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THE MESSAGE OF MOSES
AND

MODERN HIGHER CRITICISM
>.

A LECTURE

/

Given in Houston Hall, University of Pennsylvania
b

BY

Rev. FRANCIS E. GIGOT, D.D.
Professor of Sacred Scripture in St. Joseph's Seminary, Yonkers, N. Y.
Author of Several Works Introductory to the Study
of the Holy Scriptures

New York · Cincinnati

Chicago

BENZIGER BROTHERS
Printers to the Holy Apostolic See

1915

--------------------- ----- -------------------------- - -----

e

ACO

THE MESSAGE OF MOSES
AND

MODERN HIGHER CRITICISM
A LECTURE

Given in Houston Hall, University of Pennsylvania

BY

Rev. FRANCIS E. GIGOT, D.D.
Professor of Sacred Scripture in St. Joseph’s Seminary, Yonkers, N. Y.
Author of Several Works Introductory to the Study
of the Holy Scriptures

New York

Cincinnati

Chicago

BENZIGER BROTHERS
Printers to the Holy Apostolic Bee

1915

împrimi potest,
REMIGIUS LAFORT, S.T.D.,
Librorum Censor.
Peekskill, N. Y., March 25, 1915.

Copyright, 1915, by Benziger Brothers

PREFACE

HE present Lecture was delivered in Hous­
ton Hall, University of Pennsylvania, on
March 17th, 1915. It forms part of the Free
Public Lectures given there under the auspices
of The Catholic Students’ Organization Commit­
tee of that University. Prepared for a general
audience, the Lecture avoids as far as possible
technical details and linguistic discussions, and
lays no claim to be considered as a treatment of
all the various aspects presented by the important
topic with which it deals. Within its small com­
pass, however, it supplies the information re­
quired for an accurate comprehension of the
main points at issue between the traditional posi­
tion concerning the message of Moses and the
theories of Modern Higher Criticism. It like­
wise sets forth in a brief, yet it is hoped sufficient,
manner the principal grounds which can be ap­
pealed to in order to vindicate the correctness of
Jewish and Christian tradition concerning
3

T

4

PREFACE

Moses’ literary work and monotheistic message.
It is the Author’s intention at some future time
to deal fully with the particular points which he
has simply touched upon in short footnotes.
Meantime, the lecture is published at the request
of persons deeply interested in the topic under
discussion, who are persuaded that its pubheation
will prove useful to theological students and to
general readers.
St. Joseph’s Seminary,

March 24, 1915.

SUMMARY

INTRODUCTION

The Traditional View concerning Moses. Its B ejection
by Modern Higher Criticism. The New Theories widely
received, yet untenable. General Contention of the Higher
Critics.
1st part

The Literary Contents of the Pentateuch Investigated.
The Four Documents admitted by Higher Criticism:
Two Prophetical Narratives; The Book of Deuteronomy;
The Priestly Writing. Deuteronomy and the Priestly
Writing can be proved as from Moses’ pen. The other Two
Documents were utilized by Israel’s Lawgiver. Hence,
all the Literary Contents can be traced back to Moses.
IInd part

The Legislative Contents of the Pentateuch Examined.
Views of the Higher Critics concerning Order and Date of
the Pentateuchal Codes. The Critical Theories not neces­
sary to account for the Development of Hebrew Legis­
lation. The Critical Theories run counter to fully-ascer­
tained Facts. Some General Objections of the Higher
Critics disposed of,
(GENERAL CONCLUSION

5

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THE MESSAGE OF MOSES AND
MODERN HIGHER CRITICISM
N Jewish and Christian circles the name of
Moses is a blessed and household word. It
denotes to the rank and file of believers the great
liberator of Israel from Egypt, the prophetical
leader of the ancient Hebrews through the Wil­
derness of Sinai to the border of Chanaan, the
monotheistic lawgiver of his race, and the in­
spired writer of the Pentateuch or first five books
of the Old Testament. Such was Moses accord­
ing to the constant tradition of ages which we
find reflected in the Scriptures of the Old Law
and in those of the New.
Venerable and authoritative as this tradition
may appear to us, its testimony is more and more
confidently declared null and void by the thor­
ough-going advocates of the Modern Higher
Criticism. Such testimony, these men boldly as­
sert, has been fully tested by a host of able and

