THE HISTORICAL EVIDENCES OF THE TBUTH OE THE SCRIPTURE RECORDS, STATED ANEW, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE DOUBTS AND DISCOVERIES OF MODERN TIMES; IN EIGHT LECTURES DELIVERED IN THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PULPIT, AT THE BAMPTON LECTURE FOR 1859. By GEORGE RAWLINSON, M.A. LATE FELLOW AND TUTOR OF EXETElt COLLEGE. o 'Xpovos evperr)<;. SECOND EDITION. LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET ' OXFORD. J. II. & JAMES PARKi:" 1860. The iKii,i ■-/ rrantHatum ■■-,<■,< ■as*** Tea fjbev 'yap dXrjOel irdvTa "avvahet rd virdpyovTcv tg> 8e ^jrevSel ra-^v 8ia(p(ov€t Ta\r)9es. — ARISTOTLE. fy Transfer D. C. Public Library LONDON : PRINTED BY W. CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET, AND CHARING - CROSS. WITHDR . Jj ^ Y 3 I EXTRACT FROM THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF THE REV. JOHN BAMPTON, CANON OF SALISBURY. ■ " I give and bequeath my Lands and Estates to the Chancellor, Masters, and Scholars of the University of Oxford, for ever, to have and to hold all and singular the said Lands or Estates upon trust, and to the intents and purposes hereinafter mentioned ; that is to say, I will and appoint that the Vice- Chancellor of the University of Oxford for the time being shall take and receive all the rents, issues, and profits thereof, and (after all taxes, reparations, and necessary deductions made) that he pay all the remainder to the endowment of eight Divinity Lecture Sermons, to be established for ever in the said Univer- sity, and to be performed in the manner following : " I direct and appoint, that, upon the first Tuesday in Easter Term, a Lecturer be yearly chosen by the Heads of Colleges only, and by no others, in the room adjoining to the Printing-House, between the hours of ten in the morning and two in the after- noon, to preach eight Divinity Lecture Sermons, the year following, at St. Mary's in Oxford, between the commencement of the last month in Lent Term, and the end of the third week in Act Term. " Also I direct and appoint, that the eight Divinity Lecture Sermons shall be preached upon either of the following Subjects — to confirm and establish the Christian Faith, and to confute all heretics and schismatics — upon the divine authority of the Holy iv EXTRACT FROM CANON BAMPTON'S WILL. Scriptures — upon the authority of the writings of the primitive Fathers, as to the faith and practice of the primitive Church — upon the Divinity of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ — upon the Divinity of the Holy Ghost — upon the Articles of the Christian Faith, as comprehended in the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds. " Also I direct, that thirty copies of the eight Divinity Lecture Sermons shall be always . printed, within two months after they are preached, and one copy shall be given to the Chancellor of the University, and one copy to the Head of every College, and one copy to the Mayor of the city of Oxford, and one copy to be put into the Bodleian Library ; and the expense of printing them shall be paid out of the revenue of the Land or Estates given for establishing the Divinity Lecture Sermons ; and the Preacher shall not be paid, nor be entitled to the revenue, before they are printed. " Also I direct and appoint, that no person shall be qualified to preach the Divinity Lecture Sermons, unless he hath taken the degree of Master of Arts at least, in one of the two Univer- sities of Oxford or Cambridge ; and that the same person shall never preach the Divinity Lecture Sermons twice." PREFACE. These Lectures are an attempt to meet that latest phase of modern unbelief, which, professing a reve- rence for the name and person of Christ, and a real regard for the Scriptures, as embodiments of what is purest and holiest in religious feeling, lower Christ to a mere name, and empty the Scriptures of all their force and practical efficacy, by denying the historical character of the Biblical narrative. German Neology (as it is called) has of late years taken chiefly this line of attack, and has pursued it with so much vigour and apparent success, that, according to the complaints of German orthodox writers, " no objective ground or stand-point 1 ' is left, on which the believing Theo- logical science can build with any feeling of security*. Nor is the evil in question confined to Germany. The works regarded as most effective in destroying the historical faith of Christians abroad, have received an English dress, and are, it is to be feared, read by numbers of persons very ill prepared by historical studies to withstand their specious reasonings, alike in our own country and in America. The tone, moreover, of German historical writings generally is tinged with the prevailing unbelief ; and the faith of the historical student is liable to be undermined, almost without his having his suspicions aroused, by a See Ken's Preface to his Comment on Joshua, quoted in Note 24 to Lecture I. vi PREFACE. covert assumptions of the mythical character of the Sacred narrative, in works professing to deal chiefly, or entirely, with profane subjects. The author had long felt this to be a serious and a growing evil. Meanwhile his own studies, which have lain for the last eight or nine years almost exclusively in the field of Ancient History, had convinced him more and more of the thorough truthfulness and faithful accu- racy of the historical Scriptures. Circumstances had given him an intimate knowledge of the whole course of recent cuneiform, and (to some extent) of hiero- glyphical discovery; and he had been continually struck with the removal of difficulties, the accession of light, and the multiplication of minute points of agree- ment between the sacred and the profane, which resulted from the advances made in decyphering the Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, and Egyptian records. He therefore ventured, at the earliest moment which engagements of long standing would allow, to submit to the Heads of Colleges, electors to the office of Bampton Lecturer under the will of the Founder, the scheme of the following Discourses. His scheme having at once met with their approval, it only remained for him to use his best efforts in the elabo- ration of the subject which he had chosen. Two modes of meeting the attacks of the Mythical School presented themselves. He might make it his main object to examine the arguments of their prin- cipal writers seriatim, and to demonstrate from authen- tic records their weakness, perverseness, and falsity. Or touching only slightly on this purely controversial PREFACE. VI 1 ground, he might endeavour to exhibit clearly and forcibly the argument from the positive agreement between Scripture and profane history, which they ignored altogether. The latter mode of treatment appeared to him at once the more convincing to young minds, and the more suitable for a set of Lectures. For these reasons he adopted it. At the same time he has occasionally, both in the Text and in the Notes, addressed himself to the more important of the reasonings by which the school of Strauss and De Wette seek to overthrow the historical authority of the Sacred documents. The Notes have run to a somewhat unusual length. The author thought it important to exhibit (where possible) the authorities for his statements in full ; and to collect into a single volume the chief testimo- nies to the historical truth and accuracy of the Scrip- ture records. If, in referring to the cuneiform writings, he has on many occasions stated their substance rather than cited their exact words, it is because so few of them have as yet been translated by competent scholars, and because in most cases his own knowledge is limited to an acquaintance with the substance, derived from frequent conversations with his gifted brother. It is to be hoped that no long time will elapse before some one of the four savans who have proved their capacity to render the ancient Assyrian 15 , will present the world with a complete b See the Inscription of Tiglath- Pileser I., king of Assyria, b. c. as translated by Sir Henry 1150, Rawlinson, Fox Talbot, Esq., Dr. Hincks, and Dr. Oppert; published by the Royal Asiatic Society, London. Parker, 1857. vi li PREFACE. translation of all the historical inscriptions hitherto recovered. The author cannot conclude without expressing his acknowledgements to Dr. Bandinel, Chief Librarian of the Bodleian, for kind exertions in procuring at his instance various foreign works ; and to Dr. Pusey, Professor Stanley, and Mr. Mansel, for some valuable information on several points connected with the Lectures. He is bound also to record his obligations to various living or recent writers, whose works have made his task easier, as Professors Keil, Havernick, and Olshausen in Germany, and in England Dr. Lardner, Dr. Burton, and Dean Alford. Finally, he is glad once more to avow his deep obligations to the learning and genius of his brother, and to the kind and liberal communication on his part of full infor- mation upon every point where there seemed to be any contact between the sacred history and the cunei- form records. The novelty of the Lectures will, he feels, consist chiefly, if not solely, in the exhibition of these points of contact and agreement : and the cir- cumstance of his having this novelty to offer was his chief inducement to attempt a work on the subject. It is his earnest prayer that, by the blessing of God, his labours may tend to check the spread of unbelief, and to produce among Scripture students a more lively appreciation of the reality of those facts which are put before us in the Bible. Oxford, November 2, 1859. ( K ) CONTENTS LECTURE I. Historical character of Christianity as contrasted with other religions — its contact, thence arising, with historical science — its liability to be tried afresh by new tests and criteria, as historic science advances. — Recent advance of historical science — rise of the new department of Historical Criticism — its birth and growth — its results and tendencies. — Application of Historical Criticism to Christianity to be expected and even desired — the application as made — first, by the mythical school of De Wette and Strauss — secondly, by the historical school — Niebuhr himself — Bun sen. — Intention of the Lectures, to examine the Sacred Narrative on the positive side, by the light of the true principles of historical science. — Statement of the principles under the form of four Canons. — Corollaries of the Canons — comparative value of sources — force of cumulative evidence. — Further Canon which some seek to add on the subject of miracles, examined — possi- bility of miracles — contrary notion, Atheistic — peculiarities of modern Atheism. — Occurrence of miracles proved — creation a miracle — counterfeit miracles prove the existence of genuine ones. — Rejection of the additional Canon leaves the ground clear for the proposed enquiry. — Two kinds of evidence to be examined — 1. That of the Sacred Volume itself, considered as a mass of documents, and judged by the laws of Historical . Criticism — 2. The external evidence, or that contained in mo- numents, in the works of profane authors, in established customs and observances, and in the contemporary writings of believers. — Main purpose of the Lectures, to exhibit the external evidence . . . . Page 1. x CONTENTS. LECTUKE II. Two modes of conducting an historical enquiry — the Eetro- spective and the Progressive — advantages of each — preference assigned to the latter. — Plan of the Lectures — division of the Biblical history into five periods. — History of the first period, contained in the Pentateuch — question of the genuineness of the Pentateuch — argument from the unanimous testimony of the Jews — objections answered. — Writing practised at the time. — Heathen testimony to the genuineness. — Internal testi- mony — difficulties of the opposite theory. — Authenticity of the Pentateuch, a consequence of its genuineness — Moses an unexceptional witness for the history of the last four books. — Authenticity of Genesis — the events, if purely traditional, would have passed through but few hands to Moses. — Probability that Genesis is founded on documents, some of which may have been antediluvian. — External evidence of the authenticity — agreement of the narrative with the best profane authorities. — Review of the authorities — pre-eminence of Berosus and Manetho as historians of ancient times — Egyptian and Babylonian monuments — mode in which the monuments and histories have to be combined. — Comparison of the chronological schemes of Manetho and Berosus with the chronology of Scripture. — Account of the Creation in Berosus — its harmony with Scripture. — Account given by Berosus of the Deluge — similar account of Abydenus — the difference between the Scriptural and the profane account exaggerated by Mebuhr. — Post-diluvian history of Berosus — his account of the tower of Babel, and the confusion of tongues. — Ethnological value of the tenth chapter of Genesis. — Heathen accounts of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, derived from Jewish sources— estimate of their value. — Three points only of great public importance in the history from Abraham to the death of Moses — two of these confirmed from profane sources. Expedition of Chedor-laomer agrees with Berosus, and is distinctly confirmed by the Babylonian monuments. — Exodus of the Jews related by Manetho. — Historical arguments of importance which have been omitted for want of space — 1. The argument furnished by the conclusions of the historical sciences, such as Geology, Physiology, Comparative Philology, Ethnology, &c— 2. The argument from the correctness of the linguistic, geographic, and ethologic notices in the Pentateuch modern discovery is continually adding to this kind of evidence— geographical illustration.— Conclusion . . Page 28. CONTENTS. xi LECTURE III. The period of Jewish history from the Exodus to Solomon com- prises the extremes of national depression and prosperity. — Books of Scripture, containing this portion of the history, are for the most part by unknown authors. — Their value not diminished by this, being that of State Papers. — Historical character of the books, considered severally. — The Book of Joshua written by an eye-witness, who possesses records. — The Book of Judges based upon similar documents. — The Books of Samuel composed probably by writers contemporary with the events related, viz. Samuel, Gad, and Nathan. — The Books of Kings and Chronicles derived from contemporary works written by Prophets. — Commentary on the history furnished by the Davidical Psalms. — Confirmation of this period of Jewish history from profane sources, during the earlier portion of the period, rather negative than positive. — Weakness of Egypt and Assyria at the period, appears both from the Scripture narrative, and from the monuments. — Positive testimony of profane writers to the conquest of Canaan by Joshua — Moses of Chorene, Procopius, Suidas. — Supposed testimony of Herodotus to the miracle of the sun standing still. — Positive testimony to the later portion of the period — Syrian war of David described by Nicolas of Damascus from the records of his native city. — David's other wars men- tioned by Eupolemus. — Connection of Judsea with Phoenicia. — Early greatness of Sidon strongly marked in Scripture and confirmed by profane writers — Homer, Strabo, Justin. — Hiram a true Phoenican royal name. — A prince of this name reigned at Tyre contemporaneously with David and Solomon, according to the Phoenician historians, Dius and Menander — their accounts of the friendly intercourse between Hiram and these Jewish monarchs. — Solomon's connection with Egypt — absence of Egyptian records at this time — Solomon contemporary with Sheshonk or Shishak. — Wealth of Solomon confirmed by Eupolemus and Theophilus. — Indirect testimony to the truth of this portion of the history — the character of Solomon's empire, the plan of his buildings, and the style of their orna- mentation, receive abundant illustration from recent discoveries in Assyria — the habits of the Phoenicians agree with the de- scriptions of Homer, Menander, and others. Incompleteness of this sketch. — Summary Page 62. xn CONTENTS. LECTURE IV. Period to be embraced in the Lecture, one of about four centuries, from the death of Solomon to the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar — importance of this period. — Documents in which the history is delivered. — Kings and Chronicles, com- pilations from the State Archives of the two Kingdoms of Israel and Judah. — Objection answered. — Kings and Chronicles independent, and therefore confirmatory, of each other. The history contained in them confirmed by direct and incidental notices in the works of contemporary Prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, &c. — Confirmation of the history from profane sources. — The separate existence of the two kingdoms, noticed in the Assyrian Inscriptions. — The conquest of Judsea by Sheshonk (Shishak) recorded in the great temple at Carnac. — Zerah the Ethiopian probably identical with Osorkon the Second. — Eth-baal, the father of Jezebel, identical with the Ithobalus of Menander — mention of a great drought in his reign. — Power of Benhadad, and nature of the force under his command, confirmed by the inscription on the Nirarud Obelisk. — Accession of Hazael noticed on the same monument. — Men- tion of Jehu. — Interruption in the series of notices, coinciding with an absence of documents. — Pul, or Phul (^aXwv), men- tioned by Berosus, and probably identified with a monumen- tal king, who takes tribute from Samaria. — War of Tiglath- Pileser with Samaria and Damascus recorded in an Assyrian inscription. — Altar of Ahaz probably a sign of subjection. — Shalmaneser's Syrian war mentioned by Menander. — Name of Hoshea on an Assyrian inscription probably assigned to him. — Capture of Samaria ascribed to Sargon on the monuments — Harmony of the narrative with Scripture. — Sargon's capture of Ashdod, and successful attack on Egypt. — Settlement of the Israelites " in the cities of the Medes." — Expedition of Sen- nacherib against Hezekiah — exact agreement of Scripture with Sennacherib's inscription. — Murder of Sennacherib related by profane writers — Polyhistor, Abydenus. — Escape of the mur- derers " into Armenia " noticed by Moses ofChorene. — Succes- sion of Esar-haddon confirmed by the monuments. — Indirect confirmation of the curious statement that Manasseh was brought to him at Babylon. — Identification of So (Seveh), king of Egypt, with Sliebek, or Sabaco — of Tirhakah with Tehrah, or Taracus— of Nccho with Neku or Nccho — and of Hophra with CONTENTS. xin Haifra, or Apries.