For us there is both gain and loss in these methods of the ancient writers, (a) Loss――because the continual adaptation of old tradition has sometimes produced changes so great that it is difficult or even impossible to discover now what was the actual course of events. By the exercise of care and by the diligent application of the principles of literary research the loss thus occasioned can be greatly diminished, particularly where different accounts of the same period have survived――e.g. in the parallel history of Judah in Samuel‒Kings and in Chronicles. Not only do the two versions facilitate the task of recovering the actual history, but each version throws light upon the origin and nature of the other. (b) On the other hand, the practice of incorporating passages of older narratives in the text is a great gain. It is, of course, unfortunate that the writers did not more carefully indicate the various sources they happened to be using; but constantly――thanks to idiosyncrasies of style, language, and thought――we are able to analyse the composite whole into its component parts. From the study of the separate sources thus revealed we gain invaluable information which would have been lost to us had the later writer (or rather, compiler and editor) given his version of the history entirely in his own words. (3) _The absence of the idea of Development._ One other feature of the ancient writers, at least of the chroniclers of Israel, is of singular interest, and deserves special attention: it might be described as a feature of their temperament or of their mental environment. The idea of _growth_ has become familiar to us, and we recognise that there has been a process of development in our religious and social institutions. We are content to trace the seeds of the present in the past. But the feeling of antiquity was apparently different. In Israel, at least, there was a tendency to suppose that the cherished system and organisations of the present had sprung into existence, as it were, _full-grown_ at some great moment of the past. For example, by the Chronicler’s time, the whole body of law and ritual embodied in the final form of the Pentateuch had come to be ascribed in its entirety to Moses, whereas historical and literary evidence demonstrates beyond all question that the system of Jewish worship and law was a gradual growth of which the stages can be traced with considerable clearness. Similarly, many features in the organisation of the Temple ministrants――the Priests, Levites, etc.――came into existence only in post-exilic days; but the whole system as it appeared in the Chronicler’s time was believed by him, and doubtless also by his contemporaries, to have originated with King David. Indeed, it is very probable that the ancients felt it so natural and so necessary to justify important customs and institutions by giving them the sanction of an ancient and honourable origin, that occasionally the very ideals