23, 28 6 1. 12-14 24 428-9 300, 304 62-64 9. 3 10. 22-25 371 , 378, 396 ... 6 ... 337 2. 13 369, 373, 376, 477 1.3-16 ... 314 317, 487 11. 3 ... 12 22 23,27 5 ... 12 28 330-1 13. 2 ... 49 29 ... 152 18. 33 . ... 293 35 ... 265 38 . 371, 378. 383-4 2-4 ... 17 19. 21 ... 164 6. 1-8 ... 457 14, 15 ... 371 . 385. 391 7. 9,10 ... 371,378,383-4 2 KINGS. 9. 12 ... 372 3. 27 .. 380-2 22 ... 425 5. 17 173, 175 , 385, 397 10. 3 ... 312 10. 19 ... 369 8 378 , 385, 392 19-25 371, 378, 385 , 386, 398 13. 9,10 161,378,385 , 393, 428 12. 16 ... 456 14. 35 ... 163 16. 14 . ... 374 15. 22 ... 197 15 373, 378 510 IXBEX OF THE PJRIXCIPAL TEXTS. Chop. Ver. PAGB Chap . Ver. PAGfi 17. 15,16 ... 48 PROVERBS. 24-41 . 155-6 15. 8 ... 369 18. 4 ... 53 23. 15 ... 49 ECCLESIASTES 1 CHRONICLES. 5. 1 ... 369 6. 49 16. 39 ... 346 ... 32 ISAIAH. 17. 5 ... 31 1. 10 ' 211-5 21. 29,30 ... 32 10-20 189-191 28. 18 ... 346 li 13 ... 431 ... 331 2 CHRONICLES. 15 .... .,.. ... 210 1. 3 ... 32 28. 8 , ... 428 26. 16 ... 346 53. 1-12 ... 500 35. 13 ... 319 10 ... 459 EZRA. JEREMIAH. 3. 2 ... 231 6. 19 ... 192 3-6 ... 497 20 .... 335, 431 10-13 ... 489 7. 9,10 ... 195 12 ... 268 12-14 13, 196 4. 2 ..^ 369, 497 21 ... 431 6. 3,10 ... 497 22,23 15, 192-4 8,9 492, 497 19. 5 ... 382 1&-22 489, 490 26. 6 ... 15 17 457, 497 35. 2 425-7 7. 21,22 ... 492 41. 5 ... 3.35 8. 35 457, 497 44. 1-30 .... ... 324-7 10.19 457-8 NEHEMIAH. 4. 2 8. 1-18... 9. 1-38 - 10. 33 12. 27-43 ... ... 43 13. 4-9 ... 369 232, 490 486-7 ... 457 ... 491 ... 497 ... 334 5. 6. 9. 16. 20. EZEKIEL. 5,6 ... 11 13 ... ... ... 2 18 ■.• 19 20 1-26 ... 235 ... 235 ... 236 ... 344 ... 333 ... 305 ... 382 ... 486 PSALMS. 10-13 ... 237 22. 1-31... ... 499 27,28 ... 236 32. 1 ... 499 22. 8,26 ... 2.35 51. 1-19... 250, 500 26 ... 269 78. 58-61 ... 16 23. 1-21 236-7 81. 1-4 ... 499 41 ... 333 95. 5 ..:•• ... 52 24. 5 ... 319 108. 37,38 ... 382 33- 48 2.39-242 Chap . Ver. 40. 1-2 38,39 39,42 47 41. 22 43. 8 27 44. 7 7,16 11 45. 1-25 15 46. 2, 12 20 3. 4 4. 6 6-8 . 8 6. 6 8. 1 11, 12 1- -3. 3. 13 4. 1-5 , 5 5. 21-27 22 6. 6- 1-3. 3. 13 INDEX OF THE PRINCIPAL TEXTS. Chap. Ver. HOSEA. JOEL. AMOS. PAGE .. 273 .. 233 .. 4G3 .. 345 .. 345 .. 269 .. 462 .. 297 .. 442 .. 462 .. 485 .. 497 .. 462 311-2 ... 431 ... 211 ... 187 458-9 196,431 ... 211 188-9 198-9 .. 318 187, 211 423-4 184-5, 313 ... 313 185-7 ... 430 MICAH. ...191, 332, 431, 459 ZEPHANIAH. ,.. 327 328-9 HAGGAI. 2. 5 14 ZECHARIAH. 7. 8-10 8. 2,3 16, 17 14. 20 MALACHI. 1. 6-8 10 13,14 2. 5, 6 3. 3,4 7 4. 4 MATTHEW. 7. 9. 23. 22,23 13 1-39 1. 17 9. 1-19 9. 2 . 511 232 203 ... 201 ... 202 ... 201 422, 427 .. 206 .. 204 .. 206 .. 204 .. 205 .. 232 .. 232 217-8 ... 197 218-221 JOHN. ACTS. ROMANS. 1 CORINTHIANS. 1. 17 13. 1-4 2 CORINTHIANS. 12. 14 REVELATION. 20-22 21. 9-11 217 279 216 194 218 216 243-4 273-4 HER MAJESTY'S PRINTERS' Special |3ul)licatiotts* THE STUDENT'S HANDBOOK TO THE PSALMS. LEX MOSAICA; OR, THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE HIGHER CRITICISM. THE BIBLE AND THE MONUMENTS. OUR BIBLE AND THE ANCIENT MANUSCRIPTS. THE BIBLE STUDENT'S LIBRARY. SPECIAL EDITIONS OF THE HOLY BIBLE. SPECIAL EDITIONS OF THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER. &c. &c. EYRE &; SPOTTISWOODE, LONDON — GREAT NEW STEEET, FLEET STEEET, E.G. EDINBUEGH, GLASGOW, MELBOUBNE, SYDNEY, AND NEW YORK. East Haeding Street, London, E.G. CONTENTS. PAGE The Student's Handbook to the Psalms ..... 3 TiEx MosAicA ; OR, The Old Testament and the Higher Criticism 4 The Bible and the Monuments ; or, Primitive Hebrew Records IN THE Light of Modern Research . . . . . 5, 6 Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts : being a History of the Text and its Translation ....... 7 The Queen's Printers' ^iirlc ^ivthent*& gUtravy : — , » 8-11 Vol. I. The Foundations of the Bible .... 9 , Vol, II. The Law in the Prophets . . , . . 10 Vol. III. The Principles of Biblical Criticism . . 11 The Queen's Printers' special ©tritfjcma i^f tlje '©<*lll The variorum Reference Bible (Large Type). , . 12 The variorum Reference Apocrypha (Large Type) . ,13,14 The variorum Reference Teacher's Bible (Large Type), 15 The variorum Reference Teacher's Bible (Nonpareil 8 vo.) 15 The Queen's Printers' Teacher's Bible (New Edition, Aids to Bible Students (New Edition, 1894) The Variorum and other Teacher's Bibles The Marked Lectern Bible {in red and black) The Family Bible with Commentary . The Queen's Printers' Special ^Mtt0n0 of tije ^ooh pf (Eoxnvxon ^va^evi — The Annexed Book of 1662 in Type (with Appendices) . . 26 The Historical Prayer Book . . . . . . 26 Barry's Teacher's Prayer Book (with Glossai-y) ... 27 Select G-lossary of Bible "Words, also a Glossary of Important Words and Phrases in the Prayer Book . , . . 28 The Psalter with Commentary (Large Type) , . . , 28 1, 1894) . 17,18 « . . 19,20 . . 21-23 . 