rite, common in the middle of the second century, represents more or less fully the primitive rite. But we dare not press this presumption very far. Take, for example, the two points of trine baptism and immersion. Are not both in the line of a natural development? Would there not be reason enough for the rise of a threefold ritual in the Christian church in the fact that they baptized in the Triune name and that the Jews baptized by a single immersion; just as the Catholics in Spain found ground at a later period for baptizing by a single immersion in the fact that the Arians baptized by a trine immersion? Would there not be reason enough for a gradual growth of the rite to a full immersion in the fact that that form of baptism would seem more completely to symbolize total cleansing, was consonant with the conception framed of the river baptism of John, of which our Lord himself partook, and seemed vividly to represent also that death and resurrection with Christ suggested in certain passages of the New Testament? All the materials certainly existed for the development of such a form of baptism as meets us in the second century, from any beginning which would give the slightest starting-point for such a development. Such being the case, we appear to be forbidden to assume that second-century baptism any more certainly reproduces for us primitive Christian baptism, than the second-century eucharist reproduces for us the primitive Lord's Supper or the second-century church organization the primitive bishop-presbyter. Where, then, it may be asked, are we to go for knowledge of really primitive baptism? If the archæology of the rite supplies ground for no very safe inference, where can we obtain satisfactory guidance? Apparently only from the New Testament itself. We are seemingly shut up to the hints and implications of the sacred pages for trustworthy information here. But the conclusion to which these hints and implications would conduct us, it is not the purpose of this article even to suggest.

ARTICLE II.

THE GREAT PENTATEUCHAL DIFFICULTY MET.

BY THE REV. HENRY HAYMAN, D. D.

PART I.-A PRE-MOSAIC STRATUM OF PENTATEUCHAL LAW.

THE stock argument against the possibility of all the Pentateuchal laws being ascribed to Moses usually takes form as follows: "You have here, from the Sinaitic covenantlaws to those of Deuteronomy, both inclusively, in effect three codes in forty years, by the same legislator to the same people-all amidst substantially the same surroundings of the wilderness"; the third, or intermediate, being reckoned as constituted by those scattered groups of laws, chiefly in Leviticus xvi.-xxv., but found also occasionally in Numbers, to which the title "The Law of Holiness" is often given. The objector continues: "This is morally impossible, especially considering the wide disparity in social conditions evident between the Sinaitic and the Deuteronomic. Therefore, assuming the Sinaitic to proceed from Moses, the latter must be long posterior to him." I will, for argument's sake, at once concede the major premise here; although it may be argued with reason, that the teaching (Torah) of the wilderness forms one progressive whole, and that we moderns are ill-qualified to fix the limits within which its progress, especially having regard to its inspiration, was possible. That Torah has elements which wholly outrun those of a "code," and tend to falsify a criticism which regards it merely as such. But, making this concession with this reserve, I must leave for Part II. the

question which regards the relation borne to Exodus and Deuteronomy by the third or intermediate so-called "code," the Law of Holiness, symbolized sometimes as PH, and present the question as between the Sinaitic and Deuteronomic only. Assuming, then, that we cannot get both these into forty years, the question is, Which is the overlapping part? The critics say it is Deuteronomy-to that I demur. But let me first premise that the situations in which the two were given are radically different, in spite of the local surroundings being so nearly the same. For at Sinai the covenant is given on the assumption that the recipient Israel are to march straight thence upon Canaan, with Moses, who gave them that law, as their leader, and under him take possession, with him present to apply, interpret, or modify that law. Thirty-nine years later "all that generation" has died away, their disobedience having voided the promise; while Moses, for his failure in perfect obedience, is to die on the threshold of that heritage, and, in that crisis of the people's destiny, to hand over the leadership to a successor. Whatever they have become, they are no longer the young emancipates of that year One of freedom; and Joshua, the successor, has no legislative commission. Meanwhile nearly one-fourth of the Israelite total have won and are settling in their territory east of Jordan. Moses is called, on the whole suddenly, to prepare for a future which he is not to share, much less to lead. These are the conditions which called forth the Deuteronomic laws and exhortations-"the second covenant... in the land of Moab, beside" the one "made" with Israel "at Horeb" (Deut. xxix. 1), being the nucleus of the whole book, and, in respect of the great lawgiver, his last will and testament.

