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NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
A Hundred Years
of Education
Controversy
JOSEPH
McCABE
AUTHOR OF “THE TRUTH ABOUT SECULAR EDUCATION,*’
ETC., ETC.
London:
WATTS & CO.,
17, JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, E.C.
1907
�ZTbe Secular Education ^League,
19, BUCKINGHAM STREET, STRAND, W.C.
Hon. Treasurer: H. S. Leon, Esq., J.P.. Bletchley Park, Bucks.
Secretary: H. Snell.
Bankers: London Joint Stock Bank, Limited.
The Secular Education League has been formed in order to bring
before the country and His Majesty’s Government what is regarded
by a rapidly-increasing number of people as the only permanent,
just, and satisfactory solution of the religious difficulty in national
education—viz., that all State-paid education should be confined to
secular subjects. It aims at binding together in one effective
organisation all who favour the “Secular Solution” of the Educa
tion problem, without reference to any other convictions—political,
social, or religious—that they may entertain.
In view of the Education Bill which is announced for next year,
the Executive Committee and General Council of the League
earnestly invite all who are persuaded of the justice and advisability
of Secular Education to enrol themselves upon its list of members.
The minimum subscription is One Shilling per annum, and it is
important that the League should have the support of all who
adhere to its principles.
The League has already nearly 1,000 members, including, in
addition to many Members of Parliament and well-known public
men, about 250 clergy and ministers of all denominations ; and it
appeals for help to enable it to carry on its work.
PUBLICATIONS DEALING WITH SECULAR EDUCATION.
THE TRUTH ABOUT SECULAR EDUCATION : its History
and Results. By Joseph McCabe. 6d., by post yd.
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M.A. 6d., by post 8d.
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By A. M. Scott, id., by post i|d.
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Any of the above publications will be supplied by
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KI
A HUNDRED YEARS OF EDUCATION
CONTROVERSY
The lamentable conflict in regard to religious teaching in
our elementary schools is conceived by many to be an acute
crisis that wise and just statesmanship may presently
remove. Painful as it is to all citizens that the important
work of our schools should, even for a decade, be hampered
so grievously, there is a wide hope that some Minister of
Education will yet adjust the balance between the claims of
the religious bodies, or that their leaders will come to a
prudent compromise. Hence, though there is a growing
inclination to favour the secular solution, large numbers of
people still refuse to look on it as inevitable. Their memory
ranges back, at the most, as far as 1870, and they feel that the
time has not yet come to despair of finding a satisfactory
adjustment of religious claims.
History is the memory of nations. Citizens and states
men are as strictly bound to scan its records in the ordering
of great national issues as they are to consult their personal
experience in the conduct of private affairs. And the
moment one turns to the history of this education controversy
one feels that the hope of finding any stable compromise
sinks perilously close to zero. For one hundred years
the same controversy has raged in England. For one
hundred years the representatives of Anglicanism and
Nonconformity have sought in vain for a satisfactory
adjustment of their claims. For one hundred years educa
tionists and statesmen have been harassed and impeded in
their work by this interminable dispute about religious
education in the schools ; and we are to-day not one inch
nearer to a settlement of it than our grandfathers were in 1807.
This, surely, is a circumstance to be taken into serious
account in the actual controversy about the schools.
3
�4
A HUNDRED YEARS OF EDUCATION CONTROVERSY
Just one hundred years ago, in the year 1807, Mr.
Whitbread, member for Bedford, introduced an educational
measure into the House of Commons. Social writers like
Adam Smith (1776) had long urged that it was the
Government’s duty, and would be to the nation’s advantage,
to set up a national school-system. A prominent clergyman
(Malthus, in 1798) described the condition of things in this
country as “a national disgrace.” Another, Sydney Smithy
at the beginning of the century, declared that “ there was no
Protestant country in the world where the education of the
poor was so grossly and so infamously neglected as in
England.” Three centuries after the Reformation and the
invention of printing only one in twenty of the population
could read and write. There were, of course, schools in the
country. Thousands of grammar schools, poor schools,
dames’ schools, and Sunday schools were in existence; but
their work was ridiculously meagre and ineffective. Mr.
Whitbread’s Bill proposed, therefore, that local authorities
should have power to set up and maintain schools wherever
they were needed.
Into the details of the Bill we need not inquire, as it never
became law. It passed the Commons, but was rejected
contemptuously by the Lords. The Lord Chancellor (Eldon)
and the Archbishop of Canterbury denounced it as a peril to
their respective orders. It was, in fact, openly acknowledged
that the Bill was allowed to pass the Commons only on the
understanding that it would be demolished in the Lords.
It is important to realise that, though there were at that
time other formidable impediments to the education of the
people, the chances of the Bill were imperilled by just the
same controversy that we wage to-day. There was an
aristocratic objection to the education of the workers-—Sir S.
Romilly wrote in his diary that most of the Commoners even
“ thought it expedient that the people should be kept in
ignorance ”—but the chief difficulty was religious. It was
regarded as the thin end of the wedge of secular action, and
was mainly opposed on that account. The Archbishop of
Canterbury denounced it roundly as derogatory to the
authority of the Church.
The truth was that—many will learn with astonishment—
�A HUNDRED YEARS OF EDUCATION CONTROVERSY 5
the same three parties held the educational field in 1807 that
we find waging their endless war in it to-day. The most
powerful party, the Churchmen, claimed full denominational
teaching in the schools; the Nonconformists and many
neutral politicians thought—precisely as their grandchildren
think—that simple Bible lessons were the ideal ; and the
followers of Adam Smith (men like Robert Owen, a great
educationist) pleaded for purely secular instruction. It was
a golden age of educational reformers, though England was
in so backward a condition. Rousseau, Froebel, Pestalozzi,
and Herbart had stirred Europe with their ideas. In
Manchester a little group of social students, including
Coleridge and the great chemist Dalton, discussed them.
One of the group was the Quaker Joseph Lancaster, a man of
deep religious and philanthropic feeling. He founded a
system of elementary schools for the poor (known after 1814
as “The British and Foreign School Society”), and when,
says Mr. Holman, the wealthy found that “ children could be
taught next to nothing for next to nothing,” he secured
considerable support. Another of the Manchester group,
Robert Owen, set up in Scotland a large school on purely
secular principles, and it soon became one of the wonders of
Europe. Foreign Governments sent officials to study it.
The father of Queen Victoria was one of its greatest admirers.
Thus undenominationalists and secular educationists were
both in the field by 1804 ; and the third party quickly made
its appearance. A Mrs. Trimmer discovered—as so many
Mrs. Trimmers do in our day—that the Lancastrian schools
were heretical, and she induced an Anglican clergyman,
Dr. Bell, to take the field with a scheme of denominational
schools in 1805. Churchmen gathered at once under the
new banner, while the Nonconformists rallied round
Lancaster ; and the country, just one hundred years ago, was
ringing with what flippant writers called “ the conflict of Bel(l)
and the Dragon,” or what the historian must call the first
act in the drama (or tragedy) of our educational controversy.
Two generations have passed away, but the same battle rages
round our schools, the same war-cries resound, the same
plausible suggestions are thrust on us, and there is the same
utter lack of any means of compromise ; except that now we
�6
A HUNDRED YEARS OF EDUCATION CONTROVERSY
have the plain experience of a hundred years to teach us how
impossible all idea of compromise is.
The succeeding acts in the drama are in substance but a
repetition of the first. The scene changes marvellously as
the last traces of feudalism are swept away : the actors pass
behind the wings, and new ones come on. But the issue
remains the same, and the obstacles remain. The limits of
this essay would not suffice to set out the whole story in
detail, and I must be content to dwell on a few of the chief
stages of it. The struggle between the Denominationalists
and Undenominationalists was carried on vigorously and
unceasingly.
In 1811 Dr. Bell’s supporters founded the
“ National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor
in the Doctrines of the Established Church,” in opposition to
the “ Royal Lancastrian Institution ” (which became the
“British and Foreign Schools Society ” in 1814). In both
cases the instruction given was of the poorest conceivable
type. Dr. Bell recommended a barn as a good structure for a
school, and insisted that the children of the workers should
not be taught “ beyond their station.” In both sets of schools
the monitorial system (the teaching of children by children), a
pernicious system, was adopted. They fell incalculably short
of Owen’s splendid school at New Lanark, where one found
the finest methods then known and a curriculum of equal
breadth to that of the modern Council school. By the year
1818 there was still only one in seventeen of the population
of England in school, and the coarseness and viciousness of
the peasantry and factory-workers were terrible.
At this point Lord Brougham (then Mr. Brougham) and
other politicians took up the cause of national education once
more. There had been a State system of schools in Prussia
since 1794, in Holland since 1814, and in France since the
rule of Napoleon. In the American States education was far
advanced, and we had ourselves set up an excellent system
in Scotland in 1803, and voted £23,000 for the Protestant
schools in Ireland in the very year that Whitbread’s Bill was
rejected. The condition of the country was scandalous, and
men like Brougham pleaded that it was time wealthy
England did something to remove the gross illiteracy of its
people. In 1816 Brougham secured an inquiry into the
�A HUNDRED YEARS OF EDUCATION CONTROVERSY 7
educational state of London. In the comparatively small
London of that time it was found that 120,000 children had no
schooling- whatever. They played in the streets—streets and
courts of a foulness inconceivable to us to-day, for London
and Paris were, until fifty years ago, inferior to ancient Rome
or Babylon in sanitation—until their ninth year, and then
they entered the army of illiterate workers, with stunted
minds. Brougham then, in 1818, had a Select Committee
appointed to deal with educational charities. He had a
shrewd idea that, if these endowments were equitably and
economically managed, we could set up a system of schools
without calling on the national Exchequer.
How that scheme was defeated, and educational endow
ments are to this day diverted from that instruction of the
poor for which they were intended, it is not within the limits
of this essay to consider. But in 1820 Brougham introduced
a general educational measure into Parliament, and this was
wrecked on the rock of the religious difficulty. In view of
the imperfect municipal life of the time the proposals of the
Bill were not without merit. The magistrates and the local
clergy were to act in conjunction in building schools
wherever they were needed, and the funds were to come partly
from local, partly from national resources. It was a fair begin
ning of a national scheme. But Brougham soon found that one
yawning gulf lay across the line of progress, after all scruples
about national economy and the danger of educating the
workers had been removed. This was the now familiar
pitfail of compromise as to religious instruction. Brougham
met the Churchmen by giving the Anglican minister almost
absolute control over the schoolmaster. He could fix his
salary, arrange or modify his secular curriculum, and
examine the poor teacher when he willed. But Brougham
sought then to conciliate the Nonconformists by excluding all
denominational teaching from the curriculum. Simple Bible
lessons, the ever-ancient and ever-new device, were expected
to satisfy all the sects, and the Lord’s Prayer was the only
element of ritual to be admitted. For the sequel we have
only to recall our recent experience, and remember that
history repeats itself. Neither religious party was satisfied ;
neither would abate its claims to any practicable extent. The
�8
A HUNDRED YEARS OF EDUCATION CONTROVERSY
Bill had to be withdrawn, and for another thirteen years we
continued to bear what Malthus had called our “ national
disgrace ” because our clergy could not find a compromise in
regard to their conflicting claims.
I do not mean that the disgrace was removed in 1833, but
that year witnessed the first modest beginning of national
action in regard to the schools. It will be remembered that
1832 had seen the passing of the great Reform Bill. Enor
mous expectations had been aroused in the workers of the
country, and it was under pressure of a more or less serious
danger of civil war that Parliament was at length reformed
and the franchise extended. The whole hope of social
reform in the country now centred on the reformed House of
Commons, but the hope was quickly converted into disap
pointment as far as education was concerned. Under pressure
of Mr. Roebuck and others, Lord John Russell was induced
in 1833 to Pass an annual grant for educational purposes of
,£20,000. In that same year the small State of Prussia granted
.£600,000 for its schools. But the niggardliness of the grant
was not the worst feature. Dreading the religious feeling in
the country, the Government decided to hand over the money
each year to the two rival societies of voluntary schools. Not
only did the Journal of Education warmly protest at the time,
but experts are now agreed that this distribution utterly
prevented any increase of educational work and augmented
religious rivalry. As the grant was given on a basis of
funds already provided by the societies, the more wealthy
Church-society got the lion’s share. Of £600,000 granted in
the next seventeen years, the Church schools got £475,000.
A body of educational reformers had by this time formed
themselves into a Central Society of Education, and pressed
unceasingly for national action. But the Bishop of London
and other prelates denounced the Society, and for six years
more thwarted its action. By the year 1839 more than half
the children of the country were still utterly illiterate, and the
majority of the remainder received only a pretence of educa
tion. Dean Alford was moved to write in that year : “ There
is no record of any people on earth so highly civilised, so
abounding in arts and comforts, and so grossly and generally
ignorant, as the English.” There was, indeed, a minority of
�A HUNDRED YEARS OF EDUCATION CONTROVERSY 9
liberal and distinguished Anglican clergy who deplored the
situation—men like Whately, Hook, Stanley, and Kingsley;
but the overwhelming majority of the clergy of all sects
were obstinate in their respective claims. A few words on
the situation at this date (1839) from the two leading
historians of the subject will make it clear that I do not
exaggerate the injury done to education by the religious
controversy. Mr. Holman says, in his English National
Education (in the “Victorian Era Series”) : “This continued
impotence of Parliament to provide a national remedy for
what every single member of both Houses admitted to be a
national disgrace and danger is probably one of the most
striking features in the whole of its history. The only thing
that kept the Government from making the mass of the
people human was the determination of some to keep them
from being made anything less than divine.” And the only
other English writer of distinction on English education in
the nineteenth century, Mr. Adams, says: “The interdict
against a united and national system came from the moral
teachers of the people, and was pronounced necessary in
the interests of religion.” Even liberal Churchmen like
F. D. Maurice would admit no compromise. Any children,
he said, ought to be admitted to the Church schools (now
receiving ,£20,000 a year from national funds), but they must
submit to Church teaching.
Two observations on the situation at this period are not
without interest in view of our actual controversy. In the
first place, we must note that it is the very sincerity and
devotedness to their doctrines of the clergy that raised the
most formidable obstacle to the progress of education. How
ever much one may dissent from their doctrines and differ
from their estimate of the value to mankind of those doctrines,
one may respect their zeal in the interest of what they deem
to be of great importance. In the earlier years of the educa
tion controversy one can understand how they could lose
sight of the general civic interest under the stress of their
religious zeal. But it is surely time that their modern
successors realised the error of thus mixing up civic and
ecclesiastical ideals. We look back on a stretch of history in
which that mixture has wrought terrible mischief to the civic
�IO
A HUNDRED YEARS OF EDUCATION CONTROVERSY
ideal. The interminable wrangle has shown us that no
satisfactory adjustment of their conflicting claims is possible ;
and that the civic interest must be studied on a purely civic
basis, and the religious interest confined to religious teachers
in the religious atmosphere of the church or chapel.
The second observation I would make is that there has
been a remarkable change since those days in the character of
the instruction given in elementary schools. Some politi
cians still speak of the “ religious atmosphere ” in the
denominational school, and maintain that it is not a mere
question whether we shall transfer a few religious lessons
from the school to the church. The use of this phrase is very
largely an empty tradition of the earlier school. Up to the
middle of the century the whole curriculum was pervaded
with religious ideas. When we listen to-day to the claim
that the Anglican or Roman Catholic school has a general
permeation of religious feeling, we wonder how it is possible
to find this religious atmosphere in the long hours that are
filled with lessons on arithmetic, geography, grammar, and
such subjects. There is, of course, no religious element
whatever in these lessons to-day (and they form four-fifths of
the whole curriculum of the denominational school),1 but
there was fifty and more years ago. Manuals of arithmetic
and geography are still to be found that show a real
“ religious atmosphere,” and Mr. Holman gives many details
in his interesting history. Arithmetical problems were
founded largely on the Old Testament, and geography
centred on Palestine much as a medieval map would have
done. Now that these lessons have become purely secular,
and religious instruction is confined to a few prayers and
hymns and half-hour lessons, no very great change will be
involved in transferring them to the proper home of religious
cultivation.
However, let us return to the historical study. Statistics
showed that whereas in Prussia one in six of the population
attended school, in Switzerland one in seven, and in Holland
one in nine, in wealthy England the proportion was one in
1 The present writer was educated in a denominational school, was after
wards co-manager of a denominational school, and later rector of a denomina
tional college.
�A HUNDRED YEARS OF EDUCATION CONTROVERSY n
fourteen. Clearly the voluntary societies were not dis
charging-the function of educating the nation. Educationists
redoubled their pressure. They obtained an increase of the
annual grant from ,£20,000 to £"30,000—not a formidable
matter, Brougham pleasantly observed to the Lords, seeing
that they were that year voting £70,000 for the building of
royal stables—and they at last secured a beginning of
governmental action in the work of education. One of the
most pressing needs in the country was for the efficient
training of the teachers. Even in the Lancastrian body six
months’ training was thought amply sufficient for an
elementary-school teacher. Indeed, what was given in the
great bulk of the schools of the country would not be admitted
by any modern expert to be “ education ” at all in any real
sense. The teachers were miserably inefficient; and when
we learn that their average income was only about £22 a
year we can imagine what type of people they were. The
Government therefore proposed to set up a Normal School
(training college) at Kneller Hall.
They were at once
confronted by the religious difficulty, and their scheme
foundered once more on it. They proposed to pay only the
teachers of secular subjects in the training college, and leave
the students of each denomination free to bring in ministers
of their respective bodies for religious lessons. Once more
the conflicting interests of the Churches wrecked the scheme,
and it was years before there was any effective training of
teachers in the country.
But Lord John Russell triumphed over clerical opposition
in one important respect, and made a beginning of national
action. He formed a Committee of the Privy Council on
Education, and this slender institution was destined to grow
in time into our modern Education Department. But what
storms of religious opposition it had to face in its early
months I The Bishops of London and Chichester led the
vast majority of the clergy in a violent assault upon this
intrusion, as they called it, of the State on the Church’s
domain. There were Churchmen, like the Bishop of Durham,
who saw how gravely national interests were being thwarted,
and were willing to compromise. But the vast majority of
the clergy were vehemently opposed to State action.
�12 A HUNDRED
YEARS OF EDUCATION CONTROVERSY
Nonconformists proclaimed the new Committee to be “a
secular tyranny, ” while Churchmen denounced it as a menace
to the Establishment. The religious war of 1906 was tame
ness itself compared to the war on the new education
authority, slight as it was, in 1839. The bishops and the
lords temporal actually walked in procession from the House
to Buckingham Palace—a unique incident, I think, in the
annals of that dignified body—and begged Queen Victoria to
abolish the Committee. The young Queen answered them
with a truer dignity than their own. She told them that she
had sanctioned the Government’s proposals from a deep and
well-considered sense of duty to her people, and the Lords
went away disappointed.
The controversy went on for some time with great vigour,
and in fact it was only moderated by another of those fatal
concessions to the clergy that hindered the real progress of
education. By a more or less secret arrangement the
Anglican clergy were granted control over the inspectors of
schools who were appointed under the new authority. It was
an abdication of its functions that would be listened to with
amazement if it were proposed in our time, and it was an
unjust arrangement. The religious lessons given in the
(undenominational) schools of the British and Foreign
Society were controlled by Church inspectors, and the
irritation and rivalry were greatly increased. The new
Committee fell so far under the dictation of the archbishops
that in 1840 it passed a minute directing that “ their lordships
were of opinion that no plan of education ought to be
encouraged in which intellectual instruction was not subor
dinated to the regulation of the thoughts and habits of the
children by the doctrines and precepts of revealed religion.”
This unjust preponderance stirred the Nonconformists to
continuous action, while expert educationists tell us that
elementary education steadily deteriorated. The passing of
the Factory Acts was supposed to have secured some measure
of instruction for the children of the factory-workers. In
point of fact the Act was flagrantly scouted. Children of
tender years were still worked for twelve hours a day, and
the education provided for them was farcical. The lodge
keeper, or the stoker’s wife, would gather them in some dark
�A HUNDRED YEARS OF EDUCATION CONTROVERSY 13
shed—often in the coal-house—and laboriously teach them to
identify the letters of the alphabet. The country was over
run with poor widows, crippled workers, and all kinds of
impoverished people who earned a few shillings a week
by “teaching.” The Central Education Society fought
desperately for some improvement, and in 1843 two important
efforts were made. Both were wrecked on the perennial
religious difficulty. The first was a Bill for the effective
instruction of factory children. They were very largely of
Nonconformist parentage, yet the Bill unluckily gave higher
control to the Anglicans—who had wrecked every measure
that did not do so—and the Dissenters naturally resented it.
They had now become sufficiently powerful to oppose such
measures with effect, and they forced the withdrawal of the
Bill. This triumph brought home to them the fact that the
extension of the franchise had enormously increased their
political power, and this deepened the long political struggle
over the schools, and added the further complication of our civic
and political life with the conflicting and irreconcilable claims
of the clergy. The situation became worse than ever. Let
me express it impersonally in the estimate given by Mr.
Holman, the impartial historian of the subject.
The
Dissenters, he says, “ now fought for their own hand in the
same way as the Church party did, and combined with the
latter and others to resist the exercise of control by the State
authorities ; and thus they became real obstructionists to
national progress in education.” The Congregationalists
alone deserve a partial exemption from this heavy censure.
They at least refused to accept State aid, and enjoined their
members to support their own denominational schools. The
Roman Catholics were in the same logical position until a
few years ago.
The second effort of the reformers in 1843 was to introduce
a Bill, in the name of Mr. Joseph Hume, for purely secular
and moral education, but it was counted out. The reformers,
however, manfully continued their work, and gradually won
some of the great Dissenters to their view. In 1847 they
founded in Lancashire—always honourably placed in the
history of education—a league for the furtherance of their
aims. The famous Corn-law orators, Cobden and John
�i4
A HUNDRED YEARS OF EDUCATION CONTROVERSY
Bright, lent their support to it. The radicals of the south
joined forces with it, and it gradually attained considerable
power. From a “Lancashire Association” it became a
National Public Schools Association.” There seemed a
prospect at last of convincing the country of the impractica
bility of balancing religious claims in regard to the
elementary schools, and rescuing the instruction of the
people from this harassing association with theology.
In 1850 the League decided to test their strength. The
minister of South Place (London) Chapel, Mr. W. J. Fox, a
brilliant speaker on social reforms and member of Parliament
for Oldham, introduced a comprehensive measure into the
House. The inspectors were to report on the deficiency of
schools in particular districts, and an efficient provision for
universal education was to be made out of the local rates.
Denominational schools were not to be superseded, but would
in future only be paid for the secular instruction they
imparted. On the other hand, the new Government schools,
which were to give free education, should be controlled in
the matter of giving or omitting undenominational instruction
by a kind of local option. The Bill projected a vast advance
in the field of elementary education, but it was resented by
both religious parties, and was heavily defeated on the
second reading. The National Association—supported as it
was by Dissenters like Cobden, Fox, Milner Gibson, and
W. E. Forster—was fiercely attacked, and denounced as
irreligious. They had put before the country, members said
in the House, a choice between Heaven or Hell, God or the
Devil. So for the sixth time a fair and promising scheme of
national improvement was shattered on the rock of the
religious difficulty.
The various acts in the drama of our educational history
are, in fact, so similar in essence, so closely parallel to the
act we are taking part in to-day, that one moves rapidly on to
the end of the century. Education remained in a state of
partial paralysis. Mr. Fox had read to the House a manifesto
issued by a large body of London working men, in which
they complained pathetically of this paralysis. It concluded :
“ The controversy has waxed hotter and more furious; our little
ones have been forgotten in the fray, and their golden moments
�A HUNDRED YEARS OF EDUCATION CONTROVERSY 15
have been allowed to run irrevocably to waste.” It needs
little reflection to convince one that this was no exaggeration.
The member of schools in England at the time is no test
whatever of the educational work done. The vast majority
were ridiculously inefficient. Teachers were given an absurd
modicum of training, and inspectors were given no training
whatever until 1857. The greater part of the machinery was
rusty and antiquated, and the salaries were too slender to
attract competent men. Anyone who reads Mr. Kay’s
comparison of England with the continental countries in
1850 will be amazed at the appalling statements of this great
expert. As late as i860 it was stated in a Government
report that out of the two and a-half million children in the
country only one and a-half million were at school ; and of
these 800,000 were found in flagrantly inefficient schools,
under teachers who themselves reached no decent standard of
education. London was far below the level of any large
Roman town of fifteen centuries earlier. In fact, few children
of the Roman towns had been without elementary education.
Yet every measure for the betterment of the situation was
met with the same resistance. Mr. Forster’s Bill for the
education of the poor was rejected in 1867, and the storm
that raged about his great Bill of 1870, when the Board
schools were founded, is too well known to enlarge upon.
Forster found that two-fifths of our children between the
ages of six and ten, and one-third between the ages of ten
and twelve, had no education whatever ; that, in other words,
one and a-half million of our children were still untouched
by the influence of the teacher, such as it was. No wonder
that he wrote bitterly to Kingsley : “ I wish parsons, Church
and other, would all remember as much as you do that
children are growing into savages while they are trying to
prevent one another from helping.”
The rest of the story needs no telling. The familiar
device of giving “ simple Bible lessons ” was again dignified
with the position of a great political expedient, and thirty
seven years of hard experience have again proved its futility.
Surely it is time that we all, clergy and laity, recognised this
plain fact of its uselessness ? Mr. Birrell rightly disavowed
any claim to originality in bringing it forward in 1906. It
�16
A HUNDRED YEARS OF EDUCATION CONTROVERSY
goes back to the time of his grandfather. It was CowperTempleism in 1870. It was Russellism in 1850, and
Durhamism in 1840, and Broughamism in 1820, and
Lancasterism in 1807. If is discredited by as prolonged and
explicit a political experience as was ever given to a
suggested compromise. It is as bitterly and powerfully
assailed to-day as it was in 1807. As long as it is retained,
it holds out a prospect of fresh wrangling with every swing of
the political pendulum.
The object of this essay is to inform those who fancy
that the giving of “simple Bible lessons” is a new
and imperfectly-tried device how completely it has
proved its impotence. And no other compromise is even
proposed to us. Happily the lesson is being read more
candidly to-day. The modern Secular Education League
has the support of distinguished Roman Catholics and many
clergy of the Anglican and Dissenting Churches. They
believe that they can sufficiently tend their religious interests
in their chapels, and they plead that we no longer hamper
our highest civic ideals and embarrass our political issues with
religious differences. We cannot call back on to our planet
the millions who have passed through England in the
nineteenth century without ever having their finer powers
developed ; the millions who have gone down into the
darkness with stunted souls, after a life of heavy drudgery
and the coarsest surroundings. But we can unite in the
framing of a unified and thoroughly effective system for
training the body, mind, and character of the child, and
we may leave the clergy to give the training in their own
doctrines in their own institutions.
PRINTED BY WATTS AND CO., 17, JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, LONDON, E.C.
�
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A hundred years of education controversy
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McCabe, Joseph [1867-1955]
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 16 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Advertisement for the Secular Education League and its publications (published by Watts), inside front cover, i.e. p.[2].
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1906
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Education
Religion
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Education
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Text
IS SUICIDE A SIN ?
AND
LAST WORDS ON SUICIDE.
BY
COLONEL R. G. INGERSOLL.
A
N EW
EDI TION.
PRICE TWOPENCE.
London:
THE PIONEER PRESS, 2 NEWCASTLE ST., E.C.
1906
�[Colonel Ingersoll’s letter on “Is Suicide a
Sin ? ” was written for the New York World, in
August 1894. Many replies to it appeared in that
journal, one of which was by Monsignor Ducey, a
dignitary of the Romish Church in America. At the
desire of the Editor, Colonel Ingersoll wound up the
controversy with a general reply to his critics, under
the heading of “ Last Words on Suicide.”]
�£>2>70'
IS SUICIDE A SIN?
—•—
I do not know whether self-killing is on the increase or
not. If it is, then there must be, on the average, more
trouble, more sorrow, more failure, and, consequently,
more people are driven to despair. In civilised life
there is a great struggle, great competition, and many
fail. To fail in a great city is like being wrecked at
sea. In the country a man has friends. He can get a
little credit, a little help; but in the city it is different.
The man is lost in the multitude. In the roar of the
streets his cry is not heard. Death becomes his only
friend. Death promises relief from want, from hunger
and pain; and so the poor wretch lays down his burden,
dashes it from his shoulders, and falls asleep.
To me all this seems very natural. The wonder is
that so many endure and suffer to the natural end ; that
so many nurse the spark of life in huts and prisons ;
keep it and guard it through years of misery and want;
support it by beggary, by eating the crust found in the
gutter, and to whom it only gives days of weariness and
nights of fear and dread. Why should the man, sitting
amid the wreck of all he had—the loved ones dead;
friends lost—seek to lengthen, to preserve his life ?
What can the future have for him ?
Under many circumstances a man has the right to
kill himself. When life is of no value to him, when he
can be of no real assistance to others, why should a
man continue ? When he is of no benefit, when he is a
burden to those he loves, why should he remain ? The
old idea was that God made us and placed us here for a
purpose, and that it was our duty to remain until he
�4
IS SUICIDE A SIN ?
called us. The world is out-growing this absurdity.
What pleasure can it give God to see a man devoured
by a cancer ? To see the quivering flesh slowly eaten ?
To see the nerves throbbing with pain ? Is this a
festival for God ? Why should the poor wretch stay
and suffer ? A little morphine would give him sleep ;
the agony would be forgotten and he would pass un
consciously from happy dreams to painless death.
If God determines all births and deaths, of what use
is medicine, and why should doctors defy, with pills and
powders, the decrees of God ? No one, except a few
insane, act now according to this childish superstition.
Why should a man, surrounded by flames in the midst
of a burning building, from which there is no escape,
hesitate to put a bullet through his brain or a dagger in
his heart ? Would it give God pleasure to see him
burn ? When did the man lose the right of selfdefence ?
So, when a man has committed some awful crime,
why should he stay and ruin his family and friends ?
Why should he add to the injury ? Why should he
live, filling his days and nights, and the days and nights
of others, with grief and pain, with agony and tears ?
Why should a man, sentenced to imprisonment for
life, hesitate to still his heart ? The grave is better than
the cell. Sleep is sweeter than the ache of toil. The
dead have no master.
So the poor girl, betrayed and deserted—the door of
home dosed against her, the faces of friends averted, no
hand that will help, no eye that will soften with pity,
the future an abyss filled with monstrous shapes of
dread and fear, her mind racked by fragments of thoughts
like clouds broken by storm, pursued, surrounded by
serpents of remorse, flying from horrors too great to
bear—rushes with joy through the welcome door of
death.
�IS SUICIDE A SIN ?
5
Undoubtedly there are many cases of perfectly justi
fiable suicide—cases in which not to end life would be a
mistake, sometimes almost a crime.
As to the necessity of death, each must decide fo
himself. And if a man honestly decides that death is
best—best for him and others—and acts upon the
decision, why should he be blamed ?
Certainly the man who kills himself is not a physical
coward. He may have lacked moral courage, but not
physical. It may be said that some men fight duels
because they are afraid to decline. They are between
two fires—the chance of death and the certainty of
dishonor, and they take the chance of death. So the
Christian martyrs were, according to their belief between
two fires—the flames of the fagot that could burn but
for a few moments and the fires of God that were
eternal. And they chose the flames of the fagot.
Men who fear death to that degree that they will bear
all the pains and pangs that nerves can feel rather than
die cannot afford to call the suicide a coward. It does
not seem to me that Brutus was a coward, or that
Seneca was. Surely Antony had nothing left to live for.
Cato was not a craven. He acted on his judgment. So
with hundreds of others who felt that they had reached
the end—that the journey was done, the voyage was
over, and, so feeling, stopped. It seems certain that the
man who commits suicide, who “ does the thing that
stops all other deeds, that shackles accident and bolts up
change,” is not lacking in physical courage.
If men had the courage, they would not linger in
prisons, in almshouses, in hospitals; they would not
bear the pangs of incurable disease, the stains of dis
honor ; they would not live in filth and want, in poverty
and hunger; neither would they wear the chain of
slavery. All this can be accounted for only by the fear
of death or “ of something after.”
�6
IS SUICIDE A SIN ?
Seneca, knowing that Nero intended to take his life,
had no fear. He knew that he could defeat the emperor.
He knew that “ at the bottom of every river, in the coil
of every rope, on the point of every dagger, Liberty sat
and smiled.” He knew that it was his own fault if he
allowed himself to be tortured to death by his enemy.
He said : “ There is this blessing, that while life has but
one entrance, it has exits innumerable ; and, as I choose
the house in which I live, the ship in which I will sail,
so will I choose the time and manner of my death.”
To me this is not cowardly, but manly and noble.
Under the Roman law persons found guilty of certain
offences were not only destroyed, but their blood was
polluted, and their children became outcasts. If, how
ever, they died before conviction, their children were
saved. Many committed suicide to save their babes.
Certainly they were not cowards. Although guilty of
great crimes, they had enough of honor, of manhood,
left to save their innocent children. This was not
cowardice.
Without doubt many suicides are caused by insanity.
Men lose their property. The fear of the future over
powers them. Things lose proportion, they lose poise
and balance, and, in a flash, a gleam of frenzy, kill
themselves. The disappointed in love, broken in heart
—the light fading from their lives—seek the refuge of
death.
Those who take their lives in painful, barbarous ways
—who mangle their throats with broken glass, dash
themselves from towers and roofs, take poisons that
torture like the rack—such persons must be insane. But
those who take the facts into account, who weigh the
arguments for and against, and who decide that death is
best—the only good—and then resort to reasonable
means, may be, so far as I can see, in full possession of
their minds.
�IS SUICIDE A SIN ?
7
Life is not the same to all—to some a blessing, to
some a curse, to some not much in any way. Some
leave it with unspeakable regret, some with the keenest
joy, and some with indifference.
Religion, or the decadence of religion, has a bearing
upon the number of suicides. The fear of God, of
judgment, of eternal pain, will stay the hand, and people
so believing will suffer here until relieved by natural
death. A belief in eternal agony beyond the grave will
cause such believers to suffer the pangs of this life.
When there is no fear of the future, when death is
believed to be a dreamless sleep, men have less hesitation
about ending their lives. On the other hand, orthodox
religion has driven millions to insanity. It has caused
parents to murder their children, and many thousands to
destroy themselves and others.
It seems probable that all real, genuine orthodox
believers who kill themselves must be insane, and to
such a degree that their belief is forgotten. God and
hell are out of their minds.
I am satisfied that many who commit suicide are
insane, many are in the twilight or dusk of insanity, and
many are perfectly sane.
The law we have in this State, making it a crime to
attempt suicide, is cruel and absurd, and calculated to
increase the number of successful suicides. When a
man has suffered so much, when he has been so perse
cuted and pursued by disaster that he seeks the rest and
sleep of death, why should the state add to the sufferings
of that man ? A man seeking death, knowing that he
will be punished if he fails, will take extra pains and
precautions to make death certain.
This law was born of superstition, passed by thought
lessness, and enforced by ignorance and cruelty.
When the house of life becomes a prison, when the
horizon has shrunk and narrowed to a cell, and when
�8
IS SUICIDE A SIN ?
the convict longs for the liberty of death, why should the
effort to escape be regarded as a crime ?
Of course, I regard life from a natural point of view.
I do not take gods, heavens, and hells into account. My
horizon is the known, and my estimate of life is based
upon what I know of life here in this world. People
should not suffer for the sake of supernatural beings, or
for other worlds, or the hopes and fears of some future
state. Our joys, our sufferings, and our duties are
here.
The law of New York about the attempt to commit
suicide and the law as to divorce are about equal. Both
are idiotic. Law cannot prevent suicide. Those who
have lost all fear of death care nothing for law and its
penalties. Death is liberty, absolute and eternal.
We should remember that nothing happens but the
natural. Back of every suicide and every attempt to
commit suicide is the natural and efficient cause.
Nothing happens by chance. In this world the facts
touch each other. There is no space between—no room
for chance. Given a certain heart and brain, certain
conditions, and suicide is the necessary result. If we
wish to prevent suicide, we must change conditions.
We must, by education, by invention, by art, by civili
sation, add to the value of the average life. We must
cultivate the brain and heart—do away with false pride
and false modesty. We must become generous enough
to help our fellows without degrading them. We must
make industry—useful work of all kinds—honorable.
We must mingle a little affection with our charity—a
little fellowship. We should allow those who have
sinned to really reform. We should not think only of
what the wicked have done, but we should think of
what we have wanted to do. People do not hate the
sick. Why should they despise the mentally weak—
the diseased in brain ?
�IS SUICIDE A SIN ?
9
Our actions are the fruit, the result of circumstances
—of conditions—and we do as we must. This great
truth should fill the heart with pity for the failures of
our race.
Sometimes I have wondered that Christians denounce
the suicide; that in old times they buried him where
the roads crossed, and drove a stake through his body.
They took his property from his children and gave it to
the State.
If Christians would only think, they would see that
orthodox religion rests upon suicide—that man was
redeemed by suicide, and that, without suicide, the
whole world would have been lost.
If Christ was God, then he had the power to protect
himself from the Jews without hurting them. But,
instead of using his power, he allowed them to take his
life.
If a strong man should allow a few little children to
hack him to death with knives, when he could easily
have brushed them aside, would we not say that he
committed suicide ?
There is no escape. If Christ was in fact God, and
allowed the Jews to kill him, then he consented to his
own death—refused, though perfectly able, to defend and
protect himself, and was, in fact, a suicide.
We cannot reform the world by law or by superstition.
As long as there shall be pain and failure, want and
sorrow, agony and crime, men and women will untie
life’s knot and seek the peace of death.
To the hopelessly imprisoned—to the dishonored and
despised—to those who have failed, who have no future,
no hope—to the abandoned, the broken-hearted, to those
who are only remnants and fragments of men and women
—how consoling, how enchanting, is the thought of death!
And even to the most fortunate death at last is a
welcome deliverer. Death is as natural and as merciful
�IO
IS SUICIDE A SIN
as life. When we have journeyed long—when we are
weary—when we wish for the twilight, for the dusk, for
the cool kisses of the night—when the senses are dull—when the pulse is faint and low—when the mists gather
on the mirror of memory—when the past is almost for
gotten, the present hardly perceived—when the future
has but empty hands—death is as welcome as a strain
of music.
After all, death is not so terrible as joyless life. Next
to eternal happiness is to sleep in the soft clasp of the
cool earth, disturbed by no dream, by no thought, by no
pain, by no fear, unconscious of all and for ever.
The wonder is that so many live, that, in spite of rags
and want, in spite of tenement and gutter, of filth and
pain, they limp and stagger and crawl beneath their
burdens to the natural end. The wonder is that so few
of the miserable are brave enough to die—that so many
are terrified by the “ something after death ”—by the
spectres and phantoms of superstition.
Most people are in love with life. How they cling to
it in the arctic snows—how they struggle in the waves
and currents of the sea—how they linger in famine—
how they fight disaster and despair ! On the crumbling
edge of death they keep the flag flying, and go down at
last full of hope and courage.
But many have not such natures. They cannot bear
defeat. They are disheartened by disaster. They lie
down on the field of conflict, and give the earth their
blood.
They are our unfortunate brothers and sisters. We
should not curse or blame—we should pity. On their
pallid faces our tears should fall.
One of the best men I ever knew, with an affectionate
wife, a charming and loving daughter, committed suicide,
He was a man of generous impulses. His heart was
loving and tender. He was conscientious, and so sensi
�IS SUICIDE A SIN ?
II
tive that he blamed himself for having done what at the
time he thought was wise and best. He was the victim
of his virtues. Let us be merciful in our judgments.
All we can say is that the good and the bad, the loving
and the malignant, the conscientious' and the vicious, the
educated and the ignorant, actuated by many motives,
urged and pushed by circumstances and conditions—
sometimes in the calm of judgment, sometimes in passion’s
storm and stress, sometimes in whirl and tempest of
insanity—raise their hands against themselves, and des
perately put out the light of life.
Those who attempt suicide should not be punished.
If they are insane, they should, if possible, be restored to
reason ; if sane, they should be reasoned with, calmed,
and assisted.
LAST WORDS ON SUICIDE.
First,—In the article written by me about suicide, and
published in the World, the ground was taken that “ under
many circumstances a man has a right to kill himself.”
This has been attacked with great fury by clergymen,
editors, and the writers of letters. These people contend
that the right of self-destruction does not, and cannot,
exist. They insist that life is the gift of God, and that
he only has the right to end the days of men ; that it is
our duty to bear the sorrows that he sends with grateful
�12
LAST WORDS ON SUICIDE.
patience. Some have denounced suicide as the worst
of crimes—worse than the murder of another.
The first question, then, is :—
Has a man, under any circumstances, the right to
kill himself ?
A man is being slowly devoured by a cancer; his
agony is intense, his suffering all that nerves can feel.
His life is slowly being taken. Is this the work of the
good God ? Did the compassionate God create the
cancer so that it might feed on the quivering flesh of
this victim ?
This man, suffering agonies beyond the imagination
to conceive, is of no use to himself. His life is but a
succession of pangs. He is of no use to his wife, his
children, his friends, or society. Day after day he is
rendered unconscious by drugs that numb the nerves
and put the brain to sleep.
