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DIVINITY SCHOOL
TROWBRIDGE LIBRARY

THE
IMPREGNABLE ROCK OF HOLY SCRIPTURE

THE
IMPREGNABLE ROCK OF HOLY
SCRIPTURE

BY
The Rt. Hon. W. E. GLADSTONE, M. P.

REVISED AND ENLARGED EDITION

PHILADELPHIA
JOHN D. WATTLES & CO.
1895

Copyright, 1890,
By JOHN D. WATTLES.
Copyright, 1892,
BY JOHN D. WATTLES.

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PREFACE
TO THE SECOND EDITION.

The primary purpose of this little work is to
point out that recent controversies stand related
rather to the literary form than to the substance
of the divine revelation conveyed to us in the Old
Testament ; and to insist upon some of the argu
ments which tend to prove that in the main the old
belief as to that substance is plainly the right belief.
It is attested by the laws of literary probability,
rising into moral certainty. It is also attested in a
special manner by the unparalleled phenomenon of
the Jewish race, such as it has been and is down to
the present day; and by the flood of reflected light
which streams back upon it out of the entire history
of Christendom.
This distinction between the substance and the

viii PREFACE.
literary form supplies the basis of the remarkable
and powerful essay which Dean Milman prefixed
in 1863 to the second edition of his "History of
the Jews." He tells us that " he has been able to
follow out all the marvellous discoveries of science,
and all those hardly less marvellous, if less certain,
conclusions of historical, ethnological, linguistic crit
icism, in the serene confidence that they are utterly
irrelevant to the truth of Christianity, and to the
truth of the Old Testament, as far as concerns its
distinct and perpetual authority, and its indubitable
meaning." *
He cites a passage of great breadth and lucidity
from Paley, which inter alia delivers a challenge not
yet, as I believe, answered from any hostile camp.
" Undoubtedly our Saviour assumes the divine
origin of the Mosaic institution- and, independently
of his authority, I conceive it to be very difficult to
assign any other cause for the commencement or
existence of that institution : especially for the sin
gular circumstance of the Jews adhering to the
1 Page vi.

PREFA CE. ;x
Unity, when every other people slid into polythe
ism; for their being men in religion, children in
everything else; behind other nations in the arts
of peace and war, superior to the most improved
in their sentiments and doctrines relating to the
Deity." They could not even attract the notice, during
long ages, of the more famous races : " Lo, the
people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned
among the nations " (Num. 23 : 9).
Paley then proceeds to show that these strong
statements of principle entail no servile literalism:
"Undoubtedly also our Saviour recognizes the
prophetic character of many of their ancient writers.
So far, therefore, we are bound as Christians to go.
But to make Christianity answerable with its life for
the circumstantial truth of each separate passage of
the Old Testament, the genuineness of every book,
the information, fidelity, and judgment of every
writer in it, is to bring, I will not say great, but
unnecessary difficulties into the whole system." x
1 Paley 's " Evidences,'' Part III., Chap. III.

X PREFACE.
In direct confutation of those who conceive that
down to the present generation theology has per
mitted of no dispute or doubt as to any of the
minutiae of the sacred volume, Dean Milman ob
serves that in his early days — that is to say, when
the century began — Paley's " Evidences " (from
which the foregoing citation is taken) furnished a
text -book for important seats of learning and of
religious education.
After citing the opinion of Ewald, that the whole
Pentateuch was pre-Exilic, the Dean1 declares this
assertion not to be adequate to the entire breadth
of the case.
" I am persuaded that the written law, even Deu
teronomy, was of far earlier date : indeed existed, if
not in the absolutely perfect form as it now exists,
yet as the recognized, well-known, statute law of
the people."
The integrity and authority, then, of the Old
Testament in its substance, need not and do not
suffer from the recognition of a latitude, even if
1 " Hist. Jews," I. 43, note.

PREFA CE. x;
it be a wide latitude, as to its literary form. But
that which perplexes and may even alarm a sober-
minded reader is, that we have suffered controversy
on the form perhaps almost to hide the substance
from our view, certainly to lower and enfeeble the
living sense, which the body of believers has always
entertained, of its authority, its majesty, its strin
gency, ay of the terrors of the law for those who
will not accept its blessings. It really too often
seems as if, when we are arguing about the authen
ticity of Genesis or Exodus, we had no weightier
task in hand than if we were discussing the Epistles
of Phalaris, or the letters of Ganganelli, or the
authorship of Junius. And yet there they stand,
these great facts and doctrines, in all the primitive
severity of their outline, unshaken and august.
There we find, now as heretofore, the doctrines of
creation, of life, of human life, of the introduction
of sin into the world, of the havoc which it wrought,
of the simultaneous promise of redemption, of the
selection of a special race for special purposes, and
of the gradual preparation of the nations until the

xii PREFA CE.
fulness of time had come. I have here said nothing
of that exhibition of preternatural power, which is
supplied by prophecy and by wonder. These I
forbear to dwell on, not so much because they can
not add to the marvel of Creation, as because they
seem to make a presupposition or postulate of
religious faith, while facts of the class of those
above recited, and of those before quoted from
Paley, rest in general upon grounds of known fact,
or of evidence cognizable by all.
More particularly I own does it appear as if
there had now spread among many of the teachers
of religion an apprehension of fully unfolding and
strongly enforcing on their hearers of to-day the
doctrine of sin, and of its moral and judicial conse
quences, such as it is taught in the Jewish and the
Christian Scriptures. But this I have no doubt is
due in part to an enemy very far more powerful
than what is called the higher criticism, namely,
the world and its increasing power over our minds
and lives.
Finally : It is good without doubt to place our

PREFACE. xiii
views of the venerable Torah in harmony with
sound research and with the best understood con
ditions of historical experience and of Providential
action ; but it is anything rather than good, if, in
our debates about the setting, we become blind to
the lustre of the jewel it enshrines.
In the present issue of this work, the text has
been revised throughout, and the argument has
been enlarged by additions at various points.
In "The Creation Story" I have more largely
and explicitly declined to take my stand upon the
plea that it is concerned only or mainly with physi
cal adjustments. I have endeavored to set forth
more fully the immense importance of the announce
ment concerning Creation with which the sacred
volume opens ; and I have supplied for popular
purposes an account of the contents of the great
chapter, which must, I fear, fall far short of scien
tific precision. I have also prefixed to this essay
a remarkable statement from Hackel's " History
of Creation."
In " Mosaic Legislation " I have inserted some

xiv PREFACE.
remarks on the Prophets and their mission ; and
at the close I have endeavored to exhibit the sin
gularly marked evidences of Providential action
in the final catastrophe of the Temple and of Je
rusalem. And lastly, I have added to the volume a note on
the Swine Miracle of the Synoptic Gospels, which
appeared to be called for by a criticism of Profes
sor Huxley's on a portion of the text ©f the first
edition. Since these chapters were sent to press, I have
read the work ' of Dr. Warring on " Genesis I. and
Modern Science." This acute and comprehensive
criticism appears to proceed from a gentleman of
recognized scientific attainments. But not less re
markable than his talent or his knowledge is his
courageous tone. He is no " reconciler ; " for Gen
esis and science according to him are already at
one by what they respectively testify. He thinks
it has been the halting and shifting state of science
1 " Genesis I. and Modern Science." New York: Hunt and Eaton.
1892.

PREFA CE. xv
in former days which has helped to prevent a due
appreciation of the inestimable treasures contained
in this great chapter. Instead of taking refuge in
half-hearted pleas of poetry and vision, he is struck
especially by the " intense literalism " * of the Mo
saic account.
Dr. Warring needs no sponsorship from me, and
I am far from supposing that he has supplied the
last word on this great subject, or that every word
of his treatise can be perfect. But the closeness
and fulness of his minute examination is extremely
valuable, were it only for this, that it affords to op
ponents all that they can desire in amplitude and
definiteness of opportunity for criticism or for con
futation, and that it helps to put out of countenance
and drive off the field what I have termed the half
hearted method of defense.
In his contentions there are some few that offer
an aspect of novelty ; as, for example, his most in
teresting exposition2 of the function of the heavenly
1 " Genesis I. and Modern Science," p. 189.
2 Pages 114, seqq.

xvi PREFACE.
i
bodies (vs.- 14-18), and his restricting the verses
on plant and animal life to "present genera," or
that " culmination of plant-life," and those highly
developed organisms, which he refers to the latter
part of the tertiary period.1
No doubt there may be some differences of inter
pretation even among those who unite in maintain
ing the authenticity of the record. But I cannot
help remarking that even these differences, subsist
ing in a scientific period, illustrate the wonderful
efficacy with which the Mosaic narrative did its
practical work among the Hebrews, to whom, to
gether with the other Scriptures, it was intrusted.
That practical aim was not the work of expound
ing the nebular theory, or the deposition of the
rocks. It was the moral and spiritual work of
inculcating the grand doctrine of Creation, of ex
hibiting as the operations of God the grand phys
ical conditions of our life, and thereby of opening
to the chosen race that great Book of Nature which
other races of higher intellectual gifts failed to open
1 " Genesis I. and Modern Science," pp. 106, 183.

PREFA CE. Xvii
for any moral purpose, but which has so long been
recognized, and is now to be acknowledged more
than ever, as one of the principal vehicles for con
veying a knowledge of the Most High to his
rational creatures.

London, May, l8g2.

CONTENTS.

I. PAGE
First View of the Impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture i
II.
The Creation Story . . . .... 36
III.
The Office and Work of the Old Testament in Outline 128
IV.
The Psalms  .... 183
V.
The Mosaic Legislation ... . . 239
VI.
On the Recent Corroborations of Scripture from the
Regions of History and Natural Science . . . .312
VII.
Conclusion  3S8

Note on the Swine Miracle . . .;..... 418
xix

FIRST VIEW OF THE IMPREGNABLE
ROCK OF HOLY SCRIPTURE.

It is a serious question how far one ignorant, like
myself, of Hebrew, and having no regular practice
in the study and explanation of the text of the Old
Testament, is entitled to attempt representations
concerning it, which must present more or less the
character of advice, to any portion of his fellow-
men. It is clear that he can draw no sufficient
warrant for such a course from the mere warmth
of his desire to arrest a prevailing mischief, or
from his fear lest any portion of the British pub
lic should lose or relax unawares their hold upon
the book which Christendom regards as an inesti
mable treasure, and thereby bring upon themselves,
as well as others, an inexpressible calamity. But,
on the other hand, he has some better pleas to urge.

2 THE IMPREGNABLE ROCK
The first is, that there is a very large section of the
community, whose opportunities of judgment have
been materially smaller than his own. The second
is, that though he is greatly wanting in the valuable
qualifications which grow out of special study in
this field, he has, for more than forty years (believ
ing that change of labor is to a great extent the
healthiest form of recreation), devoted the larger
part of all such time as he could properly withdraw
from political duties to another, and in several
respects a similar, field of specialism. I mean
hereby the earnest study of prehistoric antiquity
and of its documents in regard to the Greek race;
whose destinies have been, after those of the He
brews, the most wonderful in themselves, and the
most fertile of results for us, among all the races of
mankind. As between this field, which has for its
central point the study of Homer, and that of the
early Scriptures, which may, in the mass, be roughly
called contemporary with the Homeric period, much
light is, and with the progress of research more can
hardly fail to be, given and received. Moreover, I

OF HOL Y SCRIPTURE. 3
have there had the opportunity of perceiving how,
among specialists as with other men, there may be
fashions of the time and school, which Lord Bacon
called idols of the market-place, and currents of
prejudice running below the surface. These, it is
obvious, may detract somewhat from the authority
which each inquirer might justly claim in his own
field, and from his title to impose his own conclu
sions upon mankind. As a judicious artist likes to
know the opinion even of one not an expert on his
picture, and sometimes derives benefit from it, so
in all studies lights may be thrown inwards from
without. Such a process is likely to be particularly
needful in cases where the special branch deals with
a subject-matter that both takes deep root in our
nature, and is the source of profoundly interesting
controversies for mankind at large. Yet I do not
feel sure that these considerations would have led
me to make the present attempt, were they not
capped with another of great importance.
It appears to me that we may grant, for argu
ment's sake, to the negative or destructive special-

4 THE IMPREGNABLE ROCK
ist in the field of the ancient Scriptures all which
as a specialist he can by possibility be entitled to
ask, respecting the age, text, and authorship of the
books ; and yet may hold firmly — as firmly as of
old — to the ideas justly conveyed by the title I
have adopted for these papers, and may invite our
fellow-men to stand along with us on "the im
pregnable rock of Holy Scripture."
These words sound like a challenge. And they
are a challenge to some extent, but not in the sense
that might be supposed. They are a challenge to
accept the Scriptures on the moral and spiritual
and historical ground of their character in them
selves, and of the work which they, and the agen
cies associated with them, have done in the world
for some thousands of years, and are doing still.
We may, without touching the domain of the critics,
contend for them as corresponding by their con
tents to the idea of a divine revelation to man.
We are entitled to attempt to show that they afford
that kind of proof of such a revelation which is
analogous to the known divine operations in other

OF HOL Y SCRIPTURE.

5

spheres ; which binds us as to conduct ; and which
in other matters, from the simple fact that we are
rational beings, we recognize as entitled so to
bind us.
And again. I hold that the other documents
of historic and prehistoric religions are precious
in various ways. But we may legitimately ask
whether the Scriptures do not differ in such a
manner and degree from those other documents,
as to leave to them only the office of witnesses and
buttresses to Holy Scripture, rather than sharers in
it, although in their degree they may be this also.
But all these assertions lie within the moral and
spiritual precinct. No one of them begs any liter
ary question of Old Testament criticism. They
leave absolutely open every issue that has been or
can be raised respecting the origin, date, author
ship and text of the sacred books, which for the
present purpose we do not require even to call
sacred. Indeed, it may be that this destructive
criticism, if entirely made good, would, in the view
of an inquiry really searching, comprehensive, and

6 THE IMPREGNABLE ROCK
philosophical, leave as its result not less but greater
reason for admiring the hidden modes by which
the great Artificer works out his designs. For,
in proportion as the means are feeble, perplexed,
and to all appearance confused, is the marvel of the
results that are made to stand before our eyes.
And the upshot may come to be that, on this very
ground, we may have to cry out, with the Psalmist
absorbed in worshiping admiration, " Oh that men
would therefore praise the Lord for his goodness,
and declare the wonders that he doeth for the chil
dren of men! " (Psa. 107 : 8.) For " how unsearch
able are his judgments, and his ways past finding
out!" (Rom. 11: 33.) For the memories of men,
and the art of writing, and the care of the copyist,
and the tablet and the rolls of parchment, are
but the secondary or mechanical means by which
the Word has been carried down to us along the
river of the ages ; and the natural and inherent
weakness of these means is in reality a special
tribute to the grandeur and vastness of the end,
and of Him that wrought it out.

OF HOL Y SCRIPTURE. 7
So, then, these high-sounding words have been
placed in the foreground of the present observa
tions, because they convey in a positive and defi
nite manner the conclusions which the observations
themselves aim at sustaining, at least in outline, on
general grounds of reason, and at enforcing as a
commanding rule of thought and life. They lead
upwards and onwards to the idea that the Scrip
tures are well called Holy Scriptures ; and that,
though assailed by camp, by battery, and by mine,
they are nevertheless a house builded upon a rock,
and that rock impregnable ; that the weapon of
offense, which shall impair their efficiency for aid
ing in the redemption of mankind, has not yet
been forged ; that the Sacred Canon, which it took
(perhaps) two thousand years from the accumula
tions of Moses down to the acceptance of the
Apocalypse to construct, is like to wear out the
storms and the sunshine of the world, and all
the wayward aberrations of humanity, not merely
for a term as long, but until time shall be no
more.

8 THE IMPREGNABLE ROCK
And yet, upon the very threshold, I embrace, in
what I think a substantial sense, one of the great
canons of modern criticism, which teaches us that
the Scriptures are to be treated like any other book
in the trial of their title. The volume, which is
put into our hands when young under that ven
erated name, is, like any other volume, made with
paper, types, and ink, and has been put together as
a material object by human hands. The many and
diversified utterances it contains proceeded from
the mouth or pen of men; and the question,
whether and in what degree, through supernatural
guidance, they were, for this purpose, more than
men, is to be determined, like other disputable
questions, by the evidence. The books have been
transmitted to us from their formation onwards in
perishable materials, and from remote dates. They
were so transmitted, until four hundred years ago,
by the agency of copyists, as in the case of other
literary productions, and presumably with a like
liability to casual error, nay, even to fraudulent
handling. That in some sense the Holy Scriptures

OF HOL Y SCRIPTURE. g
contain something of a human, or uncertain, ele
ment is clear, as to the New Testament, from
diversities of reading, from slight conflicts in the
narrative, and from an insignificant number of con
troverted cases as to the authenticity of the text.
We have also the Latin Vulgate partially competing
with the Greek original, on the ground that it has
been more or less based on manuscripts older than
any we now possess. As regards the Old Testa
ment, we find the established Hebrew Text to be
mostly founded on manuscripts of a date not earlier
than (I believe) the tenth century * of our era. It is,
moreover, at variance in many points with the Greek
version, commonly termed the Septuagint ; which
is considered to date, if not wholly, yet as to very
important portions of the work, from the third
century before the advent of our Saviour; the
framers of which had before them copies older by
more than a thousand years ; and which appears
1 I understand that, in the case of the Pentateuch, the British Mu
seum has a manuscript which is certainly not later than of the eighth
century, and which is in the closest correspondence with the present
text.

10 THE IMPREGNABLE ROCK
to have received a certain amount of recognition
from our Lord and the Apostles in the citations
which they make from it. Thus the accuracy of
the text, the age and authorship of the books, open
up a vast field of purely literary controversy ; and
such a question as whether the closing verses of
St. Mark's Gospel x have the authority of Scripture
must be determined by literary evidence, as much
as the genuineness of the pretended preface to the
^Eneid, or of a particular stanza which appears in
an ode of Catullus.2
Towards summing up these observations, I will
remind the reader that those who believe in a divine
revelation, as pervading or as contained in the Scrip
tures, and especially those who accept the full doc
trine of literalism as to the vehicle of that inspira
tion, have to lay their account with the following
(among other) considerations, which it is hard for
1 I have never seen a confutation of the reasonings of Dean Burgon
in his treatise on this subject. He supports the text as it stands. The
marginal note in the Revised Version is surely unsatisfactory, for it
does not tell the whole case, but only a part, and that on one side,
about the manuscripts. 2 Carm. LII. 13-16.

OF HOL Y SCRIPTURE. t x
them to repudiate as inadmissible. There may pos
sibly have been —
i. Imperfect comprehension of that which was
divinely communicated.
2. Imperfect expression of what had once been
comprehended. 3. Lapse of memory in oral transmission.
4. Errors of copyists in written transmission.
5. Changes with the lapse of time in the sense of
words. 6. Variations arising from renderings into differ
ent tongues, especially as between the Hebrew text
and the Septuagint.
7. The inspired writers of the New Testament
varied in the text they used for citations from the
Old Testament, and did not regard either the He
brew or the Greek as of exclusive authority.
8. There are three variant chronologies of the
Old Testament, according to (1) the Hebrew, (2)
the Septuagint, and (3) the Samaritan Pentateuch,
respectively. It would apparently be unwarrant
able to claim for any one of them, as against the

1 2 THE IMPREGNABLE ROCK
others, the absolute sanction of a divine revelation ;
while an historical argument of some importance
may be deducible, on the other hand, from the fact
that their variations lie within certain limits.
No doubt there will be those who will resent any
association between the idea of a divine revelation
and the possibility of even the smallest intrusion of
error into its vehicle. This idea, however, is by
no means altogether a novelty. It is manifestly
included as a likelihood, if not a certainty, in the
fact of continuous transmission by human means,
without continuous miracle to guarantee it. But
further, ought they not to bear in mind that we are
bound by the rule of reason to look for the same
method of procedure in this great matter of a writ
ten provision of divine knowledge for our needs, as
in the other parts of the manifold dispensation
under which Providence has placed us ? Now,
that method or principle is one of sufficiency, not
of perfection ; of sufficiency for the attainment of
practical ends, not of conformity to ideal standards ;
and the question what constitutes that sufficiency

OF HOL Y SCRIPTURE. t 3
is a matter on which we have no more authority to
pass judgment in relation to the Scriptures, than in
relation to any other part of the divine dispensa
tions ; on all of which the Almighty appears to have
reserved this matter to himself. Bishop Butler, I
think, would wisely tell us that we are not the
judges, and that we are quite unfit to be the judges,
of what may be the proper amount and the just
conditions of any of the aids to be afforded us in
passing through the discipline of life. I will only
remark that this default of ideal perfection, this use
of twilight instead of a noonday blaze, may be
adapted to our weakness, and may be among the
appointed means of exercising, and by exercise of
strengthening, our faith. But what properly belongs
to the present occasion is to point out that if proba
bility, and not demonstration, marks the divine
guidance of our paths in life as a whole, we are not
entitled to require a different rule in the present
case. When the Almighty, in his mercy, makes
a special addition by revelation to what he has
already given to us of knowledge in Nature and in

14 THE IMPREGNABLE ROCK
Providence, we cannot justly ask that this special
gift should be unlike his other gifts, and should
have all its lines and limits drawn out with mathe
matical precision.
I have then admitted, I hope in terms of suffi
cient fulness, that my aim in no way embraces a
controversy with the moderate, or even with the
extreme, developments of textual criticism. Dr
Driver, the Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford,1
personally, as well as officially, a champion of the
doctrine that there is a divine revelation, has recently
shown, with great clearness and ability, that the
basis of such criticism is sound and undeniable,
whatever be its liability to aberration either in
method or in details. It compares consistencies
and inconsistencies of text, not simply as would be
done by an ordinary reader, but with all the lights
of collateral knowledge. It pronounces on the
meaning of terms with the authority derived from
thorough acquaintance with a given tongue, or with
language at large. It investigates and applies those
1 Contemporary Review, February, 1890, pp. 213-231.

OF HOL Y SCRIPTURE. t 5
laws of growth, which operate upon language as
they operate in regard to a physical organism.
It has long been known, for example, that por
tions of the historical books of the Old Testament,
such as the Books of Chronicles, were of a date
very far later than most of the events which they
record, and it is widely believed that a portion of
the prophecies included in the Book of Isaiah were
later than his time.1 It is now pressed upon us
that, according to the prevailing judgment of the
learned, the form in which the older books of the
Old Testament have come down to us does not
correspond as a rule with their titles, and is due
to later though still, as is largely held, to remote
periods; and that the law presented to us in the
Pentateuch is not an enactment of a single date,
but has been enlarged by a process of growth, and
by gradual accretions. To us who are without
original means of judgment these are, at first hear-
1 I am not aware, however, what is the reply to the arguments
(for example) of Mr. Urwick, who contends for the unity of author
ship. ("The Servant of Jehovah." Edinburgh : Clark. 1877.)

1 6 THE IMPREGNABLE ROCK
ing, without doubt, disturbing announcements.
Yet common sense requires us to say, let them
be fought out by the competent, but let not us
who are incompetent interfere. I utterly, then,
eschew for myself the responsibility of conflict
with these properly critical conclusions.
But this acquiescence is subject to the following
remarks. First, the acceptance of the conclusions
of the critics has reference to the psesent liter
ary form of the works, and leaves entirely open
every question relating to the substance. Any one
who reads the books of the Pentateuch, from the
second to the fifth, must observe how little they
present the appearance of consecutive, coherent,
and digested record. But their several portions
must be considered on the evidence applicable to
them respectively. And the main facts of the his
tory they contain have received strong confirma
tion from Egyptian and Eastern research. With
regard to the Book of Genesis, the admission which
has been made implies nothing adverse to the truth
of the traditions it embodies, nothing adverse to

OF HOL Y SCRIPTURE.

17

their antiquity, nothing which excludes or dis
credits, as to the older among them, the idea of
their having originally formed part of a primitive
revelation, simultaneous or successive. The forms
of expression may have changed, yet the substance
may remain with an altered literary dress ; as some
scholars have thought (not, I believe, rightly) that
the diction and modeling of the Homeric Poems
is comparatively modern, and yet the matter they
embody may belong to a remote antiquity. It is
also conceivable that the diction of Chaucer, for
example, might be altered so as to conform to the
usage of the nineteenth century, and to leave little
apparent resemblance to the original, and yet that
the whole substance of Chaucer might remain.
Further, our assent to the conclusions of the
critics ought to be strictly limited to a provisional
and revocable assent ; and this on practical grounds
of stringent obligation. For, firstly, these conclu
sions appear to be in a great measure floating and
uncertain, to be the subject of manifold contro
versy. Secondly, they seem to shift and vary with
2

1 8 THE IMPREGNA BLE ROCK
rapidity in the minds of those who hold them.
Considering the terms in which he announced, on
the title-page, his reproduction of the work of Bleek,
in 1878,1 Wellhausen may fairly be held to accept,
in the main, the genuineness of those Davidic
Psalms which are contained in the First Book of
the Psalter. But I understand that this position
has of late years been abandoned, and that, stand
ing, as he appears to do, at the head of the negative
1 " Einleitung in das Alte Testament," Haupttheil I., C. Die
Psalmen. [The edition .published and adopted by Wellhausen, to
which I refer, is dated .1878 ; but the book had been published in
i860.] So recently as in the fifth edition (Berlin, 1886), the Bleek-
Wellhausen work assigns much weight to the Davidic titles ; gives to
David nearly fifty Psalms ; and holds that there is no Psalm later than
Nehemiah — few so late. (Sections 220-222, pages 457-464, of the
"Einleitung.") In the edition of 1878 (note, p. 506), he seems to
raise the question whether all the Psalms are post-Exilic, but without
deciding it; and this note was subsequently dropped. In March,
1866, Ewald wrote thus his final opinion on the Psalms : " Nothing
can be more untrue and perverse than the opinion that there are
generally, in the Psalter, Maccabean songs. And now even the great
est part of the Psalter is derived from that source ! indeed, songs from
the last century before Christ, and of the utterly degenerate Has-
monsean king Jannaeos ! " ("Commentary on the Psalms," John
son's Translation, Preface, p. iv.) He thinks the recent innovators as
perverse as the " Hengstenbergs and Puseys." (Ibid., p. 7.)

OF HOL Y'SCRIPTL RE.

19

critics, he now brings down the general body of the
Psalms to a date very greatly below that of the
Babylonic Exile. It is certainly unreasonable to
hold a critic to his conclusions without exception.
But, on the other hand, it may be asked whether,
in order to warrant confidence, they ought not
to exhibit some element of stability. The open
ing of new sources of information may justify all
changes fairly referable to such sources; and in
minor matters the finer touches of the destructive,
as well as the constructive, artist, may be needed to
complete his work. But if reasonable grounds for
change do not determine its bounds, there must be
limits, on the other hand, to the duty of deference
and submission on the part of the outer and unin-
structed world, with respect to these literary con
clusions. It seems doubtful how far they present
to us that aggregate continuity and steadiness in
the matter of progression, which the whole world
recognizes in the case of the physical sciences ; and
the most liberal estimate can hardly carry them
farther than this, that we should keep an open

20 THE IMPREGNABLE ROCK
mind till the cycle of change has been run through,
and till time has been given for the detection of
flaws, and for the hearing of those whose researches
may have led them to different results.
In the present instance we have an example,
which may not be without force, in support of this
warning. Mr. Margoliouth, the Laudian Professor
of Arabic at Oxford, and a gentleman of early
academical distinctions altogether extraordinary,
has published his Inaugural Lecture,1 in which he
states his belief that, from materials and by means
which he lucidly explains, it will be found possible
to reconstruct the Semitic original, hitherto un
known, ol the Book of Ecclesiasticus. It was
written, as he states, by Ben Sira, not in the Hebrew
of the Prophets, but in the later Hebrew of the
Rabbis (p. 6). I understand that there are three
great stages, or states, of the Hebrew tongue : the
Ancient, the Middle, and the New; and that of
these the earlier or classical Scriptures belong to
1 " On the place of ' Ecclesiasticus ' in Semitic Literature."
Clarendon Press, 1890.

OF HOL 1 ¦ SCRIPTURE. 2 1
the first, and the Book of Nehemiah (for example)
to the second. The third is the Rabbinical stage.
The passage from one to another of these stages
is held, under the laws which determine the move
ment of that language, to require a very long time.
Professor Margoliouth finds that Ben Sira wrote
in Rabbinical Hebrew, and the earlier we find Rab
binical Hebrew in use, the farther we drive into
antiquity the dates of books written in Middle and
in Ancient Hebrew. Suppose, by way ot illus
tration, that Professor Margoliouth shows Rab
binical Hebrew to have come into use two hundred
years earlier than had been supposed, the effect is
to throw backwards by two hundred years the
latest date to which a book in Middle or in Ancient
Hebrew could be assigned. No wonder, then, that
Professor Margoliouth observes (p. 22) —
" Some students are engaged in bringing down
the date of every chapter in the Bible so late as
to leave no room for prophecy and revelation."
But he goes on to add that if, by the task which
he has undertaken, and by those who may follow

22 THE IMPREGNABLE ROCK
and improve upon him, this Book shall be prop
erly restored,
" Others will endeavor to find out how early the
professedly post-Exilian books can be put back, so
as to account for the divergence between their
awkward Middle Hebrew and the rich and elo
quent New Hebrew of Ben Sira. However this
may be, hypotheses, which place any portion of
the classical or Old Hebrew Scriptures between
the Middle Hebrew of Nehemiah and the New
Hebrew of Ben Sira, will surely require some
reconsideration, or at least have to be harmonized
in some way with the history of the language, be
fore they can be unconditionally accepted."
Hence the spectator from without, perceiving
that there is war, waged on critical grounds, in the
critical camp itself, may surmise that what has been
wittily called the order of disorder is more or less
menaced in its central seat ; and he may be the
more hardened in his determination not to rush
prematurely to final conclusions on the serious,
though not as I suppose vital, question respecting

OF HOL Y SCRIPTURE.

23

the age and authenticity of the early books of the
Old Testament in their present literary form.
There is such a thing as mistaking the indifferent
for the essential, and as a slavish adherence to
traditions insufficiently examined. But the liabili
ties of human nature to error do not all lie on one
side. It may on the contrary be stated with some
confidence that, when error in a certain direction,
after a long and quiet sway, is effectively called to
account, it is generally apt, and in some cases
certain, to be followed by a reign of prejudices, or
biassed judgments, more or less extended, and in a
contrary direction. There is such a thing as a
warping of the mind in favor of disintegration.
Often does a critic bring to the book he examines
the conclusion which he believes that he has drawn
from it. Often, when he has not thus imported it,
yet the., first view, in remote perspective, of the
proposition to which he leans will induce him to
rush at the most formidable fences that lie straight
ahead of him, instead of taking his chances of
arriving at it by the common road of reason. And

24

THE IMPREGNABLE ROCK

often, even when he has attained his conclusion
without prejudice, he will after adopting defend it
against objectors, not with argument only, but
with all the pride and pain of wounded self-love.
And every one of these dangers is commonly
enhanced in something like the same proportion
in which the particular subject-matter embraces
the highest interests of mankind.
What I would specially press upon those to
whom I write is, that they should look broadly
and largely at the subject of Holy Scripture,
especially of the Scriptures of the older dispen
sation, which are, so to speak, farther from the eye.
They should never allow themselves to be drawn
away from that broad and free contemplation into
discussions which, though in their own place legiti
mate, nay, needful, yet are secondary, and there
fore, when substituted for the primary, become
worse than frivolous. I do not ask this from them
as philosophers or as Christians, but as men of
sense. I ask them to look at the subject as they
would look at the British Constitution, or at the

OF HOL Y SCRIPTURE.

25

poetry of Shakespeare. Under our existing laws,
any one branch of the British Legislature can stop
the proceedings of the whole. Again, the House
of Commons can reduce to beggary the whole
army, navy, and civil service of the country.
Neither law nor usage makes any provision for
meeting the case, and this although there would
ensue from it nothing less than a frustration of the
purposes for which men join together in society.
We might be pressed by glowing representations
of these apparent absurdities. Still there are prob
ably not ten men in the country whose estimate
of the Constitution they live under would be affected
by these supererogatory objections. And if we
are in any measure to grasp the office, dignity, and
authority of the Scriptures, we must not suppose we
are dealing adequately with that lofty subject by
exhausting thought and time in examining whether
Moses either edited or wrote the Pentateuch just
as it stands, or what was the book of the law found
in the temple in the time of Josiah, or whether it
is possible or likely that any changes of addition

26 THE IMPREGNABLE ROCK
or omission may have crept into the text. If the
most greedily destructive among all the theories
of the modern critics (rather seriously at variance
with one another) were established as true, it would
not avail to impair the great facts of the history of
man with respect to the Jews, and to the nations
of the world; nor to disguise the light which those
facts throw upon the pages of the sacred volume ;
nor to abate the commanding force with which,
bathed, so to speak, in the flood of that light, the
Bible invites, attracts, and commands the adhesion
of mankind. Even the moral problems, which may
be raised as to particular portions of the volume,
and which may not in all cases have found any
absolute and certain solution, are surely lost in the
comprehensive contemplation of its general strain,
its immeasurable loftiness of aim, and the vastness
of the results which it, and its immediate accom
paniments in institution and event, have wrought
for our predecessors in the journey of life, for our
selves, and for the most forward, dominant, and
responsible portions of our race. But these moral

OF HOL Y SCRIPTURE.

27

problems, which really form the most important
part of the case, have not been dug out of the
ground by the recent criticism. They have at all
times been present to the mind of the serious
reader. Whatever difficulty they present to us
is not a new, but an old difficulty.
In a passage which rises to the very highest level
of British eloquence, Dr. Liddon,1 exhausting all
the resources of our language, has described, so
far as man may describe it, the ineffable and unap
proachable position held by the sacred volume. It
is too long to quote, too special to appropriate;
and to make extracts would only mangle it. The
commanding eminence of the great preacher of our
metropolitan Cathedral will fasten the public atten
tion on the subject, and will powerfully serve to
show that the Scriptures, in their substantial tissue,
rise far above the region of criticism, which gives
no sign of being about to do anything permanent
1 Sermon preached at St. Paul's on the Second Sunday in Advent,
December, 1889, pp. 28-31. [Since this was written, death has extin
guished in Dr. Liddon a light of the English Church, singularly bright
and pure.]

28 THE IMPREGNABLE ROCK
or effectual to lower their moral and spiritual
grandeur, or to disguise or intercept their gigantic
work. I turn to a cognate topic. The impression pre
vails that, in this and other countries, the operative
classes, as they are termed, have at the great cen
ters of population, here and elsewhere, largely lost
their hold upon the Christian creed. There may
be exaggeration in this belief; but, all things taken
together, there is evidently more or less (let us hope
less) of foundation for it. It does not mean, at
least among us, that they have lost respect for the
Christian religion, or for its ministers ; or that they
desire their children to be brought up otherwise
than in the knowledge and practice of it ; or that
they themselves have snapped the last ties which,
on the cardinal occasions of existence, associate
them with its ordinances ; or that they have re
nounced or modified the moral standards of conduct,
which its conspicuous victory after an obstinate
contest of many centuries, and its long possession
of the social field, have established for the benefit

OF HOL Y SCRIPTURE. 29
of mankind. It may mean no more, but also no
less, than this : that their positive, distinct, and
conscious acceptance of the articles of the Creed,
and their sense of the dignity and value of the
sacred record, are blunted, or in some cases even
effaced.1 In passing, I may be permitted to offer a remark.
If assent be more or less largely withheld by the
less well-to-do segment of society, it is still, not
withstanding the skeptical movement of the day,
very generally yielded in this country by the
leisured and better provided classes in most, though
not all, of their branches. I simply state this as
fact, without drawing, in this case, any inference
from it.
There seems thus to be, within certain limits, an
1 As I write in the general interests of belief, and on no narrower
ground, it is with deep regret that I extract the following statement
from the excellent compilation of Messrs. Macmillan, termed the
Statesman's Year-Book, for 1890. In France, account is taken at the
census of religious belief, and in 1881, for the first time, a column was
provided for those who declined to make any declaration of belief.
The number of persons returned under this head is no less than
7,684,906.

30

THE IMPREGNABLE ROCK

approach to a reversal of the respective attitudes
which prevailed in the infancy of our religion.
Then the "poor" were the principal objects of the
personal ministry of Christ our Lord, and it was
their glory to be the readiest receivers of the gos
pel.1 They were then " the poor of this world, rich
in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath
promised to them that love him." 2 They had fewer
obstacles, especially within themselves, to prevent
their accepting the new religion. It was less hard
for them to become " as little children." They had,
to all appearance, more palpable interests in the
promise of the life to come, as compared with the
possession of the life that now is. The seeming
change in their comparative facility of access to the
Saviour, as respects belief, is one to afford much
matter for meditation. The present purpose is to
deal, in slight outline at least, with one of its causes.
For one such cause certainly is the wide, though
more or less vague, disparagement of the Holy
1 Graetz, " History of the Jews," Vol. II., Chap. VI. (1891).
2 James 2 : 5.

OF HOL Y SCRIPTURE.

31

Scriptures recently observable in the surface cur
rents of prevalent opinion, as regards their title to
supply, in a supreme degree, food for the religious
thought of man, and authoritative guidance for his
life. Amongst the suppositions, I believe erroneous,
which tend to produce this disparagement, are the
following :
1. That the conclusions of science as to natural
objects have shaken or destroyed the assertions of
the early Scriptures with respect to the origin and
history of the world, and of man, its principal in
habitant 2. That their contents are in many cases offen
sive to the moral sense, and unworthy of an en
lightened age.
3. That our race made its appearance in the
world in a condition but one degree above that of
the brute creation, and only by slow and painful
but continual progress has brought itself up to the
present level of its existence.
4. That men have accomplished this by the

32 THE IMPREGNABLE ROCK
exercise of their natural powers; and have never
received the special teaching and authoritative
guidance, which is signified under the name of
divine revelation.
5. That the more considerable among the dif
ferent races and nations of the world have devised,
and have established from time to time, their re
spective religions; and have also in many cases ,
accepted the promulgation of sacred books, which
are to be considered as essentially of the same
character with the Bible.
6. That the books of the Bible, in many most
important instances, and especially those books of
the Old Testament which purport to be the earliest,
so far from being contemporary with the events
which they record, or with the authors to whom
they are ascribed, are comparatively recent com
pilations from uncertain sources, and are therefore
without authority.
Most of the foregoing remarks relate to the last
of these assumptions; and I shall proceed in due
course to observe upon others among them.

OF HOL Y SCRIPTURE. 3 3
There are propositions wider still, but wholly
foreign to the present purpose ; such as that God
is essentially unknowable, that we have no reason
able evidence of a life beyond the grave, and that
rational certainty is confined to material objects
and to the testimony of the senses. Passing by
these propositions, I confine myself wholly to what
preceded them; and I shall endeavor, from some
points of view, to present an opposing view of the
spiritual field. Moreover, as each of these is the
subject of a literature of its own which may be
termed scientific, I here premise that what I have
to say will, though I hope rational and true, be not
systematic or complete, but popular and partial
only. It will have for its immediate aim to show
that there are grave reasons for questioning every
really destructive proposition that has been ad
vanced, and for withholding our assent from them
until these reasons (and, as I conceive, many others)
shall be confuted and set aside.
I shall, however, as being in duty bound to follow
the truth so far as I can discern it, have to make
3

34

THE IMPREGNABLE ROCK

many confessions in the course of my argument.
These confessions will be to the prejudice, not, as I
trust, of Christian belief or of the sacred volume,
but only of us, who as its students have failed
gravely, and at many points, in the duty of a tem
perate and cautious treatment of it Just as, un
happily, we have also failed, and often more grossly
failed, in every other duty. But, as the lines and
laws of duty at large remain unobscured, notwith
standing the imperfections everywhere diffused
among those bound to follow it, so we may trust
that sufficient light yet remains for us, if duly fol
lowed, whereby to establish the authority and
sufficiency of Holy Scripture for its high moral
and spiritual purposes. For the present, I have
endeavored to point out that the operations of
criticism properly so called, affecting as they do
the literary form of the books, leave the questions
of substance, namely, those of history, miracle, and
revelation, substantially where they found them.
I shall, in some of the succeeding chapters, strive
to show, at least by specimens, that science and

OF HOLY SCRIPTURE.

35

research have done much to sustain the historical
credit of the books of the Old Testament : that in
doing this they have added strength to the argu
ment which contends that in them we find a divine
revelation : and that the evidence, rationally viewed,
both of contents and of results, binds us to stand
where our forefathers have stood, upon the im
pregnable rock of Holy Scripture.

II.
THE CREATION STORY.
" The rising birth
Of Nature from the unapparent deep."
Paradise Lost, B. VII.
As respects the general character of the narrative
which I have called the Creation Story, I begin by
reminding the reader that it has awakened the
warm admiration of many who refuse to allow to
it a divine origin.
Hackel, in his " History of Creation," excludes
entirely the idea of revelation. He also says (I
think incorrectly) that the Mosaic narrative erro
neously asserts the earth to be the central point of
the whole universe; and again, that man was the
final aim of the creation of the earth. But upon
the narrative he bestows a high eulogium. "Two
great and fundamental ideas, common also to the
non-miraculous theory of development, meet us in
36

THE CREA TION STOP Y.

37

this Mosaic hypothesis of creation, with surprising
clearness and simplicity: the idea of separation or
differentiation, and the idea of progressive develop
ment or perfecting. Although Moses looks upon
the results of the great laws of organic develop
ment (which we shall later point out as the neces
sary conclusions of the doctrine of Descent) as the
direct actions of a Constructing Creator, yet in his
theory there lies hidden the ruling idea of a pro
gressive development of the originally simple mat
ter. We can therefore bestow our just and sincere
admiration on the Jewish lawgiver's grand insight
into Nature, and his simple and natural hypothesis
of creation, without discovering in it a so-called
"divine revelation."1 The negative unequivocally
conveyed in the last words of this remarkable pas
sage embodies the very question which I now seek
to try upon the evidence before us.
In recent controversies on the trustworthiness of
the Scripture record, much has been thought to
1 From the translation of Hackel's " History of Creation," Lon
don, 1876, Chap. II. p. 38. So Professor F. P. Lesley, in the Forum
(New York) for October, 1890, at p. 211, eulogizes the pre-Abrahamic

38 THE CREATION STORY.
turn on the Creation Story; and the special and
separate importance thus attached to it has given
it a separate and prominent position in the public
view. This constitutes in itself a reason for address
ing ourselves at once to the consideration of it,
apart from any more general investigation touch
ing either the older Scriptures at large, or any of
the books which collectively compose them.
But there are broader and deeper reasons for
this separate consideration. It is suggested, first,
by the form which has been given to the relation
itself. The narrative, given with wonderful suc
cinctness in the first chapter of the Book of Genesis
and in the first three verses of the second chapter,
stands distinct, in essential points, from all that
follows in the Scriptures. It is a solitary and strik
ing example of the detailed exposition of physical
facts. For such an example we must suppose a
purpose ; and we have to. inquire what that purpose
was. Next, it seems as it were to trespass on the
story (at the same time pushing negation unto its highest extrava
gance) as " a product of the genius of the last and most splendid age
of the nation, just before its dispersion on the face of the earth."

THE CREATION STORY. 30,
ground of science, and, independently of investiga
tion and of evidence, to assert a rival, nay, a para
mount authority. And further, forming no part,
unless towards its close, of the history of man, and
nowhere touching directly on human action, it
severs itself from the rest of the sacred volume, and
at first sight appears rather as a preface to the
history than as a part of it.
And yet there are signs, in subsequent portions
of the volume, that this Tale of the Creation was
regarded by the Hebrews as both authoritative and
important. For it gave form and shape to portions
of their literature in the central department of its
devotions. Nay, traces of it may, perhaps, be found
in the Book of Job (Job 38), where the Almighty
challenges the patriarch on the primordial works
of creation. More clearly in Psalm 104, where we
have light, the firmament, the waters and their
severance and confinement within bounds ; a suc
cession the same as in Genesis. Then follow
mixedly the animal and vegetable creations, and
man as the climax crowns the series in verse 23.

40

THE CREA TION STOP Y.

So in Psalm 148 we have first (1-6) the heavens,
the heavenly bodies, and the atmosphere; then,
again mixedly, the earth and the agents affecting
it, with the animate population (7-10), and lastly
man. If there be some variations in the order of
the details, still the idea of consecutive develop
ment, or evolution, which struck so forcibly the
intelligence of Hackel, is clearly impressed upon
the whole. At a later date, and only (so far as is
known) in the Greek tongue, we find a more nearly
exact resemblance in the Song of the Three Chil
dren. The heavenly bodies and phenomena occupy
the first division ot the Song; then the earth is
invoked to bless the Lord, with its mountains,
vegetation, and waters ; then the animate popula
tion of water, air, and land follows in the order
pursued by the first chapter of Genesis ; while, as in
Genesis, there is no separate mention of the great
kingdom of the Reptiles. Then follow the children
of men ; and these fill the closing portion of the
Song. The most noteworthy differences (which,
however, are quite secondary) seem to be that there

THE CPE A TION S TOR Y. 4 1
is no mention of the first beginnings of vegetation,
and no supplemental notice, as in Genesis 1: 24-30,
of any reptiles.
But also the sun, moon, and stars, which are cate
gorically placed later in Genesis than vegetation,
precede in the Song any notice of the earth. Let
not this difference be hastily called a discrepancy.
Each mode is to be explained by considering the
character and purpose of the composition. In
Genesis, it is a narrative of the action ; in the Song,
it is a panorama of the spectacle. Genesis, as a
rule, refers each of the great factors of the visible
world to its due order of origin in time ; the Song
enumerates the particulars as they are presented
to the eye in a picture, where the transcendent
eminence of the heavenly bodies as they are, and
especially of the sun, gives to this group a proper
priority. Each co-ordination would have been
improper in the other place, but is proper in its
own. But a yet more remarkable proof, of the influence
exercised by this great chapter is found in the fact

42

THE CREATION STORY.

that it conveyed to the Hebrews the idea of Crea
tion pure and simple.
But this Creation Story may have an importance
for us even greater than it had for the Hebrews ; nay,
greater than it could have in any of those ages
when all men believed, perhaps even too freely, in
special modes of communication from the Deity to
man, and had not a stock of courage or of audacity
sufficient to question the possibility of a divine
revelation. For we have now to bear in mind that
the Book of Genesis generally contains a portion
of human history, and that all human history is a
record of human experience. It is not so with the
introductory recital ; for the contents of it lie out
side of, and anterior to, the very earliest human
experience. How came, then, this recital into the
possession of a portion of mankind ?
It is conceivable that a theory of Creation, and of
the ordering of the world, might be bodied forth in
poetry, or might, under given circumstances, be, as
now, based on the researches of natural science.
But, in the first place, this recital cannot be due

THE CREATION STORY.

43

to the mere imagination of a poet. It is in a high
degree, considering its brevity, methodical and
elaborate. And there is nothing either equaling
or within many degrees approaching it, which can
be set down to the account of poetry in other
spheres of primitive antiquity, whatever their poeti
cal opulence may have been. Further, the early
Hebrews do not appear to have cultivated or de
veloped any poetical faculty at all, until we come
down to that which was exhibited in strictly reli
gious work, such as the devotions of the Psalms,
and (principally) the discourses and addresses of
the Prophets.
As they were not, in a general sense, poetical, so
neither were they in any sense scientific. By tradi
tion, and by positive records, we know pretty well
what kinds of knowledge were pursued in very early
ages. They were most strictly practical. Take,
for example, astronomy among the Chaldees, or
medicine among the Egyptians. The necessities
of life then, as now, pressed upon man. We may
say with much confidence that in remote antiquity

44

THE CREATION STORY.

there existed no science like geology, aiming to
give a history of the earth. So, again, there was no
cosmogony, professing to convey a history of the
kosmos, as it was then understood; which would
have included, together with the earth, the sun,
moon, planets, and atmosphere.
When, at a later date, speculation on physical
origins began, it was rather on the primary idea
than on any systematic arrangement or succession.
With the Ionic, which was the earliest school of
philosophy, the human intelligence was mainly
busied in contending for one or other of the known
material elements, as entitled to the honors of the
primordial cause. Nor had even the Greeks or
Romans formulated any scheme in any degree ap
proaching that of Genesis for order and method, so
late as the time when they became acquainted with
the Hebrew Scriptures, through their translation
into Greek. The opening statement of Ovid in
the " Metamorphoses " is remarkable j1 but at the
1 Ov. " Met." I., 1-31. It is noteworthy that in the verses which
follow (32-88), where the poet adheres less closely to the lines of
Genesis, he also travels farther from scientific results.

