Page:God and His Book.djvu/19

Rh slaughter and lust and lying he always retained a good opinion of himself, and kept at least one item of his Decalogue intact by never bowing his knee to any other God. He could endure Rahab and Ruth; he could favour incestuous Lot and gory David; but he could not stand Ashtaroth or Baal.

By the way, Jehovah does not, as a rule, have, as a literary deity, the credit which is due to him. He, as a hagiographical writer, does not occupy the niche to which his genius entitles him. His writings are lost sight of in the auriole of glory that flings its halo over the writings of the Ghost. A sense of justice impels me to interfere and claim for him that which is his due. It is common to assume that all the Scriptures are the work of the Ghost. This is a fallacy. Jehovah wrote the Decalogue before the Ghost was invented—while the God of Israel was as yet "One God," and the Ghost has plagiarised it. It must also be remembered, as a feather in Jehovah's literary bonnet, that he is, according to his chosen people, the Jews, the author of at least two dreary and musty Targums—the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan.

The Son, unlike the Father and the Ghost, wrote no books. Jerome says he could not write. Joseph had set him to work in the carpenter's shop before he had learnt his pothooks. True, he once stooped down and, with his finger, wrote upon the ground; but the writing was most likely of the kind which, on the moist sand, the sea-gull makes with his feet—viz., an illiterate and unintelligible scribble.