Has he the right to render himself unconscious ? Is
it proper for him to take refuge in sleep ?
If there be a good God, I cannot believe that he takes
pleasure in the sufferings of men—that he gloats over
the agonies of his children. If there be a good God, he
will, to the extent of his power, lessen the evils of life.
So I insist that the man being eaten by the cancer—
a burden to himself and others, useless in every way—
has the right to end his pain and pass through happy
sleep to dreamless rest.
But those who have answered me would say to this
man : “ It is your duty to be devoured. The good God
wishes you to suffer. Your life is the gift of God. You
hold it in trust, and you have no right to end it. The
cancer is the creation of God, and it is your duty to
furnish it with food.”
Take another case. A man is on a burning ship, the
crew and the rest of the passengers have escaped—gone
in the lifeboats—and he is left alone. In the wide horizon
�LAST WORDS ON SUICIDE.
13
there is no sail, no sign of help. He cannot swim. If he
leaps into the sea, he drowns ; if he remains on the ship,
he burns. In any event he can live but a few moments.
Those who have answered me, those who insist that
under no circumstances a man has the right to take his
life, would say to this man on the deck : “ Remain where
you are. It is the desire of your loving, heavenly Father
that you be clothed in flame, that you slowly roast, that
your eyes be scorched to blindness, and that you die
insane with pain. Your life is not your own, only the
agony is yours.”
I would say to this man : “ Do as you wish. If you
prefer drowning to burning, leap into the sea. Between
inevitable evils you have the right of choice. You can
help no one, not even God, by allowing yourself to be
burned, and you can injure no one, not even God, by
choosing the easier death.”
Let us suppose another case :—
A man has been captured by savages in Central
Africa. He is about to be tortured to death. His
captors are going to thrust splinters of pine into his
flesh, and then set them on fire. He watches them as
they make the preparations. He knows what they are
about to do, and what he is about to suffer. There is
no hope of rescue—of help. He has a vial of poison.
He knows that he can take it, and in one moment pass
beyond their power, leaving to them only the dead body.
Is this man under obligation to keep his life because
God gave it until the savages, by torture, take it ? Are
the savages the agents of the good God ? Are they the
servants of the infinite ? Is it the duty of this man to
allow them to wrap his quivering body in a garment of
flame ? Has he no right to defend himself ? Is it the
will of God that he die by torture ? What would any
man of ordinary intelligence do in a case like this ? Is
there room for discussion ?
�14
LAST WORDS ON SUICIDE.
If the man took the poison, shortened his life a few
moments, escaped the tortures of savages, is it possible
that he would, in another world, be tortured for ever by
an infinite savage ?
Suppose another case: In the good old days when the
Inquisition flourished, when men loved their enemies
and murdered their friends, many frightful and ingenious
ways were devised to touch the nerves of pain.
Those who loved God, who had been “ born twice,”
would take a fellow man who had been convicted of
heresy, lay him upon the floor of a dungeon, secure his
arms and legs with chains, fasten him to the earth so
that he could not move, put an iron vessel, the opening
downward, on his stomach, place in the vessel several
rats, then tie it securely to his body. Then these wor
shipers of God would wait until the rats, seeking food
and liberty, would gnaw through the body of the victim.
Now, if a man about to be subjected to this torture,
had within his hand a dagger, would it excite the wrath
of the “ good God ” if, with one quick stroke, he found
the protection of death ?
To this question there can be but one answer.
In the cases I have supposed it seems to me that each
person would have the right to destroy himself. It does
not seem possible that the man was under obligation to
be devoured by cancer ; to remain upon the ship and
perish in flame; to throw away the poison and be tor
tured to death by savages; to drop the dagger and
endure the “ mercies ” of the Church.
If, in the cases I have supposed, men would have the
right to take their lives, then I was right when I said
that “ under many circumstances a man has a right to
kill himself.”
Second,—I denied that persons who killed themselves
were physical cowards. They may lack moral courage;
�LAST WORDS ON SUICIDE.
15
they may exaggerate their misfortunes, lose the sense of
proportion ; but the man who plunges the dagger in his
heart, who sends the bullet through his brain, who leaps
from some roof and dashes himself against the stones
beneath, is not and cannot be a physical coward.
The basis of cowardice is the fear of injury or the fear
of death, and when that fear is not only gone, but in its
place is the desire to die, no matter by what means, it is
impossible that cowardice should exist. The suicide
wants the very thing that a coward fears. He seeks the
very thing that cowardice endeavors to escape.
So the man, forced to a choice of evils, choosing the
less, is not a coward, but a reasonable man.
It must be admitted that the suicide is honest with
himself. He is to bear the injury, if it be one. Certainly
there is no hypocrisy, and just as certainly there is no
physical cowardice.
Is the man who takes morphine, rather than be eaten
to death by a cancer, a coward ?
Is the man who leaps into the sea, rather than be
burned, a coward ?
Is the man who takes poison, rather than be tortured
to death by savages or “ Christians,” a coward ?
Third,—I also took the position that some suicides
were sane ; that they acted on their best judgment; and
that they were in full possession of their minds.
Now, if, under some circumstances, a man has the
right to take his life, and if, under such circumstances,
he does take his life, then it cannot be said that he was
insane.
Most of the persons who have tried to answer me have
not only taken the ground that suicide is a crime, but
some of them have said that it is the greatest of crimes.
Now, if it be a crime, then the suicide must have been
sane. So all persons who denounce the suicide as a
�i6
LAST WORDS ON SUICIDE.
criminal admit that he was sane. Under the law, an
insane person is incapable of committing a crime. All
the clergymen who have answered me, and who have
passionately asserted that suicide is a crime, have by
that assertion admitted that those who killed themselves
were sane.
They agree with me, and not only admit, but assert,
that “ some who have committed suicide were sane and
in full possession of their minds.”
It seems to me that these three propositions have been
demonstrated to be true : First, that under some circum
stances a man has the right to take his life ; second, that
the man who commits suicide is not a physical coward ;
and, third, that some who have committed suicide were
at the time sane and in full possession of their minds.
Fourth,—I insisted, and still insist, that suicide was
and is the foundation of the Christian religion.
I still insist that, if Christ were God, he had the power
to protect himself without injuring his assailants ; that,
having that power, it was his duty to use it; and that,
failing to use it, he consented to his own death, and was
guilty of suicide.
To this the clergy answer that it was self-sacrifice for
the redemption of man, and that he made an atonement
for the sins of believers. These ideas about redemption
and atonement are born of a belief in the “ fall of man,”
on account of the sins of our “ first parents,” and of the
declaration that “ without the shedding of blood there is
no remission of sin.” The foundation has crumbled.
No intelligent person now believes in the “ fall of man ”
—that our first parents were perfect, and that their
descendants grew worse and worse, at least until the
coming of Christ.
Intelligent men now believe that the general course of
the human race has been upward; that, while some
�LAST WORDS ON SUICIDE.
17
tribes and nations have gone backward and perished,
others have advanced; that the world is nearer civilised
to-day than ever before.
Intelligent men now believe that ages and ages before
the dawn of history man was a poor, naked, cruel,
ignorant, and degraded savage, whose language consisted
of a few sounds of terror, of hatred and delight; that he
devoured his fellow-man, having all the vices, but not all
the virtues, of the beasts ; that the journey from the den
to the home, the palace, has been long and painful,
through many centuries of suffering, of cruelty and war ;
through many ages of discovery, invention, self-sacrifice,
and thought.
Redemption and atonement are left without a fact on
which to rest. The idea that an infinite God, creator of
all worlds, came to this grain of sand, learned the
trade of a carpenter, discussed with Pharisees and
scribes, and allowed a few infuriated Hebrews to put
him to death that he might atone for the sins of
men and redeem a few believers from the consequences
of his own wrath, can find no lodgment in a good and
natural brain.
In no mythology can anything more monstrously un
believable be found.
But if Christ were a man and attacked the religion of
z his time because it was cruel and absurd ; if he endea/ vored to found a religion of kindness, of good deeds, to
take the place of heartlessness and ceremony ; and if,
rather than deny what he believed to be right and true,
he suffered death, then he was a noble man—a benefactor
of his race. But if he were God there was no need of
this. The Jews did not wish to kill God. If he had only
made himself known, all knees would have touched the
ground. If he were God, it required no heroism to die.
He knew that what we call death is but the opening of
the gates of eternal life. If he were God, there was no
�LAST WORDS ON SUICIDE.
self-sacrifice. He had no need to suffer pain. He could
have changed the crucifixion to a joy.
Even the editors of religious weeklies see that there is
no escape from these conclusions—from these arguments;
and so, instead of attacking the arguments, they attack
the man who makes them.
Fifth,—I denounced the law of New York that makes
an attempt to commit suicide a crime.
It seems to me that one who has suffered so much that
he passionately longs for death should be pitied, instead
of punished—helped rather than imprisoned.
A despairing woman who had vainly sought for leave
to toil, a woman without home, without friends, without
bread, with clasped hands, with tear-filled eyes, with
broken words of prayer, in the darkness of night, leaps
from the dock, hoping, longing for the tearless sleep of
death. She is rescued by a kind, courageous man,
handed over to the authorities, indicted, tried, convicted,
clothed in a convict’s garb, and locked in a felon’s cell.
To me this law seems barbarous and absurd, a law
that only savages would enforce.
Sixth,—In this discussion a curious thing has happened..
For several centuries the clergy have declared that,
while infidelity is a very good thing to live by, it is a bad.
support, a wretched consolation, in the hour of death.
They have, in spite of the truth, declared that all the
great unbelievers died trembling with fear, asking God
for mercy, surrounded by fiends, in the torments of
despair. Think of the thousands and thousands of clergy
men who have described the last agonies of Voltaire, who
died as peacefully as a happy child smilingly passes from
play to slumber; the final anguish of Hume, who fell
into his last sleep as serenely as a river, running between
green and shaded banks, reaches the sea; the despair of
�LAST WORDS ON SUICIDE.
19
Thomas Paine, one of the bravest, one of the noblest
men, who met the night of death untroubled as a star
that meets the morning.
At the same time these ministers admitted that the
average murderer could meet death on the scaffold with
perfect serenity, and could smilingly ask the people, who
had gathered to see him killed, to meet him in heaven.
But the honest man who has expressed his honest
thoughts against the creed of the Church in power could
not die in peace. God would see to it that his last
moments should be filled with the insanity of fear—that
with his last breath he should utter the shriek of remorse,
the cry for pardon.
This has all changed, and now the clergy, in their
sermons answering me, declare that the Atheists, the
Freethinkers, have no fear of death—that to avoid some
little annoyance, a passing inconvenience, they gladly
and cheerfully put out the light of life. It is now said
that infidels believe that death is the end ; that it is a
dreamless sleep; that it is without pain ; that, therefore,
they have no fear, care nothing for gods, or heavens, or
hells, nothing for the threats of the pulpit, nothing for
the Day of Judgment, and that when life becomes a
burden they carelessly throw it down.
The infidels are so afraid of death that they commit
suicide.
This certainly is a great change, and I congratulate
myself on having forced the clergy to contradict them
selves.
Seventh,—The clergy take the position that the
Atheist, the unbeliever, has no standard of morality—
that he can have no real conception of right and wrong.
They are of the opinion that it is impossible for one to
be moral or good unless he believes in some Being far
above himself.
�20
LASE WORDS ON SUICIDE.
In this connection we might ask how God can be
moral or good unless he believes in some Being superior
to himself.
What is morality ? It is the best thing to do under
the circumstances. What is the best thing to do under
the circumstances ? That which will increase the sum
of human happiness—or lessen it the least. Happiness
in its highest, noblest form, is the only good ; that which
increases or preserves or creates happiness is moral—
that which decreases it, or puts it in peril, is immoral.
It is not hard for an Atheist—for an unbeliever—to
keep his hands out of the fire. He knowrs that burning
his hands will not increase his well-being, and he is
moral enough to keep them out of the flames.
So it may be said that each man acts according to his
intelligence—so far as what he considers his own good
is concerned. Sometimes he is swayed by passion, by
prejudice, by ignorance; but when he is really intelligent,
master of himself, he does what he believes is 'best for
him. If he is intelligent enough, he knows that what
is really good for him is. good for others—for all
the world.
It is impossible for me to see why any belief in the
supernatural is necessary to have a keen perception of
right and wrong. Every man who has the capacity to
suffer and enjoy, and has imagination enough to give the
same capacity to others, has within himself the natural
basis of all morality. The idea of morality was born
here, in this world, of the experience, the intelligence, of
mankind. Morality is not of supernatural origin. It
did not fall from the clouds, and it needs no belief in the
supernatural, no supernatural promises or threats, no
supernatural heavens or hells, to give it force and life.
Subjects who are governed by the threats and promises
of a king are merely slaves. They are not governed by
the ideal—by noble views of right and wrong. They
�LAST WORDS ON SUICIDE.
21
are obedient cowards, controlled by fear, or beggars
governed by rewards—by alms.
Right and wrong exist in the nature of things. Murder
was just as criminal before as after the promulgation of
the Ten Commandments.
Eighth,—Many of the clergy, some editors, and
some writers of letters who have answered me have said
that suicide is the worst of crimes—that a man had
better murder somebody else than himself. One clergy
man gives as a reason for this statement that the suicide
dies in an act of sin, and, therefore, he had better kill
another person. Probably he would commit a less crime
if he would murder his wife or mother.
I do not see that it is any worse to die than to live in
sin. To say that it is not as wicked to murder another
as yourself seems absurd. The man about to kill him
self wishes to die. Why is it better for him to kill
another man, who wishes to live ?
To my mind, it seems clear that you had better injure
yourself than another. Better be a spendthrift than a
thief. Better throw away your own money than steal
the money of another—better kill yourself if you wish
to die than murder one whose life is full of joy.
The clergy tell us that God is everywhere, and that it
is one of the greatest possible crimes to rush into his
presence. It is wonderful how much they know about
God, and how little about their fellow men. ’Wonderful
the amount of their information about other worlds, and
how how limited their knowledge is of this.
There may or may not be an infinite Being. I neither
affirm nor deny. I am honest enough to say that I do
not know. I am candid enough to admit that the
question is beyond the limitations of my mind. Yet I
think I know as much on that subject as any human
being knows or ever knew, and that is—nothing. I do
�22
LAST WORDS ON SUICIDE.
not say that there is not another world, another life,
neither do I say that there is. I say that I do not know.
It seems to me that every sane and honest man must
say the same. But if there be an infinitely good God
and another world, then the infinitely good God will be
just as good to us in that world as he is in this. If this
infinitely good God loves his children in this world, he
will love them in another. If he loves a man when he
is alive, he will not hate him the instant he is dead.
If we are the children of an infinitely wise and
powerful God, he knew exactly what we would do—the
temptations that we could and could not withstand—
knew exactly the effect that everything would have upon
us ; knew under what circumstances we would take our
lives, and produced such circumstances himself. It is
perfectly apparent that there are many people incapable
by nature of bearing the burdens of life, incapable of
preserving their mental poise in stress and strain of
disaster, disease, and loss, and who, by failure, by mis
fortune and want, are driven to despair and insanity, in
whose darkened mind there comes, like a flash of light
ning in the night, the thought of death—a thought so
strong, so vivid, that all fear is lost, all ties broken, all
duties, all obligations, all hopes forgotten, and naught
remains except a fierce and wild desire to die. Thou
sands and thousands become moody, melancholy—brood
upon loss of money, of position, of friends, until reason
abdicates dnd frenzy takes possession of the soul. If
there be an infinitely wise and powerful God, all this
was known to him from the beginning, and he so created
things, established relations, put in operation causes and
effects, that all that has happened was the necessary
result of his own acts.
Ninth,—Nearly all who have tried to answer what I
said have been exceedingly careful to misquote me, and
�LAST WORDS ON SUICIDE.
23
then answer something that I never uttered. They have
declared that I have advised people who were in trouble,
somewhat annoyed, to kill themselves; that I have told
men who have lost their money, who had failed in busi
ness, who were not in good health, to kill themselves at
once, without taking into consideration any duty that
they owed to wives, children, friends, or society.
No man has a right to leave his wife to fight the battle
alone if he is able to help. No man has a right to desert
his children if he can possibly be of use. As long as he
can add to the comfort of those he loves, as long as he
can stand between wife and misery, between child and
want, as long as he can be of use, it is his duty
to remain.
I believe in the cheerful view, in looking at the sunny
side of things, in bearing with fortitude the evils of life,
in struggling against adversity, in finding the fuel of
laughter even in disaster, in having confidence in to
morrow, in finding the pearl of joy amid the flints and
shards, and in changing, by the alchemy of patience,
even evil things to good. I believe in the gospel of cheer
fulness, of courage and good nature.
Of the future I have no fear. My fate is the fate of
the world—of all that live. My anxieties are about this
life—this world. About the phantoms called gods and
their impossible hells I have no care, no fear.
The existence of God I neither affirm nor deny. I
wait. The immortality of the soul I neither affirm nor
deny. I hope—hope for all of the children of men. I
have never denied the existence of another world, nor the
immortality of the soul. For many years I have said
that the idea of immortality, that, like a sea, has ebbed
and flowed in the human heart, with its countless waves
of hope and fear beating against the shores and rocks of
time and fate, was not born of any book, nor of any
creed, nor of any religion. It was born of human affec
�24
LAST WORDS ON SUICIDE.
tion, and it will continue to ebb and flow beneath the
mists and clouds of doubt and darkness as long as love
kisses the lips of death.
What I deny is the immortality of pain, the eternity
of torture.
After all, the instinct of self-preservation is strong.
People do not kill themselves on the advice of friends or
enemies. All wish to be happy, to enjoy life; all wish
for food and roof and raiment, for friends, and as long as
life gives joy the idea of self-destruction never enters the
human mind.
The oppressors, the tyrants, those who trample on the
rights of others, the robbers of the poor, those who put
wages below the living point, the ministers who make
people insane by preaching the dogma of eternal pain ;
these are the men who drive the weak, the suffering, and
the helpless, down to death.
It will not do to say that “ God ” has appointed a time
for each to die. Of this there is, and there can be, no
evidence. There is no evidence that any god takes any
interest in the affairs of men—that any sides with the
right or helps the weak, protects the innocent or rescues
the oppressed. Even the clergy admit that their God,
through all ages, has allowed his friends, his worshipers,
to be imprisoned, tortured, and murdered by his enemies.
Such is the protection of God. Billions of prayers have
been uttered; has one been answered ? Who sends
plague, pestilence, and famine ? Who bids the earth
quake devour, and the volcano to overwhelm ?
Tenth,—Again, I say that it is wonderful to me that
so many men, so many women, endure and carry their
burdens to the natural end ; that so many, in spite of
“ age, ache, and penury,” guard with trembling hands
the spark of life; that prisoners for life toil and suffer to
the last; that the helpless wretches in poor-houses and
�LAST WORDS ON SUICIDE.
25
asylums cling to life; that the exiles in Siberia, loaded
with chains, scarred with the knout, live on; that the
incurables, whose every breath is a pang, and for whom
the future has only pain, should fear the merciful touch
and clasp of death.
It is but a few steps at most from the cradle to the
grave—a short journey. The suicide hastens, shortens
the path, loses the afternoon, the twilight, the dusk of
life’s day; loses what he does not want, what he cannot
bear. In the tempest of despair, in the blind fury of
madness, or in the calm of thought and choice, the
beleaguered soul finds the serenity of death.
Let us leave the dead where nature leaves them.
We know nothing of any realm that lies beyond the
horizon of the known, beyond the end of life. Let us
be honest with ourselves and others. Let us pity the
suffering, the despairing, the men and women hunted
and pursued by grief and shame, by misery and want,
by chance and fate, until their only friend is death.
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Jonah and the Whale.
Bible Animals.
Bible Ghosts.
A Virgin Mother.
The Crucifixion.
The Resurrection.
The Devil.
Reynolds's Newspaper says : "Mr. G. W. Foote, chairman of
the Secular Society, is well known as a man of exceptional ability
His Bible Romances have had a large sale in the original edition.
A popular, revised, and enlarged edition, at the price of 6d., has
now been published by the Pioneer Press, 2 Newcastle-street,
Farringdon-street, London, for the Secular Society. Thus within
the reach of almost everyone, the ripest thought of the leaders
of modern opinion are being placed from day to day.”
144 LARGE DOUBLE-COLUMN PAGES,
GOOD PRINT, GOOD PAPER.
SIXPENCE-NET.
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�DON’T MISS IT!
THE
FREETHINKER.
One of the Liveliest and most Outspoken Journals
in the World.
Edited by G. W. FOOTE.
Mr. C. COHEN and Mr. JOHN LLOYD
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that gives Freethought news, and attends to Freethought
organization, as well as advocating Freethought principles.
The FREE THINKER attacks superstition and priestcraft,
which underlie all political and social injustice, particularly
as embodied in established and privileged institutions. It
carries on, vigorously and uncompromisingly, the work of
Voltaire, of Thomas Paine, of Bradlaugh, and of Ingersoll;
and relies, as those Giants did, on fearless truth expressed in
the plain language of common sense. TheFREE THINKER
is contributed to by a competent staff of skilled and earnest
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Published every Thursday, PRICE TWOPENCE.
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Is suicide a sin? and last words on suicide
Description
An account of the resource
Edition: New ed.
Place of publication: London
Collation: 25, [6] p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Last words on suicide (p.11-25) is a general reply to Ingersoll's critics. Publisher's advertisements on unnumbered pages at the end. No. 73i in Stein checklist, but not seen by him. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Ingersoll, Robert Green [1833-1899]
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1906
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N366
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Suicide
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Is suicide a sin? and last words on suicide), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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English
NSS
Sin-Christianity
Suicide
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5
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THE PIONEER PRESS,
2 Newcastle-street, Farringdon-street, E.C.
�THE MARTYRDOM OF HYPATIA.
Our subject this morning takes us to the city of Alexandria,
one of the greatest intellectual centres in the days when
Athens and Rome still ruled the world. The capital of
Egypt received its name from the man who conceived and
executed its design—Alexander the Great. Under the
Ptolemies, a line of Greek kings, Alexandria soon sprang
into eminence, and. accumulating culture and wealth,
became the most powerful metropolis of the Orient. Serv
ing as the port of Europe, it attracted the lucrative trade of
India and Arabia. Its markets were enriched with the
gorgeous silks and fabrics from the bazaars of the Orient.
Wealth brought leisure, and it, in turn, the arts. It became,
in time, the home of a wonderful library and schools of philo
sophy, representing all the phases and the most delicate
shades of thought. At one time it was the general belief
that the mantle of Athens had fallen upon the shoulders of
Alexandria.
But there was a stubborn and superstitious Oriental con
stituency in the city which would not blend with the foreign
element—namely, the Greeks and the Romans. This
antagonism between the Egyptian born and the children
of Hellas and Rome, who were Alexandrians only by adop
tion, was frequently the occasion of street riots, feuds, mas; sacres, and civil wars.
In or about the year 400 a.d., Alexandria, which is to-day
a third-rate Mohammedan town, enjoyed a population of
•600,000 inhabitants. The city proper comprehended a
• circumference of fifteen miles. It enjoyed the distinction of
being quite free from the curse of poverty. No beggars
could be seen loitering in its streets. No one was idle, and
work brought good wages. Such was the demand for labor
that even the lame and the blind found suitable occupation.
The Alexandrians understood the manufacture of papyrus, a
kind of vegetable paper used extensively by the authors, and
■-they knew how to blow glass and weave linen.
�4
THE
MARTYRDOM
OF HYPATIA.
After its magnificent library, whose shelves supported S’,
freight more precious than beaten gold, perhaps the most
stupendous edifice in the town was the temple of Serapis..
It is said that the builders of the famous temple of Eddessa
boasted that they had succeeded in creating something which
future generations would compare with the temple of Serapis
in Alexandria. This ought to suggest an idea of the vastness
and beauty of the Alexandrian Serapis, and the high esteem
in which it was held. Historians and connoisseurs claim it
was one of the grandest monuments of Pagan civilisation,
second only to the temple of Jupiter in Rome, and to the
inimitable Parthenon in Athens, which latter is certainly the
best gem earth every wore upon her zone.
The Serapis temple v,as built upon an artificial hill, the
ascent to which was by a hundred steps. It was not one
building, but a vast body of buildings, all grouped about acentral one of vaster dimensions, rising on pillars of huge
magnitude and graceful proportions. Some critics have
advanced the idea that the builders of this masterpieceintended to make it a composite structure, combining the
diverse elements of Egyptian and Greek art into a harmo
nious whole. The Serapion was regarded by the ancients as
marking the reconciliation between the architects of the
pyramids and the creators of the Athenian Acropolis. Iff
represented to their minds the blending of the massive, inEgyptian art with the grace and the loveliness of the
Hellenic.
But the greatest attraction of this temple was the god,.
Serapis himself, within the vaulted building. It is difficult
for us to form an idea of his enormous proportions. He
filled the house with his presence. He stretched his arms
and took hold of the two walls, the one on his right and the
other on his left. The artist had conceived, also, the idea of
making the body of the god as all-embracing as his arms.
He fused together all the then known metals—gold, silver,,
copper, iron, tin, lead—to create a substance fit to represent
a god. He inlaid this multifarious composition with the
rarest gems—the most costly stones which the markets of
the world offered. He polished them all until the colossal
statue shone like a huge sapphire. Its exquisite tints and.
shades are said to have provoked the jealousy of the azure:
�&Ma^taART¥RDOKI OF
HYPATIAS
5
■Sides. For a crown, the god wore on his head a bushel,
^symbol of plentiful harvests. At his side, in silence, stood a
three-headed animal with the forepart of a lion, a wolf, and
a dog. The lion was meant to represent the present; the
rapacious wolf symbolised the past—the devoured past;
while the dog, the faithful, friendly animal, stood for the
future. Wound around the body of the god was a mammoth
serpent, which, after its many turns and twists, returned to
rest his head on the hand of the god. The sinuous serpent
was meant to personate Time, whose mysterious birthplace,
■or birthday^ has yet to be discovered.
Serapis, whose statue adorned the temple, was once the
most popular god in the Orient. He was believed to be the
source of the Nile, whose breasts he swelled until they
poured their wealth upon the surrounding soil. As long as
his eye remained open, the sun would shine, and the land
would produce, and women would give birth. But if he
should close his eye, life would become as a sere and sapless
leaf. But Serapis was a stranger in Egypt. He was not an
African by birth, but was imported from Sinope, on the
Euxine. When he first made his appearance in the land of
the Nile, the people—the Alexandrians, especially—rose up
cn masse and protested vehemently against the introduction
of a foreign deity. Did they not have Osiris, the great god
of their ancestors, and Isis, his consort—the divine woman
with her infant, Horus, sitting upon her knees ? Why, then,
should a strange god be admitted to the throne, or to the bed
of Osiris and Isis? Did they not have their holy trinity,
Osiris, Isis, and Horus—father, mother, and child—the best
trinity ever conceived ? But Ptolemy was king, and his will
prevailed. He told them that Osiris had, in a dream, com
manded him to accept Serapis as a new and well-beloved
god, and he did not wish to do anything contrary to his
dream.
In all this do* we not see a similarity to the story about
Jesus, and how his friends compelled solitary Jehovah to
accept him as his son. and to share with him the honors of
divinity? We know how the people objected at first to
Jesus, precisely as the Alexandrians did to Serapis, and how,
finally, through dreams and miracles, Jesus, the new god,
grew to be even more popular than the old one.
�6
THE MARTYRDOM
OF HYPATIA.
When Christianity gained the upper hand in Alexandria,,
it set its mind from the start upon destroying two of the
principal monuments of its powerful rival, Paganism—the
library and the temple of Serapis. Let me at this juncture
remind you that Alexandria, at a very early period, became
one of the foremost strongholds of the Christian religion.
Of the five capitals of the new faith—Jerusalem, Constanti
nople, Carthage, Alexandria, Rome—Alexandria at one time
led Constantinople, and was not second even to Rome.
What was said about Christianity being essentially an
Asiatic philosophy is confirmed, it seems to me, by this
additional fact: that out of five of its greatest centres four
were in the Orient. It felt more at home in Asia and
Africa than in Europe. A still stronger confirmation of the
affinity between Asia and Christianity is in the fact that as
soon as the Roman Empire became Christian it shifted its
capital from Europe to Asia, from Rome to Constantinople.
The first Christian emperor, Constantine, impelled, as it
were, by the logic of his new religion, left Rome to take up
his residence on the Bosphorus, which washed the shores of
the continent that had cradled Christianity. For a ruler
who coveted absolute power, who feared democracy, who
hated liberty and who preferred the stagnation of thought to
the movement of ideas, who desired slaves for subjects, Asia
was the more suitable place. Without wishing to offend any
one, I must say that Christianity was more favorable than
Paganism, and the Orient was better fitted to be the home of
political and religious absolutism than the Occident. Chris
tianity, as the religion of meekness and obedience, had irre
sistible attractions for Constantine. He not only embraced
it, but he went to dwell as close to where its cradle had.
swung as he could.
It is not the fault of Christianity that the Asiatic is servile,,
but the fault of the Asiatic that Christianity is so supple and
submissive. It is not so much religion that makes the char
acter of a people, but the people who determine the character
of their religion. Religion is only the rame of the national
ideas, thoughts, and character. Religion is nothing but an
expression. It is not, for instance, the word or the language
which creates the idea, but the idea which provokes the word
into existence. In the same way religion is only the language
�THE
MARTYRDOM
OF
HYPATIA.
7
o£ a people’s idea. And yet a man’s religion or philosophy,
while it is but the product of his own mind, exerts a reflex
influence upon his character. The child influences the
parent, of whom it is the offspring ; language affects thought,
of which, originally, it was but the tool. So it is with religion.
The Christian religion, as soon as it got into power, turned
the world about. It struck at the Roman Empire, and,
grabbing everything it could lay its hands on—the sceptre,
the sword, the imperial diadem, the throne—it walked away
with them to Asia. We could never ask for a more eloquent
defence of the position that Christianity is Asiatic than is
found in this historic transfer of the seat of power from
Europe to Asia, from Rome to Constantinople.
Now, naturally enough, a religion which combats the
culture and traditions of European life in Europe, will not
tolerate them in Asia. Do we understand this point ? If it
seeks to down European thought in Europe, how much more
will it seek to expel it from Asia ? If it persecutes Socrates,
Plato, Cicero, and Seneca in Europe, it cannot, of course,
tolerate them in Asia. Christianity tried to destroy all the
monuments of Paganism in Rome, in free and proud Rome ;
could it, then, leave them standing in Alexandria, in Con
stantinople, or in Antioch ? On the contrary, in Asia, which
is her proper home, the seat of her power, and with the
Emperor imported to Constantinople, Christianity became
more aggressive against Paganism and civilisation than even
in Europe. Religion, like everything else, is consistent as
long as it is young and virile, and Christianity in the early
centuries was both young and virile, and therefore logical.
Changing slightly the great words of Shakespeare, we might
say :—
“ There is a logic (in the evolution of man) which shapes
our ends
Rough hew them as we may.”
We wonder sometimes that -a Japanese gentleman or an
Arab, or a Siamese, who has never mingled with Europeans
or Americans, should think as we do, or exhibit the polite
manners of occidental races. There are those who refuse to
believe that a Pagan, living three thousand years ago, could
possess the very virtues which we prize to-day. The
�8
THE
MARTYRDOM
OF HYPATIA.
sectarian who believes that only people of the size and
calibre of his creed can be good, is at a loss to explain the
universality of culture and virtue. This is explained by his
inability to perceive that there is a logic in the development
of the human being which brings about the same results the
world over—before Christ, and after. Let us appreciate
this truth. How can a Moslem or a Jew or a Pagan be as
good as a Christian ? There is a logic in the culture of man
which leads all evolution, all progress, to the same summit.
If only Mohammedanism or Christianity or Judaism is true
as a divine revelation, .then there can be no virtue outside
these religions. But history contradicts so sweeping a con
clusion. There is a logic, we repeat, in the culture of the
mind, which makes a Trajan, though a Pagan, as sweet and
sane a soul as Washington, who was born in a Christian era,
and a Chinese, Confucius, as noble and independent as a
French, Voltaire. I say there is a logic in the evolution of
man, before which all sectarian pretences and conceits are
like chaff for the wind to sport with. And we cannot be
really large-minded, nor can we read history and philosophy
aright, until we appreciate the power of the logic which shapes
our ends “ rough hew them as we may.”
The transference of the capital of the world and the seat
of authority from Europe to Asia was not an accident. It
was a logical step. Christianity, to be consistent, had to
break up housekeeping in Europe and move its menage, from
Rome to Constantinople. She was homesick for the climate,
the atmosphere, the peoples, the traditions, the spirit, the
institutions—the milieu in which she was born. Enable to
assimilate human thought, she pined for Asia. By the same
logic, she wished to wipe out in Asia every trace of European
thought and culture. When, therefore, we read of the de
struction of Pagan schools, libraries, and monuments, let us
not look upon such acts as accidents in the history of Chris
tianity, but as the logical unfolding of its genius. Why, you
may ask, does it no longer -pursue the policy of extermina
tion ? For the best of reasons : it is no longer virile enough
to be logical. It has stumbled into the ways of inconsistency
by reason of old age. Fifteen hundred years ago, in Alexan
dria, when our religion was both young and lusty, it attempted
to, and succeeded in, destroying everything that reminded
�THE
MARTYRDOM W
HWATMs,
9
the world of the glory and liberty of ancient Rome and
j Greece.
Theodosius was at the time, of which we will now speak,
the Christian ruler of the Empire. In reply to a request by
the Archbishop of Alexandria, he sent a sentence of destruc
tion against the ancient religion of Egypt. Both the Pagans
and the Christians had assembled in the public square to hear
the reading of the Emperor’s letter, and when the Christians
learned that they might destroy the gods of the Pagans, a wild •
shout of joy rent the air. The disappointed Pagans, on the
other hand, realising the danger of their position, silently
slipped into their homes through dark alleys and hidden
passage-ways. Yet they did not stand aside and see the
temples of their gods razed to the ground without first offer
ing a desperate resistance. Under the leadership of a zealot,
Olympus, the Pagans fell upon the Christians, maddened
with the cry in their ears of their leader, “ Let us die with
our gods !” Then came the turn of the Christians. Theo
philus, the Archbishop of Alexandria, with a cross in his
hand, and followed by his monks, marched upon the temple
of Serapis, and proceeded to pull its pillars down. When
they came to strike at the colossal statue of the god, for
■centuries worshiped as a deity, even the Christians turned
pale with superstitious awe, and held their breath. A
soldier, armed with a heavy axe, was hesitating to strike the
first blow. Will the god tolerate the insult ? Will he not
crash the roof upon the heads of the sacrilegious vandals ?
But the soldier struck the thundering blow right in the
cheeks of Serapis, who offered no remonstrance whatever.
The sun shone as usual, and the laws of nature maintained
their even pace. Encouraged by this indifference of the god
to defend himself, the Christian rabble rushed upon the
statue, and, pulling Serapis off his seat, dragged him in
pieces through the streets of Alexandria, that the Pagans
might behold the disgrace into which their great god had
fallen. Thousands of Pagans, seeing how helpless their
gods were to avenge this insult, deserted Paganism and
joined the Christians. As soon as the ground of the temple
was sufficiently cleared, a church was erected on the ancient
site. The Alexandrian library was the next point of attack.
Its shelves were soon cleared, and you and I, and twenty
�IO
THE
MARTYRDOM
OF
HYPATIA.
centuries, were most lamentably deprived of the intellectual
treasures which our Greek and Roman forefathers had
bequeathed unto us.
When the archbishop, under whose influence the monu
ments and libraries of Pagan civilisation were pillaged and
pulled down, died, he was succeeded by his nephew, St.
Cyril, who was even more Asiatic in his sympathies and
more hostile to European thought than his uncle, Theo*
philus. The new archbishop directed his efforts against the
living monuments of Paganism—the scholars, the poets, the
philosophers—the men and women who still cherished a
passionate regard for the culture and civilisation of the
Pagan world. The most illustrious representative of GrecoRoman culture in Alexandria about this time was Hypatia,,
the gifted daughter of Theon, a mathematician and a philo
sopher of considerable renown. It is said that Theon would
have come down to us as a great man had not his daughter’s
fame eclipsed his.
Hypatia was a remarkably brilliant woman. Her example
demonstrates how all difficulties yield to a strong will.
Being a girl, and excluded by the conventions of the time
from intellectual pursuits, she could have given many reasons
why she should leave philosophy to stronger and freer minds.
But she had an all-compelling passion for the life of the mind,,
which overcame every obstacle that interfered with her pur
posed The example of a young woman conquering tremen
dous difficulties, and becoming the undisputed queen of an
intellectual empire, ought to be a great inspiration to us
faint hearts. She won the prize which was denied to her
sex, and became “ the glory of her age and the wonder of
ours.”
To pursue her studies, she persuaded her father to send
her to Athens, where her earnest work, her devotion to
philosophy, the readiness with which she sacrificed all her
other interests to the culture of her mind, earned for herself
the laurel wreath which the university of Athens conferred
only upon the foremost of its pupils. Hypatia wore this
wreath whenever she appeared in public, as her best orna
ment. Upon her return to Alexandria, she was elected presi
dent of the Academy, which at this period was the rendezvous
of the leading minds of the East and West. In fact, it was
�THE
MARTYRDOM OF
HYPATIA.
II
to this academy that the effort of the advanced thinkers to
bring about a pacification between the culture of Europe
and that of Asia originated. They wished to make Alexan
dria, situated midway between the Occident and the orient,
the point of confluence of the two streams of civilisation.
They wished to celebrate the marriage of the East as bride
to the West as bridegroom. It was their plan to make
Alexandria a sort of intellectual distillery, refining and fusing
the two civilisations into one. But this amalgamation—this
assimilation—Christianity, alas, helped to prevent by bring
ing into still bolder relief the Asiatic habits of mind, and by
refusing to concede an inch to the larger spirit of the West.
Christianity is responsible for the miscarriage which has ever
since left Asia a widow, or, to change the simile, a withered
branch upon the tree of civilisation. Christianity broke the
link which scholarship and humanity were trying to forge
between Europe and Asia. The world has never since been
one as it came near being under the Roman Empire.
Cyril, the Archbishop of Alexandria, persuaded himself
that Hypatia’s good name and talents were giving the cause
of Paganism a dangerous prestige, and thereby preventing
the progress of the new faith. Hypatia was indeed a great
power in Alexandria. She was the most popular personage
in the city. When she appeared in her chariot on the streets
people threw flowers at her, applauded her gifts, and cried,
“ Long live the daughter of Theon.”* Poets called her the
t: Virgin of Heaven,” “ the spotless star,” “ of highest speech
the flower.” Judging by the chronicles of the times, it
appears that her beauty, which would have made even a
Cleopatra jealous, was as great as her modesty, and both
were matched by her eloquence, and all three surpassed by
her learning.
“ Her beauty did astonish the survey of eyes,
Her words all ears took captive.”
Her renown as a lecturer on philosophy brought students
from Rome and Athens, and all the great cities of the
empire, to Alexandria. It was one of the great events of
each day to flock to the hall in the academy where Hypatia
explained Plato and Aristotle. Cyril, the Asiatic archbishop,
passing frequently the house of Hypatia, and seeing the long
train of horses, litters, and chariots which had brought a host
�12
THE
MARTYRDOM
OF
HYPATIA.
of admirers to the female philosopher’s shrine, conceived a
terrible hatred for this Pagan girl. He did not relish her
popularity. Her learning was rubbish to him. Her charm®,
temptations for the ruin of man. He hated her because she,
a frail woman, dared to be free and to think for herself. He
argued in his mind that she was competing with Christianity,
taking away from Christ the homage which belonged to him.
With Hypatia out of the way the people would turn to God,
and give him the love and honor which they were wasting
upon her. She was robbing God of his rights, and she must
fall; for He is a jealous God. Such was the reasoning of
Cyril, whom the Church has canonised a saint.
Moreover, Orestes, the Prefect of Alexandria, respected
Hypatia, and was a constant attendant upon her lectures.
Cyril believed that she influenced the Prefect and tainted
him with her Paganism. With Hypatia crushed, Orestes
would be more responsive to Christian influences. Ah, it is
a cruel story which I am about to unfold. Generally speak
ing, if a man is jealous and small, no religion can make him
sweet; and if he is generous and pure-minded, no supersti
tion can altogether poison the springs of his love. Religion
is strong; but nature is stronger. Unfortunately Cyril was
a barbarian, and the doctrines of his religion only sharpened
his claws and whipped his passion into a rage.
If we were living in those days we would have witnessed
at the close of each day, when both sea and sky blush with
the departing kiss of the sun, Hypatia mounting her chariot
to ride to the academy, where she is announced to speak on
some philosophical subject. She is followed by many
enthusiastic and devoted admirers impatient to catch her
eye. She is nodding to her friends on her right and on her
left. She, who refused lovers that she may love philosophy,
is not insensible to the appreciation of her pupils. Approach
ing the academy, she dismounts, walks up the white marble
steps and enters the doors, on either side of which sit two
solid, silent sphinxes. As we follow her into the hall, we see
that it is lighted by numerous swinging lamps filled with per
fumed oil; the rotunda of the ceiling has been embellished
by a Greek artist, with figures of Jupiter and his divine com
panions, who appear to be rapt in the words which fall from
his lips. The walls have been decorated by Egyptian artists,
�THE
MARTYRDOM
OF
HYPATIA.