I

7

8

MESSAGE OF MOSES AND HIGHER CRITICISM

independent scholars for upwards of a century,
and its value is nowadays admitted only by
biassed or by blind followers of Ecclesiastical
authority. Let anyone, they further tell us,
examine for himself the new theories which have
been gradually framed to supersede the old tra­
ditional authorship of the Pentateuch, and he
will readily see that, while these theories account
for the facts on which they rest, the traditional
view of Moses’ message and work must be re­
garded as decidedly untenable.1
Such is the general contention of the Modern
Higher Critics, such also is the direct challenge
with which they confront the defenders of the
traditional position. To go against this conten­
tion and to take up this challenge, one needs in­
deed a stout heart at the present day. Promi­
nent scholars all over the world have become the
stanch advocates of the new theories,2 and works
of all sizes and purposes have placed their views
1 For instance, C. F. Burney writes: “This latter hypothesis
(i. e. the Graf-Wellhausen theory), with the reconstruction which
it involves of our view of the development of Israel's religion
after 750 B. C., may now be regarded as proved up to the hilt
for any thinking and unprejudiced man who is capable of esti­
mating for himself the character and value of the evidence.’’
(Journal of Theological Studies, April, 1908, p. 321.)
2 Cf. C. A. Briggs, The Higher Criticism of the Hexateuch, p.
143 sq. (N. Y., 1893.)

MESSAGE OF MOSES AND HIGHER CRITICISM

9

within reach of the young and of the old. His­
tories of the Old Testament and Histories of the
Religion of Israel have been written on the as­
sumption that the old traditional position is for­
ever disproved, and in all such writings the most
radical and most irreligious theories are pro­
pounded as the undoubted truth concerning the
origin and development of Israel’s history and
religion.3 It would seem, therefore, that to de­
fend the cause of tradition is to defend a lost
cause, and that to assail the conclusions of Mod­
ern Higher Criticism concerning the Message of
Moses is to waste time and energy. And yet, to
the mind of the present Lecturer there is con­
viction that such is not really the case. Nay more,
to his mind there is no doubt that a dispassion­
ate study of the principal positions of the High­
er Critics proves such positions to be untenable,
and that the careful gathering up of whatever
elements of truth may be recognized in the new
theories but strengthens the traditional view
concerning the person and message of Moses.
3 Of this description are: H. Oort and I. Hookyaas, The Bible
for Learners, tr. (Boston, 1888); C. H. Toy, The History of the
Religion of Israel (Boston, 1894); H. P. Smith, Old Test. History
(N. Y., 1903); The Religion of Israel (N. Y., 1914); L. B. Paton,
The Early Religion of Israel (Boston, 1910); Morris Jastrow,
Hebrew and Babylonian Traditions (N. Y., 1914); J. p. Peters,
The Religion of the Hebrews (Boston, 1914).

10

MESSAGE OF MOSES AND HIGHER CRITICISM

The beginning of Modern Higher Criticism is
usually referred to the second part of the
eighteenth century. In those early days of criti­
cal research the traditional authorship of the
Pentateuch was accepted by the French Catholic
physician Jean Astruc in his epoch-making
“Conjectures sur les Mémoires originaux dont
11 paroit que Moyse s’est servi pour composer le
Livre de la Genese.” (Brussels, 1753.) It was
likewise accepted by the German Protestant pro­
fessor J. G. Eichhorn in his valuable “Einleitung
in das Alte Testament,”4 in which the name
“Higher Criticism” is used for the first time to
denote the investigation of the literary and his­
torical contents of the sacred writings. But
since then Higher Criticism has passed through
several stages which gradually led it up to its
present thorough denial of Moses’ literary work
and monotheistic message. Tradition indeed
survives bearing the same distinct witness to the
Mosaic authorship of the first five books of Holy
Writ. But this tradition, Modern Higher Critics
assert with one accord, is disproved by both the
literary and the historical analysis of the contents
of the Pentateuch itself.
4 Cf. Eichhorn’s Einleitung, edition of 1790.

MESSAGE OF MOSES AND HIGHER CRITICISM

11

I

On the basis of the literary analysis of these
contents, they all claim that the only way to
account for the differences in vocabulary,
style, manner of representation, etc., noticeable in
the Pentateuch, is by regarding the work as a
compilation from four various documents all later
than the time of Moses. Of course, if such be
the only way to account for the literary features
exhibited by the contents of our Pentateuch, the
Mosaic authorship of the work must be given up.
But is this really the case? Is it true that the
four documents accepted by Modern Higher Crit­
icism—viz. two parallel prophetical narratives,
the oratorical Book of Deuteronomy, and the
lawyer-like Priestly Writing—must be assigned
to different authors who lived between 850 B. C.
and some time after the return from the Baby­
lonian Exile? Our distinct answer is that another
account of the literary features of the Penta­
teuch, and one consistent with the Mosaic origin
of its contents, can and should be maintained.
On the basis of these literary features there
is no need of ascribing, as Higher Critics do, a
different date and a different authorship to the
Priestly Writing and to our Book of Deuter­

