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Apostles is adduced more to serve as a beacon-light for the Christian, than as a demonstration for the sceptic. Our adversaries wish to deprive our cause of the prestige attaching to it from the sanction given it by our Lord, and therefore exert themselves to prove that the statements ascribed to him do not imply belief, on his part, in the real authorship of Moses. That interpretation of his admitted words I show to be wrong, leaving the critic to decide for himself the vital question, whether he is to receive or reject his Divine authority.

Hence it is clear that the method which I have pursued in the work, whatever may be its success, is logically and critically unexceptionable in the treatment whether of the Old Testament or of the New.

But while acceding to such restrictions on our side, we may surely insist that our opponents, on theirs, should keep in abeyance a mere philosophical speculation, which has no conceivable right to intrude itself into the domain. of historical criticism. It may be with them a first principle that supernatural revelation is impossible, and prophecy nothing but retrospective history. But, after all, it is only a theoretical opinion; one, too, negatived by the voice of human nature, rejected by the majority of the learned (who are by no means found exclusively in the ranks of Pantheism), and repugnant to the essential relations subsisting between the Creator and the creature. Now to make that subjective opinion in philosophy an objective certainty in criticism, is not only to import into historical criticism an element foreign to its nature, but to annihilate the gulf between opinion and certainty; to pass, without even so much as Mohammed's airy bridge, from the subjective idea

to the objective reality, and to perform the feat, hitherto deemed impossible in philosophy, of making something substantial out of nothing. This is bad enough. But to raise such an opinion to the dignity of a first principle in science, and to make it the very key-stone of the arch, is utterly to discredit the science that is based upon it, and to introduce into the system what must inevitably bring about its ruin. If any one choose to hug the pitiable sophism which it involves, let him do so to his heart's content. But let him not thrust it forward as an unquestioned demonstration of the higher criticism,' and a final decision from which no rational critic has the right of appeal.

To refute the paradox belongs not to the department of biblical criticism, but to the philosophy of religion and the science of the cosmological relations which God established between nature and himself. I therefore say little on this head, content that the critical argument is such as to reduce the question to this final issue, Whether prophecy be possible or not?

In the course of the enquiry I have found it necessary, now and then, to retranslate various passages of the Old Testament. There is no version, how admirable soever it may be, that comes fully up to the requirements of the critic, who has frequently to build his conclusions on the literal meaning and original words of the writers. The Jewish version of Benisch usually adheres to the Hebrew more closely than our other translations, and therefore it is it that I generally cite. But Benisch also I have to abandon sometimes, especially when the argument rests on parallel passages, phrases, or words which show the writer to be quoting from the Pentateuch. In such cases

it is the identity of thought and expression that has to be brought out fully and accurately. And yet no translator, as far as I am aware, has hitherto paid sufficient attention to this point. A critical version should repeat in the same form the words, phrases, and passages which are repeated in the original. It is only in this way that can be seen thoroughly the dependence of one author upon another, which, in such questions as the relative age of writers, has to be carefully sifted and settled. It is, perhaps, impossible to reproduce these parallelisms in any version where a multiplicity of translators is engaged. Nevertheless, the aim ought never to be lost sight of; and the author, for example, who translates Solomon's prayer at the Dedication of the Temple, ought always to bring it into verbal agreement with the already translated parallel passages of Deuteronomy.

I have departed also from the versions in using the name 'Jehovah' as the equivalent of the personal name which God assumed at the Exodus. This pronunciation of the great Tetragrammaton originated, it must be confessed, in ignorance of the true bearing of the Massoretic pointing applied to it. To a Hebrew ear it is even barbarous. It appears, however, to have been known as early as the time of Raymond Martini, in whose 'Pugio Fidei' it is found. That, indeed, may have proceeded from another hand. At any rate it obtained no currency till 1518, when Pietro Galatini brought it into extensive notice. It then began to acquire so firm a footing that no critical attacks have been able effectually to dislodge it. It is used poetically in Germany, and extensively in the evangelical literature of England. Nay, its derivative 'Jehovistic'

has passed into scientific nomenclature, and is universally employed in Old Testament criticism.

These would be but small recommendations for the use of the name 'Jehovah,' had we anything better to substitute in its place. But the real pronunciation of the word, especially as it was heard in the mouth of Moses and of Aaron, is destined to remain a mystery. Greek and Roman literature represent it as 'Iaw', 'Iaßé, 'Isvró, 'Iaoú, Jahvo, Javoh. Clericus gives his suffrage for Jahavoh, Delitzsch clings to Jahavah (Kamphausen's Lied Mosis, pp. 14, 15), Gesenius and Ewald have adopted the Samaritan form, and write Jahve, Böttcher considers Jahvah more ancient (Gram. i. p. 49, and notes), and Fürst Jihve or Jehve. Hupfeld in his last work gives us the unpronounceable form Jhvh. What, then, are we to do in the midst of such uncertainty?

It is growing into use to translate the word in imitation of the French Evangelicals, and thus escape from the difficulty. But this method creates two difficulties, instead of one. It assumes that the word is to be translated Eternal: an idea by no means justified. That the conception of Eternity enters into the name no one will likely deny. But many are of opinion that Eternity does not exhaust the meaning of the word: that it implies, besides, the notion of one who in time was to reveal himself as Redeemer. The translation commits itself to the one idea, and, therefore, is unsuitable as a full representative of the The second difficulty is more serious. For by translating Eternal, it takes away all that characterises the word as a proper personal name. As such the name was assumed; it is cast in the same mould as other

name.

Hebrew proper names of old standing, such as Jacob or Isaac; and hence every expedient that does not bring out this peculiarity must be rejected as inefficient.

In such circumstances I have thought it best to adopt the name which is recognised in our literature, and which, preserving the distinctive character of a proper name, commits one to no system probable or improbable.

The Catholic reader may regret that he does not always find in the work his own titles of the Sacred Books, and his familiar way of spelling Scripture names. As I invariably refer to the Hebrew (except perhaps from oversight) for book, and chapter, and verse, I take naturally the current titles found in the Hebrew: and so quote 1 and 2 Samuel for 1 and 2 Kings, Chronicles instead of Paralipomenon, and 1 and 2 Kings for Kings 3 and 4.

The change introduced by the Reformers into the orthography of Scripture names was, as remarked by Archbishop Dixon (Gen. Introd. to the Sac. Scriptures, vol. i. pp. 204, 205), a most uncalled for innovation. Up to that time a uniform pronunciation and spelling existed everywhere. It was based upon the Vulgate and Septuagint, and had been fixed on at that early time as the best classical representative of Hebrew speech. Even at the present day it is still prevalent in all Catholic countries, and must, therefore, stand as the Catholic pronunciation and orthography. The new system so wantonly inaugurated was not even followed out with consistency. For every now and then there turned up some name which, had the principle been adhered to, would have sounded uncouthly to an English ear. So they fell back in these instances upon the old spelling of the Septuagint and

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