1
10
26
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/7bf0a030e74da5e5be9374ecf5f8aed8.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=r2pP3oO65fHJtRO-CozuqbquF8SKBiOmRdUh%7EVi8%7EAI-miASw-xxhdsWExDh2NPUK4n%7EJnfuwfBsG9vfsDoiGwLH3K7agktN6-AyFaiiSWtSyEN2eGsdsAp4IO%7EvAgX11Fv-EZTZk%7EkCCXyTz0hZ6vbxS-YSqk00mH2dIS2CRJcm-9hJE-kBQR14%7EXL55iyjJI0tP1lvnhFbrXte6ckkcq6CH0OErWnnCqiv%7EQUEY3tGZ5ZU9o3LAzWJDe2V-uFoiezrsWWgechq--qUlLFipkESsPIC2UncWY%7EocanrnNadNMfbgwQMFTCNJaiVaPdRvmuMMsdEODd8n6JJe2yhOA__&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withdrawn them from further delivery as Public Lectures.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 & 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/23765808c223e72274536a6b435e339d.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=BXxoEXzb7yQKinnemEDOfoElAelv-m91w4oFLavppHIe3AROpg6jOPUxsCuJmEepSsMoRBsdhJcEneXp2K9zLZgba5AL6L6bK4ube%7EHw2QKGeeZQIqF5sHOZ8-BH20p0bKNuWjLVCGG6LzspgywSgtv9cSe8g0Vlpn3D0Sxua1TqQfvMv561S8p4%7E6j8Lszqas9kQGYmq0oUofuV9m01NNBsC9a9B9%7E-z1F1OJ%7EqAJ38BFQbS%7E-dtzCNMd9TI5K4JvEDjyjUizvlfVNBAAzzU5fK3BlUj-6oAseEXf3E%7EwhXAMAliSIgFbGVXl4TyDtZXgZ62FEmE1-GuVwgL4vH9A__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
489cfc27fd61bb92ac3f8e61a5ddb381
PDF Text
Text
SCEPTICISM
AND
SOCIAL JUSTICE.
BY
THOS. HORLOCK BASTARD.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
MOUNT PLEASANT,
RAMSGATE.
Price Threepence.
��SCEPTICISM AND SOCIAL
JUSTICE.
HE time seems clearly to have arrived when
something ought to be settled between the two
parties now admitted to exist—one upholding the
inspiration of the Old and Hew Testaments, and the
other denying it—as to the position which each party
is entitled to hold, and the social rights and interests
that each may claim. Much difficulty will arise
before the matter can be properly adjusted ; but the
necessity for it has become obvious, if justice to both
parties alike is to be observed.
The case, as it stands, may be briefly stated as
follows : Up to a certain period, we have been his
torically taught that the writings known as the Holy
Scriptures were—as to the Old Testament by the Jews,
and as to the Old and New Testaments by Christians—
received as having emanated by inspiration from the
supernatural power, named and described in both
Testaments as Grod; and this teaching was almost
universally acquiesced in throughout what was known
as the Christian world. In this matter, indeed, until
a comparatively late period, there was little option
allowed, for such were the severe laws against all
doubt on the subject that no open questioning of the
T
�8
*■
Scepticism and Social "Justice.
the opinions of these writers to be not well founded,
in order that those who think so may still, if they
can, prove such to be the case. I only desire to
state so much as will, in my judgment, show what
constitutes a fair justification of the opinions held by
free-thinkers, and what they have a right in justice
to demand both from the national laws and from
society. The believers in inspiration have, by their
mere numbers, and by social and clerical support,
hitherto stood on vantage ground, which has per
mitted them with impunity most unjustly to de
nounce, and force into hypocritical silence, those who
have, by honest investigation, arrived at the conclu
sion that the works composing the Bible could only
have been written by men, whose knowledge was
derived from worldly experience alone ; and the main
object now to be attained is to settle whether the
former have any right to a supremacy for their
opinions, and to prevent the latter from holding and
expressing theirs.
I have not mentioned works by foreign writers,
such as those of Spinoza, Strauss, Renan, and others,
as not likely to have been read by the generality of
English people, and I also pass over those works I
have referred to, which are written in a deeply argu
mentative style, and thus not likely to be attractive
to, and make an impression on, common readers; but
coming to those of a more popular description, and
of recent date, I take up first the ‘ Task of To-day,’
by Major Evans Bell, an officer of some repute in the
East Indian Service. This work was published in
1852, at a price which made it widely accessible, and
is written in a style so plain and popular that it is
suited to the comprehension of all classes of readers.