12

MESSAGE OF MOSES AND HIGHER CRITICISM

onomy. Both are in equally good, and by no
means late, Hebrew.5 The lawyer-like style of
the Priestly Writing and the oratorical language
of Deuteronomy are compatible with unity of
authorship, as they undoubtedly were under the
pen of Noah Webster, of Abraham Lincoln, and
of other writers. That Moses was the author of
the rhetorical discourses found in Deuteronomy
is expressly affirmed by that book, and from the
point of view of style, there is no positive reason
to deny it. As far as we know, Moses, “in­
structed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and
mighty in words” (Acts vii. 22), was able to make
the direct and impassioned addresses recorded in
that book, and the tendency to redundancy and
to repetition of stereotyped phrases which ap­
pears in their style is exactly what we should ex­
pect from an early effort at public oratory in Is­
rael. That the same orator, Moses, used also,
when required, a statistical and legal language
5 Cf. A. Dillmann, Genesis, tr., vol. 1, p. 7.—According to H.
L. Strack (art. Pentateuch, in Schafl'-Herzog Ency. of Religious
Knowl., vol. Ill, p. 1795, N. Y., 1887), “The language of P (i. e.
the Priestly Writing) deserves attention as an evidence for its
antiquity. V. Ryssel in his careful treatise on the language of
P (De Elohistae Pentateuchici Sermone, I.eipsig, 1878) reaches
results inconsistent with the supposition of post-exilic origin.”
Cf. also F. E. Spencer, in Lex Mosaica, p. 515 sqq.—F. Giesebrecht’s view of P’s Aramaisms is rejected by S. R. Driver, Intr.
to Old Test. Lit., p. 156.

MESSAGE OF MOSES AND HIGHER CRITICISM

13

like that of the Priestly Writing is proved by the
style of passages directly referred to him in the
other books of the Pentateuch; such passages,
for instance, as the list of Israel’s encampments
(Numb, xxxiii), the commands to the children
of Israel (Numb, xxxiv), the Book of the Cove»
nant (Exod. xx-xxiii), the last of which pre­
sents appended to its laws an exhortation to
faithfulness to God in genuine Deuteronomic
style, and thus ascribes to Moses both a legal
and an oratorical manner of writing. This is
proved likewise by the minute details concern­
ing the Tabernacle, the Ark, the priestly dress,
etc., for, on the one hand, they are expressly
stated to have been imparted to Moses by God
Himself, and, on the other, their perfect faithful­
ness to the corresponding elements in Egyptian
worship6 points to Moses as the one who because
of his special training in Egypt could easily bear
such details in mind and put them down in writ­
ing. Thus, then, we can and should account for
the literary features of the Priestly Writing and
of the Book of Deuteronomy without giving up
the traditional authorship of these parts of the
Pentateuch.
® Cf. W. Smith, The Book of Moses (London, 1868); see also
R. V. French, Lex Mosaica, p. 22 sqq., p. 621 (London, 1894).

14

MESSAGE OF MOSES AND HIGHER CRITICISM

It is true that when we turn next to the two
prophetical narratives which are admitted by the
Higher Critics, we find ourselves in presence of
two literary sources actually utilized in the com­
position of our Pentateuch. In regard to style,
these narratives do differ from each other, they
also do differ from those portions of the Penta­
teuch which, as we have just seen, should be re­
ferred to Moses’ own pen. Nevertheless, the lit­
erary features of these narratives afford no rea­
son for thinking that their contents originated
centuries after Moses’ death,7 and that conse­
quently they were not utilized by him in compos­
ing our Pentateuch. We have in the Book of
Numbers (xi. 25 sqq.) a distinct proof that
there were prophets among the multitudes which
had been freed from Egypt, and that Moses him­
self knew of the existence of such prophets and
approved of their spirit. We have no need,
therefore, of referring ourselves to centuries after
Moses to account for the prophetical tone of the
1 J and E (i. e. the two prophetical narratives) are ascribed by
many Critics to prophets of Juda and Ephraim respectively.
Kuenen, Reuss, Schrader, etc., regard them both as of Ephraimitic origin. In fact, neither J nor E has any specific allusion
to the divided kingdom, and this is very unnatural if either was
composed after the disruption of Solomon’s empire, as Critics
affirm. (Cf. J. Skinner, Intern. Critical Commentary, Genesis, p.
liv sq., N. Y., 1910).

MESSAGE OF MOSES AND HIGHER CRITICISM

15

two literary sources in question. Moses, himself a
prophet, knew how to write, and so also did at
least some of the prophets around him. That two
of these in thankfulness to the God of their ances­
tors should record His deeds of mercy toward the
patriarchs of old, and chronicle His present inter­
ventions on behalf of the people of His choice,
is readily intelligible. In their eyes the God
who had but lately redeemed Israel from Egypt
was no other than the God who from of old had
preordained all things in behalf of His elect
people, and who, at sundry times, had promised
to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that their pos­
terity would inherit the land of Chanaan. With
a watchful Providence He had guided the wan­
dering steps of these great ancestors of the He­
brew race, and with a strong arm and an out­
stretched hand He had in due time proceeded
to fulfil His solemn promises to them. The
present generation of their descendants had, in­
deed, by its apostasy at the foot of Sinai, proved
unworthy of witnessing that fulfilment. But
such fulfilment could not be frustrated, and was
simply delayed for a short while. God’s timely
help under the trying circumstances of the jour­
ney of the Exodus and of the wanderings in the
Wilderness could be easily pointed out as an un-