13
witll pictures of the sacred animals, the crocodile, the cat, the
cow, and the dog ; and with sacred vegetables, the onion, the
Iotas, and the laurel. Besides these there is a scene on the
walls representing the marriage of Osiris and Isis. On an
elevated platform is a divan in purple velvet, and upon a
little table is placed the silver statue of Minerva, goddess of
wisdom and patron of Hypatia. Behind the table sits the
philosophic young woman, dressed in a robe of white,
fastened about her throat and waist by a band of pearls, and
carrying upon her brow the laurel crown which Athens had
decreed to her. A musical murmer sweeps over the audience
as she rises to her feet. But in a moment all is silent again
save the throbbing and the trembling of Hypatia’s silvery
voice. She speaks in Greek, the language of thought and
beauty, of the ancient world. Alas ! this is her last appear
ance at the academy. To-morrow that hall will be a tomb.
To-morrow Minerva will be childless. When Hypatia’s
listeners bade her farewell on that evening they did not
know that within a few hours they would all become
orphans.
The next morning, when Hypatia appeared in her chariot
in front of her residence, suddenly five hundred men, all
dressed in black and cowled, five hundred half-starved
monks from the caverns of the Egyptian desert—five hun
dred monks, soldiers of the cross—like a black hurricane,
swooped down the street, boarded her chariot, and, pulling
her off her seat, dragged her by the hair of her head into a—
how shall I say the word ?—into a church ! Some historians
intimate that the monks asked her to kiss the cross, to become
a Christian and join a nunnery, if she wished her life spared.
At any rate, these monks, under the leadership of St. Cyril’s
right-hand man, Peter the Reader, shamefully stripped her
naked, and there, close to the altar and the cross, scraped
her quivering flesh from her bones with oyster-shells.
The marble floor of the church was sprinkled with her
warm blood. The altar, the cross, too, were bespattered
owing to the violence with which her limbs were torn,
while the hands of the monks presented a sight too
Irevolting to describe. The mutilated body, upon which
the murderers feasted their fanatic hate, was then flung
gpto the flames.
�14
THE
MARTYRDOM
OF
HYPATIA.
Oh ! is there a blacker deed in human annals ? When has
another man or woman been so inhumanly murdered ? Has
politics, has commerce, has cannibalism even, committed a
more cruel crime ? The cannibal pleads hunger to cover his
cruelty—what excuse had Hypatia’s murderers ? Even Joan
of Arc was more fortunate in her death than this daughter of
Paganism ! Beautiful woman 1 murdered by men who were
not worthy to touch the hem of thy garment! And to think
that this happened in a church—a Christian church !
I have seen the frost bite the flower ; I have watched the
spider trap the fly ; I have seen the serpent spring upon the
bird ! And yet I love nature ! But I will never enter a
•church nor profess a religion which can commit such a deed
against so divine a woman. No, not even if I were offered
as a bribe eternal life ! If, O priests and preachers ! instead
of one hell, there were a thousand, and each hell more infernal
than your creeds describe, yet I would sooner they would all
swallow me up, and feast their insatiable lust upon my poor
bones for ever and ever, than to lend countenance or support
to an institution upon which history has fastened the indelible
stigma of Hypatia’s murder.
I wish I could live a thousand years to admire the noble
•spirit and delight in the courage and beauty of this sweet
martyr of Philosophy, Hypatia ! O that my voice were
strong enough to reach the ends of the world ! I would then
summon all independent minds to join with me in a hymn of
praise to that heroic woman, whose place is in the choir
invisible—
“ Whose music is the gladness of the world.”
Honor and love to beautiful Hypatia 1 Pity to the monks
who killed her 1 A delicious feeling of satisfaction, like a
warm sunshine on a wintry day, spreads over me as I con
template the privilege I am enjoying of vindicating her
memory against her assassins. Fortune has smiled upon
me in selecting me as one of her defenders. I congratulate
myself that I have both the heart and the head to weep over
her sad fate. And I tremble and shrink, as from a para
lysing nightmare, when I think that, under different circum
stances, I might still have been a minister of the Church
whose hands are, after fifteen hundred years, still unwashed
•of her innocent blood. The thought overpowers me ; I
�THE
MARTYRDOM
OF
HYPATIA.
15
^labor for breath. But I am free. O joy, O rapture! Iam
free to speak the truth about Hypatia. Let the clergy praise
Peter and Paul, St. Cyril and St. Theophilus. I give my
heart to thee, Hypatia !
If we, of this present generation, are responsible for
Adam’s sin, and deserve the penalties of his disobedience,
as the clergy say we do, then the Church of tot-day is
responsible for Hypatia’s fate. How will they take this
practical application of their own dogma? It will not do
for them to say: “ We wash our hands clean of St. Cyril’s
sin” ; for if Adam can, by his remote act, expose us all to
damnation, so shall Bishop Cyril’s dark deed cleave for ever
unto the religion which his followers profess. When the
Church people apologise, we shall forgive them; but no
apology short of discarding this Asiatic slave-creed, which in
the Old Testament stoned the free thinker to death, and in
the New pronounces him a “heathen and a publican,” will
satisfy the ends of justice.
I have intimated, by the wording of my subject, that it
was the classic world which was murdered in the person of
one of its last and noblest representatives,* Hypatia.
Hypatia embodied in her life and teaching the proud
spirit, the beauty, the culture, and the sanity of Greece.
With her, fell Greece; fell the intellectual world from
her eminence.
Then followed the nearly ten centuries of Egyptian dark
ness, which, settling over Europe, paralysed all initiative.
During the thousand years in which the spirit of St. Cyril
and his Church managed, with undisputed sway, the affairs
of religion and the State, night folded to its sterile bosom
our orphaned humanity, and the chains of slavery were upon
every mind. A cloud of dust rising heaven-high choked the
flow and stopped the fountains which had, in the days of
Pericles and Cassar, poured forth a world of living wafers.
The barren and lumbering theology of the Church crowded
out the Muses from their earthly walks, and the world
became a prison after having been the home of man. One
by one the great lights went out; Athens was no more,
Rome was dead. The bloom had vanished from the face of
the earth, and in its place there fell upon it the awful shadow
of hell.
�l6
THE
MARTYRDOM
OF
HYPATIA.
Symonds, in his
Greek Poets, says that while Cyril’s
mobs were dismembering Hypatia, the Greek authors went
on creating. “ Musseus sang the lamentable death of
Leander, and Nonnus was perfecting a new and more
polished form of the hexameter.” These authors, ignorant
that the Asiatic superstition had destroyed their world, that
they had themselves been stabbed to death, like a man who
has been shot, but whose wound is still warm, and who does
not know that he has but a few more breaths to draw,- kept
on singing their song. But their song was, indeed, the
“ very swan’s notes ” of the classical world. “ With the
story of Hero and Leander, that immortal love poem, the
Muse,” says the same author, “ took final farewell of her
beloved Hellas.”
After a thousand years of night, when the world awoke
from her sleep, the first song it sang was the last song of thedying Pagan world. This is wonderfully strange. In the
year 1493, when the Renaissance ushered in a new era, the
first book brought out in Europe was the last book written in
Alexandria by a Pagan. It was the poem of Hero and
Leander. The new world resumed the golden thread where
the old world had lost it. The severed streams of thought
and beauty met again into one current, and began to sing
and shine as it rushed forth once more, as in the days of old.
A Greek poem was the last product of the Pagan world ; the
same Greek poem was the first product of the new and rena
scent world.
Between the dying and the reviving Pagan world was the
Christian Church—that is to say, ten dark centuries.
If Greece and Rome made art, poetry, philosophy, sculp
ture, the drama, oratory, beauty, liberty classical, Christianity,,
the Syrian, the Asiatic cult, made, for nearly fifteen hundred
years, persecution, religious wars, massacres, theological feud6
and bloodshed, heresy huntings and heretic burnings, prisons,
dungeons, anathemas, curses, opposition to science, hatred of
liberty, spiritual bondage, the life without love or laughter, a
classic.
But to-day the dawn is in the cheeks of the sky.
It is day-break everywhere !
�
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Victorian Blogging
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The martyrdom of Hypatia, or : the death of the classical world; an address at Chicago
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Mangasarian, Mangasar Mugwiditch
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 16 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Pioneer Press
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1906
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N464
G4988
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Ancient Philosophy
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Text
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Ancient Philosophy
Hypatia
NSS
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PDF Text
Text
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New Testament
Manuscripts,
OR,
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CHRISTIANITY COMPLETELY UNDERMINED.
SYMES.
By JOSEPH
WITH
1
FAC-SIMILES
MSS.
SECOND EDITION.
Price THREE
%
OF
PENCE.
London:
THE PIONEER PRESS, 2 NEWCASTLE STREET, E.C.
�EXPLANATION
OF THE
FAC-SIMILES.
The first is a specimen of the running hand, written on Egyptian papyrus
some time between b.c. too and too a.d. It is a fragment of Hyperides,
an orator of the time of Demosthenes, 4th century b.c.
The second is an extract from Philodemos, a philosopher and poet of
Cicero s day.
t^irdspecimen is from a manuscript of the Greek Old Testament
(Co«x Fredenco-Augustanus). It contains 2 Sam. vii. 10-11
fourth is a specimen of Codex Sinaiticus, the famous manuscript
which Tischendorf brought (the monks say, stole) from the convent of St.
Catherine, Mount Sinai, 1859. The part quoted is Luke xxiv. 33-34
The two lines on the right-hand side below, written up and down
deserve a moment’s notice. They also are from Codex Sinaiticus, and
are a portion of 1 Timothy 111. 16, a passage which has given the Christians
endless trouble and led to disputes which reason can never settle. The
text reads to tes eusebeias mysterion ; but whether the next word is hos or
theos is the point in dispute. It appears that most of the manuscripts
read theos, though several important ones have hos or ho. The difficulty
arises from the fact that the manuscript writers and copiers frequently
contracted or abbreviated words, as we do still. We write Mr. for mister
or master; Mrs. for mistress; Dr. for doctor, etc. And in the ancient
manuscripts OC stand for hos (who); and the same letters, with horizontal
lines across the O stand for theos (God). The puzzle then is to decide
whether 1 Tim. ni. 16 should be read who (or which) or God!—a very
serious puzzle indeed, and one it is now too late to clear up, without a
new revelation—which even the most pious do not expect.
As Dr. Scrivener says, “ This text has proved the crux 'criticorum,” the
despair of the critics, we may say. And it is plain the text in Codex
Sinaiticus has been tampered with or else corrected by the author. Let
the reader look at it—the second perpendicular line, right-hand side below.
Reading up the line, the last letters are OCE. (The C is pronounced S
by the way.) Partly over the O and partly over the preceding letter n’
you see a peculiar compound mark, which Tischendorf says was made by
some corrector in the 12th century. The mark is evidently
which
together with OC below, make theos or God.
The text commonly reads, great is the mystery of godliness; God was
manifested in the flesh. But this celebrated manuscript of Tischendorf’s
reads in the first hand, Graf is the mystery of godliness who was manifested
m the flesh.
J
There are hundreds of similar doubtful readings in the manuscripts •
and I have given this as a specimen that all can understand.
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The printed Greek
(in English letters)
runs thus :—min ton
lithon ek tes thuras
tou mnemeiou kai
anablepsasai theorousin hoti anakekulistai ho lithos en
gar megas sphodra
kai elthousai eis to
mnemeion eidon neaniskon kathemenon
en tois dexiois peribeblemenon stolen
leuken kai exethambethesan ho de legei
autais me ekthambeisthe iesoun zeteite ton nazarenon
ton estauromenon
ergerthe ouk estin
hode ide ho topos
hopou ethekan auton alia hupagete
eipate tois mathetais autou kai to
petro hoti proagei
humas eis ten galilaian ekei auton
opsesthe kathos eipen humin kai exelthousai ephugon
apo tou mnemeiou
eichen gar autas
tromos kai ekstasis
kai
oudeni ouden
eipon ephobounto
gar.
Kata Markon.
FAC-SIMILE OF CODEX VATICANUS, MARK Xvi. 3-8.
�PREFACE.
I must ask the reader to observe that the following notes upon the
New Testament Manuscripts are not intended to be a treatise or at
all exhaustive. The pamphlet is a reprint from several consecutive
numbers of the Liberator; and the notes were written as the printers
required copy. Hence there will be seen a want of consecutiveness
in them, which I hope may be forgiven.
I have written for the multitude, not for scholars ; although, I
respectfully submit, the best of Christian scholars would do well to
consider the points and issues I raise. Let them remember that
every item in the liberal thought of to-day was first supplied by
Freethinkers, and long afterwards adopted by the Christians when
they found their old notions, no longer tenable. So must it be in the
future. The views I here advance will be generally adopted in the
next generation.
I may here note a common argument of the Christians, though
not so confidently urged now as in former days :—
It is often said that we have better evidence for the Christian
scriptures than for the Classical works of Greece and Rome—that
is, that it is easier to prove, for example, that Matthew wrote the
gospel which goes in his name than to prove that any given Greek
or Roman author wrote a work circulating in his name. If that be
so, we are quite in the dark as to the origin of the Classical books,
for the most eager defender of the faith has never yet been able to
show when, or where, or by whom, any of the New Testament books
were written.
Further, I submit that, had there been various sects of Classicists,
all trying to exterminate the rest; and had one powerful sect gained
the upper-hand and destroyed its rivals and their books as well, and
libelled them into the bargain; and further, that if most of what we
hold to be Classical literature emerged from the care and keeping of
that conquering sect, we could have no confidence whatsoever in the
teachings of that sect as regards the authors, etc., of the books they
handed over to us. Add to this the supposition that the books
actually preserved, on the whole, strongly favored the pretensions of
the sect which preserved them, and you see how suspicious would
be their testimony.
Well, it is not the poor people, nor the masses of the people, to
whom we owe the preservation of the New Testament, but to
the most villainous set of men ever known, and men whose prime
tenets are supported by these very books.
When we further reflect upon the forgeries and lies the dominant
sects have always resorted to on occasion, we shall see that anything
�ii.
PREFACE.
coming from them must be regarded with the strongest suspicion?
until independent evidence can be obtained.
All things considered, the case of the Classical books, though by
no means satisfactory, is not a tenth as bad as the case of theNew Testament, which is vouched for mainly by those who
benefit by it.
Since I began my notes on the manuscripts, quite unexpectedly,
a friend has offered to produce a facsimile or two expressly for me
and through that gentleman’s kindness I am now able to publish, in
addition to the previous fragments, a facsimile, slightly reduced, of
a small portion of the Vatican manuscript or Codex Vaticanus, as
scholars are pleased to call it.
In the column beside it I have given the same words in the
ordinary New Testament Greek, but in English letters. It is not
necessary to insert the translation, as any one with an English New
Testament may read it for himself in Mark xvi. 3-8.
Please look over this facsimile and note a fact or two. 1. It is all.
in capital letters, or uncials, as scholars call them. 2. There are no
divisions between the words, and therefore the manuscript is difficult
to read, and in many cases quite uncertain. 3. In the 14th line
from the top there is a contraction, in, which is read “ iesoun ” or
Jesus (acc. case). But the word must be doubtful, in the nature of
the case. 4. There are little marks over many of the letters which
scholars say were inserted by some one long after the manuscript
was first written. That may be, but who can be sure ? 5. Below
are two words, “ Kata Markon,” said to be by a later scribe. Who'
knows ?
Note.—It is by such trifles scholars undertake to decide the dates
of manuscripts. The whole thing is doubtful in the extreme.
It may not be out of place to rehearse a few facts relating to the
Greek Testament, facts that should be persistently put before our
Christian neighbors and opponents. The clergy should be challenged
to say whether these statements are facts or fictions. And if I am
wrong in my statements, they should be urged to refute them.
It is no advantage to me to deny the truth or to preach and teach
error. If the New Testament is really an authentic history, it will
pay me well to say so. There are many thousands of people ardently
anxious that I should cease my opposition to their beliefs and begin,
again to preach the Gospel I have labored so long to discredit.
Therefore, it will be an immense advantage to me to be shown and
convinced that the New Testament is true history ; for, once satis
fied of that, I shall preach it most earnestly. And to do so would
bring me ^20, where I now get one. Therefore, if I oppose and
expose the New Testament and Christianity, it must be conceded
that some moral and legitimate motive impels me to do so.
On the other hand, if the clergy are not able to refute me, they
have no right to continue to preach and to live upon what they are
not able to prove to be true. If they can confute me, and will not,
they must be extremely immoral to permit me to propagate serious,
error and misrepresentations of the truth, which they can so easilyput a stop to.
�PREFAC®,
♦
iii.
To bring matters to an issue, I assert without fear of contradiction,
that the whole round of the gospel is an unfounded superstition ;
that the Gospels are frauds and forgeries; the New Testament a
‘book of most uncertain date ; and that, instead of having been
written by eye-witnesses of the things it relates, no proof exists that
the book is yet so much as 1,000 years old—-Though I do not deny
that it may be older.
I assert that the New Testament manuscripts now existing cannot
be traced back to any known author or writer or copier ; and that
•it is impossible to discover in what country any one of them was
produced. Nor is it possible to fix, within hundreds of years, the
date when any one of them was written.
Such is my challenge. And there is more to follow. Our common
New Testaments assert, on their title-page, that the English version
has been “ translated out of the original Greek.”
Now this was a known falsehood when first circulated. The
bishops and others of the English Church, in the reign of James I.,
were fully aware that the Greek they used did not pretend to be the
original; they were well aware that no one had ever pretended to
have seen the original—unless they meant to say that the printed
v text they had was the original, as they certainly did not. Those
Scholars knew that Erasmus, the Catholic critics, Stephens, and the
rest, who had for many years been examining manuscripts, had none
of them ever hinted or whispered that they had found the original.
Therefore, when those bishops authorised the printer to print
translated out of the original Greek,” they perpetrated a most
deliberate fib, and a fib that has imposed upon countless millions of
confiding people.
There was no excuse for this falsehood of theirs, except such an
excuse as vanity, ambition, or deliberate imposture could supply.
And whatever excuse might be urged for bishops and others of
nearly 300 years ago, there can be no shadow of excuse for those
who continue to reprint and circulate this fib. Since those ancient
bishops died, and most especially during the last sixty years, every
known corner has been ransacked for New Testament manuscripts ;
the most strenuous efforts have been made by Christian critics,
armed with all the weapons learning could give, to connect the New
Testament with the alleged apostles, and with Jesus. All such
efforts have hopelessly failed. No record, no scrap, of the originals
can be found ; no materials can be discovered out of which to con
struct a historical bridge to connect the oldest known manuscript
with the apostles or with Jesus.
Even if I admitted that Jesus and his apostles may have been
real persons and not fictions, still from the time of their death down
to the oldest fragment of real Church history, and down to the oldest
New Testament manuscript yet found, there must be reckoned
hundreds of years. Although the popular defender of the faith tries
to brazen it out and talks confidently, scholars know, and some of
them admit all that I contend for—in effect, if not in the language
I employ. I must quote a few passages from well known Christian
•works.
�iv.
PREFACE.
Smith's Bible Dictionary, 1863, article “New Testament” (by
Westcott the late Bishop of Durham), says, “ It does not appear
that any special care was taken in the first age to preserve the books
of the New Testament from the various injuries of time, or to insure
perfect accuracy of transcription. They were given as a heritage
to man, and it was some time before men felt the full value of the
gift. The original copies seem to have soon perished; and we may
perhaps see in this a providential provision against the spirit of
superstition which in earlier times converted the symbols of God’s
redemption into objects of idolatory (2 Kings xviii. 4). It is certainly
remarkable that in the controversies at the close of the second
century, which often turned upon disputed readings of scripture, no
appeal was made to the apostolic originals. The few passages in
which it has been supposed that they are referred to will not bear
examination.”
The writer then proceeds to dispose of certain imaginary references
to the originals in Ignatius and Tertullian.
He proceeds, “No Manuscript of the New Testament of the first
three centuries remains.” He drops the innocent remark that,
“ As soon as definite controversies arose among Christians, the text
of the New Testament assumed its true importance.” Westcott
notes the fact that the early Christians mutually accused each other
of corrupting their sacred books. The last note I need quote -from
him just at present is this, “ History affords no trace of the pure apostolic
originals."
Here, then, I have quoted from this Christian divine all that is
needed to justify the strong language I have used above. Of
course, the reader will perceive that Westcott, having, a
shockingly bad case, makes the best he is able of it. He raises
a pious dust, talks of providence, idolatry, etc. Still the truth
appears quite plainly through the mist; and the truth may thus
be summed up :—
1. Had the New Testament been an inspired book or a correct
record of the life of Christ and his apostles, there never could have
been a time when Christians could have valued them at less than
their real worth. Those who wrote the books would surely not be
blind to their value 1 They could not have been careless as to whom
they confided the books.
2. Those who received them from the authors must have valued
them as the most precious heritage of the Church, as Westcott fully
admits in hinting that people might have worshipped the originals
if God had not providentially destroyed what he had taken such pains
to inspire !—a wonderfully comical way of accounting for the loss
or early destruction of the originals, surely !
3. But Westcott was too wide awake not to understand why no
books have descended to us from the apostles, etc.—they never wrote
any, that is the truth. If they had done so, there would have been
no lack of evidence for it. It is not in the power of the .most cun
ning defender of the faith to assign or to.suggest a plausible reason
why the apostolic originals are not now in existence, supposing the
apostles really wrote and published anything.
�PREFACE.
V.
4. The fact that controversies arose so early and that they were
neither prevented nor settled by appeals to the apostolic originals is
clear proof that such originals never existed. How could controversies
arise amongst people who had the New Testament, as they supposed,
as an infallible guide ? And, granting the controversies, it is incon
ceivable that the disputants should have failed to appeal to an
apostolic standard, if such had really existed.
All these admissions of Westcott are plain proof that the New
Testament did not exist at the close of the 2nd century, when
those controversies raged. That being so, the New Testament must
be set down as a forgery of later times; but how much later cannot
as yet be ascertained. As Westcott says, the text assumed its true
importance in times of controversy ! Just so. All the round of
•dogmatic theology arose and was produced in times of controversy.
And it is plain that the New Testament was forged by the squabbling
Christians for the purpose of defending themselves and demolishing
their opponents. Yes, and the book itself is plentifully sprinkled
Over with the evidences of that.
�THE NEW TESTAMENT MANUSCRIPTS.
It seems to me that Christian writers upon this subject make,
admissions or statements, which, properly considered, are quite fatah
to all historical claims of or for the New Testament. I have quoted
a specimen or two from Bishop Westcott, and here are others.
Dr. Newth, one of the authors af the Revised Version, says, in
Lectures on Revision, 1881, “ It is scarcely needed to state that we do
not now possess the original copies of any of the books of the Old
or the New Testament. Even while these (that is, the originals)
were still in existence it was necessary to transcribe them in order
that many persons in many places might possess and read them.”
I note here, ist.—That the statement that we do not possess the
originals of any portions of the Bible is strictly and absolutely true.
But, 2nd.—The assumption that the originals were copied and copied
in order to give many person^ the opportunity to read them is a
mere assumption with not one known fact to support it. If Dr..
Newth could prove the originals to have been copied, as he says they
were, he would more than half prove the New Testament historical
but the originals, as I shall show later, are nowhere mentioned by
any ancient writer. If many persons wanted copies to read, popular
education must have been early prevalent; but by common consent,,
the early Christians were not only of the poorer classes, for the
greater part, but also quite illiterate.
The doctor proceeds to show how almost impossible it was to
produce correct copies of the Bible. “ In the work of transcription,
however careful the transcriber might have been, errors of various kinds
necessarily arose ; some from mistaking one letter for another ; some
from failure of memory, if the scribe were writing from dictation ;
and some from occasional oversight, if he were writing from a copy
before him ; some from momentary lapses of attention, when his
hand wrote on without his guidance ; and some from an attempt tocorrect a real or fancied error of his predecessor ” (p. 3).
I ask, What could the Holy Ghost be thinking about to give man
kind a revelation in so uncertain and unreliable a manner ! This
point must be pushed. Nothing could be more blundersome or
more provocative of blunders than the course taken ; and the Holy
Ghost, if he inspired the Bible, must be held responsible for all the
errors of all its copies. He committed the first and fatal blunder of
trying to do what was impossible to be done by the means he
employed.
Dr. Newth says (p. 4) that the more recent the manuscripts are,
the greater is the agreement amongst them! That is as good as to
say, The more ancient your manuscripts are, the more do they
s
�NEW TESTAMENT MANUSCRIPTS.
II
disagree amongst themselves! Well, critics tell you their oldest
existing New Testament manuscripts date from the 4th century.
If, then, the oldest disagree more and more in proportion to their
age, if we had the 3rd century manuscripts, we should find they
'differed Still more than the oldest we have ; if the 2nd century ones
could be recovered, we should find them worse still! and the 1st
-century ones, the worst of all! !
In other words, the nearer you approach the fountain head of
•Christianity, the more impure do you find the waters ! That being
so, of what conceivable value are the most ancient manuscripts ?
Nay, of what value are any of them ? These are questions no
scholar can answer in any satisfactory manner. Confusion of con
fusion, all is confusion and vexation of spirit; and the more the
subject is stirred, the more bewildered does the honest investigator
become. If it were the Koran that was concerned, instead of the
New Testament, how sarcastically and scornfully the Christian
Scholars would wax over such admissions and statements as I have
quoted above. How readily, in that case, would they perceive that
the evidences were totally unreliable and hardly worth refuting!
But reverence for their own fetish book has completely blinded
most of the Christian doctors, on the one hand, of the Mohammedan
doctors, on the other ; and none but Freethinkers can ever settle
the difficulties of either party.
Even the printing press, as Dr. Newth says, has by no means
abolished errors from the Bible. He supplies the following examples
of even printed errors in God’s most holy word, which the Holy
Ghost never took the trouble to correct, although the bishops and
clergy were as full of that ghost when those errors were committed
as at any time in the history of the Church.
In a Bible, called the “wicked Bible,” printed in 1631, Exodus
Xx. 14 reads, “ Thou shalt commit adultery.” In another, printed
1682, Deut. xxiv. 3 reads, “If the latter husband ate her,” instead
of “ hate her.” “ He slew two lions like men,” was printed for
“ two lion-like men ” (2 Sam. xxiii. 20), in a Bible dated 1638.
“ Deliver up their children to the swine ” (Jer. xviii. 21) for “ to the
famine,” appears in a Bible of 1682.
There are several others not worth quoting here. If such blunders
may occur in a printed book, what blunders may not have been
•committed in the ancient manuscripts ! Look at the facsimiles we
give, and note how easy it must have been, in copying hundreds of
pages of such manuscript, to fall into errors.
Dr. Newth says again, “ The exact words used by the inspired
writers are not now to be found in any one book or manuscript.
They have to be gathered from various sources, by long and careful
labor, demanding much skill and learning. These sources, more
over, are so numerous that the investigation of them can be
accomplished only by a large division of labor, no one life being
long enough for the task, and no one scholar having knowledge
-enough to complete it alone ” (p. 79).
There is a confession of the utter hopelessness of the task. Let
us note a point or two. 1. The common Bible will tell you, on its
�12
NEW TESTAMENT MANUSCRIPTS.
title-page, that it was “translated out of the original ” (Hebrew for
the Old Testament, Greek for the New). But, as New th and other
writers openly acknowledge, this is most untrue, for the manuscripts
used by the authors of our common Bible were recent ones and of
no authority whatsoever. The statement, then, that the books were
translated out of the original is as deliberate a lie as could be told.
2. Still, if no older or better manuscripts had been found, a few
days would have sufficed to compare the printed copies with the
manuscripts. Yes, and Christians would have gone on repeating
the lie about the translation from the original, and would, have
declared that the exact and identical word of God was found in our
common Bible.
3. But the whole question has been so closely studied since 1611,
when our common Bible was first published, that some of the fore
most scholars have set aside the text used then as of no value or
authority whatsoever ; and have tried to reconstruct the original
New Testament out of older and, as they say, more reliable
manuscripts.
4. But now another difficulty stares us in the face. Admitting
that the manuscripts used by the authors of the Revised Version of
1881 to be better than those used in 1611, other manuscripts may
soon be found better than any now known ; and then the work of
reconstructing God’s holy but most delapidated word must all be
done over again.
5. If no one manuscript contains the exact words of the original,
as Newth declares, do any twenty manuscripts ? or any hundred ?
or one thousand ? Do all the known manuscripts contain “ the
exact words,” etc. ? How do you know ? Who does know ? Who.
pretends to know ? If a thousand more manuscripts should be
discovered, or forged and palmed off upon scholars, must the exact
words be picked from them also ?
6. If one life is too short for such a work, then no man can ever
HAVE
SUFFICIENT
KNOWLEDGE
TO
ENTITLE
HIM
TO
PASS . AN
therefore no man can ever have a just
right to decide such a question or to help to decide it; and therefore,,
no man being capable of forming an independent opinion upon it,,
no two men can ever rationally agree upon the subject; and there
fore, lastly, no number of men can ever have the just right to palm
off their version upon the world, or the nation, or to express any
opinion whatsoever upon the subject, except to say, “ The task, is
too great for the human intellect, and can never be satisfactorily
performed.”
Such is the corner into which Dr. Newth unconsciously drives
the Christian critics, himself with them; and. by so doing, he un
wittingly condemns the course taken by himself and his fellow
workers who produced the Revised Version; for they undertook a
work no number of men could possibly perform, and they settled all
disputes and doubts by a majority vote !—voted what was, what was
not God’s word ! Had the Revisers been only half as many, or
double the number, how different the result of their voting must
have been !
opinion upon the subject;
�h
• NEW TESTAMENT MANUSCRIPTS.
13
And it must not be forgotten that no other company can ever
succeed any better, for the work is such that it never can be final.
In 1611 it was possible for the King and Parliament to produce a
Bible pretending to be the right one ; and most English speaking
people accepted and used it as a genuine work. Scholars for ages
have known better, and many would like to supersede it. But they
cannot. An Act of Parliament now would never bind the people on
such a subject; and no one church could issue a Bible that all
would accept. No one man can do it. All the churches could
never be brought to agreement on it. And there it rests—nay, not
rests. There is no more rest for the churches, none for God’s most
holy word. Scepticism has won ! The Bible is logically as dead
as Psalmanazer’s History of Formosa; and during the next genera
tion or two the masses will be as well satisfied of that as scholars
are at the present day.
The whole question of the value of the Bible has been unwittingly
raised, in the last few years, by the English and American clergy ;
and this has been done by projecting and executing the Revision of
the common English Bible. The first definite step was taken in
this work, February io, 1870, when the upper house of Convocation
or “ gathering ” of the English Church parsons passed a resolution
appointing a committee to perform the work of revising, amending
and repairing the word of God.
There cannot be the least doubt that those men who then assem
bled expected to do a good stroke of business for their party and
more or less embarrass, and perhaps defeat, the enemies of the faith.
Whether they have succeeded in their object will be seen as we
proceed. In fact, I may say just here that, in my esteem, no step
was ever taken by a large section of the Church more fatal in its
effects upon the popular superstition than this revision business.
Had the common English Bible, which was launched upon the
world in 1611, been merely a faulty book more or less misrepresent
ing the written or manuscript Bible that preceded it, the revision
and correction would have been easily accomplished, and no harm
could have resulted.
Let the reader try to grip the situation. If I wrote a lengthy
article for the Freethinker, and the printers made serious blunders in
the printed copy, it would be very easy to correct them by means of
my manuscript. Yes, but suppose that, instead of one manuscript,
there were from one to two thousand manuscripts of the same article,
all written in different hands, with different spelling ; many of the
manuscripts being unreadable in hundreds of places. And suppose
most of those manuscripts were mere fragments, and only one or
two (or not one) contained the entire article I wrote. And suppose
one or two contained the article and much more besides that I never
wrote.
Suppose, further, that the original manuscript which I wrote
could nowhere be found ; and that all the thousand or two thousand
manuscripts of the article now known were copies of copies of copies
and so on to an utterly unknown extent; and that all those copies
were by unknown persons, in places and times unknown. Add to
�i4
NEW TESTAMENT MANUSCRIPTS.
this confusion the additional fact that the manuscripts contradicted
or varied from each other in about 150,000 places, and that no man
or number of men could tell which of them was nearest to or most
remote from the original.
In addition to all this, suppose that no one knew what copy or
copies the printers printed my article from, that they never told any
one, or refused to tell, or were out of the way and could not be
questioned.
Once more, suppose there were a dozen first-rate scholars engaged
in sifting the copies, and that no two of them agreed as to which
was best to follow or the nearest to the original.
And then suppose that no one had ever seen the original, but
merely those copies of copies, etc., and that I would not or could
not speak a word or take a step to clear up the mystery which no
other person knew. And, lastly, suppose it doubtful if I ever did
write the article, or that I, its reputed author, could not be proved
ever to have lived.
With all these difficulties before you, how could you, or any other
person, ever tell how the original article read and how it should be
reproduced ?
The case supposed is almost exactly parallel to the case of the
Bible, or to keep to our present subject, the New Testament. And
the attempt to Revise the book has had the effect of calling public
attention to these fatal facts as it never before was called ; and
further, it has demonstrated to scholars themselves the utter hope
lessness of all attempts to recover the original New Testament, or
of deciding what it was like, whence it came, or what was its value.
Note once more the leading facts. The common English Bible
was revised, patched, or repaired in 1611, the cobblers never having
made it known what materials (manuscripts) they used in the
patching, vamping, caulking, puttying, painting, gilding, or whatever
name you may please to give to their work. This was very dishonest;
but they did worse, they declared on the title-page that they translated
from the original and compared with former translations. The first
statement is a deliberate falsehood, for they knew the manuscripts
they had were not the original—unless, by the way, the Bible,
instead of being an ancient book, turns out to have been first
written a few centuries ago. If that is so, the translators of the
common Bible may have used the originals. But no Christian will
adopt that view.
During 250 years many scholars worked with a will to improve
the common Bible, and in the course of time materials were gathered
up from many quarters; and for generations there was a growing
conviction amongst the learned that something required to be done
to bring the Bible into closer agreement with the “ original,” as they
are pleased to call the manuscripts.
But just here the difficulties begin in earnest, and every step
lands the workers deeper into the bog of uncertainty.
The Greek text of the New Testament first published by Erasmus
and patched and mended by the Stephens of Paris, and called
generally the Textus Receptus, Received Text, etc., was quietly set aside
�NEW TESTAMENT MANUSCRIPTS.
15
as of no authority at all by the men who made the Revised Version
of 1881. Theyssay, in the preface to the New Testament, that all
the Greek Testaments used by the translators of 1611 “were
founded for the most part on manuscripts of late date, few in number,
and used with little critical skill,” This text of the old translators,
they say, “ needed thorough revision.” They add, “A revision of
the Greek text was the necessary foundation of our work ; but it
did not fall within our province to construct a continuous and
Complete Greek text.”
Why not ? They imply that that was really necessary; and
therefore it ought to have been done, and done before going any
further ; for what was wanted was not a translation of some imperfect
and uncertain text, but of the undoubted word of God.
“ Textual Criticism,” say they in their preface, “ as applied to the
Greek New Testament, forms a special study of much intricacy and
difficulty, and EVEN NOW LEAVES ROOM FOR CON
SIDERABLE VARIETY OF OPINION AMONG COM
PETENT CRITICS. Different schools of criticism have been
represented among us, and have together contributed to the final
result.”
Just so. They mean to say, but don’t like to speak plainly, that
the Revisers were often at sixes and sevens, and found it impossible
to settle their disputes but by a majority vote ! Fancy settling
what Homer wrote in the same way ! Fancy settling history by a
vote ! Fancy deciding points in Mathematics in that way ! And
then fancy voting upon the question, Which manuscripts shall we
follow in this or that verse or chapter ?
Yes, the Revisers voted, for that was the only way of settling
their difficulties—the only way. And their vote tells us how God
wrote and what he wrote. This is a clever dodge, mind. And it
is precisely the same dodge resorted to at Rome to find out who it
is the Holy Ghost has decided to make the next Pope. It seems a
bit astonishing that men of any reflection at all should make such a
confession ; but, then, what can they or could they do ? There is
no method of settling the points in dispute ; they cannot possibly be
settled ; and, I suppose voting is as good a way as any of performing
the farce which pretends to solve questions which are in their
nature insoluble. But the Revisers should have been candid enough
to tell the world plainly that their work was nothing but a farce,
a farce of the solemn kind, no doubt, and one mixed up with prayer
and other magic ceremonies; but really a farce of the worst
description.
Let us see where we now are. The Revisers of 1881 had set
aside the Old Greek Text as of no authority; but they put
no authoritative one in its room. So we are now without any
Greek text that has authority. True, Drs. Hort and Westcott
tried to palm off a Greek Testament of their own manufacture
upon their fellow Revisers; and they seem to have succeeded
admirably.
I have said that the Revisers of 1881 set aside the Old Greek
Testament, which the translators of the common Bible called the
�i6
NEW TESTAMENT
MANUSCRIPTS.
“original Greek” in 1611, and substituted for it a Greek text
manufactured by Drs. Westcott and Hort, two of the Revisers.
This conduct would have been quite honest and proper, if the
Revisers had only been so happy as to have discovered a better and
more reliable text; but had they ? It appears that some scholars
as pious as themselves and not less learned, are of opinion that the
Revisers really set aside a good text for a much worse one, as a few
notes and quotations will make clear to the reader.
The Rev. Canon Cook, in The Revised Version Considered, London,
1882, earnestly defends the old Greek against the new. I think he
makes out a good case against the new text, but he leaves us com
pletely in the dark as to the value of the old. He demonstrates
that the new idol of the Revisers is not the right and proper object
of worship; but he fails to establish any claims for the old one.
He prefers the old Greek used by the translators of 1611, but his
preference seems to be more a matter of taste than argument.
Mr. Cook admits that the manuscripts relied upon by the Revisers
are very ancient; but he contends that, “ in the earliest ages the
stupidity and licence of copyists was far greater than at any later
period, the result being that the most ancient manuscripts are
tainted with the most numerous and most serious errors ” (p. 7).
This is extremely encouraging ! If the oldest scribes were such
clumsy copyists or such wilful corrupters, and from them has
descended to us “ the divine word,” as we have it, of what use or
authority can it be ? Manifestly none.
The modern critics cannot be relied on either. Tischendorf, the
greatest of them all, it is said, produced several editions of his
Greek New Testament. After he found the Sinaitic Manuscript,
in 1859, he was so full of its importance that he set to work and
produced a new edition of his Greek Testament, differing in more
than 3,000 places from his previous edition. But, as Mr. Cook says,
the larger portion of these changes have been given up as untenable
by editors who have followed Tischendorf (p. 8).
And so the solemn farce of supplying us with “ God’s word ”
proceeds from folly to folly, each successive editor overturning the
work of his predecessors. What Mr. Cook says of two contending
critics who came to ink and paper blows over the question, is
instructive. He says, “ I cannot but regard Dean Burgon’s argu
ment on one side, and Dr. Hort’s on the other, as remarkable
instances of the use and the misuse of vast learning and of equally
remarkable subtlety” (p. 147).
I think the same remark will apply to all the ablest works on
theology. No learning, no subtlety can settle a single point in it.
And, in truth—I speak from experience and long study—the more
learning is brought to bear upon any theological dogma, the more
hopeless does it become. The modern critics have fallen into the
terrible mistake of trying to prove their doctrines by reason or
rational processes. They forget that, not reason, but the blindest
of blind faith is the only saving virtue, the only way by which a
man can receive the Gospel. Wordly wisdom, that is, enlightened
reason, has nothing to do with it. You must, as when taking a
�NEW .TESTAMENT MANUSCRIPTS.
17
header into the sea, shut your eyes and plunge ! To wait for reason
to lead faith or to confirm faith is to be a Sceptic and to reject the
whole of Christianity as an unreasonable superstition.
I quote next a few important passages from The Revision Revised,
by John William Burgon, B.D., Dean of Chichester. London,
1883.
'
Let the reader remember that our Revisers of 1881 discarded the
old Greek Testament as of no authority. This fact must be
remembered all through. And so must the other, namely, that
Drs. Hort and Westcott manufactured a new Greek Testament and
induced the Revisers to accept that as God’s most holy word. The
Bishop of Gloucester accepts the new text and defends it. Dr.
Scrivener, says Burgon, held that this new text was based on “ the
sandy ground of ingenious conjecture”....... that the work of the
new editors must be received by a sort of intuition or “ dismissed
....... as precarious or even visionary”....... “Dr. Hort’s system
is entirely destitute of historical foundation”....... and of “all
probability.”
So the reader sees where we are—The Revisers repudiate the old
text and cannot induce the best scholars to accept their new one !
The Revisers say, in effect, “ Ladies and Gentlemen, you have
innocently believed that the Bible you are so familiar with is God’s
most holy word, translated from the original. We are sorry to tell
you it is nothing of the kind. The book from which this translation
was made is of no authority whatsoever, we assure you, Ladies and
Gentlemen ! But do not be alarmed. We have found two manu
scripts, the Codex Vaticanus and the Codex Sinaiticus, both
preserved by the mysterious providence of God, which also raised
us up to study and to set them before the world. And by patching
together these two famous manuscripts, with quite a multitude of
others, we have, by divine assistance, produced, or rather, repro
duced, the word of God in as correct and elegant a style as the
resources of scholarship and piety combined can ever hope to produce
it, and as near to the original as the most fastidious piety can
■demand.”
