vm THE EVOLUTION OF THEOLOGY 359 



belief that the people who " saw the thunderings 

 and the lightnings and the voice of the trumpet 

 and the mountain smoking" (Exod. xx. 18); to 

 whom Jahveh orders Moses to say, " Ye yourselves 

 have seen that I have talked with you from 

 heaven. Ye shall not make other gods with me ; 

 gods of silver and gods of gold ye shall not make 

 unto you" (ibid. 22, 23), should, less than six 

 weeks afterwards, have done the exact thing they 

 were thus awfully forbidden to do. Nor is the 

 credibility of the story increased by the statement 

 that Aaron, the brother of Moses, the witness and 

 fellow-worker of the miracles before Pharaoh, was 

 their leader and the artificer of the idol. And yet, 

 at the same time, Aaron was apparently so ignorant 

 of wrongdoing that he made proclamation, " To- 

 morrow shall be a feast to Jahveh," and the people 

 proceeded to offer their burnt-offerings and peace- 

 offerings, as if everything in their proceedings 

 must be satisfactory to the Deity with whom they 

 had just made a solemn covenant to abolish 

 image-worship. It seems to me that, on a survey 

 of all the facts of the case, only a very cautious 

 and hypothetical judgment is justifiable. It may 

 be that Moses profited by the opportunities 

 afforded him of access to what was best in 

 Egyptian society to become acquainted, not only 

 with its advanced ethical and legal code, but with 

 the more or less pantheistic unification of the 

 Divine to which the speculations of the Egyptian 