It calmly examines the statements of the Scripture
records relating to the creation, miracles, and pro
phecies of the Old Testament, compares them with
statements in the Koran, so similar that they give
�Scepticism and Social Justice.
9
the appearance of a common origin, and points out
startling discrepancies and errors that seem palpably
inconsistent with what must have been dictated by
unerring wisdom. It also criticises in the same
manner the New Testament, which the writer’s argu
ments tend to show is open to charges of inaccu
racies, errors, and incredibilities, as equally unbeliev
able to have emanated from divine knowledge, as
those of the Old Testament; and the whole book is
written in a strain so telling that it can hardly fail to
lead a large number of readers to acquiescence in its
views. Now if the arguments and reasoning of this
author proceed from false grounds and are calcu
lated to be harmful, how can those whose duty it is
to prevent readers from being misled, and who pro
fess to have the full requisite information for the
purpose, leave his work unrefuted ? I come next to
a book by an anonymous writer, entitled, ‘A Was I
Hind,’ or a ‘ Voice from the Ganges,’ and published in
1861. It is of much the same character as the ‘ Task
of To-day,’ in regard to popularity of style, but it
concerns itself only with the New Testament, in
which the author alleges, with great plainness, are
to be found wrong translations, misinterpretations,
and even interpolations, tending to stagger belief
in its authenticity, as a book written under know
ledge inspired by God. He also points out such
variations and contradictory statements, between
the different Gospel writers, that it makes the whole
book look like fiction; and thus we have another
forcible work, which, if the views instilled by the
author are wrong and groundless, is calculated seri
ously to mislead, and therefore ought to be refuted.
It would take up too much space to particularise
Separately, even in a brief way, all the other works I
have named, but I must state that in that popular
work, the ‘ Constitution of Man,’ by George Combe,
and in ‘ Science and Religion,’ another of his works,
�io
Scepticism and Social Justice.
he plainly demonstrates that a force has been given
to the laws of nature which supersedes the necessity
of their being supplemented by revealed laws ; that
Mr J. S. Mill’s work on ‘Liberty’ contends not only
for freedom to think, but freedom to utter opinions
on matters affecting religious faith, as well as on
secular subjects ; that in ‘ Philo.—Socrates,’ by Mr
William Ellis, the propriety .of making the Old and
New Testaments schoolbooks is questioned on account
of their bad morality; that the ‘ Essays and Reviews ’
(mostly written by clergymen), the works of Professor
F. W. Newman, the Rev. Professor Baden Powell, and
others resort to criticisms of the Bible greatly tend
ing to shake faith in it, and go far to set the intellect,
as a guide to conduct, above Revelation; and, lastly,
that all these publications are written in a style
suited to the comprehension of people of ordinary
intelligence, and the more, therefore, require refuta
tion, if their reasonings lead to unsound views of the
Bible.
I now proceed to notice the numerous publications
that have been issued by Mr Thomas Scott, of Rams
gate. To give a list of them even would require no
small space, and some of them are, perhaps, not very
important. But this cannot be said of such serious
and carefully written treatises as ‘ The English Life
of Jesus,’ with its attack on the credibility of the
Gospel narrative, and another entitled ‘ The Errors
and Discrepancies and Contradictions of the Gospel
Records,’ both of which are by Mr Scott; or of those
treatises written by Presbyter Anglicanus on ‘ Eternal
Punishment;’ by R. W. Mackay (the author of ‘The
Progress of the Intellect ’) on ‘ The Eternal Gospel;’
by Mr John Robertson, of Coupar Angus, on ‘The
Finding of the Book,’ and other subjects ; by Mr
Rathbone Greg on ‘ Truth and Edificationby Dr
Hinds, late Bishop of Norwich, on ‘ The Free Dis
cussion of Religious Subjects ’—a very dispassionate
�Scepticism and Social 'Justice.
11
essay—or of several others which are of great
importance to free inquiry. But I must stop here,
although I could add many more to the list by men
of weight and position, and all written in a style and
manner likely to attract the serious attention of those
who peruse them.
However lightly these treatises may be held by
those who are opposed to their teachings, and to any
question of revelation being raised—foremost amongst
whom, of course, are the clergy—it should be borne
in mind that their issues are plainly stated, and they
are written in a perfectly calm tone of investigation
and truth-seeking, which entitles them to respectful
discussion. Further, that they are very numerous,
and, by Mr Scott’s liberality, have a wide circulation
amongst all classes of the people; and if their
teachings are false, and can be controverted, it is the
duty of divines of all sects to perform this labour,
whilst their omission to do so leads to the natural
inference, that it is a task they fear to undertake.