Such, in plain language, is the position taken up by the Revisers.
But, unfortunately, just as they reject the old text, so do other
scholars reject their new one; and the unhappy Christians are left
without any word of God at all; and the wisest of the godly
.scholars can merely grip this or that text in sheer desperation ; for
reason and science declare that not one of them is of any authority
whatsoever.
Burgon says, the Greek text on which the Revisionists spent ten
years “ was a wholly untrustworthy performance ; was full of the
gravest errors from begining to end.” It is “ the most vicious
(text) in existence.” It was also smuggled into the Revisionists’
camp and palmed off upon the members.
The two chief manuscripts used by the fabricators of the new
text differ immensely from the old text. In the Gospels alone, the
Vatican manuscript differs in 7,578 places ; and the Sinaitic in
•8,972 places. This manuscript has been tampered with no less
�NEW TESTAMENT MANUSCRIPTS.
than ten different times between the 6th and 12th centuries(p. 12).
Burgon grows jocular, and declares that if Shakespeare were to
be revised as the Bible has been, Hamlet’s Soliloquy, “ To be, or
not to be,” etc., would read thus >—The Alexandrine Manuscript:—
Toby, or not Toby ; that is the question. The Vatican Manuscript:—
Tob or not, is the question. The Sinaitic Manuscript:—To be a
Tub, or not to be a Tub ; the question is that. Ephrem’s Manu
script :—The question is, to beat, or not to beat Toby ? Beza’s
Manuscript:—The only question is this : to beat that Toby, or to.
be a Tub ” (p. 15).
No doubt exists in the mind of anyone acquainted with Hebrew
or Greek that, if the authors of the Bible could be resurrected, they
would find hundreds of texts quite as ridiculously represented and
as fully muddled as the Shakespeare text just given. Could the'
ancient authors of these holy books be found and consulted, how
astonished would they feel at the marvellous changes made in their
works, and most especially at the meanings now attached to their'
words.
Let the reader reflect, that no two men, born in the same
place, speaking the same language and educated in the same
school, can ever fully understand each other. Two men, all
their lives in diverse conditions, are still less able to comprehendeach other. But let thousands of years intervene between the
writer of a book and his reader, not to mention the fact that
their languages are so different, how can the latter comprehend
the former ? most especially so if it is extremely doubtful what
the author wrote ?
Even if the so-called God’s book had been preserved just
as it was first written, with a full vocabulary of all the words,
and a perfect grammar, even then a perfect understandingwould have been impossible in our day ; and the farther
removed we were from the times and conditions of the authors,
the greater and greater would become the impossibility of
understanding the work—of putting ourselves en rapport with
those who wrote it.
The case of the Bible is immeasurably'worse than that; for we
know not who wrote a line of it; nor what was his motive; nor his
circumstances ; nor his opinions ; nor his moral and social character ;
nor his knowledge of things ; and, worse still, so imperfectly have,
his words descended to us, that the best scholarship can never decide
what he did or did not write.
Burgon proceeds to say that the Sinaitic, the Vatican, and the
Beza manuscripts—those mostly relied upon by the Revisers—arethe “ most scandalously corrupt copies extant :—exhibit the most shamefrilly
mutilated texts which are anywhere to be met with....... the depositories,
of the largest amount of fabricated readings, ancient blunders, and,
intentional perversions of truth,” etc. (p. 6).
He proceeds to criticise the leading editors or manufacturers of
Greek Testaments. Lachmann, who put out a Greek Testament
about 90 years ago, which was based on three or four manuscripts,
�NEW TESTAMENT MANUSCRIPTS.
J.g
only ; Tregelles, who spent his life upon this kind of work, rejected
*
8g out of every go manuscripts, and manufactured his edition of the
“ Word of God ” out of the remainder. Upon Tischendorf, Burgon
is especially severe ; though one can scarcely see why. The fact is,
New Testament Textual Criticism is a game rather than a Science
—an art, certainly it is—the art of thimblerigging, of finding
solutions for insoluble puzzles, of making out a case where there is
none. Taste, prejudice, envy of other critics, love of fame, dogmatism,
narrow-mindedness, perversity, monomania, pet ideas, religious
fervor, callousness, and many other petty principles, prompt and
guide the critic in his work. Never was there a field of inquiry so
well adapted to develop all the crooked elements of one’s nature—
•except the field occupied by the popish priests and especially the
Jesuits. Indeed, all the leading elements of Jesuitry find ample
employment in this department of manufacture—the manufacture
■of different versions and editions of that unspeakable sham, “ God’s
Holy Word.” Common sense, if that were allowed to influence them,
would demonstrate to them the impossibility of a man, who is
dominated by a creed and by pious prejudices, ever coming to
rational and candid conclusions in such an inquiry. Such people
can never deal honestly with the Bible, for blind, stubborn prejudice,
sways them at every step. Their eternal salvation, so they solemnly
believe, depends upon their arriving at certain foregone conclusions.
Those pious “ critics ” deserve no more respect than performing
.animals in a circus. They may be clever and amusing, but their
whole performance is automatic and preordained by their antecedents
and environment.
Here before me lies The History of the Sacred Scriptures of the New
Testament by Eduard (Wilhelm Eugen) Reuss; Edinburgh, 1884;
and what says it respecting the manuscripts ? The following
•quotations will show.
“The original copies of the New Testament books....... do not
appear to have remained in existence long. On account of the poor
quality of the paper, they must soon have become unfit for, use and
finally have been lost, even if they were not destroyed sooner by
violence and neglect. IT IS CERTAIN THAT NO ANCIENT
WRITER MAKES MENTION OF THEM ” (p. 367).
This quotation gives us the whole case. 1. The books were
written on poor paper! Well, then, probably they were to a great
■extent illegible from the beginning ; and hence would arise the con
fusion we find in the Gospels, etc., that have descended to us.
2. But would the Holy Ghost have been such an absolute fool as to
permit his writings or inspirations, intended to remain as a permanent
guide to man, to be written on such flimsy stuff! To suppose so, is
to fling contempt upon the Holy Ghost. 3. Would inspired men
act so idiotically ? Would men who supposed they were writing
divine revelation be likely to put it upon such fragile stuff ?
* It is boasted of Tregelles that he devoted 30 years to examining manuscripts,
•etc., worked himself blind at it. Well, Du Chat spent 40 years on the works of
Rabelais! Tastes differ. Rabelais is less evil, a million-fold, than the Bible.
�20
NEW TESTAMENT MANUSCRIPTS.
5. Would those who first received this divine truth be likely to
permit accident or time to destroy its vehicle, not to mention
destruction by violence ?
The books of the Sibyl, kept so long in ancient Rome, were not
written upon such perishable material. The revelations of Egypt
and Chaldaea were recorded on clay tablets (say, pottery), and on
stone; and are as sound and strong to-day as they were several
thousand years ago. How was it the Holy Ghost or his agents
were so much more careless or foolish than the Pagan writers ?
Uninspired men have always been wiser, if not so cunning as the
fellows inspired by God.
If no ancient writer mentions the original copies of the New
Testament, of what value can it be ? Absolutely none. This state
ment of Reuss (and other Christian critics) is an admission that
Christianity is not historical, that the New Testament is a forgery;
for had the writers been known, those who received the books from
their authors must have named or recorded so interesting and
important a fact. Reflect upon the case. Some eight or nine
authors are alleged to have contributed their quota to the New
Testament, namely, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, Peter, James,
Jude. Is it not a most singular thing that no one of their contem
poraries should have mentioned the interesting fact that they were
inspired, or authorised to write this or that portion of the New
Testament ? Is it not astounding that no one should mention the
fact that he received a given portion of the New Testament from
the author’s own hand ?
I feel sure that this negative evidence, when carefully weighed
by thoughtful people, must prove absolutely fatal to the claims of
the New Testament.
Reuss refers to the well-known tales of finding the autographs of
John at Ephesus in the fourth century ; and in the foundations of
the Temple of Jerusalem, in Julian’s day; of Matthew in the grave of
Barnabas in Cyprus, etc., and stigmatises them as fables. Still,
fables though the tales certainly are, they are instructive,' although
Reuss fails to note that. Those fables show that ancient Christian
authors were puzzled and troubled about the originals and could not
imagine how it was that their predecessors had not mentioned them.
And the fables were invented to fill the painful gap and satisfy the
anxious inquiries of the faithful.
Reuss goes on to discuss the variations in existing manuscripts,
and says, the farther we go back in the history of the text the more
arbitrary do we find the treatment of it by transcribers—that is, in
plain English, the early copiers took great liberties with what they
copied, and the farther we go back the more of such liberties do we
find. Nay, the Apostles themselves, or their amanuenses “ may
have made mistakes” ; and “ the question comes whether the text,
ever existed in complete purity at all, and in what sense” (p. 370).
If one had lighted upon this in very early life, it must have taken
his breath away, considering how confidently his teachers had
assured him that the Word of God was perfect, and that the writerswrote with an unerring hand.
�NEW TESTAMENT MANUSCRIPTS.
21
Reuss says the changes so very early introduced into the text of
the New Testament “were doubtless, for the most part, such aswere designed for its improvement” (p. 371).
Of one thing I am certain, no man who really supposed and
devoutly believed he was reading God’s inspired word could havetried to improve it. Only a doubter or confirmed disbeliever in itsdivine authority could have done that.
If the changes were introduced purposely to improve the booksz
then so long as this continued to be done, the books could not havebeen considered binding, infallible, etc.
If the copyists improved, we ask, To what extent did they do so ?
Did they leave out whole sentences, sections, books ? Did they
invent, borrow, and insert to equal extent ? And how do you know
to what degree the “original” New Testament differed from the
present? Alas for orthodoxy! No means exist for settling that
most essential matter.
Reuss even suggests that some of the readings in the New Testa
ment are due to “freaks of fancy,” although they may be “only
blunders ” (p. 372). Well, when the Holy Ghost is inspiring a
man to write and blunders occur, or “ freaks of fancy ” display
themselves in the writing, whose blunders, etc. are they ? The
Ghost’s or his Clerk’s ? I wish the critics would settle that.
My Christian author proceeds. Alterations, he says, were made
for enrichment; the Gospels were enriched by traditional matter ;
they were also purposely made more like each other, and quotations
from the Old Testament, which had been wrongly quoted, were cor
rected ! Other writers wrote their thoughts or comments in the
margin of their manuscripts, and these were, by-and-bye, copied into
the text. Look at our facsimile on a former page, where kata
markon is seen in the lower margin. That might have been copied
into the text by the next scribe, as many words have been in the
New Testament manuscripts now in existence.
This writer admits that, not the New Testament, but tradition,
decided matters of faith in the early Church ; and therefore the book
was in danger of being altered to suit the tradition. Then he refers
to the frequent mention in early writers of wilful corruptions of the
text for controversial purposes. In this connection he shows up the
unscrupulous characters of the orthodox church fathers, apparently
forgetting that in so doing he damns most effectually the only
witnesses for Christianity. In fact, no Christian critic can traverse
the ground of New Testament history without making statements
altogether fatal to the claims of his superstition. (See pp. 375-6).
I must call attention to the several facsimiles. The manuscripts
are. all written without breaks or points. Reuss says, “ Aside from
the general scarcity of books, reading was rendered difficult for the
unpractised by the total lack of all explanatory pointing. It was
not until the close of the ninth century, after isolated attempts in
earlier times, that copyists generally introduced the breathings and
accents into the copies of the New Testament. A still greater
hindrance to the easy reading of the text was the custom of writing
without breaks between the words. “ This gave occasion foh
�22
NEW TESTAMENT MANUSCRIPTS.
MANY MISUNDERSTANDINGS AND MUCH THEOLOGICAL WRANGLING ”
(P- 386).
It is not every Christian critic who will speak so plainly as Reuss.
To see how awkward it is to read without spaces and stops, take the
same passage which appears in the facsimile 1, this time in English
capitals and without any stops or spaces.
ANDTH EYSAIDAMONGTH EMSELVESWHOSHALL
ROLLUSAWAYTH ESTONEFROMTHEDOOROFTH E
SEPULCHREAN DWH ENTH EYLOOKEDTH EYSAW
THATTH ESTON EWASRO LLEDAWAYFO RITWASV
ERYGREATANDENTERINGINTOTHESEPU LCH RE
TH EYSAWAYOU NGMANSITTINGONTH ERIGHTSI
DECLOTH EDINALONGWHITEGARMENTAN DTHE
YWEREAFFRIGHTE DAN DH ESAITHUNTOTH EMB
ENOTAFFRIGHTEDYES E EK J ESUSOFN AZARETH
WHICHWASCRUCI FI EDH EISRISEN H EISNOTH E
REBEHOLDTHEPLACEWHERETHEYLAIDHIMBU
TGOYOU RWAYTE LLHISDI SCI PLESAN D PETE RT
HATH EGOETH B EFOREYOUINTOGALILEETH ER
ESHALLYESEEHIMASHESAI DU NTOYOUAN DTHE
YWENTOUTQUICKLYAN DFLEDFROMTH ESEPUL
CH REFORTH EYTREM B LEDANDWEREAMAZEDN
EITHERSAIDTHEYANYTHINGTOANYMAN FORTH
EYWEREAFRAID
As the old written letters are not half so well formed as our printed
•ones, it must have been all the harder to read them correctly.
Though the manuscripts, says Reuss, are our best sources of
knowledge of the original New Testament, yet they can never vouch
for the correctness of any reading, because they were all written
after the text was corrupted.
Hear again : “the age of a text is only determined with great
difficulty and little certainty, from a comparison of many manu
scripts,” etc. (p. 387).
In all this Reuss confirms what I have so often said. He also
confirms me in reference to the versions of the Bible, by pointing
out that an ancient version needs to be proved itself before it can
be used as a witness for the text (p. 404).
Reuss openly admits that all attempts to restore the New
Testament text to its original purity have failed, and must ever
fail (p. 445).
That is the plain truth about the matter ; and when the clergy
are honest enough to prefer truth to place and pay they will say
the same.
No doubt the reader is about tired of this subject; but I must say
a little more.
The New Testament is of unknown origin, unknown date,
unknown birthplace, unknown authorship. There is not a single
question about its history, for the alleged first two or three centuries
of its existence, which can be answered. Let us ask a few. Who
wrote the Four Gospels ? History does not say. What authority
�NEW TESTAMENT MANUSCRIPTS.
25
had they ? The writers do not tell us. Were they eye-witnesses ?
Manifestly not, for they never profess to be. Are they known ?
Not at all; only one of the Gospels pretends to be written by any
particular person. When was any one of them written ? No one
knows. In what language ? No one knows. On what material ?
No one can tell.
What Church first possessed a Gospel ? History gives no reply.
When and where did the Gospels first circulate ? We cannot tell..
What language were they (or any one of them) first written m ?
No scholar can answer that question. What became of the original
manuscripts ? No one reports ever seeing one of them.
The probability is that the New Testament is a set of monkish
books or pamphlets, written for edification—that is, to rouse religious
or devotional feelings, not to instruct. The stories in the . New
Testament were probably never regarded as true when first written
they were a sort of parables, allegories, tales, intended to convey
some lesson or to stir devotion. Those who first told or wrote the
tales could never have supposed they were relating sober facts, and
would doubtless be abundantly astonished if they could know how
solemnly scholars brood over their ridiculous tales, and try to make:
biography and history out of them.
The New Testament is no more true than the Mythologicalstories of Greece and Rome ; than the Gesta Romanovum ; than the
lives of the popish saints and martyrs; than the multitudinous
stories of saints and miracles found so plentifully in the Bible itself
and in so-called Church history. When Gulliver's Travels and the.
Arabian Nights have been proved to be history, I, for one, shall be
prepared to accept the New Testament also.
So long as it is a merit to believe the impossible, I suppose the
impossible stories of the New Testament will continue to be
swallowed by people of a gulping disposition. But of one thing we.
may be certain, and that is, reason never swallowed the Arabian.
Nights or the New Testament; and never can.
I will quote a few brief passages from Hug's Introduction to the
New Testament; Andover (U.S.), 1836. This is Professor Moses
Stuart’s edition. The work is a learned one, and rather advanced,
for its date.
Hug says (pp. 68-9), “ These books (New Testament ones), whenonce circulated among the multitude, encountered all the fortunes,
which have befallen other works of antiquity....... Only the original,
writings possessed an authority beyond objection, and we might
hence expect that peculiar care would have been taken to preserve
them to posterity. Yet we have no CERTAIN INFORMA
TION WHERE THEY WERE KEPT, how long they were to
be seen, or by what accident they were lost to the world. For those
passages of the ancients which have been supposed to communicate
information respecting the autographs have in fact a totally different
purport.”....... “We have the most irrefutable proof....... that Tertullian, and not only he, but Clement, Origen, and the fathers of the
Church generally, knew nothing of the existence of the autographs,
in all those works in which they combat the heretics.”
�24
NEW TESTAMENT MANUSCRIPTS.
He goes on to show that the “Fathers” disputed with the heretics
as to how certain texts of the New Testament ought to read. If
they had known where to find the originals, those disputes could
have been settled at once. But they never appealed to the originals ;
and the only inference possible is that the “ Fathers ” never knew
those originals.
In truth, this confession is equal to giving up the whole case for
Christianity. If none of the early writers saw the originals of the
New Testament, or ever referred to them, it is idle to dispute further;
perfectly idle. The book is out of court as a nameless, fatherless
waif, a vagabond who can give no account of himself, except to say,
“ Here I am ; I don’t know what I am ; I don’t know where I came
from ; don’t know any of my family relations ; can’t tell what
country I belong to; and I don’t know anything about my age.”
“ Thus we seek in vain for the original manuscripts at a time
when nothing was known of them. They were lost, without so
much as a hint to us by what means a possession so important to
the Church perished. How shall we explain this singular fact ? ”
(Hug, pp. 67-70).
Hug does not explain it, nor can it be explained, except to the
damage^of Christianity. People do not carelessly lose or destroy
Wills, bcrip, Bills of Sale, Debentures, and other valuable docu
ments. And the original Gospels, etc., according to Church
sentiment, were worth infinitely more than all other documents
whatsoever. Yet they are never mentioned by any Church
writer!
Here is a thought that just this moment strikes me. Relics
were venerated or worshipped very early in the Church. In fact,
we cannot suppose there ever was a time when they were not.
Well, the Church has preserved—so silly fables and impudent lies
assure us—the “holy coat” that Jesus wore; the cross and its
nails; the Veronica napkin, and a crowd of other early relics.
How shall we explain the strange fact that the Church preserved
neither the original books of the New Testament, nor ever pretended
to have them ? How is it that such precious relics were never
counterfeited as most others were ?
There is but one reply, and that is, the New Testament never
became a precious book until the age of counterfeiting or manu
facturing relics had passed its prime, and it was too late to set up
the original manuscripts for worship, too late to manufacture them.
Indeed, until the Reformation the Bible held but a very subordinate
position ; and its monstrous claims since that date were invented
and pushed merely to checkmate Popery. Popery had the Infalli
bility of the Pope, or of the Church, or something, and the Reformers
set up a counter Infallibility in the Bible. Up to that date the
Bible had been little, or no better, or more authoritative, than other
holy fable books, and certainly had never reached the value or
importance of a chip of the cross, or other relics that might be
named.
This reflection, properly worked out, is quite sufficient in itself to
destroy the whole value of the Bible—except as a mere antiquity.
�NEW TESTAMENT MANUSCRIPTS.
25
As an antiquity, its value is assured. As a divine book, it is utterly
beneath contempt.
Here is another instructive selection from Hug’s work :—“ The
fate which has befallen other works of antiquity, befel the New
Testament likewise” (p. 85). The carelessness of copyists pro
duced errors. “ But this is not all; the New Testament has had
the peculiar fate of suffering more by intentional alterations than the
works of profane literature.”
Yet Christians will often proclaim the empty and impudent boast
that the New Testament has far better evidence to connect it with
the Apostles, etc., than any ancient profane book has to show that
it was written by its reputed author. Read again the last quotation
from Hug, who proceeds to say the heretics had no hand in the
wilful alterations. In fact, he shows that the orthodox slandered
Marcion and other heretics by charging upon them corruptions of
the New Testament, which were perpetrated in the orthodox camp
itself! That will not surprise any who understand what modern
Christian malice and lying are constantly doing.
In the first four centuries, says Hug, “ Strange things had
happened in individual manuscripts ” (p. 86). He says Origen
complained much of the wilful corruptions before his day.
I think I need not continue this subject; for I have said enough
in these quotations and notes to destroy all faith in the New
Testament. And when we add the fact that the New Testament
carries its own damnation upon almost every page, the reader will
understand how baseless is the Christian superstition. The New
Testament bristles with fables, superstitions, and impossibilities.
No amount of evidence could ever prove it historical or help towards
that end. The Christians themselves would scout all the fables of
the New Testament as I do, if they found them related in connection
with any other religion than their own.
In conclusion, I may say that never was a greater failure than is
shown in the long-continued attempts to decide what is, what is not,
divine revelation. All such attempts have but demonstrated:
1. that the New Testament (I am dealing only with that just now)
is of unknown origin and date. 2. That it has no authority at all
beyond what blind custom, blind prejudice, tyranny, or a majority
vote imparts to it. .3. That all the scholars in the world are not
able to decide how any text of the New Testament originally ran.
This is literally true. 4. The result of the 300 years’ labor and
expense bestowed by Christians upon this book is to dissipate for
ever all rational claims on its behalf and to explode the entire
authority of the Churches. In one word, it has left us destitute of
all Christian revelation and of all rational grounds for belief in such
a thing.
To the Freethinker this is satisfactory. It blows away a world
of cant, hypocrisy, and clerical impudence and tyranny.
For ages, from Bentley onward, the Christians boasted that,
though the New Testament manuscripts differed from each other in
30,000 (Bentley’s admission) places, or 150,000 (as latertim.es show)
not one doctrine of Christianity was affected by them ! That boast
�‘26
NEW TESTAMENT MANUSCRIPTS.
is the condensed essence of impudence or of ignorance. For the
variations and other facts combined, strip the Churches of the book
'itself upon which they founded all their pretence and all their
doctrine. Textual Criticism has undermined and blown up the
entire fabric of Christianity and left it destitute of any plausible
excuse for continuing to exist, except blind custom and—cash.
If they deny what I say, let them at once inform us on what
authority they receive the life of Jesus and the rest of the incidents
and doctrines of the New Testament. Let them say on what and
whose authority they receive the New Testament itself. And, lastly,
let them tell us what the New Testament is—I mean, whether all
the books now in it ought to be there, whether none other should
be inserted ; and on what manuscripts or other evidence they rely.
Most confidently I deny their ability to meet these demands.
And therefore I assert that Christianity, in itself, is a gross and
irrational superstition. As it is put before the world, it is the worst
imposture that could be conceived.
�APPENDIX.
Finally, in the Athenaum, June 16, I am gratified to find thefullest confirmation of my views, the most complete justification of
the strongest opinions I have expressed above. The reader may
remember that I quoted the work of Rev. H. A. Scrivener, M.A.,„
D.D., etc. That gentleman was confessedly and by common
consent one of the most sober and reliable critics in this department
of learning, not brilliant, but solid and thoughtful. Since his death
(just recently, in fact), there is issued a work of his entitled
Adversaria Critica Sacra, which the Athenceum reviews. In fairnessto all parties I quote all the critic says upon the subject:—
“ These Adversaria Critica Sacra consist of collations of forty-nine
*
MSS. of portions of the New Testament, Six MSS. containing frag
ments of the Septuagint and a record of the variations from the
Textus Receptus of the principal early editions of the New Testament.
A minute and accurate account is given of each MS. It is needless
to say that Dr. Scrivener did his work with the utmost conscientious
ness, and that his labors are of great value, and deserve the heartiest
recognition from all Biblical scholars.
He made no effort to
determine how far his new collations will modify the text of the N ew
Testament, but throughout the book there runs a current of
opposition to the principles laid down by Hort in his Introduction to
the New Testament in the original Greek, edited by him and Bishop ■
Westcott. It begins in a note on p. vi. of the Introduction, in which
Dr. Scrivener states that Dean Burgon
‘ Had been engaged day and night for years in making a complete
index or view of the manuscripts used by the Nicene (and ante-Nicene)
Fathers, by way of showing that they were not identical with those
copied in the Sinaitic and Vatican codices, and inasmuch as they
were older, they must needs be purer and more authentic than these
overvalued uncials.’ ”
In a postscript to the Introduction, Dr. Scrivener says that Dean
Burgon
“ Very earnestly requested me that if I lived to complete the
present work, I would publicly testify that my latest labors had in no
wise modified my previous critical convictions, namely, that the true
text of the New Testament can best and most safely be gathered
from a comprehensive acquaintance with every source of information
yet open to us, whether they be manuscripts of the original text,
Versions, or Fathers, rather than from a partial representation of
three or four authorities, which, though in date the more ancient and
akin in character, cannot be made even tolerably to agree together.”
Dr. Scrivener renews his avowal, and illustrates it by an instance.
The opinion comes out most strongly in the words of Mr. Hoskier,
who collated Evan. 604 for Dr. Scrivener. Dr. Scrivener says:—
“ Mr. Hoskier’s conclusion shall be given in his own words : ‘ I
defy any one after having carefully perused the foregoing lists, and.
�ii.
APPENDIX.
after having noted the almost incomprehensible combinations and
permutation of both the uncial and cursive Manuscripts, to go back
again to the teaching of Dr. Hort with any degree of confidence.
How useless and superfluous to talk of Evan. 604 having a large
western element or of it Siding in many places with the neutral text. The
whole question of families and recensions is thus brought prominently
before the eye, and with space we could largely comment upon the
deeply interesting combinations which thus present themselves to the
critic. But do let us realise that we are in the infancy of this part
of the Science....... and not imagine that we have successfully laid
certain immutable foundation stones, and can safely continue to
build thereon. It is not so; much, if not all, of these foundations
must be demolished....... It has cost me a vast amount of labor and
trouble to prepare this statement of evidence with any degree of
accuracy; but I am sure it is worth while, and I trust that it may
stimulate others to come to our aid, and also help to annul much of
Dr. Hort’s erroneous theories.’ ”
Such is the quotation from the Athenaum. I have stated in the
pamphlet that the translators of the Authorised Version declared
they translated from the “ original ’’—which was a lie. For two
centuries and a half this falsehood has been imposed upon most
English speaking Bible readers. When the Revised Version was
made, the so-called “ original ” of the old translators was set aside
in favor of a Greek text manufactured by Dr. Hort and the present
Bishop of Durham. In the above quotation, the reader will see how
thoroughly Dr. Scrivener, as well as Dr. Burgon, repudiates the
Hort-Westcott Greek text.
But reflect. One set of critics flings up one Greek text another
flings up another !
I must once more solemnly affirm that anything like certainty in
Greek Testament criticism is impossible—except the damning
certainty that it is impossible to discover whence the New Testament
came, or to find the history of any of the manuscripts.
Criticism, even as conducted by Christian critics, has proved
Christianity to be unhistorical and the New Testament of unknown
authorship and date.—Liberator, Melbourne, August 11, 1894.
�SOME WORKS BY G. W. FOOTE
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The New Testament manuscripts, or, Christianity completely undermined
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Edition: 2nd ed.
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Collation: [3], [i]-v, [10]-26, ii p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: "With fac-similes of MSS."--Front cover. Appendix dated "Liberator", Melbourne, August 11, 1894. "Some works by G.W. Foote" listed on unnumbered pages at the end. Includes extracts in Ancient Greek. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Bible
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Bible-Evidences
Bible. N.T.-Criticism
NSS
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Text
P.A. EXTRA SERIES.
NATIONAL
The Hammurabi
a_____ _
-4T1E OLDEST LAWS
IN THE
I
WORLD
By CHILPERlC EDWARDS
HAMMURABI ADORING THE SUN-GOD
WATTS & CO.,
17, JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, LONDON, E.C.
ISSUED FOR THE RATIONALIST PRESS ASSOCIATION, LIMITED
<0 of this Series is “Religious Persecution
by E. S. P. Haynes
�All Liberal- Thinkers who
have- not already
joined
The RATIONALIST PRESS ASSOCIATION, Ltd.,
ARE EARNESTLY INVITED TO DO SO.
The Objects of the R. P. A. are to stimulate the
habits of reflection and inquiry, and the free exercise
of individual intellect; to promote a rational system
of secular education ; to assist in publishing the works
of capable thinkers, and in popularising the great
discoveries of modern science and scholarship ; to re
issue, in cheap form, notable books of a critical,
philosophical, or ethical character; and generally to
assert the supremacy of reason, as the natural and
necessary means to all such knowledge and wisdom as
man can achieve.
Membership of the R. P. A. can be secured by
payment of an annual subscription of not less than 5s.,
renewable in January of each year ; and the publications
are forwarded, as issued, to each Member to the full
value of his current year’s subscription, unless direc
tions to the contrary are given.
Full Particulars of the R. P. A., including the
latest Annual Report and any special information
desired, can be had gratis by applying to the Secretary,
Charles E. Hooper, 5 & 6, Johnson’s Court, Fleet
Street, London, E.C.
�THE OLDEST LAWS IN THE
WORLD
BEING AN ACCOUNT OF
THE HAMMURABI CODE AND THE SINAITIC LEGISLATION
WITH
A COMPLETE TRANSLATION OF THE GREAT BABYLONIAN
INSCRIPTION DISCOVERED AT SUSA
BY
CHILPERIC EDWARDS
AUTHOR OF “THE WITNESS OF ASSYRIA,” ETC.
{Issued for the Rationalist Press Association, Limited)
WATTS & CO.,
JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, LONDON, E.C.
�CONTENTS
CHAP,
PAGE
I. The Discovery
II. The Legal System
III.
Hammurabi Code -
of the
5
-
8
of the
Babylonians
-
-
-
io
IV. The Text of the Inscription
-
-
13
V.
Hammurabi and his Reign
Code
-
-
-
-
33
VI. The Laws of Moses
-
-
-
-
43
Notes
on the
APPENDIX
A. The First Dynasty
B.
of
Babylon
55
Genesis XIV.
C. Relics of Earlier Babylonian Laws
57
-
60
General Index
62
Index
63
to the
Code
�PREFACE
The object of the present work is to provide a complete and careful
translation of the whole of the great Babylonian inscription containing
the Laws of Hammurabi, and to bring together in a brief form all the
known facts connected with the period of Babylonian history to which
it belongs. As, moreover, many persons will be interested in tracing
out the dependence of the Mosaic Laws upon the Babylonian legislation
a chapter has been devoted to that subject. Quite independently,
however, of its service in discounting extravagant claims in regard to
the originality or excellence of the Jewish Pentateuch, the Code of
Hammurabi is destined to be of the utmost value to the student of the
history of civilisation, and the evolution of Semitic Law. It may even
be found eventually that the influence of the Babylonian Code extended
beyond the Semitic boundary, and that it has modified the legal ideas
of distant peoples; but as yet it is too early to verify any such sugges
tion. In any case, however, the age, the extent, and the remarkable
state of preservation of this venerable monument of antiquity combine
to entitle it to the respect and consideration of every thinking being.
Some scholars have claimed that certain of the successors of Ham
murabi bore names which exhibited grammatical forms foreign to the
Semitic-Babylonian tongue; and they have argued that his dynasty must
therefore be of foreign origin. One school is anxious to connect the
line with Northern Arabia, the other with Canaan, and both adduce
linguistic reasons for their choice. Without entering into these pre
carious hypotheses, it may be sufficient to remark that we have no
evidence whatever as to the grammatical peculiarities of the languages
spoken in Arabia or Canaan during the era of Hammurabi—that is to
say, before 2000 b.c. The idioms of Arabic and Hebrew may have
been very different at that early date to what they became in their
classical periods. Furthermore, in most countries proper names exhibit
uncommon or obsolete grammatical forms, for the simple reason that
the names are handed down through several generations, and thus are
really relics of earlier modes of speech; so that the unusual form of
�4
PREFACE
some of the names of Hammurabi’s family may eventually prove to be
of this character, and there will be no excuse for doubting the Babylonian
origin of his race. Leaving such conjectures on one side, however, it
can hardly be disputed that the Laws themselves manifest their specifi
cally Babylonian origin. They contemplate a country with a numerous
settled population, where the art of writing is in common use, where
agriculture is associated with irrigation upon a large scale, and where
ships and navigation play an important part. These points are combined
in no other ancient Semitic land; they can only be referred to Baby
lonia. Mere questions of dynasty are consequently irrelevant. The
legislation is only intelligible as a product of Babylonian soil; and as
Babylonian culture was of ancient date, and was entirely derived from
the still earlier civilisation of the Akkadians, who themselves appear to
have had codes of law (see Appendix C), it seems quite unnecessary to
insist upon the obvious fact that Babylonian jurisprudence is prior to
all other Semitic law or custom of which we have any certain know
ledge.
It will be observed that the ensuing chapters are not besprinkled
with the name of “ Abraham.” The reasons for ignoring this patriarch
are stated in Appendix B.
In regard to the question of chronology, the author has, in Appendix
A, quoted all the evidence that exists for determining the date of Ham
murabi. It will be seen that this evidence does not enable us to fix the
exact year of that monarch; but it is sufficient to indicate the general
period at which he flourished.
C. E.
�THE OLDEST LAWS IN THE WORLD
Chapter I.
THE DISCOVERY OF THE HAMMURABI CODE
Our first introduction to the legal
practice of the ancient Babylonians
was in 1854, when Mr. W. K. Loftus
disinterred a number of clay tablets
from the mound of Tell Sifr, which
covers the remains of some old city
whose name is still unknown. These
tablets were found to be “contracts”—
that is to say, records of business
transactions, effected during the reigns
of three monarchs, Rim-Sin, Hammu
rabi, and Samsu-iluna; but it was many
years before the scholars of Europe
could thoroughly explain these records,
for the cuneiform writing was of a
peculiar type, and the language was
full of unknown technical expressions.
It was not until the Berlin Congress of
Orientalists, in 1882, that Dr. P. Strassmaier gave a really satisfactory ren
dering of them. Meanwhile material
has accumulated. The British Museum
in London, the Louvre at Paris, and
the Museums of Berlin, Constantinople,
and Philadelphia, all contain large col
lections of “ contract tablets,” besides a
great many scattered in private hands.
The efforts of scholars have been chiefly
directed to the elucidation of the his
torical texts, which are not only easier,
but also of more immediate interest;
and the polite literature of the Baby
lonians has also been largely studied
Of late years, however, Babylonian
jurisprudence has been receiving the
attention of a small but enthusiastic
band of workers, among the best known
of whom are the late Dr. Oppert, Dr.
F. E. Peiser, and Dr. Bruno Meissner,
the results of whose labours have been
summarised in an able (though some
what highly coloured) fashion by Pro
fessor G. Maspero in the ninth chapter
of his Dawn of Civilisation (London,
1894).
In the British Museum there are
three or four fragments of tablets from
the library of Assurbanipal, king of
Assyria (668 to 626 b.c.), which
appeared to contain portions of a code
of laws. These fragments had long
been remarked, and had even been
spoken of as the Code of Assurbanipal.
Dr. Meissner, however, who had sub
jected the fragments to considerable
study, was struck by their agreement in
style and language with the remains of
the early Babylonian period; and in
1898 he suggested that the “ Code” to
which these tablets belonged would
probably be found to go back to the
time of the first Babylonian dynasty.
In February, 1899, the celebrated Dr.
Delitzsch, in discussing Meissner’s
�6
THE DISCOVERY OF THE HAMMURABI CODE
remarks,1 wrote as follows:—“That the
collection of laws in question originated
in the period of the first Babylonian
Dynasty is certainly a legitimate as
sumption of Meissner’s. It may further
be conjectured that no other than Ham
murabi himself, the founder of the
Babylonian Empire, gave the command
to unify the laws and ordinances then
current into one Code of Law. Were
the tablets from the library of Assurbanipal complete, they would undoubt
edly be of extreme value for the history
of comparative law.”
This was written in the early part of
1899; and in the course of the article
he called the presumed collection of
Babylonian laws the Code Hammourabi, in allusion to the famous Code
Napoleon, which has had such an
enormous influence upon modern
European Law. Within three years the
conjecture of Dr. Delitzsch was con
verted into a certainty by the discovery
of the complete Code of Laws, with
the original proclamation of King Ham
murabi.
The laurels of this discovery fall to
the French.
In 1897 the French
Government deputed M. J. de Morgan
to open excavations upon the site of
Susa, the ancient city of the Persian
kings, for purposes of historical investi
gation. A day or two before the end
of December, 1901, the workmen came
upon a large fragment of black diorite.
A few days later two other fragments
were unearthed, and the three pieces,
when joined together, were found to
form a round pillar in the shape of an
elongated sugar-loaf, 7ft. 4m. high, 5ft.
4m. in circumference at the top, and
6ft. 2in. at the bottom. The illustra
tion upon the cover shows the upper
part of this pillar, which, it will be seen,
bears a bas-relief 26m. high and 24m.
broad, representing Hammurabi stand
ing in the presence of Shamash, the
Babylonian God of the Sun. The back
and front of the pillar are covered with
columns of writing in what is called the
Archaic Cuneiform character—that is to
say, the ancient Babylonian hierogly
phics executed in wedge-shaped lines.
In the time of Hammurabi this style of
writing was only employed for sculptures
and formal inscriptions. The contract
tablets and the correspondence of the
period wrere written in a simplified style
called the Old Babylonian Cursive, very
similar to the Assyrian Cuneiform
usually met with in printed books. The
clay tablets appear to have been
written and read in horizontal lines,
running from left to right. But the in
scription of Hammurabi is in rows of
short columns, the characters in the
columns being read from top to bottom,
and the columns themselves running
from right to left. In fact, the direction
of the writing is exactly the same as in
Chinese, to which the Archaic Cunei
form bears a certain resemblance. The
hard stone of which the monument is
composed has preserved the original
writing with extreme sharpness, and the
three fragments fit together so closely
that very little is lost by the fractures.
The greatest damage has been done to
the inscription, not by accident, but by
design, for the last five rows of columns
upon the front have been purposely
scraped out. This erasure was not
made because any of the laws were
objected to, but because the monarch
1 “ Zur juristischen Litteratur Babyloniens,”
von Friedrich Delitzsch—Beitrage zur As- who removed the pillar from Babylonia
syriologie, Band iv. (February, 1899), p. 80.
to Susa wished to engrave his own
�THE DISCOVERY OP THE HAMMURABI CODE
name upon it as a trophy of victory.
As that portion of the inscription is now
irretrievably lost, it is a pity that he did
not carry out his design, and thus leave
us a record of the vicissitudes and
wanderings of the monument. We can,
however, form a pretty close guess at
the culprit, for M. de Morgan also
found on the acropolis of Susa no less
than five monuments of Babylonian
kings which had been defaced, and the
name of Shutruk-Nakhunte added upon
them. This individual was king of
Elam about noo b.c. ; and he appears
to have overrun Babylonia and sacked
several important cities. Thus M. de
Morgan had evidently come upon the
museum of Shutruk-Nakhunte, where
that monarch exhibited the trophies he
had brought back from Babylonia in
the shape of the most revered me
morials of the Babylonian sovereigns.
A fragment of another pillar bearing a
few lines of the Code was unearthed
at the same place.
If the Elamite had completed his
design of placing his own name upon
Hammurabi’s pillar, he might have
settled the important question of its
original location. The inscription is
not quite clear upon this point; for
although in the early part of the epi
logue Hammurabi says, “In Bab}Ion
....... in E Saggil........I have written my
precious words upon my pillar; and
before my image as King of Justice I
have placed it ” (xxiv. 63-78), yet at the
end we read of “ the circuit of this
temple of E Babbara ” (xxviii. 76).
Both Sippara and Larsam possessed
temples to the Sun-God, and both
temples bore the name of E Babbara,
“ the House of Light ” (in Semitic, Bit
Uri). The explanation seems to be
that the original Code of Hammurabi
7
was erected at Babylon, in the great
temple of Merodach called E Saggil ;
but copies were placed in other temples,
and this particular pillar, discovered at
Susa, was set up either at Larsam or at
Sippara.
At any rate, after journeying from
Babylon to Susa, the pillar has made a
still longer voyage ; and it now stands
in Paris, as one of the greatest treasures
of the Louvre. The French Govern
ment, recognising the importance of the
find, has had the whole of the text
published in heliogravure, in a mag
nificent volume entitled Textes Elamitiques-Semitiques, par V. Scheil, O.P.
(Paris, 1902), being tome iv. of the
Memoires de la Delegation en Perse.
The eight plates in this volume are so
exquisitely executed as to place scholars
in the same position as if they had the
actual inscription before them. Father
Scheil transcribed the text, and rendered
it into French in the remarkably sh< rt
space of ten months from its discovery.
As already remarked, five rows of
columns are now missing from the baseof the monument; and Father Scheil.
estimates that these contained some
t
thirty-five ordinances. From the re
mains of the Assyrian copies of the
Code in the British Museum, however,,
he has been able to restore three of
these. And it may be of statistical
interest to remark here that the frag
mentary tablets from the Library of
Assurbanipal contain portions of Sec
tions 57, 58, 59, 103, 104, 107, hi,
112, 113, 114, nJ, II9> I2O> 277-280,
according to Father Scheil’s enumera
tion ; and about eighty lines of Ham
murabi’s epilogue.1 The Berlin Museum
1 The latter was only published by the British
Museum authorities at the end of 1901. Proc.