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MESSAGE OF MOSES AND HIGHER CRITICISM

questionable proof of this. And so one can
readily understand how two prophets in the com­
pany of Moses would feel prompted to write, for
the instruction and encouragement of their fel­
low Hebrew’s, the two narratives which we find
embodied in our Pentateuch. Amidst natural
differences of expression, their descriptions of the
journey of the Exodus, their references to places,
their allusions to the productions of the Wilder­
ness, etc., would be most accurate, as they have
been verified by numerous travellers in the
course of the nineteenth century.8 That the
Priestly Writer of the Pentateuch, no other than
Moses,9 as we have seen, was actually acquainted
with such literary works is admitted by nearly
every critic of our day. That he utilized them,
adding to them, fitting them into his general
scheme of history and legislation, best accounts,
among other things, for the two following facts:
(1) their contents which bear on events falling
within Moses’ lifetime are more closely fused
8 Cf. S. C. Bartlett, From Egypt to Palestine (N. Y., 1879) ;
F. E. Gigot, Special Introd, to the Old Test., vol. I, p. 67 sqq.
(N. Y., 1901).
9 It is confirmatory of this view, that after Exodus “the inde­
pendent main stock of the Priestly Code more and more gives
way to later additions, and ceases altogether, it appears, at the
death of Moses.” (Wrellhausen, quoted by J. Orr, Problem of the
Old Test., p. 340. N. Y., 1905).

MESSAGE OF MOSES AND HIGHER CRITICISM

17

with the contributions by the Priestly Writer
than are those which bear on events prior to the
lawgiver’s time; (2) the distinct style of redac­
tion of the same priestly writer ceases altogether
at the death of Moses.10 We are thus led to ad­
mit that Moses himself, the author of the Priest­
ly Writing and of Deuteronomy, used the two
prophetical narratives in composing our Penta­
teuch, so that we can account for all the literary
contents of the Mosaic writings without depart­
ing in the least from the traditional authorship
of the work.11
10 “In the Book of Josue, P [ the Priestly Writer] does not oc­
cupy the regulative position, nor supply the framework, as it
does in the Pentateuch.” G. A. Smith, art. Joshua, in Hastings,
Bib. Diet. vol. II, p. 784.—According to Critics also, the Deuteronomic writer in Josue, is not simply D, but D2, i. e. “a writer
. . . strongly imbued with the spirit of Deuteronomy” (Driver,
Intro, to Old Test. Liter., p. 104), so that the genuine Deuteronomic
writer ceases also at the death of Moses, a literary fact which
points to Moses as the single author of both Deuteronomy and the
Priestly Writing.—Finally, R. Kittel (Hist, of the Hebrews, tr.,
vol. I, p. 75 sqq.) gives reasons for regarding D as the editor of
J and E before they were combined in the form of Wellhausen’s
JE. (Cf. Exod. ix. 30 where [in the Hebrew] the divine names
Jehovah, Elohim appear on Moses’ lips, in the same combined
manner as in Gen. ii sqq.)
11 The length of the work does not make against this. In
Egypt, in Moses’ time, literature was the first and best of em­
ployments, and the “Great Harris papyrus” which is 133 ft.
long by nearly 17 inches broad, goes back to that period. (Cf.
G. Rawlinson, in “The Pulpit Commentary,” Exodus, vol. I, pp.
x, xi.)

18

MESSAGE OF MOSES AND HIGHER CRITICISM

II
Modern Higher Critics, however, do not depend
solely, or even chiefly, on the literary analysis of
the Pentateuch to deny Moses’ literary work
and monotheistic message. They principally rest
this denial on their historical criticism of the
legislative portions of the Mosaic writings.
These portions fall naturally into three sets of
laws or Codes which Critics agree in regarding
as composed in the following order : ( 1 ) the Book
of the Covenant, contained in the prophetical
narratives; (2) the Deuteronomic Code, embod­
ied in our Book of Deuteronomy; and (3) the
Priestly Code, an integrant part of the Priestly
Writing. Now, Higher Critics pronounce these
three Codes to be so incompatible on vital points,
that the only wTay to account for their origin is
by admitting that in the Pentateuch we have
records of laws laid down at various periods of
national history, and dealing with radically dif­
ferent conditions of life. Thus, according to
them, the only way to view aright the Book of
the Covenant is by understanding its enactments
as exactly suited to the times of the Judges and
of the early Kings of Israel. In this first set of
laws, we are told, Jehovah is simply the national

