1 10 8 https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/e6f6f571b07983fd9b8554d91997cd3f.pdf?Expires=1782345600&Signature=tsBoAPz1YWWLMrBMUwoE9E0B920ZSuKbTLzIQtqwr5p7UoT44Dls-FhlSxVTMtGDBJ550zPlj06byyjXsDS9daIU-qsoowHVRZjRh7RIn0IlTioaDxTHGLCwThZeFAoF%7E92JDBeJodt4dsOF9ab9aYql-LrLeaXjY4GTKbVU4KCA9jJFrWIHfjVZMY40mnJZCqCdqWsnNQw6f4HWpmq69VCXCOOhrhmfR7TtDdTTIXML0vxf-HBcppwBRetBBTh51EwVcH7kzdc8NTdTD7TWZnoKlD0LNvsU7MlsriysF%7EYejMpupS5NqB81R49T9svUFtWYdhIzp3VvpI3aL%7E3T2g__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 6bc38f29eebfb572508a6d81b2066ef4 PDF Text Text NEW LIFE OF ABRAHAM. BY C. BRADLAUGH. Most undoubtedly father Abraham is a personage whose his­ tory should command our attention, if only because he figures as the founder of the Jewish race—a race which, having been promised protection and favour by Deity, appear to have experienced little else besides the infliction or suffer­ ance of misfortune and misery. Men are taught to believe that God, following out a solemn covenant made with Abraham, suspended the operations of nature to aggrandise the Jews; that he promised always to bless and favour them if they adhered to his worship and obeyed the priests. The promised blessings were usually—political authority, individual happiness and sexual power, long life, and great wealth; the threatened curses for idolatry or disobedience —disease, loss of property and children, mutilation, death. Amongst the blessings—the right to kill, plunder, and ravish their enemies, with protection, whilst pious, against any subjection to retaliatory measures. And all this because they were Abraham’s children! Abraham is an important personage. Without Abraham, no Jesus, no Christianity, no Church of England, no bishops, no tithes, no church rates. But for Abraham, England would have lost all these blessings. Abraham was the great­ grandfather of Judah, the head of the tribe to which God’s father, Joseph, belonged. In gathering materials for a short biographical sketch, we are at the same time comforted and dismayed by the fact that the only reliable account of Abraham’s career is that furnished by the book of Genesis, supplemented by a few brief references in other parts of the Bible, and that, outside “ God’s perfect and infallible revelation to man,” there is no reliable account of Abraham’s existence at all. We are comforted by the thought that Genesis is unquestioned by the faithful, and is at present protected by Church and State against heretic assaults; but we are dismayed when we think that, if Infidelity, encouraged by Colenso and Kalisch, up­ sets Genesis, Abraham will have little historical claim on our attention. Some philologists have asserted that Brama and Abraham are alike corruptions of Abba Rama, or Abrama, and that Sarah is identical with Sarasvati. �■ - I W-I-V 2 • ,• „ ,,1. ?k,y NEW LIFE OF ABRAHAM. Abram, is a Chaldean compound, meaning father of the elevated, or exalted father. OFTON is a compound of Chaldee and Arabic, signifying father of a multitude. In part v. of his work, Colenso mentions that Adonis was for­ merly identified with Abram, “ high father,” Adonis being the personified sun. Leaving incomprehensible philology for the ordinary au­ thorised version of our Bibles, we find that Abraham was the son of Terah. The text does not expressly state where Abraham was born, and I cannot therefore describe his birth­ place with that accuracy of detail which a true believer might desire, but I may add that he “ dwelt in old time on the other side of the flood.” (Joshua xxiv. 2 and 3.) The situation of such dwelling involves a geographical problem most unlikely to be solved unless the inquirer is “ half seas over.” Abraham was born when Terah, his father, was seventy years of age; and, according to Genesis, Terah and his family came forth out of Ur of the Chaldees, and went to Haran and dwelt there. We turn to the map to look for Ur of the Chaldees, anxious to discover it as possibly Abraham’s place of nativity, but find that the translators of God’s inspired word have taken a slight liberty with the text by substituting “ Ur of the Chaldees” for “Aur Kasdim,” the latter being, in plain English, the light of the magi, or con­ jurors, or astrologers. is stated by Kalisch to have been made the basis for many extraordinary legends, as to Abraham’s rescue from the flames. Abraham, being born—according to Hebrew chronology, 2083 years after the creation, and according to the Septuagint 3549 years after that event—when his father was seventy, grew so slowly that when his father reached the good old age of 205 years, Abraham had only arrived at 75 years, having, apparently, lost no less than 60 years’ growth during his father’s life-time. St. Augustine and St. Jerome gave this up as a difficulty inexplicable. Calmet endeavours to explain it, and makes it worse. But what real difficulty is there ? Do you mean, dear reader, that it is impossible Abraham could have lived 135 years, and yet be only 75 years of age? Is this your objection? It is a sensible one, I admit, but it is an Infidel one. Eschew sense, and retaining only religion, ever remember that with God all things are possible. Indeed, I have read myself that gin given to young children stunts their growth ; and who shall say what �NEW LIFE OF ABRAHAM. 3 influence of the spirit prevented the full development of Abraham’s years ? It is a slight question whether Abraham and his two brothers were not born the same year; if this be so, he might have been a small child, and not grown so quickly as he would have otherwise done. “ The Lord ” spoke to Abraham, and promised to make of him a great nation, to bless those who blessed Abraham, and to curse those who cursed him. I do not know precisely which Lord it was that spake unto Abraham. In the Hebrew it says it was Jeue, or, as our translators call it, Jehovah, but as God said (Exodus vi. 2) that by the name “Jehovah was I not known ” to either Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob, we must conclude either that the omniscient Deity had forgotten the matter, or that a counterfeit Lord had assumed a title to which he had no right. The word Jehovah, which the book of Exodus says Abraham did not know, is nearly always the name by which Abraham addresses or speaks of the Jewish Deity. Abraham having been promised protection by the God of Truth, initiated his public career with a diplomacy of state­ ment worthy Talleyrand, Thiers, or Gladstone. He repre­ sented his wife Sarah as his sister, which, if true, is a sad reproach to the marriage. The ruling Pharaoh, hearing the beauty of Sarah commended, took her into his house, she being at that time a fair Jewish dame, between 60 and 70 years of age, and he entreated Abraham well for her sake, and he had sheep and oxen, asses and servants, and camels. We do not read that Abraham objected in any way to the loss of his wife. The Lord, who is all just, finding out that Pharaoh had done wrong, not only punished the king, but also punished the king’s household, who could hardly haw interfered with his misdoings. Abraham got his wife back and went away much richer by the transaction. Whethc< the conduct of father Abraham in pocketing quietly the prict. of the insult—or honour—offered to his wife, is worthy modern imitation, is a question I leave to be discussed by Convocation when it has finished with the Athanasian Creed. After this transaction we are not surprised to hear that Abraham was very rich in “ silver and gold.” So was the Duke of Marlborough after the King had taken his sister in similar manner into his house. In verse 19 of chapter xii. there is a curious mistranslation in our version. The text is : “ It is for that I had taken her for my wifeour version �4 NEW LIFE OF ABRAHAM. has : “ I might have taken her.” The Douay so translates as to take a middle phrase, leaving it doubtful whether or not Pharaoh actually took Sarah as his wife. In any case, the Egyptian king acted well throughout. Abraham plays the part of a timorous, contemptible hypocrite. Strong enough to have fought for his wife, he sold her. Yet Abraham was blessed for his faith, and his conduct is our pattern ! Despite his timorousness in the matter of his wife, Abraham was a man of wonderful courage and warlike ability. To rescue his relative, Lot—with whom he could not live on the same land without quarrelling, both being religious—he armed 318 servants, and fought with four powerful kings, defeating them and recovering the spoil. Abraham's victory was so de­ cisive, that the King of Sodom, who fled and fell (xiv. 10) in a previous encounter, now met Abraham alive (see v. 17), to congratulate him on his victory. Abraham was also offered bread and wine by Melchisedek, King of Salem, priest of the Most High God. Where was Salem ? Some identify it with Jerusalem, which it cannot be, as Jebus was not so named until after the time of the Judges (Judges xix. 10). How does this King, of this unknown Salem, never heard of before or after, come to be priest of the Most High God ? These are queries for divines—orthodox disciples believe without inquiring. Melchisedek was most unfortunate as far as genealogy is concerned. He had no father. I do not mean by this that any bar sinister defaced his escutcheon. He not only was without father, but without mother also; he had no beginning of days or end of life, and is therefore probably at the present time an extremely old gentleman, who would be an invaluable acquisition to any antiquarian association fortunate enough to cultivate his acquaintance. God having promised Abraham a numerous family, and the promise not having been in any part fulfilled, the patriarch grew uneasy, and remonstrated with the Lord, who explained the matter thoroughly to Abraham when the latter was in a deep sleep, and a dense darkness prevailed. Religious ex­ planations come with greater force under these or similar con­ ditions. Natural or artificial light and clear-sightedness are always detrimental to spiritual manifestations. Abraham’s wife had a maid named Hagar, and she bore to Abraham a child named Ishmael; at the time Ishmael was born, Abraham was 86 years of age. Just before Ish­ mael’s birth Hagar was so badly treated that she ran away. �NEW LIFE OF ABRAHAM. 5 As she was only a slave, God persuaded Hagar to return, and humble herself to her mistress. Thirteen years after­ wards God appeared to Abraham, and instituted the rite of circumcision—which rite had been practised long before by other nations—and again renewed the promise. The rite of circumcision was not only practised by nations long an­ terior to that of the Jews, but appears, in many cases, not even to have been pretended as a religious rite. (See Kalisch, Genesis, p. 386; Cahen, Genese, p. 43.) After God had “ left off talking with him, God went up from Abraham.” As God is infinite, he did not, of course, go up; but still the Bible says God went up, and it is the duty of the people to believe that he did so, especially as the infinite Deity then and now resides habitually in “ heaven,” wherever that may be. Again the Lord appeared to Abraham, either as three men or angels, or as one of the three; and Abraham, who seemed hospitably inclined, invited the three to wash their feet, and to rest under the tree, and gave butter and milk and dressed calf, tender and good, to them, and they did eat; and after the inquiry as to where Sarah then was, the promise of a son is repeated. Sarah—then by her own admission an old woman, stricken in years—laughed when she heard this, and the Lord said, “ Wherefore did Sarah laugh ?” and Sarah denied it, but the Lord said, “ Nay, but thou didst laugh.” The three then went toward Sodom, and Abraham went with them as a guide ; and the Lord ex­ plained to Abraham that some sad reports had reached him about Sodom and Gomorrah, and that he was then going to find out whether the report was reliable. God is infinite, and was always therefore at Sodom and Gomorrah, but had apparently been temporarily absent; he is omniscient, and therefore knew everything which was' happening at Sodom and Gomorrah, but he did not know whether or not the people were as wicked as they had been represented to him. God, Job tells us, “ put no trust in his servants, and his angels he charged with folly.” Between the rogues and the fools, therefore, the all-wise and all-powerful God seems to be as liable to be mistaken in the reports made to him as any monarch might be in reports made by his ministers. Two of the three men, or angels, went on to Sodom, and left the Lord with Abraham, who began to remonstrate with Deity on the wholesale destruction contemplated, and asked him to spare the city if fifty righteous should be found within �6 NEW LIFE OF ABRAHAM. it. God said, “ If I find fifty righteous within the city, then will I spare the place for their sakes.” God, being all-wise, he knew there were not fifty in Sodom, and was deceiving Abraham. By dint of hard bargaining in thorough Hebrew fashion, Abraham, whose faith seemed tempered by distrust, got the stipulated number reduced to ten, and then “ the Lord went his way.” Jacob Ben Chajim, in his introduction to the Rabbinical Bible, p. 28, tells us that the Hebrew text used to read in verse 22 : “ And Jehovah still stood before Abraham /’ but the scribes altered it, and made Abraham stand before the Lord, thinking the original text offensive to Deity. The 18th chapter of Genesis has given plenty of work to the divines. Augustin contended that God can take food, though he does not require it. Justin compared “the eating of God with the devouring power of the fire.” Kalisch sorrows over the holy fathers “ who have taxed all their in­ genuity to make the act of eating compatible with the attri­ butes of Deity.” In the Epistle to the Romans, Abraham’s faith is greatly praised. We are told, iv. 19 and 20, that— “ Being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah’s womb.” “ He staggered not at the promise of God through un­ belief ; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God.” Yet, so far from Abraham giving God glory, we are told in Genesis, xvii. 17, that— “ Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old ? and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear ?” The Rev. Mr. Boutell says that “ the declaration which caused Sarah to ‘laugh,’ shows the wonderful familiarity which was then permitted to Abraham in his communica­ tions with God.” After the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham journeyed south and sojourned in Gerar, and either untaught or too well taught by his previous experience, again repre­ sented his wife as his sister, and Abimelech, king of Gerar, sent and took Sarah. As before, we find neither remon­ strance nor resistance recorded on the part of Abraham. This time God punished, d la Malthus, the women in Abimelech’s house for an offence they did not commit, and �NEW LIFE OF ABRAHAM. 7 Sarah was again restored to her husband, with sheep, oxen, men-servants, and women-servants, and money. Infidels object that the Bible says Sarah “ was old and well stricken in age;” that “it had ceased to be with her after the manner of womenthat she was more than 90 years of age; and that it is not likely King Abim elech would fall in love with an ugly old woman. We reply, “ chacun a son gout.” It is clear that Sarah had not ceased to be attractive, as God re­ sorted to especial means to protect her virtue from Abimelech. At length Isaac is born, and his mother Sarah now urges Abraham to expel Hagar and her son, “ and the thing was very grievous in Abraham’s sight because of his sonthe mother being only a bondwoman does not seem to have troubled him. God, however, approving Sarah’s notion. Hagar is expelled, “ and she departed and wandered in the wilderness, and the water was spent in the bottle, and she cast the child under one of the shrubs.” She had apparently carried the child, who being at least more than 14, and according to some calculations as much as 17 years of age, must have been a heavy child to carry in a warm climate. God never did tempt any man at any time, but he “ did tempt Abraham ” to kill Isaac by offering him as a burnt offering. The doctrine of human sacrifice is one of the holy mysteries of Christianity, as taught in the Old and New Testament. Of course, judged from a religious or Biblical stand-point, it cannot be wrong, as if it were, God would not have permitted Jephtha to sacrifice his daughter by offering her as a burnt offering, nor have tempted Abraham to sacrifice his son, nor have said in Leviticus, “ None de­ voted, which shall be devoted of men, shall be redeemed; but shall surely be put to death” (xxvii. 29), nor have in the New Testament worked out the monstrous sacrifice of his only son Jesus, at the same time son and begetting father. Abraham did not seem to be entirely satisfied with his own conduct when about to kill Isaac, for he not only con­ cealed from his servants his intent, but positively stated that which was not true, saying, “ I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you.” If he meant that he and Isaac would come again to them, then he knew that the sacrifice would not take place. Nay, Abraham even deceived his own son, who asked him where was thelamb for the burnt offering ? But we learn from the New Testament that Abraham acted in this and other matters “ by faith/ so his �8 NEW LIFE OF ABRAHAM. falsehoods and evasions, being results and aids of faith, must be dealt with in an entirely different manner from transactions of every day life. Just as Abraham stretched forth his hand to slay his son, the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, and prevented the murder, saying, “Now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son.” This would convey the impression that up. to that moment the angel of the Lord was not certain upon the subject. In Genesis xiii. God says to Abraham, “Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art north­ ward, and southward, and eastward, and westward. For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever. Arise, walk through the land, in the length of it, and in the breadth of it, for I will give it unto thee.” Yet, as is admitted by the Rev. Charles Boutell, in his “Bible Dictionary,” “ The only portion of territory in that land of promise, of which Abraham became possessed,” was a graveyard, which he had bought and paid for. Although Abraham was too old to have children before the birth of Isaac, he had many children after Isaac is bom. He lived to “ a good old age,” and died “ full of years,” but was yet younger than any of those who preceded him, and whose ages are given in the Bible history, except Nahor. Abraham gave “ all that he had to Isaac,” but appears to have distributed the rest of the property amongst his other children, who were sent to enjoy it somewhere down East. According to the New Testament, Abraham is now in Paradise, but Abraham in heaven is scarcely an improvement upon Abraham on earth. When he was entreated by an unfortunate in hell for a drop of water to cool his tongue, father Abraham replied, “ Son, remember that in thy life­ time thou receivedst thy good things, and now thou art tormented,” as if the reminiscence of past good would alleviate present and future continuity of evil. PRICE ONE PENNY. London : Printed and published by Austin & Co., 17, Johnson’s Court, Fleet Street. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; 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> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource New life of Abraham Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bradlaugh, Charles [1833-1891.] Description An account of the resource Place of publication: [London] Collation: 8 p. ; 18 cm. Notes: Date of publication from KVK. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available [Austin & Co.] Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [1861] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context G4948 Subject The topic of the resource Judaism Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <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 (New life of Abraham), 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> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Abraham Bible-O.T. Judaism https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/da8080a3a6ac1518fe6591f85b627485.pdf?Expires=1782345600&Signature=cASIkznP6qZOiiHNcTKamPs-gr-b6GIeKsYZJWD5u5j-tHT-Bx%7E3KzkiaZqilaEILRnSiVETPS7knOLhgcwtRrwWNwHc4VUW2bi9FOfanA7tyquBLe7FGqp5NH%7EMgCBw8Xz0RahYJYNjzYlSSB1xVvVnpwtfGuI%7E497u6fLtiCw8sBv0vA4LUQtXe-ih3Iw8Nve5ZsDpFVAd7smLfz-lnjz1xwlcSrID3m7vdHl9v7wyOX4POGDUkNbsGYsuIGn2IQrFIoETV8AuGmo6V%7EdfCCM9BWSPIOrBzgz0oceUYw8s9Luv1oWGTs3V-vDDSSNh7pre4IwJv2E6whlxz5zuqQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 4d7ff19325fbcfbdf7e1976c354a70c8 PDF Text Text THE PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS. PART I. BY SALADIN. [reprinted from “the secular review.”] London : W. STEWART & Co., 41, FARRINGDON St., E.C. 0— -------- ■ ' ' -------------- 0> ��B So-73 M55? THE PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS. Through circumstances intrinsic and extrinsic, the Jews occupy the position of the most remarkable people in the world’s history. It is a far cry from Abraham to Moses Montefiore, from Miriam to Sarah Bernhardt, from David to Disraeli; but between these pillars on the left and right horizon of history there is not a single gap w’here the Jewish people had ceased to be—a single breach in the invulnerable line of the Jewish nationality and faith. The Jews alone, as a distinct and specialised race, link the dim morning of the Past with the mid-day warmth of the Present. We have now no Chaldeans, no Assyrians, no Persians, no Egyptians, no Greeks, no Romans, as history knew them in the ages of their power and pride. But the Jew of ancient Ai and Jericho is the Jew of modern Houndsditch and Petticoat Lane. The Nathan with whom you pledge your finger ring has the blood, the features, and the faith of the Abraham who dwelt in Ur of the Chaldees. The ancient Greek, in spite of his art, has perished ; the ancient Roman, in spite of his arms, has vanished from the earth ; but the monotheistic sept of Syrian shepherds survive long after the last hour of the Greek epic and the Roman legion has been struck on the clock of Time. Nearly one-third of the inhabitants of the globe, the Christians and Mohammedans combined, are indebted for their religion to this primitive tribe of husbandmen and cattle­ drovers. Our Bible is a surviving shred of their ancient litera­ ture ; and, on the maternal side, their blood flowed in the veins of the Redeemer. They have survived, while the most indestructible tower, temple, and monument in their Palestine have crumbled into undistinguishable �4 THE PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS. ruin. Lost among the nations of the earth, as a drop of water is lost in a bucketful, they yet retain their in­ flexible individuality. The God of Jacob is still their God, the Mighty One of Israel their rock and stay ; and, through a perfect hell-fire of persecution, burning through the centuries, they have passed, impervious as a sheet of asbestos to the fierce flame-forks of the furnace. For eighteen centuries they have been strangers in a strange land, repudiating the Messiahship of the Son of Mary, and waiting, with patience unalterable and faith invincible, for the coming of Shiloh. Not only is Judaism the root from which Christianity has sprung, but the first Christian preachers in the Roman empire were Jews, with whom it seemed that Judaism and Christianism were reconcilable. They practised the rite of circumcision, and, like their fathers, conformed to the Mosaic law, and moulded the polity of the Chris­ tian Church upon that of the Jewish synagogue. But the conservatism of Judaism on the one hand, and the obstinacy of Christian fanaticism on the other, soon led to the parting of the ways. A council was held at Jerusalem about the year 49 a.d., which forever divorced Judaism and Christianity, and left them, as regarded each other, in an attitude of aversion, which it needed only time to ripen into one of implacable hostility. Originally, all that was necessary for a Jew who desired to enter the Christian fold was to admit that he believed Jesus Christ to be the promised Messiah, and, as an outward seal to this admission, submit to the rite of baptism. But immediately the Hebrew race perceived that the Messiah who competed for their suffrages did not establish a temporal kingdom for the people of Israel, they would have none of him. Instead of any prospect of imperial ascendancy, they saw Jerusalem compassed about with armies, and the prospect of the legions of Vespatian blotting the kingdom of David and Solomon out of the map of the world. And, if any further barrier were wanted to completely arrest the ingress of the Jews into the Christian Church, the doctrine of the Trinity furnished that barrier. The Christian constructed his three-pronged God out of sundry shreds and patches, in order that that God might �THE PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS. 5 be all things to all men. He was three to win over Roman Polytheism ; he was one to conciliate Jewish Monotheism. But the arithmetical juggle pleased none, except those in the inner circle, and who had vested interests in its propagation. The Romans declined to accept this numerical puzzle in the place of their three ¿Zzz majores ; and the Jews, whose devotion to the Monotheistic principle amounted to fanaticism, objected to see their one and indivisible living and true God split up into a sort of breakfast-fork, with three prongs. And before, under Constantine, Christianity had mounted the throne of the Caesars, the Jews had washed their hands of it forever. It takes thousands of pounds now-a-days to convert a single Jew, as the statistics of Christian missions among them testify; and even when this Jew is converted, he turns out such a questionable specimen that his fellow-Christians have to keep their eye upon him, lest he should steal the communion plate or skedaddle with the trappings of the altar. Down through all their ancient history, full of blood and tenderness, guilt and simplicity, we are constrained to follow the Jews with an absorption of interest such as the readers of the world have never extended to the primitive annals of any other people whatsoever. I am exceptionally interested in all their crimes and follies, and in their wars and amours, whose fringes are illumed by a poetic halo in all that lies between the blood-soaked grass of Esdrselon and the heads of yellow grain that gleamed among the fingers of Ruth as she gleaned in the field of Boaz. But the interest reaches a point of dark and terrible intensity when the dial of Time indicates that it is 1,130 years, seven months, and fifteen days from the laying of the foundation of the Temple by Solomon. Then it was that the kingdom of Judah expired in a convulsion of fire and gore, and threw the remnant of her desolate children upon the tender mercies of all the nations of a hostile world. My lip has quivered, and tears have coursed down my cheeks, as, in the pages of their own Josephus, my blood has alternately curdled and boiled in the contemplation of the colossal and tragic tableau when the fire, leaping and roaring over the roof of the holy of holies, threw a �6 THE PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS. light, lurid and unearthly, up the slope of Calvary and Olivet and the hills that encompassed Jerusalem. What mystical terror, portent, and prodigy hushed the earth and air during the year that preceded the siege by Titus ? Who can withhold his sympathy from the race of old whom their God had, at last, forsaken, who no longer guided them with the cloud and the pillar of flame ? No longer did the schekincih, the visible symbol of the invisible God of the Hebrews, glow between the cherubim. But, on the eighth of the month Xanthicus, ’ at the ninth hour of the night, for full half-an-hour, a light, which was not the light of the God of Jacob, lingered over the altar while the Passover was being celebrated, bursting in upon the blackness of night with a radiance baleful and terrible. The clouds were full of chariots and armed men, while the wind was sobbing with cries of pain and waving the garments on the limbs of the dead. And, for a full year—fearful omen of doom—over Jerusalem a comet lay weirdly across the sky—a comet shaped like a sword. Its hilt was bloody red, and its blade streamed away in tracks of illimitable fire. The portents beheld by the Ancient People were not in vain: the Roman conquered—Jerusalem fell; the glory of Judea and the world is a chaos of corpses and cinders and death. Scorched black from the con­ flagration of their Temple, and wet-shod in the blood of their own kindred, a remnant escaped to wail, for century upon century, that the Temple was no more. * * On the Passover night, in the houses of many of the Jews, it has been observed that, as soon as the out-doors are set open, and the master of the house hath uttered these passages of Scripture— namely, Psalms lxxix. 6, lxix. 24, and Lam. iii. 66—some one slips cunningly, as if he would not be seen, into the room where they sup, clad in linen, or other extraordinary vestments, to the end the children may believe that Elias is present, while the company perform the ordinary closing religious offices at table, concluding all with the following most singular prayer for the rebuilding of the Temple :—“ Almighty God, now speedily and quickly build thy temple ; quickly in our days, out of hand ; now build it, now build it, now build it, now build it, now speedily build thy temple. Merciful God, great God, gentle God, highest God, good God, sweet God, excellent God, God of the Jews, speedily restore thy temple ; quickly, quickly, in our days ; now build it, now build it, now build it, now quickly build thy temple. Powerful God, living �THE PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS. 7 The winds of winter were kinder than the Gentiles to the now scattered remnant of the People of God :— “ Oh, where shall Israel lave her bleeding feet ? And when shall Zion’s songs again seem sweet ? The wild-dove hath her nest, the fox his cave, Mankind their country—Israel but the grave.” For 300 years Christianity waged a tooth-and-nail battle for existence. Toleration was such in the Roman empire that no religious sect was prosecuted in its capacity as a religious sect. But Christianity was prose­ cuted, not for its tenets, but for its crimes. Its votaries were the off-scourings of the human race—the Cat-andLadleites of Asia Minor. Their feebly-treasonable ravings about Jesus being a king Rome could afford to sneer at; but when the lascivious rabble, in their Agapes, indulged in secret but fiendish rites, involving murder, incest, and promiscuous sexual intercourse, in defence of the lives and morals of her citizens, Rome stepped in with the scourge of punishment; and, if certain of the Christian miscreants were burnt to death, they were consumed in a fire less baleful than that of their own lasciviousness ; and they were never torn to pieces by wild beasts who were such ignoble beasts as they were themselves Constantine, the first Christian Emperor, found it politically expedient to clothe this maniacal rabblement with the purple of power. It was meet that Constan­ tine, one of history’s thorough-paced villains, and the murderer of his own wife and son, should be the first Christian Emperor. And, further, it was meet that the Salvation Army, made up of the roughs, not of to-day, but of eighteen centuries ago, should hasten to dip their foul hands in human blood. In the Jews they saw the descendants of those who had slain Christ, and, accordingly, against this inoffensive people they directed the full fury of persecution. Even if it were true that, some God, mighty God, famous God, mild God, eternal God, terrible God, choicest God, royal God, rich God, beautiful God, faithful God, now speedily restore thy temple : quickly, quickly, in our days ; speedily, quickly ; now build it, now build it, now build it, now build it ; now quickly build thy temple.”—Bradshaw’s “Josephus,” pp. 551, 552, note. • �8 THE PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS. three centuries earlier, the Jews had executed the halffabulous Christ, what then ? It is alleged that Christ came from heaven for the express purpose of being crucified, and surely the Christians should have felt themselves under a heavy obligation to the Jews for crucifying him. According to their theory, if he had not been crucified, the world would have been lost. In fact, to what is called “ the Christian scheme of salva­ tion ” Judas Iscariot was as necessary as Jesus Christ himself. But, with the consistency for which the Chris­ tians have always been remarkable, and the benevolence for which they have ever been distinguished, they set themselves to persecuting and slaughtering the Jews, although they owed the wondrous birth of their Christ to a Jewish woman, and the atoning death of their Christ to a Jewish betrayer. They assailed the Hebrew and other heretics “ with stones, and other manifestations of rage.” Rather an apt way this was, it must be admitted, of following “ the meek and lowly Jesus,” who flogged certain parties out of the Temple with knotted cords ! A brick or paving stone describ­ ing a parabola has ever been, and forever must remain, one of the most convincing of Christian arguments. A paving stone, as a projectile, carries more syllogistic reasoning about it than does a polemical burlesque like Paley’s “ Evidences.” Brains incapable of the reception of Christian truth should be beaten out with a brick­ bat, so that the Lord be glorified. Constantine, the debauchee and murderer, permitted his Christians to hurl stones at the Jews ; but should a Jew, by way of self-defence or retaliation, throw a stone at a Christian, that Jew would be forthwith tied to the nearest stake, fuel would be piled round him and ignited, and, amid Christian jeer and hiss and yell, the descen­ dant of Abraham would be burned to a cinder in the name of his own fatal countryman, Jesus of Nazareth. When the Roman Empire fell to pieces there was plenty of ignorance, the very kind of manure upon which the upas-tree of Christianity grows most rankly. The follower of the Lamb was absorbed in superstitious monkery and brutalising militarism : he was either bending his servile knee at a shrine or having his few brains knocked out �THE PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS. 9 in a fight. And these ignorant swaggerers of crucifix and dagger had, as is the rule, conceit commensurate with their ignorance. They, in their own opinion, were the salt of the earth. The poor visionary and fanatic who was a carpenter and a god had come down specially from heaven to offer for them a sacrifice of blood, and they took care to offer him a sacrifice of blood in return : their lips were ever uttering credos, and their swords were ever red. The Jews, encouraged and abetted by the Saracens, kept Europe from receding to absolute military barbar­ ism and the cultus of the Galilee fishermen. “The intellectual activity of the Asiatic and African Jews soon communicated an impulse to those of Europe. The Hebrew doctor was viewed by the vulgar with wonder, fear, and hatred ; no crime could be imputed to him too incredible. Thus Zedekias, the physician to Charles the Bold, was asserted to have devoured at one meal, in the presence of the court, a waggon-load of hay, together with its horses and driver. The titles of some of the works that appeared among them deserve mention, as displaying a strong contrast with the mystical designa­ tions in vogue. Thus Isaac Ben Soleiman, an Egyptian, wrote ‘ On Fevers,’ ‘ On Medicine,’ ‘ On Food and Reme­ dies,’ ‘ On the Pulse,’ ‘ On Philosophy,’ ‘ On Melancholy,’ ‘An Introduction to Logic.’ The simplicity of these titles displays an intellectual clearness and a precision of thought which have ever been shown by the Israelites. Since it was by the power and patronage of the Saracens that the Jewish physicians were acting, it is not surprising that the language used in many of their compositions was Arabic. Translations were, however, commonly made into Hebrew, and, at a subsequent period, into Latin. Through the ninth century the Asiatic colleges maintained their previous celebrity in certain branches of knowledge. Thus the Jew, Shabtai Donolo, was obliged to go to Bagdad to complete his studies in astronomy. As Arabian influence extended itself into Sicily and Italy, Jewish intelligence accompanied it, and schools were founded at Tarentum, Salerno, Bari, and other places. Here the Arab and Jew Orientalists first amalgamated with a truly European element—the Greek �IO THE PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS —as is shown by the circumstance that in the college at Salerno instruction was given through the medium of all three languages. At one time Pontus taught in Greek, Abdallah in Arabic, and Elisha in Hebrew. A similar influence of the Arab and Jew, combined, founded the University of Montpellier.”* But what university did Christianity found ? Its uni­ versity, if it had founded one, would have had four chairs—Ignorance, Devotion, Cruelty, and Lust. “ Mahommedanism had all along been the patron of physical science ; paganising Christianity not only repudiated it, but exhibited towards it sentiments of contemptuous disdain and hatred. Hence physicians were viewed by the Church with dislike, and regarded as Atheists by the people, who held firmly to the lessons they had been taught, that cures must be wrought by relics of martyrs and bones of saints, by prayers and intercessions, and that each region of the body was under some spiritual charge—the first joint of the right thumb being in the care of God the Father, the second under that of the blessed Virgin, and so on of other parts. For each disease there was a saint. A man with sore eyes must invoke St. Clara; but, if it were an inflammation else­ where, he must turn to St. Anthony. An ague would demand the assistance of St. Pernel. For the propi­ tiating of these celestial beings it was necessary that fees should be paid, and thus the practice of imposture­ medicine became a great source of profit.”+ On far other bases did the subtle and thoughtful Hebrew build his system of therapeutics. “ In the eleventh century nearly all the physicians in Europe were Jews. This was due to two different causes : the Church would tolerate no interference with her spiritual methods of treating disease, which formed one of her most productive sources of gain ; and the study of medi­ cine had been formally introduced into the rabbinical schools. The monk was prohibited a pursuit which gave to the rabbi an honourable emolument. If thus * “The Intellectual Development of Europe,” vol. ii., pp. 120, 121. + Ibid, vol. ii., pp. 121, 122. �THE PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS. II the social condition of the rabbis, who drew no income from their religious duties, induced them to combine the practice of medicine with their pursuits, great facili­ ties had arisen for mental culture through the establish­ ment of so many schools. Henceforth the Jewish phy­ sician is recognised as combining with his professional skill a profound knowledge of theology, mathematics, astronomy, philosophy, music, law. In a singular manner he stands aloof in the barbarian societies among whom he lives, looking down like a philosopher upon their idolatries—permitting, or even excusing, them, like a statesman. Of those who thus adorned the eleventh century was Rabbi Solomon Ben Isaac, better known under the abbreviation Raschi—called by his country­ men the Prince of Commentators. He was equally at home in writing commentaries on the Talmud, or in giving instructions for great surgical operations, as the Cæsarean section. He was the greatest French physi­ cian of his age. “ Spain, during the same century, produced a worthy competitor to him, Ebn Zohr, physician to the court of Seville. His writings were in Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac, and both in prose and verse. He composed a treatise on the cure of diseases, and two on fevers. In singular contrast with the superstitious notions of the times, he possessed a correct view of the morbific nature of marsh miasm. He was followed by Ben Ezra, a Jew of Toledo, who was at once a physician, philosopher, mathematician, astronomer, critic, poet. He travelled all over Europe and Asia, being held in captivity for some time in India. Among his medical writings was a work on theoretical and practical medicine, entitled ‘ Book of Proofs.’ Through the wars arising in Spain between the Moham­ medans and Christians, many learned Jews were driven into France, imparting to that country, by their presence, a new intellectual impulse. Of such were Aben Tybbon, who gave to his own profession a pharmaceutical ten­ dency by insisting on the study of botany and the art of preparing drugs. Ben Kimchi, a Narbonnese physician and grammarian, wrote commentaries on the Bible, sacred and moral poems, a Hebrew grammar. Not­ withstanding the opposition of the ecclesiastics, William, �12 THE PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS. the Lord of Montpellier, passed an edict authorising all persons, without exception, to profess medicine in the university of his city. This was specially meant for the relief of the Jews, though expressed in a general way. Spain, though she had thus lost many of her learned men, still continued to produce others of which she had reason to be proud. “ Moussa Ben Maimon, known all over Europe as Maimonides, was recognised by his countrymen as ‘the Doctor, the Great Sage, the Glory of the West, the Light of the East, second only to Moses.’ He is often designated by the four initials, ‘ R. M. B. M.’—that is, Rabbi Moses Ben Maimon, or, briefly, Rambam. His biography presents some points of interest. He was born at Cordova a.d. 1135, and, while yet young, wrote com­ mentaries on the Taimuds, both of Babylon and Jeru­ salem, and also a work on the Calendar ; but, embracing Mohammedanism, he emigrated to Egypt, and there became physician to the celebrated Sultan, Saladin. Among his works are medical aphorisms, derived from former Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and Arabic sources; an abridgment of Galen ; and of his original treatises, which were very numerous, may be mentioned those ‘ On Hemorrhoids,’ ‘ On Poisons and Antidotes,’ ‘ On Asthma,’ ‘ On the Preservation of Health ’ (the latter being written for the benefit of the son of Saladin), ‘On the Bites of Venomous Animals’ (written by order of the Sultan), ‘On Natural History.’ His ‘ Moreh Nevochim,’ or ‘Teacher of the Perplexed,’ was an attempt to reconcile the doctrines of the Old Testament with reason. In addition to these, he had a book on Idolatry, and one on Christ. Besides Maimonides, the Sultan had another physician, Ebn Djani, the author of a work on the medical topography of the city of Alexandria. From the biographies of these learned men of the twelfth century it would seem that their religious creed hung lightly upon them. Not unfrequently they became converted to Mohammedanism.”* Meanwhile the Christians were progressing satisfac­ torily in divinity and dirt. They called themselves Ibid, vol. ii., pp. 122, 123, 124. �THE PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS. 13 followers of the Lamb; followers of the Skunk would have been more appropriate. They did not build, like the Saracens and Jews, museums, observatories, colleges, and hospitals ; but they built monasteries for lewd and lazy monks, and they built convents which were fre­ quently only ecclesiastical brothels. They also built castles to harbour tyrants, dungeons to incarcerate heretics, and fires to roast them. The laity were as ignorant as bullocks, and most of the clergy could not even read. Their learning lay in the discussion of such questions as whether Adam, having had no mother, had a navel, and whether Christ, when chewed and swallowed in the sacramental bread, was digestible or not. By the middle of the fourteenth century Christian dirt and offal converted much of Western Europe into a sepulchre. Cleanliness is next to godliness ; but Christ­ endom stuck so fast to godliness that it never approached the virtue that lay next to it. To describe the houses and streets of the fourteenth century, in Christian coun­ tries, would be an outrage upon modern credence. Thirteen centuries of Jesus, Paul, neo-Platonism, Popery, and Aristotle had converted some of the finest countries of the world into a hideous arena, which was, at one and the same time, a dunghill and a battle-field. On the dung­ hill the rank grubs and maggots stood on end and gored and smashed each other to death, in the name of some more exalted maggot whom they yclept a king. As if filth and stench did not furnish the tomb fast enough, sword and dagger were called in to assist. And they burned villages and towns till the glare reddened heaven as if from the conflagration of Sodom or hell, and they blared on brass and rattled on sheep-skin over desolation and suffering and slaughter and garments rolled in blood. And over all the infernal clang rang the bells of the abbey and convent; and abbot and monk, in the name of him of Nazareth, blessed the dirty demons who had succeeded in adding most corpses to an already putrescent world. Stinks were in perfection, rags were in all their glory, and lice in their billions and trillions bade fair to eat man off the face of the globe and take it to themselves. They had eaten the human skin into putrid holes and festering sores. Their principal diffi­ �14 THE PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS. culty lay in penetrating the dirt with which the skin was covered. Not unfrequently a coat of tar was laid on the top of the other dirt for the express purpose of prevent­ ing the tarred one from being devoured by vermin. Europe did three things only: it scratched itself, it cut its neighbour’s throat, and it prayed. Christianity was then in her golden prime—no “ Infidels ” then—and Ignorance was in the zenith of her pride. The priest bestrode the world like a colossus. The destinies of mankind hung from the rope that bound the gaberdine of the monk. God had it all his own way, and proved himself the God of battles—and dunghills. Everywhere there were sanctity and stench, prayers and putrescence, matins and middens, vespers and vermin, deity and dirt, Jesus and jaundice. Out from among the hideous rottenness to which I have alluded stalked The Black Death. Christianity did not attribute to the jakes, but to the Jews, this visita­ tion of the Destroying Angel. The premonitions the Angel gave were shivering, sickness, and headache. These were frequently followed by delirium and a place in the trench-grave before you were quite cold, or even quite dead. Dying and grave-digging came to be the principal industry in many parts of Italy, Switzerland, France, and Germany. The dying and the grave-digging were often performed by the same person in the same day. In the morning you drove the loaded dead-cart; before the evening, swollen and blotched with black spots, you, with a number of others, were tumbled into the burial­ trench amid the grating of spades and a blinding cloud of quick-lime. It was Death’s harvest day, and, with his scythe, he laid low the ripe and the green. According to recent and careful estimates by the great German physician, Hecker, the number who died of the Black Death during the six years of its continuance amounted to twenty-five millions, or the fourth part of the then inhabitants of Europe. In many large towns more than half the popu­ lation perished under the visitation of the plague. The malady first broke out in Italy in 1348, and, in a few months, Florence had lost 60,000, Siena 70,000, and Venice 100,000 inhabitants. In Naples man and �THE PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS. 15 beast perished together under the breath of the pesti­ lence. Like the millennial mania, and every other scourge to Europe, the Black Death was quite a god-send to the Christian Church. The priests of the poor Galilean who had not where to lay his head exulted in untold wealth and boundless luxury. Every person of means who found the hand of the Black Death upon him, or in anticipation of its being laid upon him, rushed to cathedral, convent, or abbey, and gave all he had to the Lord, that it might be well with his soul when his body lay in the dead-cart. In the ever-open and insatiable grave many beheld the punishment for their sins and the retributive vengeance of an angry God. Many were of opinion that Satan had been let loose by the Almighty to take the souls of half Europe to the abode of the damned. Many, on the other hand, were not ready to admit that they had perpetrated sins so heinous as to j'ustify a special outpouring of the vials of Divine wrath ; and they laid the whole blame of the Black Death at the door of the Jews. What gave some colour and pretext to this terrible suspicion of the guilt of Israel was the fact that comparatively very few of the Jews were swept away by the plague. Because their social morals and the sanitary arrangements of their food and their homes were cleanliness itself compared with those of the Christians, they were comparatively impervious to the ravages of the pestilence. From the chaos of Christian ignorance, death, and filth, the cry arose that the Jews had put poison in the springs and wells of Europe, and the sword and torch of Christian fanaticism and hate shed the blood and burnt the homes of the ancient people of God. Staggering on the edge of the grave, dirt intro­ ducing them through death to dirt, they yet had time to mix up their terrified hymns and agonised prayers with butchering their Jewish fellow-citizens and burning their homes with the old man, the maiden, and the sucking child. � https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/9506c969b81c905d2318e5cabc640b6a.pdf?Expires=1782345600&Signature=fN-qRf8dX%7EQMk3js48Ivks7whA4sz9HkwwL2giQYnOC9yJHaToGTqZ3Sput37mfk36QzkxenPoczvGMfOsNwkeJfqUUr4hPvIpETxBQfBEOr5vkcvBo2-2Fi-DAAtVL1%7EHqogz5rWtaOYJaJO2qUDzqjbB55saobugEx943bpeMq1NWimxdYArlKNQPDNon5dwdWPTerTX5rCUeG36evygVwjv%7E2EacoqLL6IuLteshze8jCrZFMYrJYiCVvQrU1Efyj2oLeIAU0ZbWHfocilU08ODR-7v-KuUhDxTJ4NK4J%7Er4f8y-bJt0CNHSYeVEqCQPp-AHhby2%7Ewfl8S0xW6A__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 9171b56ae571b666a96538002ee7d297 PDF Text Text THE PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS I PART II. BY SALADIN. [REPRINTED FROM “THE SECULAR REVIEW.”] London: W. STEWART & Co., 41, FARRINGDON St., E.C. ��13 30*7^ NJ S9 NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY THE PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS. The sphere of Jewish persecution has been so wide, and has extended over such a long period of time, that the limits of a brief and discursive paper demand that I should content myself with a specimen instance or two of the injustice and cruelty to which the Christians sub­ jected the people of Israel. I turn to Strasburg in the fourteenth century. One of the principal streets in the town is still pointed out as having been formerly inhabited, like Old Jewry in London, by Jews exclusively. Five hundred years ago, at the period of the Black Death, that street of the Jews presented a far other aspect. It consisted of two parallel rows of high narrow houses that, as they ascended from the street, storey after storey, bulged out and approached each other, till, at the topmost storey, they almost met. The street was nearly dark, even on the brightest day, and, looking up, you could see, far over head, only a thin line of sky. At the corner, where yonnow find the houses numbered 31 and 32 respectively, stood the synagogue. And the houses opposite stand on the site of the ancient burial ground which five hundred years ago gave rest to the exiled sons and daughters of Israel. All the Jews in Strasburg, num­ bering about 2,000, lived in this street. No street in the town then opened into this. It was a cul~d&sac, or turn-again-lane, with facilities for ingress or egress at one end only, when a huge gate with strong iron bars was flung open. This gate was closed every evening, and opened every morning, with the ex­ ception of Sundays and holidays, when the grim portal stood closed all day, lest the Christian city, in its religious �4 THE PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS. solemnities, should be desecrated by the presence of a Jew. Tidings reached the Jew street of the terrible perse­ cution of their brethren elsewhere because of their sup­ posed conspiracy to sweep the Christians off the earth by poisoning the springs of Europe. Every day the followers of Christ came to the great gate and leered and howled at the people of Israel, and threatened vengeance and thirsted for blood. The Jews well knew that they were a despised and hated handful in this city of the stranger; and they howled back no defiance in return. Centuries of tribulation had taught them that, among those with whom they sojourned, a very slender pretext was needed to shed the blood and seize the gold of Israel. A terrible pretext—-one they were not likely to let slip—presented itself to the followers of the Lamb. The Black Death was thrusting them into the grave in myriads, whole tracts of country were depopulated, and vessels were at sea, with rich cargoes, with captain and crew all corpses ; literally— “ Ships were drifting with the dead To shores where all was dumb.” And a dark suspicion had seized the Christian mind that the Jews were at the bottom of all this : they had killed the Christ, and now they had set about exterminating his followers. Centuries of unprecedented misfortunes as a people had taught the sons and daughters of Abraham the virtues of a sublime, even if desperate, resolution. There was no panic, no stampede. The men quietly waited or the inevitable, and the women had learnt howto meet rheir fate without hysterical screams. Home, synagogue, and sepulchre were all in the one street: in that street they lived, and in that street they must die. A cloud bigger than a man’s hand had already gathered on the horizon of their fortunes. It was lurid with lightning and black with thunder ; but there was nowhere to flee to escape from its impending discharge. Over their heads in Strasburg gathered the mists of death ; but whither in all the wide world could they go where the earth would be green and the sky would be blue for them ? They lived �THE PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS. 5 on sufferance everywhere, and wherever they went they owed the miserable boon of existence to the contemp­ tuous toleration of their enemies. Heroic even to stoicism, brave even to desperation, the Jews were still much out of harmony with the ram­ pant and zealous militarism of Europe. They who had fought and bled under Joshua, Saul, and the Maccabees might have been charged with merciless ferocity, but never with craven cowardice. But, ever since the destruction of their Holy City, the valiant sons of valiant sires had applied themselves to the cultivation of the interests of commerce and the arts of peace. And for this, amid the mad militarism of Christendom, they were contemned and despised. I understand all the glory of chivalry, all the romance of war. I have recited Homer and Scott till the blood rushed to my cheeks in absolute flame; and with my cane for a sword, and the ragweeds, thistles, and dog-roses for an enemy, I have slashed and stabbed and sent their truncated fragments flying to the four winds of heaven. I myself have tuned the lyre of Tyrtseus, till, leading an imaginary forlorn hope, I, once, as the hour of midnight struck, dashed over the rampart of a feudal ruin, and, plunging to the neck into the water and mud of the ancient fosse, struggled through, with clenched teeth, to the battered and ivy-mantled walls. Never the soldier’s blood burned fiercer in human veins than it has done in mine ; never mortal born better understood the fascination that lies in “ the pomp and circumstance of glorious war ” and the sublime excitement of toeing the narrow and bloody line that lies between life and laurels and death and damnation. Consequently, my sympathy with the peaceful and non­ military character of the Jews does not proceed from the absence of that ardour within me to which the military spirit can appeal. But sober sense says that there is no splendour of achievement that can light up the darkness of desolation, and nothing that man can win by the sword that can compensate for the horrors of a single campaign. Priestcraft appeals to man in his imbecility; War to man in his delirium. O that Time could, at one bound, rape ten thousand years from Eternity, and that �6 THE PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS. the sun might look down and, at last, behold man neither imbecile nor delirious ! The arm that tingles as I write tells me that in the dance of Death I could be the mad­ dest of the mad ; and yet how unspeakably mad is he who, on the modern battle-field, blazes away out of a ditch and over a mound of earth, till the bursting of a shell, in the twinkling of an eye, dashes him into suitable stuffing for a sausage, his blood and clothes and brain and viscera splashed around for yards. The most distinguished of war correspondents* wrote thus from a modern battle­ field : “ Let your readers fancy masses of coloured rags glued together with blood and brains and pinned into strange shapes by fragments of bones. Let them con­ ceive men’s bodies without heads, legs without bodies, heaps of human entrails attached to red and blue cloth, and disembowelled corpses in uniform, bodies lying about in all attitudes with skulls shattered, faces blown off, hips smashed, bones, flesh, and gay clothing all pounded together as if brayedin a mortar, extending for miles....... and then they cannot, with the most vivid imagination, come up to the sickening reality of that butchery.” It is to the honour and not to the shame of the Jews that they have contributed little to the carnage of ancient, mediaeval, or modern Christendom. The Plague had not yet shown itself in Strasburg ; but the report of it had spread terror, and the suspicion that the Jews were responsible for it terribly imperilled that peaceful and much-suffering people. Angry groups of soldiers clashed and brandished their swords at the great gate of the Jewish street, and furious mobs began to surge around it, hissing and leering at the people who had slain the “blessed Lord,” and thirsting for blood and plunder, from which the civic authorities were with difficulty able to restrain them. At length, in January, 1349, the authorities had to yield to the ignorant fury and racial and religious antipathies of the mob. The bishop and city dignitaries issued a decree to banish every Jew in Strasburg. The sentence of banish­ ment was equivalent to the sentence of death, for those against whom the sentence had been passed knew of no region of the world that would give rest and protection to their exiled race. They might as well die �THE PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS. 7 at Strasburg as elsewhere. The sword, the scaffold, and the river were had recourse to in carrying out the edict of banishment. Driven to desperation, from time to time groups of the doomed people took every man his sword, and, falling upon the Christian oppressor, sold their lives full dearly. The Christians hewed their pathway down the street against all opposition, and, galled by the fierce but ineffectual resistance of the Jewish sword, they applied the torch to several of the buildings, and burnt them and their inmates to death—man, woman, and child. Six Jews in particular were publicly tried and executed on the charge of having poisoned the wells. But this mere sip could not pacify the Cerberus of Chris­ tian bigotry and hate. Christianity, even from the childhood of its Lord, had laid much superstitious stress on dreams and visions. The dream voice that said, “ Flee with the young child into Egypt, for Herod will seek to take his life,” again spoke in the long, assinine ear of credulity and ignorance. This time it spake to numbers of the inhabitants of Strasburg, and warned them that it was the will of God that they should kill and stay their Jewish fellow-citizens. Sleeping on your back when you should sleep on your side is apt to give you visions from heaven or—the other place. Sleep while your gastric juice is busy at work on a hard-boiled egg, and the cloudy feet of God or the club feet of Satan are pretty sure to stand on the vantage-ground of that said egg and make terrible the realm of “ Chaos and old Night.” Who would not be a Christian and be privi­ leged to mistake the promptings of an indigestible radish for a dream message from the lips of the Almighty ! Finding that the Jews had poisoned the water, the Christians, of course, could not drink it. They took to drinking their own fiery liquors which adumbrage so beautifully their own fiery lake. And, reeling drunk (no religionists in the world drink like Christians), they had further visions and monitions from heaven that it was their duty to make short work of the descendants of those who had “ slain the Lord of Glory.” It was resolved that every Jew must become a Christian, or at once be Dr. Russell of the Times, writing from the battle field of Sedan. �THE PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS. thrust down to hell at the point of the Christian sword. Sober, rational, discriminating judgment never made a Christian in this world, and never will till the end of time. Fanaticism and Terror made Christianity, and mental and moral laziness prevented her from being unmade. A fanaticism in favour of Christianity could not be got up at Strasburg; but there were plenty of swords and plenty of Christian scoundrels to wield them, and a terror could soon be inaugurated in the interests of the most cut-throat faith that ever cursed the race of man. Full of the spirit of God and the spirit of goblets, the followers of the crucified carpenter prayed and hiccupped and flew to arms—and, woe to the people of Judah ! The Christians have an old-fashioned and silly rite known as baptism—a rite far older than Christianity, and practised at this hour among peoples who, fortu­ nately, have never heard of the mythical Christ and his sanguinary faith. But the Christians laid claim to this incantation and witch-cauldron-looking old rite as if it were peculiarly their own, and as though it were special to them to have an infant squalling with cold water on its face, simultaneously with a Beetle drying his fingers upon a towel and drawling the gibberish appointed for the silly occasion. If you submitted to this rite of baptism, and said you were a Christian, all was well; nothing more was required. In other words, if you were a Jew, you could become a Christian by getting damped and being a liar. The machinery for turning out damped liars in the interests of Christianity in Strasburg was set vigorously in motion. At the point of the sword the Jews were expelled from their street. The dim sun of a January day in “the year of our Lord ” 1349 shone down coldly upon the blue steel of the blades, the tossing plumes, and the glittering helmets and hauberks of a body of guards. Proud was the poise of head erect, inflated chest, and vertical sword. There was something im­ posing and triumphant in the steady thudding of hoofs, the jangling of stirrups, and the jingling of bridles; but, in bitter contrast and tragically mournful, was the long array that, on foot, followed the prancing chargers �THE PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS. 9 of the cavalry. There was a melancholy cortege of nearly 2,000 Jews, of both sexes, and ranging in years between the two extremes that mark the boundaries of human life. The unconscious babe was there, asleep on the breast of its wretched mother ; and there was the old man, tottering on his staff, his head whitened with the snows of ninety winters. There was the youth, red-lipped and proud, lithe and elastic as David on the field of Elah ;* and there was the dark-skinned girl, graceful as a gazelle, sweet as the rose of Sharon, the girdle round her waist touched by the ripples of her raven hair, and her dark eye languishing with that hidden power and depth of inextinguishable passion which even at this hour contributes so much to the charm and witchery of the maid of Judah, and which often, with me, has cast a retrospective glamour over the sun-embrowned and half-naked Ruth gleaning in the field at Bethlehem Judah, and the sweet and innocent and, perchance, too trustful Mary that legend deemed worthy to be the mother of the Son of God. On, on, behind the guards, trailed the cortege, chained together in groups, with cruel and galling chains cutting into the brittle bones of the senile and abrasing the tender flesh of the child. Behind were a party of soldiers who brought up the rear by cruel prods from their weapons; in front were the guards ; and on both sides was the infu­ riated and howling Christian mob with mud, dead cats, and rotten eggs and horrid saliva, which they squirted through their teeth in the faces and on the garments of the motley and mournful 2,000 who marched up the street, chained and helpless. At length the long procession reached the gate of one of the principal churchyards of the town. There were the priests with cope and stole and cord, and they held out to their persecuted victims the cross and fixed to it a representation of him of Galilee-—forever accursed be his baneful name—the most terrible slogan-cry of blood and agony that ever tingled in the ears of the race of man. Behold the picture, ye that still call yourselves after the name of Christ. There, with spear and jeer I Samuel xvii. 2. �IO THE PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS. and mud and spittle, the people of whom Christ was one are huddled and driven into the churchyard. There are Christ’s priests with their crucifixes and their jargon of sacerdotal Latin. There is the howling and murderous rabble that fourteen centuries of Christianity had trained and moulded. There, at one side of the gate, is a vat of water for the damping of the brows of cowards and cravens, in the name of Father, Son, and Ghost. This is the damping apparatus. In close proximity is the drying apparatus, in the shape of chains and stakes and faggots. There are two alternatives for the Jews of Strasburg : Lie and be damped, or Burn and be damned. Terrible is death, and to none more terrible than the brave. The thoughtless and the reckless may leap with a shout into the inscrutable gloom. But the more that a man is a man, the more does his foot linger and falter on the line that lies between “ this earnest, anxious being ” and the world the sound of whose voices and the roll of whose wheels have never yet sent back an echo to the bourne of the earth. The 2,000 of men, women, and children behold inglorious life on the side of a Lie, and death by fire on the side of the Truth. Better is a living dog than a dead lion. About one-half of the unfortunates kissed for bare life the damnable symbol of Christ the carpenter, and had their brows sprinkled with the water from the vat. The other half preferred, to the cool water of the vat, the fiery flame of the stake. No Christ and cowardice for them. The Almighty maker of heaven and earth was strong to save. Whom he loveth he chasteneth. The God who keeps watch over Israel slumbers not, neither does he sleep. The God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob was potent, and present to his chosen people as he was in the mystery at Horeb, strong as he was among the lightnings and thunders of Sinai. They strode up to the stake un­ daunted, and, arrayed in vestments of devouring fire, sublimely triumphant over Christ and his rabble, passed through cinders and ashes to Death and God. The smug and respectable Christian is as ignorant of how his faith has figured in the guilty past as of the doom that awaits it in the not far distant future. Chris­ tianity’s very priests are ignorant of what Christianity �THE PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS. II really is and has done. This persecution of the Jews of Strasburg because they had originally crucified the Christian and lately poisoned the waters is small and trifling when we look back through the centuries of gloom where nought is distinguishable save the vague outlines of mountains of human corpses and oceans of human blood, lying in a cold and Malebolgean trance under a world-withering legend anent a crucifixion, an upper heaven, and a nether hell. And yet this holocaust at Strasburg is, alone, enough to put the mark of Hecate upon Christianity’s brow. Who that bears a human heart does not even yet feel his cheek flush red in the heat of that Strasburg fire, whose ear does not yet catch the sound of the January wind roaring and whistling against the flames, whose nostril is not yet gorged with the stench of burning flesh, and whose eye does not light upon the wind-driven heaps of burnt wood and burnt bones that were drifted over the ground when the fiery agony was over ? O for a Redeemer who would live for the world, not die for it! O for a Sinai whose detonating voice would enact the brotherhood of mankind, the federation of the world ! O for a God that would stay forever man’s in­ humanity to man, and arrange the stars into the motto, Philadelphia, to flame every eve across the heavens from the austral to the boreal pole ! O Omnipotence, I, a poor Agnostic, groping on the cis-mortal side of the Infinite, invoke thee to utterly destroy this Christian Frankenstein which we ourselves have created. God did not make the bowls of providence roll aright. The Jews of Strasburg were not burnt because they had already poisoned the waters, but because, if permitted to live, they might have poisoned them. The Black Death did not commence its ravages in Strasburg till after the Jews had been burnt. Then it broke out with terrible fury, and tens of thousands of the persecutors were huddled off to join the persecuted on the bourn from which no traveller returns. Fresh churchyards had to be opened ; and the dead-cart plied its trade till the City of the Dead outnumbered by three to one the City of the Living. By the end of the year, of Strasburg’s 48,000 inhabitants only 16,000 remained alive. Many �12 THE PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS. of these had preserved their lives by fleeing from the doomed city and living in the wilds on roots and herbs, or on grass like Nebuchadnezzar. The ministers of Christ, whose office it was to remain by the sinner’s dying bed and shrive the departing soul, fled to the woods and the hills, and let the departing soul look after itself; and the Christian corpses which were not devoured in the streets by dogs and swine and flies were tumbled pell-mell into trenches, uncoffined, unannealed, like rubbish shot from the pestilential streets into the insatiable grave. In rancorous prejudice, the blood of a Jew (a Jew was and is, hygienically, far superior to a Christian) was believed to be rank, black, putrid, and malodorous. Christ was a Jew, therefore the blood shed upon Calvary for the redemption of the world was black and putrid and unsavoury to the nostrils. But Christian stupidity did not see thus far : from the first it has been built on bigotry and ignorance, and it is only in proportion as breadth of view and intelligence supersede these that it totters to its fall. The pious Christian Queen, Jeanne I., in authorising and regulating a brothel at Avignon for the accommodation of her Christian subjects, enacted that any Jew found on the establishment should be flogged. Thus it was implied that the touch of a Jew was pollution even to a Christian harlot. When executed for the faith of their fathers, and guiltless of any other crime, they were reckoned as too filthy and execrable to be put to death with even the most horrible of Christian criminals. Down till the fourteenth century they were executed separately, and, with the head downward, hung between two dogs. So much for what Christianity has done in the way of promoting loving-kindness and the brotherhood of the human race ! The Christ that cursed Chorazin because it would not attend to his crazy vapourings was now loyally represented upon the earth by millions of his followers, and who, unlike him, had the power to blight society with narrow and bitter intoler­ ance. True, in the long dark night of Christian fervour a voice was now and again heard crying in the wilderness for mercy to the house of Israel; but the best intellects that Christ had were, like himself, on the side of cursing �THE PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS. 13 and persecution : even the learned and subtle St. Thomas Aquinas was no exception to the rule. What was always of immense importance with the Christian was that, by shedding Jewish blood, he became possessed of Jewish gold. The money the persecuted people had lent to their Christian persecutors was forfeited ; and over their burnt ashes were muttered the sneers of contempt at their cent, per cent, and their lust for money. But what about the lust for money of those who, to possess money, resorted to murder and massacre ? The Jews set the example of amassing capital by trade and commerce—a lesson Christian Europe was slow to learn. Christian Europe obtained capital by murdering those who amassed it, as bees are smoked to death in the autumn that their slayers may possess all that a summer of industry has won. Christian Europe at that time, and for ages after, deemed it mean and sordid to work for money, and the patrician classes to this day look haughtily down upon trade and commerce, and manage, in the fading daylight of the olden times, to live opulently upon their poorer brethren. But these last links of the feudal chain will shortly now be called upon to support a weight that will break them, and there will, at last, be no wine and no bread for him who will neither toil nor spin. I loathe with an utter loathing the wretch whose soul is balanced on the edge of a sixpence—a mean hen scraping diamonds, and whose talons were made only to scratch a dunghill. But, on the other hand, I have a contempt for the man who has a contempt for money. He simply admits that he has a contempt for the power to do good and to help his brothers and sisters of mankind. It is, perhaps, because I am not a Christian, but I hereby candidly admit that I have no contempt for money, as a means to an end. I recognise in it the Archimedian lever with which, it seems to me, I could move the globe out of its old orbit of folly and crime, and set it to revolving in a new ecliptic of knowledge and happiness. Up to this date I have had only my own pen, and the pens of such volunteers as rank around me, to do good for good’s own sake, without a view to monetary reward or literary fame ; for, at present, fighting �14 THE PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS. in the cohort that I aspire to lead tends to the yew upon talent’s grave, not to the laurel upon talent’s brow. My colleagues, unlike the Christian priesthood, toil away without fee or reward, and often behind a nom de plume that stands between them and ruin. I should have a contempt for my cause and my colleagues had I a contempt for money. With a mere fraction of what the religious bodies possess I should, in less than thirty years, set the bells of the English cathedrals to crashing and jangling out the parting knell of the Christian faith; and I should have England’s sons and daughters ready for the reception of a nobler and mightier evangel. Foi myself I ask nothing. A farle of oat-meal cake, a suit of hodden grey, and shelter under a roof of thatch will be sufficient for me. Neither ease nor comfort can fall to the lot of them who have the daring to ask the world for the dynamite to blow it out of its orbit, and send it cycling round the centre of quite another stellar system. Let those who have the good fortune to possess it “ count money by the broken hearts it could heal, by the hungry stomachs it could satisfy, by the hopes deferred that it could fulfil, by the aspirations it could realise, by the sorrows that it could transform into joys, by the uneasy pillows that it could this night turn into softest down, by the tearful eyes that it could dry, by the bitter cares that it could allay, and thou wouldst see how far the incalculable sum of human joy would transcend the petty total of the gold pieces and outweigh the feather­ weight of paper which thy fingers can scarcely estimate. When will men learn to count their wealth by such standards as these? When they do, then down with the empty prison and the useless gallows, and let the sunbeams of that bright to-morrow be heralded round the circling orb by the glad cries of the redeemed millions : The earth is mankind’s and the fulness thereof !”* I am weary of the story of ignorance and bigotry and blood. I could fill volumes where I have filled only pages, and from Christian records cull such evidences of super­ stition and devilry as would seem, to the gentle modern Lara. �THE PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS. 15 reader, more like fiendish invention than veritable human history. As a historical student, hundreds of hideous phantasms crowd upon my memory where, under the symbol of the Christian cross, under Christian steel, the racial blood which flowed in the veins of Christ was poured out like water by those who bore his name and regarded him as the son of God. Even in this green England loom up in lurid mists history’s bloody tableaux : the creatures of King John tearing out of the Jew’s head tooth by tooth, the ship load of fugitive Jews scuttled in the Thames, and the roaring flames at York Castle hissing with Jewish blood shed by Jewish hands, that in death the children of Israel might escape falling into the hands of the English followers of Christ. There rises before me, too, a baleful vision of bigotry and malice—the charge which was perpetuated from century to century that the Jews, as an integral part of their Passover celebrations, crucified a Christian boy in revengeful mockery of the crucifixion upon Calvary, performing diabolical incantations with his blood. Thou­ sands upon thousands were thrust from the light of the sun into the gloom of the grave on this charge alone. All on the line of the march of the Crusaders I see the Jewish mother slay her girl children, and then herself, to escape a fate that, by the virtuous woman, is more terrible than death. Many a Rebecca rushed into the arms of destruction to escape the embraces of the Christian ravisher. It was not at all times that Christian hate, to the im­ puted rank and fetid blood of the Hebrew, formed an effective barrier to Christian lust. Many a Jewish mother and maid lay stabbed by her own hand at the feet of the baffled Christian ravishers. And still the chosen people of God, in their olden faith and lineage, found asylum as in the shelter of a great rock in a weary land. Trampled under foot, their burning flesh tainting the air, and their blood reddening the gutter in every town in Christendom, they were yet mighty in the unconquerable intensity of their ethnology and faith, and from the stake and the dungeon and the fagot they swayed the intellectual and financial sceptre of the world. Scattered over the globe, a mere handful among the Gentiles, much of their ancient �i6 THE PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS. empery is still theirs.* Without the Israelite no great enterprise can be undertaken. The formation of public opinion, the control of the newspaper press of Europe, is largely in Jewish hands; through their monetary advances the tunnel is bored through the rock-ribs of the mountain, and the cannon thunders, and the clashingsteel of battle rings in response to Jewish gold. * Just as I go to press I find the Jewish Mission Report ot the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland admit that Jews are the masters in the money market, and in the universities they hold the premier places. Every tenth educated man in Ger­ many, they were told, would in a few years be a Jew. Not only so, even in politics of European States Jews were eminent; and even in America they found the Jews governors of States, leaders at the bar, and exceedingly successful soldiers. Price Twopence. Every Thursday. THE SECULAR REVIEW: A JOURNAL OF AGNOSTICISM. EDITED BY SALADIN. Order of your Newsagent, or send direct to the Publishers—W. Stewart & Co., 41, Farringdon Street, Londont E.C. HISTORICAL PAMPHLETS. A Reply to Cardinal Manning, by Saladin ... ... 01 The Crusades, by Saladin ... • •• o 1 The Covenanters, by Saladin ... ... ■■■ 01 Christian Persecution, by Saladin ... ... .... o 1 The Flagellants, by Saladin ... ... • •• 01 The Iconoclasts, by Saladin ... ... 01 The Inquisition, Part I., by Saladin ... ... 01 The Inquisition, Part II., by Saladin ... ... 01 The Dancers, Shakers, and Jumpers, Part I., by Saladin o 1 The Dancers, Shakers, and Jumpers, Part II., by Saladin o 1 The Persecution of the Jews, Part I., by Saladin ... 01 The Persecution of the Jews, Part IL, by Saladin ... 01 London: W. Stewart & Co., 41, Farringdon Street, E.C. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; 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> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The persecution of the Jews Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Ross, William Stewart [1844-1906] Description An account of the resource Place of publication: London Collation: 2 v. ; 18 cm. Notes: Includes bibliographical references. Reprinted from the Secular Review. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Publisher's advertisements on back cover. "by Saladin" [title page]. Saladin is the pseudonym of William Stewart Ross. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available W. Stewart & Co. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [n.d.] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context N593 N594 Subject The topic of the resource Antisemitism Judaism Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <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 (The persecution of the Jews), 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> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Antisemitism Jews-Persecutions NSS https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/b9d27525b969b55e8e21c38ca7e75306.pdf?Expires=1782345600&Signature=WgNcWaSBJBsJ5V8DTh%7EwLWwNRIaKeggaVRRkM4c3E8dIQPnsxqI2MII3E6C-KAMAuaWVWK3D3ZkisRPpuZZRVfNW0U7IBGv4oqXN-5b-PQSyrVgNBuyJDlkETTQ1wFoYmKl6JOA-kc5%7E2Wyn9jX5JmwinL6YZULVM%7EQNLB2WRCOLvgdf9Bx5QX1AlNaAp0irnSJ4dYBFbCNY8gqmbOBeOrsqz-mQBkHvnIGNpr2BUNHgFwqmZdDQ5PS5ud47VWfXf9kJZy26Efwr9fCySt2PFIkbszaR7-0VNW2wpqQHnh8H970tlqZK9XQ3uU2Le4MAeoEx0PJENFZiB71Xpl7hNw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 23c5320ee52de3c0ff1d86ed0357b7a0 PDF Text Text & 4- ABSTRACT OF COLENSO ON THE PENTATEUCH: A Comprehensive Summary of Bishop Colenso’s Argu­ ment, cally Proving that the Pentateuch is not Histori­ True; and that it was composed by several WRITERS, THE EARLIEST OF WHOM LIVED IN THE TIME OF \ Samuel, from 1100 to 1060 B. C., and the latest in time of Jeremiah, from 641 to 624 B. C. the PREFACE. The author of the book of which this pamphlet is an ab­ stract is not an Infidel, but a Bishop of the Church of England, having charge of the Diocese of Natal, in South Africa. While engaged in the translation of the Scriptures into the Zulu tongue, with the aid of intelligent natives, he was brought face to face with questions which in former days had caused him some uneasi­ ness, but with respect to which he had been enabled to satisfy his mind sufficiently for practical purposes, as a Christian minister, by means of the specious explanations given in most commenta­ ries on the Bible, and had settled down into a willing acquies­ cence in the general truth of the narrative of the Old Testament, whatever difficulties might still hang about particular parts of it. �ii PREFACE. But while translating the story of the Flood, a simple-minded but intelligent native, with the docility of a child but the reasoning powers of mature age, looked up and asked: “ Is all that true ? Do you really believe that all the beasts, birds, and creeping things, from hot countries and cold, came thus by pairs and en­ tered Noah’s ark ? And did Noah gather food for them all; for the beasts and birds of prey as well as the rest ? ” The Bishop had recently acquired sufficient knowledge of geology to know that a universal Deluge, such as is described in Genesis, could not have taken place. So his heart answered in the words of the Prophet, “ Shall a man speak lies in the name of the Lord ? ” (Zech, xiii., 3.) He dared not do so, but gave the brother such a reply as satisfied him for the time, without throwing any dis­ credit upon the general veracity of the Bible history. But being driven to search more deeply into these questions, the Bishop wrote to a friend in England to send him the best books on both sides of the question of the credibility of the Mosaic history. His friend sent him the works of Ewald and Kurtz, the former in German and the latter in an English translation. Laying Ewald on the shelf, he studied Kurtz, who maintained with great zeal and ability tho historical accuracy of the Pentateuch. He then grappled with Ewald, who maintained an opposite view. The result of the Bishop’s study, with the aid of a few other German books, appeared in the first volume of his work issued in 1862, followed soon after by four more volumes. The books met with a very large sale in England. The first two volumes only aro published as yet in this country. Perhaps the demand would not encourage the republication of the complete set. A great deal of the work is made up of apology, much more of answers to orthodox expositors and critics who have attempted to explain the very difficulties which presented themselves to the inquiring mind of the author, and a large part of the last three volumes consists of elaborate criticism, and a presentation of various portions of the Pentateuch attributed to the different writers thereof. In this Abstract all those portions are passed by, the object being to compress into the smallest practicable compass the gist of the whole argument. Should the reader wish to see what can be said in answer to the very criticisms which Colenso makes, he will find it fairly presented and candidly considered by the author in his complete work. �VOL. I. INCREDIBLE NARRATIVES OF THE PENTATEUCH. In Vol. I. Bishop Colenso shows, by means of a number of prominent instances, that the books of the Pentateuch contain, in their own account of the story which they profess to relate, such remarkable contradictions, and involve such plain impossibilities, that they cannot be regarded as true narratives of actual histori­ cal matters of fact. Passing over the many difficulties which ex­ ist in the earlier parts of the history, he begins at once with the account of the Exodus. THE FAMILY OF JUDAH. Judah was forty-two years old when he went down with Jacob into Egypt, being three years older than his brother Joseph, who was then thirty-nine. For “Joseph was thirty years old when he stood before Pharaoh ” (G. xli. 46) ; and from that time nine years elapsed (seven of plenty and two of famine) before Jacob came down into Egypt. Judah was born in the fourth year of Jacob’s double marriage (G. xxix. 35), being the fourth of the seven children of Leah born in seven years; and Joseph was born of Rachel in the seventh year (G. xxx. 24, 26; xxi. 41). In these forty-two years of Judah’s life the following events are recorded in G. xxxviii.: He grows up, marries, and has three sons. The eldest grows up, marries, and dies. The second son marries his brother’s widow and dies. The third son, after waiting to grow to maturity, de­ clines to marry the widow. The widow then deceives Judah him­ self, and bears him twins—Pharez and Zarah. One of these twins grows up and has two sons—Hezron and Hamul—born to him be­ fore Jacob goes down into Egypt. ALL THE PEOPLE AT THE DOOR OF THE TABERNACLE. Moses, at the command of Jehovah, gathered “ all the congre­ gation together unto the door of the tabernacle.” (L. viii. 1-4.) �4 ABSTRACT OF COLENSO By “ all the congregation ” is meant the whole body of the peo­ ple, or at all events the main body of adult males in the prime of life, as is shown by numerous texts where the expression is used. (E. xvi. 2; L. xxiv. 14 ; N. i. 18.) In Jo. viii. 35, the women and children are included. The mass of the male adults must have numbered more than the number of warriors, which is nowhere fixed at less than 600,000. Now the whole width of the tabernacle was only eighteen feet, as may be gathered from E. xxvi., so that a close column of 600,000 men covering this front, allowing two feet in width and eighteen inches in depth for each full-grown man, would have reached back nearly twenty miles ; or if the column covered the whole width of the court, which was ninety feet, it would have extended back nearly four miles. The whole court of the tabernacle comprised not more than 1,692 square yards, after deducting the area of the tabernacle itself, which covered 108 square yards, and therefore could have held only 5,000 people closely packed. The ministering Levites “ from thirty to fifty years old ” numbered 8,580 (N. iv. 48); even they, conse­ quently, could not all have stood within the court. MOSES AND JOSHUA ADDRESSING ALL ISRAEL. “ These be the words which Moses spake unto all Israel.” (D.i. 1.) “ And Moses called all Israel and said unto them.” (D. v. 1.) “ There was not a word of all that Moses commanded, which Joshua read not before all the congregation of Israel, with the women, and the little ones, and the strangers that were conver­ sant among them.” (Jo. viii. 35.) How was it possible to do this before at least 2,000,000 people ? Could Moses or Joshua, as actual eye-witnesses, have expressed themselves in such extravagant language ? Surely not. EXTENT OF THE CAMP AND DUTIES OF THE PRIESTS. The camp of the Israelites must have been at least a mile and a half in diameter. This would be allowing to each person on the average a space three times the size of a coffin for a fullgrown man. The ashes, offal, and refuse of the sacrifices would therefore have to be carried by the priest in person a distance of three-quarters of a mile “ without the camp, unto a clean place." tL. iv. 11, 12.) There were only three priests, namely, Aaron, �ON THE PENTATEUCH. 5 Eleazer, and Ithamar, to do all this work for 2,000,000 people. All the wood and water would have to be brought into this im­ mense camp from the outside. Where could the supplies have been got while the camp was under Sinai, in a desert, for nearly twelve months together ? How could so great a camp have been kept clean ? But how huge does the difficulty become if we take the more reasonable dimensions of twelve miles square for this camp ; that is, about the size of London ! Imagine at least half a million of men having to go out daily a distance of six miles and back, to the suburbs, for the common necessities of nature, as the law directed. TWO NUMBERINGS SIX MONTHS APART ; EXACT COINCIDENCE. In E. xxx. 11-13, Jehovah commanded Moses to take a census of the children of -Israel, and in doing it to collect half a shekel of the sanctuary as atonement money. This expression “ shekel of the sanctuary ” is put into the mouth of Jehovah six or seven months before the tabernacle was made. In E. xxxviii. 26, we read of such a tribute being paid, but nothing is there said of any census being taken, only the number of those who paid, from twenty years old and upward, was 603,550 men. In N. i. 1-46, more than six months after this occasion, an account of an actual census is given, but no atonement money is mentioned. If in the first in­ stance a census was taken, but accidentally omitted to be men­ tioned, and in the second instance the tribute was paid but accidentally omitted likewise, it is nevertheless surprising that the number of adult males should have been identically the same (603,550) on both occasions, six months apart. THE ISRAELITES DWELLING IN TENTS. The Israelites at their exodus were provided with tents (E. xvi. 16), in which they undoubtedly encamped and dwelt. They did not dwell in tents in Egypt, but in “ houses ” with “ doors,” “ side­ posts,” and “ lintels.” These tents must have been made either of hair or of skin (E. xxvi. 7, 14, xxxvi. 14, 19)—more probably of the latter—and were therefore much heavier than the modern canvas tents. At least 200,000 were required to accommodate 2,000,000 people. Supposing they took these tents from Egypt, how did they carry them in their hurried march to the Red Sea ? �6 ABSTRACT OF COeENSO The people had burdens enough without them. They had to carry their kneading troughs with the dough uflleavened, their clothes, their cooking utensils, couches, infants, aged and infirm persons, and food enough, for at least a month’s use, or until manna was provided for them in the wilderness, which was “ on the fifteenth day of the second month after their departure out of the land of Egypt” (E. xvi. 1.). One of these tents, with its poles, pegs, etc , would be a load for a single ox, so that they would have needed 200,000 oxen to carry the tents. But oxen are not usually trained to carry goods on their backs, and will not do so without training. THE ISRAELITES ARMED. “ The children of Israel went up harnessed out of the land of Egypt.” (E. xiii. 18.) The marginal reading for “ harnessed ” is “ by five in rank.” But as this would make of the 600,000 men a column sixty-eight miles long, this translation only increases the difficulty, as it would have taken several days to have started them all off. The Hebrew word is elsewhere rendered “ armed,” or “ in battle array.” Certainly about a month after the exodus the Israelites “ discom­ fited ” the Amalekites “ with the edge of the sword.” (E. xvii. 13.) Hence they somehow possessed arms. And yet this army of 600,000 had become so debased by long servitude that they could not strike a single blow for liberty in Egypt, but could only weakly wail and murmur against Moses, saying, “ It had been better for us to serve the Egyptians than that we should die in the wilderness! ” INSTITUTION OF THE PASSOVER. The whole population of Israel were instructed in one single day to keep the passover, and actually did keep it. (E. xii.) At the first notice of any such feast, Jehovah said, “ I will pass through the land of Egypt this night.” The passover was to be killed “ at even ” on the same day that Moses received the com­ mand. The women were at the same time ordered to borrow jewels of their neighbors, the Egyptians. After midnight of the same day the Israelites received notice to start for the wilderness. No one was to go out of his house till morning, when they were to take their hurried flight with their cattle and herds. How �ON THE PENTATEUCH. 7 could 2,000,000 people, scattered about over a wide district as they must have been with their cattle and* herds, have gotten ready and taken a simultaneous hurried flight at twelve hours’ notice ? MARCH OUT OF EGYPT. The Israelites, with their flocks and herds, reached the Red Sea, a distance of from fifty to sixty miles over a sandy desert in three days ! Marching fifty abreast, the able-bodied warri­ ors alone would have filled up the road for seven miles, and the whole multitude would have made a column twenty-two miles long, so that the last of the body could not have been started until the front had advanced that distance—more than two days’ journey for such a mixed company. Then the sheep and cattle must have formed another vast column, covering a much greater tract of ground in proportion to their number. Upon what did these two millions of sheep and oxen feed in the journey to the Red Sea over a desert region, sandy, gravelly, and stony alternately ? How did the people manage with the sick and infirm, and espe­ cially with the 750 births that must have taken place in the three days’ march ? THE SHEEP AND CATTLE IN THE WILDERNESS. The Israelites undoubtedly had flocks and herds of cattle. (E. xxxiv. 3.)^ They sojourned nearly a year before Sinai, where there was no feed for cattle; and the wilderness in which they sojourned nearly forty years is now and was then a desert. (D. xxxii. 10; viii. 15.) The cattle surely did not subsist on manna ! EXTENT AND POPULATION OF THE LAND OF CANAAN. The extent of land occupied by the Israelites in the time of Joshua was about 11,000 square miles, or 7,000,000 acres—a little larger than the State of Vermont. The number of Israelites was not less than 2,000,000. This limited, mountainous, and by no means fertile area of country, therefore, had to subsist these 2,000,000 people, and prior to their occupation of it had subsisted “ seven nations greater and mightier ” than the Israelitish nation itself. (D. vii, 1.) �8 ABSTRACT OF COLENSO FECUNDITY OF THE HEBREW MOTHERS. “ All the first-born males from a month old and upwards, of those that were numbered, were 22,273.” (N. iii. 43.) The lowest computation of the whole number of the people at that time is 2,000,000. The number of males would be 1,000,000. Dividing the latter number by the number of first born gives 44, which would be the average number of boys in each family, or about 88 children by each mother. Or, if where the first born were females the males were not counted, the number of children by each mother would be reduced to 44. PRODIGIOUS INCREASE IN FOUR GENERATIONS. The number of the children of Israel who went into Egypt was 70 (E. i. 5). They sojourned in Egypt 215 years. It could not have been 430 years, as would appear from E. xii. 40. The marginal chronology makes the period 215 years, and there were only four generations to the exodus, namely, Levi, Kohath, Amram, and Moses (E. vi. 16, 18, 20). How could these people have increased in 215 years from 70 souls so as to number 600,000 war­ riors ? It would have required an average number of 46 children to each father. The 12 sons of Jacob had between them only 53 sons. At this rate of increase, in the fourth generation there would have been only 6,311 males, provided they were all living at the time of the exodus, instead of 1,000,000. If we add the fifth generation, who would be mostly children, the total number of males would not have exceeded 28,465. EXTRAORDINARY INCREASE OF THE DANITES. Dan in the first generation had but one son (G. xlvi. 23), and yet in the fourth generation his descendants had increased to 62,700 warriors (N. ii. 26), or 64,400 (N. xxvi. 43). Each of his sons and grandsons must have had about 80 children of both sexes. On the other hand, the Levites increased the number of “ males from a month old and upwards ” during the 38 years in the wilderness only from 22,000 to 23,000 (N. iii. 39, xxvi. 62) and the tribe of Manasseh during the same time increased from 32,200 (N. i. 35) to 52,700 (xxvi. 34). IMPOSSIBLE DUTIES OF THE PRIESTS. Aaron and his two sons were the only priests during Aaron’s �ON THE PENTATEUCH. 9 ifetime. They had to make all the burnt offerings on a single 11 tar nine feet square (E. xxxvii. 1), besides attending to other priestly duties for 2,000,000 people. At the birth of every child, both a burnt offering and a sin offering had to be made. The number of births must be reckoned at least 250 a day, for which consequently 500 sacrifices would have to be offered daily -—an impossible duty to be performed by three priests. For poor women pigeons were accepted instead of lambs. If half of them offered pigeons, and only one instead of two, it would have required 90,000 pigeons annually for this purpose alone. Where did they get the pigeons ? How could they have had them at all under Sinai ? There were thirteen cities where the presence of these three priests was required (Jo. xxi. 19). The three priests had to eat a large portion of the burnt offerings (N. xviii. 10) and ,all the' sin offerings—250 pigeons a day—more than 80 for each priest. IMPOSSIBLE SACRIFICES AT THE PASSOVER. In keeping the second passover under Sinai, 150,000 lambs must have been killed, i. e., one for each family (E. xii. 3, 4). The Lecites slew them, and the three priests had to sprinkle the blood from their hands (1 Chr. xxx. 16, xxxv. 11). The killing had to be done “ between two evenings ” (E. xii. 6), and the sprinkling had to be done in about two hours. The kifiing must have been done in the .court of the tabernacle (L. i. 3, 5, xvii. 2-6). The area of the court could have held but 5,000 people at most. Here the lambs had to be sacrificed at the rate of 1,250 a minute, and each of the three priests had to sprinkle the blood of more than 400 lambs every minute for two hours. INCREDIBLE SLAUGHTER. The number of warriors of the Israelites, as recorded at the exodus, was 600,000 (E. xii. 37); subsequently it was 603,530 (E. xxxviii. 25-28), and at the end of their wanderings it was 601,730 (N. xxvi. 51). But in 2 Chr. xiii. 3 Abijah, king of Judah, brings 400,000 men against Jeroboam, king of Israel, with 800,000, and “ there fell down slain of Israel 500,000 chosen men ” (®. 17). On another occasion, Pekah, king of Israel, slew of Ju­ dah in one day 120,000 valiant men (2 Chr. xxviii. 6.) �10 ABSTRACT OF COLENSO UNPARALLELED PRODIGY OF VALOR. Among other prodigies of valor, 12,000 Israelites are recorded in. N. xxxi. as slaying all the male Midis nites, taking captive all the females and children, seizing all their cattle and flocks, num­ bering 808,000 head, taking all their goods and burning all their cities, without the loss of a single man. Then they killed all the women and children except 32,000 virgins, whom they kept for themselves. There would seem to have been at least 80,000 females in the aggregate, of whom 48,000 were killed, besides (say) 20,000 boys. The number of men slaughtered must have been about 48,000. Each Israelite therefore must have killed four men in battle, carried off eight captive women and children, and driven home sixty-seven head of cattle. And then after reaching home, as a pastime, by command of Moses, he had to murder six of his captive women and children in cold blood. II IRRECONCILABLE DIFFICULTIES. In vol. II. Bishop Colenso devotes a preface and a first chapter to the maintenance of the criticisms of vol. I. He shows that it is impossible to apply any system of reduction to the exaggerated numbers given in every part of the Pentateuch, without encoun­ tering difficulties and contradictions quite as- formidable as those presented by him. He then proceeds to investigate the question of the real origin, age, and authorship of the different portions of the Pentateuch and other early books of the Bible, and makes the following points : CONTRADICTORY STORY OF THE CREATION AND DELUGE. The cosmogony of the 2d chapter of Genesis is contradictory to that of chapter 1 in six particulars, the chief of which is, that in the first chapter the birds and beasts are created before man, and in the second after man. Again, in the first account Adam find Eve are created together, completing the work of creation, and in the second man is first made, then the beasts and birds, �ON THE PENTATEUCH. 11 and lastly woman. It is therefore apparent that the two accountg were written by different men j and this is corroborated by the use of the name Lord God (Jehovah Elohim) in chapter 2, while in chapter 1 it is simply God (Elohim). A similar criticism is applied to the story of the flood, which is evidently composed by two different writers, one making Noah take into the ark animals of every kind, including clean beasts, by twos (G. vii. 8, 9), and the other making him take in the clean beasts by sevens (v. 2, 5). In this story, as in that of tne cre­ ation, one writer uses the name of God simply, and the other Lord God. ELOHISTIC AND JEHOVISTIC WRITERS. The book of Genesis bears evidence throughout of being the work of two different writers, one of whom is distinguished by the constant use of the word Elohim (translated “ God ”), and the other by the admixture with it of the name Jehovah (translated “ Lord ”). The Elohistic passages, taken together, form a very tolerably connected whole, only interrupted here and there by a break caused apparently by the Jehovistic writer having removed some part of the Elohistic narrative, replacing it, perhaps, by one of his own. Thus there are two contradictory accounts of the creation and of the deluge intermingled. THE PENTATEUCH COMPOSED EONG AFTER MOSES’S DEATn. The books of the Pentateuch are never ascribed to Moses in the inscriptions of Hebrew manuscripts, or anywhere else, except in our modern translations. They must have been composed at a later age than that of Moses or Joshua, as is shown by nu­ merous passages that speak of places and things by names that were not known nor given till long after the death of these men. For example, Gilgal, mentioned in D. xi. 30, was not given as the name of that place till after the entrance into Canaan (Jo. v. 9). Lan, mentioned in G. xiv. 14, was not so called till long after the time of Moses (Jo. xix. 47). In G xxxvi. 31, the beginning of the reign of kings over Israel is spoken of historically, an event which did not occur before the time of Samuel. THE BOOK OF JOSHUA WRITTEN IN DAVID’S LIFETIME. In Josh. x. 12-14, the miracle of the sun and moon standing �12 ABSTRACT OF COLENSO still is recorded, and in verse 13 these words are found: “Is not this written in the Book ci Jasher?” Now, in 2 Sam. i. 18, we read that David “ hade them teach the children of .Tudah the use of the bow. Behold, it is written in the book of Jasher.” The natural inference is, that this book was written not earlier than the time of David, and the above passage in the bcok of Joshua was written of course after that. THE BOOKS OE KINGS WRITTEN AS LATE AS 561 B. C. The Books of Kings seem to have been written as late, at least, as 561 B. C., because in 2 Kings xxv. 27-30, mention is made of Evil-merodach, king of Babylon, taking Jehoiachin, king of Judah, out of prison, and feeding him “ all the days of his life.” Evil-merodach came to the throne 561 B. C., and reigned two years. THE CHRONICLES WRITTEN ABOUT 400 B. C. The author of the Books of Chronicles was probably a priest or Levite, who wrote about 400 B. C. or nearly 200 years after the captivity, and 650 years after David came to the throne. These books go over the same grounds as the books of Samuel and Kings, and often in the very same words. The Chronicles are very inaccurate, and often contradictory to Samuel and Kings. In 1 Chr. iii. 19-21, we have the following genealogy : Zerubbabel, Hananiah, Pelatiah; so that the Book was written after the birth of Zerubbabfel’s grandson, and Zerubbabel was the leader of the expedition which returned to Jerusalem after the decree of Cyrus, 536 B. C. EZRA AND NEHEMIAH WRITTEN AFTER 456 B. C. The Books of Ezra and Nehemiah were, of course, written after 456 B. C., when Ezra arrived at Jerusalem. Nehemiah’s last act of reformation was in 409 B. C., and yet in Neh. xii. 11, we have given the genealogy of Jaddua, who was high priest in Alexander’s time, 332 B. C. FIRST INTRODUCTION OF THE NAME JEHOVAH. In E. vi. 2-8, God says to Moses: “ By my name Jehovah was I not known to them ” (the patriarchs), and yet the name Jehovah, translated Lord, is repeatedly used in the book of Genesis.’ If �ON THE PENTATEUCH. 13 the name originated in the days of Moses, he certainly would not, in writing the story of the Pentateuch, have put it into the mouths of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (G. xiv. 22, xxvi. 22, xxviii. 