Socy. Bib. Arch., vol. xxiv., p. 304.
�TIIE LEGAL SYSTEM OF THE BABYLONIANS
has two small fragments of the Later these fragments are legible, they agree
Babylonian period (about 550 b.c.), con almost exactly with the text of the
taining portions of Sections 147, 148, Susian pillar.
i52j *3>
5
J54, 159. 171- So far as
Chapter II.
THE LEGAL SYSTEM OF THE BABYLONIANS
In ancient Babylonia the business of
the law was almost exclusively in the
hands of the priesthood, for they in
cluded in their ranks the scribes,
without whom there could be no books
and no records. The halls of justice
were usually at the gates of the temples,
and there the judges, the scribes, and
the “ elders ” assembled. The “ elders ”
appear to have been a permanent body
of officials, for the same names appear
again and again upon tablets of about
the same date; and we may even
recognise a gradual rise, or promotion,
of individuals to higher ranks.1 They
played much the same part as the
“ elders ” of the Old Testament (as,
for instance, Ruth iv. 2, 9), and acted
chiefly as official witnesses to the trans
actions which took place before them.
The judges were appointed by the
sovereign, who exercised a rigid super
vision over them. Their duties were
extremely varied, ranging from the
highest criminal trials to the registration
of business documents. We may see
by the Code that only written deeds
were recognised, and the activity of the
1 Assyrian Deeds and Documents, by the
Rev. C. H. W. Johns, M.A. (Cambridge, 1901),
vol. ii., p. 47, § 76.
courts of registration is evidenced by
the enormous numbers of contract tablets
which are being continually brought to
light. These tablets show the official
hand of the scribe, and are usually
couched in set technical terms. The
nature of the transaction is briefly and
clearly recited; it is stated that the
parties understand the conditions of the
deed, and have taken oath by certain
gods; the deities usually being the
tutelary gods of the land and the city,
accompanied by the name of the reigning
sovereign as their earthly representative
and the supervisor of the law—in some
cases the monarch has even the deter
minative for deity prefixed to his name.
Then follow the names of the elders;
or, as they are usually styled by Assyriologists, the “ witnesses ”; and the docu
ment is completed by the addition of
the date. In later times the year of the
reigning monarch gave the date; but in
the early period, to which Hammurabi
belongs, they dated the contracts by the
most noteworthy incident of the year,
as the building of a temple, an inunda
tion, or a battle. Such a tablet, executed
in clay by one of the attendant scribes,
sometimes further authenticated by seals,
or the thumb-nails of the contracting
�THE LEGAL SYSTEM OF THE RABYLOXIANS
parties, and baked in a small oven for
better preservation, thus became a legal
record, producible in any court as evi
dence of the transaction.
In actions at law the contending
parties presented themselves at the gate
of the temple. We do not know whether
there was any power of arrest. The
Roman Law of the Twelve Tables
directed the plaintiff to summon the
defendant in the open street, and,
if he did not answer the summons, to
convey him before the judge by force :
but whether a private Babylonian could
do the same is not clear. In the royal
correspondence the king often directs
the apprehension of certain persons and
their conveyance under custody; but
apparently there was no organised police
to undertake such a duty, though there
must have been officials to carry out the
sentences of the courts. When the
parties to the action appeared before
the judges, it was usual for them to
bring with them the object in dispute
and lay it before the god, as in the old
Roman legis actio Sacramento.
*
If the
object were not portable, then it was
represented by a part of it—a clod
of earth would represent an estate, or a
brick a house. Oaths were taken, and
witnesses examined, and the judge gave
his decision, which was usually recorded
upon a tablet, and copies delivered to
the disputants. A few such legal
decisions have been discovered, but
hardly sufficient to give us more precise
details of the practice of the Babylonian
courts. Difficult cases were referred to
special functionaries, or presidents, and
the sovereign was always the ultimate
court of appeal. In fact, any citizen
’ Beifragt turn
Brivatnecbt, von Bruno
Meissner (Leipsic, 1S93).
had the privilege of appealing direct to
the king for justice if he considered
himself to have any legitimate grievance;
and from the correspondence of Ham
murabi it would appear that such appeals
were always treated with consideration.
The letters prove Hammurabi to have
been an impartial judge, who tolerated
no corruption in his officials. Ever
vigilant for the efficient administration
of justice in his realm, he immediately
remitted particulars of any complaint to
the viceroy of the district, with direc
tions to investigate the matter on the
spot, and to send the guilty party to
Babylon for chastisement. In one case
we see him supporting the claim of a
merchant against a s&aMana&u, or
governor, for the repayment of a loan,
so that the king was no respecter of
persons where justice was concerned.
It must not be supposed, however, that
Hammurabi was any exception in this
respect. We have evidence that his
example was followed by his successors,
for there is in the British Museum a
letter in which two men have appealed
to his grandson Abi-eshu’, to the effect
that they cannot obtain justice in
Sippara; arid therefore the king has
immediately ordered the trial of their
case at Babylon/ It may be assumed
that the monarch himself tried the
majority of cases brought before him,
and that he took steps to have his judg
ments carried out. In the cases of
parties living at a distance from the
capital, the king’s decisions were com
municated to the governor of the district
in which the disputants dwelt.
There was thus every provision for the
administration of justice in Babylonia,
1 Tbe Letters ami /nstriftions afHamnmraii,
by L. W. King (London, 1900), vol. iii., p.
�IO
HAMMURABI AND HIS REIGN
and adequate and efficient machinery
was provided for this purpose throughout
the Babylonian dominions. The legal
system was of great antiquity, for we
have contracts, etc., dated in the reigns
of the kings of Ur, who preceded Ham
murabi’s dynasty by many centuries;
and a few laws have been preserved
which, as they are written in the Akka
dian language, must be relics of a very
ancient body of legislation (see Appendix
C). Consequently, although the Code
of Hammurabi was probably a great
advance in Babylonian jurisprudence,
yet the laws themselves were not inno
vations, but a digest of previous custom.
Chapter III.
HAMMURABI AND HIS REIGN
Considering the immense amount that
has been written about Hammurabi
during the last thirty years, it is remark
able how little is really known about
him or his reign. The date when he
lived is quite uncertain, the only approxi
mation to it being derived from two
inscriptions of the Babylonian monarch
Nabonidus, who reigned from 555 to
538 b.c. This king rebuilt the Temple
of the Sun at Sippara; and in his
foundation inscription he tells us that
the edifice had previously been rebuilt
by Shagashalti-Buriash, the son of KudurBel, 800 years before ; that is to say,
about 1350 b.c. Another inscription of
Nabonidus informs us that BurnaBuriash, king of Babylon, rebuilt the
great temple of Ur 700 years after
Hammurabi. Burna-Buriash seems to
have been an earlier monarch than
Shagashalti-Buriash ; but there is nothing
to show what distance of time separated
them. Assuming that it was fifty years
(a very moderate estimate), then Ham
murabi will have preceded ShagashaltiBuriash by 750 years, and have flourished
about 2100 b.c. Most Assyriologists,
however, consider this too late by at
least a century; and further particulars
of the chronology of the period will be
found in Appendix A.
Hammurabi was the sixth member of
what is called the “ First Dynasty of
Babylon.” His five predecessors bore
Semitic Babylonian names. His family
had ruled in the city of Babylon over a
hundred years. It should, therefore, be
unnecessary to add that Hammurabi
was undoubtedly a Semitic Babylonian
by race. The events of his reign are
known chiefly from the dates upon his
contract tablets. In those days people
did not habitually date by any era; they
did not even reckon by the years of the
king’s reign. They recorded each year
by the principal event which happened
in it, whether it were an inundation or a
battle, or the building of a temple or
the excavation of a canal. Information
from such sources is naturally limited in
its character. One event per annum
tells us very little about a monarch’s
reign ; and for a long time we were quite
�HAMMURABI AND HIS REIGN
ii
in the dark as to the chronological order
of the few events of which records
existed. In 1891, however, Dr. Budge
deposited in the British Museum a
tablet he had acquired in the East,
giving a list of the names of the years
by which contracts were dated; and
when this tablet was published by Dr.
Pinches in 1898 scholars were at last
able to construct something like a con
nected history of Hammurabi and his
ancestors; although the tablet was
badly damaged and only half legible.
Hammurabi’s father, Sin-muballit,
spent the greater part of his twentyyears reign in peace, building city walls,
digging canals, and decorating temples.
But in his fourteenth year he defeated
the army of the city of Ur; in his
seventeenth year he stormed the city of
Isin; and in his twentieth year he
defeated the army of Larsam. He was
then succeeded by his son, Hammurabi.
We know very little of the first thirty
years of the reign of Hammurabi. His
first task appears to have been to tranquillise his dominions, for his second
year is recorded on the contracts as
being “ the year in which Hammurabi
established the heart of the land in
righteousness.”1 For many subsequent
years we have merely fragmentary records
of canals and buildings, etc.; but in his
thirtieth year he began the series of
campaigns which made him master of
the whole of Babylonia; for up to this
time he had only held the northern half,
and his ancestors had merely been rulers
of the city of Babylon and the sur
rounding districts.
At the accession of Hammurabi
Southern Babylonia formed a separate
State, of which the capital was the city
of Larsam. Some years previously the
district had fallen under the dominion
of an Elamite, Kudur-Mabug, the son
of Simti-silkhak. Kudur-Mabug did
not style himself “ king,” but only
prince of Emutbal and Martu (Emutbal
was a borderland between Babylonia
and Elam, while Martu was a name for
Southern Babylonia). His son and
successor, however, called himself “ RimSin, the exalted shepherd of Nippur,
the preserver of Ur, king of Larsam,
king of Sumir and Akkad,” and he
reigned at least thirty-seven years.1 We
learn from the tablet dates that he
rebuilt the cities of Nippur and Ur,
which had evidently been partially
ruined by war; he regulated part of
the channel of the Euphrates and part
of the channel of the Tigris. He
founded (or rebuilt) the city of Kishurra,
and destroyed Duran-ki (which is men
tioned by Hammurabi in connection
with Sippara). This clearly points to
wars with the king of Babylon, probably
Sin-muballit, in which Rim-Sin was
occasionally successful. One of his
dates reads “ the year when Rim-Sin,
the king, the goddess Nintu in the
temple of the city of Kesh called
Te-an-ki-bi-da 1 the dominion of the
world ’ abundantly and mightily elevated,
and the wicked foe against the land did
not fight.” The nakru limnu or “wicked
foe” appears again to be the king of
Babylon. But the great event of the
reign of Rim-Sin was the destruction of
the city of Isin, which we have already
seen was in the possession of Sin-muballit
in his seventeenth year. We have tablets
dated in “the year when, with the
1 The Letters a nd Inscriptions of Hammurabi,
by L. W. King (London, 1900), vol. iii., p. 230.
1 “Die Datenliste der ersten Dynastie von
Babylon,” von Ernst Lindl—Beitrage zur
Assyriologie, Ear.d iv. (1901), p. 3S2.
�I2
HAMMURABI AND HIS REIGN
powerful aid of Anu Bel and Ea, the
royal city of Isin was captured.” Then
“the year after the capture of Isin”;
and so on up to “ the thirtieth year after
the capture of Isin.” This city was an
important one, and its rulers at one time
reigned over the greater part, if not the
whole, of Babylonia. For thirty years,
therefore, no action of Rim-Sin’s is
recorded except the taking of Isin.
In the thirtieth year of Hammurabi
the king of Babylon defeated an army
of Elamites. The next year the people
of Southern Babylonia dated their con
tracts in “the year of Hammurabi, the
king, in which witn the help of Anu and
Bel he established his good fortune, and
his hand cast to the earth the land of
Emutbal, and Rim-Sin, the king.” Evi
dently Anu and Bel had at last proved
false to Rim-Sin, and had transferred
their assistance to his adversary.
Two other royal names appear in
connection with Larsam at this period.
They are Nur-Ramman [or Nur-Adadi]
and his son, Sin-iddinam. Of the
former we know nothing except that a
contract-tablet records an oath by
“ Nannar and king Nur-Ramman”;
there is nothing to show if he were a
temporary antagonist of Rim-Sin or a
vassal king set up by Hammurabi. Of
Sin-iddinam we had a contract-tablet
dated in the year when the temple of
Eridu was finished and decorated with
gold. Also two inscriptions which
recorded the building of a couple of
temples and the construction of a canal.
But a few years ago the diggers in the
mounds of Senkereh (which now cover
the site of Larsam) came across a large
collection of tablets, that are now pre
served partly at Constantinople and
partly at the British Museum, the latter
collection having been published by Dr.
L. W. King. These tablets proved to
be the actual letters which Sin-iddinam
had received from Hammurabi. Evi
dently, after the overthrow of Rim-Sin,
Hammurabi had set up Sin-iddinam as
a vassal-king in Larsam ; and the corre
spondence indicates the complete subor
dination of the latter. Sin-iddinam’s
territory included Larsam, Ur, and
several other cities; and his official title
is given in one of the documents as
Gal Martu—that is, “ Governor of
Martu.”1 This ought to settle the long
controversy as to the exact locality of
Martu, which is thus proved to be
South-western Babylonia.
After a reign of forty-three years
Hammurabi died, and left his dominions
to his son Samsu-iluna.
Whatever more we may learn of his
history in years to come, his greatest
monument will ever be the Code of
Laws which has been so signally re
covered at Susa. This Code must have
been promulgated late in his career, for
in the introduction to it he refers to
Eridu, Erech, Ur, Larsam, and other
cities that did not fall into his posses
sion until his thirty-first year; and in
two passages of the epilogue he alludes
to his advanced age. The extension of
his territories had evidently forced upon
him the necessity of establishing a
uniform system of law as the surest
method of organising and consolidating
his kingdom; and the next chapter will
give a complete translation of this
remarkable inscription.
1 King, Letters of Hammurabi, vol. iii.,
p. 169.
�THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION
13
Chapter IV.
THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION
When Anu, the supreme, the king of
the Anunnaki, and Bel, the lord of
heaven and earth, who fixes the destiny
of the universe, had allotted the multi
tudes of mankind to Merodach, the
first-born of Ea, the divine master of
Law, they made him great among the
Igigi; they proclaimed his august name
in Babylon, exalted in the lands, they
established for him within it an eternal
kingdom whose foundations, like heaven
and earth, shall endure.
Then Anu and Bel delighted the flesh
of mankind by calling me, the renowned
prince, the god-fearing Hammurabi, to
establish justice in the earth, to destroy
the base and the wicked, and to hold
back the strong from oppressing the
feeble: to shine like the Sun-god upon
the black-headed men, and to illuminate
the land.
Hammurabi, the elect shepherd of
Bel, am I, dispenser of riches and
abundance, completing all things in
Nippur and Duranki, generous provider
of E Kur.
The hero king who has restored
Eridu to its original state, purifier of
the cult of E Absu.
Invader of the Four Quarters, exalter
of the fame of Babylon, rejoicer of the
heart of his lord, Merodach, whom he
daily serves in E Saggil.
The royal offspring created by Sin,
who loads the city of Ur with blessings,
the humble suppliant who brings abun
dance to E Nernugal.
The prudent king, favoured of Sha
mash the powerful, the founder of
Sippara, who has clothed with verdure
the cenotaphs of Malkat; builder of
E Babbar like heaven’s throne.
Avenging warrior of Larsam, restorer
of E Babbar for the glory of Shamash,
his helper.
The prince who has given life to
Erech by bringing abundant waters to
its inhabitants, who has raised the head
of E Anna, who has shaken out abun
dance over Anu and Nana.
The protector of the land, who has
reassembled the dispersed citizens of
Isin, who has made riches to abound in
E Galmakh.
Guardian king of the city, brother of
the god Zamama, who has established
the colony of Kish, who has enveloped
E Meie-ursag with splendour. Decorator
of the great sanctuaries of Nana, sacris
tan of E Kharsagkalama.
The grave of the foe, by whose help
victory is attained, who has enlarged
Kutha, and amplified everything in
E Shidlam.
The impetuous bull that overthrows
the enemy, the darling of Tutu, the
desire of Borsippa ; the august, the
tireless for E Zida.
The divine urban king, the wise, the
prudent, who has expanded the planta
tions of Dilbat, who has accumulated
corn for Ninip, the mighty.
Possessor of sceptre and crown, whom
the wise Mama has created, who has set
out the boundary of Kesh, who lavishes
holy food for Nintu.
�x4
THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION
The far-seeing one, who has carefully
provided pasture and drinking-places for
Shirpurla and Girsu, who has made
rich offerings to E L.
The taker of enemies, the chosen of
Telitim, accomplisher of the oracles of
Khallabi, who rejoices the heart of
Anunit.
The pure prince whose prayers are
heard by Adad, who contents the heart
of Adad the warrior in Karkar, who has
set out the vessels of E Udgalgal.
The king who has given life to Adab,
the prelate of the temple of E Makh.
The royal prince of the city, wrestle
without rival, who has given life to
Mashkanshabri, who has made [the
temple of] Shidlam drink of abundance.
The wise, the active, who has struck
down the bandits, who has sheltered the
people of Malka during troubles, and
has established their habitations in abun
dance. Who has instituted pure offerings
for ever for Ea and Damgalnunna, because
they have exalted his sovereignty.
The royal ruler of the city who has
subjugated the districts on the river
Euphrates, by the power of Dagan, his
creator, who has rewarded the men of
Mera and of Tutul.
The renowned potentate, who has
made the face of Nana to shine, who
has placed pure food before Ninazu, who
fills his people during dearth, and assures
them their goods in peace in the suburbs
of Babylon.
The shepherd of men, the servant
who pleases Anunit, who installed Anunit
in E Ulmash in the suburbs of Agade.
The promulgator of justice, the guider
of the people, who has restored its
tutelary deity to Assur.
The crusher of enemies, who has
glorified the name of Nana [Ishtar] in
Nineveh in E Dupdup.
The exalted one, who humbles him
self before the great gods, the descendant
of Sumula-ilu, the mighty son of Sinmuballit, the eternal scion of royalty,
the powerful king, the sun of Babylon,
beaming light over Sumir and Akkad,
the king who is obeyed in the four
quarters, the darling of Nana am I.
When Merodach had instituted me
governor of men, to conduct and to
direct, Right and Justice I established
in the land, for the good of the people.
r. If a man has laid a curse upon
another man, and it is not justified, the
layer of the curse shall be slain.
2. If a man has thrown a spell upon
another man, and it is not justified, he
who has suffered the spell shall proceed
to the holy river: into the holy river
shall he plunge. If the holy river seize
him, the layer of the spell shall take his
house. If the holy river holds him
guiltless, and he remains unharmed, the
layer of the spell shall be slain. He
that plunged into the holy river shall
take the house of the layer of the spell.
3. If in a lawsuit a man gives damna
tory evidence, and his word that he has
spoken is not justified; then, if the suit
be a capital one, that man shall be slain.
4. If he has given evidence concerning
corn or silver; then, whatever the penalty
of that lawsuit, he shall suffer it.
5. If a judge has heard a case, and
given a decision, and delivered a written
verdict, and if afterwards his case be
disproved, and that judge be convicted
as the cause of the misjudgment; then
shall he pay twelve times the penalty
awarded in that case. In public assembly
he shall be thrown from the seat of
judgment; he shall not return ; and he
shall not sit with the judges upon a case.
6. If a man steal the goods of a god,
�THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION
or a palace, that man shall be slain.
And whoever receives the booty at his
hand shall be slain also.
7. If a man has bought silver, or
gold, or man slave, or woman slave, or
ox, or sheep, or ass, or anything else,
from the hands of a child, or slave of
another man, without elder or contract,
or receives them on deposit, that man
shall be considered a thief: he shall be
slain.
8. If a man has stolen an ox, or a
sheep, or an ass, or a pig, or a boat,
either from a god or a palace, he shall
pay thirty-fold. If he is a plebeian, he
shall render ten-fold. If the thief has
nothing to pay, he shall be slain.
9. If a man has lost anything, and
finds it in the hands of another ; if the
holder says, “ A seller sold it me ; before
the elders I bought it.” And if the
claimant says, “ I can produce witnesses
who will recognise my property.” Then
the purchaser shall bring the vendor who
gave it him, and the elders before whom
he bought it; and the claimant the wit
nesses recognising his lost property.
The judge shall weigh their evidence.
The elders before whom the purchase
was made, and the witnesses recognising
the property, shall affirm before God
what they know. The seller shall be
held for a thief, and slain : the claimant
shall receive back his lost property ; and
the purchaser shall receive back the
money he paid from the house of the
seller.
10. If the purchaser has not produced
the seller from whom he received it, and
the elders before whom he bought it;
but the claimant has brought witnesses
recognising the property; then the pur
chaser shall be held for a thief, and
slain; and the owner shall take his lost
property.
11. If the claimant has not brought
his witnesses recognising the property,
he has acted in bad faith, he has calum
niated ; he shall be slain.
12. If the seller has gone to his fate,
then from his house the purchaser shall
claim five-fold as the penalty in the
case.
13. If that man has not the elders at
hand, the judge shall give him a time,
up to six months. If in six months his
witnesses do not appear, he has acted in
bad faith; the penalty of that case he
shall bear.
14. If a man has stolen a man’s son
under age, he shall be slain.
15. If a man has brought a male or
female slave of the palace, or the male
or female slave of a plebeian, to pass
out of the gate, he shall be slain.
16. If a man has harboured in his
house a fugitive male or female slave of
the palace, or of a plebeian; and has
not brought them to the order of the
commandant, that householder shall be
slain.
17. If a man has seized in the field a
fugitive slave, male or female, and has
brought him back to his lord, the owner
of the slave shall pay him two shekels of
silver.
18. If that slave will not name his
owner, to the palace he shall be brought,
his past shall be investigated, to his lord
he shall be delivered.
19. If that slave be hidden in his
house, and be arrested in his hands, that
man shall be slain.
20. If a slave has escaped from the
hand of his captor, the latter shall swear
by the name of God to the owner of the
slave, and shall be guiltless.
21. If a man has broken into a house,
before the breach shall he be slain, and
there buried.
�i6
THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION
22. If a man has perpetrated brigan his house, and works them for three
dage, and has been caught, that man years ; if he returns and desires to till
shall be slain.
his field, his garden, and his house, they
23. If the brigand has not been taken, shall not be given him. He that has
the man plundered shall claim before taken and worked them shall continue
God what he has lost; and the city and to use them.
sheriff in whose land and boundary the
31. If one year only he had neglected
theft has taken place shall restore to them, and he returns ; field, garden, and
him all that he has lost.
house shall be restored to him, and he
24. If a life, the city and sheriff shall shall work them.
pay one mina of silver to his people.
32. If a captain or a soldier has been
25. If a fire break out in a man’s taken prisoner on “ the way of the king,”
house, and another man has gone to and a merchant ransoms him, and brings
extinguish it, and has lifted his eyes him back to his city; then, if his house
upon the goods of the householder, and contain sufficient for his ransom, he
has taken the goods of the householder; personally shall pay for his liberation.
that man shall be thrown into the same If his house do not contain sufficient,
the temple of his city shall pay. If the
fire.
26. If a captain or a soldier has been temple of his city have not the means,
ordered upon “ the way of the king,” the palace shall ransom him. His field,
and has not gone, but has hired a sub his garden, and his house shall not be
|
stitute, that captain or soldier shall be given for his ransom.
33. If a prefect or a general permits
f
slain. The substitute shall take his
evasion of service, and accepts a hired
I
house.
27. If a captain or a soldier has been mercenary to go on “ the way of the king,” I
1
taken in a “ misfortune of the king,” that prefect or general shall be slain.
34. If a prefect or a general has taken I f
and his field and garden have been
given to another to administer; when he away the property of a captain, has i g.
returns and regains his city, he shall injured a captain, has given a captain II &
receive back his field and garden and for hire, has abandoned the captain to a I
superior in a lawsuit, or taken away from 11
shall administer them.
28. If a captain or a soldier has been the captain a gift of the king, that prefect I
I
taken in a “ misfortune of the king,” or general shall be slain.
35. If any man purchase cattle or g iq
and his son can work them; field and
garden shall be given him, and the affairs sheep that the king has given to a captain, I
he shall lose his money.
i
of his father he shall administer.
36. Neither field, nor garden, nor Iron'
29. If his son be under age, and
unable to administer his father’s affairs ; house of a captain, or soldier, or vassal I fsgaj
I
then a third part of the field and garden shall be sold separately for silver.
37. If a man has bought the field,
shall be given to his mother, and his
garden, or house of a captain, a soldier, j wjjg
mother shall bring him up.
30. If a captain or a soldier has or a vassal, his contract-tablet shall be pd 7
neglected his field, his garden, and his broken, his money shall be forfeited,
house, instead of working them; and and the field, garden, or house shall be
another takes his field, his garden, and returned to the owner.
�THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION
38. A captain, a soldier, or a vassal
may not assign his field, or garden, or
house to his wife or his daughter; neither
can they be assigned for debt.
39. He may bequeath in writing to
his wife or daughter a field, a garden, or
a house that he may have bought, and
may assign it for debt.
40. But he may sell his field, his
garden, or his house to a merchant or
another official; and the purchaser may
work the field, garden, or house that he
has bought.
41. If a man has enclosed the field,
garden, or house of a captain, soldier, or
vassal, and has provided the stakes; if
the captain, soldier, or vassal returns into
the field, garden, or house, he shall pay
for the stakes that have been provided.
42. If a man take a field to farm, and
grows no corn on the field, he shall be
accused of neglecting to work the field;
and he shall give to the lord of the field
an amount of corn according to the
yield of the district.
43. If he has not cultivated the field,
but has let it lie fallow, he shall give
corn like its neighbour to the lord of
the field. And the field that lay fallow
he shall hoe and sow, and to the lord of
the field restore it.
44. If a man lease unreclaimed land
for three years for cultivation, but has
been lazy and has not worked the field;
in the fourth year he shall break up the
field, hoe it, and sow it, and to the lord
of the field restore it. And he shall
measure out to him ten gur of corn for
each ten gan.
45. If a man has let his field to a
cultivator for a rental, and has received
the rental; and if afterwards the god
Adad \i.e., a thunderstorm] has flooded
the field and destroyed the harvest, the
loss is to the cultivator.
*7
46. If he has not received the rental
of his field, or has let it for one-half or
one-third of the crop; then the cultivator
and the lord of the field shall take their
proportions of the corn that is left in the
field.
47. If the cultivator, because he had
made no profit in the preceding year,
has sub-let the field for tillage, the lord
of the field cannot condemn the culti
vator. His field has been tilled, and at
the harvest he shall take corn according
to his contract.
48. If a man is liable for interest,
and the god Adad has flooded his field,
or the harvest has been destroyed, or
the corn has not grown through lack of
water; then in that year he shall not
pay corn to his creditor. He shall dip
his tablet in water, and the interest of
that year he shall not pay.
49. If a man has received silver from
a trader, and has given to the trader a
cornfield or sesame field, saying “Plant
the field with corn or sesame; take and
reap whatever there is,” then, when the
cultivator has grown corn or sesame on
the field, the lord of the field shall take
corn or sesame, whatever is upon the
field at the harvest; and shall give to
the trader corn for the silver he has
received from the trader, and for its
interest; and sustenance for the culti
vator.
50. If an already planted field, or a
field already planted with sesame, has
been given; the lord of the field shall
take the corn or sesame which is in the
field, and he shall render silver and
interest to the trader.
51. If he has not silver to pay back,
he shall give to the trader sesame accord
ing to the value of the silver he has
received, with its interest, at the royal
tariff.
c
�i8
THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION
52. If the cultivator has not grown
corn or sesame in the field, his contract
shall not be annulled.
53. If a man has been too lazy to
strengthen his dyke, and has not
strengthened the dyke, and a breach
has opened in the dyke, and the ground
has been flooded with water; the man
in whose dyke the breach has opened
shall reimburse the corn he has destroyed.
54. If he has not corn to reimburse,
he and his goods shall be sold for silver,
and it shall be divided among those
whose corn has been destroyed.
55. If a man has opened his irrigation
ditch, and, through negligence, his
neighbour’s field is flooded with water,
he shall measure back corn according to
the yield of the district.
56. If a man has opened the waters,
and flooded the planted field of his
neighbour, he shall measure back ten
gur of corn for each ten gan.
If a shepherd has put his sheep
to grass without an understanding with
the lord of the field; and, unknown to
the lord of the field, it has been grazed
by the sheep; then the lord shall reap
his field, and the shepherd who has
grazed his sheep unknown to the lord of
the field shall pay to the latter in addi
tion twenty gur of corn for every ten
gan.
58. If, after the sheep have left the
pasture, and been folded by the gate, a
shepherd allows his sheep to remain in
the field and graze; then that shepherd
shall take that field which has been
grazed, and at the harvest he shall
measure sixty gur of corn for each ten
gan to the lord of the field.
59. If a man, unknown to the lord of
the orchard, has cut down a tree in
another man’s orchard, he shall pay half
a mina of silver.
60. If a man has leased a field to a
gardener to be converted into a garden,
and the gardener has planted it; for
four years he shall attend to it; in the
fifth year the lord of the orchard and
the gardener shall share equally. The
lord of the orchard shall choose his
share and take it.
61. If the gardener has not planted
all the field, but leaves a waste, the waste
shall be put in his portion.
62. If the field entrusted to him has
not been planted as a garden, but is
cornland; the gardener shall measure
back to the lord of the field the produce
of the field according to the yield of the
vicinity during the years he has neglected
it. And he shall prepare the field and
return it to the lord.
63. If it be waste land, he shall pre
pare it, and restore it to the lord of the
field, and he shall measure ten gur of
corn per ten^zz/z for each year.
64. If a man has leased an orchard
to a gardener to cultivate it; the gardener,
as long as he holds it, shall give twothirds of the produce to the lord of the
orchard, one-third he shall keep himself.
65. If the gardener has not cultivated
the orchard, and the crop has diminished;
the gardener shall measure out according
to the yield of the vicinity.
[Five rows of cuneiform columns have
here been erased. It is estimated that
some thirty-five sections have thus been
obliterated. The British Museum, how
ever, possesses two fragments of clay
tablets brought from the library of the
Assyrian king Assurbanipal (reigned
668-626 B.c.) at Nineveh, which are
the remains of copies of the Code.
From these tablets the following three
sections have been restored :—
a. If a man has received silver from
�THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION
a trader, and has pledged his date-garden
to him, saying, “ The dates in my garden
take for thy silver,” and the trader has
not consented; then the lord of the
garden shall gather the dates which are
in the garden : the silver and its interest
according to the tenour of his tablet he
shall pay to the trader; and the remainder
of the dates which are found in the
garden shall be taken by the lord of the
garden.
b. If a tenant has paid to the landlord
his full rent for a year, and the landlord
orders the tenant to go out before the
days are completed, then because the
tenant has not completed his days, and
has left the house, the landlord shall
return the silver which the tenant has
paid him.
c. If a man owes corn or silver, but
has neither corn nor silver to pay with,
then shall he produce before the elders
whatever property he has in his hands :
to the trader he shall give it. The trader
must accept it, and must not refuse.]
ioo.......... interest for the silver, as
much as he has received, he shall write
down; they shall reckon his days, and
he shall pay to his trader.
101. If in the place where he has
gone he has found no opportunity, the
retailer shall give back in equal amount
to the trader.
102. If a trader has lent silver to a
retailer for an undertaking, and where
he has gone he has suffered loss, he
shall return the capital sum to the
trader.
103. If the enemy has taken from
him whatever he carries upon the road,
the retailer shall swear by the name of
God, and shall be absolved.
104. If a trader has entrusted corn,
wool, oil, or any other goods to a retailer
to trade with, the retailer shall write
t-9
down the price and give it to the trader.
Thus shall the retailer take back the
seal of the silver which shall be given to
the trader.
105. If the retailer is negligent, and
the seal of the silver has not been given
to the trader, the silver that is not sealed
shall not be carried to account.
106. If a retailer has received silver
from a trader, and disputes with the
trader; then the trader shall call the
retailer before God and the elders,
regarding the silver received; and the
retailer shall restore three-fold the silver
he has received.
107. If a trader has wronged a retailer,
and the retailer has repaid to the trader
all that the trader gave him, and the
trader contests what has been given to
him; then that retailer shall call the
trader before God and the elders; and
because the trader has contested with
his retailer, he shall pay to the retailer
six-fold of all that he has received.
108. If a (female) wine-seller has not
accepted corn as the price of drink, but
silver by the grand weight has accepted,
and the price of drink is below the
price of corn; then that wine-seller
shall be prosecuted, and thrown into the
water.
109. If rebels meet in the house of a
wine-seller and she does not seize them
and take them to the palace, that wine
seller shall be slain.
no. If a priestess who has not
remained in the sacred building shall
open a wine-shop, or enter a wine-shop
for drink, that woman shall be burned.
hi. If a wine-seller has given sixty
qa of usakani for refreshment, at the
harvest she shall receive fifty qa of corn.
112. If a man goes on a journey and
gives to another man silver, gold, gems,
or portable goods, that they may be
�20
THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION
carried home, and that man has not
carried and delivered all that was given
him to carry, but has kept them; then
the owner shall prosecute that man for
all the things carried, but not delivered,
and that man shall pay five-fold to the
owner for all that was given him.
113. If a man has a claim for corn or
silver upon another man, and without
the knowledge of the owner has taken
corn from the granary or store; that
man, because he has taken corn from
the granary or store without the know
ledge of the owner, shall be prosecuted.
The corn he has taken shall be returned,
and all that he should have received he
shall lose.
114. If a man has no claim upon
another man for corn or silver, but
levies distraint upon him, for each dis
traint he shall pay one-third of a mina
of silver.
115. If a man has a claim upon
another man for corn or silver, and takes
distraint, if the distrained go to his fate
in the house of the distrainer [by a
natural death], then that case has no
further claim.
116. If the distrained die in the
house of the distrainer through blows
or ill-treatment, the distrainer shall call
his trader to account. If he be free
born, his son shall be slain; if a slave,
he shall pay a third of a mina of silver;
and all that he should have received he
shall lose.
117. If a man has contracted a debt,
and has given his wife, his son, his
daughter for silver or for labour, three
years they shall serve in the house of
their purchaser or bondsmaster; in the
fourth year they shall regain their original
condition.
118. If he has assigned a male or
female slave for labour, and the trader
sends them out, and sells them for silver,
there is no claim.
119. If a man has contracted a debt,
and has sold for silver a slave who has
borne him children; the lord of the
slave shall pay back the silver the trader
has given him, and the slave shall be
free.
120. If a man has stored his corn in
the house of another man, and the store
has been damaged, or the householder
has opened the granary taking corn, or
he disputes the quantity of the corn
heaped up, then the owner of the corn
shall pursue his corn before God, and
the householder who has taken the corn
shall replace it and give it to the owner.
121. If a man has stored corn in the
house of another man, he shall pay five
qa of corn per gur per annum for ware
housing.
122. If a man desires to deposit with
another man silver, gold, or anything
else, he shall exhibit all before the elders,
draw up a contract, and then make the
deposit.
123. If he has given on deposit with
out elders or contract, and where he has
given they contest it, there is no claim.
124. If a man has deposited silver or
gold or anything else with another man
before the elders, and if that man denies
it, he shall prosecute him, and all that
he contests he shall replace and restore
double.
125. If a man has given his goods
on deposit, and in the place of deposit,
either by breaking in or by climbing
over, anything has been lost, together
with property of the householder; then
the householder in question shall make
good all that was deposited with him
and lost, and shall restore it to the
owner. The householder shall pursue his
stolen goods and recover from the thief.
�THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION
126. If a man has not lost everything,
but says everything of his is lost, exag
gerating what is lacking; then, as he
has not lost everything, his lack he shall
bring before God. All that he sub
stantiates shall be made up; what he
lacks shall be restored.
127. If a man has pointed the finger
against a priestess or the wife of another
man unjustifiably, that man shall be
thrown before the judge, and his brow
shall be branded.
128. If a man take a wife, and a
contract has not concluded, then that
woman is no wife.
129. If the wife of a man is found
lying with another male, they shall be
bound and thrown into the water; unless
the husband lets his wife live, and the
king lets his servant live.
130. If a man has forced the wife of
another man, who has not known the
male, and who still resides in the house
of her father, and has lain within her
breasts, and he is found, that man shall
be slain; that woman is guiltless.
131. If a man’s wife is accused by
her husband, but has not been found
lying with another male, she shall swear
by the name of God and return into her
house.
132. If the finger is pointed against a
man’s wife because of another male, and
she has not been found lying with
another male; then she shall plunge for
her husband into the holy river.
133. If a man has been taken prisoner,
and there is food in his house, and his
wife forsakes his house, and enters the
house of another; then because that
woman has not preserved her body, but
has entered another house, then that
woman shall be prosecuted, and shall be
thrown into the water.
134. If a man has been taken prisoner,
21
and there is no food in his house, and
his wife enters the house of another;
then that woman bears no blame.
135. If a man has been taken prisoner,
and there is no food before her, and his
wife has entered the house of another,
and bears children, and afterwards her
husband returns and regains his city;
then that woman shall return to her
spouse. The children shall follow their
father.
136. If a man has abandoned his
city, and absconded, and after that his
wife has entered the house of another;
if that man comes back and claims his
wife; because he had fled and deserted
his city, the wife of the deserter shall
not return to her husband.
137. If a man has set his face to
divorce a concubine who has borne him
children, or a wife who has presented
him with children; then he shall give
back to that woman her dowry, and he
shall give her the usufruct of field,
garden, and property, and she shall
bring up her children. After she has
brought up her children, she shall take
a son’s portion of all that is given to
her children, and she may marry the
husband of her heart.
138. If a man divorce his spouse who
has not borne him children, he shall give
to her all the silver of the bride-price,
and restore to her the dowry which she
brought from the house of her father;
and so he shall divorce her.
139. If there were no bride-price, he
shall give her one mina of silver for the
divorce.
140. If he be a plebeian, he shall
give her one-third of a mina of silver.
141. If a man’s wife, dwelling in a
man’s house, has set her face to leave,
has been guilty of dissipation, has
wasted her house, and has neglected her
�22
THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION
husband; then she shall be prosecuted.
If her husband says “she is divorced,” he
shall let her go her way; he shall give
her nothing for divorce. If her husband
says “she is not divorced,” her husband
may espouse another woman, and that
woman shall remain a slave in the house
of her husband.
142. If a woman hate her husband,
and say “ Thou shalt not possess me,”
the reason for her dislike shall be
inquired into. If she is careful, and
has no fault, but her husband takes
himself away and neglects her; then
that woman is not to blame. She shall
take her dowry and go back to her
father's house.
143. If she has not been careful, but
runs out, wastes her house and neglects
her husband; then that woman shall be
thrown into the water.
144. If a man has married a wife, and
that wife has given to her husband a
female slave who has children; then if
that man has set his face to marry a
concubine, he shall not be permitted;
he shall not marry a concubine.
145. If a man has married a wife and
she has not presented him with children,
and he has set his face to marry a con
cubine ; if that man marries a concubine
and brings her into his house, then that
concubine shall not rank with the wife.
146. If a man has married a wife, and
she has given to her husband a female
slave, who bears children; and after
wards that slave ranks herself with her
mistress, because she has borne children,
her mistress shall not sell her for silver.
She shall be fettered, and counted
among the slaves.
147. If she has not borne children,
her mistress shall sell her for silver.
148. If a man has married a wife,
and sickness has seized her, and he has
set his face to marry another; he may
marry; but his wife whom the sickness
has seized he shall not divorce. She
shall dwell in the house he has built,
and he shall support her while she lives.
149. If that woman is not content to
dwell in the house of her husband, he
shall return to her the dowry she brought
from her father’s house, and she shall go.
150. If a man has given to his wife
field, garden, house, or goods, and has
given her a sealed tablet; then after her
husband [has gone to his fate] her chil
dren have no claim. The mother can
give what she leaves behind to the chil
dren she prefers. To brothers she shall
not give.
151. If a woman who dwells in a
man’s house has bound her husband
not to assign her to a creditor, and has
received a tablet; then if that man had
a debt upon him before he married that
woman, his creditor may not seize his
wife. And if that woman had incurred
debt before she entered the man’s house,
her creditor may not seize her husband.
152. If, after that woman has entered
the man’s house, they incur debt, both
of them must satisfy the trader.
153. If a man’s wife, because of
another male, has killed her husband,
that woman shall be impaled upon a
stake.
154. If a man has known his daughter,
that man shall be banished from his
city.
155. If a man has betrothed a bride
to his son, and his son has known
her; and afterwards he has lain in her
breasts, and he is found; that man shall
be bound and thrown into the water.
156. If a man has betrothed a bride
to his son, and his son has not known
her, and he has lain in her breasts, he
shall pay half a mina of silver; and all
�THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION
that she brought from her father’s house
shall be returned to her, and she may
marry the husband of her heart.
157. If a man after his father has lain
in the breasts of his mother, both of
them shall be burned.
