when Herod the Great was made king of Judea, and kept up a constant correspondence with his friend Augustus and the court of Rome.

One of the most intimate friends of Herod was Nicolaus of Damascus, a peripatetic philosopher, poet and historian of considerable eminence. Of his extensive works nothing but fragments has survived: but extracts from his writings have been preserved by Josephus, in one of which reference is made to Moses the lawgiver of the Jews, and his writings. I subjoin the whole extract in the original Greek together with an English translation:

Τοῦ δὲ κατακλυσμοῦ τούτου καὶ τῆς λάρνακος μέμνηνται πάντες οἱ τὰς Βαρβαρικὰς ἱστορίας ἀναγεγραφίτες, ὧν ἐστι καὶ Βηρωσσὸς ὁ Χαλδαῖος· διηγούμενος γὰρ τὰ περὶ τὸν κατακλυσμὸν οὕτω που διέξεισι,

Λέγεται δὲ καὶ τοῦ πλοίου ἐν τῇ ̓Αρμενίᾳ πρὸς τῷ ὄρει τῶν Κορδυαίων ἔτι μέρος τι εἶναι, καὶ κομίζειν τινὰς τῆς ἀσφάλτου ἀφαιροῦντας. χρῶνται δὲ μάλιστα οἱ ἄνθρωποι τῷ κομιζομένῳ πρὸς τοὺς ἀποτροπιασμούς.

Καὶ

Μέμνηται δὲ τούτων καὶ ̔Ιερώνυμος ὁ τὴν ἀρχαιολογίαν τὴν Φοινικικὴν συγγραψάμενος, καὶ Μνασέας δὲ, καὶ ἄλλοι πλείους. Νικόλαος δὲ ὁ Δαμασκηνὸς ἐν τῇ ἐνενηκοστῇ καὶ ἕκτῃ βίβλῳ ἱστορεῖ περὶ αὐτῶν, λέγων οὕτως·

Ἔστιν ὑπὲρ τὴν Μινυάδα μέγα ὄρος κατὰ τὴν ̓Αρμενίαν, Βάρις λεγόμενον, εἰς ὃ πολλοὺς συμφυγόντας ἐπὶ τοῦ κατακλυσμοῦ λόγος ἔχει περισωθῆναι, καὶ τινα ἐπὶ λάρνακος ὀχούμενον ἐπὶ τὴν ἀκρώρειαν ἐκεῖλαι, καὶ τὰ λείψανα τῶν ξυλων ἐπὶ πολὺ σωθῆναι· γένοιτο δ ̓ ἂν οὗτος, ὅντινα καὶ Μωϋσης ἀνέγραψεν ὁ Ἰουδαίων νομοθετης.*

All those who have written the barbarian (i. e. profane) histories, mention this deluge: one of them is Berosus the Claldæan; in relating about the deluge he proceeds thus:

It is said that there is still remaining a portion of the ark in Armenia, at the mountain of the Corduæans, and that people take off and carry away with them the bitumen using what they carry away, principally as charms.

Hieronymus, who compiled the archæology of Phoenicia, and Mnaseas, and several others mention these things. Nicolaus of Damascus, also, in his 96th book, speaks of them thus:

* Ant. Jud. lib. i, cap. 3.

There is above the Minyad a great mountain, in Armenia, called Baris, to which it is said that many fled in the time of the deluge and were saved, and that one of them, floating in a chest, came to land at its top, and that fragments of its timbers were long preserved. This may be the man whom Moses the lawgiver of the Jews mentioned.

Contemporary with Nicolaus was Alexander Polyhistor, quoted by Josephus.*

Μαρτυρεί δέ μου τῷ λόγῳ καὶ ̓Αλέξανδρος ὁ Πολυΐστωρ, λέγων οὕτως·

Κλεόδημος δὲ φησὶν ὁ προφήτης, ὁ καὶ Μάλχος, ὁ ἱστορῶν τὰ περὶ Ἰουδαίων, καθὼς καὶ Μωϋσῆς ἱστόρησεν ὁ νομοθέτης αὐτῶν, ὅτι ἐκ τῆς Χατούρας ̓Αβράμῳ ἐγένοντο παῖδες ἱκανοί.

What I have said is confirmed by Alexander Polyhistor, whose words are these:

It is said by Cleodemus the prophet, who is also called Malchas, and who wrote about the Jews, in the same way as Moses their law-giver has recorded, that Abraham had many children by Keturah.