THE CREA TION STOP V.

45

time when he wrote, the Book of Genesis had long
been accessible to educated persons in what was
then the chief literary language of the Romans.
There is not, then, the smallest ground for treating
the Mosaic cosmogony, whether in the way of
original or copy, as the offspring of scientific
inquiry. Again, to speak of it as guesswork would be
irrational. There were no materials for guessing.
There was no purpose to be served by guessing.
For a record of the formation of the world we find
no purpose in connection with the ordinary neces
sities or conveniences of life. Not to mention that,
down to this day, there exists no cosmogony which
can be strictly called scientific, though there are
theories both ingenious and beautiful, which appar
ently are coming to be more and more accepted ;
these, however, being of an origin decidedly late
even in the history of modern physics.
But, further, as the Tale of Creation is not poetry
nor is it science, so neither, according to its own
aspect or profession, is it theory at all. The method

46 THE CREA TION STOP Y.
here pursued is that of historical recital. The per
son, who composes or transmits it, seems to believe,
and to intend others to believe, that he is dealing
with matters of fact. But these matters of fact were,
from the nature of the case, altogether inaccessible
to inquiry, and impossible to obtain by our ordinary
mental faculties of perception or reflection, inas
much as they date before the creation of our race.
If it is, as it surely professes to be, a serious con
veyance of truth, it can only be a communication
from the Most High; a communication to man and
for the use of man, therefore in a form adapted to
his mind and to his use. If, thus considered, it is
true, then it carries stamped upon it the proof of a
divine revelation; an assertion which cannot com
monly be sustained from the nature of the contents
as to this or that minuter portion of Scripture at
large. If, when thus considered, it proves not to be
true, we then have to consider what account of it we
are in a condition to give. I cannot say that to me
this appears an easy undertaking. " If," says Pro-

THE CREA TION STOP Y.

47

fessor Dana with much reason, " it be true that the
narration in Genesis has no support in natural
science, it would- have been better for its religious
character that all the verses between the first and
those on the creation of man had been omit
ted." 1
It has indeed been advanced by some, as a mode
of obviating any difficulty arising from supposed
conflict with scientific results, that the credit of
Holy Scripture is not involved in statements which
have reference to physical adj ustments, but only in
moral or spiritual subject-matter and purpose; to
which, as a revelation from God, it is exclusively
related. This is a highly important proposition ; especially
when it is considered that we are professors of a
religion which rests not so much on abstract princi
ples, as on matters of fact. It may be true that the
Bible is not a revelation upon physics ; and yet it
may be also true that physical facts may stand in
immediate connection with other facts in the high-
1 " Creation." By Professor Dana. Oberlin, O., 1885 ; p. 202.

48 THE CREATION STORY.
est sense moral and spiritual, and that this connec
tion cannot be severed. Let us suppose a case
such as the Incarnation, or the Resurrection. Here
there is a spiritual power declared to have been at
work, which lies at the very heart of our religion ;
but its operation issues in a physical fact. In such
cases the credit of the revelation is attached to
a physical fact, because that fact is inseparable
from the revelation itself. It is plain, therefore, that
the proposition cannot be accepted in its full
breadth. It has at once to undergo an important
limitation, and to be confined to physical facts
which are not annexed to a moral or spiritual pur
pose. But then arises the further question, are
there, in the Holy Bible, apart from mere phrases
and forms of expression, any announcements of
physical fact, except such as are associated with a
purpose of that nature?
It must be borne in mind that we have not now
to do with errors incidental to transmission or
translation. Or with the use of poetical figure,
such as when it is said that " God is gone up with

THE CREATION STORY.

49

a shout" (Psa. 47 : 5). Nor with familiar phrases
which have only a relative truth, such as the sun
rise and the sunset Nor with the case of parable,
such as the magnificent vision of the dry bones in
Ezekiel : for, in a parable, no truth is understood to
be conveyed in the parts, but only in their relation
to one another. In none of these cases, speak
ing generally, do we ¦ understand the sacred writer
to be recording matters of fact. It may almost
be said that it is of the nature of a parable to be
allegorical, that is to say to borrow its particulars
from a foreign subject-matter. If so, the great
chapter which opens the Bible would be a strangely
incongruous parable, for there is no lesson to be
taught except the lesson that is conveyed in and
by the particulars themselves.
It will be generally felt that none of the parallels
or illustrations which have been cited will avail for
the purpose of covering the Creation Story, which
forms in itself an elaborate and carefully con
structed whole, dealing throughout with matters of
fact, and bearing every mark that as a whole it

50

THE CREATION STORY.

was meant by those who recorded it to be believed.
I will presently endeavor to show its inseparable
association with moral and religious purpose. At
present I will only contend that if we found physical
expositions of this kind in Scripture which were
not thus associated we should have to ask ourselves
how and why they came there; and should, with
Professor Dana, wish them away.
If then there be difficulties presented to us, as I
admit that of late years has been extensively sup
posed, I for one must decline to accept a mode of
escape which is hardly susceptible of definition, and
which will hardly bear a close examination. We
may find a happier issue to the argument in the
truth, as well as the majesty, of the narrative itself.
But the truth, or trueness, of which I speak, is
truth or trueness as conveyed to and comprehended
by the mind of man ; and, further, by the mind of
man in a comparatively untrained and infant state.
I cannot, indeed, wholly shut out from view the
possibility that casual imperfections may have crept
into the record. Setting aside, however, thatpossi-

THE CREA TION S TOR Y. 5 j
bilit}', let us consider the conditions of the case, in
its heart and substance, as they are exhibited to us
by reasonable likelihood; for, if the communication
were divine, we may be certain that it would on
that account be all the more strictly governed by
the laws of the reasonable.
In an address1 of singular ability, on " The Dis
cord and Harmony between Science and the Bible,"
Dr. Smith, of the University of Virginia, has drawn
some very important distinctions. In the depart
ment of natural science, and in the department of
Scriptural record, the question lies " between the
present interpretation of certain parts of the Hebrew
Scriptures, and the present interpretation of certain
parts of nature."2 "We must not too hastily as
sume that either of these interpretations is absolute
and final." " The science of one epoch is to a large
extent a help, which the science of the next uses
and abandons." Dr. Smith points out as an exam
ple that, down to the early part of the present cen-
1 New York : Hatcham. The Address is dated July 27, 1882.
2 Ibid., p. 3.

52

THE CREATION STORY.

tury, Newton's projectile theory of light seemed to
be firmly established, but that it has given place to
the theory of undulation, " which has now for fifty
years reigned in its stead." Hence, he observes,
we should not be too much elated by the discovery
of harmonies, nor should we receive with impatience
the assertion of contradictions. Throughout, it is
probable, and not demonstrative, evidence with
which we are dealing. There should always be a
certain element of reserve in our judgments on par
ticulars ; yet probable evidence may come indefi
nitely near to demonstration ; and even as, while fall
ing greatly short of it, it may morally bind us to
action, so may it, on precisely the same principles,
bind us to belief. What we have to do is, to deal
with the evidence before us according to a rational
appreciation of its force. It may show on this or
that particular question the concord, or it may show
the discord, between alleged facts of nature and
alleged interpretations of Scripture ; or it may leave
the question open, for want of sufficient evidence,
either way, on which to ground a conclusion.

THE CREATION STORY. 53
It is by these principles, and under these limita
tions, that I desire to see the question tried in the
terms in which I think it ought to be stated ;
namely, not whether the recitals in Genesis at each
and every point have an accurately scientific form,
but whether the detailed statements of the Creation
Story, as a whole, appear to stand in such a rela
tion to the facts of natural science, so far as they s
have been ascertained, as to warrant or require our
concluding that the statements have proceeded, in
a manner above the ordinary manner, from the Au
thor of the creation itself.1
Those who maintain the affirmative of this propo
sition have, by opponents, been termed Reconcilers ;
and it is convenient, in a controverted matter, to
have the power of reference, by a single word, to
the proposers of any given opinion. The same
1 See the attractive paper of Professor Pritchard.inhis " Occasional
Thoughts," Murray, 1889. He says, on p. 261, " I cannot accept the
Proem as being, or even as intended to be, an exact and scientific
account of Creation," but adds that it " contains within it elements of
that same sort of superhuman aid or superintendence, which is gene
rally understood by the undefined term of inspiration."

54

THE CREATION STORY.

rule oi convenience may perhaps justify me in des
ignating those who would assert the negative by
the name of Contradictionists. The recorder of the
Creation Story in Genesis I may designate by the
name of Moses himself, or the Mosaist, or the Mo
saic writer. This would not be reasonable, if there
were anything extravagant in the supposition that
there is a groundwork of fact for the tradition which
treats Moses as the author of the Pentateuch. But
such a supposition, in whole or in part, is sustained
by many and strong presumptions, and I bear in
mind that even the modern criticism does not always
refuse to acknowledge that there is a strong Mosaic
element in the Pentateuch.1
It does not seem too much to say, that the con
veyance of scientific instruction as such would not,
under the circumstances of the case, be a reason
able object for the Mosaic writer of this chapter to
pursue ; for the condition of primitive man, as it is
1 Bleek, " Einleitung in das Alte Testament (1878), sec. 18 ; edited
by Wellhausen, who contributes introductory sections (1-3) and other
passages, sometimes of dissent, without expressing any dissent from
this fundamental proposition.

THE CREA TION STOP Y.

55

portrayed in the Book of Genesis, did not require,
perhaps did not admit of, scientific instruction. On
the other hand, it could not but be a reasonable
object then to convey to the mind of man, such as
he actually was, a moral lesson drawn from and
founded on that picture, that assemblage of created
objects, which was before his eyes, and with which
he lived in perpetual contact. We have, indeed, to
consider both what lesson it would be most rational
to convey, and by what method it would be most
rational to stamp it, as a living lesson, on the mind
by which it was to be received. And the question
finally to be decided is not, whether, according to
the present state of knowledge, the recital in the
Book of Genesis is at each several point altogether
precise or complete. It may be like the construc
tion of the human eye, which is said not to con
form with absolute strictness to the pure theory of
science, but which is still held to be the construction
best adapted to the service which the organ has to
perform. It may here be general, there particular;
it may here describe a continuous process, and it

56 THE CREATION STORY.
may there make large omissions, if the things
omitted were either absolutely or comparatively
immaterial to its purpose; it may be careful of the
actual succession in time, or may deviate from it,
according as the one or the other best subserved
the general and principal aim; so that the true
question, I must repeat, is no more than this : Do
the propositions of the Creation Story in Genesis
appear to stand in such a relation to the facts of
natural science, so far as they are ascertained, as to
warrant or require our concluding that these propo
sitions proceeded, in a manner above the ordinary
manner, from the Author of the visible creation ?
What, then, may we conceive to have been the
moral and spiritual lessons which the Mosaist had to
communicate, and not only to communicate, but to
infuse or to impress ? I do not presume to attempt
an exhaustive enumeration. But it is not difficult
to specify a variety of purposes which the narrative
was calculated to promote, and which were of great
and obvious value for the education of mankind.
Some important distinctions have to be drawn

THE CREATION STORY. 57
between the first verse of the chapter, and the nar
rative which follows. Much of that narrative falls
within the compass of the thought of man. It also
may be said to fall within the sphere of his experi
ence; inasmuch as the facts of the material creation
are before us. Reasoning upon them, with various
degrees of probability or certainty we travel on
parallel lines with the Mosaic story, and have to
examine whether what we thus learn confirms or
impugns it. These considerations do not apply to
the sublime announcements conveyed in the first
verse of the chapter. Creation in itself is eminently
(to use a modern phrase) unthinkable. And it can
not be tested or called to account by any knowl
edge we have obtained, or may obtain, of things
created, being essentially anterior to them all. The
more we contemplate, the more we examine, this
proem to the Book of Genesis, the more we shall
perceive it to be the great foundation-chapter of
the entire Scripture, New as well as Old. But
the first verse seems to be the foundation of this
foundation-chapter. We may well ask, why it is

5 8 THE CREA TION STOP Y.
that the objections of the sceptical school, covered
with the name and the profession of natural science,
have been taken in detail to geological or biological
particulars, and have not been aimed at the chal
lenge conveyed in the opening words :
"IN THE BEGINNING, GOD CREATED THE HEAVENS
AND THE EARTH."
For here is enunciated a proposition of which it
may be justly said that, if it be false, we have no
need either to impugn it or to defend the statements
of a document discredited ab initio. But on the
other hand that, if it be true, its truth includes in
principle and carries along with it the truth of all
those statements of the Holy Scriptures which
most seriously strain the enfeebled faculty of
modern belief, for there is no conceivable manipu
lation of, or transaction with, matter, nearly so
marvellous as the stupendous conception of calling
it out of nothing into existence. This idea, made
familiar by revelation to Jews and Christians, was
the one idea that the unaided intellect of man
proved totally incompetent to conceive. Of rela-

THE CREATION STORY. 59
tions between matter and spirit, and of every sort
of change ensuing upon those relations, it could
conceive in a measure, and that readily enough ;
but to the idea of pure and sheer creation it does
not seem to have been at any time able to ascend.
Why should belief in the transformation of water
into wine be difficult for those who believe already
that there was once a condition of thing's, when
none of the elements out of which each is com
pounded had any existence at all ? And we may
observe that, in this matter of creation, there is no
room for the fallacy often applied to the things
which God did not (as such) create, but only made :
the fallacy which beguiles men into thinking that
by graduating a process we alter its essential char
acter, and into thus establishing a false antithesis
between evolutionary and creative power. One
single step in the work of creating out of nothing is
equal to a thousand. It is an operation unfathom
able in idea, but so definite in result that it stands
ever before us in its virgin integrity. It must be
accepted or refused : it cannot be tampered with.

60 THE CREATION STORY.
And if accepted it draws after it, as far as regards
possibility, not only what may be called the minor
miracles of Scripture, but also those greatest
miracles which are the corner stones of the Chris
tian Creed, the Resurrection, and, above all, the
Incarnation. He, who calls out of nothing both
matter and life, must surely be beyond questioning
by us as to the conditions which his wisdom may
be pleased to establish between them and his own
Divine Essence, or the manner in which he may
determine to impress himself upon them. Not that
such high processes are hereby brought within the
reach of our understanding, for no one of the count
less operations either of material or immaterial
change can radically enter within those narrow
bounds : but no rational objection can lie against
them from those who have already admitted into
their categories of belief what lies above and be
yond them all. Thus, then, the first chapter of
Genesis is the foundation-chapter of the Bible, and
the first verse is its foundation-verse.
Let us now pass on to the detailed narrative.

THE CREA TION STOP Y. 6 1
I have said that the mind of man did not, by its
unaided powers, ascend to the idea of creation out
of nothing. This conception, maintained all along
by the Jewish and the Christian tradition, has be
come to us part of the very alphabet of religious
thought, and taken its place among those ele
mentary and familiar ideas which, like certain vital
functions of the body, remain within our knowl
edge, but pass beyond our habitual consciousness.
Yet this idea, now the property of " babes and
sucklings," was entirely beyond the competency of
the most instructed heathen to embrace. Not only
before, but after, the publication of the Hebrew
Scriptures to the world through the vehicle of the
Greek language, the mind of cultivated man failed
to grasp the idea of Creation, and was unable to
advance beyond the manipulation of pre-existing
matter. It seems obvious that Ovid, when he wrote
the proem to his Metamorphoses, had himself been
drawing, whether directly or through others, from
the Septuagint. He evidently conceives the first
making of the world to have been only a modifica-

62 THE CREATION STORY.
tion of forms, and hence finds it to be an appropriate
preamble to the series of transformations which fur
nished the subject of his poem. And hence the
Greek tongue, with all its wealth and resource, had
no word to express creating as distinct from
moulding, shaping, or framing ; and while our Bible,
following the Hebrew in its primitive record, tells
us (Gen. 2 : 3) that God rested from " all he had
created and made," the Greek version drops the
distinction, and speaks only of the things that he
fashioned. But, on the one hand, if our translators
have been faithful to their original, it is worthy of
remark with what uniformity the' sacred books
apply the word "create " to the origin, and not to
any mere modification of existence. And, on the
other hand, the Greek tongue itself applied dis
tinctively one of its own words, different from that
which signifies moulding or fashioning, to discharge
imperfectly the office which is perfectly fulfilled
(as we are told) by the Hebrew in the first chapter
of Genesis.
It is probable that that chapter, and even the

THE CREA TION STOP Y. 63
first words of that chapter, are absolutely the
parents of the idea of Creation, that is to say of
summoning into existence: unless it can be shown
that it came into the possession of man from some
other source also. Into the possession of the
most intellectual and cultivated portion of man we
know that it did not so come. And I own it ap
pears to me that those believers in revelation who
depose the opening chapter from the position of
authoritative Scripture because it relates to phys
ical matters, place themselves in this dilemma, that
the great conception of Creation properly so called,
although it has been humanly announced, has
never been revealed. Yet it is the idea, which lies
at the very root of the relation between the Al
mighty and mankind, and supplies the basis and
the measure of the duties which we owe to the
Fountain of our being.
Secondly, it is plain that this chapter presented
to the mind of man the fact that he had a common
origin with the rest of Nature, both animate and
inanimate, and thereby that he was constituted in

64 THE CREATION STORY.
a definite relation to all created things. As we
know through subsequent communications from
the same high source, this is a relation partly of
dominion. But is of dominion regulated by duty :
and duty governing our conduct generally governs
that part of it which concerns the animal creation
by an appropriate law. We are to use those which
are appointed to our use, whether for labor or for
food, with the obligation to avoid excess in the
one, and infliction of unnecessary pain in the other.
We are to destroy those which are noxious to
human subsistence. And we are to avoid all
wanton injury, as to the greatest, so also to the
least among them. In those men or women who
are by nature tenderly disposed, Nature itself may
supply the needful dispositions. But one of the
sad and afflicting incidents in our nature as it
actually stands is the widespread proneness, even
in childhood, to cruelty : to a cruelty not syste
matic or reasoned, but what may be termed a
cruelty of indifference, which treats the inferior
creatures as without any interest or feeling that

THE CREA TION STOP Y. 65
should be taken into account, and which instinc
tively feels delight in the exercise of power although
without an object. And among the consequences
probably due to this proclamation of fellowship
between man and beast are those enactments of
the Mosaic law which make provision on behalf of
laboring animals. " Thou shalt not muzzle the ox
when he treadeth out the corn" (Deut. 25 : 4).
A thing probably unexampled in the early history
of man.
There is, however, a larger sense of the fellow
ship with Nature in which it extends to the in
animate, and has a positive and no longer a merely
negative character. There is no idea I think more
foreign to classical literature than that God is the
God of animals as well as of man, and the God of
lifeless nature as well as of animals. But these
noble ideas took root in the comparatively un
developed minds of the Hebrews. "The lions,
roaring after their prey, do seek their meat from
God," and " When thou hidest thy face they are
troubled; when thou takest away their breath
5

66 THE CREATION STORY.
they die, and are turned again to their dust"
(Psa. 104 : 21, 22). Then we may pass to things
inanimate, which not only amaze, but also gladden
the soul of the Psalmist. "Thou, Lord, hast made
me glad through thy works: and I will rejoice in
giving praise for the operations of thy hands. O
Lord, how glorious are thy works: thy thoughts
are very deep." And again, " I will consider thy
heavens, even the works of thy fingers, the moon
and the stars, which thou hast ordained" (Psa.
92 : 4, 5, and 8 : 3). Thus the train of ideas, which
flowed downward through the ages from the great
chapter, opened to the Hebrews a rich treasury of
thoughts by placing them in communion with uni
versal Nature, a great book of God.
And it is a singular reflection that this book of
Nature was opened to them alone, so far as we
know, among the kindred races of the ancient
world ; at any rate, it was absolutely closed to Greeks
and Romans as regarded any duty or piety con
nected with it. Some have even gone so far as to
contend that the ancients of the two classic penin-

THE CREA TION STOP Y. 67
sulas had no perception at all of beauty in the
landscapes, which were so lavishly spread before
their eyes. And if this statement cannot be sus
tained in its full breadth,1 yet it is I believe undeni
able that they most rarely and feebly touched that
boundless field of observation which has not only
added a vast department to modern art, but has
enriched our literature in prose and verse, and has
found food for the nurture of such a genius as
Wordsworth, never to be forgotten while British
poetry holds its place in the grateful recollection
of our race.
It was not then for nothing that primitive tradi
tion was directed into a divergence from the usual
course ordained for it, and that in this one place
only of all the Bible it supplies us with a detailed
and systematic statement of a great series of
physical facts, with which we cannot lightly tamper,
inasmuch as they hold on to high educative pur-
1 We seem to find instances in Virgil such as (probably) in Georg.
II. ; more certainly in JEn. I. But we have the same idea conveyed
a thousand or more years before Virgil in the Odyssey of Homer
(IV. 606) with reference to the scenery of Ithaca.

68 THE CREATION STORY.
poses closely akin to the general aims of the sacred
volume. To the foregoing considerations we may subjoin
some further lessons conveyed to the primitive man
by the Creation Story as it stands in Genesis.
It presented to his mind, and by means of detail
made him know and feel, what was the beautiful
and noble home that he inhabited, and with what a
fatherly and tender care Providence had prepared
it for him to dwell in. There was a picture before
his eyes. That picture was filled with objects of
Nature, animate and inanimate. I say, one of its
great aims may have been to make him know and
feel by means of detail ; for wholesale teaching,
teaching in the lump, or abstract teaching, mostly
ineffective even now, would have been wholly futile
then. It was needful to use the simplest phrases,
that the primitive man might receive a conception,
thoroughly faithful in broad outline, of what his
Maker had been about on his behalf. So the Maker
condescends to partition and set out his work, in
making it a picture.

THE CREATION STORY.

69

But He proceeds further (and this is the climax)
to represent himself as resting after it. This
declaration is in no conflict with any scientific
record. It, however, implies a license in the use
of language, which for its boldness was never ex
ceeded in any interpretation, reconciled or other,
which has been applied to any part of the text of
Genesis. But it draws its ample warrant from the
strong educative lesson that is to be learned from
it ; for it invests both with majesty and authority the
doctrine of a day of rest. Now, this doctrine was
of the highest importance to the higher and inner
life of man, while it was one which the daily cares
of his existence were but too likely, as experi
ence too amply proved, to efface from his recol
lection. I contend then, finally, that the Creation Story
was intended to have a special bearing on the great
institution of the day of rest, or Sabbath, by exhib
iting it in the manner of an object lesson. Paley,
indeed, has said that God blessed the seventh day
and sanctified it (Gen. 2 : 3), not at that time but

7°

THE CREATION STORY.

for that reason. He is a writer much to be re
spected, and for many reasons ; but, in dealing with
Holy Scripture, he was somewhat apt to rest upon
the surface. And now we have learned from
Assyrian researches how many and how sharply
traced are the vestiges, long anterior to the delivery
of the law, of some early institution or command,
which in that region evidently had given a special
sanctity to the number seven, and, in particular, to
the seventh day.
Man then, child-like and sinless, had to receive a
lesson which was capable of gradual development,
and which spoke to something like the following
effect : It has not been by a slight or single effort
that the nature, in which you are moulded, has
been lifted to its present level ; you have reached it
by steps and degrees, and by a plan which, stated
in rough outline, may stir your faculties, and help
them onwards to the truth through the genial ac
tion of wonder, delight, and gratitude. This was a
lesson on the facts of creation, perhaps quite large
enough, so it seems to me, for the primitive man ;

THE CREA TION STOP Y. 7 1
and one which, when he had heard and had begun
to digest it, might well be followed by a rest for
generations. And it further seems to have been vital to the
efficiency of this lesson, from such a point of view,
that it should have been sharply broken up into
parts, although there might be in nature nothing,
at any precise points of breakage or transition, to
correspond physically with those divisions. They
would become intelligible, significant, and useful
on a comparison of the several processes in their
developed state, and of the vast and measureless
differences, which in that state they severally
present to contemplation. As, when a series of
scenes are now made to move along before the eye
of a spectator, his attention is not fixed upon the
joints which divide them, but on the scenes them
selves, yet the joints constitute a framework as it
were for each, and the idea of each is made more
distinct and lively than it would have been if, with
out any note of division, they had run into one
another.

72 THE CREATION STORY.
There is, however, another purpose, not yet
named, and more remote yet perhaps even more
vital, which appears to be powerfully served by the
Creation Story of the Bible. In the prehistoric
time, polytheism was very largely engendered by
national distinctions, rivalries, and amalgamations.
By a ready and ingenious compromise each people
became habituated to recognize a deity all-sufficient
for its own wants, but unconcerned with those of
others. In the course of time and of successive
change, many of these deities might find themselves
inducted into one and the same thearchy, or my
thological system, such as that of Assyria or of
Olympus, and sitting there side by side. When
this happened, the polytheistic idea had reached
its full development. But the road to it lay princi
pally through the erection of separate thrones, each
for the god of some particular national organi
zation ; and it was narrowed within the limits thus
imposed upon the earlier and more proper con
ception of a Divine Governor. But, wherever the
Creation Story of Genesis was truly received, the

THE CREATION STORY.

73

door was effectually closed for all thinking men
against these co-equal and purely national gods.
And how? Because the God of Israel was the
Maker of the world, and so of all the nations in
it. It was his creation; and its inhabitants,
whether terrestrial or celestial, were his creatures.
Thus the narrative of this great chapter was nothing
less than a Great Charter of monotheism ; and
though, in Israelitish practice, Baal and Ashtoreth
might find their way into popular worship, and
spread around them an infinity of corruption, the
lines of the dogma, as a dogma, never were ob
scured, and the standard of authoritative reform
still lifted up its head to heaven from the first day of
idolatry to the last, when, under the pressure of the
Exile, that form of mischief was finally submerged.1
This great idea, the universal authorship of crea
tion, lost rather than dilapidated elsewhere, was
impressed upon the Hebrew mind with a force
which found its way into the solemn worship of
1 For the further elucidation of the subject of this paragraph, see
the Postscript to " The Creation Story."

74 THE CREATION STORY.
the temple. It was not in Palestine alone that the
orders of animals depended upon the providence
of God, and that hill and valley, land and water,
showed forth his image. It was the entire heavens
which declared the glory of God, the entire firma
ment which showed forth his handiwork. The sun
proclaimed the glory of its Maker from the utter
most part of the heavens unto the end of it again ;
and the sound of things created is gone out into
all lands, and their words into the ends of the
world. . . . The sun eometh forth as a bridegroom
out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a giant to run
his course (Psa. 19 : 1-6). But this glorious sun, in
his predestined course, was himself doing homage
to his Lord and Maker. And the great chapter
visibly reappears in the verse "One day telleth
another, one night certifieth another " (Psa. 24 : 1).
This is without doubt noble poetry, but it is also
nobler than any poetry. Mute Nature is instinct
with life and vocal with worship, and all Creation,
in its humblest orders giving a lesson to its loftiest,
ministers to the glory of the Most High.

THE CREA TION STOP Y. 75
In order, then, to approach any attempt at com
parison between the record of Scripture and the
record of Natural Science, we must consider first,
as far as reasonable presumption carries us, what
is the proper object of the scientist, and what was
the proper object of Moses, or of the Mosaic
writer, in the first chapter of Genesis.
The object of the scientist is simply to state the
facts of nature in the cosmogony as and so far as
he can find them. The object of the Mosaic writer
is broadly distinct ; it is, surely, to convey moral
and spiritual training. This training was to be im
parted to human beings of child-like temperament
and of unimproved, unopened understanding. It
was his business to use those words which would
best carry home the lessons he had to teach,
which would carry most truth into the minds of
those he taught. This observation has not the
honors of originality. "He emphasized," says
Rabbi Grossman,1 in his interesting tract on Mai-
monides, "as very proper and wise, the Talmudic
1 Page 12. Putnam : New York and London. 1890.

76 THE CREATION STORY.
maxim, that the Torah employs such diction as is
likely to be most communicative."
In speaking of the Mosaic writer, I would, with
out presumption, seek to include any divine impulse
which may have prompted him, or may have dic
tated any communication from God to man, in
whatever form it may have been conveyed. With
this aim in view, words of figure, though literally
untrue, might carry more truth home than words
of fact ; and words less exact will even now often
carry more truth than words superior in exactness.
The truth to be conveyed was, indeed, in its basis
physical ; but it was to serve moral and spiritual
ends, and accordingly by these ends the method
of its conveyance behooved to be shaped and pic
tured. I submit, then, that the days of Creation are
neither the solar days of twenty-four hours, nor are
they the geological periods which the geologist
himself is compelled popularly, and in a manner
utterly remote from precision, to describe as mil
lions upon millions of years. To use such language

THE CREATION STORY.

77

as this is simply and properly to tell us that we
have no means of forming a determinate idea upon
the subject of the geologic periods. I set aside
both these interpretations, as I do not think the
Mosaist intended to convey an idea like the first,
which would seem to be false, or like the second,
which for his auditory would have been barren and
unmeaning. Unmeaning, and even confusing in the
highest degree ; for large statements in figures are
well known to be utterly beyond comprehension
for man at an early intellectual stage ; and I have
myself, I think, shown1 that, even among the
Achaian or Homeric Greeks, the limits of numeri
cal comprehension were extremely narrow, and all
large numbers were used, so to speak, at a venture,
and with only a clouded comprehension.
It seems to me that the " days " of the Mosaist
are more properly to be described as chapters in
THE HISTORY OF the creation. That is to say, the
purpose of the writer, in speaking of the days, was
1 " Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age," Vol. III., Section on
Number.

78 THE CREA TION STOP Y.
the same as the purpose of the historian is, when
he divides his work into chapters. His object is to
give clear and sound instruction. So that he can
do this, and in order that he may do it, the periods
of time assigned to each chapter are longer or
shorter, according as the one or the other may
minister to better comprehension of his subject by
his readers. Further, in point of chronology, his
chapters often overlap. He finds it needful, always
keeping his end in view, to pursue some narrative
to its close, and then, stepping backwards, to take
up some other series of facts, although their exor
dium dated at a period of time on which he has
already trespassed. The resources of the literary
art, aided for the last four centuries by printing,
enable the modern writer to confront more easily
these difficulties of arrangement, and so to present
his material to a reader's eye, in text or margin, as
to place the texture of his chronology in harmony
with the texture of the action he has to relate.
The Mosaist, in his endeavor to expound the ordi
nary development of the physical world, had no

THE CREA TION STOP Y.

79

such resources. His expedient was to lay hold on
that which, to the mind of his time, was the best
example of complete and orderly division. This
was the day ; an idea at once simple, definite, and
familiar. As one day is divided from another, not
by any change visible to the eye at a given moment,
yet effectually, by the broad chasm of the inter
vening night, so were the stages of the creative
work several and distinct. Even if, like the lapse
of time, they were without breach of continuity, yet
the work of each, when viewed in its completeness,
was broadly separated from that of every other.
Each had its work, each had the beginning and the
completion of that work, even as the day is begun
by its morning, and completed and concluded by
its evening.
And now to sum up. In order that the narrative
might be intelligible, it was useful to subdivide the
grand operation. This could most effectively be
done by subdividing it into periods of time. And
further, it was well to choose that particular circum
scription or period of time which is the most definite

80 THE CREA TION STOP Y.
and best understood. Of all these, the day is clearly
the best, as compared with the month or the year :
first, because of its small and familiar compass ;
and, secondly, because of the strong and marked
division which separates one day from the days
which precede and follow it, while the months and
the years run into one another.
Hence, we may reasonably argue, it is that not
here only, but throughout the Scripture, and even
down to the present time in familiar human speech,
the day is figuratively used to describe periods
of time, perfectly undefined as such, but defined,
for practical purposes, by the lives or events to
which reference is made. And if it be said there
was a danger of its being misunderstood in this
particular case, the answer is that such danger of
misapprehension attaches in various degrees to all
use of figurative language ; but figurative language
is still used. And with reason, because the mis
chiefs arising from such danger are rare and trivial,
in comparison with the force and clearness which
it lends to truth on its passage, through a thickened

THE CREATION STORY. 8 1
atmosphere of folly, indifference, and prejudice, in
to the mind of man. In this particular case, the
danger and inconvenience are at their minimum,
the benefit at its zenith ; for no moral mischief
ensues because some have supposed the days of
the creation to be pure solar days of twenty-four
hours, while the benefit has been that the grand
conception of orderly development, and ascent from
chaos to man, became among the Hebrew people
a universal and familiar truth, of which other races
appear to have lost sight.
I may now part from the important and long-
vexed discussion on the Mosaic days. But I shall
further examine the general question, what is
the true method, what the reasonable spirit, of
interpretation to be applied to the details of the
Creation Story? I will state frankly my opinion
that, in this important matter, too much has some
times been conceded in modern days to the scientist
and to the Hebraist, just as in former days too
much was allowed to the unproved assumptions of
the theologian. Now it is evident that the proper
6

82 THE CREATION STORY.
ground of the scientist and of the Hebraist respec
tively is unassailable, as against those who are nei
ther scientists nor Hebraists. On the meaning of
the words used in the Creation Story, I, as an igno
ramus, have only to accept the statements of Hebrew
scholars, with gratitude for the aid received ; and in
like manner the pronouncements of men skilled in
natural science on the nature and succession of the
orders of being, and on the transitions from one to
the other. Not because their statements are inerr
able, but because they constitute the best working
material in our possession. Still they are the state
ments of men whose title to speak with authority
is confined to ' their special province ; and if we
allow them without protest to go beyond it, and
still to claim that authority when they are what
is called at school " out of bounds," we are much
to blame, and may suffer for our carelessness.
I will now endeavor to illustrate and apply
what has been said. The Hebraist says, I will con
duct you safely (as far as the case allows) to the
meaning of the Hebrew words. And the scientist

THE CREA TION STOP \ '.

33

makes the same promise in regard to the facts of
the created orders, so far as they are exhibited by
geological investigations into the crust of the earth.
At first sight it may seem as if these two authori
tative witnesses must cover the whole ground, each
setting out from his own point of departure, the
two then meeting in the midst, and leaving no un
occupied space between them. But my contention
is that there is a ground which neither of them is
entitled to occupy in his character as a specialist,
and on which he has no warrant for entering,
except in so far as he is a just observer and rea-
soner in a much wider field. And what is the
residuary subject-matter still to be disposed of?
Not the meaning of the Hebrew words. The
Hebraist has already given us their true equiva
lents in English. We now learn, for example, that
the "whales" of Genesis 1:21 are not whales at all,
but that they are aquatic monsters1 or great crea-
1 Rev. Ver., the great sea-monsters. " It seems, 'on the whole, most
probable, that the creatures here said to have been created were ser
pents, crocodiles, and other huge saurians, though possibly any large
monsters of sea or river may be included" (Bp. Browne in loc.

84 THE CREATION STORY.
tures ; while we learn from the biologist that the
whale is a late mammal. So geology has acquainted
us what are the relative dates of the water and of
the land populations, and has supplied much infor
mation as to reptiles, birds, and beasts. But there
remains a great uncovered ground, and a great
unsolved question. It is this. Given the facts as
the geologist is led to state them, given the Hebrew
tongue as the instrument through which the relator
has to work, what are the terms, and what is the
order and adjustment of terms, through which he
can convey most of truth and force, with least of
incumbrance and of impediment, to the mind of
man, in the condition in which he had to deal with
it ? Let me be permitted to say that the only spe
cialism, which can be of the smallest value here, is
that of the close observer of human nature; of the
student of human action, and of the methods which
"Speaker's Commentary"). Possibly a word signifying, whether
wholly or inter alia, crocodiles, would convey a pretty clear idea to
the mind of the Hebrews, after their sojourn in Egypt. On the other
hand, it may be asked what reason can be given for construing the
word in this limited sense.

THE CREATION STORY. 85
Divine Providence employs in the conduct of its
dealings with men. Certainly I can lay no claim
to be heard here more than any other person. Yet
will I say, that any man whose labor and duty,
whether for several scores of years or for a shorter
term, has included as their central point the study
of the means of making himself intelligible to the
mass of men, is pro tanto perhaps in a better posi
tion to judge what would be the forms and methods
of speech proper for the Mosaic writer to adopt,
than the most perfect Hebraist as such, or the most
consummate votary of natural sciences as such.
I will now endeavor to try some portions of the
case which turn upon verbal difficulty. At the
outset of the narrative the relator says, that
" the earth was without form and void " (Gen.
I : 2) and that " the spirit of God moved upon
the face of the waters." Nay, how is this? says
the Hebraist The Hebrew word for earth means
earth, and the word used for water never means
anything except water. But according to the
beautiful theory, which has during the last half-

86 THE CREATION STORY.
century won so largely the adhesion of the scientific
world, and which seems to be mainly called the
nebular theory, at the commencement of the pro
cess which Genesis describes, and in its early
stages, there was no earth, and there were no
waters. Is the relator here really in fault? It
seems to me that it might be quite as easy to cavil
at the phrase nebular theory, though it be one in
use among scientific men, as it is to find fault with
these words of Genesis. For nothing can be more
different than a nebula or cloud from a vast expanse
of incandescent gaseous matter. In truth, we seem
to have for our point of departure a time when all
the elements and all the forces of the visible uni
verse were in chaotic mixture, whereas there could
hardly be any sort of nebula until they had begun
to be disengaged from one another. How then are
we to judge of the employment of the word
"earth" by the Mosaic writer? Is it not thus?
He is dealing with an Adam, or with a primitive
race of men, who have the earth under their eyes.
He wants to give them an idea of its coming into

THE CREA TION STOP Y. 87
existence. And he says what we may fairly para
phrase in this way : that which has now become
earth, and was then becoming earth, the solid well-
defined form you see, was as yet without form and
void ; epithets which I am told might be improved
upon, but this is a matter by the way.
So again with respect to water. The men for
whom the relator wrote knew, perhaps, of no fluid
except water, at any rate of none vast and practi
cally measureless in volume. What was the idea
he had to convey? It was not the special and dis
tinctive character of the liquid called water; it was
the broad separation between solid as such, familiar,
firm, immovable under his feet, and fluid as such,
movable and fluctuating at large in space. No
doubt the idea conveyed by the word "waters" is an
imperfect idea, although waters are still waters at
times when they may be holding vast quantities of
solid in solution. But it was an idea easy, clear,
and familiar up to the point of expressing forcibly
the contrast between the ancient state of things,
with its weltering waste, and the recent and defined

88 THE CREATION STORY.
conditions of the habitable earth. Could we ask
of the relator more than that he should employ,
among the words at his disposal, that which would
come nearest to conveying a true idea? And had
he any word so good as water for his purpose,
though it was but an approximation to the actual
fact ? Dr. Driver1 describes the scene as that of a
" surging chaos." An admirable phrase, I make
no doubt, for our modern and cultivated minds ;
but a phrase which, in my judgment, would have
left the pupils of the Mosaic writer exactly in the
condition out of which it was his purpose to bring
them ; namely, a state of utter ignorance and total
darkness, with possibly a little ruffle of bewilder
ment to boot. Another description claiming high
authority is, an " uncompounded, homogeneous,
gaseous condition " of matter ; to which the same
observation will apply. Even now, it is only by
rude and bald approximations that the practiced
intellects of our scientists can bring home to us a
conception of the actual process by which chaos
1 In an article contributed to the " Expositor," January, 1886.

THE CREA TION STOP Y. 89
passed into Cosmos, or, in other words, confusion
became order, medley became sequence, seeming
anarchy became majestic law, and horror softened
into beauty. Before censuring the Mosaist, who
had to deal with grown children, let the adverse
critic try his hand upon some little child. I believe
he will find that the method and language of this
relator are not only good, but superlatively good,
for the aim he had in view, if once for all we get rid
of standards of interpretation other than the genuine
and just one, which tests the means employed by
their relation to the end contemplated and sought.
I now approach a larger head of objection, which
is usually handled by the Contradictionists in a
tone of confidence rising into the pa?an of triumph.
But let me, before presuming to touch on objec
tions to particulars of the Creation Story, guard
myself against being supposed to put forward any
portion of what follows as unconditional assertion,
or final comment on the text. The general situa
tion is this : Objectors do not hesitate to declare
dogmatically that the great chapter is in contradic-

90 THE CREATION STORY.
tion with the laws and facts of Nature, and that
attempts to reconcile them are futile and irrational.
It is thus sought to close the question. My aim is
to show that the question is not closed, and that
the condemnation pronounced upon the Mosaist is.
premature ; and that a very different contention has
to be considered, namely, whether this chapter does
not in itself supply proof of a divine revelation. For
this purpose I offer conjecturally, and in absolute
submission to all that biology and geology, or other
forms of science, have established, replies which
are strictly provisional ; yet replies which I consider
that the Contradictionist ought, together with other
and weightier replies, to confute, or legitimately to
consider, before he can be warranted in asserting
the contradiction. But I proceed.
How hopeless, is the cry, to reconcile Genesis
with fact, when, as a fact, the sun is the source of
light, and yet in Genesis light is the work of the
first day, and vegetation of the third, while sun,
moon, and stars appear only on the fourth ! Nay,
worse still. Whereas the morning and the evening

THE CREATION STORY.

91

depend wholly on the rotation of the earth upon its
own axis, as it travels round the sun, the Mosaist
is so ignorant that he gives us not days only, but
the mornings and the evenings of days before the
sun is created. And so his narration explodes, not
by blows aimed at it from without, but by its own
internal self-contradictions. It is hissed, like a
blundering witness, out of court. Not that this is
the opinion of astronomers in general. Mr. Lock-
yer,1 for example, cites, with apparent approval, a
passage from his very distinguished predecessor in
the science, Halley, who says that the diffused lucid
medium he had found, disposed of the difficulty
which some have moved against the description
Moses gives of the Creation, alleging that light
could not be created without the sun.
The first triad of days, says Professor Dana,2 sets
forth the events connected with the inorganic his
tory of the earth. The second triad, from the
fourth day to the sixth, is occupied with the events
1 Nineteenth Century, Nov., 1889, p. 788.
2 Dana's " Creation," p. 207.

92

THE CREATION STORY.

of the organic history, from the creation of the
first animal to man. He finds in the general struc
ture of the narrative a considerable degree of elabo
ration, an arrangement full of art. The passage
from verse 14 to verse 19 is, in one sense, a quali
fication of the order he thinks to have been laid
down, inasmuch as the heavenly bodies belong to
the inorganic division of the history. From an
other point of view, however, this arrangement
contributes in a marked manner to the symmetry
of the narrative. The first triad of days begins with
the first and gradual detachment of light from the
"surging chaos;" the second, at the stage in which
light has reached its final distribution. The central
mass had now assumed with a certain amount of
regularity (for, according to heliologists, the process
does not even yet appear to be absolutely com
pleted) its spherical and luminous figure, after shed
ding off from itself the minor masses, each to find
for itself its own orbit of rotation. Or, if we are to
assume that the photosphere or vapor-envelope of
the earth itself had obstructed the vision of the sun,

THE CREATION STORY. 93
we have, further, to assume1 that this obstacle had
now disappeared or ceased to be impervious, and
that the visibility of the sun was established. So
that light, or the light-power, while diffused, ushers
in the first division of the mighty process; the
same light-power, concentrated by the operation
of the rotary principle, and for practical purposes
become such as we now know it, is placed at the
head of the second division, the division that re
lates to organic life.
It is remarkable that the subject of light is the
only one which is dealt with in two separate sec
tions of the narrative. The gradual severance, or
disengagement, of the earth from its present vest
ure, the atmosphere, and of the solid land from
the ocean, are continuously handled in verses 6-10.
Each of these processes may have been gradual,
and may have passed through many stages. But,
at verses 6 and 9, they are respectively summed up
by a few peremptory words of command, as if they
had been convulsive or instantaneous. Only the
1Guyot, " Creation," Chap. XL, p. 92.

94

THE CREA TION STOP Y.

grand result is made known. The avoidance of
all attempt to explain the process seems to me
only a proof of the wisdom which guided the for
mation of the tale. To the primitive man it would
have become a barren puzzle; the wood might have
been lost in the trees. As it now stands, mental
confusion is avoided, and definite ideas are con
veyed. There seems, however, to be a special reason for
the introduction of the heavenly bodies at this
particular place. It was evidently needful at some
place or other to give a specific account of the
day, or compartment of time, which is employed
throughout the chapter to mark the severance of
the different stages of creation from each other.
At what point of the narrative could this account
be most properly and most accurately introduced ?
In order to answer this question, let us consider
the situation rather more at larg-e.
It may be convenient, before entering into the
fuller discussion, to set out some brief and synop
tical account of the contents of the (detailed) Crea-

THE CREATION STORY.

95

tion Story properly so called, which begins with
the commencement of the first chapter, and ends
with the third verse of the second.
It may be divided first into two portions, the first
of six days and the second of the seventh day only :
the first presenting an account of the creation and
fashioning of the world, and dealing with work
done. The second is negative with respect to work
done, and simply records the issue of a command,
together with the grand analogy on which that
command is based.
When we turn to the creative work of the six
days, we cannot limit it to the earth, as the opera
tions of the fourth day are concerned with the
heavenly bodies ; nor can we extend it to the kosmos
properly so called, or material universe, for we
cannot tell how far the signification of the word
"stars" in verse 1 6 may be meant to extend. It
may refer to the creation of our own solar system,
but we are not warranted in propounding this as a
definition of its extent. Keeping in view the man
ner in which the whole narrative addresses itself

96 THE CREATION STORY.
to practical ends, the word "stars " may be thought
to include all those heavenly bodies of which the
earliest astronomy took note. But the terms em
ployed define nothing as to time, except as regards
the sun and moon, making only the general asser
tion that the Almighty was also • the Creator of the
stars. When speaking of the creation of the world,
I employ the phrase in the sense thus indicated.
It does not appear that the six days can be sepa
rated into portions by any perfectly clean division.
The first four are mainly cosmological, but they
include the beginning of vegetation on the surface
of the earth. The two last of the days are zoologi
cal. But the sixth day, like the third, is mixed,
and contains operations not homogeneous. Of
geology, as it is commonly understood, the chapter
takes no notice. It is confined to the air, the
sea, and the earth surface. But the researches of
geology into the changes which that surface has
undergone in the lapse of time have most bene
ficially enlarged our knowledge of the chapter, and
our means of appreciating its wonderful construe-

THE CREA TION STOP i '.

97

tion. The mixture of cosmic with terrestrial his
tory in the third day, and the return to cosmic
narrative on the fourth, are readily to be accounted
for by the aim of the chapter which apparently
governs its sequences. But on account of this
mixture I do not attempt subdivision of the days
of creation, and simply bring together the leading
operations in what is, I hope, a simple and intelli
gible form.
Verse i. First we have the creation of the material
universe, described as "the heavens and the earth."
This takes place in the beginning. But it is not
stated of what it was the beginning. This is in the
first verse ; and there is no link of time between it
and the second, which resumes the narrative inde
pendently of the first.
So far as form is concerned, the chapter might
have commenced with verse 2. But then we should
not have possessed the pronouncement or dogma
of universal creation.
Verse 2. This verse proclaims first the formless
condition of the earth. Now, as no earth can prop-
7

98 THE CREATION STORY.
erly be said to exist except with form, the words
amount to a declaration that the materials for the
formation of the earth existed, but that the earth
was not yet formed. Motion is then announced,
and assigned to the divine actuating power. The
Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters!
That motion was imparted to these " waters " is not
directly mentioned; but such a mention would
have conveyed no rational conception to the primi
tive man, who had nothing in his experience to
correspond with it.
I shall assume that what is known as the nebu
lar theory of creation stands good as a working
hypothesis. We have then to observe, not that the
Mosaic narrative is tied to it so as to be consistent
with no other, nor that it gives a complete exposi
tion of it, but that, moving as it were on parallel
lines, one chapter is so constructed as at no point
to clash with it
Verses 3-5. Accordingly motion is at once fol
lowed by the disengagement of light. And this
light is divided from the darkness. According to

THE CREATION STORY. 99
the nebular theory, the rotation is followed by the
formation of a central mass, and the detachment
from it of minor masses, which as they continue to
rotate expose successively the different portions of
their surface to, and then remove it from, the cen
tral light Thus the light is parted from the dark
ness and the basis of diurnal division laid.
Verses 6-8. The first grand severance having
thus been made, and something in the nature of a
globular figure constituted, by rotation and gravi
tation, which was to become the earth, and the
next grand severance is that of the earth from its
atmospheric vesture described as the firmament or
expanse, a portion of space accommodated as we
now know to the conditions of animal life. This
firmament "divides the waters from the waters,"
humidity being gradually condensed beneath into
what we know as water, and also above our heads
collected without such condensation into the clouds
from whence proceed our supplies of rain.
Verses 9,10. The second grand severance is fol
lowed by a third. Moisture being no longer dif-

100 THE CREATION STORY.
fussd through the parts of space without sensible
distinction, and the principal part of it being con
densed into water, this water becomes a mass lim
ited to a certain portion of space, beneath the firma
ment of air. Then this mass, local, circumscribed,
becomes the sea, filling the great cavities of the
earth surface, and leaving the portions not thus
occupied to become comparatively dry. Thus land
and sea are constituted. This severance, like the
others, is described so to speak in the large, and
leaves unnoticed all the particular arrangements for
the successive production and deposition of the
rocks; for it adheres throughout to its principle,
which confines its statements within the limits of
what is suitable for the instruction of the primitive
man. Verses n, 12. Land and sea being thus con
stituted, and light having been their precursor, with
heat, its twin-brother, which from other sources we
know to have been produced as its concomitant
through motion, we are possessed of the necessary
antecedents of vegetation and vegetation follows.