158. If a man after his father is dis
covered in the breasts of his lady, who
has borne children, that man shall be
cut off from his father’s house.
159. If a man has brought goods into
the house of his father-in-law, and has
given the bride-price, and has looked
upon another woman, and has said
to his father-in-law, “ Thy daughter
I will not marry”; then the father of
the girl shall retain all that has been
brought.
160. If a man has brought goods into
the house of the father-in-law, and has
given the bride-price, and the father of
the girl says, “ I will not give thee my
daughter”; he shall equal all that has
been brought him and repay it.
161. If a man has brought goods into
the house of his father-in-law, and has
given the bride-price, and his friend has
slandered him, and the father-in-law has
said to the husband of the wife, “ My
daughter thou shalt not marry ”; he shall
equal all that has been brought him and
repay it; and his wife shall not marry
his friend.
162. If a man has married a wife,
and she has borne children, and that
woman has gone to her fate; then her
father has no claim upon her dowry.
The dowry is her children’s.
163. If a man has married a wife,
and she has presented no children to
him, and that woman has gone to her
fate; if the bride-price which that man
brought to the house of his father in
law has been returned to him by his
father-in-law, then the husband has no
23
claim upon that woman’s dowry. The
dowry is to her father’s house.
164. If his father-in-law has not re
turned the bride-price in her dowry;
then he shall deduct all her bride-pr^e,
and shall give back her dowry to her
father’s house.
165. If a man has made a gift of
field, or garden, or house, to his son,
the first in his eyes, and has sealed him
a tablet; then, after the father has gone
to his fate, when the brothers divide he
shall retain the father’s present which
he has given him over and above the
equal part that he shares in the posses
sions of his paternal house.
166. If a man has married wives to
the children he has had, but has not
married a wife to an infant son; then
after the father has gone to his fate,
when the brethren share the possessions
of the paternal house, they shall give
silver for a bride-price to their infant
brother who has not married a wife,
besides his share; and he shall be
married to a wife.
167. If a man has married a wife, and
she has borne him children, and that
woman has gone to her fate; and after
her he has married another woman who
bears him children; then, after the
father has gone to his fate, the children
shall not share according to the mothers;
but they shall take the dowries of their
own mothers. The possessions of their
paternal house they shall share equally.
168. If a man has set his face to
disown his son, and has said to the
judge, “I disown my son,” then the
judge shall look into his reasons. If the
son has not borne a heavy crime which
would justify his being disowned from
filiation, then the father shall not disown
his son from filiation.
169. If he has borne against his
�24
THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION
father a heavy crime justifying his being leave the house, the judge shall look
disowned from filiation, then for his into the reasons ; and if the children be
first offence he shall turn aside his face. in fault, that woman shall not leave her
If he bear a heavy crime the second husband’s house.
time, the father shall disown his son
172Z. If that woman has set her face
from filiation.
to depart, she shall surrender to her
170. If a man whose spouse has
children the settlement which her hus
borne him children, and whose female band made her. She shall retain the
slave has borne him children, and the dowry from her father’s house, and she
father in his lifetime has said to the may marry the husband of her heart.
children of the female slave “ my
173. If that woman where she has
children,” and has counted them with gone bears children to her later husband,
the children of his spouse, and after and afterwards the woman dies; her
that the father has gone to his fate; former and her latter children shall
then the children of the spouse and the share her dowry.
children of the female slave shall share
174. If she bears no children to her
the possessions of the paternal house later husband, the children of her former
equally. The sons that are children of consort take her dowry.
the wife shall choose and allot in the
175. If either a palace slave, or the
division.
slave of a plebeian, marry the daughter
171a. And if the father in his lifetime of a free man, and she bears children;
has not said to the children whom the the owner of the slave has no claim for
female slave has borne him “ my chil service upon the children of the free
dren,” and afterwards the father has man’s daughter.
gone to his fate; the children of the
176a. And if a palace slave or slave
female slave shall not share with the of a plebeian marry the daughter of a
children of the spouse; but the slave free man, and when she marries she
and her children shall be emancipated, enters the house of the palace slave or
and the children of the spouse shall the plebeian’s slave with a dowry from
have no claim for service upon the chil the house of her father; and when they
dren of the slave.
are settled and have founded a house
171Z'. The spouse shall take her they have acquired property, and after
dowry, and the settlement which her wards the palace slave or the slave of
husband made her and wrote in a tablet the plebeian has gone to his fate; then
for her, and she shall dwell in the the daughter of the free man shall take
domicile of her husband. While she her dowry; and all that her husband
lives she shall enjoy it; she may not and herself have acquired since they
sell it for silver, but after her it is her settled shall be divided into two parts;
children’s.
the owner of the slave shall take half,
172a. If her husband has not made and the free man’s daughter shall take
her a settlement, her dowry shall be half for her children.
returned to her, and she shall receive a
176A If the free man’s daughter had
portion of the possessions of her no dowry; all that her husband and
husband’s house equal to that of a son. herself have acquired since they settled
If her children annoy her, to make her shall be divided into two parts: the
�THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION
owner of the slave shall take half, and
the free man’s daughter shall take half
for her children.
177. If a widow who has infant
children has set her face to enter a
second house, she shall not enter with
out [consent] of the judge. When she
would enter the second house the
judge shall inquire into the residue of
her former husband’s house. The house
of her former husband and that woman
shall be entrusted to the house of her
later husband, and a tablet shall be
delivered to them. They shall maintain
the house and bring up the infants.
They may sell nothing for silver. The
purchaser who buys any vessel belonging
to the widow’s children shall lose his
silver, and the property shall return to
its owner.
178. If a priestess, or a devotee, her
father has given her a dowry, and has
written a tablet; but has not written in
the tablet that what she leaves behind
her she may give as she sees good, and
has not allowed the fulness of her heart;
and afterwards the father has gone to
his fate; then her brothers shall take
her field or her garden, and according
to the value of her share they shall give
her corn, oil, and wool, and her heart
shall be satisfied. If her brothers have
not given her corn, oil, and wool
according to the value of her share, and
her heart is not satisfied, then her field
or her garden shall be entrusted to the
cultivator whom she sees good, and her
cultivator shall sustain her. While she
lives she shall enjoy field and garden
and everything which her father has
given her; but she may not sell for
silver nor alienate to another. Her
filiation is to her brothers.
179. If a priestess or devotee her
father has given her a dowry, and has
25
written a deed, and has written in the
tablet that what she leaves behind her
she may give as she sees good, and has
allowed the fulness of her heart; then after
her father has gone to his fate she may
give what she leaves behind to whom
she sees good. Her brothers have no
claim.
180. If the father has not given a,
dowry to his daughter who is a Kallati
or a devotee ; then after the father has
gone to his fate, she shall take out of
the possessions of the paternal house
the portion of one son. She shall enjoy
it during her life.
What she leaves
behind is to her brothers.
181. If the father has consecrated a
Qadishtu or a virgin to God, and has
not given her a dowry; after the father
has gone to his fate she shall take out
of the possessions of the paternal house
one-third of the portion of a son. She
shall enjoy it during her life. What
she leaves behind is to her brothers.
182. If the father has not given a
dowry to his daughter, a “ wife of Merodach of Babylon,” and not written a
deed ; then after the father has gone to
his fate she shall take out of the
possessions of the paternal house onethird of the portion of a son with her
brothers. She shall not have the man
agement. The “ wife of Merodach ”
may give what she leaves behind to
whom she sees good.
183. If the father has provided a
dowry for his daughter by a concubine,
has found her a husband, and written
her a deed; then after the father has
gone to his fate she shall not share in
the possessions of the paternal house.
184. If the father has not provided a
dowry for his daughter by a concubine,
and has not found her a husband; then
after the father has gone to his fate her
�26
THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION
brothers shall provide her a dowry
according to the wealth of the paternal
house, and find her a husband.
185. If a man has taken an infant to
adopt into his own name, and brought
him up; that adopted son may not be
reclaimed.
186. If a man has adopted an infant,
and when he has taken him he injures
his father and his mother; then that
adopted son shall return to his father’s
house.
187. The son of a Nersega, a guard
of the palace, or the son of a devotee
may not be reclaimed.
188. If a son of the people has taken
a child to adoption, and has taught him
his handicraft, he may not be reclaimed.
189. If he has not taught him his
handicraft, that adopted son shall return
to his father’s house.
190. If a man has adopted an infant
as a son, and brought him up, but has
not reckoned him with his children;
then that adopted son shall return to
his father’s house.
191. If a man has adopted an infant
as a son, and brought him up, and has
founded a household, and afterwards
has had children, and if he has set his
face to disown the adopted son; then
that child shall not go his way. His
foster-father shall give him out of his
possessions one-third of the portion of
a son, and then he shall go. Of field,
or garden, or house, he shall not give
him.
192. If the son of a Nersega, or the
son of a devotee, to his foster-father or
his foster-mother, has said, “ Thou art
not my father,” or “ Thou art not my
mother ” ; his tongue shall be cut out.
193. If the son of a Nersega, or the
son of a devotee, has come to know his
father’s house, and he despises his foster
father and his foster-mother, and goes
to the house of his father; his eyes
shall be torn out.
194. If a man has given his child to
a nurse, and the child dies in the hand
of the nurse, and the nurse without the
knowledge of his father and his mother
substitutes another child; she shall be
prosecuted, and because she has sub
stituted another child without the know
ledge of his father and his mother, her
breasts shall be cut off.
195. If a son has struck his father,
his hands shall be cut off.
196. If a man has destroyed the eye
of a free man, his own eye shall be
destroyed.
197. If he has broken the bone of a
free man, his bone shall be broken.
198. If he has destroyed the eye of a
plebeian, or broken a bone of a plebeian,
he shall pay one mina of silver.
199. If he has destroyed the eye of a
man’s slave, or broken a bone of a man’s
slave, he shall pay half his value.
200. If a man has knocked out the
teeth of a man of the same rank, his
own teeth shall be knocked out.
201. If he has knocked out the teeth
of a plebeian, he shall pay one-third of
a mina of silver.
202. If a man strike the body of a
man who is great above him, he shall
receive sixty lashes with a cowhide whip
in the assembly.
203. If a man strike the body of the
son of a free man of like condition, he
shall pay one mina of silver.
204. If a plebeian strike the body of
a plebeian, he shall pay ten shekels of
silver.
205. If a man’s slave strike the body
of the son of a free man, his ear shall
be cut off.
206. If a man has struck another
�THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION
man in a dispute and wounded him,
that man shall swear, “ I did not strike
him knowingly ”; and he shall pay for
the doctor.
207. If he die of his blows, he shall
swear likewise ; and if it be the son of
a free man, he shall pay half a mina of
silver.
208. If he be the son of a plebeian,
he shall pay a third of a mina of silver.
209. If a man strike the daughter
of a free man, and cause her foetus to
fall •, he shall pay ten shekels of silver
for her foetus.
210. If that woman die, his daughter
shall be slain.
211. If he has caused the daughter
of a plebeian to let her foetus fall
through blows, he shall pay five shekels
of silver.
212. If that woman die, he shall pay
half a mina of silver.
213. If he has struck the slave of a
man, and made her foetus fall; he shall
pay two shekels of silver.
214. If that slave die, he shall pay
a third of a mina of silver.
215. If a doctor has treated a man
with a metal knife for a severe wound,
and has cured the man, or has opened
a man’s tumour with a metal knife, and
cured a man’s eye; then he shall receive
ten shekels of silver.
216. If the son of a plebeian, he
shall receive five shekels of silver.
217. If a man’s slave, the owner of
the slave shall give two shekels of silver
to the doctor.
218. If a doctor has treated a man
with a metal knife for a severe wound,
and has caused the man to die, or has
opened a man’s tumour with a metal
knife, and destroyed the man’s eye; his
hands shall be cut off.
219. If a doctor has treated the slave
27
of a plebeian with a metal knife for a
severe wound, and caused him to die ;
he shall render slave for slave.
220. If he has opened his tumour
with a metal knife, and destroyed his
eye, he shall pay half his price in
silver.
221. If a doctor has healed a man’s
broken bone or has restored diseased
flesh, the patient shall give the doctor
five shekels of silver.
222. If he be the son of a plebeian,
he shall give three shekels of silver.
223. If a man’s slave, the owner of
the slave shall give two shekels of silver
to the doctor.
224. If a doctor of oxen or asses has
treated either ox or ass for a severe
wound, and cured it, the owner of the
ox or ass shall give to the doctor onesixth of a shekel of silver for his fee.
225. If he has treated an ox or an
ass for a severe wound, and caused it to
die, he shall give the quarter of its
price to the owner of the ox or the ass.
226. If a brander, unknown to the
owner of a slave, has branded him with
the mark of an inalienable slave, the
hands of that brander shall be cut off-.
227. If a man deceive a brander into
branding with the mark of an inalien
able slave, that man shall be slain and
buried in his own house. The brander
shall swear “ I did not brand him with
knowledge,” and he shall be guiltless.
228. If a builder has built a house for
a man, and completed it, he shall give
him for his pay two shekels of silver for
each sar [of surface] of the house.
229. If a builder has built a house
for a man, and his work is not strong,
and if the house he has built falls in and
kills the householder, that builder shall
be slain.
230. If the child of the householder
�28
THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION
be killed, the child of that builder shall
be slain.
231. If the slave of the householder
be killed, he shall give slave for slave to
the householder.
232> If goods have been destroyed,
he shall replace all that has been des
troyed ; and because the house that he
built was not made strong, and it has
fallen in, he shall restore the fallen
house out of his own personal property.
233- If a builder has built a house for
a man, and his work is not done pro
perly, and a wall shifts; then that builder
shall make that wall good with his own
silver.
234. If a boat-builder has built a
sixty-ton boat for a man, he shall give
him two shekels of silver for his pay.
235- If a boat-builder has built a boat
for a man and his work is not firm, and
in that same year that boat is disabled
in use ; then the boat-builder shall over
haul that boat, and strengthen it with
his own material, and he shall return
the strengthened boat to the boat
owner.
236. If a man has given his boat on
hire to a boatman, and the boatman is
careless, and the boat is sunk and lost;
then the boatman shall replace the boat
to the boat-owner.
237- If a man has hired boatman and
boat, and laden her with corn, wool, oil,
dates, or any other kind of freight, and
if that boatman is careless and sinks the
boat, and her cargo is lost; then the
boatman shall replace the boat he has
sunk and all her cargo that he has lost.
238. If a boatman has sunk a man’s
boat, and refloated her, he shall give
silver to half her value.
239- If a man hire a boatman, he
shall give him six gur of corn per
annum.
240. If a makhirtu boat has run into
a mukkielbitu boat and sunk her, the
owner of the sunken boat shall pursue
all that was lost in his boat before God.
The makhirtu shall replace to the
mukkielbitu boat that was sunk his
boat and all that was lost in her.
241. If a man distrain an ox, he
shall pay a third of a mina of silver.
242. If a man hires for a year, the
fee for a draught ox is four gur of corn.
243. The fee for a milch-cow is three
gur of corn given to the owner.
244. If a man has hired an ox or an
ass, and a lion has killed it in the open
country, then it is to the owner.
245. If a man has hired an ox, and
by neglect or by blows has caused its
death, he shall replace ox by ox to the
owner of the ox.
246. If a man has hired an ox and
broken its foot or cut the nape of its
neck, he shall replace ox by ox to the
owner of the ox.
247. If a man has hired an ox, and
has knocked out its eye, he shall give
silver to the owner of the ox for half
its value.
248. If a man has hired an ox, and
has broken off its horn, or cut off its
tail, or damaged its muzzle, he shall give
silver for a quarter of its value.
249. If a man has hired an ox, and
God has struck it, and it has died; then
the man who hired the ox shall swear by
the name of God, and shall be guiltless.
250. If a mad bull has rushed upon a
man, and gored him, and killed him;
that case has no remedy.
251. If a man’s ox is known to be
addicted to goring, and he has not
blunted his horns, nor fastened up his
ox; then if his ox has gored a free
man and killed him, he shall give half
a mina of silver.
�THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION
252. If it be a man’s slave, he shall
give a third of a mina of silver.
253. If a man has let his field to
another man to dwell upon its face, and
has given him seed corn and entrusted
him with draught oxen, and has con
tracted with him to cultivate the field;
and if that man has stolen seed or
plants, and they are found in his hands,
his hands shall be cut off,
254. If he has received the seed, but
worn out the oxen, he shall replace by
hoed corn.
255. If he has given the man’s
draught oxen on hire, or stolen the
seed-corn and not grown it in the
field, that man shall be prosecuted, and
he shall measure out sixty gur of corn
for every ten gan,
256. If his prefect will not advance
the compensation, he shall be placed
with the cattle in the field.
257. If a man hire a field-labourer,
he shall give him eight gur of corn per
annum,
258. If a man hire a herdsman, he
shall give him six gur of corn per
annum,
259. If a man has stolen a water
wheel from the estate, he shall give five
shekels of silver to the owner of the
wheel.
260. If he has stolen an irrigating
bucket or a harrow, he shall pay three
shekels of silver.
261. If a man hire a pasturer for
cattle and sheep, he shall give him
eight gur of corn per annum.
262. If a man either ox or sheep.......
[defaced].
263. If he has lost ox or sheep that
has been entrusted to him, he shall
replace ox by ox, sheep by sheep, to
the owner.
264. If a herdsman who has had
29
cattle or sheep given him to pasture,
and has been paid his wages as agreed,
and his heart is satisfied; and if the
cattle he has made to diminish, or the
sheep he has made to diminish, and has
made the progeny to decline; then he
shall give progeny and number accord
ing to his agreement.
265. If a herdsman to whom cattle
and sheep have been given to pasture
has lied, and has altered the bargain,
and sold for silver; then he shall be
prosecuted. He shall restore cattle or
sheep to their owner tenfold what he has
stolen.
266. If a stroke of God has occurred
in a fold, or a lion has slain, then the
herdsman shall clear himself before God,
and the owner of the fold shall meet the
disaster to the fold.
267. If the herdsman is in fault, and
has been the occasion of the loss in the
fold; then the herdsman shall restore
the cattle and sheep which he has caused
to be lost in the fold, and shall give
them back to the owner.
268. If a man has hired an ox for
threshing, twenty qa of corn is its hire.
269. If an ass has been hired for
threshing, ten qa of corn is its hire.
270. If a young animal has been
hired for threshing, one qa of corn is
its hire.
271. If a man hire cattle, wagon, and
driver, he shall give 180 qa of corn per
diem.
272. If a man has hired a wagon by
itself, he shall give forty qa of corn per
diem.
273. If a man hire a workman, then
from the beginning of the year until the
fifth month he shall give six grains of
silver per diem. From the sixth month
until the end of the year he shall give
five grains of silver per diem.
�3»
THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION
274. If a man hire a son of the
people,
(«) Pay of a.......
five grains of silver,
(^) Pay of a potter five grains of silver,
0 Pay of a tailor five grains of silver,
(d) Pay of a mason ... grains of silver,
(e) Pay of a.......
............... of silver,
(/) Pay of a.......
............... of.. silver,
(g) Pay of a carpenter
four grains of silver,
(^) Pay of a rope
maker
four grains of silver,
(?) Pay of a..................grains of silver,
(7) Pay of a builder ... grains of silver,
he shall give per diem.
275« If a man hire a....... , her hire is
three grains of silver per diem.
276. If a man hire a makhirtu, he
shall give two and a-half grains of silver
per diem for her hire.
277. If a man hire a sixty-ton boat,
he shall give a sixth part of a shekel of
silver per diem for her hire.
278. If a man has bought a slave
male or female, and before his month
has expired the bennu sickness has
fallen upon him ; then he shall return
him to the vendor, and the buyer shall
receive back the purchase-money.
279. If a man has bought a slave,
male or female, and there is a claim
then the vendor shall answer the claim.
280. If a man has bought another
man s slave, male or female, in a foreign
land, and when he has come into the
midst of the country the master of the
slave recognises his male or female
slave; then, if they are children of the
land, they shall receive their freedom
without price.
281. If they are children of another
land, the purchaser shall take oath before
God as to the silver he has paid; and
the owner of the slave, male or female,
shall give to the trader silver that he has
paid; and shall recover his male or his
female slave.
282. If a slave shall say to his master,
“Thou art not my master,” he shall be
prosecuted as a slave, and his owner
shall cut off his ear.
The judgments of justice which Ham
murabi, the mighty king, has estab
lished, conferring upon the land a sure
guidance and a gracious rule.
Hammurabi, the protecting king, am
I. I have not withdrawn myself from
the blackheaded race that Bel has en
trusted to me, and over whom Merodach
has made me shepherd. I have not
reposed myself upon my side; but I
have given them places of peace.
Difficult points have I made smooth,
and radiance have I shed abroad.
With the mighty weapon that Zamama
and Ishtar have lent me; with the
penetration with which Ea has en
dowed me; with the valour that Mero
dach has given me, I have rooted out all
enemies above and below; and the
depths have I subjugated. The flesh
of the land I have made rejoice : the
resident people I have made secure; I
have not suffered them to be afraid. It
is I that the great gods have elected to
be the Shepherd of Salvation, whose
sceptre is just.
I throw my good
shadow over my city. Upon my bosom
I cherish the men of the lands of Sumir
and Akkad. By my protecting genius,
their brethren in peace are guided : by
my wisdom are they sheltered. That
the strong may not oppress the weak;
that the orphan and the widow may be
counselled ; in Babylon, the city whose
head has been lifted up by Anu and
Bel; in E Saggil, the temple whose
foundations are as solid as heaven and
earth : to proclaim the law of the land :
to guide the procedure of the land :
�THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION
and to sustain the feeble; I have
written my precious words upon my
pillar, and before my image as King of
Justice I have placed it.
I am the monarch who towers above
the kings of the cities. My words are
well weighed; my valour has no equal.
By command of Shamash, the great
judge of heaven and earth, my justice
shall glisten in the land. By direction
of Merodach, my lord, my monument
shall never see destruction.
In E
Saggil that I love, my name shall ever
be spoken. The oppressed, who has a
lawsuit, shall come before my image as
king of justice. He shall read the
writing on my pillar, he shall perceive
my precious words. The word of my
pillar shall explain to him his cause,
and he shall find his right. His heart
shall be glad [and he shall say] “ The
Lord Hammurabi has risen up as a true
father to his people; the will of Mero
dach, his god, he has made to be
fearedj he has achieved victory for
Merodach above and below. He has
rejoiced the heart of Merodach, his
lord; and gladdened the flesh of his
people for ever. And the land he has
placed in order.” Reading the mandates,
he shall pray before my lord Merodach
and my lady Zarpanit with a full heart;
and the guardian spirits, the deities, who
reside in E Saggil within E Saggil, shall
daily intercede before Merodach my
lord, and Zarpanit my lady.
In after days, and for all time, the
king who is in the land shall observe
the words of justice which are written
upon my pillar. He shall not alter the
law of the land which I have formulated,
or the statutes of the country that I
have enacted: nor shall he damage my
sculptures. If that man has wisdom,
and strives to keep his land in order, he
3i
will heed the words which are written
upofi my pillar. The canon, the rule,
the law of the country which I have
formulated, the statutes of the country
that I have enacted, this pillar shall
show to him. The black-headed people
he shall govern; their laws he shall
pronounce, their statutes he shall decide.
He shall root out of the land the per
verse and the wicked; and the flesh of
his people he shall delight.
Hammurabi, the king of justice, am
I, to whom Shamash has granted recti
tude, My words are well weighed : my
deeds have no equal, above and below
I am the whirlwind that scours the
depth and the height. If that man
heeds my words that I have engraved
upon my pillar, departs not from my
laws, alters not my words, changes not my
sculptures, then may Shamash make the
sceptre of that man to endure as long as
I, the king of justice, and to lead his
people with justice.
But if that man heeds not my words
that I have written upon my pillar; if
he has scorned my malediction, nor
feared the curse of God; if he has
annulled the law that I have given, or
altered my words, or changed my
sculptures, or erased my name in order
to write his own. Or if, from fear of
these curses, he has commissioned
another; then that man, whether he be
king, or lord, or feudatory, or citizen,
whatever his title, may the great Anu,
the father of the gods, who has decreed
my reign, may he extinguish the splen
dour of his royalty, may he shatter his
sceptre, may he curse his end.
May the lord Bel, who fixes fate,
whose word is inalterable, and who has
magnified my royalty ; may he allot him
a rebellion which his hand cannot quell:
the breath of his ruin may he breathe
�32
THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION
upon his throne: years of sighing:
fewness of days: years of famine:
darkness without light: and a death
with open eyes. May his deep mouth
decree him the overthrow of his city,
the dispersion of his people, the removal
of his royalty, and the annihilation of
his name and memory in the land.
May Beltis, the great mother, whose
word is great in E Kur, the lady who
gives ear to my desires in the place of
justice and statutes before Bel; may she
make his cause bad before Bel; may
she put in the mouth of Bel, the king,
to devastate his land, to annihilate his
people, and to pour out his soul like
water.
May Ea, the great prince, whose
decisions take first place, the divine
thinker, the omniscient, who has length
ened the days of my life ; may he take
understanding and prudence from him ;
may he plunge him in forgetfulness,
obstruct his rivers at their sources, and,
prevent the growth of corn,1 the life of
men, in his land.
May Shamash, the great judge of
heaven and earth, who maintains all
living creatures, the lord who gives con
fidence ; may he cut short his kingship,
misjudge his law, obstruct his path,
arrest the march of his troops, give
him unpropitious visions of the uproot
ing of the foundation of his rule, and
the ruin of his land. May the decree of
Shamash hasten after him; may he lack
life on earth; may he lack water among
the spirits under the earth.
May Sin, the lord of the heavens, my
divine creator, whose crescent shines
among the gods ; may he take from him
diadem and throne of royalty; may he
lay heavy sin upon him, with a penalty
which shall never depart out of his
body; may he complete the days of the
months, the months of the years of his
reign in sighs and tears; may the cares
of government be multiplied to him :
may he destine him a life which is a
struggle with death.
May Adad, the lord of fertility, the
prince of the heavens and the earth, my
helper; may he take away from him the
rains of heaven, and dry up the outflow
of springs; may he waste his territory
with want and famine; may he thunder
his anger against his city ; may he turn
his dominions into ruins by tempests.
May Zamama, the great warrior, the
eldest son of E Kur, who marches at my
right hand upon the field of battle; may
he break his weapons ; may he convert
his day into night, and cause his foe to
triumph over him.
May Ishtar, the mistress of battles
and combats, who wields my weapons,
my guardian angel, who loves my reign ;
may she in her passionate heart, in her
deep anger curse his royalty, turning her
favours into evils; may she shatter his
weapons upon the field of battles and
combats; may she bring tumult and
rebellion upon him ; may she overthrow
his warriors, soaking the earth with their
blood; may she strew the corpses of
his armies in heaps over the plain,
giving them no quarter; may he be
delivered into the hand of his foes, a
prisoner in the enemy’s land.
May Nergal, the mighty among the
gods, whose onslaught none can with
stand, who has granted me victory; with
his mighty force may he burn up his
people like a wisp of rushes; with his
powerful weapons may he lop off his
limbs, and shatter him like an image of
clay.
1 Literally “ Ashnan,” the deity who presided
May Nintu, the sublime lady of tie
over the growth of corn.
�NOTES ON THE CODE
lands, my creative mother; may she
deny him offspring, and leave him no
name, and create no seed of mankind in
the habitations of his people.
May Nin-Karrak, the daughter of
Anu, the herald of my mercy in E Kur;
may she let loose in his members a
violent sickness, a noisome pestilence, a
fearsome wound which cannot be cured,
whose nature no doctor can tell, that
cannot be assuaged by bandage, which
—like the bite of death—cannot be
33
avoided, until she conquer his life;
and over the loss of his vigour he shall
groan.
May the great gods of heaven and
earth, the Anunnaki in their assembly,
the circuit of this temple of E Babbara;
may they all curse him with deadly
curses, his seed, his land, his officers,
his people, and his soldiers.
May Bel, whose word is irrevocable,
may he curse him with a mighty curse,
which shall immediately take effect.
Chapter V.
NOTES ON THE CODE
In order to avoid breaking up the text
of the inscription with notes, all remarks
upon it are relegated to this chapter;
and, as it may be useful to compare the
Babylonian Laws with another Code
that is undoubtedly independent of
them, occasional references are made to
the early Roman legislation called the
Laws of the Twelve Tables. It is true
that the XII. Tabula, were not formu
lated until 450 b.c. ; but, as geographical
and historical considerations render nu
gatory all suggestions of Babylonian
influence, there can be no doubt of
their entire independence. The Rome
of the Decemvirs was in a more bar
barous stage than the Babylon of Ham
murabi ; hence the laws were in many
cases more crude; but we may at least
recognise that very similar problems
confronted the jurists of Italy and of
Babylonia.
First of all, perhaps, attention should
be directed to the bas-relief upon the
top of the pillar. This represents Ham
murabi adoring Shamash, the Sun-god.
We know it is Shamash by the Cultus
tablet of Sippara, dedicated by Nabupaliddina about 870 b.c., which bears
the same figure.1 We know the king is
in the attitude of adoration from the
same sculpture, and from the innumer
able seal-cylinders with similar subjects..
Several commentators have said that
Hammurabi’s pillar represents the king
as receiving his laws from Shamash;
but such statements are in direct conflict
with the inscription, which consistently
claims that the laws were originated by
Hammurabi himself.
The epilogue
commences with the words, Dinat misharim ska Hammurabi sharrum lium
1 Babylonian Religion and Mythology, by
L. W. King (London, 1899), p. 19.
D
�34
NOTES ON THE CODE
ukinnuma—“The judgments of justice
which Hammurabi, the mighty king, has
established” {verso xxiv. 1-5). Later
on it makes Hammurabi speak of the
law of the land which he has formu
lated, and the statutes of the country
that he has enacted (xxv. 64-83), and
it is impossible to make him claim the
authorship of the Code in stronger
slanguage. It is true that he refers
^several times to the god Shamash, “ the
/great judge of heaven and earth,” as the
■ source and the supporter of law and
justice ; but that is quite another thing
• to claiming that the Code was dictated
by the Sun-god.
Shamash is represented upon the basrelief seated upon a throne, with his
feet resting upon the rows of cones
which, in Babylonian art, represent
rocks or mountains; and one of the
names of the Sun-god was II Shadde, or
“god of mountains,” which has been
compared with the Hebrew El Shaddai.
The deity is draped in the usual
flounced dress : from his shoulders rise
wavy lines—intended to symbolise rays
of light; and on his head he wears a
lofty four-horned tiara. In his right
hand he holds an object that looks like
the cheek of a snaffle-bit, but which is
best explained as a ring and a stylus.
The ring symbolises the circle of the
year; the stylus is the implement of the
recording judge; because, as in most
mythologies, the sun is the god of
justice. The consort of Shamash was
Malkat, “ princess ”; and his two sons
were Kettu, “ Law,” and Mesharu,
“Justice.” The Sun-god was a favour
ite subject upon the ancient Baby
lonian seal-cylinders, where he is often
represented as rising up from the
Mountains of the East, while the
attendant genii throw open the doors of
the Dawn before him.1 On a remark
able cylinder illustrated by Dr. Delitzsch2
we have Shamash seated, with all his
attributes, upon a curious boat whose
two ends taper off into human forms;
this boat being the craft which takes the
god across the waters of the under
world during the night in order that he
may rise from the eastern horizon in the
morning.
Underneath the bas-relief the inscrip
tion commences with the words Ninu
Anu £irum, “ When Anu the supreme ”;
and, in accordance with Babylonian
custom, these three words became in
later times the title, or heading, of the
whole code;3 for, as we have already
remarked, the Code of Hammurabi was
the authoritative law-book of Baby
lonia down to the latest period, and it
existed in the cuneiform libraries as a
series of fifteen clay tablets bearing the
above title. The second word is simply
written with the cuneiform sign An,
which stands indifferently for the name
of the god “Anu,” and the word ilu,
“god.” As, however, the sign frequently
figures alone upon the contracts of the
period as the name of Anu, we are
justified in accepting it as bearing this
reading in the inscription. Moreover,
the next phrase contains the special
title of Anu, “ King of the Anunnaki ”
(or spirits of the heavens), so that it is
immaterial whether we render “ When
the supreme God, the king of the
Anunnaki,” or “ When Anu, the
supreme, the king of the Anunnaki ”;
for the phrases would be of identical
mythological import.
The Igigi were the heavenly gods.
1 King, Babylonian Religion, p. 32.
2 Babel and Bible, translated by C. H. W.
Johns, M.A. (London, 1903), p. 74, fig. 49.
3 Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., vol. xxiv., p. 304.
�NOTES ON THE CODE
35
The black-headed men* were the
**
inhabitants of Babylonia, the phrase
going back to Akkadian times.
In the list of places which follows we
have put the names of the cities in
small capital letters, for more easy
reference. Each city is accompanied
with the title of its chief temple, which
we have put in italic type. The temple
may also be recognised by the prefix E,
an old Akkadian word meaning “ house ”
^Semitic Babylonian bit., the Hebrew
beth\
Thus E Kur is “ the
house of the land”; E Absu 11 the
house of the abyss,” etc.
In Sippara the chief temple was E
Babbar, “ the house of light,” dedicated
to Shamash. His consort Malkat (in
Bkkadian A a) was the Persephone of
the Babylonian pantheon, and it appears
that her grave was shown in the temple
covered with green turf, for she repre
sented Nature in her winter sleep, from
which! she is revived by the summer
sun. Consequently, her symbol in the
great temple of Sippara was the “ ver
dant cenotaph ” restored by the pious
bare of Hammurabi.
The city of Isin had been destroyed
by Rim-Sin, and lay in ruins for thirty
years, until Hammurabi made himself
piaster of southern Babylonia and re
fettled the city with its old inhabitants.
®fergal, the god of the dead, was the
tutelary deity of Kutha, which, accordingly, was the centre of an enormous
pemetery. Therefore, Hammurabi ap
propriately styles himself “ the grave of
the foe ” when he refers to this city and
its temple.
The chief temple of Shirpurla1 was
Benoted by the two characters E and 50.
It is the usual practice of Assyriologists
to transcribe the Babylonian numerals
by the Roman, to which they bear great
analogy. Thus E L would be the
“ house of the Fifty,” or the “house of
the god Fifty ”—i.e., Bel.
Khallabi was the Semitic name of
an important city of Southern Babylonia
called Zariunu in Akkadian. It stood
in the vicinity of Sippara. The British
Museum has a tablet of Rim-Sin record
ing the erection of a temple to the
goddess of this city, and also another
tablet recording that Hammurabi rebuilt
the same temple.1 Evidently the edifice
was commenced by the one and finished
by the other.
It is interesting to note the name of
Nineveh at the end of the list, for this
is the first known mention of the city
that afterwards became so celebrated as
the capital of the realm of Assyria,
which took its name from Assur, the
cradle of the Assyrian power.
Hammurabi’s list of cities is enough
to prove that his was not a world
empire. His kingdom extended from
Nineveh to the Persian Gulf, and em
braced a territory slightly larger than
Italy. Most of the places named are
well known in early Babylonian history,
some of them being at one time the
centres of independent States. The
mention of Nippur, Ur, and Larsam is
noteworthy, for this shows that the in
scription is later than the conquest of
southern Babylonia. That is to say, it
cannot have been set up before Ham
murabi’s thirty-first year.
The king
lived for twelve years after his over
throw of Rim-Sin,■ and the Code must
have been formulated in the interval.
* Girsu was merely the sacred quarter of the
city. See Records of the Past, New Series,
vol. i., p. 47.
1 King, Letters of Hammurabi, iii., p. 185.
�36
NOTES ON THE CODE
The Three Estates of Babylonia.
Before considering the individual pre
cepts it will be necessary to say some
thing regarding the three classes of
people presupposed by the Code, We
have, first, the slave; secondly, the free
man; thirdly, the Mushkenu.
The
status of slavery offers no particular
difficulty, and the provisions regarding
it can be easily understood. The status
of free man is less decisive. Most of
the sections begin with the words
shumma amelu, “If a man”; and in
most cases the amelu must be a man of
any degree. But, e.g., § 207, mar ameli
can only mean “son of a free man”;
and § 209, marat ameli, “ daughter of
a free man,” because there are other
penalties for the sons and daughters of
other classes of society. The context
is practically our only guide in deter
mining when amelu means a man in
general, and when it is limited to a free
man, or full citizen.
The real difficulty of the Code lies in
the third class. All through the Code we
have definite regulations regarding Mush
kenu (the Hebrew
adopted into
the Italian as meschino ; and thus into the
French mesquin, “mean” or “shabby”).
The Mushkenu, however, was by no
means a pauper. He possessed silver,
§ 140; and he owned slaves, §§ 15, 175,
219; and his slaves were sometimes
sufficiently well-off to marry free women,
175, 176. A mere artisan, or man
who lives by his labour, is not a Mush
kenu ; he is styled a mar ummia, or
“son of the people,” §§ 188, 274; and
the “ son of the people ” was evidently
a free man, like the other persons who
served for wages and are mentioned in
§§ 239> 257, 258, 261, and 271. A
slave could be emancipated; but there
is nothing in the Code to show how a
Mushkenu could change his condition.
His status depended upon birth, for §§
208, 216, 222 deal with the son of a
Mushkenu, and §211 with a daughter of
the same. The Mushkenu’s life and
limb were valued at less than those of a
free man, and more than those of a
slave, §§ 198, 201, 204. Consequently,
he stood midway between the class of
full freeman and the class of full slave,
and the term “plebeian” would seem
best to express his condition. When
§ 15 wishes to express the idea of “ the
slave of a man of high degree, or the
slave of a man of low degree,” it uses
the terms, “ slave of the palace or slave
of a plebeian”; therefore, the plebeian
was the humblest individual who could
be thought of as possessing slaves.
Semitic Idioms.
The translation of the Code has been
made as literally as possible consistent
with intelligibility ; hence idiomatic
expressions are left as in the original.
These need not offer any difficulty, for
some are familiar from the Old Testa
ment, and the others are easily com
prehensible. The following are a few
examples:—
§ 137. “Set his face” — has a design
to.
§169. “Turn aside his face” =
change his intention.
§ 162. “ Gone to her fate ” = has died.
Shimtu means “fate,” or “destiny,” or
“lot”; and, as death is the common lot
of humanity, the Babylonian idiom ex
pressed it as going to one’s destiny.
§ 137. “The husband of her heart”—
i.e., of her own choice.
§ 194. “In the hand of” — in the
possession of; etc.
�NOTES ON THE CODE
Of Sorcery.
The Babylonians distinguished two
kinds of witchcraft—viz., nertu and
kispu, which we have here translated
by “ curse ” and “ spell.” A man who
considered himself bewitched would
resort to the village Asu. The Asu
(translated in this Code by “doctor”)
combined in himself the offices of
exorcist, medicine man, physician and
surgeon. His method of procedure
was usually to pronounce a counter
spell upon the suspected wizard. Such
a suspicion, however, might be without
foundation, and a perfectly innocent
man might find himself in the un
pleasant predicament of being de
nounced before his neighbours as a
wizard, and himself the subject of the
village magician’s exorcism, carrying
with it unknown perils to the super
stitious mind.
The Code, therefore,
gives the suspected party the right of
challenging the exorcism ; and we know
from African examples that a native will
face any ordeal to clear himself from the
suspicion of witchcraft. The Code does
not inform us how nertu was to be
justified—perhaps that could be made
the subject of judicial inquiry ; but the
sufferer from kispu could claim the
ordeal by water, and the “River-God”1
decided the case. Not only did the
Babylonians consider sorcery an actual
thing capable of being dealt with
legally, but the Romans, who are usually
considered a practical, hard-headed
people, were fully convinced of the
reality of magic, and the XII. Tables (viii.
8) forbid a man to remove his neigh
bour’s crops from one field to another by
incantation, or to conjure away his corn.
1 In the inscription the word for “river” has
the sign for divinity prefixed to it.
37
§ 4. Silver and corn formed the cus
tomary currencies of Babylonia. The
silver was in the form of bullion, for
coined money was not introduced until
the reign of the Persian king Darius
Hystaspes. The table of weight was as
follows :—
180 grains
= 1 shekel
60 shekels = 1 mina
60 minse
= 1 talent
(The Babyloniangrain was somewhat
heavier than the English.)
The corn measure ran :—
60 gin — 1 qa
300 qa = 1 gur
No certain English equivalents of
these weights and measures can be
given. See notes on § 42 and § 234.
§ 5. The XII. Tabb, (ix.) directed
the execution of any judge convicted of
taking a bribe. The Babylonian goes
further, and degrades the judge who
gives an unjust verdict, though there is
no question of bribery.
§ 6 only speaks of the goods of god
or palace; but it appears from the
context of §§ 7, 9, 10 that the theft of
private property was visited with the
same penalty. The “goods of a god ”
are, of course, the temple property.
Throughout the Code we find the word
ilu, “ god,” used indefinitely, as “ a
god.” Such a practice no more implies
that the Babylonians were monotheists
than such names as Theodorus or Theo
philus prove the ancient Greeks to have
been monotheists. The “palace” is
Ekal in the original, and the Ekal is not
necessarily the residence of the king.
