ured
in, through the great breach which the demoniacs had made in the
credit of Biblical marvels.

While I was in this stage of progress, I had a second time the
advantage of meeting Dr. Arnold, and had satisfaction in finding that
he rested the main strength of Christianity on the gospel of John. The
great similarity of the other three seemed to him enough to mark that
they flowed from sources very similar, and that the first gospel had
no pretensions to be regarded as the actual writing of Matthew. This
indeed had been for some time clear to me, though I now cared little
about the author's name, when he was proved to be credulous.--Arnold
regarded John's gospel as abounding with smaller touches which marked
the eye-witness, and, altogether, to be the vivid and simple picture
of a divine reality, undeformed by credulous legend. In this view I
was gratified to repose, in spite of a few partial misgivings, and
returned to investigations concerning the Old Testament.

For some time back I had paid special attention to the book of
Genesis; and I had got aid in the analysis of it from a German volume.
That it was based on _at least_ two different documents, technically
called the Elohistic and Jehovistic, soon became clear to me: and
an orthodox friend who acknowledged the fact, regarded it as a high
recommendation of the book, that it was conscientiously made out of
pre-existing materials, and was not a fancy that came from the brain
of Moses. My good friend's argument was not a happy one: no written
record could exist of things and times which preceded the invention
of writing. After analysing this book with great minuteness, I now
proceeded to Exodus and Numbers; and was soon assured, that these had
not, any more than Genesis, come forth from one primitive witness
of the facts. In all these books is found the striking phenomenon of
_duplicate_ or even _triplicate narratives_. The creation of man
is three times told. The account of the Flood is made up out of two
discrepant originals, marked by the names Elohim and Jehovah; of which
one makes Noah take into the ark _seven_ pairs of clean, and _single_
(or double?) pairs of unclean, beasts; while the other gives him
two and two of all kinds, without distinguishing the clean. The two
documents may indeed in this narrative be almost re-discovered by
mechanical separation. The triple statement of Abraham and Isaac
passing off a wife for a sister was next in interest; and he