of man wee not et that period prepared for ite abolition, nor would human eociety have benefited by Bllch interferel'lce, The Mosaic legislation recognised it ,vhile ae in the caee of the law of marriage, it greatly ameliorated the condition' of th~ bondsmM and bondswoman, especially of those of the Hebrew nation, who could not, except by their own will, be retained in perpetual servitude. How slowly the !rnm~n mind could be educated in the apprehension of the tn1e rights of humanity 1s cndent from the fact, that even after the revelation of the full meaning of these righns in_ the incarnation of the Son of God, and of the truth that all, bond or free, are one m Christ Jeans, and when Christian masters were directed to give to II their s]aYes that which is just and equal," 1 a principle inconsistent with that power o,er the person which is implied by slavery; yet the principle was left to work out it6 true results, and slaves are cautioned not to presume on their equality, as brethren in Christ, with their master, while masters are not expressly commanded to set their slaves at liberty. The gospel recognised the fact of slavery being in the world as the law also had done; the law by its regulations modified the character of slavery and lessened its evils, until the gospel should reveal the truth, before the light of which not only the system itself but its spirit must disappear from the world. 62. In this Introduction the Tora!, has been examined only in that character of lnw which, as its name implies, distinguishes it from all the rest of Holy Scripture But it must be remembered that Moses was not only a lawgiver, but also a propliet, as is proved by his teaching in the Book of Deuteronomy, in which he expounds the inner spirit of the law, while he foresees and describes some of the future his- tory of the chosen nation. 2 He was, indeed,3 the first of that line of prophets which Jehovah promised to raise up as a perpetual witness for him to Israel, until the office in which they testified for God should have its complete fulfilment and realisation in that Divine Prophet who, raised np from the midst of Israel, of the seed of Abraham, is a Mediator between God and man in a sense that Moses ·could not be, and has revealed the whole will of God to man, and given his Spirit to abide with us for ever. How "the prophets," by their inspired teaching, and the authority they received from God, corrected the defect.a inherent in law as law, 4 awakening the consciences of men to the justice and the love of God by arguments independent of the law, and thus placing obedience to God upon a higher and surer foundation than that of mere submission to authority ; and how they gradually taught the people of God that his service was in the spirit, not in the letter; freedom, and not bondage ; that he would "have mercy and not sacrifice "; and thus prepared for that dispensation of the Spirit in which the veil over the face of Moses should be done away in Christ, and "the knowledge of good and evil," which to man under the dominion of i1r,8vµia is death, should become, through the presence of God's Spirit in man, a higher law, the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, which sets us free from the law of sin and death-all this is expounded in the other books of the Old Testament Scriptures. But to appreciate that part of the old economy, it is fi.rllt of all necessary to have a clear and definite conception of the true character and force of the law itself; and to this end the whole of the present argument has been directed. 1 .. ~., laoT'flra, Col. iv. l ; but it probably means "equity," as the rcl avrd in Ephes. vi. 9, rather than "eqnality." ~ e. g., Deut. :u:xii. and xniii ~ Of. Deut. x:vili. 15-19. The view of this passage given above seems the only oue that at all connects it with th.o conte:x.1. • 'Gene6is of the Chu~0h,' F· SS. THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE PENTATEUCH, BY THE
REV. THOMAS WHITELAW, M.A.
(s the Pentateuch the work of Moses? or is it the production of a later age? If anything were needed to attest the supreme importance attaching to this inquiry, it might be found in the voluminous literature which, on this subject alone, since the middle of last century, has issued from the English, but more especially from the Continental, press. Prior to that date, the claim of Moses to be regarded as the author of the Pentateuch may be said to have been supported by the almost unani- mous consent of both Hebrew and Christian antiquity. In the second century, it is true, sentiments impugning the Mosaic authorship, either in whole or in part, began to be broached, but chiefly by writers of otherwise heretical tendencies. According to the testimony of EpiphanillS (Hair. xviii) and Johannes Damascenus (de Haaresibus, eh. xix. ), an obscure party among the N a.zarenes regarded the present Pentateuch as spurious. Ptolemaaus, a Gnostic writer belonging to the same period, in an epistle (ad Florum) preserved by Epiphanius (Haares. :uxiii. 4), ascribed only a portion of the work to Moses. The author of the Clementine Homilies (ii. 38, 40; iii. 47) considered the account of Moses' death (Deut. x:x:xiv. 5) conclusive evidence that the Pentateuch did not proceed from his pen, and entertained the belief that the Penta- teuch had been often lost and re-written, each time with additions. Jerome is sometimes quoted as having been suspicious of the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch (Perowne, Smith's I Diet.,' art. Pentateuch), but his lunguage, Sive Mosen dicere volueris auc- torem Pentateuchi, sive Esdram t,jusdem instauratorem operis non recuso, only bears that he detected no insuperable barrier in the way of believing that the original , composition of the Hebrew law-giver may have been revised by the post-E::i:ilian reformer. Aben Ezra. likewise, though claimed as an opponent of the orthorlox opinion, merely expresses doubt of the Mosaic authorship of certnin passages which he regarded as subsequent interpolations (vide Bleek's 'lntrod.,' vol. i. § 68). With the exception of that offered by the second century heretics, it is problematical if tho genuineness of the Mosaic writings encountered serious opposition until towards the close of the seventeenth century, when in rapid succession it was assailed by Hobbes in his 'Leviathan' (1651), Isaak Peyrerius in his 'System!l Theologicum ex prre- Adamitorum Hypothesi' (1655), Spinoza in bis' Tractatus Theologico-Politicns' (1670), Richnrd Simon in his I Criticnl History of the Old Testament' (1G78), and Clericu~ ir. Jiie 'Scnt.imens 1 (1685) 1 the opinions of wqich, however, he subse,111cntly retacted. r/lNT,\Tf:\JC'f!, !/ ii THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE PENTATEUCH.