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a higher power from whom they all proceed. The term Elohim is in opposition to these. It is consequently the most general name of the Deity, designating him in reference to the fulness of his powers, without respect to personality, moral properties, or any particular connexion with Hence it follows, that where God has given witness of himself and is truly known, another name becomes connected with Elohim; and this is the name Jehovah, which belongs to the covenant people to whom God has revealed himself. The former term is general and common, the latter particular and proper. The one is unintelligible to all those to whom the development of the Divine Being which it bears along with it has not been made known; the other, inasmuch as it designates God according as he is known to all men, is therefore generally intelligible. The name Jehovah, expressive as it is of the inward nature of the Deity, is only to be comprehended where this glorious Being has, as it were, gone out of himself; where he has opened the chambers of his heart, and granted a look within, so that instead of a dark indefinite somewhat, of which nothing more is known or can be predicated, than that it is mighty and excellent beyond all other things, the most personal among all that are personal, the most clearly marked among all that are marked, comes forward." Far more correctly and with deeper penetration than those who in modern times consider the term Jehovah as designating the national God of the Jews, this writer understands it as the appellation of God as revealing himself, and consequently carries up its use to the origin of revelation itself, and therefore to the very beginning of the human race. "The being who revealed himself to Adam, was designated by Adam himself as Jehovah." It was in a much later period, when the Divine Being limited his revelations to Israel, that the name became peculiar to that people. "The meaning implied in

the word God, (7) may be apprehended by a process of reasoning, because the understanding teaches us that the world has a ruler and director. But what is implied in the term Jehovah, (1) cannot be thus apprehended, but only by prophetic vision, by which the man becomes separated, as it were, from his own species, and approximates to that of angels. Another spirit enters into him; preceding doubts of his heart are dissipated; and his soul is filled with veneration and love for the one God, and rather than abandon them, he is willing to lay down his life.” Cosri, Buxtorf's Translation, p. 256, ss.

MAIMONIDES, in his More Nevochim, Part I. chap. Ixi. lxii. Ixiii., in the edition in Hebrew, printed at Berlin in 1791, 4to, fol. 56-60, (-15,) in Buxtorf's Translation, p. 106-115, and ABARBANEL, as cited by Buxtorf in his Dissertation de nominibus Dei Hebraicis, p. 266, § 39, do also take notice of the distinction of the names employed to designate the Deity, but with less penetration than this author.

The first writer, who made prominent the false exposition of the distinction in question, was the physician, Astruc, in his work before mentioned. Proceeding on the supposition that the alternate use of the divine names is not founded on any internal difference, a supposition which he never thought of proving, inasmuch as no one in his time questioned it, and, moreover, recognizing the truth, that such use could not be incidental, he attempted to explain it on external grounds. He maintained that Moses had composed the book of Genesis from various writings; two principal documents, distinguished by the exclusive use of Jehovah and Elohim, and also ten particular memoirs, the use of which, however, was limited to a very few portions of Genesis.

This publication, at the time of its appearance, attracted very little attention. We learn this from the reply which was made to it, five years afterwards, by H. SCHARBAU, Vin

diciæ Geneseos contra auctorem anonymum libri, conjectures sur le Genése, which appeared in the Miscellanea Lubecensia, vol. I. Rost. 1758, p. 39-106. The author apologizes at length for having employed some of his leisure hours in refuting so very silly a system of conjectures, by appealing to La Croze, who condescended to write against Harduin's absurdities. He very correctly estimated the danger in Astruc's attempt, who, to support his theory respecting the names, made great use of the unnecessary repetitions, the disorder and confusion, and the contradictions, which the book was said to contain. He treated the doctor as an enemy of revelation. But for the main point, for the correct exposition of the facts, on the erroneous interpretation of which Astruc's theory was based, nothing was gained by the vindication.

The period had not arrived for this theory to make impression, and it soon appeared to be buried in oblivion. But the times changed; and the question, how an hypothesis agreed with the divine authority of the Scriptures, was no longer considered. Hence it was, that when EICHHORN, in his Introduction to the Old Testament, again advanced and set off this theory, it met with general acquiescence, and spread with extraordinary rapidity, so that few German scholars of any name were to be found who did not embrace it.

It would be tedious to enumerate the various writers who defended this hypothesis, or to point out the differences between Eichhorn, who maintained the theory of two documents, and his chief follower, ILGEN, who defended that of three, and the various modifications introduced by others. These points have been already sufficiently noted on p. 18. I proceed to take notice of those authors who opposed those views.

HASSE deserves here to be honourably mentioned, inas

much as, in his Entdeckungen im Felde der ältesten Erdund Menschengeschichte Th. 2, Halle, 1805, he attacks the very fundamental principle of the theory, and maintains, that the alternate use of the names is founded on an internal difference in the idea. But, in determining the meaning of the two names, his procedure is so arbitrary and strange, that an examination of his views would be labour without profit.*

VATER did not meddle with the groundwork of the theory. In opposing the hypothesis of documents, he took care not to make the change of the divine names useless for that of fragments, to which he was attached. The work of Vater referred to, is his Commentary on the Pentateuch, Commentar über den Pentateuch. In Part II. p. 16, he expresses his opinion, that "the author of the fragment of Exodus," which contains vi. 3, "was unacquainted with Genesis ;" although, as Ewald says, in his work already noted, p. 9, "the representations and phraseology of the place are evidently drawn from it." To use the language of this writer, "this is to cut the complicated knot with the sword of violence." The theory in question has but little to fear from such attacks as that of Vater.

The first really important opposition is that which was made by Sack, in his treatise de usu nominum Dei

et in libro Geneseos, in the Commentationes ad theologiam historicam, Bonn, 1821; with which ought to be compared the remarks in the same writer's Apologetik, p. 157 ss.

* In order that the reader may know that this remark of Hengstenberg is not made without good reason, it may be well to state, that Hasse maintains the extraordinary hypothesis, that the book of Genesis had in view the recommendation of agriculture. Jehovah consequently is properly the god of agriculture, and therefore favourable to agriculturists. Of course, he is so to the Hebrews, to whom he would show himself as the only God, triumphing over all others! Such irreverent and unfounded theories are certainly unworthy of examination.

The discussion, so far as regards the main principle, the determining of the general relation between Jehovah and Elohim, was brought back again by him to the point at which the author of the book Cosri had left it; and further, the attempt was made, and frequently with success, to explain, in particular portions óf Genesis, the use of the two names on the ground of their fundamental difference.

A second more important attack on the hypothesis of documents and fragments was undertaken by EWALD, in his critical examination of Genesis. The chief value of this work consists in the ability with which it contends against the supposed fragmentary character and disorder of the composition, its inscriptions, repetitions, variety of language, and seeming contradictions. In showing the internal connexion of Genesis and the mutual relation of its parts, Ewald has great merit. But his investigations respecting the interchange of the divine names are exceedingly defective, and far less valuable than those of Sack. He considers Elohim as the general and inferior name of the Deity, Jehovah as that of the national God of the Israelites. This view, which, without the necessary linguistic proof, is drawn merely from an induction of places taken from later historical books, although it contains some truth, is unsatisfactory.

After mentioning the unimportant productions of GRAMBERG* and STAEHELIN,† in reference to the theory opposed by Ewald, Hengstenberg takes notice of HARTMANN. This writer defends the fragmentary theory, but attaches very little importance to the interchange of the names, although, indeed, he acknowledges a real difference between them. He gives

* Libri Geneseos secundum fontes rite dignoscendos adumbratio nova. Leipz. 1828.

† Kritische Untersuchungen über die Genesis. Basel. 1829.

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