He had formerly been highly
esteemed as fellow and tutor at Cambridge, master at Harrow, author
of various valuable text-books in mathematics; and as long as he
exercised his powers within the limits of popular orthodoxy he was
evidently in the way to the highest positions in the Church: but
he chose another path. His treatment of his subject was reverent,
but he had gradually come to those conclusions, then so daring, now
so widespread among Christian scholars, that the Pentateuch, with
much valuable historical matter, Contains much that is
unhistorical; that a large portion of it was the work of a
comparatively late period in Jewish history; that many passages in
Deuteronomy could only have been written after the Jews settled in
Canaan; that the Mosaic law was not in force before the captivity;
that the books of Chronicles were clearly written as an
afterthought, to enforce the views of the priestly caste; and that
in all the books there is much that is mythical and legendary.
Very justly has a great German scholar recently adduced this work
of a churchman relegated to the most petty of bishoprics in one of
the most remote corners of the world, as a proof "that the problems
of biblical criticism can no longer be suppressed; that they are in
the air of our time, so that theology could not escape them even if
it took the wings of the morning and dwelt in the uttermost parts
of the sea.
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