551ST ORDINARY GENERAL MEETING,

HELD IN THE ROOMS OF THE INSTITUTE ON MONDAY, FEBRUARY 16TH, 1914, AT 4.30 P.M.

MR. WILLIAM J. HORNER TOOK THE CHAIR.

The Minutes of the preceding Meeting were read and confirmed.

The SECRETARY announced that Mr. H. C. Hogan had been elected as a Member, and Mr. Swinfen Bramley-Moore and Mr. A. Montague Newbegin had been elected as Associates.

The CHAIRMAN then called upon the Rev. J. J. Lias, M.A., Chancellor of Llandaff Cathedral, to read his paper.

IS THE SO-CALLED "PRIESTLY CODE" OF POSTEXILIC DATE? By the Rev. CHANCELLOR J. J. LIAS, M.A., CHANCELLOR of LLANDAFF CATHEDRAL.

EFORE entering into a critical examination of the portion of the Pentateuch, called of late "the Priestly Code," it seems necessary to preface my analysis by some preliminary observations.

First of all, we have heard a great deal from some quarters about the final results of modern scientific criticism. But is criticism one of the exact sciences; and if not, can the word "scientific" be properly applied to it? Science is knowledge, but if knowledge be not exact, at least as far as it goes, it is not knowledge. The value of physical science lies in the certainty of its results when once reached; and this certainty, be it observed, is attained by the practice of testing theories by comparing their results with observation. A vast number of observations, combining a number of various factors in the result, produce practical certainty. This is the inductive method, so often misunderstood. It does not, as some have supposed, consist in taking guesses for granted. The guesses are, it is true, assumed as a basis of reasoning; but only when the results of this process have been found to agree with observation are those results accepted as true. The apparent failure of some physical sciences to secure exact results is due to the premature publication of those results. Until all the conditions of a problem of vast rango

have been sufficiently examined, no satisfactory results can be attained. The comparative failure, again, of metaphysics as a science is that it so often is made to rest, not on facts, but on hypotheses; and that its conclusions have not always been tested by a comparison with facts. The science of psychology, when sufficiently advanced, will possibly do more to establish the laws of mental phenomena in a few years than has hitherto been effected in countless centuries.

Critical investigation, then, as it is not at present thoroughly scientific in its processes, cannot yet be represented as exact in its results. Speaking generally, there is a very wide divergence in the conclusions of historical critics, and a still wider one in those of literary critics. And when we approach the criticism of Scripture, the divergences are greater still: first, because the enquirer, who believes himself to be a man of science, persists in ignoring necessary factors in the problem he sets himself to solve; and also not unfrequently takes extremely wild and arbitrary assumptions as his bases of reasoning. Thus, Wellhausen declares that he alone, in the long list of analytic critics whose researches have come down to us, has arrived at certainty in his results, because "he has added historical to literary criticism." But what does he call historical criticism? His method consists in a liberal use of the argument e silentio, and rests on the assumed right of the critic to strike out from the authorities with which he deals every statement which is not reconcileable with his preconceived opinions. His ultimate conclusions are therefore very far from being unassailable. The argument

e silentio, for instance, has been used in Archbishop Whately's celebrated jeu d'esprit to prove that the Allies never entered Paris in 1814, because no reference to the event is to be found in the Parisian journals of the next day! The truth is that the more obvious an historical fact, the more often it is passsed over sub silentio, because its existence is taken for granted. Obviously such methods of investigation would make history impossible.

A third eccentricity of the so-called scientific investigator is the assertion that the "Priestly Code," though a post-exilic production, is not only a "codification" of laws which had long been in existence, but that it also contains additional laws and ceremonies which were brought into existence after the return of the Jews from captivity. This extraordinary expedient is adopted in order to explain away the mention in the previous history, should it occur, of any laws which it has been found necessary to include in the Priestly Code. But as the critic has, so far, never attempted to tell us which provisions of that Code

are, and which are not, post-exilic, his methods cannot possibly lead to any satisfactory result.

So much for the "scientific criticism" of which we have heard so much of late. It not only establishes nothing, but it makes all attempts to establish anything impossible. It makes a great show of learning and ingenuity, but the learning is beside the point, and the ingenuity is wasted. For true inductive processes we must have ascertained facts on which to rely; the destructive criticism, now in vogue in the field of Scripture, first destroys all the facts, and presents us with undemonstrated propositions in their stead.

Before I proceed to deal with the phenomena of the Priestly Code as evidence of its date, I must explain what is meant by the "Priestly Code." The phrase is an invention on the part of the modern critic; we critics of the older school contend that there is no such thing, but that what has been so called is an integral part of the Law of Moses. When separated, by a process highly ingenious but altogether inadmissible, it consists of a series of extracts from the Five Books of Moses, based on the principles indicated above. Sometimes it consists of chapters, or portions of chapters, forming passages of considerable length, but more often it is made up of scraps of three or four verses, or even sometimes of half or a third of a verse said to have been introduced by a late editor into a compilation of his own from the works of earlier authors. But the whole Book of Leviticus forms part of it. It would take up too much time for me to go into details, but these may be found in Dr. Driver's Introduction, or in any other book professing to describe the latest form which criticism. of this kind has assumed. I may add that an important discovery has lately been made by Mr. Harold Wiener in connection with this subject to which I will presently refer.