With regard to Bishop Colenso’s works, it surely
cannot be necessary to do more than refer to the
reception they met with, and the extraordinary inte
rest they excited, in order to show the importance
which has been attached to them by the public. But
has not their grand result been to diminish the
number of believers in inspiration ? And what have
the clergy put forth to weaken the position the Bishop
takes up, beyond the treatise published by Dr McCaul,
which I have never heard regarded as being in the
slightest degree successful ?
Having glanced at the writings of a large number
of authors who have questioned the inspiration of
the Scriptures, and in support of their doubts have
given reasons the value of which may be weighed
and discussed; and having strong grounds for
believing that, in the absence of any convincing
proofs of the fallacy of these works, their teachings
�12
Scepticism and Social 'Justice.
have made a profound impression on a very large
and intelligent portion of the public, the grave ques
tions arise of how long this state of things is to con
tinue ? and what are henceforth to be the legal and
social rights of those persons who have come to the
conclusion that the Old and New Testaments were
not written under any supernatural inspiration ? At
present the latter are prevented from an open and
candid avowal of their sentiments by fear of the ill
consequences it may bring on their social positions
and worldly prospects ; and, where their sentiments
are suspected, they have to lie under a sort of stigma
on their characters, for which, I contend, there is no
justification, unless their honesty is doubted, since
mere error in judgment, in the views they have formed
on the Bible statements and narratives, cannot be a
sin. On the contrary, the fault rests with their
opponents, who are quite confident of being in the
right, and yet have failed to prove it.
As I have before stated, I do not wish to make
this a vehicle of attack on the Scriptures, or on those
holding what are termed orthodox views ; but I must
give some illustration of the difficulties of sceptics,
as shown in the works I have cited. For instance,
in Genesis there are two distinct accounts of the
creation of woman, which are perfectly at variance
with each other, and both cannot be right. Then,
according to the description given of the world—
the little planet in which we live—it is flat, with a
firmament above, in which the stars are fixed as
lights to it, and heaven is above the whole, whilst
the sun is made to revolve round the earth as a sort
of appendage to it, like the moon; and both the sun
and stars are treated as subservient to the uses of
this planet alone. Added to this we find allusions to
ascending to heaven, and descending to hell, which
are obviously inconsistent with a round and rapidly
revolving body like the world. Now in regard to the
�Scepticism and Social "Justice.
i3
double creation of woman, it is unintelligible how
Such could have proceeded from inspired wisdom ;
and it is equally difficult to conceive that the accounts
pf the creation, as well as those of the flood and the
ark—so utterly at variance with what science has
disclosed to us as possible—could have been written
under the inspiration of all-wise and unerring God.
And, contemplating also God as all-just and conscien
tious, many other difficulties arise to the thinker,
such as, in the Old Testament, the glaring immorali
ties related without condemnation or censure, and, in
the New Testament, the variations and wonderful
discrepancies of the Gospel narratives. But I forbear
from particularising in a way that may be painful to
unhesitating believers in inspiration, my only object
in entering so far into details being to show the
justification which sceptics have for their opinions in
the absence of all corrective explanation.
Attempts have sometimes been made by clergymen
to put down sceptical writings by asserting that
their arguments are only a repetition of old ones
that have been effectively replied to over and over
again; but this must be of little avail, without
stating where the replies are to be found,—and this
they fail to do. Other clergymen dispose of the
matter shortly, by declaring that they never read
such works, of course, from fear of their contaminating
influence. But can one who ought to be fortified
by the fullest theological knowledge be justified in
allowing it to be supposed that he can be thus
affected ? And is he not above all men bound to be
aware of, and ready to meet, all sceptical attacks ?
Let me put this case to a clergyman, who would so
evade this important subject. One of his flock,—
say an intelligent young man or woman,—having
read Colenso’s or some similar work, and having had
his or her previous faith in inspiration thereby shaken,
and peace of mind disturbed, and attributing this to
�14
Scepticism and Social "Justice.