24 , , 25 Special "^^ublicafions. STUDENT'S HANDBOOK TO THE PSALMS. BY THE Rev. jr. sxiarpe:, d.i>.. Late Felloiv of Christ College, Cambridge. Size, small 4to., cloth, bevelled boards, gilt top, price 12/- npHIS Handbook aims at treating tlie poetry and theology of the Psalms in such a manner as shall benefit not only the student of the Hebrew, but also the English reader who takes an intelligent interest in the con- troversies of the day, and finds in the Psalms the daily food of devotion. The work will be of use to students for theological degrees, and to all who adopt the purpose of St. Paul: "/ will sing with the spirit and I will sing with the understanding alsoT — 1 Cor. 14. 15. SOME OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. The Times.— "Very useful to students and devout readers." The Church Times.— "We thoroughly commend it to our readers." Literary "World.—" Dr. Sharpe has taken infinite pains to place his subject as clearly as possible before the English reader." Record. — " Dr. Sharpe is to be warmly thanked for his book. It is good to find a scholar referring to the 'old paths' and confessing that 'continued study ever demonstrates more fully' their superiority." The Christian "World.— "It is full of useful information." Sunday School Chronicle.— " The book is one which Sunday School Teachers will find exceptionally useful." The Irish Times.— "This handbook to the Psalms will be invaluable to every earnest Christian student. Dr. Sharpe lays the Christian communities under an obligation everywhere." The Scotsman.— " The book will be highly prized by those who 'stand in the old paths' and which those who are seeking to advance will find worthy of their considerations." "Western Morning News.— "A scholarly and valuable book, which should be found in all theological libraries." RETAIL OF ALL BOOKSELLERS. JE7ZB^ 8f SFOTTISWOODE. S2893. K K 2 Special "g^ublicafions. LEX MOSAICA; Or, THE LAW OF MOSES AND THE HIGHER CRITICISM. EDITED BY THE Rev. RICHARD YALPY FRENCH, D.C.L., LL.D., F.S.A., WITH AN INTRODtJCTIOX BY THE LATE RIGHT REVEREND LORD ARTHUR C. HERVEY, D.D., Bishop of Bath and Wells. ^ssaiJS bg Marions Mritcrs on tijj ITab) of ||los£:s anb Ibe l^igl^er Crituism. Rev. A. H. Sayce. D.D., LL.D. Rev. George Rawlixsoj^, M.A. Rev. C4E0RGE C. M, Douglas, D.D. Rev. R. B. GlRDLESTONE, M.A. Rev. Richard Vaxpy French, D.C.L. Rev. J. J. Lias, M.A. Rev. F. Watson, D.D. WITH A SUMMARY BY THE Rev. HENRY "WAGE, D.D., Principal of King's College, London. Rev. J. Sharpe, D.D. Rev. Alexander Stewart, LL.D., F.A.S. Rev. Stanley Leathes, D.D. Rev. Robert Sinker, D.D. Rev. F. E. Spencer, M.A. Rev. Robert Watts, D.D., LL.D. Royal 8vo.j Half-bound Vellum Cloth; Red Burnished Edges^ 15/- SOME OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. The Times. — " ' Lex Mosaica ' is a sustained and reasoned criticism of the Higher Criticism conducted by a variety of competent hands." Church Times. — "Here stands the deliverance of fourteen able men speaking at their best." Record.—" We fully believe that this book will be of great use in this time of unrest." Churchman. — "This important work is a thoroueh exposition of the crude and arbitrary guesses of the theoretical school of criticism, and contains a powerful defence of the traditional view." Tablet. — "We have in this volume an important contribution to the literature of the subject." Expository Times.—" ' Lex Mosaica ' is the most serious effort that has yet been made to stem the advancing tide of Old Testament criticism." Church Family Newspaper.—" The volume is one of great interest, which must command the earnest attention both of Biblical Stnldents and critics." Sunday School Chronicle.—" We very gladly welcome this book. It presents a mass of clear and precise information of priceless value to the Bible students." The Methodist Times.— "The writers of 'Lex Mosaica' deserve the grateful thanks of all who believe in the Old Testament as a r(;velatiou of God, given through men who were guided in all their work by the operation of the Divine Spirit." Oxford Journal.— "No student of the Old Testament time should omit to read these Essays." Cambridge Chronicle.— "' Lex Mosaica' is one of the most elaborate expositions of the liistoncal part of the Bible that has ever been produced." Irish Times.— "The volume of the year." KETAIL OF ALL BOOKSELLERS. EYBE 8f SPOTTISWOOBE, Special "^ttbltcaftons. THE BIBLE AND THE MONDMENTS. BY W. St. chad BOSCAWEN, Fellow of the Boyal Historical Society, Member- of the Society of Biblical ArchcBology. WITH 21 PHOTOGRAPHIC ILLUSTRATIONS. Deixiy 8vo., Boixnd Clotli Eoards. I*rice ijs. EXTRACT FROM THE PREFACE. THE East has ever been the land of surprises, and year after year the explorer and the decipherer are bringing to light treasures which for centuries have been buried beneath the dust of ages. The discoveries in Egypt, Assyria, and Babylonia have restored to us the inscribed records and monuments of great civilisations which preceded or existed concurrently with the Hebrew people and held contemporary intercourse with them. The History of the Hebrew people as recorded in the Old Testament has been found to be a part, and an important part, of the wider study of Oriental history. The discovery of Babylonian versions of