Now it is
not unnatural, from the chronological order in which these writings
were received into the canon, to proceed to an inference as to
their approximate relative age, and so not only to place the
Prophets before the Hagiographa, but also the five books of Moses
before the Prophets. If the Prophets are for the most part older
than the exile, how much more so the Law! But however trustworthy
such a mode of comparison may be when applied to the middle as
contrasted with the latest portion of the canon, it is not at all
to be relied on when the first part is contrasted with the other
two. The very idea of canonicity was originally associated with
the Torah, and was only afterwards extended to the other books,
which slowly and by a gradual process acquired a certain measure
of the validity given to the Torah by a single public and formal
act, through which it was introduced at once as the Magna Charta of
the Jewish communion (Nehemiah viii.-x.) In their case the canonical--
that is, legal--character was not intrinsic, but was only
subsequently acquired; there must therefore have been some
interval, and there may have been a very long one, between the
date of their origin and that of their receiving public sanction.
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