inability to discover the fallibility of the writer’s
arguments, goes to his or her minister for help. Is
the latter justified in replying to such applicants that
he does not read works of the kind, because of their
evil tendency, and simply advising their being
eschewed ? Surely he cannot in this easy way
expect to remove the difficulties of reflecting persons
who seek his aid, and who thus must leave him with
all the facts and information they have acquired still
oppressing their minds. The clergyman is the
religious teacher and helper, to whom any one of his
flock has as much right to apply for assistance as he
or she would, in a case of illness, or legal difficulty,
to apply to a doctor or lawyer ; and would either of
the latter be justified in replying, that “ yours is a
case with which I do not feel called on to make
myself acquainted F ” *
I have now endeavoured to show how matters
stand between the two parties, one believing, and the
other disbelieving in the inspiration of the Bible; and
assuming that both have arrived at their opinions by
honest investigation, there remains to be considered
the question, whether the former are justified in
assuming their opinions to be so indisputably right
as to warrant them in pronouncing the latter to be
not only wrong, but sinful, for the opinions which
they hold, and therefore not entitled to the full
enjoyment of the same rights, privileges, and
advantages as themselves. Are there any grounds
for the assumption of such an arbitrary authority to
be found in the notion that it is not permissible to
apply intelligence and reason to the consideration of
matters of religious faith ? If this position be allowed,
then what are the means by which we can understand
* I hope I may not be understood as making attacks on the charac
ters of the clergy. I have had too large an acquaintance with them
not to be aware of the integrity which distinguishes them as a class,
and my observations in the text are intended only to indicate what
appears to me to be their error respecting free inquiry into Biblical
matters.
�Scepticism and Social Justice.
J5
what is written in the Bible, and ascertain in what
to have faith, since it is only through our intellectual
powers that we can know anything at all of the
meaning of its words ? If it be asserted that religious
faith can be arrived at without using these powers,
it may as well be said that it is possible to make a
religious being of an idiot, or even (may the absurdity
be excused) of a cow, or an oyster. No, no. God
gave us our intelligent and discerning powers to
enable us, when facts and information are presented
to our minds, to distinguish right from wrong, and
thereby to learn our duties, and how properly to
conduct ourselves in all the relations of life. Besides,
people cannot choose their opinions, and be of this
or that opinion in obedience to will; for according as
facts and data are presented to the mind, so must
inevitably be the conclusions, and consequent opinions,
which it is as impossible to avoid coming to, as it is
to keep back the tide with a mop. Ignorance may
have no opinion, but knowledge dictates opinion.
I submit that as the right of private judgment is
conceded, without any limitation, to Protestants, they
are fully at liberty to read and study all works bear
ing on the Bible in any way, whether upholding it as
emanating from God, or whether questioning the
accuracy of its statements and the possibility of their
having been derived from the inspiration of a super
natural power. Further, that whatever opinions
Protestants may thus be led to form, they have a
right to hold and also to utter ; and that, supposing
such opinions to be erroneous, the only just method
of proving them to be so is by argumentative refuta
tion. I hold it to be an outrage on justice that any
person, to whom the right of private judgment has
been granted, should be subjected to punishment, as
is still possible under old unrepealed laws, or to
social hardships, on account of his or her opinions,
on any other ground than that of dishonesty ; and,
�16
Scepticism and Social Justice.
further, that the assumption by any one, whatever
may be his station, to say to another, in a matter
open to free discussion, “ I am right, and you are
wrong,” without proving it, and the using of any
power with which the former may be invested, to the
prejudice of the latter, ought to be treated as a grave
offence against justice and morality. It is in the
arbitrary exercise of such power, and in denouncing
such sceptical works, as I have specially alluded to,
without first refuting them, that the clergy have
placed themselves in a very false position, and exposed
themselves to charges of injustice. Unfortunately a
large portion of the community, who may be said
rather to adopt conclusions than to arrive at them by
reasoning, continue to support the clergy in the arbi
trary repression of all opinions on Biblical matters
contrary to their own, and thus have been instru
mental in enforcing silence on their opponents, with
the simple result of engendering a very unwholesome
hypocrisy in many of the latter. There is a floating
notion that no one in this country suffers for opinion ;
but it is pretty well known that some, who have been
unable to conceal their sceptical views, have been
excluded from offices on this account, and it is only
recently that a witness, however respectable, who
objected to substantiate his oath by swearing on the
Old or New Testament, has been allowed to make a
simple affirmation, whilst the oath of a witness of
the. most abandoned character was always receivable.
It is still the case that many writers of heterodox
views are prevented, by family or social reasons, from
signing their names to what they write ; and to these
sufferers for opinion may well be added a very nume
rous and increasing class of persons engaged in pro
fessions and business, who are disbelievers in inspira
tion, but, having families dependent on them, dare
not confess their opinions, and are forced to live
under the constant oppression of conscientious insin-
�Scepticism and Social Justice.
17
cerity, with what advantage to Church and State I
leave others to pronounce.
