The monks of the
great convent of Solovetsk, when the new books were sent them,
cried in terror: "Woe, woe! what have you done with the Son of God?"
They then shut their gates, defying patriarch, council, and Czar,
until, after a struggle lasting seven years, their monastery
was besieged and taken by an imperial army. Hence arose the
great sect of the "Old Believers," lasting to this day, and
fanatically devoted to the corrupt readings of the old text.[310]
Strange to say, on the development of Scripture interpretation,
largely in accordance with the old methods, wrought, about the
beginning of the eighteenth century, Sir Isaac Newton.
It is hard to believe that from the mind which produced the
_Principia_, and which broke through the many time-honoured beliefs
regarding the dates and formation of scriptural books, could have
come his discussions regarding the prophecies; still, at various
points even in this work, his power appears. From internal
evidence he not only discarded the text of the Three Witnesses,
but he decided that the Pentateuch must have been made up from
several books; that Genesis was not written until the reign of
Saul; that the books of Kings and Chronicles were probably
collected by Ezra; and, in a curious anticipation of modern
criticism, that the book of Psalms and the prophecies of Isaiah
and Daniel were each written by various authors at various dates.
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