THE CREATION STORY. t0t
The mode in which it is described will be presently
considered. The acts of the fourth day are cosmological in
themselves ; but they form a chapter of cosmology
which is here treated in reference to the earth, as
the sun and moon are to be the time-markers for
mankind. In this view then we may be justified in
saying that from henceforward the narrative only
concerns itself with terrestrial arrangements.
Verses 14-19. These verses have evidently the
making of the sun and moon for their principal
subject. It is subjoined without any particulars
that God made the stars also. They are in such
conjunction with the moon that they seemed fit for
mention ; but their relation to man at large is com
paratively slight, and accordingly the mention is
without detail.
Verses 20-23. The fifth day introduces us to
animated life : an onward stride in the evolution of
the world of so distinct a character, that it is marked
by the use for the second time only of the Hebrew
word which we are told denotes creation. The

102 THE CREATION STORY.
work of this day is in two stages, and it is ushered
in by a double command. First it is ordained that
the waters shall bring forth abundantly the moving
creature that hath life, and in verse 20 the com
mand, as it is stated in the Authorized Version,
seems to cover the fowl that were to fly in the
firmament of heaven. But the Revised Version
completely separates the two portions of the fiat,
(1) that the waters should bring forth, and (2) that
the fowl should fly. Thus verse 20 is placed in
complete harmony with verse 21, where in the
Authorized as well as in the Revised Version the
successive divine acts that produce the water and
the air populations respectively are placed in regu
lar sequence.
Verses 24-28. The work of the sixth day em
braces in its entirety the earth-population of
animals and men. Animals are described with
some variation of phrase, but apparently none of
meaning. In verse 24 they are " the living creature
after his kind," " cattle and creeping thing and beast
of the earth after his kind." In verse 25 they are

THE CREATION STORY. 103
" the beast of the earth after his kind," and " cattle
after their kind, and everything that creepeth upon
the earth after his kind." Such is in general out
line the animal kingdom of the earth-population.
Verses 26-31. We now come to the grand con
summating act, the creation of man ; and here, for
the third time, the Hebrew term indicative of crea
tion proper is used. The production of man is an
nounced under a form of consultation; the distinc
tion of male and female is included in the opera
tions of the day ; this eminent being is created in
the image of God (26, 27), is endowed with general
dominion over all living creatures, and with a title
to all seed-bearing herbs and fruit-bearing trees for
food (29), while the grasses are assigned to the in
ferior orders. Finally, a solemn benediction from
the Creator inaugurates the great mission of man
(28) upon the earth, and so the work of the six
days stands complete in outline before us. Then
follows in 2 : 1-3 the benediction of the seventh
day. Having the whole process placed thus synopti-

104

THE CREA TION STOP Y.

cally before us, we proceed to the discussion in
detail. The supposition is, that we set out with a vast
seething mass, of such a nature as to contain all
the elements which are to become the solids and
liquids, the moist and dry, the heat and the non-
heat or cold, the light and the non-light or
darkness, that so largely determine the external
conditions of our present existence. By degrees,
according to the rarity or density of parts, the
centripetal or the centrifugal force prevails. And
accordingly, while the huge bulk of the sun con
solidates itself in the center, so likewise aggre
gations of matter (rings, according to Guyot,1
which afterwards become, or may become, spheres),
are detached from it to form the planets, under the
agency of the same mechanical forces. All or
some of these, in their turn, dismiss from their as
yet ill-compacted surfaces other subaltern masses
either to revolve around them as satellites, or other
wise, according to the balance of forces, to take
1 " Creation," pp. 67, 73.

THE CREA TION STOP V.

105

their course in space. Meantime, the great cool
ing process, which is still in progress at this day,
has begun. It proceeds at a rate determined for
it by its particular conditions, among which mass
and motion are of essential consequence ; for, other
things being equal, a small body will cool faster and
a large body will cool slower ; and a body moving
more rapidly through space of a lower temperature
than its own will cool more rapidly ; while one
which is stationary, or more nearly stationary, or
which diffuses heat less rapidly from its surface
into the colder space, will retain a high tempera
ture longer. Owing to these perhaps with other
causes, the temperature of the earth-surface has
been adapted to the conditions of human life, and
of the more recent animal life, for a very long time.
It had already been made suitable to those of the
earlier animals, and of vegetation in a series of
progressive orders, for we know not how much
longer; while the sun, though gradually losing
some part of his stock of caloric (whatever that
may be), still remains at a temperature inordinately

I06 THE CREA TION STOP Y.
high, and with a globular formation comparatively
incomplete. Considering, then, what are the relations between
the conditions of heat and those of moisture, and
how the coatings of vapor, " the swaddling-band
of cloud,"1 might affect the visibility of bodies, may
it not be rash to affirm that the sun is, as a definite
and compact body, older than the earth ? or that it
is so old ? or that the Mosaist might not properly
treat the visibility of the sun, in something like its
present form, as best marking for man the practical
inception of its existence ? or that, with heat, light,
soil, and moisture ready to its service, primordial
vegetation might not exist on the surface of a
planet like the earth, before the sun had fully
reached his matured condition of sufficiently com
pact, material, and well-defined figure, and of visi
bility to the human eye ? May not, once for all,
the establishment of the relation of visibility be
tween earth and sun be the most suitable point for
the relator in Genesis to bring the two into con-
1 Dana, p. 210.

THE CREATION STORY.

107

nection? And here again I would remind the
reader that the Mosaic days may be chapters in
a histoiy; and also that, not in despite of the
law of series, but with a view to its best practi
cable application, the chapters of a histoiy may
overlap. The priority of earth to sun, as given in the nar
rative, carries us so far as this: that vegetative
work (of what kind I shall presently inquire) is
stated to be proceeding on the surface of the earth
before any relation of earth with sun is declared.
It is then declared in the terms, " and God made
two great lights " (v. 16.) Now the making of
earth is nowhere declared, but only implied. And
who shall say that there is some one exact point
of time in the continuous process which (according
to the nebular theory) reaches from the first begin
ning of rotation down to the present condition
of the solar system, to which point, and to which
alone, the term " making" must belong? But, un
less there be such a point, it seems very difficult to
convict the Mosaic writer of error in the choice he

108 THE CREATION STORY.
has made of an opportunity for introducing the
heavenly bodies into his narrative.
I suppose that no apology is needed for his men
tioning the moon and (more slightly) the stars as
accessories in the train of the sun, and combining
them all without note of time, although their sev
eral " makings " may have proceeded at different
speeds. But here again we find exhibited that
principle of relativity to man and his uses, by
which the writer in Genesis appears so wisely
to steer his course throughout. We are told of
"two great lights" (v. 16); and one of them is the
moon. The formation of the stars is interjected
soon after, as if comparatively insignificant. But
the planet-stars individually are in themselves far
greater and more significant than the moon, which
is denominated a great light In what sense is the
moon a great light? Only in virtue of its relation
to us. For its magnitude, as it is represented on
the human retina, is far larger than that of the
stars, and in certain states of atmosphere even
seems to approach that of the sun. Its office also

THE CREA TION STOP Y. t 09
makes it the queen of the nocturnal heaven. So,
then, the general upshot is, that the mention of the
sun is introduced at that point in the cosmogonic
process when, from the condition of our form and
atmosphere, or of his, or of both, he had become
so definite and visible as to be finally efficient for
his office of dividing day from day, and year from
year; that the planets, being of an altogether sec
ondary importance to us, simply appear as his
attendant company; and that to the moon, a body
in itself comparatively insignificant, is awarded a
rather conspicuous place, which, if objectively con
sidered, is out of proportion, but which at once
falls into line when we acknowledge relativity as
the basis of the narrative; by reason, first, of its
visual magnitude in the heavens, and, next, of the
great importance of the functions which this sat
ellite discharges on behalf of the inhabitants of
the earth.
Next, it is alleged that we have days with an
evening and a morning before we have a sun to
supply a measure of time for them. Doubtless

1 1 o THE CREA TION STOP Y.
there could be no approach to anything like an
evening and a morning, so long as light was uni
formly diffused. But under the nebular theory,
the work of the first day implies an initial con
centration of light; and, from the time when light
began to be thus powerfully concentrated, would
there not be an evening and a morning, though
imperfect, for any revolving solid of the system,
according as it might be turned towards, or from,
the center of the highest luminosity? To put it
in the briefest words. When light begins, motion
begins. When motion begins, there begins also a
concentration of light. When light is concen
trated, a relation of day and night, and of evening
and morning, or gradual night and gradual day,
is established. So the distinction of days begins
at the right place (v. 5), and could not rightly have
begun at any other place.
But we have not yet emerged from the net of the
Contradictionist, who lays hold on the vegetation
verses (n, 12) to impeach the credit of the Creation
Story. The objection here becomes twofold. First,

THE CREATION STORY. UI
we have vegetation anterior to the sun; and sec
ondly, this is not merely an aquatic vegetation for
the support of aquatic life, nor merely a rude and
primordial vegetation, such as that of and before
the coal-measures, but a vegetation complete and
absolute, including fern-grass, then the herb yield
ing seed, and lastly the fruit-tree, yielding fruit
after its kind, whose seed is in itself. Here is the
food of mammals and even of man provided, when
neither of them was yet created. Nay, when
neither of them was on the eve of existence, or
was to take its place in the created order, until
after many a long antecedent form of lower life
had found its way into creation and undertaken
its office there.
First, as regards vegetation before the sun's per
formance of his present function in the heavens is
announced. There were light and heat, atmos
phere with its conditions of moist and dry, soil
prepared to do its work in nutrition. Can there
be ground for saying that, with such provision
made, vegetation could not, would not, take place?

112 THE CREATION STORY.
Let us, for argument's sake, suppose that the sun
could now recede into an earlier condition, could
go back by some few stages of that process through
which he became our sun ; his material less com
pact, his form less defined, his rays more in
tercepted by the " swaddling-band " of cloud and
vapor. Vegetation might be modified in character,
but must it therefore cease? May we not say that
a far more violent paradox would have been
hazarded, and a sounder objection would have
lain, had the Mosaic writer failed to present to
us at least an initial vegetation before the era at
which the sun had obtained his present degree of
definiteness in spherical form, and the conditions
for the transmission of his rays to us had reached
substantially their present state ?
But, then, it is fairly observed that the vegetation
as described is not preparatory and initial, but
full-formed; also, that any tracing of vegetation
anterior to animal life in the strata is ambiguous
and obscure. In the age of Protozoa, the earliest
living creatures, the indications of plants are not

THE CREATION STORY. 113
determinable, according to the high authority of
Sir J. W. Dawson. It is observed by Canon Driver
"that the proof from science of the existence of
plants before animals is inferential and a priori!'1
Guyot, however, holds a directly contrary opinion,
and says the present remains indicate a large pres
ence of infusorial protophytes in the early seas.2
But suppose the point to be conceded. Undoubt
edly, all a priori assumptions ought in inquiries
of this kind to be watched with the utmost vigi
lance and jealousy. Still there are limits beyond
which vigilance and jealousy cannot push their
claims. Is there anything strange in the supposi
tion that the comparatively delicate composition of
the first vegetable structures should have given
way, and become indiscernible to us, amidst the
shock and pressure of firmer and more durable
material ? The flesh of the mammoth has, indeed,
been preserved to us, and eaten by dogs in our
own time, though coming down from ages which
1 "The Cosmogony of Genesis," in The Expositor, January, 1886,
p. 29. 2 " Creation," X., p. 90.

1 1 4 THE CREA TION STOP Y.
we have no means of measuring ; but then it was
not exposed to the same pressure, and it subsisted
under conditions of temperature which were ade
quately antiseptic. But has all palaeozoic life been
ascertained by its flesh? or do we not owe our
knowledge of many (perhaps of all) among the
earlier forms of animated life altogether to their
osseous structures? And, in cases where only
bone remains, is it an extravagant use of argument
a priori to hold that there must at some former
time have been flesh also? And, if flesh, why
should not vegetable matter also have subsisted,
and have disappeared ? Canon Driver, indeed,
observes1 that from a very early date animals
preyed upon animals. Still the first animal could
not prey upon himself; there must have been vege
table pabulum, out of which an animal body was
first fed and so developed. " Before the beasts,"
says Sir George Stokes, " came the plants, plants
which are necessary for their sustenance." 2
1 The Expositor, January, 1886, p. 29.
2 Letter to Mr. Elflein, Aug. 14, 1883.

THE CREATION STORY.

"5

Next, with respect to the objection that the vege
tation of the eleventh and twelfth verses is a per
fected vegetation, and that there existed no such
vegetation before animal life began. But why are
we to suppose that the Mosaic writer intended to
say that such a vegetation did exist before animal
life began ? For no other reason than this : hav
ing mentioned the first introduction of vegetable
life, he carries it on, without breaking his narrative,
to its perfection. In so proceeding, he does exactly
what the historian does when, for the sake of
clearer comprehension, he brings one series of
events from its inception to its close, although in
order of time the beginning only, and not the
completion, belongs to the epoch at which he
introduces it. What I have called the rule of rela
tivity, the intention, namely, to be intelligible to
man, seems to show the reason of his arrangement.
If his meaning was, " The beautiful order of trees,
plants and grasses which you see around you had
its first beginnings in the area when living creatures
were about to commence their movements in the

Il6 THE CREATION STORY.
waters and on the earth, and all this was part of
the fatherly work of God on your behalf" — such
meaning was surely well expressed, expressed after
a sound and workman-like fashion, in the text of
the Creation Story as it stands.
I will next notice the objection that the Mosaic
writer takes (according to the received version) no
notice of the great age of reptiles, but proceeds at
once from the creation of marine animals (v. 20) to
the fowl that may " fly above the earth in the open
firmament of heaven." He thus passes over with
out notice the amphibians, the reptiles proper, the
insects, and the marsupial or early mammals, on his
way to the birds. It is added that he brackets the
birds with the fishes, and thus makes them of the
same date.
It is requisite here to observe, with respect to
birds, that Professor Dana1 writes of the narrative
in Genesis as follows: Speaking of the relation
between the Mosaic narrative and the ascertained
facts of science, he uses these words: "The accord-
1 "Creation," as before, p. 215.

THE CREATION STORY.

117

ance is exact with the succession made out for the
earliest species of these grand divisions, if we
except the division of birds, about which there is
doubt." Owen, however, in his "Palaeontology,"1 places
animal life in six classes, according to the following
order, namely: 1. Invertebrates. 4. Birds.
2. Fishes. 5. Mammals.
3. Reptiles. 6. Man.
In the more recent " Manual " of Professor Prest-
wich (1886), the order of seniority stands as fol
lows : 1. Cryptogamous Plants. 4. Mammals.
2. Fishes. 5. Man.
3. Birds.
In the " Manual " 2 of Etheridge we are supplied
with the following series, after fishes: 1. Fossil
reptiles. 2. Ornithosauria ; flying animals, which
combined the character of reptiles with those of birds!'
3. The first birds of the secondary rocks, with
1 Second edition, i86i,p. 5.
* Phillips's " Manual of Geology," Part II., by R. Etheridge, F.R.S.,
Chap. XXV., pp. 511-520.

Il8 THE CREATION STORY.
" feathers in all respects similar to those of existing
birds." 4. Mammals.
It thus appears that much turns on the definition
of a bird, and that in this point, as in others, it
is hard, on the evidence thus presented, seriously
to impeach the character of the Creation Story.
Largely viewed, the place of birds, as an order in
creation, is given us by our scientific teachers, or,
at the very least, as I have shown, by many and
recognized authorities among them, between fishes
and the class of mammals. It is a gratuitous
assumption that the Mosaist intends to assign to
them the same date as fishes ; he places them in the
same day, but then we have to bear in mind that
he more than once gives several actions to the same
day. He sets them after the fishes ; and the fairer
construction surely is, not that they were contem
poraneous, but that they were subsequent. In
verse 2 1 , if not in verse 20, the emergence into life
of the one order is absolutely severed from that of
the other. He forbears, it is true, to take separate
notice of amphibious reptiles, insects, and marsu-

THE CREA TION STOP Y.

II9

pials. And why? All these, variously important
in themselves, fill no large place — some of them no
place at all — in the view and in the concerns of
primitive man ; and, having man for his object, he
forbears, on his guiding principle of relativity, to
encumber his narrative with them.
If it be true that the demarcation of the order of
birds in creation is less sharply drawn than that
(for example) of fishes and of mammals, may we not
be permitted to trace a singular propriety in the
diminution, so to speak, of emphasis, with which
the Mosaist gives to their introduction a more
qualified distinctness of outline, by simply subjoin
ing them (v. 20) to the aquatic creation ? Does not
that diminution of emphasis accompany, and corres
pond with, an inferior breadth of distinction in the
things themselves?
I must not, however, be understood to assert that
the great reptile kingdom is omitted from the nar
rative. I find there are Hebraists who find nothing
in the Tannin, which seems to be unhappily ren
dered by the word " whales," to exclude the great

120 THE CREATION STORY.
reptiles from the scope of its meaning. In this
view, this charge of omission, small as its signifi
cance would be if proven, falls to the ground.
I have now made bold to touch on the principal
objections popularly known. They run into details
which it has not been possible fully to notice, but
which seem to be without force, except such as
they derive from the illegitimate process of holding
down the Mosaic writer in his narration, so short,
so simple, so sublime, by restraints which the ordi
nary historian, though he has plenty of auxiliary
expedients, and is under no restraint of space, finds
himself obliged to shake off if he wishes to be
readily and popularly understood. On the intro
duction of the great or recent mammals, and of
man, as the objector is silent, I remain silent also.
It would be uncandid, however, not to notice the
"creeping thing" of verses 24, 25, and 26. In these
verses the " creeping thing " is distinguished from
cattle, and undoubtedly appears upon the scene as
if it were a formation wholly new. If the Mosaist
really intended to convey that this was the first

THE CREA TION STOP Y. t 2 1
appearance of any creeping thing in creation, there
is, I suppose, no doubt that he is at war with the
firmly established witness of natural science. Guyot,
indeed, says1 that these creeping things are not rep
tiles, but are the smaller mammals, rats, mice, and
the like. If, however, the common rendering be
maintained, it may be just worth while to suggest
a possible explanation. It is as follows. These
creeping things were a very minor fact in the
scheme of creation ; so that the purpose of the re
lator, and the comparative importance of the facts,
may here, as elsewhere, have an influence upon the
mode of handling them. It is fit to be observed
that he never mentions insects at all, as if they
were too insignificant to find a place among the
larger items of his account; as if he advisedly
selected his materials, and sifted off the less im
portant among them. And there does seem to be
some license or looseness in his method of treat
ing these creeping things ; for while he severs them
from fish, fowl, and beast, in the verses I have
1 " Creation," p. 120.

122 THE CREATION STORY.
named, and again in verse 30 from fowl and from
beast, yet in verse 28, when the great charter of
dominion is granted to man, he sums up in three
divisions only, and makes man the lord " over the
fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and
over every living thing that moveth upon the
earth." Reptiles appear to have passed out of his
view, either wholly, or so far as not to deserve sep
arate mention, and it may seem likely that he did
not think their importance such as to call for a par
ticular and defined place, and, while according to
them incidental mention, did not mean to give
them such a place, in the chronological order of
creation. Let the Contradictionist make the most
he can out of this secondary matter : it will not
greatly avail.
If, on the whole, such be a fair statement of argu
ments and results, we may justly render our thanks
to Dana, Guyot,1 Dawson, Stokes, and other scien-
1 In the preface to Guyot's " Creation " will be found some account
of the recent literature of this subject. I must also mention a valu
able pamphlet entitled " The Higher Criticism," by Mr. Rust, Rector
of Westerfield, Suffolk. It sets forth the scope of the negative criti-

THE CREATION STORY.

123

tific authorities, who seem to find no cause for sup
porting the broad theory of contradiction. I am
well aware of my inability to add an atom of weight
to their judgments. Yet I have ventured to at
tempt applying to this great case what I hold to be
the just laws of a narrative intended to instruct and
to persuade, and thus finding a key to the true con
struction of the chapter. For myself, I cannot but
at present remain before and above all things im
pressed with the profound and marvellous wisdom,
that has guided the human instrument, whether it
were pen or tongue, which was first commissioned
from on high, to hand onwards for our admiration
and instruction this wonderful, this unparalleled
relation. If I am a "reconciler," I shall not call
myself a mere apologist, for I aim at a positive, not
merely a defensive result, and claim that my reader
should feel how true it is that in this brief relation
he possesses an inestimable treasure. And I sub-
cism at large, and recommends (p. 30) to " have patience for a while,
and wait to see the issue." Similar advice has, I understand, been
given in the recent Charge of the learned Bishop of Oxford.

124 THE CREATION STORY.
mit to those, who may have closely followed my
remarks, that my words were not wholly idle
words, when, without presuming to lay down any
universal and inflexible proposition, and without
questioning any single contention of persons spe
cially qualified, I said that the true question was
whether the words of the Mosaic writer, in his
opening chapter, taken as a whole, do not stand,
according to our present knowledge, in such a rela
tion to the facts of Nature as to warrant and re
quire, thus far, the conclusion that the Ordainer
of Nature, and the Giver or Guide of the Creation
Story, are one and the same.
Postscript to the Creation Story.
Mankind have traveled not by one but by several
roads into polytheism. It took a thousand years
from the institution of the Mosaic legislation to
place the chosen people, as a whole, in a state of
security from this insidious mischief. But all
along a powerful apparatus of means had been at
work, which was strengthened from time to time as

THE CREATION STORY. i2$
Divine Providence saw fit. The foundation, how
ever, had been laid in the Creation Stoiy. It was
impossible for those who received it either to travel
or to glide into polytheism by either of the two
widest roads then open, the system of Nature-wor
ship, and the deification of Heroes. No one could
make the sun his God, who really believed that
there was a God who created the sun. Even more
perhaps was it needful that the line should be
clearly and sharply drawn between Deity and
humanity, and that a barrier not capable of being
surmounted should exclude kings and heroes from
deification. In the Homeric or Olympian system,
the worship of inanimate nature was studiously
shut out; but the beginnings of deification are
visible in the case of Heracles,1 whose very self
(avrbc) sits at the banquets of the Immortals ; also
of the twin brothers, Castor and Pollux, who live
and die on alternate days, and who, when they
live, receive honors like the gods. In the height
of their civilization, the Romans set up their living
1 Od. XL, 302-305.

126 THE CREATION STORY.
emperors as divinities. But neither they nor the
Greeks believed in the creation of man by the
Almighty. The old cosmogonies of the heathen
placed matter and other impersonal entities in a
position of priority to their gods, who merely take
their turn to come upon the scene. Only (I be
lieve) in the Hebrew story is the Deity anterior,
without which condition he cannot be supreme.
Besides being anterior, he is separate. Did we
find in the pages of the Old Testament a story of
deification, we should at once know it to be spuri
ous, because in contradiction, alike as to letter and
as to spirit, of the entire context.
It is, I hope, not presumptuous to proceed a step
further, and to say that this broad and effectual
severance was necessary, not only for the old
dispensation, but for the new: not only for the
exclusion of idolatry in all its forms, but for the
establishment of the Incarnation. A marriage
would be no marriage, unless the individuality of
the parties to it were determinate and ineffaceable.
The Christian dogma of the two natures in one

THE CREA TION S TOR Y. 127
Person would be in no sense distinctive, if it had
been habitual in the preparatory dispensation, as
in some of the religions outside it, for man prop
erly so called to pass into proper deity. Reunion
was to be effected between the Almighty and his
prime earthly creature by the bridge to be con
structed over that flood, the flood of sin, which
parted them ; and, to sustain that bridge, it was
needful that the natures to be brought into union
should stand apart like piers perfectly defined, each
on its own separate and solid foundation. And
the firm foundations of those piers were laid, to
endure throughout all time, by the great Creation
Story.

III.
THE OFFICE AND WORK OF THE OLD
TESTAMENT IN OUTLINE.

We may often hear it said, that the Old Testa
ment is an introduction to the New. Much more
is contained in these words than an irreflective reci
tal may enable us to grasp. Yet they do not seem
to cover the whole ground. It seems necessary to
glance first at the conjoint function of the two Tes
taments, in order to measure fully the exalted mis
sion of the earlier. As the heavens cover the earth
from east to west, so the Scripture covers and com
prehends the whole field of the destiny of man.
The whole field is possessed by its moral and
potential energy, as a provision enduring to the
end of time. But it is marvellous to consider how
large a portion of it lies directly within the domain
of the Old Testament. The interval to be bridged
128

THE OLD TESTAMENT. J2g
over between the prophet Malachi and the Advent
is not one of such breadth as wholly to abolish a
continuity, which was also upheld by visible insti
tutions divinely ordained, and possibly even by the
production of certain of the Psalms themselves.
It is further narrowed in so far as something of a
divine afflatus is to be found in the books which
form the Apocrypha, which are esteemed by a large
division of Christendom to be actually a part of the
Sacred Canon, and which in the Church of England
have a place of special, though secondary honor.
At the more remote end of the scale, it is difficult
to name a date for the beginning of the Sacred
Scriptures. The corroborative legends of Assyria,1
ascertained by modern research, concerning the
Creation and the Flood, to which we know not
what further additions may still progressively be
made, carry us up,2 it may be roughly said,
" To the first syllabte of recorded time!'
1 These legends will be separately noticed later in the present series
of essays.
2 See No. VI. of this series for the ground of the argument, which,
as here presented, can only have in a certain measure the character
of an assumption. 9

130

OFFICE AND WORK OF THE

Historic evidence does not at present warrant our
carrying backwards the probable existence of the
Adamic race for more than some such epoch as
from 4000 to 6000 years before the advent of Christ.
And if, as appears likely, the Creation Story has
come down from the beginning, and the Flood
legend is also contemporary, the Christian may feel
a lively interest in observing that, during by far the
larger portion of human histoiy, the refreshing rain
of divine inspiration has descended, with compara
tively short intervals, from heaven upon earth, and
the records of it have been collected and trans
mitted in the sacred volume. Apart from every
question of literary form and of detail, we now
trace the probable materials of the oldest among
our sacred books far back beyond Moses and his
time. And so .we have a marvellous picture pre
sented to us, not only all-prevailing for the imagi
nation, the heart, and the conscience of man, but
also, as I suppose, quite unexampled in its histori
cal appeal to the human intelligence. The whole
human record respecting Adam and his descend-

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131

ants is covered and bound together in that same
unwearied and inviolable continuity, which weaves
into a tissue the six Mosaic days of gradually
developed creation, and fastens them on at the
hither end to the gradually advancing stages of
Adamic, and, in due course, of subsequent history.
We find then, that, apart from the question of
moral purity and elevation, the Scriptures of the
Old Testament appear to distinguish themselves
from the sacred books possessed by various nations
in several vital particulars. They deal with the
Adamic race as a whole. They begin with the
preparation of the earth for the habitation and use
of mankind. They then, from his first origin, draw
downwards a thread of properly personal history,
with notices, most remarkable in their character,
though contracted in space, of divergent families of
men. As, from being personal, the narrative be
comes national — that is to say, from the Exodus
onwards this thread is enlarged into a web ; and
eventually it includes the whole race of man. Our
Scriptures are not given once for all, as were the

132

OFFICE AND WORK OF THE

works of Confucius or Zoroaster in their respective
spheres. They do not deliver a mere code of
morals or of legislation, but their character is pre
eminently historical, while they purport to disclose
a penetrating and continuing superintendence from
on high over human affairs. And the whole is
doubly woven into one formation. First, by a chain
of divine action, and of human instructors acting
under divine authority, which is sustained and rep
resented by national institutions, and is never bro
ken until the time when political servitude, like
another Egyptian captivity, has well-nigh become
the fixed destiny of the Hebrew nation. Secondly,
by the Messianic bond, by the light of prophecy
shining in a dark place, and directing onwards the
minds of devout men to the "fulness of time" and
the birth of the wondrous Child, so as effectually
to link the older sacred books to the dispensation
of the Advent, and to carry forward their office
through an action both of and in the Church, until
the final day of doom. May it not boldly be asked,
what parallel to such an outline as this can be

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133

supplied by any of the sacred books preserved
among any other of the races of the world ? So
far, then, the office and work of the Old Testament,
as presented to us by its own contents, is without
a compeer among the old religions. It deals with
the case of man as a whole. It covers all time.
It is alike adapted to every race and region of the
earth. And how, according to the purport of the Old
Testament, may that case best be summed up? In
these words : it is a history first of sin, and next of
redemption. Our Lord has emphatically said, " They that be
whole need not a physician, but they that are sick"
(Matt. 9 : 12); and this saying goes to the root of
the whole matter. Is there, or is there not, a deep
disease in the world, which overflows it like a
deluge, and submerges, in a great degree, the fruit-
bearing capacities of our nature? Are we, as a
race, whole, or are we sick, and profoundly sick ?
I think that, to an impartial eye and to a thought
ful mind, it must seem strange that there should be

134

OFFICE AND WORK OF THE

a doubt as to the answer to be given to this ques
tion. It seems -more easy to comprehend the men
tal action of those whom the picture of the actual
world, as it is unrolled before them, tempts, by its
misery, guilt, and shame, into doubt of the being of
God, than of persons who can view that picture,
and who cannot fail to observe the dominant part
borne by man in determining its character, and yet
can make it a subject of question whether man is
or is not morally diseased. Veils may have been
cast between our vision and the truth of the case
by the relative excellence of some select human
spirits ; by the infinitely varied degrees and forms
of the universal malady; by the exaggerations and
the narrownesses of outlying schools of theology ;
and lastly by the remarkable circumstance, that
races, above all the extraordinarily gifted race of
the ancient Greeks, have lived on into large devel
opments of art, of intellect, and of material power,
without creating or retaining any strong concep
tion of moral evil, under the only aspect which
reveals its deeper features; that aspect, namely,

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135

which presents it to the mind as a departure from
the supreme and perfect standard, the will of God.
But these disguises are pierced through and
through by ever so little of calm reflection. We
can conceive how generations, blinded by long
abuse to the character of moral evil, could well
contrive to blink and pass by the question. But
we, who inherit the Christian tradition, ethical as it
is not less than dogmatic, cannot, I think, deny the
prevalence, perhaps not even the preponderance, of
moral evil in the world, without some subtle and
preliminary process of degeneracy in our own
habit of mind. We shall find that, in renouncing
that tradition, we return to a conception which
admitted to be evil only that which was so vio
lently in conflict with the comfort of human society
as to require condemnation and repression by its
self-preserving laws. The gap between these two
conceptions of our state, the one furnished by dis
ordered nature, the other by divine grace, is im
measurable. And I think it will not be denied that, in describ-

136 OFFICE AND WORK OF THE
ing vividly the fact of sin in the world, the Scriptures
of the Old Testament proceed upon lines, which
have also been clearly drawn in the general con
sciousness at least of the Christian ages. This
sense of sin, which lies like a huge black pall over
the entire face of humanity, has been all along the
point of departure for every preacher, writer, and
thinker within the Hebrew or the Christian fold.
And it is the gradual and palpable decline of it, in
the literature and society of to-day, that is the
darkest among all the signs now overshadowing
what is in some respects the bright and hopeful
promise of the future.
Nor can any one, who believes in the existence
of God, wonder that sin is described as a deviation
from the order of nature, as a foreign element, not
belonging to the original creation of divine design,
but introduced into it by special causes. At this
point we come to what is known as the Fall of man,
and to the narration of that fall as it is given in the
Book of Genesis.
For the moment, let us simply note what is

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137

unquestionable: that the Old Testament, from the
beginning to the end, deals with the conception of
sin, and of its opposite, as forming one side of its
special work, and in this capital respect entirely
differs from all the other documents of profane
antiquity. Against the narrative of the Fall, the negative
criticism has been actively employed. The action
ascribed to the serpent is declared to be incredible;
the punishment of Adam, disproportioned to the
offense, which consisted only in an action not essen
tially immoral, but only wrong because it was pro
hibited; the punishment of all mankind, for the
fault of one, is denounced as intolerably unjust.
Now let us set entirely aside, for the moment,
the form of this narrative, and consider only its
substance. Let us deal with it as if it were a para
ble ; in which the severance between the form and
the substance is acknowledged and familiar. In
proposing this, I do not mean to make on my own
part any definitive surrender of the form as it
stands, or a»y admission adverse to it There is,

138 OFFICE AND WORK OF THE
it may be, high and early Christian authority even
for surrendering the form. I only seek to pass
within it, and to put the meaning and substance of
the Fall Story upon their trial.
In this relation, we find a certain aggregate of
objects, which we are now asked to treat as if they
were simply significant figures. There are pre
sented to us the man, with the woman, in a garden ;
the serpent, with its faculty of speech and subtle
thought; the two trees, of knowledge and of life
respectively ; a fruit forbidden by divine command,
but eaten in defiance of it; and, after certain re
proofs and intimations, ejectment from the garden
in consequence. In this ejectment is involved a
great deterioration of outward state. But it is not
a matter of outward state alone. A deterioration
of inward nature is also exhibited, in the derange
ment of its functions. A new sense of shame bears
witness to the revolt1 of its lower against its higher
1 See Delitzsch, who, in accordance with patristic authorities, writes
as follows : " The first consequence of the Fall was shame. The
nakedness of mankind is no longer the appearance of their inno
cence. Their corporeity has fallen from the dominion of the spirit.

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139

elements; and, for the first time, exhibits it to us
as a disordered, and therefore a dishonored thing.
Together with all this, there is the outline of a
promise that, from among the progeny of the fallen
pair a Deliverer, born of woman, shall arise, who,
at the cost of personal suffering, shall strike at the
very seat of intelligence in the creature set before
us as the living emblem of evil, and so shall destroy
its power. In this relation, on the one hand, many
modern objectors have discovered an intolerable
folly, and, on the other hand, the Christian tradition
of eighteen centuries has acknowledged a profound
philosophy, and a painful and faithful delineation of
an indisputable truth.
Now what is the substance conveyed under this
form ? The Almighty has brought into existence
a pair of human beings. He has laid upon them a
law of obedience, not to a Decalogue or a code,
setting forth things essentially good, and the re
verse of them, but simply to himself; and as
Their beholding has become a sensuous imagining, and the flesh
excites their fleshly passions " (" Old Testament History of Redemp
tion," p. 23. Edinburg : Clark, 1881).

140 OFFICE AND WORK OF THE
uttered by him, to a rule of feeding and not feed
ing. The point, at which this representation first
brings into view an independent or objective law,
lies in the prohibition to feed upon a tree which
imparts the knowledge of good and evil. That is
to say, the pair, as they then were, were forbidden
to aspire to the possession of that knowledge. The
dispensation under which for the time they lived,
was a dispensation of pure obedience.
The question whether this was reasonable or
unreasonable cannot be answered upon abstract
grounds, but resolves itself into another question,
whether it was appropriate or inappropriate to the
state of the beings thus addressed, and to their
relation towards Him who gave the command.
Some may assume that Adam was what so great a
writer as Milton has represented him to be —
" For contemplation he and valor formed," '
and not for contemplation only, but for intricate
inquiry and debate on subjects such as tax' all the
powers of a cultivated intellect. And indeed, if we
1 " Paradise Lost," IV. 297.

OLD TESTAMENT IN OUTLINE.

141

take the developed man, such as we know him in
Christian and civilized society, it seems plain that
to lay down for him a law of life which did not
include the consideration of essential good and
evil, would not only stunt and starve his faculties,
but would shock his moral sense.
It may be said that a single act of disobedience,
even after full warning, could not so deprave a
character as reasonably to entail upon the offender
a total change of condition.
Now, I observe, in the first place, that this objec
tion, so stated, unwarrantably assumes that the same
rule must govern the case of the developed, and
of the undeveloped or infant man. The effect of a
single action upon the entire being may, for all we
know, have been far greater when the moral organ
ism was simple and homogeneous, than it would
be now when that organism has become .highly
complete, elaborate, and diversified.
Further, I would observe that the school of
critics which is apt to take this objection is the
very school which, utterly rejecting the literal form

142 OFFICE AND WORK OF THE
of the narrative, is bound to look at it as parable.
When so contemplated, its lesson is that rebellion,
deliberate and wilful (and this is nothing less),
against just and sovereign authority, fundamentally
changes for the worse the character of the rebel.
It places him in a new category of motive and
action, in which the repetition of the temptation
ordinarily begets the repetition of the sin ; and from
this point of view it is mercy, not cruelty, which
meets this deterioration of character, not with a
final and judicial abandonment, but with a deteri
oration and reduction of state, such as to teach the
lesson of retribution, and to serve as an emphatic
warning against further sin.
Scripture will lie before us in a true perspective,
when we come to understand that everywhere the
will of God is in accord with the righteousness of
God. So that what is promised or inflicted by
command is also, under an invariable law, prom
ised or inflicted by self-acting consequence, ac
cording to the constitution of the nature we have
received. Religion and philosophy thus join hands,

OLD TESTAMENT IN OUTLINE. 143
and never part them. When, therefore, we are
told that Adam after his sin was shut out from
Eden, we are not entitled to say, how hard that he
could not be allowed to return, and then perhaps
to amend. What is inflicted as penalty from with
out is acted and suffered in character within. There
is no record of the repentance of Adam ; and even
if there were, yet repentance is not innocence.
There must be a remedial process; and, until that
process has been faithfully accomplished, the ante
rior state and habit of mind cannot be resumed.
I do not argue with those who say this is a bad
constitution of things, under which sin engenders
sinfulness ; some wiser one might surely have been
devised. This is to say, "Had I been in the
Creator's place, I would have managed the business
of creation better." It is for us not merely as
Christians, but as men of sense, to eschew specu
lations which, not to mention their overweening
presumption, even their authors must see to be
wholly devoid of practical effect. We shall do
better to assume the great moral laws, and the

144 OFFICE AND WORK OF THE
constitution of our nature, as ultimate facts, as
boundaries which it is futile to attempt to overstep.
To my mind, then, the narrative of the Fall is in
accordance with the laws of a grand and compre
hensive philosophy, and the objections taken to it
are the product of narrower and shallower modes
of thought. Introducing us to Adamic man in his
first stage of existence, a stage not of savagery but
of childhood, it exhibits to us the gigantic drama
of his evolution in its opening. In the Paradise of
the Book of Genesis, it reduces to a practical form
that noble legend of the Golden Age, which was
cherished especially in prehistoric Greece. It wisely
teaches us to look to misused freewill as the source
of all the sin, and mainly of the accompanying
misery, which still overflow the world, and environ
human life like a moral deluge. It shows us man
in his childhood, no less responsible for disobedi
ence to simple command, than man in his manhood
for contravention of those laws of essential right
and wrong, which remain now and forever clothed
with the majesty of divine authority. It teaches

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145

us how sin begets sin ; how the rebellion of the
creature against the Creator was at once followed
by the rebellion of the creature's lower appetites
against his higher mind and will. It impresses
upon us that sin is not like the bird lightly flying
past us in an atmosphere, which closes on it as it
goes, and carries no trace of its passage. It alters
for the worse the very being of the man that acts
it, and leaves to him a deteriorated essence. This
he in turn, by the inexorable laws of his constitu
tion, transmits to his descendants ; and this again
in them exhibits, variably, yet on the whole with
clear and even glaring demonstration, the evil bias,
which it has received ; and which, in the course of
nature, it retains until it shall be happily corrected
and renewed by those remedial means, which it was
the office of the Old Testament to foreshadow, and
of the New to establish. Everywhere, then, in this
narrative of the Fall, we find that it is instinct with
the highest principles of the moral and judicial
order. For the present I pass by the Flood (Gen. 6-8),
10

146 OFFICE AND WORK OF THE
and the Dispersion (Gen. 10), which may be most
conveniently considered in connection with what is
termed profane history; and I touch next upon the
call of Abraham.
This call imports the selection of a peculiar and
separate family, which was afterwards to grow into
a people. They were to be in a special degree the
subjects of God's care, the guardians of his Word,
and the vehicles of his promises. Of all great and
distinctive chapters in the Biblical history of the
human race since Paradise, we have here perhaps
the greatest and the most distinctive.
The selection of a family may be regarded from
many points of view.
When sin had come into the world, it developed
itself in the forms of infirmity and of apostasy: if
it be allowable to describe rudely by these general
terms the forms of character which distinguished
the race of Cain from the race of Seth. What we
see of the former is, as described in Genesis 4 : 16-24,
its rapid advance, and apparently its marked pre
cedence, in arts and powers. It disappears entirely

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147

with the story of the Flood ; and we are left to
infer that it may have had a principal share in call
ing down that great retribution inflicted upon
revolt from God.
After the Deluge, in the time of Peleg, fifth from
Noah, selection again appears, and is carried down
in Genesis 1 1 to Abraham, from whom an unbroken
thread runs onward into the period when the cho
sen family had become a chosen nation.
This choice of a particular family or race maybe
advantageously contrasted with the heathen meth
od of selection or preference, by the deification
of individuals. Of the first, it is obvious that it
reached over all time; that in this way it tended
to assert the unity, alike of the divine revelation
and of the Adamic race; and that it was never
exclusive,1 as it from the first (not to mention
other proofs) invited to partake of its benefits the
1 That is to say, never according to the Mosaic law as contained in
the Old Testament. After the return from Babylon, the ruling
authorities among the Jews gave a greatly enhanced stringency to
the law of intermarriage. See Graetz, "History of the Jews"
(1891), Vol. I., pp. 398-401.

148 OFFICE AND WORK OF THE
" stranger " with whom it had come into contact.
The rival method of deification broke communion
rather than established it, and was based on no
rational principle of choice. It was corrupt as well
as arbitrary ; for the deified were not the best. But
what I would here chiefly press is, that the con
tinuous selection of a family was a bar to deifica
tion, because deification was essentially founded on
individualities ; instead of that headship in series,
the members of which presented to humanity, as
its chiefs, a lineage. Of this lineage every one had
its destiny as it were locked into that of the rest
by an essential parity. This kind of selection did
not favor idolatry, like the other, but, on the con
trary, built up a wall against it; for it was not
possible effectively to deify a race. And so it
came about, as we have seen, that, even when
idolatry invaded and possessed the people, it never
tainted the traditional religion.
This selection of Abraham and his progeny, if
we speak after the manner of men, we might per
haps describe as follows: The original attempt to

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149

plant a species upon our planet, which should be
endowed with the faculty of free-will, but should
always direct that will to good, had been frustrated
through sin; and the tainted progeny had, after a
trial of many generations, been destroyed by the
Deluge. In the descendants of Noah, man was
renewed upon a far larger scale. Different branches
of the race (Gen. 10) were sent, or were allowed to
go forth, and to people different portions of the
earth, each carrying with them different gifts, and
different vocations according to those gifts ; the
notes of which, in various prominent cases, we
cannot fail to discern written large upon the page
of history. After a brief period, choice was made
not of a nation, but of a person, namely, Abraham,
who with his descendants became the subject of
a special training. He and his posterity lived,
according to the record in the Bible, not like other
men generally, dependent upon the exercise of
their natural faculties alone, but with the advantage
from time to time, and with the continuing respon
sibility, of supernatural command and visitation.

150 OFFICE AND WORK OF THE
But this remarkable promotion to a higher form of
life did not invest them with any arbitrary or selfish
prerogative. On the contrary, as the legislation of
Moses was distinguished from other ancient codes
by its liberal and likewise elaborate care for the
stranger; so also, from the very outset, and before
the family could blossom into the nation, nay, even
in the very person of Abraham, the gift imparted
to him was declared to be given for the behoof of
mankind at large. " In thee and in thy seed shall
all the families of the earth be blessed" (Gen. 28 :
14). The prerogative of the Jew was, from its
very inception, bound up with the future elevation
of the Gentile.
This divine election doubtless carried with it the
duty and the means of reaching a higher level of
moral life than prevailed among the surrounding
Asiatic nations. These nations, sharing with the
chosen race a common infirmity and deterioration
of nature, differed in this, that they at once carried
the reflection of their own sinfulness into their
creed respecting the unseen, and made religion

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151

itself a direct instrument of corruption. Yet those,
whom we call the patriarchs, were not exempted
from the general degeneracy of morals ; and even
Abraham, the general strain of whose life appears
to have been so simple and devout, on going down
into Egypt to escape from famine, advisedly exposed
his wife to the risk of an adulterous connection
with the king of the country, lest, if she were known
to be his wife, his personal safety should be com
promised. On the moral standing of the nation
sprung from Abraham, as compared with that of
contemporary races, there will be more to say here
after. Meantime, it may be observed that the sins
and follies of the favored people, as well as of their
priests and rulers, are told in the narrative frankly,
and without attempting to excuse them. This
frankness of narration extends also to the calamities
which befell the Israelites ; and, as an evidence of
the integrity of the Hebrew penmen, it suggests a
presumption that such plain speaking, in the face
of national and ancestral self-love, is, to say the least,
highly in accordance with the belief that the record

152 OFFICE AND WORK OF THE
generally was framed under special guidance from
above. The selection of Abraham and his posterity was
at the least a boon to some, while it was a privation
to none. In its immediate effect, it withdrew noth
ing from the nations outside the Hebrew pale. It
bestowed, indeed, upon the parallel line of Ishmael
a preferential but inferior blessing. This dispensa
tion, however, it is no part of the present purpose
to consider, further than to say that the Moham
medan religion may be regarded, in its conflict with
the idolatry which it first confronted, and again in
the present day among the tribes of Western Africa,
as having been, if not permanently yet for a time,
the communication of a relative good. And the
Old Testament abounds with passages which dem
onstrate the care, and even the special care, of the
Almighty for nations other than the Jews.1
But the object, which now demands our attention,
is the promise of a blessing in and by the seed of
1 See, for example, the two first chapters of Amos, and the whole
book of Jonah.

OLD TESTAMENT IN OUTLINE.

153

Abraham to all the nations of the earth. The first-
fruits of this blessing may be said to have been
perceived in the translation of the books of the
Old Testament into Greek during and after the
third centuiy before the Advent. At the time when
the language of the Greeks was mounting to its
supremacy, in the East through the conquests of
Alexander the Great, and in the West through
appreciation by the Roman and Italian genius, in
some respects allied to their own, the Greek race
itself was on its decline, both as to its intellect and
as to its practical energy. Such a decline may,
perhaps, have rendered the world more receptive
of the influences, which the substance of the Hebrew
books was calculated to exercise.
There can hardly be a doubt that, among all the
forms of Hellenic thought exhibited in the differ
ent schools of philosophy, that of the Stoics was
the highest in respect of its conception of the Deity,
of its emancipation from idolatry, and of its capacity
of moral elevation. In the hands of Seneca, of
Epictetus, and of Marcus Aurelius, Stoic ideas

154 OFFICE AND WORK OF THE
attained so high a level as to have been used by
some in disparagement of the exclusive claim of the
gospel to the promulgation of truths powerful
enough to regenerate the world. Without assert
ing that the early Stoics derived their inspiration
through the Greek version, called the Septuagint,
from the Hebrew Scriptures, it may be observed
that, as a matter of fact, philosophy rose to its
highest level through the Stoics at a time when
the Greek mind was declining; and further, that
Stoicism made its first appearance, and began its
advance at the epoch when those Scriptures had
become accessible. Also it arose and flourished
not in Greece itself, but at points such as Citium,
in countries such as Pontus, in schools of learning
such as Alexandria, which were seats of Jewish
resort and influence.1 For my own part I cannot
but incline to believe that both the translated Old
1 See " Encyclopaedia Britannica." 9th ed. Art. " Stoics." It states
that " the school is mainly to be considered as the first-fruits of that
interaction between West and East, which followed the conquests of
Alexander. Zeno was of Phoenician descent ; Cyprus, Silicia, Syria,
the main countries of its origin. Citium, Alexandria, Heraclea,

OLD TESTAMENT IN OUTLINE. 155
Testament, and the silently diffused ether, so to
speak, of Christianity, in the Roman atmosphere,
had to do with the high moral elevation of the
later Stoicism.
It was an advance of a different order, and of a
wider range towards the fulfilment of the Abra-
hamic promises, when the Apostles, charged with
the commission of our Lord, went forth into all
the world, and preached the gospel to every creat
ure (Mark 16: 15). Then, indeed, an enginery
was set at work, capable of coping with the whole
range of the mischiefs brought into the world by
sin, and of completely redeeming the human being
from its effects, and consecrating our nature to duty
and to God. It is impossible here to do so much
as even to skirt this vast subject. But at once
these three things may be said as to the develop
ment, through the gospel, of the Abrahamic prom
ise. First, that in a vast aggregate of genuine
Pontus, were prominent among the places furnishing and rearing its
teachers. Most of the Stoics were from lands of Hellenistic (as distinct
from Hellenic) civilization. It was the growth of the Hellenized East."
Further, see Huidekoper's "Judaism at Rome," New York, 1877.

