patible with God's power to bless anywhere. The book of Deuteronomy itself, which is said to restrict worship to the Temple of Jerusalem, contains an injunction to set up an altar and offer sacrifices between Ebal and Gerizim (Deut. xi. 29; xxvii. 4, 13). Still the limitation stands, "in every place where I record my name," which cannot simply mean "in all places indifferently.” There was to be some indication of Jahaveh's name given by Himself; and after all, the old explanation that saw a reference to the movements of the tribes through the wilderness, under the direction of God, who appointed their halting-places, and to a time before the tribes were a settled people with fixed dwelling - place, though it does not seem to exhaust the reference, is not inappropriate. At most the words may imply the acceptable worship of Jahaveh at a number of successive places, but they do not necessarily, nor perhaps possibly, imply the recognition of simultaneous sanctuaries in different places. With this idea the whole tone of the passage is at variance. The people to whom the words are addressed are one people; it is not to individuals that the permission or promise is given.1 Wherever Israel as a whole is, and wherever Jahaveh, their one God, records His name, there acceptable worship may be offered. The

1 The ten commandments, says a very docile pupil of Wellhausen, "are not addressed to individuals, but to a nation. The 'thou' to whom they speak is the people of Israel, and they are prefaced by a sentence in which Jehovah states how it is His right to give laws to Israel" (Allan Menzies, National Religion, p. 42). Wellhausen would have us believe that the notion of the "congregation" as a sacred body was "foreign to Hebrew antiquity, but runs through the Priestly Code from beginning to end" (Hist. of Israel, p. 78). I think we have it here clearly marked in the "thou" of the book of the Covenant in formal connection with worship (comp. above, p. 303 f.) But indeed it was present in essence in the first self-consciousness of Israel as Jahaveh's people.

One God, one People, one Altar.

411

very idea of the unity of the national God, and the correlative idea of the unity of His people, imply a unity of worship and of sanctuary. The corporate reference is confirmed by the fact that this same book of the Covenant ordains that three times in the year all the males should appear before Jahaveh. It is inconsistent with the fundamental ideas of the unity of the tribes at that early time to suppose that such a command could mean that three times in the year all males were to make a pilgrimage to some shrine or other, some tomb or holy place of a tribal ancestor, and thus fulfil the command here given. The mere possession of a sacred ark, with a tent for its habitation, and these as the common possession of all the tribes, was in itself a centralising of worship. Though the existence of a tabernacle such as is described in the Pentateuch is denied by the modern historians, it is not denied that an ark, and a tent for its covering, were in the possession of Israel, and held in general regard in connection with the Jahaveh religion. Nor can it be denied that Shiloh was a sanctuary of a quite special importance in the times of the Judges and Samuel, and no one who believes that the Hebrew writers knew anything at all of their history will accept the assumption that the Temple was merely the court sanctuary of the kingdom of Judah, or even only one of many coordinate holy places in that kingdom. Wellhausen says1 that the principle "one God, one sanctuary" is the idea of the Priestly Code. It is, in point of fact, the idea of the book of the Covenant also, though neither in the one nor in the other is it held to mean that the one God was only present, and could only manifest His power at one particular spot. "An altar shalt thou make to me," the

1 Hist. of Israel, p. 34.

command runs, not "altars." The altar of God is always only one. It ceases to be an altar the moment His people and His manifestation to them are at another place. It is not the sanctity of the place that constitutes the sanctity of the altar, but the presence of Him who makes His name manifest. It is remarkable that we do not find in all the Old Testament such a divine utterance as my altars"; and only twice does the expression "Thy altars," addressed to God, occur. It is found in Elijah's complaint, which refers to northern Israel, at a time when the legitimate worship of Jerusalem was excluded; and in Psalm lxxxiv., where it again occurs, no inference can be drawn from it. On the other hand, Hosea says distinctly, "Ephraim hath multiplied altars to sin" (Hosea viii. 11).

I think, therefore, it is not proved that the book of the Covenant allows worship at any indefinite number of places as co-ordinate sanctuaries; nor does the history show that this was recognised by the religious leaders of the nation. Previous to the building of the Temple at Jerusalem, and especially when the ark was removed from Shiloh, we find what may be called a freer or less regulated practice; and this was the result of the exigencies of the period. But from the erection of the Temple, not only is there no proof that any other sanctuary was allowed, but there are positive indications that that was regarded as the one authoritative place of worship in the sense in which we here speak. The practice in the northern kingdom proves nothing, for all the assertions of modern writers to the effect that the history mainly evolved itself there, and that the kingdom of Judah counts for little, are opposed to the spirit and distinct utterances of the earliest prophets. Not less are they inconsistent with the earliest legislation.

The book

One Law for all Israel.

413

of the Covenant, at whatever time written, and whether composed in the northern or the southern kingdom, makes no distinction between the two, and lays down one law for all Israel. The schism of the ten tribes was a breaking away from national unity and from the national God; and no proof can be adduced that prophetic men looked with anything but disfavour on the idolatrous worship that was practised in the southern kingdom, whether at Jerusalem or at local sanctuaries.

414

CHAPTER XVI.

THE LAW-BOOKS.

Distinction of Books and Codes—Wellhausen's personal experience—The hypotheses of Graf; not the result of criticism-The great objection to it its assumption of the fictitious character of the history, thus leaving no solid materials for a credible history-I. The book of Deuteronomy is neither (1) pseudonymous nor (2) fictitious-II. The books containing the Levitical Code-(1) The position that Ezekiel paved the way for this Code (2) The pious remnant and the reformation ideas—(3) Fictitious history in an aggravated form-(4) The literary form of this Code --Multiplicity of sources a proof of long-continued literary activity— But the main course of the history rests on its own independent proofs.

IN the preceding chapters we have seen reasons for concluding that the modern theory does not sufficiently account for the persistent ascription of law and religious ordinance to Moses; that it fails to exhibit the transition from natural to religious observance, and from oral to authoritative written law; that its argument from silence tells as much against its own assumption as against the Biblical view; and that its sharp distinction of the Codes in essential matters is not well founded. With the literary fates of the various law-codes we are not much concerned, because this is a subject on which the Biblical theory, which it is our main purpose to test, leaves great