In one of Hammurabi’s letters, for
example,1 a revenue official speaks of
the “palace” as the recipient of the
local taxes. Consequently, the Ekal
1 King, Letters of Hammurabi, iii., p. 49.
�38
NOTES ON THE CODE
must be the residence of the governor
of the locality. In § 176 “slave of the
palace ” is first mentioned, and then
“ the owner of the slave,” so that it is
not an edifice, but a person, that the
legislator has in view.
§ 8. A boat is reckoned as a living
thing, and is mentioned together with
animals. The Roman Law of theft in
the XII. Tabb. (viii. 16) limited the
penalty to double the value of the pro
perty stolen; but if the thief were taken
in the act, and found to be a free man,
he was scourged and sold into slavery;
if already a slave, he was hurled from
theTarpeian rock.
§ 9 shows the importance attached to
written documents.
§ 21. The XII. Tabb. (viii. 12, 13)
prescribe that a thief may lawfully be killed
if taken in the act at night; but not by
day, unless he be armed and resists
capture.
§ 24. The locality had to pay blood
money to the relatives of a murdered
man if the murderer could not be found.
This clause and § 153 are the only
places where murder is mentioned in the
Code.
§ 25. The XII. Tables (viii. 10)
directed that if a man set fire to a
house, or a stack of corn near a house,
the incendiary was to be bound, scourged,
and burned alive.
Of Military Service.
the king,” as Dr. Winckler1 remarks,
reminds us of the Arabic “Way of
Allah,” meaning a campaign. In Islam,
Allah has taken the place of the king as
director of the war. A defeat of the
Babylonian army is euphemistically
styled “ a misfortune of the king.”
§ 32 shows that the temple played a
part in the village organisation similar
to that of a medieval parish church.
The soldier who could not pay his own
ransom could claim it from his local
temple. But if from poverty, or invasion,
or the number of similar claims, the
temple was unable to provide the money,
then only did “ the palace ” intervene as
a last resort.
§ 42. Three gur of corn was reckoned
an average yield for a gan of land; and
the yearly rent of a gan was usually one
gur of corn. Our knowledge of Baby
lonian metrology, however, is not suffi
cient to enable exact equivalents of these
measures to be given;2 but the propor
tions stated will enable one to gauge
roughly the onerousness of the various
penalties set down in the Code.
§ 45. The Babylonians looked upon
most of the operations of nature as due
to the direct interference of the gods;
thus §§ 45, 48, speak of the god Adad
as flooding the fields. Adad was the
deity of storms and thunder; hence in
this place his name is to be read as the
equivalent of “thunderstorm.” There
is a similar expression, “ stroke of God,”
in § 266.
§ 48. The dipping of the tablet in
water was a symbolical act.
§§ 57, 58. The XII. Tabb. (viii. 6, 7)
The Babylonian kings (and also the
Assyrians) provided themselves with
soldiers by a kind of feudal system.
Portions of the royal domains were
allotted to individuals, who were bound
to serve in the army when called upon.
1 Die Geseize Hammurabis, von Dr. H.
A vassal summoned on “ the way of the Winckler (Leipsic, 1903), p. 13, n. 1.
2 Assyrian Deeds and Documents, by Rev.
king ” was executed as a deserter if he
C. H. W. Johns (Cambridge, 1901), vol. ii.,
did not appear. The phrase “way of cap. iii.
�NOTES ON THE CODE
prescribe that a quadruped that has
(femaged a neighbour’s land shall be
given to the aggrieved party, unless the
owner make compensation. And he
that pastures his animals on a neigh
bour’s land is liable to an action.
f 59. XIE Tabb. (viii. 11). “If a
man wrongly fell his neighbour’s trees,
he shall pay a penalty of twenty-five
ases of bronze in respect of each tree.”
The Erasure
upon the
Pillar.
After § 65 comes the erasure already
mentioned. In the Kouyunjik collec
tion of the British Museum, however,
there is a tablet, No. R.M. 277, which
contains in its first column of writing a
complete copy of § 58 of the Hammu
rabi Code, preceded by a fragment of
§ 57, and followed by the commencement
of § 59. In the second column of this
tablet is another law which we have
transcribed as § a. The reverse of this
same tablet, although very much muti
late^ exhibits detached fragments of
Hammurabi’s Sections 107, 113, 114,
115, 119, and 120. There can thus be
nt® doubt that the intermediate para
graph (a) belonged to the now obliterated
portion of the Code.
Another British Museum tablet, No.
D.T. 81, bears on its face the law we
have transcribed as § b, and on its reverse
| c, together with fragments of Sections
gogj 104, iii, and 112. So that here
again it is clear that we have another
Copy of the Code which has preserved to
ut obliterated parts of the pillar. If
these two tablets were in good condition,
they would have given us the whole of
the missing ordinances; but, unfortu
nately, they are both badly mutilated.
§ loo. When the column again be
comes legible, it is found to be dealing
39
with trading affairs. The Babylonian
principal {Tamkar, “trader”) stayed at
home and looked after his warehouses
and accounts. Agents, or pedlars, were
entrusted with the duty of travelling
about the country and making sales or
purchases. The agent (Shamallu) we
translate as “ retailer.”
§ 108. The Babylonian wine was pre
pared from dates, as the grape-vine is
not indigenous to the country. The
term “ wine-seller ” is preceded by the
determinative for “ woman,” so that the
wine-seller was evidently a female. The
Assyrians and Babylonians had two
systems of metronomy—viz., by the
“heavy mina” and the “light mina,”
the one being twice the weight of the
other; but there is nothing to show that
the abnu rabitu, or “ grand weight,” of
the Code had anything to do with this.
The abnu cikhritu, or “little weight,”
was a third of a shekel. Mr. C. H. W.
Johns has suggested that, as the “ little
weight ” was sixty grains, the “ grand
weight” may have been 120 grains.
§ 109. The XII. Tabb. (viii. 26}
forbade seditious nocturnal assemblies.
§110. See the section “Of Priest
esses.”
§ 115. The XII. Tables (iii.) direct
that, if a debtor cannot meet his liabili
ties, the creditor may arrest him and
bind him with thongs, or put upon him
fetters not exceeding i51bs. weight,
The debtor may live on his own means,
or, if he is unable to do so, the creditor
may allow him at least one pound of
bread per diem. If the claim were not
settled within sixty days, the debtor
might be put to death or sold beyond
the Tiber, after being paraded in the
comitium on three market-days and the
amount of debt proclaimed. “After the
third market-day the creditors may cut
�40
NOTES ON THE CODE
their several portions of his body, and to have been accidentally omitted from
anyone that cuts more or less than his the inscription.
just share shall be held guiltless.”
§ 158. This refers to incest with a
father’s wife who is not the mother of
Of Marriage.
the offender.
Babylonian marriage was by contract
§ 165. A father’s property was divided
(§ 128). Many of the contract tablets equally among his sons. He had no
deal with this subject, and the virginity testamentary power, though he could
of the bride is frequently guaranteed. disinherit an undutiful son (§§ 168, 169),
Consequently, the stories of Herodotus but only under judicial direction.
about the Babylonian women may be Daughters were provided for by their
dismissed as idle and absurd inventions, dowries. Deeds of gift made during a
like his other fables about Babylon / man’s lifetime were valid against any
and the Code shows the importance claim made by an heir. The Code
attached to female reputation in Baby makes no provision in cases where there
lonia.
The Babylonian woman was are no sons ; but it may be taken that
given in marriage by her father or in such a situation the wife would
brothers (§ 184).
The suitor or his inherit (§§ 172, 176).
family paid a certain sum as “ bride
§§ 171, 172. These paragraphs appear
price,” the amount being often handed to have been incompletely divided by
over in instalments (Sections 159-61). Father Scheil; but it would lead to
The bride’s father gave her a “ dowry ” confusion to alter the numeration.
{Sheriqtu), which usually, but not neces
§§176. By a printer’s error in Father
sarily, included the “bride-price” (fTirk- Scheil’s work, two succeeding paragraphs
hatu).
The bridegroom might also have the same number prefixed to them.
make
his bride a “ settlement ”
§ 177. The word in brackets appears
\Nudunmi).
to have been accidentally omitted from
The status of the “ concubine ” is not the inscription.
•clear. She does not seem to be neces
Of Priestesses.
sarily of lower rank, like the Roman, but
was a secondary spouse (§ 145). Like
§§ 178-82 relate to women under
the chief wife, she carried bride-price religious vows. Four of the words used
and dowry, and we may assume that she are preceded by the determinative for a
possessed the same rights as the chief married woman. They are :—
wife in regard to maintenance and par
Nin-an = Priestess
ticipation in the husband’s estate.
Kallati = An undowered priestess
Qadishtu = An inferior priestess
§ 144. The cuneiform sign here trans
Wife of Merodach = An inferior
lated “ wife ” is the one used throughout
priestess.
the Code to denote a married woman.
The precept, therefore, applies to any Two of the titles have merely the prefix
married woman.
for “ woman,” and they were therefore
§ 150. The words in brackets appear unmarried. They were the Zikru and
1 The Laws of Moses, by Stanley A. Cook, the “ virgin.”
M.A. (London, 1903), p. 101.
|
The priestesses of Carthage were
�NOTES ON THE CODE
always married; and on the Cartha
ginian tombstones the husband of the
priestess is invariably mentioned byname.
It is therefore to be expected that the
Babylonian priestesses were also married.
§ 181 mentions virgins, but they were
evidently of low rank in the hierarchy.
The principal priestess is denoted by the
signs Nin-an, “Divine Lady.” She was
expected to lead a blameless life. She
might not open a tavern, or even enter
one (§ no); and slander against a Ninan was severely punished (§ 127).
The priestess (Nin-an) received a
dowry from her father (§§178, 179).
Where no dowry was given (§ 180) the
Nin-an is replaced by the Kallati; so
that the Kallati is a dowerless priestess.
A Qadishtu is in the same predicament;
but, being of lower rank, she only takes
the usufruct of a third of a son’s share,
whereas a Kallati has the usufruct of a
complete son’s share. The “ Wife of
Merodach ” ranked with a Qadishtu,
except that she had the power to bequeath
her share of her father’s estate.
The virgin ranks with a Qadishtu.
The unmarried Zikru “ devotee ” may
receive a dowry upon entering a religious
life (§§ 178, 179), or she may not (§ 180).
Her children were not acknowledged
(§§ *7, 192, 193). Zakaru is a root
8
found in Syriac, Hebrew, and Arabic, as
well as in Assyrian, with the meaning of
“male,” “name,” or “memorial.” Father
Scheil takes it with its determinative
prefix, reads zinnishat zikru, and renders
“ female of the male,” though in such
case it should be zinnishat zikri. Dr.
Winckler makes it “courtesan.” The
Rev. Mr. Johns, of Cambridge, reads
zinnishtu zikru (which is more in accor
dance with the text), and renders it
“vowed woman.” This is practically
the same as our rendering “ devotee.”
41
§ 187. Ner-se-ga is an unknown class.
From § 193 it appears to have been a
man ; from § 187 he was attached
to the governor’s palace. His children
were not acknowledged, nor allowed
to recognise their parentage (§§ 192,
!93)§ 188. A “son of the people,” mar
ummia, was an artisan (see § 274).
§§ 196, 197, 200. This is the Lex
talionis. The XII. Tabb. (viii. 2) “ If a
man breaks another’s limb, and does
not compromise the injury, he shall be
liable to retaliation.” (viii. 3) “ For
breaking a bone of a free man the penalty
shall be 300 ases of bronze; of a slave,
150 ases.”
§202. The word translated “body”
may mean a part of the viscera, or, as
Father Scheil renders it, “ brain.” The
Section maybe compared with XII. Tabb,
(viii. 4), which prescribe a penalty of
twenty-five ases of bronze for a personal
injury or affront.
§215. The word nagabti, translated
“ tumour,” is of uncertain significance,
though, as the root has the meaning of
“hollow,” it is most likely to be con
nected with an abscess, ulcer, or tumour.
Father Scheil suggests that, as the word
is several times used in connection with
the eye, it may refer to the operation
for cataract; but a successful operation
for cataract does not always completely
restore the sight of the eye, owing to the
necessary removal of part of the cornea,
and the Babylonians had no lenses to
correct such a defect. The patient
might consider his eye destroyed because
he was unable to see as well as before, and
the surgeon would thus be blamed for
a perfectly successful operation.
It
would, therefore, seem better to under
stand nagabti as a tumour. Where the
tumour involved the eye the surgeon
�42
NOTES ON THE CODE
could claim his fee on the higher scale
for a successful operation.
§ 226. The gallabu. combined the
professions of barber and brander. His
services were sometimes required in
courts of law (§ 127).
§ 234. The tonnage of Babylonian
boats was expressed in gur, the gur
being about a ton and a fifth. Boats
were built from five gur upwards, and in
one of his letters Hammurabi speaks of
a ship of seventy-five gur, which must
have been nearly equal in size to a
modern vessel of 100 tons burthen. The
boat in the text is of sixty gur, and we
have translated “sixty-ton boat” for
brevity.
§ 236. The word uttebi evidently
means “ sunk,” not merely “run aground”
(see § 238).
§ 240. It being quite uncertain what
these terms signify, they are left un
translated. By § 276 a makhirtu was
a small vessel, for it could be hired for
grains of silver; whereas a sixty-ton
boat earned thirty grains of silver a day.
§ 241. Oxen were exempted from
distraint as being absolutely necessary
for agriculture ; therefore, the same
penalty is inflicted as in the case of
illegal distraint (§ 114).
§ 249. Mundane events being under
the control of the gods, anything inex
plicable was put down to the stroke of a
god (compare §§ 45, 48).
§ 2 54. If the metayer has ill-used the
oxen so that they cannot do the work,
he must execute the field labour with
the marru, a kind of hoe still in use in
Mesopotamia under the same name.
This would entail great manual exertion
on his part.
§ 256 shows that a man’s superior was
usually expected to assist him in fines
and liabilities. In fact, the penalties
laid down in the Code could be met in
no other way, for they would be quite
beyond the means of labourers and small
farmers. Mr. Stanley A. Cook shows
from actual contract-tablets that when a
man hired himself out he had to find a
guarantor.1 Dr. Winckler supposes the
law to indicate a man’s “village com
munity”; but it does not appear that
such communities existed in Babylonia
—in fact, the whole tenour of the Code
is opposed to such a theory, for it only
contemplates that the landholder will
make bargains with individual tenants
and workpeople.
§§ 259, 260. The objects mentioned
in these two paragraphs refer to irrigating
machines, not mill wheels.
§ 273. The Babylonian year began in
Nisan, or April, and the fifth month was
Ab, or August. Consequently, the first
five months were the period of the
hardest agricultural work, and the work
man (literally “ man of hire ”) received
increased pay.
§ 274. Just at this point there is a
fissure in the stone where the pillar was
broken across, and the columns of cunei
form characters are badly mutilated.
280. “Children of the land ” would
mean natives of Babylonia. As a Baby
lonian could only be held in bondage
three years (§ 117), he was emancipated
under the circumstances stated in the
text.
§ 282. The loss of an ear was the
usual punishment of a refractory slave
(see § 205).
In his final peroration Hammurabi
says, “ I have not reposed myself upon
my side ”—i.e., he had not given himself
up to sloth, but had been active for the
1 Laws of Moses, p. 174.
�THE LA WS OF MOSES
good of his people. Then, as is usual
in monuments of antiquity, the king
threatens with the most frightful curses
anyone who alters or damages the pillar.
Of Homicide.
/
It is worthy of note that the Code
makes no provision for wilful homicide
except in §§ 24 and 153. It would
therefore appear that this crime was
treated as extra-judicial. In § 153 it is
enacted that a woman guilty of murder
ing her husband shall be impaled ; but
this may merely mean that her body
was to be impaled, and gives us no
information as to the method or rule of
execution. In § 24 the relatives of a
man murdered by bandits receive one
mina of silver (twice the price of
accidental homicide, § 207). This would
seem to show that the institution of
blood-money was recognised in Baby
lonia. On the other hand, manslaughter
rendered a man subject to the lex talionis
(§§ 229, 210, 230), and this certainly
indicates that among the Babylonians,
as among other ancient peoples, homicide
was dealt with by the vendetta. In the
Old Testament it was one of the duties
of the go el, the next-of-kin, to avenge
43
murder; and the Pentateuch is quite un
compromising upon the subject. Exodus
xxi. 12, 14, denies all sanctuary to the
murderer. Deut. xix. 12 shows that the
Hebrew judicial authorities had nothing
to do with homicide except to hand over
the criminal to the vengeance of the
goelha-dam. And Num. xxxv. 19, 21, 31,
reiterates the command that the “avenger
of blood” shall slay the murderer when
ever and wherever he may meet him,
and that no compensation is to be
accepted. In the same way, therefore,
it is pretty certain that in Babylonia wilful
homicide was a family matter, with which
the judicature was not allowed to interfere.
If it had been customary to compound
for the crime, we may be sure that the
legislator would have made some attempt
to regulate the blood-price, as is done
in the other cases. The silence of the
Code, therefore, is significant. The El
Amarna letters demonstrate the existence
of the blood-feud in Babylonia, for
Burna-Buriash writes to Amenophis IV.
that, if the blood of his messengers who
have been slain in Canaan is not requited,
then Egyptian messengers may be slain
in retaliation.1
1 Records of the Past, New Series, vol. iii, p. 66.
Chapter VI.
THE LAWS OF MOSES
The Sacred Books of the Jews are Palestine ; for the inscription of Mesha,
written in the language called “ Hebrew.” king of Moab (about 850 b.c.), is a
' This language was not confined to the specimen of Hebrew, as are also the
Jewish community, but was the common lapidary memorials of the Phoenicians, who
tongue of all the ancient inhabitants of dwelt on the coast of the Mediterranean.
�44
THE LA WS OF MOSES
The earliest independent references to
the land of Palestine are to be found
upon the monuments of the Egyptian
kings Thothmes III. and Rameses II.1
These monuments contain lists of names
of Syrian localities; and, as far as
Palestine is concerned, these names
agree in character with the later nomen
clature of the country—that is to say,
they are to be explained by the Hebrew
language. The Hebrew-speaking peoples,
therefore, must have been settled in
Palestine for a very long period to have
so completely coloured the topography
in this way; in fact, we are justified in
saying that Hebrew had been spoken in
the country from time immemorial.
In the year 1887 a discovery was made
at Tell-el-Amarna, in Egypt, of a large
number of clay tablets, inscribed with
cuneiform characters.
These tablets
proved to be communications addressed
to the Egyptian kings Amenophis III.
and Amenophis IV. The correspondents
of these monarchs comprised Assuruballit, king of Assyria, Burna-Buriash,
king of Babylonia, and a number of
Syrian notables. It need hardly be said
that the language employed on the
letters of the kings of Assyria and Baby
lonia was the one known as SemiticBabylonian. But there were a number
of the tablets addressed from places in
Palestine ; and these Palestinian tablets
were in Semitic-Babylonian also ! We
have just seen that the indigenous
language of Palestine was Hebrew. How
comes it, therefore, that these Palestinian
letters were written in a foreign tongue ?
The only reply can be that Hebrew was
at that time an illiterate language. If
there had been any means of writing
1 Records of the Past, New Series, vol. v.,
p. 54 ; vol vi., p. 19.
Hebrew, we may be sure that the princes
of Palestine would never have gone to
the trouble of getting their messages
translated into Babylonian, and written
down in the intricate and difficult cunei
form script.
In other cases where
previously illiterate nations came into
contact with the cuneiform method of
writing, and adopted it, they did not
employ the foreign language very long,
but very quickly adapted the cuneiform
syllabary to their own tongue. A notable
instance of this is met with in the Proto
Armenian inscriptions of Van.1 In the
Tell-el-Amarna correspondence the king
of Mitanni (a district in Mesopotamia
near Carchemish) occasionally employed
his own language as well as Semitic;
and the Persians at a later period not
only appropriated the Babylonian style of
writing, but developed a new system of
cuneiform of their own. The inference
is, therefore, that the Hebrew princes
had not been familiar with cuneiform
very long, or they would have applied it
to their own language in similar fashion
to other nations. The oldest known
specimens of written Hebrew are the
Baal Lebanon Bronzes.2 These are in
alphabetic writing. It is obvious that
1 “ Since the publication of my Memoir on
‘The Cuneiform Inscriptions of Van Deciphered
and Translated ’ in the Journal of the Royal
Asiatic Society, xiv. 4, 1882, we have begun to
learn something about a race of kings who ruled
on the shores of Lake Van in Armenia, from the
ninth to the seventh centuries before our era.
The founder of the dynasty, Sarduris I., the soft
of Lutipris, who reigned B.c. 833, introduced
the cuneiform system of writing as well as other
elements of Assyrian culture into the country
over which he was king. The inscriptions he
has left us are in the Assyrian language ; but
his successors discontinued the use of a foreign
tongue, and the language of their texts is
invariably their native one.”—Prof. A. H.
Sayce, in Records of the Past, New Series,
vol. i., p. 163.
1 The History of the Alphahet, by Isaac
Taylor, vol i., p. 213.
�THE LA WS OF MOSES
no people that once employed the
alphabetic character would ever abandon
it for the cumbrous cuneiform; and
therefore the alphabet cannot have been
known in the Tell-el-Amarna period.
And when once it was introduced we
may be sure that there was no further
possibility of cuneiform being applied
for the writing of Hebrew.
There is one thing, however, which
the tablets of Tell-el-Amarna make quite
clear, and that is that at the time they
were written there were no such people
as the Israelites in Palestine ; for the
data they furnish cannot be squared
with the statements of the books of
Joshua and Judges. It has been pointed
out in Chapter III., p. io, that, according
to the testimony of Nabonidus, BurnaBuriash reigned over Babylon 700 years
after Hammurabi; and as Burna-Buriash
was the author of some of the Tell-elAmarna letters it follows, therefore, that
Hammurabi must have lived at least 700
years before the appearance of the Jews
in Canaan.
It is hardly necessary nowadays to
insist upon the fact that the well-known
narratives of Genesis, such as the two
accounts of the Creation and the stories
of the Flood, are merely excerpts from
Babylonian cosmogony and Babylonian
mythology. The discovery of the great
Code raises the very natural question as
to whether the legislation of the Penta
teuch is not also of Babylonian origin.
It is true that the Jews attributed their
legislation to Moses; but Moses (if he
ever had any real existence) must have
lived seven centuries later than the
Babylonian lawgiver. Even in the life
legend of the Hebrew legislator we are
confronted with Babylonian elements,
for the story told of the infancy of Moses
is also related of the famous Babylonian
45
monarch Shargani-shar-ali, or Sargon of
Agade, who flourished about 3800 b.c.,
and who is said to have been exposed in
an ark of bulrushes upon the River
Euphrates, whence he was rescued, and
grew up to be ruler of all Babylonia.
Modern scholarship ha« dissected the
Hebrew Pentateuch into several super
posed layers, ranging in date from about
the eighth century b.c. to the time of
Alexander the Great. The details of
this dissection have been stated with
great caution and moderation by Dr. S. R.
Driver,1 and need not be repeated here;
but they establish the existence in the
so-called Books of Moses of at least four
systems of legislation, in the following
order :—
The Book of the Covenant — Exod.
xx.-xxiii. 33 (to which is related Exod.
xxxiv. 11-26).
The Book of Deuteronomy.
The Law of Holiness =■ Levit. xvii.—
xxvi.
The Priests'1 Code = The balance of
the “ Mosaic ” legislation.
The Priests' Code is the latest and
most important constituent of the Penta
teuch. It cannot be earlier than the
time of Ezra, while it received additions
at even later dates.
The Law of Holiness is a distinct
Code in itself, resembling the other two.
previous codes by opening with sacri
ficial instructions, and closing with a
parenetic exhortation.2
The closest
affinities of this stratum of the Penta
teuch are with the prophet Ezekiel, to
whose time it probably belongs.
Deuteronomy is evidently the “ Book
of the Law ” which Hilkiah, the Highpriest of Jerusalem, professed to have
1 An Introduction to the Literature of theOld Testament, fifth edition (Edinburgh, 1894)..
2 Driver, p. 44.
�46
THE LA WS OF MOSES
found in the Temple in the eighteenth
year of Josiah ( ., 621 b.c.).
>
*
This leaves us with the Book of the
Covenant as the earliest extant example
of Hebrew legislation. Professor W.
Robertson Smith1 styled Exod. xx.xxiii. “the First Legislation”; later
critics have preferred the term Bundesbuch, or “ Book of the Covenant.” This
“ book ” appeared so important to the
author of Exodus that he represented it
as having been dictated to Moses by
Yahveh himself from the mount of
Sinai, to the accompaniment of smoke,
fire, trumpets, thunders and lightnings,
and every circumstance that could con
tribute to the awful and solemn char
acter of the revelation. This reverence
for the “ book,” however, was not shared
by other Israelites, for the author of
Deuteronomy had no scruple whatever
in endeavouring to supersede it by a
rival code, and Professor W. R. Smith
gave a table to show “how completely
Deuteronomy covers the same ground
as the First Legislation.”13 Even in
2
Exodus itself we see that the scribes
had no hesitation in tampering with the
text, for it is obvious that xx. 18 follows
immediately after xix. 25, the inter
mediate “ Ten Words ” being an inter
polation.
Furthermore, if the Ten
Words had formed part of the original
text of Exodus, there would have been
no necessity for xx. 23, which simply
repeats xx. 4. In the same way xxiii.
12 would be redundant in face of xx. 9,
10. There have been interminable dis
cussions upon the date and origin of
the Ten Commandments, which are now
1 The Old Testament in the Jewish Church
(Edinburgh, 1881), p. 316.
3 O. T. J. C., p. 432. See also Hastings’
Dictionary of the Bible, article “ Deutero
nomy.”
inserted in the twentieth chapter of
Exodus. As, however, the phrase “the
stranger within thy gates ” (xx. 10) is
distinctly Deuteronomic, we must take
it that these commandments are later
than Deuteronomy. As, furthermore,
xx. 11 refers to the six days of creation,
the passage must be later than the first
chapter of Genesis,1 which is part of the
Priests’ Code, and therefore compara
tively modern. The Ten Command
ments must therefore be eliminated, and
the speech of Yahveh commences at
Exod. xx. 22, and extends to xxiii. 33.
It consists essentially of a code of laws,
mingled with exhortations.
The question now arises as to the
originality of this Sinaitic legislation.
In view of the Hammurabi Code, it was
clearly unnecessary for Moses to seek
for any supernatural guidance in framing
a body of laws, seeing that such an
excellent system had been worked out
700 years before, and the Israelites were
on the eve of entering a land where the
Babylonian legislation was in all prob
ability well known. Assuming, however,
1 “The six days of creation” is not a Baby
lonian idea, nor is it found upon the “ Creation
Tablets” which describe the overthrow of
Tiamat by Merodach and the subsequent
formation of the universe. As Delitzsch and
Martineau have pointed out, an attentive
perusal of the first chapter of Genesis reveals
the fact that the days of creation were no part
of the original Hebrew narrative. The Elohist
account originally made the creation to take
place by eight stages—viz., Gen. i. 3, 6, 9, 11,
14, 20, 24, 26. Each of these sections origi
nally began with the words “and God said,”
and ended with “and God saw that it was
good”; but the latter phrase has dropped out
of the second section, probably by a clerical error,
though the Talmud assures us that the words
were intentionally omitted because hell . was
created on that day. Consequently, the division
of the creation among the six days of the week
musthavebeentheworkof some late Sabbatarian,
who thought by that means to give a greater
authority to the old Babylonian institution of
the Sabatiu, or sabbath.
�THE LA WS OF MOSES
that modern criticism is right, and
that the laws in Bxodus are no earlier
than the prophets Hosea, Amos, and
Micah (f <?., the eighth century b.c.), we
are so much the further removed from
the time of Hammurabi, and so much
the closer to the fresh wave of Baby
lonian influence which was rapidly
spreading westward owing to the Assyrian
conquests, It may be remarked that
the arrangement of the Book of the
Covenant bears a superficial resem
blance to that of the Code of Ham
murabi. The “ Book ” begins with
directions as to how Yahveh is to be
worshipped; then follow the laws ; and
finally there is an exhortation to observe
these laws. The Code opens with a
declaration of the greatness of Hammurabi; then come the laws; and
lastly there is an appeal to posterity to
respect his monument and legislation.
In any case, however, if there be any
relationship between the Hebrew and
the Babylonian legislations, there is only
oae possible conclusion, and that is that
the Hebrew was borrowed from the
earlier Babylonian.
Th® Three Estates
of
Israel.
We have already seen that the Baby
lonian Code deals with three classes of
persons—the free man, the slave, and
the Mushkenu.
In like manner the
Hebrew legislation is concerned with
three classes—viz., the free man, the slave,
and the Ger (translated “stranger” in the
English version). The Ger (= “client” or
“sojourner”) was a person intermediate
between a slave and a full citizen. The
pious Israelite sometimes described him
self as a Ger of Yahveh (Ps. xxxix. 12),
and on the Phoenician monuments we
have such .names as Ger-Melek, GerAstarte, Ger-Melqarth, etc. But while
47
the Mushkenu has clearly defined rights
in Babylonian Law, the Book Of the
Covenant merely recommends that the
Ger shall not be wronged or oppressed
(Exod. xxii. 21, xxiii. 9). There is a vast
difference between giving a man a legal
standing and simply recommending him
to mercy. In Deuteronomy the Ger is
still the object of a semi-contemptuous
pity; and while the Book of the Cove
nant (Exod. xxii. 31) directs that flesh
torn by wild animals is to be given to
dogs to eat, the more frugal Deuteronomist allows unclean food to be given to
the Ger. The Priests’ Code, however,
shows the Ger on the high road to
amalgamation or emancipation, for it
directs that there shall be one law for
the Ger and for the freeborn Israelite
(Lev. xxiv. 22 ; Num. xv. 15).
The Jewish Tribunal.
The Code of Hammurabi may be con
sidered to have definitely settled the
true meaning of Exod. xxi. 6, xxii. 8, p.
The Code regularly directs that a case
shall be taken makhar ili—i.e., “ before
God” (or ‘ before a god,” for the Baby
lonians were not so poverty-stricken that
they only had one God). The Book of
the Covenant .n one place directs that a
slave shall be brought “ unto God,” and
in the other passages that litigants shall
come near unto “ God.” Commentators
and translators with a dread of anthropo
morphism have been puzzled over
these passages, and have suggested that
the word Elohim here means “judges,”
as we may see by the margin of the
Revised Version. But, in view of the
Babylonian Code, there can be no doubt
whatever that what is meant is the local
altar of the deity; and in 1 Sam. ii. 25
we read of Elohim judging between man
and man, so that the author of this part
�48
THE LA WS OF MOSES
of Samuel at any rate was familiar with
the idea of bringing cases “before God.”
The best way to determine the relation
ship of the Book of the Covenant is to
compare it verse by verse with the Code
of Hammurabi; and, as Exod. xx. 2226 is merely of a ritual character, we
must commence our comparison with the
twenty-first chapter.
Exod.
§H7- The principle of the
xxx.2-11 Babylonian and Hebrew enact
ments is the same. In both cases
the free native cannot be held in
perpetual slavery. But while the
Babylonian law limited the period
of bondage to three years, the
Hebrew extended it to six; and
even this was eventually found to
be too short a time to enable the
average debtor to repay his debt.
Therefore, in the Priests’ Code
(Lev. xxv. 39-41), the period of
servitude is extended to forty-nine
years, or the year of Jubilee.
The lengthened period of servitude
sanctioned by Hebrew law gave
rise to complications not met with
in the Code of Hammurabi. The
latter does not anticipate that
the bondmaster will find a wife for
a bondsman, or that the bond
master will seek to marry the
debtor’s daughter to himself or his
relations. The Hebrew slave could
not be sold into a foreign land, and
§ 280 emancipates slaves that have
been conveyed into another
country. The Babylonian Code is,
however, more completely on the
side of freedom than the Hebrew.
By § 175 children of a free mother
are free; by §171 children of a
free father are free; it was only
when both parents were slaves that |
the children remained in the same
status.
v-12
The Babylonian Code made no
provision for wilful homicide.
v- J3
The Code § 207 inflicts a fine of
thirty shekels for accidental homi
cide.
vSee v. 12.
v- 15
§ 195 prescribes that a son who
strikes his father loses his hand.
The Hebrew law is more severe.
v-16
§ 14. Hebrew and Babylonian
are in agreement.
v- J7
§ 192. The foster - child who
denied his foster-parents lost his
tongue.
v. 18,19 § 206. Both codes are iden
tical.
v. 20,21 The Babylonian Code only
contemplates injuries to slaves by
third parties. In § 217, however,
the owner is liable for fees for
medical attendance on a slave.
v- 22-25 gg 209-14 are more detailed
than the Hebrew, and, as the
Code only recognises the lex
talionis in the case of equals
(§ 200), the law of retaliation only
comes into force in case of the
death of a free woman.
v. 26,27 The Hebrew assesses eye or
tooth of slave at full value; the
Babylonian at only half (§ 199).
v-28
§ 250. Both legislations acquit
the owner of a goring ox; but
the Hebrew has superposed the
Bedaween idea that the animal is
accursed. The ox is to be stoned
to death, and its flesh may not be
eaten.
v. 29-32 § 251. The Hebrew law lays the
owner of a vicious ox open to the
vengeance of the relatives of the
deceased, though they are allowed
to accept a ransom if they so
�THE LA WS OF MOSES
choose. The Babylonian fixes a
penalty of thirty shekels in case of
a free man; twenty shekels for a
slave. The Hebrew assesses the
slave at thirty shekels ; and in all
cases directs the ox to be stoned.
v. 33-36 Although the Babylonian Code
does not provide for these specific
instances, §§ 53-56 make a man
responsible for injuries done to
the property of others.
xxii. 1
§ 262 would probably deal with
this if it were entire. § 8 inflicts a
thirty-fold penalty in the case of a
free man, ten-fold in the case of a
plebeian, for animals stolen from
palace or temple.
v- 2-4
§ 21. Both direct a thief caught
in the act to be slain; but the
Hebrew (like the XII. TabbS)
limits this to robbery by night.
v-5
§ 57. In both Codes trespass is
to be paid for in kind.
v- 6
See note to xxi. 33-36.
v‘7
§ 125. Both laws agree, and
both leave to the depositee the
duty of recovering the loss from
the thief.
v-8
§ 120. In both laws the sus
pected depositee has to clear him
self by oath “ before God.”
v- 9
§§9~i3- The Babylonian is the
more detailed in directing inquisi
tion into claims for lost property.
But while the Code is concerned
in tracing out and identifying the
original thief, the Hebrew legislator
merely orders the receiver or holder
of the stolen goods to refund
double.
v. 10,11
§ 266. Both laws are identical;
and in both the shepherd clears
himself by oath.
v-12
§263. The laws again agree.
v§ 244. The laws again agree.
49
v- J4
§§ 245-48. The laws agree, but
the Babylonian is more detailed.
v- 15
The Babylonian law makes no
mention of such a case as injury to
an animal in charge of its owner.
But it would probably take the
same view. The Hebrew gloss is
not very enlightening (glosses
seldom are); but it probably means
that the owner, having voluntarily
put theanimalto the work, he had no
grievance if any ill result followed.
v. 16,17 § 130. The Code agrees more
fully with Deut. xxii. 25, 26. The
regulation in Exodus implies that
the Hebrew father exacted a higher
bride-price for a virgin daughter.
Seduction rendered her less sale
able, and therefore he was given
the right to compel the seducer to
marry the girl at the full price, or
pay the difference in her value.
v. 18.
The Book of the Covenant only
inhibits a female sorcerer
From Jer. xxvii. 9 it appears that
male sorcerers were recognised in
Israel even after the publication of
Deut. xviii. 10, which forbade
them. In Isaiah iii. 3, which is
probably pre - Deuteronomic, the
cunning charmer and the skilful
enchanter are reckoned among the
notables, and the deprivation of
the services of these sorcerers is
held up as a terrible punishment.
vNot in Babylonian Code.
v-20
The Babylonian Code nowhere
inculcates religious persecution.
v-2r
The Hebrewmerelyrecommends
the Ger to the mercy of the
Israelite, while the Babylonian
Code contains a series of regula
tions in regard to the rights of the
Mushkenu.
v- 22-24 Widows and orphans are left in
E
�50
THE LA WS OF MOSES
the Hebrew to the mercy of rela
tions, and it appears from the
complaints of the prophets, Isaiah
i. 23, Ezek. xxii. 7, Mai. iii. 5, etc.,
that these unfortunates received
scant justice in Israel.
v. 25-27
§ 241. The Hebrew forbids
distraint upon necessary clothing,
but inflicts no penalty in case of
infraction. Deut. xxiv. 6 forbids
distraint upon a quern or quern
stone, but likewise inflicts no
penalty. The Babylonian extends
the provision to plough oxen, and
enforces the regulation by fine.
v. 28-31 Thereare no religious ordinances
in the Babylonian Code.
xxiii. 1-3, §§ 3,4, and 5. While the Hebrew
6-8
is merely rhetorical, the Babylonian
makes practical provisions.
The rest of Exod. xxiii. is either
religious or aphoristic, and therefore
presents no analogy with an established
code of legislation.
There is no need to suppose that the
promulgation of the Book of the Cove
nant put a stop to the influence of
external codes upon Hebrew law, and
we actually find precepts in the later
legislation of the Pentateuch which
recall ordinances of the Hammurabi
Code that are neglected in Exodus.
Thus :—
§ 3 is in greater agreement with Deut.
xix. 15-21 than Exod. xxiii. 1-8, to
which we have compared it.
§ 59 may have inspired Deut. xx. 19.
§ 60 prescribes that, when an arbori
culturist undertakes to plant an orchard,
he is to enjoy the fruit for four years,
and in the fifth year the owner comes in
and takes his share. Lev. xix. 23-25
reads very much like a blundering
reminiscence of this ordinance. For
three years the yield of the orchard is
tabu, the fourth year’s crop is sacred,
and not until the fifth year (as in the
Babylonian) does the owner appropriate
the fruit.
§ 129 agrees with Deut. xxii. 22.
§ 132. Numb. v. n-31 is essentially
the same j and in both cases the woman
is directed to undergo an ordeal by
water. The Babylonian Holy River,
however, was out of the question, for
rivers are rare in Palestine. It is
therefore replaced by the “ water of
jealousy.”
§§ 154-58. The Hebrew laws of incest,
omitted in the Book of the Covenant,
are to be found in Deut. xxvii. 20, 22,
23, and Lev. xviii. 6-18.
Several of the usages referred to in
the legends of the Hebrew patriarchs
are now seen to be in accordance with
the Hammurabi Code. Thus in Gen.
xvi. 3 the barren Sarai gives her maid
Hagar to Abram for the purpose of
raising children. In Gen. xxx. 3 Jacob’s
wife Rachel acts in the same manner;
while xxx. 9 relates the same thing of
Leah. All this is in strict conformity
with §§ 144-46 of the Code. In
Gen. xvi. 4-16 Hagar plumed herself
upon her superiority to her mistress, as
in § 146, and Sarai “ dealt hardly with
her,” as she was entitled to do by the
Code. Hagar ran away, and was sent
back home by the “ angel of the Lord,”
who directed her to submit herself to
her mistress. If the angel had been a
police officer of Hammurabi, he could
hardly have acted otherwise.
When Jacob kept the flocks of Laban
(Gen. xxxi. 38-40) he prided himself
upon having observed the Babylonian
laws laid down in §§ 262-67, and upon
the fact that he had not availed himself
of § 266 for the purpose of clearing
himself by oath in the case of damage
�THE LA JI'S OF MOSES
by wild animals. Laban, however, did
not regulate his wages by § 261.
The marriage customs of the Hebrews,
though not expressly regulated by law,
are in general agreement with Baby
lonian ideas. Exod. xxii. 15 speaks of
the bride-price, or Mohar (mistranslated
“ dowry ” in the English version). The
enamoured Shechem understood per
fectly well that a bride-price would be
expected for Dinah (Gen. xxxiv. 12),
and offered any desired amount. And
in 1 Sam. xviii. 25-27, Saul having
desired a peculiar bride-price for his
daughter Michal, David duly procured
it, and wedded the lady.
In Jud. i. 15, and the parallel
narrative in Josh. xv. ig, we have the only
mention in the Old Testament of a
dowry given with a daughter, it being
called a berakah or “ blessing,” and not
being very clearly distinguished from a
mere gift from a father to his daughter.
Lastly, in Gen. xxxiv. 12 Shechem
promises a matthan, or “gift,” corre
sponding with the Babylonian nudunnu
—i.e., a marriage settlement. It seems,
therefore, that all the ordinances of
Babylonian marriage were recognised in
Israel, although the bride-price was the
only one that received any great amount
of attention.
51
with the Babylonian, most being practi
cally identical, and the others being
quite in the Babylonian spirit. The in
ference is, therefore, that the Hammurabi Code must have been the immediate
or remote progenitor of the Hebrew legal
system.
For the sake of simplicity we have so
far regarded the “ Book of the Cove
nant ” as though it were a homogeneous
composition; but it must be evident to
every attentive student that it is nothing
of the kind. The differences of style
observable in it have been investigated
by several eminent critics, whose con
clusions have been summarised by Pro
fessor G. F. Moore.1 For our purpose,
however, it will be sufficient to indicate
merely a few of the peculiarities of the
“Book.” The way in which chapter
xxi. commences would lead one to
expect a carefully-digested corpus of law.