1 5 6 OFFICE AND WORK ¦ OF THE
believers, the recovery of the divine image has
been effectual, and the mainspring of their being
has been set right before their quitting the world,
by the dedication of the will to God. Secondly,
that the social results of the change have been
beneficial and immense, in the restriction of wars,
in the abolition of horrible practices publicly sanc
tioned; in the recognition of essential rights; in
the elevation of woman (whose case most and best
of all represents the case of right as against force) ;
in the mitigation of selfish and cruel laws; in the
refinement of manners; in the utter proscription of
all extreme forms of sin ; and in the public acknowl
edgment of standards of action nearer to the true.
I may perhaps add in the abolition of slave-trading
and of slavery, and in the law of nations, and
the mitigating rules of war. Thirdly, that Chris
tendom is at this moment undeniably the prime
and central power of the world, and still bears,
written upon its front, the mission to subdue it.
In point of force and onward impulsion, it stands
without a rival, while every other widely spread

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157

religion is in decline. Critical, indeed, are the
movements which affect it from within. Vast are
the deductions which on every side are to be made
from the fulness of the divine promises, when we
try to measure their results in the world of facts.
Indefinitely slow, and hard to trace in detail, as
may be, like a glacier in descent, the march of the
times, the Christianity of to-day has, in relation to
the world non-Christian, an amount of ascendency
such as it has never before possessed ; and, if only
it can sufficiently retain its inward consistency, the
sole remaining question seems to be as to the time,
the circumstances, and the rate of its further, per
haps of its final, conquests.
I know that it is far beyond the scope of a few
pages such as these to make good in detail the
claims of the great Abrahamic promise. Still, I
think that even what has been said may in some
measure suffice for the purpose which I have im
mediately in view. That purpose is to establish in
outline the strictly exceptional character of the
books of the Old Testament ; and with this aim to

158 OFFICE AND WORK OF THE
show that they bear upon them the stamp of a
comprehensiveness which concerns, which pene
trates, and which also envelops the history of the
world as a whole. The promise, given to Abraham
nearly two thousand years before the Advent, finds
its correlative marks in the general train of subse
quent history. These marks demonstrate that it
was given by a divine foreknowledge. And if so,
then the venerable record in which it is enshrined
surely seems here, as it did in the Creation Story,
to carry the seal and signature of a divine author
ship. Now let us consider from another point of view
the selection of the Hebrew race, and the peculiar
standing of the Mosaic legislation, so intimately
allied with the whole of its singularly checkered
fortunes. And, in order to effect something to
wards ascertaining what was probably the cause
determining the divine selection and procedure,
we may do well first to refer to some aims which
might at first sight have been thought probable.
It might conceivably have been the design to

OLD TESTAMENT IN OUTLINE. 159
provide a complete theology; or to reward with
honor, wealth, and power a peculiarly virtuous
people, whose moral conduct was to be of a nature
likely to make them an edifying and attractive
example to the nations of the earth. Human
speculation might have been forward to anticipate
that one or both of these aims might have been
contemplated by a plan so exceptional as the
selection and isolation of one particular line and
people. But the facts appear to show that any
such anticipation would have been entirely mis
taken. By a complete theology, I mean simply such a
theology as would confront and make provision
for all the leading facts of the moral situation.
Among these a prominent place had from the date
of the first traditions been given to the entrance of
sin into the world, and to the promise of redemp
tion from its power. Now it is evident that there
was no attempt, in the legislation of the Penta
teuch, at this theological completeness. Its the
ology is summed up in clear declarations of the

l6o OFFICE AND WORK OF THE
being of God, of his great attributes, and of duty
and love to him and to our neighbor. With
these are directly associated, in the Decalogue, the
main items of man's duty to other men, and, both
there and elsewhere, a doctrine of rewards and
punishments. The race also inherited the narra
tive of what is termed in Christian theology the
Fall of Man. This, however, was part of the an
terior tradition ; and, though implied in the Mosaic
system, was neither directly set forth in its terms,
nor made a common subject of allusion in the his
toric books, however it may have been involved in
the sacrificial system.
But these rewards and punishments are of a tem
poral nature ; and the Mosaic legislation is thought
to give no indication of a future state, or of an
Underworld. This is the more remarkable, because,
not to mention other indications, even the earliest
chapters of Genesis, although they usually contain
but the merest outline of history, are not without
such indication (Gen. 5 : 24). Enoch, at the end
of his 365 years, "was not, for God took him."

OLD TESTAMENT IN OUTLINE. t6i
These remarkable words are substituted for the
formula given in the cases of the other patriarchs,
whose record closes with the phrase, "and he
died" (Gen. 5:5, and passim). Here there seems
to be a clear manifestation of the state into which
Enoch is declared to have entered, without passing
through the gate of death. It is indeed obvious
to remark that, under the Mosaic system, long life
was the reward of virtue, and that unless a future
life was believed in, the translation of Enoch would
have been the record of a punishment inflicted on
him for his superior goodness.
Again, we now know, from the Egyptian Book
of the Dead and otherwise, that the religious sys
tem of that country not only included, but was
greatly based upon, the conception of a future life.
It seems absolutely impossible that the Israelites,
even had they not been aware of it already, could
have dwelt for many generations in the land of
Egypt without coming to know of it. Our Lord
himself affirms that they knew it in his time
(Matt. 22 : 32; Mark 12 : 27). And we have it
11

1 62 OFFICE AND WORK OF THE
presented to us in the Psalms (for example, Psalms
1 6 : 10; 49 : 15), which exhibit the interior and
spiritual life of chosen souls. There are other
indications to the same effect. I have stated the
instances of belief in a future state among the
early Hebrews somewhat more largely in an article
published in the Nineteenth Century for October,
1 891. But the argument is capable of still wider
development. It has, perhaps, been too much the practice to
assume that the Mosaic law is to be regarded as
an enlargement of the patriarchal religion. ' With
out doubt it is at least a very large and important
supplement to that religion. But a supplement
differs from an enlarged and reconstructed edition :
it is less, as well as more. It need not, and indeed
it hardly can, contain everything contained in that
to which it is a supplement. Here is a great and
vital particular, in which the Mosaic law cannot be
said even to have republished the patriarchal reli
gion; and which both preceded and survived the
law, yet did not find a place in it. Accordingly,

OLD TESTAMENT IN OUTLINE. ^3
among the Jews of the Advent, the school which
most rigidly adhered to the letter of the law,
namely, that of the Sadducees (Acts 23 : 8), denied
the future state, and held " that there is no resur
rection, neither angel nor spirit."
We are not, therefore, to suppose that Israel was
without the hope of a future life, which St. Peter
on the Day of Pentecost himself demonstrated out
of the sixteenth Psalm (Acts 2 : 25); but only to
perceive that the Mosaic legislation was limited to
its proper purpose ; that, namely, of setting apart a
nation from the rest of mankind, and providing it
with peculiar means and guarantees for the fulfil
ment of its mission as a nation. It erected a walled
precinct, within which the ancient belief of the
fathers was to find shelter and to thrive, while it
was wofully dwindling and perishing among all the
kindred nations of the world. It supplied an im
pregnable home for personal religion. But per
sonal religion, taken by itself, is conspicuously
weak in the means of transmission from age to age.
The sons of Eli were wicked persons, and the evil

164 OFFICE AND WORK OF THE
Manasseh at once succeeds the pious Hezekiah.
It is not without the aid of fixed and solid institu
tions, which take hold upon masses of men collec
tively, and unite them in a far-reaching chain, that
the sacred fire is kept alive among us. Hence our
Lord did not merely teach his holy precepts, and
fulfil his divine career in his own person, but
founded his Church on earth, to carry his work
onwards even to the day of doom. And hence,
under the guidance of the Most High, Moses was
commissioned to establish a system which, without
being in itself complete, provided for the double
purpose, first, of building up a fortress (so to call
it) within whose wall true spiritual religion might
in singular fulness flourish and abound; and, sec
ondly, of establishing a firmly knit national system
of doctrine and worship, intended to secure the
permanent purity of belief in the one self-existent
God, and the continuing practice of a ritual which
set forth in act the existence of sin, and made intel
ligible and familiar to the people at large some
need of deliverance from it by reconciliation. And

OLD TESTAMENT IN OUTLINE. 165
so, through the long ages from the Exodus to the
Advent, there lived on the two systems together,
distinct but accordant. The one was the religion
of interior devotion, powerfully upheld and stimu
lated, as occasion offered, by the Prophets, and con
tinually exercised and developed in the public
ritual by the Psalms. The other was the religion
of exterior worship. This ritual was full of sig
nificance. It had a command over the entire peo
ple. It was incorporated in public laws and insti
tutions, and was associated at every point with the
national life. And these outer means so operated
as to exempt the higher and interior treasure from
the risks inherent in dependence on short-lived
individual fervor, and provided a secure vehicle for
its transmission from age to age.
We have in the institution of the prophetic
schools the setting forth of a profound lesson,
which reminds us that the Mosaic system was alike
in itself necessary, and of itself insufficient.
From another, and possibly even more com-
manding,point of view, we perceive the insufficiency

1 66 OFFICE AND WORK OF THE
of Mosaism to fill up worthily the outlines of the
divine dispensations. Sin, in the form of disobe
dience to divine command, had entered into the
world, and had utterly marred the fair order which,
at the outset, the Almighty had noted in his Crea
tion. The mischief was not left to stand alone;
and the promise of a Redeemer from it was imme
diately bestowed. Thus far, the Mosaic system
helps us ; yet, in helping us, it surely prompts us
to look beyond itself. By its system of sacrifice, it
threw into distinct relief the idea that offense had
been committed, and that our standing was not
upright before God. Now with this were associ
ated in Genesis the further ideas that from this
offense there would be a way of reconciliation and
recovery, and that this way would be found in a
member of the human race, a portion of the seed
Of the woman. On these further ideas Mosaism
so far threw light, that it pointed through sacrifice
to pardon ; but it added nothing of force or clear
ness to the original promise that this recovery
should be wrought out in and through a Redeemer

OLD TESTAMENT IN OUTLINE. 167
having the form and the nature of man. This
prophecy of the Incarnation, though a vital portion
of the ancient tradition of the patriarchs, did not
receive any supplement or new enforcement from
the construction of the Hebrew laws and institu
tions. It remained, and it propagated itself, mainly
in the Psalms and in the Prophets, while its root
was pre-Mosaic. Some rays of the light of that
promise may perhaps be traced, outside the Hebrew
precinct, in particular traditions of the heathen
world. There may be vestiges of it, for example,
in that close vital association between Deity and
humanity, which marked the Greek or Olympian
religion ; but which, as the fundamental conception
of sin more and more faded away, lost by degrees
all its moral force. Mosaism did essential and
infinite service in deeply sculpturing (so to speak)
the idea of sin in the human consciousness; but it
was not favorable to that theanthropy, or union of
the divine and human, of which the human side
had been so strongly foreshadowed in the original
charter of redemption. Perhaps by the rigid pro-

1 68 OFFICE AND WORK OF THE
hibition of images, which was so necessary for its
direct purpose, it rather tended to widen the dis
tance at which man stood as a being worshipping
his Maker. Already idolatry, such as prevailed in
the East, was associated with the human form, and
the necessity of shutting out that idolatry may
have carried with it, in this respect, a certain reli
gious incompleteness as a consequence, which be
comes manifest to us when we stand, as Christians,
in the full light of the Incarnation.
I now come to the second supposition; and I
ask whether the selection of the Hebrew race was
grounded on their moral superiority. Within nar
row limits, the answer would be affirmative. They
were appointed to purge and to possess the land of
Canaan on account of the terrible and loathsome
iniquities of its inhabitants. The nations, whom
they were to subdue, had reached that latest stage
of sensual iniquity, which respects neither God nor
nature. The sensual appetite within man, which
rebelled against him when he had rebelled against
God, had in Canaan enthroned its lawlessness as

OLD TESTAMENT IN OUTLINE. 169
law, and its bestial indulgences had become recog
nized, normal, nay more, even religious if not ob
ligatory. And there are those in the present day
who, admitting the facts, find in them a subject of
pleasurable contemplation, as if they simply exhib
ited an innocent and free exercise of natural pro
pensities. The propensities were due indeed to
nature; but only to nature in a condition of dis
order and disease.
The vicious practices of these nations, indicated
rather than described in the Old Testament, and
veiled, apparently for decency's sake, in the trans
lations, are too sadly attested by the character of
the remains, which, in later times, archaeology has
recovered from their hiding-places. They are also
attested by the poems of Homer. In these poems,
the Phoenicians represent Syrian religion, and we
find the goddess Aphrodite, whose debased worship
it seems plain that they were gradually importing
into Greece, to have stood for a symbol of lawless
lust in combination with the highest power of ani
mal attraction. This is "Ashtoreth, the goddess of

170 OFFICE AND WORK OF THE
the Zidonians" (i Kings n : 5, 33), to whom -both
Solomon and the people bowed down themselves.
I find it much more difficult to answer the ques
tion, whether the Hebrew race were planted in the
land of promise, which flowed with milk and honey,
by reason of, or in connection' with, their moral
superiority to the nations of the world taken uni
versally. It is, down to the present day, extremely
difficult to make any trustworthy estimate of the
comparative moral standing even of any two con
temporary peoples. It may be admitted that the
form of human nature has with the modern condi
tions grown far more manifold and complex. But,
on the other side, in answering the question I have
just put, we have the difficulty not only of remote
ness in time, but, as to most cases, of extreme scan
tiness of information.
I shall assume that the mass of the children of
Israel at large were trained mainly by Mosaism,
and little in comparison by the more highly spirit
ual tradition conserved and enshrined within it
Speaking of the nation generally, we may consider

OLD TESTAMENT IN OUTLINE. 171
that the Old Testament gives us more than a
sketch, if less than a picture, of their social and
moral state. I am aware of only one other race
with respect to which we have any account possess
ing a tolerable fulness. That is the race of the
Achaian Greeks, painted with marvellous truthful
ness, and not less remarkable completeness, by
Homer. The poet describes the manners of one
generation; the books of the Old Testament, say
from Abraham to the Captivity, range over many.
Still, numerous as these are, they present a con
siderable unity of color. I carefully reserve the
case of that inner and elect circle among the He
brews, to whom we owe the possession down to
this day of inestimable spiritual treasures. But
comparing, as well as I am able, ordinary or aver
age life, among the ordinary Hebrews on the one
side, and the ordinary Greeks of Homer (whom I
take to have lived long after Moses, but consider
ably before the age of David), on the other, I can
not discern that these last were in a moral sense
inferior.

172

OFFICE AND WORK OF THE

I am sensible, however, that in such a proposi
tion as has just been uttered there must be, to
the general reader, some appearance of paradox;
and likewise that such an appearance will not
be effectually removed by reference to the Scrip
tural complaints of the stiff neck, or the hard
heart, of the Israelites. I must therefore make
further endeavors to get at the truth of the case
before us.
I do not feel that even the patriarchal history is
designed to convey to us the idea that the privi
leged race stood uniformly at a great moral eleva
tion, as compared with other and ordinary portions
of mankind.
The subject is a painful one, and I shall not dilate
upon its details. But it seems undeniable that, in
the history of the selected line, we find from time
to time the development of wickedness in its ex
treme forms. Such are the sin of Onan (Gen. 38 :
8, 9), the incest of the daughters of Lot (Gen. 19 :
32), and the brutal insensibility of Ham, the son of
Noah, to the claims of natural decency (Gen. 9 : 22).

OLD TESTAMENT IN OUTLINE.

173

Nor are the women exempt, as we learn from the
incest devised and effected by Tamar (Gen. 38 : 6-30).
And the wife of Lot cast a yearning look on the hell
of Sodom (Gen. 19 : 26). The first three cases, and
the last, are not in the line of the ultimate succes
sion ; but Pharez, the son of Tamar, is the recorded
ancestor of King David and his descendants (Matt.
1 : 3-5). Now, among the Achaian Greeks of
Homer we find a sensitive delicacy, altogether
peculiar, as to all exposure of the person. Nor is
there anywhere in the Poems, among the Achaian
Greeks, any extreme form of sensual indulgence.
Among the Hellenized Boeotian immigrants from
the East, that is from the Syrian coast, there oc
curred at an early stage of their histoiy in the
Peninsula, a case of incest ; x but this was always
regarded by the indigenous tradition as involun
tary, and, what is more, a curse clave on account
of it to the race of Kadmos, and brought about
its early extinction.
While incest is thus regarded as a monstrous
'Od., XI. 271-274.

174 OFFICE AND WORK OF THE
perversion of nature among the Greeks, there are
in the Homeric poems, as I think, sufficiently clear
indications that it was practiced without shame
among the Phoenicians,1 the coast neighbors of
Syria, and partners with that country in manners,
if not also probably in race.
Let us now turn to two others among the great
moral constituents of human character, and com
pare the cases in point of humanity as against
cruelty, and of truth as against fraud.
Let us take the two instances, first of the deceit
practiced by Jacob upon his brother Esau and his
father Isaac ; secondly, of the base and unnatural
conduct of the sons of Jacob towards their brother
Joseph. As there is nothing recorded in favor of
the Homeric or Achaian Greeks which approaches
in moral beauty to the forgiveness freely accorded by
Joseph, so there is nothing recorded against them
which so wickedly tramples down the laws of
nature, as those flagrant iniquities of the sons of
Jacob, to which attention has just been called.
1 Od., X. 7, and less flagrantly, VII. 64-68.

OLD TESTAMENT IN OUTLINE. 175
The conduct of the suitors of Penelope in the
Odyssey, and the actions of Paris (a foreigner),
supply the worst exhibitions of human nature
which come before us in the Poems. Both there
and in the Old Testament retribution follows guilt,
but what I now speak of is the depth of guilt, not
its treatment. There is nowhere in Homer a case,
between relatives, of deceit like that of Jacob, or of
cruelty like that of his sons.
When we come to the Palestinian period, it would
appear that the Israelites were subjected to a force
and diversity of temptations, such as perhaps no
people ever had to encounter. Successful war had
stimulated their vindictive passions. Triumph
everywhere had waited on their arms. They were
entitled to esteem themselves the directly chosen
ministers of God. They were likely to regard the
heathen, among whom they came, with hatred and
contempt. They passed from a life, wandering,
uncertain and ill supplied, to settlement and to
abundance. The temples or emblems of seductive
lust everywhere met their eyes ; and the vile ex-

176 OFFICE AND WORK OF THE
ample, by which they were solicited in the mass
and in detail, pretended plausibly to hallow itself by
close association with religion. There is scarcely
an evil passion that finds entrance into the human
breast which was not powerfully stirred by the
circumstances of the Israelitish conquest. We find
in the sacred text indications of the severity of
some of their temptations. Take, for instance,
Deuteronomy 6 : 10-16; and again in 31 : 20 it
is written,
" For when I shall have brought them into the land which
I sware unto their fathers, that floweth with milk and honey ;
and they shall have eaten and filled themselves, and waxen
fat ; then will they turn unto other gods and serve them,
and provoke me, and break my covenant."
The general indication seems to be first the per
petuation of a chosen seed, at the very heart of the
nation, high in the knowledge of interior religion ;
secondly, a decided ethical superiority of the He
brew line over the Asiatic nations in their neighbor
hood ; as indeed it was from Asia that the extremes
of corruption flowed into the Greek Peninsula in the

OLD TESTAMENT IN OUTLINE.

177

earliest historic times. Yet the loveliest picture of
womanhood in all the early sacred books is that
of Ruth ; and Ruth was of the children of Moab,
who was the incestuous offspring of one of the
daughters of Lot (Gen. 19 : 36, 37).
Humanity, or mercy, is certainly not the strong
point of the Achaian Greeks. With them not only
no sacredness, but little value, attached to human
life; and the loss of it stirs no sympathy unless it
be associated with beauty, valor, patriotism, or
other esteemed characteristics. Yet here, again,
the forms of evil are less extreme. We do not
find, even in the stern, relentless vengeance of
Odysseus on his enemies, or in the passionate,
almost frenzied, wish of Achilles, that nature
would permit what it forbade, namely, to devour
the hated foe who had slain his bosom-friend, a
form of cruelty and brutality so savage as is
recorded in the case of the Levite with his wife
and concubine at Gibeah, and of the war which
followed it (Judg. 19-21).
The temptations of lust were even more formida-
12

178 OFFICE AND WORK OF THE
ble than those of cruelty and revenge. Accord
ing to the sacred text, this danger was foreseen
from the first ; and the very earliest Mosaic legis
lation (Exod. 22 : 16), after that of the Com
mandments, begins to denounce a portion of the
indescribable practices which were rife among the
older occupiers of the promised land. It was sub
sequently carried into further particulars, and we
know that, down the whole course of the historic
period before the Captivity, the filthy idolatry not
only encircled the chosen people, but at times so
invaded it, as to reduce to a remnant among the
ten tribes the untainted portion of the community,
the true worshippers of God. Even pious mon-
archs were sometimes afraid to destroy its con
stituted and, in a perverse sense, consecrated em
blems. On the other hand, we must not view the case of
the earliest Greeks in the spirit of optimism. War
and its devastations were with them habitual and
almost normal ; property was little respected ; cun
ning, as well as skill, was sometimes held in honor.

OLD TESTAMENT IN OUTLINE. 179
Yet it remains a broad and indisputable truth that
honor and truth, as well as valor, were prevail
ingly respected, that family ties were very sacred,
that the law of nature was simply and profoundly
revered, and that the extreme forms of vice and
sin, the widest and most hopeless departures from
the law of God, are nowhere to be found in any of
their forms.
Enough has perhaps been said to show that we
are by no means permitted to claim as a thing
demonstrable a • great moral superiority for the
Hebrew line generally over the whole of the his
torically known contemporary races. This, how
ever, leaves ample room for the belief that there
was an interior circle, known to us by its fruits in
the Psalter, and also in the prophetic books, of a
morality and sanctity altogether superior to what
was to be found elsewhere, and due rather to the
pre-Mosaic, than to the Mosaic, religion of the race.
But it remains to answer with reverence the ques
tion, Why, if not for a distinctly superior morality,
nor as a full religious provision for the whole wants

180 OFFICE AND WORK OF THE
of man, rvhy was the race chosen, as a race, to
receive the promises, to guard the oracles, and
eventually, to fulfil the hopes, of the great Redemp
tion? The answer may, I believe, be conveyed in mod
erate compass. The design of the Almighty, as
we everywhere find, was to prepare the human
race, by a varied and a prolonged education, for
the arrival of the greatest among the epochs of
history. The immediate purposes of the Abra-
hamic selection may have been to appoint, for the
one necessary task of preserving in the world
the fundamental bases of religion, a race, which
possessed qualifications for that paramount end
decisively surpassing those of all other races.
We may easily indicate two of these fundamental
bases. The first was the belief in one God. The
second was the knowledge that mankind at large
had departed from his laws ; without which knowl
edge how should they welcome a Deliverer, whose
object it was to bring them back ? It may be
stated with confidence that among the dominant

OLD TESTAMENT IN OUTLINE. 181
races of the world the belief in one God was speed
ily destroyed by polytheism, and the idea of sin
faded gradually but utterly away. Is it audacious
to say that what was wanted was a race so endowed
with the qualities of masculine tenacity and per
sistency, as to hold over in safe custody these all-
important truths until that fulness of time, when,
by and with them, the complete design of the Al
mighty would be revealed to the world ? Superior
fitness for the performance of this indispensable
but very special function may not have implied by
necessary consequence a universal superiority in
moral qualities. A long experience of trials beyond
all example has proved since the Advent that the
Jews, in this one essential quality, have all along
surpassed every other people upon earth. A mar
vellous and glorious experience has shown how,
among their ancestors before the Advent, were
kept alive and in full vigor the doctrine of belief
in one God, and the true idea of sin. These our
Lord, when he came, found ready to his hand, as
essential pre-conditions of his teaching. And, in

1 82 THE OLD TESTAMENT.
the exhibition of this great and unparalleled result
of a most elaborate and peculiar discipline, we may
perhaps recognize, sufficiently for the present pur
pose, something of the office and work of the Old
Testament.

IV.
THE PSALMS.

I.  THEIR HISTORIC PLACE IN THE DEVOTION
OF ALL AGES.
John Bright has told me that he would be con
tent to stake upon the Book of Psalms, as it stands,
the great question whether there is or is not a
divine revelation. It was not to him conceivable
how a work so widely severed from all the known
productions of antiquity, and standing upon a level
so much higher, could be accounted for except by
a special and extraordinary aid calculated to pro
duce special and extraordinary results; for it is
reasonable, nay needful, to presume a due corre
spondence between the cause and the effect. Nor
does this opinion appear to be otherwise than just.
If Bright did not possess the special qualifications
183

1 84 THE PSALMS.
of the scholar or the critic, he was, I conceive, a
very capable judge of the moral and religious ele
ments in any case that had been brought before
him by his personal experience.
It was in truth a noble distinction of the Hebrew
race to have produced persons imbued with such
qualities and gifts, as made them capable of com
posing the Book of Psalms.
Twice in his Epistles (Eph. 5 : 19; Col. 3 : 16)
does St. Paul admonish Christians with regard to
musical services as a fitting vent for the devout
mind and heart. In both cases he employs the
same phraseology, and enjoins the use of "psalms
and hymns and spiritual songs," each time giving
the first place in the enumeration to Psalms. I find
it difficult to dismiss the idea that in this word the
use of the Psalter was intended ; especially as there
are early testimonies to the effect that antiphonal
singing was in use from the origin of the Church.1
Upon the most superficial survey of the Psalms
in their general aspect, it seems difficult or impos-
' 1 As to the last-named point, see Wordsworth and Alford, in loco.

THE PSALMS. 185
sible to regard them as simply owing their parent
age to the Mosaic system. Some, indeed, of their
features may well be referred to it; especially the
strong sense of national unity which they display,
and the concentration of that sense upon a single
centre, the city of Jerusalem and the temple.
It may also be noted that the Mosaic law incul
cated in its utmost breadth the principle of love to
God. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all
thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy
might" (Deut. 6 : 4, 5). Yet may it not be said,
from the place in which it occurs, that this is rather
exhortation than statute? Further, it is not un
folded in the detail of the legislative Torah; and,
even in the Decalogue, service is enjoined without
the mention of love. The early books do not
exhibit, like the Psalter, the close, inner contact of
the individual soul with the Deity; and, as water
does not rise above the source from which it flows,
it is hard to ascribe to them alone the wonderful
development of that principle which pervades the
body of this unparalleled collection. We seem

1 86 THE PSALMS.
compelled to assume for them some loftier foun
tain-head of instruction. This, I would submit, is
in part supplied, and in part suggested, by the Book
of Genesis. I say suggested, inasmuch as the out
lines of a primeval religion drawn in that book are
not less slight than they are significant. So slight,
indeed, that I have long been unable to resist the
impression that there were at the outset supple
mentary communications, divine in their origin,
over and above those contained in Holy Writ,
and perhaps traceable, here and there, in later por
tions of the Old Testament and of the Apocryphal
Books. Much, however, is supplied, if something
also is only suggested: inasmuch as the story of
the Fall involves in full the idea of our restoration
in character as well as condition, which is nowhere
enunciated in the Law; and further, inasmuch as
the Book of Genesis sets forth, at least down to
the time of Abraham, a personal intercourse, habit
ual and direct, with the Deity, and one pointing
onwards to the great Redemption.
In a preceding essay I have represented that the

THE PSALMS.

I87

Mosaic law was not the promulgation of a new and
complete religion, but a code of provisions intended
for the particular purpose (1) of building up a wall
of effectual separation between the Jewish com
munity, and the corruption of the nations whose
land they were to conquer and to possess ; and (2)
of preserving in vitality and freshness, within that
precinct, the fundamental conceptions of the divine
unity and righteousness, and of the duty and the
sinfulness of man. These all-important proposi
tions were the necessary pre-conditions of any plan
for the restoration of peace in a disordered world.
But they were, nevertheless, in process of extirpa
tion from the general and public religion of all
those Gentile races, whose history is given us in
Scripture, or in the classical books of profane anti
quity. Thus the Mosaic system, while it was defensive
against the surrounding iniquity, was also some
thing more, and something higher. That system,
both institutional and doctrinal, fenced in, as it
were, a clear space, a free and secure domain, for

1 88 THE PSALMS.
the fuller development of a religion, inward and
personal, devotional and spiritual, the materials for
which it could hardly have supplied by presenting,
as it did, God as ruler and judge, and man as a
servant who continually either sinned, or was on
the brink of falling into sin.
In the inner sanctuary, thus provided for the
most capable human souls, was reared the strong
spiritual life, which appears to have developed itself
pre-eminently in the depth, richness, tenderness,
and comprehensiveness of the Psalms. To the
work they have here accomplished, there is no
parallel upon earth. For the present I put aside
all details, and am content to stand upon this fact
— that a compilation, which began (at the latest)
with a shepherd of Palestine, three thousand years
ago, has been the prime and paramount manual
of devotion from that day to this ; first for the
Hebrew race, both in its isolation, and after it was
brought, by the translation of its sacred books, into
relations with the Gentile world ; and then for
all the Christian races, in all their diversities of

THE PSALMS.

189

character and circumstance. Further, that there
is now, if possible, less chance than ever of the
displacement of these marvellous compositions
from their supremacy in the worship of the Chris
tian Church. And beyond doubt it may be also
said that their function has not been one of ritual
pomp and outward power either mainly or alone.
They have dwelt in the Christian heart, and at the
very centre of that heart; and wherever the pur
suits of the inner life have been most largely
conceived and cultivated, there, and in the same
proportion, the Psalms have towered over every
other vehicle of general devotion. We have a con
spicuous illustration of their office in the fact that
of two hundred and forty-three actual citations
from the Old Testament found in the pages of the
New, no less than one hundred and sixteen are
from the single Book of Psalms ; and that a similar
proportion holds with most of the early Fathers.1
1 Canon Cook, in the Speaker's Bible, Vol. IV., p. 146. There is
a minor, but still not unmeaning, indication to the same effect, whioh
it would be unseemly to couple with that given in the text, but which
I venture to name for its recency, and because it is eminently asso-

190 THE PSALMS.
The Bishop of Derry has published the result of a
careful examination made by himself. It is, that
reference is made to the Psalms, either by quota
tion or otherwise, in no fewer than two hundred
and eighty-six passages of the New Testament.1
We have thus before us the fact that the Psalms,
composed for the public worship of the Hebrews
from two to three thousand years ago, constitute
down to the present day for Christians the best and
highest book of devotion. A noteworthy fact even
on the surface of it ; more noteworthy still, when
we go below the surface into the meaning. The
Hebrews were Semitic, Christendom is (chiefly)
Aryan ; the Hebrews were local, Christendom is
world-wide ; the Hebrews were often tributary, and
finally lost their liberties and place among the
nations ; Christianity has mounted over every obsta-
ciated with the general course of modern life. In a manual, not of
hymns, but of devotions prepared for public use in the mixed con
gregations on board a great line of packet ships from Great Britain
to North America, I find that, out of 254 pages, 137 are occupied by
selections from the Psalms ; the chief part of the remainder being a
collection of hymns.
1 " The Witness of the Psalms." Note A, p. 291.

THE PSALMS. 191
cle, and has long been the dominating power of the
world. The Hebrews had no literature outside
their religion, nor any fine art; Christendom has
appropriated, and even rivalled both the literature
and the art of the greatest among the ancients.
This strange book of Hebrew devotions had no
attraction outside Hebrewism, except for Chris
tians ; and Christians have as yet found nothing to
gather, in the same kind, from any of the other
religions in the world. The stamp of continuity
and identity has been set upon one, and one only,
historic series ; one and one only thread runs down
through the whole succession of the ages ; and,
among many witnesses to this continuity, the Psalms
are probably one of the most conspicuous. This
stamp purports to be, and to have been all along,
divine ; and the unparalleled evidence of results all
goes to show that it is not a forgery.
The wonderful phenomenon thus presented to us
can hardly be said to admit of enhancement ; and
yet it is, perhaps, enhanced, when we bear in mind
that the long period of this perpetual youth, exhib-

192

THE PSALMS.

ited by the Psalms, has been one broken by the
promulgation of a new religion, together with all
the changes of fact, and developments of principle,
which transformed the heathen world.
Moreover, we should remember that the shapings
of all language merely human are essentially short
lived, and forms of speech succeed one another as
wave follows upon wave. But herein seems prob
ably to lie one of the ways in which the divine
revelation asserts itself. It appears to have the
faculty of giving to things mutable the privilege
and the power of the immutable, and to endow
innumerable fashions of speech, when they belong
to the heart's core of human nature, with a charter
that is to endure throughout all time.
I submit, then, that the fact of so wonderful a
power as was thus exercised by the Psalms, in such
diversities of time, race, and circumstances, is not
only without parallel, but is removed by such a
breadth of space from all other facts of human
experience in the same province, as to constitute in
itself a strong presumption that the cause also is

THE PSALMS. T93
one lying beyond the range of ordinary human
action, and may most reasonably be set down as
consisting in that speciality of divine suggestion and
guidance, which we term revelation.

II.  THEIR ANTIQUITY.
The antiquity of the Book of Psalms, like that
of the other books of Scripture, does not directly
or necessarily involve the essence of the case con
cerning them, which I apprehend is more dependent
upon their character and their results. Yet it
counts, for importance, in the next order of consid
erations, since the form and substance are here
more intimately allied than in the terms used for
the recital of events in a historical book.
It is also to be assumed that the incessant use of
the Psalms in the service of the temple, and the
comparatively wide knowledge of them thus con
veyed to the people, were in the nature of special
securities for their faithful and exact transmission.
When we speak ot the Psalms of David, we use
13

194

THE PSALMS.

a popular and general form of expression, which
names the whole from the largest or most weighty,
and, originally, most conspicuous, among the parts.
The phrase is sufficiently shown not to be absolute
and precise by the beautiful 137th Psalm, which
describes the condition of the Hebrews in Babylon,
five centuries after the death of the minstrel king.
Seventy -three Psalms1 in all are ascribed to him.
This is not the assumption or opinion of con
servative writers only. Bleek, whose work was
republished and (I must conceive at least generally2
sanctioned) in 1878 by Wellhausen, admits it to be a
matter of the highest probability that no inconsid
erable number of the Psalms are due to his author
ship.3 He also, with others, largely accepts the
inscriptions which are prefixed to them. Accord
ing to Canon Cook, a judicious and able writer, it
1 Cook's Introduction, p. 150.
5 It has been erroneously asserted (Academy, Jan. 31, 1891) that
Wellhausen has limited his responsibility to certain passages written
by him. He evidently makes no such limitation : but only specifies
his authorship of those passages.
3 " Einleitung in das alte Testament." . . . Besorgt von J.Well-
hausen. Sect. 221. Berlin, 1886.

THE PSALMS.

195

was never held that the entire Psalter was the work
of the king ; and he says that, in the time of the
Maccabees, the completion of the Book was ascribed
to Nehemiah. He thinks that a large proportion
of the two closing books (out of the five books
composing the Psalter) belong to the period of or
following the Exile.1 But of the three Psalms most
pointedly referable to the Messiah, two (22, no)
are Davidic. He shows how the conclusive objec
tions to the theory which refers the Psalms to the
Maccabean age are sustained by various advanced
German writers, and Bleek holds that no Psalm
can be shown to be later than Nehemiah. Ewald,
we have seen, to the last held that no part of the
Psalter was of the Maccabean period. Indeed, as
the language of the people had then come to be
Aramaic, and the old text read in Hebrew was
explained in the synagogues by interpretation, it is
not easy to see how new Psalms could be after
wards composed in pure Hebrew, and added to
1 Cook's Introduction, p. 156. The books are Psalms 1-41, 42-72,
73-89, 90-106, 107-150.

196 THE PSALMS.
the collection. The Psalms themselves were para
phrased into Chaldee or Aramaic after the Captivity,
in order that the people might understand them.
This fact of itself overthrows the modern destruc
tive supposition that the Psalms only came into
existence at that period. But the master idea of
the whole argument is not so much that such and
such Psalms were produced at such and such an
era, as that the Book at large is the product of that
influence which stamps it, like the other books of
Holy Scripture, as embodying a Divine revelation.
On this point of antiquity, it is more than enough
if a large portion of the Psalms are ascribable to
King David. I venture, however, to offer two sug
gestions. First, the Psalms come to us through a
channel supplied by the kingdom of Judah, not the
kingdom of Israel. If they had been largely com
posed after the severance of the ten tribes from the
two, would they not have presented some more
definite indication of that severance? Now, the
name of Israel is the name under which in the
Psalms the chosen people are commonly described.

THE PSALMS. 197
We have this name repeated sixty-two times.1 The
name of Judah was likely, it may be supposed,
after the schism, to become the prevailing and dis
tinctive name. It would probably so continue even
after the captivity and dispersion of the ten tribes,
at any rate as long as their remnants continued to
represent a corporate existence separate from that
of the southern kingdom. Yet, throughout the
Psalter, we never find the name of Judah mentioned
in this paramount sense. Jerusalem is mentioned
seventeen times, and Sion thirty-eight; together
fifty-five times. But the name of Judah only occurs
ten times, and never with this pre-eminent signifi
cance. It is mentioned either together with Israel
(Psa. 76 : 1 ; 1 14 : 2), or in conjunction with other
tribes, as with Ephraim and Manasseh in Psa. 60 : 7,
and 108 : 8, or with Sion; but always locally or
1 Psa. 14 : 7 (twice) ; 22 : 3, 23 ; 25 : 22 ; 41 : 13 ; 50 : 7 ; 53 : 6 (twice) ;
59 : S ; 68 : 8, 26, 34, 35 ; 69 : 6 ; 71 : 22; 72 : 18 ; 73 : 1 ; 76 : 1 ;
78 : 5, 21, 31, 41, 55, 59, 71; 80 : 1 ; 81 : 4, 8, n, 13; 83 : 4; 89 : 18 ;
98 : 3 ; 103 : 7; 105 : 10, 23 ; 106 : 48 ; 114 :i, 2; 115 : 9, 12 ; 118 : 2 ;
121 : 4 ; 122 : 4 ; 124 : 1 ; 125 : 5 ; 128 : 6 ; 129 : 1 ; 130 17,8; 131 : 3 ;
135 : 4, 12, 19 ; 136 ; II, 14, 22 ; 147 : 2, 19 ; 148 : 14 ; 149 : 2.

198 THE PSALMS.
tribally. Could this have been so, if the Psalms
had mainly been composed when Judah was the
only acknowledged name for the elect people, and
Israel was habitually a stranger, often an enemy,
always the symbol of a rival and apparently, from
the character of its priesthood and otherwise (i
Kings 12 : 31; 13 : 33), a degraded worship?
Secondly: the one great deliverance commemo
rated in the Psalms (as also, I understand, in the
later Jewish Liturgies), is the deliverance from
Egypt. See,for example, Psalms 68, 72, 80, 81, 105,
106, 114, 135, 136. Could this have been the case,
if the Book was unknown until the time when, be
tween the people and their earlier past, there arose
up a frightful spectre? I refer to the lacerating
experience of the Captivity in Babylon.
And yet, surely, there were incidents attendant
upon that Captivity, which might have carved upon
the Jewish mind recollections yet deeper in some
respects than those of Egypt In that country, if
their treatment had been cruel and degrading, yet
they must upon the whole have flourished, inasmuch

THE PSALMS.

199

as they grew there from a family into a people.
But the Babylonish Captivity entailed, firstly, the
loss of what was not only an ancestral home, but the
local seat of the divine promise to their race; sec
ondly, the loss of the worship divinely ordained,
and attached to the temple of Jerusalem; thirdly,
the loss of the kingly line, and of the visible form
of that prized nationality, in and by which they
were preferred before all the nations of the earth.
Is it then conceivable, if the Psalms in general
owed their origin to the time of the Captivity,
that the composers of them should, in numerous
and conspicuous cases, have dwelt so long and so
often on the details of the Egyptian bondage, and
should never but once and briefly have made refer
ence, specific indeed but narrow, to the one recent
catastrophe, choosing rather to go back to the cen
turies dimmed, in comparison, by the interval of a
thousand years ?
It seems more than possible that this argument
may be decisively supported by that portion of the
Book of Jeremiah, which distinctly prophesies, not

200 THE PSALMS.
long before the Captivity, that a time is coming
when the servitude in Egypt shall cease to be the
one commanding recollection of the Hebrews, and
its place shall be taken by the Exile in Babylon.
" Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that
it shall no more be said, The Lord liveth, that brought up
the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt ;
" But, The Lord liveth, that brought up the children ot
Israel from the land of the north, and from all the lands
whither he had driven them : and I will bring them again
into their land that I gave unto their fathers " (Jer. 16 :
14, IS)-
The arguments, drawn from general features and
from historical probability, respecting the antiquity
of the books of the Old Testament, are in some
degree common to the Torah, or Books of Moses,
and the Psalms. The Psalms have, however, the
benefit of the admission which at no distant period
received countenance from the leader of the nega
tive school in our own day, that a considerable
number are probably from the pen of David. And
there are also points in which reasoning, available

THE PSALMS. 2Ol
to show the antiquity of the Torah, has even an
enhanced force for the Psalms.
We see, for example, that the history of the
Israelites, from the conquest of Canaan to the Cap
tivity, is upon the whole a history of decaying
faith. This is exhibited in the original demand for
the change to a monarchy from that earlier form
of government by Judges, which powerfully sug
gested the presence and providence of the Almighty,
by leaving unoccupied the place upon earth most
symbolical of him. It was shown by the increased
wickedness of the Kings, and by the enlarged and
developed office of the Prophets. For these were
like an army of reserve in support of the divine
dispensation, which takes its position on the field
of battle in the hour of need.
It is also observed by Sack,1 that in the period
succeeding the Exile the original creative force of
the Hebrew spirit died out, and that, as formalism
1 " Die altjiidische Religion in iibergange vom Bibelthume zum
Talmudismus," von Israel Sack. Berlin, 1889. Einleitung, pp. 13
seqq.

202 THE PSALMS.
advanced, the sectarian lines of party were sharp
ened and deepened. In both these tracts of his
tory, the spirit and voice of the Book of Psalms
appear to throw us back upon antiquity, and even
upon a distant antiquity. They seem to be, when
taken at large, the product as of a school, so prob
ably of an age, of living, energetic faith. And
they are not less eminently notable for the harmony
which all along pervades the religious community.
" Jerusalem is built as a city that is at unity in
itself" (Psa. 122 : 3).
III.  THEIR CONTENTS.
Let us now look for a moment at the contents
of this Book, which are such as to fasten our
wonder upon them, and to leave little room for any
surprise that they should have established for
themselves, in collective worship and in personal
devotion, the place to which no parallel is else
where to be found in the experience of the human
race And, on the other hand I shall not fail to

THE PSALMS.

203

notice in their proper place the objections which
some have urged against the Book of Psalms.
The multiplication of divinities, under the sys
tem which we term polytheism, had tended to es
tablish everywhere a system of what are termed
national gods. These act within the sphere of a
particular race or country; they are open to the
competition of other deities, when through migra
tion or conquest these spheres happen to overlap.
They do not claim the allegiance of other races, or
show care or, so to speak, responsibility, for their
welfare. I do not indeed deny, but should be forward to
assert, that while, in the early stages of historic
antiquity, this nationalizing process seems to harden
more and more with the gradual accretions of
legendary tradition, we can trace among the my
thologies, in various degrees of faintness or clear
ness, the older idea of a supreme God ; of a belief
in one Ruler of the universe, anterior and superior
to these multiform powers. We find in many cases
disguised resemblances of that original belief; but

204 THE PSALMS.
it is most commonly with such dislocation of its
elements ; with such exaggerations, such intrusion
of ideas foreign to it, as often to defy all attempts,
at least in the present state of knowledge, to ascend
the channel upwards to the source. The schemes
become so complex, as to defy any rational account
of the original deviation : even when their basis is
found to lie in the several powers of external na
ture, which were not known to be connected by
any common tie, but which received the names of
gods, and were combined into religious systems.
These popular gods became realities in two senses :
first, subjectively, because as they were accepted in
the minds of men, the associations connected with
them became a source and spring of human action;
secondly, in an objective sense, because the images,
under which they came to be represented, gave
them a real existence at least in the material and in
the traditionary sphere. It is, therefore, natural
that the Psalms, in phrases concerning deity, should
not be confined to the One God, but should say, for
example that among the gods there is none like

THE PSALMS.

205

unto him, or should exhort the worshippers to give
thanks unto the God of gods (Psa. 86: 8; 136: 2.
See Exodus 15 : 11).
Yet no reader of the Psalms can fail to see that
they are strictly, unconditionally, and exclusively
monotheistic. God is undoubtedly the God of
Israel, and the worshippers properly describe him
in the terms which most closely correspond with
his relation to themselves. There seems to be a
great mixture of the terms of Elohim and Jehovah,
and in none of the five Books is the use of the
properly Hebrew name exclusive.1 But, without
drawing any argument from this intermixture, the
Psalms make it plain, in a multitude of places, that
the God whom they adore is from everlasting, and
is the God, not of Palestine alone, but of the whole
world: "Sing unto God, O ye kingdoms of the
earth; O sing praises unto the Lord; who sitteth
in the heavens over all from the beginning " (Psa.
68 : 32, 33). And his eye and care are over all men.
" O praise the Lord, all ye heathen : praise him. all
1 Cook's Introduction, p. 149.

206 THE PSALMS.
ye nations. For his merciful kindness is ever more
and more towards us ; and the truth of the Lord
endureth for ever" (Psa. 117).
No doubt the "Lord" is represented as having
special relations with and special care for Israel.
But these are relations of affection, not of exclu
sion. A Psalm declares indeed —
" He shall choose out an heritage for us; even the wor
ship of Jacob, whom he loved."
But the very same Psalm had already sounded the
trumpet note —
" O clap your hands together, all ye people ; O sing unto
God with the voice of melody : for the Lord is high, and to
be feared ; he is the great king upon all the earth'' (Psa. 47 :
4, and 1, 2).
Among the notes, then, of the supreme position
of the Psalms, and of the religion to which they
belonged, we find this idea of the one God, who is
also the universal God, and the universal Governor
of men, and who thereby stands broadly dis
tinguished from what we find to be the character

THE PSALMS.

