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Jul. Popper, already mentioned above as a critic of the Tabernacle, regards the patriarchal history as a chain of Naturemyths wholly appertaining to the heathen period of the Hebrews; Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are neither separate historical persons nor reflections of old traditions, but simply nature-potencies, "the old stars which always shine in the heavens of the Asiatic world of faith" (Abraham Dyauspitar, father of the heavens or god of light; Isaac = Arisch Az-dahak, i.e. the dark god of clouds; Jacob Melkart or Hercules, i.e. the conquering god of the sun, etc.). Moses also, the first who proclaimed Monotheistic doctrine, together with the Judges and David, are mythical figures.1 Dr. Martin Schulze, author of a Handbook of Hebrew Mythology (1876), and Dr. Ignatius Goldziher, in his monograph entitled The Myth among the Hebrews and its Historical Development (1876), mythologise in a similarly wild fantastic manner, everywhere smelling out personifications of the sun, clouds, lightning, etc., and treating not merely the history of Samson, but also the whole history of the patriarchs, as myths of the sun. On the other hand, L. Seineke, in his History of the People of Israel (1876), regards the whole of Genesis as a fiction of a propheticopolitical tendency of the post-exilian period, Abraham's history particularly as a chronologically arranged compendium of Israel's history during, and subsequent to, the Babylonian exile in a prophetic transposition;" for example, the putting away of Hagar is only "a reflex of the putting away of strange wives in the time of Nehemiah," etc. Emulating these enfants terribles of the German school of critical tendency, there are kindred spirits in France and England engaged in the same occupation. M. Jules Soury's Études historiques sur les religions, les arts, les civilisations de l'Asie antérieure et de la Grèce (Paris, 1877), are in part a revival of the notorious Moloch-fancy of Daumer; Jehovah is the atmosphere deified, "the god of the atmosphere" of the Hebrews; perhaps there was deposited an aerolite, or some other old fetish, as his symbol in the ark of the covenant! According to the Origines du Christianisme of the Oriental scholar Ernest Havet (vol. iii., le Judaisme; Paris, 1878), the Pentateuch originated in the time of Ezra; the

1 Cf. Popper's Der Ursprung des Monotheismus, Berlin, 1880; also his earlier work, Der bibl. Bericht über die Stiftshütte, etc., Berlin, 1862.

prophetic books, the Book of Daniel, together with numerous psalms, originated in the age of the Herods. The Rev. Dr. Giles, Rector of Sutton, in Surrey, a short time ago published a work in two volumes on the Hebrew and Christian Records (London, 1877), wherein he endeavours to show that the whole Old Testament literature and history as they now exist are to be traced to Ezra and his times, and that the Old Testament religion as a whole, instead of being essentially Mosaism, is rather Ezraism, and that the New Testament writings for the most part were first composed about the middle of the second century of the Christian era, and the entire canon of the Bible received its present form in the Church at Antioch since the third century!

Many students of Scripture of a more judicious spirit scarcely need the spectacle of such wild outbursts as these, by which the modern Pentateuchal criticism is overwhelmed with the unwelcome condemnation of a reductio ad absurdum, in order to their being filled with thorough disgust of all that is called criticism of the Pentateuch, the distinguishing of Elohistic and Jehovistic records, etc. A reaction in favour of the supposition of a direct Mosaic origin, or of the Mosaic-Joshua age, of the entire Thora can scarcely fail to set in after such wild excesses as those we have just described. Attempts in this direction are here and there seen; thus, in an essay by Cave in the May number of the Princeton Review for last year, as also in the article cited by us above from the Innsbruck KatholischTheol. Quartalschrift, the author of which, the well-known Orientalist Bickell, declares with reference to the wanton variations and changes resorted to by the modern Pentateuchal critics :

"This most recent difference of opinion among the advocates of the criticisms which pretend to be wholly without prepossession appears to us to be a valuable indirect proof for the genuineness and unity of the Pentateuch. For such a variation in their designation of time as 600 years shows at once that the critical analysis generally cannot be so evident as they profess that it is. Moreover one is compelled, if he agrees with the theory of the purely natural development of the history of Israel, to regard the religio-historical arguments adduced by Wellhausen, etc., as valid. But since, on the other side, distinct allusions of pre-exilian prophets to the Pentateuch are found (Bickell here cites Hab. iii. 9, Thy bow was made quite naked,' as an undoubted reference to Gen. ix. 8-17), the document-hypothesis in every form is placed in a dilemma between two impossibilities."

We, on our part, regard it as unnecessary to go so far. Since the Pentateuch, as a whole, scarcely professes to be the work of Moses, and since there are many traces found in the text of the work of redaction pointing to the time of the kings, the document-hypothesis may in some form be justi fied. In no case is there need, supposing one were willing to stretch the conclusion of that work of editing even down to the exilian or the post-exilian times, to give up anything of the history or of the substance of his revelation by the Thora; the editing, arranging, completing, can have touched only old authentic material. There are a number of temperate critical voices which have made themselves heard in this sense in recent times, especially since the publication of Wellhausen's History of Israel. Certain German and other scholars, in consequence of the expositions of this work, may have passed from a sceptical position hitherto held by them to that of complete adherence to the Graf-Kuenen theory, as e.g. Kautzsch of Basel (now of Tübingen), Maurice Vernes of Paris, more or less also Reuss in Strasburg, to whom besides, as has already been shown above, a kind of intellectual paternity in reference to this theory belongs; the majority of competent Old Testament critics, however, are related to it only in the way of but very partially agreeing with it, or in a preponderating measure leaning to it. In this altogether reserved sense Delitzsch's Studies, frequently referred to, are written. Of a like character are the frequent utterances of the Strasburg theologian, Baudissin, who confesses that "it is to him the longer the more incomprehensible, how that great work (the Priest-Codex) can at all find a place in the exilian or post-exilian period even though one admit in any case that its most ritualistic decrees were in practice before." Yet more cautiously the formerly very liberal Swiss theologian K. Marti expresses himself regarding the acceptance of the modern Pentateuchal criticism. He maintains that a

