the mass of the Pentateuch is based on the Elohistic
document, with passages supplemented from the Jehovistic; and he referred
the age of both to a rather late part of the regal period. Ewald, with
great learning and delicacy of handling, has reconsidered the
question(797) and, though arriving at a most extraordinary theory as to
the manifold documents which have supplied the materials for the work, has
thrown to a much earlier period the authorship of the main portion; and
the views of later critics are gradually tending in the same direction.
Both study the Pentateuch as uninspired literature; but De Wette absurdly
regarded it as an epic created by the priests, in the same manner as the
Homeric epic by the rhapsodes: Ewald on the contrary considers it to be
largely historic.(798)

This statement of mere results, too brief to exhibit the critical acumen
shown at different points of the inquiry even where it is most full of
peril, will show the increasing learning displayed, and the appreciation
of valuable literary characteristics. It will be perceived that
prepossessions still predominate over this criticism; but they are of a
different kind from those which existed earlier. They are not the result
of moral objections to the narratives, but of the contemporary critical
spirit in secular literature. The discrepancy of result obtained by the
process is a fair practical argument which proves its uncertainty; but its
adherents allow that both in art and literature internal evidence admits
of few canons, and consequently that the result of criticism could only
admit of probability.

The general summary of the movement shows a steady advance in criticism,
as was before shown in doctrine, toward a higher and more spiritual
standard. It is not the recognition of the inspired authority of
scripture, but it is some approach to it. Instead of the hasty
denunciation of narratives or of books as imposture, seen in the
Wolfenbuettel Fragments, or the merely rationalist view of Eichhorn and
Paulus, we perceive the recognition of spiritual and psychological
mysteries as subjects of examination; and even when the result established
is altogether unsatisfactory, valuable materials have been collected for
future students. If we were to abandon our position of traditional
orthodoxy, and accept that of Schleiermacher in doctrine, or of De Wette
in criticism, it would be a retrogression; but for the Germans of their
time it was a progres