the great reliance
placed by the advocates of a unique 'revelation' on the high morality
taught in the Gospels and the New Testament generally. There is no need
of course to challenge that morality or to depreciate it unduly; but the
argument assumes that it is so greatly superior to anything of the kind
that had been taught before that we are compelled to suppose something
like a revelation to explain its appearance--whereas of course anyone
familiar with the writings of antiquity, among the Greeks or Romans
or Egyptians or Hindus or later Jews, knows perfectly well that the
reported sayings of Jesus and the Apostles may be paralleled abundantly
from these sources. I have illustrated this already from the Sermon
on the Mount. If anyone will glance at the Testament of the Twelve
Patriarchs--a Jewish book composed about 120 B. C.--he will see that
it is full of moral precepts, and especially precepts of love and
forgiveness, so ardent and so noble that it hardly suffers in any way
when compared with the New Testament teaching, and that consequently no
special miracle is required to explain the appearance of the latter.

The twelve Patriarchs in question are the twelve sons of Jacob, and the
book consists of their supposed deathbed scenes, in which each patriarch
in turn recites his own (more or less imaginary) life and deeds and
gives pious counsel to his children and successors. It is composed in a
fine and poetic style, and is full of lofty thought, remindful in scores
of passages of the Gospels--words and all--the coincidences being too
striking to be accidental. It evidently had a deep influence on the
authors of the Gospels, as well as on St. Paul. It affirms a belief
in the coming of a Messiah, and in salvation for the Gentiles. The
following are some quotations from it: (1) Testament of Zebulun (p.
116): "My children, I bid you keep the commands of the Lord, and show
mercy to your neighbours, and have compassion towards all, not towards
men only, but also towards beasts." Dan (p. 127): "Love the Lord through
all your life, and one another with a true heart." Joseph (p. 173): "I
was sick, and the Lord visited me; in prison, and my God showed favor
unto me." Benjamin (p. 209): "For as the sun is not defiled by shining
on dung and mire, but rather drieth up both and driveth away the evil
smell, so also the pure mind, encompassed by the defilements of earth,
rather cleanseth them and is not itself defiled."

(1) The