— Battle of Megiddo and calamitous end of Apries confirmed by Herodotus. — Eeign of Merodach-Baladan at Babylon confirmed by the Inscriptions, Berosus, and Ptolemy. — Berosus relates the recovery of Syria and Palestine by Nebuchadnezzar, and also his deportation of the Jews and and destruction of Jerusalem. — Summary Page 89. LECTURE V. Fourth period of the Jewish History, the Captivity and Eeturn — Daniel the historian of the Captivity. — Genuineness of Daniel doubted without sufficient reason. — Authenticity of the narra- tive, denied by De Wette and others. — Examination of the narrative — the Captivity in accordance with Oriental habits — confirmed by Berosus. — The character of Nebuchadnezzar as portrayed in Scripture accords with Berosus and Abydenus — notice of his prophetic gift by the latter. — The length of his reign may be gathered from Scripture, and accords exactly with Berosus and the monuments. — Condition of Babylonia not mis- represented in Daniel — account of the " wise men" illustrated by recent discoveries — "satrapial organisation" of the empire possible, but not asserted in Scripture. — Internal harmony of Daniel's account. — Mysterious malady of Nebuchadnezzar per- haps noticed in an obscure passage of the Standard Inscription. — Succession of Evil-merodac confirmed by Berosus — difficulty with regard to his character. — Neriglissar identified with " Nergal-Sharezer, the Rab-Mag." — Supposed irreconcilable difference between Scripture and profane history in the narra- tive concerning Belshazzar — Discovery that Nabonadius, during the latter part of his reign, associated in the government his son, Bil-shar-uzur, and allowed him the royal title. — Bil-shar-uzur probably the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar. — li Darius the Mede" not yet identified. — Capture of Babylon by the Medo- Persians during a feast, and transfer of Empire confirmed by many writers. — Solution of difficulties. — Chronology of the Captivity confirmed from Babylonian sources. — Re-establish- ment of the Jews in Palestine related in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah — their authenticity generally allowed — no reason to doubt their genuineness. — Book of Ezra in part based on documents. — Attacks upon the authenticity of Esther — reply to them. — Author of Esther uncertain. — The narrative drawn from the chronicles kept by the kings of Persia. — Confirmation xiv CONTENTS. of this portion of the history from profane sources. — Eeligions spirit of the Persian kings in keeping with their inscriptions. — Succession of the kings correctly given. — Stoppage of the build- ing of the temple by the Pseudo-Smerdis, accords with his other religious changes. — Eeversal by Darius of his religious policy agrees with the Behistun Inscription. — Break in the history as recorded by Ezra — book of Esther fills up the gap. — The name Ahasuerus, the proper equivalent of Xerxes. — Truth- fulness of the portraiture, if Xerxes is intended. — Harmony of the history with the facts recorded by the Greeks. — Intimate knowledge of Persian manners and customs. — The massacre of their enemies by the Jews has a parallel in the Magophonia. — Character of Artaxerxes Longimanus — length of his reign accords with the statement of Nehemiah. — Summary of the whole result, as regards the History of the Old Testament Page 123. LECTUEE VI. Plan of the three remaining Lectures — proposal to regard the period covered by the New Testament History as a whole, and to consider the evidence under three heads — 1. the internal Evi- dence ; 2. the Evidence of Adversaries ; and 3. the Evidence of the early Christian converts. The Internal Evidence. — Number and separateness of the docu- ments. — Doubts raised as to the authorship of the Historical Books. — The doubts considered severally. — Weight of the ex- ternal testimony to the genuineness of the Gospels and the Acts. — Internal evidence to the composition of the Acts, and of St. Luke's and St. John's Gospels, by contemporaries. — St. Matthew's and St. Mark's Gospels must have been written about the same time as St. Luke's. — No reason to doubt in any case the composition by the reputed authors. — Our four Gospels a providential mercy. — The first three wholy independent of one another. — Their substantial agreement as to the facts of our Lord's life and ministry, an evidence of great weight. — Failure of the attempt of Strauss to establish any real disagreement. — ■ The establishment of real discrepancies would still leave the writers historical authorities of the first order. — Confirmation of the Gospel History from the Acts of the Apostles. — Confir- mation of the History of the Acts from the Epistles of St. Paul — exhibition of this argument in the Horce Paulino? of Paley — CONTENTS. xv tho grounds of the argument not exhausted. — raley's argument applicable to the Gospels. — Confirmation of the Gospel narra- tive from the letters of the Apostles. — Firm belief of the Apostles in tho Gospel facts from the first, evidenced in the Acts and the Epistles. — Impossibility of the sudden growth of myths in such an age and under such circumstances. — The mythic theory de- vised in order to make Christianity untrue, without ascribing it to imposture — its failure in respect of this object. — No alter- native but to accept the statements of the Evangelists and Apostles, or to regard them as conscious deceivers. — Unmis- takable air of veracity and honesty in the New Testament writings. — Conclusion Page 152. LECTURE VII. The Evidence of Adversaries. — Contrast between the Old and New Testament — the former historical — the latter biographical.— Consequent scantiness of points of contact between the main facts of the New Testament narrative and profane records. — Their harmony chiefly seen through the incidental allusions of the New Testament writers. — Importance of this evidence. — Evidence of heathens to the main facts of Christianity, really very considerable. — That it is not more must be regarded as the result of a forced and studied reticence. — Reticence of Josephus. — Loss of heathen writings of this period, which may have contained important direct evidence. — Incidental allusions considered under three heads : — (i.) The general condition of the countries which were the scene of the history. — Political condition of Palestine — numerous complications and anomalies — faithfulness of the New Testament notices. — Tone and temper of the Jews at the time. — Condition and customs of the Greeks and Romans in Palestine, Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy. — Con- dition and number of the foreign Jews — oratories — synagogues, &c. (ii.) Representations with respect to the civil government of the countries. — Names and order of the Roman Emperors — Jewish native princes — Roman Procurators of Palestine — Roman Proconsuls — supposed " error " of St. Luke with regard to the Greek Tetrarch, Lysanias. (iii.) Historical facts, of which if true, profane authors might have been expected to make mention — Decree of Augustus — taxing of Cyrenius — rebellion of Theudas — " uproar " of the Egyptian — famine in the days of Claudius, &c— Summary and conclusion Page 178. xvi CONTENTS. LECTUKE VIII. The Evidence of the early converts. — Its abundance and real weight. — Early Christians not deficient in education, position, or intellect. — Historical witness of the Christian writers — of St. Barnabas — of Clemens Eomanus — of Ignatius — of Poly carp — of Hernias — of Quadratus — of Justin Martyr — of subsequent writers. — Witness of primitive Christian monuments, especially of those in the Eoman Catacombs — their genuine character — their antiquity. — Proof which they afford of the enormous num- bers of the Christians in the first ages. — Proof which they afford of the sufferings and frequent martyrdoms of the period. — Evidence which they furnish of the historical belief of the time. — Weight of this whole testimony — the Greeks and Eomans not at this time creduluous — not likely to think little of the obligations incurred by professing Christianity — the convert's sole stay the hope of the resurrection. — Evidence to the truth of Christianity from the continuance of miracles in the Church — proof of their continuance. — Testimony of the early Chris- tians enhanced by their readiness to suffer for their faith. — Conclusion Page 210. Notes . . ; . . . . Page 239. Additional Note Page 448. Specification of Editions quoted, or referred to, in the Notes Page 450. LECTURES, LECTURE I Isaiah XLIII. 9. Let all the nations be gathered together, and let the people he assembled : who among them can declare this, and shew us former things ? Let them bring forth their witnesses, that they may be justified : or let them hear, and say, Lt is truth. Christianity (including therein the dispensation of the Old Testament, which was its first stage) is in nothing more distinguished from the other religions of the world than in its objective or historical cha- racter. The religions of Greece and Rome, of Egypt, India, Persia, and the East generally, were specula- tive systems, which did not even seriously postulate an historical basis. If they seemed to do so to some extent, if for instance the mythological ideas of the Greeks be represented under the form of a mytho- logical period, which moreover blends gradually and almost imperceptibly with the historical, still in the minds of the Greeks themselves the periods were separate and distinct, not merely in time but in character ; and the objective reality of the scenes and events described as belonging to each was not con- ceived of as parallel, or even similar, in the two B * CHEISTIANITY A EELIGION OF PACT. [Lect. I. cases (1.) The modern distinction between the legend and the myth, properly so called (2), was felt, if not formally recognised, by the Greek mind; and the basis of fact, which is of the essence of the former, was re- garded as absent from the latter, which thus ceased altogether to be history. Mahometanism again, and the other religious systems which have started with an individual, and which so far bear a nearer resem- blance to the religions of Moses and of Christ, than those that have grown up and been developed gra- dually out of .the feeling and imagination of a people, are very slightly, if at all, connected with any body of important facts, the clue attestation of which and their accordance with other known facts might be made the subject of critical examination. We may concede the truth of the whole story of Mahomet, as it was related by his early followers, and this con- cession in no sort carries with it even the probable truth of the religion (3). But it is otherwise with the religion of the Bible. There, whether we look to the Old or the New Testament, to the Jewish dispensation or to the Christian, we find a scheme of doctrine which is bound up with facts ; which depends absolutely upon them ; which is null and void without them ; and which maybe regarded as for all practical purposes established if they are shewn to deserve acceptance. It is this peculiar feature of Christianity — a feature often noticed by its apologists (4) — which brings it into such a close relation to historical studies and investigations. As a religion of fact, and not merely Lect. I.] • LIABILITY TO NEW TESTS. 3 of opinion, — as one whose chief scene is this world, and whose main doctrines are events exhibited openly before the eyes of men — as one moreover which, instead of affecting a dogmatic form, adopts from first to last, with very rare exceptions, the historical shape, it comes necessarily within the sphere of the historical enquirer, and challenges him to investigate it according to what he regards as the principles of his science. Moreover, as Christianity is in point of fact connected intimately with certain records, and as those records extend over a period of several thousands of years, and " profess to contain a kind of abridgment of the history of the world" (5), its points of contact with profane history are (practically speaking) infinite ; and it becomes impossible for the historical enquirer to avoid the question, in -what light he is to view the documents which, if authentic, must exercise so important an influence over his studies and conclusions. Christianity then cannot complain if, from time to time, as historical science advances, the question is raised afresh concerning the real character of those events which form its basis, and the real value of those documents on w T hich it relies. As an historical religion, it invites this species of enquiry, and is glad that it should be made and repeated. It only com- plains in one of two cases — when either jxrinciple unsound and wrong in themselves, having been assumed as proper criteria of historic truth, are applied to it for the purpose of disparagement ; or when, right principles being assumed, the application I! 2 4 RISE OF HISTORICAL CRITICISM. [Lect. I. of thein, of which it is the object, is unfair and illegitimate. It is the latter of these two errors which seems to me to be the chief danger of the present day. Time was — and that not very long ago — when all the relations of ancient authors concerning the old world were received with a ready belief ; and an unreasoning and uncritical faith accepted with equal satisfaction the narrative of the campaigns of Caesar and of the doings of Romulus, the account of Alexander's marches and of the conquests of Semiramis. We cari most of us remember when in this country the whole story of regal Rome, and even the legend of the Trojan settlement in Latium, were seriously placed before boys as history, and discoursed of as unhesi- tatingly, and in as dogmatic a tone, as the tale of the Catiline conspiracy, or the conquest of Britain. " All ancient authors ' were ' at this time, as has been justly observed, ' put upon the same footing, and regarded as equally credible ;' while ' all parts of an author's work were supposed to rest on the same basis (6). A blind and indiscriminate faith of a low kind — acqui- escence rather than actua] belief— embraced equally and impartially the whole range of ancient story, setting aside perhaps those prodigies which easily detached themselves from the narrative, and were understood to be embellishments on a par with mere graces of composition. But all this is now changed. The last century has seen the birth and growth of a new science — the science of Historical Criticism. Beginning in France Lkct. I.] RESULTS OF CRITICAL INVESTIGATION. 