'THE EVOLUTION OF HEBREW RELIGION. 5 8 9 



THE EVOLUTION OF HEBREW RELIGION. 



Br FELIX ADLEK, 



PROFESSOR OF HEBREW LITERATURE IN CORNELL UNIVERSITY. 



" Dans Popinion du peuple pour qui ces livres ont ete ecrits le point capital et essentiel 

 n'est certes pas la narration historique, inais bien la legislation et l'edification religieuse." 1 



IN 1795, Frederick Augustus Wolf published a modest octavo vol- 

 ume entitled '' Prolegomena to Homer," from whose appearance 

 is dated the beginning of a new era of historic criticism. The com- 

 position of the poems of Homer formed its subject. For wellnigh 

 twenty years the author had collected evidence, weighed arguments, 

 and patiently tested his results by constant revision. His ow r n bias 

 w T as strongly engaged on the side of the unity of the great Grecian 

 epic. But the results of his researches continued to point in the 

 opposite direction, and at last his earnest devotion to truth compelled 

 him to adopt a theory the soundness of whose construction seemed 

 to be no longer questionable. He w r as thus worthy to become the 

 "founder of the science of philology in its present significance." 2 



The influence of Wolf's discovery was not confined to the study of 

 classic literature only. It quickly radiated through every department 

 of history. " In every singing age," he said, " a single steculum is 

 almost like a single man. It is all one mind, one soul." 3 This con- 

 ception involved a new social law, and radically altered the current 

 opinions concerning the relation of individual effort to the larger 

 forces that affect the development of nations. The creative energy 

 of remarkable minds was not, indeed, lessened in importance, but 

 spontaneity, in this connection, acquired a new meaning ; and for the 

 Deus ex machina of the olden time w T as substituted the cumulative 

 force of centuries of progressive advancement, culminating, it is true, 

 at last in the triumphant synthesis of genius. The commotion which 

 the Wolfian theory has stirred up in the literary world is largely due 

 to the wide range of ideas which it affected. Yet it was itself but a 

 part of that general movement which, toward the close of the last 

 century, became conspicuous in its effects on every field of human 

 inquiry. Everywhere the shackles of authority were thrown off, and, 

 in place of blindly accepting the testimony of the past, men turned to 

 investigate for themselves. A new principle of research was every- 

 where acknowledged, a new method was created, and science, natural 



1 " In the estimation of the people for whom these books were written, the capital, 

 essential point surely was, not the historic narrative, but rather legislation and religious 

 edification." (Noldeke, "Histoire Litteraire de l'Ancien Testament," p. 19.) 



8 Bonitz, " Ueber den Ursprung der Homerischen Gedichte," p. 11. 



3 In a letter given in Korte's " Leben und Studien F. A. Wolf's," L, p. 307. 



