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 PENTATEUCH

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PENTATEUCH

to cite, if they ascribe the Pentateuch to Moses when- ever there is question of its autliorship, even the most exuctiiiK critics must admit that tlicy cxpn'ss their conviction that the work \v;is iiulccd writ ton liy Moses. AVhon tlie Sadilucees quote at^ainst .Icsus the marriage law of Deut., xxv, 5, as written by Moses (Matt., xxii, 24; Mark, xii, 19; Luke, xx, 2S), Jesus doe.^ not deny the Mosaic authorship, but appeals to Ex., iii, 6, as equally written by Moses (Mark, xii, 20; Matt., xxii, 31; Luke, xx, 37). Again, in the parable of Dives and Lazarus (Luke, xvi, 29), He speaks of "Moses and the prophets", while on other occasions He speaks of "the law and the prophets" (Luke, x\'i, 10), thus showing that in His mind the law, or the Pentateuch, and Moses are identical. The same ex- pressions reappear in the last discourse addressed by Christ to His disciples (Luke, xxiv, 44-6; cf. 27): "which are written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms concerning me". P'inally, in John, v, 4.5-7, Jesus is more explicit in asserting the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch: "There is one that accuseth you, Moses ... for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?" Nor can it be maintained that Christ merely accommodated himself to the current beliefs of his contemporaries who considered Moses as the author of the Pentateuch not merely in a moral but also in the literary sense of authorship. Jesus did not need to enter into the critical study of the nature of Mosaic authorship, but He could not expressly endorse the popular belief, if it was erro- neous.

The Apostles too felt convinced of, and testified to, the Mosaic authorship. "PhiUp fin.liili Nathanael, and saith to him : We have found him i >f \v\\i mi Moses in the law, and the prophets did write." St. Peter introduces a quotation from Deut., xviii, 15, with the words: "For JMoses said" (Acts, iii, 22). St. James and St. Paul relate that Moses is read in the syna- gogues on the Sabbath day (Acts, xv, 21; II Cor., iii, 15). The great Apostle speaks in other passages of the law of Moses (Acts, xiii, 33 ; I Cor., ix, 9) ; he preaches Jesus according to the law of Moses and the Prophets (Acts, xxviii, 23), and cites passages from the Penta- teuch as words written by Moses (Rom., x, 5-8; 19). St. John mentions the canticle of Moses (Apoc, xv, 3).

B. Witness of Tradition. — The voice of tradition, both Jewish and Christian, is so unanimous and con- stant in proclaiming the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch that down to the seventeenth century it did not allow the rise of any serious doubt. The fol- lowing paragraphs are only a meagre outline of this living tradition.

(1) Jewish Tradition. — It has been seen that the books of the Old Testament, beginning with those of the Pentateuch, present Moses as the author of at least parts of the Pentateuch. The writer of the Books of Kings believes that Moses is the author of Deuteronomy at least. Esdras, Nehemias, Malachias, the author of ParaUpomena, and the Greek authors of the Septuagint Version consider Moses as the author of the whole Pentateuch. At the time of Jesus Christ and the Apostles friend and foe take the Mosaic au- thorship of the Pentateuch for granted; neither our Lord nor His enemies take exception to this assump- tion. In the first centurj' of the Christian era, Jo- sephus ascribes to Moses the authorship of the entire Pentateuch, not excepting the account of the law- giver's death ("Antiq. Jud.", IV, viii, 3-48; cf. I Prooem., 4; "Contra Apion.", I, 8). The Alexan- drian philosopher Philo is convinced that the entire Pentateuch is the work of Moses, and that the latter wrote a prophetic account of his death under the in- fluence of a special Divine inspiration ("De vita Mosis", 11. II, III in "Opera", Geneva, 1613, pp. 511, 538). The Babylonian Talmud ("Baba-Bathra", II, col. 140; "Makkoth", fol. Ha; "Menachoth",