207

of the polytheistic systems and of their heads ;
namely, divinity restrained by limits of the races or
countries of antiquity.
But the form of the Almighty, thus divested of
the limitations of mere nationality, and exhibited
in the majesty of perfect Oneness and Omnipotence,
revealed itself through the Psalms in other and
more tender aspects. His care for the poor and for
the stranger might be learned from the books of the
law, and may be traced in other religions among
the remnants, as is probable, of true theism. Still,
that is a function of government only, though of
benevolent government, and it is compatible with
the idea of a Deity immeasurably remote. But in
the Psalms is developed with singular force and
beauty the idea of Omnipotence in the attitude of
nearness to man: and, more conspicuously still, of
nearness to the individual man. In Heaven, and in
the Underworld, and at the extremities of earth,
"even there also shall thy hand lead me, and thy
right hand shall hold me" (Psa. 139: 6-9).
The presence thus brought near is not, as in

208 THE PSALMS.
Exodus (chap. 19: 12, 13, 21), a consuming, but a
soothing and sustaining presence (Psa. 23). When
thus brought near, the Almighty is invested in
relation to us with all those capacities of action
and of sympathy, which fill in human nature the
department of the affections. In the mouth of the
objector, this is termed anthropomorphism. I do
not presume to say that there is not in it some
prefiguration of the Messiah, made in all such
things like as we are made. But that there is no
deflection from the loftiness of the monotheistic
idea we know from this, that the same people, who
gave utterance to the Psalms, have been the most
rigid and lofty in their definitions of the Godhead.
As when it is said by Maimonides, in the best and
loftiest strain of Judaism, that with God "there is
neither folly nor wisdom, like the wisdom of a wise
man; neither sleep nor waking; neither anger nor
laughter; neither joy nor sorrow; neither silence
nor speech, like the speech of the sons of men." l
1 Maimonides, " Yad Hachazakah." Transl. Bernard (Cambridge,
1832), p. 39. Declarations not less remarkable are to be found in the

THE PSALMS. 209
Yet it is he that is not only the guardian of his
people, but as it were their sentinel ; and not of his
people only, but of every one among them, as truly
and as much as of the whole. In truth, the two
threads of national and of personal Providence are
so intertwined in the Psalms, that they scarcely can
be disentangled. " He will not suffer thy foot to be
moved, and he that keepeth thee will not sleep;"
and then in the very next verse, by a transition not
less gentle than complete, " Behold, he that keepeth
Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep." There is
no detail too minute for describing the closeness of
this protection: "He is thy defence upon thy right
hand;" "The Lord shall preserve thy going out,
and thy coming in : from this time forth for ever
more" (Psa. 121 : 3, 4, 5, 8). But no mere selection
can rightly convey a picture of the close and inti
mate care, which this and so many others of the
Psalms describe in setting forth the attitude of the
Almighty towards his worshippers.
More Nebuchim, or "Guide of the Perplexed." See also the work ot
Dr. Ginsburg on the Kabbala, pp. 87-89 (London: Longmans, 1864).
14

210 THE PSALMS.
I will not quit this portion of the subject without
quoting a remarkable testimony to the elevation of
the Psalter from a recent critic generally negative,
but one who makes his affirmative declarations with
an exemplary sincerity and fervor. He speaks of
the Psalter as follows : " It is, as a whole, the ex
pression and fruit of the principles of the Jewish
religion, as they existed in the minds of pious
Israelites. Its one great theme is the clinging of
the human spirit to God. In joy and sorrow, in
victory and defeat, in moods of saintliness or sin,
the spirit of the poor earthly wayfarer here pours
out its plaint and prayer to the God of its life. . . .
What exultation is here, for high days of victory
and joy ! What touching moans of penitence !
What child-like cries for help ! What entreaties
from the soul that can only say, ' out of the depths
I have cried unto thee!' What delightful con
fidences between the trustful spirit, and the Shep
herd who leadeth by the green pastures and the
still waters!"1 1 Seven Lectures by the Rev. J. P. Hopps, VII., p. 33.

THE PSALMS. 2II
I must not altogether pass by the Messianic
Psalms. These are the songs which show, by the
adaptation of their language to him and to his
office, either that their composers had a prevision
of his coming, or that such prevision was conveyed
into their strain by the higher influence which
prompted it. It is not necessary here to debate
the number of these Psalms. Suffice it to specify
Psalms 2, 21, 22, 45, 72, no. And it is suf
ficiently plain that the principle of prophecy, which
is involved in them, whether conscious or uncon
scious in the mind of the composer, is the same
which belongs to the other predictions and pre-
figurations in the books of the Old Testament.
But they differ from, and go beyond, the rest in
this important particular. The primitive, religion
descends through them, as it were by an inner
conduit. The great and cardinal facts of the lapse
of man from righteousness, and of the need and
promise of a Redeemer, were embodied by the
Psalms in the perpetual public worship of the
Temple; they thus became part of the open, com-

212 THE PSALMS.
mon inheritance of all ; and were systematically
forced, so to speak, upon the attention of the
people, that they might come into personal and
conscious appropriation of this most precious and
absolutely central part of their covenanted privi
leges. Great as was the Torah, the Psalter, in this
capital respect, was greater still.
When the foot of the Greek first, and afterwards
of the Roman, trod the streets of Jerusalem; when
the treasures of the Hebrew books were unlocked
to the Gentile world through the Septuagint ; then
there happened, we may justly assume, one of two
things. There was, as we know upon strong
heathen testimony, before the advent of our Lord,
a universal and traditional expectation in the East
that a great power was to arise in Judaea and to
subdue the world. How came it that so remark
able a conception, foreign to the cultivated commu
nities of the Greek and the Italian peninsulas, and
apparently menacing the continuance of the Roman
dominion, should at this time have been prevalent
in the East? The East had, indeed, through a

THE PSALMS. 2 \ 3
long series of centuries, supposed itself entitled to
the mastery of the world : hence the wild expe
dition of Darius into Scythia, and the repeated
conflicts of Persia with the Greeks. It is not
strange that this heritage should in some shape or
other be reclaimed, for ideas of this kind are tena
cious of life, and easy of revival. But what is at
first sight most strange is the choice of the spot
from which deliverance was to proceed. It was
not from any of the seats of ancient power, the
fame of which was still on record; but from among
the small, isolated, and undistinguished people who
inhabited Palestine, and whose brief appearance
on the stage of human affairs as conquerors, in the
time of King David, was so slight in extension
and in duration, as to have inscribed no mark upon
the page of general history. It had passed away
without visible record, as might, until a few years
back, have been said of the old empire of the Hit-
tites. The Jews were also a people, whose manners
and institutions repelled rather than attracted the
sympathy of the world. One supposition, explana-

214 THE PSALMS.
tory of this remarkable expectation, might be that
it had lived on from prehistoric times in feebleness
and obscurity, but had come to the front when the
East felt the hard hand of power pressing on it
from Rome, and welding it for the first time by
a permanent system into uniformity of servitude
or inferiority, from which it panted for deliver
ance. But it seems more probable that the Jewish
Scriptures, which had for two centuries become
known by translation into Greek, were themselves
the fountain-head of this most remarkable antici
pation ; and in that case its popular promulgation
would seem in all likelihood to have been due, in
an eminent degree, to the Messianic Psalms, which
were, of all the available evidence, the part most
likely to be prominent in the eye and mind of the
people. Such being, in outline, the presentation of God
to man in the Book of Psalms, let us consider in
its turn the manner in which they present man to
God. Now this may be set forth in a multitude of
particulars, but they are all capable of being

THE PSALMS.

215

summed into one. For we have seen that the
Psalms are a book of spiritual communion, not
only between God and man, not only between God
and his Church, or especially chosen people, but
also, and even pre-eminently, between God and the
individual man.
As it is the fashion of the day to assert for the
sacred books of other religions a kind of parity
with the Old Testament, I ask the reader to spend
a few moments on this subject.
No doubt there are points, at which resemblance
may be traced between the Hebrew devotions and
those of the outer world : not those of the outer
world generally, for from the Greek mind, as repre
sented by the Greek literature, devotion, properly
so called, has disappeared ; the rise of intellect, sad
and strange as this may sound, was the fall of piety.
But let it be granted that in the Vedas, for exam
ple, and in the Babylonian Hymns, there are points
of contact with the Psalms. Do those points of
contact run along the whole line ? Are they con
tinuous, or are they isolated ? Is it coincidence,

2i6 THE PSALMS.
or is it a sort of tangential contact only, or one
which reminds us of the definition of a point as
that which has position but not magnitude in
space ?
May not those hymns be described as belonging
only to the idea of dependence upon the Deity ; to
the power and grandeur which exist on one side,
the misery, want, and weakness on the other ? This
is perhaps what is called the religious sentiment,
the religion of which we have a subjective need,
and which we are now constantly (and doubtless in
good faith) assured is not to disappear on the sub
mergence of positive religion and its institutions.
But does this give us anything near a true concep
tion of the Psalms ? They are based upon the idea,
not of dependence only, but of sympathy and com
munion. Yes, for the work of spiritual discipline,
the human soul is there almost lifted upwards, as
St Paul was, into the third heaven, and meets the
Creator as son meets father, face to face. It is not
possible, perhaps, to carry this idea farther than it
is carried in the Psalms. It is certainly not woven

THE PSALMS.

217

into a closer tissue in the " Imitatio Christi," after
fourteen centuries of Christian ideas and practices.
We approach to it especially in the Prophets ; as
when, through Isaiah, the Almighty invites us to
a pleading (Isa. 1: 18), "Come now, and let us
reason together." x But can we, even in idea, press
it further, or lift it higher, than in that marvellous
expostulation of the forty-fourth Psalm ? It defies
the test of extract or quotation. From the fifth
verse to the end it is a sustained note of moving,
sorrowing appeal, lifted as far above the level of
any merely human effort known to us, as the flight
of the lark, "hard by the sun," is lifted above the
swallow, when it foresees the storm and skims
the surface of the ground. Such, as set forth in
the Psalms, are the inward exercises of the indi
vidual soul.
Not that the stamp set upon the Psalms is
uniform ; it is highly diversified. Take the noble
first Psalm, which opens the Book. It sets forth in
one part (verses 3 and 4) with a tender beauty, in
1 See further (e.g.) Ezek. 18: 25, 29.

218 THE PSALMS.
another with strong and stern denunciation, the
positions of the righteous and of the wicked before
God. But it sets them forth, as it were, from the
outside. So, again, many of the Psalms, dealing
with the Israelites as a whole, have for their theme
national deliverance and glory. But let us turn to
the penitential Psalms, and most of all to the fifty-
first, in which King David1 sounds the lowest depths
of sorrow and shame for sin, and has provided for
the penitent of every age and every character the
auxiliary medicine that his case required. On these
Psalms as a whole, on this Psalm in particular, and,
again on the thirty-eighth Psalm, most of all in its
first moiety, let us fasten our attention for a moment.
Have modern learning and research succeeded in
extracting from all the sacred books of all the
ancient religions of the world anything like, I do
not say a parallel, but an ever so remote approach
to them ? The great discourse of our Lord to
Nicodemus, in the third chapter of St. John, might
1Some critics argue, not without some reason on their side that the
two last verses are an Exilic addition.

THE PSALMS. 219
find in these compositions a basis broad enough to
sustain the whole of His startling doctrine, "except
a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of
God" (John 3: 3).
Penitence thus lying at the door of the process
by which man is appointed to ascend to holiness,
this golden book supplies, beyond all others, the
types and aids for attaining it in all its stages. All
that special class of virtues, which were unknown
to the civilized world at the time when the Apostles
preached them, had been here set forth in act a
thousand years before, and stored up for use, first
within the narrow circle of the Jewish worship, and
then in the Church, which claims, and which may
yet possess, the wide world for its inheritance.
Another standard of virtue indeed, and in itself a
glorious one, the Greek and the Roman world pos
sessed. They had their code of Justice, Fortitude,
Temperance, and Wisdom. But this list of virtues
contained no recognition of the terrible and world
wide fact of sin, and opened no road to the acqui
sition of powers capable of contending against it,

220 THE PSALMS.
and of casting down its strongholds to the ground.
That road was to be opened by the Beatitudes of
the Sermon on the Mount, and by the Faith, Hope,
and Charity of St. Paul. Now, is there one of those
Beatitudes which has not been, in its blossom or its
germ, anticipated by the Psalms ? Take the sancti-
fication of sorrow in verse 4: so the Psalm instructs
us, "Thy loving correction shall make me great"
(Psa. 18: 35). Take the blessing of the meek
(v. 5). So says the Psalmist: "Lord, I am not
high-minded. I have no proud looks. I refrain
my soul and keep it low. My soul is even as a
weaned child" (Psa. 131: 1, 3). These are princi
ples, not only which the ancient philosophies did not
contain, but which they would have repudiated and
contemned. Take again that blessing of satiety
which is promised to "hunger and thirst" after
righteousness ; words which indicate such an adult
age, such a fulness of growth and stature in the
new man of the Christian system, that what was at
first lesson from without has come to be appetite
from within, and forms part of the untaught spon-

THE PSALMS. 22I
taneous working of a renewed humanity. But this
idea is fully developed in the Psalms (42 : 1, 2):
" Like as the hart desireth the water brooks, so
longeth my soul after thee, O God. My soul is
athirst for God, yea, even for the living God: when
shall I come to appear before the presence of God ? "
Even the doctrine of forgiveness, of doing good to
enemies, to the growth of which the conditions of
Hebrew life were less favorable, finds expression in
the Psalms. Take 35 : 12, 13 : "They rewarded me
evil for good. Nevertheless, when they were sick
I put on sackcloth, and humbled my soul with
fasting." And again, " If I have rewarded evil unto
him that dealt friendly with me : yea, I have deliv
ered him that without any cause is mine enemy"
(Psa. 7:4).
There are, as I shall presently notice, other pas
sages of a different strain. But it is, I submit, the
general strain of the Psalms to which we should
principally look. And who will deny that they
habitually abound in humility, in penitential abase
ment, in the strong faith which is the evidence of

222 THE PSALMS.
things not seen, in fervor, self-mistrust, filial confi
dence towards God ? These and all kindred quali
ties they develop in what, for want of a better word,
I will term their innerness. Their tones come from
the inmost heart, and, not with a rude familiarity,
yet with a wonderful nearness, they seem to seek
the response, if the phrase may be used without
irreverence, from the inner heart of God himself.
All this is severed, as a whole, by an immeasur
able distance from the language, ideas, and mental
habits of pagan antiquity. What we find there of
religion associated with intellectual culture turns
upon the external relations between God and man,
as between sovereign and subject, or master and
dependant. The prehistoric verse of Homer
abounds in prayers. They are not such commonly
as we should use, yet they indicate fully these
external relations. But in the life of later, of clas
sical Greece, prayer seems wholly to have lost its
force, and its place as a factor in human life.
Again, in the " Odyssey " of Homer we have
remaining traces of the personal relation between

THE PSALMS. 223
man and God. In the intercourse of Athene with
Odysseus, and reversely in her action on the minds
of the guilty Suitors, there are distinct traces
of the belief in a divine force working within the
soul of man. I do not remember to have found
anything like this in the later classical literature.
But the development of the principle and idea of a
communion with God, operative on human feeling,
thought, and action, is the standing and central
thought of the Psalms. And it is probable that, the
more fixedly we regard them, the more of their dis
tinctive marks we shall perceive, even as the stars
in heaven multiply to the gazing eye. The per
vading idea of a living communion with the
Most High, the communion which both gives and
takes, exhibits and fulfils itself in many ways. One
of them is the use of intercessory prayer; a trait
conspicuously absent from the numerous and inter
esting prayers of Homer. Another is that, while
full of warm personal interests, they persistently
hold up the banner of a righteousness apart from
and above all personal interests whatever. Another

224 THE PSALMS.
is that the affections, alienated by sin, have returned
to their allegiance, and are arrayed on the side of
the Most High. The testimonies of God are the
"very joy" of the Psalmist's heart. It is all his
desire, that the divine will should have free course
and be glorified upon earth. The glory of God has
become to him a profound personal interest. There
is a community of concern, purpose, and feeling, re
ciprocated between heaven and earth. " Set up thy
self, O God, above the heavens; and thy glory
above all the earth." Sentiments of this type are,
I apprehend, hardly to be found outside the pre
cinct of the Hebrew race.
I will only note, in passing, before quitting this
subject, two remaining characteristics; the height
of that sacredness which the Psalms attach to the
claims of the poor; and their sense of the utter
worthlessness of all ceremonial observances, though
commanded, except in connection with the service
of the will and purification of the heart.

THE PSALMS. 225

IV.  THE OBJECTIONS TAKEN TO THEM.
Referring to what has been said elsewhere on
the presence of a human element in Ploly Scrip
ture, I will now introduce a few words on the spe
cial objection which is lodged against the Psalms.
Let me first endeavor to reduce the question to
its true dimensions. The criticism is not here, as
it might be in some cases of books claiming to be
sacred, that they are feeble, or fanciful, or remote
from human interests, or that large veins of clay
run through such true metal as they contain. The
Psalms, in their sublimity and in their sympathy,
so immeasurably divine and so intensely human,
are proof against all such criticism, which would
be no better than cavil. The only dart which
really rings upon their coat of mail is the dart
which carries the reproach of their severe and un
measured denunciation of enemies.
And first, in order to disembarrass the question
of matter which appears to be extreme and excep-
15

226 THE PSALMS.
tional, I will refer to the verse which represents
the ne plus ultra of the difficulty, as it stands in
the Prayer-book Version of the Psalms ; in respect
to which we pay a certain price for its incompara
ble majesty and beauty, in the shape of occasional
though rare shortcomings as to accuracy. The
Prayer-book gives verses 21, 22, of Psalm 139, as
follows :
" Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee: and am
not I grieved with those that rise up against thee ?
" Yea, I hate them right sore : even as though they were
mine enemies."
Which seems to say, " I have a reserved stock of
special and superlative hatred for those who have
not only sinned in general, but have sinned against
me in particular." But this notion is completely put
aside in the translation direct from the Hebrew as it
stands in the Authorized, and also in the Revised
Version, where the second of the two verses runs :
" I hate them with a perfect hatred ; I count them mine
enemies.'' This seems not to set up the selfish feeling,

THE PSALMS. 227
about offense personally received, above the senti
ment of indignation and resentment against wick
edness ; but to say only, " All that I might feel
against a personal enemy, all that natural ex
asperation would suggest, I discharge upon the
enemies of God." But the sentiment concerning
them has already been expressed in terms not
admitting of enlargement. " I hate them with a
perfect hatred." And this brings the objection to
a point. It is that such unmeasured detestation
and invocation of wrath by man even upon God's
enemies cannot be justified, and can by no means
be referred to divine inspiration.
Now let us notice, in the first place, that the
general tone of the Psalms concerning enemies is
not aggressive, but defensive. A sense of trouble
and danger from the might of experienced or im
pending assault, and an appeal- to God for protec
tion, furnish the staple sentiment of the Book. I
quote a single instance, which is a fair sample of
the ground assumed in the whole of this class of
passages from Psalm 56 : 1, 2 :

228 THE PSALMS.
"Be merciful unto me, O God, for man goeth about to
devour me : he is daily fighting and troubling me.
" Mine enemies are daily in hand to swallow me up :
for they be many that fight against me, 0 thou Most
Highest." Let those who question the assertion I have
made, that this passage has a character typical of
the whole, refer (among other places) to Psalms 5 :
8; 6:7; 7:5; 18: 27, passim; 56 : 9; 59 : 1; 69:
4; 118 : 11, 12; 138 : 7; 143 :g.
But undoubtedly a certain number of passages
are not defensive, they are denunciatory; such as
54 : 5, 7; 59 : 10; 92 : 11; 143 : 12. I will recite
this last verse in full, for it brings into view the
sentiment which forms the base of all these pas
sages: "And of thy goodness slay mine enemies,
and destroy all them that vex my soul,/<?r I am thy
servant!' If we put these words into paraphrase,
the Psalmist pleads that he is engaged in the service
of God ; that in this service he is assailed and
hindered ; that, powerless in himself, he appeals to
the source of power ; and that he invokes upon the

THE PSALMS.

229

assailants and hinderers of the divine work the
divine vengeance, even to their extinction.
We have, then, to consider these denunciatory
passages, first, as they were employed by their
authors; secondly, as they are now presented to us
for our own use in the services of the Church, or in
private devotion.
Under the first head, let me observe as follows.
There is not one of these passages which tampers
with truth or justice; they are aimed only at sin, to
blast and to wither it. " Lead me, O Lord, in thy
righteousness, because of mine enemies" (Psa. 5 : 8).
This is the universal strain. All these passages are
strokes delivered with the sword of righteousness,
in its unending warfare with iniquity. Nor is there
one among them, of which it can be shown that it
refers to any personal feud, passion, or desire.
Everywhere the Psalmist speaks in the name of
God, on behalf of his word and will ; in behalf of
righteousness, and against iniquity.
But it may still be urged, that such denunciations
are excessive in degree, that they are too severe and

230 THE PSALMS.
savage, and that they are not suitable for the mouth
of a being such as man; who in the sense of his
own shortcomings and sins should learn a lesson
of abstention from judgment upon his fellows.
With respect to their severity I suggest, and if
need be contend, that we, in our ignorance and
weakness, are not fit judges of the extent to which
the wisdom of the Almighty may, under given
circumstances differing widely from ours, justly
carry the denunciation, even by the mouth of man,
and the punishment of guilt.
Man, and even civilized man, contemplates with
much equanimity the taking of human life for the
occasions which he deems sufficient. He knows
that in all wars one party must be guilty, and that
in most or many wars neither have had a justifi
cation for the wholesale bloodshed, which floods
the path of destruction that they necessarily fol
low. Life, which man did not give and cannot
restore, he takes away, for the repression of crime,
with general, though not unanimous, approval. It
is also taken, even now, in most Christian coun-

THE PSALMS. 23 1
tries, through duels for private injury or insult;
and it is but recently that public opinion in our
own country has become repugnant to the practice.
But the scruples, which for ourselves we so easily
thrust aside, become active, feverish, and even vio
lent, when, in a world to the abundant wickedness
of which our own practice witnesses, the Ruler of
that world, who gave life for use, and who sees
and judges its abuse, is to be arraigned before our
mock tribunal ; and we, who cannot and do not
rightly guide, each of us, our own action, are to
undertake to determine his. And this, when we
have not fully learned, and cannot measure, either
the deep and frightful depravity of the Canaanit-
ish nations, or the purposes with which, from time
to time, penalty descends from on high. We know
not whether it comes in mercy to correct the
growth of evil before it shall become incurable ;
and whether, or how far, when opportunity has
been exhausted here, resources may still have been
held in reserve on behalf of persons placed as
they were, to be expended for good in the great

232

THE PSALMS.

Elsewhere. To pronounce verdicts upon these
terrible denunciations may be impious; and is
surely, at the least, unreasonable.
"And who art thou, that on the bench would sit,
To judge what is a thousand miles removed,
With the brief vision of a single span ?" '
There is certainly more claim to substance in
the objection, which urges that these denunciations
are unsuitable for man. But here I should inter
pose the question, To what man ? The wonderful
nature, in which we have been created, is in noth
ing more wonderful than in the diversity of the
conditions under which it has to subsist and work,
on its road from embryo to perfection. As those
stages accumulate, the moral code becomes multi
form and involved. In simpler forms of life, and
in earlier stages of society, the roads between right
and wrong were short, broad, and clear. Even so
were then the dividing spaces of the battle-field,
whereas contending hosts are now severed by
miles, and almost leagues, from one another.
1 Dante, " Parad." XIX. 81. Pollock's translation,

THE PSALMS. 233
But, further, the Psalmists, and the nation to
which they belonged, lived under a different dis
pensation from ours. If we accept the Scriptures,
that nation held a divine commission to establish
the right and to put down the wrong, in a sense
in which no such commission is now given. For
us, it is enough to hope that at any given juncture
we may be doing the will of God. But what we
hope, they knew; and sight for them was mixed
with faith in a degree and mode very remote from
the spirit of our later, and, in this respect, perhaps
higher training. They were accustomed to what
may be termed short accounts with the divine
justice; and to reward or suffering as the immedi
ate consequences, and, therefore, as the direct at
testations, of the judgment of God upon the moral
conduct of man. The responsibility, which is for us
diffused and indefinite, was for them concentrated
and palpable. But, besides this, they had the
great standing institution of prophecy; and the
king in whose ears Nathan's words had thundered,
" Thou art the man," might well feel that his own

234 THE PSALMS.
contact was a close one with the mind of the
Almighty, and that he might upon occasion speak
his very strongest words under guidance from
on high.
I do not pursue farther these remarks, which are
no more than tentative and approximate. But I
cannot find myself justified in the assumption that
we have in all cases a complete cognizance of the
conditions under which the Psalms give judgment
upon the unrighteous, or are intended to arrive at
final conclusions on the question what the Jews
might, and what they might not, suitably be com
missioned by the Almighty to denounce.
More immediately are we concerned in the ques
tion as to the place held in Christian devotion, and
especially in public ritual, by the denunciatory pas
sages of the Psalms. It is one question what these
denunciations were for the Jew ; it is another, and
entirely a distinct one, what they are for us. But
the answer to this objection, I apprehend, lies near
to hand. All scruple, at least all rational or plausi
ble scruple in this matter, seems to rest upon the

THE PSALMS. 235
supposition that the passages are aimed at creat
ures who have characters mixed between good
and evil, and who therefore are not presumptively
fit subjects for unmixed, undiscriminating denun
ciation by their fellow-men. But can any one
reasonably suppose that these declarations are, in
the mind and sense of the Christian Church,
directed against any human enemy ? Our human
enemies, if we are so unhappy as to have any, are
not the most watchful, the most subtle, the most
destructive of our foes. " For we wrestle not
against flesh and blood, but against . . . the rulers
of the darkness of this world" (Eph. 6 : 12). Both
the Holy Scripture and the Christian religion teach,
and our human experience largely testifies to a more
formidable conflict. There are spirits whose meat
and drink, so to speak, it is to extend the domain
of evil, to deepen corruption, to destroy happiness
by destroying innocence, which is its base ; to add,
both in range and in intensity, to the misery and
the sin which have made the world so sad. If
this be so, then I contend that to pray for the

236 THE PSALMS.
abolition or paralysis of their work and of its
agents, and this especially when we meet as Chris
tians to set forth solemnly the collective as well
as impersonal needs and aspirations of mankind, is
a practice which speaks for itself, and requires
neither justification nor apology.
Apart altogether from the question, what may
be the value or completeness of the foregoing de
fensive suggestions, I would remind my readers
that they relate not to the main body of the ques
tion respecting the Psalms, but to a portion of it
which is limited and exceptional. The Psalms,
like other productions, are to be judged by their
general character. I do not perceive how, if we
approach this question on the grounds and in the
spirit of reason, it is possible for a person so
approaching it to set aside the mass of evidence,
which establishes the unparalleled and unap-
proached position of the Book in its antiquity
and use, in its pure and noble theology, and in a
moral and spiritual character witnessed afresh by
the judgment and practice of each succeeding age.

THE PSALMS.

=37

And, if the several parts of this evidence link them
selves into a compact and harmonious whole, it is
not reason, but unreason in the mask of reason,
which declines or omits to acknowledge the pre
sumption thence arising, that the Book is at a level
indefinitely higher than has been reached by the
unassisted faculties of man, and that the power
which raised it to that level can only be divine.
Such a conclusion will survive even the approving
reference in Psalm 137 : 9, to a practice of savage
warfare. Were it true that the image of gold had
feet of clay, we might indeed be perplexed by the
combination; but would not this be just as we
often are perplexed by other combinations, pre
sented to us in the providential government of the
world ? And not only in the providential govern
ment of the world, but in the fulfilment of our
personal relations with other men. Yet we do not
put an end on that account to such relations : nor
do we cease to believe in God because we, such as
we are — God save the mark — cannot comprehend
the reason, or even discern the rightfulness, of all

238 THE PSALMS.
he does. So neither, by parity of reasoning, can
we refuse to admit sufficient evidence of an origin
more than human for the Psalms on the ground that
we see only through a glass darkly, and that they
present incidental features of apparent difficulty,
analogous in principle to those which in other
departments our experience brings before us.

V.
THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION.

The legislative books of the Pentateuch, from
Exodus to Deuteronomy, may be contemplated in
the light, either (i) of their credentials, or (2) of
their character and contents.
The Christian Church, which had heretofore
regarded them as an integral and instructive part
of the divine revelation, is now challenged by
the voices of numerous critics to defend them.
Champions in this cause are not wanting; and it
is not to be supposed that the learned in linguistic
studies have arrived at unanimous and final con
clusions in these grave matters. If we compare
their studies, as to unanimity, continuity, and
ascertained progress, with that of the natural
sciences, the comparison will be not at all to their
advantage. Their services are not, however, to be
239

240 THE MOSAIC LEGISLA TION.
unduly disparaged. What is understood to be at
issue is, the date and authorship of the books in
the form in which we no is/ have them. These are
contested by the negative school on grounds of
language and style, upon which none can properly
attempt to follow or to judge them, unless when
equipped with the same special knowledge. They
also allege, as parts of the destructive argument,
that the books contain anachronisms, contradic
tions, statements disproved by histoiy.
They have recently been challenged by Dr.
Cave1 to set forth a plain and distinct statement of
these difficulties, such as might bring the allega
tions in some degree within the circles of knowl
edge and of judgment, for us, who are not experts,
but are a public supposed to be endued with ordi
nary intelligence. They are also invited to state
what meaning they assign to the standing phrase,
" And the Lord spake unto Moses," which with its
variants occurs, it may be observed, no less than
thirty times in the twenty-seven chapters of Leviti-
1 Contemporary Review, April, 1890, pp. 537-SSi.

THE MOSAIC LEGISLA TION.

241

cus. And, finally, the)- are solicited by Dr. Cave
to show in plain terms the reasons why it is unrea
sonable to suppose that the books (either in their
present state or otherwise) were, from the time of
Moses onwards, contemporaneous with the events
described, and that they grew up one by one along
with those events.
It seems but common equity that we, who stand
outside the learned world, and who find operations
are in progress, which are often declared to have
destroyed the authority of these ancient books,
should be supplied, as far as may be, with avail
able means of rationally judging the nature and
grounds of the impeachment. And it is unfortu
nate that this has been little thought of; and that,
while we are, it may almost be said, drenched with
the deductions and conclusions of the negative
critics,1 it is still so difficult, in multitudes of in
stances, to come at any clear view of the grounds
1 These observations refer to the works of some Continental wri
ters, notably Dr. Reuss ; and in no way to such works as the able
volume of Dr. Driver on the Old Testament, published since the first
edition of these essays. 16

242

THE MOSAIC LEGISLA TION.

on which they build. The matters of style and
language we must contentedly take upon trust ;
but anachronism, contradiction of history, contra
diction in the books themselves, ought to be more
or less within our cognizance. And there are
many arguments of historical verisimilitude and
likelihood, which are in no sense the exclusive
property of specialism.
Even within the compass of the Torah, a dis
tinction has been drawn by some eminent critics
(by Eichhorn, for example), in their writings on the
canon of the Old Testament;1 who have assigned
the legislative portions generally to Moses himself,
and the historical parts to scribes acting under his
direction, or at a later time.
It does not appear easy to show why such a
singular intermixture of the two should have been
made, unless it were by or under the direction of
the lawgiver himself. The tangled occupations of
1 A most convenient summary of the history of critical opinion on
the Pentateuch is supplied by Bleek cum Wellhausen in the Einleit
ung (Ed. 1886), sects. 13-17. Wellhausen adds another review at
the close of the volume in this edition.

THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION.

243

his evidently hard-pressed life would account for a
form of authorship, which is not in itself at all con
venient. But the ordinary reader will not fail to
observe that it is the legislation, for which in the
sacred text itself the claim is constantly made of
being due to direct communication from above,
while no corresponding assertion in general accom
panies the historical recitals.
Speaking at large, every imaginable difference
has prevailed among the critics themselves as to
the source, date, and authorship of the books. But
on the whole, the negative movement has become
bolder in its assertions as it proceeded, and has
brought them gradually towards later epochs: to
Samuel, to the age of David, to the severance of
the kingdoms, to Josiah, to the Captivity, and even
to those who followed it. The affirmative side has
been also stoutly maintained,1 not without the ad
mission of particular additions and interpolations
in the received text. The distinction between sub
stantial authorship, and final editorship, has been
1 Bleek, Einleitung, sect. 15.

244

THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION.

largely recognized by writers of celebrity and
weight. Bleek himself, apparently sustained by
Wellhausen as late as 1886, held that Moses had a
hand {einen antheil) in the legislative books. Many
of the laws, they say at that date, are without sense
or purpose, except in regard to circumstances
which disappeared with the Mosaic period.1 Several
sections of this important work2 are given to the
indication of portions of the books which must
have been Mosaic. Further, we have the follow
ing remarkable declaration. Though the entire
Pentateuch in its present form should not have been
the work of Moses, and though many laws are the
product of a later age, still the legislation, in its spir
it and character as a whole, is genuinely Mosaic;3
and that, in dealing with the Pentateuch, we stand,
at least as to the three middle books, upon histori
cal ground;4 evidently meaning upon ground which
is historical as opposed to that which is unauthenti-
1 Bleek, Einleitung, sect. n. 2 Ibid., sects. 13-24.
3 " So muss doch die darin enthaltene gesetzgebung ihrem ganzen
geiste und character nach echt mosaisch seyn." — Ibid., sect. 22, p. 45.
4 Ibid.

THE MOSAIC LEG IS LA TION.

245

cated or legendary. Further, what is thus generally
asserted of the spirit and character of the Penta-
teuchal laws, is asserted, for an important share of
them,1 as to both the contents and even the form.
These statements — it would not be fair to call
them admissions — go to the root of the whole
matter, and seem to leave us in possession of that
for which alone I contend; namely, that the heart
and substance of the legislative and institutional
system delivered to us in the Pentateuch is his
torically trustworthy. If this be so, it still remains
highly important to distinguish by critical exami
nation what, if any, particular portions of the work
in their actual form may be open to question, either
as secondary errors, or as developments appended
to the original formation; but the citadel, so long
victoriously held by faith and reason, both through
Hebrew and through Christian ages, remains unas-
sailed, and the documents of Holy Writ emerge
substantially unhurt from the inquisitive and search
ing analysis of the modern time.
1 Einleitung, sect. 23, p. 46.

246 THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION.
In more recent productions we find an extension
of the field of debate and a change of tone.
There is a later work of Wellhausen's1 which
minutely subdivides the books into smaller portions,
and refers these to their different authors, with a
self-reliance which appears to be remarkable, but
of which I am not a fit judge. I may observe,
however, that this work has neither introduction
nor conclusion, neither index nor table of contents,
and that it resembles rather the promiscuous gath
erings of a note-book, or rather, of two note-books
crossing one another, discharged bodily into a
printing-office, than a work of regular or scientific
criticism. I must add that in certain cases, where
the unity of the text is disputed upon grounds
alike cognizable by us all, I find the conclusions
of the author as disputable as they are confi
dent. In other instances, numerous enough, asser
tions are made, as if they were oracles, without
the slightest explanation, or any indication of their
1 " Die composition des Hexateuch's und der Historischen Biicher."
Berlin, 1889.

THE MOSAIC LEG IS LA TION.

"-47

grounds. Examples of these methods may be
found in the criticisms1 on Genesis, and in the
contradiction alleged to exist in the several ac
counts of Caleb and Joshua (Numb. 32 : 5, and
Deut 1 : 32-38).
A still more negative utterance, if I understand
it rightly, is found in the " Prolegomena to the
History of Israel," translated under the author's
supervision, and accompanied with his article on
Israel from the Encyclopaedia Britannica.2 This
book, published since the edition of Bleek cum
Wellhausen from which I have quoted, appears in
a singular manner to contradict it, and announces
that " the Mosaic history is not the starting-point
of the history of ancient Israel, but for the history
of Judaism."3 The distinction may not be familiar
to English readers, but the meaning seems to be
that the Pentateuch had not, either in form or sub
stance, any operative existence until after the Exile,
when the ancient Israel is held to end, and Judaism
1 Page 7. * Edinburgh : A. & C. Black, 1885.
8 Preface by Professor Robertson Smith, p. v.

248 THE MOSAIC LEGISLA TION.
to begin. A " Mosaic germ " only is admitted ;
and a germ is that which, like an unborn child, has
no operative existence, but only the promise of
producing one at some future date. According,
then, to the showing of those who tender them
selves as our guides, Israel lived on for nine hundred
years, from the Exodus, and transmitted a peculiar
faith, law, ritual, and nationality, without any legis
lative, or ritual, or institutional system to uphold
any one of them. This very startling proposition
appears to me to do violence to reason not less
glaringly than any of the assertions ventured by
the theologians in the days of their pride and power.
Those writers are doubtless perfectly sincere, who
represent this as a method of progressive revelation.
But there are also persons who think that such a
progressive revelation as this would for over two
thousand years have palmed upon the whole Jewish
and Christian world not only a heartless, but an
impossible imposture. It is more immediately
necessary to observe that the hypothesis is one
reaching far beyond the province of specialism, and

THE MOSAIC LEGISLA TION.

249

requiring to be tested at a number of points by
considerations more broadly historical. Nor can
I quit the subject without observing that it is
extremely difficult to learn whether there exists any
real standing-ground, which the present negative
writers mean not only to occupy but to hold.
Almost any representation of their views may be
either supported or contradicted by citing partic
ular expressions from their works. All we can do
is to dive as best we may into their conception of
what Wellhausen rather singularly calls " the
secrets" of his art ; as though he considered that its
processes are akin to those of the occult sciences.1
Upon the whole, and taking the article on Israel in
the Encyclopaedia Britannica as the fairest exposi
tion of his views, I infer that the present fashion is
to believe in Moses, but to question even his con
nection with the Decalogue;2 to allow him to have
given or suggested a something, totally indefinite
in its character, to the Israelites ; and to hold that
^¦Einleitung, Ed. 1886, Vorwort.
2 Wellhausen, " Hist. Israel" (Black), pp. 436, 509.

2 5 O THE MOSA IC LEGISLA TION.
the materials of the legislative books, as a whole,
gradually grew up out of material supplied upon
occasion by the priests (like the "Answers of
Experts,"1 which supplied a contribution to the
Code of Justinian) into a state which enabled editors,
generally post-Exilic, to reduce them to their pres
ent form. This scheme seems to be admirably rep
resented by the words which Mr. Robertson Smith
quotes, on his own very high authority, as its gist.
And this is the scheme to which I desire, on his
torical grounds, to demur.
At the same time it is undeniable that, even if
the outside negative conclusions were still such as
they were stated to be so lately as in 1 886, yet the
impression they had created was not of a similarly
limited character. Whether owing to the predis
positions of the time, or to a spirit latent in some
of the critics, or to the reaction which is usually
perceptible when certain ideas long cherished on one
side have been found to require modification, there
have been, as it were, exhalations from the recent
'Gibbon (Milman's ed.), IV., 193.

THE MOSAIC LEGISLA TION. 25 I
inquiries, extending outwards in their effect much
beyond the positive conclusions. An atmosphere
has been diffused around us, and we habitually
inhale it, which inspires a general uncertainty, lead
ing to negation, with respect to the Mosaic books.
This causes us, not, perhaps, to believe (for belief
would imply and demand a rational process), but
to feel towards these great foundation-books as if
we believed, that, instead of being as to the heart
and pith of them trustworthy, they were in the
main untrustworthy; that they were compounded or
composed at uncertain times, by uncertain authors,
from uncertain materials; that even bad faith is to
be traced in them; and that the question is not so
much what particulars can be convicted of un-
authenticity, as whether any particulars can be
rescued from the general discredit of a mythical or
legendary inception. It is against this vague, ir
rational, unscientific method of proceeding, that I
would enter not a protest only, but a pleading.
Whatever is to happen, let not Christians lose
unawares either their faith, or that pillar of their

252 THE MOSA IC LEGISLA TION.
faith which the great books of the Old Testament
always have supplied.
I have already made it clear that I yield, as a
matter of course, to the conclusions of linguists in
their own domain, not only respectful attention, but
provisional assent. That domain includes not only
criticism strictly textual, but all that relates to style,
and, in a word, whatever properties of any given
writings are developed through the medium of the
particular tongue in which they are composed. On
the mere form of the books, they speak with a force
which, as against us, the unlearned, is overwhelming.
But, in the examinations directed to the matter as
opposed to the form, their authority is of a less
stringent character, and may even decline to zero.
The historical aspects and relations which open out
this field are not theirs exclusively, and we may
canvass and question their conclusions, just as it
is open to us to proceed with the conclusions of
Macaulay or of Grote.
When it is attempted to bring down the date of
the Pentateuch from the time of Moses, by whom

THE MOSAIC LEGISLA TION.

253

the books in various forms purport1 to have been
composed, to the period of the Babylonian Captivity,
and this not only as to their literary form, but as
to their substance, the evident meaning and effect
of the attempt is to divest them of a historical, and
to invest them with a legendary character.
At the same time, it should be borne in mind
that those who have not seen reason to adopt the
negative theory above described leave entirely open
numerous questions belonging to the institutions
of the Israelites. It is not extravagant to assume
that laws given to them as a nomad people, and
then subjected to the varying contingencies of his
tory during many centuries, may or even must have
required and received adaptation by supplement,
development, or change in detail, which the ap-
1 For instance, as by the proem to Deuteronomy (1 : 1) : the recited
orders of the Almighty to Moses that he should speak, followed by
the speeches — e.g.. Lev. 1 : 1, Num. 1:1, the constant verbal report
of words spoken to Moses when no other person (or in some cases
Aaron only) was present; and the remarkable and high-toned injunc
tions in the later chapters of Deuteronomy, which all through seem to
have reference to a code of legislation preceding them.

254 THE MOSA IC LEGISLA TION.
pointed instructors of the people were authorized
and qualified to supply; and all this not in deroga
tion, but rather in completion and in furtherance
of the work of Moses, which might still remain his
in essence from first to last.
It is admitted, however, that the whole question
must be tried on historical and literary grounds.
On such grounds I seek to approach it, and to
throw light upon it from some considerations of
reason and probability, which appear to me to be
of not inconsiderable cogency. By testing the
subject in this way, we may come, in part at least,
to learn by testing what in the main is fact, what
in the main is speculation, and to a great extent
fluctuating and changeful speculation.
First, it is never to be forgotten that our point of
departure is from the ground of established historic
fact. The existence of Moses is even better and
far better established than that (for example) of
Lycurgus. We know Lycurgus in the main from
the one great fact of his very peculiar institutions.
They, such as we find them in historic times, com-

THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION.

=55

pel us to presume his existence in a prehistoric
time. Not only their high and elaborate organiza
tion, but their practical efficacy in separating and
fencing off from the rest of Greece the Spartan
community, reduces to something near absurdity
any such supposition as that they were essentially
no more than a late growth reached by impercep
tible degrees. We know Moses quite as well from
his institutions ; which are by no means less pecu
liar, and which, as experience has shown, have
been very far more durable. In the case of Moses,
it happens that we have much evidence indepen
dent of, and anterior to, the institutions themselves
in their historic form. Yet no one doubts either
the existence of the Spartan lawgiver, or the gen
eral character of his personal work. If the form
of the books in which the Mosaic legislation
reaches us be open to the suspicion of manipula
tion by scribes or editors, or if it suggest some
suspicion of developments, how does this compare
with the case of Lycurgus ? About or from him
we have no books at all ; and yet it would be

256 THE MOSA IC LEGISLA TION.
deemed irrational to doubt either the existence of
the man, or the substance of the work performed
by him.
The exodus from Egypt, the settlement in Pales
tine, the foundation there of institutions, civil and
religious, which were endowed with a tenacity of
life and a peculiarity of character beyond all exam
ple ; these things are established by Scripture, but
they are also established independent of Scripture.
They constitute a trinoda necessitas, a threefold
combination of fact, which, in order to make them
intelligible and coherent, in order to supply a ra
tional connection between cause and effect, appears
to require not only a Moses, but, in substance, such
a Moses as the Scripture supplies. They build up a
niche, which the Scripture fills. At all times of his
tory, and specially in those primitive times, when1
the men made the governments, not the govern
ments the men, these great independent historic
facts absolutely carry with them the assumption of
a leader, a governor, a legislator. All this simply
1 So Montesquieu, "Grandeur et Decadence des Romains," Chap. I.

THE MOSA IC LEGISLA TION. 257
means a Moses; and a Moses, such as we know
him from the Pentateuch.
And thus we are led, I do not say to, but to
wards, the conclusion that, whatever be the dispar
aging allegations of the critics, they may after all
according to likelihood be found reasonable only
as to matters of form or of detail. It may still be
fact that the substance of the history is in thorough
accordance with the historic bases that are laid
for us in secular as well as in sacred testimony.
If this be so, then we have also to bear in mind
that the phenomenon, which we have before us, is
one so peculiar that it could only have been exhib
ited to the world as the offspring of a peculiar gen
erating cause. A people of limited numbers, of no
marked political genius, negative and stationary as
to literature and art, maintain their absolutely sep
arate existence for near a thousand years, down to
the Captivity. They are placed in the immediate
neighborhood, and subjected to the frequent at
tacks, of the great Eastern monarchies, as well as,
of some very warlike neighbors. These attacks
17

258 THE MOSA IC LEGISLA TION.
compromise their political independence, but do
not prevent it from being recovered. They receive
the impress of a character so marked, that not
even the Captivity can efface it ; but, on the con
trary, that searching trial helps to give a harder
and sharper projection to its features. It retains
its solidity and substance while everything else is
subjected to change, and even such a great politi
cal aggregation as the Hittite monarchy becomes
absolutely fused in the surrounding masses. It re
tains its obstinate and unconquerable peculiarities,
even when it has passed under the harrow of condi
tions such as at Babylon, apparently sufficient to
beat down and destroy the most obstinate national
ism. Can it be denied that this great historic fact,
nowhere to be matched, is in thorough accordance
with, and almost of itself compels us to presuppose,
the existence from the outset of an elaborately de
tailed and firmly compacted system of laws and insti
tutions, under which this peculiar discipline might
subsist and work, so as gradually to shape, deter
mine, and mature the character of the people ?

THE MOSAIC LEGISLA TION.

!S9

If, apart from all questions of form and expres
sion, the substance of the Mosaic law was given to
the Israelites on their settlement in Palestine, such
a provision, it may fearlessly be said, was in full
accordance with the moral exigency of the case,
and with the laws of historical probability. If on
the other hand there was no Moses, or only a
Moses who left nothing palpable behind him, and
who does not rank among the lawgivers of the
world; if the legislative books represent only a
gradual and mythical accretion due mainly either
to class interests or to the magnifying effect of dis
tance, and turned to account by invention either
interested or credulous, — then the hypothesis pre
sented to us is, it may surely be contended, in
violent discord with what, on principles either
of Providential government or of human good
sense, the case would usually be held to have
required. In estimating the claim of the Old Testament to
a divine origin, it is important to compare the legis
lation given by Moses with that of other ancient

260 THE MOSAIC LEGISLA TION.
lawgivers, such, for example, as Solon, who enjoyed
the light of a far more advanced civilization. Still,
this comparison, if it stood alone, would not fully
bring out the reason of the case; we must also
match the Hebrew intellect, as measured by knowl
edge, art and manners, with the corresponding con
ditions among the other nations, whose laws may
be brought into the comparison. For if, with in
ferior tools and materials, a superior work was
produced, it must surely be admitted that such a
result suggests, even perhaps of itself requires, the
supposition of some hidden aid which rectified the
disproportion, and placed the means in a due rela
tion to the end. Now, among the Hebrews of the
period, following the Exodus and settlement, there
is no sign as yet of intellectual predominance or
advancement; and that such a man as Moses
should have been raised up amongst them is a
fact, which of itself suggests and sustains the idea
of some altogether special and peculiar guidance
exercised by the Almighty over the selected
people.

THE MOSAIC LEGISLA TION. 26l
I cannot but think that, wherever we turn, we
seem to find the broad and lucid principles of his
toric likelihood asserting themselves in favor of the
substance of the legislative books, apart from ques
tions of detail and literary form.
In its great stages, we are entitled to treat the
matter of the narrative books as history entitled to
credit. An elaborate organization, with a visible
head and a hereditary succession, is, after a long
lapse of time, substituted for a regimen over Israel,
of which the mainsprings had been personal emi
nence and moral force. It is represented in the
Scripture, and it seems obvious, that the transition
from this patriarchal republicanism to monarchy
was in the nature of a religious retrogression. It
showed an increasing incapacity to walk by faith,
and a craving for an object of sight, as a substitute
for the Divine Majesty apprehended by spiritual
discernment, and habitually conceived of by the
people as the head of the civil community. This
view of the relative condition of republican and of
regal Israel is confirmed by the fact, on which I

262 THE MOSAIC LEGISLA TION.
have already observed, that with the monarchy
came in another regular organization, that of the
schools of the prophets. Prophecy, which for the
present purpose we may consider as preaching,
instead of appearing from time to time as occasion
required, became a system, with provision for per
petual succession. That is to say, the people could
not be kept up to the primitive, or even the neces
sary, level in belief and life, without the provision
of more elaborate and direct means of instruction,
exhortation, and reproof, than had at first been
requisite. Notwithstanding the existence of those means,
and the singular and noble energy of the prophets,
the proofs of the decline are not less abundant than
painful, in the wickedness of most of the sovereigns,
and in the almost wholesale and too constant lapse
of the Israelites into the filthy idolatry which was
rooted in the country. And again, it is not a little
remarkable that the enumeration by name of the
great historic heroes of faith, in the Epistle to the
Hebrews, ends in the person of King David (Heb.