the Creation, the Fall, and the Deluge, and the story of the beginnings of civilisation, instituted a series of comparisons between monumental records, of admitted antiquity, and the Hebrew writings, a process the importance of which was beyond question. In this work I have placed before my readers the Babylonian and Assyrian versions of those traditions which are found in the early chapters of Genesis, and such comparisons are instituted as seemed to me to_ be within the raiige of fair criticism, and I have endeavoured to conduct this inquiry in as un- biassed a manner as possible. My object has been to place before my readers those monuments and inscriptions which seem to bear upon the early traditions of the Heljrew people, in order that they may have before them documentary evidence which has hitherto only been accessible to specialists. GREAT NEW STEEET, LONDON, E.C, Special "^ublicafions. THE BIBLE AND THE N\OM\JN\ENTS-coui^nued. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS, All of which, with the exception of those marked (*) have been repro- duced from Photographs taken by Messrs. EYRE & SPOTTISWOODE from the originals. MANEH WEIGHT. MACE HEAD OF SAKGON I. (B.C. 3800). TABLET OF ASSUR-NAZIR-PAL I. (B.C. 1800). INDIA HOUSE INSCRIPTION OF NEBUCHADNEZZAR II. (B.C. 606). FIRST CREATION TABLET (COPIED ABOUT 660'. BOUNDARY STONE OF NEBUCHAD- NEZZAR I. B.C. 1120). TABLET FROM THE TEMPLE OF THE SUN-GOD AT SIPPARA (B.C. 900). TEL EL-AMARNA TABLET (B.C. 1450). EAGLE-HEADED FIGURE. ASSYRIAN TABLET OF THE FALL. MERODACH AND THE DRAGON. SEAL OF TEMPTATION. * RUINS OF TELLO. * HARPER AND CHOIR (B.C. 3000). BRONZE FIGURES (B.C. 2800) AND FIRE-GOD (B.C. 722). * STATUE OF GUDEA (B.C. 2800). DELUGE TABLET ^PORTION OF THE ELEVENTH TABLET). DELUGE TABLET, No. 2. SEAL REPRESENTING THE CHAL- DEAN NOAH. WINGED HUMAN-HEADED LION. JACKAL-HEADED GOD. Some ©pinions of tbe ipress. The Times.— "An able attempt to bring the Primitive Hebrew Records into rela- tion with the ' Babylonian and Assyrian versions of the same traditions. It is well illustrated." Daily Chronicle.— "A useful contribution to the literature of the subject." Churchman.— " Mr. Boscawen has rendered important service in the sphere o Bililical criticism in the publication of his important volume on the Primitive HebreM Records in the Light of Modern Research." Observer.—" Mr. W. St. Chad Boscawen, the well-known Assjriologist, has earned the thanks of all scholars by the production of this woi'k, in which the latest results ol Assyriology and Scriptural criticism are given. The learned author has spared no paius to make this usually difficult subject one of the greatest interest to his readers. The book is beautifully illustrated." Bookseller.— "Mr. Bosca wen's style is concise and easy, and the photographic illustrations add much to the understanding of the subject." Publisher's Circular.—" ' The Bible and the Monuments ' will be read by students with avidity and interest from the first page to the last, and the general reader will find it of absorbing interest." The Christian. — " A work of great usefulness." Western Morning News.—" The book will really supply a need. Mr. Boecawen's industry and thorough acquaintance with the subject are very conspicuous." UYEE §- SPOTTISWOODE, Special '^ubltcaHottS. Our BlWe and the Ancient Manuscripts : BEING A HISTORY OF THE TEXT AND ITS TRANSLATION. BY FREDERIC G. KENYON, M.A., D.LiTT., Hon, Ph.D. of Halle University ; Late Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford. WITH 26 FACSIMILES. IDemy Svo. Bound. Clotli Boards, I*rice 5s« Xist of plates* THE SAMARITAN PENTA- TEUCH-ROLL AT NABLOUS. CLAY TABLET FROM TELL EL- AMARNA. HEBREW SYNAGOGUE - ROLL (Brit. Mus. Harl. 7619). THE MOABITE STONE. HEBREW MS. (Brit. Mus. Or. 4445). SAMARITAN PENTATEUCH (Rome, Barberini Library, 106). CODEX MARCHALIANUS. PESHITTO SYRIAC MS. (Brit. Mus. Add. 14425). CODEX SINAITICUS. CODEX ALEXANDRINUS. CODEX VATICANUS. CODEX EPHRAEMI. CODEX BEZiE. CODEX CLAROMONTANUS. CURSIVE GREEK MS. (Evan. 348). CURETONIAN MS. OF OLD SY- RIAC (Brit. Mus. Add. 14451). BOHAIRIC MS. (Brit. Mus. Or. 1315). SAHIDIC MS. (Brit. Mus. Or. 4717 (10)). CODEX VERCELLENSIS (Old Latin). CODEX AMIATINUS (Vulgate). THE LINDISFARNE GOSPELS. ALCUIN'S VULGATE (Brit. Mus. Add. 10546). MAZARIN BIBLE. ENGLISH GOSPELS OF THE 10th CENTURY (Brit. Mus. Reg. 1 A XIV.) WYCLIFFE'S BIBLE (Bodleian MS. 957). TYNDALE'S NEW TESTAMENT. THE object of the author of this volume is to lay before his readers the external history of the Bible, to show how and when the several books were written, and how they have been preserved to us. It is especially in- tended for those who study the Bible in English, but will also be found useful by students who are beginning to make acquaintance with the textual criticism of the Septuagint or New Testament in their original language. The Plates, of which the work contains 26, illustrate the pepiiliarities _ of the manuscript in question, or some important detail of textual criticism. With a view to giving a better idea