followed by the institution of a sacred tent (Exod. 337-11), pitched outside the camp, to which the pillar of cloud (Yahweh's symbol) descends, and, standing at the door, talks with Moses. No priesthood is needed for its service. A young layman of the tribe of Ephraim, named Joshua, is appointed to its charge. This tent is carried with the tribes upon the march; it is the scene of striking episodes in Num. 11-12; and is last mentioned in Deut. 3114 15 23, when the pillar of cloud again stands by the tent-door, and gives Joshua the son of Nun a charge to prepare him for the leadership which Moses is about to lay down. The general ideas of this narrative resemble those of J; but it is distinguished by the emphasis which it lays on the prophetic character and gift. It expressly designates Abraham as a 'prophet,' Gen. 20', though we are told elsewhere that this term first entered Israel's vocabulary in Samuel's time (1 Sam. 10"); it gives the same title to Miriam; and it assigns to Moses, when Joshua is jealous of an infringement of his master's prerogative, the sublime aspiration Would that all Yahweh's people were prophets' (Num. 112). The restriction of the narrative to the use of the divine name Elohim prior to the revelation to Moses, has secured for it the letter E.

Of these three documents are the first four books of the Pentateuch composed. The relation of J and E is so close, they are so clearly welded together independently of P, that they may practically be regarded as one, and we may say-speaking broadly, -that the collection from Genesis to Numbers is

compiled out of P and JE; moreover, their literary form is determined by the fact that the editor used P as his groundwork, and inserted into it portions of the united product JE.1 But what, in this respect, is the place of Deuteronomy?

In the chronology of the Pentateuch the book of Deuteronomy is attached to the last year of the life of Moses (2714, etc.). Its opening retrospect recites the story of the conquest of the territory east of the Jordan, the overthrow of Sihon and Og, and the preparation of the people for the march into the promised land. The passage across the Wady Zered (Deut. 213) is identical with that in Num. 2112,18. Deuteronomy, therefore, covers the same time as Num. 26-36.2 But how great is the difference! Important events, like the census in Num. 26, or the campaign against the Midianites, 31, are never named. Laws on similar subjects, such as the right of asylum, are common to both (Num. 359-84, and Deut. 19118), but they not only vary in language and style, they presuppose independent religious and social institutions. The Levites, for instance, are formally endowed with forty-eight cities, Num. 351-8, and their surrounding lands; while Deuteronomy repeats again and again that the Levites 'have no inheritance,' they live in the villages and hamlets, and in their poor estate are repeatedly commended, along with the poor and the orphan, to the bounty of

1 This, it will be noted, is wholly independent of the question of the relative ages of these works.

2 Already assigned to P, see p. 115.

the prosperous householder. It is inconceivable that these two sets of laws can proceed from the same hand within a few months. The book of Deuteronomy, then, stands apart by its situation from the joint narrative JE (to which, however, it frequently refers); and by its contents from P. In the documentary notation it is naturally represented by D. The Pentateuch, accordingly, which opens with the stately narrative of creation prefixed to the Priestly Code, and closes with the impassioned exhortations of Moses in the plains of Moab, may be resolved into its constituent elements as P, JE, and D.1

III.

The literary separation of the materials, however, tells us nothing of their various ages or their mutual relations. But it soon becomes certain that the three great works P, JE, and D, were not all produced together. There must, therefore, be some time-order among them; at least an attempt must be made to arrange them in some sequence. Yet even this result, if it can be reached, is, not final; it may give us a literary chronology, it tells us nothing of the places of the separate books in the actual centuries. Two questions, accordingly, soon emerge in our enquiry; (1) in what succession were these documents actually composed? and (2) is it possible to fix the date of any of them in the actual chron1 These docuuments may be studied separately in the treatise of Mr. Addis cited above, p. 110.

ology of Israel? These are the problems of historical criticism. Owing to special circumstances— the independent position of D, and its relation to a great national and religious event, the reformation carried out by Josiah in the year 621 B.C.,-the second of these two questions was the first to receive satisfactory answer.

This answer came from a young student of twenty-five, W. M. L. De Wette, who published at Halle in 1806 the first part of a remarkable little treatise modestly entitled Contributions to the Introduction to the Old Testament.1 This book laid the foundation of the historical criticism of the Pentateuch. The writer pointed out that the central institution of the Priestly Code, the Dwelling and its ritual, assumed that sacrificial worship (and there was then no other) could be offered only at one place. That also was the demand of the fundamental law of Deut. 12, expressly limiting the popular sacrifices to 'the place which Yahweh should choose,' which De Wette had no difficulty in identifying with Jerusalem. On the other hand, the whole history of Israel for hundreds of years after the settlement under Joshua, showed that this principle had in no way controlled the religious practice of the nation. Neither P nor D is ever recognised, and the actual proceedings of the accredited leaders of the nation, priests, prophets, and kings, are in complete contradiction of their demands. This method of comparing particular documents with the actual circumstances recorded 1 The second volume followed in 1807.

in history was really applied for the first time in any detail to the books of the Pentateuch by De Wette. On general grounds, then, both P and D must be later than the time of Samuel. The fact that the description of the Levitical Dwelling in Ex. 25-28 could not be reconciled with that of the Tent of Meeting in 337-11, and that its arrangements were plainly modelled on those of the Temple in the capital, brought P into the age of Solomon or later. But for D a more precise date could be fixed. It expressly sanctioned the monarchy, while forbidding a repetition of Solomon's excesses, Deut. 1714-17. Moreover, in 4° 17° it denounced a particular foreign worship prohibited in no other laws, the cultus of 'the host of heaven.' These rites, the historian of the monarchy informs us (2 Kings 2135), were first introduced by Manasseh (692-639, B.C.). The inference was natural, Deuteronomy could not have been written before the seventh century B.C.1 Already in 1651 Hobbes (like Jerome in the fourth century of our era) had identified the Deuteronomic code with the law-book discovered in the temple in the eighteenth year of the reign of Manasseh's grandson, Josiah, 621 B.C. De Wette, then, assigned

This of course assumes that D is practically one whole, and that the passage in question was not added to the book at a later time. Recent investigation has shown reasons for thinking that several hands may be traced in the book. But all its religious laws and exhortations are cast in one mould, and stamped with one thought. There cannot be any great limit of time-variation among them; moreover, numerous other indications (which there is no space to mention here, see Composition of the Hexateuch, chap x.), converge on the same century.