5 with the labours of Pouilly and Beaufort (7), it advanced with rapid strides in Germany under the guidance of Niebuhr (8), Otfried Mtiller (9), and Bockh (10), and finally, has been introduced and naturalised among ourselves by means of the writings of our best living historians (11). Its results in its own proper and primary field are of the most extensive and remarkable character. The whole world of profane history has been revolu- tionised. By a searching and critical investigation of the mass of materials on which that history rested, and by the application to it of Canons embodying the judgments of a sound discretion upon the value of different sorts of evidence, the views of the ancient world formerly entertained have been in ten thousand points either modified or reversed — a new antiquity has been raised up out of the old — while much that was unreal in the picture of past times which men had formed to themselves has disappeared, consigned to that " Limbo large and broad " into which " all things transitory and vain " are finally received, a fresh revelation has in many cases taken the place of the old view, which has dissolved before the wand of the critic ; and a firm and strong fabric has arisen out of the shattered debris of the fallen systems. Thus the results obtained have been both positive and negative ; but, it must be confessed, with a preponderance of the latter over the former. The scepticism in which the science originated has clung to it from first to last, and in recent times we have seen not only a greater leaning to the destructive 6 CHRISTIANITY ATTESTED BY SCRUTINY. [Lect. I. than to the constructive side, but a tendency to push doubt and incredulity beyond due limits, to call in question without cause, and to distrust what is suffi- ciently established. This tendency has not, however, been allowed to pass unrebuked (1 2) ; and viewing the science as developed, not in the writings of this or that individual, but in the general conclusions in which it has issued, we may regard it as having done, and as still prepared to do, good service in the cause of truth. It was not to be expected — nor was it, I think, to be wished — that the records of past times contained in the Old and New Testament should escape the searching ordeal to which all other historical docu- ments had been subjected, or remain long, on account of their sacred character, unscrutinised by the en- quirer. Reverence may possibly gain, but Faith, I believe, — real and true Faith- — greatly loses by the establishment of a wall of partition between the sacred and the profane, and the subtraction of the former from the domain of scientific enquiry. As truth of one kind cannot possibly be contradictory to truth of another, Christianity has nothing to fear from scientific investigations ; and any attempt to isolate its facts and preserve them from the scrutiny which profane history receives must, if successful, diminish the fulness of our assent to them — the depth and reality of our belief in their actual occurrence. It is by the connection of sacred with profane history that the facts of the former are most vividly appre- hended, and most distinctly felt to be real ; to sever Lect. I.] GERMAN BIBLICAL C1UTICISM. 7 between the two is to make the sacred narrative grow dim and shadowy, and to encourage the notion that its details are not facts in the common and every-day sense of the word. When, therefore, upon the general acceptance of the principles laid down with respect to profane history by Otfried Muller and Niebuhr, theological critics in Germany proceeded, as they said, to apply the new canons of historical criticism to the Gospels and to the historical books of the Old Testament, there was no cause for surprise, nor any ground for extreme apprehension. There is of course always danger when science alone, disjoined from religious feeling, undertakes, with its purblind sight and limited means of knowing, to examine, weigh, and decide matters of the highest import. But there did not appear to be in this instance any reason for special alarm. The great Master-spirit, he to whom the new science owed, if not its existence, yet at any rate its advancement and the estimation in which it was generally held — had distinctly accepted the mass of the Scripture history as authentic, and was a sincere and earnest believer (13). It was hoped that the enquiry would be made in his spirit, and by means of a cautious application of his principles. But the fact has unfortunately been otherwise. The application of the science of historical criticism to the narrative of Scripture has been made in Germany by two schools— one certainly far less extravagant than the other — but both wanting in sound critical judg- ment, as well as in a due reverence for the written 8 FALSE CRITICISMS ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. [Lect. I. Word. It will be necessary, in order to make the scope of these Lectures clearly intelligible, to give an account at some length of the conclusions and reasonings of both classes of critics. The portion of the Scripture history which was first subjected to the application of the new principles was the historical part of the Old Testament. It was soon declared that a striking parallelism existed be- tween this history and the early records of most heathen nations (14). The miracles in the narrative were compared with the prodigies and divine appear- ances related by Herodotus and Livy (15). The chrono- logy was said to bear marks, like that of Rome and Babylon, of artificial arrangement; the recurrence of similar numbers, and especially of round numbers, particularly indicating its unhistorical character (16). The names of kings, it was observed, were frequently so apposite, that the monarchs supposed to have borne them must be regarded as fictitious personages (17), like Theseus and Numa. Portions of the sacred nar- rative were early declared to present every appear- ance of being simply myths (18) ; and by degrees it was sought to attach to the whole history, from first to last, a legendary and unreal character. All objec- tions taken by rationalists or infidels to particular relations in the sacred books being allowed as valid, it was considered a sufficient account of such relations to say, that the main source of the entire narrative was oral tradition — that it first took a written shape many hundreds of years after the supposed date of the circumstances narrated, the authors being poets rather Lect. I.] FALSE CRITICISMS ON THE NEW TESTAMENT. 9 than historians, and bent rather on glorifying their native country than on giving a true relation of facts — and that in places they had not even confined themselves to the exaggeration and embellishment of actual occurrences, but had allowed imagination to step in and fill up blanks in their annals (19). By some, attempts were made to disentangle the small element of fact which lay involved in so much romance and poetry from the mass in which it was embedded (20) ; but the more logical minds rejected this as a vain and useless labour, maintaining that no separa- tion which was other than arbitrary could be effected ; and that the events themselves, together with the dress in which they appeared, " constituted a whole belonging to the province of poetry and my thus" (21). It was argued that by this treatment the sacredness and divinity and even the substantial truth of the Scriptures was left unassailed (22) > the literal mean- ing only being discarded, and an allegorical one sub- stituted in its place. Lastly, the name of Origen was produced from the primitive and best ages of Christi- anity to sanction this system of interpretation, and save it from the fatal stigma of entire and absolute novelty (23). When the historical character of the Old Testament, assailed on all sides by clever and eloquent pens, and weakly defended by here and there a single hesitating apologist, seemed to those who had conducted the warfare irretrievably demolished and destroyed (24), the New Testament became, after a pause, the object of attack to the same school of writers. It was felt, 10 ELIMINATION OF THE WHOLE NARKATIVE. [Lect. I. no doubt, to be a bold thing to characterise as a col- lection of myths the writings of an age of general enlightenment (25) — nay, even of incredulity and scepticism ; and perhaps a lingering regard for what so many souls held precious (26), stayed the hands of those who nevertheless saw plainly, that the New Testament was open to the same method of attack as the Old, and that an inexorable logic required that both should be received or neither. A pause there- fore ensued, but a pause of no long duration. First, particular portions of the New Testament narrative, as the account of our Lord's infancy (27), and of the Temptation (28), were declared to possess equal tokens of a mythic origin with those which had been previ- ously regarded as fatal to the historical character of Old Testament stories, and were consequently singled out for rejection. Then, little by little, the same sys- tem of explanation was adopted with respect to more and more of the narrative (29) ; till at last, in the hands of Strauss, the whole came to be resolved into pure myth and legend, and the historical Christ being annihilated, the world was told to console itself with a " Grod-man, eternally incarnate, not an individual, but an idea (30) .;" which on examination turns out to be no God at all, but mere man — man perfected by nineteenth-century enlightenment — dominant over nature by the railroad and the telegraph, and over himself by the negation of the merely natural and sensual life, and the substitution for it of the intel- lectual, or (in the nomenclature of the school) the spiritual. £ect. I.J STEAUSS'S TEACHING VIRTUAL ATHEISM. 11 " In an individual," says Strauss, " the properties which the Church ascribes to Christ contradict them- selves, in the idea of the race they perfectly agree. Humanity is the union of the two natures — God be- come man, the infinite manifesting itself in the finite, and the finite spirit remembering its infinitude : it is the child of the visible Mother and the invisible Father, Nature and Spirit ; it is the worker of miracles, in so far as in the course of human history the spirit more and more completely subjugates nature, both within and around man, until it lies before him as the inert matter on which he exercises his active power ; it is the sinless existence, for the course of its develop- ment is a blameless one ; pollution cleaves to the individual only, and does not touch the race or its history. It is Humanity that dies, rises, and ascends to Heaven, for from the negation of its phenomenal life there ever proceeds a higher spiritual life ; from the suppression of its mortality as a personal, national, and terrestrial spirit, arises its union with the infinite spirit of the heavens. By faith in this Christ, especially in his death and resurrection, man is justified before God ; that is, by the kindling within him of the idea of Humanity, the individual man partakes of the divinely human life of the species (31)." Such are the lengths to which speculation, profes- sedly grounding itself on the established principles of historical criticism, has proceeded in our day ; and such the conclusions recommended to our acceptance by a philosophy which calls itself pre-eminently spiritual. How such a philosophy differs from Atheism, except 12 PARTIAL SCEPTICISM OF NIEBUHR. [Lect. I. in the use of a religious terminology, which it empties of all religious meaning, I confess myself unable to perceive. The final issue of the whole seems to be simply that position which Aristotle scouted as the merest folly — that " man is the highest and most di- vine thing in the universe" (32), and that God conse- quently is but a name for humanity when perfected. More dangerous to faith, because less violent in its methods, and less sweeping in the conclusions to which it comes, is the moderate rationalism of another school, a school which can with some show of reason claim to shelter itself under the great name and authority of Niebuhr. Notwithstanding the personal faith of .Niebuhr, which cannot be doubted, and the strong expressions of which he made use against the advocates of the mythical theory (33), he was himself upon occa- sions betrayed into remarks which involved to a great extent their principles, and opened a door to the thorough-going scepticism from which he individually shrank with horror. Tor instance, in one place Niebuhr says, with respect to the book of Esther, " I am convinced that this book is not to be regarded as historical, and I have not the least hesitation in here stating it publicly. Many entertain the same opinion. Even the early fathers have tormented themselves w r ith it ; and St. Jerome, as he himself clearly indi- cates, was in the greatest perplexity through his desire to regard it as an historical document. At present no one looks upon the book of Judith as his- torical, and neither Origen nor St. Jerome did so; & the same is the case with HJsther ; it is nothing more than a [Lect. I. DANGER OF NIEBUHR'S CONCESSION. 13 poem on the occurrences" (34). The great historical critic here (so far as appears, on mere subjective grounds — because the details of the narrative did not appear to him probable) surrendered to the mythical interpreters a book of Scripture — admitted that to be " a poem and nothing more" which on the face of it bore the appearance of a plain matter-of-fact history — put a work which the church has always regarded as canonical and authoritative on a par with one which was early pronounced apocryphal — not, certainly, moved to do so by any defect in the external evidence (35), though a vague reference is made to " early fathers ; " but on account of internal difficulties, either in the story itself, or in the manner of its narration. I cannot see that it is possible to distinguish the prin- ciple of this surrender from that asserted by the mythical school ; or that the principle once admitted, any ground can be shewn for limiting its application to a single book of Scripture, or indeed to any definite number of such books. Let it be once allowed that we may declare any part of Scripture which seems to us improbable, or which does not approve itself to our notions of what revelation should be, " a poem and nothing more," and what security is there against the extremest conclusions of the mythologists ? One book will naturally be surrendered after another (36), and the final result will not be distinguishable from that at which the school of De Wette and Strauss professedly aims — the destruction of all trust in the historical veracity of the Scripture narrative. The partial scepticism of Niebuhr has always had 14 RATIONALISTIC FOLLOWERS OF XIEBUHE. [Lect. I. followers in Germany — men who are believers, but who admit the principles of unbelief— who rationalise, but who think to say to the tide of rationalism, " Thus far shalt thou go, and no further." I shall not detain my hearers with a long array of instances in this place. Suffice it to adduce the teaching of a single living writer, whose influence is very considerable both in Germany and in our own country. On the ground that Egypt has a continuous history, com- mencing more than 6000 years before the Christian era, we "are required to reject the literal interpretation of the 6th, 7th, and 8th chapters of Genesis, and to believe that the Flood was no more than a great catastrophe in Western Asia, which swept away the inhabitants of that region, but left Egypt and the greater part of the world untouched. Ham, Ave are told, is not a person, but the symbolical representative of Egypt ; and he is the elder brother, because Egyp- tian Hamitism is older than Asiatic Semitism. The expression that Canaan is the son of Ham " must be interpreted geographically ;" it means, that the Ca- naanitic tribes which inhabited historical Canaan came from Egypt, where they had previously had their abode. Nimrod is said to have been begotten by Cush ; but he was no more a Cushite by blood than Canaan was an Egyptian ; he is called a Cushite, be- cause the people represented by him came from the part of Africa called Cush or Ethiopia (which they had held as conquerors) back into Asia, and there established an empire (37). Again, " the family tree of Abraham is an historical representation of the great Lect. I.] rationalistic followers of niebuhr. 