of the general appearance of the manuscripts, and more examples of the sources of error or of confusion in them, the whole, or a very large part, of the original page is shown. In each case the size of the original is given. RETAIL OF ALL BOOKSELLERS. GREAT NEW STREET, LONDON, E.G. Special "^ublicafions. THE BIBLE STUDENT'S LIBRARY. Cloth. Boards, Hed Edges. Deray 8vo. Volumes I. -IV. Others in preparation. THIS Series of Volumes, popular in style and moderate in size and price, is designed to meet the needs of the ordinary Bible Student, a large and increasing class of practical students of the Bible, as well as the requirements of more advanced scholars. Much light has been thrown in the course of the present century on almost all branches of Biblical Inquiry, and it is very desirable that such results as are surely ascertained should be placed within the reach of all in a systematic manner. Difficulties will always remain, owing to the extreme antiquity of the Sacred Books, and to the peculiar nature of their contents. On these questions experts must be heard upon both sides, but the multitude which is so deeply interested in the results has neither the time nor the training for battling over technical details. Accordingly, the preparation of these volumes is entrusted to men who have patiently considered the drift of modern inquiry so far as it concerns their own special branches of study, and who are not lightly moved from their carefully formed convictions. Their aim is to set forth as clearly and accurately as possible the literary position of the Books of the Old and N'ew Testa- ments and their contents in relation to Theological, Historical, and Scientific questions. The series is mainly constructive and positive in tone, and will tend to check that bewilderment as to the very foundations of sacred truth which, if allowed to spread, will seriously affect the work of the Sunday School Teacher, the Bible Class Leader, the Home and Foreign Missionary, and the devotional student of Scripture. EYBE §' SPOTTISWOODE, Special ^xxblxcatxons. THE BIBLE STUDENT'S LIBRARY. FOURTH EDITION, REVISED. Volu-me I. THE FOUPATIONS OF THE BIBLE: STUDIES IN OLD TESTAMENT CRITICISM. BY R. B. GIRDLESTONE, M.A., Hon. Canon of Clirist Church; late Principal of WycUjfe Hall, Oxford. Cloth Boards, Red Edges. Demy 8vo. Price 3s. ea. Guardian.—" "Written in a reverent spirit." Theological Monthly.— " Any one who takes up the book will be led, we think, to peruse and ponder till he arrives at a sound conclusion on what is, and must remain, one of the most important matters within human ken. Church Review.—" An invaluable work." Rock.—" Canon Girdlestone as an expert gives us the results of his own personal research. We are taken into the very workshop and shown the methods and processes by which the final results have been attained." Churchman.—" It is worthy to become a text-book in a theological assembly." Christian.—" "Will assist many to gain a firm foothold with regard to the verity of Holy Writ." Literary Churchman.— " This is a book of exceeding breadth of learning, and quite exceptional value. We desire to give an unusually emphatic recommendation to this valuable treatise." Literary Opinion.—" The style throughout is clear, elevated, and forcible." Globe.-" A mine of strength to the holders of the ancient faith." Quiver.—" We can heartily commend it." Baptist.—" Canon Girdlestone's arguments will command general respect." National Church.—" This is precisely the kind of work wanted in these critical times." Evening News.—" A perfect armoury of argument and scholarship." Yorkshire Post.—" Shows results as interesting as they are valuable." Church Bells.—" The various topics involved are put in a very interesting way." British Weekly.—" It has a calm and dignified style— beauty itself, with a splendid courtesy to opponents, and altogether it is a pleasant book to read. RETAIL OF ALL BOOKSELLERS. GEEAT N:EW street, LONDON, E.G. 10 Special "^ublicafions. THE BIBLE STUDENTS LIBRARY— cm/ inued. Volume II. THE LAW IN THE PROPHETS. BY THE Rev. STANLEY LEATHES, D«D., Professor of Hebrew, King's College, London; Prebendary of St. Paul's; Author of " The Structure of the Old Testament" ; " The Religion of the Christ " {Bampton Lecture) ; " Christ and the Bible," &c., &c. Cloth Boards. Red Edges. Demy 8vo. Price 3s. 6"■(*• pet before thee, as the hypocrites a. 12, 8i do in the synagogues and in the cautenot streets, that they may have glory umpetto of men. Verilv I say unto you, unded. , jjjgy jjjjyg ^^^■^^ reward. (Size, 5-| x 45 x if inches.) RTJBY 8vo. TAKE heed that ye do not your !| alms before men, to be seen of them : otherwise ye have no reward II of your Father which is in heaven. 2 Therefore ° when thou doest tMne alms, J! do not sound a trum- pet before thee, as the hj-pocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, , They have their reward. I (Size, 6f x X li inches.) MINION 8vo. TAKE heed that ye do not your 2 alms before men, to be seen of them : otherwise ye have no reward ^ of your Father which is in heaven. 