16), much less into that of a heathen man, Abimelech (xxvi. 28). The contradiction is explained by the fact that two different writers were concerned in composing the nar­ rative, one of whom, in speaking of God, uses the name Elohim, and the other the name Jehovah. The ground-work of the Pen­ tateuch (and but a small portion of it, as the Bishop proposes to show hereafter) was composed before the name Jehovah had been familiar. SAMUEL PKOBABLY THE ELOHISTIC WRITEH. During and after the time of Samuel, we observe in the books known by his name a gradually increasing partiality for the use of names compounded with Jehovah (jo or iah), while there is no instance of the kind throughout the Book of Judges, which contains numerous names compounded with Elohim (el). In the first seven chapters of the first Book of Samuel we find the follow­ ing names compounded with Elohim : A^kanah, A'Zihu, Eli, Sam­ uel, Ele&zex; while we meet with but one name compounded with Jehovah, viz : Joshua (vi. 18). But this name evidently belongs to a man living considerably later than the time of Samuel, for the passage reads, “ which stone remaineth unto this day in the field of Joshua.” Then we read in viii. 1, 2, “ When Samuel was old, he made his sons judges over Israel; now the name of his first­ born was Joel, and the name of his second AbzoA.” It is remark­ able that his first-born son should be named Joel, a contraction of the compound name Jehovah and Elohim. In 1 Chr. vi. 28, we are told that the name of Samuel’s eldest son was Vashni. From this it would seem that the name was afterwards changed to Joel. In the subsequent chapters there is a gradual increase of names compounded with Jehovah. In the Elohistic portions of the Book of Genesis, in some of which a multitude of names occur, and many of them com­ pounded with Elohim, in the form of El, there is not a single one compounded with Jehovah, in the form either of the prefix Jeho or Jo, or the termination jah, both of which were so com­ monly employed in the later times. The name Jehovah is first �14 ABSTRACT OF COLENSO introduced by the Elohistic writer in Ex. vi. 3, as a,new name for the God of Israel. From these and other evidences adduced, Bishop Colenso con­ cludes with some degree of confidence that Samuel was the Elo­ histic writer of the Pentateuch, and that the Jehovistic writer must have written not earlier than the latter part of David’s life, when the name of Jehovah had become quite common, and n^#ies began to be compounded with it freely. The narrative being written from 300 to 400 years after the death of Moses, could not, therefore, have been historically true, but may have been intended as a series of parables, based on legendary facts, somo of which, perhaps, had been recorded from time to time in a roll deposited in the temple archives, to which access was occasionally had by the priests. [Note.—Sir Isaac Newton, in. his “Observations upon the Prophecies,” etc., concludes that Samuel put the books of Moses and Joshua into the form now extant, inserting into the book of Genesis (xxxvi. 31-39) the race of the kings of Edom.] Ill THE AUTHOR OF DEUTERONOMY. In vol. III., Bishop Colenso presents in great detail arguments to prove that the book of Deuteronomy was written by a differ­ ent hand from that or those which wrote the rest of the Penta­ teuch. No attentive reader of the Bible, he says, can have failed to remark the striking difference which exists between the stylo and contents of Deuteronomy and those of the other books gen­ erally of the Pentateuch. Deuteronomy forms the living portion, the sum and substanee, of the whole Pentateuch. When wo speak of the “ law of Moses,” we speak of Deuteronomy. In tho New Testament Deuteronomy is frequently quoted with emphasis as the law of Moses. The principal proofs of a different authorship of this book are as follows : 1. Each writer distinctly professes to give the identical com­ mandments as spoken (E. xx. 11) or written (D. v. 22) by Jehovah ; �ON THE PENTATEUCH. 15 W each assigns an entirely different reason for the observance of the Sabbath. In Exodus it is because God rested on the seventh day ; in Deuteronomy it is because he brought the Israelites out of E^ypt “through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm.” It is remarkable that the Deuteronomist should ignore the reason assigned in Exodus. 2. In the other books of the Pentateuch, the priests are always styled the “ sons of Aaron” (L. i. 5, 7, 8, 11, ii. 2, iii. 2, xiii. 2 ; N. x. 8; comp. L. xxi. 21), and never the “ sons of Levi.” In Deuteronomy they are always called “ sons of Levi, or “ Levitcs (D. xvii. 9, 18, xviii. 1, xxi. 5, xxiv. 8, xxvii. 9, xxxi. 9 ; comp, xviii. 1, 5), and never “ sons of Aaron.” 3. The Deuteronomist, in using the word “ law,” invariably re­ fers to the whole law (D. i. 5, iv. 8, 44, xvii. 11, 18, 19, xxvii. 3, 8, 26) ; the other books almost always use the words with reference to particular laws (E. xii. 49 ; L. vi. 9, 14, 25, vii. 1, 7, 11, 37). 4. The Deuteronomist confines all sacrifices to one place “ which Jehovah would choose,” “ to put his name there” (D. xii. 5, 11, 14, 18, 21, 26); the other books say nothing about this, but expressly imply the contrary (E. xx. 24). 5. The Deuteronomist, though he strictly enjoins the observ­ ance of the other three great leasts, and the Passover (xvi. 1—1 <), makes no mention whatever of the Feast of Trumpets (L. xxiii. 23-25, N. xxix. 1-6), or the Day of Atonement (L. xxiii. 26-32, N. xxix. 7-11), on each of which days it was expressly ordered that the people should “ do no servile work,” but should hold “ a holy convocation.” The directions in N. xxix are supposed to have been laid down by Jehovah only a few weeks previous to the address of Moses in Deuteronomy ; yet here in making a final summary of duties, as he is represented as doing, he omits all mention of those two important days, upon which the same stress is laid in L. xxiii. as on the other three great feasts, and for the neglect of which death was threatened as a punishment. 6. In D. viii. 4, xxix. 5, and elsewhere, mention is made of clothing which lasted the Israelites forty years without waxing old upon them. No mention is made in the older narrative of this miraculous provision of clothing. 7. In D. ix. 18, Moses says he “fell down before the Lord as at the first forty days and nights,” and fasted as he had done also at the first (®. 9). According to the older story, he fasted only �16 ABSTRACT OF COLENSO when he went up the second time—not the first (E. xxiv. 18, xxxiv. 28). 8. In E. xviii. 25, 26, we read that Moses chose able men out of all Israel, and made them judges over the people. This was just before the giving of the law at Sinai. In D. i. 6-18, the ap­ pointment of these same officers is made to take place nearly twelve months after the giving of the law, when the Israelites are just about to leave Horeb (v. 6). In E. xix. we find that the giving of the law was in the third month after the de­ parture from Egypt. The Israelites took their departure from Sinai in the second month of the second year (N. x. 11), and this was the time referred to in D. i. when these judges were appoint­ ed (®. 6, 9). 9. In D. x. 1-5, mention is made of the ark being prepared as a receptacle of the table of the laws before Moses goes up into the mount. The older narrative says nothing about an ark being prepared beforehand for the tables (E. xxxiv. 29). It is only after comiug down with the second set of tables that Moses sum­ mons the wise-hearted (E. xxxv. 10-12) to “come and make all that the Lord hath commanded, the tabernacle, his tent and his covering, etc., the ark,” etc. The tabernacle is constantly men­ tioned in the three middle books of the Pentateuch, but is never once named in Deuteronomy until the announcement to Moses in xxxi. 14, 15, that he should die. And this passage is shown to be an interpolation, with several others at the close of the book. 10. In D. x. 8, we read, “At that time the Lord separated the tribe of Levi,” i. e., after the death of Aaron (®. 6). In N. iii. 5, 6, 7, the separation is made to take place in Aaron’s lifetime. 11. The Deuteronomist lays great stress on the duty of being charitable and hospitable to the Levite, placing him in the same category as the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and treat­ ing him as a sort of mendicant when sojourning within the gates, thus ignoring the fact that the children of Levi were entitled to one-tenth in Israel for an inheritance (N. xviii. 21). Not a word is said about the Levites having any divine right to demand or at least to accept the payment of tithes from the people, according to the provisions supposed to have been made by Jehovah him­ self in N. xviii. 21. The Deuteronomist makes Moses speak of the Levite as an object of charity only a few months after the pro­ mulgation of this law in Numbers about the Levites’ inheritance. �ON THE PENTATEUCH 17 Not a trace of poverty in regard to the Levites is found in the first four books. Under the later kings we have unmistakable indications of the poverty of the priests. 12. In D. xiv. 19, every creeping thing that flieth is declared unclean, and is forbidden to be eaten. In L. xi. 21-23, every creeping thing that flieth is allowed to be eatea, and four forms of locusts are mentioned. 13. Numerous expressions common throughout the first four books are never employed by the Deuteronomist, and vice versa. Bishop Colenso ciles thirty-three expressions in Deuteronomy, each of which is found on an average eight times in that book, but not one of which is found even once in the other four books. In Deuteronomy the expression “ the Lord thy God,” or “ the Lord our God,” occurs with remarkable frequency ; but it is very rarely found in the other books. WHEN WAS DEUTERONOMY WRITTEN, AND BY WHOM? 1. The author of Deuteronomy must have lived after the other writers of the Pentateuch, since he refers throughout to passages in the story of the exodus recorded in the other books, and refers directly, in xxiv. 8, to the laws about leprosy given in Leviticus. If, therefore, the Elohistic and Jehovistic portions of the Penta­ teuch were written not earlier than the times of Samuel, David, and Solomon, it is plain that the Deuteronomist must have lived no earlier, but probably later than the time of Solomon. 2. The phrase “ sons of Levi ” and “ Levites,” always used by the Deuteronomist, is invariably used by Jeremiah and the other later prophets (Jer. xxxiii. 18, 21, 22 ; Ezek. xliii. 19, xliv. 15, xlviii. 13 ; Mai. iii. 3. Comp. Mai. ii, 4, 8). The Deuteronomist, like Jeremiah, uses the word “ law ” in the singular only in speak­ ing of the whole law (Jer. ii. 8, vi. 19, viii. 8, ix. 13). The Deuter­ onomist confines all sacrifices to the place where “ Jehovah would place his name so Jeremiah speaks repeatedly of Jerusalem or the temple as a place called by Jehovah’s name (vii. 10, 11, 14, 30, xxv. 29). Numerous other expressions are used by the Deu­ teronomist in common with the ) iter Biblical writers only. Out of thirty-three expressions, each of which occurs on an average eight times in Deuteronomy, but not one of which is found in the other books of the Pentateuch, seventeen are found repeated with more or less frequency in Jeremiah, and many of the others �18 ABSTRACT OF COLENSO or their representatives are partially repeated in his prophecies, Expressions do occasionally occur in the other books of the Pen­ tateuch which are peculiar to Deuteronomy ; but it is possible, if not probable, that the writer of the latter book may have inter­ polated those few passages. 3. The Deuteronomist, in xvii. 2-7, expresses strong abhor­ rence of all manner of idolatry, and especially of the worship of the “ sun or moon, or any of the host of heaven,” the first in­ timation of which worship is found in the reign of Josiah’s father, Manasseh (2 K. xxi. 3, 5). 4. That the book of Deuteronomy was written after the time of Samuel is shown by the fact that the laws referring to the kingdom seem not to have been known to Samuel (1 S. viii. 6-18), nor to the later writer of Samuel’s doings. In S. xii. 17-19, he charges it upon the people as a great sin that they had desired a king. 5. The mention of the kingdom in D. xvii. 14-18, with the distinct reference to the dangers likely to arise to the State from the king multiplying to himself “ wives,” “ silver,” “ gold,” and “ horses,” implies that the book was written after the age of Sol­ omon ; and this is confirmed by the frequent reference to the place which Jehovah would choose, i. e., Jerusalem and the temple. 6. The tabernacle, so frequently spoken of in the three middle books of the Pentateuch, but never once named by the Deuteron­ omist till near the close of the book, in an interpolated passage, had long since passed away in Jeremiah’s time. 7. That the book was written after the captivity of the ten tribes, in the sixth year of Hezekiah’s reign, is evident from the fact that the sorrows of that event are referred to as matters well known and things of the past (D. iv. 25-28). 8. In 2 K. xxii. and xxiii. we find an account of the dis­ covery of the “ book of the law in the house of the Lord,” in the eighteenth year of King Josiah, which caused a great sensa­ tion. Where conld this book have been hidden for eight centu­ ries ? Could it have escaped the notice of David, Solomon, and others ? Can we resist the suspicion that the writing of the book and the placing of it where it was found were pretty nearly con­ temporaneous ? Shaphan, the scribe, read the book before the king, and appears to have read all the words of it. Again the �ON THE PENTATEUCH. 19 next day the king himself read in the ears of the people “ all the words of the book of the covenant which was found in the house of the Lord.” The name “ book of the covenant ” cannot well apply to all the Pentateuch, though it may apply to the book of Deuteronomy, or to the chief portion of it, since we find it written in D. xxix. 1, “ These are the words of the covenant.” 9. The whole description of the nature and effect of the words contained in the book shows that it must have been the book of Deuteronomy. A reform took place in regard to idolatrous prac­ tices immediately after the discovery of this book. Never before was such a passover held as in that same year; but we have no sign whatever of another such passover being held, even by Josiah. Perhaps after a time the young king also became aware of the real facts of the case, and his zeal may have been dampened by the discovery. 10. In that age and time of Jewish debasement, when the law book as it then existed was not well suited to the present necessi­ ties of the people, Jeremiah or any other seer may have considered himself justified in summoning up the spirit of the older law in a powerful address adapted to the pressing circumstances of the times, putting words into the mouth of the departed lawgiver, Moses, to reinforce the laws by solemn prophetical utterances. The intention may have been to put down by force the gross idol­ atries which abounded in the kingdom, through the influence of a disguised prophecy upon the mind of a well-meaning king. 11. The book of Deuteronomy must have been written after the great spread among the tribes of Canaan of the worship of the sun and moon and host of heaven (D. iv. 19). It seems to have been first generally practised in Judah in the reign of Manasseh, the father of Josiah (2 K. xxi. 3, 5 ; 2 Chr. xxxiii. 3). Manasseh’s grandfather Ahaz may have introduced it, as appears from a comparison of 2 K. xxiii. 12 ; but it probably was not much practised, and it certainly was not adopted by his son Hezekiah. In Manasseh’s reign, however, it seems to have flourished. 12. It must have been written before the time of Josiah’s reformation, since the words ascribed to Huldah the prophetess, in D. xxii. 15-20, refer to it; for she says, “ All the words of this book wherein the king hath read shall be fulfilled.” She was probably in the secret, and shared the hope of a great reforma- �20 ABSTRACT OF COLENSO tion, and there is little doubt that the “ book of the law ” was the direct cause of that reformation. The whole theocratic state was in imminent danger from the idolatrous practices that were pre­ vailing. So the Deuteronomist laid down a new set of laws in the name of Moses, and gave a new and firmer foundation to the theocratic state. The attempted reformation was not, however, successful, except to secure temple service at Jerusalem. That introduced dead formalism, which existed until the Israelitish nation became extinct. 13. It can scarcely be doubted, therefore, that it was written either in the latter part of Manasseh’s reign or the early part of Josiah’s. If it was written in the latter part of Manasseh’s reign, the author must have lived, and probably have died, without see­ ing the result of his labor—without betraying his secret; or, if he lived j^Hl the disclosure of it, it is difficult to account for his long silence with respect to its existence, which was maintained during seventeen years of Josiah’s reign, when the king’s docile piety and youth would have encouraged the production of such a book if it really existed, and there was such imperative necessity for that reformation to be begun as soon as possible, with a view to which the book was written. Thus it seems most reasonable to suppose that the book was in process of composition during the first seventeen years of Josiah’s reign, when the youth of the prince and his willingness to follow the teachings of the prophets around him gave every encouragement for such an attempt being made to bring about the great change that was needed. 14. Jeremiah lived in that very age, and began to prophesy in the thirteenth year of Josiah, four or five years before this book was found. IMMORAL COMMANDS OP DEUTERONOMY. Bishop Colenso is glad to know that such commands as these, taken from this book, are at variance with God's law : 1. Excluding from the congregation of the Lord persons mu­ tilated in helpless infancy, while those by whose agency the act in question was encouraged or perhaps performed are allowed free access to the sanctuary. 2. Excluding in like manner the innocent base-born child, but taking no account of the vicious parent. 3. Commanding the stubborn, rebellious son to be stoned to �ON THE PENTATEUCH. 21 death, when, oftentimes the father and mother, who by their bad example had corrupted, or by their faulty training had ruined their child, deserved rather to suffer punishment. 4. Ordering that any city of any distant people with whom Israel might be at war should first be summoned to surrender, and if it should refuse to make peace on condition of all its in­ habitants becoming tributary and doing service to Israel, it should then be besieged and every male thereof should be put to the sword; while of the cities which Israel was to inherit they were to save nothing that breathed, lest they should become corrupted by their idolatries and abominations. THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY. In vol. IV., after a long preface devoted to answers to objections made to positions taken and supported in the previous volumes, Bishop Colenso proceeds to make a critical comparison of the Elohistic and Jehovistic passages in the first eleven chapters of Genesis, to show that they were composed by two distinct writers. The author then attacks the scientific and historical truthful­ ness of the Scripture cosmogony, making the following points-: THE SIX DAYS OF CREATION. Despite all the criticisms of the word “create,” the plain meaning of the first verse in Genesis is, that in the beginning of the six days, as the first act of that continuous six days’ work about six thousand years ago, according to the Biblical chronolo­ gy, God created the heaven and the earth. But geology teaches that the earth had existed millions of years before, and was brought into its present form by continual changes through a long succes­ sion of ages, during which enormous periods innumerable varieties of animal and vegetable life abounded, from a time beyond all pow­ er of calculation. So, also, God is represented as completing the work of creation in six literal days, and resting upon and sancti­ fying the seventh. In E. xx. 11, it is expressly said that “ in six days God made the heaven and the earth, and all that in them is.” �22 ABSTRACT OF COLENSO That they were not indefinite periods of time is further shown by the setting of two great lights in the firmament on the fourth day, to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. If the first three days were indefinite days, why is the same word in the Hebrew used for that portion of the twenty-four hours which the sun rules over ? Is the sense of the word day, from the fourth day onward, to be considered different from that of the same word as used prior thereto? THE ORDER OF CREATION. The order of creation in Genesis is, first plants, then fish, then fowls, then cattle and reptiles, and lastly man. Geology shows that in the different ages plants and animals of all kinds appeared together at the same time on the earth; so that they were not successively created, as the Bible says, first all the plants, and then dll the fish, etc. CHAOS. Genesis represents the earth as “ without form and void,” in a state of utter chaos and confusion, and wrapped in darkness, im­ mediately before the races of plants and animals now existing on its face were created. Geology proves that the earth had existed generally just as now, with the same kind of animal and vegeta­ ble life as now, long before the six thousand years implied in the Bible story, and that no sudden convulsion took place at that time by which they might have been destroyed, so as to give occasion for a new creation. THE SUN AND MOON CREATED ON THE FOURTH DAY. It is a mere evasion of the plain meaning of words to say that God meant the sun and moon to appear first only on the fourth day, although they had been long before created—appear, that is, to the earth, when, however, according to the story, there was as. yet no living creature on its face to see them I The writer uses the same Hebrew word “ made ” as he had used before when he says God made the firmament, and which he afterwards uses when he says God made the animals. THE FIRMAMENT OF WATERS. The dividing of the waters below the firmament from the �ON THE PENTATEUCH. 23 waters above it was founded upon the idea that the sky was an expanse, a spread-out surface, and that the upper waters dropped rain. WHAT DID BEASTS OE PREY EAT ? To every animal God gave every green herb for meat. The question arises, how were the beasts of prey to be supported, since their teeth, stomachs, and bodily form were not adapted for eating herbs ? But in fact geology teaches that ravenous creatures preyed on their fellow creatures, and lived on flesh, in all ages of the world’s past history, just exactly as they do now. Besides, al­ most all fishes are carnivorous. THE ZENDAVESTA STORY OF CREATION. The account of the creation in Genesis corresponds with that of the Zendavesta, which was composed near the same locality. According to the latter, the universe was created in six periods of time by Ormuzd, in the following order : 1. The heaven and the terrestrial light between heaven and earth ; 2. The water; 3. The earth ; 4. The trees and plants ; 5. Animals ; 6. Man ; whereupon the Creator rested and connected the Divine origin of the festivals with these periods of creation. The Persian tradition is substan­ tially the same, showing that the story of Genesis had the same origin. It is an ancient myth. ADAM FORMED OF DUST. “And the Lord God formed man (Adam) of the dust of the ground” (Adamha). A play upon words. THE RIVERS EUPHRATES, TIGRIS, NILE, AND INDUS UNITED. The four rivers of Eden are made to unite in one. One of these rivers is the Euphrates, and there is but little doubt that the Hiddekel and the Gihon, as Josephus says, are the Tigris and Nile respectively, and Pison probably the Indus. DEATH THREATENED FOR DISOBEDIENCE. “ In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” How could the first man understand what death was ? He had not seen it. NAMING OF THE ANIMALS. Man was created before the other animals (the fishes excepted) �24 ABSTRACT OF COLENSO according to the second chapter, and they were brought to Adam to be named. How could the white bear of the frozen zone and the humming bird of the tropics have met in one spot to be named, and then dispersed again ? WAS EDEN THE CENTRE OF CREATION ? Was there only one centre of creation? Were all reptiles, fishes, and insects, as well as all plants, created in Eden only, and thence scattered to the ends of the earth ?—the Indian corn, for instance, which was not known in the eastern hemisphere until after the discovery of America ? ORIGIN OF THE DIFFERENT HUMAN RACES. It is even now an open scientific question whether the Austra­ lian savage, the African negro, the American Indian, and the Cau­ casian are all descendants of a first pair. WOMAN MADE OUT OF A RIB. The making of the woman out of the man’s rib is thought by some to convey an idea of the intimate relationship, sacredness, and indissolubility of the conjugal state. The Greenlanders believe that the first woman was fashioned out of the man’s thumb I THE CUNNING SERPENT. “Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field.” It is the Jehovistic interpolator who writes this passage. Here is the origin of evil, in a speaking serpent. THE SERPENT CRAWLING AND EATING DUST. “ Upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shall thou eat.” Here the serpent is represented as degraded and debased from what it was originally. But geology shows that it was the same kind of creature before man existed on the earth. As to the ser­ pent’s eating dust, it is a falsehood founded on the scantiness of its food. As to the enmity between the woman’s seed and the serpent, it is not true. A snake is held in great respect among the Zulus. It was an emblem of healing wisdom among the Greeks, and a symbol of eternity to the Phoenicians. PAIN IN CHILDBIRTH. Pain to the woman in childbirth, and the subjection of woman �ON THE PENTATEUCH. 25 to her husband, are fancies in the imagination of the Hebrew writer. The subjection of the female to the male is not peculiar to man amongst animals; and in tropical countries childbirth is attended with little more pain and disturbance than the birth of a beast. CURSING THE GROUND. “ Cursed is the ground for thy sake.” Geology shows no signs of any such curse. Thorns and briers were as plentiful in the primeval world as now ; and a life of toil and exertion is far more healthful and ennobling than one of indolence and inactivity. RETURNING TO DUST. “ Till thou return unto the ground, for out of it thou wast taken.” Geology shows that living creatures died long before. “For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” This would imply that Ada'm was not punished by death for his sin. Death of the body was regarded by the ancient writers as the end of all. No mention is made of the immortality of the soul. PERSIAN STORY OF THE FIRST PAIR. The Persian myth is similar to that of the Hebrews. The first couple, Meshia and Meshiana, lived originally in purity and innocence. Perpetual happiness was promised to them by the Creator. An evil demon (Dev) came to them in the form of a serpent, and gave them fruit of a wonderful tree, which imparted immortality. Consequently they fell and forfeited the eternal happiness for which they were destined. They killed beasts and clothed themselves; they built houses, but paid not their debt of gratitude to the Deity, and the evil demon obtained still more perfect power over their minds. CHINESE STORY OF HIE FALL. The Chinese have their age of virtue, when Nature furnished abundant food, and man lived peacefully, surrounded by all the beasts, not knowing what it meant to do good or evil, and not subject to disease or death. But partly by an undue thirst for knowledge, and partly by increasing sensuality and the seduction of woman, he fell. Passion and lust ruled his mind, war with the animals began, and all Nature stood inimically arrayed against him. �26 ABSTRACT OF COLENSO PARADISE OF THE GREEKS. The Greeks had their Paradise or Elysium—their garden of Hesperides, with its golden apples, in the islands of the blessed, guarded by ever-watchful serpents. SACRED MOUNTAIN- OF THE HINDOOS. The Hindoos have their sacred mountain, Meru, in which no sinful man can exist. It is perpetually clothed in the golden rays of the sun, guarded by dreadful dragons, adorned by celes­ tial plants, and watered by four rivers, which separate and flow in four directions. WHO WAS TO KILL CAIN ? Cain is made to say, “ Every one that findeth me shall slay me.” The only man on the face of the earth was Adam; Seth was not yet born. cain’s descendants favored. The introduction of cattle-keeping, music, and smithery is ascribed to the descendants of Cain, on whom the curse had been pronounced I LONGEVITY IN PREHISTORIC TIMES. The great longevity of ancient times is common to the tra­ ditions of all nations. As soon as we come down to historical times we see no more of these great ages. SONS OF GOD AND DAUGHTERS OF MEN. “ The sons of God saw the daughters of men.” This is bor­ rowed from foreign or heathen sources. See Book of Enoch— an acknowledged forgery. ANCIENT GIANTS. “ There were giants in the earth in those days.” The belief in races of giants was universal among the ancients, but that the stature of the human race was really the same generally in those days as now, is shown by the remains discovered in ancient tombs and pyramids. STORY OF THE DELUGE. In the story of the deluge the ark is made to rest on the highest summit of Ararat, and remain there seventy-three or �ON THE PENTATEUCH. 27 seventy-four days after the waters had retired from the earth. At this elevation of 17,00u feet—1,000 feet higher than Mont Blanc, and 3,000 feet above the region of perpetual snow—all the inhabitants of the ark must have frozen to death. Many other difficulties are presented and discussed, and in conclusion Colenso says that geology absolutely disproves the story. WAS IT A PARTIAL DELUGE? 1. The difficulty of worms and snails crawling into the ark from some large terrestrial basin in western Asia, is just as great as from distant parts of the earth. One small brook would have been a barrier to further progress. Nor could Noah have provided for the wild carnivorous animals—the lion, leopard, eagle, vulture, etc. And what need to crowd the ark with birds which could easily have escaped beyond the boundaries of the inundation ? 2. The language of the Bible is too sweeping. God says, “ Every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.” (G. vii. 4.) 3. One volcanic region, forty miles by twenty, in the provinces of Auvergne and Languedoc, in France, contains deposits of sco­ ria and lava extending over many miles, and in some places from fifty to one hundred feet deep, which must have taken many thousands of years to accumulate, and which have certainly not been submerged during at least eighteen thousand years past. 4. In all the diluvian deposits no trace of human remains has ever been found. CHALDEAN STORY OE THE DELUGE. Many heathen nations have traditions concerning a universal deluge. There is a Chaldean story of Xisthurus building an immense ship, 3,000 by 1,200 feet, loading it with provisions, enter­ ing it with his family and all species of quadrupeds, birds, and reptiles, and sailing toward Armenia. When the rain ceased he sent out birds to ascertain the condition of the earth. Twice they returned—the second time with mud on their feet. The third time they returned no more. By this time the ship had grounded on the side of an Armenian mountain, whereupon Xis­ thurus and his family left it, erected an altar, and offered sacri­ fices to the gods. Pieces of bitumen and timber, ostensibly taken from the ship, were in later times chiefly used as amulets. �28 ABSTRACT OF COLENSO GENERATIONS OE NOAH. In G. x. the generations of Noah are enumerated. The nations of Eastern Asia are not enumerated at all, though the writer seems to have had some vague notion of the existence of distant families (». 30). IDENTITY OF LANGUAGE OF THE HEBREWS AND CANAANITES. The fact that the patriarchs and Hebrews could converse with the surrounding nations shows that their language was common, and the indications are that the vernacular language of the Canaanites was substantially the same as that of the Hebrews. The language was radically the same from the earliest times. THE HEBREW LANGUAGE, WHENCE DERIVED. Whence was the Hebrew language derived ? The fact that the Pentateuch was written in pure Hebrew appears to be strong if not positive proof of its having been written at a much later period of their national history than the exodus, or at a time when the language of Canaan had become, after several genera­ tions, the common tongue of the invading Hebrews, as well as of the heathen tribes which they drove out, and ■which they were unwilling to acknowledge as brethren. We never read of any in­ terpreter between the Hebrews and the Philistines. THE DISPERSION OF TONGUES. The story of the dispersion of tongues is connected by the Jehovistic writer with the famous unfinished temple of*Belus, of which probably some wonderful reports had reached him, in whatever age he may have lived. The derivation of the name Babel from the Hebrew word meaning confound, which seems to be the connecting point between the story and the tower of Babel, is altogether incorrect, the literal meaning of the word being house, or court, or gate of Bel. REMARKABLE INCREASE IN FOUR HUNDRED YEARS. In Abraham’s time, not four hundred years after the deluge, the descendants of Noah’s three sons, none of whom had a child before the deluge, had so multiplied that four kingdoms are men­ tioned as engaging in war against five other kingdoms (G. xv. 1, 2). Besides these there are a multitude of other nations named �ON THE PENTATEUCH, 29 in the same chapter, some of which had attained a high state of civilization. COMPLETE CHANGE OE PHYSICAL CHARACTER. Moreover, in this short interval we find the most marked dif­ ferences of physiognomy stamped on the different races, as shown on the ancient monuments of Egypt. There was a completo change of form, color, and general physical character, which seem not to have been modified during the four thousand years since. NOAH’S VNDVTIFUL PROGENY. Noah, and all the rest of Abraham’s ancestors after Noah, were still living, as appears from the following record: Noah Sliem . Arphaxad, born Salah, “ Eber, “ Peleg, “ Rmi, “ Serug, “ Nahor, “ Terah, “ Abraham, “ Isaac, “ Jacob, “ . . ’2 37 67 101 131 163 193 222 292 392 452 . died “ years after, died << “ “ Cl. “ cc “ cc “ Cl “ Cf “ Cl “ 14 “ Cl “ . 350 years after the flood. cl CC 502 cc cc 404 cc cc 470 cc cc 351 cc cc 340 cc cc 370 cc cc 393 cc cc 341 « u 427 cc cc 467 cc cc 572 cc cc 599 And yet we do not find the slightest intimation that Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob paid any kind of reverence or attention to their illustrious ancestors. ABRAHAM’S INCREDULITY ABOUT HAVING A SON. Abraham laughed when told that a son should be born to him that was a hundred years old ; and yet there were actually living those ancestors of his from one hundred and seventy to five hun­ dred and eighty years old at the time. Shein was one hundred years old two years after the deluge, when he begat Arphaxad, and he lived thereafter five hundred years, and begat sons and daughters. �30 ABSTRACT OF COLENSO SILENCE OF THE REST OF THE OLD TESTAMENT ABOUT EDEN, THE FALL, AND THE DELUGE. The fact that nowhere in the other books of the Old Testa­ ment is found any reference to the story in Genesis of the crea­ tion, or the fall of man, or the deluge, except in Isaiah liv. 9 (where the waters of Noah are mentioned), and Ezek. xiv. 14-20 (where the name of Noah is mentioned), is easy of explanation if the writer of these stories lived in the latter part of David’s reign. THE BOOK OF ENOCH. In an appendix to vol. IV. the book of Enoch is examined. The Bishop says there is no doubt that the book is a fiction. Ac­ cording to Archbishop Laurence, it was composed within about fifty years immediately preceding the birth of Christ. From it most of the language of the New Testament, in which the judg­ ment of the last day is described, appears to have been directly de­ rived. It is full of such expressions and sentences as these : “ Day of judgment.” “ Judgment which shall last forever.” “ Lowest depths of fire in torment.” “Ancient of Days upon the throne of his glory.” “ The book of the living was opened in his presence.” “ Valley burning with fire.” “Fetters of iron without weight.” “ Furnace of burning fire.” “ The word of his wrath shall de­ stroy all the sinners and all the ungodly, who shall perish at his presence.” “ Trouble shall seize upon them when they shall be­ hold this son of woman sitting upon the throne of his glory.’’ “ They shall fix their hopes on this son of man, shall pray to him and petition for mercy. Then shall the Lord of spirits hasten to expel them from his presence. Their faces shall be full of confu­ sion, and their faces shall darkness cover. The angels shall take them to punishment that vengeance may be inflicted on those who have opposed his children and his elect. . . . But the saints and the elect shall be safe in that day. . . . The Lord of spirits shall remain over them, and with his son of man shall they dwell, eat, lie down, and rise up forever and ever.” BOOK OF JOSHUA. Vol. V. opens with an examination of the book of Joshua �ON THE PENTATEUCH. 31 after which the Bishop endeavors to separate the different por­ tions of the different writers of the Pentateuch and the book of Joshua, and to fix their exact age. The larger portion of the book of Joshua, he believes, is due to the Deuteronomist, who must consequently have lived at all events after the days of Moses, since the death and burial of Moses are recorded in D. xxxiv. The argument proceeds as follows : THE DEUTERONOMIST. Numerous expressions common to Deuteronomy and Joshua occur nowhere else in the Pentateuch. These Deuteronomistic formulas do not occur throughout the whole of the book of Joshua, but only in certain portions of it; in the remaining parts of the book, in which we find none of these formulas, we meet again with the peculiar phrases of the old writers of the Pentateuch which are never used by the Deuteronomist. The original lan­ guage has been retouched and blended with that of the Deuter­ onomist. The same also is true of the other four books ; there is plain evidence that the Deuteronomist has revised and retouched the manuscript before he added to it the sum and substance of the law of the book of Deuteronomy. More than half of the book of Joshua, especially of the historical and hortatory matter, consists of interpolations by the Deuteronomist. RESEARCHES OF HUPFIELD AND EOEnMER. The author gives a summary of the researches of Hupfield and Boehmer, exhibiting the Elohistic passages in Genesis, and showing great unanimity as the result of three independent re­ searches. They all agree substantially, except in regard to four genealogical sections. ELOHISTIC AND JEnOVISTIC PECULIARITIES. There are more than one hundred different formulas or expres­ sions, each of which occurs on an average more than ten times in Genesis, but only in those portions of it which remain when the Elohistic parts are removed. Some of them occur three times in one verse. On the other hand, the Eloliistic portions in their turn exhibit their own phraseology, which is never repeated in the Jehovistic parts. Thus, only the Jehovistic portions contain such expressions as “ lift up the eyes and see “ lift up the voice and weep •” “ fall on the neck and weep ; ” “ find favor in the eyes �32 ABSTRACT OF COLENSO of;” “ see the face of; ” “run to meet,” etc.; and such words as “ sin,” “ swear,” “ steal,” “ smite,” “ slay,” “ fear,” “ hate,” “ com­ fort,” “ embrace,” “ kiss,” and even “ love.” SIMPLICITY OF TIIE ELOHIST. The Elohist appears to have had more correct views of the nature of the Divine Being and of his paternal relations to mankind, and less gloomy views of man’s nature and the prospects of the human race. According to him, “ God saw everything that he had made, and behold it was very good.” But the Jehovist speaks of the earth as corrupt and filled with violence. The lat­ ter has a deep sense of sin and its consequences. The former knows nothing about the Garden of Eden, the forbidden fruit, the wily serpent, or the fall of man ; it is only the Jehovist who mul­ tiplies curses upon the earth and pains of child-birth as the bitter consequences of our first parents’ sin. The Jehovist gives all the darkest parts of the histories of indvidual life, such as the drunk­ enness of Noah, the presumption of the Babel builders, the great selfishness of Lot, the uncleanness of Sodom, the wickedness of Onan, etc. All those stories of impurity which make so many of the passages of Genesis totally unfit to be read in public or in the family are due to the Jehovist. The original Elohittic writer presents the character of the three patriarchs substantially with­ out a flaw. It is the Jehovist who lowers them. INTERPOLATIONS IN THE JEHOVISTIO NARRATIVE. We have seen that there are interpolations in the original Elohistio narrative. We also find similar interpolations in differ­ ent portions of the non-Elohistic matter itself. The non-Elohistic matter consists of the contributions of three or four different ■writers. For instance, chapter xiv. has no relation with any other part of Genesis. It brings Abraham before us in the. character of a warlike Sheik, with 318 trained servants. But in the subse­ quent account of his going to Gerar (chap. xx.). where Abimelech takes his wife from him, Abraham is afraid of his life, and prac­ tises deceit, showing plainly that he could have had no such im­ mense band of trained servants with him. lie had routed the combined forces of Eastern kings, and needed not therefore, to have ieared the power of the petty Prince of Gerar. This chapter contains four times the expression, “God most high,” �ON THE PENTATEUCH. 33 which occurs nowhere else in the Pentateuch, and only three times besides in the Bible—namely, in the Psalms. THE DEUTERONOMIST AN EDITOR. The later writer or Deuteronomist was not the compiler, but the editor of the Pentateuch and book of Joshua, which he inter­ polated throughout and enlarged, especially by the addition of the book of Deuteronomy. The interpolated passages for the most part seem to have been inserted for the purpose of quicken­ ing the history with a deeper spiritual meaning and stirring more effectually the reader’s heart with words of religious life and earnestness. To this editor Colenso ascribes sixty-three verses entire of Genesis, and many more fragmentary notes. FIRST AND SECOND ELOHIST. About three-fourths of Genesis remain after removing the parts due to the second Jehovist and Deuteronomist. This threefourths is so homogeneous in style that it is almost impossible to distingush the difference in style between the different sections of it except in one respect. There is a second Elohistic writer who uses decidedly Jehovistic formulas, though he has abstained from the use of the name Jehovah (Lord). But though it is diffi­ cult to separate the parts due to these two writers, Colenso has endeavored to do it. According to the critics there arc five wri­ ters of the Pentateuch—namely, the Elohist, the Elohist number two, the Jehovist, the Jehovist number two, and the Deuterono­ mist. But Colenso thinks Elohist number two is the same as the Jehovist, only at an earlier period of his life. In his earliest at­ tempts at interpolation he was perhaps somewhat stiff in style, which stiffness he overcame in his later years. Therefore the two may be identical. HOW THE JEHOVIST REGARDED THE ELOHISTIC NARRATIVE. It has been already shown in vol. II. that the first chapter of Genesis was written by the same hand which wrote Exodus v. 2-7, revealing the name of Jehovah to Moses. The Elohistic writer not having used that name until he used it in the above passage, intended to be understood that the name was unknown among men till then. Now if Moses himself really recorded that fact is it possible that other writers of his time would have dared to contradict it by interpolations ? It is incredible. The interpo- �34 ABSTRACT OF COLENSO lations must have been made at a later age by a writer who knew that the original record was not historically true, and therefore ventured to interpolate the name Jehovah. He must have known that the original narrative was a work of the imagination, and therefore that it was not necessary to adhere to the older state­ ment. AGE OF THE ELOHIST. 1. There is an air of primitive simplicity pervading the whole Elohistic story. The style is grave, prosaic, and unadorned. There is no instance of a story of indecency; crimes of violence are mentioned, but none of an indecent character. 2. According to the Elohist mankind first lived on vegetable food, and were not allowed to eat animals until after the flood. 3. In the Elohistic narrative there is no mention made of houses. The ark is the only exception, but the details of if—the dimensions, the door, the window, the roof, the stories—are given by the Jehovistic writer. 4. The Elohist makes no mention of sacrifices, priests, or tithes. 5. In G. xlviii. 5, 13, 14, Ephraim is set before Manasseh, though the latter was the first born, and both are reckoned as tribes of Is­ rael. “As Reuben and Simeon they shall be mine.” Now Manasseh was the most prominent among the Northern tribes until shortly before the time of Samuel, through its hero, Gideon (Jud. vi. 15). Hence the composition of Genesis cannot be assigned at an earlier period than about fifty years before Samuel, the time of Jephthah, nor later than the time of David, shortly after Samuel. 6., In S. xxxv. 11, God promises Jacob that “a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins,” No reference is made to his desccendants forming, as they did, two nations, Judah and Israel; but a nation is spoken of There is no enmity whatever implied in the Elohistic narrative between Joseph and his brethren. The children of Israel are plainly united in one body. 7. There is no enmity existing betweenEsau and Jacob—i. e., Edom and Israel; so that the narrative must have been written before the feeling between them became bitter, as recorded in 2 S. viii. 14. This brings the date to a time not later than Samuel. 8. “ These are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom before there reigned any king over the children of Israel” (G. xxxvi. 31) �ON THE PENTATEUCH. 35 —meaning of course, all Israel, which restricts the time to that of Saul, David, and Solomon, the first three kings. But as the signs of a more primitive civilization in the narrative forbid our assigning it to the age of Solomon, or even the latter part of David’s reign, we must refer it to the early part or the time of Samuel, when “ all the Israelites went down to the Philistines to sharpen every man his share, and his coulter, and his ax, and his mattock and when “ in the day of battle there was neither sword nor spear found in the hand of any of the people that were with Saul and Jonathan ” (1 S. xiii. 20, 23), 9. The Elohist lays great stress on Hebron, in the land of Canaan, where the field of Machpelah lay, as the resting place of the bones of the Patriarchs. David, by Divine command, was di­ rected (2 S. ii. 1) to make Hebron the centre of his power or seat of Government. He reigned in Hebron over Judah seven and a half years, and then in Jerusalem thirty-three years over Israel and Judah (2 S. v. 5). After this Hebron disappears from history altogether, except that Absalom begins his rebellion by asking leave to go and pay a vow unto the Lord in Hebron (2 S. xv. 7), and there sets up his kingdom (y. 10). It would seem highly improbable that all this importance should be ascribed to Hebron if the writer wrote after the first few years of David’s reign, when he had captured the fortress of Zion and made Jerusalem his royal city (2 S. v. 6, 7). 10. Samuel lived three years after the anointment of David, and must have been aware of his valiant acts ; and his hopes seem to have been centred in David after he had utterly despaired of Saul. He may have advised David to go to Hebron, and may have written the passages before us with a view to that event. Samuel, having most likely a band of young men under his training, had to provide instruction for them as a school of prophets. They had no Bible, no body of Divinity; and what is more likely than that he should have done his best to prepare such a narrative ? AGE OF THE JEHOVIST. 1. The style of the Jehovist seems to be freer and easier than that of the second Elohist, thereby indicating a later authorship. 2. Extended geographical knowledge is exhibited, pointing to a later age than Samuel (G. ii. 11-14 and x.), when the people had �36 ABSTRACT OF COLENSO passed out of the mere agricultural condition in which they were living in the time of Samuel, and had begun to have freer inter­ course with surrounding nations and more especially with the maritime people of Tyre and Sidon. 3. Indications of advanced civilization and even luxury are found in the Jehovistic portions (G. ii. 11, 12). Instruments of music and working in brass and iron are spoken of (iv. 21, 22), whereas in Saul’s time “ there was no smith found throughout all the land of Israel ” (1 S. xiii. 19). 4. Considerable acquaintance with Egyptian affairs and cus­ toms is exhibited (xxxix. 20, xliii. 32, xlvi. 34, xlvii. 26, 1. 3). 5. Jacob is recorded as building himself a house (xxxiii. 17). The details of Noah’s ark are similar to the directions for the tabernacle. There are indications of artistic skill of every kind which can scarcely have existed before the age of Solomon, and which in fact never was indigenous, but belonged to the Tyrian builders and other artisans engaged in the erection of the temple. 6. The hatred of Esau by Jacob is spoken of. In 2 K. viii. 2022, we read of Edom revolting from under the hand of Judah. The prophecy in G. xxv. 23, that “ the elder shall serve the younger,” seems to have had its fulfilment in the latter part of David’s reign, when Edom was crushed and did remain a servant to his younger brother Israel during the remainder of David’s reign. But Edom recovered its independence at the beginning of Solomon’s reign. 7. This w'ould also explain another phenomenon in connection with this matter which we observe in the Jehovistic portion of Genesis—viz., the reconciliation of Esau and Jacob, and the gen­ erous conduct described in the narrative of chapter xxxviii. 8. The result remains that the Jehovistic sections of G. xxvii. 40, etc. referring to Esau, cannot have been written till after Da­ vid’s death, but were probably composed at the very beginning of Solomon’s reign, when Edom had long been serving his brother and had just thrown off the yoke. 9. The Jehovist lays almost as much stress on Beer­ sheba as the Elohist does on Hebron. Both Abraham and Isaac dig a well at Beersheba and acquire the right of possession in connection vi-ith a solemn covenant made with the Philistine king; whereas, according to the Elohist, each of the three patriarchs �ON THE PENTATEUCH. 37 lived solely at Hebron—at least after Abraham’s acquisition of property there. And the Jehovist also in various places takes account of their having lived there at some time in their lives. 10. In the days of David and Solomon the Israelitish territory extended from Dan to Beersheba. The great stress laid on Beer­ sheba therefore seems to point to the time of David and Solomon. The phrase “from Dan even to Beersheba” is first used in Jud. xx. 1, and in 1 S. iii. 20, narratives written, no doubt, in this age. It is afterwards repeated. AGES OF THE DIFFERENT WRITERS. The result of Colenso’s researches is to fix the age3 of the dif­ ferent writers, with the names of distinguished cotemporary prophets, as follows : Elohist, . . 1100—1060 B. C., cotemporary prophet, Samuel 2d Elohist, Jehovist, )f 1AAA 1A1A 1060-1010 “ “ “ Nathan. 2d Jehovist, 1035 “ “ “ Gad. Deuteronomist, 641—624 “ “ “ Jeremiah. Samuel may have begun the Elohistic story, and left it unfin­ ished in the hands of his disciples, Nathan and Gad, whom we may fairly suppose to have been thrown under his auspices. PHOENICIAN ORIGIN OF THE NAME JEHOVAn. The name Jehovah the author traces to the Phoenicians. They no doubt practiced substantially the same religion and spoke the same language as the Israelites. Most decisive proof is given of this by the series of Phoenician inscriptions lately published by the authorities of the British Museum. The great Phoenician Deity was the Sun, the male principle, while the Moon was re­ garded as the symbol of the co-operating recipient powers of na­ ture, the female principle. The Sun was worshipped under a variety of names, among others that of Baal (Lord) and Adonis (my Lord). But there was one name more augu-t and mysterious, employed chiefly at the great feast of the harvest, and expressed both by Christian and heathen writers by the very same Greek letters, by which they express also the mysterious Hebrew name. Thus there must have been a very close resemblance between the two names, and accordingly we find Phoenician names compound- �38 ABSTRACT OF C0LEN.50 ed with Jah exactly as Hebrew. It is preposterous to suppose that the Phoenicians derived their names from the Hebrews. It is not necessary to suppose that the Elohist invented the name of Jehovah for his people. Samuel probably finding the tribes, the northern especially, already in possession of the name, adopted it as the name of the God of Israel. Afterwards the Deuteronomist breathed new life into the dead letter of the law. Meanwhile the people generally practised idolatry, even in the reign of David and Solomon. Jehosophat, Asa, Ahaziah, and Amaziah worshipped Jehovah (JHVH) on the high places, who was the Baal of Israel. There is no censure of the kings for al­ lowing this idolatry by the writer of the books of Samuel and Kings. Yet all this while the great prophets of Israel were striv­ ing with their stolid and perverse countrymen, to raise their minds to higher views of the Divine nature, and nobler concep­ tions of the meaning of that name they were daily profaning. CORRUPT WORSHIP OF JEHOVAH. The worship of Jehovah being introduced among the Hebrews was long continued among them, as regards the great mass of the people, in the same low form in which it existed among the Ca­ naanite tribes, and was only gradually purified from its grosser pollutions by the long continued efforts of those great prophets whom God raised up for the purpose from time to time in differ­ ent ages, aided no doubt in this work by the powerful national calamities which befell them, and probably also in some measure by their coming in contact during the time of their captivity with those divine truths which were taught in the Zroasterian religion. In fact, the state of Israel may be compared with that which, in the view of many ardent Protestants, exists even now in Catholic communities. The people in such cases worship the same God as the Protestants; they call themselves Christians, servants of the same Lord, yet there is much in their religion which Protestant travelers regard as profound idolatry, and denounce as gross abominations. �THE NATION AND COUNTRY OF THE JEWS. By W. H. B. Very erroneous ideas prevail in regard to the magnitude of the nation and country of the Jews, and their importance in history. Most maps of ancient Palestine assign far too much territory to that nation. They make the greatest length of the country from 160 to 17-5 miles, and its greatest breadth from 70 to 90, inclosing an area of from 10,000 to 12,000 square miles—a little larger than the State of Vermont. They not only include the entire Mediterranean coast for 160 miles, but a considerable mountain tract on the north, above Dan, and a portion of the desert on the south, below Beersheba, besides running the eastern boundary out too far. Moreover, they lengthen the distances in every direction. From Dan to Beersheba, the extreme northern and southern towns, the distance on Mitchell’s map is 165 miles, and on Colton’s, 150; but on a map accompanying “Biblical Researches in Palestine,” by Edward Robinson, D. D., which is one of the most recent and elaborate, and will doubtless be accepted as the best authority, the distance is only 128 miles. Now, the Israelites were never able to drive out the Canaanites from the choicest portion of the country—the Mediterranean coast—nor even from most parts of the interior. (Judges i. 16-31 ; 1 Kings ix. 20, 21.) The Phenicians, a powerful maritime people, occupied the northern portion of the coast, and the Philistines the southern ; between these the Jebusites, or some other people, held control, so that the Israelites were excluded from any part of the Mediterranean shore. The map of their country must therefore undergo a reduction of a strip on the west at least 10 miles wide by 160 long, or 1,600 square miles. A further reduc­ tion must be made of about 400 square miles for the Dead Sea and Lake of Tiberias. This leaves at most 9,000 square miles by Colton’s map. But on this map the extreme length of the country is 175 miles ; which is 47 miles too great; for the whole dominion of the Jews extended only from Dan to Beersheba, which Dr. Robinson places only 128 mi es apart. We must therefore make a further reduction of an area about 47 by 60 miles, or 2,800 square miles. Then we must take off a slice on the east, at least 10 miles broad by 60 long, or 600 square miles. Thus we reduce the area of Colton’s map, from 11,000 square miles, to 5,600—a little less than the State of Connectidlit. But now if we subtract from this what was wilderness and desert, and also what was at no time inhabited and controlled by the Israelites, we further reduce their habitable territory about one-lialf. The land of �40 THE NATION AND COUNTRY OF THE JEWS. Canaan being nearly all mountainous, and bounded on the south and east by a vast desert which encroached upon the borders of the country, a great part of it was barren wilderness. Nor did but one-fifth of the Is­ raelites (two and a half tribes) occupy the country east of the Jordan which was almost equal in extent to that on the west, the proper land of promise. The eastern half, therefore, must have been but thinly popu­ lated by the two and a half tribes, who were only able to maintain a precarious foothold against the bordering enemies. So then it is not probable that the Israelites actually inhabited and governed at any time, a territory of more than 3,000 square miles, or not much if any larger than the little State of Delaware. At all events, it can hardly be doubted that Delaware contains more good land than the whole country of the Jews ever did. The promise to Abraham in Gen. xv. 18, is “from the river of Egypt to the river Euphrates.” But the Jewish possessions never reached the Nile by 200 miles. In Ex. xxxiii. 31, the promise is renewed, but the river of Egypt is not named. The boundaries are “from the Red Sea to the Sea of the Philistines (the Mediterranean), and from the desert to the river.” By “the river ” was doubtless meant the Euphrates; and assuming that by “ the desert ” was meant the eastern boundary (though Canaan was bounded on the south also by the same great desert, which reached to the Red Sea), we have in this promise a territory 600 miles long by an average of about 180 broad, making an area of about 100.000 square miles, or ten times as much as the Jews ever could claim, and nearly one-half of it uninhabitable. So then the promise was never ful­ filled, for the Israelites were confined to a very small central portion of their land of promise, and whether they occupied 3,000 or 12,000 square miles in the period of their greatest power, the fact is not to be disputed that their country was a very small one. What was the physical character of the land of Canaan ? It is de­ scribed in the Pentateuch as a “ land flowing with milk and honey.” Such it may have seemed to the Israelites after wandering forty years through the frightful desert of Sinai and Edom, where but for the miraculous supply of food and water, every soul of them would have per­ ished. But what was there in Canaan to warrant so extravagant an enco­ mium 2 Surely there are no signs there now of its ever having been even a fertile country. Modern travelers all agree that it is very barren and desolate. How could it be otherwise 2 It is a country of rocks and mountains, and is bounded on two sides by a vast desert. Lamartine describes the journey from Bethany to Jericho as singularly toilsome and melancholy—neither houses nor cultivation, mountains without a shrub, immense rocks split bjitime, pinnacles tinged with colors like those of an extinct volcano. “ From the summit of these hills, as far as the eye can reach, wo see only black chains, conical or broken peaks, a boundless labyrinth of passes rent through the mountains, and those �THE NATION AND COUNTRY OF THE JEWS. 41 ravines lying in perfect and perpetual stillness, without a stream, with­ out a wild animal, without even a flower, the relics of a convulsed land, with waves of stone.” (Vol. II., p. 146.) But lest it may be thought that these dismal features arc due to modern degeneracy, let us take the testimony of an early Christian father, St. Jerome, who lived a long time in Bethlehem, four miles south of Jeru­ salem. In the year 414 he wrote to Dardanus thus :— “ I beg of those who assert that the Jewish people after coming out of Egypt took possession of this, country (which to us, by the passion and resurrection of our Saviour has become truly the land of promise), to show us w]iat this people possessed. Their whole dominions extended only from Dan to Beersheba, hardly 160 Roman miles in length (147 geo­ graphical miles). The Scriptures give no more to David and Solomon, except what they acquired by alliance, after conquest......... Iam ashamed to say what is the breadth of the land of promise, lest I should thereby give the pagans occasion to blaspheme. It is but 47 miles (42 geograph­ ical m:les) from Joppa to our little town of Bethlehem, beyond which, all is a frightful desert.” (Vol. II., p. 605.) Elsewhere he describes the country as the refuse and rubbish of nature. He says that from Jerusalem to Bethlehem there is nothing but stones, and in the summer the inhabitants can scarcely get water to drink. In the year 1847, Lieut. Lynch, of the U. S. Navy, was sent to explore the river Jordan and the Dead Sea. He and his party with great diffi­ culty crossed the country from Acre to the lake of Tiberias, with trucks drawn by camels. The only roads from time immemorial were mule paths. Frequent detours had to be made, and they were compelled ac­ tually to make some portions of their road. Even then the last declivity could not be overcome, until all hands turned out and hauled the boats and baggage down the steep places ; and many times it seemed as if, like the ancient herd of swine, they would all rush precipitately into the sea. Over three days were required to make the journey, which, in a straight line would be only 27 miles. For the first few miles they passed over a pretty fertile plain, but this was the ancient Phenician country, which the Jews never conquered. The rest of the route was mountainous and rocky, with not a tree visible, nor a house outside the little walled vil­ lages. (pp. 135 to 152.) . Arriving at the ancient sea of Galilee, they purchased the only boat owned there (Letter to the Secretary of State). On this insignificant body of water, 12 miles long by 7 wide, all the commerce of the Jews was carried on, except in the reign of Solomon, when they had the use of a port on the Red Sea. From thence, the party proceeded down the Jordan; some in boats, the rest by land. They had to clear out old channels, make new ones, and sometimes, trusting in Providence, they plunged with headlong velocity down appalling descents. On the third morning the frame boat was smashed and abandoned. The metallic boats which they had provided for this perilous voyage were the only kind that �42 THE NATION AND COUNTRY OF THE JEWS. would survive. They plunged down twenty-seven threatening rapids, besides many smaller ones in their passage from the lake to the Dead Sea, a distance of 200 miles by the crooked Jordan, but only 56 in a straight line. The fall in the whole distance is 654 feet. The width of the river, Lieut. Lynch says, was 75 feet; but as this was at the time of the flood, it must have been much less at low water. Other travelers say it is only 40 feet wide. Even as it was, their boat, drawing only eight inches of water, grounded in mid-channel, showing how very shallow the river must have been in summer. A bridge spanning the stream with a single pointed Saracenic arch is described by Lieut. Lynch, and a draw­ ing of it is given by the Rev. Mr. Tristram in his “ Land of Israel ” (Lon­ don, 1865) Through this single arch the waters have rushed for centu­ ries, and still the bridge endures. Such is the famous Jordan—a narrow, shallow, crooked, impetuous mountain stream. In a book entitled “ The Holy Land, Syria,” etc., by David Roberts, R. A. (London, 1855), the valley of the Jordan is thus described:— “A large portion of the valley of the Jordan has been from the earliest time almost a desert But in the northern part, the great number of rivu­ lets which descend from the mountains on both sides, produce in many places a luxuriant growth of wild herbage. So too in the southern part, , where similar rivulets exist, as around Jericho, there is even an exuber­ ant fertility; but those rivulets seldom reach the Jordan, and have no effect on the middle of the Ghor. The mountains on each side are rug­ ged and desolate; the western cliffs overhanging the valley at an eleva­ tion of 1,000 or 1,200 feet, while the eastern mountains fall back in rano-es of from 2,000 to 2,500 feet.” From the mouth of the Jordan to Jerusalem, the elevation is 3,927 feet. The distance in a straight line on Robinson’s map is 16 miles. From the nearest point on the Dead Sea it is 12 1-2 miles. An air-line railroad, therefore, from the mouth of the river to Jeru alem would require an average grade of 245 feet to the mile; and from the nearest point on the Dead Sea, 314 feet to the mile. The length of the route would have to be more than doubled or trebled to make a railroad practicable. From Jerusalem to Yafa, the nearest practicable point on the Mediterranean, is 33 miles in a direct line. As Jerusalem is 2,610 feet higher than the sea level, the average grade of an air-line railroad between the two places would be about 80 feet per mile. Should the time ever come when a railroad would be required from the Mediterranean to the river Jordan, via Jerusalem, the question might arise, which would be the most prac­ ticable—the heavy grades required, or a tunnel from ten to twenty miles long, and from one to two thousand feet below the site of the holy city. What -was the size of ancient Jerusalem? We know pretty nearly what it is now, and how many inhabitants it contains. It is three-quar­ ters of a mile long, by a half a mile wide, and its population is not more than 11,500 {Biblical Researches, Vol. I., p. 421), a large proportion of whom are drawn thither by the renowned sanctity of the place. Dr. �THE NATION AND COUNTRY OF THE JEWS. 43 Robinson measured the wall of the city, and found it to be only 12,978 feet in circumference, or nearly two and a half miles. (Vol. I., p. 268.) In a book entitled “An Essay on the Ancient Topography of Jerusa­ lem,’’ by James Fergusson (London, 1847), a diagram is given of the walls of ancient and modern Jerusalem, from which it appears that the greatest length of the city was at no time more than 6C00 feet, or a little more than a mile, and its greatest width about three-quarters of a mile; while the real Jerusalem of old was but a little more than a quarter that size. The author gives the area of the different walled inclosures as follows (p. 52): — ■ Area of the old city. ------ 513,000 yards. That of the city of David, . 213,000 Partial Total, -.................................... 756,000 That inclosed by the wrall of Agrippa, - 1,456,000 Grand total, -----2,212,000 With these measurements Mr. Fergusson undertakes to estimate the probable population o: the ancient city, as follows:— “ If we allow the inhabitants of the first named cities fifty yards to each individual, and that one-half of the new city was inhabited at the rate of one person to each one hundred yards, this will give a permanent population of 23,000 souls. If on the other hand we allow only thirtythree yards to each of the old cities, and admit that the whole of the new was as densely populated as London; or allowing one hundred yards to each inhabitant, we obtain 37,000 souls for the whole—which I do not think it at all probable that Jerusalem ever could have contained as a permanent population.” In another part of the book (p. 47) he says :— “If we were to trust Josephus, he would have us believe that Jerusa­ lem contained at one time, or could contain, two and a half or three millions of souls, and that at the siege of Titus, 1,100,000 perished by famine and the sword; 97,000 were taken captive, and 40,000 allowed by Titus to go free.” In order to show the gross exaggeration of these numbers, he cites the fact that the army of Titus did not exceed, altogether, 30,000, and that Josephus himself enumerates the fighting men of the city at 23,400, which would give a population something under 100,000. But even this he believes to be an exaggeration. For says he :— “ In all the sallies it cannot be discovered that at any time the Jews could bring into the field 10,000 men, if so many.............. Titus inclosed the city with a line four and one half miles in extent, which, with his j small army, was so weak a disposition that a small body of the Jews could easily have broken through it; but they never seem to have had numbers sufficient to be able to attempt it.” The author guesses that the Jews might have mustered at the begin­ ning of the seige about 10,000 men, and that the city might have con­ tained altogether about 40,000 inhabitants, permanent and transient, in �44 THE NATION AND COUNTRY OF THE JEWS. a space which in no other city in the world could accommodate 30,000 souls. But the wall of Agrippa was built, as this same author states, twelve or thirteen years after the crucifixion ; hence prior to that time the area of Jerusalem was only 756.000 yards, and it was capable of con­ taining only 23,000 inhabitants at most, but probably never did contain more than 15,000. Now Jerusalem was the chief city of the Jews, and the greatest extent of territory occupied by that nation does not now contain more than 200,000 inhabitants, if as many. Allowing to Jerusalem, in the period of the greatest prosperity of the Jews, a population of even 20,000, is it at all probable that the whole country could have contained anything like even the lowest estimate to be gathered from the Scripture record? In 1 Chr. xxi. 5, 6, we read that the number of “ men that drew the sword ” of Israel and Judah, amounted to 1,570,000, not counting the tribes of Levi and Benjamin. In 2 Samuel xxiv. 9, the number given at the same census is 1,300,000, and no omission is mentioned. Assuming the larger number to be correct, and adding only one-eighth for the two tribes of Levi and Benjamin, which may have been the smallest, we have 1,766,000 fighting men. This would give, at the rate of one fighting man to four inhabitants, a total population of over 7,000,000 souls. But if we adopt a more reasonable ratio, of one to six, we have a population of over 10,500,000 souls. And then we omit the aliens. These numbered 153,600 working men only two years later (2 Chr. ii 17), and the total alien population, therefore, must have been about 500,000, which, added to the census, would make the total population from 7,500,000 to 11,000,000, or more. Can any intelligent man believe that a mountainous, barren coun­ try, no larger than Connecticut, without commerce, without manufactures, without the mechanical arts, without civilization, ever did, or could sub­ sist even two millions of people ? Much less can it be believed that it subsisted “ seven nations greater and mightier than the Israeliti'li nation itself” (Deut. vii. 1), i. e., not less than 14,000,000. That the Jews were a very barbarous people is undeniable. Assuming as true, the account of their remarkable battle with the Midianites prior to their entrance into Canaan, the wholesale slaughter of men, women and children was an act peculiar only to a savage people. Who but a barbarian chief could have commanded the murder in cold blood by the returning victors, of all their captive women and children, save 32,000 virgins whom they were to keep alive for themselves I Again, on taking the town of Jericho, they massacred all its inhabi­ tants, saving only the harlot Rahab, who by falsehood and treachery had betrayed her own people. Sometime afterwards a civil war broke out among the Israelites them­ selves, in which the tribe of Benjamin was almost, exterminated, leaving only 600 males; whereupon the people, unwilling that one of their tribes should be annihilated, fell upon and sacked a whole city of another of �THE NATION AND COUNTRY OF THE JEWS. 45 their tribes, killing all its inhabitants except the virgins whom they gave for wives to the survivors of the tribe of Benjamin. The Benjamites lost in that battle 26,100 men, and their adversaries 40,030. (Judges xx. 15, 21, 25, 81.) The latter, however, not content with slaughtering all the Benjamites but 600, proceeded to their towns and slew every man, woman and child of the tribe. These must have numbered at least 80,000 ; so that the whole number killed in the three days of fraticidal warfare was not less than 146,000. Slavery necessarily makes a people barbarous. Not only were the Israelites a nation of slaves, according to their own record, but after their entry into Canaan, they were six times reduced to bondage in their own land of promise. During a period of 281 years, they were in slavery 111 years, viz :— Under the King of Mesopotamia, - 8 years. (Judges, iii. 8.) iii. 14.) - 18 (C Under the-King of Moab, ( “ iv. 3.) - 20 cc Under the King of Canaan, ( “ vi. 1.) 7 cc Under the Midianites, ( “ x. 8.) - 18 In Gilead, ( “ - 40 :c Under the Philistines, ( “ xiii. 1.) That the Jews were far behind their surrounding neighbors in civili­ zation is shown by the fact that in the first battle they fought under their first king, Saul. they had in the whole army “neither sword nor spear in the hand of any of the people,” except Saul and Jonathan. (1 Samuel xiii. 22.) Nor was any “smith found throughout all the land of Israel” (.r 19), but “ all the Israelites went down to the Philistines to sharpen cvo-y man his share, and his coulter, and his ax, and his mattock.” (v. 20.) This was 404 years after the exodus, and only 75 years prior to the building of Solomon's temple. Their weapons of war were those of the rudest savage. David used a sling to kill Goliath, showing that he had not yet learned the use of more civilized weapons; not even the bow, which he afterwards caused to be taught to liis people. (2 Samuel i. 18.) As another evidence of the barbarism of the Jews, when David resolved to build a house for himself, he had no native artisans, but had to send to Hiram, King of Tyre, for masons and carpenters. (2 Samuel v. 11.) Even the wood itself had to be brought from Tyre. It would seem that even in those days, as now, the mountains of Canaan were destitute of trees—a sure sign of a sterile country. The wood of course had to be carried over land. Wheel-carriages were unknown to the Israelites, ex­ cept in the form of chariots of iron used by their enemies, which pre­ vented Judah, even with the help of the Lord, from driving out .the inhabitants of the valleys. (Judges i 19.) David captured 1,000 chariots in about the 16th year of his reign, of which he preserved only 100, disabling all the horses. (1 Chr. xviii. 3.) Prior to this event neither chariots nor horses had been used by the Israelites, nor was much use made of them by the subsequent kings. Oxen and asses were their �46 THE NATION AND COUNTRY OF THE JEWS. beasts of burden; camels were rare even long after Solomon’s reign. How then was the wood brought from Tyre over the mountains, unless it was carried on the backs of oxen or asses, or dragged along the ground ? The national wealth seems to have increased prodigiously in David’s reign—chiefly from spoils—but the amount is manifestly greatly exag­ gerated. Among his spoils was the crown of the King of Rabbah, the weight of which was a talent of gold (2 Samuel xii. 30) ; i. e., 93 3-4 pounds avoirdupois—a pretty heavy burden for a royal head. At the beginning of his reign, David had not even iron with which to forge weapons of war or implements of agriculture, and yet after forty years it is said that he left to his son Solomon, for the temple; 3,000 talents of gold and 7,000 of silver. (1 Chr. xxix. 4.) Now a talent of gold, according to the “ table of weights and money ” in the Bible, pub­ lished by the American Bible Society, is equal to 5,4647. 5s 8 1-27., or §26,447 ; and a talent of silver is equal to 3417. 10s. 4 1-27., or §1,653. The amount of gold and silver, therefore, which David con­ tributed was equal to §90,912,000. But this is not all. The chiefs, princes, captains, and rulers over the King’s work gave 5,000 talents, and 10,000 drachms of gold, and 10,000 talents of silver (v. 7),—equal to §153,845,000. So that the total sum of gold and silver contributed by David and his chiefs was §244,757,000, besides precious stones and an incredible quantity of brass and iron. Can it be believed that David and his men acquired such riches that they were able to make these enormous contributions ? In the reign of Solomon gold and silver continued to pour in so that he was able to buy a fleet of ships in the Red Sea, of Hiram, King of Tyre, and these ships brought him from Ophir 450 talents of gold, as we read in 2 Chr. viii. 18—equal to about §12,000,000—though in 1 Kings ix. 28, the amount given is 420 talents, or about §800,000 less. Again, we read in 1 Kings x. 14, that the weight of gold that came to him in. one year was 666 talents—equal to about §18.000,000. And yet this same monarch, who “exceeded all the Kings of the earth for riches ” (v. 23), had neither wood, nor skilled workmen to build his palace and temple, but bought the wood and hired the artisans of the King of Tyre. (2 Chr. ii. 3-10 ; 1 Kings v 6-12.) The laborers erffployed in the Temple were all the strangers in the land, numbering 153,000, of whom 3,600 were made overseers. (2 Chr. ii. 17, 18.) Over these were set 550 Jewish overseers according to 1 Kings ix. 33, or 250 according to 2 Chr. viii. 10. With this great number of wkmen Solomon was seven years in building this celebrated Temple, which was only 110 feet long, 36 wide, and 55 high. (1 Kings vi. 2.) How many a modern church edifice exceeds in size Solomon’s great Temple .' But there were additions to the house. First, there was a porch at one end 36 feet by 18 (r. 3). This porch is said, in 2 Chr. iii. 4, to have been 220 feet high, or four times the height of the �THE NATION AND COUNTRY OF THE JEWS. 47 house! But as nothing is said about the hight of it in Kings, we may assume that the chronicler made a mistake in his figures in this case, as he has so frequently done in others. Then there were added to the walls of the house outside chambers, nine feet high, and from nine to thirteen feet broad, in three tiers, making a hight of 27 feet. But even with these additions, the temple was not remarkable for size, and the story that 150,000 laborers were employed seven years in its construction, is incredible. So, too, as regards the amount of the precious metals said to have been used in the building of the Temple, it is fabulous. And yet the amount that David and his chiefs contributed was but a seventeenth part of what David promised, namely, 100,000 talents of gold and 1,000,000 of silver, (1 Chr., xxii, 14)—equal to $4,297,700,000, or twice our national debt. The gold alone would weigh 9,375,000 pounds, or 4,347 tons—enough to have built the walls two feet thick of that metal; and the silver, being ten times that weight, would have filled the temple three-quarters full. On the death of Solomon a division took place among the tribes, the kingdom was torn asunder and divided into two small provinces, called Judah and Israel ; two and a half tribes composing the former, and nine and a half the latter. A religious war broke out between the two king­ doms, and while it was going on the kings of Assyria came down upon the nine and a half tribes and carried them away captive. The captives never returned, nor can any one to this day tell where they were dis­ persed. The small remnant of the Jews soon after became a prey to conquerors and were carried captive to Babylon. The captivity of the two and a half tribes took place 588 years B. C., and was practically an end of the Jewish nation. They were slaves in Babylon and its vicinity, till 536 years B. C. (Ezra i. 1-6), a period of 52 (not 70) years, when they were released by Cyrus and allowed to return to Judea. But it appears that less than 50,000 returned. (Ezra ii. 64, 65.) These, no doubt, were of the poorer class, the wealthier remaining in Babylon, and contribut­ ing alms for the rebuilding of the city of Jerusalem and the Temple. The amount contributed, according to Ezra ii 68, 69, was 61,000 drachms of gold, and 5000 pounds of silver—equal in the aggregate to about $110,000; but according to Nehemiah vii. 70, 72, it was 41,000 drachms of gold and 4,200 pounds of silver—equal to 'about $290,000. Whichever was the correct amount, it was not a 600th part of what David and his men contributed for the first temple.* About eighty years later, further contributions were made, amounting * These two chapters, Ezra ii. and Nehemiah vii. are almost exactly alike, the whole of the former being’ repeated in the latter, with slight variations. Both give the names of the families that returned, and the number of each. They agree in making the whole number 42,360, besides 7,337 servants ; but on casting up the sep­ arate numbers, the whole sum in Ezra is 29,818 ; and in Nehemiah 31,089. Again, on comparing the two chapters verse by verse, we find twenty-seven discrepancies in figures, and thirty in names. �48 THE NATION AND COUNTRY OF THE JEWS. to nearly $1,000,000 (only a 60th part of what David and his men gave), and sent by Ezra with a guard of about 1.750 men from Babylon to Jeru­ salem. (Ezra viii.) But the effort to re-establish the Jewish nation proved futile. Though they.were permitted in some degree to establish their superstitious religious rites in their former country, they were ever af­ terwards the subjects of other powers, until their final dispersion at the siege of Jerusalem, by Titus, A. D. 70. For half a century after its destruction, says Dr. Robinson, there is no mention of Jerusalem in his­ tory ; and even until the time of Constantine its history presents little more than a blank. (Vol. I., pp. 367, 371.) Such was the insignificance of the Jews as a people, that the historical monuments preceding the time of Alexander the Great, who died 323 years B. C., make not the slightest mention of any Jewish transaction. The writings of Thales, Solon, Pythagoras, Democritus, Plato, Herodotus, and Xenophon, all of whom visited remote countries, contain no mention of the Jews whatever. Neither Homer, the cotemporary of Solomon, nor Aristotle, the correspondent of Alexander, makes any mention c-f them. The story of Josephus, that Alexander visited Jerusalem, ha been proved to be a fabrication. Alexander’s historians say nothin" about it. He did pass through the coast of Palestine, and the only, sistance he encountered was at Gaza, which was garrisoned by Persiahi (TVyttenbacKs Opuscula, Vol. II., pp. 416, 421.) Soon after the death of Alexander, the Jews first came into notic-* under Ptolemy I. of Egypt, and some of their books were collected at the new-built city of Alexandria. But they remained an obscure people, so much so that when Christ was crucified in the province of Judea under the Roman government, no record of the event seems to have been r 'gistered in the archives of that great empire; for if any had been, it would doubtless have heen preserved, at least for 300 years, and pro­ duced by the Emperor Constantine, the first royal pagan convert to Chris­ tianity, in his oration before the council of Nicaea, A D. 326, on the evi­ dences of the Christian religion. Persecution has probably made the Jews in modern times more numer­ ous than they ever were as an ancient nation. Little reliance can be placed upon their early history, which is entirely unsupported by cot1 porary records. The story of their origin is doubtless fabulous. It is more probable that they were at first a wandering tribe of Bedouin Arabs who got possession of the sterile portion of Palestine, and held it until it was pretty thoroughly ruined. At all events it is clear that their im­ portance has been unduly magnified. ��� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; 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> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Abstract of Colenso on the Pentateuch: a comprehensive summary of Bishop Colenso's argument, proving that the Pentateuch is not historically true; and that it was composed by several writers, the earliest of whom lived in the time of Samuel, from 1100 to 1060 B. C., and the latest in the time of Jeremiah, from 641 to 624 B. C. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Colenso, John William Description An account of the resource Place of publication: [New York] Collation: 48 p. ; 18 cm. Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. "A comprehensive summary of Bishop Colenso's argument, proving that the Pentateuch is not historically true; and that it was composed by several writers, the earliest of whom lived in the time of Samuel, from 1100 to 1060 B.C., and the latest in the time of Jeremiah, from 641 to 624 B.C. To which is appended an essay on the nation and country of the Jews." Date of publication from KVK. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available [sold by American News Company] Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [1871] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CT26 Subject The topic of the resource Judaism Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Burr, William Henry (ed) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <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 (Abstract of Colenso on the Pentateuch: a comprehensive summary of Bishop Colenso's argument, proving that the Pentateuch is not historically true; and that it was composed by several writers, the earliest of whom lived in the time of Samuel, from 1100 to 1060 B. C., and the latest in the time of Jeremiah, from 641 to 624 B. C.), 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> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Bible. O.T. Joshua Bible. O.T. Pentateuch Conway Tracts Jews Judaism https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/c45e86858e4f6c2ce9d2606593409a9f.pdf?Expires=1782345600&Signature=lBcHITjzK4RSGmsKqGSdwS23wgWSftbRWLC1pb55yj5H%7EnKTAYAhmIzO8E74BVDWrzhJTdgCXv01tzXSy%7EzSIg80YhSkY9wVSLdoPsahr4%7EhC1Ewf3941ntSKSLxc2fG0jyIHUSfr1HGr23vdfcD3SXP%7EydpsqXG1H8wFeloCRcaERN44xiT2EPKUKX6VleftsBXFJWt3azqkl2h6gH10qJYz47t9DFYVBTPJspMtzoPeqE%7EZqd7owMQD1dFjTlBsMzaVoVDO1oj34RwgflAluIveui9j5KR4n-dfkoKFaCIk0CvEFOBv4PWhadrZMKuzJTs1FyCZrdw71MEl9Hcig__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 7e5b9186c99dd2d34679b535e98bacae PDF Text Text CT US' THE PENTATEUCH IN CONTRAST WITH THE SCIENCE AND MORAL SENSE OF OUR AGE. _ By A PHYSICIAN. “ Zufallige Geschichtswahrheiten konnen der Beweis von. nothwendigen Vemunftswahrheiten nie werden—Contingent historical truths can never be demonstration of necessary rational truths.”—Lessing. PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT, No. 11 The Terrace, Farquhar Road, Upper Norwood, London, S.E. 1873. Price One Shilling and Sixpence. �And are they in the right who, free from doubt, Can sit in sweet abstraction from each thought Of Earth, pondering the lives of those who fought The battles of Jehovah ; viewing the rout That Israel spread as God’s own act, the shout Upraised for victory, glorious most when fraught With deepest ruin to the foe, as taught By the Qreator! ’T may not be! Without The special faith that suffers me to view In one among the multitude of creeds, Each by its advocates alone held true, The truth, or other than the pregnant seeds Of discord among men, I take my flight From blood-stained legends, Nature, to thy Light! �THE PENTATEUCH—THORA, ‘ THE LAW. GENESIS. TN the beginning,” it is said, “ God created the JL heaven and the earth.” What are we to understand by a “ beginning ” ? The epoch in eternity, doubtless, which the writer of this part of the Hebrew Scriptures imagined to have dawned when God created or fashioned, or set about creating or fashioning, heaven and the earth, first or oldest of things in his belief. Is this belief borne out by what natural philoso­ phers conclude as to the constitution of heaven and the earth ? Heaven, to the modern philosopher, is no firma­ ment or solid sphere stretched above and subordi­ nate in some sort to the earth, as it was to the Hebrews, but is infinite space, only to be conceived of as co-eternal with, and an element in the nature of, Deity; whilst the earth is but a middle-aged member of one of the great astral systems that stud The Boundless, and a much more recent production, in its compact form, than the whole of the planetary bodies that circle round the sun in orbits outside its own. Creation, to the modern philosopher,_ is therefore something different from the creation, evoking, or fashioning out of nothing of the Hebrew writer. B �2 The Pentateuch. It is impossible to conceive something coming out of nothing. But God was, and with and of God were the elements, which, in conformity with the laws of force and matter, also inherent in the nature of God, took form and fashion as suns, planets, satellites, and comets amid infinite space and in time. Creation, as now apprehended, implies evolution— evolution from what ? As regards the particular aggregations in space, whereof the solar system is one, and the earth we dwell on among the least of its members, from a mass of nebulous matter, extending, in the first instance, far beyond the limits of the, outermost of the planetary bodies which, with their satellites, now circle round the sun. Vast intervals of time must be presumed to have elapsed between the epochs when the first, or outer­ most, and the last, or innermost, of the planets that attend the sun took form and fashion ? Such is the conclusion of modern philosophers; the planets outside the earth’s orbit being regarded as the older, those within it as the younger members of the family, the great sun itself being the youngest or latest formed of all? “The earth,” it is said, “ was without form and ' void.” The earth, in conformity with the laws of attrac­ tion, repulsion, and cohesion inherent in matter, could never have been without form, and could not have been void, if by void emptiness be understood. From the moment of its acquiring, and even before it had a The reader is referred to an admirable paper ascribed to Mr Hennessey, headed “ Recent Astronomy and the Nebular Hypothesis,” in the Westminster Review, July,1858. In this able essay the Genesis of the Solar System is treated exhaustively, though briefly, in conformity with the most advanced views of natural philosophers. �Genesis: The Elohist. 3 acquired, consistency it was a globe, revolving on an axis, flattened at the poles, bulging at the equator, and made up, in the several stages of its evolution) of gaseous, vaporous, liquid, and solid matters, as it is at the present hour, though these matters must all have existed in states far different at first from, those in which they now present themselves. “ And darkness was upon the face of the deep.” As yet the deep was not; and at no time, probably, did absolute darkness prevail in the universe. Any light that reached the earth, however, could not have been of the bright kind that is shed from the sun as it now exists. There must have been light, never­ theless, as well from the nebulous matter which had become compact in the older planets and in the earth, and was still undergoing compaction into the younger planets within the earth’s orbit and into the sun itself, —not to speak of the nebulous and stellar masses plunged in the depths of space, that were either in process of condensation, and so eliciting a feebler light, or that had already acquired the density which fitted them as fixed stars or suns to shine more brightly. “Bright effluence of bright essence increate,” light was a principle in the nature of God, and must have existed from eternity : “ Before the sun, Before the heavens thou wert, and at the voice Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest The rising world of waters dark and deep,” sings one of the great heroic poets, inspired by the diviner mind he had through his more perfect organi­ zation. “ And the Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters.” �4 The Pentateuch. The spirit or breath of God (ruacli Elohim) was in the waters and moved in rhythmic harmony with them as with all things else. It was not only on or outside of the waters and other things, but within and of them, even as the manifestation we call life is within and of the organisms, vegetable and animal, wherein and whereby it is made known to us. “ And God said, Let there be light, and light was.” Not called into being, however, as but just said, at some particular moment of time, not distinct from the Godhead : “ [But] of the Eternal, co-eternal beam, ......................... since God is Light, And never but in unapproached light Dwelt from Eternity, dwelt then in thee,” sings in lofty rhyme our own inspired Bard. “ And God divided the light from the darkness, and he called the light day, and the darkness he called night.” The writer speaks of darkness—a purely negative state or condition,—as if it were a positive something. But darkness is a mere consequence of the absence of light; and it is obvious that he could not have known by what name God called either the light or the dark: God ordained the light and the dark, but he left man to give them names. “ Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters ; and let it divide the waters from the waters.” The writer fancied that the over-arching canopy of the sky was a transparent solid, in which the sun, moon, and stars were set, somewhat perhaps after the manner of the precious stones in the breast-plate of the high priest; and that as there was an ocean below or on the earth, so must there be an ocean above or in heaven, from which at times—on certain sluices, presumably, being opened—rain fell to moisten the ground and fit it lor the growth of plants. �Genesis.• The Elohist. 5 “ Let the waters on the earth be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” Geological facts and reasonable inferences from them lead to the conclusion that the earth, on its emergence from the nebulous or gaseous state in which it first existed, appeared as an incandescent fluid, and next as a semi-solid ball, when all that was still vapourable in its constitution surrounded the glowing mass as a heterogeneous atmosphere, some­ thing, in all probability, like that which we now believe to constitute the photosphere of the sun. Heat, how­ ever, passing off into space, precipitation first of the more and then of the less refractory substances took place, and a crust of some consistency was formed. This, shrinking on the still melted mass within, caused it to burst through in lines and at particular points, whereby mountains and mountain-chains were formed, and the surface was made uneven. The temperature continuing to fall lower and lower, the aqueous vapour of the atmosphere was finally in great measure pre­ cipitated and condensed into water, which, running down the slopes, gathered itself into the hollows and there formed rivers, lakes, and seas, with more or less of dry land between ; irregularities of surface, doubt­ less, exerting a paramount influence on the future dis­ tribution of land and water. For with shrinkings or subsidences here, and upheavals there, in combination with the tremendous rainfalls that must have occurred in the earlier geological epochs of the earth’s history, whole continents with mountain-chains for their back­ bones, were disintegrated and swept away, whilst mighty oceans congregated here, were dissipated in vapour and dried up there; that being made over and over again the wet which had been the dry, and that the dry which had been the wet. The rainfalls in these early geological epochs we cannot but presume must, indeed, have been tremen­ dous ? �6 The Pentateuch. If we only consider that the whole of the water now stored in the oceans that cover so large a portion of the earth’s surface was once suspended first as gas or viewless vapour and then as steam in the atmo­ sphere, we may form some idea of their extent and influence in fashioning the crust of the earth as it now appears. The mass of the stratified rocks which compose the proper crust of the globe is index enough of the extent of the continents that must have been disintegrated and ground down to supply the vast amount of material of which they consist, and of the combined powers of the rain and rivers that strewed this material at the bottom of the shoreless oceans where the strata took shape, as well as of the degree of heat still present in the central mass that fused or welded them into the solids they now present. • Disintegration of the first consolidated body of the earth did not, however, presumably supply the whole of the materials that now enter into the constitution of its stratified crust ? By no means; from all we know it seems reason­ able to suppose that some very considerable propor­ tion of these was furnished by the matters still sus­ pended in the vaporous state amid the fiery atmosphere that must long have surrounded the incandescent body of the globe. It was not the water only of our pre­ sent oceans, lakes, and rivers, the oxygen of our earthy and metallic oxydes, the carbonic acid of our mineral carbonates and coal measures that existed in the first instance as gas or vapour about the glowing globe; the salts, the metals, and the mineral substances most useful to man, and most prized by him, must probably all have been there originally in the form of elements, and only acquired their distinctive states and qualities when the temperature had fallen low enough to allow the law of the elective affinities to come into play. (See Appendix A.) �Genesis: The Elohist. 7 “ And God called the dry land earth, and the waters called he seas.” It is the Hebrew poet himself who calls the dry land Arets, and the gathered waters Imim—words which we translate Earth and Seas. Had God called these aggregates of solid and liquid matter by any names—and we venture to think that he never did, otherwise than through the mouths of men,—the writer of the sentence quoted could very certainly no more have known what they were than he could have known by what names day and night were called. ° Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed and the tree yielding fruit.” The waters which at several epochs and for such lengthened periods covered the whole or a vast pro­ portion of the globe, were undoubtedly the source, seed-bed, and nursery of the vegetable tribes which at length, and after the lapse of countless aeons, gained a footing on the land, and from the lowly forms of sexless flags, lichens, mosses, ferns, horse-tails, &c., finally acquired sexuality, and showed themselves as the palm and pine, the fig, orange, olive, vine and host of other seed and fruit-bearing herbs and trees that prepared the way for the advent of the higher organisms, the conscious living creatures which made their appearance on the earth at last. _ i‘ Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven to divide the day from the night, to be for signs and for seasons, for days and for years, and to give light upon the earth.” In our modern geological cosmogony we feel assured that a long interval elapsed between the forma­ tion of the moon and the definite formation of the sun as he now exists—if indeed the formation of the sun can yet be said, with any propriety, to be definite or complete. The. moon, we conclude, circled round the earth in a period other than that she now observes, and shed a paler light than she does at present upon �8 'The Pentateuch. its unpeopled surface, whilst the sun yet showed a disc less fiery than that he now presents, but of millions instead of hundreds of thousands of miles in diameter. The formation of the sun and moon, however, was simultaneous, according to the Hebrew poet, and had reference solely to the convenience of man. But the moon is some hundreds of thousands of years younger than the earth, and by aeons older than the sun ; and though man finds his advantage in the light and other attributes of these great bodies, they certainly took shape and had motions and qualities irrespec­ tively of him, but in harmony with the laws which inhere in matter and bring about phenomena. The phases of the moon give man the week, and her period about the earth the month, as the course of the earth about the sun—of the sun about the earth in the olden belief—gives him the seasons and the year. “ Let the waters bring forth the moving creature that hath life, , and fowl that may fly above the earth.” The waters were doubtless the womb in which the germs took shape that finally and in virtue of inherent powers eventuated not only in senseless vegetable forms, but in those gelatinous atoms with implanted sensibilities and aptitudes which by evolutionary efforts turned at length into radiates, molluscs, arti­ culates, insects, fishes, amphibians, mammalians, and man. The absolutely dry is the absolutely barren; the moist is the source of life ; hence the rise, in the heathen mythology, of Aphrodite, emblem of the generative power, from the sea. “ Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle and creeping thing, and beast of the earth.” ■ The Hebrew poet thought that the tenants of the dry land must have had their origin thereon, as he believed the tenants of the waters had theirs therein. Regarding the whale as a fish, he referred his birth to �Genesis: 'The Elohist. 9 the wr ters—and truly, in one respect, for his forma­ tion fhs him for life in these alone ; but the whale and his congeners the porpoises are not fishes anymore than their allied kinds the walruses, dugongs and seals ; for they all have warm blood, breathe by means of lungs, bring forth living young and suckle them precisely as do the mammalians that live on the land. “And God said : Let us make men in our image, after our likeness. And God created man in his image, in the image of God created he him ; male and female created he them.” (Eng. Vers, and De Wette.) Man, the Hebrew poet necessarily saw as the crown and consummation of the creative energy. But we may be permitted to regret that he should have ima­ gined and should have said that man was made in the image of God ; for God as all-pervading Spirit or Force, Essence or Cause, is without parts or propor­ tions, and so is without figure—a truth subsequently acknowledged in more than one part of the Hebrew Scriptures by other writers. God fills the universe, and is necessarily impersonal and unimaginable in any shape. It is the converse of the writer’s statement that is true : it is man who has fashioned God like himself. In harmony with the law of sexual dis­ tinction in all the higher classes of animals, man on his appearance on Earth is here fitly presented as cognate male and female, from the first. And God gave the herb bearing seed, and the tree bearing fruit for meat, to the conscious creatures evolved, we venture to assume, in virtue of aptitudes inherent in certain of the inorganic natural elements, prime instruments of God, and possessed of powers which finally formed flesh and blood and nerve and brain, with the wonderful appanages of feeling, the moral sense, the religious sense, understanding and reason ; faculties by which man comes at length to conceive a Supreme Being to whom reverence and obedience are due, to arrogate rights for him­ �IO The Pentateuch. self, and to own obligations to his fellow-men. It is to be regretted that the Hebrew writer should not have noted that God had also given the flesh of animals as well as vegetables for food to man and other creatures,—flesh to be supplied by the sacrifice of the weaker by the stronger and more highly organised among animals, man, as the most highly organised and most intelligent of any, sacrificing every other living thing that is fit for food to satisfy his appetite, and only attaining to the highest per­ fection of his powers where he diets on a mixture of vegetable and animal substances. “ Thus were finished the Heavens and the Earth and all the host of them.” The writer gives his Elohim—God or Gods—much less time in which to complete the marvellous work than from its constitution and self-revealed history we now feel assured was necessarily employed.' He had Eternity to draw on ; but he has not used his privilege beyond the scanty measure of a few days. Any term, however, of any conceivable length he could have fixed on, would still have fallen short of that which God may have used in fashioning the vast assemblage of systems of which the Earth, in so far as mass is concerned, is so insignificant a part. “And God rested the seventh day from all the work which he had made.” The writer here obviously fancies Elohim like him­ self. Weary with six days’ work, he gladly rests on the seventh day, and so fancies that God must have done so too. But God never rests • for God is not to be thought of as prime or inceptive Cause only, but as persistent, ever-active Cause of all that is and of all that comes to pass. Were God to rest for an instant of time, the fair fabric of harmonious nature would be the Chaos out of which the Hebrew writer presumed it to have arisen. Thus far we have a connected account of the �Genesis: The Elohist. TI creation of heaven and the earth and its inhabitants— what is to be thought of the tale ? . As of a simple, beautiful poem, the work of a man of thoughtful and imaginative mind, having the culture of the age in which he lived, and writing the language of his country in the highest state of purity to which it ever attained; a writer, therefore, of rela­ tively recent times in the history of the Jewish people —one, moreover, who drew little or nothing from either oral or written tradition or legend, but gave shape in words to the ideas and fancies that spring up in minds of thoughtful and poetic mould. The account of Creation, as contained in the first chapter of Genesis, must be the work of a writer who lived during or immediately after the reign of Solomon, before the Hebrew tongue had begun to decline from its purity and become mixed with Aramaic words— one of the Isaiahs or Lyrists who penned the finest of the Psalms, the glory of the Hebrew literature, and that cannot be said to have their like in the letters of any other people. The narrative of the first chapter of Genesis is not, however, the only account we have in the Hebrew Scriptures of the early history of the world, and more especially of the circumstances under which man began his career on earth ? There is a second account, commencing with the fourth veyse of the second chapter of the Book of Genesis, which differs notably from the first, and begins abruptly in these words : “ These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created.” It might almost be presumed that there was some­ thing wanting here ? So much of the document, seemingly, as gave the generations referred to. The verse, however, has every appearance of an interpolation, intended to connect the narrative that is to follow with that which has �I2 The Pentateuch. gone before. But so little affinity have the two acconnts, in fact, that a new hand is at once sus­ pected by the critical reader, who soon finds his sus­ picion turned into certainty by the diversity of treat­ ment he observes and the different name by which he finds the Deity now designated, the title in the first account being always Elohim—translated God in the English version, and in the second Jahveh or JahvehElohim—translated Lord and Lord-God with us. Nor is this all. A multitude of minor differences in the style and kind of information given, meet the critica 1 eye, which proclaim not two but four writers, who must have lived at times remote from one another, and had access to legendary and documen­ tary matter that did not always agree in its terms. The first account we have, however, is characterised by biblical scholars and critics as being from the pen of one of the Hebrew writers called Eloliists, the second from that of one or more of those entitled Jehovists, all of them apparently belonging to the priestly caste, but deriving their information from different and often discrepant sources. What is the first particular we have from the new writer—the Jehovist—in his account of th^ early world ? Passing by all the particulars connected with the formation of the heavens and the earth as we have them from the Elohist, he begins by informing us that Jahveh-Elohim, the Lord-God, besides the heavens and the earth, had also created “ every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb before it grew.” He appears to have imagined that trees and herbs were made by God much in the way that artificial flowers are made in the present day, and then planted in the ground, as he himself was wont to see husbandmen at work planting pot-herbs round Jerusalem. What reason is assigned for God’s procedure in �Genesis: The Jehovist. 