How are we to account for these differences? Professor Sayce has suggested an answer in these words: "I can find only one explanation, unfashionable and antiquated though it be. In the language of a former generation, it marks the dividing line between revelation and unrevealed religion. It is like that something hard to define which separates man from the ape, even though on the physiological side the ape may be the ancestor of man."[43] Though the language of this statement may be unfortunate, especially where it implies that there is no revelation in the ancient religions outside of the Old Testament, it does call attention to the secret of the fundamental difference between the Old Testament sacred literature and that of the surrounding nations. There is in the former abundant evidence of the activity of a Spirit whose presence is less manifest in the sacred literatures of other ancient nations. True, the monuments have not spoken their last word; but if we have the right to draw inferences from the known, we may safely affirm that though the monuments may swell into infinity, they will offer nothing to equal, much less to supersede, in substance and spirit, our {223} Old Testament. We may receive gratefully every ray of light, but the time has not yet come, nor ever will come, when we may lay aside the Old Testament and accept as a substitute the legends and myths of heathen lands to give to us the bread of life which the Saviour found in the pages of the Old Book. Let us welcome the light and knowledge God has bestowed upon us; let us rejoice in them with perfect assurance that they are for good and not for evil; let us learn to use them wisely and honestly, and let us still be ever alert listening for other words, uttered ages ago, but not yet audible to modern ears. "It is for us to catch these messages, and to understand them, that we may fit them into the great fabric of apprehended truth to the enrichment of ourselves, and to the glory of our common Lord." NOTES ON CHAPTER V [1] J. P. Peters, The Old Testament and the New Scholarship, p. 92. [2] S. G. Smith, Religion in the Making, p. 20. [3] Hugo Winckler, Himmels- und Weltenbild der Babylonier, p. 9. [4] Professor Friedrich Delitzsch, of the University of Berlin, delivered three lectures on the relation of Babylonian religion to the religion of the Old Testament, under the title, "Babel und Bibel." [5] A. H. Sayce, The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia, pp. 276, 277. [6] A. Jeremias, The Old Testament in the Light of the Ancient East, I, p. 86. {224} [7] R. W. Rogers, The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, p. 88. Practically all the cuneiform inscriptions quoted or referred to in this chapter are translated in R. W. Rogers, Cuneiform Parallels to the Old Testament. [8] Friedrich Delitzsch, Babel and Bible, Two Lectures, published by Open Court Co., p. 65.