To return, then, to that covenant at Horeb and its lawscritics have hitherto taken them up en bloc, labeled them "Sinaitic," distributed them into Decalogue and subsidiary statutes, regulating worship and social duty, and have wholly

failed to make the true analysis by means of internal evidence, which reveals, as I shall presently show, an early stratum of præ-Mosaic antiquity. I refer to the "judgments," advisedly and most correctly so entitled, which Moses is to "set before" the people (Ex. xxi. 1). This præMosaic section is somewhat carefully dovetailed, so to speak, into the "Sinaitic" laws proper at or about Exodus xxii. 20 (Heb. 19). From xxi. 2 then to xxii. 20 we have (perhaps only a portion of) a very ancient corpus iuris, couched almost wholly in the third person, with exceptions (xxi. 2, 13, 14, 23; xxii. 18) which I believe can all be accounted for, whereas from xxii. 20 onwards "thou" or "ye" is the uniform style. This former section has an order, method, and spirit of its own; besides a strong and remarkable local coloring.

Its "judgments" are transparently such-decisions each pro re nata, exactly like those éμioтes of Homeric epos, which were delivered to the hero-king by Zeus himself (Homer, Il. i. 238-239; ix. 99-100), to be kept in store until occasion drew them forth. We may therefore translate them back into their facts of origin; and we have a series at once of highly idyllic pictures which illustrate a highly primitive and self-contained social life. And here the words of the late Sir Henry Maine are singularly apposite: "Parities of circumstances were probably commoner in the simple mechanism of ancient society than they are now, and in the succession of similar cases awards are likely to follow and resemble each other. Here we have the germ or rudiment of a custom, a conception posterior to that of éμiores or judgments. However strongly we, with our modern associations, may be inclined to lay down a priori that the notion of a custom must precede that of a judicial sentence, and that a judgment must affirm a custom or punish its breach, it seems quite certain that the historical order of the ideas is that in which I have placed them. . . . Law has scarcely

reached the footing of custom, it is rather a habit. . . . The only authoritative statement of right and wrong is a judicial sentence after the facts, not one supposing a law which has been violated, but one which is breathed for the first time by a higher power into the judge's mind at the moment of adjudication." This last notion is exactly illustrated by the use of the term Elohim (with the definite article)="gods," for the judges, in Ex. xxi. 6; xxii. 8, 9, bis.2

1

'I take each judgment, then, as a picture of fact, involving a scene of real life. That life knows nothing of the "stranger and sojourner." It is predominantly pastoral; although agriculture is recognized in the vineyard and the harvest field (xxii. 5, 6). Master and slave are of one race, the Hebrew; and the only outsider is the "strange people" of xxi. 8. That life-and this is the singular general fact to which a number of the incidents point-is one led at very close -quarters. There is, if I may say so, no margin of mutual avoidance. The incidental trespasses seem nearly all to arise from man and man, or woman, or man and beast, etc., not having elbow-room enough to keep out of each other's way. Two men fight, either in a house or so close to it that the house mother comes in for a violent blow, with possibly serious hurt. A opens a pit and B's animal walks into it; or A's beast breaks loose and is found grazing in B's vineyard, etc. A lights a fire, perhaps to cook pottage for his reapers (2 Kings iv. 39, 40) out of doors, and it catches B's harvest ;3 while the vicious ox that seems to have no adequate range of pasture, is a standing peril to the patriarchal society, and is supposed to gore indiscriminately man or wife, son or daughter, man-servant or maid-servant, or his own fellow-beast. As such he is to be stoned-the only offender for which that

1 Ancient Law, pp. 5, 8.

2 Cf. Deut. i. 17, "The judgment is God's"; and Ex. xviii. 19, “Be ahou to the people to God-ward," cf. v. 15.

For

"thorns" here (xxii. 6) read Typ “harvest."