MESSAGE OF MOSES AND HIGHER CRITICISM

19

God of Israel, in the same way as Chemos, for
instance, is the national god of Moab; altars of
earth or of unhewn stones can be erected in vari­
ous places ; sacrifices of the most elementary kind
can be offered by anyone; and the people lead an
agricultural life in a somewhat primitive stage
of civilization. Again, to their mind, the only
view to take of the second Pentateuchal Code,
which they hold to be that of Deuteronomy, is
to regard it as fitting in with the closing years
of the Hebrew monarchy, with the time when
King Josias (7th cent. B. C.) enforced the
enactments of a book of the Law then found in
the Temple and no other, it is claimed, than the
Deuteronomic Code. This, it is affirmed, is a new
and higher Code suited to a more advanced age
in Hebrew history. Jehovah is now conceived
not simply as the God of His people Israel, but
as the only one true God. Henceforth, there
must be only one sanctuary, one altar. Hence­
forth, the ministers of the altar in the Temple are
limited to the members of the tribe of Levi, and
those who had ministered as Levites at the high
places of worship different from Jerusalem are
to be provided with a maintenance in a rather
scanty and precarious manner. Finally, pres­
ent day Critics affirm that the only right way to

20

MESSAGE OF MOSES AND HIGHER CRITICISM

understand their third, the Priestly, Code, is by
regarding its laws as suited to the period after
the return from the Babylonian Exile. In both
this Priestly Code and this period of Hebrew his­
tory, it is said, the one national concern is to
organize the community on thoroughly priestly
lines : the priesthood is now restricted to one sin­
gle Levitical family, that of Aaron; the office of
the high priest is invested with a peculiar sanc­
tity ; the Levites are made thoroughly subordinate
to the priests and are provided for by means of
tithes and cattle and cities and lands ; the system
of sacrifices and feasts, now to culminate in the
Day of the Atonement, wears a new and dis­
tinctly national character and is protected by a
most elaborate ritual; there is no insistence upon
the one altar and sanctuary because this was
already firmly established; nor any effort at en­
forcing monotheism because the possibility of
rivalry with Jehovah on the part of other gods
is no longer thought of.
Plainly, if the foregoing is a correct theory,
Modern Higher Critics are justified in their
thorough denial of Moses’ literary work and
monotheistic message. Evidently, Moses can­
not be the author of records of laws framed in
view of circumstances all distinctly later than

MESSAGE OF MOSES AND HIGHER CRITICISM

21

his time. Evidently, too, he is not the introducer
into Israel of a monotheism which gradually
evolved in the consciousness of the Hebrew na­
tion only centuries after his death. And hence,
no less evidently, there is no other way of main­
taining the traditional view concerning him, save
by yielding blindly to the voice of authority.
But to the mind of the present Lecturer there
is no doubt that this theory of the Critics is not
correct, and that there is another way12 of ac­
counting for the facts to which it runs counter,
which other way is, moreover, in perfect harmony
with the traditional position.
Of the three Codes contained in the Penta­
teuch, the Book of the Covenant stands natur­
ally first, not because of its superior antiquity,
but because of its preliminary character. It is
a brief body of regulations intended to serve as
a basis for the formal ratification of the Cove­
nant between Jehovah and the people of Israel.
Accordingly, it lays down a few simple and com­
prehensive rules, framed in the spirit of the reli­
gion of Jehovah, for the government of the peo­
ple in their relations to one another, and in their
relation to God, to which in a solemn act of wor12 The following sketch of it is mainly from W. H. Green The
Higher Criticism of the Pentateuch, p. 144 sqq. (N. γ#> ιρθθ).

22

MESSAGE OF MOSES AND HIGHER CRITICISM

ship they were soon to pledge assent. The very
agricultural allusions of this Code, to which Crit­
ics appeal as pointing to a people settled in
Chanaan, are in direct harmony with its Mosaic
origin and its delivery at Sinai. At that early
date both Moses and the people under his guid­
ance felt sure that they would soon be settled in
full possession of the promised Land, for neither
he nor they could imagine such an act of gross
rebellion as that for which a lapse of forty years
to be spent in the desert was actually to inter­
vene. It would have been strange, indeed, if the
law given in the midst of such circumstances did
not look beyond the desert as the abode of the
people, and took no note of what was in immedi­
ate prospect. It was quite appropriate for it to
contemplate their expected life in Chanaan, and
to give regulations respecting the fields and vine­
yards and olive-yards which they were shortly to
possess.
The second Code contained in our Pentateuch
likewise appears there in its appropriate place.
After the reading of the Book of the Covenant
and the national assent pledged to its observation,
the way was open for a fuller development of
the duties and obligations which the relation now
established between the two contracting parties