15 and lengthened migrations of the primitive Asiatic race of man, from the mountains of Armenia and Chaldaea, through Mesopotamia, to the north-east frontier of Egypt, as far as Amalek and Edom. It represents the connection between nations and their tribes, not personal connection between father and son, and records consequently epochs, not real human pedi- grees (38)." The early Scriptures are devoid alto- gether of an historical chronology. When the sojourn of the children of Israel in Egypt is said to have been 430 years, of which one-half, or 215 years, was from Abraham's going down into Egypt to Jacob's, the other from Jacob's going down to the Exodus, the number must be regarded as " conventional and im- historical (39);" as " connected with the legendary ge- nealogies of particular families (40) ;" as formed, in fact, artificially by a doubling of the first period; which itself only " represents the traditionary accounts of the primitive times of Canaan as embodied in a genealogy of the three patriarchs (41)," and " cannot possibly be worthy of more confidence than the traditions with regard to the second period," which are valueless (42). Of course the earlier lists of names and calcu- lations of years are looked upon with still less favour. " The Jewish tradition, in projoortion as its antiquity is thrown back, bears on its face less of a chronolo- gical character," so that " no light is to be gleaned from it" for general purposes (43). Even in the comparatively recent times of David and Solomon, there is no coherent or reliable chronology, the round number 40 being still met with, which is taken to be 16 HISTORIC AUTHENTICITY OF THE BIBLE. [Lect. I. an indubitable sign of arbitrary and artificial arrange- ment (44). Such are some of the results which have, in fact, followed from the examination by historical critics, possessed of more or less critical acumen, of those sacred records, which are allowed on all hands to be entitled to deep respect, and which we in this place believe to be, not indeed free from such small errors as the carelessness or ignorance of transcribers may have produced, but substantially " the Word of God." I propose at the present time, in opposition to the views which I have sketched, to examine the Sacred Narrative on the positive side. Leaving untouched the question of the inspiration of Scripture, and its consequent title to outweigh all conflicting testimony whatever, I propose briefly to review the historical evidence for the orthodox belief. My object will be to meet the reasoning of the historical sceptics on their own ground. I do not indeed undertake to consider and answer their minute and multitudinous cavils, which would be an endless task, and which is moreover unnecessary, as to a great extent the cavillers meet and answer one another (45) ; but I hope to show, without assuming the inspiration of the Bible, that for the great facts of revealed religion, the miraculous history of the Jews, and the birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension of Christ, as well as for his miracles and those of his apostles, the historical evidence which we possess is of an authentic and satisfactory character. I shall review this evidence in the light and by the laws of the modern Lect. L] canons of historic science. 17 historical criticism, so far as they seem to be esta- blished. Those laws appear to me to be sound ; and their natural and real bearing is to increase instead of diminishing the weight of the Christian evidences. It is not from a legitimate and proper application of them that faith has suffered, but partly from their neglect or misapplication, partly from the intrusion among them of a single unproved and irrational opinion. I am not aware that the laws in question have ever been distinctly laid down in a compendious, or even in an abstract form. They are assumed through- out the writings of our best historians, but they are involved in their criticisms rather than directly posited as their principles. I believe, however, that I shall not misrepresent them if I say, that, viewed on their positive side, they consist chiefly of the four following Canons : — 1. When the record which we possess of an event U^ is the writing of a contemporary, supposing that he is a credible witness, and had means of observing the fact to which he testifies, the fact is to be accepted, as possessing the first or highest degree of historical credibility. Such evidence is on a par with that of witnesses in a court of justice, with the drawback, on the one hand, that the man who gives it is not sworn to speak the truth, and with the advantage on the other, that he is less likely than the legal witness to to have a personal interest in the matter concerning which he testifies (46). 2. When the event recorded is one which the c 18 CANONS OF HISTOEIC SCIENCE. [Lect. I. writer may be reasonably supposed to have obtained directly from those who witnessed it, we should accept it as probably true, unless it be in itself very improbable. Such evidence possesses the second degree of historical credibility (47). 3. When the event recorded is removed considera- bly from the age of the recorder of it, and there is no reason to believe that he obtained it from a con- temporary writing, but the probable source of his information was oral tradition ; still, if the event be one of great importance and of public notoriety, if it affected the national life, or prosperity, — especially if it be of a nature to have been at once commemo- rated by the establishment of any rite or practice, — ■ then it has a claim to belief as probably true, at least in its general outline (48). This however is the third, and a comparatively low, degree of historical credibility. 4. When the traditions of one race, which, if unsupported, would have had but small claim to attention, and none to belief, are corroborated by the traditions of another, especially if a distant or hostile race, the event which has this double testimony obtains thereby a high amount of probability, and, if not very unlikely in itself, thoroughly deserves acceptance (49). The degree of historical credibility in this case is not exactly commensurable with that in the others, since a new and distinct ground of likelihood comes into play. It may be as strong as the highest, and it may be almost as weak as the lowest, though this is not often the case in Lect. I.] COROLLARIES OF THE CANONS. 19 fact. In a general way we may say that the weight of this kind of evidence exceeds that which has been called the third degree of historical probability, and nearly apjDroaches to the second. To these Canons may be added certain corollaries, or dependent truths, — with respect to the relative value of the materials from which history is ordi- narily composed, — important to be borne in mind in all enquiries like that on which we are entering. Historical materials may be divided into direct and indirect — direct, or such as proceed from the agents in the occurrences ; indirect, or such as are the embodiment of enquiries and researches made by persons not themselves engaged in the transactions. The former are allowed on all hands to be of primary importance. There is indeed a drawback upon their value, arising out of the tendency of human vanity to exalt self at the expense of truth ; but where the moral character of the writer is a security against wilful misrepresentation, or where the publicity of the events themselves would make misrepresentation folly, the very highest degree of credit is to be given to direct records. These may be either public in- scribed monuments, such as have frequently been set up by governments and kings ; state papers, such as we hear of in the books of Ezra and Esther (50) ; letters, or books. Again, books of this class will be either commentaries (or particular histories of events in which the authors have taken part) ; autobiogra- phies, or accounts which persons have given of their own lives up to a certain point ; or memoirs, is* c 2 20 FOKCE OF CUMULATIVE EVIDENCE. [Lect. I. accounts which persons have given of those with whom they have had some acquaintance. These are the best and most authentic sources of history ; and we must either be content with them, or regard the past as absolutely shrouded from our knowledge by a veil which is impenetrable. Indirect records — the compilations of diligent enquirers concerning times or scenes in which they have themselves had no part — are to be placed on a much lower footing ; they must be judged by their internal character, by their accord with what is otherwise known of the times or scenes in question, and by the apparent veracity and competency of their composers. They often have a high value ; but this value cannot be assumed previously to investigation, depending as it does almost entirely on the critical judgment of their authors, on the materials to which they had access, and on the use that they actually made of them. The force of cumulative evidence has often been noticed. No account of the grounds of historic belief would be complete, even in outline, which failed to notice its applicability to this field of investigation, and its great weight and importance in all cases where it has any place. " Probable proofs," says Bishop Butler, "by being added, not only increase the evidence, but multiply it (51)." When two inde- pendent writers witness to the same event, the pro- bability of that event is increased, not in an arithme- tical but in a geometrical ratio, not by mere addition, but by multiplication (52). "By the mouth of two or three witnesses," the word to which such witness Lect. I.] PSEUDO-CANON OF THE KATIONALISTS. 21 is borne is " established " a . And the agreement is the more valuable if it be — so to speak — incidental and casual ; if the two writers are contemporary, and their writings not known to one another ; if one only alludes to what the other narrates ; if one appears to have been an actor, and the other merely a looker-on ; if one gives events, and the other the feelings which naturally arise out of them : in these cases the con- viction which springs up in every candid and unpre- judiced mind is absolute ; the element of doubt which hangs about all matters of mere belief being reduced to such infinitesimal proportions as to be inappre- ciable, and so, practically speaking, to disappear altogether. To the four Canons which have been already enu- merated as the criteria of historic truth, modern Kationalism would add a fifth, an a priori opinion of its own — the admission of which would put a stop at once to any such enquiry as that upon which we are now entering. " No just perception of the true nature of history is possible," we are told, " without a perception of the inviolability of the chain of finite causes, and of the impossibility of miracles (53).' ? And the mythical interpreters insist, that one of the essen- tial marks of a mythical narrative, whereby it may be clearly distinguished from one which is historical, is, its " presenting an account of events which are either absolutely or relatively beyond the reach of (ordinary) experience^ such as occurrences connected with the spiritual world, or its dealing in the super- a Deuteronomy xix. 15. 22 POSSIBILITY OF MIEACLES. [Lect. I. natural (54)." Now, if miracles cannot take place, an enquiry into the historical evidences of Revealed Religion is vain ; for Revelation is itself miraculous, and therefore, by the hypothesis, impossible. But what are the grounds upon which so stupendous an assertion is made, as that God cannot, if He so please, suspend the working of those laws by which He commonly acts upon matter, and act on special occa- sions differently ? Shall we say that He cannot, because of His own immutability — because He is a being " with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning " ? b But, if we apply the notion of a Law to God at all, it is plain that miraculous interpositions on fitting occasions may be as much a regular, fixed, and established rule of His government, as the work- ing ordinarily by what are called natural laws. Or shall we say that all experience and analogy is against miracles ? But this is either to judge, from our own narrow and limited experience, of the whole course of nature, and so to generalise upon most weak and insufficient grounds ; or else, if in the phrase " all experience " we include the experience of others, it is to draw a conclusion directly in the teeth of our data : for many persons well worthy of belief have declared that they have witnessed and wrought mira- cles. Moreover, were it true that all known experi- ence was against miracles, this would not even prove that they had not happened — much less that they are impossible. If they are impossible, it must be either from something in the nature of things, or b James i. 17. Lect. I.] CREATION ITSELF MIRACULOUS. 23 from something in the nature of God. That the immutability of God does not stand in the way of miracles has been already shewn ; and I know of no other attribute of the Divine Nature which can be even supposed to create a difficulty. To most minds it will, if I do not greatly mistake, rather appear, that the Divine Omnipotence includes in it the power of working miracles. And if God created the world, He certainly once worked a miracle of the most sur- passing greatness. Is there then anything in the nature of things to make miracles impossible ? Not unless things have an independent existence, and work by their own power. If they are in themselves nought, if God called them out of nothing, and but for His sustaining power they would momentarily fall back into nothing ; if it is not they that work, but He who works in them and through them ; if growth, and change, and motion, and assimilation, and decay, are His dealings with matter, as sanctifi- cation and enlightenment, and inward comfort, and the gift of the clear vision of Him, are His dealings with ourselves ; if the Great and First Cause never deserts even for a moment the second Causes, but He who " upholdeth all things by the word of His power," and is " above all and through all," d is also (as Hooker says) " the Worker of all in all (55)" — then certainly things in themselves cannot oppose any impediment to miracles, or do aught but obsequiously follow the Divine fiat, be it what it may. The whole difficulty with regard to miracles has its roots in a materialistic c Hebrews i. 3. d .Epliesians iv. 6. 