"But he did little further himself towards the completion of the work, and it was many years before any real progress was made with it. Meanwhile, the study of Zend had made great advances, more especially in the hands of Burnouf, who eventually turned his attention to the cuneiform inscriptions. But it is to Burnouf's pupil, Lassen, as well as to Sir Henry Rawlinson, that the decipherment of these inscriptions owes its final completion. The discovery of the list of Persian satrapies in the inscription of Darius at Naksh-i-Rustem, and above all the copy of the long inscription of Darius on the rock of Behistum, made by Sir H. Rawlinson, enabled these scholars independently of one another to construct an alphabet which differed only in the value assigned to a single character, and, with the help of the cognate Zend and Sanskrit, to translate the language so curiously brought to light. The decipherment of the Persian cuneiform texts thus became an accomplished fact; what was next needed was to decipher the two versions which were inscribed at their side.
"But this was no easy task. The words in them were not divided from one another, and the characters of which they were composed were exceedingly numerous. With the assistance, however, of frequently recurring proper names, even these two versions gradually yielded to the patient skill of the decipherer; and it was then discovered that while one of them represented an agglutinative language, such as that of the Turks or Fins, the other was in a dialect which closely resembled the Hebrew of the Old Testament. The monuments found almost immediately afterwards in Assyria and Babylonia by Botta and Layard soon made it clear to what people this dialect must have belonged. The inscriptions of Nineveh turned out to be written in the same language and form of cuneiform script; and it must therefore have been for the Semitic population of Assyria and Babylonia that the kings of Persia had caused one of the versions of their inscriptions to be drawn up. This version served us a starting-point for the decipherment of the texts which the excavations in Assyria had brought to light."
In this way results which stood the test of severe criticism were obtained until the most difficult inscriptions have become a comparatively open book to the historian of to-day. Thus it has come about that, as Prof. Ira Price says: "Since 1850 the Old Testament has been gradually appearing in the ever-brightening and brighter light of contemporaneous history. The new light now pours in upon it from all sides. It is the one history made rich by that of all its neighbors. Israel is the one people whose part in the drama of ancient nations is just beginning to be understood.... The cuneiform letters discovered at Tel el-Amarna in Egypt, in 1887, have opened up new territory in the fifteenth century, B.C. They are despatches and official communications sent by a large number of rulers, kings, and governors, mainly of countries and provinces and cities of Southwestern Asia, to the king of Egypt. These documents disclose a marvellously advanced stage of development, intellectually, politically, and socially, among the people who were soon to be Israel's nearest neighbors. They formed the early background of Israel's settlement in Canaan, and prepare us for no surprises in Israel's growth. In fact, we see that Joshua and his army actually settled in a land of cities and fortresses, already containing many of the elements of civilization, but sadly reduced by internal and external warfare."
The labor of the excavator in the Biblical countries, such as the unearthing of the immense library of brick tablets in the neighborhood of Nineveh, and the result of new discoveries which the ground of Palestine, so long and strangely neglected, promises to yield, widen the field of Biblical research immensely, and from it all we may with perfect assurance look for fresh arguments in behalf of the authenticity and substantial integrity of the Sacred Scriptures. At the same time the interpretation of many of its passages, now obscure, will become clearer in the light of contemporary history.
Surely this is a hopeful sign, and should encourage us in the study of the Bible, which is on so many accounts a source of intellectual pleasure, of abiding peace of heart, and of that high moral refinement which comes from contact with noble minds. There are none better on earth than the sacred writers—men who walked and spoke with God, and whose living contact we may enjoy in the participation of that celestial inspiration which breathes through their writings.
CONCLUSION.
The foregoing chapters are nothing more than a brief illustration of the principles laid down by the Sovereign Pontiff, Leo XIII., in his Encyclical Letter "On the Study of the Sacred Scriptures."[[1]] The careful reading of this Letter must convince us how important a part the study of the Bible has always played in the Church. The conclusions of Leo XIII. are not of yesterday, nor does he claim them as of his own invention. He cites the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, and the Decrees of Councils, from Antioch to Trent and the Vatican, as witnesses to the fact that all Catholic teaching rests upon the Sacred Scriptures as one of the two great foundation stones which support the grand archway leading into the domain of divine truth. God, in order that He may reveal Himself to man, sends His messengers, the Prophets and the Apostles, to announce with living voice His promises and His judgments; then, as if to confirm their mission for all time to come, He bids them take a letter, written by Himself, and addressed "to the human race on its pilgrimage afar from its fatherland" (Encycl.). That letter is the Holy Scripture. "To understand and to explain it there is always required the 'coming' of the same Holy Spirit" who was to abide with the Church. And she, "by her admirable laws and regulations, has always shown herself solicitous that the celestial treasure of the Sacred Book ... should not be neglected" (Ibid.). If men have grown remiss at any time in the use of that heavenly gift, it cannot be said that the Church failed to keep before them its admirable utility. "She has arranged that a considerable portion of it should be read, and with pious mind considered by all her ministers in the daily office of the sacred psalmody." For centuries past the solemn promise of every ordained priest throughout the Catholic world to recite each day the Hours of the Breviary testifies to the constant practice of not only reading, but meditating a fixed portion of the Scriptures, so that under this strictest of his priestly obligations he has practically completed the entire sacred volume within the limit of each ecclesiastical year. "She has strictly commanded that her children shall be fed with the saving word of the Gospel, at least on Sundays and on solemn feasts." If these laws and this practice receive a fresh impulse from the Sovereign Pontiff in our day, it is because there have arisen men who teach that the Sacred Scriptures are the work of mere human industry, that they contain only fables, which have no claim to be respected as coming from God. "They deny that there is any such thing as divine revelation, or inspiration, or Holy Scripture at all. They see in these histories only forgeries and falsehoods of men.... The prophecies and the oracles of God are to them either predictions made up after the event, or forecasts formed by the light of nature. The miracles and manifestations of God's power are not what they profess to be, but are either startling effects which are not beyond the force of nature, or else mere tricks and myths. The Gospels and apostolic writings are not, they say, the work of the authors to whom they are assigned" (Ibid.). To confute these errors Leo bids us engage voice and pen. In the limited space allowed us we have only been able to indicate the arguments which prove the historical authenticity and the essentially divine character which points to the true origin of the Sacred Text, and at the same time to lead the earnest student into the way of reading with pleasure and profit the grandest of all written works.
[[1]] Litteræ Encyclicæ, "Providentissimus Deus," Nov. 17, A.D. 1893.
THE END.