These extracts may suffice as specimens of the notice which profane writers have taken of the Jewish Scriptures. To those which I have here given might be added a few lines from Diodorus Siculus and others, but as none of them lived earlier than about the beginning of the Christian era, their evidence has nothing to do with our present subject, which is to shew, not that the Old Testament did not exist before the Christian era, but that it was compiled since the termination of the Babylonish captivity.

After the beginning of the Christian era, we have many notices both of Moses and of the Pentateuch, or at least of a book, which at that time existed and which professed to have Moses for its author. Strabo and Galen among the Greeks, Justin, Pliny and Tacitus among the Latins, make frequent allusion to the book of Moses, besides many other writers whose testimony it is unnecessary to adduce. It was to be expected that the introduction of Christianity

* Ant. Jud. lib. i, cap. 15.

into Europe would bring with it a knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures, on which Christianity is based, as on a foundation stone. It was also to be anticipated that all later writers who should mention the Pentateuch would speak of it as the book of Moses, because for a long time previous to the Christian era the Jews themselves considered the Pentateuch to be the original work as it came from the hand of Moses. It is not essential to our argument to follow the chain of evidence which later writers furnish, because it cannot be denied that the Pentateuch existed long before this latter half of the chain of evidence comI have endeavoured to shew, not that the chain of Universal consent is broken after it reaches the period of the Christian era, but that it cannot be traced during the fifteen hundred years which elapsed before the Christian era, and after the death of Moses. It may be useful, in order to make this the more forcible, to recapitulate the heads of our enquiry, i. e. to recapitulate the several notices of Moses and the book in question, which occur in the Hebrew Bible between the death of Moses and the last of the sacred writers.

mences.

1. It has been admitted that a Book of the law is twice named in the Book of Joshua, which is said to have been written in the next generation after Moses. I have reserved the right to shew hereafter that the book of Joshua was not written until several hundred years after the date usually ascribed to it. 2. The second link in the chain is found in the author of the Books of Kings and Chronicles which were written about the time of the Babylonish captivity i. e. 900 years after the death of Moses.

These are the only two Jewish writers who mention the book of the law at all for the long period of 900 years, and probably much longer!

But the argument derived from this fact, must be reduced to still narrower dimensions; for the authors of Kings and Chronicles describe facts, which prove, to a demon

now have is not the They tell us that

Stration, that the Pentateuch which we book of the law, as given by Moses. when Solomon conveyed the ark of the covenant, in which the book of the law was kept, into the temple, there was nothing in it but the two tables of stone which [had been given by God to Moses. These tables, therefore, were the book of the law, and no other book of the law is mentioned as having existed at that time. They tell us, secondly, that in the time of Josiah the Book of the law was found by the priests whilst they were cleansing and purifying the Temple. If any other book were the subject of these observations, it would be contended that the authorship of it belonged to that period of time when it was described as having been found in the temple by the priests in the reign of Josiah, or even to a later, but certainly not to an earlier period.

But there are reasons, to be hereafter stated, why this inference is not admissble in the present instance. It may rather be conjectured that the two tables are what was found in the reign of Josiah, or perhaps some other records, which may have lain undiscovered in the Temple for many years; but still not the Pentateuch, in the form which it now bears.

With these observations I shall conclude the examination of the witnesses who are supposed to furnish that universal consent for the belief that the Pentateuch is the original work of Moses.

CHAPTER 11.

EXAMINATION OF THE INTERNAL

EVIDENCE WHICH THE PENTATEUCH

IS SAID TO FURNISH FOR THE BELIEF THAT IT WAS WRITTEN, IN ITS PRESENT FORM, BY MOSES.

Having, in the preceding chapter, examined the argument of Tradition or Universal Consent, which is adduced as a basis for the belief that the Pentateuch was written by Moses, let us now proceed to investigate the second argument which has been brought forward in the same cause, namely that of the Internal Eridence which the Pentateuch itself furnishes.

This part of our subject is liable to an antecedent difficulty, resulting from our imperfect knowledge of the language in which the books of the Old Testament are written, and the comparatively few persons who possess even a superficial acquaintance with it. It is necessary to take many interpretations of individual passages upon trust, aided only by such occasional verification as may result from comparing the testimony which men of different opinions will supply.

An illustration of my meaning on this point is furnished by a passage which I shall transcribe from Bishop Tomline's Elements of Christian Theology, vol. i, p. 74.

It is sometimes asserted that there is a sameness of language and style in the different books of the Old Testament, which is not compatible with the different ages usually assigned to them, and thence an inference is drawn unfavourable to the authenticity of these books, and particularly to that of the Pentateuch.

To this objection we may answer that it is founded upon an untrue