21 PECULIARITIES OF MODERN ATHEISM. [Lect. I. Atheism, which believes things to have a force in and of themselves ; which regards them as self-sustaining, if not even as self-caused ; which deems them to possess mysterious powers of their own uncontrollable by the Divine Will ; which sees in the connexion of physical cause and effect, not a sequence, not a law, but a necessity ; which, either positing a Divine First Cause to bring things into existence, then (like Anaxagoras) makes no further use of Him (56) ; or does not care to posit any such First Cause at all, but is content to refer all things to a " course of nature," which it considers eternal and unalterable, and on which it lavishes ail the epithets that believers regard as appropriate to God, and God only. It is the peculiarity of Atheism at the present day that it uses a religious nomenclature — it is no longer dry, and hard, and cold, all matter of fact and common-sense, as was the case in the last century — on the contrary, it has become warm in expression, poetic, eloquent, glowing, sensuous, imaginative — the c Course of Na- ture,' which it has set up in the place of God, is in a certain sense deified — -no language is too exalted to be applied to it, no admiration too great to be excited by it — it is "glorious," and "marvellous," and "su- perhuman," and "heavenly," and "spiritual," and " divine" — only it is ' It/ not • He,' — a fact or set of facts, and not a Person : — and so it can really call forth no love, no gratitude, no reverence, no personal feeling of any kind — it can claim no willing obedience ■ — it can inspire no wholesome awe — it is a dead idol after all, and its worship is but the old nature worship Lect. I.] FICTITIOUS MIEACLES IMPLY THE TRUE. 25 — man returning in his dotage to the follies which beguiled his childhood — losing the Creator in the creature, the Workman in the work of his hands. It cannot therefore be held on any grounds but such as involve a real, though covert Atheism, that miracles are impossible, or that a narrative of which supernatural occurrences form an essential part is therefore devoid of an historic character. Miracles are to be viewed as in fact a part of the Divine Eco- nomy — a part as essential as any other, though coming into play less frequently. It has already been observed, that the creation of the world was a miracle, or rather a whole array of miracles ; and any true historical account of- it must " deal in the super- natural." A first man was as great a miracle — may we not say a greater miracle, than a raised man ? Greater, in as much as to create and unite a body and soul is to do more than merely to unite them when they have been created. And the occurrence of miracles at the beginning of the world established a precedent for their subsequent occurrence from time to time with greater or less frequency, as God should see to be fitting. Again, all history abounds in statements that miracles have in fact from time to time occurred ; and though we should surrender to the sceptic the whole mass of Heathen and Ecclesias- tical miracles, which I for one do not hold to be necessary (57), yet still fictitious miracles imply the existence of true ones, just as hypocrisy implies that there is virtue. To reject a narrative therefore, simply because it contains miraculous circumstances, 20 EXTENT OF THE PROPOSED ENQUIRY. [Lect. I. is to indulge an irrational prejudice — a prejudice which has no foundation either in a priori truths or in the philosophy of experience, and which can only be consistently held by one who disbelieves in God. The rejection of this negative Canon, — which a pseudo-critical School has boldly but vainly put for- ward for the furtherance of its own views with respect to the Christian scheme, but which no histo- rian of repute has adopted since the days of Gibbon, ■ — will enable us to proceed without further delay to that which is the special business of these Lectures — the examination, by the light of those Canons whose truth has been admitted, of the historic evidences of Revealed Religion. The actual examination must however be reserved for future Lectures. Time will not permit of my attempting to do more in the brief remainder of the present Discourse than simply to point out the chief kinds or branches into which the evidence divides itself, and to indicate, somewhat more clearly than has as yet been done, the method which will be pursued in the examination of it. The sacred records themselves are the main proof of the events related in them. Waiving the question of their inspiration, I propose to view them simply as a mass of documents, subject to the laws, and to be judged by the principles of historical criticism ; I shall briefly discuss their genuineness, where it has been called in question, and vindicate their authenti- city. Where two or more documents belong to the same time, I shall endeavour to exhibit some of their most remarkable points of agreement : I shall not, Lect. I.] TWO KINDS OF EVIDENCE AVAILABLE. 27 however, dwell at much length on this portion of the enquiry. It is of pre-eminent importance, but its pre- eminence has secured it a large amount of attention on the part of Christian writers ; and I cannot hope to add much to the labours of those who have preceded me in this field. There is, however, a second and distinct kind of evidence, which has not (I think) re- ceived of late as much consideration as it deserves — ■ I mean the external evidence to the truth of the Bible records, whether contained in monuments, in the works of profane writers, in customs and observances now existing or known to have existed, or finally in the works of believers nearly contemporary with any of the events narrated. The evidence under some of these heads has recently received important accessions, and fresh light has been thrown in certain cases on the character and comparative value of the writers. It seems to be time to bid the nations of the earth once more "bring forth their witnesses," and "declare" and " shew us " what it is which they record of the " former things" — that they may at once justify and " be justified" — in part directly confirming the Scrip- ture narrative, in part silent but not adverse, content to " hear, and say, ' It is truth.' ' " Ye are my wit- nesses, saith the Lord" — even " the blind people, that have eyes ; and the deaf, that have ears " — " Ye are my witnesses — and my servant whom I have chosen." The testimony of the sacred and the profane is not conflicting, but consentient — and the comparison of the two will show, not discord, but harmony. e Isaiah xliii. 8, 10. 28 [Lect. II. LECTURE II. Job VIII. verses 8 to 10. Enquire, I pray thee, of the former age, and prepare thyself to the search of their fathers ; {for ive are but of yesterday, and know nothing, because our days upon earth are a shadow) ; shall not they teach thee, and tell thee, and utter words out of their heart f In every historical enquiry it is possible to pursue our researches in two ways : we may either trace the stream of time upwards, and pursue history to its earliest source ; or we may reverse the process, and beginning at the fountain-head follow down the course of events in chronological order to our own day. The former is the more philosophical, because the more real and genuine method of procedure : it is the course which in the original investigation of the subject must, in point of fact, have been pursued : the present is our standing point, and we necessarily view the past from it ; and only know so much of the past as we connect, more or less distinctly, with it. But the opposite process has certain advantages which cause it commonly to be preferred. It is the order of the actual occurrence, and therefore has an objective truth which the other lacks. It is the simpler and clearer of the two, being synthetic and not analytic ; com- mencing with little, it proceeds by continual accretion, thus adapting itself to our capacities, which cannot take in much at once ; and further, it has the advan- Lect. II.] FIVE PERIODS OF BIBLICAL HISTORY: 29 tage of conducting us out of comparative darkness into a light, which brightens and broadens as we keep ad- vancing, " shining more and more unto the perfect day." a Its difficulties and inconveniences are at the first outset, when we plunge as it were into a world unknown, and seek in the dim twilight of the remote past for some sure and solid ground upon which to plant our foot. On the whole there is perhaps suffi- cient reason for conforming to the ordinary practice, and adopting the actual order of the occurrences as that of the examination upon which we are entering. It will be necessary, however, in order to bring within reasonable compass the vast field that offers itself to us for investigation, to divide the history which is to be reviewed into periods, which may be successively considered in their entirety. The division which the sacred writings seem to suggest is into HYe such periods. The first of these extends from the Creation to the death of Moses, being the period of which the history is delivered to us in the Penta- teuch. The second extends from the death of Moses to the accession of Rehoboam, and is treated in Joshua, Judges, Ruth, the two Books of Samuel, and some portions of the Rooks of Kings and Chronicles, The third is the period from the accession of Rehoboam to the Captivity of Judah, which is treated of in the re- mainder of Kings and Chronicles, together with por- tions of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, and Zephaniah. The fourth extends from the Captivity to the reform of Nehemiah ; a Proverbs, iv. 18. 30 HISTORY OF THE FIRST PERIOD. [Lect. II. and its history is contained in Daniel, Ezra, Esther, and Neheniiah, and illustrated by Haggai and Zecha- riah. The fifth is the period of the life of Christ and the preaching and establishment of Christianity, of which the history is given in the New Testament. The first four periods will form the subject of the present and three following Lectures. The fifth period, from its superior importance, will require to be treated at greater length. Its examination is intended to occupy the remainder of the present Course. The sacred records of the first period have come down to us in the shape of five Books, the first of which is introductory, while the remaining four present us with the' history of an individual, Moses, and of the Jewish people under his guidance. Criti- cally speaking, it is of the last importance to know by whom the books which contain this history were written. Now the ancient, positive, and uniform tradition of the Jews assigned the authorship of the fivQ books (or Pentateuch), with the exception of the last chapter of Deuteronomy, to Moses (1) ; and this tradition is prima facie evidence of the fact, such as at least throws the burden of proof upon those who call it in question. It is an admitted rule of all sound criticism, that books are to be regarded as pro- ceeding from the writers whose names they bear, unless very strong reasons indeed can be adduced to the contrary (2). In the present instance, the reasons which have been urged are weak and puerile in the extreme ; they rest in part on misconceptions of the meaning of passages (3), in part, upon inter- Lect. II.] PENTATEUCH WRITTEN BY MOSES. 31 polations into the original text, which are sometimes very plain and palpable (4). Mainly however they have their source in arbitrary and unproved hypo- theses, as that a contemporary writer would not have introduced an account of miracles (5) ; that the cul- ture indicated by the book is beyond that of the age of Moses (6) ; that if Moses had written the book, he would not have spoken of himself in the third person (7) ; that he would have given a fuller and more complete account of his own history (8) • and that he would not have applied to himself terms of praise and expressions of honour (9). It is enough to observe of these objections, that they are such as might equally be urged against the genuineness of St. Paul's epistles, which is allowed even by Strauss (10) — against that of the works of Homer, Chaucer, and indeed of all writers in advance of their age — against Caesar's Commentaries, and Xenophon's Ex- pedition of Cyrus — against the Acts of the Apostles (11), and against the Gospel of St. John. St. Paul relates contemporary miracles ; Homer and Chaucer exhibit a culture and a tone which, but for them, we should have supposed unattainable in their age ; Caesar and Xenophon write throughout in the third person ; St. Luke omits all account of his own doings at Philippi ; St. John applies to himself the most honourable of all titles — " the disciple whom Jesus loved V A priori conceptions of how an author of a certain time and country would write, of what he would say or not say, or how he would express him- b John xiii. 23 ; xix. 26, &c. 32 AUTHENTICITY OF THE PENTATEUCH. [Lect. II. self, are among the weakest of all presumptions, and must be regarded as outweighed by a very small amount of positive testimony to authorship. More- over, for an argument of this sort to have any force at all, it is necessary that we should possess, from other sources besides the author who is being judged, a tolerably complete knowledge of the age to which he is assigned, and a fair acquaintance with the literature of his period (12). In the case of Moses our knowledge of the age is exceedingly limited, while of the literature we have scarcely any know- ledge at all (13), beyond that which is furnished by the sacred records next in succession — the Books of Joshua and Judges, and (perhaps) the Book of Job — and these are so far from supporting the notion that such a work as the Pentateuch could not be produced in the age of Moses, that they furnish a very strong argument to the contrary. The diction of the Pen- tateuch is older than that of Joshua and Judges (14), while its ideas are presupposed in those writings (15), which may be said to be based upon it, and to require it as their antecedent. If then they could be written at the time to which they are commonly and (as will be hereafter shewn) rightly assigned (16), the Pen- tateuch not only may,' but must, be as early as Moses. Vague doubts have sometimes been thrown out as to the existence of writings at this period (17). The evidence of the Mosaic records themselves, if the true date of their composition were allowed, would be conclusive upon the point ; for they speak of writing as a common practice. Waiving this evidence, we Lect. II.] CONTEMPORARY RECORDS. 33 may remark that hieroglyphical inscriptions upon stone were known in Egypt at least as early as the fourth dynasty, or B.C. 2450 (18), that inscribed bricks were common in Babylonia about two centu- ries later (19), and that writing upon papyruses, both in the hieroglyphic and the hieratic characters, was familiar to the Egyptians under the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties (20), which is exactly the time to which the Mosaic records would, if genuine, belong. It seems certain that Moses, if educated by a daughter of one of the Ramesside kings, and therefore " learn- ed" (as we are told he was) "in all the wisdom of Egypt," would be well acquainted with the Egyptian method of writing with ink upon the papyrus ; while it is also probable that Abraham, who emigrated not earlier than the nineteenth century before our era from the great Chaldsean capital, Ur, would have brought with him and transmitted to his descendants the alphabetic system with which the Chaldseans of his day were acquainted (21). There is thus every reason to suppose that writing was familiar to the Jews when they quitted Egypt ; and the mention of it as a common practice in the books of Moses is in perfect accordance with what we know of the condi- tion of the world at the time from other sources. To the unanimous witness of the Jews with respect to the authorship of the Pentateuch may be added the testimony of a number of heathen writers. He- catseus of A.bdera (22), Manetho (23), Lysimachus of Alexandria (24), Eirpolemus (25), Tacitus (26), c Acts vii. 22. D 34 EXTEENAL TESTIMONY. [Lect. II' Juvenal (27), Longinns (28), all ascribe to Moses the institution of that code of laws by which the Jews were distinguished from other nations ; and the ma- jority distinctly (29) note that he committed his laws to writing. These authors cover a space extending from the time of Alexander, when the Greeks first became curious on the subject of Jewish history, to that of the emperor Aurelian, when the literature of the Jews had been thoroughly sifted by the acute and learned Alexandrians. They constitute, not the full voice of heathenism on the subject, but only an indication of what that voice was. It cannot be doubted that if we had the complete works of those many other writers to whom Josephus, Clement, and Eusebius refer as mentioning Moses (30), we should find the amount of heathen evidence on this point greatly increased. Moreover, we must bear in mind that the witness is unanimous, or all but unanimous (31). Nor is it, as an objector might be apt to urge, the mere echo of Jewish tradition faintly repeating itself from far off lands ; in part at least it rests upon a distinct and even hostile authority — that of the Egyptians. Manetho certainly, and Lysimachus probably, represent Egyptian, and not Jewish, views ; and thus the Jewish tradition is confirmed by that of the only nation which was sufficiently near and suffi- ciently advanced in the Mosaic age to make its testi- mony on the point of real importance. To the external testimony which has been now adduced must be added the internal testimony of the work itself, which repeatedly speaks of Moses as Lect. II.] INTEKNAL TESTIMONY. 35 writing the law, and recording the various events and occurrences in a book, and as reading from this book to the people (32). The modern rationalist regards it as a " most unnatural supposition," that the Pentateuch was written during the passage of the Israelites through the wilderness (33) ; but this is what every unprejudiced reader gathers from the Pentateuch itself, which tells us that God com- manded Moses to " write " the discomfiture of Amalek "in a book;" d that Moses " wrote all the words of the law," e and took the book of the covenant, and read it in the audience of the people " f and " wrote the goings out of the people of Israel according to their journeys, by the commandment of the Lord ;" s and, finally, " made an end of writing the words of the law in a book, until they were finished ;" h and bade the Levites, who bare the ark of the covenant, " take that book of the law, and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord, that it might be there for a witness against the people." * A book therefore — a" book of the covenant" — a book out of which he could read the whole law (34) — was cer- tainly written by Moses ; and this book was deposited in the ark of the covenant, and given into the special custody of the Levites, who bare it, with the stern injunction still ringing in their ears, " Ye shall not add unto the word, neither diminish ought from it;" j and they were charged " at the end of every d Exod. xvii. 14. e Ibid. xxiv. 4. f Ibid. ver. 7. g Numb xxxiii. 