ABSTRACT
A perfectly natural and logical result of Philo's view was reached when Philo, saturated as he was with Greek culture and nourished on pious traditions of the utterances at Delphi and Dodona, spoke reverently of the Jewish Scriptures as "oracles". Oracles they became: as oracles they appeared in the early history of the Christian Church; and oracles they remained for centuries: eternal life or death, infinite happiness or agony, as well as ordinary justice in this world, being made to depend on shifting interpretations of a long series of dark and doubtful utterances—interpretations frequently given by men who might have been prophets and apostles, but who had become simply oracle-mongers. From Eichhorns time the process which, by historical, philological, and textual research, brings out the truth regarding this literature has been known as "the higher criticism." He was a deeply religious man, and the mainspring of his efforts was the desire to bring back to the Church the educated classes.