fol. 30a; cf. Vogue, "Hist, de la Bible et de I'ex6g68e biblique jusqu'il nos jours", Paris, 1881, p. 21), the Talmud of Jerusalem (Sot a, v, 5), the rabbis, and the doctors of Israel (cf. Kiiist, "Der Kanon des Alten Testaments nach den Uberlieferungen im Talmud und Midrasch", Leipzig, 1808, |)p. 7-9) bear testimony to the continuance of this tradition for the first thousand years. Though Isaac ben .lasus in the eleventh cen- tury and .Miencsra in the twelfth admitted certain post-Mosaic additions in the Pentateuch, still they as well as Maimoiiides upheld its Mosaic autliorship, and did not substantially differ in this point from the teaching of K. Hecchai (thirteenth cent.), Joseph Karo, and Abarbanel (fifteenth cent.; cf. Richard Simon, "Critique de la Bibl. des aut. eccl6s. de E. Dupin", Paris, 1730, III, pp. 21.5-20). Only in the seventeenth century, Baruch Spinoza rejected the Mosaic author- ship of the Pentateuch, pointing out the possibility that the work might have been written by Esdras ("Tract, theol.-politicus", c. viii, ed. Tauchnitz, III, p. 125). Among the more recent Jewish writers sev- eral have adopted the results of the critics, thus aban- doning the tradition of their forefathers.

(2) Christian Tradition. — The Jewish tradition con- cerning the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch was brought into the Christian Church b\' Christ Himself and the Apostles. No one will seriously deny the existence and continuance of such a tradition from the patristic period onward; one might indeed be curious about the internal between the time of the Apostles and the beginning of the third centurj'. For this period we may appeal to the "Epistle of Barna- bas" (x, 1-12; Funk, "Patres apostol.", 2nd ed., Tubingen, 1901, I, pp. 66-70; xii, 2-9; ibid., pp. 74- 6), to St. Clement of Rome (I Cor., xii, 1; ibid., p. 152), St. Justin ("Apol. I", 59; P. G., VI, 416; 1,32, 54; ibid., 377, 409; "Dial.", 29; ibid., 537), to the author of "Cohort, ad Grac." (9, 28, 30, 33, 34; ibid., 257, 293, 296-7, 361), to St. Theophilus ("Ad Autol.", Ill, 23; iHd., 1156; 11, 30; ibid., 1100), to St. Ire- na;us (Cont. h;cr., I, ii, 6; P. G., VII, 715-0), to St. Hippolytus of Rome ("Comment, in Deut.", xxxi, 9, 31, 35; cf. Achelis, " Arabische Fragmente etc.", Leip- zig, 1897, I, 118; "Philosophumena", VIII, 8; X, 33; P. G., XVI, 33.50, 3448), to Tertullian of Carthage (Adv. Hermog., XIX; P. L., II, 214), to Origen of Alexandria (Contra Cels., Ill, .5-6; P. G., XI, 928; etc.), to St. Eusthatius of Antioch (De engastrimytha c. Grig., 21; P. G., XVIII, 656); for all these writers, and others might be added, bear witness to the con- tinuance of the Christian tradition that Moses wrote the Pentateuch. A list of the later Fathers who bear witness to the same truth may be found in Mangenot's articlein the "Diet, de la Bible" (V, 74.seq.). Hoberg (Moses und der Pentateuch, 72 seq.) has collected the testimony for the existence of the tradition dur- ing the Middle Ages and in more recent times.

But Catholic tradition does not necessarily main- tain that Moses wrote every letter of the Pentateuch as it is to-day, and that the work has come down to us in an absolutely unchanged form. This rigid view of the Mosaic authorship began to develop in the eigh- teenth century, and practically gained the upper hand in the nineteenth. The arbitrary treatment of Scrip- ture on the part of Protestants, and the succession of the various destructive systems advanced by Biblical criticism, caused this change of front in the Catholic camp. In the sixteenth century Card. Bellarmine, who may be considered as a reUable exponent of Catholic tradition, expressed the opinion that Esdras had collected, readjusted, and corrected the scattered parts of the Pentateuch, and had even added the parts necessary for the completion of the Pentateuchal his- tory (De verbo Dei, II, i; cf. Ill, iv). The views of Genebrard, Pereira, Bonfrcre, a Lapide, Masius, Jan- senius, and of other notable Bihlicists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are equally elastic with