2. h Deut. xxxi. 24. j Ibid. ver. 26. J Ibid. iv. 2. D 2 36 DILEMMA OF CAVILLERS. [Lect. II. seven years, in the year of release, in the feast of tabernacles, to read it before all Israel in their hear- ing ;" k and, farther, a command was given, that, when the Israelites should have kings, each king should " write him a copy of the law in a book, out of that which was before the priests the Levites, that he might read therein all the days of his life." 1 Un- less therefore we admit the Pentateuch to be genuine, we must suppose that the book which (according to the belief of the Jews) Moses wrote, which was placed in the ark of God, over which the Levites were to watch with such jealous care, which was to be read to the people once in each seven years, and which was guarded by awful sanctions from either addition to it or diminution from it — we must sup- pose, I say, that this book perished ; and that another book was substituted in its place — by an unknown author — for unknown objects — professing to be the work of Moses (for that is allowed) (35), and believed to be his work thenceforth, without so much as a doubt being breathed on the subject either by the nation, its teachers, or even its enemies, for many hundreds of years (36). It has often been remarked, that the theories of those who assail Chris- tianity, make larger demands upon the faith of such as embrace them than the Christian scheme itself, marvellous as it is in many points. Certainly, few sup- positions can be more improbable than that to which (as we have seen) those who deny the Pentateuch to be genuine must have recourse, when pressed to k Dent. xxxi. 10, 11. > Ibid. xvii. 18, 19. Lect. II.J MOSES AN UNEXCEPTIONABLE WITNESS. 37 account for the phenomena. It is not surprising that having to assign a time for the introduction of the forged volume, they have varied as to the date which they suggest by above a thousand years, while they also differ from one another in every detail with which they venture to clothe the trans- action (37). I have dwelt the longer upon the genuineness of the Pentateuch, because it is admitted, even by the extremest sceptics, that the genuineness of the work carries with it the authenticity of the narrative, at least in all t its main particulars. " It would most unquestionably," says Strauss, "be an argument of decisive weight in favour of the credibility of the Biblical history, could it indeed be shewn that it was written by eyewitnesses." " Moses, being the leader of the Israelites on their departure from Egypt, would undoubtedly give a faithful history of the occurrences, unless " (which is not pretended) a he designed to deceive." And further, " Moses, if his intimate connexion with Deity described in these books " (i. e. the last four) " be historically true, was likewise eminently qualified, by virtue of such con- nexion, to produce a credible history of the earlier periods (37 6)." If Moses indeed wrote the account which we possess of the Exodus and. of the wanderings in the wilderness ; and if, having written it, he delivered it to those who knew the events as well as he, the conditions, which secure the highest degree of historical credibility, so far at least as regards the events of the last four books, are obtained. We 38 MOSES AN HONEST WRITER. [Legt. II. have for them the direct witness of a contemporary writer — not an actor only, but the leader in the transactions which he relates — honest evidently, for he records his own sins and defects, and the trans- gressions and sufferings of his people ; and honest necessarily, for he writes of events which were public and known to all — we have a work, which, by the laws of historical criticism, is thus for historical pur- poses just as reliable as Caesar's Commentaries or Xenophon's Retreat of the Ten Thousand — we have that rare literary treasure, the autobiography of a great man, engaged in events, the head of his nation at a most critical period in their annals ; who commits to writing as they occur the various events and transactions in which he is engaged, wherever they have a national or public character (38). "We must therefore consider, even setting aside the whole idea of inspiration, that we possess in the last four books of the Pentateuch as trustworthy an account of the Exodus of the Jews, and their subsequent wanderings, as we do, in the works of Caesar and Xenophon, of the conquest of Britain, or of the events which preceded and followed the battle of Cunaxa. The narrative of Genesis stands undoubtedly on a different footing. Our confidence in it must ever rest mainly on our conviction of the inspiration of the writer. Still, setting that aside, and continuing to judge the documents as if they were ordinary histori- cal materials, it is to be noted, in the first place, that, as Moses was on the mother's side grandson to Levi, Lect. II.] AUTHENTICITY OF GENESIS. 39 he would naturally possess that fair knowledge of the time of the first going down into Egypt, and of the history of Joseph, which the most sceptical of the his- torical critics allow that men have of their own family and nation to the days of their grandfathers (39). He would thus be as good an historical authority for the details of Joseph's story, and for the latter part of the life of Jacob, as Herodotus for the reign of Oam- byses, or Fabius Pictor for the third Samnite War. Again, with respect to the earlier history, it is to be borne in mind through how very few hands, accord- ing to the numbers in the Hebrew text, this passed to Moses (40). Adam, according to the Hebrew origi- nal, was for 243 years contemporary with Methuselah, who conversed for 100 years with Shem. Shem was for 50 years contemporary with Jacob, who probably saw Jochebed, Moses' mother. Thus Moses might, by mere oral tradition, have obtained the history of Abra- ham, and even of the Deluge, at third hand ; and that of the Temptation and the Fall, at fifth hand. The patriarchal longevity had the effect of reducing cen- turies to little more than lustres, so far as the safe transmission of historical events was concerned ; for this does not depend either upon years or upon gene- rations, but upon the number of links in the chain through which the transmittal takes place. If it be granted, as it seems to be (41), that the great and stirring events in a nation's life will, under ordinary circumstances, be remembered (apart from all written memorials) for the space of 150 years, being handed down through five generations ; it must be allowed 40 THE "DOCUMENT HYPOTHESIS." [Lect. II. (even on mere human grounds) that the account which Moses gives of the Temptation and the Fall is to be depended on, if it passed through no more than four hands between him and Adam. And the argument is of course stronger for the more recent events, since they would have passed through fewer hands than the earlier (42). And this, be it remembered, is on the supposition that the sole human source from which Moses com- posed the Book of Genesis was oral tradition. But it is highly probable that he also made use of docu- ments. So much fanciful speculation has been ad- vanced, so many vain and baseless theories have been built up, in connexion with what is called the " docu- ment-hypothesis" concerning Genesis (43), that I touch the point with some hesitation, and beg at once to be understood as not venturing to dogmatise in a matter of such difficulty. But both a priori probabi- lity, and the internal evidence, seem to me to favour the opinion of Yitringa (44) and Calmet (45), that Moses consulted monuments or records of former ages, which had descended from the families of the patri- archs, and by collecting, arranging, adorning, and, where they were deficient, completing them, composed his history. What we know of the antiquity of writ- ing, both in Egypt and Babylonia (4G), renders it not improbable that the art was known and practised soon after the Flood, if it was not even (as some have sup- posed) a legacy from the antediluvian world (47). Abraham can scarcely have failed to bring with him into Palestine a knowledge which had certainly been Lect. II.] VITKINGA'S THEORY. 41 possessed by the citizens of Ur for several hundred years before he set out on his wanderings. And if it be said that the art, though known, might not have been applied to historical records in the family of Abraham at this early date, — yet at any rate, when the Israelites descended into Egypt, and found writing in such common use, and historical records so abun- dant, as they can be proved to have been in that country at that period, it is scarcely conceivable that they should not have reduced to a written form the traditions of their race, the memory of which their residence in a foreign land would be apt to endanger. And these probabilities are quite in accordance with what appears in the Book of Genesis itself. The great fulness with which the history of Joseph is given, and the minutice into which it enters, mark it as based upon a contemporary, or nearly contemporary bio- graphy ; and the same may be said with almost equal force of the histories of Jacob, Isaac, and even Abra- ham. Further, there are several indications of sepa- rate documents in the earlier part of Genesis, as the superscriptions or headings of particular portions, the change of appellation by which the Almighty is dis- tinguished, and the like ; which, if they do not certainly • mark different documents, at least naturally suggest them. If we then upon these grounds accept Vitringa's theory, we elevate considerably what I may call the human authority of Genesis. Instead of being the embodiment of oral traditions which have passed through two, three, four, or perhaps more hands, pre- viously to their receiving a written form, the Book of 42 EVIDENCE OF ANCIENT KECOKDS. [Lect. II. Genesis becomes a work based in the main upon con- temporary, or nearly contemporary, documents — do- cuments of which the venerable antiquity casts all other ancient writings into the shade, several of them dating probably from times not far removed from the Flood, while some may possibly descend to us from the antediluvian race. The sanction which the Book of Genesis thus obtains is additional, it must be re- membered, to what it derives from Moses ; who is still the responsible author of the work ; who selected the documents, and gave them all the confirmation which they could derive from his authority, whether it be regarded as divine or human, as that of one " learned" in man's " wisdom," m or that of an inspired teacher — " a prophet, raised up by God/' n Thus far we have been engaged in considering the weight which properly attaches to the Pentateuch itself, viewed as an historical work produced by a certain individual, under certain circumstances, and at a certain period. It remains to examine the external evidence to the character of the Mosaic nar- rative which is furnished by the other ancient records in our possession, so far at least as those records have a fair claim to be regarded as of any "real historic value. Eecords possessing even moderate pretensions to the character of historic are, for this early period, as we should expect beforehand, extremely scanty. I cannot reckon in the number either the primitive traditions of the Greeks, the curious compilations of m Acts vii. 22. n Deut. xviii. 15. Lect. II.] FRAGMENTS AND INSCRIPTIONS. 43 the Armenians (48), the historical poems of the Hindoos (49), or the extravagant fables of the Chi- nese (50). A dim knowledge of certain great events in primeval history — as of the Deluge — may indeed be traced in all these quarters (51) ; but the historical element to be detected is in every case so small, it is so overlaid by fable, and intermixed with what is palpably imaginative, that no manner of reliance can be placed upon statements merely because they occur in these pretended histories,nor have they the slightest title to be used as tests whereby to try the authenticity of any other narrative. The only trustworthy mate- rials that we possess, besides the Pentateuch, for the history of the period which it embraces, consist of some fragments of Berosus and Manetho, an epitome of the early Egyptian history of the latter, a certain number of Egyptian and Babylonian inscriptions, and, two or three valuable papyri. If it be asked on what grounds so strong a prefer- ence is assigned to these materials, the answer is easy. The records selected are those of Egypt and Babylon. Now these two countries were, according to the most trustworthy accounts, both sacred and profane (52) ; the first seats of civilisation: in them writing seems to have been practised earlier than else- where ; they paid from the first great attention to histo-. •;, and possessed, when the Greeks became acquainted with them, historical records of an anti- quity confessedly greater than that which could be claimed for any documents elsewhere. Further, in each of these countries, at the moment when, in con- 44: BEEOSUS AND MANETHO. [Lect. II. sequence of Grecian conquest and the infusion of new ideas, there was the greatest danger of the records perishing or being vitiated, there arose a man — a na- tive — thoroughly acquainted with their antiquities, and competently skilled in the Greek language, who transferred to that tongue, and thus made the com- mon property of mankind, what had previously been a hidden treasure — the possession of their own priests and philosophers only. The value of the histories written by Manetho the Sebennyte, and Berosus the Chaldaean, had long been suspected by the learned (53) ; but it remained for the present age to obtain distinct evidence of their fidelity — evidence which places them, among the historians of early times, in a class by themselves, greatly above even the most acute and painstaking of the Greek and Roman com- pilers. Herodotus, Ctesias, Alexander Polyhistor, Diodorus Siculus, Trogus Pompeius, could at best re- ceive at second-hand such representations of Babylo- nian and Egyptian history as the natives chose to impart to them, and moreover received these repre- sentations (for the most part) diluted and distorted by passing through the medium of comparatively igno- rant interpreters. Manetho and Berosus had free access to the national records, and so could draw their histories directly from the fountain-head. This ad- vantage might, of course, have been forfeited by a deficiency on their part of either honesty or diligence ; but the recent discoveries in the two countries have had the effect of removing all doubt upon either of these two heads from the character of both writers. Lect. II.] CHBONOLOGICAL DIFFICULTIES UNREAL. 45 The monuments which have been recovered furnish the strongest proof alike of the honest intention and of the diligence and carefulness of the two historians ; who have thus, as profane writers of primeval history, a pre-eminence over all others (54). This is perhaps the chief value of the documents obtained, which do not in themselves furnish a history, or even its frame- work, a chronology (55) ; but require an historical scheme to be given from without, into which they may fit, and wherein each may find its true and proper position. If we now proceed to compare the Mosaic account of the first period of the world's history with that outline which may be obtained from Egyptian and Babylonian sources, we are struck at first sight with what seems an enormous difference in the chrono- logy. The sum of the years in Manetho's scheme, as it has come down to us in Eusebius, is little short of 30,000 (56) ; while that in the scheme of Berosus, as reported by the same author (57), exceeds 460,000 ! But upon a little consideration, the greater part of this difficulty vanishes. If we examine the two chro- nologies, we shall find that both evidently divide at a certain point, above which all is mythic, while below all is, or at least may be, historical. Out of the 30,000 years contained (apparently) in Manetho's scheme, nearly 25,000 belong to the time when Grods, Demigods, and Spirits, had rule on earth ; and the history of Egypt confessedly does not begin till this period is concluded, and Menes, the first Egyptian King, mounts the throne (58). Similarly, in the 46 BABYLONIAN AND EGYPTIAN CHRONOLOGY. [Lect. II. chronology of Berosus, there is a sudden transition from kings whose reigns are counted by sossi and neri, or periods respectively of 60 and 600 years, to mo- narchs the average length, of whose reigns very little exceeds that found to prevail in ordinary monarchies. Omitting in each case what is plainly a mythic com- putation, we have in the Babylonian scheme a chro- nology which mounts up no higher than 2,458 years before Christ, or 800 years after the Deluge (accord- ing to the numbers of the Septuagint) ;. while in the Egyptian we have at any rate only an excess of about 2000 years to explain and account for, instead of an excess of 27,000. And this latter discrepancy becomes insignificant, if it does not actually disappear, upon a closer scru- tiny. The 5000 years of Manetho's dynastic lists were reduced by himself (as we learn from Syncellus) to 3555 years (59), doubtless because he was aware that his lists contained in some cases contemporary dynasties ; in others, contemporary kings in the same dynasty, owing to the mention in them of various royal personages associated on the throne by the prin- cipal monarch. Thus near 1500 years are struck off from Manetho's total at a blow ; and the chronolo- gical difference between his scheme and that of Scrip- ture is reduced to a few hundred years — a discrepancy of no great moment, and one which might easily arise, either from slight errors of the copyists, or from an insufficient allowance being made in Manetho's scheme, in respect of either or both of the causes from which Egyptian chronology is always liable to be Lect. II.] POINTS OF AGREEMENT. 