280 THE VERY REV. H. WAGE, D.D., ON THE OLD TESTAMENT 



themselves maintaining the historic truth of those narratives 

 of the Patriarchs, which older critics, and their younger British 

 echoes, denounced as mythical ; and a distinguished school of 

 French and Swiss historians are reasserting the substantial 

 Mosaic authorship of Genesis and the traditional " Books of 

 Moses." Tt is less than honest for persons in authority, 

 Professors and Deans and even Bishops, to be treating the 

 results of the German criticism of the Pentateuch, as presented, 

 for instance, by the late Dr. Driver, as having been definitely 

 established. On the contrary, scholars of the highest position, 

 both at home, on the Continent, and in America, are not only 

 maintaining a strenuous opposition to these complicated and 

 artificial theories, but ore urging, on broad historical grounds, 

 the substantial truth of the traditional belief. It should also 

 be borne in mind that the practical questions at issue depend 

 on historical rather than on literary considerations. It is an 

 unquestionable consequence of the views of the German school 

 that the representation conveyed by tradition of the course 

 of Jewish religious history is a radically erroneous one. 

 Of this the fact that the Tabernacle, according to that 

 school, is a later fiction, is a glaring illustration. At and after 

 the Exile, according to the critical view, books and parts of books 

 were written which presented a completely false conception 

 of the development of the Jew^ish religion, and the authority 

 of Moses was systematically invoked for ceremonies and for 

 teaching which were not due to him. It has always seemed to 

 me that this is incredible from an historical point of view ; that 

 the Scribes of the Exile could not have induced the Jews of 

 their day to accept a complete misrepresentation of the history 

 and religion of their ancestors ; and that this proves that the 

 critical system which involves such a consequence must be 

 vitiated by some fatal mistake. 



I must needs express one personal conviction in conclusion. 

 In this Address I have treated the subject, like M. JuUian 

 iind like M. Naville himself, from a point of view which 

 is independent of theological or religious considerations. 

 But I must own I do not see how to repel Voltaire's 

 question, "If a sacred book contains a falsehood, can 

 that book be sacred ? " In plain words, if the Pentateuch is 

 of such a nature that the plain man cannot accept it at what 

 we may call its " face value," if it states as realities, like the 



