5. Since the Old Testament and the New are thus inseparably connected as parts of one grand system of revelation, of which the end is Christ, it follows that the later revelations of the New Testament are the true interpreters of the earlier, which are contained in the Old. This is only saying that the Holy Ghost is the true and proper expositor of his own communications to man. From the interpretations of Christ and his apostles, fairly ascertained, there is no appeal. And they are fairly ascertained when we have learned in what sense they must have been understood by their hearers. All expositions of the Old Testament that set aside, either openly or in a covert way, the supreme authority of Christ and his apostles, are false, and only lead men away from the truth as it is in Jesus. CHAPTER IX. AUTHORSHIP OF THE PENTATEUCH. The term _Pentateuch_ is composed of the two Greek words, _pente_, _five_, and _teuchos_, which in later Alexandrine usage signified _book_. It denotes, therefore, the collection of five books; or, the five books of the law considered as a whole. 1. In our inquiries respecting the authorship of the Pentateuch, we begin with the undisputed fact that it existed in its present form in the days of Christ and his apostles, and had so existed from the time of Ezra. When the translators of the Greek version, called the Septuagint, began their work, about 280 B.C., they found the Pentateuch as we now have it, and no one pretends that it had undergone any change between their day and that of Ezra, about 460 B.C. It was universally ascribed to Moses as its author, and was called in common usage _the law_, or the _law of Moses_.