47 exaggerated. Without taxing Manetho with con- scious dishonesty, we may suspect that he was not unwilling to exalt the antiquity of his country, if he could do so without falsifying his authorities ; and from the confusion of the middle or Hyksos period of Egyptian history, and the obscurity of the earlier times, when there were as yet no monuments, he would have had abundant opportunity for chronolo- gical exaggeration by merely regarding as consecu- tive dynasties all those which were not certainly known to have been contemporary. The real dura- tion of the Egyptian monarchy depends entirely upon the proper arrangement of the dynasties into syn- chronous and consecutive- — a point upon which the best Egyptologers are still far from agreed. Some of the greatest names in this branch of antiquarian learning are in favour of a chronology almost as moderate as the historic Babylonian ; the accession of Menes, according to them, falling about 2690 B.C., or more than 600 years after the Septuagint date for the Deluge (60). The removal of this difficulty opens the way to a consideration of the positive points of agreement between the Scriptural narrative and that of the profane authorities. And here, for the earliest times, it is especially Babylon which furnishes an account capable of being compared with that of Moses. According to Berosus, the world when first created was in darkness, and consisted of a fluid mass inhabited by monsters of the strangest forms. Over the whole dominated a female power called 48 CREATION DESCRIBED BY BEROSUS. [Lect. II. Thalatth, or Sea. Then Belus, wishing to carry on the creative work, cleft Thalatth in twain ; and of the half of her he made the earth, and of the other half the heaven. Hereupon the monsters, who could not endure the air and the light, perished. Belus upon this, seeing that the earth was desolate jet teeming with productive power, cut off his own head, and mingling the blood which flowed forth with the dust of the ground, formed men, who were thus intelligent, as being partakers of the divine wisdom. He then made other animals fit to live on the earth : he made also the stars, and the sun and moon, and the five planets. The first man was Alorus, a Chal- dsean, who reigned over mankind for 36,000 years, and begat a son, Alaparus, who reigned 10,800 years. Then followed in succession eight others, whose reigns were of equal or greater length, ending with Xisuthrus, under whom the great Deluge took jolace (61). The leading facts of this cosmogony and antediluvian history are manifestly, and indeed confessedly (62), in close agreement with the Hebrew records. We have in it the earth at first " without form and void," and " darkness upon the face of the deep." We have the Creator dividing the watery mass and making the two firmaments, that of the heaven and that of the earth, first of all; we have Light spoken of before the sun and moon ; we have their creation, and that of the stars, somewhat late in the series of events given ; we have a divine element infused into man at his birth, and again we Gen. i. 2. Lect. II.] DELUGE DESCRIBED BY BEEOSUS. 49 have liis creation "from the dust of the ground.' 5 p Further, between the first man and the Deluge are in the scheme of Berosus ten generations, which is the exact number between Adam and Noah ; and though the duration of human life is in his account enormously exaggerated, we may see even in this exaggeration a glimpse of the truth, that the lives of the Patriarchs were extended far beyond the term which has been the limit in later ages. This truth seems to have been known to many of the ancients (63), and traces of it have even been found among the modern Burmans and Chinese (64). The account which Berosus gives of the Deluge is still more strikingly in accordance with the narrative of Scripture. " Xisuthrus," he says, " was warned by Saturn in a dream that all mankind would be destroyed shortly by a deluge of rain. He was bidden to bury in the city of Sippara (or Sepharvaim) such written documents as existed ; and then to build a huge vessel or ark, in length five furlongs, and two furlongs in width, wherein was to be placed good store of provisions, together with winged fowl and four-footed beasts of the earth ; and in which he was himself to embark with his wife and children, and his close friends. Xisuthrus did accordingly, and the flood came at the time appointed. The ark drifted towards Armenia ; and Xisuthrus, on the third day after the rain abated, sent out from the ark some birds, which, after flying for a while over the illimi- table sea of waters, and finding neither food nor a p Gen. ii. 7. 50 SIMILAR ACCOUNT BY ABYDENUS. [Lect. II. spot on which they could settle, returned to him. Some days later, Xisuthrus sent out other birds, which likewise returned, but with feet covered with mud. Sent out a third time, the birds returned no more ; and Xisuthrus knew that the earth had reap- peared. So he removed some of the covering of the ark, and looked, and behold the vessel had grounded upon a high mountain, and remained fixed. Then he went forth from the ark, with his wife, his daugh- ter, and his pilot, and built an altar, and offered sacrifice ; after which he suddenly disappeared from sight, together with those who had accompanied him. They who had remained in the ark, surprised that he did not return, sought him ; when they heard his voice in the sky, exhorting thern to continue religious, and bidding them go back to Babylonia from the land of Armenia, where they were, and recover the buried documents, and make them once more known among men. So they obeyed, and went back to the land of Babylon, and built many cities and temples, and raised up Babylon from its ruins "(65). Such is the account of Berosus ; and a description substantially the same is given by Abydenus (66), an ancient writer of whom less is known, but whose fragments are generally of great value and impor- tance. It is plain that we have here a tradition not drawn from the Hebrew record, much less the foun- dation of that record (666) ; yet coinciding with it in the most remarkable way. The Babylonian ver- sion is tricked out with a few extravagances, as the monstrous size of the vessel, and the translation of Lect. II.] HARMONY WITH THE MOSAIC ACCOUNT, 51 Xisuthrus ; but otherwise it is the Hebrew history down to its minutice. The previous warning, the divine direction as to the ark and its dimensions, the introduction into it of birds and beasts, the threefold sending out of the birds, the place of the ark's resting, the egress by removal of the covering, the altar straightway built, and the sacrifice offered, constitute an array of exact coincidences which cannot possibly be the result of chance, and of which I see no plausible account that can be given except that it is the harmony of truth. Nor are these minute coinci- dences counterbalanced by the important differences which some have seen in the two accounts. It is not true to say (as Niebuhr is reported to have said) that "the Babylonian tradition differs from the Mosaic account by stating that not only Xisuthrus and his family, but all pious men, were saved ; and also by making the Flood not universal, but only partial, and confined to Babylonia" (67). Berosus does indeed give Xisuthrus, as companions in the ark, not only his wife and children, but a certain number of " close friends ;" and thus far he differs from Scripture ; but these friends are not represented as numerous, much less as "all pious men." And so far is he from making the Flood partial, or confining it to Babylonia, that his narrative distinctly implies the contrary. The warning given to Xisuthrus is that " mankind " (tovs avdpwirov?) is about to be de- stroyed. The ark drifts to Armenia, and when it is there, the birds are sent out, and find " an illimitable sea of waters," and no rest for the sole of their feet, e 2 52 BEROSUS' POST-DILUVIAN HISTORY. [Lect. II. When at length they no longer return, Xisuthrus knows "that land has reappeared," and leaving the ark, finds himself "ona mountain in Armenia." It is plain that the waters are represented as prevailing ahove the tops of the loftiest mountains in Armenia, — a height which must have "been seen to involve the submersion of all the countries with which the Babylonians were acquainted. The account which the Chaldaean writer gave of the events following the Deluge is reported with some disagreement by the different authors through whom it has come down to us. Josephus believed that Berosus was in accord with Scripture in regard to the generations between the Flood and Abraham, which (according to the Jewish historian) he cor- rectly estimated at ten (67b). But other writers introduce in this place, as coming from Berosus, a series of 86 kings, the first and second of whom reign for above 2000 years, while the remainder reign upon an average 345 years each. We have here perhaps a trace of that gradual shortening of human life, which the genealogy of Abraham exhi- bits to us so clearly in Scripture ; but the numbers appear to be artificial (68), and they are unaccom- panied by any history. There is reason however to believe that Berosus noticed one of the most impor- tant events of this period, in terms which very strikingly recall the Scripture narrative. Writers, whose Babylonian history seems drawn directly from him, or from the sources which he used, give the following account of the tower of Babel, and the Lect. II.] TOWER OF BABEL. 53 confusion of tongues — " At this time the ancient race of men were so puffed up with their strength and tallness of stature, that they began to despise and contemn the gods ; and laboured to erect that very lofty tower, which is now called Babylon, inten- ding thereby to scale heaven. But when the building approached the sky, behold, the gods called in the aid of the winds, and by their help overturned the tower, and cast it to the ground. The name of the ruins is still called Babel ; because until this time all men had used the same speech, but now there was sent upon them a confusion of many and diverse tongues " (69). At the point which we have now reached, the sacred narrative ceases to be general, and becomes special or particular. It leaves the history of the world, and concentrates itself on an individual and his decendants. At the moment of transition, however, it throws out, in a chapter of won- derful grasp and still more wonderful accuracy, a sketch of the nations of the earth, their ethnic affinities, and to some extent their geographical posi- tion and boundaries. The Toldoth Beni Noah has extorted the admiration of modern ethnologists, who continually find in it anticipations of their greatest discoveries. For instance, in the very second verse the great discovery of Schlegel (TO), which the word Indo-European embodies — the affinity of the principal nations of Europe with the Arian or Indo- Persic stock — is sufficiently indicated by the conjunc- tion of the Madai or Medes (whose native name was Madd) with Gomer or the Cymry, and Javan or the 51 ETHNOLOGICAL VALUE OF GENESIS. [Lect. II. Ionians. Again, one of the most recent and unex- pected results of modern linguistic inquiry is the proof which it has furnished of an ethnic connexion between the Ethiopians or Cushites, who adjoined on Egypt, and the primitive inhabitants of Babylonia ; a connexion which (as we saw in the last Lecture) was positively denied by an eminent ethnologist only a few years ago, but which has now been suffi- ciently established from the cuneiform monuments (71). In the tenth of Genesis we find this truth thus briefly but clearly stated — " And Cush begat Nimrod," the "beginning of whose kingdom was Babel." q So we have had it recently made evident from the same monuments, that " out of that land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh " r — or that the Semitic Assyrians proceeded from Babylonia, and founded Nineveh long after the Cushite founda- tion of Babylon (72). Again, the Hamitic descent of the early inhabitants of Canaan, which had often been called in question, has recently come to be looked upon as almost certain, apart from the evi- dence of Scripture (73) ; and the double mention of Sheba, both among the sons of Ham, and also among those of Shem, 8 has been illustrated by the discovery that there are two races of Arabs— one (the Joktanian) Semitic, the other (the Himyaric) Cushite or Ethiopic (74). On the whole, the scheme of ethnic affiliation given in the tenth chapter of Genesis is pronounced " safer" to follow than any i Gen. x. 8 and 10. r Ibid, verse 11. 8 Ibid, verses 7 and 28. Lect. II.] HEATHEN PATRIARCHAL NOTICES. 55 other ; and the Toldoth Beni Noah commends itself to the ethnic enquirer as " the most authentic record that we possess for the affiliation of nations," and as a document " of the very highest antiquity " (75). The confirmation which profane Jiistory lends to the Book of Genesis from the point where the narra- tive passes from the general to the special character, is (as might be expected) only occasional, and for the most part incidental. Abraham was scarcely a personage of sufficient importance to attract much of the attention of either the Babylonian or the Egyptian chroniclers. We possess indeed several very interesting notices of this Patriach and his suc- cessors from heathen pens (76) ; but they are of far inferior moment to the authorities hitherto cited, since they do not indicate a separate and distinct line of information, but are in all probability derived from the Hebrew records. I refer particularly to the passages which Eusebius produces in his Gospel Preparation from Eupolemus, Artapanus, Molo, Philo, and Cleodemus, or Malchas, with regard to Abraham, and from Demetrius, Theodotus, Artapanus, and Philo, with respect to Isaac and Jacob. These testimonies are probably well known to many of my hearers, since they have been adduced very gene- rally by our writers (77). They bear unmistakably the stamp of a Jewish origin ; and shew the view which the more enlightened heathen took of the historical character of the Hebrew records when they first became acquainted with them ; but they cannot boast, like notices in Berosus and Manetho, a 56 BABYLONIAN MONUMENTAL KECOEDS. [Lect. II. distinct origin, and thus a separate and independent authority. I shall therefore content myself with this brief mention of them here, which is all that time will allow ; and proceed to adduce a few direct testimonies to the later narrative, furnished either by the native writers, or by the results of modern researches. There are three points only in this portion of the narrative which, beiug of the nature of public and important events, might be expected to obtain notice in the Babylonian or Egyptian records — the expedi- tion of Chedor-laomer with his confederate kings, the great famine in the days of Joseph, and the Exodus of the Jews. Did we possess the complete monu- mental annals of the two countries, or the works themselves of Berosus and Manetho, it might fairly be demanded of us that we should adduce evidence from them of all the three. With the scanty and fragmentary remains which are what we actually pos- sess, it would not be surprising if we found ourselves without a trace of any. In fact, however, we are able to produce from our scanty stock a decisive con- firmation of two events out of the three. The monumental records of Babylonia bear marks of an interruption in the line of native kings, about the date which from Scripture we should assign to Chedor-laomer, and " point to Elymais (or Elam) as the country from which the interruption came" (78). ~\Ye have mention of a king, whose name is on good grounds identified with Chedor-laomer (79), as para- mount in Babylonia at this time — a king appa- Lect. II. J EGYPTIAN NOTICE OF THE EXODUS. 