no code for the priests except what was preserved by mere oral report? The thing is altogether improbable.

But when it is averred, that repetitions of the same subject, additions made to laws, and changes made in them, imply that different and discrepant traditionary accounts were, in some later age, thrown together by some anonymous compiler of the Pentateuch, we must avow that a very different conviction arises in our minds, from the knowledge of facts like these. For example, the law respecting the passover is introduced in Exodus xii. 1-28; resumed Exodus xii. 43-51; again in chapter xiii; and once more, with supplements, in Numbers ix. 1-14. Would a compiler, after the exile, have scattered these notices of the passover in so many different places? Surely not; he would naturally have embodied all the traditions concerning it in one chapter. But now, everything wears the exact appearance of having been recorded in the order in which it happened. New exigencies occasioned new ordinances, and these are recorded, as they were made, pro re natâ.

In like manner, the code of the priests not having been finished at once in the book of Leviticus, the subject is resumed, and completed, at various times, and on various occasions, as is recorded in the subsequent books of the Pentateuch. So the subject of sin and trespass offerings is again and again resumed, until the whole arrangements are completed. Would not a later compiler have embodied these subjects respectively together?

Besides repeated instances of the kind just alluded to, cases occur, in which statutes made at one time are repealed or modified at another. We refer to such examples, as our readers may find in Exodus xxi. 2-7, compared with Deuteronomy xv. 12-17; Numbers iv. 24-33, compared with Numbers vii. 1— 9; Numbers iv. 3, compared with Numbers viii. 24; Leviticus xvii. 3, 4, compared with Deuteronomy xi. 15; Exodus xxii. 25, compared with Deuteronomy xxiii. 19; Exodus xxii. 16, 17, compared with Deuteronomy xxii. 29; and other like instances. How could a compiler, at the time of the captivity, know anything of the original laws, in these cases, which had gone into desuetude from the time of Moses?

All these things, to which we have been adverting, so far from strengthening the cause of those who deny the early age of the Pentateuch, serve to show, in our apprehension, that it was written, as it purports to be, by the great Jewish legislator, at

different times, pro re natâ, and in many different parcels at first, which were afterwards united. That the union of these might have taken place near the death of Moses, or still later, is altogether possible; nay, considering circumstances by and by to be mentioned, quite probable. That Moses wrote the whole Pentateuch with his own hand, need not be maintained; for what difference can it make with the authenticity of the book, whether he wrote it all with his own hand; or employed an amanuensis to whom he dictated it; or made use of some compositions which were from the pens of others, reviewing them and adapting them to his purpose? All late writers, who have critically examined the book of Genesis, concede the latter, in respect to that book. But by conceding this, neither the value of the book is diminished, nor its authority; nor is the fact at all impugned that Moses is the author of the Pentateuch. What he may have taken from others, and adapted to his own purpose, and sanctioned with his authority, is to be ascribed to him in every sense (so far as the authority of religious truth is concerned) which is worth contending about. Moses is the voucher for all that has passed through his hands; and that is sufficient.

4. In all the history of the Jews, throughout the Old Testament, whether it be found in the books which are merely historical, or adverted to in the prophets, there are laws, rules, and prescriptions referred to and implied, a departure from which lays the foundation of reproof; and a compliance with which is matter of commendation. It will be admitted that the laws &c. adverted to, appear to be uniformly the same. Now can such a case be well supposed, unless the record of such laws and prescriptions was reduced to writing?

5. Universal tradition, from the earliest ages down to the present hour, among Jews and Christians, ascribes the Pentateuch to Moses. The few critics who have in modern and recent times impugned this, are the only exception to be made to this statement. This argument is the same as that which satisfies us that Homer wrote the Iliad; Hesiod, the Theogony ascribed to him; Herodotus, the history which bears his name; and Virgil, the Æneid. In our apprehension, there is as little of solid ground to call in question the genuineness of the Pentateuch, as of the heathen writings just mentioned.

We have merely touched on some of the leading topics of argument, in respect to this great subject. We must necessarily

pass by a multitude of minor considerations, which might be added to strengthen what has been said, and hasten to some brief remarks on the arguments which are urged against the antiquity of the Pentateuch.

All the arguments of this kind may be reduced to three classes; namely, those drawn from the diction or language of the Pentateuch; those deduced from the general style and conformation of it; and such as are derived from particular passages, which are said necessarily to imply an age later than that of Moses.

1. In regard to the language of the Pentateuch, it is averred that it is throughout substantially the same with that, which appears in the books composed five hundred or more years later, that is, at or after the time of David; nay, the same as is found one thousand years later, in the books written at the time of the exile. No nation, it is averred, ever preserved a uniformity in a living language, for so long a period. No example of such a nature can be produced. Consequently, the Pentateuch must have been written at a later period.