1 Ed. Reuss, Introd. Critique au Pentateuch et au livre de Josué, Paris, 1879 (vol. iii. of Reuss's Bibelwerk). Cf. Kautzsch in the Theol. Literaturzeitung, 1879, No. 2; also Vernes in the Revue critique, 1880, No. 9, also the Revue de l'histoire des Religions, No 1.

2 Theol. Literaturztg., 1880, No. 3; cf. also the same author's article “Höhendienst” in the new ed. of Herzog's Real-Encycl., where he, besides, propounds partly very radical views, particularly as to what relates to the supposed unhistoricity of the Tabernacle.

Marti-Colenso-Professor Robertson Smith.

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pre-exilian existence of the principal component part of the so-called Priest-Codex is rendered in the highest degree probable from all the results of literary criticism, and he blames the modern critic as wanting in earnestness when he passes lightly over certain older prophets, e.g. Hosea and Amos, who show an acquaintance with the contents of that codex.1 Similarly Hermann Schulz in the second edition of his Theologie des A. T. (1879), where he strongly asserts the origin of a great number of the legal enactments, as belonging to the earlier pre-exilian times, and declares it to be "very questionable whether the temporal sequence must be regarded as corresponding to the logical sequence of the legislative codices, the Book of the Covenant, Deuteronomy, Ezekiel xl. ff., Lev. xvii.-xxi., the Priest Codex." Of the same kind are the views of Bishop Colenso severely condemned on account of his freethinking literality, whose heterodoxy appears to be concentrated in his opinions regarding the Pentateuch, in their most recent form; they stand distinctly nearer to those of Ewald or Hupfeld than to those of Graf and Kuenen. The Scotch professor W. Robertson Smith in Aberdeen, so much referred to of late, stands on similar ground. His heterodoxy appears to be concentrated chiefly in the maintenance of the composition of Deuteronomy at a period subsequent to Moses and immediately preceding the Exile, while he has by no means identified. himself with the radical views of Kuenen, etc., in regard to the time and manner of the origin of the other component parts of the Pentateuch.3

In such a state of things, a retiring from their position on the part of the radical Pentateuchal critics may not be expected; still less however may a great number be expected probably to pass over to their standpoint. Spinozism in the sphere of the Old Testament is one of those errors which exercises a powerful

1 K. Marti, "Die Spuren der" u.s.w. (The traces of the so-called fundamental part of the Hexateuch in the pre-exilian prophets of the Old Testament), in Lipsius' Jahrb. für protest. Theol. 1880, 1 and 2.

2 In the concluding volume of his work entitled The Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua critically examined (London, 1879), Colenso says, "I place the age of the author of Deuteronomy (and he identifies him with the prophet Jeremiah) "in the first year of the reign of King Josiah."

3 W. Robertson Smith's Answer to the Form of Libel, etc., Edinburgh, 1879; Academy, May 17, 1878, where he criticises Wellhausen's Geschichte Israels. [N.B.-The above remarks were written before the appearance of the article "Hebrew Literature" in the Encycl. Brit.]

influence, by whose epidemic outbreak the distinguishing of spirits expected in accordance with Biblical prophecy in the last times is mightily advanced, but at the same time also the unconquerable power of faith in the truth of God is gloriously made manifest. With the violence of the assault the energy of the defender also increases, and the fulness and clearness of the means used in defence of revealed truth. Moses and the prophets as announcing beforehand the grace and truth of the new covenant, disclosed by Christ in all their fulness, remain in honour to the end of the days. The very attempt to change the view of their historical relation which has prevailed in the Church for thousands of years, into that which is the direct opposite,-to change "Moses and the prophets" into "the prophets and a Pseudo-Moses," or into "the prophets and Ezra,” will issue in a new glorification of the greatest of all religious legislators of pre-exilian antiquity.

ART. VII.-On the Church Crisis in England from a German point of view.

THE public mind of England is, at the present time,' not wholly occupied with political questions; whilst the voice of the nation may be heard expressing both its satisfaction at, or disapproval of, Disraeli's policy, other voices are mixing with these public acclamations and lamentations, the voices of Churchmen and Nonconformists alike calling attention to the crisis of the English Church.

For confirmation of the fact that such a crisis does exist, we have not simply to turn to the journals and the press of the land itself-the published discussions in the French and German Catholic papers also confirm it.

In England, Church and Dissent are arming themselves for the coming struggle by a revival of party spirit, by the formation of new and the reconstruction of old associations; and the all-absorbing subject is week after week providing the press with new matter for discussion.

1 This was written in December 1878.