57 rently of Elamitic origin — and this monarch bears in the inscriptions the unusual and significant title of Apda Martu, or " Eavager of the West." Our frag- ments of Berosus give us no names at this period ; but his dynasties exhibit a transition at about the date required (80), which is in accordance with the break indicated by the monuments. We thus obtain a double witness to the remarkable fact of an interrup- tion of pure Babylonian supremacy at this time ; and from the monuments we are able to pronounce that the supremacy was transferred to Elam, and that under a king, the Semitic form of whose name would be Che- dor-laomer, a greats expedition was organised, which proceeded to the distant and then almost unknown west, and returned after " ravaging' 5 but not con- quering those regions. The Exodus of the Jews was an event which could scarcely be omitted by Manetho. It was one however of such a nature — so entirely repugnant to all the feelings of an Egyptian — that we could not expect a fair representation of it in their annals. And accord- ingly, our fragments of Manetho present us with a dsstinct but very distorted notice of the occurrence. The Hebrews are represented as leprous and impious Egyptians, who under the conduct of a priest of He- liopolis, named Moses, rebelled on account of oppres- sion, occupied a town called Avaris, or Abaris, and, having called in the aid of the people of Jerusalem, made themselves masters of Egypt, which they held for thirteen years ; but who were at last defeated by the Egyptian king, and driven from Egypt into 58 HIST0RIC0-SCIENT1FIC CONFIKMATIONS. [Lect. II. Syria (81). We liave here the oppression, the name Moses, the national name, Hebrew, uncled the disguise of Abaris, and the true direction of the retreat ; but we have all the special circumstances of the occasion concealed under a general confession of disaster ; and we have a claim to final triumph which consoled the wounded vanity of the nation, but which we know to have been unfounded. On the whole we have per- haps as much as we could reasonably expect the annals of the Egyptians to tell us of transactions so little to their credit ; and we have a narrative fairly confirm- ing the principal facts, as well as very curious in many of its particulars (82). I have thus briefly considered some of the principal of those direct testimonies which can be adduced from ancient profane sources, in confirmation of the historic truth of the Pentateuch. There are various other arguments — some purely, some partly historic — into which want of space forbids my entering in the pre- sent Course. For instance, there is what may be called the historico-scientific argument, derivable from the agreement of the sacred narrative with the con- clusions reached by those sciences which have a par- tially historical character. Geology — whatever may be thought of its true bearing upon other points — at least witnesses to the recent creation of man, of whom there is no trace in any but the latest strata (83). Physiology decides in favour of the unity of the species, and the probable derivation of the whole hu- man race from a single pair (84). Comparative Philology, after divers fluctuations, settles into the Lect. II.] GEOGRAPHIC CONFIRMATIONS. 59 belief that languages will ultimately prove to have been all derived from a common basis (85). Ethnology pronounces that, independently of the Scriptural record, we should be led to fix on the plains of Shinar as a common centre, or focus, from which the various lines of migration and the several types of races originally radiated (86). Again, there is an argument perhaps more convincing than any other, but of immense compass, deducible from the indirect and incidental points of agreement between the Mo- saic records and the best profane authorities. The limits within which I am confined compel me to de- cline this portion of the enquiry. Otherwise it might be shewn that the linguistic, geographic, and ethnolo- gic notices contained in the books of Moses are of the most veracious character (87), stamping the whole narration with an unmistakable air of authenticity. And this, it may be remarked, is an argument to which modern research is perpetually adding fresh weight. For instance, if we look to the geography, we shall find that till within these few years, " Erech, and Accad, and Oalneh, in the land of Shinar" 1 — Ca- lah and Eesen,'in the country peopled by Asshur u — Ellasar, and " Ur of the Chaldees," v were mere names ; and beyond the mention of them in Genesis, scarcely a trace was discoverable of their existence (88). Ee- cently, however, the mounds of Mesopotamia have been searched, and bricks and stones buried for near three thousand years have found a tongue, and tell us exactly where each of these cities stood (89), and suffi- 1 Gen. x. 10. u Ibid, verses 11 and 1-2. v Ibid. xi. 31 ; xiv. 1. 60 ETHNOLOGIC CONFIRMATIONS. [Lect. II. ciently indicate their importance. Again, the power of Og, and his " threescore cities, all fenced with high walls, gates, and bars, besides unwalled towns a great many," w in such, a country as that to the east of the Sea of Galilee, whose old name of Trachonitis indicates its barrenness, seemed to many improbable — but mo- dern research has found in this very country a vast number of walled cities still standing, which shew the habits of the ancient people, and prove that the popu- lation must at one time have been considerable (90). So the careful examination that has been made of the valley of the Jordan, which has resulted in a proof that it is a unique phenomenon, utterly unlike any- thing elsewhere on the whole face of the earth (91), tends greatly to confirm the Mosaic account, that it became what it now is by a great convulsion ; and by pious persons will, I think, be felt as confirming the miraculous character of that convulsion. Above all, perhaps, the absence of any counter-evidence — the fact that each accession to our knowledge of the ancient times, whether historic, or geographic, or ethnic, helps to remove difficulties, and to produce a perpetual supply of fresh illustrations of the Mosaic narrative ; while fresh difficulties are not at the same time brought to light — is to be remarked, as to candid minds an argument for the historic truth of the narrative, the force of which can scarcely be over- estimated. All tends to shew that we possess in the Pentateuch, not only the most authentic account of ancient times that has come down to us, but a history w Deut. iii. 5. Lect. II.] CONCLUSION. 61 absolutely and in every respect true. All tends to assure us that in this marvellous volume we have no old wives' tales, no " cunningly devised fable ;" x but a "treasure of wisdom and knowledge" 7 — as im- portant to the historical enquirer as to the theolo- gian. There may be obscurities — there may be occa- sionally, in names and numbers, accidental corrup- tions of the text — there may be a few interpolations — glosses which have crept in from the margin ; but upon the whole it must be pronounced that we have in the Pentateuch a genuine and authentic work, and one which — even were it not inspired — would be, for the times and countries whereof it treats, the leading and paramount authority. It is (let us be assured) " Moses," who is still " read in the synagogues every sabbath day ;" z and they who " resist " him, by im- pugning his veracity, like Jannes and Jambres of old, "resist the truth"* x 2 Pet. i. 16. y Col. ii. 3. z Acts xv. 21. a 2 Tim. iii. 8. 62 [Lect. III. LECTUKE III. Acts XIII. 19-21. When he had destroyed seven nations in the land of Chanaan, he divided their land to them by lot. And after that he gave them judges about the space of four hundred and fifty years, until Samuel the prophet. And afterward they desired a king. The period of Jewish history, which has to be con- sidered in the present Lecture, contains within it the extremes of obscurity and splendour, of the depression and the exaltation of the race. The fugitives from Egypt, who by divine aid effected a lodgment in the land of Canaan, under their great leader, Joshua, were engaged for some hundreds of years in a perpetual struggle for existence with the petty tribes among whom they had intruded themselves, and seemed finally on the point of succumbing and ceasing alto- gether to be a people, when they were suddenly lifted up by the hand of God, and carried rapidly to the highest pitch of greatness whereto they ever at- tained. From the time when the Hebrews " hid themselves in holes,' ,a for fear of the Philistines, and were without spears, or swords, or armourers, because the Philistines had said, " Lest the Hebrews make themselves swords or spears," b to the full completion of the kingdom of David by his victories over the Philistines, the Moabites, the Syrians, the Ammonites, and the Amalekites, together with the submission of * 1 Sam. xiv. 11. b Ibid. xiii. 19-22. Lect. III.] POST-EXODIAN HISTORY. 63 the Idumaeans, was a space little, if at all, exceeding half a century. Thus were brought within the life- time of a man the highest glory and the deepest shame, oppression and dominion, terror and triumph, the peril of extinction and the establishment of a mighty empire. The very men who " hid themselves in caves and in thickets, in rocks, and in high places, and in pits," d or who fled across the Jordan to the land of Grad and Grilead, 6 when the Philistines " pitched in Michmash," may have seen garrisons put in Da- mascus and " throughout all Edom," f and the dominion of David extended to the Euphrates. 8 The history of this remarkable period is delivered to us in four or five Books, the authors of which are unknown, or at best uncertain. It is thought by some that Joshua wrote the book which bears his name, except the closing verses of the last chapter (1) ; and by others (2), that Samuel composed twenty-four chapters of the first of those two books which in our Canon bear the title of Books of Samuel ; but there is no such uniform tradition (3) in either case as exists respecting the authorship of the Pentateuch, nor is there the same weight of internal testimony. On the whole, the internal testimony seems to be against the ascription of the Book of Joshua to the Jewish leader (4) ; and both it, Judges, and Ruth, as well as Kings and Chronicles, are best referred to the class of /3//5Xm aSiairora, or books the authors of which are unknown c 2 Sam. viii. e Ibid, verse 7. d 1 Sam. xiii. 6. I f 2 Sam. viii. 14, g Ibid, verse 3. 64 AUTHORITY OF STATE EECOEDS. [Lect. III. to us. The importance of a history, however, though it may be enhanced by our knowledge of the author, does not necessarily depend on such knowledge. The Turin Papyrus, the Parian Marble, the Saxon Chro- nicle, are documents of the very highest historic value, though we know nothing of the persons who composed them ; because there is reason to believe that they were composed from good sources. And so it is with these portions of the Sacred Volume. There is abun- dant evidence, both internal and external, of their authenticity and historic value, noth withstanding that their actual composers are unknown or uncertain. They have really the force of State Papers, being authoritative public documents, preserved among the national archives of the Jews so long as they were a nation ; and ever since cherished by the scattered fragments of the race as among the most precious of their early records. As we do not commonly ask who was the author of a state paper, but accept it without any such formality, so we are bound to act towards these writings. They are written near the time, sometimes by eyewitnesses, sometimes by those who have before them the reports of eyewitnesses; and their reception among the sacred records of the Jews stamps them with an authentic character. As similar attempts have been made to invalidate the authority of these books with those to which I alluded in the last Lecture, as directed against the Pentateuch, it will be necessary to state briefly the special grounds, which exist in the case of each, for accepting it as containing a true history. Having Lect. III.] JOSHUA AN EYE-WITNESS. 65 thus vindicated the historical character of the Books from the evidence which they themselves offer, I shall then proceed to adduce such confirmation of their truth as can be obtained from other, and espe- cially from profane, sources. The Book of Joshua is clearly the production of an eyewitness. The writer includes himself among those who passed over Jordan dry shod. h He speaks of Eahab the harlot as still " dwelling in Israel " when he writes ;* and of Hebron as still in the pos- session of Caleb the son of Jephunneh. j He belongs clearly to the " elders that outlived Joshua, which had known all the works of the Lord that he had done for Israel ;" k and is therefore as credible a wit- ness for the events of the settlement in Palestine, as Moses for those of the Exodus and the passage through the wilderness. Further, he undoubtedly possesses documents of authority, from one of which (the Book of Jasher) he quotes ; l and it is a reason- able supposition that his work is to a great extent composed from such documents, to which there are several references^ besides the actual quotation (5). The Book of Judges, according to the tradition of the Jews, was written by Samuel (6). There is nothing in the work itself that very distinctly marks the date of its composition. From its contents we can only say that it must have been composed about Samuel's time; that is, after the death of Samson, and before the capture of Jerusalem by David (7). h Josh. v. 1. 1 Ibid. vi. 25. j Ibid. xiv. 14. k Ibid. xxiv. 31. 1 Ibid. x. 13. m Ibid, xviii. 9 ; xxiv. 20. F 66 'JUDGES' BASED ON DOCUMENTS. [Lect. III. As the events related in it certainly cover a space of some hundreds of years, the writer, whoever he be, cannot be regarded as a contemporary witness for more than a small portion of them. He stands rather in the position of Moses with respect to the greater part of Genesis, being the recorder of his country's traditions during a space generally estima- ted as about equal to that which intervened between the call of Abraham and the birth of Moses (8). Had these traditions been handed down entirely by oral communication, still, being chiefly marked and striking events in the national life, they would have possessed a fair title to acceptance. As the case actually stands, however, there is every reason to believe that national records, which (as we have seen) existed in the days of Moses and Joshua, were con- tinued by their successors, and that these formed the materials from which the Book of Judges was com_ posed by its author. Of such records we have a specimen in the Song of Deborah and Barak, an historical poem embodying the chief facts of Debo- rah's judgeship. It is reasonable to suppose ■ that there may have been many such compositions, belonging to the actual time of the events, of which the historian could make use ; and it is also most probable that chronicles were kept even at this early date, like those to which the writers of the later historical books refer so constantly. 11 The two Books of Samuel are thought by some to n 1 Kings xi. 41 ; xiv. 19 and 29 ; xv. 7 ; xvi. 5, 14, 20, 27, &c. ; 1 Chron. xxvii. 24 ; 2 Chron. xii. 15; xiii. 22 j xx. 34, &c. Lect. III.] BOOKS OF SAMUEL PRIMARY. 67 form, together with the two Books of Kings, a single work, and are referred to the time of the Babylonish captivity (9) ; but this view is contrary both to the internal and to the external evidence. The tradition of the Jews is, that the work was commenced by Samuel, continued by Gad, David's seer, and con- cluded by Nathan the prophet (1 0) ; and this is — to say the least — a very probable supposition. We know from a statement in the First Book of Chroni- cles, that " the acts of David the king,^r