THE MOSAIC LEGISLA TION. 263
1 1 : 32), with the first youth of the monarchy. The
only later instances referred to are the prophets,
named as a class, who stood apart and alone, and
were not as a rule leaders of the people, but rather
witnesses in sackcloth against their iniquities.
Compare the series of kings, in point of conduct,
with the series of judges. If we take the history
from the Exodus to the Exile as a whole, the latter
end was worse than the beginning, the cup of in
iquity was full ; it had been filled by a gradual pro
cess : and one of the marks of that process was a
lowering of the method in which the chosen people
were governed; it became more human and less
divine. Under these circumstances, does it not appear
like a paradox, and even a rather wanton paradox,
to refer the production of those sacred Mosaic
books, which constituted the charter, and formed
the character, of the Hebrews as a separate and
peculiar people, to the epochs of a lowered and
decaying spiritual life ? These books, or the mat
ter contained in them, surely formed the base on

264 THE MOSAIC LEGISLA TION.
which the entire structure rested. It is hardly
possible to separate the fabric from its foundation.
Had they not been recorded and transmitted, it
would have been reasonable, perhaps necessary, for
us to presume their existence. They could only
spring from a plant full of vigorous life, not from
one comparatively sickly and exhausted.
Again, we are taught by the negative school
that the entire portion of the Pentateuch, which
specially describes the work of the Priest, and
which they term the Priest-Code, is of late com
position, probably the latest of all, and has been
devised in the interest of the priestly order.
Now I think that there are ready means of
applying the touchstone to this allegation. It
seems the great aim of the assailants to bring
down the date of the main contents of the legisla
tive books to the Exile and the period which fol
lows it. Now we have to remember that the
schools of the prophets established a caste which
was in professional rivalry with the priesthood, and
which presented every likelihood of being its effec-

THE MOSAIC LEGISLA TION. 265
tive censor. We have the written and, I believe, un
questioned productions of this school of prophets,
reaching nearly into the ninth century (in the
Book of Amos), above two hundred years before
the Exile. The relation of the prophet to the
priest, somewhat accentuated, let us suppose, by
competing interests, was in certain respects one of
superiority ; for, while the priest only administered
in a human way a system originally of divine ap
pointment, the prophet believed himself to speak
under direct inspiration and command from the
Most High. The supposition pressed upon us is
that, during the period when the books of the
prophets were being produced, the priests foisted
upon the nation adulterated, nay, rather forged,
works, which they audaciously ascribed to Moses,
and which they shaped in the interests of the sacer
dotal order. Is it not quite plain that, if this had
been true, nay, if it had been so much as an ap
proach to the truth, the prophets would, in the
interests of righteousness even more than in their
own, have made use of the advantages of their po-

266 THE MOSAIC LEGISLA TION.
sition, and would have held up such a flagrant in
iquity of the rival class to infamy or rebuke ? Yet
they do nothing of the sort. And it is not even
open to us to refer this to some hidden cause,
as it would have been if we could have alleged
that, for some undeclared reason, it is their habit
to pass by the conduct of the priests in silence.
For, on the contrary, they do exercise the office of
reprimand most freely. They do reprove and de
nounce neglect of duty and abuse of power by the
priests ; but they do this exactly in the same way
for the priestly order and for their own ; and,
though they could not have been biassed against
their own schools, there is no sign that priests were
more faulty than prophets. By way of specimen
of their usual manner, I may quote the words of
the prophet Zephaniah, who in the following pas
sage appears to administer justice impartially all
round : —
" Her princes within her are roaring lions ; her judges are
evening wolves ; they gnaw not the bones till the morrow.
" Her prophets are light and treacherous persons : her

THE MOSAIC LEGISLA TION. 267
pricsls have polluted the sanctuary, they have done violence
to the law " (Zeph. 3 : 3, 4).
All were human, all were alike. There is no
where a tittle of evidence to show the gross and
very special offenses with which the priesthood are
now charged. In such a case the negative evi
dence carries positive force. It is evident, first,
that the prophets knew nothing of such delinquen
cies : and secondly, that, if they were unknown to
the prophets through this long lapse of time, it was
because they were not committed.
We have, then, in the historic Moses, a great and
powerful genius, an organizing and constructing
mind. Degenerate ages cannot equip and fur
nish forth illustrious founders, only at the most
the counterfeits or shadows of them. Moses be
longs to the great class of nation-makers ; to a
class of men, who have a place by themselves in
the history of politics, and who are among the
rarest and highest of the phenomena of our race.
And he stands in historic harmony with his work.
But we are now apparently asked to sever the

268 THE MOSAIC LEGISLA TION.
work from the worker, and to refer it to some
doubtful and nameless person ; whereas it is surely
obvious or probable that the author of a work so
wonderful and so far beyond example, so elaborate
in its essential structure, and so designed for public
use, could hardly fail to associate his name with it
as if written upon a rock, and with a pen of iron.
For, be it recollected, that name was the seal and
stamp of the work itself. According to its own
testimony he was the apostolos (Exod. 19 : 16-23,
and passim), the messenger, who brought it from
God, and gave it to the people. If the use of his
name was a fiction, it was one of those fictions
which cannot escape the brand of falsehood ; for
it altered essentially the character of the writings
to which it was attached.
Supposing it to be granted that this or that por
tion of the legislative books may have been an
addition in the way of development, of an append
age and supplement to a scheme already existing,
how and why came it to be placed under the shelter
of the great name of Moses, but because that name

THE MOSAIC LEGISLA TION. 269
had already acquired and consolidated its authority,
from its being inseparably attached to the original
gift of the law?
Even so it was that, when the great and wonder
ful poems known as the Iliad and Odyssey had given
to the name of Homer a surpassing celebrity, and
other works of less exalted rank sought for fame
by claiming him as their author, the simple fact
that they so claimed him of itself supplied the
proof that Homer was traditionally, and from im
memorial time, taken to be the author of those
greater works at the period when the lesser ones
were imputed to him. If the title of Mosaic
authorship was ever in any case attached to what
Moses did not produce, the ascription was made
in order to gain credit for the new supplemental
matter, and of itself proved that, at the date when
it was made, there was an older and immemorial
belief in his being the author of the primary work,
whereto the supplement was appended.
As we stand on historical ground in assuming
that Moses was a great man, and a powerful agent

270 THE MOSAIC LEGISLA TION.
in the Hebrew history, so we stand on a like basis
in pointing to the fact that, from the Captivity on
wards (I say nothing here of the prior period, as it
would beg the question), the Jewish nation paid
to the five books of the Pentateuch a special and
extraordinary regard, even beyond the rest of their
sacred books. These were known as the Torah ;
and the fact of this special reverence is one so
generally acknowledged, that it may without dis
cussion be safely assumed as a point of departure.
Before, then, any sort of acceptance or acqui
escence is accorded to notions which virtually con
sign to insignificance the most ancient of our sacred
books, let us well weigh the fact that the devout
regard of the Hebrews for the Torah took the form,
at or very soon after the Exile, of an extreme
vigilance on behalf of these particular books as
distinct from all others. This vigilance, which at
a later epoch reached its climax under the Mas-
soretes, very naturally began, or greatly advanced,
at the time when the nation, or its leading classes,
having for the time lost their temple and their

THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION.

271

visible home, clung more closely than ever to the
written word in their sacred books; to its body
either more, or not less, than to its spirit.
So early as in the days of Hezekiah, there is said
to have been a restorative process of some kind
performed upon the text of the law, as well as upon
the temple and its doors. r That clinging affection
to the Word, which the Captivity could not fail to
stimulate in pious minds, took effect, after the
Return, in the establishment of positive institutions
for its care; which, indeed, had become a neces
sity, in consequence of the change in the spoken
language, unless it were to be wholly lost to the
people. Hence we have the Jewish tradition of a
Great Synagogue, founded with this view. A guild
of scribes was appointed to copy, preserve, and
expound the divine Word,2 and the Canon of the
Old Testament appears during the same period to
have assumed something of a regular form. Soon
grew up the Massorah, or body of traditions con-
1 Paterson Smyth, " The Old Documents," p. 42. 2 Chron. 29 : 3.
2 Ibid., p. 66.

272 THE MOSAIC LEGISLA TION.
cerning the texts of the Torah, which is supposed
to have become noticeable from about 300 B. c1
and which in after ages gave a name to the
Massoretes, official students and guardians of the
text. This body is one without a parallel in
the history of the world. 2 Its existence not only
afforded strong securities of a special nature
for the faithful custody of the text from the date
when its operations commenced, but it also bears
witness to a profound and exacting veneration
for the ancient books as such, which seems to pre
suppose as its root an unquestioning traditional
belief in their antiquity and authenticity.
The Jews, perhaps exclusively among the early
peoples, distinguished broadly between the matter
and the corporeal form of a book, between its soul
and its body. They alone conceived the idea of
using the material form of the words and letters as
an instrument for ensuring the conservation of the
contents. Their conception was that, if they could
secure the absolute identity of the manuscripts, and
Paterson Smyth, "The Old Documents," p. 90, 2 Ibid,, p. vii.

THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION.

273

reckon up the actual numbers of the words they
contain, and of the letters which compose the
words, then they would have rendered change in
them impossible, and conservation certain. Thus,
for example, the words in the Book of Psalms
were counted, and the middle word of the book
was known. The letters in each word were also
counted, and the middle letter was known. Rules
for writing, placing, and arranging were laid down ;
readings were noted as khetibh and keri; as what
was in the text, and as what ought to be in the text
but, from a reverent unwillingness to alter, only
took its place upon the margin. The Hebrews
seem to have been the only people who built up by
degrees a regular scientific method of handling the
material forms, in which the substance of their
sacred books was clothed; and this system had
begun to grow from the time when a special
reverence is known to have been concentrated upon
the Torah.
I will not dwell upon the topic that this peculiar
ity of handling supplies of itself a certain amount
18

274 THE MOSAIC LEGISLA TION.
of presumption for peculiarity of origin. It may
have commenced before the Captivity. It may
have preceded, and may in that case probably have
been enhanced by, the division of the kingdoms.
It must have been in great force when, soon after
the Captivity, schools of scribes were entrusted
with the custody of the text of the law as a study
apart from that of its meaning. Now, in our time,
we are asked or tempted by the negative criticism
to believe that all this reverence for the books of
the Pentateuch, having primarily the sense for its
object, but so abounding and overflowing as to
embrace even the corporeal vehicle, was felt towards
a set of books not substantially genuine, but com
pounded and made up by operators, and these
recent operators, who may be mildly called editors,
but who were rather clandestine authors, such as
some might without ceremony call impostors. Is
this a probable or reasonable hypothesis ? Is it
even possible that these books of recent concoction,
standing by the side of some among the prophetical
books possessing a much greater antiquity, should

THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION.

275

nevertheless have attracted to themselves, and have
permanently retained, an exceptional and superla
tive veneration, much exceeding that paid to the
oldest among the books of the prophets, and such
as surely presumes a belief in the remoteness of
their date, the genuineness of their character, and
their title to stand as the base, both doctrinal and
historic, of the entire Hebrew system ?
The result of this negative criticism ought to be
viewed in its extreme form, and this for several
reasons : such as, that, with the lapse of time, it
continually adopts new negations ; that the more
conservative of the latest schools exhibit to us no
principle, which separates them in the mass from
the bolder disintegration ; and that what is now the
ultima Thule of the system may, a short time hence,
appear only to have been a stage on the way to
positions as yet undreamt of. So viewing the sub
ject, do we not find that it comes to this : not merely
that the Mosaic laws received secondary supple
ments or amendments from time to time, but that
the entire fabric had grown up anonymously as

276 THE MOSAIC LEGISLA TION.
well as recently, and that it rests upon no guarantee
whatever, either of time, or of place, or of personal
authority ?
I have already endeavored to show the historic
improbability that an upstart production could have
leaped into an estimation such as belongs to a firm
tradition and a general credit of antiquity. And
now let us look for a moment at the rather crude
and irregular form of the Mosaic books from
Exodus to Deuteronomy. Taken as a whole, they
have not that kind of consistency which belongs to
consecutiveness of the parts, and which almost
uniformly marks both historical and legal docu
ments.1 They mix narrative and legislation ; they
pass from one to the other without any obvious
reason. They repeat themselves in a manner which
seems to exclude the idea that they had undergone
1 "As to this want of order (which seems to me to favor the idea of
contemporaneity), a later codifier would have been more artificial in
his arrangement " (Milman's " History of the Jews," 3d edition, 1863).
Writing of the delivery of the law, the learned and very liberal-minded
Dean Milman had before him the works of the critical school down
to Bleek ; and in the admirable note 'I., 131) from which I have just

THE MOSAIC LEGISLA TION. 277
the careful and reflected processes of review, the
comparison of part with part, which is generally
bestowed upon works of great importance, com
pleted with comparative leisure, and intended for
the guidance not only of an individual but of a
people. They are even accused of contradiction.
They appear to omit adjustments, necessary in the
light of the subsequent history : such, for instance,
as we might desire to find between the sweeping
proscription not only of image worship, but of
images or shapen corporeal forms, in the Second
Commandment, and the use actually made of them
in the temple, and in the singular case of the ser
pent destroyed by Hezekiah (2 Kings 18 : 4). It
seems not difficult to account for this roughness
and crudeness of authorship in the case of Moses,
under the circumstances of changeful nomad life,
quoted a few words, he expresses a firm and reasoned dissent from the
negative conclusions as to the Pentateuch in its substance, while
he strongly urges the likelihood of minor changes in the text with
anachronism and inaccuracy here and there as the consequence. This
note is in effect a succinct but highly pregnant treatise, and will well
repay those who carefully peruse it.

278 THE MOSAIC LEGISLA TION.
and the constant pressure of anxious executive or
judicial functions, combined with the effort of con
structing a weighty legislative code, which required
a totally different attitude of mind. The life of
Moses, as it stands in the sacred text, must have
been habitually a life of extraordinary, uninter-
mitted strain, and one without remission of that
strain even during its closing period. As some
anomalies in the composition of the Koran may be
referable to the circumstances of the life of Ma
homet,1 so we may apply a like idea to the config
uration of the legislative books. It is not difficult
to refer the anomalies of such authorship to the in
cidents of such a life, and to conceive that any
1 See Rodwell's Preface to the Koran respecting the Suras. A
critic in the Magazine and Book Review has cited against me the
fourteenth chapter of Esdras 2, and the strange story it contains of
the burning of the law and the rewriting of it by Ezra. This story
dates at the earliest from the time of Caesar, according to others from
Domitian. Thus a tale, which first appears five centuries after the
alleged fact, at once becomes authoritative, if it serves a purpose of
negation. But even this story supports the argument in the text, for
the law is continuously and miraculously reproduced by dictation to
a body of five scribes.

THE MOSAIC LEGISLA TION. 279
changes, which have found their way into the text,
may yet have been such as to leave unimpaired
what may be called the originality, as well as the
integrity, of its character. But how do these con
siderations hold, if we are to assume as our point of
departure the hypothesis of the negative extremists?
Under that supposition, the legislative books were
principally not adjusted but composed, and this not
only in a manner which totally falsifies their own
solemn and often-repeated declarations, but which
supposes something like hallucination on the part
of a people that could have accepted such novelties,
and almost worshipped them, as ancient. In addi
tion to all this, they assumed their existing shape,
so wanting as to series and method, in a settled
state of things, in an old historic land, with an
unbounded freedom of manipulation, at any rate
with no restraint imposed by respect for original
form, and with every condition in favor of the final
editors, which could favor the production of a
thoroughly systematic and orderly work. Does it
not seem that if the preparation and presentation

280 THE MOSAIC LEGISLA TION.
of the Hebrew code took place at the time and in
the way imposed on us by the doctrine of the
thorough disintegrationist, then we stand entirely
at a loss to account for the somewhat loose and
irregular form of the work before us ? And con
versely do not the peculiarities of that form consti
tute an objection to the negative hypothesis, which
it is an absolute necessity for its promoters to get
rid of as best they can ?
Let me again illustrate the case by referring to
the Iliad. Those who have referred that work to a
variety of authors have been driven to very subtle
and questionable arguments in order to exhibit
some semblance of anomaly in the text, and have
always been allowed to assume that the final editors
under Pericles, or at whatever epoch, wrought with
energy and purpose to weld the fragmentary mate
rial into a seemly whole. Is it conceivable that an
operation, such as we are now required to believe
in, could have been carried on without some sense
of a similar necessity, or could so absolutely have
failed in literary aim and effort ?

THE MOSA IC LEGISLA TION. 2 8 1
I subjoin one further topic of the same class, as
fit to be taken into view. The absence from the
legislative books of all assertion of a future state,
and of all motive derived from it with a view to
conduct, has been already noticed. The probable
reason of that absence from a code of laws framed
by Moses under divine command or guidance is a
subject alike of interest and obscurity. It has
sometimes occurred to me as possible that the
close connection of the doctrine with public reli
gion in the Egyptian system might have supplied
a reason for its disconnection from the Mosaic
laws.1 Even so I suppose we might, from other
features of those laws, draw proof or strong pre
sumption that, among the purposes of the legisla
tor, there was included a determination to draw a
broad and deep line, or even trench of demarcation,
between the foreign religions in the neighborhood
and the religious system of the Hebrews. The^
connection established by Moses between conduct
1 I find this topic is touched by Bishop Alexander in his Bampton
Lectures.

282 THE MOSA IC LEGISLA TION.
and earthly retribution or reward must of itself
have tended to repress, if not the idea of a future
state, yet the expression of that idea in public docu
ments. Especially we should remember that the
work of Moses was national rather than theologi
cal or personal.1 His theology is a means of con
serving the nationality, which was itself a forerun
ner and a means of preparation for the Advent.
It is enough for my present purpose, that the
absence of the doctrine of a future state from the
work cannot be held to discredit the Mosaic author
ship. But does not that absence help to discredit
the idea of a post-Exilic authorship ? Is it con
ceivable that Hebrews, proceeding to frame their
legislative books, after the Captivity, and long after
the Dispersion of the Ten Tribes, and with the aid
of whatever light these events may have thrown
upon the familiar ideas of a future life and an
Underworld, as held both in the East and in Egypt,
could have excluded all notice of it from their sys
tem of laws ? We see something of this influence
1 See Zincke, " Egypt of the Pharaohs and of the Khedive," p. 202.

THE MOSAIC LEGISLA TION. 283
in the noble passage on the dead, Wisdom 3 : 1-8,
to which there is no parallel in any of the pre-Exilic
books. If it was an influence impossible to exclude
at the later date, then the fact of the exclusion be
comes another difficulty in the way of our accepting
any such date concerning the substance of the legis
lative books.1
It seems, then, that it is difficult to reconcile the
results of the negative criticism on the Pentateuch
with the known reverence of the Jews for their
Torah, which appears absolutely to presuppose a
tradition of undefined and probably immemorial
age on its behalf, as a precondition of such uni
versal and undoubting veneration. But if this be
1 I desire to limit myself strictly to the argument as it stands in the
text, and to leave untouched the question whether belief in a future
state was more vigorous or more extended among the Jews after the
Exile than before it. We cannot justly infer from the silence of
the law, that the belief did not prevail among the people. It is in the
prophetic and didactic books (as well as in the Psalms) that the future
state is most clearly, or perhaps I should say most directly indicated.
Quite apart from the evidence of the Psalms, I conceive that there is
sufficient evidence from the Scripture text that the Hebrews of the
Mosaic and regal periods believed in a future state.

284 THE MOSAIC LEGISLA TION.
necessary in the case of the Jew, how much more
peremptorily is it required by the Samaritan con
tribution to the present argument, and what light
does that contribution throw upon the general
question ?
It seems certain that in mediaeval times, and
until the seventeenth century, Christendom knew
nothing of a Samaritan testimony to the authen
ticity of the Mosaic books, excepting from certain
slight references in the works of the Fathers to
" the ancient Hebrew according to the Samaritans.''
But, early in the seventeenth century, a traveller
found, among the Samaritans of Damascus, a copy
of the Pentateuch in the ancient Hebrew letters,
and we are told that there are now about sixteen
of these manuscripts in the various European libra
ries. The chief one in existence is guarded with
sacred care at Nablous, the ancient Shechem, by
a congregation still surviving of a few hundred
Samaritans.1 For questions of textual accuracy,
this work is esteemed inferior to the Hebrew,
1 See Paterson Smyth, p. 118.

THE MOSAIC LEGISLA TION. 285
though it is not wholly without a claim to more
archaic forms.
The Samaritan Pentateuch is one of the most
remarkable monuments of antiquity. Its testi
mony, of course, cannot be adduced to show that
the books following the Pentateuch have been
clothed from a very ancient date with the rever
ence due to the divine Word; indeed, it is even
capable of being employed, in a limited measure,
the other way. But as respects the Samaritan
Pentateuch itself, how is it possible to conceive
that it should have held as a divine work the su
preme place in the regard of the Samaritans, if,
about or near the year 500 b. c,1 or, still more, if
at the time of Manasseh the seceder,2 it had as
matter of fact been a recent compilation of their
enemies the Jews ? or if it had been regarded as
anything less than a record of a great revelation
from God, historically known, or at the least
universally believed, to have come down to them
1 Paterson Smyth, p. 49.
'Placed by Wellhausen at about 375 B. C. "Hist. Israel"
(Black), p. 498.

286 THE MOSAIC LEGISLA TION.
in the shape it then held from antiquity ? Be it
remembered that this work itself, and an approxi
mate date for its known existence, are not mat
ters of mere speculation, but are accepted results
of historical research. And it is in this as in
other cases a matter for serious consideration,
whether we can accept the ingenious conclusions
of some critics before we know whether they are
to be shattered and shivered when flung against
the face of the strong rock of history.
I understand that, in cases where the Septuagint
deviates from the Hebrew text, it very commonly
agrees with the Samaritan. Now it is certain that
the LXX. had access to manuscripts older than
those which were at the command of those who
finally fixed the Hebrew as it stands ; and it is to
be assumed as matter of course that in executing
their translation they followed the older copies in
preference to the more modern. These circum
stances of themselves go far to prove the great
antiquity of the Torah of the Samaritans, and there
seems absolutely nothing to allege on the other

THE MOSAIC LEGISLA TION. 287
side. So that it is no wonder if among modern
Hebraists there have been those who held this
Pentateuch in higher estimation than the text as
it was received by the Jews.1
The Samaritan Pentateuch, then, forms in itself
a remarkable indication, nay, even a proof, that,
at the date from which we know it to have been
received, the Pentateuch was no novelty for the
Hebrew race. But may we not state the argument
in broader terms ? Surely the reverence of the
Samaritans for the Torah could not have begun at
this period ; nay, hardly could have had its first
beginning at any period posterior to the schism.
If these books grew by gradual accretion, still
that must have been an accretion gathering round
the work within a single channel. A double pro
cess could not have been carried on in harmony.
Nor can we easily suppose that, when the Ten
Tribes separated from the Two, they did not carry
with them the law, on which their competing wor
ship was to be founded. In effect, is there any
1 See Kennicott, Dissertation I., p. 337 seqq. ; II., p. 20 seqq.

288 THE MOSA IC LEGISLA TION.
rational supposition except that the kingdom of
Israel had possessed at the time of Rehoboam
some code corresponding in substance, in all except
pure detail, with that which was subsequently
written out in the famous manuscripts we now
possess ?
I have not attempted in these essays to discuss
the general credit of the historic books ; yet, in
connection with the Samaritans, I must here touch
briefly on a single point. The negative critics are
fairly challenged to explain to us how it is that
priestly fabricators, writing at a late date in the
interest of their order, have so notably abstained
from endeavors to glorify its virtues and honors,
or to conceal its lapses from right. The charge is
that fabrications were committed by priests in the
interests of their order : how then does it happen
that these fabrications contain nothing likely to
promote those interests ? In a yet wider view we
may ask how it has come about that they have
entirely avoided attempts to magnify the religious
responsibilities of the schism which divided Israel.

THE MOSA IC LEGISLA TION. 289
It seems indeed strange that if these books were in
substance framed after the Exile, and in times when
a spirit of rigorous uniformity prevailed, a more
emphatic and distinct censure should not have
passed upon Jeroboam, on the simple ground of
his having established a separate and rival wor
ship. The man of God, who came from Judah, did in
deed testify against the altar in Bethel ; but that
altar was associated with the golden calf estab
lished and worshipped there (as well as in Dan) by
Jeroboam ; and the testimony of the prophet, or
man of God, against this altar, embraced "all the
houses of the high places which are in the cities of
Samaria," and was therefore a testimony against
idolatry, not against mere schism (1 Kings 12 : 28,
29, 32 ; 13 : 32). The special sin of Jeroboam,
which caused his house to be cut off, was not that
he divided Israel, but that he degraded his religion
by making priests of the lowest of the people
(1 Kings 13 : 33). Nay, the books present to us
the two illustrious prophets, Elijah and Elisha aa
19

290

THE MOSAIC LEGISLA TION.

having Israel for their field, and as working there
not on behalf of the Levitical priesthood, but on
behalf of righteousness as against sin, and of God
as against Baal ; in complete conformity with the
spirit of the prophetic books, which so largely con
cern the Ten Tribes. How is it conceivable that
men wicked enough to forge should so carefully
have eschewed gathering any fruits from their
forgery ?
The references thus far made to the prophets
have been purely incidental to the main argument.
But it seems to me to deserve consideration,
whether it is only by their predictive faculty that
they supply us with a proof of divine revelation.
Quite apart from their unfolding the veil that hid
the future, does not their attitude and their office
supply a reasonable proof that they were raised up
and inspired by the Almighty ? This question
does not refer to all the prophets. It does not
refer to the false prophets who deceived Ahab
(1 Kings 22 : 12), nor to the corrupt members of
the order, who are so freely denounced in the prcn

THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION.

291

phetic books. It refers properly and principally to
the authors of those books, and to the valiant wit
nesses for God and for righteousness whose deeds
are otherwise recorded in the Scriptures.
Considered as champions of the right against the
wrong, I do not suppose that anything approaching
to a parallel with them is to be found elsewhere in
history. It is true that we find among the early
Greeks, in the poems of Homer, a diaspore or
sprinkling of prophets : such as Tiresias, who fore
tells the future,1 and such as Calchas who, when
assured of protection by Achilles, denounces the out
rage which had been committed by Agamemnon.2
He does a good act, and a bold one ; but the sin
of Agamemnon consists entirely in the violation of
a sacerdotal immunity. There is not to be found
here, nor in the Homeric prophets elsewhere, nor
in the heathen oracles, anything that can properly
be called a stand for righteousness.
The prophets of the Old Testament, as an order,
are alone in the world. They have been well called,
1 Od., X. 537-54°. 2 Iliad, I. 92 seqq.

292 THE MOSAIC LEGISLA TION.
by a clerical writer of great ability, the conscience
of the Jewish nation. It would not be easy to
enumerate fully their claims on our admiration, I
must add on our wonder. They are brave. They
are honest. They are pure from every stain. They
contend for right against wrong, never for wrong
against right. They fear God, and have no respect
of persons. They are the friends of the afflicted
and the poor. Even upon their indignation, their
justice is written broad and large. They are
humble, for they refer all their lofty utterances to
the Most High, and make no claim to the glorying
wisdom of this world. They are impartial, for they
were entirely emancipated from the spirit of class,
and launched their withering censures both as freely
and as frequently at the faulty members of their
own orders, as at the kings, the priests, and the
people. Nor were these censures due to pride or
passion ; for they yielded their hearts and faculties
as freely to the gentle and touching influences of
the Spirit in their commiseration of woe and in
their prophecies of a suffering Messiah, as when He

THE MOSAIC LEGISLA TION.

293

bade them sound the trumpet-notes of denunciation
against outrageous wickedness.
Let us close this portion of the subject with a
plea of a different order, one which, admitting prob
able imperfection in the text, deprecates, as opposed
to the principles of sound criticism, any conclusion
therefrom adverse to its general fidelity. It has
caused me some surprise to notice (1) that some
negative writers lay considerable stress upon what
they deem to be numerical errors in the books of
the Old Testament ; and (2) that, so far as I have
seen, they do not advert to the increased risks of
mistake in the transmission of numbers as com
pared with other literary matter, whether it be by
copying, or by word of mouth.
The increased risk, which accompanies all record
ing of numbers, extends likewise to enumerations,
such as genealogical or other recitals of names in
lists ; subject, however, to the remark that, where
metre is used, inasmuch as it supplies a framework
for particular words which would not apply to other
words, the danger is proportionably less ; and also

294 THE MOSAIC LEGISLA TION.
that, where the record is by writing and not by
simple hearing, the eye has the opportunity of
traversing again and again the names, as the
mechanical process is carried on ; and these names
will in many cases stand in connection with, and so
be seen to check, one another.
Bishop Colenso, for example, lays very great
stress on the numbers assigned by the Old Testa
ment to the children of Israel on their passage
through the desert, and, observing on the practical
difficulties which such a multitude must encounter
on a march, treats the case as one which materially
impugns the general credit of the history.1
I suppose that those who are practically conver
sant with the movement of men in large bodies
may be much inclined to follow Colenso in ques
tioning the statements of numbers, both at that
point of their history, and in many other places of
the narrative. It is quite another question whether,
because errors may have crept into the numbers,
'See Colenso on the Pentateuch and Joshua, Part I., Chap. XII.
et alibi.

THE MOSAIC LEGISLA TION.

295

the recitals of facts generally are therefore untrust
worthy. There is a broad and clear difference, of which
note ought to be taken. Both in copying and in
original composition, as a general rule, the structure
of the sentence, or what is called the context, is
mentally carried onwards, and the general drift
confines within narrow limits the possibility of error
in the particular words. Mistake in the form would
very commonly betray itself by inconsistency in the
sense, and this inconsistency would not fail to be
detected, because the relation between the parts ot
the sentence is ordinarily perceived as the process
is carried on. But the relation between numerical
amounts is not at once determined for the copyist
by the context, and usually requires a distinct and
careful examination by the arithmetical faculty to
detect it.
I will give two practical illustrations of this
statement, the one very old and the other very
modern; the one touching oral, and the other
written transmission.

296 THE MOSAIC LEGISLA TION.
The most elaborate invocation of the Muse, or
appeal for divine assistance, in the whole of the
poems of Homer, is the preface x to the catalogue
of the Greek troops and ships; and this, although
in no part of the poems could less of effort properly
poetic be required. But the catalogue consists
partly of numerical statements of the strength of the
contingents which made up the fleet, partly of
geographical detail, which sets forth the names of
towns and districts ; and here we find the rationale
of the poet's call for special aid from heaven, and
for his care with a view to accuracy; this, too,
although he had metre to assist him.
I now turn to very modern practice. In the year
1853, it was my duty for the first time to submit to
Parliament one of the large and complex statements
of the public accounts for the year, which are
associated in our country with the familiar name of
the Budget The speeches, in which these state
ments were contained, were habitually made known
to the country by reporting in the usual manner.
1 Iliad, II. 484-493.

THE MOSAIC LEGISLA TION.

297

But the art of the highly skilled reporters could
not be trusted to convey the figures with accuracy
by the ear. A practice had consequently grown
up of supplying them from the proper official
source in carefully written statements for their
guidance, which were sent to them during the
delivery of the speech. It has now been found
more convenient not to trust at all to the ear, and
the Minister is understood to speak from printed
figures; but this in no way weakens the illustration
I have used.
My position amounts to but does not go beyond
this, that the same care which ensures general
fidelity of statement in ordinay recitals of fact
does not suffice to secure numerical precision; and
conversely that the want of such precision, which
may sometimes be suspected in the Old Testament,
does not raise presumptions adverse to general
correctness.1 1 I believe the experience of authors, who give themselves the
trouble to make large use of numerical references, would support me
in declaring that such references have a much higher average of
printer's errors than the regular text.

298 THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION.
The necessary limits of this essay do not permit
of my entering on the contents of the Mosaic
legislation. It is, I apprehend, both far more
complex, and far deeper, than the other systems of
ancient law known to us, as well as far higher in
its moral aims. I humbly recommend that those
who read it should fix their minds upon the skill
with which it is addressed to the attainment of
ends of such a nature as to render them, in their
ordinary aspects, hardly reconcilable with one
another. Severely proscriptive of the stranger,
namely, of the nations whom it found in possession
of Canaan, it is as singularly liberal and generous
towards him when he has made his peace with
Hebrewism. Again, the Pentateuchal code differs
from (I believe) all others in the extraordinary-
amount of its sanitary legislation, and in investing
rules of that class with a quasi-moral character.
The first impression on a reader's mind is probably
a sense of some strangeness in this respect. But
it soon alters into a profound admiration of the
sagacity, which includes in its far-reaching view

THE MOSAIC LEGISLA TION.

299

provisions for giving an exceptionally high char
acter even to the physical constitution of a people,
that was meant to remain socially separate from the
nations of the world. Again : while aiming much
at equality, simplicity, and industry, as fountains of
order and of strength, it embodies most peculiar
regulations for the purpose of restraining within
the narrowest limits both that growth of wealth,
which is the natural fruit of such qualities; and
also the spirit of enterprise, which would have burst
prematurely the narrow bounds of Palestine, and
destroyed the seclusion of the chosen people by
untimely contact with the nations of the world.
The design seemingly was to repress the latent
powers of human nature, and to secure, until the
appointed time should come, a conservative, even
a stationary community, changeless as the truths
of which it was the guardian. The completeness
of the severance was not impaired by the Captivity
and Dispersion of Israel, or by the Exile of the
Jews in Babylon, or by the creation of Jewish
factories abroad, or by the communication of their

300 THE MOSAIC LEGISLA TION.
sacred books to the world, or by the final destruc
tion of the political independence of the country,
or by the invasion and supremacy of the Greek
language. The Jew, when our Lord came, was
still, and was even more than ever, the Jew; and
so, though it may have been in despite of himself,
the purpose of his great stewardship was accom
plished. Postscript to Chapter V.
Although the title of this volume does not pass
beyond the range of the sacred volume, there is a
crowning portion of the narrative which has its
scene laid in Palestine, which was an accomplished
fact before some of the books of the New Testa
ment were written, and yet which does not appear
within its Canon. I refer to the fall of Jerusalem,
the destruction of the temple, and the dispersion
of the Jewish people.
Of the great and cardinal events, which had
marked the history, scarcely even the deliverance
from Egypt and establishment in Palestine are

THE MOSAIC LEGISLA TION.

301

more wonderful, than the final downfall of the
nation consummated through the destruction of
its capital. We have here presented to us a long
chain of the most astonishing facts. This nation,
which had often been a comparatively easy prey
in the times of its greatness, first to one neighbor
and then to another, offered to the overwhelming
power of Rome, after many generations of subjec
tion, a resistance such as was experienced in no
other country of this world. Resistance to such a
power, when serious and protracted, has commonly
been the work of a united people. But, at the
time of this unexampled conflict, almost every
patriotic town in Palestine was to all appearance
hopelessly divided between a national and a roman-
izing party ; and these parties subsisted in a state
of chronic civil war. Jerusalem itself was the
scene of incessant and bloody conflict among its
factions during the years which preceded the fatal
siege, and Vespasian actually postponed his march
to the southward in the hope that without his
active interference these factions might sufficiently

302 THE MOSAIC LEGISLA TION.
perform his work. Again, the Roman policy as to
the religion of subject races was essentially tolerant,
and in intention mild. It is unreasonable to sup
pose that corruption and oppression merely fiscal
can have brought about results in that particular
quarter so absolutely different from those which
were exhibited in other portions of the Empire.
And this supposition is also excluded by the fact
that the men of rank and wealth, out of whom
most treasure could be wrung, constituted every
where the anti-national or Roman party in the
local communities. Animosity, dominating the
mass (and this perhaps in other cities besides
Jerusalem), carried the entire population into un
exampled extremities of resistance. Yet it seems
evident that the Romans in these latter stages
acted all along under a compulsion imposed by
their adversaries, and in a manner alien to their
own habits and standing conceptions. Formidable
indeed was the temple, in its very idea, as a focus
of national feeling ; but Roman liberality had not
even objected to the repetition in miniature of this

THE MOSAIC LEGISLA TION.

303

most significant structure by the building of the
temple of Onias at Alexandria. Once more ; is it
possible to conceive a more remarkable example
of the tolerant, meaning thereby the neutral, spirit
of the Roman policy in matters of religion, than is
exhibited by the quiet allowance of the judicial
proceedings taken against our Blessed Saviour, on
the independent authority of the high priest and
the Sanhedrim, in a city subjected to the exclusive
control and dominion of a Roman governor ? The
difficulty is to conceive how, under such a system,
so exceptional in all its circumstances, the fall of
Jerusalem, with the almost equally remarkable
catastrophes of several cities of the North, could
be brought within the range of possibility. In
such matters, the mainsprings of human action
are religion and nationality. But nationality had,
among the Jews, for many centuries been found
compatible with subordination to foreign dominion.
Religion, which had supplied so legitimate and so
powerful a stimulus at the epoch of the Maccabees,
when the temple had been profaned by Antiochus

3°4

THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION.

Epiphanes, could furnish no cause, and hardly a
pretext, for hostile activity under the imperial edict
of Augustus.
It seems as if, at the three great crises of Jewish
and Hebrew history, the Almighty Wisdom had
determined to put a special stamp upon the
events which happened, and to mark them as
peculiarly its own. We recognize in Moses the
most powerful man delineated in the Hebrew an
nals: one who both in thought and action was a
mighty force available for the deliverance from
Egypt. But how little had the people at that epoch
to do with its own liberation ! Again, at the time
preceding the Babylonish Captivity, the Jews had
not to encounter a wild and savage conqueror, such
as the East has often seen, who shattered all he
touched. The views of Nebuchadnezzar appear to
have been politic and moderate. He had to en
counter a determined partisanship of this people
with his enemies in Egypt, accompanied with re
peated breaches of faith. It was not at the first,
but only at the second crisis, that he proceeded to

THE MOSAIC LEGISLA TION.

305

extremities against the Jews ; and, all through the
period, the counsels of Jeremiah were deliberately
adverse to the policy of resistance that was pur
sued. It was plain that Egypt was a broken reed.
This is not to be deemed one of the ordinary
excesses of passion or errors in particular calcula
tions, which mark the common page of history : it
was an utter abnegation of all rational elements in
the guidance of human conduct, both adopted and
persisted in, such as we occasionally but rarely en
counter, and such as when encountered we prop
erly term infatuation. An exactly similar course,
but attended with further exaggerations, marked
the third of the great crises at the closing period
of the national histoiy. We have no sign that
religion was hurt or endangered by the Roman
supremacy. Many of the cities did not actively
join in the revolt The state, which had punished
Verres, would surely not have permitted Florus to
endanger the peace of the East by his rapacity.
The long delays of the Roman commander in
laying siege to the city seem to find their most
20

306 THE MOSAIC LEGISLA TION.
rational interpretation in one supposition only. It
is the supposition of his having believed that the
majority of the population would see and feel that
there was no cause for proceeding to extremities.
The presence of Berenice, and her powerful influ
ence over Titus, were of themselves a guaranty
that no reasonable settlement would be refused.
As in the time of Hezekiah with Isaiah, and in the
time of Zeghariah with Jeremiah, so here again the
wisest and most trusted counsellor of the race was
a firm opponent of the policy of resistance. Joch-
anan Ben Zakkai was the man who, after the de
struction of the capital and dispersal of the nation,
proved himself equal to the incredibly difficult task
of establishing at Jamnia (or Jabuz)1 what may
be properly termed the new Judaism, the Judaism
which had just been dislodged from a sanctuary
held through fifteen centuries: the Judaism which
no longer had a home, or a sacrifice, or a priest.
Probably Jochanan saw that there was nothing in
the supremacy of Rome to prevent the continued
l Graetz : " History of the Jews," Vol. II., Ch. XIII.

THE MOSAIC LEGISLA TION. 307
existence of such a Judaism as would be available
for all the purposes of religion ; a Judaism local,
historical, and visible, shorn in fact of nothing ex
cept the political domination which it can hardly
be said to have enjoyed in anything like fulness
since the time of Solomon. Such was the man
who stood before the people as the counsellor of
peace before the fall of the city. But in spite of
all this, the unhappy population of the capital
rushed upon its ruin, even like that herd of swine
which ran headlong down the steep place into the
waters of Gennesaret, and perished.
In reviewing the detail of this astonishing case,
we may well say there have been parallels, real
though rare, scattered over the pages of history,
to the indomitable courage of the Jews; there are
none to their incurable fanaticism. A doom had
been spoken, though spoken in sadness, by the
Saviour of the world : and that doom behoved to
be fulfilled, and fulfilled by the free, but incredi
bly misguided, agency of the sufferers. Without
doubt, the power of nationality as an element of

308 THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION.
public and common life had been raised by all
the incidents of the Maccabean struggle to an
extraordinary height. But that heroic history lay
far in the distance of the past. A courtly, or
Herodian, system had long been dominant. Two
centuries and a half had passed away. For a large
portion of this time they had lived under Roman
dominion, which gave to the Jew unstintedly the
advantages of a world-wide citizenship, and har
bored him, sometimes even with favor, in the cap
ital of the Empire. It seems impossible to account
for the destruction of Jerusalem and the disper
sion of the nation on the common principles of
human action. After every effort to escape, we
are driven to acknowledge the signal tribute which
the excess ' of human error rendered to the effi
cacy of divine wisdom. If the second causes which
brought about the destruction of the capital, and
the dispersion of the race, were marked by the
most singular and abnormal character, the predic
tion of our Lord was a prediction not founded on
the likelihoods of ordinary policy, but on a most

THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION.

309

remarkable departure from them : and the catas
trophe itself, in connection with that disclosure
which his wonderful foreknowledge had imparted
to the world, sums up the long chapter of rational
evidences of a divine revelation which we derive
from the history, so studded with vicissitude, of
the children of Abraham.
Thus, the prophetic power of the Saviour, and
the effectual action of divine Providence wrought
out through the agency of causes altogether un
usual, are alike exhibited with conclusive force in
the fall of Jerusalem. But even this is not all.
The destruction of the temple with the city, and
the dispersion of the nation, belong essentially to
the subject of this work. For through these events
was fulfilled the original promise to Abraham, that
in him should all the nations of the earth be
blessed : and it is hard to see how without them
that fulfilment could had been brought about.
It would be hardly too much to say that so
long as the temple-worship lasted, and the obliga
tions of the Mosaic system were acknowledged, the

3 1 o THE MOSA IC LEGISLA TION.
new scheme of the kingdom of God could not be
developed, the Church could not become a city set
upon a hill; and, as Christianity seemed to be in
some sense a form of Judaism, the call to the na
tions to repent and be converted could hardly be
made intelligible. The tendencies exhibited in St.
Peter and St. Paul respectively, so menacing in
themselves to the infant religion, would in all like
lihood have continued to embarrass and to mar
the promulgation of the Gospel by confusing the
utterance of its preachers. And it is not to be
forgotten that St. Paul himself, the champion of the
larger system, did not exempt himself from the
obligations of the law. It was plainly essential to
the infant scheme that an effectual continuity
should be established between the Apostles, who
were a body of Hebrews, and those Gentiles' who
were to take up and cary forward their commis
sion. Was it not equally necessay, or at least
important in a degree to which we can hardly as
sign limits, that the original teachers themselves
should receive their emancipation, at least in the

THE MOSAIC LEGISLATION.

3'I

persons of some among them, through the great
catastrophe? That catastrophe effaced the out
worn stamp, and left the title-page in the exclusive
possession of the new covenant1
1 This book does not rise to the character of a history; and the
narratives on which it may occasionally have touched are sufficiently
familiar from the pages of the Bible. In the section, however, which
here closes, the case is different. But I have not felt justified in en
tering upon the amount of detail which a regular statement of the
facts would have required. It is probably enough to refer to any of
the well-known works on the History of the Jews, such as that of
Dean Milman (Murray), or the edition of Graetz, recently pub
lished in English by Mr. Nutt.

VI.
ON THE RECENT CORROBORATIONS OF
SCRIPTURE FROM THE REGIONS OF
HISTORY AND NATURAL SCIENCE.
i. preliminary; ii. as to the creation story;
iii. as to the flood story; iv. as to the
great dispersion; v. as to the sinaitic
JOURNEY.
It is to be observed that many of the favorite
subjects of scientific or systematic thought in the
present day are of a nature powerfully tending to
reinforce or illustrate the arguments available for
the proof of religion, and for the authority of Scrip
ture. If it had been actually proved, as it is largely
argued and seriously held, that the vast and diver
sified scheme of organic life throughout the world
has been evolved from a few simple types or pos
sibly from one, such a demonstration would both
312

CORROBORATIONS OF SCRIPTURE.

313

enlarge and confirm the great argument of design.
For this argument, instead of being drawn from
particular and separate constructions, would then
be derived from the entire scheme of creation, and
from the relation of all its parts to one another,
inasmuch as evey earlier portion of it would be an
indication, and therefore a mute prediction, of all
those which were to succeed; the seed of a long
series of harvests to come. "Day unto day utter-
eth speech, and night unto night showeth knowl
edge" (Psa. 19 : 2).
Again, the formal treatment in recent years of
the subject of heredity not only tends 1o link the
generations of mankind in one, but, in proving
that our nature undergoes incessant modification
through the influence of progenitors, enlarges our
conception of the width of its range, and the varie
ties of those forms which it is capable of assuming.
It shows us, for example, how the nature, as well
as the environment, of descendants, is deteriorated
by the fault of ancestors, and how there may have
been an education of the race from childhood to

314 RECENT CORROBORATIONS
maturity, or (upon the same basis of reasoning)
some converse process of decay. Thus the doc
trine of birth-sin, as it is sometimes called, is sim
ply the recognition of the hereditary disorder and
degeneracy of our nature; and, of all men, the
evolutionist would find it most difficult to establish
a title to object to it in principle.
On these grounds, and on others more specific
which it will be the aim of this chapter to set forth
in given instances, we should dispel wholly from
our minds those spectral notions of some broad
antagonism between religion and science, which
have been •raised up by the action of prejudice on
the one side, and perhaps by the occasional prac
tice of bragging on the other. Of religion and
of science, as of man and wife, let us boldly say,
"What God hath joined, let not man put asunder."
But I proceed to particular illustrations.
ii. — as to the creation story.
A double confirmation has, I conceive, in our
time been supplied to the Creation Stoy of Genesis ;

OF SCRIPTURE. 3 t 5
the first by natural, and the second by historic
science. Perhaps we have been too readily satisfied with
assuming, in regard to this narrative, a defensive
position ; whereas it may be found to contain within
its own brief compass, when rightly considered, the
guarantee of a divine communication to man, strictly
corresponding with what in familiar speech is termed
revelation. We have here in outline a primordial history of
the planet which we inhabit, and of the celestial
system to which it belongs. Of the planet, and of
the first appearance and early developments of life
upon it, anterior to the creation of man, in many of
the principal stages which have been ascertained by
geology. Of the celestial organization to which
our earth belongs, whether in all its vastness or
only within the limits of the solar system, we may
be unable to say ; but, at the least, a sketch of the
formation of that system, or of our special portion
of it, from a prior and unadjusted or chaotic state.
Upon such a document a sharp issue is at once

3 1 6 RECENT CORR OB OR A TIONS
raised, at least as to the latter or strictly terrestrial
part of it, the earth-history, for all those who hold
it to be in its substance a true account. We accept
from science, as demonstrated, a series of geologi
cal conclusions. We have found the geology of
Genesis to stand in such a relation to these conclu
sions, as could not have been exhibited in a record
framed by faculties merely human, at any date to
which the origin of the Creation Story can now
reasonably be referred. Starting from this premise,
we have no means of avoiding or holding back from
the conclusion that the materials of the stoy could
not have been had without preterhuman aid ; and
such preterhuman aid is what we term divine reve
lation. And if the time shall ever come, when
astronomers shall be in a condition to apply to the
earlier portion of the chapter the demonstrative
methods, which geology has found for the latter
part, it may happen that we shall owe a debt
of the same kind, and of as great amount, to as
tronomy, as we now owe to geologic science. My
present purpose is to call particular attention to

OF SCRIPTURE.

317

the exact nature and extraordinary amount of
that debt.
There was nothing necessarily unreasonable in
accepting as worthy of belief this portion of the
Book of Genesis, along with the rest of the Book,
and with other books of Holy Scripture, on general
proofs of their inspiration, if sufficient, apart from
any independent buttress furnished, either by science
or by histoy, for the Creation Stoy. In a court
of justice, the evidence of a witness is to be accepted
on matters within his cognizance, when it is con
sistent with itself, and when neither his character
nor his intelligence are questioned ; or again, when
the main part of a continuous narrative is suffi
ciently verified, it may sometimes be right to accept
the rest without separate verification. If, however,
a new witness comes into court, and pretends to give
us fresh and scientific proof of the Creation Story,
this may be true or may be false. If false, the story
is not disproved ; it stands where it stood before.
Bad arguments are often made for a good cause.
But if true, the event is one of vast importance.