13 thus making herbs and trees, instead of evoking them from the ground like the Elohist ? It is because “ the Lord-God had not yet caused it to rain on the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.” The writer of these words could not, it is obvious, have known of the Elohist’s account of Creation, in which there was not only water enough and conse­ quently rain, but herbs and trees growing and yield­ ing their seed and fruit, and both man and woman to tend the plants and till the ground, supposing that to have been needful to the growth of vegetables in a state of nature, which it is not. The vast and vigorous growths that gave rise to the carboniferous strata of the earth all took place myriads of years before there was a man to till the ground, though there must have been rain enough and to spare, and carbonic acid in the air in such excess as was probably incompatible with the existence of any but the lower forms of ani­ mal life,—certain it is that none of the higher forms had as yet made their appearance when the mighty morasses spread and the forests grew that now lie buried in our coal measures. Have we not evidence in geological records of rain having fallen on the earth not only before the appear­ ance of man on its face, but even before that of any of the higher forms of animal life ? Yes, ample; on sand-stone slabs deposited during the tertiary period of the earth’s existence we not only find pit-marks like those made on sand and mud by falling showers at the present day, but even learn the quarter whence the wind blew when the showers fell! More than this, we find the foot-prints of a frog or toad-like creature with a heavy tail, indicated by the trail or smoothed line obliterating the rain-pits in the wake of the footsteps I Yet more, and in strata much older than those to which the sand-stone slabs belong that preserve these interesting records, �14 The Pentateuch. we find abundance not only of vegetable, but of ani­ mal remains. So that we are enabled positively to say that plants grew, that animals lived on them, and on one another too, and that rain fell hundreds of thousands—it may be millions of years before there was a man to till the ground. The Lord-God—Jahveh-Elohim—we are then in­ formed, caused a mist to go up from the earth to water it, and make the plants he had fashioned to grow; further, that he made man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and he became a living creature (not soul, as in the English translation, the word soul leading to metaphysical conclusions not contemplated in the text) ; finally, that he planted a garden in Eden, and therein put the man whom he had made. This is according to the text; but the physics of the writer are at fault, for if the earth had the water necessary to supply the mist which was to fall in rain, it had already the moisture needful to make plants grow. And then he makes his deity fashion the man as a statuary fashions his statue, and only put life into him at last by breathing into his nostrils; he knew nothing of the law of evolution which the science of our modern world discovers in nature’s acts, which we are still to look on as the acts of God in his quality of Cause, and so of Creator. The garden in Eden is carefully planted ? With every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food ; the tree of life in the midst of the gar­ den, and.the tree of knowledge of good and evil; per­ mission being given to the man freely to eat of the fruit of every tree in the garden save and except of that of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Of this tree he is not to eat; for in the day he does he is told that he shall surely die. What is the next step in the proceedings of JahvehElohim, according to the writer ? �Genesis: 'The 'Jeho'uist. 15 He is made to say, as if it were a discovery or afterthought, that it is not good for the man to be alone, and that he would therefore make a help-meet for him. Before proceeding with this kindly purpose, however, the writer makes Jahveh-Elohim turn off to form the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, which he brings to the man, who is now named Adam, “ to see what he would call them, and whatso­ ever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.” Adam’s nomenclature has not reached us ? It has not, though it might as well have been pre­ served as many of the particulars given by the writer. It was probably simpler if less copious than that of his successors, the modern naturalists. Still, “ for Adam,” it is now said, and despairingly as it were, “ there was not found an help-meet for him.” Jahveh-Elohim is made by the writer to proceed in a very roundabout way to supply the deficiency ? He causes a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, from whose side a rib is taken, out of which a woman is , made and brought to the man, who styles her Isha, feminine of Ish, man. This seems a poor conceit in face of the omnipotence of God and is in palpable contradiction with the state­ ment in the Elohistic account of Creation, according to which and in harmony with the great law of sexual distinction, God is said to have made man male and female from the first. May we not, therefore, with­ out irreverence, say that if the Elohist’s account be correct, that of the Jehovist cannot be true ? Surely it is a puerile contrivance as prelude and pretext for what the man is immediately made to say : —“ This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man.” But God took no rib from the side of man to form his counterpart, woman : “ Man­ like, but different sex,” Isha needed not to be taken �16 The Pentateuch. in this childish and inconceivable way from the side of Ish to be of one flesh with him ; she was so by God’s fiat when simultaneously with him she came into, being, and long before he and she together had attained to the higher state of conscious life, worthy of their noble collective Aryan designation Man, from the reason (manu skr.) wherewith they were endowed. Adam is charmed with his helpmate ? Of course he is:— “ So lovely fair was she, That what seemed fair in all the world seemed now Mean, or in her summed up, in hei- contained, And in her looks. * * Grace was in all her steps, heaven in her eye, In every gesture dignity and love,” according to the version of our own great king of song. The man and the woman do not, however, accord­ ing to the narrative, long enjoy the happy state of innocence and bliss in which they were placed at first ? The serpent, says the story, was more subtil than any beast of the field, and said to the woman : “Yea, hath God said ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden F ” And the woman ? Said to the serpent: “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden God hath said : Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it lest ye die.” The serpent answers ? “Ye shall not surely die; for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” The serpent shows himself a subtil beast indeed, �17 Genesis: The Jehovist. apt in using as in understanding human speech, and excelling in persuasive power! The Elohist, in his account, gave man the dominion over the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air; but the Jehovist reverses' the picture and makes man dominated by the reptile that creeps upon his belly, and, in popular belief, lives upon dust! The woman yields to the suggestion of the insidi­ ously friendly and familiar serpent ? She sees that the tree is good for food, pleasant to the eye, a tree to be desired to make one wise ; and so she takes of the fruit and eats, and gives to her husband also, and he eats. With the result ? ( That the eyes of both are opened—not, however, in any intellectual and. moral sense, as might have been presumed, but in a sense purely physical, for they only now discover, it is said, that they are naked, and to hide their nakedness that they sew fig-leaves together to make them aprons—-scanty covering enough, but which Jahveh-Elohim, according to the writer, improves on subsequently by making them “coats of skins.” The fig-leaves were at hand ; but it has been made a question as to whence came the skins, and as to who it was who slew and flayed the animals that bore them, and shaped and sewed together the garments ! And thus do men land themselves among the absurdities that crop up when they are guilty of the folly of anthropomorphosing the Infinite Supreme ; and of giving a literal meaning to Eastern tales, the product of early and ignorant ages of the world ! The discovery of their nakedness was but a slight initiation for the man and woman into the knowledge of good and evil that was to follow on eating the forbidden fruit. Having senses, indeed, they needed not to have partaken of it to learn that they were naked. But is it in the nature of things, that aught C �i8 Phe Pentateuch. taken into the mouth could have given man first to know whether he were naked or clothed ? It is not; knowledge of the kind comes through the senses of sight and feeling, not of taste, and where these senses exist such knowledge is already pos­ sessed. Or that fruit of any kind eaten should teach man­ kind the difference between good and evil ? In so far as sweet, sour, bitter, and other savours are concerned, and as wholesome or unwholesome qualities are good and evil—Yes ; but as regards the moral good and evil implied though not expressed —No. God has connected the knowledge of what is good and evil from a moral point of view with certain parts of the brain, the functions of which are facul­ ties of the mind, and it is by means of these that man knows and makes distinction between moral good and evil; even as it is by the nerves of the tongue that he distinguishes between sweet, sour, and bitter, the sapid and insipid, &c., by those of touch and sight that he knows the difference between the rough and the smooth, the nude and the clothed, &c., and by those of the stomach and body at large that he is made aware of what is wholesome or deleterious. The discovery of their nakedness by the man and the woman is sometimes interpreted otherwise than literally ? But as it seems by a somewhat forced construction; the effect of eating the forbidden fruit being said to have been to engender concupiscence, carnal' desire,— as if that had been a sin ! But God had created man male and female, and put desire for one another into their minds ; blessed them, too ; said to them, Increase, multiply, and replenish the earth, and furnished them forth for the work. Neither, if we may trust our own Poet of Paradise, was Eve “ Uninformed Of nuptial sanctity and marriage rites; �Genesis : The Jehovist. 19 Nature herself wrought so in her that she, Seeing her husband, turned, And with obsequious majesty approved His pleaded reason.” The feeling that leads man to cover certain parts of his body in lands where he has no need of clothing, may be said to be an element in his nature, almost as much his peculiar heritage as his religious sense, and must have made itself felt in the very prime of his emergence from mere brutality into properly human though still savage life. There seems, therefore, no occasion to see any recondite meaning as underlying Adam’s discovery that he was naked. Such know­ ledge he certainly never had from eating any even such fruit as is said to have grown in the garden of Eden. What interpretation is commonly put on the appearance and part played by the serpent ? That it was the impersonation of Evil, designated Satan or Devil, who in guise of a serpent was the spokesman and tempter. Is there any warrant in the text for such an assumption ? There is none. The words are explicit: “ The serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field.” Is there anything else against the vulgar interpre­ tation ? Yes; the dualism implied in the recognition of a Principle of Evil apart or distinct from a Principle of Good—a recognition entirely foreign to the concep­ tion of Deity and the religious system of the Jewish people. If we constantly meet in the sacred writings of the Jews with Deity in the two aspects of Good and Evil, their God, whether called El or Jahveh, is still one only. Though no more than the greatest among the Gods, he is ever to them the Supreme, Lord of the Dark as of the Light, source himself of the �20 The Pentateuch. Evil as of the Good thatbefals. “ Shall there be evil 4n a city and I have not done it, sayeth Jehovah.” Amos iii. 6. “ I form the light and create darkness ; I -'make peace and create evil; I the Lord do all these things.” Isaiah xlv. 7. We say nothing here of the absurdity of Evil personified and called Satan or Devil; for that is one of the earliest errors of man­ kind, as it still continues among the unworthy super­ stitions of the present day. The prominence given to the Serpent and the Tree —the whole idea of the garden in Eden, indeed, ap­ pears foreign to the Jewish theocratic system ? Most obviously; and so must the idea have been derived by the writer from what he or his coun­ trymen had learned through intercourse, commercial or otherwise at some earlier period, through exile in later times, with the Medes and Persians, in whose religious system the dualism of Deity is an essential element; the beneficent principle in nature, typified by Light, being called Ormuzd, and the adverse principle, symbolized by the serpent, named Ahriman. It is not unimportant to observe that nowhere else in the Hebrew Scriptures save in this early part of the Book of Genesis do the serpent g,nd Satan appear as counteracting the benevolent purposes of Jehovah. On the contrary, the image of the reptile, as in the instance of the brazen serpent which Moses lifted up in the Wilderness, is rather assumed as the emblem of healing :—propitiated by worship and sacrifice the death-dealing principle in nature stays the pestilence; and Satan, once admitted into the celestial hierarchy of the Hebrews, is seen but as one among the other ministers or agents of Jehovah—tempting and trying the faith of mankind, it may be, but never appearing as the adversary of the Supreme (Job passim). What, according to the narrative, follows on the discovery of their nakedness by the man and woman ? Hearing the voice of Jehovah-Elohim “ walking in �Genesis : 'The 'Jehovist. 21 the garden in the cool of the day I” they hide them­ selves among the trees. Jehovah-Elohim, not meet­ ing them as usual, it might seem, calls Adam and says, “ Where art thou ? ” Adam answers: “ I heard thy voice in the garden and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” Adam does not, therefore, honestly and at once acknowledge his disobedience of the commandment he had received, but lays the fear he feels to face the Lord-God to the score of his nakedness. So says the record; and Jahveh-Elohim, as if he needed the information, asks : “ Who told thee that thou wast naked ? Elast thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat?” To which Adam, shifting the blame of disobedience from his own shoulders in a regretable and somewhat cowardly way, makes answer: “ The woman thou gavest to be with me gave me of the tree and I did pof. ” What next ? Turning to the woman, Jahveh-Elohim says : “ What is this that thou hast done ? ” And on her meek reply, “ The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat; ” addressing the serpent, he proceeds : “ Because thou hast done this thou art accursed above all cattle and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.” The serpent, as he had shown himself familiar with human speech, could scarcely be supposed to be igno­ rant of that which was divine, and so the writer felt himself at liberty to make his God inform the serpent of the penalty he was to pay for his interference. But is the serpent really cursed above all other creatures, or does God truly curse any of his handi­ works ? �22 The Pentateuch. The serpent, like all other creatures, is fitted for his state in every particular. He never progressed save upon his belly, and is no more cursed than any creature else that, in the course of nature, has come into life. He is even more agile in his movements than many other animals much higher in the scale of organisation than himself, glancing through the herbage and striking his prey or throwing his deadly coil about it with the rapidity of lightning. Neither does he eat dust, but lives on animal food like other carnivorous creatures, which he also has the skill to secure alive for himself. Far from being cursed, in­ deed, the serpent, in many of his kinds, is favoured with such an instrument of destruction in his poison fangs as gives him superiority over every other crea­ ture, no matter how much larger, stronger, and more knowing than himself, man, the lord of creation him­ self, not excepted. There is something said about especial enmity put between the woman and the serpent ? “ I will put enmity between thee and the woman, says the story, “ and between thy seed and her seed, it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise its heel.” What may be the meaning of this ? It must be allegorical, like so much else that has already been commented on; it certainly can have no such meaning as is usually put on it by theologians. A reasonable interpretation of the enigmatic words, however, may be found by a reference to certain an­ cient Indian sculptures, where the Sun-God, Krishna, source of life, is seen with one foot on the head of the snake, Kaliga, emblem or source of darkness and death; or to the modern planisphere; where the kneeling Hercules, one of the Sun-Gods, is repre­ sented with uplifted club treading on the head of the mighty snake that coils about the pole, emblem of winter and the surcease of life. The reference, there­ fore, is probably astrological, and the meaning of the �Genesis: The Jehovist. 23 myth scarcely doubtful:—The sun, escaping from the inferior or wintry to the superior or summer signs of the zodiac at the vernal equinox, triumphs over winter, and awakens the earth from the sleep of death to renovated life. Feigned to have died and lain buried for a season, and mourned over as Osiris, Adonis, Tammuz, &c., he is hailed anon with acclamations and rejoicings as newly risen from the dead. So much for the serpent. What is said to the woman ? “ I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy con­ ception ; in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children, and thou shalt be subject to thy husband and he shall rule over thee.” And to the man— ? “ Because thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree of which I commanded, thee, saying, thou shalt not eat of it; cursed is the ground for thy sake ; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life ; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken—dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” Can we conceive God multiplying sorrow on man as a penalty for yielding to such an impulse as the desire to know good from evil; an impulse, more­ over, implanted by himself ? It were surely impious to think of anything of the kind in connection with the idea of God. Or of God inflicting pain on woman in particular, as a penalty for putting forth her hand and tasting of fruit within easy reach, fair to look on, pleasant to the taste, enlarging the scope of her mental vision, and not injurious to her body ? It is absurd to speak of God as dealing in any such way with any of his creatures. What were man, did he not know good from evil ? �24 The Pentateuch. He were then no better than the beasts—more helpless, indeed, than they ; for in their finer senses of sight, touch, smell, and taste, they discriminate more nicely than man in many cases between the good and the bad, in so far as their bodily state is concerned. The desire to know is even a primary impulse, one of the great gifts of God to man ? It is so, indeed ; and is the one desire which man in his most advanced state sees it of the highest moment to cultivate ; source, as it proves to be, of all the plea­ sures he has in his higher-intellectual existence ; of so much, therefore, that gives him his true title to be looked on as lord of the creation. But man was threatened with death did he eat of the forbidden tree : “ In the day thou eatest thereof thou shall surely die,” says the record. Yet not only did Adam not suffer bodily death at the time of his eating, but he may be said to have then awakened to his higher intellectual and responsible life. Theologians cannot therefore be warranted in their assumption that man became obnoxious to death through disobeying the arbitrary commandment said to have been given him ? • What follows immediately shows that the writer believed man to have been created mortal from the first: He is driven out of the garden in Eden lest he should take also of the tree of life, eat, and so like the Elohim—the Gods, live for ever. It is not true, therefore, according to the Hebrew tale itself, that death was brought into the world through man’s in­ fringement of an order not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Immortality was no item in the original charter either of man or any other creature or thing; and it is even impious to speak of the natural and inevitable surcease of life as a penalty : a necessity in the nature of things, it can be no penalty. It has been well and truly said that �Genesis: The Jehovist. 25 the natural term of man’s life is about three score and ten years. The few who reach extreme old age, between four score and four score and ten, mostly find the length of the way more than wearisome long before its end ; the load of years grows heavy to be borne, and there are few who are not well content to lay down the burthen at last. Death being regarded as the greatest of evils that could befall mankind, and as a punishment for diso­ bedience, by the Hebrew writer, can he be warranted in speaking of the pain connected with child-bearing as imposed on the woman by way of peculiar penalty for the active part she took in aspiring after other , knowledge than that which she had through her mere ' senses ? Pain under any circumstances is first and in the natural fitness of things an admonition to beware of influences injurious to the bodily state, and, in the case of the woman about to become a mother, of the great . event in her life that is imminent, putting her on her guard and bidding her make provision for the safety of herself and the fruit of her womb. And then it would seem that the effort necessary to bring forth children cannot, in the nature of things as they are (and so as they could best be), be dissevered from more or less of suffering. Might not the woman, however, have been so framed by the Mighty Workman as to have brought forth without suffering ? No ; if pain be suffered in the process, we may feel assured that it was inseparable from it. Constituted as she is, we may be certain that she could have been advantageously constituted no otherwise than as she is.. All things are precisely as they could be. The pain inevitably connected with child-bearing is brief, the joy of motherhood is for life. Is the ground truly cursed because of the man’s participation in the woman’s desire to know and �i6 The Pentateuch. become as one of the Gods ; or, like a school-boy, for having eaten an apple fair to view and on proof made found savoury and not unwholesome, though forbidden to put forth his hand by the owner of the garden ? God curses nothing that by his fiat is or comes to pass in conformity with his laws. If the ground bears thorns and thistles it also yields spontaneously the herbage on which so many creatures live, and on the flesh of which in turn man and other carnivorous tribes subsist. It supports the luxuriant vegetation of the tropics unsolicited, and in the warmer latitudes yields with little care the cereals, roots and fruits that minister to man’s most pressing wants; under less favourable aspects of clime and site, it still grate­ fully responds to forethought and ingenuity when brought to bear upon it:—Anticipating results and using means to ends in harmony with nature’s laws, the barren heath under man’s fostering care puts on a smile, and waving harvests look up to the sun where scarce a blade of grass had grown, and the harsh or sapless wilding is turned into the melting pulp of our summer fruits. To speak of the ground as cursed of God is to libel the Supreme—if that indeed were possible. At the price of labour man has all his most necessary wants supplied by the kindly ground. One of God’s best gifts to man, indeed, has been said to be the necessity to work, by one who was himself among the busiest of workers whilst he lived, and who has done so much through the work he did to free the world from superstition and the base idea that idleness is a boon. What can be said for the information Adam re­ ceives that he is dust and shall to dust return ? That the body of man is made up in but small measure of the dust of the ground ; it is in fact much more the creature of water and the air than of any kind of earth. And as to the interpretation put on the text that instead of the eternal life intended for �Genesis : I’he ‘ ehovist. J 27 him at first he is henceforth to have a merely tem­ porary existence, this is readily disposed of by acknowledging God’s purposes as they are from eternity so are they eternal; and man, as he has a de­ termined existence in time, to have been from the first precluded from the possibility of living for ever. That death came not into the world because of any transgression by man of a commandment of God is certain ; for that the earth was peopled by myriads of animals which lived and died aeons before man appeared upon the scene is certified to us by the remains of these we find entombed in such profusion in the strata that compose the crust of the globe. The law of evolution, of birth and death, instituted as it undoubtedly was from the beginning of life on the earth, may without irreverence be spoken of as a necessity in the nature of things : were this not so, the law would not now exist; for neither God nor the revelation he makes of himself in his laws suffers essential change. Would immortality on earth be verily a boon ? As it is not given, so the divine wisdom proclaims that it would not. In the Pagan mythology Heracles penetrates to the garden of the Hesperides, slays the dragon that guards the tree of life, gathers the fruit, and brings it forth for the use of man ; but Pallas Athene meets him on the way and takes the fruit from his hand, knowing that it were not good for man to eat of it and gain, like the Gods, immortal life. Progress were, indeed, impossible did not one genera­ tion of men succeed another. Succession is the law, which, as it now obtains, so did it ever obtain. Kinds, indeed, only continue to appear so long as the condi­ tions necessary to their existence prevail; when these cease the living things that depend on them— plants or animals—die out and are seen no more. Time was when man was not; and the time may come— will in all likelihood necessarily come—when, with. �28 The Pentateuch. change in the cosmical, telluric, atmospheric, and other conditions wherewith his life is bound up, he, like the mammoth and megatherium, will have disappeared from the face of the earth. Man, however, to return to our text, had disobeyed the commandment said to have been given by God; but he was still in the garden in Eden, and could not be suffered to remain therein ? The Lord-God, according to the story, is made to say : “ Behold the man is become as one of us to know good from evil; and now lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live for ever ; therefore the Lord-God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, and placed cherubims and a flaming sword which turned every way to keep the tree of life.” The qualities of things eaten, we have seen, consist in such as affect the palate and the bodily health— how, then, conceive a tree bearing fruit possessed of the power to confer everlasting life ? How, indeed ! Everlasting life belongs to God and the manifestation he makes of his Being in the Uni­ verse ; to nothing else. The tale must, therefore, be an allegory—a myth, an Idea clothed in words, possibly transmitted by legendary tradition through long ages before it reached the Hebrew] writer who moulded it into the indifferent shape in which it meets us now. Several interpretations have been given of the alle­ gory ? Several; among others one of an astronomical cha­ racter. By turning to a celestial globe it will be seen that as Virgo (Eve) with the ears of corn or fruit­ bearing bough in her hand, followed by Arcturus (Adam) sinks in the West, Perseus (the Cherub armed with the flaming sword) rises in the East and seems to drive the woman and the man from the sky. There are other interpretations, however, on legen­ �Genesis: The'Jeho'uist. 29 dary grounds, that better consort perhaps with Hebrew history than this, which implies a knowledge of the constellations and of celestial phenomena of which we find few traces in the Book of Genesis? The first account of Creation ended as we saw with God’s resting from his labours and seeing that all was very good. The second has a less satisfactory conclusion ■ for here, as we have just seen, we find God cursing the ground, inflicting pains and penalties for the transgression of an arbitrary commandment, and expelling the man and the woman from the garden of delight he had planted for their happy dwelling­ place, thwarted in all his benevolent purposes by the serpent! These two accounts differ so essentially that it seems impossible to conceive them as emanating from the same individual or delivered through inspiration, as said, from one source ? They differ so entirely and deal with such dis­ similar elements that they must be held to have proceeded not only from different individuals of the same family of mankind, but even to have originated among different races of men. The first or Elohistic account may be spoken of as purely Semitic; the second as essentially Aryan in its character. The Elohistic narrative in its rhythmical and balanced proportions is obviously the product of a single mind, creating in conformity with the rules of Hebrew poetical composition:—it is a connected history of Creation by a Poet. The Jehovistic account cannot be seen from the same point of view. It has every character of a compilation from tradition and legend, and assimilates in many leading par­ ticulars with the myths and beliefs of the western branch of the great Aryan family of mankind which find expression in its Sacred Scriptures, the Zendb See Dr Kalisch’s learned Commentary on Genesis. �30 The Pentateuch. Avesta, as the views of the Eastern branch of the same race are comprised in the Vedas. The Elohistic account might have originated among any of the ancient peoples somewhat advancedin civilisation and possessed of the leisure needful for speculation and literary labour. The Jehovistic account, on thecontrary, without poetic verve or semblance of constructive talent, is a kind of chronicle of imaginary doings, it is the work of an archaeologist or antiquary and cherisher of mythical and legendary lore,—a cha­ racter we miss entirely in the Elohist, in whose brief and grand summary we note no reference either to myth or legend, and no statement on which a single dogmatic conclusion could be hung—no word that does not accord with a pure and simple sense of the power and goodness of God as Creator of the world. In the incoherent narrative of the Jehovist, on the con­ trary, we meet with nothing that cannot be referred to myth or legend, derived moreover, for the most part, from sources beyond the boundaries of Judea, pertaining to peoples other than the children of Israel, and supplying foundations for the entire superstructure of Christian Dogma. The Jehovistic account may even be said to sin in transferring essentials of the religious system of the Medo-Persian people to that of the children of Israel. Which of these two accounts is believed to be the more ancient ? The Elohistic; although this is questionable, for both accounts can be said with great certainty to date from relatively recent times—the Elohistic being clearly enough shown, by the finished character of the work and the purity of the diction in the original, to be the product of an age not earlier nor yet much later than that of Solomon ; the Jehovistic being as safely assignable to a time subsequent to the Baby­ lonian captivity, when the Jews had been brought into contact with a people entertaining dualistic ideas �Genesis : The Jehovist. 31 of Deity, and in their ritual addicted to Light or Dire, Tree and Serpent worship—Light or Dire, having Ormuzd, representative of the Good or Creative principle in nature, symbolised by the Sun and the Tree; Darkness, Destruction and Death, having Ahriman, in eternal antagonism to Ormuzd, with the serpent as his emblem. This would account for the prominent places occu­ pied in the Jehovist’s story by the Tree and the Serpent ? The worship of the Tree and the Serpent was among the earliest and widest spread of all the ways in which man sought to show his sense of dependence on a something, a Power, beyond and stronger than himself. Unless it be the rising of the sun—“ Great eye of God, ” no phenomenon in nature is so notable in temperate lands as the awakening of the vegetable world from death to life on the return of Spring ; and save the lightning’s flash, nothing is seen so deadly as the serpent’s fang. No marvel, therefore, that the tree was chosen by man awakened to reflec­ tion as symbol of the Life-giving power, or the serpent selected as type of the death-dealing influence around him. These symbols personified and called by names became Brahma and S^iva, Ormuzd and Ahriman, Osiris and Typhon, Jehovah and Satan, God and the Devil. Detached from the Nature in which they inhere, and thought of as causes of the good and evil that befals, they were then sought to be communed with in thankfulness or in fear, and, approached with praises, prayers, and offerings, all the elements of the religious ideas and ritual obser­ vances of mankind make their appearance. The history of the garden in Eden, of the Tree of Life and the subtil serpent continue, we may presume, to occupy a prominent place in the religious annals of the Jewish people ? It is very notable, nevertheless, that the tale is not �32 The Pentateuch. even once referred to by any of the succeeding Old Testament writers; nor indeed until we pass the epoch of the Christian sera do we find it exerting the slightest influence on the religious opinions of the Jewish people. Neither Jesus of Nazareth nor his im­ mediate friends and followers appear to have known anything of the garden of Eden, or “ Of man’s first disobedience and the fruit Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste Brought death into the world and all our woe.” It was not until Paul of Tarsus1 came upon the scene that the tale, taken in its most literal sense, began to bear fruit. Connecting the myth of man’s disobedience with the Messianic Idea, in the modified shape it had assumed in his day, with the moral and religious teaching, the beautiful life and cruel death of Jesus of Nazareth as they were orally related to him, Paul, the one man of culture, seemingly, among the dissi­ dents of his day from the religion of his country, made it the foundation of the New Dogmatic Religion he taught with such unwearied zeal, which has so long exerted so vast an influence in the world, and is only now beginning to lose its hold* on the minds and imaginations of mankind. Returning to our story, we find the man and the woman after their expulsion from Paradise knowing each other in the way ordained of God and bringing children into the world—Cain and Abel, according to the unhappy tale of the Jehovistic writer, earliest record of dissension between man and man, of the first murder done in time, of the parties to the differ­ ence Brothers, and its ground Religion ! True—according to the story:—Cain the husband­ man’s offering of “ the fruits of the earth ” was not respected of Jehovah, whilst Abel the shepherd’s sacrifice of “ the firstlings of his flock and the fat thereof” was accepted. �Genesis : Cain and Abel. ' 33 We might have imagined that the laborious hus­ bandman’s offering of the products of his industry and skill would have been at least as well received by Jehovah as the idle herdsman’s lamb and kid ? Certainly, and with good reason we might. But as Jehovah in the later Jewish ritual, of which alone we have the record somewhat complete, is only to be approached with blood-offerings, it would not have suited the modern priestly compiler of these mythical tales of early times to have had the fruits and flowers of the earth—God accursed, as said—as grateful to his God Jehovah as the blood or Life, and the fat and flesh, of his daily and periodical sacrifices. Cain is described as dissatisfied with the rejection of his offering and the preference shown to that of his brother ? So it is said—his countenance fell; and turning his anger against his brother, they had words,—they had a quarrel; and as they were in the field Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him. The blow therefore could not have been of malice prepense,— nor meant to be fatal, as unhappily it proved. Cain is not informed why his offering of fruit and flowers was not respected ? He is not; he is only told that “ if he does well he will be accepted, and if not well that sin lies at the door; ” but where he had done amiss, and so had his offering rejected, is not set forth in this enigmatical sentence. With the Jewish ritual as subsequently instituted before us, however, we are at no loss to in­ terpret it. To the Hebrew mind there could be no remission of sins without the shedding of blood—the terrible, idea that forms the foun dation of the domi­ nant Christian faith, though it certainly has no part in the religion of Jesus of Nazareth. • Jehovah is wroth with Cain for his foul deed, and tells the criminal that he is now cursed from the D �34 The Pentateuch. earth ; that when he tills the ground it will not yield its strength, and that henceforth he should be a fugi­ tive and a vagabond in the earth. Does not the writer here make physical results de­ pend on moral conditions ? He does ; but if Cain, with his hands all embrued in his brother’s blood, tilled a fertile soil with the requisite skill and care, the land, by a prior fiat of God, would not fail to yield its increase; and the most pious and moral man who settled on a desert, or who brought neither skill nor care to bear on his work even under circumstances favourable in them­ selves, would have failure for his portion. He who conforms to the laws of nature in their several do­ mains, whatever his moral or religious character, will not fail of his return; as he who. does not so conform himself, no matter what his pious disposition, will necessarily go without reward. Cain, however, is to be protected from violence ? Jehovah, it is said, set a mark on him, lest any one meeting him should slay him. Such a precaution would imply that there were other people in the earth besides Adam and Eve and their son Cain ? It would so; but the book is full of like incon­ sistencies, as in this place it is very notably, with the commandment elsewhere delivered, that he who knowingly took life should surely himself be put to death. Cain and Abel are the first children of the first man, Adam, and his wife, Eve, according to the Jehovistic narrative. Does this agree with the Elohist ? It does not. The Elohist’s story, interrupted after the third verse of the second chapter of Genesis, is resumed at the first verse of the fifth chapter in these words: “ This is the book of the generations of Adam; ” and Adams first son is not Cain, neither is �Genesis Cain and Abel. 35 the second Abel; but the first and only son he has whose name is mentioned is Seth, and though Adam is reported to have lived hundreds of years afterwards' and begotten sons and daughters, neither they nor their descendants are named. The genealogy of Seth alone is continued, he begetting Enos, Enos Cainan, Cainan Mahalaleel, and so on, till we come to Lamech, who begets Noah, the next personage who plays an important part in the mythical tale in the study of which we are engaged. The terrible tale of the murder of Abel by his brother Cain may therefore be the work of one of the later Jehovistic writers ? It has every appearance of being so ; and if we may imagine the writer thinking it desirable to have the earliest possible authority for the blood-stained altars of his day, we can divine his motive for inventing the story of the offerings and of the preference shown by Jehovah for the bloody over the bloodless sacri­ fice, inserting it where it stands, and adding the mur­ der of the one brother by the other by way of giving colour and force to his picture. No man in his senses, freed from prejudice and possessed of the requisite information, can believe for a moment that the Jehovistic writer could have known that Cain killed Abel, or that the three sons of Noah were Shem, Ham, and Japhet.e e Subsequently to the time when Nehemiah was Governor of Judea under Cyrus, says M. Albert Reville, the office of High-Priest, as conferring the chief authority in the country, became an object of ambition, not only between one priestly family and another, but between different members of the same family; and in a certain instance in which two brothers were aspirants to the office, so high did the rivalry run, that the one killed the other. It were not presuming too far, per­ haps, as all fiction has a foundation in fact, and as we are now so well assured of the relatively modern date of by far the greater portion of the Pentateuch, to find in this recent in­ stance of fratricide the source of the story of the murder in �36 The Pentateuch. God, in calling men and women into the world, had endowed them, as well as all other conscious living creatures, with the wonderful faculty of pro­ ducing their like, and continuing themselves in their kind ? He had virtually said, in the power bestowed, but not in words : “ Increase and multiply and replenish the earth,” a commandment they were no more loth to obey in times gone by than they are in the present day. But Jehovah, as it appears by the record, had been less careful than might have been expected in selecting the race by which the world was to be peopled; for, to say nothing of the murder of Abel by Cain, no more than ten generations of men had •lived on the earth before their wickedness was found so great, the imaginations of their heart so con­ tinually evil, that, according to the record, it even “repented Jehovah that he had made men upon the earth.” This is extraordinary language in connection with the name of God ? With the idea of God, as we entertain it, certainly, but not with that of the Jehovah of the Hebrew Scriptures, who was but a powerful man of the early, jealous, revengeful, arbitrary, variable, and often savage type. The statement, nevertheless, stands part of the sacred writings of the Jews, still held in­ spired not only in their precepts and ordinances, but in every word and letter, and believed by iflore than they are denied among Christians to be the word of God to man. Can we, however, presume that God ever repents of anything he has done, or changes his mind as to aught he had intended to do ? Man may repent and change; God cannot do so. the olden time of Abel by his brother Cain.—(Comp. Revue des Deux Mondes, lier Mars, 1872.) �Genesis ; 7 he Flood. 37 - Is there any reason given for the great wickedness charged upon mankind ? There is none. Is not the disobedience in eating the forbidden fruit assigned as its cause ? It is not once referred to ; and if it had been so, the disobedience as consequence of an untoward disposi­ tion could not be its cause. Is there anything else in the text that may be held adequate to bring about the evil imaginations im­ puted ? There is absolutely nothing. The sons of God, in­ deed, are said to have seen the daughters of men that they were fair, and to have taken them wives of all they chose ; and this incomprehensible statement has been laid hold of as a means of accounting for the prevailing wickedness. But the sons of God, who­ ever they were, must be presumed, from their title, to have been of higher nature than the daughters of earth, and to have improved, not deteriorated, the breed. And. this, indeed, in so far as we can judge by what is said, appears to have been the case; for we learn. that the children born to the sons of God co­ habiting with the daughters of men became mighty men, which were of old men of renown ? So runs the tale; and the myth or legend helps to no solution of the matter. The wickedness of men, however, was great in the earth, and every imagina­ tion of man was evil continually, so that Jehovah said at length; “I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast and creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.” . The beasts and creeping things and fowls of the air had done nothing to deserve extermination ? Nevertheless they were to share in the doom of man and be destroyed. �38 The Pentateuch. Certain reservations, however, are to be made to the general portentbus resolution come to by Jehovah ? Addressing Noah, who is characterised as “ a just man and perfect in his generations,” Jehovah in­ forms him that the end of all flesh had come before him, and that he had resolved to destroy them, and all wherein is the breath of life, by means of a flood of water which he will bring upon the earth. With Noah, however, he will establish his covenant. Him. and his family, of all mankind, he will save alive by means of an ark, or great ship, which he is ordered to construct of certain materials, of certain dimen­ sions, and in certain ways, in which he and his family, and two and two, male and female, of every living thing, are to be housed whilst the whole earth is laid under water. Noah does all he is ordered ? He does, and with his wife, his sons and daughters, their sons and daughters, and the pairs to be saved alive, is safely housed in the ark. Then, it is said, are the foundations of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven opened, and rain falls for forty days and forty nights, and the waters prevail exceedingly, covering the higher hills fifteen cubits and upwards, so that all in whose nostrils was the breath of life are destroyed from the face of the earth, Noah alone and they that were with him in the ark remaining alive. How long is the flood of waters said to have pre­ vailed ? After increasing for a hundred and fifty days, the fountains of the deep, it is said, are stopped, and the rain from heaven is restrained. The waters then begin to assuage; but it is not until the first day of the tenth month that the tops of the highest lands are seen, when the ark grounds on the mountains of Ararat; and only after the lapse of a whole year of imprisonment that Noah, finding the ground dry, �Genesis : The Flood. 39 takes off the covering of the ark and goes forth, he and his family, and all that had been saved alive, with the blessing of God upon him and them, and a renewed injunction to be fruitful and to multiply upon the earth. Noah was ordered to take into the ark pairs of every living thing. Every living thing would include whales, seals, fishes, and the inhabitants of the waters generally—crustaceans, molluscs, radiates, &c.—yet we find no mention made of them. There is none; but if they were to be saved, some provision was as necessary for them as for the other air-breathing land animals. With the obvious diffi­ culty of providing in the ark for the inhabitants of the water, however, they are left to take their chance in the Tohu-Bohu of the flood. Every inhabitant of the water, nevertheless, has a definite sphere assigned it, for which it is fitted, and out of which it cannot live. Natives of the salt water cannot, for the most part, live in the fresh, nor can those of the fresh generally live in the salt. The whalebone and spermaceti whales, among many others, would have proved especially awkward occupants of the great ship! . There is provision made for feeding the host of living creatures there gathered together ? There is, but for the vegetable feeders only. How, then, were the flesh feeders to be kept alive ? By accommodating themselves, say the apologists for every untenable statement within the lids of the Bible, to the dry fodder of the phytivorous kinds—by feeding with, not on them. . The lion, tiger, wolf, and weazel eat hay and straw­ like the ox and sheep ? So most of our authoritative exponents of the diffi­ cult Bible passages say. But the structure of the teeth and jaws of the carnivorous tribes incapacitates them from doing as our learned exegetists would have �40 Phe Pentateuch. them, for they can only cut and tear their food in pieces, not grind, it into pulp like the ox and sheep. The structure of their stomach and intestines, more­ over, is not of the kind that fits them to digest and assimilate vegetable food. Was not some provision also necessary for saving the members of the vegetable world alive ? As indispensably necessary as it was in regard to those of the animal kingdom, yet none is made, pro­ bably because the writer had overlooked the fact that plants held under water for any length of time are as surely drowned as animals. Scarcely any land­ growing plant can be kept for days, weeks, or months submerged without being killed; neither will the plants that live naturally in fresh water exist in salt water, nor will salt-water plants survive in fresh water. The pretty incident of the olive leaf with which the dove sent forth from the ark returned as a sign that the waters were abated, was an im­ possibility ; after steeping in brine for twelve months all the olive trees must have been long dead and their leaves rotten. And in what state could the Earth have been left, after a flood that covered the highest mountains fifteen cubits and upwards ? What could it have been but a bank and shoal of desolation, bare of herbage of every kind ; so that the vegetable feeders saved alive in the Ark must have died forthwith of hunger when released from their temporary shelter. Had the flesh-feeders been thought of in the Ark, they too must now have starved like the phytivorous kinds when dispersed over the bare, stony, muddy, and depopulated flats ? They would but have been saved from sudden death by drowning to fall victims to a lingering death by starvation. There are two accounts of the flood, as of so many �Genesis: The Flood. 41 other incidents in the Hebrew Scriptures, one as usual by the Elohist, the other by the Jehovist ? There are certainly two different accounts, much intermingled, indeed, yet separable for the most part by careful sifting from one another. Do they agree ? No ; they differ in several important particulars, especially in a distinction made by the Jehovist between what are called clean and unclean animals. Whilst two and two of the unclean are ordered to be taken into the Ark, the clean are to be received by sevens— three pairs and an odd one. The odd one would have been of little use in help­ ing out Jehovah’s final admonition to the pairs on leaving the Ark ? But was necessary to avoid breaking the sets and making the survivor of any pair useless ; for a victim must be available for the religious service which Noah is made to perform immediately on quitting his long imprisonment, his first act having been to build an altar to Jehovah and to offer burnt offerings thereon of every clean beast and clean fowl he had had with him in the Ark. Jehovah is gratified by Noah’s pious acknowledg­ ment of the favour shown to him and his ? .Jehovah, it is said, smelled a sweet savour, and said in his heart: I will not again curse the ground for man’s sake ; for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite every living thing as I have done. This is surely very strange language to be set down as proceeding from his God by the writer!—But if the imaginations of the heart of man were seen in this way by Jehovah after the terrible catastrophe that had taken place, it is obvious that nothing had been done to better the Earth by drowning it ? The almost despairing tones in which the narrative proceeds might fairly lead us to conclude that as little �42 'The Pentateuch. had been done by the flood to amend matters in the past as to leave them with a chance of improvement in the future. But we are to be careful to assign the account given of what Jehovah said in his heart to its only possible author—the Hebrew writer; for it is very certain that he could know nothing of the purposes of the True God, and that the words ascribed to the Supreme are not his, but the man’s. Jehovah is now made by the writer to appear as though he were even sorry for what he had done, for he makes him go onto say : While the Earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and heat and cold, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease. And I will establish my covenant with you, and for a token I set my bow in the cloud ; and it shall come to pass that when I bring a cloud over the earth that the bow shall be seen in the cloud, and I will remem­ ber my covenant which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. All this is purely human; meaningless in con­ nection with the name of God; but the Hebrew writer had evidently no other conception of God than as a supernaturally powerful, irascible, revengeful, and yet upon occasion pitiful human being, thwarted continually in his kindly purposes by the wayward­ ness and wickedness of the creature he had called into existence. What is to be concluded in regard to the covenant which Jehovah is stated to have entered into with Noah, whereof the bow in the heavens is the token ? God’s covenants were all made with man when he commenced his career on earth, their conditions im­ plemented in the organisation of his body and its aptitudes, all co-ordinate with and in the most perfect possible harmony with the nature of things and the circumstances amid which he began, as he still con­ tinues, to be. ' What are we to think of the writer’s imagining �Genesis: The Flood. 43 that God required a remembrancer of aught he meant to do or to leave undone ? Whatever the writer may have imagined, we are to think that God, who is in and of all that is and that comes to pass, needs no remembrancer. The rain­ bow is a natural and necessary effect of the refraction or breaking up of the difform rays of which light is composed, by the globular drops of water that consti­ tute rain, in virtue of laws inherent in and co-eternal with the nature of God and the qualities of matter. Rainbows necessarily spanned the sky countless ages before there was a Noah to observe them; it may have been that one appeared when the several showers fell that have left their records in the sandstone slabs now preserved in our museums ! Looked somewhat closely into, therefore, with an eye couched of prejudice, the story of the Deluge (the Noachian Deluge as it is called to distinguish it from other deluges of which shadowy records are preserved in the legendary annals of several ancient nations) appears to be wanting in every particular that could give it the semblance not merely of pro­ bability but even of possibility ? There can be no question of this. The motive assigned for its occurrence, in the first place, is absurd—utterly incompatible with the Idea of the God of reason and humanity. The saving instrument, the ark itself-—speaking seriously of the matter for a moment,—was utterly incompetent to the end pro­ posed,—it was not of half the tonnage of our Great Eastern steam-ship! And how conceive all the animals that people the globe packed into any defi­ nite space, were it even ten or twenty times the area of the mighty ship ! How, again, conceive Noah and his three sons competent even in the course of their reputed long lives to have prepared and put together the materials of such a vessel as the one described. They were assisted by the wicked people about them, �44 ' The Pentateuch. it may be and has of course been said : true, and these were at the end to stand complacently by whilst Noah, his family, and selected pairs from either pole to the equator filed into the ark, and left them outside to drown! Shut up in the ark pitched with pitch without and within, with a single window in the roof—and no more is mentioned, whatever apologists in face of the difficulty may say—a cubit each way in its dimensions, what must have been the inevitable fate of the in­ cluded company ? The door could scarcely have been closed, supposing the window to have been left open—and Jehovah himself is made to shut it, as shut it must needs be to keep out the rain—before the whole assembly would necessarily have been stifled. Man, the higher mammalia, and most birds, can live for hours, even for days, without food, but they cannot exist for five minutes deprived of air; and the ark, with its win­ dow of a cubit, or eighteen inches, square in the roof, would have proved as inevitably fatal by stifling to the creatures within it intended to be saved, as the waters would be found deadly to those outside destined to be drowned. So deadly an agent as vitiated air operating imme­ diately would have made any further provision for the maintenance and comfort of the inhabitants of the ark unnecessary ; but supposing such a possibility as asphyxia not to have occurred—and it is obviously never contemplated by the narrator—how could Noah and his three sons have distributed their appropriate rations to the several pairs or sevens of all the ani­ mals that peopled the earth, now gathered together around them; how have supplied them with the in­ dispensable water, how have got rid of the inevitable excrements ? How indeed! Why, then, dwell on such childish, impossible, and �Genesis: The Flood. 45 even impious tales as those in the Old Testament of the Jews concerning the flood and Noah’s ark ? Because they still obtain currency and credence in the world, although they undoubtedly deserve all these epithets, and are in very truth not only childish, impious, and impossible, but misleading, and calculated to give false notions of the God of Nature’s dealings with mankind and the world. The tale of the Deluge and the ark is never presented in its true light by the ministers of religion, though as men of culture their eyes must have been opened to its absurdity, and the most imperative of all their duties is surely to speak truth, and to show God’s providence in acts harmo­ nious with the great eternal changeless laws, elements in his own nature, whereby he rules the world. The Deluge and the favour shown to Noah and his family are still advanced as illustrations not only of God s displeasure and justice in dealing with the wicked, but of his goodness and mercy also, and the special favour in which he has the exceptionally good and pious ? This is certainly the case. But God’s displeasure and justice are shown by the punishment or reward’ which men bring on themselves through the violation or observance of his laws. Neither do his goodness and mercy appear any more in the lives saved from flood and tempest, than is his vengeance proclaimed in the lives that are lost. As we proceed in the narrative, indeed, suspicions arise that all the members of the family exceptionally saved were not so worthy of the favour shown them as it seems easy to imagine they might have been. The mythical tale of Noah and the Deluge, with all the unreason attached to it, is never­ theless made to enter as a prominent feature into the Christian system. The infant of parents belonging to several of its churches, and these the most influen­ tial of all, does not undergo the initiatory rite of bap­ tism by sprinkling with water, without allusion being �46 Phe Pentateuch, made to Noah and his family, “whom God of his great mercy saved in the ark from perishing by waterthough the connection between a world drowned, with Noah saved, and the sprinkling of a little water on the face of an unconscious infant escapes both common sense and unsophisticated reason. The tale of the Deluge is one of the incidents re­ corded in the Hebrew scriptures that rivets itself on the mind and imagination of the young, and, with the further reference made to it in connection with a solemn religious rite, scarcely fails to exercise an ad­ verse influence on the judgment of men and women in riper years ? There can be little doubt of this. The ship-like ark with the nicely-formed figures of its multitudi­ nous tenants, headed by Noah, his wife, and their sons, Ham, Shem, and Japhet, which is presented to almost every child among us when its intelligence begins to dawn, fixes the myth as a positive occur­ rence in the mind of the vast majority of children born into the world of Christian parents, and it is not every one who can free himself in after life from the absurd and indefensible conclusions to which it leads. To refer to the goodness and mercy of God in con­ nection with the world he has drowned, is surely beside the mark ? It appears so to the unprejudiced who venture to use the reason and moral sense which God has given them for their guidance, and to see things in conso­ nance with the knowledge of their age. If the earth was filled with wickedness, as said, and it were con­ ceded that wickedness deserved punishment, still drowning does not seem either the reasonable or mer­ ciful way of bringing about the amendment which we must presume to be the object of all castigation— the castigation of God in especial. And if Noah and �Genesis; 'The Flood, 47 his family were worthy to be saved alive, they could not have been alone in their worthiness ;—there were new-born babes, for instance, helpless infants, and young children, who could not have deserved drown­ ing on the ground that their fathers and mothers were wicked. The hapless animals, also, which perished, had been guilty of none of the disobedience and wickedness alleged against the human kind, and could no more have' merited their untimely fate through obeying their natural instincts, than the pairs saved could have merited the preference shown them through fulfilling theirs. So much for the moral aspects, or some of the moral aspects, of the Noachian Deluge. Can the de­ bacle referred to be comprehended and accounted for on simple physical grounds ? As an universal over-swimming of the earth within the period when man became its denizen, the Deluge of the Bible is incomprehensible; and had it even been possible, yet may we feel confident that it did never occur. The dry land of the earth, indeed, has in every part known to us been at different and gene­ rally far remote epochs oftener than once at the bot­ tom of deep seas and vast fresh-water lakes. So much we know for certain ; and we further feel assured that the bottoms of many of our present seas and lakes must once have been dry land. The islets that stud the vast Pacific Ocean rest for the most part on the peaks of lofty mountains now submerged. Upon and around these the coral insect, building its own habita­ tion for ages, spreads itself abroad level with the wash of the sea, and furnishes man with resting places amid depths he tries in vain to fathom with the com­ mon plummet line. Arctic and Antarctic lands, again, now overlaid with thick-ribbed ice, thousands of feet inBthickness, where lichens and mosses are the only vegetable productions sparsely seen, once possessed a luxuriant growth of the trees and shrubs of temperate �48 The Pentateuch. lands, and teemed with insect and higher animal life. The temperate regions, again, where nature now smiles for half the year at least, and the soil yields corn and wine and oil to the industry of man, were overlapped in former ages of the world by glaciers hundreds of feet in thickness, pouring down from northern heights, and putting as effectual an end to the life that had been upon them as ever Noah’s Deluge could have done; telling the tale of their source and leaving records of their course in the pon­ derous blocks or boulders they have carried and left among us, as well as by the groovings and abraded surfaces of our hills, on which the eye of science reads the history of another state of things than that which now prevails. Are there any traces of the presence of man on the earth discoverable among the records of those earlv ages ? In so far as we yet know it is only in the latest drift—the gravel, sand, and clay of the quaternary period, and in the caves of limestone rocks, that we find evidences in his remains, of man’s existence on the earth. Associated as these are with the teeth and bones of animals fitted to live in cold or temperate climates,—the cave bear, the hyeena, the hairy mam­ moth and woolly rhinoceros, we infer that man as man was present in these northern temperate lati­ tudes in times not exceedingly remote, geologically speaking, from the last great glacial epoch in the earth’s history, but still some hundreds of thousands of years ago—how many it is impossible to say. There may have been—doubtless there was—some foundation in fact for the tale of the Noachian Deluge ? Many regions of the globe are still exposed to dis­ astrous floods that sweep away the inhabitants and their cattle by thousands, and we are therefore war­ ranted in saying that in the story of the Noachian �Genesis: Noah. 49 Deluge we have the legendary record of some great flood which occurred in far off times, when the high lands of Armenia and Mesopotamia, whence appear to have come the Hebrews and others of the cognate tribes that peopled Palestine, were other than they are at the present day, or than they were fifty, a hun­ dred, a thousand, or ten hundred thousand years ago. Tn the earlier ages of the world there must have oc­ curred floodings of extensive districts of country, at­ tended with disastrous consequences to life and pos­ sessions, of which we have the shadowy records in the tales of the Noachian, Dencalian, and other deluges. In our own day, indeed, we know that floods as terrible, it may be, as any that ever occurred in pre-historic times, and probably even more destruc­ tive to human life, have happened in regions watered by such mighty rivers as the Indus and the Ganges. These, however, we now interpret as having come to pass through no repentant mood or revengeful pur­ pose on the part of God to drown the hapless people for their sins, but in consonance with natural inci­ dents and natural laws, such as the giving way of a mountain harrier that had penned up a mighty lake, disintegrated by frost, and sapped by long-continued rain ; the melting of a glacier which stretched across a gorge in the hills, and held back an ocean behind it; excessive rainfalls, accompanied by gales of wind that heaped up the waters of great draining streams at their outlets to the ocean, &c. So much for the flood; what is said of Noah’s doings after it ? He became a husbandman, planted a vine, drank of the wine it produced, and was drunken. Some years must have elapsed before Noah could have indulged in such an improper way; and whence he had the vines, after all the plants on the face of the earth had been drowned, like its animal inhabi­ tants, does not appear. E �5° The Pentateuch. What happened next ? Noah’s son Ham happening to come into the tent, and seeing his father in an unseemly state of naked­ ness, and probably asleep after his debauch, was cursed in his posterity by his parent, whilst Shem and Japhet, who covered him over, are blessed. “ Cursed be Canaan (one of Ham’s sons), a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren,” is the form of the malediction pronounced on the son by his father for having had the use of his eyes. What may be the meaning of this ? Canaan, according to the mythical story, was an­ cestor of the tribe that peopled the country called after him, which the Jews ravaged with fire and sword, appropriating the territory, and reducing the inhabitants whom they did not slaughter to the state of slaves. The curse of the innocent son—cursing in the Hebrew scriptures not always going by demerit, any more than blessing by desert—may have been contrived as an excuse for the murder and robbery perpetrated in after years by the sept which had Shem for its progenitor. What is the next remarkable incident recorded in these mythical tales of prehistoric times ? The building of a city on a plain in the land of Shinar, and of a tower in especial whose top was to reach to heaven, all the people being still of one language. What follows ? “Jehovah,” it is said, “came down (!) to seethe city and the tower.” Not approving of the builders’ proceedings, apprehensive it might seem that, united by the bond of a common language, their work would be carried to a successful issue, and heaven, his own peculiar dwelling-place, be stormed, he is reported to say further: “ Go to ! let us go down and there con­ found the language of the people that they may not understand one another’s speech.” This being done �Genesis; The T^ower of Babel. $i —Jehovah coming down and confounding their speech—the inhabitants of the city on the plain of Shinar left off their building, became scattered abroad over the face of the earth, and heaven was not as­ sailed. The purpose for which this childish story was de­ vised is plain ? It was doubtless contrived as a means of accounting for the diversities of language which the Jewish writer, even in his restricted intercourse with the rest of the world, could not fail to observe. As to God’s “ coming down to see,” and “ the tower whose top should reach to heaven,” all this is mere childish­ ness, though not unimportant, as enabling us to measure the conception of the nature of Deity enter­ tained by the writer, whoever he was—one of Nebu­ chadnezzar’s captives in all probability, who had had reluctant occasion to see the lofty temple of Babylon, on whose summit, as the metropolitan “ High place,” the rites of Baal and Mylitta were celebrated.f Have we not two accounts of the Tower of Babel and the confusion of tongues, as of so many others of the mythical tales of the Old Testament ? We have but one account of this particular inci­ dent, and that by the Jehovist. It is not even alluded to by the more sensible Elohist. Both writers, how­ ever, give genealogies of Noah’s descendants ; but these do not agree, the Jehovist stopping short at the name of a certain Joktan, not mentioned by the Elohist, who carries on the stock to Terah, the father of Abram, the next most important personage met with in the story of the Hebrew people ? Terah, we are informed, removes with his family from Ur of the Chaldees to Haran—what happens to Abram his son ? Commanded to leave his father’s house and kindred, f See Herodotus, Clio, 199, and Appendix B. �5* Phe Pentateuch. under a promise of being made a great nation, Abram departs and comes into the land of Canaan; but a famine prevailing, he goes on, still southward, and reaches Egypt, where he abides. What particular orders did Abram give his wife Sarai as they neared the land of Egypt ? He ordered her to report falsely of their relation­ ship—to say she was his sister, not his wife, lest the Egyptians, to obtain possession of her, should make away with him. What came of this ? Sarai, being fair to look on, was taken into the Pharaoh’s house—as a concubine, of course, and Abram was well entreated. But Jehovah,' it is said, “ plagued Pharaoh because of Sarai, Abram’s wife,” though, to our modern sense of fairness, the parties who most deserved plaguing were Abram and Sarai themselves. Brought by the plagues he suffered—■ what they were we are not informed, of the kind perhaps which the Scottish poet hints at when he speaks “ Of the best wark-loom in a’ house, No worth a prin just at the pinch ”— and led to suspect that he had been imposed on, Pharaoh now summons Abram to his presence, and reproaches him with the falsehood he had suggested; but, only anxious to be quit of the strangers, he sent Abram away with his wife and all that he had. There is a repetition of this story in another part of these Old Testament writings still held sacred ? There is. Abiding at a later period in Gerar (in Phoenicia), and again “ lest they should slay him for his wife’s sake,” Abram himself reports Sarai his wife as his sister to Abimelech, king of the country, who, like the Egyptian Pharaoh, had taken her to himself. But Elohim (for the story in its present shape, if the title of his God is to guide us, is from the Elohist, as �Genesis: Abram. 53 in its first form it was from the pen of the Jehovist) now threatens Abimelech in a dream with death to himself and disaster to his kingdom,—not because of his concupiscence, however, but by reason of his re­ lations with Sarai, into which he may be said to have been led by the lie that was told him. To what shift is the writer now driven to save Sarai from dishonour and to help Abram out of the disgrace of telling a falsehood ? He appends a number of particulars to his tale, which may fairly be taken for what they are worth, and then speaks of a more intimate blood-relationship between Abram and Sarai than any that had been hinted at before. But to make Abram the husband of his own father’s child—his sister, therefore,— seems on every moral mode of computation a sorry means of helping him out of his difficulty—better to have left him with the lie than laden him with incest. But criticism is thrown away upon the unreason and incongruity of the twentieth chapter of Genesis. To make confusion worse confounded, is there not another story, the same in almost every particular, connected with the history of Isaac and Rebekah ? There is, and strangely enough, and to puzzle us the more, it is the same, or it may be another Abime­ lech, King of the Philistines, who now takes the place of the King of Gerar and the Pharaoh of Egypt. Abimelech, King of the Philistines, however, is neither plagued like the Pharaoh nor threatened like his namesake ; for, happening to look out of a window “he saw and behold Isaac was sporting with Rebekah his wife.” On this discovery, and inferring the true relationship between Isaac and Rebekah, he challenges the husband with having spoken falsely. Is Abimelech, King of the Philistines, wroth with Isaac and Rebekah because of the falsehood they had told him ? By no means. On the contrary, he sends Isaac �54 The Pentateuch. away,, with his wife ; “ having done him nothing but good. Sarai would seem to have been a singularly attractive person; for when the encounter with Abimelech took place she must have been not less than ninety years old 1 And this and other such unhallowed tales comprised in these old writings of the Jewish people are still paraded in this nineteenth century of the Christian era as parts of the inspired word of God given for the edification of mankind! Resuming the history of Abram, who now returns from Egypt, in company with Lot his brother, to Beth-el in Palestine, where, on his southward journey, he had already built an altar to Jehovah,—what happens ? The herdsmen of the brothers having quarrelled, they agree to separate; and Lot, having the first choice, selects the plain of the Jordan, which was well watered “ even as that Garden of Jehovah the land of Egypt,” before the calamity that befel Sodom and Gomorrah ; whilst Abram, for his part, resolves to abide in the land of Canaan, which is again formally promised to him and his posterity as a possession for ever ; though it is now many centuries since it was lost to them, and won by the Saracen and Turk. The history of the Patriarch is interrupted at this point ? By the ill-digested account we find of a great battle fought between four kings against five; of the capture of Lot by Chederlaomer, one of the kings engaged, and his confederates; of the rescue of Lot by Abram and his retainers, and the recovery of all the booty that had been carried off; of the appearance on the scene of a certain Melchizedek, King of Salem, who is also styled Priest of the most high God, who blesses Abram, and in return receives a tithe of all the spoil recovered. Various interpretations, it is-to be presumed, have been given of this episode ? �Genesis: Abram. 55 Besides having been seen for that which in all likelihood it is—the legendary record of a raid by one party of petty chiefs against another—a more recondite meaning has been connected with it; the personages brought upon the scene having been re­ ferred to the figures still to be seen on our celestial globes, which have all been derived from planispheres of ancient Indian and Egyptian descent, whilst the par­ ticulars spoken of and the numbers given are held to be significant of an attempt to reform the calendar. This, owing to the true length of the year, 365 days six hours fifty-six minutes and as many seconds, not being known, was found in ancient times to require frequent adjustments in order to bring the seasons, or the solsticial and equinoctial points into conformity with astronomical data and the computations of the old astrologers.? “ After these things,” says the text, “the word of Jehovah came unto Abram in a vision, saying: Fear not, Abram, I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward.” Does the Patriarch express himself grateful for this assurance of the Divine favour ? On the contrary, he complains that he is childless, and that the steward of his house is his heir. He is assured, however, that this shall not be so, but that his heir shall be a son who shall come out of his own bowels. Meantime he is bidden to look abroad on the stars of heaven and say if he can number them, and is further assured that so many should be his posterity. What more ? Abram is now ordered to make a sacrifice of a heifer, a she-goat, a ram, a turtle dove, and a young pigeon. This he does ; slaying the victims, he divides s The reader who is curious will find the subject now hinted at discussed at length by Sir W. Drummond in his (Edipus Judaicus ; and by a German writer of great erudition, Nork, in his Biblische Mythologie. �56 "The- Pentateuch. them in the middle and lays the halves one against another, but he does not proceed to consume them with fire as usual upon the altar which we must pre­ sume he had built. As the sun was going down a deep sleep fell upon Abram, in which he had a second vision, and was informed that his seed should be strangers in a land that was not theirs ; that they should there be afflicted for four hundred years, but should afterwards come out with great substance and possess the land where he then was from the river of Egypt to the great river Euphrates. What interpretation is to be put on the informa­ tion thus and at this time delivered ? That it is all information given after the event, and assures us definitively that so much of the text at least as conveys it was written long after the Israelites had been settled in Palestine, and had subjugated the Amorites, Hittites, Kenites, Jebusites, &c. Further, and more particularly, as the Jebusites were only sub­ dued and their city Jebus taken by King David, who changed its name to Jerusalem, we learn that the writer lived subsequently to the reign of that poten­ tate.11 By what extraordinary agency were the carcases prepared by Abram consumed ? “ When the sun went down and it was dark, a smoking furnace and a burning lamp passed between the pieces.” But Jehovah, the titular God of the Jews, is repeatedly spoken of in the Hebrew scrip­ tures as “a consuming fire;” the smoking furnace and burning lamp are therefore to be understood as figurative expressions for the fire which Abram made use of to sublimate the bodies of his victims and make them meet food for his God. h The Bishop of Natal has shown satisfactorily that this passage is by the writer of Deuteronomy,—a very late writer consequently. �Genesis: Abram. SI Abram, we have seen, has been promised a son of his own; but Sarai his wife bore him no children. She, however, had a handmaid, an Egyptian, Hagar by name, whom she gave to Abram her husband as a second wife or concubine, saying to him: “ Go in unto my maid, I pray thee, that I may obtain children by her.” This was a somewhat extraordinary and hazardous proceeding on the part of Sarai ? To modern notions, but not, it would seem, to such as prevailed among the ancient Hebrews. Sarai may, perhaps, have been curious to know whether the “ effect defective ” lay with her or with her husband. Abram, however, consents to the proposal F He is nothing loth ; and Hagar conceives by him. But when Hagar knew that she was with child by Abram she despised and probably was insolent to her barren mistress Sarai, who complains to Abram of her handmaid’s behaviour. Abram interposes manfully, of course, between the barren Sarai and the fruitful Hagar, who has now his own child under her heart ? He does nothing of the kind. As he has already shown himself cowardly and untruthful in presence of Pharaoh and Abimelech, Abram now shows him­ self both unjust and without natural compassion for his concubine, for he says to the envious Sarai: “ Behold thy maid is in thy hand ; do with her as it pleaseth thee.” In her spite, although all had come to.be as it was through her own suggestion, Sarai, as said, “ dealt hardly with Hagar who, terrified, flees from her face into the wilderness. What befalls her there ? She is speedily reduced to extremity, of course, but is found by a well of water in the desert by the angel of Jehovah (who here, as in so many other places of the Old Testament, turns out to be Jehovah himself), and is admonished to return and submit herself to �58 The Pentateuch. her mistress. By way of inducement to do so (and persuaded, doubtless, also by the strait in which she found herself), she receives most liberal promises of an ample posterity through the son whom she is in­ formed she will bear. She therefore returns, and in due season is delivered of a son, whom Abram calls Ishmael, the name which Hagar had received for him from the angel of Jehovah in the wilderness. What is the next remarkable incident recorded in this extraordinary history ? When Abram is. ninety-nine years old, Jehovah appears to him and announces himself as El-Schaddai— the mighty El or God; orders him to change his name from Abram to Abraham—father of many nations, and his wife’s name Sarai to Sarah—Prin­ cess ; “for,” says the narrative, “ I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee.” The covenant already made with Abram is thus again, but with additions and more solemnly, renewed with Abraham ? It is, and as its seal and testimony for ever the rite of circumcision is commanded : “ Every male child among you,” says the text, “ shall be circumcised ; he among you that is born in the house or is bought with money of the stranger, that is eight days old, shall be circumcised; the uncircumcised man-child shall be cut off from his people—-he hath broken my covenant.” . What may be the meaning of the rite of circum­ cision thus formally and forcibly announced ? To think of it for a moment as ordered of God were absurd : God sends his work fit for its end into the world; it needs no interference of man to make it so. Among the Semitic tribes, of whom the Hebrews were one, human sacrifices appear to have prevailed universally in early times : the first-born of man and beast—or as the Old Testament scrip­ tures have it, all that opened the womb—belonged to �Genesis: Abraham. 59 the God of the tribe, however named—El, Bel, Baal, or Molech—and through countless ages was undoubtedlysacrificed to him by fire. But as time ran on, as civilisation advanced and more humane ideas were engendered, the barbarous practice was seen in its true light, and a substitute for the sacrifice of the whole was sought for, and believed to have been found, in the sacrifice of a part. The rite of circumcision has significance in another, though closely allied, direction ? It has. Besides its symbolical character of sub­ stitute, it is intimately connected with the worship paid to the reproductive principle in nature, of which the symbol was the Phallus. The Egyptian priests, priests of the gods of increase—Osiris, Isis—were necessarily circumcised, as the priests of the deities of decay among other peoples—Attys, Cybele, &c. were emasculated. In Egypt the priest appears to have been consecrated to his office by circumcision,—the commonalty of the country were not as a rule sub­ jected to the rite. The Israelites, however, as a people holy to Jehovah, were as matter of course and neces­ sity circumcised : on the eighth day instead of being presented as a burnt offering on the altar of his God, as in the olden time he would have been had he hap­ pened to be the first-born, every son of Israel in later days had, and still has, the foreskin of his private member solemnly resected by the priest and con­ sumed in the fire, an offering, disguise it as they may, to the fire-king Melek or Moloch whom their fathers worshipped, and on whose altars they had been used to offer up the first-born of their sons and daughters, of their flocks and herds. How does Abraham receive the intimation that a son will be born to him by his wife Sarah, that she shall yet be the mother of nations and that kings of peoples shall be of her ? Not so reverently as might have been expected. �6° The Pentateuch. He fell on his.face, indeed, but he laughed incredulous, and said in his heart: Shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old; and shall Sarah that is ninety years old bear ! He therefore entreats God for his son Ishmael. But God says to him : “ Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed, and thou shalt call his name Isaac, and with him and his seed after him will I establish my covenant everlastingly. And as for Ishmael, him I have blessed, and he shall be fruitful;. twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make , him a great nation ; but my covenant will I establish with Isaac which Sarah shall bear unto thee at this set time of the year.” There is as usual a second account of this mira­ culous engendering of a son by persons respectively one hundred and ninety years old ? There is, and from the Jehovist, as that which pre­ cedes is in great part from the storehouse of the Elohist in great part, we say, for interpolations in its course are readily detected by the attentive reader. In the second account “ three men ” appear to Abraham in the plains of Mamre, as he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day. Abraham addresses them as “My Lord,” invites them into his tent, has water fetched to wash their feet, entertains them with the flesh of a calf “tender and good,” with cakes baked on the hearth by Sarah, and with butter and milk a sumptuous Arab shiek’s repast, in short, and himself stands by them under the tree as they eat. What say the three men thus hospitably enter­ tained ? They ask after Sarah, and “ he ” (the singular now taking the place of the plural) informs Abraham that Sarah his wife shall bear him a son. Sarah, ‘ old and well stricken in years, with whom it had ceased to be after the manner of women,” hears the announcement and laughs at the notion of her and her lord being old also ” having a child between them. �Genesis: Abraham. 61 Sarah’s laugh and implied incredulousness does not pass unobserved ? No. “ Jehovah (the name now changed from Elohim) said unto Abraham, Wherefore did Sarah laugh, saying : Shall I of a surety bear a child which am old I Is anything too hard for Jehovah ” ? What answer makes Sarah when challenged with her incredulous laughter ? Not being of a perfectly truthful disposition, as we know already, we are not surprised when we find her denying that she had laughed : “ I laughed not,” says she, “ for she was afraid. But Jehovah said : Nay, but thou didst laugh.” What are we to think of such tales, and of such conceptions of the Deity as are implied in them ? That the tales are the conceits of men with the minds of children, and the preservers of them, and above all the believers in them as records of veritable events, involving matter either interesting or edifying, are to be held as ignorant, credulous, superstitious, and incompetent persons. To the query : Is anything too hard for Jehovah, what answer must be given ? That God the Lord, Supreme Cause, Rule and Ruler of the Universe, never contravenes the laws which are his essence—cannot be in contradiction with himself. Having ordained that when it ceases with a woman to be after the manner of women she shall no longer bear children, we may safely and with all reverence say that God had verily made it too hard for him to have Sarah become a mother. But the Jews had no conception of a universe ruled by General, Invariable, Necessary Law, nor any other idea of Jehovah than as a sovereign prince and ruler, doing and undoing at his arbitrary will and pleasure, having the earth alone of all his works, and the children of Israel alone of all the people upon it, as objects of his fatherly care and consideration. �62 The Pentateuch. The , narrative proceeds, informing us that the men (the plural again) rise up and look towards Sodom, Abraham going with them to bring them on their way. As they go, Jehovah (now it is the sin­ gular) is represented as deliberating with himself whether he ought not to impart to Abraham the pur­ pose he had conceived of destroying Sodom and Gomorrah because of the wickedness of their inha­ bitants, and is here made by the writer to say : Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grievous, I will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it which is come unto me; and if not I will know.” The Jews evidently thought of their Jehovah as we think of a person in authority who needs to make inquiry as to the truth or falsehood of the reports that reach him : he came down to look after the builders of the Tower of Babel and confound their language, and he comes down again to take the measure of the sinners of Sodom and Gomorrah? and punish them according to their demerits. The men turn their faces towards Sodom, but Abraham, it is said, “stood yet before Jehovah.” The use now of the plural and then of the singular in this extraordinary narrative will give the candid reader a sufficient hint of the composite character of the Pentateuch. The narrator must have had more than one of the legendary tales that were still floating in his day before him when he wrote (and he could not have written until after the times of more than one of the Jewish kings), and has here, as in so many other places, performed his task of editor indifferently. Abraham left alone with Jehovah, what takes place between them ? The notable parley in which the man Abraham tries to turn his God Jehovah from his purpose of de­ stroying Sodom and Gomorrah. “ Wiltjthou destroy the righteous with the wicked ?” asks the Patriarch �Genesis : Abraham. 6J of the Lord. “Peradventure there be fifty righteous within the city ; far be it from thee to slay the right­ eous with the wicked,—and shall not the judge of all the earth do right ?” “ If I find fifty righteous in Sodom, then will I spare all the place for their sake,” replies Jehovah, according to the Hebrew scribe. . Abraham would make still better terms for the city, and continues perseveringly, saying : “ Peradventure there shall lack five—ten—twenty forty of the fifty and Jehovah says : “ I will not destroy it for ten’s sake.” “ And Jehovah went his way as soon as he had left communing with^Abra­ ham.” What are we in the present day, with our ideas of the immanent ubiquity and necessarily impersonal nature of God, to think of such a tale as this, and of words bandied in such a way between man and the Deity ? The tale is doubtless another of the myths or legends transmitted orally from remote antiquity and pre­ served by an over-scrupulous editor from the oblivion it so well deserved, if by its means it were intended to convey any true or possible idea of God’s proce­ dure in his dealings with mankind and the world. Man does not bandy words with God ; neither does he attempt to fix the Supreme on the horns of a dilemma by a series of Socratic questions, each reply to each succeeding query leaving the respondent more m the wrong than he had been before. God’s acts are not in time, but from eternity; they are not con­ sequences, whether in advance or in recall of ante­ cedent purposes. . God, moreover, does never in any human sense punish, neither by condoning misdeed does he ever forgive the guilty. [Are there ten guilty persons in a great city, they suffer for them­ selves, if their guiltiness be through violation of anv of God s laws ; and ten thousand guiltless persons, their fellow-citizens, would not save them from paying the �64 The Pentateuch. penalty of their sin. Unhappily the opposite does not hold; for one reckless and guilty person violating a natural law may cause the death of many,—a truth of which terrible illustrations are offered in the explo­ sions that so frequently occur in coal mines and powder mills. Proceeding with the tale as delivered, we now find “ two angels,” two of the “three men” presumably who had been entertained by Abraham, going on to Sodom, where they are met and waited on by Lot much in the same way as they had been by his brother Abraham. What next befals ? The narrator, as if to show how well the doomed city deserved its impending fate, presents us with such a picture of the state of morals and customs pre­ vailing among its inhabitants as it seems impossible in these our days even to imagine; Lot and his family, the parties excepted from the ruin hanging over their homes, by their after-doings appearing in scarcely a more favourable light than their detestable fellow-townsmen. Must not the nineteenth chapter of the Book of Genesis be regarded by us as a most extraordinary element in a volume said by ecclesiastics, and gene­ rally believed, to be given by God to the world for its edification in morals and furtherance in religious knowledge ? Looked at with the eye of reason, it can be seen in no other light. So gross and offensive ar e most of the particulars it contains, that they cannot here be mentioned openly. But to proceed: Lot and his family forewarned, escape from Sodom and flee to Zoar, and then, the sun being risen upon the earth, Jehovah rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from Jehovah out of heaven, and overthrew these cities, and the plain, and all their inhabitants, and all that grew upon the ground—the innocent with the guilty consequently—infants and young children, �Genesis: Sodom and Gomorrah. 6$ as well as the grown men and women, all wicked alike, for among them, from what is said, there conld not have been found ten that were innocent, else had the cities been saved. The destruction was indiscri­ minate, and the Jewish God Jehovah himself its agent! Lot, however, has escaped with his family to Zoar, where he did not long remain, but quitting the little town, he went and dwelt with his daughters in a cave—hard by, we may presume. What happened there ? That of which it shames us to speak. The daugh­ ters, as though the destruction of Sodom and Gomor­ rah had been attended with effects as far reaching as the flood of Noah, are made to speak as if their father were the only man left alive in the world. To satisfy a brutal appetite, they are said in this book of the Jewish law, accepted by Christian men and women as inspired by God, to have made their father drunk with wine, and to have sought his bed in succession, the consequence of which is that they both conceive and bear sons, who respectively become in after years the progenitors of the Moabites and Ammonites, What may be the possible meaning of this foul tale ? The Moabites and Ammonites — cognate Semitic tribes, speaking the same, or dialects of the same, lan­ guage as the Hebrews, were among the number of those whom the Israelites dispossessed of their lands and reduced to slavery, when they did not take their lives. A vile and unnatural origin had to be devised in after times by way of excuse for the ills which these unfortunate peoples were made to suffer in an age gone by. The daughters of Lot were little worthy of the favour shown them in their escape from Sodom reduced to ashes; but they were wanted by the writer as parts in the machinery of his story. The wife of Lot escaped with her husband and daughters from the burning, but came to an extraor­ dinary end nevertheless ? �66 The Pentateuch. She, according to the veracious historian, for having looked back upon the burning town, was turned into a pillar of salt upon the plain, where, if we may be­ lieve the traveller who has an eye for the marvellous, she is still to be seen I The transformation, inflicted for a natural and innocent impulse, was as severe as it was extraordinary, no parallel to which, we may believe, has since occurred ; though men do still look fondly back upon the homes they are leaving, when sad necessity or prescriptive tyranny—worse than fire from heaven—devotes them to destruction. But the tale of Sodom and Gomorrah is a myth—an idea furnished with accessories and embodied in language. Were such towns ever in existence, as they may well have been, and destroyed in the manner described, it could only have happened by the eruption of a volcano now extinct, like those outbursts of Vesuvius which desolated Pompeii and Herculaneum in more recent times, and of other burning mountains which still bring desolation and loss of life over many parts of the earth’s surface. But the Jews, as we have already had occasion to observe, ascribed every event in both natural and human history to the immediate agency of their God Jehovah, believing as they did that all the calamities which befel nations as well as indivi­ duals were punishments for acts displeasing to him. Assuming Sodom and Gomorrah to have been over­ whelmed by a volcanic eruption in very remote times, therefore, was it said, must their inhabitants have been a wicked and abominable race; and further, as the lands of the Moabites and Ammonites were usurped by the children of Israel, so were the Moabites and Ammonites the spawn of the incestuous intercourse detailed. We have additional evidence of this Jewish view of the special providential ordering of things by Jehovah, immediately after the story about Sodom and Gomor­ rah, and about Lot and his daughters, have we not ? �Genesis: Abraham and Isaac. 67 It is now that we meet with the tale of Abraham’s second denial of Sarah as his wife,—on this occasion to Abimelech, King of Gerar ; and we learn that Jehovah “ visited Sarah, as he had said, and did unto her as he had spoken,” Jehovah being thus made, as it were, the immediate agent in the matter, for now it was that Sarah “ conceived and bare a son to Abra­ ham in his old age.” Abraham was mindful of the terms of the covenant entered into with him by Jehovah ? He was : when his son was eight days old he was duly circumcised and named Isaac by his father, on the day on which all that opened the womb according to more ancient custom were sacrificed on the altar of burnt offering. Seven days was the first­ born, whether of man or beast, to be with the mother or dam ; on the eighth it must be given, as his due for the increase and as the price of future favours of the like kind, to the Reproductive Principle in Nature conceived as Deity. Circumcision was not all that was required in the case of mankind in after times, when the religious system of the Israelites came to be formulated, and a priesthood established ? Then had the first-born of man, besides parting with his foreskin, to be further redeemed by a certain price in money. The first-born of beasts might be sacrificed or redeemed at the option of those into whose herds or flocks they were born, with the single exception of the ass, which was on no account to be offered on the altar, but in case it was not redeemed, was to be put to death by having its neck broken,— that is, by being thrown from a height and killed. The single exception of the ass as unavailable for sacrifice on the altar of the Hebrew God, and the peculiar mode in which it is ordered to be put to death, seem to require explanation ? Which may be found in the fact that the ass, both �68 The Pentateuch. in Ancient Egypt and Palestine, was looked on in the light of an animal at once sacred and accursed. In. Palestine he long supplied the place of the horse, and was in regular use for the saddle as well as beast of burthen ; but in Egypt he was sacred to Typhon, the brother and enemy of Osiris, and was the victim especially devoted to him, the mode of his sacrifice being that which is commanded in the Hebrew Scrip­ tures. Typhon himself, generally figured in Egyp­ tian sculptures with the head of the swine, is some­ times also met with having the head of the ass ; and among the Egyptian drawings there is a very singular one in which Horus has Typhon with the ass’s head by the ear, and is belabouring him with the staff he has in his hand—z.e., the early Spring or Summer Sun has vanquished his enemy Winter.1 The system of redeeming by money instead of con­ suming by fire was certainly a mighty step in advance, and, once entered on, was likely to be vigorously en­ forced in view of the revenue it brought to the priest­ hood. But there must have been a certain reluctance on the part of Abraham’s God to forego his ancient right to the first-born of the patriarch’s posterity ? It would seem so by the record, at all events. Isaac had certainly a narrow escape from sublimation by fire, and being sent in the way of a sweet savour as food to the God of his father. What says the tale ? After his departure from Abimelech of Gerar, Elohe, it is said, did tempt Abraham, saying: “Take now thy son, thine Only (Jahid, Hebrew, used as a noun), whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah, and offer him there for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains which I shall tell thee of.” 1 See Moyers: Die Phoenizier, B. I. See also a Paper by Herr Hirt in Abhand. der Histor-Philolog. Klasse der Acad, d. Wissensch. zu Berlin aus den Jahren, 1820—21. S. 165. �Genesis : Abraham and Isaac. 6g Does Abraham express surprise at this extraordi­ nary command of his God Elohe ? . Not any; he rises up early in the morning, saddles his ass, cleaves wood for the burnt-offering, and sets out on the journey. After three days’ travel he sees the place of the sacrifice afar off, bids the attendants he had with him remain with the ass where they were, whilst he and the lad should “go yonder and worship, and come again to them.” Abraham then lays the wood for the burnt-offering on his son ; takes fire in his hand and a knife, and they go on together. Is Isaac passive whilst all this is done ? Not entirely: he sees the fire and the wood and the knife, but not the lamb for the sacrifice. His father assures him, however, that Elohe will provide himself a lamb for the burnt-offering. Arrived at Mount Moriah, Abraham builds an altar, lays the wood in order upon it, binds his son Isaac, lays him on the pile, and raises the knife to complete the sacrifice. But the angel of Jehovah (it is no longer Elohe) calls to him out of heaven, and bids him not to lay his hand upon the lad; “ for now,” proceeds the angel, who,.as in other instances, is seen to be Jehovah himself, “I know that thou fearest. Elohe, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.” Lifting up his eyes, Abraham discovers a ram caught by the horns in a thicket behind him, which he takes, slays, and pre­ sents as a burnt-offering in the stead of his son. This is an extraordinary story ! Can we, as reason­ able and passably pious men, believe that God ever tempts mankind,—ever commanded a father to make a burnt-offering of his son ? God? in bestowing on man the wonderful power of paternity, has also put such feelings of tenderness into his heart as makes the entertainment of such an idea abhorrent to his nature. He who should now— and, it is not unfair to presume, in the day also when �7o The Pentateuch. the tale was written—imagine that he had received an order from God to slay and make a burnt-offering of his son would be treated as a madman, and merci­ fully taken care of by his friends. Possessed of our faculties and masters of ourselves, we are not mas­ tered by distressing dreams and phantoms of the night. Isaac, however, as we see, was not sacrified, although Abraham had received the express commands of his God to make a burnt-offering of his son ? No ; and this putting God in contradiction with himself, and the angel of Jehovah calling out of heaven, relegates the story of the Temptation of Abraham to its proper place among the myths and legends of hoar antiquity. Our advanced conceptions of the nature of Deity forbid us to think of God as tempting mankind, as commanding and countermanding in a breath, as calling out of heaven in any sense, or using human speech otherwise than mediately through the mouth of man. What farther comment may be made on this tale ? Had child-sacrifice lain outside the sphere of Hebrew religious rites, as the modern Jews and bible-commen­ tators all show themselves so eager to show that it did, in face of Jehovah’s express order to sanctify to him all that opened the womb both of man and beast, such a commandment as that said to have been given by God to Abraham could never have been imagined. Had not human sacrifice been familiar to the Jewish mind, as it undoubtedly was up to the time of the Captivity, the Patriarch would have been depicted rejecting the order to slay his son as the command­ ment of a lying spirit.^ May not the tale have been contrived in relatively modern times—after the Babylonian Captivity, for instance—to declare that God had ceased to require k Vide Vatke, Biblische Theologie, § 22, S. 276. �Genesis: Abraham and Sarah. 71 the human victims as burnt-offerings to which he had been so long accustomed, and that the will might henceforth without offence be substituted for the deed ? The story of the temptation of Abraham has many unquestionable marks of recent composition. It cer­ tainly does not date from the period to which the incidents among which it appears are referred; and could indeed only have been invented in times when the better spirits among the Jews had made the dis­ covery that God delighted not in the blood of bulls and rams, and still less in that of human beings. Much has been made by modern theologians, in connection with the Christian system, of the accre­ dited command of God to Abraham to make a sacrifice of his son ? Very much. But God, as we have said, never com­ mands his creatures to do aught that is not for their own good, or the good of others; and the dogma (entirely foreign to the spirit of the theistic morality taught by Jesus of Nazareth) which makes of this holy personage a sacrifice to satisfy Divine Justice, assimilates the great God of Nature, the father of all flesh, with the Phoenician El-Saturnus, Chronos, or Molech, who was said himself actually to have sacri­ ficed Jeud his only son—Jeud or Jehud—another form of Jahid, Only. Returning to the family affairs of the Patriarch, we do not find that Sarah, blessed with a son of her own, shows herself any way better disposed towards Hagar, her handmaid, than she had been when she was barren and childless ? It is Sarah’s turn now to mock Hagar, the Egyptian. “ Cast out this bond-woman and her son,” she says to Abraham, “ for her son shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac.” Abraham does not surely yield to this cruel sug­ gestion of the spiteful and ungrateful woman ? �72 The Pentateuch. Although the thing, as said, was very grievous in his sight, because of the lad, and because of the bond­ woman, nevertheless, and as the story goes, having God’s sanction for what he did, he yields to Sarah; and charging Hagar with some bread and a bottle of water, he turns her and her son—his own son, too— Ishmael, out into the wilderness to perish, as he must have known, and. where, but for the discovery of a well of water when she and her child were reduced to extremity, she must inevitably have died. Hagar, however, is again succoured in time, although how or by whom—unless it were by the mythical angel of Jehovah as before, we are not in­ formed. But Ishmael and his mother, after this, disappear from the scene, and the whole interest is concentrated on the Patriarch of the Hebrew people and his son Isaac. There is an incident now men­ tioned, which enables us, with the lights we possess, to see Abraham as no more the exclusive worshipper of the God El or El-schaddai of his forefathers than he is of the more recently introduced Jehovah ? He plants a tree by the well Beer-sheba, and there calls on the name of Jehovah. What may be the meaning of this ? The word usually translated Grove in our English version of the Hebrew Scriptures mostly signifies a tree or a pillar of wood, when it does not mean the divinity of whom the tree or pillar was the symbol— the Aschera, Astarte, or Ashtaroth of Phoenicia, the Mylitta of Babylonia, the Aphrodite of Greece, the Venus of Rome, the Syria Dea of Lucan, personifica­ tion of the passive element in the reproductive principle of nature, usually associated with Baal the Sun-God or active generative principle and object of adoration with all the peoples of the ancient world. Abraham, in planting a tree by the well of Beer-sheba, the well itself significant of fertility, made an offering to the God of Increase; and meets us here, as he must �Genesis : Isaac and Rebekah. 