be offered so well accounts for this fact as the supposition "that each religious party in Israel designated God exclusively by one of these two names; those who held to the old patriarchal traditions by the word Elohim, and those who had accepted the Mosaic reform by the name Jehovah." (Vol. I. p. 51.) This also serves to explain the certain yet startling fact that Moses' schemes for the settlement of his people in the promised land were never carried out; that there is scarce a trace of the Mosaic law in the books of Joshua and Judges; that its establishment and final triumph were of an extremely late date in the history of the Hebrew race; and yet that no criticism, however searching and even hostile, has to fair minds set aside the belief that, with many after modifications, the law called Mosaic was in very truth the law of Moses.

The second essay in the first volume endeavours to trace up to Moses those religious and social principles which had their origin in him, "or at least in the reform attempted in the desert after the Exodus, and which for posterity is personified in Moses, to all appearance its principal promoter." (Vol. I. Pref. p. iii.) And the third is devoted to the proof that the system so begun "penetrated Israel but slowly; and decidedly triumphed at last only when the kingdom of Judah was about to disappear for ever under the attacks of the Chaldæans." (Vol. I. Pref. pp. iii, iv.)

Whatever diversity of opinion may exist on matters of detail, we fully believe M. Nicolas will so far carry with him in the main all fair-minded men who read his book; and we commend it cordially to those who desire to see the questions involved argued with extreme care and skill, and with an absence of the personalities which disfigure so large a portion of theological literature both at home and abroad. We doubt, indeed, if he will succeed in impressing all his readers with his own firm belief that Elohism was an idolatrous monotheism; there will still remain those who think that, as a simpler monotheism less tied to creed and form than the later development of Jewish religion, it had its advantages even over the sublime revelations of Moses; that from some points of view the indistinct faith of Abraham was higher than the more developed convictions of an Hezekiah or a Josiah. Nor will he convince all of them that the whole religious life of the Jewish pation was

split into two so clearly distinct parties as he would have it, however it may be admitted that the words Elohim and Jehovah, as well as the conceptions they imply, are radically distinct. We think the position quite tenable that a large or the largest body of the religious public of Judæa may have been unconscious of the diversities of schools among their leaders, as in our villages at the present day the inhabitants would be quite unable to explain or understand in what way the teaching in their own church differed from that in the church of the next parish. And we also believe it to be possible and probable that the majority of the nation came, at least by the time of David, to use the word Jehovah as the name for God, even while many of them continued to entertain of Him the ideas expressed by the earlier word Elohim.

This notion of a strongly marked boundary, on one side or other of which each Jew was compelled to take his stand,this conviction that the Elohistic section was idolatrous, and that each man who named the name of Jehovah was necessarily a strong upholder of Mosaic system, rite and faith, has given rise to the fourth essay, of which, while much is most valuable, the main position seems to us only a very ingenious and eloquent paradox. It is devoted to the consideration of Hebrew prophets and prophecy, "whom," says M. Nicolas, "I consider as the advocates of the Mosaic system in the heart of the Hebrew nation, and as the chiefs and directors of the party, or, as I propose to call it, the little church which adhered to the teaching of Moses. Thanks to their perseverance, to their devotion, to their religious and moral enthusiasm, the principles proclaimed by Moses did not perish, and at last triumphed in the house of Jacob." (Vol. I. Pref. p. v.)

His whole sketch of the nature and aim of prophecyhis vindication of the far higher status of the forth-teller than that of the fore-teller-his examination of the facts that as the estimate of the dignity of the prophet's office grew in the minds of men there dropped off from it such titles as "seer" and the attributes of a soothsayer-his notice of the schools of the prophets,-leave little to be desired. A comparison of these with the discussion in the Preface of Sir Edward Strachey's admirable book, "Hebrew Politics," will give the reader all that really need be known

on these subjects at present. But we cannot follow him. when he strives to prove that the declamations of the prophets against the priests were really from the mouths of those who themselves belonged to what may be called the sacerdotal party, who considered the whole ritual and law of Moses as the one barrier between their people and lawless lust or wanton idolatry. In no age have the clergy attacked the vices of the clergy while they desired to uphold the system of which those clergy were the authorized exponents. One here and there may have spoken out at times, as did Savonarola; but when a Luther attacks the monks, or a Latimer the bishops, it has been to prepare, consciously or unconsciously, the fall of monachism or episcopacy. The Hebrew prophets and priests were fully aware of the fact, put afterwards into such epigrammatic language, that "a house divided against a house must fall."