2 Therefore ^ when thou doest thine ahns, 4 do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the syna- ffl Rom. 12. gogues and in the streets, that they ^SIZE, 7I X 5^ X ilinches.) BREVIER 8vo. Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. 7 But when ye pray, ^use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: ®for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. 8 Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth (Size, 8f X 6 x 2 inches.) 2 Or, right- eotisness. Deut. 24. 13. Ps. 112. 9. Dan. 4. 27. 2 Cor. 9. 9, 10. ! Or, with ANNO DOMINI 31. dEccle3.5.2. elKins8l8. ABRIDGED PRICE LIST. Levant Best Levant. Turkev Turkey Morocco, lined Calf, with Descriptiok. Cloth. Morocco. Morocco, Circuit. lined Calf, with flaps. flaps and Pocket for MSS. Pearl 24mo. 2/6 4/6 7/- 9/- 11/3 17/3 Buby 8vo — 6/- 9/- 12/- 15/- 22/6 Minion 8vo. — 9/6 14/- 1*8/9 19/9 30/- BrevlGr 8vo. — 16/6 21/9 27/- 2S/.3 37/- THE LARGE TYPE AIDS. VARIORUM EDITION, WITH SPECIAL GLOSSARY (see p. 20) . Bourgeois Svo., 388 pages. {Separately.) s.d. Cloth, bevelled boards, red edges 5 0 Paste Grain Roan, gilt edges . . 8 3 Morocco, gilt edges, gold roll inside cover 12 6 RETAIL OF ALL BOOKSELLERS. JSYEE ^ SF0TTI8W00DE, special ^ublicafiotts. 19 THE AIDS TO BIBLE STUDENTS JUST COMPLETED Forms the Second Part of the VARIORUM and other Queen's Printers' Teacher's Bibles. THE Queen's Printers were the First to Issue what was known as the Sunday School Teacher's Bible in May, 1875. It was not until 16 months afterwards that a Bible issued from the Oxford University Press, bearing on its title page "The S. S. Teacher's Edition," and closely following the model of the Queen's Printers' Teacher's Bible; this brief statement is necessary to remove misunder- standings. The success which attended the publication of the Queen's Printers' Teacher's Bible has been unprecedented. Over One Million Copies have been sold. This is no doubt due to the fact that "®:f}e SlitJS to ^iW S-tuticnts" were from the outset prepared with the utmost care, in order that the Student might have at his disposal the Best and Surest information from the pen of the most Eminent Authority on each of the various subjects treated. The cordial approval of the principle and contents of former editions by eminent Biblical Scholars, and by the representatives of all classes of Teachers throughout the World, has led to the enlargement of each successive issue, in order to give to the Student The Best, Most Reliable, and Most Receipt information that could be obtained. In the present issue, very considerable improvements and additions have been made. The Articles have undergone a careful and thorougl\ revision, and, pursuant to recent discoveries, new matter has been added and the whole volume brought up to date. The aiis will therefore be found more than ever Practically Useful, Exhaustive in Treatment, and Complete in their character. Several new Articles have been added. The Publication of the VARIORUM Bible, and of the Revised Version which followed it, called popular attention to the sources from which we have received the Sacred Text, and the quotations in the VARIORUM Notes of Manuscripts, Versions, Ancient Fathers, etc., have aroused a spirit of enquiry as to their relative importance. To meet this, the Rev. Professor Swete has written for these AIDS a new Article entitled, The Bible : its History.— In this Article, the Rev. Professor Swete places before the Student a summary of the most important results which have been reached oy competent enquirers on such questions as the formation and transmission of the original Text, its Versions, Ancient and Modern, etc., etc. The Bible and its Contents :— Old Testament, a valuable summary and analysis of each Book by the Rev. Professor Stanley Leathes, has been further expanded by Canon Girdiestone. „ The Apocrypha has been summarised and analysed by the Rev. Dr. Wright. The New Testament Article by Prof. W. Sanday will be found to contain the best results of modem New Testament Scholarship, and his Analyses of the Gospels and Epistles are simply invaluable. GBEAT NEW STREET, LONDON, E.G. 20 Special "^ubncaftons. AIDS TO BIBLE ST\JDEh\TS-con/mued. Among other important additions may be mentioned: — References in the New Testament to Passages in the Old, revised and extended by the Rev. Dr. Swete. Hebrew Poetry, by Canon Girdlestone. The Testimony of the Monuments to Old Testament History, by Mr, W. St, Chad Boscawen, who traces from the earhest times many corroborations of Bible History from the Ancient Monnments. Metals and Precious Stones, by Professor N. Story Maskelyne, P.R.S. Plants and Animals '.