I shall now proceed to show (1) that the alleged characteristics of the Priestly Code are, scarcely any of them, post-exilic; and (2) that the marked post-exilic Hebrew of Ezra and Nehemiah display characteristics which are as markedly absent from the Priestly Code.

(1) Some introductory remarks may be needed before we go into detail. The delimitation of the so-called Priestly Code was first made when Wellhausen and Kuenen were contending that Ezekiel was the father of Judaism," and that Ezra had in his hand the completed Pentateuch when he read it before assembled Israel. Circumstances have since led their disciples to postdate

* Ezra, ix, 3.

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their "Priestly Document." It is remarkable, by the way, how often "the fixed and unalterable conclusions of modern scientific criticism have had to be altered and unfixed. Prof. Driver and his followers now deny that the Pentateuch was completed until after the return from the Captivity. Prof. James Robertson has complained of the of the want of frankness with which this change has been adopted.* Made as it has been, it would elude the attention of any but the closest observers. But Nemesis is always waiting for us. The slightest change in the elaborate house of cards, so often built up and knocked down again by the analytic critics during the last few centuries, brings it once more to the ground with a crash. In the days of Wellhausen and Kuenen, when Ezekiel, as we have seen, was regarded as the practical inventor of the Law of Moses, the words and phrases said to be characteristic of "P" would naturally appear in the book, written by its "founder." Now it has become entirely post-exilic in its origin, and the theory that Ezekiel, not Moses, was the "founder" of Israelite institutions has been dismissed to the limbo into which so many exploded theories have already disappeared. Many of the alleged characteristic expressions of "P" are not found in the post-exilic writings, and are not characteristic of the post-exilic period. Therefore the theory so laboriously built up falls to the ground. Were "P" indeed post-exilic, it would undoubtedly betray distinct traces of its origin. No such distinct traces exist. Thus the phenomena presented by "P" are not inconsistent with its Mosaic origin. The occurrence of its phrases in the later Hebrew may be accounted for by the fact that the later Hebraists, Ezekiel for instance, were diligent students of the Mosaic law. And the same diligent study would account for the fact that even the post-exilic prophets, though betraying their date by the use of foreign words,

* Early Religion of Israel, Preface, p. x. His words are noteworthy : "Statements such as these I have quoted amount in my opinion to a set of critical canons quite different from those of Wellhausen, and Dr. Driver would have been no more than just to himself if he had (as König has done) accentuated the difference."

+ Prof. Driver (Introduction, p. 138) says that "Ezekiel's book contains clear traces that he was acquainted with what the critics now call the Law of Holiness' (Leviticus, xvii-xxvi)," therefore "P" contains laws which were made before and after the Return from Captivity. Can the critics tell us which are the earlier laws and which the later? If they can, why have they not done so? And until they have done so, of what use is their discovery?

Pachadh, for instance in Haggai, i, 1, for "governor" shebat (Zechariah i, 7), the name of a month.

could cast their prophecies into the earlier and purer Hebrew form, whilst simple narrators, like Ezra and Nehemiah, betray, as will be hereafter seen, the fact of their long sojourn in a strange land at every step. "P," of course, has its narrative passages, as well as its legal specialisms. But never once does the "Priestly Code" fall into any expression which betrays Babylonian or Persian origin, as the returned exiles continually do.*

I.—We proceed to discuss the critical question in detail. The words and expressions specially characteristic of "P" are stated by Dr. Driver to be 45 in number, beside geographical terms. These last need not be discussed. To avoid wearying my hearers and readers by technicalities unfamiliar to them, I shall only discuss some of the most significant instances; I shall relegate some more to the notes, where the reader can investigate them, it he pleases, at his leisure. For the rest I must refer those who read this paper, or hear it read, to two papers in the American Bibliotheca Sacra for January and April, 1910.† I must also premise that although I and II Chronicles are allowed on all hands to be post-exilic books, a formal analysis is impossible; because, as Prof. Driver declares, Hebrew historians were compilers, and their method of compilation consisted almost entirely in transferring bodily to their pages the passages they extracted from those whose works they used. Therefore, as the Chronicler tells us that he quotes many pre-exilic authors, some portions of his narrative must have been written by himself, and some, ages before his time.‡ This would make a linguistic analysis of his work practically impossible, though it might be a useful exercise for the critic in a region where we possess some information whereby to test his assertions.

1. The Name of God.-As everyone who studies the subject knows, this has been, and sometimes still is, represented to be

* English law terms now in use frequently take us back to the days when French was the language of the law courts, but Haggai and Zechariah, Ezra and Nehemiah, use words denoting offices of state and the like, which are indubitably of Babylonian or Persian origin. + London Agent, C. Higham & Son, Farringdon Street.

I showed years ago in Lex Mosaica that this statement of Dr. Driver is far from correct. But he has continued to repeat it. If he is right, I am justified in regarding Chronicles as full of exact quotations, though Dr. Driver asserts (without proof) that the Chronicler did not use the authorities he pretends to follow. As a fact, he sometimes introduces, bodily, portions of Kings, and sometimes re-writes them. We may take it, therefore, that he has dealt with his other authorities in the same way.