In respect to this argument, we have to reply, that conceding for the present the statement to be true, respecting the sameness of language in the Pentateuch and later Hebrew writings, yet there are not wanting facts of a similar nature, to show that this argument has little or no weight. For example, the old Syriac version of the New Testament, called the Peshito, made probably in the second century, differs very little in respect to language from the Chronicon of Bar Hebræus, written about one thousand years later. The language of the Koran, and of the Arabic just before and after the Koran was written, differs but slightly from that of the Arabic writers from the tenth down to the eighteenth century. So Rosenmueller and Jahn both assert; whom all will allow to be competent judges of this fact. And what is still more in point; Confucius, the celebrated Chinese philosopher, lived and wrote about five hundred and fifty years before Christ. Yet Dr Marshman, his translator, asserts, that there is very little difference between his diction, and that of the Chinese writers of the present day. One Chinese commentary, which Dr Marshman consulted, was written one thousand and five hundred years after the work of Confucius; and another, still later; and yet he tells us that he found no difference between the commentaries and the original, in respect to style and diction, excepting that the original was

more concise. Here then is a period of more than two thousand years, in which language has been preserved uniform. Such facts, in connexion with the well known aversion to changes among the oriental nations; and the consideration that the Hebrews were altogether a secluded people, having no commerce, and but little intercourse with foreigners, having no schools in philosophy, and making no advances in the arts and sciences, so as to create the necessity of introducing new words into their language such facts would deprive the argument in question of all its power to convince, even if the assertion on which it is grounded were true.

But in this case, (as in many others, where the attractions of novelty have led men to make hasty and ungrounded conclusions,) the fact, upon examination, turns out to be altogether untrue. After it had been asserted, and repeated by the neological class of critics, in every part of the continent of Europe, the late Professor Jahn of Vienna undertook the investigation of it, by betaking himself to his Hebrew concordance, and looking the whole store of Hebrew words through and through, to find where and by whom they were employed. The result of this gigantic labor has been published, since his death, in two essays, printed in Bengel's Archiv für die Theologie, vol. ii. and iii. Two more essays in defence of the antiquity of the Pentateuch, the author had planned; but death interrupted his most valuable labors.

This writer has collected from the Pentateuch more than two hundred words, which are either not used at all in the other books; or are not used in the same sense; or have not the same form; or, if employed at all, are employed but in few instances, principally by the poets, who prefer the older diction. It would be out of place to give examples here, and we can only refer our readers to the work itself for ample satisfaction. To the class of words already named, the author has added a second class, still larger, of words frequently used in the later writings, and but seldom or not at all used in the Pentateuch. From the class of words so unexpectedly large, that are found to be peculiar to the Pentateuch, are excluded by Jahn, all proper names of persons, countries, cities, and nations; the names of various diseases and their symptoms, referred to in the Pentateuch; of defects in men, priests, and offerings in regard to ceremonial purity; the parts of offerings; and the objects in the three kingdoms of nature. Besides these, the multiplied

instances of peculiar phraseology are excluded. If all these had been included, he asserts it would have made the catalogue of peculiarities four or five times as large as he has now made it. Of this we doubt not. But enough is already done to put the question forever at rest, about the uniformity of the language of the Pentateuch with that of the later books. The labor of Jahn is one of those triumphant efforts, which patient and long continued investigation sometimes makes, to overthrow theories, which the love of novelty, reasoning a priori, or superficial investigation, ventures upon. Gesenius himself has not, in the work which we are reviewing, ventured on the argument against the early date of the Pentateuch, drawn from its language; but in an earlier work, his History of the Hebrew Language, he has appealed to this very argument as his main support; although his Lexicon itself, which points out the earlier and later usage of words among the Hebrews, sufficiently contradicts it.

It is gratifying to find that Rosenmueller, who, in the early editions of his commentary on the Pentateuch, appeared as a strenuous advocate for its late origin, has, in the Prolegomena to his third edition, attacked, and in our judgment overturned, the opinions, which in younger days he had broached. This shows a fairness of mind, which is promising, in respect to this learned critic. For the conviction, which led him to do this, he is plainly indebted to Jahn; as any one may satisfy himself, who will take the pains to compare the essays of Jahn with what he has written.

2. We hasten to the second source of objections against the antiquity of the Pentateuch, drawn from the general style and conformation of it.

Much that has been alleged here, we have already anticipated, under our third head of arguments in favor of the position, that Moses was the author of the Pentateuch. All the various introductions and conclusions of different pieces in the Mosaic books, all the repetitions and minor discrepancies, so much insisted on as proof of later compilation, we consider a presumptive evidence in favor of its composition by Moses; inasmuch as they accord very exactly with the real circumstances in which he was placed, when he wrote the books that are ascribed to him.

In regard to the allegations made, that there is a great diversity of style in the Pentateuch; above all, that the book of Deuteronomy is exceedingly diverse from the three other books,