—Criticisms of their Identifications in the Revised Version, by the Rev. Canon Tristram, D.t)., F.R.S. Ethnology of the Bible. — This Article, treated in four parts, corresponding to four periods in Bible history, viz., the Patriarchal, tbe Davidic, of the Captivity, and of Christ and His Apostles, as well as the succeeding Article on The Bible and the Monuments, or the Hebrews in their relations with the Oriental Monarchies, have been revised by the Rev. Professor Sayce. The Epitome of Bible History has been minutely revised and extended by the Editor. It is now grouped under four divisions :— 1. The Period of the Promises ; 2. The Period of Expectation, or Between the Testaments ; 3. The Promises fulfilled; 4. The Establishment of the Kingdom of Christ, or the Apostolic History. The Tables alongside the Epitome give the dates of the events, and the references in Scripture. The Glossary of Bible Words, in the Variorum Edition, has been revised and enlarged, and will be found very complete. It refers to the Authorised and Revised Ver- sions, with their marginal readings, and to the Variorum Notes; also to the Apocrypha. It also includes particular names of Plants, Animals, Metals, &c., which formerly appeared under their individual articles, but are now inserted in the Glossary for ready reference. The Supplementary Contents, or Key to Subjects, which indexes the names and words not treated alphabetically elsewhere, will be found of very great use to Teachers. The Concordance (40,000 references) is added, also an Atlas of new Maps, with Index, revised and brought to most recent surveys. A List of some of the Contributors to the AIDS: Rev. PROPESSOR SWETE, D.D., Seffins Professor of Divinitij, Cambridge. Rev. PROPESSOR STANLEY LEATHES, D.D., Professor of Hebreiv, King's College, London, d'c. Rev. C. H. H. WRIGHT, D.D„ Examiner in Hebrew, Universities of Oxford, Durham, and London. Rev. professor W. SANDAY, D.D., LL.D., Dean Ireland's Professor of Exegesis, Oxford. Rev. PROPESSOR CHEYNE, D.D., Oriel Professor of Interpretation, Oxford; Canon of Rochester. Rev. canon GIRDLESTONE. M.A., Hon. Canon of Christ Church, Oxford. Rev. PROPESSOR SAYCE, M.A., LL.D., Professor of Assyriology, Oxford. Rev. canon TRISTRAM, D.D., LL.D., F.R.S., Durham. Rev. S. G. GREEN, D.D., Co-Editor of the Revised English Bible. Rev. C. H. HOLE, M.A., Co-Editor of " Smith's Dictionary of Christian Bio- graphy," &c. PROFESSOR N. STORY MASKELYNE, M.A., F.R.S., Pro/essor of 3Iineralogy in the Uiiiversity of Oxford; Hon. Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford. W. ST. CHAD BOSCAWEN, F.R.H.S. Sir J. STAINER,M.A.,Mus. DocPro/essf^'o/J/ws/c in the University of Oxford. F. W. MADDEN, M.R.A.S., Autlwr of "History of Jewish Coinage," &c. &c. &c. &c. RETAIL OF ALL BOOKSELLERS. EYBE #• SP0TTI3W00DE, Special ^ixhlicaiions. 21 VARIORUM and otter TEACHER'S BIBLES. or»iN"io:N"s ow the ct^ergy. The Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. Benson) :— The Archbishop said, at a Diocesan Conference :— " I should like to call the atten- tion of the Convocation to the New Edition of the 'Variorum Reference Bible, published by Messrs. Eyre and Spottiswoode. I will just read an account of what it contains. The whole book has been revised. It was laid, I may say, before the Lambeth Conference— the promise of it— and now it is finished. The old edition forms the basis of the new edition; it is printed in larger type; and every passage which has been disputed bv great scholars as to its correct translation or rendering, is marked by a figure before and after the sentence or word, these figures referring to the foot-notes, which give the alternative renderings or readings, together with the authorities for the same, abbreviated to save space. The collection of these notes from 69 commentators for the Old Testament, and 73 for the New, has occupied many years close study and preparation. The New Edition is much amplified as com- pared "with the old one, and you may like to know that the opinion of Dr. Westcott is that it is much the best edition of the kind that has appeared." The late Archbishop of York (Dr. Thomson) :— "The names of the authors guarantee its excellence. A miniature library of illustrative matter. If such a book is carefully and generally used, there must be a great improvement in Bible knowledge in this generation. The critical matter at the foot of the columns is remarkably complete. The last feature gives it special value," The late Archbishop of Armagh:— " I have carefully examined the ' Variorum Teacher's Bible ' published by Messrs. Eyre and Spottiswoode. The varied and valuable amount of information it contains is most remarkable. There are few subjects connected with the Bible left un- elucidated. The Student of the Bible will find the Variorum Edition a treasury replete with instruction." The Bishop op Durham (Dr. Westcott) :— "Admirably done. I constantly use it." The Bishop of Limerick:— " The Variorum (Teacher's) Bible, with its References, Concordance, Various Read- ings and Renderings, and supplemented by its Aids to Students, serves as a Biblical EncyclopEsdia, useful by its compactness and the value of its contents, to Biblical Students of all grades." The Bishop of Exeter (Dr. Bickersteth) :— "I am much gratified with it . . . eminently fitted for teachers, and all who desire in a clear and compendious form very full information respecting the sacred "A most valuable work, and will greatly enrich the library of Biblical Students." The Bishop of Llandafp:— "An immense amount of information, a great help to Teachers, and to Bible readers generally. . ^ . ... n i i ^ " The names guarantee the value of the information. I trust it will be largely circulated." The Bishop of St. David's (Dr. W. Basil Jones) :— " I have delaved . . . until I could find more time to look into the volume ; it contains so large an amount and variety of matter in a very small space. But its contents appear to me of the highest value and admirable in arrangement.