73 have been in fact, if hot wholly mythical, as the Arab Shiek, the worshipper of the Gods of his Fathers, not of the Jehovah of post-Davidic times, when the Thora or Code of Law ascribed to Moses had been compiled, and the Temple of Jerusalem declared the only shrine at which offerings acceptable to the Deity could be brought. -Sarah dies when she is a hundred and twenty-seven years old, according to the record; and Abraham buys of Ephron the son of Zohar, one of the sons of Heth, the cave of Machpelah as a burying place in the land of Canaan where he is sojourning. Well stricken in years himself, Abraham is now anxious to see his son Isaac settled with a wife; but, unwilling to have a daughter of the land of Canaan advanced to this honour, he despatches a trusty servant, whom he binds by an oath, to Mesopotamia, his native country, there, from among the number of his own kindred, to find a helpmate for his son. The servant departs with a handsome retinue of camels and attendants. He entreats Jehovah-Elohim, the God of his master Abraham, for good speed in his mission, and asks him to let it come to pass that the one among the maidens ■who comes to draw water from the well, outside the city of Nahor, by which he might halt, and to whom he should say : “ Let down thy pitcher, I pray thee, that I may drink,” and who should reply: “Drink, and I will give thy camels drink also,” should be she whom he—Jahveh-Elohim—had appointed for his servant Isaac, “and thereby,” adds the envoy, ‘‘shall I know that thou hast showed kindness to my master.” What happens ? Among others who come out to draw from the well is Rebekah, daughter of JBethuel, son of Milcab, Abraham’s brother Nahor’s wife, blood relation of Isaac, consequently twice removed; and on Rebekah it is that the choice falls ; for, asked for a draught from her pitcher, she immediately repeats the words �74 The Pentateuch. which the envoy had resolved should be a sign from Jehovah of his approval,—the Jews imagining that their God interested himself even in the selection of their wives ! The messenger enquires of Rebekah whose daughter she is, and if there were room in her father’s house where he and his troop might be lodged. Being in­ formed that she is the daughter of Bethuel, and assured that there was straw and provender and lodging-room in her father’s house, he presents her with the mystical gold ring, prototype of the gold ring of the marriage ceremony among ourselves, and having a significance then which it has no longer; and beside the ring, he also presents her with brace­ lets of price for her arms. What does Rebekah, on the unexpected address of the stranger and the presents she receives ? She hastens home, informs the family of what has passed, shows the ring and the bracelets, and despatches her brother Laban to bid the stranger welcome, and lead him • to the house. In short, the parties speedily come to an understanding, and matters are forthwith satisfactorily arranged, as though they had been subject of anxious discussion long time before. Rebekah by and by departs with the messen­ ger as bride elect of Isaac, who meets her as with her escort she draws near his father Abraham’s tents, brings her to his late mother’s tent, where he instals her; makes her his wife, loves her, and is com­ forted after his mother Sarah’s death. What infor­ mation have we now that seems to remove Abraham out of the category of possible historical personages ? He is said to have taken a second wife, Keturah by name, and by her to have had a family of five sons—of daughters, who may have been as many, no mention is made—and only to have given up the ghost when he was a hundred and seventy-five years old! Is this credible ? �Genesis : The Age of Man. 75 If we acknowledge the laws of nature, which are the unimpeachable ordinances of God, to be changeless as their author, we answer without misgiving : No, it is not possible, and so is not credible. What may be said of the extreme ages to which men are said to have attained in these prehistoric times—in these long by-gone ages of the world? That the tales which transmit them are myths which never had any foundation out of the imagina­ tion of their inventors. Instead of getting shorter and shorter as we come down the stream of time, it is certain that human life has become longer and longer. Savages and barbarous tribes are surrounded by num­ berless conditions and circumstances adverse to life that are mitigated in almost every instance, and in many entirely removed, as progress is made in civili­ sation and as appliances are discovered that minister to the comfort and security of existence. There is not only no prima facie likelihood that primaeval and prehistoric man lived longer than the men of the present day, but every presumption that life in by­ gone ages of the world was much shorter on the whole than it is now. Have not certain recent scientific enquiries of un­ questionable weight, resting on no fond imaginations of poets, but on physiological grounds, definitively settled the question, not only of the age that may possibly be attained, but of the age that has ever been attained, by man ? We can now speak positively and say that, whilst the life of man may possibly extend in rare and ex­ ceptional instances to a hundred years, and even to one, two, or three years beyond that term, the few of all the millions born into the world who attain to what all now agree in calling extreme old age, finish their career between the limits of three-score and ten and four-score and ten years. So much for the men and women of the present �The Pentateuch. age, but what of those who lived in ages gone by? Neither are we without reliable records of the ages at which they who flourished in these finished their course on earth. The skulls of individuals taken from the tombs of Sakara in Egypt, who died and were buried some sixteen centuries before the date assigned to the Deluge, or about the time when, according to the Jewish accounts, the world was created, show the same conditions of bone-structure and dentition as the skulls of the men and women who die at ages familiar to us at the present time. The sutures of these old Egyptian crania are found to approach obliteration in different degrees and to pre­ sent other marks of age in exact conformity with what is seen in the crania of persons who are known to have died at certain ages among ourselves:—in the younger heads the sutures are distinct, in the older they are obliterated more or less completely, and in the very old they are effaced. In the younger heads, again, the teeth are more or less perfect, in the older they are decayed or gone, precisely as among ourselves in persons who die at every age between childhood and seventy, eighty, or ninety years. Have we not authentic information on this subject, of even much higher antiquity than any imparted, by Egyptian tombs, though their mummified occupants lived so long ago as the second Dynasty of the Pharaohs, or some centuries before the flood ? We have; in the skulls that have of late years been recovered from the drift, and dug out of caves from under loads of stalagmite and breccia, whose owners trapped and contended with the woolly rhino­ ceros and mammoth, and disputed possession of their sorry dwelling places with the cave bear and hysena— all extinct at the present time. Carefully examined and compared with recent crania, these skulls of indi­ viduals who lived during the quaternary and towards �Genesis : Esau and Jacob. 77 the close of the last great glacial period in the earth’s history, so marvellously preserved through so many thousands or hundreds of thousands of years, present the same essential characters as those of the men and women who die at the usual ages in the present day ; and assure us that if they lived as long, they certainly lived no longer than their descendants, the miners and iron-workers of Belgium, who now people the soil which once they trod.1 Returning to our story,-—what comes of the mar­ riage of Isaac and Rebekah ? As many of the incidents in the sacred writings of the Hebrews are so commonly repeated in connection with each new personage who comes upon the scene, we might almost have anticipated that Rebekah, like Sarah, would prove barren at first, but fruitful after­ wards ; and so it falls out. Isaac, it is said, “ entreated the Lord for his wife Rebekah,” so that she conceived at last, and in due season brought forth twins—Esau and Jacob. What is there notable about these ? Esau, the first born, it is said, was “ a red and hairy man and became a cunning hunter; ” Jacob, again, was “ a plain man, a dweller in tents, or living much at home; ” and whilst Esau was loved of his father, because of the venison he found him in the chase, Jacob was loved of his mother. What came of this unlike disposition in the youths^ and different likings of their parents ? Returning faint and weary from hunting on a certain occasion, Esau begged some of the pottage of lentils which Jacob had sod and now got ready. But the selfish Jacob, instead of sharing with his brother and ministering to his wants, will only part with his mess in return for Esau’s birthright as the elder born. “Behold,” says Esau, “lam at the point to die, and 1 See Professor Owen’s admirable essay on Longevity in Fraser s Magazine for February, 1872. �78 The Pentateuch. what profit shall this birthright do to me.” So he bartered his birthright to Jacob for the lentil broth. It was surely neither kind nor brotherly in Jacob to profit by his brother’s state, faint for want, and weary from the field ? It certainly was not, but was of a piece with the rest of Jacob’s character and procedure, as we shall see. What happens next ? Isaac, grown old and his eyesight dim, calls his eldest son Esau and bids him go into the field and take him some venison, that he may have savoury meat once more and find fitting occasion to give him his blessing before he dies. Whilst he is gone on this filial errand, what does Rebekah, and to what iniquity does Jacob lend him­ self? Rebekah conspires with her favourite Jacob to cheat the blind old man, her husband, and to rob Esau, her first-born, of his father’s blessing. “ Go now to the flock,” says Rebekah to her son Jacob, “,and fetch me two good kids of the goats, and I will make them savoury meat for thy father, such as he loveth; and thou shall bring it to thy father that he may eat and that he may bless thee before his death.” Does Jacob consent to this unfair suggestion of his mother, or does he not rather object ? He makes no objection, and is only fearful that the plot may miscarry : “Behold,” says he, “Esau my brother is a hairy man, and I a smooth man ; my father peradventure will feel me, and I shall seem to him as a deceiver, and I shall bring a curse upon me and not a blessing.” What answer makes Rebekah to this ? She says: “ Upon me be the curse, my son, only obey my voice and fetch me the kids.” This he does forthwith, and she makes the savoury mess of the �Genesis : Isaac and "Jacob. 79 kid’s meat such as old Isaac loved. She then takes the goodly raiment of her elder son Esau and puts it on Jacob, covers his hands and the exposed part of his neck with the skins of the kids, and gives the mess of meat and the bread she had prepared into his hand. Thus disguised and furnished forth, Jacob comes to his father and says : “ My father ! ” and he says : “ Here am I, who art thou, my son ? ” Jacob, conscience-stricken because of the unworthy part he is playing, must surely answer truly now, and say he is Jacob his father’s youngest son ? No such thing. On the contrary, he lies egregiously, and says: “ I am Esau, thy first-born; I have done according as thou badest me. Arise, I pray thee; sit and eat of my venison that thy soul may bless me.” What answer makes Isaac ? How is it, he asks, that thou hast found it so quickly, my son ? Jacob, for very shame, must needs now own the imposition so far carried on successfully ? By no means ; he plays the hypocrite now, as he is playing the deceiver and has already proved himself the liar, and answers his father’s question in these solemn words : “ Jehovah, thy God, brought it to me.” This is shocking ! Old blind Isaac, nevertheless, seems to have had some misgivings about the party who is addressing him, for he says: “ Come near me, that I may feel thee, my son, whether thou be my very son Esau or not. And Jacob went near to his father, and he felt him and said : The voice is Jacob’s voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau; and he discerned him not, and so he blessed him.” In spite of having gone so far, Isaac cannot yet have been altogether satisfied of the identity of the son before him ? No; for he asks again: “Art thou my very son Esau ?” and he (Jacob) said, “ I am.” This reiteration of the lie seems to satisfy all the �8o Phe Pentateuch. misgivings of the old man, for he now eats of the mess prepared for him, and drinks of the wine set before him, does he not ? _ He does ; and bidding his son come near, he blesses him saying: God give thee of the dew of heaven, and the fulness of the earth, and plenty of corn and wine; and let people serve thee, and nations bow down to thee; be Lord over thy brethren, and let thy mother s sons bow down to thee; cursed be every one that curseth thee, and blessed be he who blesseth thee.” How fares it with Isaac when Esau returns from the chase, brings his savory mess of venison to his father, bids him arise and eat, and asks for his blessing p Isaac, it is said, trembled with a great trembling and said : “ Who is he that hath taken venison, and brought it to me, and I have eaten of -all before thou earnest, and have blessed him ? ” And Esau P When he heard the words of his father he cried with a great and exceeding bitter cry, and said— “ Bless me, even me also, 0 my father! ” Isaac yields to this passionate and natural appeal ? Nay, indeed! Blessing in the olden time seems to have been restricted to one ; for the old man replies : “Thy brother came with subtilty, and hath taken away thy blessing.” Is Esau content ? How should he! he says: “ Hast thou but one blessing, my father ? bless me, even me, 0 my father, and he lifted up his voice and wept.” Esau was surely unfairly and cruelly dealt with in all this ? According to modern moral notions he was cheated of his right; and common sense and justice alike would now have required the thief to restore what he had stolen. What motive can we imagine for �Genesis : Isaac and 'Jacob. 8i the story as it is told ? A mythological meaning, as with many other parts of the Old Testament, has been connected with the repeated supercession we encoun­ ter of the elder by the younger born. As Night, esteemed the eldest born of things, gave place to Day, so it has been surmised is Cain superseded in his sacrifice by Abel, Esau by Jacob in his birthright and blessing, Ephraim by Manasseh, Aaron by Moses in command, &c. But Esau is said further to have been the progenitor of the Edomites, a cognate tribe, and enemies of long standing of the Jews; the poet or fabulist therefore makes Esau sell his birthright for the mess of pottage when he was hungry as a prelude to letting him of his father’s blessing, in order that it might fall on Jacob, from whom the Israelites themselves were reputed to have sprung. The preliminary barter of the birthright was doubtless held by the narrator, as it has since been held by apologists for all the right and wrong, the good and evil, that lie within the lids of the Bible, as adequate to cover the subsequent villanous artifices by which the blessing is filched away; for it seems impossible, on simple moral apart from prescriptive religious grounds, to conceive the most consummate impersonation, whether of Jewish, Christian, or Pagan selfishness and dishonesty, ap­ proving the act of Jacob, or condoning the means by which his object was accomplished. The Jews would seem to have held that something of a preternatural character pertained to a blessing, which was not nullified by the means, however dis­ honest, employed to obtain it ? It appears so. Old Isaac himself, when he dis­ covers that he has been imposed on, speaks not of recalling his blessing, but says : “ I have blessed him (Jacob), yea, and he shall be blessed.” But the Jews believed, as we have already had occasion to observe, that their God took a particular interest, G �82 Phe Pentateuch. not only in them as a people at large, but in every individual, and in the acts of every notable indi­ vidual more especially, among them. They did nothing, never entered on any undertaking, or came to any conclusion, without “asking Jehovah,” -i.e., without drawing lots, consulting the Ephod or Teraph im—domestic idols of which every household appears to have had one or move, and receiving an answer in approval. On the most solemn occasions of all they seem to have referred the case to the High Priest, who then had recourse to the Urim and Thummim he carried on his breast, and to the Sevenbranched Candlestick which was so important a part of the furniture of the Altar, and in constant requisi­ tion in casting nativities and other kinds of divi­ nation. Is not he who deceives his blind old father and filches his brother’s birthright and blessing a villain, deserv­ ing of present punishment and failure in his after enterprises, rather than worthy of God’s peculiar favour, of man’s approval, and of success in all he purposes or puts his hand to ? Morally judged he is so undoubtedly, but men judge mostly by the success or failure that follows action; and God is not truly, as he is commonly thought to be, a kind of celestial potentate or chief magistrate, with powers of prison and gibbet at com­ mand. Jacob himself puts the legitimacy of the con­ spiracy in which he engages with his mother on the sole footing of its success, “ Peradventure,” says he, “ my father will feel me, and I shall seem to him a deceiver, and I shall bring a curse upon me and not a blessing.” But he who acquires or gains his end, no matter what it is, does so by conforming to the natural law of acquisition, which has no bearing on moral principles. The accumulator may be the most heartless and unprincipled of mortals; but if he steadily pursue his selfish ends and his purpose of �Genesis: Jacob. 83 gathering to himself regardless of others, God will not only not interfere to hinder him of success, but, it may be said, will assuredly favour him in his ob­ ject ; neither will his fellow-men say aught against him if he but grow rich and keep on the safe side of the statute law ; nay, they will not only say nothing against, but will even fawn on and flatter him; per­ chance even speak of raising a statue to him. The Jews, far from seeing anything dishonourable in the conduct of Jacob, even vaunt themselves on their descent from the unbrotherly, untruthful, and deceitful man ? They do ; and making God a party to their ap­ proval, they have always spoken of their tutelary Deity Jehovah as the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob; so that successful selfishness and untruth have sanctified to them the unrighteous means by which the headship of the family was obtained. Esau, wroth with his brother, hates him in his heart, and old Isaac having now been gathered to his people, he says : “ When the days of mourning for my father are over, I will slay my brother Jacob.” Does he take any steps to make good his threat ? We have no information of any. But Rebekah has overheard the rash words, and sends her darling Jacob to Padan-Aram out of the way, until the easy Esau’s anger should be abated, and he had forgotten, or shall we say forgiven, the wrong that had been done him. What befals Jacob on his way to Padan-Aram ? He has a wonderful dream. About his unbrotherly and unfilial conduct, doubt­ less ; and the bad part he has played being brought home to him, he resolves to make amends and restitut on to the extent in his power ? Nothing of the kind! The sun having set, and the night coming on, he makes a pillow of one of the stones where he is, and lays him down to sleep. And he dreams that he sees a ladder set on the earth �84 ’The Pentateuch, ■with its top reaching to heaven, up and down which the angels of Elohim come and go, Jehovah himself standing above and over all. What then ? Jehovah speaks and informs the dreaming man that he is Jehovah, the God of Abraham and of Isaac his father; that he will give the land on which he lies to him and to his seed, which should be as the dust of the earth, and prove a blessing to all the families of the earth ; “ and,” continues the narrative, “I am with thee and will keep thee in all the places whither thou goest, and I will bring thee again into this land, and will not leave thee until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.” Jacob awakes ? And says : “ Surely Jehovah is in this place and I knew it not. This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” He then sets up the stone on which he had pillowed his head as a pillar, pours oil on its top by way of consecrating it and calls the spot Beth-El—House of God, the name of the place having at first been Luz (Lux, Light). What may be the meaning of Jacob’s act ? Stones, as enduring things, appear to have been almost universally objects of reverence and worship with men in the long-continued infancy of the human mind. As pillars they had a special significance, and were then looked on as typical of the instrument efficient in the wonderful faculty possessed by living creatures of reproducing their kind. The stone column or token set up by Jacob was neither more nor less than the Phallic emblem, before which he and his forefathers were wont to prostrate themselves.m And the oil he poured on its top was a further offerm Et verisimiliter semen eorum Numini sub symbolo phallico culto proferre, sicut mos adhuc hodie est apud indigenos Ter­ rarum Bengalensium.—Conf. Levit. xviii. 21, and xx. 2. �Genesis: Jacob. 85 ing to the divine power it represented for fertility and increase. Has this respect or reverence for the stone pillar as symbol of the reproductive principle in nature yet died out from among men ? By no means. The Jews through the whole of their history, even to the time when the Temple of Solomon was built, erected pillars of wood and stone to the gods they worshipped—to Baal and Aschera in espe­ cial, before which they presented their sacrifices, and at the feet of whose altars they poured the blood of their victims and their drink offerings. Nor can it be said that the sacred stone, disguised as column, obelisk, or steeple, has yet gone out of date, though its meaning is no longer understood. The obelisk in front of St Peter’s at Home and the spires of our churches are emblematic of the same thing as the stone which Jacob set up, as the columns erected on the “ high places ” to Baal and Aschera, and as those that stood before Solomon’s Temple. In certain districts of India —the country that gave birth to so many of the reli­ gious ideas and to all the philosophy of the world— at the present time every village has its sacred stone usually set up under the shade of'a Tree, upon which newly-married and barren women come and seat them­ selves after pouring a libation of ghee or oil on its top. Neither was the sacred stone left out of the reckoning by our own forefathers in the olden time. The King was not held as duly installed in his office unless he were seated on a stone, hence our Saxon King's-stone still to be seen railed about in the town of Kingston-on-Thames; the Scotch King’s-stone car­ ried away from Scone by Edward III., and now preserved in Westminster Abbey under the rude chair which served for a throne; London-stone still notable in Gannon Street; and, to go farther afield, the black stone of the Gaaba of Mecca, to prostrate themselves before which come the thousands of Moslems annually �86 The Pentateuch. from their distant homes, there to have the seal affixed as it were to their title-deed to heaven. Nor is the anointing in many instances omitted; the consecra­ tion of the king and priest is not held complete with­ out the application of the chrism or holy oil; and the poorest adherent of the Church of Rome has extreme unction at last by way of passport for the journey from which there is no returning. These are all plainly lingering remnants of a symbolical worship that was once universal in the world, and of which the mean­ ingless traces might now, as it seems, advantageously disappear from among us. Having set up and consecrated his token, Jacob vows a vow ? Saying : “ If Elohe will be with me, and keep me in the way I go, and give me bread and raiment so that I come again to my father’s house, then shall Jehovah be my God, and this stone which I have set up for a token shall be God’s house.” Jacob’s God, we are therefore to conclude, had heretofore been El, Elohe or El-shaddai; but, were his prayer granted, he would then take Jehovah in his stead. Here it is impossible to overlook the hand of the late Jehovistic writer. Jehovah was the peculiar Deity of the postexilic reforming party among the Jews, and it could not but be of the highest moment to him and to them to exhibit their chief patriarch as a worshipper of their God. But Jacob, if there ever really lived such a personage, could never have heard of the Jewish Jehovah; El, El-Shaddai, or some other of the El compounds was the name of the God he worshipped. Jacob, in fact, bargains with the Supreme Being as he had bargained with Esau for the mess of pottage in lieu of the birthright ? He is made to do so, at all events. If God will do so and so, then will he, Jacob, on his part do so and so in return. To conciliate Jehovah, the God of the writer, Jacob is presented to us as ready to give up �Genesis; Jacob. 87 his own old familiar God or Gods, El or Elohim. Jacob always meets us as a dealer or bargain-maker; but shows himself ready in the present instance to give an equivalent, or what he seems to have thought was an equivalent, for the benefits he expected him­ self to receive. “ Of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee,” is the con­ cluding item in the compact he enters into with his God—a clause added, we cannot doubt, by a still later hand, one of a brotherhood who never lose sight of their own interest. The terms do not seem over liberal ? As regards God the giver of AU they have no meaning; as regards the priesthood, who here stand for the Thou and the Thee, they are even more than liberal. Do tithes, of which so much has since been made, appear to have been originally bestowed for the pecu­ liar benefit of the priesthood, or the church they represented ? By no means. The tithe of the corn and oil and wine which the land produced, and of the flocks and herds of the year, was to be solemnly eaten by the people themselves in the holy place, that they might learn to fear Jehovah. Tithe was, in fact, to be dedi­ cated to rejoicing and merry-making. Were the place too far off which J ehovah should choose for the festive occasion, the tithe of all was then to be turned into money, and the money spent “on whatsoever their souls lusted after.” (Deut. xiv. 22, et seq.) The widow, the fatherless, and the stranger also were to share, and the Levite, as having no possessions, was not to be forgotten. But none of the tithe was to be expended on occasions of mourning, nor was aught of it to be given for the dead (Deut. xxvi. 14); i.e., it was not to be spent on the articles of meat and drink with which the dead among so many peoples in the olden time were provided for the journey to the dis- �88 Phe Pentateuch. taut land, the place of disembodied spirits. Taking the last quoted text for a guide, the clergy of the Church of Rome might possibly see the impropriety of levying contributions on their flocks for masses and prayers for the dead. Jacob proceeds on his journey and comes to Haran, where he makes acquaintance with his kinsfolk on the mother’s side, having halted by a well, precisely as Isaac’s messenger had done. As with Rebekah, so now with Rachel, the younger of Laban’s two daughters, who comes to the well to water her father’s sheep. Jacob is smitten with the damsel, falls in love with her as matter of course, is presented to Laban her father, and agrees (another bargain) to serve seven years with him for Rachel as his wife. This he does fairly and truly, but he is deceived by Laban at the end of the term, he substituting his elder daughter Leah for Rachel the younger, the be­ trothed, on the bridal night. What happens when Jacob discovers that he has been imposed on ? He complains to Laban of the trick that has been played him, and says : “ Did not I serve with thee for Rachel ; wherefore then hast thou beguiled me ? ” What says Laban to this ? He replies that the younger must not be given in marriage before the first-born ; but he adds : “ Fulfil her (Leah’s) week and we will give thee this (Rachel) for the service which thou shalt serve with me for yet seven years.” Jacob accepts the terms ? He does ; fulfils his week manfully with Leah, and Laban then gives him his second daughter to wife also. The Jews of old must have been less fastidious in such matters than folks of the present day ; where in all civilised communities a man may not only not have two wives, and still less two sisters as wives, living with him at the same time—which the Jews them- �Genesis: Jacob. 89 selves in later days did not allow,—conditions all of them reasonable enough; but a man may not now marry the sister of a deceased wife,—a prohibition altogether unreasonable; for not only is there no consanguinity between the man and the woman here which might prove a legitimate bar to their union, but there is the strong and natural tie between the living sister and the children—if children there be—of her who has prematurely passed away. What is the upshot of the double marriage ? Leah, who has been imposed on Jacob, naturally enough is not loved by him as he loves Rachel; but “when Jehovah,” according to the text, “ saw that Leah was hated, he (in requital) opened her womb ; ” but Rachel, like Sarah, the mother of Isaac, and Jacob’s mother Rebekah, is barren at first—for there is incessant iteration of like incidents in these mythical and legendary tales—and only, like the re­ markable women referred to, fruitful at length. Rachel, barren herself for a time, and envious of her fruitful sister, in imitation of Sarah with Hagar, doubtless, gives her handmaid Bilhah to her hus­ band as a concubine or third wife, and she conceives and bears Jacob two sons in succession. There is more of this, is there not ? . Plenty; Leah having ceased bearing, as she ima­ gined, after having given Jacob four sons, follows her sister’s example, and gives her handmaid Zilpah as a second concubine or fourth wife to her husband; and she too, like Bilhah, presents the Patriarch with two sons one after- the other. What farther ? It were neither edifying nor seemly to proceed with particulars; for the tale is now of Jacob cohabiting with one and then with another of his wives or con­ cubines, and next of Leah—fruitful again through eating mandrakes, it is said, found for her in the wheat-field by her son Reuben, so that she adds a �9° The Pentateuch. fifth and a sixth son. and a daughter to the four she had already presented to her lord. And Rachel F All in good time ! As Jehovah by our text had seen that Leah was hated and had opened her womb by way of return, so does he now remember Rachel in her yearnings for offspring: “ Give me children or else I die,” she had said to Jacob in her passion; and though Jacob’s anger is kindled against her, and he has said : “ Am I in God’s stead who hath withheld from thee the fruit of thy womb F ” he continues to cohabit with her, and she, having partaken of her sister’s mandrakes, becomes a mother at last, bears a son whom she calls Joseph, and exclaims in her joy : “ God hath taken away my reproach ; ” for the Jews held barrenness in woman to be a sign of imperfection and incapacity, if not even of the divine displeasure. What is the mandrake which Reuben found for his mother Leah, and to which such virtue is ascribed F The Hebrew word translated mandrake in our ver­ sion, is rendered “Mele mandragora” by the Greeks, and is commonly said to be the love apple or tomato ; but this is probably a mistake. The mandrake was a tap-root plant of some sort; and the name is still given by our unlettered herbalists to the root of the white bryony—a drastic purgative, however, not cal­ culated, as it might seem, to provoke appetite or aid conception, as the Jews believed. Jacob having now secured his wives and concubines, and with a numerous offspring rising about him, grows weary of his servitude to Laban and notifies his desire to be gone—what says Laban to this F Laban would have him tarry, and bids him name his own terms if he will consent to do so. What says Jacob to the offer F He boasts of the advantage his service has already proved to Laban : “It was little thou hadst when I came, and now it is increased into a multitude,” is the �Genesis : Jacob. gi prelude io his proposition for payment not in money but in kind : those among the goats that were already or that should be born ring-streaked, speckled or spotted, and those among the sheep that were brown, were to be for his hire. Laban consents ? He does : the flocks are shed and Jacob’s parti­ coloured lots are driven off under the care of his sons, three days’ journey from Laban’s white or self­ coloured cattle. What device does the artful Jacob practise now ? He peels him white streaks in green rods of poplar, hazel and chesnut, which he sets up in the watering­ troughs of the sheep and goats; and so arranges matters that the females shall only conceive when they come to drink, the consequence of which is, as said, that the young produced are mostly ringstreaked, spotted and speckled. Jacob, the wily, does yet more than this ? He does; and always with an especial eye to his own advantage and something like his father-in-law Laban’s disadvantage : he only puts his peeled rods in the watering-troughs when the strongest of the cattle are about to become pregnant; “ when the cattle were feeble he put them not in,” says the text, which continues : “ and so the feebler were Laban’s, and the stronger Jacob’s.” This does not seem over and above honest in Jacob ? It is everything but honest; it is shamefully and barefacedly dishonest. It may be condoned, indeed, by referring to the old Jewish law of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, for Laban had unquestionably imposed on Jacob, and Jacob may be said to have but paid him back in his own coin: “If my father cheat me, I shall cheat my father,” said, or is said to have said,, a distinguished member of the Jewish com­ munity among ourselves, dealing largely in foreign securities, in days not long gone by. �92 The Pentateuch. There is another version of this notable story, as of so many more in the Hebrew Scriptures ? There is, and with different, circumstances; for Jacob is now absolved of any need to have recourse to craft or to play the part of dishonest herdsman. Here Jacob complains to his wives Leah and Rachel, the sisters, that their father Laban had withdrawn his countenance from him, had changed his wages ten times, saying now that the speckled, and then, that the ring-streaked cattle should be his portion; “ but the God of my father,” he proceeds, “ has been with me, and suffered him not to hurt me ; for if he said : the speckled shall be thy wages, then all the cattle bare speckled ; and if he said thus : the ringstreaked shall be thy share, then bare all the cattle ring-streaked; and thus God hath taken away the cattle of your father and given them to me.” This is surely making too familiar a use of God’s presumed interference in the affairs of men ? It is in strict conformity, however, with antique Jewish notions that God took immediate part in even the most minute and intimate relations of their lives; and, farther, that the Supreme had favourites, irre­ spective of merit, among the children of men. The old J ewish writers had no conception of a world, and of man as one of its elements, ruled by great universal, eternal, and necessary laws, expression to the culti­ vated mind of to-day of the power and true providence Jacob has a dream besides, that may have put him on the natural way of securing ring-streaked and speckled cattle for himself without having recourse to the questionable procedure of the peeled rods ? The angel of Jehovah, he tells his sister-wives, spake with him in a dream, saying : “ Jacob ! and I said : Here am I. And he said: See, all the rams which leap the cattle are ring-streaked, speckled and griseled, and I have seen all that Laban doeth unto �Genesis• Jacob. 93 thee ; I am the God of Beth-El, where thou anointedst the pillar and vowedst a vow unto me. Now, arise ; get thee out from this land, and return into the land of thy kindred.” Eave we any fact that might help to explain the myth of the peeled rods used by Jacob in securing the increase of his part among the flocks ? It is not uninteresting to observe that the figure of the man who holds the scales with one hand in the sign of Libra on some of the oldest of the Zodiacs has a streaked rod or rule in the other. Now, Sep­ tember, the month in which the sun entered Libra in former times, is that also in which the ewes begin to conceive; whence it has been conjectured that the Hebrew writer was taking hints from the pictorial calendar for the composition of his story. What say the wives to the communication of Jehovah, which may, nevertheless, very well reflect Jacob’s own waking thoughts and aspirations ? Seeing, as they say, that they “ have no longer any portion or inheritance in their father’s house and are counted of him as strangers, for he hath sold us and quite devoured also our money; for all the riches which God hath taken from our father is ours and our children’s ; therefore whatsoever God hath said unto thee, do.” Laban certainly has not shown himself a strictly honest man in his dealings with the husband of his daughters ; but they in turn seem to show little of the love and devotion naturally to be looked for in chil­ dren to their parent ? This is true: they forget the long years' through which their father fed and housed and clothed them. In conformity with the notions of their age, however, they are made to ascribe the increasing poverty of their father to the displeasure, and the growing wealth of their husband to the favour of their God. The device of the rods, were God like the impar- �94 The Pentateuch. tial judge we look for among ourselves, would have brought punishment on Jacob, not yielded him re­ ward ? Premeditated and deliberate dishonesty is the worst of dishonesties, and selfishness is a mean and sorry vice ; but the punishment and the reward are with man, not with God, save as he is represented by man. Jacob hearkens to the counsel of his wives ? He does forthwith: setting his family on camels and stealing away without a word to his father-inlaw Laban, who has gone sheep-shearing and hears nothing of the flight for several days, he turns his face towards Gilead with all he has, and there arrived he pitches his tents. Beside what might be called her own, has not Rachel taken some things that did not rightfully belong to her ? She has “ stolen the Images that were her father’s.” Images in the possession of Laban, descendant in the direct line from Nahor Abraham’s brother, father of Leah and Rachel the wives of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham ! This is unlooked for in­ formation. The man must have been an Idolater ? The story seems plainly to say as much. But were ever the Hebrews, either then or for centuries after­ wards, anything but Fetish worshippers ? They declared emphatically in later times that they were the chosen people of Jehovah, their God; and their descendants, exiles from the land that was pro­ mised to them as an inheritance for ever, and scattered over the face of the habitable globe, still believe them­ selves to be so. This is wonderful enough, all things considered; but still more wonderful is the fact, that the European communities have continued so long to take them at their word, and to look on them as wor­ shippers of the One God. �Genesis: Jacob. 95 Laban, absent from home, hears nothing of the flight of Jacob and his wives for three days ; but informed of it at length, and missing his property and his house­ hold gods, he sets out in pursuit seven days’ journey, intending recovery doubtless of the things abstracted, if not more serious reprisals. Before coming up with the fugitives on Mount Gilead, how­ ever, he has a communication from Elohim—God. God, it is said, visited Laban the Aramaean in a dream by night, and admonished him to speak neither good nor bad to Jacob, so that when he overtook him at length, heonly ventured to reproach him with having stolen away with his daughters as captives taken with the sword, and adds : Though thou wouldst be gone, because thou sore longedst for thy father’s house, yet wherefore hast thou stolen my gods ? Jacob, unaware of this particular theft, denies it: “With whomsoever thou findest thy gods,” he says, “ let him not live.” So Laban searches for his gods throughout the encampment, but in vain; for Rachel, the thief, has secreted them in the camels’ furniture and sat down upon them ; and as she excuses herself from rising because of a certain natural visitation— the nature of which she is not so delicate as not to explain—the gods cannot be found. This gives Jacob an opportunity to turn round on Laban, and to be wroth with him ? An opportunity he is not slow to improve : “ What is my trespass,” says he, “ what is my sin that thou hast so hotly pursued after me.” Boasting of his long and faithful service, he says roundly to his father-inlaw : “ Except the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the fear of Isaac had been with me, thou hadst surely sent me now empty away. God hath seen my affliction and the labour of my hands, and rebuked thee yester-night.” How could Jacob know this ? There is no difficulty, the familiar terms considered �96 The Pentateuch. upon which the Patriarchs were with their God, who may have informed him ! Laban is appeased, and says to Jacob: Now there­ fore, let us make a covenant, I and thou, and let it be for a witness between me and thee. What does Jacob ? He takes a stone and sets it up for a pillar, and the two parties, heaping stones about it, call it Galeed and Mizpah, for it is to be at once a witness and a landmark between them, Laban stipulating for good treatment for his daughters, and that no other wives should be taken by Jacob to afflict them, and both agreeing that neither he nor Jacob should pass beyond the heap to do each other harm. Laban then kisses his sons and his daughters, blesses them, and returns to his place, whilst Jacob offers sacrifice upon the mount where he is encamped. What is the next interesting incident in the history of the patriarch Jacob ? Proceeding on his way and meeting “ the angels of_, God ” in a place he calls Mahanai'm, he thence dispatches messengers to his brother Esau whom he had so grievously wronged, then dwelling in Seir in the land of Edom, and bids them say “ unto my Lord Esau” that “ his servant Jacob ” is in his territory and hopes to find grace in his sight. Well ? S The messengers return to Jacob and report to him that . his brother Esau, informed of his coming, is on his way to meet him with a great retinue of men, four hundred in number. And Jacob ? Conscience-stricken and fearing his brother’s anger, when he hears of the great attendance, he divides his people and his flocks into two ; lest Esau coming with hostile purpose smite the one company, then the other should escape. What more ? �Genesis : Jacob and Esau. gj He prays to his God, as men mostly do in straits and difficulties ; reminds him of the promises already made and of the order to return into his own country now in course of being obeyed, and owns himself un­ worthy of all the favour shown him. “ With my staff,” says he, “ I passed over this Jordan, and now I am become two bands; deliver me, I pray thee, from the hand of my brother Esau, for I fear him, lest he come and smite me and the mother with the children. And thou saidst I will surely do thee good, and make thy seed as the sand of the sea which cannot be numbered for multitude.” Jacob must needs think that his God required to be reminded of his promises ? It plainly enough appears so ; but Jacob’s idea of God was very different from that of the enlightened of the present day ; although not very different per­ haps from that still entertained by the vulgar and uninformed. To conciliate his brother Esau, Jacob makes ready a handsome present in conformity with oriental usage ? A very handsome present, indeed, which he sends on before, he himself following at the head of the train with the handmaids and their children in the van, Leah and her children next, Rachel and Joseph last of all—the least cherished there­ fore in front, the dearest in the rear, lest Esau should prove hostile. How does Jacob comport himself in presence of his brother ? Lifting up his eyes and seeing Esau coming on with his numerous escort, be advances and “ bows himself seven times to the ground as he draws neai’ his brother.” And Esau ? “Esau ran to meet his brother Jacob” who had bargained away from him his birthright and stolen H �98 The Pentateuch. from him his father’s blessing, “ and embraced him, and fell upon his neck and kissed him, and they wept.” Esau must have been of a kindly and forgiving nature ? Surely he was so, or he is made to appear so by the writer who tells the tale ; generous too, was Esau, and open and honourable. “ Who are all these belonging to thee,” he inquires of his brother ; and his brother answers : “ The children which God hath graciously given thy servantand they all bowed themselves ; and after came Rachel and Joseph, and they bowed themselves. And he inquired further : “ What meanest thou by all this drove which I met ?” And Jacob answered : “ These are to find grace in the sight of my lord.” And Esau, to the cringing and fair-faced show of his brother ? Answers : “ I have enough, my brother, keep that thou hast unto thyself.” To which Jacob ? Replies : “ Nay, I pray thee ; if now I have found grace in thy sight then receive my present at my hand ; for I have seen thy face as though I had seen the face of God, and thou wast pleased with me— take, I pray thee my present (not blessing as in our English version) that is brought to thee ; God hath dealt graciously with me, and I have all things. And he urged him, and he took it.” Jacob belords his brother still further, does he not? After putting his brother on a level with his God there was little room for' further flattery, yet he uses such phrases as these : “ My lord knoweth ; ” “ Let my lord, I pray“ Let me find grace in the sight of my lord.” The brothers part good friends and reconciled ? They do; Esau returns to Seir ; and Jacob wending on his way comes to Shalem in the land of Canaan, �Genesis: 'Jacob wrestles with Elohe. 99 ■where he buys part of a field and erects a Pillar which he calls El-Elohe-Israel—a compound of the names by which the God of the primitive Semitic tribes possessing Palestine was known. There is a notable and most extraordinary incident met with in the middle of the narrative of the meeting between Jacob and Esau, but connected with the name of Israel, which we have just seen applied to the pillar erected by Jacob ? A very notable and to modern apprehension extra­ ordinary incident indeed. As Jacob is journeying towards Seir to meet his brother, he is “ left alone ; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day; and when the man saw that he prevailed not against Jacob, he touched the hollow of his thigh, so that the hollow of Jacob’s thigh was out of joint as he wrestled with him ; and he said: Let me go, for the day breaketh ! And Jacob said : I will not let thee go unless thou bless me. And the man said: What is thy .name; and he said Jacob. And the man said: Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel (Prince of God), for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast pre­ vailed.” Does not Jacob also question his opponent as to who or what he is ? Jacob says: “ Tell me, I pray thee, thy name,” and his adversary answers: “Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name ?” But Jacob’s question was most pertinent; for in days when there were believed to be many gods it was very necessary to know who the One was with whom intercourse was had ; and this could best be done through the name and title of the individual. Jacob’s opponent does not tell his name nor say who he is ? He does not; but owning himself in some sort worsted in the encounter, only escaping from Jacob’s �IOO The Pentateuch. grip indeed by touching a tender part of his body, he blesses Jacob, who calls the place where the en­ counter happened Peniel (the face of God) ; for says he : “I have seen God face to face and my life is pre­ served.” Jacob’s opponent would, therefore, seem to have been no man, as said in the text, but El, Elohe, or God himself in person. . What interpretation can be put upon this strange and obviously mythical tale ? More than one has been attempted ; but its sense has mostly remained to orthodox expositors as dark as the darkest of the night in which the wrestling match is said to have occurred. From the narrative, Jacob evidently supposes that it was his God El with whom he had been striving, though to our modern notions the idea of man struggling with God in flesh and blood seems even too extravagant to have been possibly entertained. Jacob, however, does say that he had seen God face to face ; so that on this point there can be no question. It is then to be noted that the opponent desires to be let go when “ the day begins to break ; ” and that “ the sun rises ” on Jacob as he passes over Peniel halting, yet with a blessing from the encounter. These particulars, aided by a small amount-of mythological knowledge, give a key to the mystery involved in the tale : It is allegorical of the struggle between Light and Darkness, i.e., between the beneficent and the adverse aspects of Nature, combined in the Hebrew conception of the Deity. The tale is probably a fragment of a larger document, dissevered from the rest of the record which told of the Light or Sun, Moon and Planet worship followed by the far-off forefathers of the Hebrew race, before they had swarmed away from the hills and valleys of the high lands of Armenia and Mesopo­ tamia. It has no connection, save by inference, with anything that has gone before, nor with anything that comes after in the Hebrew Scriptures—not even with �Genesis: Jacob the Wrestler. ioi the change of Jacob’s name, for that had been men­ tioned already. The hollow of Jacob’s thigh is said to have been put out of joint in one part of the narrative (xxxii. 25) ; in another (v. 32) it is a sinew which is said to have shrunk—“the sinew which is upon the hollow of the thigh ; therefore,” it is added, “ the children of Israel eat not of the sinew which shrank unto this day.” The meaning of this, too, must be allegorical ? No doubt of it. The part which the children of Israel “ eat not unto this day” is neither the great sciatic nerve, as is sometimes said, nor any tendon connected with a muscle. Have we not a story akin to this in what is called the Pagan Mythology ? We have—in the myth of the wrestling bout that takes place between the Tyrian Heracles and Zeus, in which Heracles, like Jacob, comes off halting with a dislocation of the thigh. But why the story here should be characterised as pagan and called mytho­ logical and incredible, whilst the Hebrew tale is looked on as sacred and held worthy of belief, is not so obvious. The two myths have doubtless a common origin. The Tyrian hero, the god in his favourable aspect, contends with the Father of gods and men in his adverse aspect, precisely as Jacob— Israel the wrestler, assumed as symbolical of light, contends with Elohe in his quality of darkness, or the night. But Phoenicians, Tyrians, Canaanites, Israel­ ites, &c., were all alike children of the same Semitic stock, spoke closely allied dialects of the same lan­ guage, and in their religious ideas, rites and ceremo­ nies were at one. There is another version of the wrestling match between Hercules and an adversary, which throws additional light on the Hebrew fragment ? It is that in which Hercules contends with Antaeus. �102 The Pentateuch. The sun—Hercules, wrapt in the lion’s skin, had his domicile in the zodiacal sign Leo; Anteus had his in that of Aquarius. But Leo is the sign in which the sun is supreme, and summer is in the ascendant; Aquarius the sign in which the sun is at the lowest point of his annual course, and winter rules the year. Hercules’ adversary is aptly named Antaeus, Opponent, -—his opposite or other self, in ceaseless contention with whom he is alternately the victor and the van­ quished, the light now getting the better of the dark, the dark in turn becoming superior to the light, but each destined ere long again and in endless succes­ sion to yield to the other. What happens after the brothers Jacob and Esau have taken their several ways ? Dinah, the daughter of Jacob by Leah, is violated by Shechem, son of Hamor the Hivite, who, however, inconsistently as it seems, then makes suit through his father to Jacob to have the damsel to wife. Does Jacob agree to the proposal ? We have no account of his objecting, but his sons are wroth with Shechem when they hear of the wrong he has done to Dinah their sister. Nevertheless, to the proposals made for reparation by marriage, they answer deceitfully, and say they cannot give their sister to one that is uncircumcised, but if every male of the Hivites will consent to circumcision, then say they we will give our daughters to you, and we will take your daughters to us, and we will dwell with you and become one people. The Hivites agree to the terms; do Jacob and his sons keep faith with them ? Far from it; there is small account of good faith between man and man in the legendary and mythical accounts we have of these early times. On the third day, when the circumcised Hivites are sore from the operation, Simeon and Levi, two of Jacob’s sons, “ take each man his sword and come upon the city �Genesis : 'Jacob and the Hivites. 103 boldly and slay the males,” despoiling and carrying off all it contained in the shape of cattle and other wealth, and leading the women and their little ones into captivity. Deception and cruelty seem to have been very much at home with Jacob and his family ? So it plainly appears. Jacob, however, is not alto­ gether satisfied with the daring act of his sons. But it is not with their faithlessness and barbarity that he quarrels; it is because by what they have done they have made him “ to stink ” among the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites and Perizzites; and “ I, being few in number (he says), they will gather themselves together against me and slay me and my house.” * There is happily an air of improbability about this story which seems to take it out of the sphere of his­ tory, is there not ? . There is, and not only of improbability, but of im­ possibility. Two men, even with every advantage of arms, could scarcely enter the smallest hamlet, slay all the males, load themselves with the spoil, drive off the flocks and herds, and carry away the women and children with impunity. There are two accounts, moreover, of this business in the same chapter of Genesis, one of which may be read complete without a word of the slaughter and spoil which figure in the other; and, as that seems to be the older record, let us also trust that it is the more truthful of the two.n What incidents worth noting occur in Jacob’s on­ ward journey ? Ordered by his God to go up to Beth-el and there to erect a pillar, he commands his household and all who are with him to put away the strange gods that are among them. u See Bernstein’s Origin of the Legends of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob for a new and probably correct explanation of this fable. �104 'The Pentateuch. This is an extraordinary order ! How should Jacob, the familiar of his God and father of the Israelites, have suffered strange gods in his family ? But they obey ? They give Jacob all the strange gods that were in their hand, and their rings also, and he buries them under the Oak that was by Shechem ? Jacob and his family would seem from this to have been, like Laban and his daughters, idolaters ? That they were and did long continue to be so there can be no doubt. The strange gods were, of course, household images of small size, such as Rachel had. stolen from her father Laban. But the rings were not gods ? No ; but rings of all kinds—ear-rings, nose-rings, finger-rings, bracelets, anklets—were amulets dr fetiches, emblematic of the Yoni or female element in the reproductive power of nature—of which the cosmical snake—the symbol of eternity— with its tail in its mouth, was the prototype. The Egyptian divinities are always represented with what is called the Key of the Nile in one hand—a circle or loop with a cross below—the circle, sign of eternity, the cross significant of the four great epochs in the flight of time, or of the moments when the sun, in his annual round, crossed the equator at the vernal and autumnal equinoxes, and attained his highest summer and lowest winter meridian altitudes. The place where the strange gods and the rings are buried has also its significance, has it not ? No doubt it has; they were buried under the Oak as a propitiatory offering to the life-giving principle in nature, universally typified among the earlier races of mankind by trees. Jacob comes to Padan Aram, and there God, as it is said, appears to him again, informs him that he is El-Scliaddai — God the mighty ; tells him that his name shall not any more be Jacob, but Israel; bids �Genesis: 'Jacob. I05 him be fruitful and multiply • says that a nation and a company of nations should be of him, and that kings should come out of his loins, whilst the land that had been promised to Abraham and Isaac should be con­ firmed to him and to his progeny for ever. “ And then,” continues the narrative, “ God went up from him in the place where he talked with him.” Have we not had much of this story already, with certain strange accessories ? Certainly; where we had the account of the wrestling match that took place in the night season, and only ended with the dawning of the day; when Jacob’s name was changed to Israel, &c. Can man,*reasonable and cultivated man, really and truly accept such tales as inspired revelations from God, or as guides to piety and purity of life ? They are, undoubtedly, accepted as revelations, and still believed in as actual occurrences, though the end to be served by them in the direction indicated is not so obvious. To the emancipated from superstitious beliefs, however, it is inconceivable how they should still pass current in the world, or be received as sup­ plying examples that are not rather to be shunned than followed. Had not men determined beforehand that they had come from sacred and inspired sources, their details and tendencies would assuredly never have led to the conclusion that they had had any such hallowed origin as that ascribed to them. Reading the Hebrew Scriptures as thus, with unsealed eyes, and by the light of collateral know­ ledge, mythological and other, are we not forced on conclusions as to the origin, worth, and real signifi­ cance of these ancient writings, very different from such as are generally entertained ? So much follows of necessity; and we are then left at liberty, from the book of nature and our own minds, to form nobler and more worthy conceptions of God and his Providential rule of the world than �106 The Pentateuch. any that are to be gathered from Hebrew sources; and, further, to think that better books than the Bible may be found to aid in the education of the young. ■ Journeying from Beth-el, what happens ? Rachel is taken in labour, and dies in giving birth to her son Benjamin; then there is a foul tale of Reuben in connection with Bilhah, one of his father’s wives or concubines; lastly, Jacob visits his father Isaac in Hebron, where the old man dies at an in­ credible age, and is buried by his sons Jacob and Esau. Jacob then continues to dwell in the land of Canaan, in which his father was a stranger, and Joseph, his son by Rachel, now seventeen years old, tends the flocks of his father along with his brothers, the sons of Leah, Bilhah and Zilpah. Joseph is not liked by his brothers ? No,; Joseph as the elder-born of Rachel, Jacob’s first love, and because he was the child of his old age, “ was more loved by Israel than all his children.” This naturally begat jealousy and dislike among the others ; and then, as we are told that Joseph “ brought to their father evil reports of his brothers,” this assuredly would not make them love him any the more. Joseph has a dream besides that still further inflames the dislike of his brothers ? He dreams that as he and his brothers were binding sheaves in the field, his sheaf stood upright, and all his brothers’ sheaves stood round about and made obeisance to his sheaf. Has he not yet another dream P He dreams further that the sun, moon, and eleven stars made obeisance to him ; and when he tells this dream to his father he is rebuked by his parent, who says, identifying himself, Rebekah, and his eleven sons with the sun, moon, and stars of the dream : “What is this dream that thou hast dreamed ? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow �Genesis: yose'ph. 107 down ourselves to thee ?” Jacob, nevertheless, “observes the saying,” and Joseph is naturally hated more than ever by the other members of the family. The Jews of old thought more of dreams than do men of culture in the present day ? Than men of culture, certainly, though dreams still puzzle and terrify the ignorant and superstitious vulgar. The Jews of old thought that “ dreams were from God;” they generally interpreted them literally, though sometimes also allegorically; and the great bulk of their presumed communications from God appear to have been receivedin dreams and visions of the night, a mode of communication little trusted at the present time, wherein men rely more and more advantageously on knowledge and waking thoughts than on sleeping fancies. The further account, leading to the catastrophe that is in preparation, informs us that Israel sends Joseph to Shechem as a spy upon his other sons : “ Go, I pray thee,” says Jacob, “ see whether it is well with thy brothers, and well with the flocks, and bring me word again.” A delegate of the kind would not be apt to be over well received ? Hardly; and the brothers, when they saw him afar off, even before he came near them, conspired against him to slay him. “ Here cometh this man of dreams,” say they; “ and now let us slay him and cast him into one of the pits, and we will say some evil beast hath devoured him, and we shall see what will become of his dreams.” Reuben, however, interposes, and bids the rest “ shed no blood, but cast him into a pit,” intending thus, it would seem, to save his life and restore him to his father ? According to a second account it is Judah who interferes : “ What profit,” says he, “ will it be if we slay our brother and conceal his blood; come let us sell him to the Ishmaelites (a troop of whom, �io8 Phe Pentateuch. going towards Egypt, have come in sight) ; let not our hand be upon him, for he is our brother.” There appear to be two accounts of this bad busi­ ness, drawn.from different documents, and jumbled together, as in so many other parts of the Jewish sacred writings. In one it is Reuben who saves Joseph alive ; in another it is Judah. Here it is Judah and the brethren who sell Joseph to Ishmaelites, there it is Midianitish merchants who draw him out of the pit and sell him to Ishmaelites, who carry him to Egypt; and again it is Midianites who sell him in Egypt to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh; and yet again it is Ishmaelites who effect the sale. What inference may be drawn from such diversity of statement ? That the idea of supernatural inspiration' in con­ nection with the Jewish Scriptures ought to be aban­ doned, and the matter seen as it must needs be in fact—viz. : that the compiler or editor is here, as elsewhere, drawing now from one document or tradi­ tion, and then from another, and that with the super­ stitious respect for the letter which characterised the Jews of old, and without a show of critical discrimi­ nation, he mixes up the several accounts into what he intended should be a continuous and consistent nar­ rative. Reuben, who is not made a party to the sale of his brother, returns to the pit, and “behold, Joseph was not there ! and he rent his clothes and came to his brethren and said : The child is not, and I, whither shall I go I ” The brothers take little heed of his wailing, but proceed as they had purposed ? They take Joseph’s coat of many colours, and having killed a kid, they dipped the coat in the blood, and brought it to their father, who knows it, and in his grief exclaims: “It is my son’s coat; an evil beast hath devoured him I” So he rends his clothes, puts sackcloth on his loins, mourns for his son many �Genesis : Judah and Tamar. 109 days, and refusing to be comforted, says : “ I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning.” A true and beautiful picture of natural affection sorely tried, and doubtless from the hand of one among the earliest of the true poets whose writings have come down to us 1 We have several particulars now related, not always of the most delicate and moral kind when viewed in the light of the more advanced ideas of delicacy and morality of the present day ? Particulars which, nevertheless, are interesting from an antiquarian and ethnological point of view, and important as marking intervals of time, and showing how little faith is to be attached to many of the nar­ ratives in the Hebrew Bible as embracing historical truth's. What are these ? Joseph is seventeen years old when he is sold into Egypt; and as Leah bears Issachar and Zebulon be­ tween the birth of Judah and that of Joseph, Judah must have been about twenty-four years of age at this time. Judah now takes Shuah to himself as wife, and she bears first one son, Er, then another, Onan, and yet a third, Shelah. Er, Judah’s first-born, is old enough to have a wife given him—Tamar; Er dies (he is said to have been “ wicked in the sight of the Lord, and so the Lord slew him”). Judah desires his second son Onan to take his late brother’s wife to himself, in conformity with the usage of the country, and raise up seed to his brother. But Onan does not like the match; and though he obeys his father in so far as the union went, he resolves, and so acts, as to raise no seed to his brother. This, it is said, “ displeased the Lord, and he slew him also.” Tamar, for the second time a widow, ought now to have been given in marriage to Shelah, Judah’s third son; but she had proved so disastrous a bargain to Er and Onan, that Judah must have hesitated to ven- �I IO The Pentateuch. ture on her with his sole remaining son. Tama? was dissatisfied when she sees that Shelah, though grown to man’s estate, is not given to her as her husband ; and she, the widow of two of his sons, resolves to seduce Judah himself. With this view she casts off her widow’s weeds, veils herself, shows herself in an open place as an harlot, and is addressed by Judah. “ What wilt thou give me?” says Tamar to Judah when solicited by him. “ I will give thee a kid from the flock,” he replies. “ Give me a pledge till thou send it.” “ What pledge shall I give thee ?” “ Thy signet and thy bracelets, and the staff that is in thine hand.” And he gave her all. Immediately after her incestuous intercourse with Judah, Tamar resumes her weeds, and when Judah sends the kid by his mes­ senger desiring to have back the pledges he had left with her, she is nowhere to be found. What does Judah ? He desires the kid to be disposed of, or given away, nevertheless, “lest,” as he says, “he should be shamed.” What next in this edifying story ? Judah is by and by informed that Tamar has played the harlot, and is with child; and be says : “ Bring her forth and let her be burnt.” What does Tamar ? When brought forth she shows the pledges she had had, and says : “ By the man whose these are am I with child; discern, I pray thee, whose are these— the signet, the bracelets, the staff.” And Judah ? Acknowledging the pledge, he declares that she has been “ more righteous than himself, because that he had not given her to wife -to Shelah his son.” Can we as moral beings conceive accounts of pro­ ceedings such as these to have been written under the inspiration of God for the instruction and im­ provement of mankind ? �Genesis: Joseph. Ill It is impossible. Or that God has in especial favour the men who are guilty of doings such as these, and the race who think them not unworthy of a place among their sacred annals as a people ? This, too, even on the vulgar showing, is impos­ sible. Or that we do well in putting the book which con­ tains such foul tales into the hands of our children as a means of furthering them in a knowledge of that wherein virtue and propriety of conduct consist r It is only brutal ignorance, blind bigotry, and gross superstition that can say it is well to do so. God has no favourites among his creatures, or, if he has, they are such alone as conform themselves to his laws —physical and moral. Through the understanding and higher moral nature wherewith man is endowed, God proclaims his condemnation of acts that are only worthy of the beasts of the field. But these tales are from the traditions of ages barbarous and long gone by, and only committed to writing in much more modern times,—traditions descending, it may be, from the Stone Age of the world, when men had no better tools than such as were poorly supplied by chipped flints, when they ate one another, and grilled and split the long bones of their sires for the marrow they contained. ' Joseph is brought to Egypt by the merchants or slave dealers, and sold to an officer of the Pharaoh, Potiphar by name, whose favourable opinion he forth­ with secures. by his good conduct and intelligence. Attempted to be seduced, and in her anger falsely accused by Potiphar’s wife, however, he falls into disgrace and is thrown into prison. Here, again, the propriety of his demeanour wins him the notice and confidence of the keeper of the prison; and having successfully interpreted the dreams of two of Pharaoh’s servants who had been put in ward for some offence, �I 12 The Pentateuch. he is brought under the notice of Pharaoh as a seer, Pharaoh himself having dreamed a two-fold dream, which none of the magicians or wise men of Egypt could interpret. Summoned to the presence, the Pharaoh tells his dream to Joseph, and he, from- its tenor, interprets it as a notice from God of the coming on of seven years of plenty, to be followed by seven years of dearth. Joseph is careful to take no credit to himself for his dream-interpreting powers ; in con­ formity with Jewish ideas, he says he had but given “ the answer of peace which he himself had received from God.” The Pharaoh accepts Joseph’s interpretation of his dream ? He does, and is so much pleased with the inter­ preter, that he takes him into his counsels ; appoints him as head over his house; takes the ring from his own finger, and puts it upon Joseph’s ; arrays him in fine linen; hangs a gold chain about his neck ; gives him to wife Asenath, daughter of the Priest of* On, and makes him ruler over all the land of Egypt. “ Only in the throne will I be greater than thou,” adds the confiding sovereign ruler of the land. This is a great and sudden rise ? A great and sudden rise, indeed; and all on the faith of the still untested truth of the interpretation of a dream ! Needful, however, as an introduction to the narrative that follows, viz.: The arrival of Israel and his family in Egypt, in consequence of the famine that conveniently prevailed at this time in the land of Canaan; the touching incidents of the meeting of Joseph with his unnatural brethren, and the retri­ butive justice which the writer would show to wait on evil, and the reward that follows well-doing. The years of plenty, succeeded by the years of famine, as predicted by Joseph from the Pharoah’s dream, follow, of course ? Of course they do; and Joseph gathers store of �113 Genesis: 'Joseph. Corn, as the sand of the sea, into all the granaries of Egypt'; so that, when the years of famine arrive, though dearth prevails in all the neighbouring lands, there is bread in Egypt. When the famine begins to be felt, Joseph unlocks his stores, and is liberal enough to sell, not only to the natives of the country, but, in aid of the story, to strangers also. Hearing that there is corn in Egypt, Jacob says to his sons, “Why look ye one upon another ? Behold, I have heard that there is corn in the land of Egypt; get ye down thither, and buy for us from thence that we may live and not die.” The sons depart ? Ten of them ; for Jacob will not part with Benja­ min, his youngest son, “ lest, peradventure, mischief befall him.” They arrive in Egypt; and Joseph “knew his brethren, but they knew not him.” They bow themselves with their faces to the earth before the great Governor of Egypt; and Joseph, remember­ ing his dreams, when he "sees them in this position, and, doubtless, not entirely forgetting the cruel usage he had had at their hands, then speaks roughly to them, asks them whence they came, and says to them, “ Ye are spies ; to see the nakedness of the land are ye come.” They excuse themselves ? “ Thy servants are no spies,” say they, “ but twelve brethren, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan; and, behold, the youngest is this day with our father, and one is not.” “ By the life of Pharaoh,” answers Joseph, “ ye shall not go hence, except your youngest brother come hither. Send one of you,” according to one version of the tale (for here we have two as usual—“ let one of you be bound in prison,” says the other version), “ whilst the rest carry corn for the famine of their houses, but bring your youngest brother to me, so shall your words be verified, and ye shall not die.” I �114 The Pentateuch. Then come the compunctious visitings upon the brethren for what they had done to Joseph ; and still, in the presence of the Governor, and speaking in their own tongue, they accuse one another of their hardbeartedness, notwitting that Joseph understood them, “for he spake to them by an interpreter.” Simeon is bound as hostage, and the rest depart with provision for the way, their sacks full of corn, and the money of each returned, tied up in the mouth of his sack. They reach home, and narrate to their father all that has befallen them ? And communicate the conditions on which Simeon is to be released ; but Jacob refuses absolutely to part with Benjamin: “ My son shall not go down with you; for his brother is dead, and he is left alone; if mischief befal him by the way, then shall ye bring down my grey hairs with sorrow to the grave.” But, the famine continuing, when they had eaten up the corn they had brought out of Egypt, Jacob bids them go again and buy a little food. The sons consent to go ? Only on condition that Benjamin is suffered to go with them : “ Slay my two sons,” says Reuben to his father, “ if I bring him not to thee again.” “ Send the lad with me,” says Judah, “ and we will arise and go; that we may live and not die, both we and thou and our little ones ; I will be surety for him ; of my hand shalt thou require him.” Jacob yields to their entreaties, and to sore necessity ? “ If it must be so now,” says the old man, “do this : take of the best fruits in the land, and carry down the man a present,—a little balm, and a little honey, spices and myrrh, nuts and almonds; and take double money in your hand; the money that was brought again in the mouth of your sacks carry again in your hand ; peradventure it was an oversight; take also your brother, and arise, go again unto the man, and �Genesis : Joseph. 115 God Almighty give you mercy before him, that he may send away your other brother and Benjamin : if I am bereaved of my children, I am bereaved ! ” They depart, and stand a second time before Joseph. When he sees Benjamin among them, he orders the ruler of his house to bring his brethren home, and to slay and make ready; for these men, says he, shall dine with me at noon ? Brought into Joseph’s house, they are much afraid, because of the money they had found returned in their sacks ; they excuse themselves to the steward; inform him of the money they had found, and show both this and that which they had now brought to buy more corn. The steward consoles them ? Saying : “ Peace be to you ; fear not; your God and the God of your father hath given you treasure in your sacks. I had your money; and he brought Simeon out unto them.” They make ready the present they had provided for Joseph, and bow themselves to the earth before him, when he comes home. Joseph asks kindly alter their welfare, and says: “ Is your father well, the old man of whom ye spake, is he yet alive ?” “ Thy ser­ vant our father is yet alive, he is in good health.” And lifting up his eyes, and seeing Benjamin, his mother’s son, he asks : “ Is this your younger brother of whom ye spake ? And he said, God be gracious unto thee, my son ! And he made haste, for his bowels yearned upon his brother; and he sought where to weep • and he entered into his chamber and wept there. And he washed his face and went out and refrained himself.” Prosperity and his wonderful rise in the world had not hardened Joseph’s heart, as so often happens ? Joseph is an impersonation of goodness and for­ giveness, drawn by a master’s hand in simple and beautiful words. But it is a tale such as belongs not �116 The Pentateuch. to the age of the world with which the name of Joseph,. the son of Jacob, is connected. It is the conception of an Isaiah or a Micah, or of a mind more delicate and refined than either of these-—a beautiful and touching story, unsurpassed in its treatment and its pathos; a story over which our eyes were wont to fill whiles we were children, as they fill now, after seventy years and more, perhaps, have passed over the heads of the men ! Joseph would seem to have taken some little plea­ sure in frightening his naughty brothers ; for he bids his steward put their money into the sacks of all as before, and his own silver drinking-cup, beside the money, into the sack of the youngest, so as to make it appear that the cup had been stolen. Dismissed on their way homewards, and outside the city gates, Joseph says to his steward : Up, follow after the men ; and when thou dost overtake them, say unto them : Wherefore have ye rewarded evil for good ? Is not this the cup in which my lord drinketh, and whereby indeed he divineth ? Joseph, it would therefore seem, was not only an interpreter of dreams, but a diviner in other ways ? Fortune-telling from the cup is still practised— more, perhaps, in jest than in earnest—among our­ selves. It is no golden jewelled goblet, however, such as we must presume Joseph’s to have been, with beads and rivulets of precious liquor stealing down its sides, that is now in use by our gossips. It is the homely tea-cup and the grounds adhering to the bottom and sides which are the hieroglyphics that prompt the Pythia in her responses. Accused of having purloined the cup, the men, in conscious innocence, rebut the charge; but are con­ founded when, on the sacks being undone, the cup of my lord the Governor of Egypt is found in the sack of Benjamin. They rend their clothes, relade their asses, and return into the city. Joseph would then �Genesis : Joseph. 117 detain his brother Benjamin beside him, whilst the rest returned to their home; but Judah pleads ■ touchingly against the Governor’s purpose : “ Oh, my lord,” says he, “let thy servant, I pray thee, speak a word in my lord’s ears. My lord asked his servants, saying: ‘ Have ye a father or a brother ?’ and we said unto my lord, ‘We have a father, an old man, and a brother, a child of his old age; and his brother is dead, and he alone is left of his mother, and his father loveth him. Now, therefore, when I come to thy servant, my father, seeing that his life is bound up in the lad’s life, it shall come to pass, when he seeth that the lad is not with us, that he will die, and thy servants shall bring down the grey hairs of thy servant, our father, with sorrow to the grave ; for thy servant became surety for the lad unto my father, saying, ‘ If I bring him not unto thee, then I shall bear the blame unto my father for ever.’ Now, therefore, I pray thee, let thy servant abide instead of the lad, a bondsman to my lord, and let the lad go up with his brethren.” Joseph can hold out no longer: “ Cause everyman to go out from me,” he exclaims; and, turning to his brethren, he says : “I am Joseph; come near me, I pray you ; I am Joseph your brother whom ye sold into Egypt. And doth my father yet live ? Now, therefore, be not grieved nor be angry with yourselves that ye sold me thither, for God did send me before you to preserve life. Haste ye then and go to my father, and say unto him : Thus sayeth thy son Joseph : God hath made me Lord of all Egypt; come down to me, tarry not. And ye shall tell my father of all my g^ry in Egypt, and ye shall haste and bring down my father hither. And he fell upon his brother Benjamin’s neck and wept, and he kissed all his brethren and wept upon them.” The good Joseph 1 and the sweet poetic mind that still makes our hearts to throb in sympathy with its own as it wove the �118 The Pentateuch. tale, though it has been stilled so many hundred years ! The brothers return home and tell the wondrous story to their father, whose heart faints within him at first, for he scarce believes them. But seeing the presents with which they are loaded his spirit revives, and he says : “ It is enough ; Joseph my son is yet alive ; I will go and see him before I die.” He takes his journey accordingly with all belonging to him ? With his sons and daughters and his son’s sons and daughters, their cattle and all the gear they had gotten in the land of Canaan, they move away, three score and six in all, making up with Joseph, his wife Asenath and the two sons she had borne him, the three score and ten persons—the mystical number seventy—connected with Jacob who come out of the land of Canaan into Egypt. The wealth, in cattle especially, said to have been possessed by Jacob and his sons in the land of Canaan might seem to make removal to Egypt on account of famine unnecessary ? So we might suppose ; with their flocks and herds they could have been in no want of animal food; and if the land was in a state to produce “ balm and honey, nuts and almonds, spices and myrrh ” as pre­ sents for the Governor of Egypt, it was also in a con­ dition to yield corn for Jacob and his sons, and herbage for their cattle ? So we might fairly suppose. But continued peace­ ful settlement in the land of Canaan would not have enabled the Jewish scribes to exhibit their people in any peculiar or very striking way as the special favourites of their God Jehovah. Neither would he have had the occasion required to show the many strange signs and wonders they describe in proof of his almighty power and his superiority over the gods of Pharaoh and the Egyptians. Neither indeed would such a course have left any excuse for the cruelties so �Genesis : Jacob in Egypt. 119 wantonly committed against the Egyptians, or the invasion of Palestine and the indiscriminate slaughter of its inhabitants, accounts of which are laid up in the Hebrew annals as acts approved—nay commanded by God, meritorious in themselves and worthy of imi­ tation by posterity. But the famine, as foretold by Joseph to the Pha­ raoh ; and, presumed to have extended to Palestine, is the cause which led immediately to Jacob’s removal with his family from the land of Canaan to Egypt? The famine, too, must be a myth—part of the ma­ chinery brought into play by the writer. Occasional droughts with consequent dearths have, doubtless, at all times prevailed in Palestine, as in other lands within the variable latitudes, but the geographical position of the country and all we know of its climate forbid us to believe that drought and dearth for seven successive years are within the sphere of possibility. Egypt, again, not depending on its local rainfall for the productiveness of its soil, but on the waters of the Nile, whose source is more than a thousand miles away, is as necessarily inundated once a year and fertilised, as winter and summer come alternately over the northern and southern halves of the globe. Total failure of the crops in Egypt, even for one year, may be said not to be possible. The rise of the river in one year being more than in another, and the acreage effec­ tually irrigated and cultivated being in consequence less or more, there may in different years be relative abundance or dearth, but never entire failure of the land’s increase, never even scarcity for such a period as seven years in succession. Jacob and his son’s wealth consisting in cattle of different kinds, the land of Egypt, so wholly agri­ cultural, would not seem the most advantageous con­ ceivable for the location of neat-herds and shep­ herds ? This difficulty is got over by Jacob and his family �120 The Pentateuch. being settled by Joseph, with the Pharaoh’s approval, in the land of Goshen, a district on the northern borders of Egypt adapted to grazing, but which will be looked for in vain upon the map of such extent as might suffice to support the population that is said finally to have possessed it. There was a special objection, moreover, to the set­ tlement of Jacob and his kindred in the land of Egypt proper ? Besides the first and most obvious objection that presented itself to the writer’s mind—the impossi­ bility of having herds and flocks among the polders and canallated fields of the great valley of the Nile, shepherds are said to have been an abomination to the Egyptians. What may be the meaning of this ? An obscure epoch in the history of Egypt is pro­ bably referred to, when the country was invaded and for a time dominated by a barbarous people called Hyksos or Shepherds, of whom little that is not con­ jectural is known—a wild Arabian tribe in all pro­ bability of the same Semitic stock as the Hebrews— who broke in upon peaceful Egypt out of the neigh­ bouring desert and made themselves masters of the country for a season—how Ion git is impossible to say— but who were finally either absorbed into the general population, or, as the ruling class, were got the better of and exterminated or expelled. Jacob however takes his journey with all he has, and as in his other significant moves does not fail to have a fresh vision and communication from the God of his father Isaac ? God, says the text, speaks unto Israel (Jacob) in a vision of the night, and announces himself as the God of his father, bids him not fear to go down into Egypt; for, adds his interlocutor : “ I will go down with thee, and will bring thee up again and make of thee a great nation.” �Genesis: Jacob in Egypt. 121 A long time elapsed, however, as we learn from another page of these scriptures, before God redeemed the repeated pledges he is said to have made to the Patriarchs ? Four hundred and thirty years, according to one of the accounts, between the promise now made to Jacob and the Exodus from Egypt, when the first steps may be said to have been taken which, after forty years more of wandering in the desert, were to lead to fulfilment of his engagements. But it is man who makes promises and enters into covenants ; God makes and enters into none, save in the eternal, changeless laws which are his essence, and these are not in time but from eternity. And, then, were the Jews ever a great nation; numerous as the stars of heaven or the sands of the sea shore ? Never. They did not even at any time obtain entire possession of the land they believed had been promised to them, and were alternately tributaries to the Moabites, Philistines, Phoenicians, Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks, and Romans, by all of whom they were at different times conquered, amerced as tributaries, or led into captivity as slaves. The promises made them, therefore, can only have been in their own imaginations ? They certainly cannot have been from God, for they were never kept. But to return—Jacob on his arrival in Egypt is dutifully met by Joseph in his chariot, and by him is presented to the Pharaoh. Inquired of by the sove­ reign how old he is, what answer makes he ? “ That he is an hundred and thirty years oldand rather ungratefully and untruly, as it seems, from all we know of his history, he adds : “ Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life.” Can we fancy the successful superseder of his elder brother and filcher of his father’s blessing, the un- �122 'The Pentateuch. vanquished wrestler with Elohe himself, and the prosperous possessor of herds and flocks, and a nume­ rous progeny, to have given such an answer ? Not if he were speaking in sober seriousness. His own life had been prosperous; the evil in it had all fallen upon others. The famine continuing in the land of Egypt, how does Joseph proceed ? W arily and with a view to aggrandise the ruler, harshly and so as to impoverish and break the people ; for he first gathers into his own hand all the money in the country by the sale of his hoarded corn ; then he says, “ Give me of your cattle if money fail and the year coming to an end with no abatement of the scarcity, he finally buys up all the land, every man selling his field for bread, and removes the people into the cities from one end of Egypt to the other. Does he not make one exception in this getting possession of the soil ? He does : “ The land of the priests bought he not,” a piece of information which enables us surely to divine what he was who tells the story. A priest ? Undoubtedly. Nor was Joseph yet at an end with his hard conditions to the people. In return for the seed they received to sow their fields, he made it a law over the land of Egypt unto this day that Pharaoh should have the fifth part of the produce, except of the land of the priests, which became not Pharaoh’s. Another exception in the same line, and with the phrase “unto this day,” assuring us not only of the probable calling of the narrator, but of the compara­ tively late period when he lived and wrote ? It does so assure us, very certainly. The children of Israel, however, prosper in the land of Goshen, having no hard conditions imposed on them by the �Genesis : Jacob in Egypt. 123 Governor; and Jacob, we are told, lived for seventeen years thereafter among his children. The longest life, however, comes to an end at last, and we have more than one account of the incidents attending Jacob’s death ? It appears so. In the first that meets us he calls Joseph to his side and engages him by the oath held most sacred among the Jews to dispose of his body in the way he desires : “ Put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh (admove manum tuum testibus meis) and deal kindly and truly with me; bury me not in Egypt, but I will lie with my fathers, and thou shalt carry me out of Egypt and bury me in their buryingplace.” In the second account given of the patriarch’s end Joseph is told of his father’s sickness, and taking his two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, in his hand, he visits his parent, who on his part is told of his son’s arrival, when he “ strengthens himself and sits upon the bed.” Seeing Joseph’s sons he asks who they are, for his eyesight is dim. Being informed, he says, “ Bring them, I pray thee, unto me, and I will bless them.” He blesses them ? He does ; but imitates his own father Isaac in so far that, though he blesses both of the lads, he gives for no imaginable reason the preferential blessing with the right hand to the younger son. In this second account he says nothing about desiring to be buried out of Eygpt, but having blessed Joseph he adds, “ I die, but God will bring you again into the land of your fathersy Jacob, therefore, speaks of the land of Canaan as his own country and the country of his fathers ? He does so; and when we read of the ample pos­ sessions of Abraham and of Jacob and of Esau, called Duke of Seir, it is impossible not to see that the land of Canaan had already been given by God to the Pa­ triarchs and their seed; for they could not have be- �124 The. Pentateuch. come proprietors of hundreds of camels, of thousands of oxen, and of hundreds of thousands of sheep and goats, had they not also been lords of the soil. Such considerations as these might lead us to infer that the first coming of the Israelites into Egypt was due to another cause than the famine at home, the one assigned ? It seems more likely, from the context and other parts of the imperfect history we possess, to have been owing to'the fortune of war,—the truth in al likelihood being that a body of them was carried to the land of the Pharaohs as captives at some period un­ named in their history, they having been deported, in conformity with ancient usage, from their own homes to those of their conquerors, and by them treated as slaves. The Hebrew Scriptures indeed are silent as to any Egyptian captivity similar to the captivities of Assyria and Babylon'; but when we discover the Jewish physiognomy among the trains of captives de­ picted in the temples, we are authorised to conclude that the position of the children of Israel in Egypt was never anything other than that of slavery. This would better account for the hard usage they are said to have suffered at the hands of their masters in after­ times, which led to revolt and flight, than the reason assigned in the record. The posterity of Jacob, after a peaceful residence for centuries in Goshen, could not have been looked on as intruders and to be feared, nor treated with harshness, more than any of the other inhabitants of the laud of Egypt.0 ° Movers refers to a curious passage in ‘The Birds’ of Aris­ tophanes, to show that the Israelites in early times must have been slaves in Phoenicia as well as in Egypt. The Cucku arrived in Phoenicia at the time of the wheat and barley har­ vest, and his call interpreted by the Greek comic writer is to this effect: Circumcised to the field! The Israelites must therefore have been the bondmen, field labourers to their more civilised and powerful neighbours.—Die Phoenizier,’ ii. 314.) �Genesis : 'Jacob's Heath Song. 125 Jacob distinguishes Joseph from, his other sons ? He does by the legacy he leaves him. After giving him his blessing, he adds : “ Moreover I have given to thee one portion above thy brethren which I took out of the hand of the Amorite with my sword and with my bow.” In no part of the Scriptures, however, is there any mention made of early feuds between the descendants of Abraham settled in Canaan and their neighbours, nor of any feat of arms performed by Jacob against the Amorites in particular. Jacob, on the contrary, is characterised at the outset of his his­ tory as a plain or peaceful man, so that the verse here may be an after-thought of the writer for the greater exaltation of Joseph, although Jacob’s boast may lead us to suspect that we have by no means the history of the Hebrew people complete. Jacob blesses or addresses some words of farewell to his other sons before he dies ? He does; but what he says can be less interpreted as blessing than as prophecy : “ Gather yourselves to­ gether (he says) that I may tell you what will befal you in times to come; gather yourselves together and hearken, ye sons of Jacob, hearken to Israel your father I” He then addresses each in succession, saying first to Reuben as his eldest— “ Reuben, thou art my first-born, my might, the beginning of my strength! * * * * Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel; because thou wentest up to thy father’s bed, then defiledst thou it.” We have had the story of Reuben’s transgression already, which seems so unnatural and abominable that an allegorical interpretation has been sought not only for it, but for the whole of the 49th chapter of Genesis, to which our survey has now brought us. What may be the nature of this interpretation ? .We have already seen Jacob assuming that he, his wife, and his other sons were the sun, moon, and �126 The Pentateuch. eleven stars of Joseph’s dream, and there can he littTe doubt of the twelve tribes of Israel having been con­ stituted as representatives of the twelve signs of the zodiac through which the sun passes in his annual circuit round the earth, as understood by all the nations of antiquity. Antiquarian writers of the highest authority are further agreed in concluding that the several tribes (in much later times than the age of Jacob, however) carried banners with devices distinctive of each upon them, these being, in fact, no other than the figures of animals, men or things to be found, with little variety, on the planispheres or zodiacs of the Indians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and ourselves. What is the interpretation given to the Patriarch’s address to Reuben in conformity with this, which may properly be spoken of as the enigmatical and astro­ logical meaning that underlies the language of this as of so many other parts of the Hebrew Scriptures ? The tribe of Reuben is believed to have carried the sign of Aquarius on its banner. Now the sign of Aquarius is typified by a human figure with a pitcher or urn out of which water is flowing : hence Reuben is unstable as water; he defiles his father’s bed when he cohabits with the Patriarch’s concubine Bilhah, and so forfeits his birthright as eldest born, which is given to Joseph. And oriental astronomers designate one of the asterisms in the sign of Aquarius by the name of Bulha, which rises when the sun is yet in Capricornus,—the house of Saturn, the star of Israel, —and sets at the precise time when Aquarius also dips under the horizon head foremost, and by re­ versing his urn was held by the ancients to cause the overflow of the Nile. This is certainly curious and is not usually adverted to by commentators on the Hebrew Scriptures, although it has great semblance of probability for its truth. What says the Patriarch further ? �Genesis: Jacob's Death Song, 127 “ Simeon and Levi are brethren ; instruments of cruelty are in their habitations ; in their anger they slew a man,” &c. Now the sign allotted to them was Pisces, the fishes, a sign held of specially malignant influence by the old astrologers ; for whilst the sun is in Pisces all the constellations that were considered adverse are seen above the horizon ; and with his setting in this sign the disasters of the reign of Typhon, i.e. of winter, begin ; for then it is that Orion sets and is feigned to die from the sting of the veno­ mous scorpion who rises, and that Osiris is entrapped and slain by Typhon. In their self-will these brethren are further said to dig down a wall—the Hebrew, more correctly translated, meaning to maim, or it may be to emasculate a bull; and in the Mithriac monu­ ments in particular, when the sun in Pisces sets, the scorpion is represented gnawing the genitals of the vernal bull—i.e., the reproductive power of nature falls into abeyance, and the destructive principle asserts its power. What is said to Judah ? “ Judah is a lion’s whelp ; his hand is in the neck of his enemies, and his father’s children bow down before him.” The interpretation of which is ? That the sun having in the olden time attained his highest northern meridian altitude in Leo, the cog­ nisance of the tribe of Judah, all the other constella­ tions are beneath or may be said to have become subject to him; hence, the hand in the neck of ene­ mies, and the father’s children bowing down before him. The sceptre it is said shall not depart from Judah nor the ruler’s rod (not lawgiver as in the English version) until he come to Shiloh and the people obey him. How may this be interpreted ? The constellation Cepheus, as King of Ethiopia, is still seen on our celestial spheres with a crown on his �1-18 The Pentateuch. head and a sceptre in his hand. This constellation rises towards the end of July under Leo, as it were, and continues the paranatellon or concomitant aster­ ism of Leo until the sun enters Scorpio. Cepheus, the King, sets about the time Scorpio rises, and then ceases as it seems to attend upon Leo; the brighter of two of the most conspicuous stars in Scorpio, called Shuleh by Arabian astronomers, then making its ap­ pearance on the visible horizon. What may be the meaning of the sentence where Judah is said to bind his ass’s colt to the vine and to wash his garments in wine ? It probably alludes to the influence of the sun in bringing to maturity the fruits of the earth, those of the vine in especial, whose noble product, wine, glad­ dens the heart of man. Zebulon, says the Patriarch in continuation, shall dwell at the haven of the sea, and shall be for a haven for ships. How may this be interpreted ? The standard of Zebulon was Capricornus ; and on turning to a celestial globe we observe that the ship Argo, with the most brilliant star in the southern heavens—Canopus—visible in Egypt, by us unseen, sets as Capricornus rises. Issachar is the next in order ? Issachar is a strong Ass couching between two burthens ; and Issachar bore on his banner the sign of Cancer, in which are the stars called the Asses. Had the sun had the turning point in his course as now in Cancer, instead of Leo as at the time the zodiac was designed which the writer of Jacob’s death-song must have had before him, we should find no difficulty in interpreting the couching as between the burthen of the past and the burthen of the future. But the translation of the Hebrew by the English word burthens, seems to be erroneous, the proper ren­ dering being partitions (Drummond), Viehlvurden— cattle hurdles (De Wette). Issachar saw that rest �Genesis ; Jacob's Death Song. x. 129 was good, yet bowed his shoulder to bear—he couched at the turning point of the summer half of the year. Dan it is said shall judge his people as one of the tribes of Israel. Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path, that biteth the horse’s heels so that his rider shall fall back ? A sentence which finds its ready interpretation in' the fact that the tribe of Dan bore the sign of Scorpio on its banner. This was one of the accursed signs according to the ancient astrologers; for with the entrance of the sun into Scorpio commenced the reign of Typhon, the death of Orion, and the emasculation of the vernal bull. Close to Scorpio we see the serpent Ophiucus,—the adder that bites the horse’s heels,—the head of this serpent ascending along with the feet of the Centaur, or Hippocentaur, to obtain the element of the horse, the heels of which are said to be bitten by the reptile. It is not without interest to note that in the record of the doings of the tribe of Dan elsewhere recorded (Joshua, ch. xix.), we read of their taking the city of Leshem and giving it the name of their chief or father, Dan. Now, the bright star in Scorpio which we call Antares was called Leshat by the Chaldeans and Lesos by the Greeks, so that the astrological significance of what is said of Dan is not doubtful. Of Gad it is said a troop shall oveiyjome him, but he shall overcome at the last ? In Capricornus there is a cluster of stars called variously Gadia and Gadi by the Chaldeans and Syrians, Giedi by the Arabians. It might be pre­ sumed at first sight, therefore, that Gad must have had Capricornus for its cognisance. But the cogni­ sance of Gad was Aries, the Ram, in which sign the sun crossed the equator in the olden time, as in times still older he made the passage in Taurus, and from the inferior mounted triumphantly, victorious as it were, over the inferior signs, in the lowest of which, K �130 Phe Pentateuch. Capricornus, comprising the cluster or troop of stars called Gadia, he was feigned to have been born at the winter solstice: pressed on symbolically by a troop at one time, the sun advancing in his course prevails over it at last. Out of Ashee the bread shall be fat, and he shall give the dainties of the King (De Wette). Libra was the sign carried on the banner of Asher, and when the sun had reached this sign the happy sea­ son of the year had come, with skies still mild and the earth burthened with the load of ripened and ripening fruits which under the fostering influence of the God of Day it had produced. Hence the allusion to the big loaf and the dainties for a King. Naphthali is a hind let loose; he giveth goodly words. Tradition allots Virgo to Naphthali. The word translated IxiniL had probably a different signification in the original, and what is implied by the goodly words he gave it is not easy to conjecture. Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well, whose branches run over a wall. The writer compares Ephraim, who assumed the standard of his father Joseph, to a young bull, and tradition assigns Taurus to the tribe of Ephraim— Taurus, the sign in which the vernal equinox occurred in very ancient times, and when the vegetable world was starting into life. Hence the allusion to the fruitful bough, spreading abroad in its luxuriant growth. “ The archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him and hated him ; but his bow abode in strength, pliant the power of his hands, made strong by the hand of the mighty Jacob ” (De Wette), con­ tinues the text. Now' it happens that immediately after the sun has passed into Sagittarius, the head of Taurus begins to set, whence we can easily conclude as to the archer who shoots at him in hate. But the whole of the matter here can only be satisfactorily �Genesis ; 'Jacob''s Death Song, iji explained by referring to the Mithriac monuments, delineations of several of which are given by Hyde in his classical work, ‘Veterum Persarum et Medorum Religionis Historia.” In these, Mithras the sun in Taurus is represented on the back of a Bull, whose side he pierces with a dagger, and its blood, the symbol of life, flows down to vivify and fertilise the earth, whilst a flying arrow is seen directed against ■ the breast of the animal, and the scorpion is observed gnawing his genital organs. “ Benjamin shall ravin as a wolf; in the morning he shall devour the prey, and at night he shall divide the spoil.” This tribe bore the wolf on its banner, and one of the ancient eastern symbols of the sign Gemini is the wolf. Further, Gemini was the sign in which the god with the dog or wolf’s head, Anubis, had his station, who, besides announcing the rise of the Nile, was also the planet Mercury, which changes alter­ nately and so rapidly from an evening to a morning and from a morning to an evening star, whence the possible allusion to the prey and the spoil in connec­ tion with the night and the morning P In concluding his death song, Jacob commands his sons assembled around him, precisely as he had com­ manded Joseph individually in the first account we had of the death-bed scene, not to bury him in Egypt, but with his fathers in the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, which Abraham bought with the field of Ephron the Hittite for a burying-place. Having made an end of commanding his sons, he brought his feet together on the bed and departed, and was gathered to his people. p.The .writer mainly followed in the above astrological ex­ position is Sir W. Drummond, in his ‘ CEdipus JudaicuS;’ with some hints from Nork’s ‘ Biblische Mythologie.’ Where the Scripture texts given differ from the accredited English ver­ sion, De Wette’s unrivalled translation of the Bible has been followed. �132 The Pentateuch. What is the conclusion now come to by the abler and better informed of the critical exponents of the Hebrew Scriptures in regard to the prophetical death song of J acob ? That it is a poetical prophecy after the event, largely interlarded with allegorical and astrological matter, and not composed, in all probability, until after the epoch of the Kings of Judah. Dr Davidson agrees with those critics who think it may have been written by Nathan (vide ‘ Introduction to Old Testament,’ i., p. 198). “ The Deity,” says this ripe scholar, able critic, and liberal theologian, “ did not see fit, so far as we can judge, to impart to any man like Jacob the know­ ledge of future and distant events. Had he done so, he would not have left him to speak on his death-bed like an Arab chief of no higher blessings to his sons than rapine and plunder, and without the least refer­ ence to another and better state of existence on which he believed he should enter, and on which he might counsel his sons to act continually.” That the death song is allegorical is obvious enough to us, and if it have the astrological meaning assigned to it by such scholars and thinkers as Kircher, Jablonski, Dupuis, Drummond, and Nork, it seems as if it could only have been produced after the Babylonian cap­ tivity, when the Jews had received a lesson in the astrological lore of the Chaldeans ; they themselves up to the time of the exile appearing to have been profoundly ignorant of all beyond the fact that there were lights in the sky—sun, moon, planets, and fixed stars, which influenced them as they fancied in their estates, and were set in heaven, moreover, for their peculiar advantage. Joseph and his brethren, now reconciled, like dutiful sons, carry out their father’s injunctions in regard to the burial ? Joseph commands his servants the physicians to embalm the body of his father Jacob, and having the �Genesis: Joseph. ijj Pharaoh’s leave of absence he sets out with all the adult members of his father’s house for the land of Canaan, where, after a grievous mourning, charac­ terised in the text as “ the mourning of the Egyptians,” he buries his father. He then returns to Egypt with his brethren, who fearing that Joseph would now hate them, their father being dead, and requite them for the evil they had done him, send a messenger to him and entreat forgiveness for their trespass and their sin. Joseph, as we know him, does not deny them ? “ Fear not,” he says ; “for stand I not under God ? Ye thought evil against me, but God turned it to good, to bring it to pass as it is this day, to save many people alive. Now therefore fear ye not; I will care for you and for your children. And he com­ forted them and spake kindly to them.” (Eng. vers, and De Wette.) Joseph lives long in Egypt, and sees the children of the third generation of Ephraim his son; the chil­ dren also of Machir, the son of Manasseh his own son, were brought up on his knees—this implies a long life ? Joseph, according to the text, lives a hundred and ten years and then dies. Before being gathered to his fathers, however—and we might say as matter of course and in emulation of his father Jacob—he says to his brethren : “ God will surely visit you and bring you out of this land unto the land which he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.” He also takes an oath of his kinsmen binding them to carry his bones from Egypt to the ancestral burying-place in the land of Canaan. His life at an end, his body is embalmed and put into a coffin in Egypt. �APPENDIX. (a.) genesis of the earth. The elements and their compounds probably ex­ isted at first in states far different from those in which they now present themselves : water as oxy­ gen and hydrogen; the saline, earthy, and metallic oxides, carbonates, chlorides, &c., in the form of their constituent elements. A vast amount of heat must also have been set free whilst the atmosphere and crust of the earth were undergoing condensation and consolidation from the gaseous and vaporous into the liquid and solid states in which they now exist, which could not all have been dissipated in space, and so lost to the earth. Concentrated into mighty flashes of lightning—electric sparks of portentous power,—it was probably used in bringing into play the elective affinities of the elements or simple substances, and so producing the compounds in which we now meet with them, the heat itself from sensible becoming latent in these. (b.) the confusion of languages. Can any reasonable explanation be given of the myth of the Tower of Babel ? From its geographical position on the Euphrates— now a sedge-grown stream creeping sluggishly along among sand-banks and over shallows, but in former ages rolling a much mightier tide to the sea—Babylon �Appendix. 135 lay in the direct line of communication between the East and the West. This naturally brought men of different tongues together, and after the wars of Nebuchadnezzar and his deportations from the con­ quered countries it became a kind of centre in which numerous different races of the human family were made to congregate. Hence, such the diversity of lan­ guage said to have prevailed that the inhabitants of one quarter of the great city did not understand the tongue of those of another. The inventor of the mythical tale may have been one of the deported Israelites, and well acquainted with the confusion of tongues that prevailed in Babylon. (C.) TEMPTATION OF ABRAHAM. Have we not parallels in the old mythologies of like intended but interrupted sacrifices of children by their fathers ? We have already referred to one at least where the sacrifice is said to have been completed: Kronos, arrayed in his royal robes, to stay a pestilence, offered up his son Jehud to his father Uranos. But Athamas, King of Iolchos, about to sacrifice his son to Jupiter Laphystius, in fulfilment of the terms on which he held his kingdom, like Abraham, wras prevented, the god considerately substituting a golden-fleeced ram for the son; Iphigenia, about to bleed on the altar of Diana, was replaced by a hind, &c. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; 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> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Pentateuch in contrast with the science and moral sense of our age. Part III: [Thora - the Law] Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Willis, Robert Description An account of the resource Place of publication: London Collation: 135 p. ; 18 cm. Notes: "By a Physician". Author believed to be Robert Willis. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Includes bibliographical references. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Thomas Scott Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1873 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CT125 Subject The topic of the resource Bible Judaism Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <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 (The Pentateuch in contrast with the science and moral sense of our age. Part III: [Thora - the Law]), 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> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Bible. O.T. Pentateuch Conway Tracts https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/e776a7eebf8855f8268fc4b723ff10c9.pdf?Expires=1782345600&Signature=OWnDUB6ztrgtu5XVCZfwOjhPgxIIALvOYZYy1Dmka9knn9ofsLdBo%7EKYoetHz68KOUaxXqP-HFZIZt7T388urJFa95MCBkdcdmJsS%7Ejogy376%7EjBeXBNZNjyWLNkzfFIrFYrcIM73F5J48AWMrsxyqAq5jqjA0ACni-Rh9UwcxNXh0JP09LLeLMO8UlhExBhce5FhEthuwR0mKJmvO1czCY8EfziXPMhjIfH5akHoruvSvNyabuANLCWYAzYql4uSHJ8YhqTeN442AtRxgPp8myAZ%7E-JaB5jUafOk6DCxC0NmNwbv%7EoIsG9hPxb9Vxwy6E9BgCjlGkJ3dz9XnJfZRw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 22e3ff9bf979eff6486b8f71203f1a30 PDF Text Text CT ftg THE PENTATEUCH AND BOOK OF JOSHUA IN FACE OF THE SCIENCE AND MORAL SENSE OF OUR AGE. By a PHYSICIAN. PART VI. “Zufallige Geschichtswahrheiten konnen der Beweis von nothwendigen Vemunftswahrheiten nie werden ’’—Contingent historical truths can never be demonstration of necessary rational truths.—Lessing. PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT, NO. II THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD, UPPER NORWOOD, LONDON, S.E. 1875. Price Sixpence. �LONDON: PRINTED BY C. W. REYNELL, LITTLE PULTENEY STREET, HAYMARKET, W. �THE BOOK OF JOSHUA. ECAUSE of the sins of the people, or because he has failed to sanctify Jehovah in some signal way at Meribah, Moses, as we have seen, is not only refused permission to enter the promised land, but is even informed that he is to die on this (the east) side of Jordan. The death of Moses follows hard on the intimation given, and Jehovah then, according to our text, addresses Joshua, saying:—“Moses my servant is dead; now therefore arise; go over this Jordan, thou, and all the people, unto the land which I do give them, from the wilderness unto Lebanon, the great river Euphrates, and the great sea toward the going down of the sun. Be strong and of good courage, for Jehovah thy God is with thee whither­ soever thou goest.” Encouraging words as well as commands, which, we may presume, Joshua will not be slack to obey ? He forthwith orders his officers to bid the people get ready for an advance by preparing victuals ; for * within three days, says he, ye are to pass the Jordan and go in to possess the land that was promised to your fathers. He then reminds the Reubenites, Gadites, and half-tribe of Manasseh of their engage­ ment to aid in the war, until their brethren were settled in the territories beyond, as they themselves had been put in possession of lands on this (the east) side of Jordan. As a preliminary to entering on the great enterprise before him, however, Joshua, not relying entirely on Jehovah’s promises, as it might * Th.e writer forgets that manna is still the only food of the people, and that it stank forthwith if more was gathered than sufficed for each day’s consumption. �442 Joshua. seem, is anxious to have some information of his own as to the state of preparedness for resistance or other­ wise of the people about to be invaded ? He sends two men across the river to spy and view the land, “ even Jericho,” the walled town that blocks the way, and must be taken before further advance into the country can be made. Stealing into the town, but not unobserved, as it by and by appears, the spies take up their quarters with a certain Rahab, a harlot, probably surmising that from such as she they might obtain information of the kind they sought. They are soon inquired after by the King of Jericho, however, who sends to Rahab, desiring her to bring forth the men who had entered her house, they having come, as was believed, to spy out the land. Joshua’s men must have been in great peril of their lives, needlessly exposed, surely, had Jehovah’s assurance to Joshua, that he and his were to have the land, been trusted home. But, engaged in the godly business of smoothing the way for the con­ quest, they will be duly cared for by Rahab the harlot ? By who but she; for what was to be expected of a harlot ? Traitress to her people, as she had already proved false to all that best becomes her sex, instead of delivering up the spies to the ruler, like a true woman, she makes terms with them for herself and her kindred in case she conceals them, and favours their escape, having given them the information they sought, as we shall see. She therefore hides the spies until nightfall, pledges her word to the King’s mes­ sengers that the men had left her house, and putting the searchers on a false scent as to the way they had taken, she enables them to get back to the camp in safety. The writer of the story before us is at the pains to find something like an apology for Rahab’s treason to her townsfolk in the words he puts into her mouth ? �Israel passes Jordan. 443 He shows her familiar with the history of the invaders, even from the time of their Egyptian bondage, and makes her tell the spies of the “ terror because of these things” that had fallen on her people, “ the hearts of all melting within them, and nothing more of courage remaining in any man, for Jehovah your God,” she continues, “is God in heaven above and in earth beneath.” The writer, it would seem, could not resist an occasion, even through the mouth of an idolatrous harlot, to glorify Jehovah his God ; of whom, nevertheless, the woman Rahab could never have heard, for the all-sufficient reason that he was not known among the Israelites themselves by the name now used until ages after the reputed days of Joshua. Rahab, then, has made terms with the spies in return for their safety and the intelligence she has given them. Her house is to be known by a certain sign when the invaders have become masters of the town, and all belonging to her are to be safe whilst the indiscriminate slaughter in preparation for the other inhabitants is proceeding ? As the houses of the Israelites in Egypt were to be known to the destroying angel by the blood on the lintels and door-posts, so is the house of Rahab to be distinguished by a scarlet cord hung from a window, red being a colour with which a certain mystical and sanctifying influence was connected by many of the peoples of antiquity. The images of their gods— those of Dionysus in particular, as we know—were painted red; the figures of the Chaldsean deities on the wall were “ portrayed in vermilion ” (Ezek. xxiii. 14) ; and we have seen a scarlet string cast into the fire as part of the rite in preparing the water of purification from the ashes of the red heifer. Breaking up from Shittim, in Moab, where they were encamped, the Israelites come to the banks of the Jordan, the priests, the Levites, as said (—but ages before the existence of a levitical priesthood—), �444 Joshua. bearing the Ark of the Covenant, leading the way. “ And now,” says Jehovah to Joshua, “ will I begin to magnify thee in the sight of Israel, that they may know that as I was with Moses so I will be with thee.” Prom such a preamble we may be prepared for some miraculous interposition of the tutelary God ? Which follows forthwith, and is of the same sort as that vouchsafed to Moses, when he and his fugi­ tives had the Red Sea before them, and were enabled to pass dry-shod through its bed. Joshua and the Is­ raelites are now said to cross the swollen Jordan with­ out wetting their feet! “ And it came to pass,” says the narrator, ignoringthe statical law, pre-ordained of the true God, which makes the thing impossible, “ that as soon as the feet of the priests which bare the Ark were dipped in the brim of the water—for Jordan overfloweth his banks all the time of harvest—that the waters which came down from above stood and rose up upon an heap, and those that went down towards the sea of the plain, even the salt sea, failed and were cut off, and the people passed over right against Jericho.” Joshua would have this remarkable incident re­ corded by a memorial monument ? He orders a man of each of the twelve tribes to shoulder a stone from the midst of Jordan, to be “ a memorial to the children of Israel for ever.” As to the way in which these stones are to be disposed of, however, there is, unhappily, discrepancy in the record. By one text (iv. 3), they are ordered to be carried to Gilgal, the place where the people pitched for the night, after passing the river; by another (iv. 9), they are to be set up in the midst of Jordan where the feet of the priests stood that bare the Ark ; “ and they are there,” says the record, “unto this day.” 'The stones, however, would have proved no very •conspicuous monument plunged in the waters of the Jordan. Set up in Gilgal, they would certainly have better served the end proposed. Anyhow, the stones �Records of the Passage, 445 are presumed to be visible, for the text goes on to say : “ When your children shall ask their fathers in time to come, saying: What mean these stones ? Then ye shall say : Israel came over this Jordan on dry land; for Jehovah your God dried up the waters of Jordan, as he did the waters of the Red Sea, until we were gone over; that all the people of the earth might know the hand of Jehovah that it is mighty.” Miracles—in other words, contraventions of the order or laws of Nature—were to the Jews of old, as they have still been to the ignorant among other peoples, the great vouchers for the Being and Power of God. To the man of science and liberal culture, on the contrary, a miracle, defined as above, would now prove an insurmountable obstacle instead of a help to belief in the existence of God. God, to him, is Order and Law—not discord and disarray. The tales of miracles met with in all the writings held sacred or inspired, whether of Jew or Gentile, are certain de­ monstrations of their source in the mind of man in his stake of ignorance and non-age : AS putting God IN CONTRADICTION WITH HIMSELF, MIRACLES ARE AT ONCE IMPOSSIBLE AND ABSURD. The stones, set up in Gilgal, were “ to serve for a memorial to the children of Israel for ever ” ? Alas for the eternity implied in the words ! There is now no trace of the stones, any more than there is of the people who set them up, save as scattered rem­ nants in far-away countries—the people to whom the promise of possession in perpetuity of a land that flowed with milk and honey was so emphatically and so repeatedly made. Facts from which we conclude ? That the statements are neither from God nor from any of the far-seeing among men, his only oracles, but from presumptuous, short-sighted, and mistaken priests, who lived in relatively recent times compared with those about which they write. More than this ? �446 Joshua. That the repetitions, contradictions, and confusion so conspicuous in the Book of Joshua make it plain that its compiler had a variety of documents before him, from which, and doubtless also from floating myth and oral tradition, with small amount of critical or editorial tact, he put together the disjointed nar­ rative that engages us. Yet more ? That the constant recurrence of the phrase, unto this day, assures us that the writer is discoursing of events reputed to have happened in ages long gone by. To refer to one, and perchance to dispose of the first of the miracles brought in to . magnify Joshua and show the might of Jehovah’s hand, we by and by come upon a few words which show us that the Israelites might have crossed the Jordan without any arrest or drying up of its waters, though not without wetting their feet; for we learn that when the spies escape from Jericho they take their way “to Jordan unto the fordsand we have notices besides, in other parts of the Hebrew history, of the river having been repeatedly crossed in after-times in the ordinary way by fording. Safely over Jordan, the Israelites will, of course, leave the enemy no time to prepare for resistance ? So might we have imagined ; but instead of ad­ vancing at once, and laying siege to Jericho, we are told that “ at this time ” Joshua receives orders from Jehovah to make him sharp knives, or knives of flint, and circumcise the children of Israel—“ the second time,” says the text—a needless and not very feasible procedure, if the words be taken as they stand. But they cannot be so understood. The rite of initiation which is said to have been practised during the Egyptian bondage—a more than question­ able statement—it is now said has been utterly neg­ lected since the epoch of the Exodus. All the men born during the forty years’ wandering in the wilder­ ness are therefore without the distinguishing sign of �Orders to Joshua. 447 their election, and must by all means be furnished with it before the business of despoiling, driving out, and slaying the enemies of Jehovah, now in posses­ sion of the promised land, can be begun. The time chosen for the ceremony, however, seems as little opportune as the speed with which it is accomplished is extraordinary. How may this be ? The invaders are but just entered into the enemy’s country, and have a walled town before and a deep and swollen river behind them—a dangerous strate­ gical position, which Joshua, we must presume, was too good a soldier not to understand. He will, there­ fore, we may expect, like Moses on various occasions, remonstrate with Jehovah; show the danger to which he is exposed by the order, and beg him to recall it. But Joshua seems never to have felt himself on the same familiar footing with his God as Moses, and offers no remonstrance. Having crossed the Jordan on the 10th of Nisan, he proceeds immediately, according to the record, to circumcise the males among the children of Israel who had been born within the last forty years. The number of able-bodied men having been found nearly the same as when the census took place at Sinai, the time required to do so must have been considerable ? The operation in question is one of some nicety, not to be done off-hand in a hurry ; and were the amputation the affair of a moment the subsequent dressing would take time. A simple arithmetical calculation shows conclusively that it could not have been accomplished between the 10th and the 14th of the month Nisan, when the Feast of the Passover is said to have been kept, and the people, therefore, are presumed to be healed, and able to move about. Were five minutes allowed in each case, and the operator tasked to work twelve hours every day during six days of the week, the time required to �448 Joshua. operate on something over 600,000 men would be thirteen years and more ! By miraculous interposi­ tion only, therefore, could the business have been got through in the three days between the 10th and 14th Nisan ; and even then, another miracle would have been wanted to heal the people in so short a space of time. The circumcising done somehow, however, as said, Jehovah speaks to Joshua, and says :— “ This day have I rolled away the reproach of Egypt from off you.” Can we as reasonable men believe that such words ever came from God ? We have already had occasion to say that God cannot be conceived as speaking save through the mouth of man. He, therefore, we conclude, was mistaken who said that God spoke ; as he too erred who imagined that the Egyptians bore about them a badge of reproach in that which has now been cut off in Israel, or that God’s handiwork can be amended fey any interference of man. Bar from symbolising their superiority over other peoples, the initiatory rite of the Jews is persistent testimony to the essentially sensual character of the religious system they inherit from their forefathers; worshippers as they were of the nature God under a certain symbol, frequently characterised as the abomination in their writings, and against the display of which, as we apprehend it, in the Temple, we find several of the more modern prophets loud in their denunciations. We have practices analogous in some sort to the Jewish rite, though with less of meaning, among races we characterise as savage, whilst we are wont to think of the ancient Israelites as the elect of God, and continue to take them for our masters in religion ? Setting the religious aspect of circumcision aside, we see savages in some quarters of the globe knock­ ing out a front tooth or two, cutting off a joint from one of their fingers, or slitting their nether lip, and �Apparition to 'Joshua. 449 distending it with a bung, by way of improving them­ selves, doubtless, and “ rolling away the reproach ” of a neighbouring tribe who have no such notable mode of showing their superiority to the rest of barbarous humanity. The flint knife, enjoined in the marginal reading of our English version, is remarkable ? And not uninteresting from an arch geological point of view, as pointing to times when tools of bronze and iron were still unknown; to times when a certain sanc­ tity was attached to stones; when they were set up under trees as emblems of the Generative Power, when they were thought to be possessed of sense, and were even worshipped as Gods, and when the only * cutting instruments owned by man were flints and agates chipped or ground to an edge. The early God of Israel would not have his altar built of dressed stones ; it must be of unhewn blocks : “ If ye lift up a tool upon it, ye have polluted it.” Here we encounter another of those strange and meaningless interruptions of the narrative, of which we have had more than one instance already ? Having been informed that the Passover was observed on the 14th of Nisan, and that the manna ceased as soon as the children of Israel began to eat of the fruits of the land of Canaan, we are told that “ it came to pass when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes, and behold there stood a man over against him, with his sword drawn in his hand; and Joshua said to him: Art thou for us or for our adversaries ? And he said: Nay; but as Captain of the host of Jehovah am I now come. And Joshua fell on his face on the earth and did wor­ ship, and said : What saith my Lord unto his servant ? And the Captain of Jehovah’s host said unto Joshua : * “And Joshua took a great stone and set it up under an oak, and said to the people : Behold, this stone shall be a witness unto us, for it hath heard all the words of the Lord which he spake unto us.”—Joshua, xxiv. 26, 27. �450 Joshua. Loose thy shoe from off thy foot, for the place whereon thou standest is holy. And Joshua did so.” This on the face of it is no very important informa­ tion ; neither is the act required of such significance as to have needed so august a presence as the Captain of Jehovah’s host to make it ? Surely it is not; for one foot’s breadth of earth is as holy as another ; and the only difference between the shod and unshod foot is that one rests on dressed and the other on undressed hide. The mere intima­ tion that the speaker was the “ Captain of Jehovah’s host,” moreover, must have left Joshua in the dark as to the purport of the visit paid him ; the indefinite “ Nay ” of the visitor to his challenge leaving it open to question which side the Captain of the host was to take in the impending engagement before Jericho. Gilgal, however, was one of the oldest and for long among the most renowned of their holy places to the children of Israel. The apparition and intima­ tion may therefore have been contrived by the writer to illustrate the antiquity and peculiar sanctity of the site; or it may have been introduced as a parallel to the vision vouchsafed to Moses in the burning bush on Mount Horeb when he was ordered to take off his shoes, the ground on which he stood being holy. The Captain of Jehovah’s host, to conclude, bears a highly suspicious likeness to one of the Amschaspands of the Zoroastrian system, and may help to confirm us in our persuasion that the writing before us must be referred to times posterior to the Babylonian captivity. Resuming the thread of the story, we are informed that Jericho is at length laid siege to and closely shut up—none coming out, none going in—and that Jehovah himself condescends to give certain new and hitherto unheard-of orders for the conduct of the siege. For six successive days the besiegers are to compass the city once on each day, the priests bear- �Jericho taken and Cherem. 451 ing the Ark and blowing on the sacred trumpets of rams’ horns as they march; but on the seventh day—violation of the Sabbath, by the way, and giving us to know that the Commandment to keep it holy could not yet have been known—on the seventh day they are to compass it as many as seven times, and the blasts on the ram’s horn trumpets are to be louder than ever. At the proper moment Joshua is to stretch out his hand with his spear, the priests are to blow their best, and the people are to shout with a loud voice, on which the walls will fall down and the city will be won ! Such a mode of taking Jericho could hardly have been contemplated by Joshua when he sent out the spies and confirmed the compact made with Rahab ; any information he may have had from her through them being turned to no account. All, however, is done according to superior orders ? And the result follows: The rams’ horns are lustily blown ; Joshua raises his spear; the people shout; the walls tumble down; and the Israelites walk into Jericho without striking a blow. The inhabitants, innocent of all offence, thus miraculously thrown on the mercy of the invaders, will, we may presume, be ordered by Jehovah to be mercifully dealt with ? Coming commissioned by their God, as they im­ agined, to spoil and to slay, mercy in the early Israelitish wars was a thing unknown. On the con­ trary, the city had been proclaimed Cherem to Jehovah, and we know what that implies : Every living thing within it must be put to death, and every lifeless thing consumed by fire. “ The city,” says the leader, “ shall be devoted, even it and all that are therein, to Jehovah; only Rahab the harlot shall live, she and those that are with her in the house, because she hid the messengers that we sent.” “ And,” proceeds the story, “ they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both men and women, young and old ; ox, sheep, �452 'Joshua. and ass.” All that breathed were put to the sword, and the city, with all it contained, was burned to the ground ; “ only the silver and the gold, and the vessels of brass and of iron, they put into the treasury of the house of Jehovah.” Not content with burning Jericho to the ground, Joshua, for no conceivable reason, would never have it rise from its ruins. “ Cursed be the man before Jehovah,” says he, “ that riseth up and buildeth Jericho ; be shall lay the foundation thereof in his first-born, and in his youngest shall he set up the gates of it.” But Jericho, had it ever been ruined, must by and by have been rebuilt, notwithstanding Joshua’s curse; for David desires the messengers he had sent to congratulate Nahum on his accession to the throne of Ammon, but who having been mistaken for spies had been ill-used by the Ammonites, to tarry at Jericho until the signs of the disgrace put upon them had disappeared. 11 Tarry at Jericho until your beards be grown, and then return,” are the words of King David (II. Samuel, x. 5). At a much later period in the history of Israel, indeed, and to make matters tally with Joshua’s denunciation, it may be supposed, we learn that in the reign of Ahab, more than five centuries after the age of Joshua, “ Hiel built Jericho, and laid the foundation thereof in Aborim, his first-born, and set up the gate thereof in his youngest son, Segub (I. Kings, xvi. 34). The interdict assigned to Joshua is, therefore, from one who lived during or after the reign of King Ahab. Jericho is ruined, then, but faith is kept with Rahab ? She, her father’s household, and all that she had, it is said, were saved alive, “because she hid the messengers which Joshua sent to spy out Jericho; and she dwelleth in Israel unto this day.” Were the text to be taken quite literally, Rahab would appear to have been very long lived ? �Achan Transgresses. 453 Rahab may possibly be here used in a generic sense :—Rahab and her daughters dwell among our­ selves even unto tTiis- day ! When a town was declared to be Cherem, or devoted, it was of course unlawful for individuals to appropriate any part of the spoil ? All then belonged exclusively to Jehovah ; in other words, what was not put to death and burnt came to the priesthood; and, that no one might trespass through ignorance, Joshua has been particular in warning the people against theft—the unpardonable sin, in such a case :—“ Keep ye in anywise from the thing that is devoted, lest ye make yourselves devoted,” says he, and so implicate the camp of Israel and trouble it. But Achan, the son of Carmi, has been imprudent enough to take of the devoted thing, and the anger of Jehovah is kindled against Israel. Achan’s transgression of the law of Cherem be­ comes known in rather a roundabout way ? Proceeding with his work of conquest, not witting that aught has been done amiss, Joshua sends out spies to take the measure of the next town that lay in the way—Ai by name. The spies return and report the place of little strength, and its defenders few ; a body of two or three thousand men, say they, would suffice to smite it. So a corps of three thousand is told off for the duty. But they behave ill; they flee before the men of Ai, six-and-thirty of them are slain, and the rest are chased from before the gate of the town unto Shibarim; “ wherefore the hearts of the people melted and became as water.” Joshua takes this much to heart ? He rends his clothes, falls on his face before the Ark, with the Elders of Israel puts dust upon his head, and says :—“Alas, 0 Jehovah God ! wherefore hast thou at all brought this people over Jordan to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites to destroy us ? Would to God we bad been content and dwelt �454 'Joshua. on the other side Jordan ! 0 Jehovah ! what shall I say when Israel turneth their backs before their enemies? For the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land shall hear of it, and shall environ us round and cut off our name from the earth; and what wilt thou do for thy name, the mighty ?” (De Wette.) This is surely not a becoming address on the part of Joshua; reproachful as it is to Jehovah and unworthy of himself as leader of the host. Instead of owning that his men had been seized with a panic fear, or that he had erred in sending an inadequate force against Ai, he throws the blame of the defeat upon his God, and even threatens him with the evil constructions of the Canaanites for having led his elect into difficulties. But Jehovah comes to the foolish mortal’s aid, though addressing him in terms more brusque than we have been wont to find applied to Moses when he has ventured to ask his God what the Egyptians would think of him did he not carry his people triumphantly through their troubles:— “ Get thee up,” says Jehovah ; “ wherefore liest thou thus upon thy face ? Israel hath sinned ; they have taken of the accursed [devoted] thing, and have also stolen and put it among their own stuff.” Jehovah is made by the writer to look sharply after his interests—he will have nothing that should be his appropriated by another; he even knows where the things purloined have been bestowed. So he is reported as saying farther to Joshua:—“Up, sanctify the people; for thus saith Jehovah, the God of Israel: There is an accursed [devoted] thing in the midst of thee, O Israel; therefore the children of Israel could not stand before their enemies, because they were accursed ; neither will I be with you any more except ye destroy the accursed from among you. And it shall be that he that is taken with the accursed thing shall be burned with fire, he and all that he hath.” A little leaven leavens the lump, indeed ; but were �Achats Punishment. 455 one thief among thousands to make cowards of the rest, there would, we trow, be little courage in any army that ever took the field, whether in ancient or modern times. The virtuous Israelites, however, who had never, in a body, borrowed silver and gold, and fine raiment from the Egyptians, at the instigation of their God, as they say, must now be purged of the offender who had taken to himself of the devoted thing. But why Jehovah, who is cognisant of the theft, should not also have instantly pointed out the thief, does not appear. Lots are the means adopted for finding him out; and though we know that the lot is as likely to fall on the innocent as on the guilty, inasmuch as a miracle was now required, so is it forth­ coming, and Achan the son of Carmi, the delinquent, is taken. His guilt divulged, Joshua addresses the culprit ? In a speech that begins in a fine fatherly spirit, but does not so end assuredly: “My son,” says Joshua, “ give, I pray thee, glory to Jehovah, God of Israel I Make confession unto Him, and tell me now what thou hast done ?” To which the unhappy Achan replies most penitently now that he is known for the thief: “ Indeed I have sinned, and thus have I done. When I saw among the spoils a goodly Babylonian garment and two hundred shekels of silver and a wedge of gold of fifty shekels weight, then I took them, and they are hid in the earth in the midst of my tent.” And there, sure enough, as Jehovah had indi­ cated, the stolen things are found “ among the other stuff.” “And Joshua and all Israel with him,” continues the record, “ took Achan and the gold, and the silver, and the garment, and his sons and his daughters, and his oxen and his asses and his sheep, and his tent, and all that he had, and they brought them to the Valley of Achor, and all Israel stoned them with stones, and burned them with fire after they had stoned them with stones. So Jehovah turned from the fierceness of his anger.” �45 6 Joshua. The story here must surely be apocryphal,—in­ vented for a purpose ? It has every appearance of being so at all events ; yet may it have an old tradition for its root. The God of the early Israelites was by no means the God of their later descendants, the Jews. He was a jealous, revengeful, partial being, never to be ap­ proached empty-handed, only to be appeased by the sacrifice of life through the shedding of blood, and not to be defrauded of his share of the spoil. The tale, however, may have been invented as a pendant to the story of Phinehas, when he slew Zimri and Cozbi at a blow, and so stayed the pestilence that was making such havoc in the camp. Or it may have been devised to terrify the people against all privy appropriation of aught especially that was held by prescriptive right to belong to the priesthood. Achan is the sole offender; but we find that he alone is not made to suffer for his crime ? In old and barbarous times, as among some savage or half-civilised communities in the present day, all that belonged to the house were held answerable for the act of its head—wives, sons, daughters, cattle, goods and chattels—all that breathed died, and all that had value was burned or confiscated, in case the penalty for the deed done were death. And wholesale sacrifices of the kind were required by Jehovah, God of Israel ? So says the record : “ Joshua and all Israel took Achan and all that belonged to him unto the valley of Achor, and the leader addressing the offender, said to him: Why hast thou troubled us ? Jehovah shall trouble thee this day. And Israel stoned him with stones and burned them with fire ; so Jehovah turned from the fierceness of his anger.” What are we in these days to think of the tales of such horrors ? We are to see them for what they are: libels on humanity, blasphemies against the Supreme. Their �Ai to be Taken. 457 writers may have thought that their God Jehovah re­ quired silver and gold, and brass and iron, and the blood of the innocent as well as the guilty to appease his anger; but we who live in this 19th century of the Christian era know that God, the Ineffable Supreme, requires nothing of us but love of him and love of our neighbour, in other words, obedience to his laws and deed towards our neighbour as we would have deed from him to us. Let the writings before us therefore be seen for what they are—records of a barbarous age, delivered by unenlightened men, and unworthy longer to be looked on as the word of God or as means available for the education and improve­ ment of the world. The mention of the Babylo­ nian garment might assure us that so much of the tale as refers to it, must at all events be of modern date ; for a horde escaped from slavery and but just setting foot on the southern confines of Palestine, after long wandering in the wilderness, could have known nothing of Babylonian garments ; and we may be well assured that the tents and hamlets of the Amorites were as little familiar with shekels of silver and wedges of gold in the days of Joshua as he and his warriors could possibly have been. These are all particulars added to colour a tale of late in­ vention that most certainly can form no part of the true word of God to man. The town of Ai, however, stands in the way, and must be taken; and Jehovah, not trusting as yet en­ tirely to the military genius of Joshua, though the Captain of his own choice, proceeds to give him par­ ticular instructions as to how he is to set about the business :—“Take all the people ofwar with thee,” says Jehovah, “ and arise; go up to Ai; see, I have given into thy hand the King and his people, the city and the land; and thou shalt do to Ai and her King as thou didst to Jericho and her King; only the spoil thereof and the cattle thereof shall ye take for a prey to yourselves. Lay thee an ambush for the city �45 8 Joshua. behind it.” And this Joshua proceeds to do; he sends 30,000 mighty men of valour away by night to lie in ambush and attack the city from behind, whilst he himself with 5,000 more will make a feint of attack­ ing it in front. “And it shall come to pass,” says he, “ that when they come out against us we will flee before them, and they will follow after usseeing which the 30,000 men in ambush are to show themselves and seize on the city; “for Jehovah your God,” continues the tale, “ will deliver it into your hand ; and when ye have taken the city, ye shall set it on fire: according to the commandment of Jehovah shall ye do.” Jehovah, portrayed ruthless as ever, appears even to have been on the field in person upon this occasion ? Like the Gods of other ancient peoples, he of the Israelites is presumed to be there to help his friends and discomfit their enemies. Venus, in the Iliad, shields Paris when in danger, and favours the Tro­ jans ; Pallas has Achilles and the Greeks under her protection ; and so in the Jahvehiad is Jehovah with the Israelites in the fight before Ai. The men of the feint on this side the city take to flight when attacked ; the defenders pursue; and now, says Jehovah to Joshua, “ Stretch out the spear that is in thy hand toward Ai, and I will give it into thy hand.” Joshua brandishes his spear, the ambush of 30,000 arise (an ambuscade of 30,000 men !), march into Ai, set it on fire as commanded, smite the inhabitants from behind, as its defenders are now smitten by Joshua and his party in front, and the day is won. “ They let none of them escape ; Joshua drew not his hand back wherewith he stretched out the spear until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai. And all that fell on that day, both of men and women, were twelve thousand, even all the men of Ai, but they took the King alive, and brought him to Joshua.” The cattle and spoil are appropriated by Israel, and the town is burnt and made “ a heap of desolation unto this day.” The unoffending Chief of Ai, to con- �Ai Destroyed. 4-59 elude the bloody business, is hanged on a tree until sun-down (in other words, he is crucified as a sacri­ fice to the sun-god), when his body is cast before the gate of what was the city of his people, and a heap of stones is raised over it that “ remaineth unto this day.” So much for Ai, its King, and its people, thus dealt with in furtherance of Jehovah’s promise to the forefathers of Israel to give them a laud that flowed with milk and honey. Would not Blood and Tears, to judge from the tales before us, have been better ■chosen words ? Let the reader refer to the sieges of Jericho and Ai as first acts in the drama of getting possession of the covenanted land, and answer bravely to his own conscience whether they would or not. And what are we as reasonable, merciful, and responsible men, with the details of such atrocities before us, to think of those theologians of the present age who persist in forcing the writings of a barbarous people upon us as the source—sole source, moreover —whence passably becoming ideas of God and his dealings with the world are to be derived ? As reasonable and not utterly benighted men we are to think and feel assured that they are altogether unreasonable, and are living in a state either of wilful or unconscious blindness, * . After his triumphs at Jericho and Ai, Joshua builds an altar of whole stones, as said, to Jehovah, God of Israel—Jahveh-Elohe-Israel—on which burnt-offer­ ings and peace-offerings are presented, and on the stones of which it is composed a copy of the Law of Moses is engraved, not a word of all that Moses com­ manded being omitted in the writing, or in the reading aloud to the people which followed ? * Well may Strauss have said: “How many of the laity understand the Bible ?—how many of the clergy understand it 1—how many of them are willing to understand it ?” �460 J ’ oshua. This, in part at least, is somewhat extraordinaryintelligence—circumstance, matter, time, and place considered; for the altar is set up on Mount Ebal, and all that passes by the name of Law of Moses could scarcely have been engraved on its twelve unhewn stones. But Mount Ebal is in Samaria, some days march away for an army operating in Canaan with its base at Gilgal; and it is now quite certain that no­ thing was known among the Israelites under the title of Law of Moses until the reign of Hezekiah, seven hundred years after the days of Joshua, according to the usual reckoning. Seeing the difficulty of engraving the whole of the Pentateuch or Thora on twelve rough stones, Bible harmonists have said that it was the abstract of theLaw comprised in the book of Deuteronomy which Joshua carved on the stones ? An assumption, however, by which the difficulty isnot got over ; for every competent and candid critic now knows that Deuteronomy is among the most modern of the five so-called books of Moses, and that the bulk of the book, with the exception of a few verses met with here and there copied from Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, does not date from days farther back than the reign of Josiah. Others of the inhabitants of Canaan are now said to take alarm at the terrible doings of the Israelites ? The Kings of the Amorites, Hittites, Canaanites, and other septs dwelling on this or the western side of Jordan, hearing of what has been done to Jericho and Ai, band themselves together and prepare to resist the invaders. But the people of Gibeon, nearer the scene of action, stricken with a panic fear, as it seems, and despairing of any effectual resistance, go otherwise to work, and succeed by guile in binding Joshua and the princes of Israel by an oath to spare their lives. A deputation present themselves in the camp, and make show of having come from afar: the sacks and wine-skins they have with them being old and rent, �The Gibeonites. 461 their clothes patched, their shoes clouted, and the bread they still possess, “ though taken hot from the oven when they set out,” as they say, being now “ dry and mouldy.” Joshua inquires of them who they are, and from whence they come ? From a far country, say they in reply; and having, like Rahab the harlot, heard of the great fame of Jehovah the <3 od of Israel, and all he had done for his people in Egypt, against Sihon, King of Heshbon, and Og, King of Bashan, against the Amorites beyond Jordan, and doubtless also against the people of Jericho and Ai, they had come their long journey to entreat the leader of the dreaded host to enter into a league of amity with them. Joshua falls into the snare F “ Because he had not asked counsel at the mouth of Jehovah,” says the text, “ he made peace with them and let them live, all the princes of the congregation swearing to the league.” Had he but taken counsel of the mouth of Jehovah, as he ought to have done, he would have been better advised: instead of en­ gaging to let them live, he would doubtless have found himself authorised to deal with them in another fashion. Commanded to hold them Cherem, as in other instances, he would have been enjoined to slay and despoil, instead of simply enslaving and putting them to tribute. All that breathed—men and women, old and young—would then have been put to death, and the silver and gold, the brass and iron they pos­ sessed been paid into the treasury of the God ! Joshua and the Israelites, of course, soon discover that they have been imposed upon—that the footsore and ragged deputation came from no far-off country, but verily from the cities of Gibeon, Cephirah, Beeroth, and Kirjath-Jearim, all close at hand ? The people, therefore, murmur against Joshua and. their chiefs : they would much have preferred putting the Gibeonites to the sword, and appropriating their spoil; “ but they smote them not, because of the oath �462 'Joshua. of the princes,” and are pacified by having them made hewers of wood and drawers of water to the congre­ gation of Israel. Joshua, we need not doubt, rates the deputation soundly for having deceived him, thev pleading in excuse the rumour gone abroad that Jehovah the God of Israel had commanded his ser­ vant Moses to give his people all the land for a pos­ session, and to destroy all its native inhabitants from before them. Joshua therefore keeps the hands of the children of Israel from the throats of the Gibeonites ; but, as the story says, “ he made them hewers of wood and drawers of water for the congregation and for the altar of Jehovah in the place which he should choose, even unto this day.” How may this be interpreted ? The hierodouli or slaves of the Temple, built by King Solomon—if it were not perchance of the second Temple, built by the remnant that returned from their captivity in Babylon—on Mount Moriah, in the city of Jerusalem, are turned by the writer into Gibeonites subdued by Joshua. The Gibeonites have made peace with Joshua then, but the Kings or chiefs of the cantons, their neigh­ bours, threaten them for having come to terms with the invader ? Five of these Kings gather their fighting men together, and make war on Gibeon for its selfish desertion of the common cause. But Gibeon sends to Joshua at Gilgal, entreating for speedy succour and assistance ; all the Kings of the Amorites that dwell on the mountains being now gathered, as they say, against them. Joshua is not slow to obey the summons of his new allies. He moves at once from Gilgal in the night; falls suddenly on the host of the five confederates, discomfits them, and slays them with a great slaughter. But he has not been without a powerful ally of another kind than the dastardly Gibeonites to aid in the work of destruc­ tion, for “ Jehovah,” as we learn, “ cast down great �Still-stand of the Sun. 463' stones from Heaven upon them, so that there were more that died with hail-stones than the children of Israel slew with the sword.” More than this, and still more marvellous, it is here we read that Joshua, addressing Jehovah, says, in the sight of Israel, “ Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou moon in the Valley of Ajalon. And the sun stood still in the midst of Heaven, and hasted not his going down a whole day.” The moon, too, although her light could not have been wanted in face of the sun, paused, it is said, in her course, whilst the chosen seed avenged themselves on their enemies. “ And there was no day like that before or after it, that Jehovah hearkened to the voice of a man ; for Jehovah fought for Israel.” We have so often had occasion to differ from the writer that for once we rejoice to find ourselves in accord with him : there certainly never was, and never will, “ until chaos come again,” be a day like that which saw the sun stand still in Heaven, and haste not his going down for a whole day at the word of a man ! Had the writer been content with his hail-stones of Jehovah—in other words, his great hail-stones—it would not have been difficult to admit that such a contingency as a hail-storm occurring in the course of a skirmish in Judea was well within the limits of possibility, but the standing still of the sun and moon in Heaven, in other words, the arrest of the earth in its revolution, to give Israel the better opportunity to slaughter the Amorites, takes the tale entirely out of the pale of belief. Such an occurrence, as against Mature, i.e., against God, is an absolute impossibility. The narrator himself, indeed, must have had mis­ givings as to the credibility and reception of his story, for he seeks either to bolster it up, or to shift the responsibility for its truth from his own to another’s shoulders, appealing as he does to an inaccessible source as his authority. “ Is not this written,” says he, “ in the Sepher Haijashar ? ”—the �464 Joshua. Book of the Just, now lost to us. Reference to such a document shows that the writer drew from an older source than is the text in which we have his tale, a document, however, that certainly did not date so far back as the days of Joshua, inasmuch as we learn elsewhere (II. Samuel, i. 17 and seq.) that it is from the Sepher Haijashar that the touching lament, put into the mouth of David for Saul and Jonathan, is derived. The Book of Joshua, conse­ quently, could not have been compiled and put together in the indifferent fashion in which it meets us until after the reign of David, second King of Israel. This tale of the standing still of the sun and moon in their apparent course must surely be one of the parts of the Old Testament which, in face of the science of our age, has failed to find apologists ? So might we have expected. Nevertheless, at­ tempts have not only been made to explain away but even to defend the statement, and in the physical impossibility implied to find an illustration of the power—we do not know that any one has ventured to add: of the goodness and mercy of God. But early indoctrination still makes men incompetent to see things as they are, and lets them of the power to dis­ tinguish between what is no more than contingent statement and that which is absolute or necessary truth. Blind sentiment then takes the lead of open-eyed in­ telligence, and blank absurdity and hideous cruelty are seen in the disguise of wisdom and beneficence. * * It is not a little extraordinary that so bold a thinker and, in matters of science, so well-informed a man as Spinoza should have been tempted to offer a natural explanation of the myth relating the still-stand of the sun and moon at the word of Joshua. He says (assuming it as a fact that the day­ light lasted longer than usual) that Joshua and those about him, ignorant of the true cause of the longer continuance of the light they witnessed, believed that the sun stood still on the day in question. They never thought of referring it to �Hanging before the Sun. 4.65 With the great ally he had, or thought he had, in his God Jehovah, Joshua could not fail to put the five Kings of the Amorites, in alliance against Gibeon, to the rout ? They are defeated, as matter of course, with signal slaughter of their peoples, they themselves only escaping immediate death by hiding in a cave at Makkedah. This being told to Joshua, he, to make sure of his prey yet not to interrupt the pursuit and slaughter, orders great stones to be rolled to the mouth of the cave, and a guard set over it. “ Pursue after your enemies and smite them,” says he; “ suffer them not to enter into their cities; for Jehovah your God hath delivered them into your hand.” The triumph complete, Joshua and the men of war return to the camp at Makkedah, and—vce victis!—it is now the turn of the chiefs who are hidden in the cave :— “ Bring forth those five Kings unto me out of the cave,” says Joshua. Calling his officers about him, he bids them put their feet on the necks of the pros­ trate chiefs, and assures them that if they continue strong and of good courage, thus will Jehovah aid them to do to all against whom they fight. But this is not yet the end; for Joshua, continues the record, inspired by Jehovah, and with his own hand, we may presume, even as Samuel did to Agag, “ smote them and slew them, and hanged them on five trees until the going down of the sun.” The dead bodies were then taken down and thrown into the cave wherein, having sought a refuge, they now found a grave ; its mouth, to conclude, being stopped up with great stones, “which remain unto this day.” Such hangings up before the sun, or until the going down of the sun, so frequently mentioned in the Heany less obvious cause, such as the ice and hail which then filled the air, and might have given rise to a higher refractive power in the atmosphere than usual.—Tr. Theol. Polit., ch. it, p. 60, of the English version. �466 "Joshua. brew Scriptures, must be presumed to have a special significance ? That they have, cannot be doubted, and that they were sacrificial is scarcely questionable. The trees on which the suspensions took place were crucifixes, and the attitude of the victim was that which appears to have been assumed by the Semitic peoples generally in the act of adoration. At the dedication of the Temple, for instance, Solomon, it is said, “ stood before the altar of Jehovah and spread forth his hands towards heaven and said: -Jehovah, God of Israel, there is no God like thee,” &c.; and when he had made an end of “ praying all this prayer and suppli­ cation unto Jehovah, he arose from kneeling on his knees with his hands spread up to heaven ” (1 Kings, viii. 22 and 54). Those stretchings out of the arms, again, with or without the Hod of God in his hand, of which we read so frequently in connection with the mythical history of Moses, must have had the same significance—they implied prayer and adoration. Moses stretches out his hand when he divides the flood of the Red Sea and when he draws water from the rock, but most notably of all when he gains the victory over Amalek. Waited on by Aaron and Hur, he has ascended the hill that overlooks the field; “and it was seen,” says the text,-“that when Moses held up his hands, that Israel prevailed, and when he let down his hands, that Amalek prevailed. .But Moses’ hands were heavy, and they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat thereon ; and Aaron and Hur stayed uv his hands, the one on the one side, the other on the other side, until the going down of the sun. And Joshua discomfited Amalek.” (Ex.xvii.) The rude Figure in the woodcut on the next page, after a Votive Tablet of Hicembalis, King of Massylia and Numidia, to his Deity the Sun-God Baal—older in all likelihood than anything we have in the Hebrew Scriptures—is in the very attitude of the victim on the accursed tree as well as of Moses and Solomon in the act of �'Joshua Victorious. 467 prayer, and is surely not a little interesting when seen in connection with the great Catholic Christian symbol of medieeval and modern times. * Joshua, to whom the idea of mercy appears to have been unknown—as, indeed, it would have been out of season, acting as he does under orders from Jeho­ vah to smite and not to spare—never pauses now in his career of conquest over the tribes standing in the * The rude and very ancient tablet figured above was brought by Sir Grenville Temple, in 1833, from Magrawa, the site of a Lybo-Phcenician settlement in the Beylik of Tunis, and is described and figured in the Trans, of the Royal Asiatic Society for 1834. The inscription in the Phoenician character has been deciphered by Gesenius : Scripturse L111guaeque Phoenicia Monumenta, 4to, Lips. 1837, and is to the following effect:—Domino Baali Solari, Rege Eterno, qui exaudivit preces Hicembalis : “To the Sun-God Baal, Eternal King, who heard the prayers of Hicembalis. ” �468 Joshua. way of the chosen seed, their enemies only because Occupants of the soil on which they had been born, and their title-deeds no other than indentures from God when he gave them power to subdue and make it fruitful ? He advances from one victory to another, according to the record, might his only rule of right. And the countenance and aid of Jehovah ? So he or the writer who uses the sacred name may have imagined ; but enlightened humanity knows no­ thing of God’s countenance or favour save with deeds in conformity with his eternal laws—with those in special which proclaim the sacredness of human life, and forbid appropriation by force or fraud of aught that is another’s. But the Canaanites, it has been said, were a wicked race, and so were disinherited, as they deserved ? Of the state of civilisation and morals among the Canaanites we know little; and that little not always in their favour. But they were farther advanced in the arts of life, as it seems, than the horde that in­ vaded them. They were settled denizens on the land of their birth, not wandering nomads like the Is­ raelites ; they dwelt in walled towns, associated as independent petty republics, and lived in peace or at war with one another as interest or passion prompted. If perchance they were not entirely moral in their generation, and their religion was stained with what we now look on as indecency, and with blood, what, it is fair to ask, were the Israelites who came up against them ? Let the reader refer to the chapters of the book of Exodus in which so many command­ ments with a social bearing find expression; and, if he have it not already, let him thence acquire the formation that will enable him to answer the question. Favour or no favour, Joshua is a daring leader, and his warriors are braver, more numerous, better armed, or better led than their opponents, so that he takes in �Hazor is Cherem. 469 succession Makkeda’n, Libnah, Lachish, Gezer, Eglon, and Hebron, and does to each and. all of them as he had done to Jericho and Ai, putting the men, women, and children to the sword, and appropriating their spoil, utterly destroying all that breathed, “as Jeho­ vah the God of Israel commanded” (x. 40). So many of the cities of the level land, or land, of Canaan, and their territories thus subdued, Joshua turns his attention to the Perizzite, the Hittite, the Jebusite, and the Canaanite which dwell in the more mountainous districts. Jabin, King of Hazor, had, in fact, allied himself with the clans just named, and “ come up against Israel with much people, even as the sand on the sea-shore in multitude, with horses and chariots very many.” .But Jehovah, as on other occasions, bids Joshua not to fear them, for “to-mor­ row, about this time, I will deliver them all slain be­ fore Israel, and thou shalt hough their horses and burn their chariots with fire.” Israel, with such assistance, prevails ? Of course!—Jehovah delivers all into the hands of his ruthless favourites : Jabin and his confederates are smitten until none of them remain ; “ Joshua did unto them as Jehovah hade him : he houghed their horses and burnt their chariots with fire.” Hazor, the leading place in this unsuccessful stand against the invaders, is particularly mentioned as suffering sum­ mary chastisement. Taken by assault, we may pre­ sume, Jabin the King of Hazor, and all the souls therein, are smitten with the sword, none of them being left to breathe, and the town itself with all within it is burnt to ashes. Hazor, in a word, had been made Gherem; and we are already familiar with the terrible significance of this word. The other cities confederate with Hazor are also taken ; but they are not burned down; the victors content themselves with slaying their inhabitants and appropriating the spoil. “There was not a city,” says the record, “that made peace with the children of Israel, save the �Joshua. Hivites, the inhabitants of Gibeon; all the others they took in battle for it was of Jehovah to harden their hearts that they should come against Israel in battle that they might have no favour, but be utterly destroyed as Jehovah commanded Moses”—that is to say, they were led to their destruction by Jehovah himself. There is the saying of a heathen writer, that God first makes mad those he would ruin; but in the book, every word of which is still received by so many among the most civilised peoples of the earth as inspired by God, we should scarcely have expected to find the Supreme Creator presented as leading men to their destruction. Let us think for a moment of God hardening the hearts of the Canaanites to oppose their invaders, and commanding the indiscri­ minate slaughter of men and women, with the par­ ticular houghing of horses and burning of war chariots with fire 1 Had the book been truly inspired by God it would most assuredly have contained no such command­ ments. Do we, however, accept the definition of inspiration given by one of the few consistently pious, thoroughly competent, and candid biblical critics of our day as: “ The expression of man’s religious consci­ ousness;” and that of “ God’s promises of the land of Canaan to the Israelites,” as : “ the spontaneous consci­ ousness of the writer and his nation,”* we come to a ' much better understanding of the text than when it is seen as the result of any immediate intimation or inspiration from God. It is, indeed, and can by no possibility be more than a picture by the writer of his God Jehovah, and the destinies of his people. God, most assuredly, no more hardened the hearts of the Canaanites to resist Israel than he hardened the heart of Pharaoh, in older times, when refusing to let Israel go; and he no more ordered the children of * S. Davidson, D.D. Introd, to Study of the Old Testa­ ment, I., p. 440 et seq. �Joshua a Myth. i Israel to go in, slay and take possession in Canaan, than he inspires a neighbouring people of our own day to covet certain lands that border the Rhine, and another to desiderate the domains of the Sultan, whilst he inclines the hearts of the Teuton and Turk to hold their own. It was the want of elbow-room and the need they felt for escape from the nomad to the settled state that drove the Hebrew of old to cast longing eyes on the better watered and more fertile lands of Canaan, and led him on, with arms in his hand, prepared to slay where liberty to settle was denied. The story of the invasion of Palestine by the children of Israel, as we have it, is a poem, its historical foundations, in all likelihood, no broader than those of “ The Tale of Troy divine.” Myth and legend, largely as they pervade every part of the early Hebrew story, are so conspicuous in Joshua that an astrological and allegorical meaning has even been connected with the whole of the book. Jericho, it has been said, may be the Moon-city, Rahab the Moon-goddess (Rahab, increase, from the waxing of the Moon through the first half of her orbit), and Joshua himself another Hercules or Sun-god, point­ edly referred to as a Beth-schemite or of the House of the Sun (Ha-Schem, the Sun, a name of the Hebrew god), of whose birth and descent, further than that he was the son of Nun [the fish), we have no information, though we are told that his death and burial took place at Timnath-Heres—eclipse of the Sun, or the obscurity that follows his setting. * Some considerable time, we must presume, was spent in these wars of conquest and spoliation of Joshua ? Five or six years, according to the usual reckoning, but this is merely conjectural, and though Joshua is said to have taken “ the whole land and given it * See Drummond, CE dipus Judaicus, 4to., London. Re­ printed, 8vo., London, 1868. Higgins, Anacalepsis, 2 vols., 4to., London; and Nork, Biblische Mythologie, II., 226. �47 2 Joshua. for an inheritance to Israel,” so that at length “ the land rested from war ” (xi. 23), we by and by learn that “ there yet remained very much land to be possessed” (xiii. 1); a statement which, doubtless, approaches the truth more closely than the one first made. Many towns and districts were very certainly never subdued in Joshua’s time, nor, indeed, for long after: “As for the Jebusites, the children of Judah could not drive them out; but the Jebusites dwell with the children of Judah at Jerusalem unto this day—a statement that must date from some con­ siderable time after the reign of David. Neither would it seem did Ephraim slay and drive out the Canaanites from the lands allotted to them, in the manner first described : “ They drove not out the Canaanites that dwelt in Gezer; but the Canaanites dwell among the Ephraimites unto this day, and serve under tribute.” With the land thus partially subdued, Joshua nevertheless proceeds to the difficult task of dividing it among the victors according to their tribes ? To avoid dispute, apparently, and charges of par­ tiality, he has recourse to lots, and gives an engage­ ment as from Jehovah that the peoples still in possession should in due season be driven out. The tribe of Levi, alone, is to have none of the land as an inheritance, “the sacrifices of Jehovah, God of Israel, made by fine, are their inheritancethey are, how­ ever, to have certain cities, situated in the territories of the other tribes, for dwelling-places. The ad­ mission but just made that there still remained much land to be possessed, and that the slaying and driving out had by no means been so complete as reported, now finds confirmation in the statement that “ the five Lords of the Philistines, the Canaanites north of them—the A vites, the Gib bites, all Lebanon, and the Sidonians”—as well as certain other tribes more cen­ trally situated,—the Geshurites, Maachathites, and Jebusites, had not only not been slain or driven out, �Natives not Driven out. 473 but had not as yet been even molested ; they continued to dwell among the Hebrews of old, as they did in the days of the Jewish writer of the age of Josiah (xiii. 13). The veni, vidi, vici of the Book of Joshua is thus found, after all, to be an empty boast. On the above showing there is obvious discrepancy in the accounts we have of the doings of Joshua ? The discrepancy is endless. The country could ■evidently have been overrun and subdued to a very • limited extent only. Instead of being exterminated, the native populations remained in most parts even numerically superior to the Israelites. But the natives, graziers here, agriculturists there, divided among themselves doubtless, and quarrelling at times, must still have been unused to war on any great scale. Their assailants, the Israelites, on the con­ trary, are represented as soldiers trained and armed for battle, acting as invaders in a body under a single leader, and superior through discipline to any oppo­ sition that could be offered them. There was, there­ fore, no necessity for the indiscriminate slaughter paraded by the Jewish annalists for the purpose of magnifying Jehovah and his people Israel. The vast multitude said to have left Egypt and made to toil so long in the wilderness, disappear soon after Joshua comes upon the stage ? After the questionable Census in the plains of Moab, we hear no more of the six hundred thousand and odd able-bodied men, from twenty years of age and upwards, armed for war. The force in the field under Joshua, though greatly exaggerated in numbers, doubtless, is a comparatively compact body, more easily handled than any larger mass, but still, we may imagine, more than sufficient to make resistance use­ less on the part of the Canaanites. They could, in fact, have seen nothing for it, in the majority of instances, but submission; a course to which they may have been the more easily reconciled when they found that the invaders were of their own kindred, �474 Joshua. spoke the same or a dialect of the same language,, followed the same social usages, and with little difference observed the same religious rites as them­ selves. The Hebrews and Canaanites were in truth, as we have seen, scions of the same Semitic stock, and intermingling freely through the whole of theearlier and by much the longer period of their history —each taking the sons and daughters of the other as husbands and wives—they became amalgamated at length into the people whom we finally know as the Israelites, or, in a more restricted sense, as the Jews. Such a conclusion, however, does not tally with the gist of the general history ? It must be true none the less ; for though Jehovah is pledged by the writers of the Hebrew records to drive out the native populations before his elect—the children of Jacob, the wily—as the pledge was never redeemed, so need we have no misgivings in conclud­ ing that it never came from God, among whose eternal ordinances, as we read them in the book of Nature, it has no place. What then becomes of the many stringent enact­ ments so frequently repeated, from the mythical days of Abraham and Sarah downwards, against taking daughters of the soil to wife F As we see that these were all against the customs of the country, and were never observed by high or low until after the Captivity, we conclude that they are the product of the very latest legislation. They belong, in fact, to times when the Jehovistic religious party had got the upper hand in the state, and the bigotry and intolerance that spring up whenever men in power imagine themselves the favourites of heaven, their views alone agreeable to God, and all who differ from them as no better than accursed, had ripened into a system. There is particular as well as general discrepancy, also, as regards the districts and cities said to have been conquered by Joshua ? �Hebron and Debir. ^7$ Hebron, for instance, is said in one place to have been taken and smitten with the edge of the sword, and the king and all the souls therein so utterlydestroyed that not one was left alive (x. 36). But in another place Caleb says to Joshua, “ Now, there­ fore, give me this mountain, Hebron, where Jehovah spoke in that day, how the Anakims were there and the cities great and fenced. If so be that Jehovah will be with me, then I will drive them out as Jehovah said. And Joshua blessed Caleb and gave him Hebron for an inheritance.” Hebron consequently had not been captured, neither had its inhabitants been exterminated in the manner declared. By-andbye, indeed, we are told that Caleb drives out the three Anakims, Sheshai, Ahiman, and Talmai from Hebron (xiv. 12) ; but at a later period in the story, we learn that “ After the death of Joshua the children of Judah went up to Hebron, fought against the Canaanites who dwelt there, and slew the three Anakims, Sheshai, Ahiman, and Talmai (Judges i. 9)) who had all already been first put to the sword by Joshua, and then driven out by Caleb ! * Much the same story is told of Debir as of Hebron ? Joshua and all Israel with him, it is-said, fought against Debir; took it; smote it with the edge of the sword, and utterly destroyed all that breathed— “as he had done to Hebron, so did he to Debir” (x. 38). But immediately afterwards we find that Caleb, after clearing his possession, Hebron, of the Anakim, goes up against Debir, and makes proclama­ tion that whosoever takes the city, to him will he give his daughter Achsah to wife ; and that Othniel, the son of Kenaz, succeeds, and is rewarded in the terms of the proclamation (xiv. 16-17). But then we have Othniel as the Hero and Achsah as the prize in connection with the city of Kirjath-Sepher—called * Comp. De Wette: Introd, to 0. T. by Th. Parker, II., 165, and seq. �47 6 Joshua. Debir of old, says the writer, in times posterior to the death of Joshua (Judges i. 11-13). From these and the numerous other contradictory and obviously mythical statements of the book of Joshua we conclude ? First, that the book is a compilation from frag­ ments, mainly traditional, and in many cases purely mythical; and second, that we have the writings of two —if not of three or more—different individuals jum­ bled together. Besides the information proper to the book itself, there are many allusions to particulars with which we are already familiar in writings that have gone before, as well as with others, in works more sober in their tenour and more reliable as authorities, that come after it. References to the plagues of Egypt and the wonders done in that country are put into the mouths of Rahab and the Gibeonites; the passage of the Jordan is plainly a parallel to the passage of the Red Sea, and needless, inasmuch as the river is fordable ; Moses is the hero of the legislation and Joshua the hero of the con­ quest of the promised land; Moses had a wonder­ working rod, and Joshua has a wonder-working spear; Jehovah appears to Moses in the burning bush, and the Captain of Jehovah’s host appears to Joshua, and in the very words used to Moses bids him loose his shoe from off his foot, the ground he stands on being holy; and, to conclude, the death and burial of Joshua at Timnath Heres in the dark bears some analogy to the mysterious death of Moses on Mount Nebo. Beside the general distribution of lands to the tribes, there are a few particular allotments to distin­ guished individuals ? We have seen Caleb put in possession of Hebron, and we now learn that the sons of Aaron, the priests, are handsomely endowed ; they have no fewer than thirteen cities assigned them. But, as the sons were only two, we are at a loss to imagine what use they �Reuben and Gad Retire. 477 could have made of so munificent a gift : they could not have occupied thirteen cities, and in the days referred to there was no letting and sub-letting; possessions were for individuals and their families, and the transmission of property only took place by sale or inheritance among the members of each several tribe. Such an anachronism as the present­ ment of thirteen cities to the priesthood can scarcely be conceived possible even at a date so remote as the age of Solomon ; the statement before us, therefore, we must conclude, was made after the reign of that * sovereign. And now, continues the text, “ Jehovah gave unto Israel all the land which he swore to give to their fathers; and they possessed it, and dwelt therein, and Jehovah gave them rest round about . . . and there failed not aught of any good thing which Jehovah had spoken unto the house of Israel —all came to pass ” (xxi. 43-45). This must be a note supplied by a late hand, ignoring much of what had been said before ? It has every appearance of being so, standing as it does in flagrant contradiction with the statements we have but just had made that there still remained much land to be taken in and possessed; that the children of Judah could never drive the Jebusites out of their city, nor the sons of Manasseh expel the Canaanites from the district assigned them, &c. Neither, indeed, were the Geshurites ever got rid of, but continued, the text tells us, “ to dwell among the Ephraimites unto this day,” i.e., unto the day when the writer lived, some time assuredly, longer or shorter, after the reign of Solomon. The tribes of Reuben and Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh, which have kept their word to Moses that they would aid the other tribes, their brethren, in the conquest of the promised land, now take their See Kuehnen. Hist, critique de l’ancien Testament, Tr. de l’Hollandais, T. I., p. 330, 8vo, Paris, 1866. �4-7 8 Joshua. leave, and set out in return to their own territory beyond Jordan, with the blessing of Joshua and a, charge that they should diligently keep the com­ mandments and observe the law which Moses the servant of Jehovah had given them ? They depart, and having come to the banks of the Jordan in the land of Canaan they are minded, it is said, to build an altar, “ a great altar to see to,” according to the text. This was piously intended, doubtless, and in thank­ fulness to their God who had so marvellously befriended them and their brethren in their great enterprise ? So might we conclude; but, strange to say, it is taken as a mortal offence by the ten tribes they had just left; “ the whole congregation of Israel, it is said, gathered themselves together at Shiloh to go up to war against them.” This seems extraordinary ? So would it be assuredly, could anything of the kind have occurred at the Early period of Hebrew history assumed. Then, and for long ages after, there were numerous holy-places, with rude altars of earth and unhewn stones, scattered over the country, at Hebron, Beth-El, Beer-Sheba, Gilgal, Sechem, Siloh, Lachish, Dan, &c., dedicated to the Hebrew God or Gods—El, Elohim, Isra-El, or by whatever other name known, under whatever form represented, at all of which sacrifices could be duly and lawfully offered. The ire of the congregation of Israel, how­ ever, ceases to strike us as extraordinary when the writing is referred to post-exilic times, when the only shrine to which oblations could be lawfully brought was the one on Mount Zion, and the only God to be addressed without sin was Jehovah, God of the reformed religious party in the kingdom of Judah. The story, if it be more than a myth, if it have any historical foundation at all, must refer to an episode in the rivalry between Judah and Israel, in the days �Early Religious Differences. qyg -of Jeroboam, or still later, but here relegated to the remote age of Joshua and the Epoch of the Conquest. The congregation of Israel (Judah) expostulate with Reuben and Gad (Israel or Ephraim) before proceeding to extremities and coming to blows with them ? They send Phinehas, distinguished as we already know by the 'murder of Zimri and Cozbi, so much approved of by Jehovah, if the record may be trusted, and with him ten princes of the tribes. Coming up with the sons of Reuben, Gad, and half Manasseh, at Gilead, they say:—“What trespass is this that ye have committed against the God of Israel ” [Jehovah, the God of Judah, being here to be understood] “ in that ye have builded you an altar ? If the land of your possession be unclean, then pass ye over into the land of the possession of Jehovah, wherein Jehovah’s tabernacle [Temple on Mount Zion, to be understood] dwelleth; but rebel not against us in building you an altar beside [in addition to] the altar of Jehovah our God.” The Reubenites and Gadites will be much amazed at this interference with the custom of their fathers— Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and themselves, of setting up an altar whenever and wherever they were minded so to do ? That they must have been taken aback there can be little question, and we should find them saying so, assuredly, had we the true account of the incident out of which, we must presume, the story of the text to have arisen; but we have it not, we have only the travestied Jehovistic narrative, in which the parties inculpated are made to say:—“God, God Jehovah [Judah’s God] knoweth, and Isra-El [Ephraim’s God] shall know, if this has come to pass through falling away from Jehovah or rebelling against him, may there be no help for us this day ! If we have built us an altar to turn from following Jehovah, or to offer burnt-offerings or thank-offerings thereon, may �480 Joshua. Jehovah avenge it! And if we have not rather done this to the end, that in time to come when your children say to our children, ‘What have ye in common with Jehovah, seeing that Jehovah hath made Jordan the boundary between us and you—ye have no part in Jehovah.’ . . . Therefore, said we, we shall build an altar, neither for burnt-offerings nor for sacrifice, but for a witness between us and you, and between your generations and our genera­ tions after us that we do service to Jehovah, and come to him with our burnt-offerings, our sacrifices, and our thank-offerings, so that your children shall not in time to come say to our children, ‘ Ye have no part in Jehovah.’ Far be it from us, therefore, say we, this day to fall away from Jehovah by build­ ing an altar for burnt-offerings and meat-offerings, and sacrifices, other than the altar of Jehovah our [the word should be your] God that stands before his dwelling-place ” [the Temple of Jerusalem to be understood]. The account here is not only tautological and extremely prolix in the original, but, when closely scanned, is seen to be at variance with other parts of the Hebrew Scriptures ? Hardly to be understood either without the com­ ment here supplied in some small measure by the few words within brackets. Explanation more at large is found when note is taken of the two great religious parties, Elohists and Jehovists, into which the Hebrew people came to be divided subsequently to the reign of Solomon. Of these the Elohists repre­ sent the Catholics, the Jehovists the Protestants, of modern times. The Elohists “stand fast on the ancient ways,” have their strength in the kingdom of Israel or Ephraim, and they possess numerous altars or holy places ; the Jehovists, more advanced, have their stronghold in Judah, with the Temple on Mount Zion as the only shrine or holy place they acknowledge. The Elohists, in a word, abide by the �Early Religious Differences. 481 worship of the old Hebrew God El Elohe Israel, and continue to sacrifice to him under the semblance of the Bull. The Jehovists, again, having attained to the conception of the Oneness and Omnipresence of Deity, had abandoned the Idea that God could be presented under any similitude, but inconsistently maintained that he could only be lawfully addressed at his Shrine on Mount Zion. Reuben and Gad, w© see, do not deny that they had built an altar; but they are made by the Jewish writer to belie them­ selves, and say that it was not intended for burntofferings nor for sacrifice, but for a witness between them and their brethren. Altars, however, were never built save for sacrifice, it was the Cairn or Heap of stones, and upon occasion the single stone pillar under a tree or by a well, that was the proper memorial monument. The text but just quoted, in its inconsistencies and its statements at variance with all we know of use and wont among the early He­ brews, shows unmistakable signs of late writing and of yet later editorial manipulation in the transparent purpose it presents to set Jehovah above El EloheIsra-El. The religious difference between the two sections of the Hebrew people may possibly have lain at the root of the fatal disruption that turned into two the single kingdom conquered by David and ruled over through the greater part of his life by Solomon ? There may be some truth in this. United, Judah and. Ephraim might, as it seems, have made head against either Egypt or Assyria, operating so far from home, and have even held their own, under a com­ petent leader, in the hilly and easily-defended country of Northern Palestine against Chaldea. But divided, hating each other with the blind and deadly hate that is .engendered of religious difference, and often at war with one another, they became in succession the easy prey of even the least powerful of their enemies. If Reuben and Gad had built, or were minded to �482 Joshua. build, an altar at all, it could therefore only be for sacrifice and oblation; and their offence lay in this, that it was not to Jehovah, but to the God El-EloheIsrael, Chiun, or Chamos, whose Tabernacle, Image, and Star had been borne by them and their fathers in the wilderness for forty years, according to the prophet Amos (v.), that they were about to bring their offerings ? In the olden time there was not only no restriction as to the building of altars for sacrifice, but every facility was given for their erection. Jehovah [the name should here be Elohim] orders Moses to say to the children of Israel, “ An altar of earth thou shalt make unto me, and shalt offer thereon thy burntofferings.” It was only when the Temple of Jeru­ salem had been built, and proclaimed by the Jehovistic or Jewish party, the sole shrine at which their God Jehovah could be worshipped, that the building else­ where of an altar for sacrifice and oblation came to be regarded as a trespass of such magnitude that it could only be atoned for by bloodshed. The Hebrew people of the age of Joshua must not be seen as the Israelites of Jeroboam and his successors of the age of the writer, setting up altars and bringing offerings to a Golden Calf as the God who had brought them out of their Egyptian bondage; they must be paraded as obser­ vant of the Law of Moses, eight centuries before it was even imagined to be in existence, and nine cen­ turies before the second Temple of Jehovah, God of Judah, had been built! Phinehas the priest and the other delegates ex­ press themselves satisfied with the disavowal they receive from Reuben and Gad of any purpose on their part to raise an independent altar ? They say: “ This day we perceive that Jehovah is among us. Because ye have not committed this trespass, ye have delivered the children of Israel out of the hand of Jehovah.” The children of Israel, it is said in continuation, “blessed God, and did not �Early Religious Differences. 483 go up in battle array to desolate the land wherein Reuben and Gad had their possessions and they, it ia added, called the altar they had built “ Ed— W&ness that Jehovah is God.”* The words which speak in this place of the “ deli­ very of the children of Israel out of the hand of Jehovah ” must have a special significance? The writer would, doubtless, persuade his country­ men and co-religionists that all departure from the so-called Law of Moses—which had been brought to light, we may suppose, a short while before his time —and any sacrifice offered at a shrine other than the Temple of Jerusalem, would bring Jehovah down upon them with war or pestilence for their presumption. He would have them believe that his God Jehovah would not be slow, through the instrumentality of such a zealot as Phinehas, or by war or pestilence to make them smart for daring to worship God in any but the prescribed, though it were, perchance, the an­ * It is with great diffidence that we venture to differ from so accomplished a Biblical scholar as Professor Kuehnen in our interpretation of this curious episode in Hebrew history. Referring to Joshua xxi., Professor Kuehnen says :—“How we see Israel zealous for the unity of worship ! What—build an altar outside of Shilo, the holy place I This were indeed a sin of the gravest complexion, which the parties inculpated make haste to explain away as they best can. The great thing in the writer’s mind is to have the calf of Jehovah centered at Shilo, and allowed at no other place.” But we are persuaded that it is Judah that is here zealous against Ephraim, after the disruption of the kingdom. The question, in our opinion, is not about having an altar anywhere save at Shilo, but of having an altar anywhere save at Jerusalem. The narrative in the text Professor Kuehnen believes to be derived from the document he styles ‘ The Book of the Origins and, as he refers the composition of this book to no more ancient a date than the reign of Solomon, we see that the history may very well refer to times by no means so remote as those of Joshua. In the shape in which we have the tale, it is pro­ bably from the pen of a Jewish writer, who lived not earlier than the reign of Josiah, and is an indifferent invention—ad majorem Jehova gloriam! The text is confused, tautological, �484 Joshua. tique way, and even the way of their immediate fathers and of most of themselves. The Jehovists were the Iconoclasts of the days of Josiah and a few of his successors. They were the men who ruined the High-places, broke in pieces the stone columns, and slew the priests of Baal, burnt the wooden pillars of Aschera, pulled down the booths of the infamous Kadeschim, destroyed the brazen Ser­ pent—said to be that which Moses set up on a pole in the wilderness—made a bonfire of the Chariot of the Sun that stood in the porch of the Temple, and so on. They present themselves in almost all things as pro­ totypes of the early reformers of modern times, who were not always content with breaking in pieces the images and wrecking the altars, but did not hold their hands from the solemn piles in which what they styled The Idolatry had been carried on. With the departure of Reuben and Grad to their possessions beyond Jordan, “ a long time after Je­ hovah had given rest to Israel,” according to the and bears obvious marks of editorial manipulation; but the burden of the narrative assimilates itself perfectly with the state of things existing between Judah and Ephraim in days subsequent to the age of Solomon. It is not uninteresting to note that the site of the ed or witness altar spoken of appears to have been recently discovered in the course of the Ordnance Survey of Palestine, proceeding at this time. There is, it seems, a remarkable lofty white peak visible from the modern Jericho, twenty miles distant, projecting like a bastion, and closing the valley of the Jordan. From the summit of this peak there is a magnificent and very extensive view. Accessible on the north side only, the surveying party there obtained the name, Tal’at abu Ayd—the ascent leading to Ayd. The lofty peak in question, conspicuous in days when writing had become familiar to the Jews as it had been from time immemorial, was probably in want of a history, and has been supplied with one by the writer of the Book of Joshua. The times with which we have ventured to connect the narrative of the 22nd chapter of Joshua implies our per­ suasion that the tale has reference to incidents much later than any that can be referred to the days of the mythical suc­ cessor of the still more mythical Moses. �Joshuas Parting Address. 485 text, Joshua, now far stricken in years, calls the Elders of Israel around him ? And reminds them, in imitation of Moses, when he had the notice that he was to die, of all Jehovah had done for them. Modestly passing over his own achievements, he speaks of the partition he had made among them by lot, not only of the lands overrun and possessed, but of those of the peoples which still remained to be conquered and taken in. But he informs them that they have only to be of good courage, to do all that is ordained in the book of the Law, to serve none of the gods of the native tribes among whom they settled, and particularly to contract no marriages with their women ; the Jewish writer showing himself as well aware, in his day, as we are in ours, of the power of the female propaganda in securing outward conformity, at all events, if not always inward assent, to the religious dogmas and rites which are the fashion of the age. But if they failed to follow the advice now given them ? Then should they smart for it: “Do ye in any­ wise go back and cleave to the remnants of the nations left among you,” says the text, “making marriages with them and they with you; know for a certainty that Jehovah your God will no more drive out any of these nations from before you, but they shall be snares and traps unto you, scourges in your sides, and thorns in your eyes, until ye perish from off the land. It shall come to pass that as all good things are come upon you which were promised, so shall Jehovah bring upon you all evil things. When ye have transgressed the covenant of Jehovah and have gone and served other gods, then shall the anger of Jehovah be kindled against you, and ye shall perish quickly from off the good land which he hath given you” (xxiii. adfinf. This has a great look of prophecy after the event ? There can be little question of its being so in �486 'Joshua. reality. God as Immanent Cause, In All and Of All that Is, cannot be jealous of other gods, for there are none such; and God neither favours nor is angry, in any human sense, with act of man or event that comes to pass. Such language is the effect of anthropomorphosing God and supposing him possessed of human appetites, passions, and prejudices — a sin that must be charged against the writers of the Hebrew Scriptures, above all others. In the texts just quoted we see iteration of the old system of con­ tract or bargain between Jehovah and his people, upon which we have observed already; and in the warnings against serving other gods we have fresh assurance that Jehovah was believed by the Jews to be but one among many gods, and not a little j ealous of their power. Joshua continues his parting address ? Or rather we have another writer beginning it for him anew and varying it in particulars here and there. The first oration, which breaks off at the end of chapter xxiii., is continued at the 14th verse of the 24th chapter, and in terms that are not a little remarkable, the usual interpretation put upon the Hebrew Scriptures considered. “Now, therefore,” says the writer, “ fear Jehovah and serve him in sin­ cerity and in truth, and put away the Gods which your fathers served on the other side of the stream [the JordanJ and in Egypt, and serve ye Jehovah. And if it seem not good unto you to serve Jehovah, then choose you this day whom ye will serve,— whether the Gods which your fathers served on the other side of the stream, or the Gods of the Amoritps in whose land ye dwell; but as for me and my house we will serve Jehovah.” Joshua therefore gives the people their choice of the God or Gods they would serve ; and in what is said incidentally we now learn that Jehovah was not the God who was served either in Egypt or beyond Jordan, the proper boundary between the Divinities of one �Which of the Gods will ye Serve ? 48 7 Pantheon and Those of another. We discover at length, and at the very end of our task that Jehovah could have had nothing to do with freeing the Israel­ ites from their Egyptian bondage; but that it was verily the God whose similitude was presented by Aaron to the wanderers in the guise of the Bull-Calf, who had led them out of captivity. The writer of the Book of Joshua, plainly enough, has no idea of God as One and One only ; he recognises a multiplicity of Gods with Jehovah his own God among the number. All we have had in Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, therefore, about Jehovah as the God of Israel, his apparitions to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses, his personal communications and immediate commandments to the chiefs of the chosen seed, &c., &c., vanish into nothing. We have, in a word, no Records of the distant ages and strange doings referred to in the Pentateuch, but Poems by writers who lived, as we believe, for the most part after the Babylonian Captivity. To Joshua’s proposition as to the God they would serve the people answer and say ? “ God forbid that we should forsake Jehovah to serve other Gods; for Jehovah is he that brought us up and our fathers out of the land of Egypt, and did great wonders in our sight, and preserved us all the way wherein we went and among all the people through whom we passed.” This does not tally exactly with what Joshua has but just been made to say, and with very much besides that we have had already; for Aaron the priest has presented them with a Golden Calf as the God that brought them out of Egypt, and Jehovah has not only broken out on the people for their backslidings on numerous occasions and slain them by thousands with the sword and pestilence, but has inflicted forty years of wandering in the wilderness, and, with the exception of Joshua and Caleb, has killed off all of adult years who had left Egypt. �4-8 8 J ’ oshua. How, then, should we now have the people speaking of Jehovah as their God, of the wonders they had seen, and the care that had been taken of them in their journeyings ? It were very hard to say, could we not with the most perfect assurance refer the writing we have before us to a very late period in the history of the Hebrew people, and even divine the motive that led to its composition. Joshua does not receive the people’s ready accept­ ance of the new God Jehovah in place of their own and their fathers old Gods without a warning ? “Ye cannot serve Jehovah,” says he, “ for he is a holy God; he is a jealous God; he will not forgive your trangressions nor your sins. If ye forsake Jehovah and serve other Gods he will turn and do you hurt, and consume you after he hath done you good.” The people are not frightened by these somewhat formidable assurances ? They say: “ Nay, but we will serve Jehovah,” on which Joshua tells them that now they are witnesses against themselves, that they have chosen Jehovah to serve him. So he makes a covenant with the people and writes the words of it in a book; takes a great stone and sets it up under a tree and says : 11 Behold this stone shall be a witness to us; for it hath heard (/) all the words of Jehovah which he spake unto us. It shall therefore be a witness unto you that ye deny not your God”—Jehovah, the God just chosen, understood. By which procedure we see that Joshua, or the modern writer who is using his name, had not got beyond the old religious notions of his forefathers. He sets up a stone pillar, symbol of the life-giving power, under the shade of a living tree, so long an object of worship with man escaping from the merely animal into the more properly human or speculative sphere of existence. It is not unimportant to observe �Conclusion. 489 that the stone is referred to as having heard all the words spoken. It was not only the Symbol of the God, therefore, but the God himself—Deity at once, and Deity’s dwelling-place. The Book in which Joshua is said to have written what is called “ The Law of God ” has not come down to us ? The Book we have, which passes under the name of Joshua, contains little or nothing that has not an immediate bearing on the conquests and partition of the promised land, and so cannot be that now referred to. If it ever existed, and it may very well never have had being out of the imagination of the histo­ rian of Joshua’s deeds of spoliation and slaughter, it has perished in the wreck of ages. Having done his work, Joshua has now only to be gathered to his fathers ? He dies, it is said, at the advanced age of one hun­ dred and ten years, and is buried on the borders of his inheritance in Timnath-Heres, as we have already had occasion to learn. We have anticipated almost all that need be said of the age and authorship of the Book of Joshua. That it is of relatively modern composition, there can be no doubt; and from the repeated references we find to late incidents in Hebrew history, we see that he whose name it bears could not have been its author. It is, in fact, a sort of appendix to Deutero­ nomy, and the style and peculiar forms of expression show, almost beyond question, that the writer of Deuteronomy was, in great part at least, the writer of Joshua also, although it bears many marks of sub­ sequent editorial manipulation. Both Elohist and Jehovist documents appear in the text. The Book of Judges has furnished the compiler with several of his statements, and in this has left our modern har­ monists with a crop of contradictions that have sorely taxed their ingenuity to reconcile with the �49° 'Joshua. accredited idea of inspiration. A few of these we have had occasion to notice in the course of our com­ mentary. The mention of Jerusalem, which occurs oftener than once, would of itself suffice to take the writing out of the age whose history it details; for Jerusalem was Jebus until the reign of David; and the obvious reference made, in more places than one, to the sufferings that befal a city in a state of siege, and the miseries that wait on exile, point unequivocably to the invasion of the Chaldeans and the Baby­ lonian captivity. The Book of Joshua, therefore, in its present shape, cannot be of older date than the age of Manasseh. Speaking of the first twelve chapters of the Book, containing the tale of the in­ vasion of the land of Canaan, Professor Kuehnen gives it as the result of his inquiries, that “ the author cannot be regarded as an entirely credible historian.” Dr. Davidson, having determined the time of the Deute ronomist as falling in the reign of Manasseh, and ascribing, as he does, Deuteronomy and Joshua to one and the same compiler, concludes that the Book before us was compiled during the reign of that monarch. « C. W. BEY.NELL, PBINTEB, LITTLE PULTENEY STBEET, HAYMABKET. �� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; 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> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Pentateuch and Book of Joshua in face of the science and moral sense of our age. Part VI Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Willis, Robert Description An account of the resource Place of publication: London Collation: 441-490 p. : ill. ; 18 cm. Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed by C.W. Reynell, London. "By a Physician" [Title page]. Author believed to be Robert Willis. Includes bibliographical references. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Thomas Scott Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1875 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CT138 Subject The topic of the resource Bible Judaism Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (The Pentateuch and Book of Joshua in face of the science and moral sense of our age. Part VI), 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> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English. Bible. O.T. Joshua Bible. O.T. Pentateuch Conway Tracts https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/439195a3e1dca6a20a888417e336371d.pdf?Expires=1782345600&Signature=GuO5kNcqrYhydeQ%7EL0sC29lx-%7EjH2kdhieKyIjvUcerVslIDfykZIWn7tz3SEuhFjVeAmyOTI0pUQsAwL5Igq4yX4GZgS3UBV7epuBTaeJRHJ6sPLk9OgP%7EaAQWCbt5amKqiYVTHARd25IS6JYQpIKFfTgqSD7YKo8ENhKjrk87G6c6OOdRRjmU1LmarMtZI30bvdHT5qy1RGMs7ACEMog%7E0AZU3GIl2rla5W8SjJBanIWocNkaHpM54ThhJMpJ8coVumUKl7JQIhEGq13jGn-5xw2RUxo-DUwnbga%7Eg9CMYfkTxLAX%7EgQJ0mt0RZUQicQBDFnCCTgxMu%7ESsEFYDfw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 2a60502630f9a9b57806545e1b1437c2 PDF Text Text ORTHODOXY FROM THE HEBREW POINT OF VIEW. BY REV. THOMAS P. KIRKMAN, M.A., F.R.S., RECTOR OF CROFT, NEAR WARRINGTON. PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT, NO. 11, THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD, UPPER NORWOOD, LONDON, S.E. Price Sixpence. ��ORTHODOXY FROM THE HEBREW POINT OF VIEW. N the rural rectory-house of my old college-friend, Henry P., I had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of Dr. Marcus, a Professor of Mathe­ matics in a foreign university, a man of pleasing manners and varied culture, and distinguished by original research in his department. ‘This gentleman, having as professor extraordinary an income by no means extraordinary, was desirous of a vacant mathe­ matical chair in one of our colonies. His reputation and attainments were far higher than those of any Englishman likely to become a candidate, and he spoke English well; but he was unluckily a Jew. My friend’s recommendation was certain to have weight with the parties who had the appointment; but a member of the Church of England was sure to be pre­ ferred by them, and to propose to them a Jew appeared hopeless. Dr. Marcus was a devout Theist of the school, not of Moses and the Priests, but of Moses and the Prophets. For genuine priests of all religions he had little love; and he was at the same time a hearty despiser of the negation-philosophy of those sectarians who rejoice in the bigotry of Atheism, Anti­ theism, Nontheism, Positivism, Materialism, and what not, dogmatisms which are becoming so fashionable, and fancy themselves so scientific and original nowa-days. “ And why should you not become a member of the I �4 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. Church of England ? ” said Mr P. “ I will baptize you in my church next Sunday but one, if you will declare your assent to what we call the Apostles’ creed. You will then be as good a Christian as dozens of our dig­ nitaries. We all believe that document in a certain literal and grammatical sense, with an allowance con­ ceded to all but the youngest children, for theological rhetoric.” “ I am aware,” replied Dr Marcus, “ of the explanations that divines give of the descent into hell, of the session at the right hand of God the Father, of the Holy Catholic Church, of the resurrection of the body, &c. ; and there is no dishonesty in taking refuge in them from the letter, thrown open as they are ; but there is at least one word in that creed which I could not recite without hypocrisy; it is the word only. There is no literal and grammatical sense, even with the light of theological rhetoric, in which I can utter that word in its connexion. Take that away, and I will recite your creed, regardless of the self-satisfied dunces, Jew or Christian, who may affirm that I cannot honestly do it without committing myself to all their unwritten, illogical, and childish implications, and who vent their sectarian spite by frequently affirming it.” “I should have expected,” said I, “that in the article, 1 And in Jesus Christ, his only Son,’ you would have objected to 1 Christ ’ rather than to 1 only.’ “ The proposition,” he answered, “ that A, B, or C was or is the Christ, to me propounds nothing but an empty name. It is more than a name to thousands of my ignorant brethren, and was of old far more to millions.. That frantic faith in a conquering Christ to come, which the mischievous priests of the Levitical system, and the prophets by whose falsehoods they bore rule, had stamped on the hearts of my people before your era, was the perennial fountain of all their shame and sorrow. Hundreds of devout thinkers and believers of my faith, along with many of our noblest reli- �Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. 5 .gious teachers, have published our relinquishment of ■that ruinous dream. We no more look for a personal Messiah, who shall appear for the exaltation of Israel among the nations, than we desire to restore on Mount .Zion the bloody worship of our fathers. We cherish ■no longer the old contempt and hatred ’ we have ceased to pray for the fulfilment of those wild hopes, or for the restoration of those semi-pagan ordinances. 11 But,” I ventured to enquire, “ does the clause about the miraculous birth of Jesus present to you no difficulty? ” “ I read nothing miraculous,” said he, “ in the literal .and grammatical meaning of the clause. I myself was conceived by the Holy Ghost, and born of the Virgin Mary; for nothing is more God’s own work than the generation even of a fly; and my mother Mary, whose first-born I am, was as pure a maid as was ever blessed in wedlock. The Virgin Mary is to me merely an his­ torical designation of the Mother of Jesus, just as the Maid of Orleans figures in the pedigree of certain persons in France, who pretend that she was not burnt, but that she was married. And the virgin who conceived and bore a son in Isaiah was the prophet’s lawful wife, as he informs us; and the child was his offspring. If your creed affirmed that my compatriot Jesus had come into the world without a human father, that would be an objection insuperable. Your contradictory legends of that Hebrew Infancy in your Greek gospels count for nothing.” I enquired, “ How do you take the clause affirming the resurrection of Jesus from the dead?” He replied, “ I see nothing to prevent its being read as literally and grammatically as all your divines contrive to read the descent into hell, which to some of the Fathers affirmed an actual taste of the eternal fire of torment, and to all of them involved a most exciting story of under-ground adventures. Divines now find in it a simple assertion that Jesus died like other men; and �6 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. they and I can read in the clause following, if we choose, with no more violence to the letter, that Jesus lived on after death, like other men, in conscious per­ sonality. The creed does not say that no one else ever rose from the dead. If it affirmed that the re-animated body walked living out of the sepulchre, I could not recite it. As it stands, he who rose again from the dead is, by all the rules of grammar, he who descended into hell; that is, the disembodied spirit. Does any one pretend that he went down thither in the body? Further, I cannot find in your gospels any record of the miracle of the resurrection-moment, still less an attested record. It is not intimated that either man or angel saw Jesus quit the tomb; and the Romish, divines, along with some of your own, say boldly that he passed out through the stone invisibly before it was removed. The bodily resurrection of Jesus is nowhere attested as a fact in time and place ■ it is not even recorded.” “ But,” said I, “ there are certainties of inference which it is utter folly to doubt. If after burying your friend, whose death you had witnessed, you should find him sitting by your fire; if he should greet you and converse with you, his hand in yours, with every evidence of every sense before you that he was your living friend unchanged, you could not doubt that he had risen from the dead? ” “I certainly would not infer,” said the Jew, “that he had so risen: I should have no right even to infer that he had come in at the door. An inference from a miraculous fact of the present moment to any fact in the past or in the future is not justifiable. Such inferences to past or future are valid only on the hypothesis that the course of nature remains the same, that is, on the hypothesis that no miracle happens. If you were to see oranges growing on an apple tree in your garden, and satisfied yourself, by every test of sense and examination, that they were oranges, it would be a miracle which you �Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. 7 could not deny or doubt. But could you infer that the oranges had been preceded by orange flowers on that tree 1 Could you be certain that the tree would bear such fruit next year, or that from the pips in these oranges, orange seedlings would grow1? You might have an opinion on every question, but if you attempted to compel me to share your opinion, and made, me suffer for my doubt, you would commit a crime. I shook my head, and remarked that that was a dan­ gerous style of reasoning. Once more I inquired, “What sense do you give to the clause affirming that Jesus will come from the right hand of the Father to judge the quick and dead ? “ Much the same sense,” answered he, “which you and every thinking Christian put into a prediction so very vague. As I reject with you the old unbelieving blunder in space that Jehovah was more present on Mount Zion than upon other hills, so you reject with me the unbelieving blunder in time, that God s righteous judgment on the living and the dead is to be first pro­ nounced and executed at some far future day. You are convinced that His judgments are now and ever working themselves out both on men and nations in all worlds, by the grand eternal law of His government, which rules alike on this and on yonder side of the gravethe law whereby suffering from which no pardoning priest can save must follow sin, and bliss which no priestly curse can hinder must be the reward of righteousness, without revenge, and, in the long mn, without respect of persons. Not only Jesus, but every prophet whose words form part of the world s wealth of divine truth, is at this moment judging the quick and the dead.” “ That appears to me, ’ I re­ joined, “a perilous tampering with the Churchs plain teaching of her children.” “Do your bishops tamper less or more,” he inquired, “with their conception of God sitting at God’s right hand? If they can fritter away from their lessons to children that plain concept �8 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. in space, why not a far less plain concept in time? Why should ‘ He shall come from that right hand ’ be literal, and ‘ he sitteth there ’ be not literal at all ? ” “ I wish,” said Mr P., “ that you would reconsider your objection to the word only. It is simply equiva­ lent to the ancient only-begotten, and you know the refinements of theologians, both Jewish and Christian, about that term. It is not a numerical term; it is a sublimely figurative and vague superlative.” “ All that I knowreplied the Jew, “ but nothing can overcome my repugnance to the heathenish flavour which taints the word. If your grand apostle Paul were here, I could readily be admitted as a Christian. I am willing to accept brotherhood among you on the terms which he proposed to the Romans ; ‘-If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Master Jesus, and believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.’ Knowing as I do, that Jesus only affirmed the noblest truths of the law and the prophets, against those Priests and Pharisees who had so much debased the religion of the older seers, I can gladly call him Master; and I believe that God raised him from the dead in that spiritual body of which Paul discourses, as I believe that he has raised from the dead every good man that ever died.” “ I am delighted,” said I, “ by your reference to that word of Paul in Romans x. Several times in my pub­ lished papers bearing my name, and scores of times in my sermons, I have declared my conviction that the confession and the creed which the great apostle of the Gentiles affirmed 1800 years ago to be sufficient for Christian fraternity and salvation, ought to be held sufficient now. What I have written has been circu­ lated pretty widely among the dignitaries, but it has evoked neither answer nor rebuke from any quarter. If our reverend and right-reverend wranglers would only bow their stubborn necks to the authority of an inspired apostle, the sting would be taken out of our �Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. 9 poisonous sectarianisms.” “Ah! said he, it was a brief campaign, that of Paul and his band of broad churchmen against the old priestcraft and hatreds. His sad prophecy of invading wolves was soon fulfilled. And so it has ever been in the history of religious progress. In vain has the army of prophets overthrown the strongholds of superstition, smashed the old gods, ■and scattered the sacerdotal conjurors. The wily priests have too soon returned, and made fresh idols of the battering-rams. When after the struggle of cen­ turies the prophets of my people had expelled poly­ theism, and established for ever the worship of Jehovah, the priests were not long in building up their worse than Pagan tyranny, and they went on heating in the blinded people that inflation of arrogant frenzy, whose explosion at last scattered us for ever. Adorable are God’s counsels; scattered as we are, we have yet a great part to play, in witnessing among the nations for the Divine Unity, and against both the ignorant pride of atheism and the wickedness of priestly cursing. “ It is fortunate,” said Mr P., “ that our Clerical Book Society meets here to-morrow. There will be some dozen of us, and there will be plenty of time for a dis­ cussion on this matter. A really practical question will be a treat, and it will be interesting to hear the opinions of my brethren about baptizing a Jew on the terms proposed by Paul; for there are churchmen of all patterns among us.” “ Let me not be misunderstood, .said Dr. Marcus : “I am willing to become a member of your Church, as a society of good and learned men, for the sake of any advantage that I can receive or render in all love and honesty. I will not pretend to believe that my soul will be better saved in your com­ munion than in mine, nor shall I think myself one whit less a Jew for being made a Christian. I main­ tain that there is nothing true in your religion which is not comprised in the noblest truths of mine. I shall �IO Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. be no more a sectarian if baptized than I am unbaptized, and I shall continue to deny and detest, as I do nowj all anathemas whatever upon other virtuous and con­ scientious thinkers.” The morrow came; the party met; and I was per­ mitted to be one of them. After the perusal of a paper by one divine, which seemed to evoke no­ animated discussion, the president, Mr P., laid before them the case of his catechumen, a learned Jew, desirous of admission into our Church, as he would seek entrance into any other society, not for the im­ provement of his spiritual health, or his chance of sal­ vation, but for most honourable reasons pertaining to this life. “ He declines,” said the president, “ to receive public baptism, because he cannot assent to every word of the Apostles’ Creed. He considers our Christianity, with his present light, to be a corrupted development of. pure Judaism, not the Judaism of the Levitical priests who crucified Jesus, but that of the Psalms and the Prophets, which Jesus sought to restore; and he believes that when our sectarianisms and those of his own people have run their course, the two churches will be one again. We know that there are thousands of good and cultivated men among us, and not a few among the clergy, whose notions of religion differ little from those of my friend, and who are not subjected to any disadvantage or censure on that account. The gentle­ man is willing to qualify himself for baptism by making the confession and affirming the belief which PauL declared to the Homans in his tenth chapter to be sufficient for salvation; that is, to confess with hismouth the Lord Jesus and to believe in his heart that. God hath raised him from the dead, and this I am surehe will do in the literal and grammatical sense of the words as they stand. He will profess no adhesion to our theory of the divine nature of Jesus Christ. By Lord he means Master, just what the Greek means, a master whose commandments, especially his great �Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View, n commandment of love, he means to keep, and, to my personal knowledge, has kept from his yonth np. I know him to he a godly man of faith and prayer: Would any of you, being satisfied about his life and conversation, baptize him on his making this Pauline profession, and give him a certificate of baptism ? Allow me to observe, that Paul does not trouble the Romans, in his concise statement of conditions, with any specula­ tion on the pre-existence or divinity of Christ, nor does he use the title Christ; he expressly bars that, out, as well as curious inquiries into the mystery of his resur­ rection. ‘ Say not in thine heart, who shall ascend up into heaven,’ i.e., &c., or ‘ who shall go down into the deep,’ i.e., &c. If words so guarded and deliberate are intended to be understood in their honest liberal meaning, I cannot help believing that if Paul were now among us, he would say, ‘ Baptize him without delay. Por some moments no one replied; a question so much out of clerical routine surprised them. The Rev. Mr A. first rose and said, “Will your Jew declare his belief that J esus is the Son of God ? I ask this, be­ cause on that confession Philip baptized the eunuch , and St John says, 1 Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God.’” The chairman answered, “lam sure he will; but he will tell you that he does not believe him to be the only Son of God. Nor do you and I, I presume, if we honestly say to each other, ‘ Beloved, now are. we the Sons of Godif we believe that we shall see him as he is, and be like him ; if we maintain with Paul that ‘ we are children and heirs, heirs of God, and joint heirs of Christ.’ But,” added he, “ my friend is learned enough to know that in the phrase of 1800 years ago. the Son of God and the Christ were the same designation ; and this is abundantly evident from the chapter of John’s epistle that you have quoted. He considers that old expectation of the Christ to have been a most fatal superstition, and that the belief in Jesus as the Christ, �12 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. though useful at the time, was of no value except as ■equivalent to this,—it is madness to look forward any .more to the coming of a miraculous Messiah.” “ We are all bound, of course,” said Mr B., 11 by the Act of Uniformity in our public Offices ; there we are bond slaves. But in our private ministrations we have a large discretion. I do not see what there is to pre­ vent you privately baptizing your friend. If I felt that I was rendering a service to him and to others, I think I should do it.” “ Of course, you would,” said C.: “ it would be un­ christian and inhuman to refuse. The Catholic Church has ever been accustomed to facilitate the entrance into the ark of salvation, and to extend as far as possible the priceless blessing of the sacrament of regeneration. The Catholic missionaries have rescued thousands from eternal perdition by wholesale baptism; it is said they have done this with a broom, without confession of any kind. The consent to receive Christian baptism has been considered to be sufficient qualification. I am ready to baptize all the Jews on earth, if they will permit me, and to teach them the Catholic faith after­ wards.” ‘‘There is some countenance,” said D., “for C.’s notion of baptising without formal statement of dog­ matic belief, from the result of criticism on the verse quoted by A., Acts vii. 37, in which the eunuch is made to utter a profession of faith. The verse is thrown out by Griesbach as unquestionably an interpolation, as proved by the best manuscripts and versions. Nor is there any account of a creed being pronounced by the three thousand on the day of Pentecost.” “ That may be so,” said E.; “ but you will observe that Philip had preached to him Jesus. He had led •him, from that text in Isaiah, to the cross on which hung his dying God and Saviour ; and he saw before he baptized him that he had a justifying faith, and had found an interest in the precious blood of the Lamb. �Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. 13 Precisely in the same way, they who were baptized on the day of Pentecost were such as had gladly received the word of Peter, who preached to them Jesus, and taught every one of them to say, ‘ My God, through Jesus pacified, My God, thyself declare, And draw me to that open side, And plunge the sinner there.’ God forbid that any of us should pollute a sacrament of the church by administering it to a professed infidel. Souls cannot be saved with brooms. There are thou­ sands of regenerate men and women who were never baptized with water.” “Does your Jew,” said P., “believe the promises of' God made to him in baptism ? That faith is the only thing besides repentance which our church requires of persons to be baptized.” “I am certain,” said P., “that he devoutly believes all God’s promises. No man can discourse more eloquently on their fulfilment in the past, or on the glorious accomplishment of them awaiting mankind in the future. As our catechism does not explain to the child what are the definite promises of God made to it on baptism, his general faith will, it is to be hoped, meet the requirement. I thank you for pointing out that simple statement in our formularies of what is really required.” “ Yes,” said G., “it is satisfactory to dwell on a simple statement of the church’s meaning, if it be not very precise : the unpleasant thing is to dwell on statements­ and usages absurd and contradictory. It is plain, from the rubric about baptism of adults, that the church requires that a candidate should be examined for a week, after formal notice to the bishop, whether he be sufficiently instructed in the principles of the Christian religion : it is equally true that no bishop can tell us what those principles are, even so far as is required for �14 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. the instruction of children; and all the leaders of our sects and schools, inside the church and out of it, are ready to fight like cat and dog about what those first lessons should be. To a child they all give this con­ venient reply : Do as your priest or preacher bids you and believe all he tells you. But if I were to ask an archbishop what is the meaning for me of the first lessons, of the catechism to children, and press for an unambiguous answer, he would tell me he was not the Church, and bid me, as funny Archbishop Sumner did when so publicly pressed, to read the Word for myself.” In spite of the rubric we are left to baptize whom we please,, and no bishop would thank us for troubling him with formal notice, or for asking his precise opinion. We baptize infants incapable of instruction. We are compelled to look gravely into a baby’s face, and ask, AVilt thou be baptized in this faith '? ’—and we pretend to hear the baby answer, ‘I will,’ and make solemn pro­ fessions about mysteries and duties, because three per­ sons, who often know and care as much as the child about the matter, repeat words of routine prescribed by act of parliament hundreds of years ago. Wh are ex­ pected, to say to the child in after years, ‘You promised all this by your sureties;’ bewildering its budding reason and conscience with a sham, instead of appealing directly to the grand reality, the present teaching of God in its reason and conscience. We do, indeed appeal to the latter ; but we cannot prevent the mis­ chief done by the respect thus shewn to lip-service and religion by proxy. We teach the child that two sacraments are by God’s decree generally necessary to salvation, that is universally, if we please to put it so, or not universally, but certainly in your case, if we like to. put it so: and you may bombard bishops for ten years v ith demands of information ; they will never tell you what they mean by that generally. Then, we treat all alike as Christian people, whether they do or do not receive the second sacrament for all their lives, and we �Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. 15 bury them alike in the same sure and certain hope of life eternal. The men whom we cursed while living, we send to heaven when dead. We then go and grin at Popish and heathenish mockeries in religion. We are to believe that any baptized old woman who is wise enough to repeat the words of the baptismal formulary, can, by sprinkling a few drops of water, make your Jew into a member of Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven; and no bishop is able to undo, nor dares to mend, her miracle. We are to believe at the same time that he is a damned child of God for his infidelity, and that if the spotless life you say he is living were to terminate while that water is on his nose, he would, without doubt, perish everlastingly. This is our act-of-parliament Christianity! ” “It is of no use for us to continue this debate: if we contradict each other for an hour, we shall be at the end just where we are now. Absurdities like these would not be endured in the manuals of any science, except our sham science of theology. There is not a bishop among them who would not be proud to expose every one of them, and to kick it out at any cost, from any book but the Prayer Book. Such absurdities will of course disappear in time, in spite of bishops, as moral and mental culture extend among the people. The grand third and seventeenth articles of our Church have already evaporated. Each is now a husk without an import. The second, the ninth, and that eighteenth, most atrocious in the Latin, and the priestcraft of pardons, that fatal fountain of all mischief, have well-nigh evaporated. In vain do our young ritualists try to replenish the last from their decorated pagan pocket-flasks of popery and water. I advise you to baptize the Jew, and prepare him, if he is willing, for holy orders in our Church. We want such men to help us fight that spawn of priestcraft, the materialism and atheism of our day. There is nothing in our �16 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. formularies of which he cannot honestly and rationally unlock the literal and grammatical sense, by using the keys which our divines and dignitaries are publicly handling every hour.” “ That is a little too peppery, friend G.” said H. “ But we all know you, grim as you look sometimes, to be as kind-hearted as you are outspoken; and a little plain speaking can do us no harm. Let us debate no longer. We shall hope to meet the Jew at luncheon. We do not often fall in with a godly and learned man of his persuasion. I, for one, should be greatly pleased to hear from his own lips a candid statement of his notions about the value of our Christian evidences, if he can give it without going into details of harmony and criticism, which are getting a little old. He may be able to convey to us a new idea about the matter from the Hebrew point of view. And I should be glad to know what account he has to give of the rise and pro­ gress of Christianity. What think you all ? ” All agreed that nothing could be more interesting. And P. promised that they should be gratified. We enjoyed ourselves much at P.’s hospitable table, and after a ramble over his pleasant lawn and shrubbery, and a feast of strawberries in his garden, we found our­ selves again in his library, prepared to listen to the discourse of the Jew. “ It is fortunate,” said Dr. Marcus, “ that I can comply with your request, communicated to me by our friend P., without touching any of the matters usually dis­ cussed in your treatises on what are politely called the Evidences of Christianity. The point of view from which an enlightened Jew considers your orthodoxy is one at which you have probably never tried to place yourselves. One single consideration demonstrates to me the falsehood (I use the word historically, I hope without offence) of your story. This is the language of your original documents, which is Greek, and Greek only. If your story were all true, you would certainly �Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. 17 have vouchers for its truth in the Hebrew tongue, that is in the Hebrew spoken in Palestine 1800 years •ago, which differed from the pure Hebrew of the Old Testament certainly less than your English differs from the Anglo-Saxon of your fathers of 900 years ago. First of all, let me state in brief your story. You say that God was incarnate in the form of a carpenter of Galilee 1850 years ago 5 that he became man for the sake of making a revelation, and founding a religious dispensation which was to supersede that which he had given to my fathers by the revelations of his will made in the old Hebrew Scriptures j that after instructing disciples who adored him as Very God, doing the most wonderful works of power, and suffering death on the cross for the redemption of all mankind, he rose again from the dead in the body which had been buried, and for forty days more conversed with his disciples, giving them infallible proof of the reality of his resurrection j that in that' interval he opened their understandings, endowed them and their succes­ sors to the end of the world with the most awful powers and authority over the minds and consciences of the whole human race, speaking to them as he had always spoken, in that Hebrew which alone they and their countrymen understood ; and that after his ascen­ sion into heaven, he sent down on those chosen dis­ ciples a still larger inspiration of his Holy Spirit, whereby they were gifted and directed to organise in its Hebrew beginnings as it was through all time to endure, his Catholic Church, which alone was to be the channel of his divine grace, and the keeper of his word and will, for the salvation of all nations : and that for the more secure preservation of this teaching, he spe­ cially inspired one of these disciples to commit to writ­ ing, in his native Hebrew tongue, an account of his works and words. Further, your story is, that the Catholic Church of this day continues to preserve and to teach what those first apostles taught, and that there B �18 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. has been no gap of oblivion nor faltering in the testi­ mony of this Church from its foundation to the words of God made flesh ; so that you, by virtue of the training that you have received from your learned and autho­ rised teachers, whose knowledge of the original treasure of revelation you share, are yourselves linked by an apostolic succession and unerring tradition of all that is essential in an unbroken chain of loyalty and unfor­ getting love to the lips of the Incarnate. This is your story. Now, here I am, a Hebrew man, speaking to men, as I suppose, of Hebrew learning, and a man able to understand the language of that Incarnate Deity, and of his disciples. I will receive your sacrament, and subscribe your thirty-nine articles to-day, if you will repeat to me, as they fell from his lips, three sen­ tences of the teaching of that revealing Emmanuel.” There was a little pause. Then one bore witness that Emmanuel said “ Epphatha,” another remembered that be said 11 Talitha cumi.” “Any more,” said the Jew, “besides the cry upon the cross?” We were com­ pelled to own that we had no more. “ The question to us is a puzzler,” I remarked, “ but it could easily be answered to any extent if the right man were here. Dr Manning would be more than a match for Dr Marcus.” I took out of my pocket-book a cutting from the Liverpool Mercury, reporting an oration of Dr Manning in that city in October last, and read as fol­ lows :—-“Who told you these things ? You had them all from me, from me alone, to whom the scriptures were committed in custody and guardianship, from me who preserved them and handed them on to this day. . . . And when men appeal to antiquity, and tell us, ‘ This is not the primitive tradition of the Church,’ were you ever in antiquity, or any that belong to you ? I was there, and as a perpetual witness, antiquity is to me nothing but my early days, and antiquity exists in my consciousness to this hour as men grown to riper years remember their childhood. ... I may say that the �Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. 19 ■Church of God, which testifies at this hour, saw the Son of God, and heard his words, and was witness of diis miracles. More than that, it was witness of the day of Pentecost, and upon it the Holy Spirit descended. It heard the sound of the mighty wind, and it saw the tongues of fire; and that which the Church witnesses to this day it witnesses as an ear-witness, as an eye­ witness, of the divine facts which it declares. And how ? Because that which they saw and heard, they delivered,” &c. The doctor asks no allowance for rhetoric he does not condescend to intimate to his •awe-struck hearers that he is figuring or personifying. With metallic coolness, with chin outstretched, and ele­ vated eyebrows, he stops to put to my Bishop and me his contemptuous question, and then he swaggers on in the first person singular—“Were you ever in an­ tiquity, or any that belong to you ? I was there, and ■as a perpetual witness, antiquity is to me nothing but my early days,” &c. All laughed in harmony. And we did wish that the most reverend Doctor had been there in his mitred dignity of ears four figures long. We felt that he would have either silenced the Jew by his knowledge, or else have knocked the breath out of him by his—No, put it very mildly, thus by his stupen­ dous modesty, the dare-devil mace-bearer of his Car­ dinal graces and virtues. The Jew -went on : “ Take a possible case. Suppose that a teacher of men should arise in a. country civilized enough to have a written literature many centuries old ; that he should deliver new truth to a chosen body of disciples; that he should have a strong influence of love upon their hearts ; that he should lay the founda­ tion of a great school to endure after him • and that he should direct one of his disciples to commit to writing, under the master’s guidance, and with his sanction for publication, an account of his sayings and doings in his own tongue : then there is, if the language of the document should happen to become an unspoken �20 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. tongue, a certain probability that not only the docu­ ment in the original, but all historic trace whatever in that language of the teacher’s life and utterances, might in the lapse of ages perish, and no record of them remain, except, perhaps, in later tongues. Nobody can deny that such a loss to literature might occur, either by mere mouldering and oblivion, or by the stupidity or malice of after times. Let us call this chance of loss of all original docu­ ments C, and try to consider on what its value would depend. First, it would depend to a large degree on the rank and dignity of the teacher. Call this D. If D were inconsiderable, C might be great. If D were very great, C would be small, other things being equal. Another ele­ ment would be the wisdom of the teacher. Call this W. Other things being supposed invariable, the chance C would be higher or lower as W was smaller or greater. The greater the wisdom of the founder of the school in his knowledge of the present and his plans for the future, the smaller would be the chance of his words in the original perishing from the world’s treasures of learning. A third element would be the loving in­ fluence of the teacher over the heart and memories of men. Call this L, the mighty power of love. This has degrees of less and more. If L were nothing unusual, the chance C of original record perishing would be higher than if L were very wonderful and memorable. Apd we may affirm that if other things were given the same, C would be larger as L was smaller, and smaller as L was larger. A fourth element controlling the value of C would be the importance to all mankind of the teacher’s lessons, along with the practical value of the institution founded by him. Call this importance I; then we can affirm as before that the chance C, all things remaining unchanged besides, would take, as I were given smaller or greater, a higher or lower value. Lastly, we may consider the �Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. 21 influence upon the chance C of the rank and honour ■among men that would attach to the successors of this teacher in carrying out his plans and working his institution. Call this honour H; then I say again, that if all other elements are supposed to be of in­ variable value, C would rise or fall as H was incon­ siderable or of great estimation. Nothing would ■contribute so surely to make the chance C. small, as a high degree of renown and power devolving on the succession of officers in the supposed institution, who would be proud of their pedigree, and watchful to preserve its oldest evidences. The value of the chance thus appears to depend on the product DWLIH, being small or great as the product is great or small. It is incorrect to talk of a product of anything - but numbers. But as we can speak of different degrees of •dignity, wisdom, love, &c., we may conceive Iff D2 Dg, Wx W2 W3, . . degrees rising in order, as registered with more or less exactness, and we could estimate roughly the value of the product by that of the appended numbers. So long as these numbers are not given, so long as some may be imagined great and some small, we can affirm nothing about the variation of value of the chance C which depends on the product. But there are two supposable cases in which we can pronounce upon the value of C with something like mathematical precision. If we suppose D, W, L, I, H, to be each next to nothing, the value of the probability C will rise to something near certainty. We may say, that that which has no claim whatever to be preserved or remembered will of course disappear from the record of history in process of time. The other case is wflien D, W, L, I, H, are given as each the greatest possible. Their product will then be greater than anything ■conceivable, and if one or more of the factors be in­ finite, the chance C, which diminishes as the product increases, will be a vanishing quantity. In that case, the chance of all original record disappearing is reduced �22 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. to nothing ; the probability that genuine historic tracesof the teacher’s words and works will be preserved in his own tongue rises to certainty; and it becomesutterly absurd to believe or to imagine that the record about him prepared for posterity under his own guid­ ance, with wisdom infinite, could possibly be lost in any convulsions of human affairs, and this in spite of the pleasure and the pride with which his disciples and successors in days of civilization would endeavour tomultiply and preserve it : nay, it is ridiculous to suppose that other records and commentaries on his doings in the original language would not be handed down along with it, among the learned, in defiance of all the hostile agencies of ignorance and of the knaveries that thrive on it. 11 Now, this latter case is precisely that of your ortho­ dox story. You tell me of a teacher who appeared in Palestine above 1800 years ago, of infinite dignity, infinite wisdom, and infinite love, none less than theone Eternal God in human form ; that this confessed Jehovah of my fathers spoke and taught in Hebrew, for more than thirty years among a lettered people who could understand no other language, truth indispensable for the salvation of all mankind ; that he miraculously inspired Matthew, his disciple, to compose in Hebrew a history of himself and his teachings; that this document was committed to the keeping of the Church, whom his Holy Spirit has never suffered to forget his words, but has constantly aided in diffusing them; and ■when I asked you, as learned men in possession of all that your wise and modest Mannings have handed, down to you, for something that really fell from that divine mouth, you repeated just three words ! Where is that Hebrew gospel of Matthew, which Dr Manningsays was committed to his guardianship ? You cannot find in all your fathers and historians the name of a man who ever saw a man who pretended to have seen that document. If your story is true, then this unre- �Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. 23 corded miracle of the utter loss, beyond three short sentences, of every echo of those utterances of the Hebrew-speaking God, appears to me greater far than any of the miracles affirmed in your Greek gospels.” “ I think,” said P., “that I may thank you, for all here present, for the pains you have taken to set before us your argument ; and I am sure it has been highly interesting to all. Put I am afraid that none of us feels it to be as convincing as it is elaborate. It carries with it all through too many unproved assumptions.” “ To save time,” said Dr Marcus, “ may I beg you to point them out one at once, and first, that which strikes you as the most detrimental to my position.” “ First of all,” answered P., “ you assume, what I am pretty certain none of us will grant without demon­ stration, that the generation whom Jesus and his disciples after him addressed in Palestine understood no language besides the vernacular Hebrew of the day. Does any one here, let me ask, believe that to be a true statement of the matter ? ” All evidently were ready to deny the assumption ; and one of them observed that it was something like assuming that the people of Wales, a country of like extent with Palestine, can understand no language but* Welsh. Another remarked, that if a divine teacher were to appear in Wales, he would provide that all documents necessary for the instruction of the world in general, should be written not in Welsh, but in English; and that a writing in Welsh would hardly be worth preserving, and might easily perish, without harm to history. Another called to mind that Dean Alford, a very accurate scholar, is inclined to the opinion, in his notes on the Acts, that the speech of Stephen was delivered in Greek, from the quotations of the LXX. which occur in it; where there is a considerable differ­ ence between that version and the Hebrew. The Dean considers it improbable that Luke, translating into �24 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. Greek a Hebrew speech, containing of course quotations from the Hebrew Scriptures, would alter those passages to make them agree with the LXX. And the Dean affirms it for certain that Greek “was almost universally understood at Jerusalem.” “That, matter,” said the Jew, “is easily settled. Have you a Josephus?”. Josephus was laid on'the table. “ You are aware,” said Dr Marcus, “ that Josephus lived in the generation following that of Jesus, being born some six or seven years after the crucifixion. If Greek was well understood in Jerusalem in the time of the former, it would be still more familiar when the latter flourished. Forty years would make a considerable increase in the use of the language in Judea. And as Josephus was of noble birth, and numbered among the priests, as he informs us, well educated at Jerusalem, and remarkable from his youth for his aptitude and love-for learning, we should expect to find him as much at home in Greek as in Hebrew.” “ In the last chapter of his Antiquities, which he says he wrote in the 56th year of his life, he gives this account of himself, adorned with terms of sufficient self-commendation :—‘ I have taken pains to acquire a knowledge of Greek: I have become skilled in it grammatically, but the habitual use of my native tongue has prevented my accurate utterance of that language? 1 tuv 8s ypapb/judraiv s(r7rov8a.oa tt[v ypaijjijM'ri-A/rpj s/M^sipiav avaXaftuv, rfy ds ‘Trspi Ttju ‘itpotpopav a%piZsia,v ‘jrarpioc, sxwXvffs It is plain from this, that Josephus spoke Greek imperfectly with the tongue of a foreigner. He does not affirm that he tried to speak it, even at Rome. It may be doubted that he was able to converse in it fluently ; for if a man so vain as he evidently was of his learning had been able to use it habitually with ever so poor a pronunciation, he would hardly have placed it on record that his habitual Hebrew prevented his utterance of Greek. He had learned Greek, as he tells �Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. 15 ns, late in life, after the destruction of Jerusalem, when he was near 40 years old. In his first book against Apion, § 9, he says, ‘Afterwards, (i.e., after the siege) I got leisure at Rome, and when all my materials were prepared for that work, I made use of some persons to assist me in learning the Greek tongue, and by these means I composed the history of these transactions.’ Then after telling us that he had presented these books, ‘Wars of the Jews,’ to Vespasian and Titus, and to other Romans, he adds, ‘ I sold them also to many of our own men who understood Greek,* among whom were Julius Africanus, Herod, [King of Chaicis] a person of great gravity, and King Agrippa himself, a person that deserved the greatest admiration.’ “ It was evidently an unusual tiling for Jews of the highest rank to read Greek. Ko man would place it on record that the Marquis of Anglesea or the Duke of Argyll are English scholars. He informs us in the preface to his Greek ‘ Wars of the Jews,’ that he had translated those books into Greek which he had formerly composed in the language of his own country. That is, after the year 71, Josephus published in Hebrew his account of the Jewish wars up to the destruction of Jerusalem, for the information of his countrymen and other orientals. This is far from a proof that even the educated natives of Syria were able to read Greek.” “ In the section against Apion already quoted Josephus says, that he was set at liberty out of prison and sent to accompany Titus to the siege of Jerusalem, and that he was the only man who could understand the deserters. Again and again he informs us that he was employed as interpreter; he was sent several 'times to parley with the besieged in their native tongue; and in his sixth Book of the Wars, he gives us im Greek a long address which, he says, he delivered to them by -command of Caesar in the Hebrew language. How * rrjs 'EXXriviKTjs aortas nerecrx'rjKiaLv. �26 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. Josephus managed to interpret does not appear. Hemay have rendered the various dialects of the deserters, into polite Hebrew, which was translated by some Hellenist Jew to Titus in Greek. However that may be, we have evidence overwhelming that Greek was not understood at Jerusalem even by the officers to whom the herald of Titus would mainly address him­ self. And it is simply ridiculous to imagine, that the Jews of the preceding generation to whom Jesus and his disciples preached, were able to understand a word erf that language, much more that they were so familiarwith it, that the preservation of a gospel in Hebrew was of small importance to that nation and the world?’ “ My argument,” continued Dr Marcus,11 is enfeebled by the distance at which we stand from the facts. It is not necessary to play at long bowls over eighteen cen­ turies ; such a lapse of time may appear to some minds to condone anything. Every word I have uttered could have been urged with greater force sixteen hundred years ago. I could have said all this and more, to thevery first historian of your church; to Eusebius, on whose most questionable honesty and veracity depends, as on one single thread, the truth of all your story. If’ you wish to give me a fair chance of testing that truth, let one of you be Eusebius, and let me be a Hebrew who. has read his history. Let me be permitted in this house, the palace of that great bishop in Palestine, to pay my respects to’ the historian, to request information, to speak my sentiments candidly, in this first quarter of the fourth century, when Christianity is newly esta­ blished by Constantine as the religion of the Eomaji Empire, and his friend Eusebius is enjoying his promo- . tion to the see of Cesarea.” The idea was novel, and tickled all our fancies. 11 Come along, G.,” said P., “you know Eusebius well, and I will help you. You shall be Eusebius. Between, us we shall be able to defeat this Jew.” A folio Euse­ bius being placed and opened before them, the two- �Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. 27 scholars, P. and G. sat together at the table. Therewas a little twinkle in G’s. eye, who evidently enjoyed the situation. "Whether he had much confidence of victory, I could not determine ; but from what I had heard of him as an acute controversialist, I was sure he would make a manful fight of it, and I prepared myself for an intellectual treat. The Jew began, with a grave reverence—“ I think myself fortunate, most learned Eusebius, in having your permission to offer you my congratulations on the dig­ nity to which your merits, and the great discernment of your friend Caesar Constantine have raised you, and in being allowed to ask for a little information for my instruction on a subject which no living man under­ stands so well as you. My inquiries will be confined to one point, which is of much importance to all Jews who, like me, desire to acquire more knowledge of the Christian revelation. I would beg to ask, are there in the library of Cesarea, which you and your learned friend Pamphilus have so much enriched, any early Hebrew documents about the great Nazarene and his apostles 1 It has occurred to me, that here in this country, where those great events happened, some two centuries and a half ago, on ground within a day s journey from where I stand, that here, if anywhere,, from the lips of a bishop born in Palestine, I should obtain the information that I desire.” . 11 I regret to say,” answered Eusebius, “that not a scrap of genuine Christian writing in Hebrew can be found in all the Churches of Palestine and Syria. There are some contemptible heretics, the lowest of mankind, who possess something in Hebrew ; a heap of corrup­ tion and forgery now, whatever it may have once been. It is a remarkable fact, that in the country where the Lord Jesus taught, and where his apostles preached and founded churches for forty years, not a relic of authentic Christian documents in the vernacular of their time can be found. If it existed, I should cer- �2 8 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. tainly have laid my hands upon it.” “And yet,” said the Jew, “ among those thousands of disciples whom they made, comprising a great multitude of the priests, who, as your Greek history affirms, were obedient to the faith, there must have been numbers, who, for the sake of their own and of future generations, would be able and forward to write much in their own ton°-ue about the wonderful words and works that had to°be for ever remembered : it seems but a brief space of time in which everything they wrote has perished.” “ So it may appear,” was the reply : “ but do you infer from that that the truth and certainty of the Catholic faith have suffered any diminution 1 You will give me no offence by speaking out boldly what you think.” “ Then, learned Eusebius, I shall be pardoned if I con­ fess that to many of us Jews, who have so jealously guarded through all the agonies which we have en­ dured every tittle of that Hebrew revelation which God gave to us, the fact that you Christians have no Hebrew vouchers of any kind to show, does appear to throw a little discredit on your story.” “What is the use of running your head against a hard fact ? ” replied Eusebius. “ Here are the Christian churches of Pales­ tine, all Greek-speaking communities, except a few of the. very meanest of the people, all worshipping and praising God in the Greek tongue, and all descended by succession never interrupted, as all the world knows and confesses, from the Hebrew apostles; having the faith and the ritual, the Hymns and the Scriptures which have been from the days of the apostles ; but we have them in Greek : because Greek, after the fearful and unparalleled convulsions through which this unhappy land has passed, has driven out the Hebrew. And you are standing there prepared to prove, I suppose, that such a transformation of Hebrew churches into Greek churches is impossible, without the co-existence of He­ brew documents, whose preservation through the storms of two centuries has been impracticable, and would �Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. 29 have been useless, if practicable. You remind me of the gentleman, who, finding his friend in the stocks, began, after hearing his story, to demonstrate to him by law, that it was impossible for any man to be put into the stocks, under the like circumstances j to which the prisoner replied, That is all very learned but here I am verily in the stocks. The reasoner was merely running his head, like you, against a fact. I own, we have lost, to all appearance, every Hebrew document of our origins. But here we are the one Catholic and Apostolic church for all that, with all our documents complete.” “ Such illustrations, replied the Jew, “are ingenious, and may be useful in the teaching of children. Suppose that your steward should come into your library with his account-book in one hand, and his cash-box in the other ; that the book showed that in his hands was a balance due to you of 100 minas, while his cash-box contained but 50. You begin to object to the arrangement: he replies, Figures are one thing, facts are another: the cash-box speaks for it­ self, and that is the fact : count for yourself, and do not run your head against a fact. That would hardly diminish your curiosity about what was become of the other fifty. Pardon me, if I seem too bold. I will not discuss against you the Question of Hebrew documents and Liturgies. May I ask for information on two points only. What is known about Hebrew writing by the hand of Jesus of Nazareth ? And what is known about such writing by any of his apostles 1 ” Eusebius—I am not aware that any writing was ever spoken of from the hand of the Lord Jesus, except that short epistle to King Abgarus at Edessa, which you read at the beginning of my ecclesiastical history. And to tell you the truth, I half suspect now that I was taken in in the matter of that letter. Jew.—That disarms criticism on the truth of the story. But I must be permitted to say, as one of those to whom you have given the trouble of reading such �30 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. nonsense, that if your history is handed down to future times, as the first attempt to distinguish, as you pretend to do, between what is genuine and what is spurious in Christian documents, men will form their judgments on your trustworthiness, by your long and most positive detail of what is to be read to this day, as you say, in the public records of Edessa. These are your words : ‘ There is nothing like listening to the very letters, which we have taken from the archives,* and have translated in this manner in the exact words from the Syrian tongue.’ Of course you do not precisely affirm what the ordinary reader must infer, that you had ever seen that Syrian document, or even a copy of it, and translated it yourself. You were taken in ; and I dare say you paid handsomely for such a treasure to be the frontispiece of your history, which occupies, I thinly rather more space than what you give to your account of the four gospels. My chief anxiety is to learn what you know of Hebrew writings by the first disciples of Jesus. Eusebius.—All the information that I can give you on that point is what you read in my history about the Hebrew gospel of Matthew. Thus : “ So then, of all the disciples of the Lord, Matthew and John have left us two memoirs only. And the story goes, that they took up their pens at the spur of compulsion. Matthew, when about to depart for some other quarter, gave to the Hebrews in writing, in their native tongue, the gospel according to him which he had before preached to them, and thus made a compensation by a written document for the loss of his own presence, to those from whom he was fetched away.” ‘ to /.s/vov rr avrou vapoveia tovtoiq dp’ay FtfrskXero oia ypatpr^ u.kzkMipov.’ Then follows the statement of the pressing reason which induced John to write, namely, to supply an account of the acts of Jesus before John was cast into prison. * eTTiaToXuv airo tu>v dpxeluv 'qiMv avaXT]<f>Geio'2ii>. �Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. 31 Jew.—I must press for some explanation of tlie ■complete loss of the precious Hebrew gospel, in the course of two centuries. It must have disappeared above a lifetime ago, or else your learned predecessors would have secured a copy of it. Eusebius.—Its loss is of very small consequence, •since we have the Gospel of Matthew in the exact and final form in which he meant it to be diffused over the •civilized world, in the only form in which that diffusion is best secured, in Greek. How the Hebrew copy came to be lost, I know not, nor am I bound to tell. But if you Jews can produce it, or any other Hebrew writing, we are ready to face the comparison of it with the Greek which we have preserved. Or, if you have any evidence of remissness or dishonesty on our part, you will not offend me by bringing it forward. It is wonderfully difficult to preserve manuscripts in a perish­ ing language. Suppose that I could have the good fortune to discover a copy of the Hebrew Matthew, I should carefully deposit it in our library of Cesarea. But that would not guarantee its existence one hundred years hence. Some stupid or fanatical official in days to come might cast it away as so much Ebionitish or Jewish rubbish; or, in order to make room for some­ thing else, he might sell the parchment, if it was good, to those who make their living by erasing ancient writing and covering the pages with something more saleable. Jew.—Ah 1 You know well, learned Eusebius, that you would do more than place a copy in your library. If the discovered Hebrew were a verification of your Greek Matthew, it would become renowned over the Christian world as a priceless treasure, infinitely more valuable than gold or precious stones. Copies of it would soon be carefully enshrined at all the great centres of your faith, and no library of any see would be thought complete without it. It would be impos­ sible for that Hebrew text ever to be lost, while �32 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. Christian creeds and dignities endure. Weakest of all is your remark, that its preservation would have been useless even if practicable. Was it of no use, when it was the only written means of teaching your faith to the countless thousands who then spoke the various Syriac and Chaldean dialects, and knew not a word of Greek, while that Hebrew of Palestine would have been intelligible? Was it of no use to the nation of the Jews, amoDg whom, you say, their God was incarnate ? Would it be of no use now to the myriads of orientals who could understand it, and cannot understand Greek ? Would it be of no use to silence me and other men of learning among my brethren, who consider its loss so fatal to your evidences ? Affect not to think it would have been useless. As you have given me leave to speak, I will candidly tell you what impression is made on my mind by your account of the Hebrew gospel of Matthew. When you began to write that history, you knew as well as now the importance of the question, What is become of that Hebrew gospel? You were reluctant to suggest such an enquiry to the reader, yet naturally desirous of hinting an answer to it, the best in your power, ready for the time when it should be raised. Ostensibly you are answering this enquiry,— how came it to pass that only two of the disciples of Jesus wrote memoirs? But I fancy I read a desire, of which, perhaps, you were but half conscious, to meet and to push aside the query, Why has that Hebrew gospel been lost ? Out of what you say a good pleader could extract some explanation like this : the Hebrew gospel was hardly intended for the whole church, nor was it of essential importance that it should be pre­ served : it arose on a temporary emergency: it answered a temporary purpose among a certain section of Christians whom Matthew taught: it was to supply his place for a season while absent on a sudden journey : Matthew’s full and final gospel is what we possess. This is not exactly said; but it is cleverly left to be inferred. It �Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. 33 is in quite another tone that your divines speak of the majesty of the Greek first gospel, the leading book of the church’s treasure for all ages and all nations. But let that pass. It is no part of my business to-day to ask how the Greek Matthew came into existence. None of you pretends to have a ray of light as to when or where, or by what hand, the supposed translation out of the Hebrew was made. What a marvellous contrast there is between the blaze of historic light which rests as you acknowledge on the details of time and place concerning the writings of those two Jews, Philo and Josephus, one contempo­ rary with Jesus, the other immediately following him, and the mysterious unfathomable darkness which hides from criticism and research all certainty about the birth­ place, the time, nay, even the real authorship of these more modern books of yours, your Gospels, and your Acts of the Apostles ! Eusebius.—For any thing that you have shewn, or are able to shew to the contrary, our Greek Matthew may be no translation at all, but the work just as we have it of Matthew’s own hand. The greater number of our learned men affirm this to be so, and I defy you to disprove the ’assigned authorship of our other books. Jew.'—-If Matthew wrote Greek, or John either, he wrote it by miracle. Recourse must be had to the gift of tongues to defend your account of your oldest Greek document, the gift of tongues being proved only by a later Greek document. That is hardly logical enough to convert a Jew, either now or a thousand years hence. I will intrude no further upon you, except to ask a question about your testimony concerning the Ebionites, those poor despised heretics, half Jew, half Christian. In your third book, chap, xxv., in your enumeration of spurious Christian books, after observing about the Revelation of St John, 1 This some set aside, while others enumerate it among our accepted sacred books,’ you proceed thus : ‘ And there are some who count �34 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. among these also the Gospel of the Hebrews, in which they among the Hebrews who have' received Christ take special delight.’ Do you mean by ‘ among these,’ among the accepted, or among the spurious books ? Eusebius.—There is indeed a little ambiguity tested by strict grammar, but, of course, I mean to put that ( Gospel of the Hebrews ’ among the spurious books. This is evident from the chapter xxvii., in which I record that “ the Ebionites use only the Gospel of the Hebrews, making small account of the other gospels, and rejecting the Epistles of Paul, whom they designate an apostate from the law.” Jew.—Allow me to state one final consideration, which has great weight in my mind. You say that Peter, as well as Paul, preached at Rome, and that Peter was the first Bishop at Rome. Would Peter forget, when he departed for Rome, that the only record of those exact divine words which gave him the pre-eminence among the apostles was in the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew 1 Would he have no Hebrew train of enthusiastic followers and admirers when he came to found the glorious pedigree of that imperial see? And would they all forget it too ? Eorsooth they were content to carry with them a mere translation into Latin or Greek of words like these—‘ Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood have not revealed it unto thee, but my Father, which is in heaven.’ ‘ And I say unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.’—Matt. xvi. 17. Or words like these— ‘ And if he shall neglect to hear the Church, let him be to thee as a heathen man and a publican.’—Matt, xviii. 17. If that gospel had existed in Hebrew exactly as you have it in Greek, that famous play on the name Cephas �Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. 35 would have decorated in the original tongue thousands of sermons and episcopal allocutions in both the Greek and Latin Churches, the genuine pun, not the poor imitation of it that figures in the gospels in those two languages. The Hebrew gospel would, so surely as the crescent moon fills her orb, have been carried to Home, where it never could have been lost, as well as the Hebrew of much that is not in Matthew, as the hymns of Mary and of Simeon, if their use in Christian worship is so old as it is pretended to be. Inspired hymns do not easily perish from old liturgies. And above all, the Hebrew words for hoc est corpus meum which have become such a terrific mystery, these at least would have been as familiar as the cry upon the cross, if what you all say be true about their origin and import in the first apostolic churches. Your story is not all true.” Hereupon followed much debate on the evidences. The main argument, and what we most of us appeared to rely upon as a confutation of all scepticism, was the .conversion and testimony of Paul, in comparison of which the objection from the disappearance of Hebrew originals appeared to us a trifle. The high churchmen diverted themselves greatly with the notion of the Jew that the church’s tradition about the mysterious import of the eucharistic formula was enfeebled by the absence of the Hebrew for it in Christian antiquity ; and they made much of Paul’s testimony in Cor. xi. to that universal bond of connexion by those awful words with the very lips of the Saviour; which testimony they held to be all the more weighty from the confessed differences that existed between Paul’s school and that of the apostles at Jerusalem. The Jew said boldly, that while he held the first epistle to the Corinthians to be by the hand of Paul, he did not believe that that apostle ever wrote the passage between the 22d and 33d verses of the 11th chapter. All the proof of the negative which he had to offer was, first, the antiritualistic teaching of Paul, and secondly, what he �36 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View: called the manifest breach of continuity in the locus and the train of thought, which continuity is perfect if the ten verses be removed. Before and after, said he, we have a scene in which people bring their own victuals, and eat in social estrangement, not waiting for each other, while some are hungry, and others commit excess. In the interpolation, as he called it, we have almost the full-blown eucharistic magic of later times lugged in by force, with a sermon about it un­ worthy of Paul. But we all remarked how much easier it was to say that than to prove it j and this bit of criticism so turned the laugh against the Jew as to deaden partly the effect of his previous argument. “ The anachronism,” said he, 11 is glaring. It is im­ possible that devout men, who had from the first been tutored by the apostle in the style of that sermon, would have brought themselves under his lash for such irregularities. And the anti-climax in the two senses of the word nfiiJM (vv. 29-34) which the English translators have faithfully. rendered 1 damnation ’ and ‘ condemnation,’ betrays the bungler.” Here Mr P. said, “Time presses: I must adjourn our debate. We have learned what is both new and important; and if we be not all knaves and cowards, we shall face this question again. Can we doubt that good Dean Alford, if he were living and with us to­ day, would confess his error about Greek being under­ stood at Jerusalem ? I withdraw my first objection to the reasoning of Dr Marcus; and I return to the ques­ tion which I proposed to you at the beginning—Shall I baptize this Jew?” He then left the library, and returned with a china basin in one hand and a caraffe in the other. Setting them down, he said, “Of a truth, I perceive that God is no respecter of persons; but in every nation he that feareth Him and worketh righteousness, is accepted with Him. 1 Can any man forbid water,’ that this Jew should not be baptized, who has ‘ received the Holy Ghost as well as we,’ and. �Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. is so much nearer to us in sentiment and learning than was the heathen Cornelius? Speak, if you object; but give me a reason?’ No man spoke. Then, turning to the Jew, he solemnly said, in the exact Greek of Paul, iav 6fjJo\o'y7]<rrjs sv rw (Sto/jmti (Sou Kupiov ’IjjffW, .x.r.k., i.e., “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Master, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” The Jew answered in the same Greek of Paul, 'O/AoXoyw 'K.upiov ’iytsouv, tl.t.T.., i.e., “I confess Jesus for Master, and I believe in my heart that God hath raised Him from the dead.” “ Wilt thou be baptized in this faith ? ” asked P. “I will,” was the answer. Then, after pouring out water, P. took him lov­ ingly by the hand, and bestowing on him his own name as he sprinkled his brow, said, “ Henry, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Let us pray.” We all fervently joined him in the Lord’s Prayer, and we added most devout Amens to the collects which he selected. When we rose, after his benediction, from our knees, two of our number were missing. E. and his curate had stolen away in silent horror, unable, as they afterwards explained it, to continue breathing that atmosphere of infidelity. All present warmly greeted their new Christian brother, and I was not the only one who tried to persuade him to seek ordination in the Church of England, and to join the growing array of Broad and Deep Believers, with whom our Priests and priestlings, notwithstanding their noisy silence and woman-winning charms, have imminent before them that dangerous reckoning. Is there a ■single dignitary, or aspirant to dignity among them, said I to myself, who has the manhood to face this Jew ? Silence is all their' panoply: and silence, in the presence of History, becomes the quibblers well. Dr Marcus was requested to state briefly what was his conception of the facts of the origin of Christianity. �38 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. He said, “ It is a blunder to talk of one Christianity rising out of one Judaism. There were two Judaisms : one the priestly and profligate Judaism of Palestine, with its hatreds, its ignorant bigotry, its ridiculousletter worship, and its lunatic messianic delusions; the other, that of the cultured Jews outside Palestine, whose language was Greek, and whose principal centre was Alexandria. These two parties had little love for each other. Josephus informs us how the knowledge of any tongue besides that of the old Law and the Prophets was discouraged and despised at Jerusalem. That was the accomplishment of slaves ! It was a much admired saying of a Eabbi of Judea, t Cursed is the man who breeds pigs ; cursed is he who has his children taught Greek.’ The Jewish thinkers, the men of science and philosophy, such as it then was, were all men of Greek training, to many of whom Hebrew was a foreign tongue. The Septuagint had utterly displaced among them the original Scriptures. These men detested the arrogance and airs of . superior sanctity put on by the butchering priests and drivelling Pharisees of Jerusalem, and they deplored the ignorance and immorality of the multitudes who had no idea of religion beyond the bloody superstitions of the temple. And there were two first Gospels. Christianity was the natural and double resultant along two lines of least resistance of moral and social forces long in conflict. It was a necessity for Jewish thought and progress, that the mad visions of a conquering Messiah should cease, that the waU of hatred which divided Jews from •. the nations should be thrown down, that the baleful power of the priesthood should be broken, that the increasing profligacy of the worshippers who fattened them should be abated. “ The character of Jesus, his power over men’s hearts, his daring attacks on priestcraft and hypocrisy, and his shocking sufferings from sacerdotal vengeance, gave occasion to the grand solving movement, and kindled the �Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. 39 flame of faith in a suffering and risen Christ, soon to return. On one hand were the believers of Palestine, for the most part still unmitigated Jews, among whom thousands of hearts were touched with remorse that they and their people had crucified the Lord of Glory, Prince of Life, and the Great Teacher of Love : to this party belonged the majority of the immediate disciples of Jesus. On the other hand was the grand army of progress, the Hellenistic Jews and the Gentile Greeks, with whom, to the horror of the churches in Judaea, they consorted. Paul led the van, he who was both a Hebrew of the Hebrews, and a cultured Grecian. He preached the suffering Christ who had been revealed among the people, the risen Christ, by faith in whom the distinction of Jew and Gentile was for ever at an end. To Paul the human personality of the wondrous carpenter’s son was unknown and of small consequence : nowhere does he make allusion to him, «.e., to “Christ after the flesh.” He threw all his noble energy and heart into the work of preaching him whom the people had so fortunately found, and set him forth as the object of passionate loyalty and love to Jew and Gentile alike, and as the divinely-ruling head of the great body in which all were to be one. And when he spoke ‘ wisdom among them that were perfect,’ he knew how to clothe the majesty of that risen Christ with the magnificent robes which had long been embroidered by the Alex­ andrian philosophy of the Logos, a philosophy which the sacerdotal horde which followed him, with their sure instinct of provision for the widest and best­ paying popular demand, easily transformed into Catholic Polytheism, protected by murderous anathemas and, too soon, laws. The helpers of Paul were the devout men of science of the day: however widely they dif­ fered in their daring speculations about the Infinite, they were all the foes of the old priestcraft, ignorance and hatred, and bold assertors of freedom in debate. The adherents of the Jerusalem preachers of Christ, �40 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. and those of the Hellenist party, repelled each other as strongly as the older divisions of Judaism. The lat­ ter grew and grew, till a sufficient number of different orders of society had joined the movement to make it worth the while of shrewd priests and practical men to take command of it: and this issued in the construc­ tion of those sacerdotal jumbles of Judaism and Pagan­ ism, decided improvements on the worst forms of both, which the nations have been pleased to call Orthodoxy. Already, in the days of Eusebius, the cursing priests had completely driven out the men of science, and the chains which for a brief season had been broken were reimposed on human ^thought and conscience. The narrower and more impracticable Judseo-Christian churches of Palestine had dwindled by degrees, after the desolation of Judsea, down to what the dominant priestly conquerors of the free Hellenist movement called the Ebionite heresy. These probably had among them either the Hebrew composition of Matthew, or something founded upon it. The churches of Palestine in the days of Eusebius were no more the descendants of the first Hebrew Christian communities, than the landowners of Ireland are the descendants of the old Celts and Milesians. The Greek church there was an invasion of foreigners, whose heresy-hunters must have made wholesale destruction of the memorials and documents of the first Hebrew-speaking churches of the land.” In such style did the Jew express himself. He ended by recommending us to read a tract which lay in rough proof on P.’s table, “Our First Century,” published- by Thomas Scott. “It is the work of a vigorous and learned searcher after truth,” said he ; “I never saw a pamphlet in any language which contains in the same compass so much valuable information about the sublimest problem of history. Yet I do not agree with all its propositions.” I have thought it may be a contribution to the great �Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. 41 question which is every day more forcing itself into open discussion, that of the value of our foul sectarian divi­ sions and cursing creeds, to place these views and argu­ ments of a devout Jew, of scientific habits of thought, before the reader who shares my devotion and loyalty to him who said before his torturers : “ To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth ; ” the old truth, of Enoch, Noah, and Abraham, of Moses and the Prophets. “ Let them hear them.” So long as we put our trust in conjuring and pardoning Priests of no sex, orin semi-sacerdotal Preachers of no science, so long will there be robbery of Glory to God in the highest,’ and hindrance to ‘ Peace on earth, and good will towards, men.’ Croft Rectory, Aw/7. 7, 1873. TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; 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> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of view. [Part I] Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kirkman, Thomas Penyngton Description An account of the resource Place of publication: London Collation: 41 p. ; 18 cm. Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed by Turnbull and Spears, Edinburgh. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Thomas Scott Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [1873] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context G5507 Subject The topic of the resource Judaism Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <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 (Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of view. [Part I]), 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> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Christianity and Other Religions Conway Tracts Judaism https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/7bf0a030e74da5e5be9374ecf5f8aed8.pdf?Expires=1782345600&Signature=vnXT6CkaOvu15HNBJ-uyNZqnKy8qYiy4iJ6OFwmHsFPTe%7E3TQvnegiTGchHrEifiP9S3FE7bBuiBTYP%7Ee2FqxHkjhDEr4TcQy4%7EvjyP9%7EfQQiajall%7EGAKRt8dUYZ94fBGQuoKRo5PSiDaLpxAdK1ruLLuIocgmtetF03ZnZ7ntk68BqZDHvgYPdBmDkgQKeYNMy87f-gcNIw6QUe3%7E7BtoB7ozB3v49avXSypr9xPq6xxZ6q5B1MDLv09900bSct4UbgN9a84jEngbdqXLjTrxvG8eXyz-Ju-BXsaq3xJcwTVpA4JSd1LbYyutx4t6N74BNn-m2-iCwGOiJE1VaaQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 4426e2bfdabf1bc2257ac01edffae95c PDF Text Text JEWISH LITERATURE AND MODERN EDUCATION: OR, THE USE AND MISUSE OF THE BIBLE IN THE SCHOOLROOM. BEING TWO LECTURES DELIVERED BEFORE THE SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY, MARCH 26th AND APRIL 2d 1871. PUBLISHED FOR THE AUTHOR, BT THOMAS SCOTT, RAMSGATE. Price One Shilling and Sixpence, stitched. On better paper and bound in cloth, Two Shillings and Sixpence. �“ These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they . . . searched the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.”—Acts xvii. 11. �PREFACE. Whether or not the Solution, given in these Lectures, of the “Religious Difficulty” in our National Education, be acceptable for practical application, is a question other than that of the intrinsic soundness of that Solution. It is to this only that my responsibility extends. The responsibility of declining to accept a proffered remedy must rest with those to whom the offer is made. I had intended to keep these Lectures in manuscript, and repeat them wherever an audience might be found desirous of hearing facts stated without respect to aught but the facts. It is in compliance with very many and pressing solicitations that I have, by printing them, withdrawn them from further delivery as Public Lectures. My hope now is that the readers will not be less nume­ rous than the hearers would have been, had I adhered to my original intention. The Lectures are printed with the changes made on their second delivery, in Edinburgh. I cannot let them �iv Preface. go from me without acknowledging my obligations to the series of small publications issued periodically by Mr Thomas Scott of Ramsgate, to whose indefatigable self-devotion to the cause of “ Free Inquiry and Free Expression,” the present rapid spread of information, and consequent movement of thought on religious matters, especially among the clergy of the Establish­ ment,—(a movement far greater than the public is aware of)—is in no small degree attributable. The tracts entitled, The Defective Morality of the New Testament, by Professor F. W. Newman; The Gospel of the Kingdom, and The Influence of Sacred History on the Intellect and Conscience,—especially deserve mention for the use I have made of them. A few brief passages given as quotations, but without reference, are for the most part taken, with more or less exactness, from The Pilgrim and the Shrine. E. M. London, September 1871. �SYNOPSIS. LECTURE THE FIRST. KOri 3TIOS .11. J2. .83. i4.i 5. ’ .‘< 6. 7. - , J 8.. : .(9. INTRODUCTION, ..... DEFINITION AND FUNCTION OF EDUCATION, THE SCHOOL BOARDS AND THE “RELIGIOUS DIFFICULTY,” THE GENESIS AND HABITAT OF THE “DIFFICULTY,” THE BIBLE AS A MORAL TEACHER, THE BIBLE AS AN INTELLECTUAL TEACHER, THE BIBLE “WITHOUT NOTE OR COMMENT,” THE GOSPELS AND THE CHARACTER OF JESUS, . THE “KINGDOM OF HEAVEN,” 1 3 6 11 12 24 27 35 37 LECTURE THE SECOND. .0110. ill. THE NEW TESTAMENT AS A RULE OF LIFE AND FAITH, . 41 THE “CONTINUITY OF SCRIPTURE,” DOCTRINAL AND OTHER, . . . . . .48 12. WHY THE BIBLE SHOULD BE TAUGHT IN OUR SCHOOLS, . 57 13. HOW IT SHOULD BE DEALT WITH, . . .65 ;14. “notes and comments;” the principle of thf.tr CONSTRUCTION, ..... 69 115. BIBLICAL INFALLIBILITY, . . . .74 16. BIBLICAL INSPIRATION, . . . .78 17. THE BIBLE AND MODERN COMMENTATORS, . . 86 >18. THE BIBLE AND MODERN PRACTICE, . . .88 19. THE SCHOOL AND TEACHER OF THE FUTURE, . . 94 ��LECTURE THE FIRST. ------- o------- I. Why is it with, us in England, that with all our achieve­ ments in Science, Literature, and Art; in Government, Industry, and Warfare; in Honour, Religion, and Virtue; with conquests ranging over the whole threefold domain of Humanity, the Physical, the Intellectual, and the Moral,—why is it that the moment we attempt to ex­ tend the manifold blessings of our civilisation to the entire mass of our countrymen, we find ourselves at fault and utterly baffled 1 Long has the condition of myriads among us been known to be terrible in its degradation. Long have we acknowledged an earnest desire to raise them out of that condition. Measure after measure have we devised and enacted; but none of them, not even the vast Church­ establishment of the realm, has proved in any degree commensurate with the evil. At length our efforts have culminated in the elaboration and enactment of one comprehensive scheme; and we have proceeded so far as to have elected as our representatives to carry it into effect, those of us whom, for superior intelligence and energy, we deem best qualified for the task. Shortlived, however, do our exultant hopes promise to �2 'Jewish Literature be. The very agents of our beneficent intentions, the Schoolboards, in whose hands are borne the germs of our redemption and future civilisation, are altogether at such odds within themselves upon some of the leading and most essential principles, that the scheme threatens wholly to collapse in disheartening failure, or to become a perennial source of bitterness and dissension. Is it not passing strange ? Based though our culture has for centuries been, upon one and the self-same book, so far from our having attained any degree of unity thereby, we are divided and rent into sects and factions innumerable and irreconcilable, until it would appear as if the very spirit of that proverbially perverse and stiff­ necked people whose sacred literature we have adopted as the rule of our faith and practice, had passed into ourselves and become a constituent part of our very nature. The greatness of the emergency,—for it is the redemp­ tion of our masses from pauperism, ignorance, and bar­ barism that is at stake,—not justifies merely, but impe­ ratively demands the strenuous collaboration of all who, having the good of their kind at heart, have made this question one of special investigation. It is in no spirit of hasty presumption,—scarcely is it with much hope of wide acceptance,—at least in the present,—that I have responded to the invitation to recite here to-day the con­ clusions to which my study of the points at issue has brought me. Rather is it that it will be a relief to my­ self to have thrown off the reflections and results which, in a somewhat varied experience at home and abroad, have accumulated upon me, and to feel that I have done this at the time when there is most chance of their being useful. It is thus that I have prepared my contribution �and Modern Education. 3 towards the solution of “ the Religious Difficulty ” which lies “ a lion in the path ” of our National Education and all our national improvement, showing as- yet not the smallest symptom of discomposure through any “ Reso­ lution ” of Metropolitan or other School-board. II. In all emergencies, whether of conduct or of opinion, where there is doubt and space for deliberation, it is best to go back to the very beginning of the matter, and there, in its initial principles, seek the clue which is to conduct us safely out of our dilemma. It is wonderful sometimes how readily a skein is disentangled when once the right end of the thread has been found. Our friends across the Atlantic, the Americans, were for a long time disastrously hampered in their attempts at legisla­ tion. It is not surprising that it should have been so, when we consider that the principal object of legislation is Man, and that the two great sections of the American community differed altogether in their definition of Man; the one holding that persons who had dark complexions and a peculiar kind of rough curly hair, several millions of whom lived in the country, were not men L and the other holding that they were just as much entitled to be treated as human beings as people with light complexions and smooth hair. At length, after many years of bitter quarrelling, ending with one of the most fearful inter­ necine conflicts ever known, it was agreed to regard all people as human, and to legislate alike for them with per­ fect equality; whereupon the difficulty entirely vanished, and the course of the nation became smooth and easy. In like manner our difficulties, in regard to popular �4 Jewish Literature instruction, have all arisen through our neglect of a de­ finition. We have not defined to ourselves the precise object of the system of National Education, which, after generations of anxious endeavour, we have at length succeeded in obtaining, and which we are now seeking to bring into operation throughout the length and breadth of the land. The first step towards obtaining what we want, ever is to know what we want; and since in this case we cannot purchase the article ready-made, but have to fabricate it for ourselves, it is not sufficient to have a bare name for it, or a vague apprehension about it, but we must be conversant with its nature, characteristics, and uses. Let us further simplify and enlarge the scope of the question, and ask what is the object of all the education, public or private, which we give, or seek to give, to our children ? What, in short, is the purpose of education 1 Using the term education in its broad sense, and without reference to technical instruction in special subjects, we can only answer, that its purpose is to make children into good and capable men and women by cultivating their intelligence and their moral sense, or conscience. It follows, if we agree to this definition, that we are bound to reject as worse than useless, any instruction which is calculated to repress or pervert either of those faculties from their proper healthy development. Those who at first hesitate to acquiesce in this defini­ tion, in the belief that education should have a more special object, such as to make good Christians, good Catholics, good Protestants, good Churchmen, or good Nonconformists, must on a little reflection perceive that �and Modern Education. 5 they cannot really mean to rank the intelligence and moral sense as secondary and subordinate to such ends, but that they only desire people to be good Christians, good Churchmen, and so on, because the fact of being so would, in their view, involve the best culture of the faculties in question. So that if they believed it did not involve this end, they would abandon their preference for such denominations. That is, they would rather have people to be good men and bad (say) Noncon­ formists, than good Nonconformists and bad men. Agreeing, then, that the object of education is the development of the intellect and moral sense, we shall, no doubt, further agree that the best chance of success­ fully cultivating those desirable qualities which we designate virtues, lies in impressing the mind while young with the most elevated and winning examples of them, and guarding it from any familiarity with their opposites ; and that it is because we deem such qualities to be best, that we regard the Deity as possessing them in the Infinite, and hold up as a pattern of life the most perfect example of them in the finite. Yet, though agreeing both in the object and method of education when thus plainly put before us, so ingeni­ ously perverse and inconsistent are we that we first refuse to agree upon any common system of instruction whatever, and then we insist upon neutralising or vitiating such instruction as we do agree upon, by mingling it with teaching which is at once repressive of the Intellect, and injurious to the Moral Sense. The sole impediment to the success of our efforts, the rock upon which all our hopes of rescuing the mass of our countrymen from ignorance and barbarism are in danger of being dashed, consists in the unreasoning and indis­ �6 'Jewish Literature criminate veneration in which the Bible is popularlyheld among us. Impelled by that veneration, we hesi­ tate not to degrade our children’s view of Deity by familiarising them with a literature in which He is represented as feeble, treacherous, implacable, and unjust; and confound at once their Intelligence and Moral Sense, by compelling them to regard that litera­ ture as altogether divine and infallible. Strange infatuation and inconsistency, if, after toiling for years to obtain an effective system of national edu­ cation, we either abandon the task as hopeless, or insist upon accompanying it by teaching which involves a fatal outrage upon the very intellect and conscience which it is the express purpose of that education to foster and develop! III. Before' considering the action of the School-boards, I must advert for a moment to the principle of their constitution. There is this difference between Government by Re­ presentation and Government by Delegation. It is the ‘ duty of the mere delegate to vote on any given question precisely as a majority of his constituents may instruct him. The deliberative function rests with them. He is their faithful, but unintelligent instrument. The repre­ sentative, on the contrary, is selected on account of his superior faculties or attainments, to go on behalf of his constituents to the headquarters of information, and there, in conference with other selected intellects, form the best judgment in his power; his constituents deter­ mining only the general principles and direction of his policy. �and Modern Education. 7 The School-boards which are charged with the deter­ mination of our new educational system, having been selected on this principle of representation, we are entitled to look to their superior intelligence to sup­ plement popular deficiencies ; to be superior to popular prejudices; to be teachers, and, if need be, rebukers, rather than followers and flatterers of the less instructed masses : and it is due to such bodies that we carefully examine the methods by which they propose to deal with existing difficulties. Those difficulties turning exclusively upon Religion, one great step towards their solution has been gained by the agreement to exclude from the common schools such minor subjects of difference as the creeds and catechisms of particular denominations. The Bible remains, the sole stumbling-block and rock of offence. The London Board may be taken as representative not only of the largest and most intelligent. body of constituents, but also of all the other School-boards. I propose, therefore, to deal with the propositions by which the members of that Board have sought to meet the “religious difficulty.” They are six in number : 1. That the Bible be excluded altogether, on the ground that its admission is inconsistent with religious equality. 2. That the Bible be admitted and read,, but without note or comment. 3. That the Bible be read for the purpose of religious culture, at the discretion of the teacher. 4. That the teacher’s discretion in the use of the Bible be so restricted as to exclude the distinctive doctrines of any sect. 5. That no principle respecting the use of the Bible �8 'Jewish Literature be laid down, but that each separate school be dealt with by itself. 6. That the Bible be read with such explanations in matters of language, history, customs, &c., as may be needed to make its meaning plain; and that there be given such instruction in its teaching, on the first prin­ ciples of morality and religion, as is suitable to the capacities of children; always excluding denominational teaching. The Fifth Resolution, “ that no principle be laid down,” aptly describes the condition of the question up to that point. In the absence of a definition of its object, it was impossible for the Board to lay down any principle for its guidance. In the absence of any controlling definition, it could only look back to its constituents to see what they would bear from it. And looking to the confused mass of public opinion and prejudice in the absence of any light of one’s own, is like shutting one’s eyes to avoid seeing the dark. Travelling one day by a railway on which there are several tunnels, I observed that whenever the train entered a tunnel, a little boy who sat next to me, im­ mediately pressed his hands over his eyes, and buried his face in the cushions. To my inquiry why he did this, he answered that it was because he was afraid of the dark. I asked him whether it was not just as dark to him when his face was buried in the cushions. He said yes; but he had not thought of that, and he would not know now what to do. I could not bear to deprive him of his faith, however unenlightened, without giving him another. A lamp was burning in the roof of the car­ riage, too dim in the broad daylight to have attracted his attention, yet bright enough to dispel the gloom of �and Modern Education. 9 the tunnel. I suggested that, instead of covering his face, he would do better to keep his eyes fixed on the lamp. The little fellow brightened with joy at the thought; and during the rest of the journey, the in­ stant we entered a tunnel, there he was, no longer fear­ ful and burying himself in deeper darkness, but steadfastly looking to the light that shone above him. “ Look to the light 1 ” is no bad maxim even for those who have to determine grave questions for the benefit of others. We have but to “look to the light” of the definition we have already agreed upon, and difficulties fly like darkness before the approaching dawn. Even the difficulties themselves, like Daphne before the Sun­ god, are apt to turn into flowers for our delectation. . The Sixth Resolution, that proposed by Dr Angus, and supported by Professor Huxley, is the first that shows any consciousness that there is a light to which we may look for encouragement and guidance. “ That instruc­ tion should be given in the Bible on the first principles of morality and religion” According to our definition, Edu­ cation consists in the cultivation of the Intelligence and the Moral Sense. This is the light on which the gaze must be so steadily fixed, that no conflicting influences shall be capable of diverting our attention. Interpreted by it, the Bible itself bears witness to the way in which it should be used. Here, in full accordance with it, is one of its utterances, “ God is no respecter of persons; but in every nation, he that feareth Him and worketh righteousness, is accepted with Him.” (Acts x. 34-5.) Acting in this spirit, our School-boards will be no re­ specters of authors or books, but in every writing that, and that only, “ which feareth God and worketh righte­ ousness,” shall be accepted by them. Here is another, �io J ’ ewish Literature also on the positive side: “ Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.” (Phil. iv. 8.) And another seems to define that Scrip­ ture or writing, as alone given by a holy inspiration, which “ is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for cor­ rection, for instruction in righteousness.” (2 Tim. iii. 16.) And on the negative side we have “ Refuse profane and old wives’ fables;” (1 Tim. iv. 7.) “not giving heed to Jewish fables.” (Titus i. 14.) “But all uncleanness let it not be once named among you ;” “ for it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret.” (Eph. v. 3, 12.) And one more on the posi­ tive side. “ Whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” (1 Cor. x. 31.) Yet with these plain rules for our guidance, not one of the resolutions proposes to place any restriction upon the use of the Bible by the children. One, indeed, pro­ poses to exclude it bodily from the schools, the good and the evil together, but upon grounds in no way connected with its fitness for the perusal of youth. And even the resolution finally accepted by the Board, while ambigu­ ously proposing “ to give from the Bible such instruction in the principles of religion and morality as is suitable to the capacities of children,” ventures on no protest against the Bible as it now stands being put into the hands of children at all. The fact is, that the members have allowed themselves to be so exclusively guided by the “ winds” of popular “ doctrine,” that they “ have omitted the weightier mat­ ters of the law” of morality, and “ passed over judgment and the love of God.” �b and Modern Education. 11 IV. The reason is not far to seek. A representative body would not be representative were any wide interval to intervene between its own intelligence and attainments and those of its constituents. The latter can be guided in their selection only by the light they possess j not by that which they do not possess. Wherefore, for the School-board to have passed any more radical Resolution than that which it did pass, would have been for it to have made itself, not the representative, but the inde­ pendent superior of the body which elected it. The primary defect, therefore, lies with the people at large. It is the vast amount of bigoted ignorance and supersti­ tion still remaining among us that constitutes the real obstacle to any sound system of national education. It is the elders who require to be instructed, before we can begin to teach the children. It is true that a transition has begun. But every step of the progress from the old to the new, from darkness to light, is so vehemently opposed by the vested interests of the dead past, that the patience of those who believe in the possibility of progress may well be exhausted, and their faith quenched in despair. To be effectual, therefore, remonstrance must be ad­ dressed to the people at large, rather than to their representatives on the School-boards. The transition of which I spoke as having already begun, is the transition from a morality affecting to be based upon theology, to a religion really based upon morality, and, consequently, to a sound system of morality. This transition must attain a far more advanced stage in its progress before the School-board can even begin to carry out the Re- I �12 "Jewish Literature solution it has passed. It is absolutely impossible to “ give from the Bible, instruction in the principles of morality and religion suitable to children,” until the popular theory respecting the Bible, and the theology based upon it, is so vastly modified as to amount to an almost total renunciation of that theory. The ab­ solute and irreconcilable antagonism between what is called Biblical Theology and the modern principles of “ Religion and Morality,” cannot be too distinctly asserted or loudly proclaimed, if we sincerely desire our children to have an education really consisting in the development of their intelligence and moral sense. Valuing the Bible highly as I do, for very much that is very valuable in it, it is no grateful task to have to search out and expose the characteristics which render it an unsuitable basis for the instruction of children, whether in morality or in religion. Such ex­ posure, however, being indispensable to the solution of the problem of our national education; to shrink from it would be to abandon that problem as insoluble, that education as impossible. V. Bearing always in mind our definition of the purpose and method of education, namely the development of the intelligence and moral sense by the inculcation of “ the true, the pure, and the honest,”—bearing in mind also the fundamental fact in human nature, that man’s view of Deity inevitably reacts upon himself, tending to form him in the image of his own ideal,—it is selfevident that to familiarise children with the imperfect morality, the coarse manners and expressions, the rude �and Modern Education. 13 fables, and the degrading ideas of Deity, appertaining to a people low in culture—such as were the Israelites— and to confound their minds and consciences at the most impressible period of life by telling them that such narratives and representations are all divinely inspired and infallibly true,—is to utterly stultify ourselves and the whole of the principles by which we profess to be actuated in giving them an education at all. Did we find any others than ourselves, say South Sea savages, putting into the hands of their children, books containing coarse and impure stories, detailing the morbid anatomy of the most execrable vices, extollipg deeds prompted by a spirit of the lowest selfishness, exulting in fraud, rapine, and murder, and justifying whatever is most disgraceful to humanity by representing it as prompted or approved by their Deity, and so making Him alto­ gether such an one as themselves,—surely we should say that they must indeed be savages of the lowest and most degraded type, and sad proofs of the utter depravity of human nature. In investigating from our present point of view the contents of this most read, yet most misread, of books, we must dismiss from our minds any idea that its most objectionable features are amenable to revision or re­ translation. The faults thus removable are but as freckles upon the skin compared with a constitutional taint. For it is the spirit as well as the letter of a large portion of it, that whether “ for reproof, for correction, or for instruction in righteousness,” is hopelessly in fault: and the spirit of a book is of infinitely greater importance than its superficial details. Palpable to the eyes of all are the hideous tales of Lot and his daughters; (Gen. xix.) Judah and Tamar; �14 Jewish Literature (xxxvii.) the massacre of the Shechemites; (xxxiv.) the Levite of Ephraim; (Jud. xix.) David and Bathsheba; (2 Sam. ix.) Amnon and his sister ; (xiii.) and whole chapters in Leviticus and the Prophets. That such things should be in a book given freely to children to read, and that they should be expected notwithstanding to grow up pure and uncontaminated in mind and habit, is one of those anomalies in the British character which makes it a hopeless puzzle to the world. Who can say that much of the viciousness at present prevalent among us, is not attributable to early curiosity being aroused and stimulated by the obscenities of the Old Testament ? To put the Bible as it is into the hands of our children, is not only totally to bewilder their sense of right and wrong,—it is to invite familiarity with the idea of the worst Oriental vices. Even in the case of those vices being mentioned only to be denounced, the suggestion is apt to remain, and the denunciation to be disregarded. It notoriously is injudicious to put into the minds of children faults of which they might never have thought themselves, for the sake of admonishing them against them. It is related somewhere that a catalogue of offences punish­ able by law was once posted in the Roman forum as a warning to the citizens; but that this was followed by such a vast increase in the number and variety of the crimes committed, that it was found advisable to remove it. I myself know an instance of a pious mother sending her daughter to a boarding-school, having first written in her Bible a list of the chapters and passages which she was not to read. It is remarkable how popular in the school that particular Bible became. The other girls were always borrowing it. There is no reason to suppose that boys would have acted differently. �and Modern Education. 15 It is true that the particular instances I have adduced may not he immoral as they stand in the Bible, but they are assuredly provocative of immorality in children who read them. A far more serious indictment against the Bible as a handbook of moral instruction must be founded on its habit of representing the Deity as a consenting party to some of the worst actions of its characters : nay, so unreliable is it as a basis of anything what­ ever, that after thus characterising the Deity, it deals in strong denunciations against those “ who not only com­ mit such things themselves, but have pleasure in them that do them (Rom. i. 32.) thus, by direct implication condemning the Deity Himself. If it be desirable to impress upon children the belief that only those “ who fear God and work righteousness are acceptable to him,” it is to stultify the whole principle of their education to represent Him to them as an eastern monarch, selecting his favourites by caprice, and independently of any merit or demerit on their part. Yet the entire Bible rests upon the idea that so far from being an equal Father of all, “ whose tender mercies are over all His works,” (Ps. cxlv. 9.) the Almighty selected out of all mankind one race to be “ His own peculiar people,” (Deut. xiv. 9.) and out of that race certain individuals to be His own peculiar favourites, and this in spite of the most glaring defects in their characters and conduct; and sustained those whom He had thus chosen through the whole course of their misdeeds. Thus, Abraham is said to have had “ faith,” and this faith is said to have been “ imputed to him for righteous­ ness (Rom. iv. 22.) but how far was his actual conduct righteous, and how much faith did it imply 1 Assured by repeated promises of the divine favour and protection, �i6 Jewish Literature as well as of a great posterity through his then childless wife Sarai, he twice voluntarily prostituted her to Pagan chieftains, pretending that she was only his sister. And we read that “the Lord plagued,”—not the liar and poltroon who thus degraded his wife, and entrapped the kings, whose hospitality he was enjoying;—not the wife so extraordinarily ready to “ obey her husband in all things(it appears that her age was about sixty-five on one occasion, and ninety on the other);—but “ the Lord plagued Pharaoh and Abimelech with great plagues be­ cause of Sarai, Abraham’s wife,” and in the case of the latter, would only grant forgiveness upon the intercession of Abraham, saying, “ for he is a prophet.” (Gen. xii. 20.) Isaac, we read, copied the twice committed fault of his father, in passing off his wife Rebekah as his sister upon another king, and was divinely blessed notwithstanding. In short, in all three transactions, out of the whole of the parties to them, Abraham, Isaac, Sarai, Rebekah, .the three kings, and the Deity, those only who indicate the possession of any moral sense whatever are the Pagan kings, who show it in no small degree, and these alone are punished; while Abraham and Isaac retain the divine favour throughout, the former being honoured by the distinctive title of “ Friend of God.” (James ii. 23.) The selfishness and cowardice of Abraham are still farther illustrated by his treatment of Hagar and Ish­ mael. There is no reason to doubt the perfect truthful­ ness of the Bible narrative in respect to him. But when it goes on to represent the Deity as encouraging him in his cruel and unfatherly conduct to his son, and bid­ ding him follow the lead of a frivolous and heartless wife;—“ In all that Sarai hath said unto thee, hearken unto her voice(Gen. xxi. 12.) then our m'oral sense is �and Modern Education. i7 offended, and we refuse to identify the God of Abraham with the God of our own clearer perceptions. The utter indifference of “ the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob” to any moral law whatever, reaches its climax in the history of Jacob. A liar and a trickster from early youth, yet constantly enjoying the presence and approbation of God, who finds no word or sign of re­ proach wherewith to touch his conscience or arouse his fears,—such is the patriarch whom the Bible sets forth as one of God’s especial favourites, because, forsooth, he had “ faith.” In presence of this mystic quality, right and wrong sink into absolute nothingness; and that most fatal of all impieties, a total divorce between the .will of God and the moral law, finds its plea and justi­ fication. It is little that I would give for the moral sensibility of the child who could read without a pang of indignation and a tear of pity the tale of this ingrained blackleg’s atrocities ; his taking advantage of his rough, honest-hearted brother’s extremity of exhaustion through hunger to extort from him his birthright; (Gen. xxv.) his heartless deception of his poor, blind old father; (xxvii.) his repeated cheats, thefts, and false­ hoods against his father-in-law; (xxx., &c.) and the divine confirmation to him of the blessings thus fraudu­ lently acquired ; “ yea, and he shall be blessed,” and con­ stant assurance of the divine presence and approbation. It is without a word of repudiation that the Bible ac­ quiesces in Jacob’s degradation of the Deity to a huck­ stering or bargaining God; a God, too, who can be got the better of in a business transaction. For, “Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If God will be with me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father’s house in B ■ �i8 "Jewish Literature peace; then shall the Lord be my God; and this stone which I have set for a pillar shall be God’s house; and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee.” (xxviii. 20, &c.) When the Israelites reach the Promised Land, their “ sacred history” consists of little beside perpetual but­ cheries. The more directly they are represented as being under divine guidance, the more sanguinary is their career. Slaughter of men, women, children, infants at the breast. None spared, none, except, sometimes— and mark the exception made by the followers, not of Mahomet, but of Jehovah—the unmarried girls. Every sentiment of humanity and mercy is accounted an un­ pardonable weakness. Jehovah appears as a savage patriot-God, approving impurity, treachery, murder, and whatever else was perpetrated on the side of his “ chosen people.” A Bushman of South Africa being once asked to define the difference between good and evil, replied, “ It is good when I steal another man’s wives; evil when another man steals mine.” Such is precisely the standard of right and wrong laid down by the Bible in respect to the Israelites and their neighbours. Can we wonder that recent moralists have written to vindicate the Almighty from the aspersions cast upon his character in the Bible.