Nor do we think that a comparison, sometimes made, of the prophets to the regular and the priesthood to the secular clergy of the middle ages, will do much to explain the antagonism. Asceticism was the root of the monastic life, and though there were hermits and fakirs among the prophets, such was by no means the prevailing spirit of Judaism. The resemblance is merely superficial. We should far rather incline to see in the growth of prophecy a striving after a reformed and purer religion than was that of Moses, a further development when men were able to bear it, as the religion of Moses had been a growth out of some traditions of Egypt, mixed with the noble and pure conceptions of, or revelations to, the mind of Moses. And as all religious reforms seek not only to develop on the one hand, but claim to return to a purer antecedent ideal on the other, so it seems to us that the prophets, while using the name Jehovah, strive to return in great measure to the simple, unsymboled faith of the patriarchs and founders of the race. We do not, indeed, forget that Isaiah, the greatest of all the prophets, received his commission in the temple, when, as he tells us, "I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is Jehovah of Hosts: the whole earth is full of His glory. And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and

the house was filled with smoke." (Isaiah vi.) But it is significant that the train of Jewish priests and victims, the worshipers and the rites, disappear, and God only is present to the rapt vision of His servant.

We can, however, completely agree with M. Nicolas in his view of the cordial union between priest and prophet on the return from the captivity, when each believed that "all the promises announced of old by men of God were at once to be realized" (Vol. I. p. 441), when Messianic hopes and expectations grew clearer and clearer for a while; but only, as it happened, that Malachi should see the longedfor end was not yet, and "once more postpone to an indefinite future the great and terrible day of the Lord." (Vol. I. p. 442.)

The second volume of the Etudes Critiques sur la Bible, that on the New Testament, has lately appeared, after an interval of two years. This is of itself a guarantee that the subjects discussed, growing naturally out of and forming the complement of those in the former volume, have been carefully weighed before M. Nicolas has placed before the public the conclusions at which he has arrived. And the book itself shews, if possible, greater research, more calmness, and a more matured judgment, than the first series of essays. The author has evidently felt that the questions are of infinitely greater moment, involving as they do the original documents of the religion which has changed the course of the world-documents which claim to place us face to face with the Divine Person of its Founder, and to have been in large measure written by his immediate companions and disciples. It is possible that the gravity and caution of the book may render it at first sight less interesting to the general reader than its predecessor, and M. Renan's recent brilliant romance may incline some to turn away from this, the next book of great importance on the New Testament, with a sensation of weariness when they find it marches from its premisses to its conclusion with the precision of a syllogism. But we are sure that to those who feel that firm ground must be discovered before the attempt is made to reconstruct for our examination the early Christian life, this book will be found of the deepest interest as well as value. M. Nicolas' account of his own intent in the book is this:

"Placing myself outside all dogmatic prejudice, I have here

proposed to myself solely to replace primitive Christianity on the ground of historic reality. . . . I have not attempted to draw a complete picture of the ideas and literature of the early church. Such a task would have been beyond my power, and probably also beyond the patience of the reader, who, whatever interest he may take in religious matters, would not have been content to follow me through the long and minute discussions on which we must needs enter. It has seemed to me that to attain my end, which is simply to lead the reader to form a true idea of the history of primitive Christianity, it would be enough for me to examine a few of the more important questions bearing on the New Testament. . . . . The first concerns the Gospels, and has led me to determine the respective characters of these four documents, their relations with each other, and the mode of their composition. The second is occupied with the Christianity of the apostles. I have here studied the differing conceptions entertained by the first propagators of the new faith on the principles and doctrines of their Master. The last is occupied with the formation of the canon, and is intended to explain by what train of circumstances the twenty-seven different writings forming the New Testament, and at first independent of each other, have been joined together in a single work."--Vol. II. Pref. p. vii.

It cannot be disputed that every critical investigation which has been made of late years into any one of these subjects-and only of late years has the critical faculty been generally developed-ends in some conclusions contrary to received opinions. The fact is so notorious, that there are men who deliberately turn away from all critical study of the Bible, lest they should be led towards views they have already determined not to entertain. But, as M. Nicolas truly says, although modern criticism may resolve these questions in a different way to that in which the Church resolved them in times past, the fact of differences between the evangelists was widely noted in the end of the second century, and the difficulties thus raised have never been wholly met. And, we must repeat once more, it is not for those who have accepted the Reformation to desire to restrict inquiry, since by their adherence to its principles they admit that the truth has not been finally sealed up beyond the reach of further discovery and teaching. The Church writers in the first centuries adopted various theories to account for such facts as the discrepancy between the genealogies of the Christ, which can now excite only a smile;