^ refer especially to the various Readings and Renderings in the foot-notes." I would GREAT NEW STREET, LONDON, E.G. 22 Special "^ublicaftons. The Bishop op Glottcester and Bristol:— "A very valuable work, well suited for those for whom it is designed, and for all earnest students." The Bishop op Liteepool:— " I admire it very much, and think it a most valuable edition of the Holy Scriptures. I shall be glad to recommend your work." The Bishop of Wakefield (Dk. "Walsham How) :— "I have carefully examined the (Variorum) Teacher's Bible published by Messrs. E.vre and Spottiswoode, and I consider it a most valuable work. Believing that the Bible is its own best interpreter, I am sure that the aids to an intelligent undei"- standing of the text itself, together with the assistance given to students who desire to have an accurate conception of the purest form of that text, will prove of inestimable service to all Bible readers." The Bishop of Down and Connor-.— "I consider the Variorum Teacher's Bible highly useful both to Teachers and Students. The various readings in the foot-notes largely increase its usefulness, placing before the professional Student an amount of information and research, which to many would otherwise be inaccessible." The Bishop of Cork:— "The eminent names of those who have contributed Articles to the Teacher's Aids are a guarantee for the accuracy of the information, which will be found most valuable to those who wish to understand or teach, or first to understand and then to teach, and help to provide that skilled and accurate teaching, which is not only the true antidote to prevalent unbelief, but the great preventive of it." The Bishop of Killaloe (Dr. Titzgerald) :— "I find it to be a most perfect compendium of information on almost every Biblical matter that could be comprised within such a compass, and it seems marvellous how much has been introduced and how varied the topics. It will, I am sure, prove a most important aid to Clergymen, Sunday School Teachers, and many others, and I hope to avail myself of it yet in that direction." The Bishop of Tuam:— " I admire greatly the most valuable contents." The Bishop of Kilmore (Dr. Darlet) :— " I have looked through it carefully ... a most valuable edition of the sacred Scriptures. The Variorum foot-notes represent much critical research, very carefully arranged ; the Aids to Bible Students contain a mass of interesting information in a convenient form ; useful alike to Teachers and Students." The Bishop of Ossort:— " I feel pleasure in bearing my testimony. "An invaluable aid both to Clergymen and Teachers, and a marvel of cheapness. The more I have examined it, the more thoroughly have I been satisfied and pleased." The Right Rev. Bishop Barry:— "For the study of the Text is invaluable." The Dean of Salisbury:— "I am fully sensible of the great boon you have put within the reach of Bible students and it will be my endeavour to promote the knowledge of this valuable edition." The Dean of Ely:— " I hope to make use of it, with its various adjuncts of Notes, Readings," &c., &c. The Dean of Lincoln:— "The work will be extremely useful." The Dean of Rochester (late blaster of BaUiol College, Oxford) :— "A great achievement of toil and thought." EYRE 8r SPOTTISWOOEE, Special ^nhlications. 23 The (late) Dean of St. Paul's (Dr. CnuRcn) :— "A wonderful clij^est of learning. The names of the various scholars are, of course, warrant of care and accuracy, and certainly nothing so complete and com- prehensive, in such a compass, has ever before been attempted." The Dean of Peterborough:— "Your Bible strikes me as admirable in every respect. The Various Renderings considerably enhance the value of the work. It will give me very great pleasure to do all in my power to promote the circulation. I know of no one volume to be compared to it for the amount of information it conveys." The Dean of Norwich (Dr. W. Lefroy, D.D.) :— "There is no work of the kind comparable to this work. It is invaluable." The Vert Rev. Dr. Vaughan, Bean of Llandaff, and (late) Master of the Temple .