318 RECENT CORROBORATIONS
Now the present position is as follows. Apart
altogether from faith, and from the general evi
dences of revelation, a new witness has come into
the court, in the shape of natural science. She
builds up her system on the observation of facts,
and upon inferences from them, which at length
attain to a completeness and security such as, if
not presenting us with a demonstration in the strict
est sense, yet constrain us, as intelligent beings,
and by the general laws of reasoning, to belief.
The Creation Stoy divides itself into the cos
mological portion, occupying (mainly) the first
nineteen verses of the chapter, and the geological
portion, which is given in the last twelve. The
former part has less, and the latter part has more, to
do with the direct evidence of fact, and the strin
gency of the authority which the two may severally
claim varies accordingly ; but in both the narrative
seems to demand, upon the evidence as it stands,
rational assent. In regard to both, it is held on
the affirmative side that the statements of Genesis
have a certain relation both to the ascertained facts

OF SCRIPTURE.

319

and to the best accepted reasonings ; and that this
relation is of such a nature as to require us, in the
character of rational investigators, to acknowledge
in the written record the presence of elements such
as must be referred to a superhuman origin. If
this be so, then be it observed that natural science is
now rendering a new and enormous service to the
great cause of belief in the unseen ; and is under
pinning, so to speak, the structure of that divine
revelation, which was contained in the Book of
Genesis, by a new and solid pillar, built up, on a
foundation of its own, from beneath.
It is, then, to be borne in mind that, as against
those who by arbitrary or irrational interpretation,
place Genesis and science at essential variance, our
position is not one merely defensive. We are not
mere reconcilers, as some call us, searching out ex
pedients to escape a difficulty, to repel an assault.
We cary the war, or rather the argument, into the
camp of the adversay. We seek to show, and we
may claim to have shown, that the account re
corded in the Creation Story for the instruction of

3 20 RE CENT CORR OB OR A TIONS
all ages has been framed on the principles which,
for such an account, reason recommends ; and that,
interpreted in this view, its enty into the argument
is at this juncture like the arrival of a new auxiliary
army in the field while the battle is in progress ;
like the arrival, to choose a historical instance, of
the Prussians at Waterloo.
Such is the confirmatory argument founded upon
the contents. But now, yet another ally has come
to join our ranks, under the title of archaeologic and
historic science. It has deciphered the cuneiform
inscriptions, and has read among them a Creation
Story inscribed on the tablets found at Nineveh.
Here we have a new witness to the very early
existence, among civilized or partly civilized men,
of records of creation corresponding in very essen
tial particulars with the Hebrew narrative. Such
a witness plainly to some extent offers to it con
firmation ; but also stands in competition with it.
The competition is in those particulars where the
accounts are not in harmony. As to these, stand
ing on the character of its contents, the Hebrew

OF SCRIPTURE.

321

tradition lays claim to superior antiquity and au
thority. But in proving the vast antiquity of cer
tain fundamental ideas, the two are concurrent, and
not competitive.
The Babylonian Creation Story is given by Mr.
Smith in his "Assyrian Discoveries,"1 so far as its
multilated state permits. It runs as follows, and we
cannot, I think, but cherish the hope that it may
hereafter receive extension or elucidation. " When
the gods in their assembly made the universe, there
was confusion, and the gods sent out the spirit of
life. They then create the beast of the field, the
animal of the field, and the reptile or the creeping
thing of the field, and fix in them the spirit of life.
Next comes the creation of domestic animals, and
the creeping things of the city." Here we have, 1,
creation by the gods ; 2, chaos ; 3, life, and only by
inference, order; 4, wide extension of this life in
beasts and reptiles; 5, after this the domesticated
animals. Thus there is before us a real, though
rude and imperfect, structural resemblance to the
1 Page 397.
21

322

RECENT CORROBORATIONS

Hebrew narrative, together with the lowering in
terpolation of polytheism.
From the works of Schrader1 on the cuneiform in
scriptions, some further particulars maybe gathered.
He observes that in Berosus, as in Genesis, we be
gin with water and darkness. On which I would
only observe that Berosus, who wrote in Greek,
may not improbably have known the Mosaic writ
ings ; 2 and, as I have already stated, that water, in
the text of Genesis, may be equivalent to fluid.
The marked points of correspondence appear to be
these : that the heavenly bodies are created after
the heavens, which last expression, I presume, may
be meant to include the light. That the land
population follows that of the water, and appears
when vegetation has already begun. That the
monuments name a Babylonian week, with the
seventh day as a day of consecration, called also
an evil day,3 perhaps because evil for any work
done on it. The inscription says —
1 Schrader, " The Cuneiform Inscriptions and the Old Testament."
Translated by Whitehouse. Vol. I., p. 4 seqq.
3 Smith, Biogr. Diet. s Schrader, p. 19.

OF SCRIPTURE. 323
" To redeem them, created mankind
The merciful one, in whom is the power
that summons to life " —
which is faintly comparable with the words of Gen
esis 2:7, and the Jehovistic account, "and breathed
into his nostrils the breath of life." What seems
to disappear from the Babylonian account is that
evident intention of series and orderly development,
or evolution, which is so wonderful a feature in the
Mosaic narrative.
Dawson, in a recent work, observes that the poly
theistic element is the distinctive feature of the
Chaldean record; and that the originals of the
tablets from Nineveh may have been very ancient,
but that they are so mixed up with the history of
the Chaldean hero, named Izdubar, as to suggest
that there may have existed before it still older
Creation legends. He compares this record with
the corresponding account in Genesis, which is as
broadly marked with the idea of the divine unity
as the Chaldean legend is pervaded by the concep
tion of polytheism. And he adds, " Is it not likely

3 24 RECENT CORR OB OR A TIONS
that the simpler belief is older than the more com
plex; that which required no priests, ritual, or
temple, older than that with which all these things
were necessarily associated ? " He naturally assigns
a marked superiority to the "Hebrew Genesis."1
In truth, that superiority seems to be not great
only, but immeasurable.
In one point only do the tablets cary us beyond
the narrative of Genesis; they record the great
struggle of Deity with rebellion, the war in heaven
between Merodach and Tiamat. But, upon the
whole, our Bible narrative is a regular structure; it
is orderly, progressive, and rational; that of the
tablets is dark and confused. This may, however,
be referable in part to the imperfection of the tab
lets, the third of which, Mr. Sayce thinks, may
probably have recounted the formation of the
earth.2 However this may be, the one account is
charged in a marvellous way with instruction and
moral purpose; from the other they have almost
1 " Modern Science in Bible Lands," p. 32.
2 " Hibbert Lectures," p. 394.

OF SCRIPTURE. 325
disappeared. The first has, as we believe, been
receiving marked confirmation in the most vital
particulars from cosmic and geologic science; on
the second they can hardly be said to cast more
than the faintest light. And yet this inferior docu
ment is itself of vey great confirmatory value; for
the Izdubar legends, says Mr. Smith,1 appear to
have been composed more than 2000 years b. c.
There is no late date to which the Mosaic narrative
can with a shadow of probability be referred. It
could not have been formed without a miracle from
the tablets as they stand. The two are evidently
accounts proceeding from a common source, but de
rived through channels, partly or wholly indepen
dent. The one comes through a powerful and civil
ized empire, the other through an obscure nomad
family. In the relative superiority of the Mosaic
narrative, all the rules of merely human likelihoods
are reversed; and the presumption of a divine illu
mination is proportionably augmented. But the un
suspected antiquity of the inferior legend attests by
1 "Assyrian Discoveries," p. 166.

326 RECENT CORR OB OR A TIONS
an independent witness, if not the truth, yet at least
the presumable origin, of its transcendent rival.
So far as scientific opinion is concerned, another
remarkable confirmation seems to have been given
to the cosmical portion of the Creation Story in
Genesis by the course which it has taken of late
years. Writing in 1839, Dr. , Whewell devoted a
chapter of his " Bridgewater Treatise on Astronomy
and Physics"1 to the Nebular or, as it is often
called, Rotatory Hypothesis. He described it in
outline, as it had been conceived by Laplace. The
idea, of it was that the mass, which eventually
centred in the sun, had revolved in a state of
excessive heat; that, as it gradually cooled, the
rapidity of the motion was increased; that, as the
centrifugal force thus grew, the mass detached from
itself exterior zones or rings of gas or vapor, which
most commonly broke up into several minor masses,
and so gradually formed the planetary system. Dr.
Whewell's object in this early notice of a subject,
which has since attracted, I believe, vey general
1 Chapter VII., p. 181.

OF SCRIPTURE. «2~
attention in the world of astronomical science, was
to sustain and illustrate his general argument, by
showing how this theory did nothing whatever to
explain the origin of the system, or to weaken the
statement of Newton, that its admirable arrange
ment must be "the work of an intelligent and most
powerful being." The origin of this rotation, said
Dr. Whewell, remains unexplained, and still as
powerfully as ever cries aloud for, and proclaims an
Author. My purpose in here naming the subject
is to point out that Dr. Whewell then found himself
dealing with a theory which had not yet obtained
any wide currency or authority, and he then "left
to other persons and to future ages to decide upon
the merits of the nebular hypothesis."1 But, during
the half-centuy which has elapsed since he pro
duced his treatise, the hypothesis is understood to
have gained very general, if not indeed unanimous,
acceptance from astronomers. I refer to this result
of the most modern studies as a new and remarkable
establishment of accord between natural science on
1 Page 190.

328 RECENT CORROBORATIONS
the one hand (so far as its reasonings have pro
ceeded) and the Book of Genesis on the other.
Often has it been endeavored to place the Mosaic
geology in conflict with ascertained results, but
less, though even here something, of the same kind
has been attempted, so far as I know, by persons
of scientific authority, with regard to the cosmogony
which occupies the earlier portion of the chapter.
On the other hand, it has been shown, with what
seems to me conclusive clearness, that, without the
use of scientific language, that very process has
been described in slight outline, but in singular
correspondence with the hypothesis now so largely
accepted. Such a hypothesis may not indeed
have reached the point of demonstration, and this
the subject-matter itself may be found not to per
mit; yet it has attained to so much of authority
from consent that Dr. Whewell, were he writing
now, would not have had simply to hand it over
to the future for consideration, but would more
probably have declared that it holds the field, and
seems little likely to be displaced from it.

OF SCRIPTURE.

329

With the creation of the world, or the solar
system, the question of its termination is naturally
associated. On this subject, however, I will not
dwell at length, because the support here afforded
by scientific opinion is given to the Scriptures of
the New Testament, rather than the Old. To refer
again to Dr. Whewell. In a passage of extraor-
dinay grandeur, he delivered (I think it was in a
sermon) his opinion that the world would end with
a catastrophe, instead of dying what is termed a
natural death. Such, as we know, is the emphatic
declaration of the inspired Word. " The day of
the Lord will come as a thief in the night : in the
which the heavens shall pass away with a great
noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat ;
the earth also, and the works that are therein, shall
be burned up" (2 Peter 3: 10, 12). And again,
" Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the
day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire
shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt
with fervent heat." Such was the judgment of
Dr. Whewell nearly half a centuy ago. His words

330 RECENT CORR OB OR A TIONS
were delivered rather as by one uttering his own
firm opinion, than as expressing the conviction of
astronomers at large. Nevertheless, as I have been
informed on high authority, it is now the estab
lished conclusion of astronomers, based upon
reasoning from ascertained facts, that the Galilean
fisherman knew, and wrote for our instruction,
what all the genius and learning of the world for
thousands of years failed to learn, and that —
" The great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve." '
III. — AS TO THE FLOOD STORY.
I pass now to the Flood Legend, one form of
which has come down through Berosus and
Josephus, but which acquires much more certain
antiquity, and greater grandeur, from the Assyrian
inscriptions. Their account, says Schrader, whose
bias cannot, I think, be considered as over-favorable
to the Hebrew record, " brings the Biblical narra-
1 Shakespeare, "Tempest," IV. I.

OF SCRIPTURE.

331

tive into much closer relation with the Chaldean
flood legend than could be assumed on the basis
of the tradition in Berosus."1 It forms part of the
Izdubar legends discovered by Mr. George Smith,
who published his account of them in 1872, and
who assigns to them a date anterior to 2000 years
B. c under the early Babylonian empire.2 The hero
of the legends is believed by Mr. Smith to be the
same as the Nimrod of Genesis. Like the Creation
Stoy of Genesis,3 that of the Flood derives cor
roboration from the Babylonian record, inasmuch as
it is thus carried back by an independent testimony
to a vey great antiquity. That record, composed,
as Mr. Smith thinks, not long after the time of
Izdubar or Nimrod, gives us the tradition of a flood
which was a divine punishment for the wickedness
of the world, and of a holy man, who built an ark,
and escaped the general destruction.4 The par
ticulars are set out in Mr. Smith's volume. They
differ, in many respects, from those of Genesis, but
1 Schrader, as above, p. 47.
2 "Assyrian Discoveries," p. 166.
sIbid. and 204. 4 Pages 205, 206, seqq.

332 RECENT CORROBORATIONS
the essential features are in the highest degree
marked, and, together with certain of the details,
are singularly accordant1 As in the case of the
Creation Story, so here there is stamped upon them
the note of a common source, and of channels of
descent which separate at some later date. In this
case, however, the Babylonian narrative holds a
higher position, relatively to the scriptural record,
than in the case of the Creation.
The hero of the deluge is Hasisadra, a name
which has been hellenized into Xisuthrus. He, on
the eleventh tablet, relates to Izdubar (the supposed
Nimrod) the stoy of the deluge. I shall only
attempt an outline presenting the main points.2
In the ancient city of Surippah, where Anu and
other chief gods were worshipped, Hasisadra was
divinely warned by Hea, the great water-god, to
construct a ship, of which the size is named; and
to commit to it "the seed of life, all of it," as "the
sinner and life " were about to be destroyed by a
flood. Food, furniture, wealth, servants, and ani-
1 Page 184, seqq. 2 Smith, pp. 184-194.

OF SCRIPTURE.

333

mals, were all to be embarked. The building and
loading of the ship are then described, and the part
taken by the several deities in bringing about the
catastrophe. But " the gods " themselves feared
the tempest, and "ascended to the heaven of Anu."
This deluge lasted for six days: on the seventh all
was quiet. There is sight of land from within the
vessel. It is arrested by the mountain of Nizir. A
dove is sent forth, and returns. A swallow is sent,
and does the like. A raven goes, feeds on the
corpses that are afloat, and returns not Then
comes landing from the vessel, sacrifice, the send
ing forth of animals. Next, Ninip and Hea remon
strate with Bel, and suggest other more usual
means of chastising men, in which there seems to
be some affinity to the promise of Genesis 8 : 21,22,
and 9 : 11-17, that there should never again be a
flood upon the earth. And " then dwelt Hasisadra
in a remote place, at the mouth of the rivers."
The resemblances between this narrative of the
flood and that in Genesis are such as clearly to be
token a relationship at or near the source. The

334 RECENT CORR OB OR A TIONS
most peculiar, and at the same time purely inci
dental, among all the details of the narrative,
appears to be the threefold experiment with birds
upon the decline of the waters ; but this is found
alike in the three narratives of Chaldaea, the Bible,
and Berosus. No other nations have accounts so
full and precise as these.1
Mr. Smith has some judicious and impartial obser
vations on the two accounts.2 The Chaldean ac
count indicates the nature of the country in which
the flood took place. Surippah is near the mouth
of the Euphrates, and there we learn that Hea was
worshipped as the god of the deluge. The Hebrew
account has no local corroborations of the story.
When Surippah was conquered, in the sixteenth
century B.C. or earlier, it is called in the record,
" the city of the ark." Hasisadra is, like Noah, a
devout man ; and the Chaldean deluge is, like the
Hebrew, a punishment for gross and widespread
sin. Schrader argues with a view to attenuate this
statement, but, as it appears to me, in the spirit of
1 Smith, p. 212. 2 Ibid,

OF SCRIPTURE.

33i

a partisan rather than a judge.1 The dimensions
of the ark vay in the three accounts ; and on the
variations of numerals I have made remarks else
where. It may, however, be observed that the
Babylonian account, which presumably was written
down from a vey early date, and in a durable form,
has in this respect a great advantage over oral
transmission, which is most of all dangerous for
numerical statements. The inscription describes a
regular vessel with boatmen, another incident of
local color. The accounts curiously coincide in
the minute point that, both inside and out, the ark
is coated with bitumen. The tablet tells us that
not eight only, but a comparatively large number
of persons, went on board. The Bible gives forty
days as the duration of the flood, meaning ap
parently when at the height. After 150 days the
waters all abated. The whole duration before dis
appearance is a year and ten days (Gen. 7:11, 12,
13, 14, 17, 24). The tablet allows only seven days
for the fulness of the flood. On the seventh day
1 Vol. I., p. 49.

336 RECENT CORR OB OR A TIONS
all storm has ceased. Hasisadra then sends out
the bird. The ship is stranded for seven days more
on the mountains of Nizir, so that the total term
mentioned is one of only fourteen days. Nizir lies
away to the east, far from the site of Ararat men
tioned in Genesis ; on the other hand,1 the present
tradition of the country lands the ark at a site
farther to the north, and nearer Ararat. Again
as to the birds. In Genesis, Noah sends out a
raven, which does not return; then a dove three
times, at intervals of seven days; on the third
occasion the dove does not return. The inscription
sends, first, a dove, which returns, then a swallow,
which returns, and then a raven, which does not
return. Lastly, in the Bible, Noah lives after the
flood for 350 years ; the tablet and Berosus both
assign to Hasisadra, associated (rather strangely)
with his daughter and the helmsman,2 that trans
lation to heaven for his piety, which Genesis gives to
Enoch. Before translation, he was visited by Izdu
bar, and the region was deemed a sacred region.
1 Smith, p. 217. 2 Schrader, I. 60.

OF SCRIPTURE.

337

On a general comparison of these two profoundly
interesting records, the result appears to be that in
what is circumstantial only there is much difference
along with some curious resemblance; but in the
outline of the fundamental facts, and in the moral
considerations applicable, they are radically at one.
The wickedness of the antediluvian world, the divine
anger, the command to build, the use of this vehicle
of escape, and the erection of an altar of thanks
giving, are recorded alike in each. We have no
absolute right to assume that either of the accounts,
as it stands, is exactly contemporary with the
period of the flood. The points in which the Bible
account may seem inferior are the absence of local
coloring, and the probable relation of the numerical
statements to actual fact. Yet this, so far from
impairing its claim to our acceptance, appears on
the contray to accredit it, because it is a feature
which, given the circumstances of the case, there
was reason to expect. If, indeed, we ride the
hobby of the negative criticism, the Bible account
bristles eveywhere with difficulty. It is incon-
22

338 RECENT CORROBORATIONS
ceivable that the framers should have in that case
departed so widely from the inscription on the
tablets, in points so palpable to all the world, or
should have let slip the local color, with which a
fabricator, or late relator, would have been forward
to dress up his narrative. But, if we take Abraham,
with his ancestors and his posterity, as a nomad
people, religious and of simple life such as the Bible
represents them; at an earlier period hanging on
the outskirts of the Babylonian power, at a later
one migratoy towards the West; it was natural
for them to drop the local coloring of a region with
which all their relations had come to an end, and
also to fall somewhat behind in the exactitude of
some among the particulars; and this is perhaps
observable, as to the point of local color, not in
the case of the flood only, but throughout the
Abrahamic narrative down to the enty into the
promised land.
The most significant difference of all between
the two records is that the inscription is founded
upon polytheism, while in the Bible, here as else-

OF SCRIPTURE. 339
where, all is based upon the doctrine of one God.
That is to say, the simpler form is the groundwork
of the Bible narrative; and the simpler form, ac
cording to the generally recognized principle, is
that nearest the source, most closely akin to the
occurrence or the original record. The religion of
Noah agrees with that of the common father,
Adam; the religion of Hasisadra has departed
from the primitive belief, and exhibits to us those
multiplied and deteriorated images of the Deity,
which human infirmity and sin had introduced or
allowed. While Schrader glances at the period when the
Babylonian flood-legend reached the Hebrews as
that of "the prophetic narrator of early Biblical
histoy," he candidly adds, " I am led to the obvi
ous conclusion that the Hebrews were acquainted
with this legend at a much earlier period, and that
it is far from impossible that they acquired a knowl
edge of these and the other primitive myths now
under investigation as far back as in the time of
their earlier settlements in Babylonia, and that they

340 RECENT CORR OB OR A TIONS
carried these stories with them from Ur of the
Chaldees." For him they are all myths ; the origi
nal invention is in Babylonia, and the Hebrews are
early copyists. If this be a copy, and a copy made
among an artless race, it seems not a little strange
that the copy should in essentials so much excel
the original. But for other observers, however,
they are in the nature of primitive traditions,
founded on histories ; and the twin versions bear
testimony by their concurrence, and even in some
respects by their discrepancies, to their historical
character. If there was remoulding, it may be the
more detailed and circumstantial narration which
is presumptively entitled to the credit of it; and the
Bible story, more sparing in its details, but far
broader and more direct in the terrible lesson it
conveys, may reasonably be judged to have come
down from the source with the smallest amount of
variation in essentials from the original. It is here
as elsewhere. " The wisdom of this world," the
race favored with stable institutions, and with intel
lectual development, yet fails in the firmness of its

OF SCRIPTURE.

341

hold, and the clearness of its view, where the ap
preciation of the tremendous moral lesson is con
cerned ; while the race of wandering shepherds, who
are but the "babes and sucklings" of intelligence,
yet transmit that lesson in a type so fresh and clear
that our Lord has only to quote and enlarge with
out correcting it, and so to launch it anew into the
world as a solemn chapter of his gospel teaching.
It may be noticed that the translation to heaven
of Hasisadra, the Noah of the tablets, is in curious
accordance with that far larger development both
of the Underworld and of the future state, which
marks alike the Babylonian and the Egyptian sys
tems in comparison with that of the Old Testa
ment, and forms an interesting but separate subject
of discussion.
The Hebrew story of the Deluge has long been
supported by a diversity of traditions among the
nations and races of the world, but never before
with such particularity, or such corroboration in
the sense and to the extent already described. But
though we have now a new and important witness

342

RECENT CORR OB OR A TIONS

in court on our behalf, yet undoubtedly, if the nar
rative be provably untrue, the testimony of both,
or of any number of traditional witnesses, must fall
to the ground.
The voice of natural science has not been, and
apparently is not at present, uniform on this sub
ject. The negative has just been presented to the
world, of course with great ability, and also in a
sufficiently magisterial form, by Professor Huxley.
He conceives that Christian theology must stand
or fall with the historical trustworthiness of the
Jewish Scriptures ; l and, as these are not trust
worthy, the consequence is that it must not stand,
but fall. With this general proposition I have
here nothing to do.
Mr. Huxley selects the flood-story for the cap
ital article of his indictment But he treats it as
little worthy of serious notice. " It is difficult to
persuade serious scientific inquirers to occupy
themselves in any way with the Noachian deluge."2
He finds, indeed, a sort of historic nucleus for a
1 Nineteenth Century, July, 1890, p. 8. 2 Ibid., p. 12.

OF SCRIPTURE.

343

partial deluge in the occasional desolating floods
of the Euphrates and Tigris.1 But, be it a partial
or be it a general flood, he applies the negative
doctrine, in the same contemptuous form, to the
Deluge: perhaps most of all to what he terms a
particularly absurd attempt at reconciliation, which
places it " at the end of the glacial epoch."2 I am
far from intending to enter upon a controversy
which I have no capacity to handle. Yet I may be
bold enough to mention, that, while Mr. Huxley is
speaking in the name of science at large, some
votaries of science hold an entirely different lan
guage. Moreover, that the idea of a flood was not
thus summarily dismissed by the luminaries of the
scientific world anterior to the present day ; and
that the grounds of this dismissal are not of recent
discovey, but were fully open to the geologists of
the last generation. Quite recently, the doctrine
of a Deluge has been maintained by Sir J. Daw
son,3 by Mr. Howorth, and by the Duke of Argyll
1 Nineteenth Century, July, 1890, p. 14. 2 Ibid., p. 13.
3 " Modern Science in Bible Lands," p. 252.

344

RECENT CORROBORATIONS

(if I interpret him aright),1 all of whom are, I sup
pose, to be considered as " serious scientific in
quirers." Mr. Howorth, in his learned and laborious work
on "The Mammoth and the Flood," is certainly
not bound by any superstitious reverence for the
mere text of the Book of Genesis; for in his pref
ace,2 he seems to cast aside as null its traditions
respecting all that preceded the creation of man.
His treatise collects largely not only the diluvial
traditions of so many races and countries, but an
immense mass of palaeontological evidence; and,
having laid this wide ground for his induction, he
declares that, in his judgment, the whole points
unmistakably " To a widespread calamity, involving a flood on a great
scale. I do not see how the historian, the archaeologist,
and the palaeontologist can avoid making this conclusion in
future a prime factor in their discussions, and I venture to
think that before long it will be accepted as unanswerable." 3
1 Good Words, January, 1884; and Scot. Geograph. Mag., April,
1890. 2 Pages ix, x. 3 Page 463.

OF SCRIPTURE. 345
Moreover, I am free to consider histoy no less
a science, though a less determinate science, than
geology or biology; and I quote in conclusion the
following passage from Lenormant, which follows
a copious collection of testimonies to the tradition
of a Deluge in almost all lands : —
"La longue revue, a laquelle nous venons de nous livrer,
nous permet d'affirmer que le reck du deluge est une tradi
tion universelle dans tous les rameaux de l'humanite, al'ex-
ception toutefois de la race noire. Mais un souvenir par-
tout, aussi precis et aussi concordant, ne saurait etre celui
d'un mythe invente a plaisir ; aucun mythe religieux ou cos-
mogonique ne presente ce caractere d'universalite. C'est
necessairement le souvenir d'un eVenement reel et terrible,
qui frappa assez puissamment l'imagination des ancetres de
notre espece pour n'etre jamais oublie de leurs descendants.
Ce cataclysme se produit pres du berceau primitif de l'hu-
manite." 2
1,1 Les Origines de l'Histoire," pp. 489,490. Second edition, 1880.
"The long review, to which we have just applied ourselves, warrants
our affirming that the tale of the Deluge is a universal tradition
among all the branches of the human family ; excepting, however, the
blacks. But a remembrance prevailing everywhere, so precise and
so concordant, cannot belong to a myth arbitrarily invented. No

346 RECENT CORROBORATIONS
IV.  AS TO THE GREAT DISPERSION.
The contents of the tenth chapter of Genesis
constitute a document of a character altogether
extraordinary: for example, in the two following
particulars. First, it is without parallel in the
world. Nowhere else is there known to us a
distinct and detailed endeavor to draw downwards
from a single source the multiplication of men in
the earth by families, and the distribution of them
over the face of the earth. Secondly, this account,
containing seventy-two names of men (to which
more are added in connection with the descent of
Abram when we reach chapter 1 2), is so particular,
that the notion of its correct transmission by or
dinary means may appear to present much difficulty.
Abram, when he migrated westward, came from a
religious or cosmogonic myth presents such a character of universality.
It must of necessity be a recollection of a great and terrible occur
rence, which impressed the imagination of the ancestors of our race
so powerfully as never to have been forgotten by their descendants.
That cataclysm took place at a spot near the primeval cradle of
humanity.

OF SCRIPTURE.

347

county, which we now know to have possessed in
his time means of durable record; but, as the head
of a nomad family, he could hardly have carried
with him written traditions : and a specific narrative
of this kind, like the Greek catalogue in the " Iliad,"
presented great difficulties in the way of oral trans
mission through several, perhaps many, genera
tions, down to the time when we may reasonably
suppose the children of Israel to have acquired the
art of writing, namely, during their sojourn in
Egypt. The assisting providence of God may
suggest itself to the believing mind as having
supplied the needful measure of that aid, which
Homer x besought, in a kindred case, from the
Muses. But the document, if thus considered, lays
a certain weight upon our faculty of belief, and
even offers a tempting invitation to assault from
those who are adversely minded. This weight,
however, is converted at once into a prop, into a
buttress which well and stoutly supports the wall,
when we find that this singular and, so to speak,
1 Iliad, II. 484.

348 RE CENT CORR OB OR A TIONS
exposed tradition has received in the most funda
mental and vital points, from the researches of
philological and of historical science, striking and,
we may suppose, conclusive confirmation.
The foundation of the arrangement is the three
fold division of the human race from a certain
period of its history. If such a division actually
took place, we might expect to find the traces of it
in a threefold division of language, which has an
unquestionable relation to race; and, conversely,
such a divarication in language proves an early
distribution of races or families, from which it took
its origin. Without entering into details, it may be
observed that the Book of Genesis, in its tenth and
eleventh chapters, associates the first distinctions
of language with the local dispersion of man ; and
it is now known that, in days antecedent to the
permanent bond of literature, such an association
is agreeable not only to probability, but to the
ascertained laws of experience. And now we find
that comparative philology, dealing at large with
the languages of the world, has resolved them into

OF SCRIPTURE.

349

that vey threefold division, which the distribution
of man according to Genesis 10 into three great
branches anticipates and requires. Here is again
an important service, rendered by modern science
to belief.
It is true that the Bible (Gen. n : i) speaks of
language as originally one, and that this propo
sition has not yet been generally affirmed by phi
lology. Yet the way to it has been opened, and
it need excite no surprise should the goal be soon
attained. Professor Max Muller, I believe, says
there is no proof that the Aryan, Semitic, and
Turanian families of language had independent
beginnings; that radicals existing in all the three
can be traced to the common source, and that even
the grammars may have been originally one. But
this subject still awaits its scientific elucidation or
decision. The table of peoples presents on its surface some
apparent anomalies ; of which, however, a rational
account can be given, and one which for the most
part converts them into evidences in its favor. For

350 RECENT CORROBORATIONS
instance, the Hamitic portion presents to us out of
a total of thirty names no less than eighteen which
are plural words, and which are therefore national
or tribal, while only two of the same class are
found in the rest of the account But this seems
upon consideration to illustrate what we know from
histoy ; namely, that the Hamitic races exhibited
the most precocious development, and set up the
earliest known civilizations of the world, those of
Accadian Babylonia and of Egypt.
Again, the Cushite stock, after its regular order
is arrested in verse 7 of the chapter, jumps as it
were down to Nimrod in 8-10. But we must bear
in mind the greatness assigned to his individual
position. He is the only person in the table who
is described as founding a kingdom, and the account
of him has a great resemblance to that of Izdubar
in the Assyrian tablets, with whom he is identified
by Mr. George Smith.
Again, as Shem, Ham, and Japheth are four times
mentioned together, and invariably in this order, it
seems to follow naturally that this is the order of

OF SCRIPTURE. 351
their ages.1 In chapter 10, however, their descend
ants are set out in the inverse order, and Japheth
takes precedence. But this also, upon reflection, we
may find to be quite intelligible. Migration was
largely connected with considerations of space and
food. It may be that the younger had to give place
to the elder, and that the children of Japheth had
on this account to be the first in moving from the
common centre.
Further, in the Japhetic line the genealogy wholly
stops with the next generation but one, whereas, it
is continued farther, not only in the Semitic line,
which had to be connected with Abram, but also in
the Hamitic, by the mention of Nimrod and of the
Philistines. This, however, seems perfectly natural,
if the line of Japheth, as is probable, moved the
first, and, as is manifest, went the farthest, so as to
be out of sight of the narrator, while descendants
of Shem and Ham remained locally in contact with
1 In a work of great research, not published, but printed for private
circulation, Lord Crawford expresses a confident opinion that Japheth
was the oldest of the three brothers. (The Creed of Japheth : Letter
to Bishop Forbes, pp. xvi-xix).

352

RECENT CORROBORATIONS

each other. Knobel1 has observed, that in each of
the three branches the enumeration begins with
those who traveled to the greatest distance from
the common centre (which is taken by him to be
near Mount Ararat), and accordingly the Japhetites
are reckoned from the north-west, the Semites from
the south-east, and Hamites from the south-west.
Just as in the case of the Homeric catalogue,2 this
methodical arrangement probably gave great assist
ance to the memoy of the first recorder.
Knobel3 has discussed with great minuteness and
care the particular names of the recital, and he
traces them to their historic seats. Bishop Browne,
in the "Speaker's Commentary," has entered on the
same field. Some examples may be given. The Ja
phetites are those (Japhah=fair) of fair complexion. ,
They take to the isles or coast-lands,4 the seaward
countries of the north and west. Here we meet
1 "Volkertafel der Genesis." Giessen. 1850. Page 14.
2See " Juventus Mundi," p. 467.
3 A similar process has been usefully set forth more briefly by the
Rev. A. K. Glover in his " Ethnographic Scope of the Tenth Chapter
of Genesis." 4 See Revised Version, Gen. 10 : 5.

OF SCRIPTURE.

353

the name of Gomer reproduced in the Cimmerians,
Cimbri, and Cwmy. Ashkenaz, the son of Gomer,
is found in Scandinavia,1 the Scangia of Jornandes,
the chief seat of the German stock. Another route
is marked in the same direction by Ascania,2 in
Asia Minor, a name found at various points of that
region. Knobel thinks there is a trace of the Teu
tonic race in Teuthras, a name found on both sides
in the war of the "Iliad."3 He proceeds with the
list of Japhetites as follows. Riphath, he thinks, is
traced in the Carpathian county,4 Togarma in
Armenia, Magog in the Slavs, Madai in the Medes,
Javan in the Iaones or Ionians, Elisa in ^Eolians,
Tarshish in the Tursenoi, Kittim in the Chitians of
Cyprus, Dodanim in the Dardanians, Tubal in the
Iberians, Meshech in the Meschi or Moschi, Tiras
in the Thracians (Thrax or Thras).5 Some among
these particular interpretations — for instance, that
given to Elisa — may be untenable. Bishop Browne6
1 Knobel, ibid., pp. 35-37. 2 Page 39.
3 Iliad, V. 705 and VI. 13. 4 Knobel, ibid., p. 44.
6 Pages 53, 60, 71, 77, 81, 95, 117, 123.
6 " Speaker's Commentary," Genesis, in loc.
23

354 RE CENT CORROBORA TIONS
sets out the various opinions that have been held,
mostly without declaring a preference. It is not,
however, the accuracy of each particular identifica
tion, nor even of every particular item of the text,
but the principles of the general arrangement, and
the large number of cases reasonably clear, which
give importance to the argument.
The Semitic and Hamitic branches offer less diffi
culty to the investigator. No part of the tracking is
more satisfactoy than that which relates to the
nations of Palestine, and to the names of Canaan,
Sidon, and Heth, where every particular, known to
us from independent history or tradition, supports,
so far as I can judge, in a most remarkable manner,
the trustworthiness of the record. Speaking gen
erally, perhaps no one can go farther than Knobel
in the work of identification. His treatise has be
come a considerable authority, and is of the greater
value because he does not belong to the conser
vative school of criticism on the Old Testament.

OF SCRIPTl RE. 355
V.  AS TO THE SINAITIC JOURNEY.
In his " Modern Science in Bible Lands," Sir J.
Dawson has examined, with elaborate care, and
with advantages beyond those of earlier inquirers,1
first the dwelling-place of the Israelites in Egypt,
and their probable route from it until they cross
the Yam Suph; and then, still more particularly,
the account of their journeyings beyond the Red
Sea. His conclusion is that they crossed at a
point,2 now forming part of the Bitter Lakes of the
Isthmus, but then a part of the Red Sea itself,
which was fed in ancient times by a branch of the
Nile flowing eastwards.3 Yam Suph, or Sea of
Weeds, is the name given to it in the Bible.4
Beyond the Red Sea, and onwards to the Sinaitic
region, the county has now been surveyed by
officers of the British Ordnance. All the instruments
of modern science have been employed ; the results
'For example, Brugsch, who, in his " Geschichte iEgyptens"
(Leipzig, 1877), accepting the Mosaic narrative, assigns a different
route to the march.
2 Gesch. jEgypt., p. 389. 3 Page 392. * Page 404.

356 RECENT CORROBORATIONS
have been published on a large scale; and the
effect, as reported by Sir J. Dawson, has been
" entire agreement of the members of the party on
essential points;"1 and the ascertainment of such
complete coincidence of the actual features of the
country with the requirements of the Mosaic nar
rative, as to prove it to be a contemporay record
of the events to which it relates.2
The route pursued by the Israelites down the
coast of the Red Sea, and then to the eastward, is
worthy of peculiar note, as it seems to have been
dictated by a combination of strategical considera
tions with those which concerned the subsistence
of the people, and especially the supply of water.
The local indications are on this account all the
more remarkable. It is not possible, without ex
ceeding the limits proper for the present observa
tions, to convey the full force of the evidence which
shows how the stamp of Egypt was impressed both
upon the Israelites themselves, and upon the nar
rative in Exodus of their escape; inasmuch as it
1 Pages 371, 406. 2 Page 407.

OF SCRIPTURE.

357

depends on the details of measurement, atmosphere,
water-supply, and other physical circumstances,
and upon their relation to the Mosaic narrative.
The conclusions reached have only an indirect
bearing upon the proofs of a divine revelation
through the Scriptures, but they are of great his
torical importance in establishing the credit of the
book, and its contemporaneous character as to the
substance of its contents.

VII.
CONCLUSION.
In closing this series of papers, it is right to
record the admission that they can lay no claim to
anything more than touching, and that but slightly,
certain parts of a great subject. They omit many
things important, perhaps some things essential.
The essay on the Creation Stoy, indeed, aims at
bringing out, in lieu of simple apology, what seems
to me a distinct and specific argument in proof of
a divine revelation. Except in that instance, their
main design is to draw out, so far as they go, the
force of that cumulative evidence witnessing to
such a revelation, which has been so wisely
summed up by Bishop Butler;1 and also to disem
barrass relief in it from those difficulties which
i " Analogy," Part II., Chap. VII.
358

CONCLUSION.

359

properly belong not to itself, but to exaggerations
and excrescences against which it can carry no
absolute guarantee. They form the testimony of
an old man, in the closing period of his life. It is
rendered with no special qualification but possibly
this one. Few persons of our British race have
lived through a longer period of incessant argu
mentative contention, or have had a more diversi
fied experience in tying to ascertain, for purposes
immediately practical, the difference between tena
ble and untenable propositions. Such experience
is directly conversant with the nature of man, and
with his varied relations ; and I own my inclina
tion to suppose that it is more germane to the
treatment of subjects that lie directly between col
lective man and the Author of his being, more cal
culated to neutralize deficiencies, though not to
impart capacity, than a familiarity with those ma
terial sciences which have supplied an arena for,
perhaps, the most splendid triumphs of the centuy
now far advanced in its decline. On this subject
has been recorded the nobly candid admission

360 CONCLUSION.
of Mr. Darwin,1 respecting the possible atrophy,
through disuse, of the mental organs on which our
higher tastes depend. Among those organs I can
not but include the organ of belief. On this sub
ject, however, I am a biassed witness. It is for
others to judge. I only offer a plea, not in proof
of ability, but only in extenuation of defect.
There is in certain circles a very confident dis
position to assert that, as regards belief in super-
naturalism, the intellectual battle has been fought
and won, and that victory is on the side of nega
tion. It ought to be observed, before proceeding
further, that supernaturalism is a term which in
cludes the idea of God. A sense may be, indeed,
loosely given to it, which confines it to the mode
of his manifestations. But, essentially, if God be
there, the supernatural is there; and the develop
ments which proceed from that idea, even if they
had been crushed and stamped out, might germi
nate again. It is not, then, a question of excres
cences or of details; the life and essence of religion
1 " Life and Letters," Vol. I., pp. 101, 102.

CONCLUSION. 361
are at stake. It is the question of belief in what is
not perhaps scientifically, but yet for practical pur
poses intelligibly, termed a personal God.
I shall presently enter on the moral causes which
may have contributed, and even mainly contributed,
to stimulate the negative tendencies of the day. I
am now only endeavoring partially to test the
justice of a psean, and such a paean as would not be
warranted even by the established fact of a victoy.
For such a psean of the victor is the epitaph of the
vanquished: and the victory, which is to warrant
it, must be a victoy belonging to that class of
victories, which end the war.
That such a song of triumph is raised there can
be little doubt. It seems to have inspired the
recent articles of that very distinguished and not
less upright writer, Professor Huxley, in the Nine
teenth Century. But I have never seen a better
example of the plenary satisfaction which possesses
the mind of many among the negative athletes
than in the following passage, taken from a writer
of ability:

362 CONCLUSION.
" I set out from the standpoint that the mission of Free-
thought is no longer to batter down old faiths. That has
been long ago effectively accomplished ; and I, for one, am
ready to put a railing round the ruins, that they may be pre
served from desecration, and serve as a landmark ! Indeed,
I confess to having yawned over a recent vigorous indict
ment of Christianity."1
This purports to be a description of a certain
state of facts.2 Now, it is not the first time that
we have heard description of the kind. Such a
description was supplied in an earlier time by no
less a person than Bishop Butler, who, I apprehend,
was not among those given to exaggeration. His
words both have been, and should be, quoted again
and again. They are these : 3
"It is come, I know not how, to be taken for granted by
many persons that Christianity is not so much as a subject
1 Karl Pearson, " Ethics of Freethought," Preface, p. 5. The
dramatic character of this declaration is brought to its climax by the
fact that the work is dedicated to the members of King's College,
Cambridge. 2 It is far from being isolated. The same ideas are expressed with
greater vehemence by Dr. Hardwicke, of Sheffield, in a preface to
"Evolution," London, 1890.
8 From the advertisement to the "Analogy."

CONCLUSION. 363
of inquiry ; but that it is now at length discovered to be
fictitious. And, accordingly, they treat it as if, in the
present age, this were an agreed point among all people of
discernment, and nothing remained but to set it up as a
principal subject of mirth and ridicule; as it were by way
of reprisals, for its having so long interrupted the pleasures
of the world."
It seems pretty plain that at the time when the
Bishop published the "Analogy"1 a wave of unbe
lief was passing over the land. The spiritual de
clension of the Hanoverian period had set in ; and
the general standard of life, and of the ideas cur
rent concerning life, was sinking almost from day
to day. The negative movement of the period
may have been quite as vigorous, as widespread,
and as self-confident, as that of which we now sus
tain the pressure. Yet it dwindled, and almost dis
appeared; and we may even say that, at the time
of Johnson's social predominance, it left hardly a
trace behind.2 Nor was this either the first or the
1 In 1736.
2 In 1797, when Wilberforce published his " Practical View," he
spoke of " absolute unbelievers" as a class which he feared was an

364 CONCLUSION.
last of the reverses which negation has suffered.
At the time of the great Renascence of ancient
learning in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries,
the cultivated mind of Europe sank far back into
Paganism; but that ebb was succeeded by a flow
ing tide. Again, in my own earlier days, say in the
second quarter of the present centuy, there was a
great revival, both of the dogmatic sense and of the
religious life in England; and the temper of the
time, in the thinking world, was strongly adverse
alike to worldliness, to indifference, and to unbe
lief. No man, perhaps, was better qualified to
pass a judgment on this subject than the late Dr.
Whewell; and he, writing in November, 1853, and
referring to an opinion expressed by a contemporary
of smaller calibre than himself, says, "As to this
assertion that scepticism is increasing, it is con-
increasing one (Chap. VII. sect. 3). Perhaps the great war of the years
1793-1815 tended to debilitate the religious mind of the country by
drawing off mental force in another direction. I have, however, heard
from persons of high authority, who were old when I was young, that
the French Revolution generated a distinctly religious reaction on
this side of the Channel.

CONCLUSION. 365
tray to all my knowledge of the cultivated
classes."1 But as the third quarter proceeded, the
sceptical movement set in with a wide and subtle
power. History, then, seems to prove that these
negative movements are subject not only to a
hazard, but even to a law, of mutation; and that
evey one of them, when it has done its work, may
cease to be. Of one thing we may be assured:
such a movement derives no real strength, no true
promise of permanence, from an overweening self-
assertion. The question is not what negation
thinks of itself and of the opposing forces, but
what is the intrinsic strength of the reasoning on
which it rests.
I have said that, when it has done its work, it
may cease to be. For doubtless it has a work to
do. The wave that breaks and foams upon the
rock exhibits to us not merely, as it might seem, a
picture of violence and a source of danger, but a,
fraction of the vast oceanic movement, which is the
indispensable condition of health and purity both
1 " Life of Whewell," p. 431.

366 CONCLUSION.
to the water and the air, and to the populations by
which they are respectively inhabited. If we be
lieve in Providential government, we might ration
ally believe, even when we did not see, that those
boastful, and even powerful, agencies are not with
out their purposes, prefigured, and bounded too,
by the counsels of God. It seems, however, not
difficult to discern a portion of those purposes;
which may have been, first, to dispel the lethargy
and stimulate the zeal of believers; and, secondly,
to admonish their faith to keep terms with reason,
by testing it at all its points ; lest fancy, or pride, or
indolence, or the intolerant spirit of sect or party,
should have imported into their beliefs merely
human elements that it may be both needful and
difficult to eject
While leaving to the champions of negation their
title, whatever it may be, to insist on the utter blind
ness of belief, this at least I urge upon them : they
ought to understand that it remains just as possible
now as it was in the early or middle ages to uphold
the cause of belief in perfect good faith and with

CONCLUSION 367
immovable conviction. In the advance of scientific
knowledge, and of the critical art, I for one see
much that corrects and chastens what was tempo
rary or accidental, and at the same time erroneous,
in our persuasions concerning the subjects of belief,
but nothing that disintegrates or undermines the
basis of belief itself: much, on the contrary, that
confirms it.
It is sometimes taken for granted or alleged, that
religion or its champions are reduced to the neces
sity of defending their cause only with arms which
have been superseded, either by the introduction of
forces previously unknown, or by new forms of
construction better adapted to their ends. In a
spirit which seems to fluctuate between pity and
a good-natured contempt, Professor Huxley de
scribes "the old-fashioned artillery of the Churches,"
on the one side, and "the weapons of precision,"
used by the advancing forces of science on the
other.1 Now let it be remembered that we have
not here to do with the masses of mankind, to
1 Nineteenth Century, July, 1890, p. 22.

368 CONCLUSION.
whom historical and scientific arguments, whether
negative or affirmative, are, and probably must re
main, inaccessible. We are speaking of that stand
ing army, so to call it, of more or less instructed
persons, who, on the one side and the other, exe
cute all the fighting on behalf of the community
at large. Writing, then, of those within the pali
sades of the lists, and not appealing to mere num
bers, I demur entirely to the statement of Professor
Huxley. I deny that the weapons of belief are an
tiquated : I pause even before admitting that those
of scientific men are always, except in their own
particular sciences, weapons of precision. When
we decline the appeal to the established facts of
science, or to the conclusions upheld or reasonably
sustained by human experience through history, or
when we fall into the trap laid for us by Hume, and
treat the acceptance of our " holy religion " as a
matter in no way amenable to the view of reason ;
then we may be justly charged with the use of
weapons never worthy, and no longer serviceable.
But until then, we may quietly endeavor to proceed

CONCLUSION. 369
as rational beings upon rational considerations. If
these principles have not uniformly guided me in
the composition of the essays I am now bringing
to a close (on which it is not for me to judge), at
least I can say that there has not been in any in
stance, even by a hair's-breadth, an intentional
deviation from them.
The fact, however, of a strong and widespread
negative movement among important and active
sections of our countrymen during the latter por
tion of this century, is admitted ; and now I propose
to offer some remarks upon its alleged or probable
causes. I shall speak, first, of the detriment which reli
gion is supposed by some to have suffered through
the great and wonderful advance both of science
and of rational speculation, mostly physical, but
also critical, archaeological, and historical.
Secondly, of the detriment it has really suffered
through the exposure to the world of erroneous
notions about religion, which are due to believers
themselves : a detriment attending, in different man-
24

37°

CONCLUSION.

ners and degrees, either the retention, or even the
abandonment of these opinions. Such detriment
seems to me certain to ensue, when we uplift into
the region of dogmatic truth (for example) such
propositions as the following : I. That the material
volume of the Holy Scriptures, translated into our
tongue, with every fact and sentiment it contains,
must be received under the same (so to call it)
materialized conception, as that under which Ma
hometans are supposed to receive the Koran, and
held absolutely true ; or 2, that there is no pro
gression or distinction in the inspiration to which
it is to be referred ; or 3, that the Adam portrayed
in Scripture was the exclusive source of the race ;
or 4, that he was furnished with large intellectual
development and endowment.
Thirdly, I shall speak of the strength which the
negative movement has in my opinion derived from
causes greatly and subtly effective, yet wholly ex
trinsic to itself; causes, which I take to constitute
its principal strength.
Of the first head I might dispose vey briefly. I

CONCLUSION.

