THE SAMARITAN PENTATEUCH. 



201 



that the king " ordained a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth 

 d&y of the month, like unto the feast that is in Judah ... he went 

 up to the altar that he had made in Bethel, on the fifteenth day of 

 the month, even in the month ivhich he had devised in his oivn heart" 

 Thus in religion as well as politics the North was cut off from the 

 South, revolt and schism went together. 



Hence we see that, not only was there a version of the Pentateuch 

 in existence centuries before Modern Criticism has been disposed to 

 allow the Pentateuch to have existed in any form, but also that the 

 Samaritans, who use that version to-day, periodically follow a practice 

 that is explained as to its origin in the First Book of Kings, and 

 shown to have originated little short of a thousand years before 

 Christ ! 



In conclusion, I would call attention to the fact that, in the 

 second edition of his book on The Canon of the Old Testament, 

 Bishop Herbert Edward Ryle speaks of the Samaritan Pentateuch 

 as having been " loudly proclaimed to be the rock upon which the 

 modern criticism of the Pentateuch must inevitably make shipwreck." 

 I cannot say that, in discussing the subject, he does much to divest 

 the rock of its destructive influence or power. About the time the 

 Bishop was writing on the subject, the late Mr. Gladstone gave to 

 the world a series of articles, which were afterwards published in 

 book form, with the title The Impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture. 

 Writing from the non-expert's practical point of view, Mr. Glad- 

 stone said : " The Samaritan Pentateuch forms, in itself, a remarkable 

 indication, nay even a proof that, at the date from which we know it 

 to have been received, the Pentateuch was no novelty among the Jews. 

 . . . Surely the reverence of the Samaritans for the Torah could not 

 have begun at this period ; hardly could have had its first beginning 

 at any period posterior to the schism. . . . Nor can we easily 

 suppose that, when the Ten Tribes separated from the Two, they did 

 not carry with them the law on which their competing worship was 

 to be founded. In effect, is there any rational supposition except 

 that the kingdom of Israel had possessed at the time of Rehoboam 

 some code, corresponding in substance, in all except pure detail, 

 with that which was subsequently written out in the famous 

 manuscripts we now possess 1 " 



Mr. Gladstone, as we see, appreciated the critical importance of 

 the Samaritan Pentateuch. It is indeed unthinkable that the 