— "I use the Variorum Teacher's Bible with pleasure and profit." The Dean of Lichfield:— "I am both surprised and delighted at the fulness and accuracy of information to be found in it. " I will gladly mention it with the approbation which it so well deserves." The Vert Rev. Dr. Butler, Ifaster of Trinity College, Cambridge :— "A great achievement." The Ven. Archdeacon Parrar:— " It lies always on my desk. I place a high value upon it." The late Ven. Archdeacon Hesset:— "Students of the sacred volume will owe a deep debt to the projectors and producers." The Rev. Canon Bodt:— " Very well done." The Rev. Canon Knox Little:— "Most useful and helpful." The Rev. Dr. Wace, of King's College :— "A work of incalculable usefulness." The late Rev. Dr. E])ERsheim:— " It is certainly the best, most complete and useful which has hitherto appeared." The Rev. Dr. Samuel G. Green:— "As a companion to the Re\'ised Version it is invaluable." Dr. Salmond, of Free College Aberdeen .— " I trust it may secure a very wide circulation. The former edition has come to be a familiar book among our students." The Rev. Hugh Price Hughes :— "Incomparable and invaluable." Dr. Greenwood, Victoria University {Owen's College), Ilanchester :— "Its merits and remarkable features are already known to me." The Rev. Joseph Parker, D.D.:— "I have examined your Bible with great care. It is quite as valuable for preachers and hearers as for Teachers and scholars. " It is almost a library in itself, containing everything that is immediately needed for the elucidation of the sacred text." The Bishop of Ontario :— "My opinion of it is nothing so good has hitherto appeared. It is admirably adapted for its purpose of assisting Teachers, and cannot fail to be appreciated by all who are really anxious to find the best instruction in the sacred volume. ' The Rev. J. H. Vincent, of Chautauqua .— " The book is indeed a marvel, a library of learning, a book of books, concerning the 'Book of Books,' and deserves a wide circulation in Europe and America." GREAT NJEW STREET, LONEOUT, E.G. 2i special ^ixhlication^. SPECIAL EDITION (Lessons Marked in Red), Persian Levant, handsomely tooled, bevelled boards, red under gold edges, £)1 16s, net. Cfje jttadtctf nttttvn mUt, The Eoyal 4^o. Bible and Apocrypha, with Marginal Maries, printed in red, indicating the Sunday, Holy-day, and Daily Lessons. The Lessons proper for Sundays are marked thus, in red. t- 1st Sunday in Advent. Morn. J The Lessons proper for Holy-days are marked thus, in red. %^ St. Michael, 1st Lesson. Morn. ^^^^^^^^^^^^.^^.^^^^^^^^^x^x^x^x^wJ The Daily Lessons are marked thus, in red. {_ January 9. Even. __/ A Calendar to correspond, shows (also at a glance) the pages on which the Lessons occur, thus rendering mistake impossible. ■RINTED IN _, ,^ „ RED.] This system op Marking- leaves the Text untouched. ;rri IVrOW after the death of Moses the ' f I I ^ seryant of the Lord it came to pass, that the Lord spake unto JovShua the sou of Nun, Moses' ministerj saying, 2 Moses my servant is dead ; now there- fore arise, go oyer this Jordan, thou, and all this people, unto the land which I do I i giye to them, ^?;^/z to the children of Israel. 3 Eyery place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that haye I giyen unto you, as I said unto Moses. 4 From the wilderness and this Leba- non eyen unto the great riyer, the riyer Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and unto the great sea toward the going os£U for wlcstmittstcr iibbc^ ; %th\t College, ©*forb ; aub 1800 Cl^itrcljcs anb Calljtbrals. Bound in Calf, Morocco, or Levant, prices £3 and upwards. EYBE Sf SPOTTISWOOBE, 8 ^ > !^ OH Special jlUibHcatioitc. 25 THE Family Bible WITH COMMENTARY, Y/ith MARGINAL REFERENCES, CONCORDANCE, and INTRODUCTION, This ivork is designed to supply the iuf or, nation needful to an intelligent study of the Rohj Scriptures. In Nineteen Thousand Concise Notes IT GIVES, IN LARGE TYPE. I. — A selection from the Various Readings and Translations of the Text. II. — Explanations of the diflfienlt AVords, Phrases, and Passages. III. — Illustrations, archwological, historical, topogTaphical, from Oriental customs, &c. IV. — Homiletical comments, original, and selected froni Matthew Henry's and similar Commentaries ; AXD COXIAIXS TWELVE STEEL ENGRAVINGS Of tlie Principal PLACES OF INTEREST in tlie HOLY LAND. s. d. CB 0. Cloth, gilt edges 21 <» CB 2. Leather, gilt sides and back 31 (I CB 12. Turkey Morocco 47 « CB 14. Tui'key Morocco, bevelled boards, best, flexible back, red under gold edges fid (» CB 15. 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ALFRED BARRY, I>.iy., Canon of Windsor, Late Bishop of Sijdnpy ami Metropolitan Primate of Australia and Tasmania: AND A GLOSSARY by the Rev. A. L. RTAYHEW, M.A. The " ^ertcljcv'^^ fiix*cti|et* 33ofC»h," now so well known, is the only work of the kind published in a popular form at popular prices. Jt is issued in two sizes, 'iimo. and 16mo., and in various bindings (src School Edition aitd Prices below). In the arrangement of the work the most simple plan has been adopted, the Prayer Book and its explanation being interpaged throughout ; and the Avork of Dr. Barry as Editor makes it of such standard value as to entitle it to rank as a companion volume to the Queen's Printers' " Teacher's Bibles." ?i4mo. 16mo. EDITIOX. EDITIOy. s. d. ,t. d. 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