MESSAGE OF MOSES AND HIGHER CRITICISM

23

naturally involved. Jehovah, as the covenant
God of Israel, was henceforth to take up
His abode in the midst of His people. This
made it necessary that detailed instructions
should be given, for which there was no occa­
sion before, respecting the sacred Tabernacle, the
sacrifices to be performed in it, the officiating
priesthood, the set times for special solemnities,
and in general the entire ritual to be observed
by a holy people for the expression and per­
petuation of their communion with a holy God.
All this was embodied in the Priestly Code, in
which the scanty general provisions of the Book
of the Covenant were replaced by a vastly ex­
panded and minutely specified ceremonial. In­
tricate and minute as this ritual Law may appear
to us, it was not an altogether new thing to a
people long familiar with the parallel ritual in
Egyptian worship; nor was it a development
implying the lapse of ages with an altered civiliza­
tion and a corresponding advance of the popular
notions of the divine Being and of the homage
which should be paid to Him.
Finally, the Pentateuch rightly ascribes to the
Deuteronomic Code the third place in its sets
of Hebrew laws. At the close of the forty years’
Wandering, when the great legislator was about

24

MESSAGE OF MOSES AND HIGHER CRITICISM

to die., he naturally felt it his duty to exhort to
faithfulness in the service of Jehovah, their God,
those whom he long knew to be a rebellious
people. In view of this he recapitulated in the
hearing of Israel the laws of the Book of the
Covenant with such modifications and additions
as were suggested by the circumstances of the
present, the experiences of the past, and the pros­
pects of the immediate future. “These testa­
mentary addresses are stamped with the fresh­
ness and richness of the reminiscences of the aged
lawgiver, with a freedom in expanding historical
incidents, laws, and, above all, the Decalogue,
which is scarcely conceivable except on the suppo­
sition that the speaker was that lawgiver himself.13
The Deuteronomic Code thus enacted was a devel­
opment, not as the Priestly Code had been on
the side of the ritual, but considered as a Code
for popular guidance in civil and religious mat­
ters. The enlargement, which we here find, of
the simple regulations of the Book of the Cove­
nant implies no longer interval and no greater
change in the condition or constitution of the
people than is provided for in the Biblical nar­
rative. At the same time, the fact that we do
is F. Delitzsch, quoted by E. C. Bissell, The Pentateuch, p. 255
footn. (N. Y., 1885).

MESSAGE OF MOSES AND HIGHER CRITICISM

25

not find in Deuteronomy a ritual so elaborate
and detailed as in the Priestly Code is not be­
cause the latter is the further development of a
still later period, when ceremonies were multi­
plied and held in higher esteem, but simply be­
cause the Priestly Code was a professional book
especially meant for priests in direct charge of
the altar, and Deuteronomy a popular book for
the guidance of the Israelites at large in mat­
ters more immediately within their province.
Towards the close of the monarchy, the Deuteronomic Law alone needed to be re-enforced,
inasmuch as the divine service, chiefly regulated
by the Priestly Code, had long been carried out
in accordance with its ritual precepts.14 After
the Exile, on .the contrary, the Priestly Code
was of paramount importance to the restored
nation, for the simple reason that the Temple,
its services, and all things connected therewith
had been swept away by the unprecedented
calamity from which Israel had just been
rescued.
i* The passages from Isaias, Amos, Jeremias, to which Critics
triumphantly appeal as disproving the existence of the Priestly
Code in the time of those prophets, do not bear this out. (Cf. von
Orelli, and other commentators; J. Robertson, The Early Religion
of Israel, p. 443 sqq. N. Y., 1892; J. Orr, The Problem of the
Old Test., p. 155 sqq.; p. 324 sq. N. Y., 1905; W. Smith, The Book
of Moses, p. 211 sqq.; p. 501 sq.).

26

MESSAGE OF MOSES AND HIGHER CRITICISM

Such, briefly sketched, is the other, and ob­
viously most rational, manner to account for the
differences which exist between the three sets
of Hebrew legislation embodied in our Penta­
teuch.15 Most reasonable it is to regard the
Book of the Covenant as the Constitution
framed at the very beginning of the Hebrew
nation by the liberator of Israel. Most reason­
able it is to admit that this Constitution, dis­
tinctly religious in character, was soon expanded
into a ritual Law impregnated with Moses’ mem­
ories of Egyptian outward worship. Most rea­
sonable, finally, it is, to think that before dying,
the same Moses exhorted, as we find in Deu­
teronomy, the people whom he had guided, and
whom he was about to leave, to a thorough
faithfulness in the service of the true God and
their God. And all this naturally agrees with
the manner in which the literary features of the
Pentateuch point to Moses as the author of its
contents.
All this traverses, it is true, the views freely
circulated and widely accepted in Critical cir­
cles. But why should it not do so? Higher
15 This rational explanation is in direct conformity with
Scriptural statements the obvious import of which Critics rule out
in virtue of their evolutionary theories of Israel’s religion.