* In all the events of the late dreadful war upon the Continent, probably no single incident caused such a thrill of horror as that of the wounded German soldier who staggered from the field of battle into a peasant’s cottage, and fell fainting upon the bed, and only lived long enough to tell his comrades how that the woman of the cottage had taken advantage of his helpless condition to pick out his eyes with a fork. Possibly the French * E.g. Theodore Parker in America, and Dr Perfitt in England. �and Modern Education. J9 woman had heard of the blessing pronounced upon Jael for a similar act. Possibly she had learned from “ Sacred History” that the most revolting perfidy and cruelty be­ come heroic virtues when exercised upon one’s own side. And were not we Europeans of to-day, with all our faults, infinitely in advance of those bad times, we too might find a patriot-poet rivalling the utterances of the “divinely-inspired” Deborah, to laud the French tigress as the Jewish one was lauded, detail with rapturous glee every particular of the fiendish deed, and mock the wretched victim’s mother watching and longing in vain for her murdered son’s return. Nay, the conduct of her whom the Bible pronounces as “ blessed above women,” was even more flagrant in its utter heinousness than that of the French woman. For the husband of Jael had severed himself from the hostile peoples; “there was peace between Jabin, the King of Hazor, and the house of Heber, the Keliite and he dwelt, a friendly neutral, in a region apart. The general Sisera, moreover, utterly beaten and discomfited, had fled expressly to Jael’s tent for safety, knowing the family to be friendly, and she had invited him in with assurances of protection. “ Turn in, my lord, fear not.” (Jud. iv.) While Abraham is described as “ the friend of God,” to David is awarded the honour of being styled “ a man after God’s own heart; ” (1 Sam. xiii. 14; Acts xiii. 22.) “who turned not away from anything that he com­ manded him all the days of his life, save only ” in one particular instance. (1 Kings xv. 5.) In order to see how little the Bible is fitted for the instruction of children in respect of a moral sense, let us brush aside for a moment the halo with which the name of David is surrounded, �20 'Jewish Literature and read his history for ourselves. It is through want of doing this, that a popular writer has recently described his life as uniformly “bright and beautiful up to the time of his one great sin.”* Yet, his career, soon after the intrepid act which first brought him into notice, was one of rebellion and brigandage. Collecting all that were in debt, distress, and discontent, (1 Sam. xxii. 2.) he or­ ganised them into bands of freebooters to levy blackmail upon the farmers. One of these, named Nabal, when applied to on account of David, boldly and naturally answered, “ Who is David ? and who is this son of Jesse? there be many servants now-a-days that break away every man from his master. Shall I then take my bread, and my water, and my flesh that I have killed for my shearers, and give it unto men whom I know not whence they be ?” However, Abigail, the wife of Nabal, touched by her servant’s account of the gallantry of the band, took of her husband’s stores and gave liberally to them. Upon this David assured her that, but for her conduct, he would not have left even a dog of Nahal’s household alive by next morning. A few days afterwards Nabal died; the Bible, as if to remove any suspicion of foul play, stating that “ the Lord smote him;” when David im­ mediately took Abigail to be his own wife. (1 Sam. xxv.) When the great contest took place between the Philis­ tines and the Israelites, in which the latter were utterly routed, and Saul and Jonathan, David’s bosom friend, were slain, David with his forces stood aloof, unheeding the peril of his countrymen. (1 Sam. xxx.) The crown thus devolved upon Ishbosheth the son of Saul, who was supported by eleven out of the twelve tribes. David, * Miss Yonge, in “ Musings on the Christian Year.” �and Modern Education. 21 however, would not accept their choice, even though the whole strength of Israel was needed at that critical mo­ ment to withstand the Philistines. (2 Sam. ii.) Exciting a civil war, he got himself acknowledged as king by the dissentient tribe of Judah. Treachery and murder came freely to his aid, and he at length found the crown of Israel in his hands. But he felt his tenure of it insecure so long as any descendant of Saul remained to dispute it with him. He therefore concerted with the priests, who, since Saul had slighted their authority, had sided with David, a plot to get rid of the seven sons and grandsons of Saul. The country having been for three years dis­ tressed by famine, David consulted the Oracles. In Bible phraseology, he “ inquired of the Lord.” Of what kind of a Lord he inquired, may be judged by the re­ sponse. “ It is for Saul and his bloody house, because he slew the Gibeonites ” many years before. Upon this the Gibeonites, duly instructed, besought of David that, as an “ atonement,” seven males of Saul’s family should be 11 hanged up unto the Lord.” And David took the seven and delivered them into the hands of the Gibe­ onites, five of them being sons of his own former wife Michal, “ and they hanged them in the hill before the Lord. . . . And after that, God was intreated for the land.” (2 Sam. xxi. 1-14.) Revolt, treason, murder, human sacrifices, all in the name of “ the Lord ” ! On one occasion, after defeating the Moabites, David, we read, assembled all the people of that nation on a plain, made them lie down, and divided them into three groups with a line. Two of these groups he put to death, and the other he reduced to slavery. (2 Sam. viii. 2.) The conquered Ammonites he treated with even greater fero­ city, tearing and hewing some of them in pieces with �22 Jewish Literature harrows, axes, and saws, and roasting others in brick­ kilns. (xii. 31.) His luxury and voluptuousness equalled his cruelty. Having had seven wives while he ruled over Judah alone, he added to the number all those who had belonged to Saul, (8.) and took yet more wives and concubines after he had come from Hebron, (v. 13.) But these, and his vast pomp, were insufficient to satiate him. Having caught sight of Bathsheba, the wife of one of his captains named Uriah, he took her to himself, and sent Uriah to join the army in the field, giving express orders to his commanding officer to place him in the fore front of the fight to insure his being killed. It appears that there was then in Israel an honest pro­ phet named Nathan, who had the courage to remonstrate with the king, and who did so with such effect, that David was made, for once, to see the enormity of his conduct. We read, however, that the Lord put away David’s sin, so that he did not die. But his child did. And no sooner was the innocent thus punished for the guilty, than “ David comforted Bathsheba his wife, and she bare a son, and he called his name Solomon; and the Lord loved him. And he sent by the hand of Nathan the prophet,” now subsided into the obsequious court chaplain, “and he called his name Jedidiah,” or “ Beloved of the Lord.” (2 Sam. xii.) Old age and infirmity wrought no amendment in the truculent spirit of David ; a spirit so truculent as to make it morally impossible that he could really have been the author of any of those psalms which in after ages it pleased his countrymen to ascribe to him; excepting only, perhaps, the more ferocious of them. He has been called, “ the Byron of the Bible,” which, after what has just been stated, seems exceedingly unfair to Byron. �and Modern Education. 23 Early in David’s career of blood, one Shimei had, in generous indignation, cursed him for his murder of the sons of Saul. (2 Sam. xvi.) He had afterwards begged forgiveness and received it. (xix. 16-23.) Yet David’s last instructions to Solomon were in this wise—“ Behold thou hast with thee Shimei the son of Gera, which cursed me with a grievous curse in the day when I came to Mahanaim: but he came down to meet me at Jordan, and I sware to him by the Lord, saying, I will not put thee to death with the sword. Now, therefore, hold him not guiltless . . . but his hoar head bring thou down to the grave with blood. So David slept with his fathers.” (1 Kings ii. 8-10, &c.) And Solomon “com­ manded Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, which went out and fell upon Shimei, that he died.” (46.) “ And Solomon loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of David, his father.” And “ the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night; and God said, ask what I shall give thee. And Solomon said, Thou hast shown unto thy servant David, my father, great mercy, according as he walked before thee in truth, and in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart with thee : and thou hast kept for him this great kindness, that thou hast given him a son to sit on his throne. . . . And God said unto him . . . if thou wilt walk in my ways, to keep my statutes and my commandments, as thy father David did walk, then will I lengthen thy days.” (1 Kings iii.) The mystery of these astounding utterances is not far to seek. History in those days was the work of the sacerdotal class. To support and subserve that class was then, as it has been, for the most part, ever since, to be pronounced, “ beloved of the Lord,” no matter how evil the individual really was, or how derogatory to the di­ �24 Jewish Literature vine honour it might be to have such a preference ascribed to it. To have “ faith ” in the priests counterbalanced and condoned any quantity of wicked “ works.” Their standard of right and wrong, good and evil, was that of the Bushman. Whatever was for them was good ; what­ ever was against them was evil. It is, then, for us seri­ ously to ask ourselves whether, when we set before our children as a fit object of worship such a being as the Bible represents the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, of Samuel, David, and Solomon, to have been, we are ministering towards the end we have in view in giving to them an education; or whether, in place of raising them in the scale of being, we are not rather ministering to the total degradation in them of the human soul. VI. 1 . These are but a few of the instances in which the Bible is antagonistic to one of the main objects of educa­ tion, the development of the moral sense. We will now examine how far its teaching is adapted to promote the cultivation of the intellect, still confining ourselves to the Old Testament. What are the “ glorious gains ” of the modern mind, of which we are justly proud, and what are the ideas re­ specting the constitution of the universe, the recognition of which we regard as necessary to entitle any one to the appellation of an intelligent and educated person 1 Surely they are that the order of nature is invariable, the whole universe being governed by laws so perfectly appointed as to need no rectification, and fixed so inher­ ently in it as to constitute its nature. That, though in­ capable of interference from without, inasmuch as there �and Modern Education. 25 can be no without, all things proceeding from within from its divine immanent character,—its parts are en­ dowed with a capacity of advancing by a process of con­ tinual evolution to a degree ever higher of complexity and organisation, as within the physical structure rises the mental, with all its capabilities of moral, intellectual, and spiritual, in grandeur surpassing the majesty of the whole external Cosmos. That it is a low and degrading superstition to regard deity as other than One, ever liv­ ing and operating equally and impartially throughout the whole domain of existence; or as dwelling apart from the world, and only occasionally giving proof of his being by disturbance of the general order. And that,—while it is impossible truly to ascribe to him aught of feeling cor­ responding to the love, hate, fear, passion, caprice, appe­ tite, or other affection of men,—when for purposes of instruction or devotion we seek to utilise the anthropo­ morphic tendency of our nature, He is to be represented as the absolute impersonation of all that we recognise as best in Humanity. To what depths do we fall when, abandoning these hard-won gains of the Intellect’s long warfare against ignorance, barbarism, and superstition, instead of placing our children upon the vantage ground we have acquired, and handing to them our lights at the point which we ourselves have attained, that they may carry them on yet further, we abuse their understandings at the most impressible age, by compelling them to regard the Almighty as no equal God and Father of the whole human race, but the exclusive patron of a small Semitic tribe dwelling in Palestine, whom he supported by prodigies and miracles in their aggressions upon their neighbours, revealing to them alone the light of his �26 'Jewish Literature word, and condemning all others to enforced darkness. By teaching them to believe in magic and witchcraft, in talismans, charms, and vows; in beasts speaking with human voices and sentiments; (Gen. iii. 1-4; Num. xxii. 28-30.) in a deity writing with a finger; (Ex. xxxi. 18.) speaking with a voice; (xix. 19.) enjoying the smell of roast meat; (Gen. viii. 21.) standing face to face ; (xxxii. 30.) walking in a garden ; (iii. 8.) revealing his hinder parts; (Ex. xxxiii. 23.) coming down to obtain information as to what men were doing, and to devise measures in accordance therewith; (Gen. xi. 5-7 ; xviii. 20, 21.) impressing men, not through their consciences, but by signs and wonders, miracles and dreams; recog­ nising and confirming advantages gained by fraud, to the irreparable disadvantage of their rightful owner; (Gen. xxvii. 33-37.) in the case of one deliverer of his chosen people, making his strength depend upon the length of his hair; (Jud. xvi. 17.) allowing another, in virtue of a hasty vow, to offer up his daughter in human sacrifice as a burnt-offering; (xi. 30-39 ; Num. xxx.) and, lastly, teaching them to believe in man created perfect, and yet unable to resist the first and smallest temptation; and, for such a peccadillo as the eating of the fruit of a magical tree, being with his whole unborn progeny so ferociously damned as to be redeemable only by another human sacrifice, even the stupendous sacrifice of God’s only Son. How utterly bewildering to the expanding intelligence of youth to be told that the God whom they are to worship is revealed in the Bible, and to find him such a being as this ! Terrible indeed is their responsibility who proclaim as divinely infallible every absurd or monstrous narrative to be found in the fragmentary �and Modern Education. legends of a barbarous and imaginative people. When we consider how great is the difficulty of detaching the mind from pernicious ideas when imprinted on it in childhood, and fitting it to receive the later revelations of reason and morality, we can but shudder at the sum of misery undergone in the conflict between the Intellect and the Conscience, through the former having com­ menced its onward march, while the latter still continues bound to the beliefs of childhood. A very Nessus-shirt of burning poison and agony to all generations of Christendom, has been the garb of ancient faith which we have adopted and worn, in spite of its being totally unfitted to us. VII. It is a practice with many savage tribes to invest some object with certain magical properties, altogether inde­ pendent of its real qualities, and to worship this with a blind adoration, the whole process being known by the name of Fetich-worship. Now what else than precisely such Fetich-worship is theirs who would put up a book to be venerated, but refuse to allow it to be made comprehensible by any kind of interpretation ? Yet, of all the Resolutions considered by the School-board, that for which the country at largS manifested the strongest preference at the elections was the proposition “that the Bible be read in the schools, but without note or comment.” It can only be the absence of any precise notion as to what education consists in that has prompted a sugges­ tion so utterly opposed to any sort of wholesome de­ velopment. To suggest difficulties—such difficulties— �28 'Jewish Literature and forbid their explanation ! Better far that the children read the Bible in the original tongues at once, than in the “ authorised version.” They might not get much good from the process, but they would assuredly get less harm. But we will test the working of this suggestion by a few out of the numerous instances of apparent contra­ diction which, “ without note or comment,” cannot fail to plunge youthful readers in hopeless perplexity. And first, concerning the Deity, we read that “ God saw everything that he had made, and behold it was very good.” (Gen. i. 31.) This was said after the creation of man, when the character and liabilities of that creation must have been fully known to God. Yet we are told soon after that “ it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart; (iv. 6.) implying that he was surprised and disappointed at the way man had turned out, having expected better things of him : implying, too, that the divine prescience was at fault, the divine work a failure. And in many other passages we read of the Deity as repenting and changing his mind; being weary and resting. Yet elsewhere in the same book it is declared that “ God is not a man that he should repent;” (Num. xxxiii. 19.) being one “with whom is no variable­ ness, neither shadow of turning;” (Jam. i. 17.) “who fainteth not, neither is weary.” (Is. xl. 28 ; also 1 Sam. xv, 35 ; Jonah iii. 10 ; Ex. xxxiii. 1 ; &c.) Even the all-important questions of God’s justice and power remain in suspense with such passages as these unreconciled : “ A God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.” (Deut. xxxii. 4.) “ Hear now, 0 house of Israel; are not my ways equal ? are not your �and Modern Education. 29 ways unequal ? Therefore I will judge you............. every one according to his ways, saith the Lord God.” “ The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father.” (Ez. xviii. 20, 25-30.) And, “ I . . . . am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children.” (Ex. xx. 5.) Also, “For the children being not yet bom, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth, it was said unto her (by God), the elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have I loved (Jacob !) but Esau have I hated.” (Eom. ix. 11-13 ; Gen. ix. 25 ; Matt. xiii. 11-17.) How, moreover, are children to reconcile this with the declaration that “God is no respecter of persons?” And while, notwithstanding that “ with God all things are possible,” (Matt. xix. 25.) we are told that “ the Lord was with Judah, and he drave out the inhabitants of the mountain; but could not drive out the inhabi­ tants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron.” (Jud. i. 19 ; Josh. xvii. 18.) Also that the inhabitants of Meroz were bitterly cursed “because they came not to the help of the Lord against the mighty.” (Jud. v. 23.) Notwithstanding that we read in several places that God was seen face to face, and his voice heard, (Gen. iii. 9, 10 ; xxxii. 30; Ex. xxiv. 9-11; xxxiii. 11 ; Is. vi. 1.) we are yet assured that “ no man hath seen God at any time; ” (John i. 18.) hath “ neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his face.” (v. 37.) And God himself said unto Moses, “ Thou canst not see my face; for there shall no man see me and live.” (Ex. xxiii. 20.) And Paul speaks of him as one “ whom no man hath seen, nor can see.” (1 Tim. vi. 16.) It is little that children will learn from the Bible con­ �3° Jewish Literature cerning the origin of evil, when, against “ I make peace and create evil. I the Lord do all these things;” (Is. xiv. 7.) “ out of the mouth of the Most High proceedeth not evil and good ?” (Lam. iii. 38.)—they set, “ with­ out note or comment,” “ God is not the author of con­ fusion;” (1 Cor. xiv. 33.) “a God of truth, and without iniquity, just and right is he.” (Deut. xxxii. 4.) “God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man.” (Jas. i. 13.) Concerning the divine dwelling-place, we read that “ the Lord appeared to Solomon, and said ... I have chosen and sanctified this house . . . and mine eyes and heart shall be there perpetually.” (2 Chron. vii. 12-16.) Yet we also read, “ Howbeit the Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands.” (Acts vii. 48.) In one place he is described as “ dwelling in light which no man can approach;” (1 Tim. iv. 16.) and in another it is said, “ clouds and darkness are round about him.” (Ps. xcvii. 2.) Similarly contrast these also: “ The Lord is a man of war(Ex. xv. 3.) “ The Lord mighty in battle(Ps. xxiv. 8.) “ The Lord of hosts is his name.” (Is. li. 15.) And, “God is not the author of confusion, but of peace.” (1 Cor. xiv. 33.) “ Bloody men shall not live out half their days.” (Ps. lv. 23.) “ The God of peace be with you all.” (Rom. xv. 33.) In reference to the making and worshipping of images, we have the positive command, “ Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath. Thou shalt not bow down to them, nor serve (or worship) them,” (Ex. xxii. 4.) and many repeated denunciations of idolatry. Yet Moses was commanded to “ make two �and Modern Education. 31 cherubim of gold.” (xxv. 18.) Also, “ the Lord said unto Moses, make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole, and it shall come to pass that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live.” (Num. xxi. 8.) A direct act of idolatry commanded by God himself! The books of Exodus and Leviticus abound in direc­ tions instituting and regulating sacrifice, in terms such as “ Thou shalt offer every day a bullock for a sin-offering for atonement;” (Ex. xxix. 36; also xviii.; Lev. i. 9; xxiii. 27, &c.) and the most complex and gorgeous system of ceremonial worship was based upon it, ex­ pressly by divine command. Yet in the Psalms we find the Almighty exclaiming, “ Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats? Offer unto God thanks­ giving, and pay thy vows unto the Most High.” (Ps. 1. 13, 14.) And in Isaiah, “To what purpose is the mul­ titude of your sacrifices unto me ? saith the Lord . . . I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats . . . When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand ? Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting.” (Is. i. 11-13.) And Jeremiah represents the Almighty as positively repudiating any connection with the Levitical code. “ I spake not unto your fathers, nor com­ manded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt-offerings or sacrifices.” (Gen. vii. 22.) “ Without note or comment,” children would assuredly fail to comprehend the significance of the antagonism necessarily existing between the whole sacerdotal class, with its “ trivial round” of ritual and observance, �32 Jewish Literature and immoral doctrine of compensation for moral de­ ficiencies by material payments, and the honest, out­ spoken prophet or teacher of practical religion. And to fail to comprehend this, is to fail to learn one of the most valuable lessons to be derived from the Bible. Even the horrible practice of human sacrifice finds justification with the sacerdotal followers of the Jewish divinity. We have already seen how, backed by the priests, David delivered up the seven sons and grandsons of Saul, “ and they hanged them in the hill before the Lord . . . and after that God was entreated for the land.” (2 Sam. xxi.) Moreover, “God said unto Abra­ ham, take now thy son, thine only son Isaac . . . and offer him fora burnt-offering.” (Gen. xxii. 2.) Jephthah, too, “ vowed a vow unto the Lord” that he would “ offer up for a burnt-offering” whatever he met first on his re­ turn home, provided the Lord would give him a victory. The victory was given, and the bargain was kept; “ the Lord,” of course, being in his omniprescience, well aware what it involved; and, to judge by his antecedent and subsequent conduct, by no means incapable of being in­ duced thereto by the magnitude of the bribe. Jephthah’s own daughter was the first to come to congratulate her father j “ and he did with her according to his vow.” (Jud. xi.) The sacerdotal law gave him no choice, for it positively enacted that vows, however iniquitous, were not to be broken, except when taken under certain cir­ cumstances by a maid, a wife, or a widow. (Num. xxx.) The liberality and mercifulness of God find expression in many touching declarations in the Scriptures. We read that “ every one that asketh, receiveth, and he that seeketh, findeth.” (Matt. vii. 8.) “ Those that seek me early shall find me.” (Prov. viii. 17.) Yet on the other �and Modern Education, 33 side we have, “ Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me.” (i. 28.) And notwithstanding such assertions as: “The Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy.” (James v. 11.) “He doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men.” (Lam. iii. 33.) “ The Lord is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works.” (Ps. cxlv. 9.) “I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God.” (Ezek. xviii. 32.) “ God is love;” (1 John iv. 16.) “Who will have all men to be saved;” (1 Tim. ii. 4.) “For his mercy endureth for ever;” (1 Chron. xvi. 34, &c.)—we find also the following ferocious utterances : “ The Lord thy God is a consuming fire.” (Deut. iv. 34.) “ I will dash them one against another, even the fathers and the sons together, saith the the Lord. I will not pity, nor spare, nor have mercy, but destroy them.” (Jer. xiii. 14.) “And thou shalt consume all the people which the Lord thy God shall deliver thee: thine eye shall have no pity upon them.” (Deut. vii. 16, and 2.) “ Thus saith the Lord of hosts , . . slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.” (1 Sam. xv. 2, 3.) “ Because they had looked into the ark of the Lord, even he smote of the people fifty thousand and threescore and ten men. And the people lamented because the Lord had smitten many of the people with great slaughter.” (1 Sam. vi. 19.) " I also will deal in fury; mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity. And though they cry in mine ears with a loud voice, yet will I not hear them.” (Ezek. viii. 18.) “And the Lord said, Go through the city and smite; let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity: slay utterly old and young, both maids and little children, and women. . . . and begin at my sanctuary.” (ix. 4-6.) c �34 'Jewish Literature It is no less impossible to derive from the Bible alone any- certainty of God’s unfailing truthfulness than of his mercy. It is true that we are told, “It is impossible for God to lie.” (Heb. vi. 18.) “ Lying lips are an abomina­ tion to the Lord.” (Prov. xii. 22.) “‘Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.” (Ex. xx. 16.) “ These things doth the Lord hate ... a lying tongue . . . a false witness that speaketh lies.” (Prov. iv. 17-19.) And, “ all liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone.” (Rev. xxi. 8.) Yet, on the other hand, we find the lies of the Israelitish women in Egypt, and of Rahab in Jericho, justified;— “ that admirable falsehood,” as St. Chrysostom called the latter. (Ex. i. 18-20; Josh. ii. 4-6.) We find the atrocious deceit of Jael more than justified. (Jud. iv. v.) And we have also this astounding revelation from behind the scenes in heaven :—“ And the Lord said, who shall persuade Ahab 1 . . . And there came forth a spirit and stood before the Lord, and said, I will persuade him. And the Lord said, wherewith 1 And he said, I will go forth and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets. And he said, thou shalt persuade him, and prevail also; go forth and do so. Now, therefore, be­ hold the Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets, and the Lord hath spoken evil con­ cerning thee.” (1 Kings xxii. 21-23.) And in confirma­ tion of this otherwise incredible narrative, we read later, “ If the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the Lord have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out mine hand upon him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people.” (Ezek. xiv. 9.) The New Testament adopts a similar view of God’s dealings; for, mingled with its “ glad tidings of salvation,” we read,— �and Modern Education. 35 “ God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie, that they all might be damned.” (2 Thess. ii. 11, 12.) Once more it must be asked, Can we wonder that earnest and pious men of our own times have, in their zeal for the honour of God, endeavoured to rescue his character from the treatment it receives in the Scriptures ? VIII. The character of Jesus is as variously drawn in the New Testament as that of the Deity in the Old; and those who desire the children in our schools to recognise in him the perfect man and infallible Teacher, should, to be consistent, be the very last to wish them to read the New Testament “ without note or comment.” Too often it happens that the explanatory lessons with which the Scriptures are accompanied, are utterly pernicious, and even blasphemous. This very year, a youth who has been for some years a student in one of the wealthiest of our public foundation-schools, was required to give some instances of human feeling on the part of Jesus. Of the value, whether intellectually or religiously, of the education given at that school, we may judge by his answer. Of the tender sympathy shown by Jesus towards all who were suffering : of his unselfish devotion to the cause of the poor and the depraved; of his noble indignation against injustice and oppression; of his in­ tense sense of a personal Father in God, and instinctive detestation of all sacerdotal interference;—of all these so eminently human characteristics, our scholar said nothing. The result of his compulsory attendance at the school chapel every morning, and at two full services every �26 "Jewish Literature Sunday, beside much other Scripture instruction, was to impress upon him the belief that whatever is human is bad, and whatever is bad is human. He concluded, therefore, that by human feeling on the part of Jesus, an instance of something bad was intended. And he actually sent up for answer, as a solitary instance of human feeling on the part of Jesus, the story of his losing his temper, and cursing a fig-tree for being barren when it was not the season for figs 1 (Mark xi. 13, 14, 21.) As any explanations which accompany the reading of the Old Testament should be contrived to disabuse chil­ dren of the notion that the Deity could ever have been such a being as is there described, so in reading of Jesus in the New Testament they should be told that there are indications of a better man than the Gospels make him, peeping out through the corrupted text. “ It is impos­ sible that such love and devotion as followed him through­ out his life could ever have been won by a hard, unjust, or intolerant character.” Yet he is represented as more than once addressing his admirable and devoted mother in a rough, unfilial tone; (John ii. 4; Luke ii. 4.) and launching most uncalled for reproaches at a gentleman of whose hospitality he was partaking, on the occasion of a woman coming in and washing his feet with her tears, and wiping them with her hair. (Luke vii. 32-50.) Nor can there be any doubt as to what must be their natural judgment of the spirit of one who could describe his own mission in these terms : “ Whosoever shall con­ fess me before men, him will I also confess before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever will deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven. Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I come not to send peace, but a �and Modern Education. yj sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and a man’s foes shall be they of his own household.” (Matt. x. 32-36.) Hardly will they reconcile this with the promise of his birth-song, “On earth peace, good-will toward men;” (Luke ii. 14.) but will hastily conclude that the angels were sadly misinformed. And when they read that one who is elsewhere described as “ going about teaching and healing” among a people who were “ perishing for lack of knowledge,” uttered to his disciples such words as these, “ Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God : but unto others in parables ; that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand;” (Luke viii. 8.) and read further, “ Therefore they could not believe, because he hath blinded their eyes and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be con­ verted, and I should heal them; ” (John xii. 39, 40.)—and from these fearful utterances, turn to the declaration, that this same Jesus had received “ all power in heaven and earth;” (Matt, xxviii. 18.) and that he “ came not to judge but to save the world;” (John xii. 27.) came especially “ to seek and to save that which was lost;” (Luke xix. 10.) it will be no wonder if their souls finally succumb to despair, and they cry to their teachers, “ Be merciful: take away from us this book, if you dare not explain to us its meaning.” IX. I shall conclude the present lecture by pointing out the notable contradiction apparent between the Bible �38 "Jewish Literature and the fact of the world’s present existence. The New Testament contains scarcely a passage of any length that does not make some allusion to the near approach of the end of the world. We may conceive the perplexity of children when, after reading in ordinary history the events of the last eighteen hundred years, with their piteous tale of cruelty and oppression, disease and death, they open their Bibles and read that, all those centuries ago, men were summoned to repent because “ the kingdom of heaven ” was then “at hand;” (Matt. iv. 17.) and find that by “ the kingdom of heaven ” was meant, not merely a social or moral regeneration, though the phrase is sometimes used in this sense, but the personal second coming of Christ, and end of all things. That both the Baptist and Jesus preached thus : that the twelve apostles were sent forth to preach thus; (x. 7.) that the seventy were charged with injunctions to announce to the inhabitants of any city-on their entry, “the kingdom of God is come nigh unto you (Luke x. 8-11.) that Jesus repre­ sented himself as a nobleman who had gone into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom, and to return; and instructed his disciples in these terms, “ Occupy till I come (xix. 13.) that this was the kingdom for which Joseph of Arimathea “ waited (xxiii. 51.) unto which Paul prayed that he might be preserved; (2 Tim. iv. 18.) charging Timothy to “ keep the commandment............. until the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Tim. vi. 14.) How bewildering to the youthful intelligence, to per­ ceive the world still going on much in its old track, slowly elaborating its own destiny, and to find in the records of its history no trace of the dread phenomena �and Modern Education. 39 which they read in their Testaments were to portend and accompany the return of the Son of Man and of God, —the darkened sun, the falling stars, the bloodshot moon, the roaring sea, the myriad hosts of heaven, the voice of the archangel, and the trump of God; the judgment of the quick and dead, the wailing of the lost, and the gathering of the elect from the four winds of heaven, the resurrection of those who slept, the ecstasy of “we who remain,” as Paul said, (1 Thess. iv. 15-17.) when “ caught up to meet the Lord in the air,” on his “ coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory;” (Matt. xxiv. 29-35.) for which all the disciples were bid to watch ; (Mark xiii. 37.) and which some of them were still to be alive on earth to see. For Jesus had said, " Verily I say unto you, that there be some of them that stand here now which shall not taste of death till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power.” (Matt. xvi. 28; Mark xi. 1; Luke xix. 27.) “ Immediately after the tribulation of those days and, “ Verily I say unto you, this generation shall notpassaway, until all these things shall be fulfilled.” (Matt. xxiv. 29, 35.) Add, too, the assurance of the angels to the disci­ ples as they stood watching the Ascension, that he should return “ in like manner;” (Acts i. 11.) add the declara­ tion of Peter that “the end of all things is at hand;” (1 Pet. iv. 7.) add the admonition of Paul to the Romans, “ Now it is high time to awake out of sleep, for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand;” (Rom. xiii. 11, 12.) “ these last days;” (Heb. i. 2.) even the days of us “ upon whom the ends of the world are come ; ” (1 Cor. x. 11.) add, lastly, the final book of “The Revelation,” opening with the announcement that these things “ must �40 'Jewish Literature shortly come to pass •” and concluding with the declara­ tion, “ Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus,”—a book which, claiming to be the final utterance of divine truth, is charged with dire curses against any who should add to it; instead of saying, rather, “to be continued, so long as God continues to work in man,”—add, I say, to all that has been set forth, these and the yet other numerous similar intimations of the then expected rapidly approaching end ; set children to read them “ without note or comment,” but with the belief which they will inevitably acquire, from the fact of the Bible being put into their hands without informa­ tion to the contrary,—the belief that it must therefore be all infallibly true, that God did speak, the Lord did say, all the things therein ascribed to him; and then, if they retain any particle of intelligence whatever, most surely they will have but a confused idea of God, a con­ fused idea of man, and a confused idea of the relations between them; a confused idea of right and wrong, a confused idea of faith and fact; or rather, we may con­ fidently declare, a false and pernicious idea of all things whatsoever, in heaven and earth, from beginning to end. �and Modern Education. LECTURE THE SECOKD. X. It is not unusual for people, when pressed upon the subject, to say, “ We do not lay much store by the Old Testament. We concede much of what you say against it as a teacher of morality and even of religion. We value it chiefly as the basis and introduction of the New. It is upon the New Testament that we take our stand. The sufficient, and only sufficient, rule of life, its prac­ tical religion and morality, are distinct and unimpeach­ able.” I propose, therefore, to conclude my examination of the effects of the popular proposition, “ that the Bible be read without note or comment,” by showing that in respect of its teaching, both religious and moral, even the New Testament requires elucidation and correction to prevent it from being productive of much that would be immoral, irreligious, and grossly superstitious. Passing over the innumerable discrepancies in the gospel narratives, to reconcile which so many “ Har­ monies ” have been constructed in vain, let us compare first those utterances of the New Testament which have regard to life—civil, political, and social. Are our chil­ dren to learn from its pages to grow up to be intelligent and independent citizens, respecting the laws, and re­ �42 Jewish Literature specting themselves ? It is clear that, “ without note or comment,” they will hardly escape great perplexity of conscience when on one side they read, “ Be subject to principalities and powers, obey magistrates.” (Tit. iii. 1.) “ Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves.” (Heb. xiii. 17.) “The powers that be are ordained of God. Whoso therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God:” (Rom. xiii. 1, 2.) and on the other side, find, that no sooner did a dilemma arise, than “ Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than man.” (Acts v. 29.) Concerning the institution of Slavery, we find in the Old Testament the most conflicting utterances, of which one is, “ Of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy . . . and they shall be your possession. . . . They shall be your bondmen for ever(Lev. xxv. 45, 46.) and another, “ Thou shalt neither vex a stranger nor oppress him (Ex. xxxii. 21.) both of which are in the books ascribed to Moses. While the New Testament contains no direct reprobation of Slavery, but rather the reverse. It must be remembered that, wherever in our translation the word servant occurs, the original means slave. And while masters are enjoined to “ give unto their slaves that which is just and equal” for their labour, and to “ forbear threatening ” them; (Col. iv. 1; Eph. vi. 9.) it says nothing in repudiation of the institution itself as being unjust and unequal; but repeatedly admonishes slaves to be content with their condition ; to “ count their masters worthy of all honour (1 Tim. vi. 1.) and be “ obedient to them with fear and trembling.” (Eph. vi. 5.) We read, moreover, that Paul himself sent back to his master the slave Onesimus, after converting him to Christianity. (Philemon.) �and Modern Education. 43 There are, indeed, ample grounds for fearing lest all respect for Rights vanish in the prominence given exclu­ sively to Duties. And even in the important matter of respect and affection for parents and relatives, children may fail to find a sufficient rule to exclude hesitation. It is true that they read, “ Honour thy father and mother,” for the low and unsatisfactory motive, “ that thy days may be long.” (Ex. xx. 12.) “Husbands love your wives.” (Eph. v. 25.) And “whoso hateth his brother is a murderer.” (1 John iii. 15.) But there is to be set on the other side this of Jesus himself, “ If any man hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and chil­ dren, and brethren, and sisters ... he cannot be my disciple.” (Luke xiv. 26.) Great will be their perplexity, too, when, after the ordinary lessons of the schoolroom, inculcating respect for property, the duty of industry, forethought, and thrift, the disgrace of beggary, and evil of pauperism, they read “ without note or comment,” “ Take therefore no thought for the morrow“Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth.” (Matt. vi. 34,19.) “ Sell whatsoever thou hast and give to the poor;” (Mark x. 21.) and see how Jesus backed up his communistic precepts by his practice, in instituting the order of Mendicant Friars, by sending forth the Twelve and the Seventy with injunctions to “ carry neither purse nor scrip.” (Luke x. 3-7, &c.) Neither can we consistently endeavour to cherish in children a love of science, literature, and art, and all the glorious uses of which man’s high faculties are capable ; a love, in short, of that mental culture to obtain which we expressly send them to school; if we ply them with such contemptuous allusions to it as “ Beware lest any man spoil you with philosophy and vain deceit; ” (Col. �44 'Jewish Literature ii. 8.) “The Greeks seek after wisdom ;” (1 Cor. i. 22.) “ Vain babblings and oppositions of science falsely so called;” (1 Tim. vi. 20.) “Knowledge puffeth up;” (1 Cor. viii. 1.)—without telling them at the same time, that ignorance ever “ puffeth up ” far more than know­ ledge; that “science,” now-a-days stands on a very dif­ ferent basis to that on which it stood in those days, namely, on a basis of positive fact as ascertained by actual investigation into the phenomena of the universe, instead of on the imaginations and foregone conclusions of men who believed in the infallibility of their mental impressions, and pretended to knowledge independently of experience; and that it is our highest duty and pri­ vilege to cultivate “ every good gift and every perfect gift,” intellectual and other, “ which cometh down from the Father of lights.” (Jam. i. 17.) Even in so simple a matter as the advantage of bear­ ing a good character, they will be at a loss to determine between “a good name is better than precious oint­ ment ;” (Eccl. vii. 1.) “ it is rather to be chosen than great riches;” (Prov. xxii. 1.) and, “Woe unto you when all men shall speak well of you.” (Luke vi. 25.) The Bible makes it a reproach to King Asa that “ in his disease he sought not to the Lord, but to the physi­ cians,” and significantly adds, “Asa slept with his fathers.” (2 Chron. xvi. 12.) Of another patient it is said that she had “ for twelve years suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse,” but straight­ way was healed through faith. (Mark v. 25-29.) And there is this express injunction, “ Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the Church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the �and Modern Education. 45 Lord: and the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up.” (Jam. v. 14.) “Without note or comment,” but influenced, unconsciously perhaps, within school or without it, to regard the plain teaching of the Bible as intended to be followed unshrinkingly, the children in our National Schools will be apt to grow up with the belief that it is unchristian and wicked to call in a doctor, or to take medicine, when they are ill. Lawyers are scarcely named but to be censured in such terms as these: “Woe unto you lawyers ! for ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye your­ selves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers. Woe unto you lawyers I” (Luke xi. 45, 52.) For “with­ out note or comment,” the term rendered “ lawyers,” will inevitably be held to signify, not the expounders of Rab­ binical doctrine, but the members of that eminent profes­ sion which is so indispensable to the maintenance of our rights and privileges. While the despised “ publicans ” of Jewish times, instead of being recognised as mere collectors of taxes, are sure to be confounded with our own respectable company of “ licensed victuallers.” We have seen how summarily two of the learned pro­ fessions may be disposed of. Following the Bible with­ out guidance by “ note or comment,” the clergy will be in danger of faring little better than the lawyers or doc­ tors. And this brings us to the subject of religious duties as laid down in the New Testament. It is, whether rightly or wrongly I do not venture to decide, a subject of peculiar pride with us, that we are a prayerful and churchgoing people. But what is really curious is, that the practice of assembling together for pub­ lic worship, we regard as essential to our character as Chris­ tians. Now, how can children be expected to understand �46 Jewish Literature “without note or comment” that it is their duty to attend “ divine service,” when they find that Jesus, who is held up to them as the infallible pattern and guide of life, never joined in public prayer himself, but always when he wished to pray or meditate went apart, either “ up into a mountain,” (Matt. xiv. 23.) or some other “ solitary place,” (Mark i. 35.) or “ withdrew about a stone’s cast (Luke xxii. 24.) that he only went into the synagogue or the temple to read or to teach ; (Luke iv. 16: Matt. xxi. 23.) or to indulge in what to children and unexplained must appear to be riotous conduct in church, namely to drive out with blows and threats a number of persons who were exercising a lawful industry in its precincts; (Matt. xxi. 12.) that the persons he mentioned in one of his parables as “ going up to the temple to pray,” (Luke xviii. 10.) belonged to the classes he most persistently de­ nounced, being a pharisee and a publican; and even these he distinctly exonerates from the reproach of having joined in common prayer ; that moreover, in addition to his example, he delivered precepts absolutely prohibitory of all public praying in these emphatic terms: “ When thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are; for they love to pray standing in the synagogues, and in the corners of the streets to be seen of men. Verily, I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly;” (Matt. vi. 5, 6.)—a rule which he relaxed only on the condition that two, or at most three, should agree upon a subject for petition, in which case they might gather together in his name. (Matt, xviii. 19, 20.) It is indeed a painful perplexity in which the minds of the more sen­ �- .<N and Modern Education. 47 sitive children will be plunged when they ask themselves how, in the face of Christ’s most positive precepts and example, they can continue to pray in church or chapel, and at the same time deserve to be called by his name. The propriety of continuing to observe the Sabbath, if rested on the Bible alone, will remain, to say the least, doubtful. The difference in the reasons assigned for its institution can hardly fail to create wonder as to the authority upon which the command said to be “ written with the finger of God” himself, basing the appointment upon the creation of the universe in six days, (Ex. xxxi. 17, &c.) was changed to one representing it as a memo­ rial of the deliverance out of Egypt. (Deut. v. 15.) While the institution itself is, on account of the abuses to which it led, referred to variously by the later pro­ phets ; and, in the New Testament, seems to have been repudiated in a great measure, if not altogether, by Jesus and the apostles; Paul distinctly admonishing the Colossians in these terms : “You hath Christ quickened. . . blotting out the handwriting of ordinances. . . Let no man therefore judge you . . in respect of an holi­ day, . . or of the Sabbath.” (Col. ii. 13-16.) So that something at any rate has to be added to the New Tes­ tament to justify our present usage in this respect. In the absence of explanatory comment, the statements of scripture respecting the resurrection of the body appear in direct conflict with each other; as also do those re­ specting the after-life of the soul. In the Old Testament we are told, “ He that goeth down £0 the grave shall come up no more.” (Job vii. 9.) “The dead know not anything, neither have they any more reward.” (Eccl. ix. 5, 10.) And in the New Testament, “ The trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised(1 Cor. xv. 52.) �48 Jewish Literature “Then shall he reward every man according to his works.” (Matt. xvi. 27.) While the narratives of the ascent of Enoch and Elijah seem to find a positive con­ tradiction in the declaration of Jesus, “No man hath ascended up to heaven but he that came down from heaven, even the son of man;” and the narrative makes him add, “ which is in heaven,” putting what appears to be an absurd contradiction into the mouth of Jesus. (John iii. 12.) And even concerning the status of Jesus himself, expla­ nations are needed to reconcile the various contradictory declarations; “I and my Father are one.” (John x. 30.) “ He thought it not robbery to be equal with God.” (Phil. ii. 6.) “ Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.” (Luke ii. 52.) “ My Father is greater than I.” (John xiv. 28.) “ Of that day and that hour knoweth no man. . . Neither the Son, but the Father.” (Mark xiii. 32.) And his agonised ex­ clamation when dying, which we can easily believe to have been held up by the clergy of those days as uttered in remorse of soul for a life spent in opposition to the church orthodoxy of his country,—“ My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ?” (Matt, xxvii. 46.) XI. Much stress has been laid by orthodox writers on the “ Continuity,” or uninterrupted connection, of Scripture. The inference which they have drawn from the con­ sistency existing between its various parts, is that it must all be alike the result of one divine harmonious scheme. That such Continuity exists it is impossible to help seeing, but the extent to which it exists, and its �and Modern Education. 49 significance in relation to what is called doctrinal religion, are likely, “ without note or comment,” wholly to escape the observation of youthful scholars. The whole religious system of the Old Testament rests upon the theory that the object of Religion is, not the exaltation of man, but the delectation of the Deity; and the stimulants offered in it to the practice of religion are of the most material and seductive kind, wealth, honour, long life, numerous posterity. In the New Testament the same idea is continued, with this difference, that experience having demonstrated the theory to be unsound as regards this life, inasmuch as prosperity does not by any means always accompany virtue, nor adversity vice, rewards and punishments are there reserved for a future state of existence, in a region inaccessible to verification by experience. Two other instances of Continuity between the two divisions of Scripture may be classed together as being intimately connected with each other. These are, the institution of Sacrifice, and the character of the Jewish Deity. To the instances already given of the amazing ferocity of this Being, as represented in the Sacred Books of the Jews, may be added the tremendous threats and penalties denounced for the smallest transgressions, the readiness to dart forth from the mountain and deal destruction upon any who might but touch it; and the perpetual demand for blood. This propensity for blood constitutes a notable instance of Continuity in the character of the God of the Bible. Blood of animals; blood of peoples hostile to the Israelites; blood of transgressors among the Israelites; and in numerous instances, blood of unoffending men, women, and children, even from among his own chosen people. �50 'Jewish Literature (1 Sam. vi. 19 ; 2 Sam. xxiv. 15 ; Ezek. ix. 6 ; &c.) We have already dealt with David’s sacrifice of the seven sons of Saul: “ They hanged them in the hill before the Lord. .... and after that God was entreated for the land;” (2 Sam. xxi.) Jephthah’s sacrifice of his daughter; (Jud. xi.) and Abraham’s attempt to sacri­ fice his son. (Gen. xxii.) Of this last I must speak more fully, because there are, holding high positions both in the church and in popular estimation, as thinkers and scholars, men who insist on drawing from it a moral which they deem favourable to the character of the deity as represented in the Jewish Scriptures. But at present they have failed to do more than read back into the Bible the civilisation of their age and their own personal amiability. So far from their being justified in regard­ ing the arrest of Abraham as a protest on the part of the Deity against the prevailing custom of human sacri­ fices, the narrative distinctly asserts that “ God tempted Abraham ” to commit the horrid deed: that his consent to commit it was accepted at the time as an “ act of faith,” and rewarded by a renewal of the promise of a numerous posterity; and not only is there in the Scriptures no expression whatever commending him for refraining from completing the sacrifice, but the New Testament treats it approvingly as being as good as completed, saying in one place, “ By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac; and he that had received the promises offered up his only-begotten son;” (Heb. xi. 17.) and in another place, “Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar ? Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works faith was made perfect ?” (Jam. ii. 21, 22.) �and Modern Education. 51 So far from the principle of human sacrifices, or the belief in a deity who required to be propitiated by blood, being repudiated in the New Testament, “the Continuity of Scripture ” is in these respects plain and indisputable, and the principle is carried to a height undreamt of in Old Testament times. The God of the Jewish priests requires at length the blood of his own “ only-begotten,” “ beloved ” son ! It is only when this tremendous climax has been reached that the dread thirst is appeased. This is the fundamental argument of the eminently sacerdotal epistle to the Hebrews, (of unknown authorship). In it we are assured that “ without shedding of blood there is no remission of sins.” (Heb. ix. 22.) A human parent, not in this respect “ made in the image of God,” can forgive a repenting errant child. The divine parent, made by priests, and at once unhuman and inhuman, must have his “pound of flesh” from somebody. This epistle tells us concerning Christ that “ neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us............... So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many;” (ix. 12, 28.) thus adopting and justifying the view of the high-priest Caiaphas, who, by virtue of his sacerdotal office, counselled and I prophesied that Jesus should die for the people;” (John xi. 50, 51.) — a view shared even by John himself, who in one of his epistles declares that “ God sent his only begotten Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” (1 John iv. 9, 10.) Thus early were the attempts of Jesus to abolish sacer­ dotalism, and promulgate purer notions of the Deity, defeated by his own disciples, or by those who wrote in their names; and the reformation which constituted the real Christianity, overlaid and stifled by “ the Church.” I �52 'Jewish Literature Let the churches called Christian, demonstrate, if they will, their “ Continuity ” with the most hideous of Jewish superstitions ; and cherish the recollection of the worst side of the Jewish Divinity, by perpetual repetitions of the rite which, while declining to practice it simply “ in remembrance ” of a loved and lost benefactor, they yet profanely style “the holy Eucharist.” Say they, it requires a miracle to keep the church up ? Well, perhaps it does. But if we who “ have not so learned Christ ” are to act consistently with our more advanced ideas of religion and morality, the “notes and comments” by which the reading of these passages in our schools is accom­ panied, must direct attention rather to the higher and better teaching of prophetical lips ; “ the sacrifices of God are a contrite heart; ” (Ps. li. 17.) “ he saveth such as be of a contrite spirit;” (xxxiv. 18.) and “ dwelleth with him that is of a contrite and humble spirit;” (Is. lvii. 15.) as well as that of Jesus himself, “If a man love me he will keep my words; and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.” (John xiv. 23.) There is no savour of blood here. If an education is.to be imparted that is consistent with “ the development of the intellect and mor^J sense,” the doctrine that justice can be satisfied by the substitu­ tion of the innocent for the guilty, must be rigidly ex­ cluded from our schools. It is true that this doctrine is not without a certain significance; that there is a way by which the position of the wicked may be bettered through the condemnation of the righteous. For the punishment of the innocent involves the divine law of justice being, not fulfilled, but so utterly shattered and destroyed, as to be thenceforth absolutely non-existent. The sinner’s gain, therefore, would consist in there being no law of justice by which he could be arraigned. �and Modern Education. 53 But so invincibly implacable is the deity of at least a great portion of the New Testament, that even such stu­ pendous atonement fails to gain him over. Its benefits are confined to a fortunate few, and his fury towards the rest is redoubled. As Burns says, he “ Sends ane to heaven, and ten to hell A’ for his glory.” The penalties of evil-doing are infinitely enhanced, and they are applied to a fresh class of offences. Here, too, Continuity is combined with progression; but it is, morally, a progression backwards. The Old Testament consigns no one to eternal punishment, neither does it make penal the conclusions of the intellect. The New Testament abounds in menaces of the most fearful cha­ racter, not only against malefactors, but also against un­ believers. It represents the Almighty, when punishing the reprobate, as uninfluenced by anything analogous to the human motive of promoting the security of society or the reformation of the criminal, but inflicting torture in the spirit of a fiend, out of pure malignity, because with no advantage to any. “ The unbelieving and the abomi­ nable” are classed together, and, we read, “shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone;” (Rev. xxi. 8.) “where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched;” (Mark ix. 44.) “there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matt. viii. 12.) “Depart ye cursed,” is the final doom of those who had failed to recognise Christ on earth, “ depart ye cursed into ever­ lasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.” (Matt, xxv. 41.) Nay, more than this. The gospels, as we have them, actually represent Jesus himself as pronouncing sentence �. 54 J ’ ewish Literature of damnation upon all who cannot work miracles. His last words to his disciples are thus reported: “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every crea­ ture. . . He that helieveth not shall be damned. And these signs shall follow them that believe: in my name they shall cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.” (Mark xiv. 16.) Not to work miracles is not to believe, and not to believe is to be damned. Is it not certain that if the young are allowed to read the New Testament with­ out explanation or correction by “note or comment,” they will, as have millions of tender souls to their in­ expressible terror and anguish, find the gospel of Jesus to be to them but a gospel of damnation ? Let us return to this world and the practical concerns of life. In its manner of dealing with the crucial act of life, marriage, and its treatment of the relations of the sexes generally, the New Testament takes, in regard to the Old, a great step backwards. A demonstration of its vacillation and utter inadequacy to provide rules for the conduct of civilised life on this most important of all points connected with morals, will fitly conclude this division of the subject. To the commendation of impotency uttered by Jesus, the stress laid by him upon mere physical fidelity, (Matt. xix. 9, 12.) and his disregard of all incongruity or incompatibility of character or affec­ tion, as a plea for separation, (a peculiarity which we have in our institutions but too faithfully followed), must be added these sentences of Paul: “ Art thou bound to a wife ? Seek not to be loosed. Art thou loosed from a wife 1 Seek not to be bound. . . It is better to marry �and Modern Education. 55 than to burn,” and, “ good for the present distress.” (1 Cor. vii. 27, 9, 29.) Hardly from this will our youth learn to recognise love as capable of being a pure and an elevating influence, or to give to Christianity the credit, so often claimed for it, of having raised woman from the depressed position in which that age found her. It will be in vain that they read “Marriage is honourable in all,” (Heb. xiii. 4.) when they find the prevailing spirit of the gospel to be ascetic, exalting absolute chastity as one of the loftiest of virtues, and denouncing all natural desire as sinful in itself. (1 Cor. vii. 1, 38; Rev. xiv. 4.) Will not the later teaching of Scripture appear to them to have receded sadly in its fitness for humanity, from the earlier which commanded men to “ increase and multi­ ply;” (Gen. i. 28.) commended a virtuous woman as “a crown to her husband;” (Prov. xii. 4.) and pronounced a blessing on “children and the fruit of the womb;” (Ps. cxxvii. 3, &c.) and, in so far as the relations of the sexes are concerned, excite in them a preference for the Jewish regime over the Christian 1 The number is beyond all reckoning, of women, the best and noblest of their sex, the most fitted to be the mothers and early trainers of mankind, who through a superstitious regard to this characteristic of the New Testament, have renounced their natural “ high calling,” leaving to inferior types the fulfilment of the functions upon the right exercise of which the progress, elevation, and happiness of mankind depend ; who have withdrawn themselves from the duties of real life into artificial isolation, through a conscientious but mistaken belief, that in practising the selfishness of the devotee, they are seeking a virtue which is possible only through the exer­ cise of the affections. It is in vain that Paul in his �56 • Jewish Literature riper experience wrote, “ I will that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house,” (1 Tim. v. 14.) when Churches persist in making so much of his earlier utterance delivered, as he himself acknowledges, with hesitation and doubt. “ The unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and spirit: but she that is married careth for the things of the world, how she may please her hus­ band,” and . . . “ I think that I have the spirit of God,” (1 Cor. vii. 34, 40.)—as if the best, the only way of serv­ ing God was not by serving man. This is but an expression and echo of that same Manichaean principle of Asceticism, which has led alike Pagans and Christians innumerable to despise the material world. Blasphem­ ously divorcing the Creator from his work, it teaches that nature is so utterly corrupt and wrong, that the more we go against and mortify it, the more likely we are to be pure and right. ‘ And so it comes that woman, while promoted theo­ logically to be “Queen of Heaven” and “Mother of God,” ecclesiastically is regarded as a mistake of nature, a thing to be snubbed and repressed, and condemned to the living death of an enforced celibacy.’ One whom I dare to call the greatest of our philo­ sophers, Herbert Spencer, has epitomised in a single sentence all that can be said on this subject:—“Morality is essentially one with physical truth. It is a kind of transcendental physiology.” (“ Social Statics.”) It is .through ignorance of this, the real basis and nature of morality, that myriads of the best women in Christendom have, in every generation, to the incalculable loss of the whole species, made the saddest shipwreck both of their own lives and of the lives which by their sweet and holy influence they might have rendered supremely blest. �and Modern Education. 57 There is a “ Higher Law” of morality which impels ns to suppress our own affections and desires, not through hope of reward here or hereafter; not through deference to conventional standards, hut solely through an un­ selfish regard to the feelings of those to whom it is our lot to be allied. But that such a law is to be the law of our lives, and sole standard of virtue, we find no intima­ tion in the Testament, Old or New. XII. Yet, notwithstanding the failure of the Bible to pro­ vide an authoritative or satisfactory rule either of morals or of religion, I hold that, both for its own intrinsic merits, and for the place which it occupies in the litera­ ture and history of ourselves and of mankind, it ought not to be excluded from the educational course of our children. It was proposed in the London School-board to exclude it on the ground that its use as a religious text-book outside the schools, makes its admission into the schools inconsistent with religious equality. It certainly would be, as is generally allowed, an act of gross unfairness to admit partisan theology into a common school. But, happily, as is also very generally allowed, speculative dogma and practical religion are very far indeed from being one and the same thing; and even those who object most strongly to dogma in itself, desire to see children brought up religiously, that is with reverential regard for divine truth and law. If fairness and impartiality forbid the Bible to be in­ troduced and used as the text-book of any party or sect, they equally forbid it to be excluded for happening to be �58 'Jewish Literature such a text-book. For this would equally constitute dogmatic teaching, though of a negative kind. Perfect fairness requires that the question of the introduction and use of a book within the schools, should not be in any way dependent upon dogmatic opinions entertained respecting it by parties outside the schools. Perfect fairness forbids that anything which is good and instruc­ tive in itself, be excluded merely on account of the source from which it is derived; be it from Turk, Infidel, Heretic, Pagan, Jew, or Christian. It is here that the limitation imposed by our definition of education, comes to our aid, “ The cultivation of the intelligence and moral sense” by means of “ whatsoever things are true, pure, and honest;” “ that fear God, and work righteousness;” and are “pro­ fitable for doctrine (or teaching), for reproof, for correc­ tion, for instruction in righteousness.” Thus, in the common schools, nothing must be taught as being the “ Word of God,” or as not being the “ Word of God either assertion being equally dogmatic. But everything must be allowed to derive its force from its own intrinsic character. And. those who hold that the children ought to be taught to regard the Bible as being, or containing, exclusively the “ Word of God,” will only betray their own want of faith if they express misgivings lest that word fail to assert its own efficacy and speak its own divine message to the soul, without special enforce­ ment as such by the schoolmaster. Perhaps, too, upon the idea being put before them, they will even acquiesce in the suggestion, that for any man, be he schoolmaster or priest, or any body of men, lay or cleric, ancient or modern, even though dignified by the title of “ General Council,” to take upon them­ selves the responsibility of determining or declaring what �and Modern Education. 59 is, or what is not, “ the Word of God,” is to lay them­ selves open to the charge of the most stupendous pre­ sumption of which finite being can possibly be guilty: a presumption which is no other than that of declaring themselves to be infallible, and entitled to sit in the temple of God as if they were God. (2 Thess. ii. 4.) And further, to declare that the Bible is or contains exclusively “ the Word of God,” is to forbid the souls of men to find a divine message elsewhere than in the Bible. It is to dictate to God as well as to man. For it is to forbid God to make of others “ ministers to do his will.” (Ps. ciii. 21; Heb. i. 24.) It is to extract all meaning from the saying of Jesus, “ Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” (Matt, xxviii. 20.) It is to reject that “ Spirit of truth” who was promised to “guide us into all truth.” (John xvi. 13.) It is to “ quench the Spirit that giveth life,” in “ the letter that killeth.” (1 Thess. v. 1, 9; 2 Cor. iii. 6.) It is to insist that the Almighty speak to men, like a clergyman of the Establishment, only from a text in the Bible. Let us, if we will, define as “ the Word of God” that which “feareth him and worketh righteousness;” but let us not dog­ matise as to what particular author or composition comes under that category^ For “ the Word of God” can only be the word or thought of which God makes use to im­ press the heart of any. If we “ search the Scriptures,” we find that neither by the writers of the Psalms, by the prophets, nor by Jesus, scarcely, if ever, is the phrase used to denote that which was already written, but only the deeper impression then present in the mind of the speaker or writer. If not used by God to impress the heart, it is then not “ his word.” The same utterance may be “ his word” on one occasion, and not on another. �60 Jewish Literatur'e Varying for each person, it is not always the same for any person, inasmuch as that which impresses us in one mood, does not necessarily affect us in another. A “ word of God” cannot fail, any more than a “ law of God” can be broken. Any definition of Deity that does not exclude such a possibility, is an utterly inadequate definition, and one dishonouring to God. But in the matter of the education of the young, we have to use our best judgment in apportioning the means to the end we have in view. And therefore we must put into their hands such reading only as is plainly adapted for their edification, whether we take it from the Bible or from any other book. It is for children to to be in statu pupillari to men. It is for men to be in statu pupillari to God. I hold, then, that the Bible should be used in our com­ mon schools, First, for its intrinsic merits. In its pages we find the most complete revelation of humanity to be found in any written book, showing the gradual growth of the moral and spiritual faculties from the most rudi­ mentary ages to the Christiaii era. We find this mainly in the exhibition of the rise and development, however irregular, of the idea of God, until, from a Being so limited in his nature and operations as to be able to sympathise and side with only a few individuals or a particular race, partaking all the deficiencies of their own gross, rude natures, bribed by gifts, appeased by sacri­ fices, partial, cruel, jealous, capricious, the patron and in­ stigator of blood-thirsty and fraudulent men and actions, the resort and associate of “ lying spirits,” and sharing his sovereignty with the devil, — he is at length pre­ sented to us as “ the high and holy one that inhabiteth eternity;” (Is. lviii. 15.) “ the righteous judge;” (Rev. �and Modern Education. 61 xix. 11.) “creator of all things;” (Gen. i. 1, &c.) “ Saviour of all men;” (1 Tim. iv. 10.) “ whose kingdom ruleth over all.” (Ps. ciii. 19). Here we find first recorded the existence of a sense of responsibility for our actions to a law and a power which are above us. “ Here human nature is drawn in all its extent, from its lowest depths to its loftiest reach; for the Bible is a gallery in which all the paintings are life-like, but the subjects so varied, that none are too gross for admission. Being a revelation of God according to the characters and imaginations of the men in whose con­ sciousness his idea was conceived, it is emphatically a revelation of man, inasmuch as man’s ideal is the index to his own character and degree of intelligence. This, however, is no speciality of the Bible. It is the characteristic of all art and literature which speaks out the genuine deeper feelings of men’s hearts ; and in this respect, as containing the truest art, the Bible ranks as the highest classics. In selecting from the world’s literature, reading lessons inculcating “ the true, the* pure, and the lovely,” who could have the heart to exclude the remarkable hymn of the creation; the significant allegory of Eden; the charm­ ing pastoral of Isaac and Rebekah in their first love; the touching idyl of Joseph and his brethren and their aged father; the wondrous romance of the Exodus; the story of Moses, that king of men; the noble recitations of law and legend in Deuteronomy; the interesting narratives of Samson, Samuel, David, and Solomon; the simple tales of Ruth and of Esther, so illustrative of the manners of the ancient east; the sublime poetry of Job and the Psalms; the shrewd wisdom of the Proverbs; the genial cynicism of Ecclesiastes; the magnificent outpourings of �62 Jewish Literature Isaiah, denouncing the degradation and despair of his countrymen, and encouraging them anew to hope and to restoration through the moral regeneration of their nature ? (Which of us even now could not point out some nation that has sore need of an Isaiah ?) Then the noble lesson of Jonah, wherein children are oftener taught to see a tale of a cross-grained prophet, a whale, and a gourd, than to recognise the poet’s protest against the popular notion, shared by Jonah, that the Lord was a mere district-god who could be avoided by change of place, and to see the moral of the fable in the representa­ tion of deity as everywhere present alike, even in the depths of the sea. And, added to these, the exquisite purity and simpli­ city of the gospels, with their central figure of Jesus and his enthusiastic life-devotion to the cause of man’s re­ demption from sin and suffering, and deliverance from the blighting effects of religious formalism, and the crushing weight of sacerdotalism; producing from the harmonious depths of his own great soul a sublime ideal of God as a Father, and a rule of life for man most noble in conception even when most impracticable of applica­ tion. (Of all the characters of history, I know of none who would have sympathised more intensely with the object and the views I am seeking to advance, than the Christ whom I find in the gospels. Of course to the or­ thodox and the vested interests of his day, he was only a sad blasphemer and dangerous revolutionist.) Then, the varied and genuine humanity of the Epistles; and, no­ tably, the magnificent monologue on charity, (in the thir­ teenth chapter of the first epistle to the Corinthians,) wherein Paul, dropping his too favourite character of Rabbinical lawyer and quibbling controversialist, soars to �and Modern Education. 63 an altitude whither the churches have never yet been able to follow him. And, lastly, the lofty rhapsody of the Apocalypse, wherein fervid imagination, escaping from the woes beneath which mankind was being crushed by a Domitian and a Nero, took refuge in an ideal “ state of God,” where all wrongs should be redressed, all tears wiped away, the tormentors relegated to ever­ lasting punishment, and sorrow and pain be no more for their victims. And not for its intrinsic merits only, but for its in­ fluence’ on the hearts of mankind, should our children not be strangers to the volume in which, to borrow words from one of our most highly inspired writers, “book after book,Law and truth and example, oracle and lovely hymn, and choral song of ten thousand thousand, and accepted prayers of saints and prophets, sent back as it were from heaven, like doves to be let loose again with a new freight of spiritual joys and griefs and necessities; where the hungry have found food, the thirsty a living spring, the feeble a staff, and the victorious warfarer songs of welcome and strains of music: which for more than a thousand years has gone hand in hand with civilisation, . . often leading the way. . . a book which good and holy men, thepest and wisest of mankind, the kingly spirits of historyl enthroned in the hearts of mighty nations, have borne witness to its influences, and declared to be beyond compare the most perfect instrument, the only adequate organ of humanity; the organ and instru­ ment of all the gifts, powers, and tendencies, by which the individual is privileged to rise above himself.”* To exclude all knowledge of the Bible from our youth, would be to make a greater gap in the education of a * S.T. Coleridge’s “Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit.” �64 Jewish Literature Briton than to omit almost any calculable number of other books, including the bulk of the world’s history. Indeed it would be to exclude almost all history what­ soever; not ancient history merely, with knowledge of Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and Rome in its decline and fall; but the history of all Christendom itself, with that of the Papacy and the Reformation, and the whole of our own struggles for and against liberty | (for even we have not always been consistently on the side of freedom:) almost all of which struggles have been associated more or less with the Bible; the rise and origin, too, of the United States of America. All these in the past, together with our own condition in the present and hopes in the future, and the signification of the vast bulk of our literature, would, without some knowledge of the book that has filled a leading part in them all, be absolutely dark and meaningless. Besides, there is not so much wisdom and beauty in the world that we can afford to throw any away. If we exclude the Bible altogether as being a text-book of our own religious sects, there is no plea upon which we can admit the admirable teaching that is to be found in the sacred books of the Hindoos and Chinese, the Mohamme­ dans and Buddhists. Nay, to exclude the good parts of any book merely because it happens to be the text-book of a sect, is to put it in the power of any small knot of persons to secure the exclusion of any book whatsoever, by claiming it as one of their sacred books. Fancy a sect of Shakespeare worshippers getting by such means all knowledge of Shakespeare excluded from our educational course ! Or a new sect of Pythagoreans to revive the worship of numbers, and, setting up Colenso as their highpriest, forcing us to exclude arithmetic from our schools ! �and Modern Education. 65 Indeed, if only because of the very power and popular­ ity of the Bible, it should not be left to be dealt with exclusively by a class of interpreters who acknowledge other allegiance than to the developed intellect and con­ science of men. But, containing as it does, the whole sacred literature of the most remarkable of all ancient peoples, the Jews, and that of their most remarkable sect of religious reformers, the Christians, who, together, more than any other people, have influenced the develop­ ment of the human mind and the course of human his­ tory; to exclude all knowledge of it from our youth would be to keep back from them the master-key to the heart and facts of humanity. XIII. But the fact of the Bible being, not a single book, but a whole literature ranging over many centuries, greatly simplifies the question of dealing with it. We rarely use the whole of any book in the schoolroom; never an entire literature. Imagine the whole, or samples of the whole, of our own literature being put at once into the hands of a child, with its rude early legends and ballads, its laws and statutes, its medicine and science, its trials and police­ reports, and all the revolting details which even the least respectable of our newspapers suppress as “ unfit for pub­ lication !” Yet this is what we have done with the ancient literature of the Jews. Instead of exercising any discrimination, we crowd our houses with it, we read it aloud to our families, we put it entire into the hands of ■our children; and when we find impurity and supersti­ tion rife among us, instead of admitting that we have ■done our best to promote them, we postulate the horrible E �66 J ’ ewish Literature doctrines of “ original sin ” and “ total depravity,” and shift the responsibility from our own shoulders to those of “the devil!” It was remarked once by a well-known Frenchman that “the English tolerate no indecencies except in their Bibles.” Fatal exception, when we print Bibles in millions, in all the languages of the earth, and thrust them into the hands of every babe and suckling and growing youth. The remedy which I propose is twofold : First, that a new version, omitting the whole of the parts which are objectionable on the score of decency, omitting also the headings by which ecclesiastical editors have sought to palliate immorality or strain the meaning to the support of particular doctrines, be made to take the place of the existing “ authorised versionand that this be done so completely that the old version be no longer accessible to the young, but continue to exist only as a curiosity or book of reference upon the shelves of students. This change is one which, while it might be'initiated by the School-boards undertaking to produce such a version for the use of their schools, would require both general and individual action on the part of the people themselves. It will be aided by the wise resolve of the Bible-revision Committee to omit the headings from their new and improved version. If the powers of this Com­ mittee were extended so as to enable it to make these changes, a great step towards carrying out this part of my proposed remedy would be gained. To further it would be an admirable occupation for a society which has existed for years among us under the presidency of Lord Shaftesbury, calling itself “ The Pure Literature Society.” Strange to say that, with all its zeal for purity in literature, it has never yet tried its hand on �and Modern Education. 6y the Bible. It will indeed prove itself worthy of its high title and calling, when it joins in the chase of the “ authorised version ” from our homes, and the pews of our churches, so that children shall no longer be tempted to beguile the tedium of a sermon by feeding their curiosity on its improprieties. It is related of Goethe that he was present at a meeting of the Dutch clergy, when it was proposed to establish a censorship to enforce the expurgation of any improper books which might be brought forward for publication! Goethe at once expressed his admiration of the plan, and recommended that they commence with the Bible. Whereupon the king of Holland said to him, “ My dear Goethe, pray hold your tongue. Of course you are quite right: but it won’t do to say so.” This, however, is not enough. There are, as we have seen, very many portions of the Bible which, while not totally “ unfit for publication,” are yet shocking, to the intellect and moral sense if accepted literally as true, inasmuch as they are libellous to the Deity. I propose, therefore, Secondly, that teachers be required, alike by School-boards and by parents, whenever such portions of Scripture are read,—(and they ought to be read, if only to show the advance we have made)—to make their pupils clearly understand that they represent only the imperfect notions of a barbarous age and people. ' That just as the Greeks had their supreme ruling divinity in Zeus, their divinity of song in Apollo, of war in Ares, of gain in Hermes, of storms in JEolus, of wisdom in Pallas, and of love in Aphrodite; so the Jews, instead of dis­ tributing these functions among a number of distinct divinities, ascribed them all in turn, no matter how �68 'Jewish Literature incongruously, as occasion required, to their own Jehovah. By turn he is a “ man of war,” he is “love,” he is “fire,” he “ rides on the wings of the wind,” and so on. We cannot even accord to the Jews the credit, often claimed for them, of being, in a world of polytheists, the only pure monotheists. It is true that their institutions forbade the worship of more than one God.; but they recognised the existence of many gods. They were monotheists in worship, but not in faith. Their Jehovah was a far too unsociable, exclusive, “jealous” God, to share their homage with others. He thus was made strictly in the image of the Jews themselves, the most exclusive of human races. That Baal and Chemosh, Ashtoreth and Molech, were all realities for them, is shown in frequent utterances ascribed even to Jehovah himself. And Solomon, though “ the wisest of men,” established their worship in Jerusalem. The Bible shows, tod, by numerous instances, that the Jews were by no means satisfied with their own deity. The minds of their loftiest poets, indeed, occasionally, in their loftiest moods, rose to the conception of a deity, one and universal; but they did this in common only with the loftiest minds of all peoples, ages, and religions; those minds whose opinions have ever been regarded by the conventional and superstitious as atheistic and blasphem­ ous, whether it be Socrates, Spinoza, Shelley, or Jesus. But even if the Jews acknowledged but one God, they called him by various names ; and it would be an addi­ tional safeguard against superstition if, in the new version, those names were preserved. In translating the Latin and Greek writers we never think of substitu­ ting God for Jupiter or Apollo. There is no valid reason for dealing differently with Jehovah, Elohim, Adonai, Shaddai. �and Modern Education. 69 This, then, is the whole conclusion :— (1.) That the Bible should be admitted into the schools; but it must be a purified, an expurgated Bible; and (2.) That its reading must be accompanied by such “ notes and comments ” as will make it really conducive to the development of the Intelligence and Moral Sense of the scholars. But to minister to these ends, it must be read with no adventitious solemnity that might specialise it as a superior authority, and invest it with a preter-educational character. For this would at once be to remove it from the category of legitimate educational uses, by exempting it from the operation of the normal digestive apparatus of the intellect. In short, to make the Bible useful for education, it must be taught comparatively. And as this implies the possession of a certain amount of related knowledge, it is clear that there is but very little of it that is suited to the very young or very ignorant. XIV. Now for the general principle on which these u notes and comments ” should be based. It is universally acknowledged that the human mind is endowed with a tendency to imagine the Deity as pos­ sessed in perfection of all the qualities which are recog­ nised by itself as best. The strength of this tendency is ever in inverse proportion to the degree of the mind’s development, being greatest in the most rudimentary stage of intelligence. Investing the Deity with the attributes of personality, the finite mind cannot do otherwise than make God in its own image. The character of that image is the mea­ �70 Jewish Literature sure of our own moral and spiritual capacity. For, when by God we mean the ideal of our own imagination, it follows that the character of our God indicates the de­ gree of our own development. Later on, when the mind attains a certain advanced stage of intellectual progress, we find our conception of Deity so transcendently en­ larged, that no definition satisfies us, save one which re­ cognises Him as the sum of all the forces, physical, moral, and spiritual, at work in the universe; the divine work, which we call Nature, being the sum of all phenomena. God the sum of causes, Nature the sum of effects. This is no dogma. It is only a definition of what we mean by God, what by nature. For the purposes of early education, however, we have to deal with God in a moral aspect, as the Ideal of Humanity j the perfection towards which it is our high­ est function to strive. Wherefore, nothing can be more fatal to our moral progress than to have that ideal de­ graded to a low type of character. If we are to call him “ Fool,” who, denying cause and effect, says, “ there is no God,” (Ps. xiv. 1.) what are we to say of him who teaches that God is evil ? What, again, are we to call those who, holding that God is absolutely good, and that a firm belief in that goodness is requisite to enable man to be good also, and who, moreover, desire to cultivate goodness in their children, yet hesitate not to put into the hands of those children narratives of impurity, cruelty, and deceit, and tell them that the perpetrators and their deeds were acceptable to, and indeed prompted by, the Deity ? If the purpose of right education be to develop the moral sense, what sort of education is this ? If another- purpose be to develop the intellect, how is this end to be served, when the only way of escape that such �and Modern Education. teachers have, on being questioned by their perplexed pupils, lies in declaring it to be a “ mystery,” and so closing the doors of their intelligence the moment it begins to expand ? . Keeping in mind the remarks I have made respecting the inevitable anthropomorphism of all imperfectly de­ veloped minds, you will perceive that it involves no reproach to the Jews that, in those early stages of human progress, they partook of the universal tendency, and constructed their God in their own image; that they credited him with the qualities, moral and immoral, which they found in themselves; and, in their total ignorance of natural law and phenomena, were more ready to seek the divine hand in departures from the regular order of nature, than to recognise it in its establishment and maintenance. It is thus that all early literatures necessarily contain prodigies and fables illustrative of the imperfect notions of their period. And so far from these things being true because they are in the Bible, or a re­ proach to the Jews in being untrue, the miracle really would have been if there were no miracles, no anthro­ pomorphism, in the Scriptures. In this sense, therefore, it may be said that the truth of the Bible is proved by the untruths of the Bible. Even if we give the Jews credit as having done their best for the honour of their god in thus constructing him in their own image, we assuredly cannot lay claim to similar credit for ourselves. For we have fallen infinitely below our own best, in the character we have assigned to our God. Think for a moment how marvellous is the anomaly we present. For six days of the week we avail ourselves freely of the wondrous results of the most ad­ vanced science and culture, philosophy and thought, of �72 Jewish Literature this nineteenth century after Christ, in which the labours of all former centuries have culminated, and we do this for our own advantage and enjoyment; and on the seventh day, when the honour of our God is concerned, we are con­ tent to jump back to the nineteenth century before Christ, and borrow for him both character and lineaments from a semi-barbarous Syrian tribe, whose whole literature proves their absolute incapacity to comprehend the simplest of his works in nature. And in their image, fitful and vengeful, we make our God, refusing him the benefits of the light we have gained. A wondrous feat of moral and intellectual athletics is this our weekly jump backward and then-forward again. The resolution finally passed by the London Board provides that “ the Bible shall be read, and there shall be given therefrom such instruction in the principles of religion and morality, as is suitable to the capacities of children, no attempt being made to attach the children to any particular denomination.” Thus, the Bible is to be read “ with notes and com­ ments.” If, however, these notes and comments are not to be of the kind I have just described, the Resolution means absolutely nothing. If the teachers are not to explain that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Samuel, David, and Solomon, were, in respect of the acts which have been enumerated, exceedingly bad men, and that the deity who is said in the Bible to have approved of them, was but the imaginary local divinity of the Hebrews as re­ presented by their priests, the Resolution is nothing but an illusion and a blind. If the teacher is not to say that Abraham was wrong to follow his impulse to sacrifice his son; Jacob wrong to cheat his nearest and dearest relations ; Samuel wrong to revoke his sovereign’s pledge �and Modern Education. 73 of clemency, and rebelliously to set up a rival to him; David wrong to sacrifice the sons of Saul, and to order the execution of the man he had sworn to spare; if he is not to say that Jesus and the apostles were mis­ taken in expecting the early end of the world rand re-appearance of Christ; that the story of his birth is a piece of mere paganism, and that many of the injunctions in the New Testament are not fitting rules for civilised life—the Resolution is utterly devoid of meaning. I am not saying that it may not be per­ fectly sound theology to praise Abraham and Jacob for these things, and represent the deity as approving of them, but only that it is neither good religion nor good morality; and it is not theology, but religion and mor­ ality, which, both by the Education Act and the Resolu­ tion, the teacher is bound to inculcate. Even if it be true that morality is based upon religion, the religion containing such theology can certainly not claim to be in any way connected with morality. And to teach it will be to go directly in the face of the Resolution which provides “ that instruction be given from the Bible in the principles,” not of theology, but “of religion and morality.” Wherefore, when a question arises in the schools, such as that of the propriety of Abraham’s com­ pliance, of Jael’s treachery, or of Caiaphas’s counsel to offer up Jesus in human sacrifice as an atonement for the people;—the teacher acting in accordance with our definition and the Board’s Resolution, will have no choice but to reply, “ The justification of these actions belongs to the domain of theology. Morality unequivo­ cally condemns them. And my duty here is to teach you morality.” And this, I think, settles the question which has been �74 "Jewish Literature raised since the passing of the Resolution, namely, the question, Who is to give Biblical or religious instruction in the schools, whether the ordinary teachers who are responsible to the Board, or the clergy or other persons specially appointed for that ^purpose by the various reli­ gious bodies themselves ? The resolution declares that the children are to be taught, not theology, but Religion and Morality. To admit, therefore, independent teachers of theology, would be, in so far as such theology is in conflict with religion and morality, to admit teachers of irreligion and immorality, and would thus neutralise the Resolution of the Board, and the whole object of educa­ tion, which, as cannot be repeated too often at this time, consists in the development of the intellect and moral sense. Probably nothing could be put before the young more pernicious than the teaching of the official theologian. It was but the other day that a clergyman of the English Establishment preached a sermon to the effect that Jacob was quite right to cheat his father and brother because he knew that he should make a better use of the property than they would. No, however sound the theology of such teaching may be, and this is no rare or extreme instance, it certainly is not the teaching by which either the intelligence or the moral sense of children is likely to be developed. XV. So far from the simple and natural explanation which I have given of the incongruities and contradictions con­ tained in the Bible, having been diligently promulgated by those who have’ undertaken to be its interpreters, our spiritual teachers have, on the contrary, during some �and Modern Education. 75 three hundred years done their best to erect the Bible into an jinfallible standard, not merely of theology, but of religion and morality. Outvying the apostle who, in the excess of his zeal, cut off one ear, they have done their best to stop up both ears against the voice of reason and conscience. They forget that Jesus restored the in­ jured organ. It is true that an excuse for the existence of the popular theory, and for the tenacity with which it has held its ground, is not far to seek. It was natural that we should feel a high degree of gratitude towards the book which materially aided us in emancipating ourselves from the yoke of mediaeval Papalism, and asserting our own indi­ viduality among the community of the nations. It was natural that our enthusiasm for the agent of our deliver­ ance should lead us to place it high, even too high, in our regards. And so it came that we replaced an infallible, but discomfited, Pope by an infallible book; not per­ ceiving that, if indeed it was a credit to the Bible to have made us free, we do the reverse of honour to it by allowing it to tyrannise over us in turn. Again, in addition to being a grateful, we are an emi­ nently prudent, folk. We prefer to be on with a new * love before we are quit of the old. Hating anything like an interregnum, we cry, “ The king is dead. Long live the king,” without the interval of a moment. And so we continue to cling to the old accustomed dwelling, letting it crumble into ruin around us, rather than endure a brief season of discomfort while waiting for the rear­ ing of a new habitation on its site. “ If we give up the Bible as an infallible guide,” it is asked, “ to what are we to look in its place 1 ” Having at present to deal with facts, and not with fancies, there is no need to enlarge on the popular dogma �76 Jewish Literature further than to say that, not being contained in the Bible itself, but being unknown alike to the Fathers of the primitive Church, to the Reformers of the sixteenth cen­ tury, and to the articles and formularies of both the Romish Church and the English, it must have its basis in modern innovation rather than in ancient authority. I ascribe, then, the popular theory respecting the Bible in some degree to the causes I have named, but mainly to that instinctive monarchical tendency which leads the uneducated to distrust their own intelligence and moral sense, and require some palpable ruler and guide. “ In their ignorance of the experimental cha­ racter of human nature, men will seek infallibility some­ where ; in an oracle, a priest, a church, or a book.” This tendency has been, as a rule, sedulously fostered by governments and teachers. Once deprived of their Fetich, and roused from indolent acquiescence in its supposed commands, they cry out that their gods have been stolen from them, and fancy that the universe will collapse, because they are now forced to fulfil their proper vocation, and use their own faculties. It was in virtue of this characteristic that the Swiss theologians of the seventeenth century maintained the inspiration • of the comparatively recent vowel-points of the Hebrew text: that the early Christians ascribed a supernatural origin to the Septuagint; and the Council of Trent gave an authority superior to that of the original texts to the Vulgate, which attained such a height of superstitious respect that, according to Erasmus, some monks, on seeing it printed in parallel columns between the Greek and the Hebrew, likened it to Christ crucified between the two thieves. (Colloquies.) And it was even seriously proposed by the theological faculty of Mayence, �'’-ft ^■r,'‘'7?-,?>,''z and Modern Education. ▼ 77 in the 15th century, to make a total “ revision and cor­ rection of the Hebrew Bible, inasmuch as it differed from the authorised Latin translation ! ” Perhaps the most singular fact in connection with the popular doctrine is, that to doubt its accuracy has come to be treated as a piece of heinous moral depravity, and this even by some who ought to know better. When the eminent author of the “Christian Year” was con­ sulted respecting a difficulty in the way of receiving it, felt by Dr Arnold, then a student, Keble’s advice was “ work it down 1 Throw yourself wholly into your parish or your school, and work it down! ” * This simply meant, “ ignore itas if faith consisted in the suppression of doubt, and conscientious scruples were demons to be exorcised. Later in life, when pressed on the same point by Sir John Coleridge, who urged the subject on him as one that he was competent to deal with, adding that it pro­ mised shortly to become the great religious question of the time, Mr Keble, after endeavouring to evade an­ swering, replied shortly that “most of the men who had difficulties on this subject were too wicked to be reasoned with.”t Such was the answer of one of the most vene­ rated of modern Sacerdotalists to a near relative. of the great Coleridge, who (in the book I have already quoted) had pronounced the popular doctrine to be “ superstitious and unscriptural.” “ Ignore a conscientous scruple, or you are too wicked to be reasoned with I” Respect a dogma because it is a dogma, no matter how the reason and the conscience, nay, the Almighty himself, be outraged thereby! Submit humbly to authority, no matter how immoral its require* Stanley’s Life of Arnold. f Coleridge’s Memoirs of Keble. �78 "Jewish Literature ments! Ignore your scruples, and instead of manfully “facing your doubts” and “beating your music out,” let your doubt remain, an unresolved discord, to jar ever­ more within your soul! To such straits are they driven who remain in bondage to “ the weak and beggarly ele­ ments” of the popular orthodoxy. Surely it is time for us to say positively that we will not commit the minds and consciences of our children to teachers who will bring them up to regard sincerity as a vice, and crush at once both intellect and moral sense by superstition, popular or ecclesiastical. XVI. But though our immediate teachers in nursery, school and pulpit, have laboured assiduously to inculcate this dogma, it may safely be affirmed that, in addition to the vast range of authorities already named who reject it, there is not at this day a single scholar, (I do not say “learned divine,” but scholar of acknowledged critical ability,) lay or cleric, orthodox or heretic, in Christendom, who holds it for himself. One and all, they recognise the existence in the Bible of, at the very least, a largely per­ vading. element of human imperfection. It is true that Dr Hook in his “ Church Dictionary” defines “ Inspira­ tion” as being “the extraordinary or supernatural in­ fluence of the Spirit of God on the human mind, by which the prophets and sacred writers were qualified to receive and set forth divine communications without any mixture of error,” and asserts upon his own sole autho­ rity that in this sense the term occurs in the passage, “ all scripture (is) given by inspiration of God.” (2 Tim. iii. 16.) It is true that in this he is followed by Dr �and Modern Education. 79 Wordsworth and other prominent churchmen. But no critical scholar ventures to affirm that “ Inspiration ” is identical with, or implies, “ Infallibility.” On the con­ trary, their profoundest investigations only serve to de­ monstrate the truth of the conclusion patent to common sense, that humanity is so constructed as to be incapable of infallibility in the absence of means of verification; and that the being prompted by a “ holy spirit,” or dis­ position, by no means guarantees a man against error, however wide his spiritual range, or deep his spiritual insight. But farther, even if the original text could be regarded as infallible, there is the. fact that we do not possess that original text, and that the documents which claim to be derived from it, have passed through the hands of many copyists, each more or less accurate, more or less honest. And were the text certainly perfect as it is certainly most defective, there are still the difficulties of translation, diffi­ culties which are, as every scholar knows, often absolutely insurmountable. For the language of different nations varies with their ideas, and their ideas vary with their institutions, associations, and habits; so that different languages frequently have no terms whatever in which to express the ideas contained in other languages. Many tropical tribes, for instance, have no words to express such things as ice and snow, because those things are alto­ gether unknown to them. A translation, therefore, of the Bible into their language is, so far as ice and snow are concerned, impossible. “ In the islands of the South Seas there were no quadrupeds Until the first navigators took some pigs there, when the name given by the natives to the pigs, became the generic term for all four-legged animals. The horse was the big pig that runs over the �8o J ‘ ewish Literature ground. The cow was the great milky pig. The sheep the curly pig. We may imagine the feelings with which the pious translators of the Bible for the islanders found themselves compelled to use a corresponding designation for the phrase “Lamb of God.” The Zulus of South Africa had no idea of God or a future state, and prized above all things flesh in an advanced stage of decomposi­ tion. Wherefore the missionaries in translating the Bible for them, and rendering the supreme good in their lan­ guage, were obliged to identify God and heaven with rotten meat. The same lack of corresponding terms exists more or less between all languages, as is shown by the fact that words and phrases are often transported whole from one language into another. Moreover, words used to express actions, principles, or qualities, in one language, often be­ come concreted into persons and things by the genius of another. And in all languages, or nearly all, the same word frequently has many different significations. (As in English the words Jac, &c., have each half-a-dozen meanings.) It sometimes happens, therefore, that a trans­ lator has to be guided by what he is led by the context or some other criterion to think the passage is likely to mean. Thus, in the passage, “ Whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul ? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matt. xvi. 25, 26.) —the word rendered soul is precisely the same, article and all, with the word rendered life. Again, for the word spirit, which is used by us in nearly a score of different senses, personal and impersonal, the �and Modern Education. Greek equivalent, pneumo,, generally, if not always, signi­ fies the air, breath, or life. In the well-known passage in John, (iii. 8.) “ The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth; so is every one that is born of the spirit,”—the word rendered wind, and the word spirit, are identical, article and all, with each other. Yet the translators have given to the same word, occur­ ring in the same sentence, two entirely different mean­ ings. And, as if to justify this, the modern printers of the. Greek text sometimes give a capital initial to the word which is translated spirit; thus in a measure, alter­ ing the text to suit the authorised version. Such was the imperfection of the ancient Hebrew for the purposes of expression in writing, that it was not until long after the Bible had been written that the dis­ tinction between the tenses of past and future was pro­ perly developed. It was in their confusion between these tenses that our translators, in the magnificent ode of Isaiah beginning, “ Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people,” produced the absurd and impious phrase, “ She hath re­ ceived at the Lord’s hand double for all her sins,” in­ stead of the joyous assurance, “ She shall receive . . . double for all her sufferings.” (xl. 2.) It is easy to im­ agine the difficulty attending prophetic expression in a language which had no distinct future tense ! A very little reflection on the modus operandi of what theologically is called “ Inspiration,” will at once exhibit to us the fallacy of the popular notion. It can only con­ sist of an impulse or impression on the mind, so strong as to make the individual receiving it, ascribe it to a preternatural source. But, however irresistible for him, the authority and character of the impression must still F �82 'Jewish Literature be determined, not by its strength in relation to his mind, but by its own intrinsic nature. A bad impres­ sion cannot proceed from a healthy source; neither does a strong impression imply accuracy of doctrine. It is under an irresistible impulse that the maniac mother flings her child down a well. It is under an impression so strong as to be for him an inspiration or divine reve­ lation that the celibate takes his unnatural vow, the devotee starves himself into bad health, the Russian fanatic mutilates his body, and the Revivalist goes into convulsions of madness. Thus, whatever is claimed to be a divine revelation, must be referred ultimately to the test of the Intellect and Moral Sense, as the sole canon of criticism. Even the common notion that infallibility may be attested by the power to work miracles, must be disclaimed in presence of the instances ascribed in Scripture to magical or diabolical agency. “ Wherefore, although a man may have an overwhelm­ ing sense that something claiming to be God has spoken to him, it is clear, that unless he has a prior, personal and infallible knowledge of God,—a knowledge prior, that is, to his ‘ inspiration,’—he knows not but that it may be a demon assuming the garb of light, perhaps even one of those ‘ lying spirits’ who are represented in the Bible as infesting even heaven itself, or a fantastic creation of his own excited fancy. It behoves him, therefore, still to judge the communication in his calmer moments by its own intrinsic character, and to deliberate upon the actions to which it impels him.” The wider the range we learn to assign to Nature and the human faculties, the less be­ comes our necessity for seeking a preternatural origin for our ideas and impulses, and the more honour we pay to the divine worker and his work. �and Modern Education. 83 The prevalent readiness to distrust our own ability to .perceive the higher moral facts of the universe, and our consequent liability to refer all revelation to the con­ sciousness of men who lived ages ago, is, no doubt, attri­ butable partly to our possession of so many ancient books which claim our attention, and draw our minds away from the contemplation of the direct action of the uni­ verse upon our own individual consciousness; and partly to the repressing influence of those sacerdotal interests which naturally repose upon traditional authority rather than upon living insight and reason. The habit is one to be firmly checked if we would avoid the practical Atheism of banishing G-od and Truth from the living present to the dead past. “ The creed or belief of any age is, at best, but the index to the height ■of the divine presence of Truth in that ago.” To adopt its limitations as our own, is to turn a deaf ear to the voice of that “ Spirit of Truth” or Truthfulness, of whom it was said by one who himself drew all his inspiration from within, that “ when he is come he will guide you into all truth.” (John xvi. 13.) It is but a limited sway that this Spirit of Truthfulness has as yet obtained. Wherefore the effect of all dogmas,—whether formulated in creeds, ■catechisms, or articles of faith,—and their maintenance by oaths and emoluments, independently of intrinsic pro­ bability or any possibility of verification, is to arrest the natural development of Humanity and to disturb and retard the whole process of the evolution of the species, in regard to its highest functions. It is to give the world a base money-bribe to retain in its maturity the form, the garb, the dimensions, the ^maturity of its childhood. Hear a recent utterance of one who, with whatever drawbacks, seeks still to combine the prophet �84 Jewish Literature and the poet, and thus, with “ Songs before Sunrise,’^ • heralds the dawn of better times: A creed is a rod, And weapon of night: But this thing is God, To be man with thy might, To grow straight in the strength of thy spirit, And live out thy life as the light. * The very word Inspiration, in its primary meaning, relates to the atmosphere. It is an ancient supposition that ideas are inhaled with the breath. A man found himself possessed of an idea or thought which the moment before he had not. Whence could it have come, if not in-breathed, or inspired, with the air 1 It was Pythagoras who conceived the idea that the vital process of the world is a process of breathing, the infinite breath or atmosphere of the Universe being the source of all life. An imaginative Oriental people readily, in their expressions, personified such supposed source of life and thought. We matter-of-fact Westerns go on to make such personification absolute and dog­ matic. Pn&uma, the air, becomes a personal spirit, or assemblage of spirits, and divinely “ inspires ” us: as in the old days of philosophy in Persia, under the influence of which, during, or after the Babylonish captivity, many of the Jewish sacred books evidently were com­ posed,—’the breath, or Div, formed a linguistic basis for a personal Devil,j Ideas in the air ! Those who know what it is to * Swinburne, very slightly altered. t Cons. Donaldson’s “ Christian OrthodoxyArt. “Interme­ diate Intelligences.” �and Modern Education. 85 -crouch in the unhealthy confinement of close study, ever, as the Poet says, “ With blinded eyesight poring over miserable books,” till heart and head become heavy and dull; and then to betake themselves to seaside or mountain, where the fresh winds of heaven blow freely upon them, inflating their lungs, aerating their blood, and “sweeping the cobwebs from their brains,” until the renovated organism becomes re-charged with creative energy, and ideas begin anew to spring up in the mind, revealing to it “ Tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything, ” —such as these can well appreciate the charming old fancy that peopled the air with ideas, and regarded every new thought as a separate spirit. It is only under theologic manipulation that such gentle poetry becomes steam-hammered into hard dogma, that existence is rob­ bed of its charm, and millions of mankind are doomed to pass through life, and to leave it, without ever having been allowed to know how good the world really is. But above and beside the questions of Inspiration, of Language, of Transcription, and Translation, there is the question of Interpretation. And, supposing all other difficulties surmounted, we are here met by an impass­ ible barrier. For the proposition is nothing less than axiomatic, that “ an infallible revelation requires an infallible interpreter : and that both are useless without an infallible understanding wherewith to comprehend the interpretation.” By such demonstration of the utter impossibility of infallibility, (in the theologic sense,) the ground is entirely cut away from beneath, not only all past, but all �86 'Jewish Literature • future superstitions. For, by. annihilating “ authority, it compels us to refer everything whatsoever to the criterion of the intellect and moral sense of man. There is now, therefore, no longer any space for " dogma.” XVII. To the list of authorities already given, I propose to add a few representative names from the various schools of theologic thought within the Established Church. The first is that of the Bev. Dr Irons, who, in his remarkable little volume, “ The Bible and its Inter­ preters,” declares that “ any reasonable being who would accept the Scriptures at all, must take them on some other ground than that which identifies the written Word with God’s Eevelation. A more hopeless, carnal, and, eventually sceptical position, it is impossible to conceive.” (p. 39.) Dr Irons, in this, follows the learned Bishop of St David’s, Dr Thirlwall, whose recent noble protest against the dishonesty of sacerdotal bigotry in high places, in relation to the work of Biblical revision, may well raise our respect for him to veneration, as one who, in spite of his position, has dared practically to point the distinction between Morality and the prevalent Theology. In one of his Episcopal charges, Dr Thirlwall points out the fact that “ Among the numerous passages of the New Testament in which the phrase The Word of God,” occurs, there is not one in which it signifies the Bible, or in which that word could be substituted for it without manifest absurdity. It is notorious that the popular imagination is wont to regard the same phrase, when used in the Psalms, as re­ ferring, if not to the whole of the Old and New Testaments, at least to the books ascribed to Moses and Samuel. . �and Modern Education. 87 The late Dean of Canterbury, Dr. Alford, in his “New Testament for English readers,” (p. 3.) says, “Each man reported and each man selected according to his own personal characteristics of thought and feeling.” Yet one other name, that of Bishop Colenso, whose critical analysis of the Hebrew text is allowed by scholars to constitute one of the most remarkable monu­ ments of patient labour and sober judgment to be found in literature. These scholars, approaching the subject from opposite directions, agree in their main conclusions. Their immediate motives, however, differ considerably. The object of Dr. Irons is to force us back, in the search for Infallibility, to rely altogether upon “the Church.” “Hearthe Church,” is his maxim. (Matt, xviii. 17.) But which Church ? we must ask, and ask in vain. What saith the Church of England in her articles? “As the Churches of Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria, have erred, so also hath the Church of Rome erred.” (Art. xix.) Moreover, “General Councils.............sometimes have erred.” (xxi.) (It was a general Council that determined what books should form the canon of Scripture, and what should be rejected.) Can we wonder if the other Churches rejoin, as at least one of them has done, with anathemas, “ So also hath the Church of England erred ?” The object of Dean Alford was to mediate between the two extremes of popular orthodoxy and the results of critical knowledge. That of Bishop Colenso is simply to find out and state what is the fact, believing that such purpose alone is consistent with the deference due to the intellect and moral sense of man, to truth, and to God Himself. In �88 - 'Jewish Literature one of his “ Natal Sermons,” he sums up the results of his labours by describing the Bible as containing the “Early attempts at History,” the writers of which record, with «the simplicity of childhood, the first ima­ ginings of thoughtful men about the Earth’s formation and history, and mingle with traditionary lore and actual fact, the legends and mythical stories of a hoar antiquity, yet tell us how men were “ moved by the Holy Ghost,” in those days, how they were “feeling after God,” and finding Him, how the light shone clearer and clearer upon their minds, as the day-star of Eternal truth rose higher and higher upon them. . . . A human book, in short, though a book full of divine life.............written, as Paul says, for our learning, but not all infallibly true.” (i. p. 62, &c.) • But Dr. Irons and Bishop Colenso, while differing apparently so widely in their motives, yet have in reality . the same object. The Bishop would force us back directly upon the Intellect and the Moral Sense. And Dr Irons would force us back upon them through the intermedium of “ the Church,” whatever that may be. For we need not entertain the uncharitable supposition, that he would have us substitute the authority of the Church for that of the Mind and the Conscience. XVIII. There is yet another authority to which it is necessary to refer, inasmuch as it is the highest present expression of the intellect and moral sense of the country applied to the regulation of human life in its secular relations. We have seep that, so far as following Christ and his precepts are concerned, there are many respects in �and Modern Education. 89 which both the Church and the world are palpably anti-Christian. The world rejects communism, celibacy, and contempt of knowledge; and both Church and world set at nought the most positive injunctions of Christ and of the Bible, as in taking medicine and in praying in Church. The practice of our Courts of Law is equally in opposition to the. popular doctrine of an infallible Bible. Yet, with curious confusion, the popular mind still endeavours to concur with both; and judges still have the audacity to assert that the law . of the land is founded on the Bible. I will give an example or two. You will remember the passages I quoted (p. 44.) in reprobation of the medical profession, and of those who, in illness, “ Seek not to the Lord, but to the physicians.” Well, we have among us a small sect calling itself after a Bible-phrase, “ The Peculiar People.” These hold that prayer is the only allowable resource for Christians in tijne of sickness. They do not refuse to cure them­ selves of hunger by food, of fatigue by rest, or to pick themselves up when they fall. They have no consistent theory or uniform practice respecting the relation of means to ends. But because a verse in one of the Epistles enjoins the calling in of the elders to pray over the sick, and declares that “the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up;” (Jam. v. 14.) they prefer to die sooner than call in a doctor, or take any medicine. Had the Apocrypha been thought fit by our Church to be included in the Canon, this sect would have had no existence, for the Book of Ecclesiasticus contains several warm commendations of medicine and medical men : saying, “ Honour the physician. . . . for the Lord hath created him............... the Lord hath �90 'Jewish Literature created medicines out of the earth; and he that is wise will not abhor them.” (xxxviii. i. 1-15, &c.) A short time ago, however, the neighbours of the people who are so very “ peculiar” as to show their faith in the New Testament by their works, and to risk their lives on the strength of a vote in an ecclesiastical council, (that rejecting the Apocrypha,) were scandalised by observing that they had allowed a child to die without taking any human means to save it. An appearance in the police-court followed, when the leaders of the sect attempted to justify their conduct by an. appeal to the Scriptures. But so diametrically opposed is the Spirit of our Law to that of the Sacred Books upon which our Law-Established Church is founded, that the magistrate, though he made allowance for the offenders on the ground of gross ignorance, flatly refused to receive their plea, and warned them that on a repetition of the offence, nothing would save them from being committed for trial on a charge of manslaughter. And his conduct received the approbation of a country calling itself Christian! The other instance is that of the late case of “ Lyon versus Home.” This was an action for restitution of’ money obtained under false pretences; and of course in an action of this nature the one thing to be proved is that the pretences under which the money was obtained, were false. The defendant Home is one of a sect of persons who claim to hold intercourse with the spirits of the dead. The prosecutor Lyon is, (or was,) a believer in thedoctrines of that sect, and in the defendant Home as one of its chief apostles. She is, (or was,) also a wealthy widow; and under the supposed injunctions of her departed husband, as made known to her through the- �and Modern Education. 91 mediumship of Home, she made over to Home a large portion of her property, I believe some <£60,000, but the amount, however material elsewhere, is not material to our argument. You will bear in mind that what I am about to relate occurred in a country whose laws maintain, at an enormous expense to its people, a Church called Christian, whose Sacred Books,—which are accepted by the whole nation officially as divinely inspired, and by the bulk of the nation individually as infallibly true,—repeatedly and unmistakeably affirm the leading doctrines of the sect to which the parties in this case belonged; namely, that intercourse is possible and frequent between the living and the spiritual world. To quote some of the numerous passages involving this belief, there is the well-known story of the witch of Endor, in which the spirit of Samuel is represented as appearing to the witch, and delivering a discourse for the benefit of king Saul. (1. Sam. xxxvii.) There is the statement that at the crucifixion of Jesus, many of “ the Saints which slept arose. . . . and appeared unto many.” (Matt, xxvii. 52-53.) There is the story of the “Trans­ figuration,” in which Moses and Elias, dead for hundreds of years, appeared to the disciples; (xvii. &c.) the con­ version of Paul, in which Jesus himself, sometime dead, addressed Paul in an audible voice from heaven, (in the words of a Greek Play ;*) (Acts ix. 4-6.) and the summoning back of the spirit of Lazarus to his body. (John xi. 25-43, &c.) There is the parable of the rich man in torment conversing with the spirit of Abraham in bliss, begging, with curious confusion between spirit and matter, that the spirit of Lazarus might be permitted * The Bacchae of Euripides. �92 Jewish Literature to “ dip the tip of his finger in water ” and cool the rich man’s tongue : or, in case the alleviation of suffering were not among the functions of the blessed, that the spirit of Lazarus might be sent back to earth to convert the five living brethren of the rich man; which last request-was refused, not as the first was on the ground of its impossibility, but as superfluous and useless. (Luke xvi. 22, &c.). We read, too, of guardian angels, (Matt, iv. 4.) and “ministering spirits;" (Heb. i. 14.) and of a whole apparatus of intermediate intelligences existing between God and man. In the Acts we find certain pious Pharisees exclaiming of Paul, “ if an angel or spirit hath spoken to him, let us not fight against God.” ♦ (xxiii. 9.) John tells us to “ believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they be of God.” (1 John iv. 1.) Job, in thrilling language, describes a spirit as passing before his face and pausing to speak to him. (iv. 15, &c.) The practice of necromancy is forbidden in Deuteronomy, (xviii. 2.) its reality not being called in question; (though how the Jews reconciled it with their denial of the after­ life, does not appear.) The Gospels repeatedly refer to cases of possession by spirits, without specifying their nature or origin; and in Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible, the fact of apparitions of the dead is regarded as being, for the Bible, past a doubt. S.uch, on this point, are the tenets of the book which it is an article of faith with the very people whose law was invoked in the case of “Lyon versus Home,” im­ plicitly to believe. And yet, so far from any proof being required of the falsity of the defendant’s pretences, they were at once assumed to be an utter and monstrous imposition; and the defence was laughed out of court, in face of the contents of the very book upon which the �and Modern Education. 93 witnesses in it had been sworn : the book upon which our Religion is “ by law established and for the sake of inculcating which as infallible, we insist upon vitiating or crippling our whole system of National Education ! To these illustrations of the growing divorce between ancient credulity and modem Belief must be added that of Witchcraft; concerning the belief in which John Wesley said that “The Bible and Witchcraft must stand or fall together.” While the anger excited among us by the devout utterances of the Prussian king over his late successes, may be ascribed in some degree to the fact that we are learning to repudiate the old notions which, recognising success as the test of merit, make Divine Providence the arbiter in human quarrels ; and in some degree to the consciousness of having ourselves been such eminent practisers in the same pietistic line as to make king William’s conduct look very much as if meant for a caricature of our own. Having paid some attention to the recent sittings of the Church Assemblies in Edinburgh, I have been pleased to observe symptoms of a growing respect for the authority of the Intellect and the Conscience in regard to matters of Eaith, north of the Tweed. I have read that one clergy­ man declared his belief that the sacrifice of Christ was an atonement of sufficient value to counterbalance the misdeeds of Satan himself, and justify the Almighty in pardoning the Arch-fiend; and that another “ elder ” valued the character of the Deity so highly “that his hair stood on end at the notion that God could ever be re­ conciled to the devil.” I take it as a hopeful sign that these two theologians should thus renounce all claim to judge such questions by the old dogmatic standards, and appeal instead to their own moral sense. They have only �94 'Jewish Literature to carry the process somewhat further to perceive that the God who could create such a being as the devil at dll, or who could require to be propitiated towards his own off­ spring by such a sacrifice as that of Christ at dll, is no God worthy of being acknowledged or revered by any being possessed of a spark of intelligence or independence of spirit. Lord Chesterfield once wrote to a friend, “Both Shaftesbury and I have been- dead for several years; but we don’t wish the fact to be generally known.” In the same way very much of the Bible has been dead for some time. It still exists, but is outliving its influence for evil; and there are many who fancy themselves in­ terested in keeping the fact from being generally known. Yet that it is no chimera which I am encountering, has just been powerfully illustrated by a discussion in the House of Lords * in relation to University Tests; wherein it was declared, both by Lord Houghton and by the Marquis of Salisbury, that “ the immense majority of the people of this country adhere to the authority and teaching of the Bible; their reverence for it being so absolute that any person who avows hostility to its doctrines is disabled, not only from holding any office connected with moral and religious teaching, but almost from any political office. And that no one can appear at the hustings with any chance of success, and announce that he does not accept the Bible.” XIX. Sir John Coleridge was right when he said that this Bible question promised shortly to become the great * (Debate of May 11th 1871.) �and Modern Education. 95 religious question of the time. It is so; not for the reason he then anticipated, hut because the Bible, or rather the popular theory about the Bible, stops the way to our advance in all that favours the redemption, or constitutes the highest good, of a people. By reason of this one impediment our whole system of national education “ hangs fire; ” while our systems of private education are neutralised or vitiated. It is therefore for those who are under no obligation to refrain from using their reasoning faculties; those who decline allegiance to any dispensation which imposes a penalty for putting forth a hand to .sustain and forward that which they regard as the Ark of their country’s redemp­ tion ; (1 Chron. xiii. 9, &c.) those who believe that it is only through man working together freely and intelli­ gently with man towards the highest moral ends, that real good is to be done;—it is for these, I say, to grapple with the difficulty, and if need be, to take the place of those who have hitherto been our teachers. If we are no longer to regard the Bible as a Fetich, to be adored, but not comprehended; if wfe are not to adopt as an article of Faith the suggestion of the flippant Frenchman, that the God of the Jewish Scriptures and of our own advanced intelligence and moral sense, is in reality one and the self-same Being ;■—that he was once as bad as the Jews made him out to be, but has improved with age and experience, (a suggestion I have lately heard seriously propounded by a clergyman in despair at the diffi­ culties he found in the Bible)—then the solution which has now been proposed must be accepted by us: other­ wise the intellect and the conscience must be rejected altogether as illusory and inventions of the devil; and some other criterion, and one which discards both �96 yewish Literature intellect and conscience, must be sought for to regulate our judgment. For my part, I think better of my countrymen than to believe that when once the truth is put plainly before them, they will long halt between the two opinions. I believe that when once the alternative is shown to them to lie between gross superstition and a rational religious­ ness,—they will no longer endure that their faith be only definable as believing what they know to be untrue; but will insist on their children being trained to subject all things to the test of a cultivated intelligence and moral sense. Thus trained, they will peruse the Bible, no longer as slaves, but in a spirit of intelligent appreciation, sifting out the germs of truth for themselves, and not scoffing at or rejecting the whole on account of the husks. From henceforth the teacher in the schools of the nation must never forget that it is the purpose of his schoolroom to be the training-ground, not of any party or sect, but whereon to develop the faculties which later in life are to determine the nature of individual belief. To impart a bias, or to anticipate or prevent the formation of genuine, honest opinion, by the early instilment of dogma, is at once to stultify every principle of sound education, inasmuch as it is to repress the intellect and contravene the moral sense. Whatever the views which may be adopted in mature age by those who have been educated under the system I am advocating, there will be no cause to fear that they will be the' worse for being' founded in an intelligence and moral sense which have been thus rigidly trained in youth. Shall it be said of our solution as was said by one upon first beholding the sea, “ Is this the mighty ocean, • �and Modern Education. 97 is this all ? ” “ Yes,” we may confidently reply, in respect to our reliance upon the intellect and the con­ science developed by rational education, “ these are all.” At first, indeed, you see from the margin but a small part of them. But only trust yourself to them: launch boldly out upon them: sail where you will with them, and they will bear you safely through the whole universe of being.” At present, for us in England, the issue lies with our School-boards. If their members are themselves ignorant of the simple law of human development in religious ideas, or are unworthily complacent to the ignorance and superstition of their constituents, generations may pass before the standard of education and religion is brought up to the standard of modern thought and knowledge. Generations may pass and the Bible will still be found the subject of hopeless contention, and source of fatal disunion and weakness. And generations long here­ after will find the country sunk deeper and deeper in ignorance and barbarism; while the nations which have sprung from our race, and speak our language, will have passed so far ahead of us that they can only look back upon “ poor England” with pity and contempt as an effete and imbecile land, “ whose prophets prophesied falsely, whose priests bore rule by their means, and whose people loved to have it so.” TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; 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> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Jewish literature and modern education, or: the use and misuse of the Bible in the schoolroom, being two lectures delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society, March 26th and April 2d 1871 Description An account of the resource Place of publication: Ramsgate Collation: 97, [1, 3] p. ; 18 cm. Notes: Publisher's list on unnumbered pages at the end. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Thomas Scott Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1871 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context G3435 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource [Unknown] Subject The topic of the resource Education Judaism Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <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 (Jewish literature and modern education, or: the use and misuse of the Bible in the schoolroom, being two lectures delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society, March 26th and April 2d 1871), 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> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Bible Judaism Religious Education https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/236698ac81887d529787d58088aae216.pdf?Expires=1782345600&Signature=RH311yM3E5P9XNa6R3QoqDutchHbNwroMH%7ErYUc1rYBe3BWcDTSB6wlWsAVChgACfKG0Xg1PKP8HcV7UP6tUJU2tirr-1QylKwA7p1YVRIZAxKFXlcAS6%7Ea7XFYi0KedBsBwkbAobC4qMeDITO42k8q2kSG3KCWxHkt8PjaUPl6-LjyKdJ5bPprOuJ58YZAU4VQR5rBVhhR-7ca4fkQ-ilL%7EEw7YoPO%7EsXdRMbxk%7EU%7EM%7EiDmSM1F0Pr63Ucs4Zs16IUV3h58EdNt5h-J1RH5ibS-Tq95HY6iQtIq6B1RFr5q7jaFqF6qB5yME0FQDkozbFTbpv9ogyZ192eG8vseFQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM ef9c682df81a2cf55d3cbc91b64f2aed PDF Text Text ORTHODOXY FROM THE HEBREW POINT OF VIEW. PART II. Z BY THE Rev. THOS. P. KIRKMAN, M.A., F.R.S. PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT, NO. 11, THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD, UPPER NORWOOD, LONDON, S.E. Price Sixpence. �i �ORTHODOXY FROM THE HEBREW POINT OF VIEW. PART II. EFORE the dispersion of the clerical party, it was necessary, by the rule, to decide upon the place of the next monthly meeting, as well as upon a subject for discussion. It was the turn of Mr E. the next time to entertain his brethren, and to preside ; but he had unluckily disappeared. The majority present were easily convinced by Mr P., that the debate on the lan­ guage spoken by our Lord and the apostles ought to be continued ; and, above all, from this consideration, that one side only had been heard. Nobody doubted that the learned Dean Alford had what appeared to him valid grounds for his statement, that Greek was in these days almost universally understood in Jerusalem; and all the clergy of the club, who had sufficient leisure and reading, engaged to give to the question, during the coming month, the best attention in their power. It was decided that Mr P. should endeavour to obtain the consent of Mr. E. to the desired arrangement. Dr Marcus promised, at the request of the party, to be present at the next meeting; and I also had the good fortune to receive an invitation. In the forenoon of the day on which Mr. E. received the communication of Mr P., as he was pondering about the answer he should give to it, the archdeacon and the rural dean walked into his vicarage, having occa- B �4 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. sion to inspect his registers. He gave to them an account of the discussion in the house of P., which we have related, and desired the opinion of the two divines. On the lawfulness or unlawfulness of baptis­ ing the Jew, neither of them was prepared to decide at the moment; but after Mr E.’s account of the argu­ ments of Dr Marcus, drawn from Josephus, the archdeacon exclaimed—“Quotations from Josephus against the Gospels ! How utterly ridiculous I A fig for Josephus! He was a bigotted Jew, and a bitter enemy of the truth. Can any sane man treat him as an unprejudiced witness ? Not a word that he has to say against the testimony of the primitive apostolic church can deserve one moment’s attention.” “ I agree with you about the value of arguments drawn from Josephus against the teaching of the church,” said the rural dean ; “but I am by no means certain that he was the mere Jew that you term him. The learned editor of my Whiston’s ‘Josephus’ affirms that he was a Nazarene Christian, and gives what I consider to be good reasons for his opinion.” Mr E. was at this moment called out to speak with a parishioner, whereupon the archdeacon found it con­ venient to change the topic of discourse, saying— “ What an awful thing it is to find these parochial clergy and their curates debating such perilous points as these, and that in the absence of any controlling dignitary 1 ” “ It is bad enough,” replied the rural dean, “ when the dignitary is there; for I suppose you consider a rural dean to be a dignitary, don’t you?” “Assuredly,” was the reply; “I am but a deacon, but you are a dean. The whole diocese holds you to be a Euler Dean, the greatest swell among us.” “Then,” said the dean, “ you will not ask me again how it comes to pass that, while other rural deans invite their clergy to a debate three or four times a year, I do that only once. I find once rather more than enough. I dis­ approve utterly, as the bishop well knows, of these ruri- �Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. 5 decanal gatherings; and if I had the power, I would prevent all discussion, except under a dignified and discreet president, at the meetings of the clerical book­ clubs ; for nothing but mischief can possibly come of this spirit of debate among the inferior clergy.” “ You told me,” said the archdeacon, “ that the subject of discussion at your annual gatherings is chosen by the members of the chapter. What would you do if they determined to handle in your house this question of the language spoken by our Lord and the apostles The rural dean answered, with a little laugh—“ They shall never meddle with such a topic before me. The subject would be formally announced, of course ; but I should fall back upon our fundamental regulation, that a subject proposed by the bishop must take precedence of all others. I have a stock of such always on hand. Diocesan finance is a capital one. I could easily occupy half the time with a speech about that, much to their instruction; for, I am sorry to say, they know and care little about it, and do not raise half the money that they might.” Here Mr E. came in again, and the two dignitaries urged and implored him to refuse the permission asked to continue such an unprofitable dis­ cussion in the house, and to protest against the debate anywhere. They were, as the reader can imagine, quite eloquent about the danger of corrupting the minds of curates and young divines, and on the utter absurdity of attempting to mend the historical decisions of such men as Dean Alford, on whom, from their superior learning and leisure, was specially devolved the task of investigating such questions. Mr E. listened respectfully to all they had to say, but did not pledge himself to more than a serious consideration of their counsel. The truth was, that although the two gardeners of these highly connected and splendidly beneficed gentlemen had together about twice the income of Mr E.’s vicarage, he firmly believed—and for good reasons—that the two dignified heads were very �6 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. far from containing twice his own brains and learning. Soon after their departure, he took his stout cane, and walked six miles to the Independent College, of which the Rev. Dr Jones, E.R.A.S., was the Principal, a * gentleman of great ability and erudition, with whom Mr E. had the liberality and good taste to be cordially intimate. Brought up in the school of the evangelical Simeon, he and his friend Jones were heartily together in their abhorrence of the rising tide of conjuring and pardoning sacerdotalism, and held fast to the leading principles of the Nicene theology, and to the doctrine of the Atonement; but their reverence for the old dogmatic anathemas, and their early faith in the infallible inspiration and correctness of canonical Scripture, had been more shaken by their frank inter­ change of thought than either was accustomed to con­ fess to others. Dr Jones rubbed his hands with delight when Mr E., after placing the whole case before him, asked his advice. “ ’Tis the luckiest thing in the world,” said the doctor. “ That question has been completely set at rest by my friend, Dr Roberts. Here is his book (removing from the shelf a volume of 600 pages) : take that with you and read it. I know it well. Accede by all means to the proposal made, and ask me to be of the party. Together we shall utterly demolish the Jew.’’ The book was “ Discussions on the Gospels,” by Dr Alexander Roberts. Mr E. was so pleased, after turning over a few pages, that he at once 'wrote a note to Mr P------ , expressing his consent, and begging that all the members of the club, including Dr Marcus, should come early enough to begin the resumed debate at eleven o’clock on the day appointed. He added, after a little conversation with Dr Jones, that he thought it of the highest importance, and that as pre­ sident he should insist upon it, that the question to which all the speakers should address themselves, should be, not whether Greek was understood by the �Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View, y learned and the higher classes in Palestine, but what tongue was commonly spoken by the class to which our Lord and his disciples belonged ; and that all col­ lateral and dependent inquiries should be at present avoided, such as the shewing reasons why the gospels were written and preserved in Greek only, or the de­ manding of reasons why no Hebrew documents have come down to us. For he was sure that there would be time little enough for the main discussion of the main question. He wished to see an honest attempt to de­ cide that, or to prove that no decision is attainable. From either issue, results would follow too vast for one day’s debate. The day arrived. The little vicarage was crowded with guests. Warm was the welcome, and delicious the cup of fine home-brewed ale which awaited the smiling visitors, all, for a distance, foot travellers. Mr and Mrs E. were advanced in life ; and by the prac­ tice of self-denial and economy, which our equally rich artizans and miners will not learn for centuries to come, had always been able to exercise, on occasion, a refined though not ambitious hospitality. Mr E------ had grown old on a clerical income little more than the wages and the perquisites of his late enormously en­ dowed Hector’s confidential valet; he had done in his vast parish ten times that Rector’s work in his splendid park and pretty little village, and, by wonderful energy in writing and teaching at home, he had made for himself a literary name, brought up a family, and turned out a son as second wrangler, fellow of a most distinguished college, and a rising barrister. The reward of his talents and virtues had been not merely neglect; that can easily be borne ; but insult of pecu­ liar cruelty, the true story of which this is not the place to telL Mr E------ took the chair at the head of a table, on which lay his own Philo, Mr P.’s Josephus and Eusebius, Dr Robert’s “ Dissertations,” with other �8 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. books. The party was composed of just the persons of the preceding meeting. Dr Jones, after all, was not there, as certain members of the Book Society had objected to the assistance of a non-member who had not been present at the preceding debate. The book of Dr Roberts had been read by several of the divines. Mr E------stated his wish to confine the discussion to this one question—What was the language commonly spoken in Judea in the time of our Lord by persons of the class to which he and his disciples belonged? “ Before we consider what reply can be given to Dr Marcus’s inference frem the works of Josephus, that Greek was not commonly spoken by his countrymen, but was a foreign tongue unknown to all but a few, I should wish to have his whole argument before us, and I would ask him what other passages in Josephus he can adduce in support of his opinion.” “ There is something to the purpose,” said Dr Marcus, “ in the autobiography of Josephus, prefixed to his works. He speaks of one Justus of Tiberias, the son of Pistus (of course translations of Hebrew names), the leader of a faction in Tiberias, thus § 9 : ‘ and, as he said this, he exhorted the multitude (to go to war against the Romans) ; for his abilities lay in making harangues to the people, and in being too hard in his speeches for such as opposed him, and this by his craftiness and fallacies ; for he was not unskilful in the learning of the Greeks, and in dependence on that skill it was that he undertook to write a history of these affairs.’ Of the said Justus, he speaks thus in § 65 :—“But if thou art so hardy as to affirm that thou hast written this history better than all the rest, why didst thou not publish thy history whilst the Emperors Vespasian and Titus, the generals in that war, as well as King Agrippa and his family, who were men well skilled in the learning of the Greeks, were all alive ? for then thou couldest have had the testimony of thy accuracy ?” “ If,” continued Dr Marcus, “ Greek, the good �Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. 9 grammatical Greek of the New Testament, was com­ monly understood in Jerusalem before Justus was born, and, as Dr Roberts, whose book is on the table, main­ tains, by all classes, even the rabble, all over Palestine, it would have been a matter of course, that a leader of a faction in Tiberias should know the language well, and still more, that King Agrippa and his family should be familiar with it. How then could it have come into the head of Josephus to observe of his opponent Justus, and of those royal personages, that they were not un­ skilled in the learning of the Greeks ? According to Dr Roberts, Greek was more spoken in Palestine than English is now in Wales. Would any educated Welsh­ man think of remarking about his superior or equal in that country, that he was not unskilful in English ? I submit that the words of Josephus are not consistent with the supposition that Greek was commonly under­ stood. It is most absurd to imagine that a Jewish writer, born in a country where the Greek of the New Testament was spoken by everybody, should treat as a noteworthy accomplishment that King Agrippa, born and bred there, should be able to understand the Greek of Josephus or Justus, which is not a bit more difficult than that of any literary or diplomatic document of the day. Josephus evidently speaks of Justus as well able to stir up the people in Hebrew, and to wrangle with officials and others in Greek. “ There is another important passage which should be well considered by those who argue from the confessedly wide dissemination of the Greek language after the conquests of Alexander, that it must needs have be­ come familiar to all in the jealous land of Israel, although they have no evidence in the world that it was, except that which is founded on the theological necessity that the first, second, and fourth gospels should be the writing of Palestinian Jews. In the first book against Apion, § 12, we read thus—“As for ourselves, we neither inhabit a maritime country, nor do we de- �i o Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. light in merchandise, nor in such a mixture with other men as arises from it; hut, the cities we dwell in are remote from the sea, and having a fruitful country for our habitation, we take pains in cultivating that only. Our principal care of all is this, to educate our children well; and we think it to be the most necessary busi­ ness of our whole life, to observe the laws which have been given us, and to keep those rules of piety that have been delivered down to us. Since, therefore, besides what we have already taken notice of, we have had a peculiar way of living of our own, there was no occasion ever offered us in ancient ages for intermix­ ing with the Greeks, as they had for mixing among the Egyptians, by their intercourse of exporting and importing their several goods ; as they also mixed with the Phoenicians, who lived by the sea-side, by means of their love of lucre in trade and merchandise.” It is plain that Josephus, though he knew that the central port of Caesarea, the seat of the Roman government, was a Greek speaking city, and that there were forti­ fied cities in the country where many foreigners dwelt, is here describing his native land as unaltered by com­ munion and mixture with the Greeks ; and how is it possible, that without such mixture the Greek tongue could have become as familiar as the Hebrew or Ara­ maic of the country ? Caesarea, though considered by geographers to be in Judaea, is spoken of by Josephus, as the land of the foreigner ; e.g., he begins the 18th chapter of the second book of the Wars thus —•“ How the people of Cesarea had slain the Jews that were among them on the very same day and hour,” &c. In the fourteenth book also, he speaks of the people of Cesarea as distinct from the thousands of Jews who dwelt there ; as when he says, “ the Jews that dwelt at Cesarea had a synagogue near the place, whose owner was a certain Cesarean Greek,” evidently a heathen Greek, who is described as taking pleasure in insult­ ing the religion of his Jewish tenants. �Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. 11 “ In the preface to the Antiquities,” continued Dr Marcus, “in section 2, Josephus says, in giving an account of the difficulties he had overcome : ‘ In process of time, as usually happens to those who undertake great things, I grew weary, and went on slowly, it being a large subject, and a difficult thing to translate our history into a foreign, and to us, unaccustomed lan­ guage.’ I ought also to have read to you the words immediately preceding those to which I first referred (Part I., p. 14) : ‘ And I am so bold to say, now that I have so completely perfected the work I proposed to do, that no other person, whether he were a Jew or a foreigner, had he ever so great an inclination to it, could so accurately deliver these accounts to the Greeks as is done in these books. Por those of my own nation freely acknowledge that I far exceed them in the learning belonging to the Jews ; I have also taken great pains to obtain the learning of the Greeks,’ &c., as before quoted. “ Here Josephus calls Greek a language 1 foreign and unaccustomed ’ (more correctly foreign and outlandish) to his countrymen. And he had taken great pains to learn to write it. What need was there of such great pains to a scholar born and bred where it was commonly spoken ? What Welsh or Highland gentle­ man will place it on record that he has taken great pains to obtain the learning of the English ? And, make what allowances we may for his vanity, it is a remarkable thing for him to declare his conviction, that no man living, Jew or Greek, could have written his book. We can understand why no Greek could do it—because none had the requisite knowledge of the ancient Hebrew Scriptures. But why no Jew 1 there were numbers of learned Jews at Alexandria who knew far more of Greek literature than he did : but these he plainly considered disqualified by their ignor­ ance of the Hebrew, the Septuagint being the only form in which they studied the scriptures. What then �/ 12 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. disqualified all the learned Jews of Jerusalem? they surely were not all incompetent to throw the Old Testament into such a narrative as that in the Antiqui­ ties. They could be disqualified only by their want of Greek. And yet they were, as your divines pretend, educated men, the sons of fathers who had continually heard the good grammatical, though not most elegant, Greek of the New Testament, spoken by all classes, high and low, in Judea.” When Dr Marcus had ended his remarks, the chair­ man said : “ As Josephus is the only Jew born in Judea in those times, whose testimony distinct from that of our gospels we have before us, I think we had best examine carefully the passages of his writing, which Dr Marcus has adduced, and try to satisfy our­ selves whether they prove, as Dr Marcus holds, that Greek was an unspoken and completely foreign tongue in Judea in the time of our Lord, or whether, as Dr Roberts maintains, they prove nothing’ of the kind. Dr Roberts, in his chap, viii., part I., considers the objections from the writings of Josephus to his thesis, that Greek wTas the prevailing language.” “ Before you read Dr Roberts’s criticisms,’ said Mr G------ , “ let me beg you, for the information of myself and others, who have not read his large volume, to give us in his own words, the exact statement of his thesis.” Mr E------ . assented, and opening the volume, said, “ at page 4, Dr Roberts observes : ‘ The Greek language I believe to have been almost universally prevalent, and to have been understood and employed, more or less, by all classes of the community. But I believe that the Greek, though thus generally used, was attended by the Aramaean, which was frequently spoken by all ranks of the native population, was made use by such, at times, on public as well as private occasions ; but was, for the most part, employed only in homely and familiar intercouse, and might still be said, though with difficulty, and amid many exceptions, to maintain �Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View, i 3 its position as the mother-tongue of the inhabitants of the country.” “ So that,” said Mr G------, “ is the result of six hundred pages of historical inquiry ! To me it sounds very like—whichever you please, my dear, you pay your money, and you take your choice. Is there anything more definite?” “Do not be in such a hurry, friend G------ ,” said B------ ; “ on page 5, he says : ‘What I maintain, and shall endeavour to prove, is that Greek was, in several important respects, the then prevailing language (prevailing in capitals) of Palestine; that it was, in particular, the language of literature and commerce; the language generally employed in public intercourse ; the language which a religious teacher would have no hesitation in selecting and making use of, for the most part, as the vehicle for conveying his instructions, whether orally or in writ­ ing ; and the language, accordingly, which was thus employed both by our Lord and his apostles.’ ” “ Hmm ! ” said Mr G------ , “he begins by maintaining in capitals, and then endeavours to prove, I fear, in very small. Evidently, he cares little for mere historical inquiry, but is about to fight his way through thick and thin, as special pleader for the utterance in Greek, by our Lord and the apostles, of all their words recorded in Greek. I do not expect from him much aid in our examination of Josephus. Does he allow that Jesus ever spoke Hebrew?” “I cannot find that he does,” was the answer. “At page 486, he winds up thus : ‘We must discard such notions and errors, whosoever may sanction and maintain them, and cling to that one simple and satisfactory hypothesis, by which, as has been shown, the whole facts of the case are easily explained, and by which alone they become intelligible—that (here all that follows is in capitals) ‘ Our Lord Jesus Christ spoke in Greek, and the Evangelists independently NARRATED HIS ACTIONS, AND REPORTED HIS DISCOURSES IN THE SAME EMPLOYED.’ ” LANGUAGE WHICH HE HAD HIMSELF �14 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. At this, G------, P----- , and a few others, laughed heartily, and one gentleman was facetious enough to venture something funny about capital logic. “ I suppose,” said one, who had not seen the book, “ he allows, at least, that our Lord said, talitha cumi.” “ He does,” said the reader, “ and gives a reason for it thus, at page 92 : ‘ The person on whom the miracle was performed, was of tender years, and being the daughter of a strictly Jewish family, she was probably, as yet, but little acquainted with the Greek. At any rate, Greek was to her, as to every native Jew, a language not generally employed in the domestic circle ; and it was to Hebrew that her ears, from infancy, had been accustomed. How beautifully accordant then, with the character of Him whose heart was tenderness itself, that now, as he bent over the lifeless frame of the maiden, and breathed that life-giving whisper into her ear, it should have been in the loved and familiar accents of her mother-tongue ! ’ ” Later in his book, in his concluding chapter, he claims to have established that our Lord and his apostles habitually made use of the Greek language. “ And the conclusion which I have sought to make good amounts to this—that throughout the whole of his public ministry : ... in the house of Mary at Bethany, as well as in the city, our blessed Lord continually made use of the Greek language” (p. 519). “ G------is quite correct,” said Mr P. in his estimate of Dr Roberts. “ He is the most daring and dogmatic of special pleaders. His one great argument is—the words of Jesus have come down to us in Greek—ergo, He uttered them in Greek. He is grand in main­ taining and affirming. At page 16, he says, ‘ What I maintain and mean to prove is, that Greek was the language which they habitually used in their public addresses; so that if any one affirms that Hebrew was used on some occasions, when their discourses have been reported in Greek, it remains with him to shew �Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. 15 it. I may be inclined to believe that some such occa­ sions are possibly to be met with in the Gospel history; but, at any rate, I affirm that these were altogether ex­ ceptional, and that Greek was the language usually em­ ployed in addressing even the very humblest of the people.’ He allows you as much Aramaic as you like, attending the Greek, as he says, Aramaic in homely and familiar intercourse, Aramaic maintaining its position * as the mother tongue of the inhabitants of the country,’ Aramaic as the language employed in the domestic circle, even in the house of rulers of the synagogue; but not a word of it ever uttered by our Lord, unless you can demonstrate it. The only general notion which he allows me to frame, so far as I can under­ stand him is this;—that the moment a Jew, in any part of Palestine, put his nose out of doors, he changed his language and began to talk Greek, or else held his peace, except on the rarest occasions; afraid, I fancy, that his old mother tongue would catch the rheu­ matics.” “ Enough,” said the chairman, “ and more than enough, about the thesis of Dr Roberts. Let us con­ sider his replies to objections from Josephus.” “ Are the replies lengthy,” demanded Mr G. “ Only seven pages,” was the answer. “ Then we ought to hear every word of them,” said Mr G. The chairman read as follows, from page 286 of the chapter “ Considera­ tion of Objections “The first passage calling for re­ mark is found in the preface to his ‘ History of the Jewish War: ’—‘ I have devoted myself to the task of translating, for the sake of those who live under the government of the Romans, the narrative which I for­ merly composed in our national language yXwa'o'jj), and transmitted to the Barbarians of the interior (roi$ /3a,pf3apois).‘ In section following, he explains that his object in re-writing his history was, that the Greeks and Romans, as well as the Parthians, the Babylonians, the further Arabians, and the Jews beyond the �16 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. Euphrates, might have access to a true narrative of events. Dr Roberts concludes his argument thu,s:— “ Josephus, in composing his history in Greek, intended it for the use generally of those who lived under the government of the Romans — manifestly, therefore, though not exclusively, for his brethren in Palestine. The same thing appears from his not enumerating the Jews of Palestine, among those for whom the Hebrew edition of his narrative was designed.” The inference drawn is,—“ That a history intended for the natives of Palestine, among others, would naturally be composed in the Greek language.” “ Bravo ! Dr Roberts,” cried Mr G. “ From that inference, and from the remark that the Jews of Palestine were not named as the in­ tended readers of the Hebrew history, we all see what a dunce Dr Marcus was for telling us that the book written by Josephus in his native tongue was meant (Part I., p. 25) for the information of his countrymen! It was the translation in the foreign and outlandish tongue which was naturally composed for their reading.” The fun of this was too much even for the chairman’s gravity, and there was a peal of refreshing laughter all round. Mr E. went on—“ there are two other passages generally quoted from Josephus, in the former of which (the third quoted above by Dr Marcus, page 11) he speaks of the Greek in which he wrote his antiquities as a xai aWohavi] SiaXtxroc (literally a foreign and outlandish speech or dialect) ; and in the latter— ” “ Pardon me,” said Mr P., “ it will save time to take one passage at once. Tell us how he gets out of the 1 foreign and outlandish.’” “They are dealt with to­ gether, and I can find nothing,” said the reader, “ be­ sides these two sentences in the page following. •' It was not his purpose merely to write in Greek, but as far as possible in pure and classical Greek. The Hebraistic Greek to which he was accustomed, might almost have been reckoned a different language from that employed by the classical historians.’ ” �Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. 17 “ Here,” said Mr P., “we have completely changed our ground. Instead of the merry inference just drawn, that the Greek, into which Josephus translated his work in his native tongue, was the language in which information for his countrymen would be 1 naturally composed,’ we learn now that, compared with that translation, the Greek to which his countrymen, even polished scholars like himself, were accustomed, might almost have been reckoned a different language—so different, that Josephus calls his own historical Greek a ‘ foreign and outlandish tongue ’ to his countrymen! And this laughable juggle of contradiction is an answer to the objection founded on the plain words of Josephus! Just now we heard, and Dr Roberts is never tired of repeating it, that the Greek of our Gospels is the very Greek which fell from the lips of the Saviour and the Apostles, and the Greek spoken by all classes of Jews. Now, we are told that the Greek of the most polished society in Jerusalem was, from its corruptions, almost a different language from that strange and out­ landish classical Greek. Still more corrupt, then, must have been the Greek of the fishermen of Galilee. But this we have, word for word, says the Doctor, in the New Testament; and we can compare it with the classical—with what result? The fact is, that the dif­ ference is so small, that none of us ever saw it, till after the labour of years we had learned the refinements of the language. Both are studied from the same grammar and dictionary; not one of us, I fancy, is able to point out anything ungrammatical in one more than in the other, vast as the complexities of Greek grammar are. Nor do I believe that all of us together can recal half-a-dozen phrases in the utterances of our Lord and the apostles, which can be termed Hebraistic Greek.” “ I am astonished,” said Mr C., “ at all this fuss about iS/dXEzrog. It means either strange tongue, or strange dialect. Evidently Josephus is speaking of B �18 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. two dialects of Greek. You may shake your heads, but you cannot deny that, with the grammarians, means simple dialectus, dialect. We have no right to affirm that the Greek spoken by our Lord and the apostles, and by Jews of their station, was quite as pure and grammatical as our present text. Broad Scotch or broad Lancashire may well be called a strange outlandish dialect in comparison with classical English.” “ That may be,” said the chairman; “but it is not the same thing as if a writer of classical English should term his own language strange and outlandish in com­ parison of the ruder speech, as you seem to think Josephus did.” “ And what harm in that? That’s another thing,” said C., who was that scarce commodity an Irish highchurchman ; “ I say that, if a divine teacher were to appear speaking either dialect, his words might be handed down in pure grammatical English, with perfect faithfulness as to the phrases used, but modified for all mankind, not in the tongue spoken, but in dialect only. I say that the thesis of Dr Roberts is not damaged at all by this phrase of Josephus.” “That,” said the chairman, “ demands full consideration, and I am partly inclined to agree with C. Indeed, I intended to state, if not to maintain, his view of the matter. You had best hear Dr Roberts out on these two passages.” He read on—“ and in the latter he tells us he had de­ voted himself, to the study of Greek learning, but had not been able to acquire a correct pronunciation, on account of the habit which prevailed in his native country.” (Vid. the Greek, Part I., p. 24). These passages have been much insisted on by those who deny the prevalence of Greek in Palestine. But the whole difficulty which they seem to present vanishes when we take into account the object which Josephus had professedly in view. It was not his purpose merely to write in Greek, but, as far as possible, in pure and classical Greek. And it is in perfect consistency �Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. 19 ■with the position which I uphold as to the linguistic condition of Palestine at the time, that he should have felt great difficulty in accomplishing his purpose. His <!rdrpios <fvv7)6eia, greatly hindered it. The Hebraistic Greek to which he was accustomed, might almost have been reckoned a different language from that employed by the classical historians. He adds in a note: ‘ I may observe that it is not uncommon to find Scottish writers of the last century speaking in their prefaces of the pains which they had taken, often, as was felt, with but partial success, to write in correct and classical English—Comp. e. g., the Preface to Campbell’s work ‘On the Gospels.’ “I confess,” added the chairman, “that if it could be maintained that such Hebraistic Greek was familiarly spoken by the Jews, the reply of Dr Roberts to objections from Josephus, is to me satisfactory.” “ That exactly amounts,” said Mr B., “ to this: that in your judgment, if the thesis of Dr Roberts be first vastly altered, and then granted, without one word of historical proof, the thesis, in spite of Josephus, will stand. The Greek posited in his thesis is the good grammatical Greek of the New Testament; the altera­ tion required, and ready for use, is to put for that a Greek as different from it, as broad Scotch or broad Lancashire is diverse from decent English. Don’t you twig this sleight of hand? The doctor is conjuring with two cards, not one.” “That is precisely so,” said Mr P., rising, “there’s not in Dr Roberts’ large book a shadow of demonstra­ tion that Greek was commonly spoken in Judea 1800 years ago, except his argument from the New Testa­ ment books, assumed as authentic. And the only con­ siderations worth notice in that argument, besides sim­ ple assumption of the matter in debate, are these ; first, that no hint is even given by the narrators that they are translating into Greek what was said in Aramaic; and secondly, that no mention of interpreter be­ tween Jew and Greek is ever made. By the help of �20 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. these two considerations and Dr Roberts’ capitals, it would be easy to write a book proving that the Iberian, Celtic and German tribes, with whom the Roman generals had so much intercourse and correspondence, all spoke commonly the Latin tongue along with their vernacular. Such a book would be probably more difficult to confute from cotemporary history than is Dr Roberts’ volume. Where could we find a direct negative, that they did not know Latin? With respect to these passages from Josephus, I observe, first, that they all conspire to agree exactly, without qualification or quibble, with the flat negation of Dr Roberts’ thesis. Josephus is for him never a witness; he pleads only against the evidence of that writer. The enormous argu­ ment from silence is dead against him. No terms in the Greek language can be found to describe the strange­ ness and difficulty of a foreign tongue, though it were Chinese, stronger than those used by Josephus about Greek to a Jew, a life-time after the days of our Lord. In order to make Josephus in any way agree with Dr Roberts, we must first get this Hebraistic Greek into Judea, in spite of the evidence of that author which Dr Marcus has read to us, concerning the jealous seclusion of his people from Greek intercourse. Next, we must conceive of Josephus, a noble and a priest, a renowned scholar, a famous warrior and diplomatist of the capital, so drenched in these vulgar Hebraisms, that, in spite of all the reasons which would have urged him to ob­ tain more knowledge than the rabble, whom Dr Roberts describes at page 188 as perfectly familiar with Greek, and in spite also of the close relation into which he was brought for years as a public person, with men, both friends and enemies, round about Judea, who spoke and wrote Greek perfectly—we must conceive of such a man, with such early training, such opportunities and motives, as content to place on record, when over forty years old, what very great pains he had taken to learn Greek, how he had become skilled in the gram- �Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. 21 mar ot it, how at great he cost had put himself under tuition in the Greek tongue at Rome, how he had never managed to pronounce it properly, and how with the help of others he had surmounted the mighty difficulty of writing a Greek book, which after all the rhetorical touching of his “ Graeculus esuriens,” is far from being a model of classic elegance. “ This may be natural and pardonable in a man who had never had nor been supposed to have opportunities of learning Greek ; but most ridiculous in a scholar brought up in a capital city where Greek was commonly spoken before he was born. “ Yet, far the greatest difficulty in our way to Dr Robert's thesis, is the getting that Hebraistic Greek into Palestine. Such a result is contrary to all that is known of the diffusion of a superior language, which is always introduced and established by govern­ ment officials, military men, or the better class of proprietors and employers of brains and labour. A tongue so diffused over a land invariably corrupts the vernacular, but is not corrupted by it. The Welsh, Irish, and Gaelic spoken in these islands are ungram­ matical and mixed ’with English words ; but the men who speak them utter a grammatical English, free from the vernacular, and which they have learned from their superiors. A Hebraistic Greek is just as much a nonentity as a Cymricised English. Your Welsh, Irish, or Highland peasant speaks far better English than hundreds of wealthy employers in Lan­ cashire. “ Mr C.’s notion of a Scotch or Lancashire sort of Greek spoken in Judeea is a chimera: it is the cart before the horse. Our provincial dialects are all ancient speech which has lagged behind in improvement, not modern speech imported and degraded, so that they have no likeness to this fancied Hebraistic Greek. If we examine the languages of Europe sprung from the Latin, at least this is true of French, we find scarcely �22 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. any mixture in them of the Celtic and Teutonic dis­ placed by them. The only book of the New Testament which deserves to be called Hebraistic Greek is the Apocalypse. There is not a tittle of evidence that such Greek was ever a spoken language. The book is probably the work (I. allude here not to its poetic splendour) of a Jew, poorly educated, who, late in life, and with imperfect opportunities, set himself to learn and write a foreign tongue, just as a half-educated and ambitious Englishman might turn out a French book full of Anglicisms. I have read what a writer in Macmillan’s Magazine has to say concerning the pigeon English about our factories in the Chinese ports; but there is no reason to believe that such a jargon ever was or ever will be commonly spoken by all classes of a community. Yet I can well imagine that such a pigeon Greek was current among a meaner sort of Jews in Caesarea, if there were any who chose to sell their labour to the Gentiles, and perhaps among the few who sold their produce there. “ I shall not debate with Dr Roberts the meaning of 'Trarpiog euvijSeia; that is of little moment; but I do not admire his concealing from the English reader the statements of Josephus in two of his passages, that he had taken lessons in Greek at Rome, and had got hold of the Greek grammar; and the doctor has no right to say that the “ custom of his country ” prevented his writing, but only his pronunciation.” Mr P. sat down. “It is really wonderfully hard to see one’s way to the truth in this question,” said the chairman. “We must read the reply to the remaining passages ■ and here I shall not have to read all that is written. The author says : ‘ Other passages are frequently referred to (“ Wars,” v. 9, 2 ; vi. 2, 6) in which J osephus speaks of himself as having, by command of Titus, addressed his besieged countrymen, tjj 'Trarpi^ yXussp (in their native tongue), and ‘Efipoufyiv (in Hebrew). The only part of Dr Roberts’ answer to them which appears to �Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. 23 me worth reading is this : “ They were in arms against the Roman invaders, and we know that the greatest fanaticism then prevailed among them. There was a violent recoil from all that savoured of Gentilism, and this feeling would be sure to display itself in regard to language as in other particulars. In fact, as was for­ merly mentioned, we find a statement in the Mischna to the effect that the employment of Greek for certain purposes was formally prohibited during the war with Titus; so that we have no difficulty in understanding why, on the occasions referred to, Josephus should have made use of the Hebrew language.” “ That appears to me a sufficient reply,” said the president. “With all my heart,” answered Dr Marcus; “but I beg you not to suppose that there is one word in the Mischna which indicates that Greek was commonly spoken. Dr Roberts and the host of writers who have before handled this question would have produced such evidence, if it had been there. There were many things connected with property, marriage, and divorce, about which the Roman Government had decreed for their own convenience that legal documents in Greek should be as valid as those in Hebrew.” ' Hereupon Mr B. remarked : “ In the utter absence of historical evidence that Greek was a familiar lan­ guage, the use of Hebrew by the heralds of Titus will still found a very strong suspicion, although it supplies no proof, that no other language would have been understood. And no more can be urged, from these passages of Josephus, besides what P. calls the enor­ mous historical argument of silence. Josephus has preserved two long orations which he delivered to his countrymen by command of Titus in Hebrew; and tells us, that at the final conference of Titus in person with the mad generals, an interpreter was employed. And yet we are to believe that Greek was as familiar to those generals from their earliest days as to Titus himself.” �24 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. 11 One more passage,” said the chairman ; “ that in which Josephus affirms (Cont. Ap. 1-9) that he was the only person who understood (yvvird) the reports brought by deserters from the city. The answer of Dr Roberts is : ‘ I would be inclined to take ovv'njv not in the sense of understood, but of became acquainted with, a meaning which the word might possibly bear. If this explanation of the difficulty be not accepted, I see no other resource than perhaps the most natural one of all—that of regarding the statement as cne of the many exaggerations by which, in the course of his writings, Josephus seeks to magnify his own import­ ance.’ ” At this there was another laugh all round, and a great relief we all felt it to be. One observed that if Dr Roberts chose to maintain that the ancient Gauls and Britons talked Latin, he would soon floor arguments from Caesar’s Commentaries. Here Mr D. rose and said: “ Before we finish our study of Josephus, I would make a remark which to me appears of weight. The evidence is strong to my mind that Josephus grew up without a knowledge of Greek, such as enabled him either to speak or to write it. Very likely he never studied it till he was the prisoner of the Romans, as he affirms (Cont. Ap. 1, 9) thus : ‘ Vespasian also and Titus had me kept under a guard, and forced me to attend them con­ tinually. At the first I was put into bonds; but was set at liberty afterward, and sent to accompany Titus, when he came from Alexandria to the siege of Jeru­ salem ; during which time there was nothing done which escaped my knowledge; for what happened in the Roman camp I saw and wrote down carefully; and what information the deserters brought out of the city, I was the only man that understood them. After­ wards I got leisure at Rome,’ &c. (y. part i., p. 25 for the rest). “ I agree,” continued Mr D., “ with Dr Alford and �Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. 25 Dr Roberts as to the prevalence of Greek in Judaea; but I do not see how any one can read the accounts given by Josephus of his own studies and acquire­ ments, without perceiving that he meant the reader to conclude that he himself was unacquainted with that language. The explanation of all that is easy, and I am amazed that it never occurred to Dr Roberts. Josephus was a priest, brought up in the house of a priest, educated among priests, who, as is very well known, despised and hated the literature and language of the Gentiles. After his imprisonment, kept as he was about Vespasian and Titus, who determined to employ him, he would have both leisure and the strongest reasons, with good opportunities, to study Greek; and he doubtless acquired enough of it to make himself of great use to Titus in the siege. I think that explains, better than the supposition of Dr Marcus, how Josephus acted as interpreter.” To this Dr Marcus, rising, said in reply: “I grant that Mr D.’s explanation of the last-named matter is better than mine, which was given at the moment without due consideration. But I think he will soon confess as much about the error of his persuasion that the priests could remain ignorant of Greek in a country where it was, as he fancies, generally spoken. Priests know their own interests too well for that. You have only to read the account given by Josephus of the distribution of the highest military offices among the priests. In Book II. of the ‘ Wars,’ c. 20, 4, we read : ‘They also chose other generals for Idumea; Jesus, the son of Sapphias, one of the high priests, and Eleazar, the son of Ananias, the high priest. . .Nor did they neglect the care of other parts of the country; hut Joseph, the son of Simon—both high priests— (Antiq. xx., 8, 117) was sent as general to Jericho, as was Manasseh to Perea; and John, the son of Matthias (evidently brother of Josephus), was made governor of the toparchies of Gophnitica and Acrabattene, as was �26 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. Josephus, the son of Matthias, of both the Galilees (i.e. the historian himself).’ Now, on your supposition, that these little governments were not only, as all well know, surrounded by fortresses full of Greek-speaking officers, but also crowded with a Greek-speaking popu­ lation, it is certainly the most comical of all blunders that can be attributed by you to the Sanhedrim of Jerusalem, that they should choose for their generals, diplomatists, and governors the only men in the coun­ try, namely the priests, who were ignorant of Greek ! The truth is, that not half a dozen men in Judaea proper, resident natives of the country, were familiar enough with that language to be able to speak it.” Here the chairman rose and said, “We have done all in our power, I think, to discuss the information supplied by Josephus, about this puzzling question. He was a sad blunderer who called history an old almanack. I never was so baffled in making out the meaning of an almanack as I am by this folio of Josephus, on a subject which he every moment knew as exactly as the number of his fingers, and which to me, as a theologian, is of unspeakable importance. If he had only used the word or yXc5<r<ra or instead of &aXs%rog, all would have been clear as the noon. The words are frequently equivalent, but the ambiguity in the last is undeniable. I must produce for your consideration the only passage which I can find in Philo, which bears upon our inquiry; but I know that Dr Roberts could fairly argue that it is not decisive. In his tract Ilepi tou navra, &irovda,7bv Itvai s'ktvtepov, he praises the Essenes of Judea thus : rot ovrovg i} ‘irepiep'/itag eXXijvixaiv ovoflLctrwv ddXrirdg aptrrig cwrtp'yaffrai •yvfJbvdefLo.ra vponditoa rag irraivtrdg 'irpdl'iig, a>v aSouXurog ektutepia, faPaiovrat, i.e., “ Such athletes of virtue has the philosophy made them, which, without the superfluous apparatus of Greek names (or words), sets before them for exercises those honourable deeds by which the noblest liberty is �Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View, zy established.” I want to know, if any of you can inform me, what was Philo’s exact meaning in this, ‘ without the needless fuss of Greek names 1 ’ Does he mean to affirm that those Essenes knew nothing of Greek1 ” All agreed that the words might bear the meaning, though oddly expressed. Some thought he meant to affirm that: others would have it that the ovo/zara were the phrases of Greek philosophy: others that the variety of sects and the names of sophists and philoso­ phers are intended. I begged the chairman’s permission to look for a clue. I turned to the next tract, Hept (3iov 6eopririx6u. Here Philo compares with the piety of the Egyptian Theraputaa, a sort of monastic Jews more contempla­ tive than the Essenes, that of the heathen, which filled its strains with such names as Hephaestus, Hera, Poseidon, Demeter, and the like, and with their deriva­ tions from fanciful connection with the elements. He goes on to say, aXXa rd [Ltv hh^ara sotpiordv early 'evprifJMra rd St ffroi^edx, ilXjj Kai eaurijs dK/wiro$ (but the names are the inventions of sophists, and the elements are lifeless matter of itself immov­ able). He compliments the Theraputaa on thinking of something higher than such empty names and mere elements. They were, as we all know, all Greek-speaking Jews. But he introduces the epithet sAXjju/xwv into his compliment to the Essenes, not so much, I think, by way of making an affirmation about their language, as by way of allusion to what everybody knew, that they were encumbered neither with the emptynames of Greek piety, nor with the language in which they were coined. “ I submit,” said I, that this phrase of Philo, vague as it is, is a testimony not for, but against the thesis of Dr Roberts.” Here Mr B. rose and said—“ We have given time enough to Josephus and Philo. One thing I am curious to know. How does Dr Roberts dispose of the fact established by all ecclesiastical history and tradi �2 8 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. tion, if they are to be held competent to establish any­ thing, that the first record of our Lord’s words was written in Hebrew by the apostle Matthew ? If none of our Greek evangelists has translated the words of Jesus into another tongue, Matthew, at all events, must have been a translator.” “ To that question,” said the chairman, “ Dr Roberts devotes 80 pages ‘ on the original language of St Matthew’s gospel.’ It is a weary tissue of other men’s opinions. He assumes that he has proved that our Lord spoke in Greek all that is recorded of his words, except a very few. From this it follows, of course, that the first record must have been in Greek ; but he does not quite press that. He appeals to evidence. The internal evidence he shews in his way to be over­ whelming that our Greek Matthew is an original. The external he makes light of, because nobody ever saw that Hebrew gospel; and he concludes triumphantly (page 448) that there is no sufficient ground for believ­ ing that Matthew ever wrote a gospel in Hebrew at all. He considers that the ‘ Gospel of the Hebrews,’ of which Eusebius and Jerome speak, was an early translation from the Greek Matthew, afterwards cor­ rupted.” “No sufficient ground for believing?” said Mr G. “ I say, because I have taken the trouble to examine for myself, that there is quite as much ground for believing the testimony to a Hebrew Matthew, as for believing anything else of what is called primitive external evidence for the authenticity of our gospels. The whole story must stand or fall together. This blow in the mouth from the staff of Dr Roberts leaves hardly a tooth in the gums of our poor Church Clio 1 Dr Roberts is almost a match in penetration into antiquity for our wise and modest Manning. He alone is worthy to stand cheek by jowl with that dolichouatous dignitary, and cry to us all, 1 Were you ever in antiquity, or any that belong to you ? We two were �Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. 2 9 there ! ’ To which the classical mitre could not fail to wag the rejoinder, Istis ‘ ‘ florentes aetatibus, Arcades ambo, Et cantare pares, et respondere parati.” “ I am grievously disappointed,” said the president, “ wdth the result of our labour. I am not convinced either that our Lord spoke Hebrew only, or Greek only, or sometimes Greek, and sometimes Hebrew. One of these must be the truth; but I declare to you honestly, that with my present light and learning, I am unable to determine which. I can only conclude that this is one of those things which it is not necessary for me to know. You may be, or may not be, in a less embarrassed state of mind; but I have a wish to know what that state is. There are fourteen of us here, besides Dr Marcus, and our friend Mr Kirkman. I put a question to you thirteen. As many of you as have come to a defined conclusion, satisfactory to your judgment, about the language in which the Lord Jesus conveyed his teaching, hold up your hands.” Six hands were raised. “Then,” said he, “ there are eight of us not satisfied in our judgments. Now, of the six who are satisfied, let as many as are convinced that our Lord taught in the Greek language, hold up their hands.” Three hands were held up. “ Then the other three are convinced that our Lord taught in Hebrew. I heartily wish we could have arrived at a result more unanimous.” Upon this Dr Marcus rose with sparkling eyes. “ Allow me to express my admiration of the learning, the patience, and the thorough honesty, with which you have faced my argument from Josephus. Your result has doubled the power of my general comparison between the boastful pretensions and the actual assets, as you say in your Bankruptcy Courts, of your ortho­ dox faith and truth. I beg to repeat my statement of those pretensions, and to write under them your own valuation of your stock of real knowledge; that with all your ecclesiastical pomp and pride, with all your �30 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. Fathers and your pedigrees, the most learned synod you can assemble is unable to determine in what human language your Incarnate God delivered to you your church authority and your dogmatic revelation, ‘ which whosoever keepeth not whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly.’ “ The chairman regrets that no statement is pro­ ducible, at least from cotemporary history, of the direct negative, that no other tongue than the Hebrew of the day was spoken by Jesus and his disciples. “ In the discussion which we had about that famous letter of Jesus to the King of Edessa, you heard evi­ dence that ought to count among you almost for that of an ear witness. If you doubt the story that the correspondence was to be seen in the day of Eusebius, in the public records of Edessa, in the Syrian tongue ; if you doubt his having translated into Greek, or even his having seen, that Syrian document, or a copy of it; you cannot doubt that it was the belief and conviction of Eusebius, the learned bishop of the chief city in his day of Palestine, that Jesus corresponded in Syrian, if..» at all, and that his apostle Thomas delivered his words in Syrian. Now, by Syrian, Eusebius meant exactly the language of the Jews at the time of Jesus. Proof of this is in that book of Dr Roberts, and along with it the direct negative which the chairman desires to find ; but it is pretty well concealed from the English reader in the Greek in the small of a note, without translation. The chairman will kindly read that note, in which there is nothing but what has been adduced by Milman and a crowd of writers on this question.” The note was read thus, from page 24, “ Euseb. Dem. Evang., Lib. iii. In one passage of this book, Eusebius speaks of the apostles, as ibpuv ou v'/.sov wraJovres tpurfs, (speaking no other tongue but the Syrian). And in another passage, he represents the apostles as (but for the promise of Divine assistance) being in circumstances to reply to their Lord’s com- �Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. 31 mand to go and teach all nations,” in such words as these; <ro/a Se Xsi'ti <irpbs "EXXjjpag, avdpe$ rfi 'Svpuv tvrpa^ivnc, imvv\ tpcuy/j; (but in what language shall we preach to the Greeks, we who have been bom and bred to speak the Syrian tongue only?) To the same effect, Chrysostom in several passages; Comp. Milman, “ Bampton Leet. ” p. 173. “ How in the world does Dr Roberts dispose of those familiar passages ? ” said Mr G. “ I cannot ad­ mire his tactics here,” said the president. “ His treat­ ment of Eusebius is very summary. In the text over that note I can find nothing more than this : ‘ Euse­ bius may tell us again and again, that the apostles understood no language except Syriac; but let not that deter us,’ &c.” “ That’s right,” said Mr G., “ bundle him out, neck and shoulders. I could have sworn he would do it, when I heard his wonderful thesis. Poor Eusebius ! He is very old, and he is all we have; but he is plainly gone mad. He has contradicted Dr Roberts ; so lock him up, lock him up, at page 24, and leave the doctor at peace with his capitals and small, to display his genius for composing. “ Here we are left, with a riddle to solve, which beats all the rest. We have the demonstration of Dr Roberts, that the true story was at the beginning cor­ rectly handed down from bishop to bishop, from sire to son, in the Churches of Palestine, that our Lord and the Apostles habitually and continually spoke Greek. In less than two centuries, antecedently to a period within certain reach of the learned Pamphilus, the friend of Eusebius, who did so much for the library of Caesarea, the true tradition of the Greek speech had been rooted out of the land, and the opposite falsehood read in Eusebius had been established in its place, namely that of Syriac, or what is here the same thing, Hebrew speech and that only, in the mouths of Christ and the apostles. We can understand the growth of a �3 2 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. complex legend, by gradual accretions about some nu­ cleus of fact, especially in a story which has travelled far, and supports some great interest, but where is the brain that can comprehend this mystery ; how a simple and clear affirmative, capable of no accretion or orna­ ment, that of this Greek speech, an affirmative about public fact most conducive to the interests of Greek orthodoxy, should have become transformed in the mouths of the greatest Greek bishops, such as Chrys­ ostom and Eusebius, into its distressing negative ; and this, too, without travelling at all, the marvellous transformation having occurred at home in Palestine, in the very focus of ecclesiastical light, in that library of Caesarea 1 How many thousand Roberts’s would it take to accomplish that in all the documents and in all the memories ? It is a mad impossibility ! “ To me the evidence of Eusebius on this question of national fact, the language spoken by our Lord and his disciples, notwithstanding my low opinion of his general trustworthiness in what concerns church pedigree and orthodoxy, is as certain a bit of history, as the report that King George the first and his family talked Ger­ man.” To this speech of Mr G------ , no reply was attempted. The reader will not suppose that I am reciting all that was uttered by sixteen speakers, none of whom was silent, in a debate of five hours before and after luncheon. My wish is to place on record just the cream of what was said. Some time was devoted to the evidence of the Acts on this question. One urged the inference from Acts xxii. 2 : “ And when they heard that he spoke in the Hebrew tcngue to them, they kept the more silence that they were not accustomed to be always addressed in Hebrew, but often, perhaps usually, in Greek. Against this was placed the inference, from the sur­ prise of the Ghiliarch, who said, on being addressed by Paul, ‘ Canst thou speak Greek 1 ’ that Greek was �Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. 33 quite unusual in the mouth of a Jew in custody in the streets. The surprise was by some denied, as referring to a Jew ; it was Greek from an Egyptian which was surprising j to which it was replied that all the Jews in Egypt and all other men there likely to travel, spoke Greek continually. One gentleman created . some amusement by producing Dr Adam Clarke s evasion of the argument from surprise; according to whom, by reason of the noise, the Chiliarch never heard Paul’s < May I speak with thee 1 ’ nor knew that he could speak Greek, till after putting the usual 1 Canst thou speak Greek ? ’ preliminary to examination. All agreed that that was capital commentating. The result was, that the inference from xxi. 37, about balanced that from xxii. 2. One divine was wicked enough to ask significantly how the parenthesis (xxii. 2) came to be there, with its repetition of what precedes, and its odd interruption of the speech. Nothing of importance was made out of the Acts on the subject, for the chair­ man disallowed debate on quotations from the Septuagint, as I thought, very properly, on that occasion. Mr D------ enquired whether any answer had ever appeared to the “ Dissertations ” of Dr Roberts.. No one present could give account of any reply to it. I then begged leave to draw their attention to a paper entitled “ An enquiry into the original language of St Matthew’s Gospel,” by John Newton, Esq., M.R.C.S., in Vol. xx. of the Proceedings of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Liverpool, 1865-66. Mr Newton says : “ By far the most able and zealous advocate for the Greek view is Dr Alexander Roberts, whose recent work, ‘ Dissertations on the Gospels, if one may judge by the numerous commendatory notices of it that have appeared in the Reviews, and also in recent standard religious works, appears to have quite turned the tide against the ancient opinion.” [Dr Roberts in the preface to his second edition is able to quote a very flattering report .of his convincing logic c �34 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. from the Saturday Review. ] Mr Newton fills more than ten pages with an account of Dr Robert’s positions, and then fills fifty pages more with a scholar-like, convincing, and very interesting refutation. He states forcibly the argument from the obstinate conservatism of the Jews, and from the well-known adherence of the Welsh (to whom it did not suit Dr Robert’s game to make allusions) to their native tongue. He states also fully the argument from Josephus ; but makes no attempt to show the weakness of Dr Roberts in his reply to that argument; and this omission is the defect of Mr Newton’s excellent paper. One or two passages I may read :—“ If Dr Roberts had been able to tell us that the Jews of Christ’s time had so intense an appreciation of the beauties of the Greek tongue, that the wealthier sent their children to Athens to be educated, and that the Greek literature was known to all classes of the Jews, through translations into Hebrew, this would have been something to the point. All this and more might have been said of the Romans. Yet it would be taken for no evidence that the people of Rome, the Latin race, living in the country of their fathers, habitually spoke in Greek ! Take another illustration. The French language is familiarly taught and cultivated among ourselves. French books abound. All educated persons are well acquainted with French literature. Many English authors have even written works in French. If Dr Roberts’ mode of argument be worth anything, there would be here abundant evidence to some foreign writer, ages hence, that our Wesleys and Spurgeons must have spoken and taught in French. I have been putting the argument at the strongest, that we might better see its absurdity. But the fact is, that Dr Roberts, with all his industry, has not been able to adduce the slightest proof that the Palestinian Jews of Christ’s time had any acquaintance whatever with the Greek language” (p. 78). �Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. 35 “ To this end he (Ezra) founded the Great Syna­ gogue, as a new centre of religious life among them. The £ Sopherim,’ as their first care, collected the sacred writings and established the canon. They authorita­ tively expounded the book of the law, and regulated, by their decisions and teachings, the whole social and religious life of the Jews. From this beginning arose that vast literature, which, at first transmitted orally, was at length, after the destruction of Jerusalem and the final dispersion of the Jews, carefully committed to writing by successive Eabbis, and, with ever increasing amplification, has descended to our times. As Talmud, it is divided into Mischna, or authoritative exposition, and Gemara, or the later supplement of Jerusalem and Babylon. As Midrash, or exposition, it is divided into Halachah, or authoritative law, and Haggadah, or sayings, teachings, homilies. In these vast collections we find recorded the sayings and doings of the great leaders of Israel during the very life-time of our Lord. Yet they are entirely written in Shemitic dialects,— the older in literary Hebrew, the latter portion in Aramaic. Not a single one of the innumerable writings and traditions has come down to us in Greek. Ample materials are thus furnished for judging of the state of national education, manners, and opinion in the days of our Lord. A few extracts will illustrate sufficiently the exclusive spirit of ancient Judaism. £ Saith Abraham to God, didst thou not raise up seventy nations unto Noah ? God saith unto him, I will raise up that nation from thee, of whom it shall be written, How great a nation is it 1 ’ The gloss is, £ That peculiar people, excelling all the seventy nations, as the holy language excells all the seventy languages? 1 The holy blessed God created seventy nations, but he found no pleasure in any of them, save Israel only.’ £ A wise man (that is, one learned in the law of Moses) is to be preferred before a king ; for if a wise man die, he hath not left his equal; but �36 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. if a king die, any Israelite is fit for a kingdom.’ ‘ The nations of the world are like to dogs.’ ‘ The people ot the earth do not live.’ The Talmudists speak very ill even of proselytes. After all, they were not of the Jewish stock. 1 Our Eabbins teach that proselytes and Sodomites hinder the coming of the Messiah.’ ‘ Proselytes are as a scab to Israel.’ The lawyer who asked Christ, ‘And who is my neighbour?’ might well put the question, for he had been taught, the law ‘ excepts all Gentiles, when it saith £< his neighbour.” ’ Again, ‘ An Israelite killing a stranger doth not die for it by the Sanhedrim, though it saith, “ If any one lift up himself against his neighbour he must not be condemned on account of a Gentile, for they are not to be esteemed as neighbours.’ In other places it was taught that a Jew was not bound to. point out to a Gentile the right path, nor to save him from drowning, since their law as to neighbours did not apply, ‘ for such a one is not thy neighbour.’ What Juvenal said of them was strictly true :— Non monstrare vias eadem nisi sacra colenti, Qusesitum ad fontem solos deducere verpas. Into this Jewish world, then, Christ was born. He was the contemporary of three most illustrious teachers and presidents of colleges j Hillel I., his rival Shammai* Simon ben Hillel, and Gamaliel I., the teacher of Paul. It was enjoined that at five years * A curious story of these two famous teachers is told in the Babylon G-emara. ‘‘ A heathen came to R. Shammai and offered to become a proselyte, if he might learn the whole law whilst he could stand upon one foot. But Shamrnai, who was a hot tem­ pered man, drove him away, as asking an impossibility. Then he went to R. Hillel, and he found him taking a bath. . But R. Hillel folded a sheet hastily around him, and hearing his question he answered, ‘Yes, my son; whatsoever thou wouldest not have done to thyself, that do not to thy neighbour. This is the whole law.’ And he admitted him as a proselyte.” Many other sayings of this enlightened Rabbi bear a striking resemblance to the teach­ ing of Christ. �Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. 37 old, a boy should commence the study of the Hebrew Bible, at ten years old the Mischna, at fifteen the Gemara. Thus the sum and substance of Jewish education was, after all, their Holy Scriptures, and the expositions of their Rabbis thereon. Accordingly, our Lord is represented as lingering behind his parents, when a boy of twelve years, forgetting his food, every­ thing, that he might listen to the teachings of the Rabbins, and question them in his turn. Traces of the influence of Rabbinical teaching are to be found in abundance in his discourses ; as any one may see who will go through the numerous parallel passages to our Lord’s teaching, from Rabbinical literature, given by Dr Lightfoot in Horen Hebraicoe et Talmduicce. Every phrase in the Lord’s Prayer was already familiar to the Jews. In the Gemara of Babylon we find the parable of Dives and Lazarus ; also the parable of the wise and foolish virgins ; in the Jerusalem Gemara, the story of the husbandman and the vineyard. These examples might be multiplied indefinitely. And since these parallels to, nay often the sources of, the teach­ ing, were certainly delivered in Hebrew only, surely the probabilities are overwhelming against our Lord having delivered them in Greek” (p. 81). “ It (the LXX.) was regarded from the first by the Jews of Palestine with intense dislike. They even instituted a fast-day to commemorate the origin of so great a calamity. It is said in the Jerusalem Talmud, “ That day was bitter to Israel, even as the day when the golden calf was made. Eor the law could not be translated according to all things proper for it.” Dr Roberts would have us believe that Christ himself read from this Greek version when he stood up in the synagogue at Nazareth, because the passage of Scrip­ ture is given by Luke (iv. 18) from the Septuagint. But if the Greek translation had thus usurped the Hebrew verity, even in the synagogues of Judea, of course the change would be still more complete out of �38 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. the Holy Land. How comes it, then, that not a single copy of the Septuagint has ever been found in a Jewish synagogue, or has ever been traced or derived from, one ? The ancient MSS. of it which we possess have all been obtained from Greek monasteries. Again : if in the Holy Land itself, nineteen hundred years ago, and in a time of peace, this Greek version had taken the place of the Hebrew Scriptures, even in the service of the synagogues, three events must have happened. First, a new school of Jewish expositors would have sprung up, using the new version, commenting on it, and writing in Greek. No trace of such a school exists. Philo is no exception to the rule; he was a Greek Jew of Alexandria, not a Palestinian Jew. Secondly, the Hebrew Scriptures would have utterly disappeared; instead of which, every synagogue, every library throughout the world, affords a ready contradic­ tion to Dr Roberts’s theory. Lastly, the traditional interpretation of the Hebrew text might have been lost” (page 92). I received many thanks for introducing the instruc­ tive and well-written paper of Mr Newton to my brethren. “ So then,” said Dr Marcus, “ it devolved upon a scholar of the medical profession to expose these arguifications of Dr Roberts, which have turned the tide of belief in England! But why should he entomb his thoughts in those ‘ Proceedings ? ’ ” “ Simply,” answers Mr P------ , “ because he had not the slightest chance of being heard by the English public, not even by theologians. He might have printed his tract, and given away a thousand copies, presenting one to each of the Reviews—the Saturday, among the rest—who were so fascinated by Dr Roberts; but he would not have been noticed by any one of them. If he had written a book as large as Dr Roberts’s, and made up his mind to throw away £100 for the benefit of printers and publishers, some notice of it would have appeared, but not with the unctuous �Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. 39 compliments paid to the genius of Dr Roberts; and there is no public in England who would have bought it. We have a religious world which spends vast sums in books, but it is a world which has a thorough con­ tempt for either logic or information; and it is the business of reviewers to write what pleases them and their publishers, and to pander to their small sectarianisms.” “ I think,” said Mr G------ , “ it is very much to the honour of the Philosophical Society of Liverpool that they not only heard, but printed, that valuable paper. The majority of those societies have a most unscientific dislike for the grandest questions of human thought, for the noblest problems of human history, and for all the topics even of learned and critical divines. I know one of them, of no mean fame, in which, if the reader of a paper should happen to pronounce the word Theism, he is very likely to be called to order by the president for violating the rule against theology; and if, in a purely philosophical sense, and with the greatest respect for gentlemen of that school, he should pro­ nounce the word Atheism, he is more loudly called to order for ‘giving a dog a bad name.’ Let us hope that, in another hundred years, we may have room in England for such a science as Theological and Biblical Criticism. At present, I do not think there is a journal of any kind in the country which would lay before its readers a concise account of the debate which we have all enjoyed in this and in our last meeting. And if we were silly enough to print such a report, we should have to stamp all our copies, and give them away; nor is there more than the very faintest probability that any editor would condescend to notice, or even to read it.” Mr P'------, Dr Marcus, and I, staid a short time at the vicarage after the departure of the rest. Nothing of our conversation needs to be recorded, except Mr E------ ’s account of the sentiments of his friend, Dr Jones. “He is a Welshman, a determined adherent of Dr Roberts, and expresses himself with great force �40 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of TZfw. and heat on the subject. From his point of view he puts the matter somewhat in this way. Suppose that the claims of divine commission and catholic authority made in these islands by the bishops, from Cardinal Cullen to the Colonials, were laid down thus,-—that God had appeared on earth three or four hundred years ago in the form of one of my countrymen ; that he had lived a human lifetime in Wales, a Welshman with Welshmen, among whom he had taught in their own tongue, laying the foundation of a church for all the world, and choosing only Welsh disciples: suppose that these bishops presented to me, as the title-deeds of their pedigree, power, and dignity, four little English books containing an account of the works and teachings of their Divine Founder, I should certainly ask, Where are the Welsh originals? If they replied that the Incarnate and his countrymen had in those days spoken English habitually, I should be sure they uttered falsehood. If they affirmed that the Divine Welshman had spoken only the Welsh of his day and country; that what he said had been committed to the love and loyalty of his countrymen, and by them recorded in their language; but that somehow, by pure chance and forgetfulness, every scrap of Welsh writing on the subject had disappeared, and English, by Divine Inspiration, had taken its place,—then nothing, not even a visit of God’s Mother in person, nor any miracle that she could work, would induce me to believe their story. Vainly would they point out to me how much more useful to the world were English documents than Welsh. I should feel quite sure that there had been falsehood and foul play somewhere; and every Welshman alive, with brains in his head, would agree with me. Now, if Dr Roberts is not in the right, this supposition states the truth of the case, as it stood in the time of the first great Councils.” “ Here,” said Dr Marcus, “ you seem to have a key to that amazing mystery of Hebrew infidelity, which, �Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. 41 from the days of the apostles, your Greek and Latin saints have with such affectionate piety deplored, and, with hands so murderous, punished. Do you wonder that, in their bright roll of dignitaries, they have not one authentic J ewish name 1 ” “ Is it true,” I enquired, “ that the supposition just stated describes the case of Jerome’s day, late in the fourth century, a lifetime after Eusebius 1 He tells of something more than a scrap of Hebrew documenthe savs that he saw what went in Palestine for the original Hebrew, ‘ quod vocatur a plerisque Matthasi authenticum,’ of the first Gospel.” “ Yes,” answered Dr Marcus, “ and he translated it into Greek! There seems to have been little need to do that, if it was the true Hebrew original of your translated Greek Matthew. How comes it to pass that neither the Hebrew, which he says he found current and saw, nor the Greek version which he says Tie made of it, has been permitted to come down to us ? Not a single line of either is known to exist, or was ever heard of! Has there been no falsehood nor foul play of those Greek and Latin saints and fathers, think you? Jerome was a most learned scholar, employed by a learned pope to hunt for such documents; and they had all power to preserve and to destroy, all power both of burking and forging. Our libraries are crowded with ponderous folios of their day. Dr Manning could inform us, because ‘ I was there,’ who it was that with his holy poker punched that Hebrew Gospel in the same fire with Jerome’s Greek transla­ tion of it.” Cboft Rectory, near Warrington, Jan. 24, 1874. TURNBULL AND Bl'EARS, PRINTERS EDINBURGH. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; 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> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of view. Part II Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kirkman, Thomas Penyngton Description An account of the resource Place of publication: London Collation: 41 p. ; 18 cm. Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed by Turnbull and Spears, Edinburgh. Tentative date of publication from KVK. Dated: Croft Rectory, near Warrington, Jan. 24, 1874 [p. 41]. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Thomas Scott Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [1874?] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context G5477 Subject The topic of the resource Judaism Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <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 (Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of view. Part II), 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> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Christianity and Other Religions Conway Tracts Judaism