371

have enumerated some of the great services which
science has rendered, and is rendering, to religion.
Of the damage it has inflicted I have heard much ;
but the allegations commonly appear to me upon
examination to be found untrue : in some cases,
like that of the first chapter of Genesis, to be not
only untrue but the logical contradictory of the
truth, inasmuch as science, when just principles of
interpretation are called in, is found to have estab
lished what it has been charged with destroying.
The nearest semblance, that has attracted my
notice, to palpable contradiction between modern
science and Holy Writ is upon the statement that
sin brought death into the world, whereas we now
know that death was antecedent to the introduction
of man, and therefore of sin. But in Scripture, be
yond all dispute, the word " death " has many senses.
For example, it means habitually, severance of
spirit from body. It means separation from God,
and domination of body over spirit (Luke 1 : 79 ;
John 8:51; Eph. 2:1). It means reunion with
God, and domination of spirit over body (Col. 2 :

372 CONCLUSION.
20 ; 3 : 3 ; 2 Tim. 2 : ii). As it means the soul's
disease, severance from God, so also it means the
final consummation of that disease in the second '
death. These are various senses of the term,
covering a very wide range, and dispersed about
the Bible. How do we know that St. Paul used
the words in the first of these and not in the sec
ond ? And if he had used it in the first sense, and
had intended to declare that there was no physical
death before the sin of Adam, how much, would
this prove ? Only that the apostle was ignorant
of any pre-Adamite history of the planet, and that
we should have to ask whether such ignorance,
when proved, would destroy or impair the over
flowing proofs that he was commissioned of God
to speak, and was taught of God how to speak, for
the salvation of the world ?
It remains, however, a vital portion of our duty,
on the one hand, to estimate and to measure aright
the differences between the divine revelation in it
self, and the subjective conceptions, whether affirm
ative or negative, which may be entertained and

CONCLUSION.

373

propagated concerning it ; and, on the other hand,
to inquire pretty strictly whether the professors of
science are sometimes apt to push their legitimate
authority beyond their own bounds into provinces
where it becomes a usurpation, and whether the
weapons which they hurl, are then always " weapons
of precision."
On the first of these two points, I will give an
illustration of my meaning from the latest writings
of the Achilles of the opposing army. In a very
recent article, which deals chiefly with the Deluge,1
Mr. Huxley, in a succinct but decided way, admin
isters capital punishment also to the Creation Story
of Genesis. He does not enter much into partic
ulars, but he says the Israelites were like all other
men, curious to know their origin. Now, so far as
the records of the past go, the cosmological curi
osity of the ancients appears to have been compara
tively small. The cosmologies of Babylon and
Egypt hold an utterly insignificant place in their
systems of knowledge. The Greeks, perhaps the
'Nineteenth Century, July, 1890, p. 21.

374

CONCLUSION.

most inquisitive of men, cared little or nothing for
these things, through many centuries after they had
felt the passion of high poety and of the legends
associated with it ; and when their schools of phi
losophy arose, they dealt, and this only in outline,
with the origin of material things, rather than of
men. There was no nation, I believe, except the
Israelites, whose cosmology held a classical place
in their memory and in their devotions. But I am
perhaps wrong in arguing the question. What I
ought rather to point out is that while Professor
Huxley is fond, as he well may be, of claiming to
represent science, his dictum is entirely outside the
sciences he represents.
Again, in the same short space he proceeds to
lay it down that an opinion given by Dr. Riehm on
the subject of the seven Mosaic days (i.e., that they
are natural days) should be final. We claim, how
ever, to be, if not Freethinkers, yet free thinkers.
Why are we to renounce the faculty of discourse,
to square our minds to those of Dr. Riehm, to let
him do the thinking for us, and to accept his words

CONCLUSION. 375
as "final"? Simply because Mr. Huxley has said
so. What right has Professor Huxley to close this
question ? For the question whether the Creation
Story of Genesis describes solar days or not is no
more a scientific question, than whether Parliament
should or should not meet in November, or whether
Shakespeare wrote or did not write the whole of
" Heny VIII." The assertion by a great scientist
that no one is entitled, now that " Dr. Riehm " has
spoken, further to discuss the question of the Mosaic
days, in the first place carries the claims of author
ity beyond the bounds of reason ; and, in the second
place, carries paradox almost to a point at which
it assumes a comic aspect.
But I have now to ask whether the weapons used
by this most distinguished scientist are always
" weapons of precision " ? On scientific grounds
he condemns, as we have seen, the narrative of the
Deluge, and pronounces it to be fabulous. One of
his reasons is this. The Mosaic account assigns a
period of one hundred and fifty days (the tablets
give only seven) for the subsidence of the waters.

376 CONCLUSION.
Against this statement Mr. Huxley advances a
dictum, of which the subject-matter is unquestion
ably scientific. He gives the length of the Meso-
potamian plain1 at three to four hundred miles,
and the elevation of the higher end at five to six
hundred feet. Had this plain been so covered with
water, says Mr. Huxley, a "furious torrent" would
have rushed downwards, and instead of a hundred
and fifty days the plain generally (this word no
doubt is meant to except particular hollows of
the ground) would have been left bare in a vey
few hours.
Let us try this question a little more nearly. If
the length of the plain be 350 miles, and the fall
525 feet, we have a descent of one foot and a half
per mile; and this descent, says the Professor,
would cause a furious torrent, such as would clear
the plain in a vey few hours. Let us assume
twenty miles an hour as the rate of the " furious
torrent;" on which assumption, the plain would be
bare in seventeen and a half hours. I take these
1 Nineteenth Century, July, 1890, p. 15.

CONCLUSION.

377

rates and figures so as to translate approximately
into definite quantities Mr. Huxley's more general
expressions. One foot and a half per mile represents a gradi
ent of tpsb. I have sought information on this
subject from an engineer, who is in charge of a
portion of one of our British rivers. I understand
from him that a fall of one in three thousand four
hundred and twenty would probably produce a
current of about two miles an hour. It may require
all Professor Huxley's resources to show that a
current of two miles an hour is a " furious torrent ; "
or that to represent as a furious torrent what is in
truth an extremely slow stream is to use a " weapon
of precision."
My informant, indeed, adds that each case has
modifying circumstances of its own, and must be
judged by itself; but he likewise tells me that if,
instead of trying the matter by an ordinary English
river, we remove the banks, and suppose the stream
indefinitely widened, the fall remaining the same,
the rate of the current would be not increased but

378 CONCLUSION.
slackened. Thus we seem to get farther and farther
from the " weapons of precision." And it seems
just possible that, after all, these weapons may,
like our monster guns, sometimes damage those
who handle them, or may fail to batter down so
soon as is expected the undoubtedly ancient walls
of the fortress of belief.1
The case, to which I have last referred, is one of
elementary hydraulics. The obligation to be pre
cise may be thought to rise with the elevation of
the subject. If we may not ask from the scientific
man that when he touches questions of the inner
most feelings of believers, and of the highest des
tinies of man, he should be reverent, yet surely we
are entitled to require of him that he should be
circumspect; that he should take reasonable care
to include in his survey of a case all elements
which are obviously essential to a right judgment
upon it.
1 It is not without a minor interest to remark that, on the data before
us, the time required for clearing the plain would be about 162 hours,
or nearly seven days, the actual time mentioned in the Babylonian
account.

CONCLUSION.

379

In another recent article,1 Mr. Huxley has
touched very lofty ground indeed. He selects as
a crucial instance for the trial of the Gospels, to
which we owe our knowledge of the character of
our Lord, the miracle which happened in the coun
try of the Gergesenes, or Gadarenes. It is nar
rated, with certain variations, by three Evangelists ;
the essential point being, that evil spirits, cast out
from the body of a demoniac, are permitted to
enter into a herd of swine, and that the animals so
possessed rush furiously into the sea. Mr. Huxley,
as a physiologist, disbelieves in demoniacal posses
sion; and that is the point that has commonly
attracted the chief share of attention in connection
with this miracle. Such a physiological judgment
it is not for me to discuss. But he also very prop
erly touches the question of the injuy inflicted by
the destruction of the swine, which was due to our
Lord's permission. Mr. Huxley observes that the
Evangelist has no " inkling of the legal and moral
difficulties of the case," and adds, the devils entered
1 Nineteenth Century, February, 1889, pp. 171, 172.

380 CONCLUSION.
into the swine " to the great loss and damage of the
innocent Gerasene or Gadarene pig-owners." Fur
ther, " everything that I know of law and justice con
vinces me that the wanton destruction of other peo
ple's property is a misdemeanor of evil example."
So then, after eighteen centuries of worship
offered to our Lord by the most cultivated, the
most developed, and the most progressive, portion
of the human race, it has been reserved to a scien
tific inquirer to discover that three of the four wri
ters, through whom his life has been recorded for
us, formally assign to him acts which make him no
better than a law-breaker and an evil-doer. If the
feelings of Christians have been wounded by this
assertion made, in order to establish a proposition
of enormous importance which has been concealed
for eighteen hundred years, it was right that they
should suffer, and they ought to thank Professor
Huxley as the great discoverer. But if there was
no law-breaking and no evil-doing in the case as it
stands recorded, what are we to say either of the
Professor's tenderness in dealing with the inmost

CONCLUSION.

381

hearts of his fellow-creatures, 'or, and more espe
cially, of the temper and weight of his "weapons
of precision"?
Simple as it has been from this point of view,
the case (Matt. 8 : 30; Mark 5:2; Luke 8 : 31) is to
a reflective mind a vey peculiar one. It offers
the only occasion on which our Lord exercised,
or co-operated in the exercise of, preternatural
power for the destruction of life.
It is observable that in certain instances, such as
that of the fig-tree, and of the ass with her colt, he
seems to assert himself as the universal owner. He
is the Lord to kill, as well as to make alive, accord
ing to his wisdom. But this consideration, to what
ever conclusion it might lead, is of what may be
termed an esoteric nature, and is hardly suited to
an argument against the negative school, who are
plainly entitled to raise the question of the swine
as it affects the rights of property. Why, then,
does our Lord in this instance see cause to vary
from the philanthropic and beneficent tendencies,
which usually mark his miraculous agency ? It

382

CONCLUSION.

has been observed that the entrance into the
swine may have been permitted, in order to cer
tify the relieved man, or men, of the reality of the
great and hardly credible deliverance vouchsafed in
their persons to human suffering. And again, that
the willing departure of the demons may have spared
the victim or victims from the tortures, which it
is natural to suppose would have attended their
violent ejection. Yet something more seems to
be desirable in order to meet the question that
has just been raised. I find the answer to it in
the reasonable, and (as it seems to me) almost
necessary supposition, that the possession of the
swine was unlawful, and, therefore, was justly pun
ishable by the ensuing loss.
The scene is described by different Evangelists
in different terms. It is the country of the Ger-
gesenes, or the country of the Gadarenes. The
distinction is immaterial to the present purpose.
It was apparently part of the land of the Girga-
shites (Deut 7:1), one of the seven Canaanitish
nations, and was subject, therefore, as a matter of

CONCLUSION.

3§3

religious obligation, to the Mosaic law. Now that
law contained a prohibition to use various meats,
among which pork was included. But in the case
of swine the law went farther than in other cases,
and it was forbidden even to touch the carcass
(Lev. 11:7, 8). Such a prohibition of course pre
cluded all use whatever of the animals when dead;
and it was only for use when dead that there could
be any object in keeping them at all. Nor was
this prohibition merely ceremonial. It was im
mediately related to the health of the people, as
the use of pork (I am informed) is apt to produce,
especially in hot climates, the disease called trichi
nosis, and I understand that the veto is down to
this day regarded by well-informed Jews as of
a more than ceremonial importance; while it is
directly connected with a high sanitay condition.
It may be that the deeper counsels of Providence
are more implicated in this prohibition, than even
a less superficial reader of the Gospels than Pro
fessor Huxley might at first sight suppose. That
calling of the Hebrew people, which is set before

384 CONCLUSION.
us in the Old Testament, demanded in them above
and beyond all other qualities the quality of per
sistence. It may be that this purpose required the
constitution of the race in body as well as in many
points of character to be raised to a point unusually
high. We know that man is a compound being,
and we know that the Mosaic code took cognizance
of bodily health to an extent quite unknown in
other schemes of legislation. In. the Book of
Exodus (1 : 19), reference was made to the superior
formation of the Hebrew women for the great
office of a mother, and I am informed that the
modern researches of anatomists, supporting the
text, refer the fact to a physical cause. I have
learned enough from some high medical authorities
to be warranted in saying that the sanitary qualities
of the Jewish race, even in our own time, and their
superior longevity, appear in no small manner to
be due to the strict observance of the Mosaic law.
These remarks may be justifiable in connec
tion with what I have said of the description of
authority, which they attach to a particular pro-

CONCLUSION.

385

hibition. Yet, for the immediate purpose of the
argument, it may suffice to have pointed out the
illegality of keeping swine.
Mr. Huxley, exercising his rapid judgment on
the text, does not appear to have encumbered
himself with the labor of inquiring what anybody
else had known or said about it. He has thus
missed a point which might have been set up in
support of his accusation against our Lord. Some
commentators have alleged the authority of Jose
phus for stating that Gadara was a city of Greeks
rather than of Jews, from whence it might be
inferred that to keep swine was innocent and
lawful. This is not quite the place for a critical
examination of the matter; but I have examined
it, and have satisfied myself that Josephus gives no
reason whatever to suppose that the population of
Gadara, still less (if less may be) the population of
the neighborhood, and least of all the swine-herding
or lower1 portion of that population, were other
1 It is clear that such people could not be the owners of 2000 swine.
But (1) this'is stated in St. Mark only; (2) it is stated in a parenthesis,
25

3 86 CONCLUSION.
than Hebrews, bound by the Mosaic law. Now,
this being the case, the punishment inflicted upon
the owners of the swine by the permission of our
Lord did not constitute a breach, but rather a
vindication of the law; as a law would be vindi
cated if casks of smuggled spirits were caught and
broken open after landing, and their contents
wasted on the ground.1
Surely if these were only possibilities, instead of
being, as they are, rather cogent likelihoods, they
should have been examined and weighed before
pronouncing sentence on a threefold record which
is, in the eyes of Christendom, a vey sacred record.
Its authors could not but know how peculiar was
this portion of their narrative, in which they ascribe
to the Lamb of God an undoubted deviation from
whereas it would naturally appear in the direct narrative ; (3) so large
a numeral suggests the error of a copyist or very possibly a marginal
gloss, which afterwards crept into the text.
1 For the further elucidation of this important case, I have added a
note at the end. [Now altered and enlarged, in consequence of a
defense of his position attempted by Professor Huxley in the Nine
teenth Century for December, 1890.]

CONCLUSION.

387

His usually beneficent and gentle methods. And,
again, such hand-over-head reasoning is hard to
reconcile either with the judicial temper, or with
the claim, nay the exclusive claim, to the honor of
using " weapons of precision."
There is yet another point of great importance, in
regard to which I desire to challenge the methods
pursued by some critics of the Holy Scriptures ;
and I cannot do better than again proceed on the
recent article of Professor Huxley. He finds, on
the one hand, a vast mass of diversified tradition,
which agrees in reporting a Flood. He finds that,
as we draw near to that central seat of civilization
in Chaldaea, from which Abraham probably carried
the Hebrew narrative, it unfolds itself largely into
detail, and that the tradition, which thus travelled
westwards, is supported in many vey remarkable
particulars by the histoy which has been recorded
in the tablets. Detecting, however, in the Mosaic
stoy, various statements, which he deems to be irre
concilable with natural laws, he protests, not against
those particular statements, but against the entire

3 88 CONCLUSION.
relation; and he casts aside without more ado, not
only the whole tale as it is given in Genesis, but
the large mass of collateral testimony, from evey
quarter of the globe, which supports it. Is this a
scientific, is it a philosophical, is it altogether a
rational method of proceeding?
Errors, and even great errors, may creep into a
true narration. This is a case where the tale had,
according to all appearances, been carried onward
orally for ages, perhaps for very many ages, before
the race that have transmitted it to us had the
means of giving it a written form. Was it not
likely that some, perhaps even that much, variation
of particulars would creep in ? Could they be shut
out except by miracle, and has the Christian
Church ever taught us to believe in such a miracle?
Is it not the fact that, as between the Chaldee and
the Hebrew reports, the essence of the story re
mains in absolute integrity? A divine warning, a
woful prevalence of sin, a terrible inundation or
deluge as a punishment, the rescue of a small and
righteous remnant; not only do these things remain,

CONCLUSION. 389
but traditions supporting them in several or in all
points have descended to us independently through
a hundred channels; and we are now asked to
believe that, in each of these, imagination, and
imagination only, has been at work, and that in
each of them it has worked with an essentially
(though not circumstantially) identical result? May
not this be to substitute for a great physical a
greater moral miracle, and are we not even in some
danger of exchanging the unaccountable for the
absurd ?
My conclusion, then, upon this part of the sub
ject, be it worth much or little, is threefold. I am
grateful to science, both physical and historical, for
the noble services it has rendered to belief by the
establishment of truths, or by the rational accept
ance of propositions, in its own domain. I feel that
science is not responsible for any errors of scientists,
either in the misconstruction of the Bible, or in
offenses which their share of human frailty may
have led them occasionally to commit against the
known laws of rational discussion. And, lastly,

39°

CONCLUSION.

I am grateful both to science and to scientists for
having assisted, or for having compelled, those who
believe, to correct errors which, in the wantonness
of power, they may carelessly, or even insolently,
have cherished, and to submit all their claims to
free and critical investigation.
The retreat from an untenable to a tenable posi
tion is in itself an unmixed good. We feel that
we have redressed a wrong which had been done
to truth; and we breathe the more freely for the
act Still there is a retribution in store for error ;
and, given all the conditions of human feeling,
thought, and action, this recession is an operation
of invariable danger, and, for the time at least, of
mixed result. Happy they who accurately know,
and who exactly realize to themselves, in the prac
tical part of their being, what it is that they ought
to abandon and what to retain, nor only to retain,
but to uphold with a determination enhanced in
proportion to the difficulties of the day. But in
the minds of many, perhaps of the greater part, the
dominant sense, at least for a time, will be that

CONCLUSION. 39I
they have passed from a ground old and familiar
to one new and strange; that they have parted
with something, they do not quite know how
much ; that if they have been wrong once, they
may, perhaps, be wrong again. And then it is so
much easier to believe in a volume, which the hand
could grasp, than to hold fast the mental con
ception of a revelation conveyed in that volume.
True, such a conception of God in the Bible, which
may be, but ought not to have been, a new one, is
strictly and solidly analogous to the familiar, and
equally indispensable, conceptions of God in Nature,
God in Providence, God in the Christian Church.
But these we had from our cradles ; they were thor
oughly congenial through use. To apply the same
rule to the Bible is really to integrate, rather than
to disintegrate, Idle idea of our knowledge of God.
But there is something like the discomfort of a new
habiliment to be got over ; and there are the ready,
sometimes perhaps the too ready, taunts of the
adversary to be endured.
I will not dwell at large upon other difficulties

392

CONCLUSION.

springing from the errors or the incaution of be
lievers ; but they are grave in their nature. When
ever, under the idea of magnifying the grace or
favor of God, we derogate from his immutable
righteousness and justice; and whenever, in exalt
ing the unspeakable mercy of his pardon, we un
hinge its inseparable alliance with a profound and
penetrating moral work in the creature pardoned :
then we draw down dangers upon the Christian
system greater far than can ever be entailed upon
it by its enemies. But there may be worse still
than this. Worse there will be, if the believer in
Christ holds the doctrine without giving effect to it
in his life; and worst of all, if while he holds it he
not only is betrayed into the ordinary weaknesses
or excesses of human nature, but forgets also, and
derides or disregards, those primal sanctions of
natural morality, which even habitual vice is not
always hardened enough to discard. The constitu
tion of the family, the ties between its members,
the nature of the woman and of the man, and the
relation of each one of them to himself, to that

CONCLUSION.

393

self, which is entrusted by God to every one of
us to study and to revere, as well as to cleanse, to
cherish, and to sanctify ; all these are regulated by
laws the oldest, holiest, and most profound of all.
Progress may be traced and tested by the regard
it pays to these sacrosanct, though unwritten, ordi
nances. According as such regard is paid or is
withheld, we shall know whether such progress be
a reality or an imposture ; and Christianity itself
would lose all its titles were it capable of an at
tempt to disturb divine laws older than itself and
forming the bed in which its foundation-stone
was laid.
In the classes of difficulties thus roughly sug
gested there has subsisted, as I believe, not, indeed,
a legitimate, but a powerfully operative, cause for
the increase of scepticism.
But the gravest portion of the case remains.
Negation is in part, and it professes and believes
itself to be altogether, an affair of the intellect. It
proclaims, for example, that the reason why un
belief has (at the moment) so much advanced, is

394 CONCLUSION.
that dogmas like those of the Trinity, the Incar
nation, the Sacraments, and the future Judgment,
have become insufferable to the cultivated human
understanding. The conviction which possesses
my mind, and which I may find it difficult to ex
press in an unexceptionable manner, is that the
main operative cause which has stimulated the
growth of modern negation is not intellectual but
moral ; and is to be found in the increased and
increasing dominion of the things seen over the
things unseen.1
Such a proposition may at first sight appear to
carry an odious meaning, pharisaical in the worst
sense of the word ; a meaning which would pro
voke, and might justify, an angry reply. It might
be interpreted as implying that the elevation of
moral character in individuals varied with and
1 In a work of great ability just issued, and termed " Scientific
Theology," Mr. Barber, a civil engineer, treats (Chap. III., p. 41) the
question, "Why does not religion reach the masses?" His conclu
sion is stated thus : " The weak point is clearly the loss of spiritual
motive, and increased strength of natural motives as springs of action
and thought." Who will answer Mr. Barber?

CONCLUSION.

395

according to the amount of their dogmatic belief;
a proposition which in my view is untrue, offensive,
and even absurd. Had I ever been inclined to such
a conception, the experience, sometimes the very
sad experience, of my life, would long ago have
undeceived me. My meaning is a very different
one. I speak of that which touches not this or that
man only, but us all. We have altered the standard
of wants ; we have multiplied the demands of
appetite ; we have established a new state of social
tradition, of that tradition which forms and guides
us, apart from and antecedently to thought or
choice of our own. We have created a new atmos
phere, which we breathe into ourselves, and by
breathing which our composition is modified un
awares, according to the ingredients which that
atmosphere contains. I do not say that we are the
creatures of what surrounds us, for we have power
to reflect upon and to control it Yet, reflection
and control are exercised but little, in comparison
with the need for them ; and, in the absence of
such exercise, and of such exercise in a high degree,

396 CONCLUSION.
it is the surrounding atmosphere, it is the ordinary
standard, accepted, and to a great extent necessa
rily accepted, without examination, that both sup
plies the stock wherewith we individually begin the
great adventure of the world, and that guides our
life. I except the rare cases, where depravity on
one side, or Christian heroism on the other, causes
us to rise or fall to a separate standard for our
selves. Where both control and reflection range
only within the zone marked out by fashionable
opinion, it is sadly easy to point out men of high
virtue with little creed, and men of low virtue with
much creed, in the discipline and conduct of their
personal lives respectively. And, in the region of
opinion, it often seems as if liberty and justice
among men fared quite as well with the heterodox,
as with the orthodox.
A large part of these grave and even terrible
anomalies is no doubt due to the fact, that to each
of us personally our creed has come, not with the
throes of struggle, sacrifice, and strong conviction,
but rather, like most of what we hold — an easy

CONCLUSION.

397

tenure ! — by descent, through others, not from our
selves; as matter of course, not of choice and
effort ; so that it sits upon us like an outward badge,
rather than pervades us as a principle and a power.
But, on the other hand, how true it will be found
that the sovereign tradition, which has filled the air,
is the Christian tradition. This it is, which has
made possible what without it would have been
wholly beyond reach. This it is, which carries
noiselessly into many minds and characters those
opinions on behalf of virtue, of self-denial, and of
philanthropy, together with the power of acting
upon them, which are often found so honorably to
distinguish creedless men. Just as many, who do
not reject Christianity, know not why or how they
came to hold it, so many, who have abjured Chris
tianity, know not that, in the best of their thought,
their nature, and their practice, they are appropri
ating its fruits. What is the modern word altruism ?
As to its meaning, it is simply the second great
commandment of the Christian law, which was
" like unto the first." As to its form, it is merely

398 CONCLUSION.
a disguise which has been put upon a borrowed
idea, so that it often fails to be traced to its true
original. And this not by a conscious, but, if the
phrase may be pardoned, by an unconscious fraud.
We find ourselves in possession of the code of
Christian ethics, which has gradually pervaded life,
institutions, manners ; and which has become so
blended with our ordinay life that the memoy of
its divine origin has faded away, as though it were
like the title-deed of some inheritance which we
hold by unquestioned use. If we wish to know
what the Christian tradition has done for us, we
must examine the moral standard of nations who
have differed from us mainly in not possessing it.
For example, we must look to the Greeks of the
fifth centuy before Christ, or the Romans at and
after the period of the Advent, whose moral degra
dation was not less conspicuous than the intellectual
splendor of the one, or the constructive political
genius of the other.
My twofold proposition is that we have before us
an increased power of things seen, and that this

CONCLUSION. 399
increased power implies, as matters now seem to
stand, a diminishing hold upon us of things unseen.
The question is no new one. Throughout the his
toy of mankind, the invisible, and the future which
is part of the invisible, have been in standing com
petition with what may be termed the things of this
world. " Two magnets, heaven and earth, allure to bliss ;
The larger loadstone that, the nearer this ;
The weak attraction of the greater fails,
We nod awhile, but neighborhood prevails."1
There has never been a time in human histoy to
compare with the last half- century in two vital
respects : the multiplication of wealth, and the mul
tiplication of the enjoyments which wealth pro
cures: two things separate, yet concurrent, and
morally allied. To take a familiar example : men
(and the commodities they depend on) now travel
at (say) one-fourth of the former cost, just when
they have also an enlargement of their means to
bear the charge of travelling.
1 Dryden, " Hind and Panther," Part III.

400 CONCLUSION.
It is indeed true that the greater part of the human
beings who constitute the community have not yet
attained to a competent and secure satisfaction of
the primary wants of life. But, in ascending from
the lower to the higher conditions, we soon reach
a level where comforts and enjoyments enter seri
ously into expenditure ; and at length we attain a
social plane, first where they compete with actual
needs in the amount of attention given them, then
where they predominate, and at last where they
come to form the only serious object of habitual
care. This is the region described in the Gospel
as that of "the rich man." His relative condition
varies with the circumstances of different periods.
In the days of the patriarchs, the living of the rich
man differed in but few and simple particulars from
that of his dependants. But as life and the works
of man developed, and moreover as individual
rights have obtained fuller acknowledgment, the
space, which separates classes in respect to wants
and enjoyments, has been greatly widened. Sense,
appetite, and taste, are solicited in a thousand forms

CONCLUSION.

401

previously unknown. We must not conceal it from
ourselves that evey such solicitation, though it be
so frequent as to be almost continuous, is a new
aggression of the things seen upon the province of
the things unseen, and an alteration in the balance
as it had previously been cast between them.
This deep-rooted and far-reaching change, of
which as yet we perhaps see only the beginning,
has gone, to an immense extent, towards the cure
of actual want, and towards extending the sphere
of that sufficiency, that modest and humble com
fort, which do not at all come within the scope of
the present argument. But it has also extended
largely to the spheres of leisure and of compara
tive affluence; and in those spheres it is generally
true that the apparatus of enjoyment has been im
mensely developed in small things and great, and
that wants and appetites have grown along with it.
It seems to me undeniable, if "the world was too
much with us" when Wordsworth wrote his noble
sonnet, it is more, much more, with us, and with a
far larger number of us, now than it was even in
26

402

CONCLUSION.

the early years of our own centuy. Obviously,
almost mathematically, the increased powers of
worldly attraction disturb the balance of our con
dition, unless and until they are countervailed by
increased powers of unworldly attraction and eleva
tion. Whence are such compensating powers to
be had? I am afraid we can hardly say that, in the
spheres now under view, there has been such a
growth in unworldly motives and ideas, as to coun
tervail the augmented strength of worldly attach
ment. And I apprehend that, if the unseen world
and the ideas belonging to it operate upon us with
a proportionately diminished force, it follows, almost
as a matter of course, that creeds, which belong to
that circle of unseen associations, will, so far, be
more dimly and therefore more feebly appreciated.
Materialism as a formulated system is probably not
upon the increase. Those who think, as I am com
pelled to think, about the intellectual calibre and
capabilities of such a system, will hardly include
such a growth among the objects of their appre
hension. But the power of a silent, unavowed,

CONCL USION. 403
unconscious materialism, not philosophical but
wholly practical, is a very different matter. I think
Professor Max Muller has said that without lan
guage there cannot be thought. And this I sup
pose is true of all organized and conscious thought.
But there are in human nature a multitude of unde
veloped (so to speak) embryonic forces, of impres
sions received from without, and finding a con
genial soil within, which never ripen to maturity,
or make their way into articulate speech, or obtain
a defined place in our consciousness; and yet these
germs of thought may ripen, though not into propo
sitions, yet into acts. Nay, they may have much,
or even may have all, to do in the formation of our
characters, and the government of our lives.
My belief is that at this moment these unspoken
and untested movements, not so much of mind, as
of appetite, or, to use a milder word, of propensity,
pressing upon mind, these not thoughts, but rudi
ments of thoughts, are at work among us, and
within us ; and that, were they translated or ex
panded into words, their sense would be no more

404 CONCLUSION.
and no less than the old vulgar sense of those, who
in every age have held that after all this world is
the only world we securely know ; and that the
only labor that is worth laboring, the only care
worth caring, the only joy worth enjoying, are the
labor, the care, and joy that begin and end with it
What can be more natural (in the lower sense of
nature) than that, among those on whom this world
really smiles, together with the increasing gravita
tion towards a terrestrial centre, too often a creep
ing palsy should silently come over the inward life ?
And how easy it is to understand that, when such
a palsy has set in, a new and less ungenial color is
imparted to whatever undermines the written Word,
or the great Christian tradition, or in whatever other
way repels, or blinds and deadens, the sense of the
presence of God, and silences the reproaches of
the voice within. So that it is not either real or
pretended science, nor is it even the errors and
excesses of believers, illegitimately charged upon
belief, that form the root of the mischief. It is the
increased force within us of all which is sensuous

CONCLUSION.

405

and worldly that furnishes evey sceptical argu
ment, good, bad, or indifferent, with an unseen ally,
and that recruits many and many a disciple of the
negative teaching. He indeed dreams that by the
free admission of doubt he is paying homage to
truth, when in reality he is only pampering the'
inferior life ; for he allows fresh coadjutors, with
unexamined credentials, to enter and to reinforce
its already overweening power. Ideas in them
selves weak are backed by propension, which is
ever strong. A latent conspiracy is established,
and two knights ride forth together to the war, to
the modern crusade which is against the Cross, one
of them fairly exhibiting his countenance, but the
other with his visor down.
And the chain of cause and consequence is
something like this. The Christian creed generates
a Christian tradition of idea and conduct. Of this
tradition men do not disown the precepts ; they
only deny the parentage. And then there appears
some great thinker, some really venerable man,
who has learned to cherish piety, while he discards

406 CONCLUSION.
dogma. The next order of operators in the field
carry the work a stage further, and cherish moral
ity, while they discard piety. And the anti-moral,
anti-spiritual force, that is strong even if it be hid
den in us all, using what is substantive in the work
as a cover for what is destructive, looks on with
complacency, and swells the chorus of applause.
The sceptical argument is in reality little more
than a graft, set into, and deriving its life and
energy mainly from, a tree stronger and more en
during than itself.
In thus stating my conviction, that it is the
mighty world power within us and around us,
which at the present time gives to scepticism the
chief part of its breadth and its impetus, it will be
seen that my remarks have little of special appli
cation to the officers (so to speak) of the thinking
army ; to those who really, and it may be labori
ously, think out subjects admitted to be arduous
for themselves. They apply more to the soldiers,
and most to the camp-followers. These largely
outnumber both, and their voices are not less good

CONCLUSION.

407

than others to swell an acclamation, as Falstaff s
recruits were not less good than other men to fill a
pit. The opinions of a man are due partly to him
self, partly to his environment. In the thinking
man they are due mainly to himself, though even
he may be affected by latent influences never con
sciously present to his thoughts. But they are
mainly, sometimes wholly, due to environment in
those who do not industriously think ; and environ
ment, I need hardly say, includes the idols and the
fancies, the shadows and the phantoms, of the pass
ing day.
I must, however, in drawing these observations
to a close, for a moment change my tone. In
their nature apologetic, they themselves require an
apology; and an apology, too, which is also in the
nature of a protest They are intended to meet, so
far as they go, a state of things peculiar and per
haps without example, in which multitudes of men
call into question the foundations of our religion
and the prerogatives of our sacred books, without
any reference to either their capacity or their op-

408 CONCLUSION.
portunities for so grave an undertaking. In other
matters, qualification must be known or shown ; in
religion, it is taken for granted, sometimes with
the utmost levity.
We have to bring equally into view, on the one
side and on the other, two great propositions. On
the one hand, the Christian religion stands on the
foundation of free and intelligent assent. On the
other hand evey man, whatever be his position,
founds, and reasonably, nay, necessarily founds, the
actions and experiences of his life principally upon
trust. Upon trust, no doubt, which is both intelli
gent and free, but still upon trust. Upon trust,
sometimes in particular individuals, sometimes
upon traditions which are, in a narrower or wider
sphere, the traditions of his race. Evey one act
ing a special part in the world, be it great or small,
and be it acted with or without consciousness of its
character, is continually working for others as well
as for himself; for others, either to their good or
to their hurt. He is establishing and verifying on
behalf of others, and in lieu of others, intellectual

CONCLUSION.

409

conclusions or material facts, which are needful for
human life, but which the conditions of human life
do not permit men in each case to establish and
verify for themselves. To establish and verify for
ourselves is undoubtedly best. Independent knowl
edge is to be preferred where, and as, it can be had.
But the limiting law is found in capacity and in
opportunity. Where we have not these, and it is
often so, let us eschew the profession, that is, the
pretense, of them : let us refuse to seek refuge in
the falsehood of an affected or supposed examina
tion. But it seems to be beyond doubt that, more per
haps in these days than of old, numbers both of
women and of men question the religion delivered
to them from of old without, or in excess of, both
capacity and opportunity. The turn and training
of the mind, the nature of callings and pursuits,
make it for some of us reasonable and necessay to
put the great historic revelation on its trial as to its
evidences of fact and doctrine, and its relation to the
character and condition of man. This searching

410 CONCLUSION.
process is in itself thoroughly normal ; and its ap
plication to the subject-matter, and the commonly
affirmative results of such application, through so
many ages and in minds so many and so great,
have continually added force to the authority with
which the gospel lays claim to our assent and our
obedience. As to the mass of mankind, however, reason
teaches that the presumption is for each man in
favor of that which he has received, until he has
found solid cause to question it. This is the rule
taught by common sense, and established in com
mon life. It is doubt, and not belief, of the things
received, which ought in all cases to be put upon
its defense, and to show its credentials : credentials,
not necessarily in terms of demonstration, but of
rational likelihood. But untested doubt, which
often makes a lodgment in our minds, is a tenant
without a title, a dangerous and in the main an
unlawful guest. It assumes unawares, and in
default of examination, the attitude of demonstrated
negation. It paralyses action; it casts into the

CONCLUSION.

411

shade the sense of duty, and of the divine presence
encompassing us in all our ways; and it reduces
the pulse of our moral health. Doubt may eman
cipate us. Or it may enslave us. But it must be
either a friend or an enemy : it cannot be a neutral.
And those doubts, which cannot be tested, ought
not to be entertained as having a title to affect
conduct or belief. And such inquiries as, from
being inadequate, are illusoy, are but fresh forms
of temptation from the path of duty. Inquiy
should be undertaken as a solemn duty, when it
can be made the subject of effective prosecution.
But if we have not the means of effective prosecu
tion, the so-called inquiy is a pretense and an
imposture, a falsehood and a forgey. Under its
name, we become the mere victims of assumptions
due to prejudice, to fashion, to propensity, to appe
tite, to the insidious pressure of the world-power,
to temptation in evey one of its Protean shapes.
The universal vocation of man is for each to
regulate his own proper conduct in his own proper
sphere. A noble task for all. but even this an

412

CONCLUSION.

arduous task; a task so arduous, that none can
perform it in perfection. Duty does not require
us to arrive at conclusions on
"Fixed fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute,"
much less on the yet deeper and darker specula
tions which lie beyond, and which, so far as they
are formidable, all run up into one single, one per
haps impenetrable problem, the presence and action
of evil in the world. The Christian faith and the
Holy Scriptures arm us with the means of neu
tralizing and repelling the assaults of evil in and
from ourselves. That is a practical answer. Mist
may rest upon the surrounding landscape, but our
own path is visible from hour to hour, from day
to day. "I do not ask to see
The distant scene; one step enough for me."
Speculation, which is purposeless, becomes irrev
erent;, and irreverent speculation on the doings
and designs of God, by those who believe in him,
is itself a sin. To leave the duty of governing
conduct, to which every one of us is called, for

CONCLUSION. 413
other functions to which we are not called, unless
the power of following them up reasonably guar
antees our vocation for the work, is morally to
pass from food to famine. It is as if one who
possesses a piece or two of crockey full of cracks,
should announce that he desires to give a sumptu
ous banquet to the neighborhood.
But besides acknowledging that the proper
preconditions of legitimate inquiy are adequate
capacity and adequate opportunity: and besides
deploring the course of those who treat naked and
unreasoned doubt as casting a burden of proof upon
belief, we must bear in mind that religious inquiry,
though it may raise conflicting issues, is not like a
suit between parties who meet upon equal terms, or
the conflict of emperors warring for a territoy in
dispute. Our Saviour astonished the people be
cause, instead of being lost in the mazes of arbitray
and vicious excrescences that darkened the face of
religion, he taught them " with authority, and not
as the scribes." Taught them with authority ; that
is to say, with the title to command, and with the

4 1 4 CONCL US I ON.
force of command. If God has given us a revela
tion of his will, whether in the laws of our nature,
or in a kingdom of grace, that revelation not only
illuminates, but binds. Like the credentials of an
earthly ambassador, it is just and necessary that the
credentials of that revelation should be tested. But
if it be found genuine, if we have proofs of its being
genuine equal to those of which, in the ordinay
concerns of life, reason acknowledges the obligatoy
character, then we find ourselves to be not inde
pendent beings engaged in an optional inquiy, but
the servants of a Master, the pupils of a Teacher,
the children of a Father, and each of us already
bound with the bonds which those relations imply.
Then head and knee must bow before the Eternal,
and the divine will must be embraced and followed
by man. with all his heart, with all his mind, with
all his soul, and with all his strength.
I have yet one more closing word. I have desired
to make this humble offering at the shrine of Chris
tian belief in general, and have sought wholly to
avoid the questions which concern this or that par-

CONCLUSION. 415
ticular form of it. For there is a common cause,
which warrants and requires common efforts. Far
be from me the intention hereby to undervalue par
ticular beliefs. I have not intentionally said a word
to disparage any of them. It will in my view be
an evil day, and a day of calamity, when men are
tempted, even by the vision of a holy object, to
abate, in any region or in the smallest fraction, the
authority of conscience, or to forget that the
supreme title and the supreme efficacy of truth lie
in its integrity.

41 6 CONCLUSION.

Note A.
In the Jewish Chronicle of September 12, 1890,
I find a paragraph which appears to approve the
general argument of my article on " The Mosaic
Legislation," but impugns the statement that the
Massoretes were a body without a parallel in his
tory, and that the Hebrews were alone in building
up a regularly scientific method of handling the
material forms of their sacred oracles. I have not
the slightest pretension to speak with authority
upon this subject, and I did no more than endeavor
to report faithfully what I gathered from trust
worthy sources. But I have no reason to believe
that my readers have been misled. As regards
the Hindus, I understand there is an opinion that
they counted verses, words, syllables, and letters;
but it does not appear that this statement is one
historically authenticated. Even if it were so, and
if we add that the Samaritans imitated the proceed
ings of their Jewish brethren, and that similar
enumeration was made by Syrians or others, yet
the answer remains, that such a computation is a
very small component part of the Massorah, and
can no more be called an equivalent to it than a

CONCLUSION. 4i7
human limb can be called a human body. To the
Massorah, so far as I can learn, there is nothing
elsewhere that approaches an equivalent. As re
spects the Greeks, they had no sacred writings at
all; and I am unaware of their having used, in any
case, any such method as is here in question.

27

4i 8 CONCLUSION. B.
Note on the Swine Miracle.
In the Nineteenth Centuy for December, 1890,
Professor Huxley supported by argument and cita
tion his assertion that the destruction of the swine
was an act of immorality : justly corrected me for
having said that he had charged this immorality
on our Lord, and pointed out that his censure was
on the narrative, not the person : and considered
that such a narrative destroyed the authority of
the Synoptic Gospels. This censure was founded
on the threefold supposition that the event took
place at Gadara ; that Gadara was as much a Gen
tile city as Ptolemais ; and that the herdsmen
were presumably Gentiles, yet were, if we accept
the narrative, lawlessly deprived of their property.
Some writers appear inclined to admit or pass
without question, the contentions of fact, but point
out that our Saviour was the organ of Omnipotence,
and when he deemed it fit, was entitled thus to de
stroy, or share in the destruction of property at the
expense of individuals, whether Jews or otherwise.
I pass by this answer without examination ; but I
observe that, if the case stands thus, the conduct

CONCLUSION.

419

of our Lord in this instance differed widely from
the general lines of his ministry and miracles. It
seems to me, then, richly worth our while to spend
any amount of pains in ascertaining whether there
is a basis of fact for the three assumptions.
Accordingly, with this persuasion, I made the
most careful search I could into the evidence, and
I found much matter in Josephus which had not
even been noticed by Mr. Huxley, or by Schurer,
a German author, undoubtedly of high reputation,
who wrote with ability on the History of Palestine,
but for whom the subject in question was no more
than a by-point Mr. Huxley appears to base his
final reply1 to me entirely on the assertion that
Schurer' s authority was of more weight than mine.
Certainly. But in this case the original authority
is Josephus, and the authority of Schurer cannot be
high on passages which he appears not to have
considered or perused.
I shall not reprint the lengthened examina
tion, but I present a summay of the main propo
sitions. 1. The testimony of Origen, though not con
temporary, is express and weighty, and it informs
us, with some verifying particulars, that the miracle
took place not at Gadara, but at Gergesa, on the
1 Nineteenth Century, March, 1891.

420 CONCLUSION.
Lake of Tiberias. But I have also shown that, if
it did happen at Gadara, that city was a great
centre of Hebraism; that the Mosaic law was the
civil law as well; that according to every likeli
hood the population round it, and especially those
of the rank to which swineherds would belong,
were of the Hebrew race.
2. Mr. Huxley argued that as the coinage of
Gadara was Gentile, the people were also Gentile.
But the coin in the hands of our Lord in Judaea
was Roman, while the people were Jews.
3. The re-annexation of Gadara to the Syrian
province by Pompey was popular, as it restored
Roman authority. So Mr. Huxley; but Josephus1
says it was popular because it restored local self-
government. The centralizing influence of Jerusa
lem competed with the local influence in the prov
inces of Palestine.
According to Josephus, the revolted Jews burned
some places in the district of Gadara,2 and reduced
others to submission. Jews, Mr. Huxley thinks,
would not have destroyed Jews. But this is just
what was done, and very frequently done, by one
Jewish faction to another. Even in Jerusalem
during the siege, says Milman, " when the insur
gents had time to breathe from the assaults of the
1 " Bell. Jud.," I. 7, 7. 'Ibid., II. 18, 5.

CONCLUSION.

421

Romans, they turned their swords against each
other."1 I now come to the positive evidence respecting
Gadara. 1. When Galinius became the administrator of
Judaea, he divided Palestine into five districts of
nearly equal size, each to have a Sanhedrim for the
application of the Mosaic law. This was a great
decentralizing measure, afterwards repealed. But
the point material to the argument is that Gadara
was the capital of one of these districts, and a
Sanhedrim sat there. Such is the twice-stated
assertion of Josephus.
It could not, then, be a town of Gentiles. True
it is called Hellenis polls, a Grecian city, and it
became such doubtless by its annexation to Syria;
as Metz was a French town till 1871, and is a Ger
man one now. In another place Josephus calls it
Syrian. 2. Gadara was a formidable seat of Jewish mili-
tay power. When Vespasian was about to march
upon Jerusalem, he went first to Gadara, the strong
metropolis of Peraia, for, says Josephus,2 it was
necessay for him to leave nothing behind him
which might prevent his prosecution of the siege.
On the approach of his army, the war party fled;
1 " Hist. Jews," II. 280-284. 2 " Bell. Jud.," IV. 7, 3.

422 CONCLUSION.
but in departing he both left a garrison, which was
needless in any friendly town, and levelled the
walls, evidently to prevent the war party, if it re
turned, from holding the city against the Romans.
Mr. Huxley has not perceived that it was often
times not race or religion, but the question of war
or peace, which determined opinion and action.
3. When Gadara was acquired by Alexander
Jannseus for Judsea, it was placed, as matter of
course, under the Mosaic law as the civil law of the
country. The statement of Josephus1 is indirect,
but conclusive. We find Gadara in the list of the
cities conquered by Jannaeus ; and it closes with
Pella. But Pella, he adds, they destroyed, because
the inhabitants would not submit to the Jewish
law. We have no evidence that the law thus estab
lished had been changed in our Saviour's time. It
appears from Josephus to have required the sanction
of Rome. Now we have an edict of Augustus,2
which confirms to the Jews of all Asia, and as far
as Cyrenais, the enjoyment of their own laws as
they had stood under Hyrcanus. At the period
of this remarkable edict, Gadara was part of Judaea.
4. Josephus is the classical authority on this
1 " Bell. Jud„" II. 5, 3; " Antiq.," XVII. 11, 4.
»"Antiq.," XVI. 6, 1,2.

CONCLUSION.

423

subject. The knowledge of Strabo was defective,
and his testimony is confused. Yet its effect is
materially to support the view here stated.1
5. Josephus also informs us that Vespasian in
commencing his campaign of a. d. 47, took Gadara
by assault, and slaughtered the inhabitants of mili-
tay age. He had two reasons, one of them being
hatred of their race. This direct and conclusive
statement is got rid of by altering the text from
Gadara to Gabara. I have given2 what seem to
me ample reasons against such an alteration.
6. To all this is to be added the testimony of the
four Evangelists, not merely with reference to the
miracle recorded by three of them, but with respect
to the localities of the ministry of our Lord. We
must take into view his limited popular action in
Judaea, his large connection with Galilee and espe
cially with Eastern Galilee, and the inclusion of
Decapolis, beyond Jordan, and the lake, within his
missionay journeys. The Synoptic Gospels in
particular presuppose for the whole region the pre
dominance of a Hebrew nationality. To this we
have to add the ancient law of the land. Neither
of these vital incidents of the case is shaken either
by an infusion of wealthy Greeks, who partook of
1 Article on Swine Miracle in Nineteenth Century for February,
1891, sect. v. 2 Ibid., sect. vi.

424 CONCLUSION.
the baths of Gadara, together with a few official
representatives of the Roman power; nor by the
supposition that there may have been in the popu
lation a strain of Syrian blood which in no way
implies at this date an estrangement from the He
brew law and worship.
I have thus summarily stated the case, without
dwelling on a cluster of improbabilities which of
themselves hopelessly envelop the notion enter
tained by Mr. Huxley. I refer to the pages of the
Nineteenth Century for a more full exposition of
the argument. In such a matter absolute demon
stration is neither to be had nor sought for, but we
have to follow in this as in other matters the rules
established by good sense, experience, and the
common consent of mankind. And I conceive it
has been shown that to suppose the swineherds to
have been punished by Christ for pursuing a call
ing which to them was an innocent one is to run
counter to evey law of reasonable historical inter
pretation.