MESSAGE OF MOSES AND HIGHER CRITICISM

27

Critics maintain that all Israel was not enslaved
in Egypt, and was not, therefore, delivered by
Moses. But was there ever a nation willing
falsely to trace back its origin to such a degraded
condition, and could not the deliverance from
Egypt under the leadership of Moses be as dis­
tinctly and as faithfully remembered as the win­
ning of American independence under the lead­
ership of Washington, or the liberation of
France under that of Joan of Arc? They assert
that the Hebrews owed their belief in only one
God to prophets living centuries after Moses,
whereas these same prophets bear distinct wit­
ness to the fact that such belief was that of their
nation ever since God freely chose it as His own
people.16 They affirm that the Deuteronomic
Code originated in the closing years of the mon­
archy, ignoring all the while that this same Code
contains laws the obvious import of which makes
against that late date. Thus, Deuter. xvii. 14,15
contemplates the Hebrew monarchy as a thing of
the future, and lays down that the future king
should not be a foreign born: on the one hand,
this enactment is unintelligible on the part of
a supposed lawgiver living at a time when his
16 Cf. Amos ii. 9 sqq.; iii. 1 sqq.; Osee xi. 1; xii. 9 (Heb. verse

10).

28

MESSAGE OF MOSES AND HIGHER CRITICISM

nation had already had a long series of kings
and was in no way tempted to set at its head
a foreigner, seeing that for centuries the royal
succession had been firmly established in the fam­
ily of David; on the other hand, this same enact­
ment is most intelligible on the part of Moses
who naturally anticipated that after his death
the Hebrews would desire a king like all other
nations, and no less naturally forbade the elec­
tion in such case of a foreign born, fully aware
as he was of the misfortunes which had befallen
Egypt when ruled over by a foreign dynasty.
Again, Deuter. xx. 16-18 and Deuter. xxv. 17-9
decree the extermination of the Chanaanites and
of the Amalekites respectively: now to refer the
framing of such laws to the closing years of the
monarchy is to make them meaningless, inas­
much as by that time both Chanaanites and
Amalekites had ceased to be; whereas to ascribe
them to the time of Moses is most natural, since
these hostile tribes not only existed then, but
had to be done away with for the very reasons
which the lawgiver points out. With regard to
the Priestly Writing, the views which obtain in
Critical circles are likewise untenable. As this
Priestly Writing explicitly refers the whole
ceremonial Law to Moses, Critics freely charge

MESSAGE OF MOSES AND HIGHER CRITICISM

29

its supposed late authors with projecting back
into Moses’ time the ritual and institutions of
their own age, with recasting throughout the
documents at their disposal to make them con­
form with their late religious conceptions, and
the same Critics never suspect that they them­
selves are open to a precisely similar charge
when they mutilate, displace, interpret these
same documents to make them fit with evolution­
ary theories of Israel’s laws and institutions in
their own day. Critics have no doubt that the
said Priestly Writers were not able to view cor­
rectly the distant past history of their race, and
they are not aware that at this much later date
they themselves can hardly be better able to view
correctly the history of a race singularly dif­
ferent from their own. Modern Critics assume
that the laws of Israel grew like those of other
nations; the Priestly Writing knows that it is
not so. Hebrews kings did not make laws, but
found them in existence, and were expected to
comply with them; and the most minute enact­
ments of the Priestly Code, in particular, are so
accurately stamped with parallel details in
Egyptian worship as to give indication of their
origin in Moses’ time. It will always look
strange, whatever Modern Critics may say to

30

MESSAGE OF MOSES AND HIGHER CRITICISM

the contrary, that the Priestly Code, if framed
after the Exile, as they assert, should contain a
number of laws which were without a motive,
and could not be carried out after the Exile.17
To date, for instance, the command to kill the
sacrifices only at the Tabernacle (Lev.
xvii. 1 sqq.) from that late period in Jewish
history is passing strange; in that period the
Tabernacle existed no longer, and the appro­
priate time for the framing of the law in ques­
tion is manifestly the forty years’ Wandering
in the Wilderness.
Again, had Higher Critics carefully weighed
the terms of the three Pentateuchal Codes,
viewed in their right order of time, they would
never have claimed that the Hebrew legisla­
tion varied essentially as regards the cen­
tralization of worship in one place, or that only
in the course of centuries the priestly office of
offering sacrifices was restricted first to the whole
Levitical tribe and next to the sole Levitical
family of Aaron. From the very first, the Book
of the Covenant evidently refers to only one
place of national worship, when in general terms
it bids Israel to appear three times a year before
17 Cf. H. L. Strack, art. Pentateuch, in Schaff-Herzog, Ency. of
Religious Knowl., vol. Ill, p. 1794 sq. (N. Y., 1887).

