616 LECTURES AND ESSAYS [1887 



will not believe that the first chapter of Genesis is later 

 than the time of Hezekiah. It so happens that the unity 

 of the document A is the most absolutely fixed point in 

 criticism ; the date may still be disputed, but critics of 

 every school are agreed that the separation which M. 

 Renan desires is altogether impossible. But this does not 

 affect the serene confidence with which he maintains his 

 own view, not bringing any new arguments (though the 

 thing has been often discussed before in the same form), 

 but merely waving the Dutch and the Germans aside with 

 a polite sneer as worthy people who are trammelled by 

 their narrow Protestant education and have not got 

 enlarged views of ancient history. 1 The appeal to the 

 judgment of personal self-confidence as the standard of 

 truth is made in the most engaging manner, but the fact 

 remains that, on a point of capital importance for the 

 problems of Hebrew history, we have no better evidence 

 than that M. Renan knows himself to be a great deal wiser 

 than the Germans, and that his impressions are more 

 valuable than their arguments. Accordingly we may be 

 sure that his view about the document A will satisfy no 

 body, and with its rejection all his ingenious speculations 

 about the Hebrews and the Hittites, and a great deal that 

 he has to say about Israel in the wilderness and about the 

 conquest of Canaan, simply fall to the ground. 



Not better founded is the account of the influence of 

 Egypt on Hebrew religion as regards the Levites and the 

 oracle of Jahve. The oracle in its oldest form is merely 

 the sacred lot, an institution universal among the Semites 

 and one of the common possessions of all early faiths. 

 M. Renan regards the appeal to Jahve as a dark spot in 

 the record of Hebrew religion, a corruption of primitive 

 Elohism, and therefore he gives it a foreign origin. But 

 can he point to any nation in the stage of the Hebrews 

 under the judges which had no such way of appealing to 

 the decision of God ? Finally, the conception of Moses as 



1 See his articles in the Revue des Deux Mondes, March 1886. 



