358 THE EVOLUTION OF THEOLOGY vm 



Israel of David and Solomon, first with Phenicia 

 and then with Egypt. 



If we suppose Moses to have been a man of the 

 stamp of Calvin, there is no difficulty in conceiving 

 that he may have constructed the substance of 

 the ten words, and even of the Book of the 

 Covenant, which curiously resembles parts of 

 the Book of the Dead, from the foundation of 

 Egyptian ethics and theology which had filtered 

 through to the Israelites in general, or had been 

 furnished specially to himself by his early 

 education; just as the great Genevese reformer 

 built up a puritanic social organisation on so much 

 as remained of the ethics and theology of the 

 Roman Church, after he had trimmed them to his 

 liking. 



Thus, I repeat, I see no a priori objection to the 

 assumption that Moses may have endeavoured to 

 give his people a theologico-political organisation 

 based on the ten commandments (though certainly 

 not quite in their present form) and the Book of 

 the Covenant, contained in our present book of 

 Exodus. But whether there is such evidence as 

 amounts to proof, or, I had better say, to prob- 

 ability, that even this much of the Pentateuch 

 owes its origin to Moses is another matter. The 

 mythical character of the accessories of the 

 Sinaitic history is patent, and it would take a 

 good deal more evidence than is afforded by the 

 bare assertion of an unknown writer to justify the 