MESSAGE OF MOSES AND HIGHER CRITICISM

31

Jehovah (Exod. xxiii. 17), an expression which
decidedly points to a centralization of the wor­
ship. In the next, the Priestly, Code, the Tab­
ernacle is specified as this regular place wher­
ever it may be set up. And in the last, the Deuteronomic, Code, it is simply laid down that this
regular place shall not be shifted any more, but
be the particular spot which Jehovah shall Him­
self designate in due time. The same absence
of discrepancy exists between the three Codes
in question, with regard to the Levitical ministers
of the altar. In the Book of the Covenant these
ministers are not mentioned at all, for the ob­
vious reason that Moses had not yet appointed
the Levites, i. e. the men of his own tribe, for
the exclusive service of the sanctuary. In the
Priestly Code these Levites are regularly or­
ganized, the simple Levites for the inferior serv­
ices, and those of Aaronic descent for the priestly
ministry under a high priest after the pattern of
the Egyptian priesthood. And finally, in the
Deuteronomic Code, these simple Levites are
naturally regarded as already set apart for the
divine service, and no less naturally recom­
mended to the generosity of their fellowHebrews, for the provision of cities and lands in
their own behalf, that is to say their main source

32

MESSAGE OF MOSES AND HIGHER CRITICISM

of income, is to take effect only after the settle­
ment in Chanaan.
Finally, Critics think it strange, if Moses is the
author of the Pentateuch, that this work should
always speak of him in the third person, should
contain statements indicative of a later author­
ship than his time, and conclude with the very
account of his death. But why should this be
considered strange? Such pagan writers as
Thucydides, Xenophon, Cæsar,18 and such
sacred authors as Isaias, Osee, Amos, use the
third person when speaking of themselves in
works undoubtedly their own. Moreover, speak­
ing of oneself in the third person was common
in Egypt in Moses’ time.19 Some of the state­
ments appealed to as pointing to a time later
than Moses, point indeed to it. But why should
they not be numbered among those glosses
which, as every Scriptural scholar knows, were
inserted into the sacred text long after the com­
position of a book of Holy Writ? Of course,
the account of Moses’ death at the end of Deu­
teronomy is not from his own pen. But why
should such account be regarded as interfering
18 Cf. AV. Smith, The Book of Moses, p. 552 sq. ; p. 556 sq.
(London, 1868).
i» Cf. G. Rawlinson, in “The Pulpit Commentary,” Exodus, vol.
I, p. xv.

MESSAGE OF MOSES AND HIGHER CRITICISM

33

with the Mosaic authorship of the books to
which it is appended? Can it not be readily
understood as an addition by a subsequent au­
thor who wished thereby to complete the record
which these books contain of Moses’ personal
work and career? Cæsar’s Commentaries on the
Gallic War were indeed completed by Hirtius,
a friend of his, through the addition of an eighth
book, but nobody dreams of rejecting the tra­
ditional authorship by Cæsar of the seven pre­
ceding books on that account.
It is now time briefly to conclude. In the
course of this Lecture, the immense labors and
the great ingenuity of numerous workers in the
field of Biblical Criticism have not been called
into question. Acquainted, as it was his bounden
duty to be for the last twenty-five years, with the
writings of such Critics, the present Lecturer has
had many an opportunity to notice and wonder
at the knowledge of linguistics, the depth of re­
search, the mastery of details, etc., of which the
works referred to give evidence. He would
therefore have deemed it an injustice to past
generations of Critics, and also to his present
audience, to speak disparagingly of the ability
and industry of scholars whose views he did not
see his way to share. It was his plain duty to

34

MESSAGE OF MOSES AND HIGHER CRITICISM

take into account the elements of truth included
in theories which he felt could not be held on
scientific grounds, and hence he has readily
granted to his opponents that certain differences,
literary and legislative, existed in the contents of
our Pentateuch. At the same time, he has argued,
as the interest of truth compelled him to do, that
such differences with regard to these literary and
legislative contents, far from disproving, dis­
tinctly strengthen the traditional position con­
cerning the writings and mission of Moses, the
great lawgiver of Israel. Within the short space
of time at his disposal, he could do no more than
to examine the leading positions of the thorough­
going advocates of Modern Higher Criticism,
and to point out the principal general reasons
for rejecting them. In view of these reasons,
there is no doubt that when the literary contents
of the Pentateuch are inquired into, they are seen
to be compatible with the traditional authorship
of the work. There is likewise no doubt that the
actual development of Hebrew legislation in the
three Codes of the Pentateaich is rightly ac­
counted for, not by the views of it which are
prevalent in Critical circles, but by the traditional
position from which Critics should never have
departed. The particular elements of truth

MESSAGE OF MOSES AND HIGHER CRITICISM

35

brought out by the literary and historical investi­
gation of the contents of the Mosaic writings are
thus found to tally, as might be expected they
would, with the general truth handed down by
the proverbially tenacious tradition of Jews and
Christians. Great, indeed, was the message it
was given Moses to convey to Israel, second only
it was to the message imparted by the Savior of
mankind: “The Law was given through Moses,
grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”
(John i. 17.)

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