First we have stated the hypothetical
case of the purchase of a Hebrew slave,
and then comes an orderly considera
tion of the various contingencies arising
therefrom.
But this complete and
methodical treatment is not maintained.
The laws are mixed confusedly to
gether, so that xxi. 22-25 has become
inserted in the middle of a section
dealing with an entirely different sub
ject (verses 20, 21, and 26, 27), and
after xxii. 17 the ordinances become a
mere jumble. In fact, these three
chapters of Exodus look more like the
wreck of a code than an orderly state
ment of one.
There is also some difference in the
way in which the several laws are stated.
The greater part are put hypothetically,
as in the Code of Hammurabi (for the
These resemblances should be de
cisive. In our notes on the Ham
murabi Code we took occasion to com
pare it with an independent system of
legislation, the Laws of the Twelve
Tables; and the similarities discovered
were neither numerous nor striking. On
the other hand, in the comparison of the
Hebrew Book of the Covenant with the
Babylonian Code, the resemblances are
1 See his
simply overwhelming. Out of thirty- Encyclopediaarticle “Exodus (Book)” in the
Biblica, edited by the Rev.
two ordinances, twenty-one are in accord T. K. Cheyne, vol. ii. (London, 1901).
�THE LA WS OF MOSES
Babylonian shumma amelu, “ if a man,”
answers pretty closely to the Hebrew
'O'b “and if a man”), but in other
instances they are categorical. Thus
xxii. 18 commences “thou shalt not,”
and xxii. 19 “whosoever lieth,” in an
entirely different style to the hypotheti
cally stated enactments. Even these
latter are stated variably, some being
addressed to the pronoun of the second
person, and others (in the style of the
Babylonian Code) being referred to the
third person. Thus xxii. 25, “If thou
lend money,” should be contrasted with
xxii. 1, “If a man shall steal an ox.”
A further peculiarity in these two hypo
theses is that in the one God is repre
sented as speaking directly, while in the
other he is referred to as a third party.
Thus xx. 25, “If thou make me an altar
of stone”; but in xxi. 6, “his master
shall bring him unto God.” If, now, we
separate the sections which speak of the
third person, in the Babylonian style,
we shall find they consist of the follow
ing : xxi. i-n, 14, 18-36; xxii. 1—17 ;
and these are the passages that agree
best with the Code of Hammurabi!
It is evident, therefore, that the verses
in question are fragments of an early
Hebrew book of laws which was derived
from the Babylonian Code. The frag
ments are preceded and introduced by
the words, “ And these the mishpatim
which thou shalt set before them.” The
word
mishpatim, “judgments,”
answers to the Babylonian dinani, for
the Semitic root
to judge, only
exists in Hebrew in poetical passages,
being replaced for ordinary purposes by
which is peculiar to the Phoenician
branch. Hammurabi calls his Code
Dinani mesharim, “ judgments of
justice”; the Hebrew legislator calls
the old Hebrew Code mishpatim, “judg
r=
ments ”; and the Psalmist speaks of the
’’ZOOtDO, “judgments of justice,”
just like the Babylonian (Ps. cxix. 7, 62,
164); so that the technical phrases are
practically identical.
The discovery of the Code of Ham
murabi, therefore, enables us to place
the criticism of the Book of the Covenant
upon a fresh and sound basis. It is
now perfectly clear that the compiler of
the “ book ” adopted such of the older
laws as suited his purpose, and added
to them sundry regulations of a ritual
character, together with precepts of the
kind that have been popular with
moralists of all ages, from the counsels
of Ptah-hotep1 (3500 b.c.) to the copy
books of the twentieth century. The
science of jurisprudence must have been
at a very low ebb in Palestine when
such a compilation as the Book of the
Covenant was possible. The laws them
selves are treated as quite subordinate,
and the interest of the compiler centres
in theological matters, such as the proper
methods of sacrifice and the regulation
of the periodic festivals. In the later
systems of Pentateuchal legislation this
tendency is progressively increased.
The Book of Deuteronomy cannot
conceal its entire dependence upon the
Book of the Covenant for its legal
matter; and the additions made are
merely religious and sermonistic. Even
Canon Driver sums up the characteristics
of the later codes as follows :2
“From a literary point of view Deu
teronomy (disregarding the few short
passages belonging to P, and the two
poems in chs. 32, 33) consists of a code
1 The Precepts of Ptah-hotep: the Oldest Book
in the World, by M. Phillipe Virey. Records of
the Past, new series, vol. iii., p. 16.
a Article “ Law ” in the Dictionary of the
Bible, edited by Tames Hastings, vol. iii. (Edin
burgh, 1900).
�THE LA WS OF MOSES
of laws accompanied by hortatory intro
ductions and comments.”
“We come next to the Law of Holi
ness (H) (Lv. 17-26). This consists
substantially of an older body of laws,
which have been arranged by a later
editor in a parenetic setting, the whole
thus formed being afterwards incor
porated in P, with additions and modi
fications, designed for the purpose of
harmonising it more completely with the
system and spirit of P........ The original
nucleus of H, when compared with the
Book of the Covenant, will be seen to
deal very much less fully with civil and
criminal law. The only regulations
relating to criminal law are those in
2417-21. Those in ch. 25 might be classed
as belonging formally to civil law, but
they are regarded more properly as
expressions of religious or humanitarian
principle.”
“ The legislation of the Priests' Code
properly so called (P) is confined almost
entirely to ceremonial observances, espe
cially those relating to sacrifice and
purification.”
In other words, the successive codes
of the Pentateuch display greater and
greater sacerdotalism as time goes on.
It was entirely owing to the influence of
the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi
that the religious system of the Old
Testament was cast into a legal form at
all. The Hebrew language itself bears
witness to the knowledge of codes of
law engraved upon stone, like the pillar
found by M. de Morgan at Susa. Dr.
Driver,1 who of course knew nothing at
that time of the Hammurabi Code,
points out that the Hebrew pn, khoq,
and Hpn, khuqqah, “statute ” or “ ordi
53
nance,” are derived “ from ppPT, to cut
in, inscribe, engrave, and therefore denote
properly something engraven on stone or
other durable surface, though applied in
usage to any kind of fixed ordinance.
It was a common practice in antiquity
to engrave laws upon slabs of stone or
metal and to set them up in some public
place—and the same custom is pre-supposed
in the use of these two words in Hebrew.”
Hence, therefore, when the Elohist
writer of Exodus wished to describe the
legislation which he alleged had been
supernaturally delivered to Moses, the
legislation presented itself to his mind
as something engraven upon stone, upon
“ the two tables of the testimony,” as
the English Version calls them—though
HT-IV is more correctly “ precept ” or
“ law.” “ Tables that were written on
both their sides; on the one side and
on the other were they written. And
the tables were the work of God, and
the writing was the writing of God ”
(Exod. xxxii. 15, 16).
The Israelites did not preserve all the
Babylonian laws; some were inappli
cable, others implied a more advanced
state of civilisation and morality than
was to be found in the kingdoms of
Israel and Judah.
The military regulations (§§ 26-41)
did not obtain in Israel, because, as far
as we know, the kings had no bodies of
feudal vassals settled upon crown lands;
although they did have bands of foreign
mercenaries in their pay (2 Sam. xx. 7).
Every able-bodied Israelite was expected
to serve as a soldier, and to appear fully
armed whenever called out by general
levy (1 Sam. xi. 7).
The land regulations (§§ 42-56) are
not represented in the Pentateuchal
1 Article “Law” in the Dictionary of the legislation, although there were large land
Bible.
holders (Is. v. 8) who must have farmed
�54
THE LA WS OF MOSES
out their estates; and there was some
amount of irrigation, though, of course,
not on the scale practised in the valley
of the Euphrates. §§ 60-65 have also
disappeared from Hebrew jurisprudence,
with the exception of the apparent
reminiscence in Lev. xix. 23-25, of
which we have already spoken.
The Jew’s of the Old Testament were
not a mercantile race, hence §§ 100-10 7
were unnecessary. Agriculture was the
staple industry, and all commerce was
in the hands of the Phoenicians ; Isaiah
xxiii. 8 even using the word “Canaanite”
as a synonym for merchant.
The most noteworthy omission, per
haps, is in regard to the laws of in
heritance. The provisions of the Ham
murabi Code seem very complete and
very equitable ; but the Hebrew laws are
just the reverse. We can only learn that
Israelitish sons divided the paternal
possessions equally among themselves,
except that the eldest-born took a double
share (Deut. xxi. 15-17). Daughters
-only inherited upon failure of sons : and
if there were neither sons nor daughters,
then the brother of the deceased suc
ceeded (Num. xxvii. 4-11). In any
<ase, the widow had no claim on the
estate. In early times, at any rate, she
was herself considered part of the pro
perty of the deceased, and dealt with
accordingly; as was the custom among
the heathen Arabs down to the advent
of Muhammad (2 Sam. xvi. 20, iii. 7),
and the tenth commandment enumerates
the wife together with the house, the ox,
the ass, and the other property of one’s
neighbour. Even the Book of the
Covenant has no provision for the widow
and the orphan—they are merely recom
mended to mercy (Exod. xxii. 22), like
the Ger or stranger ; and we may see by
the frequent prophetical denunciations
that the condition of the widow and the
fatherless was a standing grievance in
Israel. A comparison of Babylonian
law with Hebrew custom will show how
far the Jews had fallen below the moral
standard of the subjects of Hammurabi.
Adoption, which occupies such a large
place in the Code (§§ 185-193), is not
referred to in the Jewish Law; but is
replaced by the curious provision of the
Levirate, which treats the wife as a mere
child-bearing machine (Deut. xxv. 5-10).
The Navigation Laws (§§ 234-240)
were, of course, useless to the Israelites,
who were not a maritime people. And
the scales of fees and wages would be
unenforceable out of Babylonia itself.
As already indicated, the additions of
the Hebrew legislators were almost
entirely of a theological character. The
basic ideas of the Hammurabi Code are
civil right and solid justice; and, con
sidering the times and the circumstances,
these are very well realised by the Code.
The king makes much of his devotion to
the gods and the blessings they have
bestowed upon him; but theology is
rigidly excluded from the Code itself.
The deities are only called in to decide
by the Ordeal in cases where human
insight fails (§§ 2 and 132), or to
guarantee an oath where human evidence
is wanting. In the Pentateuch, on the
other hand, the theological interest is
paramount. The principle of religious
persecution is introduced from the very
first, being inculcated even in the Book
of the Covenant; whereas religious per
secution was entirely unknown in Baby
lonia, not only in the Code of Hammu
rabi, but throughout the whole range of
cuneiform literature, as far as we are
acquainted with it at present. Num.
xxxi. 17-24 is a typical instance of the
ideal Pentateuchal combination of blood-
�Sag
gE
THE FIRST DYNASTY OF BABYLON
thirstiness and ceremonial zeal; and one
of the objects of the completed Torah is
the establishment of a theological reign
of terror. The same penalty is prescribed
for petty infractions of ritual as for the
gravest crimes ; and the Priests’ Code is
a wearisome litany of “ that soul shall be
cut off from his people.” Unauthorised
compounding of oil or incense is punish
55
able with death (Exod. xxx. 33, 38), so
is neglect of the Passover (Num. ix. 13),
Sabbath-breaking (Exod. xxxv. 2), or
even doing “ aught with an high hand ”
(Num. xv. 30). The fierce and senseless
intolerance of the Laws of Moses forms
a significant contrast to the judicial
dignity of the Laws of Hammurabi.
Appendix A.
THE FIRST DYNASTY OF BABYLON
Although we call the Southern
Euphrates Valley by the name of
Babylonia, Babylon was not always the
capital of the country, In the earliest
period the great cities were more or less
independent, and every now and then
one or other rose to pre-eminence, and
acted as suzerain over the others for a
greater or lesser period of time. These
Struggles eventually resulted in the
supremacy of the king of Babylon ; and
we have described in Chapter III. how
this supremacy was finally established by
the overthrow of Rim-Sin by Ham
murabi. Babylon thereafter remained
the capital of the country until 538 b.c.,
when Nabonidus, the last native
monarch, was deposed by Cyrus the
Great.
In 1881 Dr. Pinches published a
cuneiform tablet which, in its complete
state, gave lists of the kings of the
various Babylonian dynasties. It was
then found that Hammurabi was not the
founder of a dynasty, but was the sixth
member of a line of kings reigning in
the city of Babylon. The family of
Hammurabi is therefore styled the First
Dynasty of Babylon.1 This dynastic
tablet has, however, been supplemented
by other records, detailed by Dr. King
in Vol. iii. of his Letters of Hamm/urabi.
Although the succession of the First
Dynasty of Babylon and the lengths of
the individual reigns are thus deter
mined, there is as yet no certainty as to
the dates when these kings flourished.
The nearest approximation is to be
derived from an inscription of the
Assyrian king Assurbanipal (668-626
b.c.),2 and two inscriptions of Nabonidus,
the last king of Babylon (555-538 B.c.p
Assurbanipal informs us that, in the
early part of the year corresponding with
1 Records of the Past, New Series, vol. i.,
P- *3
2 History of Assurbanipal, by George Smith
(London, 1871), p. 250 and p. 381.
3 Historische Texte des neubabylonischen
Reichs. Schrader’s Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek (Berlin, 1890), Band iii., 2 Halfte, pp. 91
and 96.
Bg
w
8£
8
&
n
is
�56
THE FIRST DYNASTY OF BABYLON
652 B.c., he sent an embassy to the king son of Kudur-Bel, no king had built, its
of Elam, demanding the restitution of a old foundation-stone I sought, and I
venerated image of Nana, the goddess of saw, I examined; and upon the founda
Erech, which had been carried away to tion-stone of Shagashalti-Buriash, the
Susa 1,635 years before by “ Kudur- son of Kudur-Bel, I laid its foundation
Nankhundi, the Elamite, who the and made firm its brickwork. This
worship of the great gods did not fear.” temple I built anew, I completed its
The deportation of Nana thus took design.”
place' in 2287 b.c., and therefore a
Thus Shagashalti-Buriash lived 800
serious invasion of Southern Babylonia years before Nabonidus—say, 1345 B.c.
must have been made by the Elamites He was a member of a dynasty of
in that year. It is tempting to link this Kassite kings which ruled in Babylon
event with the fact that Rim-Sin was of some five or six hundred years.
Elamite descent. His father, KudurAnother monarch of the same dynasty
Mabug, was “ adda” of Emutbal and is mentioned in a further inscription of
Martu. Emutbal was a province of Nabonidus, discovered at Ur: “The
Elam; but he could only have gained foundation-cylinder of Hammurabi, the
the dominion over Martu (Southern ancient king, who, 700 years before
Babylonia) by conquest. As Rim-Sin Burna-Buriash had built E Babbara, and
reigned at least thirty-seven years (see the tower, upon the old foundation for
p. 11), and was overthrown in the thirty- Shamash, I looked upon it and I feared.”
first year of Hammurabi, he must have
Burna- Buriash, therefore, lived 700
commenced his sovereignty seven years years after Hammurabi; but the question
before the latter monarch. To this remains, what was the date of Burnamust be added the princedom of his Buriash ? We can only say that this
father; but we have no knowledge as to monarch was one of the correspondents
how long Kudur-Mabug ruled over of Amenophis III. and Amenophis IV.
Martu. From the lack of monuments it in the Tell-el-Amarna tablets, and these
may have been only a few years.
Egyptian kings reigned about 1450 b.c.
Nabonidus, the last king of Babylon, Consequently, the date of Hammurabi
devoted himself very largely to reno was somewhere about 2150 b.c. Nabo
vating the ancient temples of his nidus speaks in round numbers, and we
dominions. Among others, he rebuilt cannot be absolutely certain for a year or
the temple of Anunit at Sippara, and we two. This date of 2150 b.c. does not
may quote from his cylinder inscription : synchronise with the figures derived
“ For Anunit, the mistress of battle, from the invasion of Kudur-Nankhundi
bearer of the bow and quiver, who in 2287 b.c.; but at the same time it
fulfils the command of Bel, her father, must be admitted that the chronology of
who sweeps away the foe, who destroys this period is so entirely hypothetical
the wicked, who marches before the that the latter date is by no means
gods, who at sunrise and sunset has excluded.
blessed my endeavours, E Ulbar, her
Nabonidus seems to have been in
temple which is in Sippara of Anunit, possession of trustworthy information in
which for 800 years, since the time of regard to the reigns of his predecessors
Shagashalti-Buriash, king of Babylon, from very early times, and where it has
�GENESIS XIV.
been possible to check his figures the
dates mentioned in his inscriptions have
proved correct.
The Assyrian king
Assurbanipal must also have had
equally good authority for his chrono
logical calculations ; and it may, there
fore, be expected that further discoveries
will enable us to settle the exact period
of Hammurabi’s reign.
But for the
present it will be seen that the data are
much too vague.
However, if we assume that the reign
of Hammurabi ended in 2150 b.c., we
get the following scheme for the first
dynasty of Babylon, premising only that
the dates b.c. are theoretical, and are
57
merely given for convenience in reckon
ing
B.C.
2295 Sumu-abu, founder
of the dynasty,
reigned 14 years
2281 Sumu-la-ilu,
his son,
36 J)
n
his son,
2245 Qabium,
»
14 J,
2231 Apil-Sin,
his son,
18 5,
2213 Sin-muballit,
his son,
2<y 5 9
n
his son,
2193 Hammurabi,
43 99
2150 Samsu-iluna,
his son,
>>
38 99
2112 Abi-eshu’,
his son,
28 99
2084 Ammi-ditana,
his son,
37 99
22 99
2047 Ammi-zaduga, his son,
n
2025 Samsu-ditana, his son,
3i 99
11 kings of the First Dynasty
of Babylon reigned 301 years
Appendix B.
GENESIS XIV.
The earlier school of Assyriologists were
led into many errors through paying too
much regard to the fables of classical
writers such as Ctesias and Herodotus.
But though these authors have long been
given up as misleading, the ignis fatuus
of the fourteenth chapter of Genesis still
flickers over the field of Assyriology. If
it were not for Gen. xiv., many com
monly-made assertions would never have
been invented, and Babylonian history
would have been more sober and less
imaginative. It is difficult to under
stand why this chapter should have had
such a hypnotising effect, for its fictitious
nature is its most obvious characteristic.
The well-known Orientalist Professor
Noldeke demonstrated its unhistorical
nature half a century ago, and his con
clusions have never been refuted? In
fact, it is somewhat a slur on one’s intel
ligence to have it presented as possessing
any historical value whatever. The
string of awe-inspiring names which it
offers in the English version is largely
due to the fact that the Hebrew is left
untranslated. By rendering all the un
intelligible words, as is done in the
following, the real character of the narra
tive may be better appreciated.
“ And it was in the days of Amraphel,
king of Shin‘ar, Ary ok, king of Ellasar,
Kedorla'omer, king of Elam, and Tid'al,
1 “ Die Ungeschichtlichkeit der Erzahlung
Gen. xiv.” Untersuchung zur Kritik des Alten
Testaments, von Theodor Noldeke (Kiel, 1869).
�58
GENESIS XIV.
king of nations, they made war upon
Son-of-Evil,1 king of Sedom, and upon
Son-of-Wickedness, king of ‘ Amorah,
Tooth-of-the-Father, king of Earth,
Shmeber, king of hyaenas and king of
devouring (she is small). All these con
federated to the Plain of Demons (it is the
Salt Sea). Twelve years they served Kedorla'omer, and thirteen years they rebelled,
and in the fourteenth year came Kedorla'omer and the kings who were with
him, and they smote the Shades in
Astarte of the two horns and the Zuzes
in them, and the Terrors in the Plain of
the Cities, and the Cave-dwellers in the
high rough mountain [or, high mountain
of the Satyr] until the Oak of Paran
which is above the desert. And they
returned, and they came to the Well of
Judgment (it is holy), and they smote
all the field of the Amalekites and also
the Amorites, the dwellers in the
Pruning of the Palm-tree.”
Dr. Noldeke points out that the Sa
maritan Pentateuch, instead of Shmeber,
has
= “ the name is lost,” a
somewhat significant reading if it be the
true one. There are other variations
in the Septuagint; but they probably
merely indicate that the LXX. trans
lators were puzzled over the outlandish
names.
The scene in the story is laid in the
Vale of Siddim. This should most
probably be Shedim (the difference in
the Hebrew is merely a dot on the UJ)
—i.e., “demons,” as in Deut. xxxii. 17,
and Psalm cvi. 37. The foes smitten
by Chedorlaomer are of a suspiciously
eschatological character. The Rephaim
are the Shades of the Dead, as in Isa.
xiv. 9, Ps. lxxxviii. 10, etc. The Emim
are the “Terrors of Death,” as in Ps.
lv. 4. And as the sepulchres of Pales
tine are almost universally rock-hewn
tombs, the “cave-dwellers” would be
the dead lying in such receptacles. The
two-horned Astarte and the Plain of the
Cities remind us that the ruler of the’
Babylonian Hades was the Queen
Allatu, who resided in a great city, or
rather seven concentric cities with
separate gates, through which the dead
must pass. Shmeber, king of hyaenas
and the king of devouring, gives a
ghoulish suggestion of Oriental grave
yards ; and the Zuzim and Paran and
Sodom and Gomorrah would probably
be more intelligible if we possessed a
completer knowledge of Hebrew es
chatology. The Seir of verse 6, in
company with the other mythological
surroundings, is probably the Satyr of
Lev. xvii. 7, Isa. xxxiv. 14, etc.
The forces led by Abram against
these vanquishers of phantoms were not
large. “ Three hundred and eighteen ”
born in his house. And these 318 can
be reduced to one—the famous Eliezer
(Gen. xv. 2).
The letters of the
Hebrew alphabet have each a numerical
value; and if we write down the name
Eliezer in Hebrew characters, and add
up the numerical values of these char
acters, the result is 318 !
£
=
X
7
=
3°
1
=
10
V
=
7°
T
=
7
—
200
318
In view of all these facts, it would require
a great amount of evidence to prove that
1 The Jewish doctors themselves recognised there was anything of an historical
that the *1 of Bera and Birsha was the contrac
nature in Gen. xiv.; and it is somewhat
�GENESIS XIV.
heedless to add that no evidence has yet
been offered for the historicity of this
chapter. The section belongs to the
Priests’ Code—that is, the latest stratum
of the Pentateuch; and the narrative
was constructed by someone familiar
with the Hebrew alphabet, for the names
of th© foreign kings in verse i are care
fully arranged in the order of that
alphabet; and Bera and Birsha, and
Shinab and Shemeber, are coupled
together because they begin with the
same letter. As these people are there
fore artificial in their arrangement, they
are probably equally artificial in their
origin; and it is a mere waste of time to
seek for them in the field of history.
The kernel of the chapter is in the
twentieth verse, “And he gave him a
tenth of all ”; and its object was thus to
support the priestly impost of tithes.
Nevertheless, ever since scholars began
to decipher the cuneiform inscriptions it
has been a favourite, though futile,
amusement to seek for names upon the
monuments bearing some remote resem
blance to those in Gen. xiv.; and
schemes of chronology have even been
framed to bring these names into accord
with the age of Abraham. Seeing, how
ever, that the age of Abraham is an
exceedingly uncertain quantity, such
chronologies have not been found to be
of any value.
It has occasionally been announced
that “ Chedorlaomer, king of Elam,” has
been found upon the monuments; but
up to the present all such discoveries
have proved to be errors in reading the
cuneiform.1
Arioch, king of Ellasar, has been at
various times identified with several
eastern potentates who have eventually
59
had to be acquitted of any connection
with him. The present fashion is to
equate him with Rim-Sin of Larsam. It
requires the eye of faith to perceive the
likeness between Ellasar and Larsam.
The name we transcribe “ Rim-Sin ” is
somewhat of a cuneiform puzzle. It is
found written Rim-En-zu, Rim-Agu,
Arad-En-zu, and Arad-Agu ; and it was
at one time maintained that these were
all different people, until Mr. George
Smith established their identity. En-zu,
“lord of wisdom,” and Agu, “crowned,”
are both appellations of the Moon-god,
Sin. In Semitic Babylonian En-zu is
always read as Sin, the Moon-god; and
it is to be presumed that Agu is to be
treated in the same way. We are thus
left with Rim-Sin and Arad-Sin. As the
cuneiform interchanges Rim with the
character for “ servant ” (in the Semitic
construct case arad), it would appear
that in this particular case rim is syno
nymous with “servant.” For the purpose
of comparing the name with Arioch, the
first element has been read as Eri or Iri,
and this procures the form Eri-Agu (or
Eri-Aku), but ignores the second form
of the divine name, for no one has pro
posed to read Eri-En-zu. It will be
seen, therefore, that the reading Eri-Aku
is in the highest degree precarious, and
in the present state of Assyriological
knowledge the only safe rendering
appears to be Rim-Sin.
As Shinar is several times used in the
Old Testament for Babylonia, or some
part of it, sundry kings of Babylon have
been equated with Amraphel. Ham
murabi is the chief favourite at present.
The first consonant of his name is the
German Ch, very often transcribed Kh.
Thus we get the form Khammurabi.
1 For a recent instance see King’s Letters of Orientalists, however, prefer the phone
Hammurabi, vol. i., p. xviii.
tically superior method of employing
�6o
RELICS OF EARLIER BABYLONIAN LA WS
one letter only for each sound, and
write Kh as /z, with a diacritical mark
beneath. Hence Hammurabi, which
need offer no difficulty if we remember
that the Assyrian h was a guttural. In
one single case a tablet has been found
to spell Hammurabi as Ammurabi.
This, of course, is merely one of the
many instances of reckless spelling on
the part of the cuneiform scribes, who
had no standard etymological dictionaries
to guide them. But upon this slender
basis is built the theory that Amraphe(l)
is Ammurabi in disguise, the I having
been tacked on in some unaccountable
manner.
It is the fourteenth chapter of Genesis
which influences the bringing into the
neighbourhood of the Mediterranean of
the names of some of the places men
tioned on Babylonian inscriptions. Many
of these names are difficult to decipher,
and still more difficult to locate. The
father of Rim-Sin is called adda Martu,
presumed to mean “ lord of the West
land.” There was a Babylonian deity
named Martu, so that it is improbable
that the “ West-land ” was far from
Babylonia. But we often find in modern I
books that Martu is translated as
“ Phoenicia ” or “ Syria ” without a word
of explanation; and the uninstructed
reader is misled into the idea that there
is some certainty in making Martu the
Far West. There is, however, nothing
in the cuneiform inscriptions themselves
to preclude the idea that Martu was
simply south-western Babylonia; and
when we find, as noted on p. 21, that
Siniddinam, the vassal king of Larsam,
was officially styled Governor of Martu,
there is hardly need to seek for the place
elsewhere.
It is, therefore, quite unnecessary for
us to trouble ourselves about the asser
tions that have been so freely made as
to the alleged contemporaneity of Abram
and Hammurabi; or the presumed rela
tions of the early Babylonian kings with
Palestine. It has yet to be shown that
the author of the Priests’ Code (about
the 5th century b.c.) possessed any
knowledge of the early Babylonian
history of 1,500 years before his time;
or that the kings of Elam made ex
peditions to smite Rephaim in this
world, whatever they might do in the
next.
Appendix C.
RELICS OF EARLIER BABYLONIAN LAWS
The Akkadian language ceased to be
spoken in Babylonia about 2000 b.c.,
but as its literature was the foundation
of the Semitic-Babylonian culture, and
as Akkadian had become a kind of
sacred tongue, it was studied and
taught as long as the Babylonian
religion and civilisation lasted. The
great text-book of the language was a
series of ten or twelve tablets entitled
Ana ittishu, “ In his station,” from the
opening words of the first volume.
�RELICS OE EARLIER BABYLONIAN LA WS
The work consisted essentially of speci
mens of the Akkadian language, accom
panied by a Semitic-Babylonian trans
lation.
Among the specimens are
several paragraphs which are evidently
ancient legal enactments, their antiquity
being guaranteed by the fact that they
are in the Akkadian language.
The
tablet containing these fragments of laws
is numbered K 251 in the British
Museum collection, and has been fre
quently translated and published.1 The
following version will serve to show the
character of this primitive Akkadian
legislation:—
1. If a son says to his father, “Thou
art not my father,” they shall brand him,
and fetter him, and sell him as a slave
for silver [compare Hamm. Code, §§
192, 226, 146].
2. If a son says to his mother, “ Thou
art not my mother,” his face they shall
61
brand, from the city they shall banish
him, from the house they shall drive
him.
3. If a mother says to her son, “ Thou
art not my son,” house and goods shall
she forfeit.
4. If a wife hates her husband and
says, “Thou art not my husband,”
into the river they shall throw her
[compare H. Code, §§ 142, 143].
5. If a husband says to his wife,
“Thou art not my wife,” half a mina
of silver he shall weigh out to her
[compare H. Code, §§ 137-40].
6. If a man hires a slave, and he
dies, or is rendered useless, or is caused
to run away, or is caused to rebel, or
is made ill, then for every day his
hand shall measure out half a qa of
corn [compare H. Code,
245-48, 199,
252].
1 Trans. Socy. Bib. Archceology, vol. viii., p. 230.
�GENERAL INDEX
Adad (God), 38
Adoption, 54
Akkadian, 10, 60
Alphabet, 44, 58
Amraphel, 57, 59
Anu (God), 34
Anunnaki, 34
Appeal, 9
Arioch, 57, 59
Army, 38
Arrest, 9
Artisans, 41
Assur, 14, 35
Assurbanipal, 5, 7, 55, 57
Fate, 36
Feudalism, 38
Fragments of Code, 5, 7, 39
Free man, 36
Ger, or stranger, 47, 49
God, Before, 47, 49
Goring ox, 48
Guarantors, 42
Hammurabi, 9, 10 ff, 45,
55 ff> 59
Hebrew language, 43, 52, 53
Herodotus, 40, 57
Holiness, Law of, 45, 53
Homicide, 43, 48
Babylon, 7, 11, 13, 14, 3°, 55
Black-headed men, 13, 30, 35
Idioms, 36
Blood-feud, 43
Incendiary, 38
Boat, 38, 42
Incest, 40, 50
Bondage, 48
Inheritance, 40, 54
Branding, 42
Bribery, 37
Jubilee, 48
Bride-price, 40, 49, 51
Judges, 8, 9
Burna-Buriash, IO, 44, 45, 5^
Carthage, 40
Cataract, 41
Chedorlaomer, 57, 59
Chronology, 10, 45, 55-57
Commandments, 46, 54
Contract tablets, 5, 8
Corn, 32, 37, 38
Correspondence of Babylonian
monarchs, 9, 12, 44
Covenant Book of, 45-51
Creation,, 46
Cuneiform, 1, 2, 44
Currency, 37
Dating, Systems of, 8, 10, 11
Debtors, 39
Deposit, 49
Destiny, 36
Deuteronomy, 45, 52
Distraint, 42, 50
Dowry, 40, 51
Elam, 7, 56, 57
Elders, 8
Eliezer, 58
Emutbal, II, 12, 56
Erasure on pillar, 6, 7, 39, 42
Estates of Babylonia, 36
----- of Israel, 47
Khallabi, 35
Kingdom of Hammurabi, 35
Kudur-Mabug, II, 56
Kudur-Nankhundi, 56
Labourer, 36
Larsam, 7, 11 ff, 13, 59
Law, 9 ff, 34
Lawsuits, 9
Levirate Law, 54
Marriage, 40, 51, 61
Martu (South-western Baby
lonia), 11, 12, 56, 60
Measures, 37, 38, 39
Military service, 38, 53
Monotheism, 37
Morality, 53, 54
Navigation, 54
Nineveh, 14, 35
Oaths, 8, 9
Orchards, 50
Ordeal, 37, 50, 54
Orphans, 49, 54
Palace, 37
Persecution, 49, 54
Pillar of Susa, 6
Plebeian, 36
Priestesses, 40
Priesthood, 8
Priests’ Code, 45, 53, 59, 60
Procedure, 8-10
Ransom, 38
Rent, 38
Rephaim, 58-60
Repudiation, 61
Retaliation, 41, 48
Rim-Sin, 5, n, 12, 55 ff, 59
Samsu-iluna, 5, 12
Satyr, 58
Scribes, 8
Settlement, Marriage, 40, 51
Shaddai, 34
Shagashalti-Buriash, 10, 56
Shamash, 6, 34
Shemeber, 58
Shutruk-Nakhunte, 7
Siddim, Vale of, 58
Silver as currency, 37
Sin-iddinam, 12, 60
Sin-muballit, II, 14
Sippara, 7, 13, 33, 35, 56
Six days of Creation, 46
Slaves, 36, 42, 48, 61
Sorcery, 37, 49
Stroke of God, 42
Supervision of justice, 9
Symbols, 38
Temple, 35, 38
Theft, 38, 49
Thunder, 38
Tithes, 59
Tonnage, 42
Trade, 39
Trees, 39
Trespass, 39, 49
Tribunal, Jewish, 47
Tumour, 41
Twelve Tables, 9, 33, 37-39
4i, 5i
Weights and measures, 37-39
Widows and orphans, 49, 54
Wine, 39
Witness, see “ Elders ”
�INDEX TO CODE
(The figures refer to the Sections of the Code, PP- 13-33)
Deposit, 122-6
Harrow, 260
Desertion, 133, 136, 193
Herdsmen, 258, 261-7
Devotee, 178-80, 192, 193
Highway robbery, 22
Disinheritance, 158, 168, 169, Hire {see also “ Wages ”), 2429, 268-72
191
Distraint, 114-16, 120, 241
Homicide, 24, 153
Divorce, 137-41, 148
Horticulture, 59-65
House-breaking, 21, 125
Doctor, 206, 215-221
Dowry, 137, 138, 142, 149,162- Husband, see “Marriage”
4, 167, 171^-176^, 178-84
Drought, 48
Illegal distraint, 113, 114
Banishment, 154
Drowning, 109, 129, 133, 143, Illicit sales, 7
Bastinado, 202
Impalement, 153
155
Bennu sickness, 278
Inalienability, 37
Bequest, 38, 39, 150, 178, 179, Ear, Amputation of, 205, 282
Incest, 154-8
182
Elders, 3, 4, 7, 9, 13, 122
Ingratitude, 186, 192, 193
Bigamy, 135, 144, 145, 148
Enclosure, 41
Inheritance, 165-7, 173, 174,
Boat-builder, 234, 235
Enfranchisement, 117,119,1710
176a, 176b, 178-82
Boatman, 236-9
Enslavement of free persons, Interest, 48-51
Boats, 8, 234-40, 275-7
14, 54, 115-17, 141
Intimidation, 3
Branding, 127, 226, 227
Exchange, Rate of, 51, 111
Breach of promise, 159-61
Exile, 154
Judge, 5, 9, 127, 167, 168,
Breasts, amputation of, 194
Eye, 193, 196, 215, 218, 220
172a, 177
Bribery, 4
Bride-price, 138, 139, 159-61, Fallow, 43
Kallati (literally spouse}, 180
163, 164, 166
False witness, 3, 4
Brigandage, 22, 23
Farming, 42-56, 59-65, 253-6 Kidnapping, 14
Bucket, 260
Favourite son, 165
Landlord, b
Builder, 228-33, 274
Fees, 206, 215-7, 221-4
Lawsuits, 3, 4
Burglary, 21
Fiefs, see “ Military Law”
Burial in the house, 21, 227
Fines, 8,12,24,57,58, 112,114, Legal tender, c
Burning, 25, no, 157
116, 156, 160, 161, 203, 204, Legitimation, 170, 1710, 190
207-9, 211-14, 220, 225,241, Lion, 244, 266
Capital punishment, 1-3, 6247, 248, 251, 255, 259, 260 Loans, 49-52, 100-2, 106, 107
Loss by enemy, 103
n, 14-16, 19, 21, 22, 25, 26, Fire, 25
Lost property, 9-13
109, 130, 143, 153, 155, 157, Flood, 45, 46, 48, 53, 55, 56
227, 229
Flooding, 53, 55, 56
Captives, 27, 28, 32, 133-5
3
Forfeiture, 35, 37, 113, 159, 177 Maintenance, 133-5, *7
Makhirtu, 240, 276
Cattle-doctor, 224, 225
Fosterage, see “ Adoption”
Collision, 241
Malediction, 1
Foster-mother, 194
Manslaughter, 116, 207, 208
Compensation, 23, 42, 43, 54- Fraud, 265
7, 62, 63, 113, 219, 220, 225, Fugitive slaves, 15-20
Marriage, 38, 127-36, 141-53,
166, 175-7
232, 245-8, 263, 267
Metayer tenure, see “ Farm
Concubinage, 137, 144, 145, Gift, 165
183, 184
ing ”
God, Before, 8, 23, 106, 107,
Military law, 26-41
Conjugal rights, 142
120, 126
Conspiracy, 109
Minors, 7, 14, 29
Goring, 250-2
Curse, 1
Miscarriage, 209-14
“ Misfortune of the King,” 27,
Handicraft, 189
28
Damage, 120, 232, 245-8^
Hands, Amputation of, 195, 218,
Mother, 29, 177
Debt, 38, 39, 48-52, «, c, 113,
226
115, 119, 151, 152
Mukkielbitu, 240
I Harbouring, 16, 19, 20, 109
Absconder, 136
Acknowledgment of paternity,
170, 171CZ
Act of God, 249, 266
Adad (God), 45, 48
Adoption, 185-93
Adultery, 129, 133
Artisan, 188, 274
Assault, 195-214
Assignment for debt, 38, 39, 151
�64
Negligence, 42-4, 53, 55, 56,
61-3, 65, 264
Nersega, 187, 192, 193
Nurse, 194
Oath, 9, 20, 23, 103, 120, 126,
131, 240, 249
Ordeal, 2, 132
Orphan, 177
INDEX TO CODE
Repudiation, 192, 282
Respite, 13
Restitution, 9
Retaliation (lex tallows'), 4, 13,
116, 196, 197, 200, 210, 219,
230, 231
Reward, 17
Settlement, Marriage, 150,
171#, 1720, 172$
Shepherds, 57, 58, 261-7
Palace, 18, 32, 109
Ships, see “ Boats ”
Pardon, 129
Sickness, 148
Paternity, 170, Vjia
Slander, 3, n, 12, 109, 127,
Penalty, 4, 5, 12
People, Son of the, 188, 274
I32, 161
Slave, 15-20, 118, 175, 176,
Planting, 60-3
199, 205, 217, 219, 220, 223,
Plebeian, 8, 15, 16, 140, 175,
2^6, 227, 231, 252, 278-82
176a, 198, 201, 204, 208, 211,
•----- Female, 15-17, 118, 119,
216, 219, 222
141, 144, 146, 147, 170,
Pledge, 49-520
171a, 213, 214, 278-81
Priestess, no, 127, 178-82
Sorcery, 1, 2
Purchase, Illicit, 7
Spell, 2
Stolen property, see “Lost
Qadishtu, 181
property ”
Storm, 45, 48
Ransom,32
Substitution, 26
Rape, 130, 156
Sub-tenancy, 47
Rebels, 109
Receiving stolen goods, 6, 7, 10 Suspicion, 131, 132
Reclaiming land, 44, 63,
Tariff, 51, in
Rent, 45, 46
Temple, 6, 8, 32
Tenant, b
Theft, 6, 8, 25
Tongue, Amputation of, 192
Trade, 100-7
Trader, 40, 49, a, c, 100-7, 116,
118, 119, 152
Trees, 59
Trespass, 57, 58
Trust, 112, 120, 122 •
Tumour, 215, 218, 220
Unjust judge, 5
Unknown murderer, 24
Vassal, see “ Military Law”
Veterinary surgeon, 224, 225
Virgin, 181
Wages, 257, 258,261, 273, 274
Ward, 177
Warehousing, 120-26
Water-wheel, 259, 240
“Way of the King,” 26, 32. 33
Weather, 45, 48
Widow, 171^-174, 177
Wife, see “ Marriage ”
“Wife of Merodach,” 182
Wineseller, 108-10
Witchcraft, 1, 2
Witness, 3, 4, 7, 9, 13, 122
�Published by T. & T. CLARK, Edinburgh.
Sixth Edition now ready. Crown 8vo, cloth, is. 6d. net.
THE OLDEST CODE OF LAWS IN THE WORLD. The Code of Laws pro
mulgated by Hammurabi, King of Babylon, b.c. 2285-2242. Translated,
with Introduction and full Index, by C. H. W. Johns, M.A., Lecturer on
Assyriology, Queens’ College, Cambridge.
“The discovery and decipherment of this Code is the greatest event in Biblical Archaeo
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The oldest laws in the world : being an account of the Hammurabi code and the Sinaitic legislation, with a complete translation of the great Babylonian inscription discovered at Susa
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Edwards, Chilperic
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 64 p. ; 22 cm.
Series title: R.P.A. Extra Series
Series number: No. 11
Notes: Front cover features illustration of Hammurabi adoring the Sun-god. Printed in double columns. Includes bibliographical references and index. Issued for the Rationalist Press Association, Ltd. Publisher's lists inside and on back cover. Appendix A:The First Dynasty of Babylon. B: Genesis XIV. C: Relics of Earlier Babylonian Laws. Published pseudonymously. Author believed to be Edward John Pilcher. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Hammurabi Code
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