I must now add a few brief remarks on a new
phase of the foregoing subject. Circumstances have
delayed the completion of this publication, and in
the meantime I have become acquainted with the
effort, which the clergy have at last made, to stem
the tide of scepticism and free-thinking by publishing
the work entitled the ‘ New Bible Commentary,’
which has the advantage of having been written or
sanctioned by an Archbishop and seven Bishops, and
other clergy of high position. The publication has,
it seems, been seven years in preparation ; and here one
might have expected a complete and unanswerable
refutation of all grounds for scepticism, and especially
was it to be expected that all such works as I have
alluded to would have been dealt with, and their errors
clearly demonstrated. Instead of this, however, this
production of the most eminent of the clergy seems
directed only to fortifying those who accept the
traditional interpretation of the Bible, without any
verification of its narratives and statements, and the
first critics of the work are able to show its failures
and weakness. An examination of it by Bishop
Colenso has quickly appeared, charging the authors
with evasion of the main difficulties of the question,
and pointing out mistakes, false reasonings, and even
unworthy quibbles, which, if not replied to, must, in
the eyes of the vulgar, deprive the work of all
respect. This has been followed by some other pub
lications, and by reviews in several of the London
and Edinburgh newspapers, which are pretty severe
in their handling of this famous commentary, whilst
others in a similar strain are spoken of, and, in its
results, the work seems to be of little avail in attack
ing the errors of sceptics.
Two very important matters, however, have been
brought under consideration by the publication of
�18
Scepticism and Social 'Justice.
this Bible Commentary. First, it is an admission
that the translations and meanings of the words of
the Bible are open to discussion and examination by
our intelligent and reasoning powers. Secondly, it is
a yielding up of the plenary part of inspiration,
inasmuch as it gives a meaning quite new, according
to previous clerical teaching, of those words of the
Bible which state that “the world was created in six
days,” by adopting the hypothesis of Hugh Miller
that these “ days ” were, in fact, not periods of
twenty-four hours, as common people suppose from
the Bible words—aye, and as children were un
doubtedly taught by clergymen to interpret the
words, when I was at school—but “ vast geological
periods.” Now, here we have from the clergy them
selves a new version of the sense in which the Bible
is to be understood, showing that reason may be used
in examining the meanings of its words ; and if this
be allowed, then free-thinkers and sceptics can no
longer be justly blamed and denounced for forming
opinions adverse to inspiration, which are founded
on reason; and if certain words in the Bible are not
to be understood in the sense accorded to them by
common acceptation, as the clergy heretofore did
teach us they were to be, then such teaching was
wrong, our spiritual teachers admit themselves to
have been in error, and we have now to consider how
far the clergy may also be in error in teaching us to
accept, in their literal sense, other words of the
Bible.
From what precedes this my own opinion on inspi
ration may easily be inferred, but the question has
occurred to me whether I ought, or not, plainly to
avow it, and having come to an affirmative conclusion,
on the simple ground of candour, I now state that the
readings and reflections of my youth, middle age, and
old age—for I can refer to all three of those periods
—have led me to the assurance that the Old and New
�Scepticism and Social 'Justice.
*9
Testaments are wholly the works of erring man, and
not of all-wise and all-conscientious God. The ten
dency to this opinion began at a very early period,
and well do I recollect what a source of trouble it
was for years, from a sort of undefined impression
that, on such an important subject, it was wrong to
entertain opinions contrary to what I had been taught,
and to what were generally held around me. To
counteract my supposed error, I procured first Paley’s
works, with which I was dissatisfied, because they
only proved design. I next took up Chalmers’s ‘ Evi
dences of Christianity,’ but this work increased my
doubts, since, in my judgment, it only showed that a
person named Jesus existed at a certain time, but
afforded no evidence of his divinity; and I then deter
mined not to think of the subject, but just to go
regularly to church, which I did for a certain time.
Later a pious friend put into my hands a work of
Bishop Horne’s, in which I found as little assistance
as I did from Paley and Chalmers, and I have ever
since been waiting for something more forcible to
appear. Instead of this, works of a contrary descrip
tion have been multiplying, until the climax arrived
in the publication of sceptical opinions by divines, and
most of them members of the Church of England
itself. Eirst came the ‘ Essays and Reviews,’ then
the works of Bishop Colenso, with those of Bishop
Hinds, Dr Davidson, and others of great weight,
scarcely any of which have been replied to, except in
terms of denunciation ; and I must also now include
the ‘ Speaker’s Commentary,’ under the highest
clerical sanction and authority, in which we are told
that one word is not to be read according to its literal
meaning, but in the scientific sense given to it by
geologists, the natural inference being that there
must be also other words to be read by the light of
science, and, of course, of reason. In fact, for solving
the doubts of inquiring minds relative to the Bible
�20
Scepticism and Social Justice.
having been written under inspiration, no solid assist
ance has yet been afforded by either clergy or laity.
I now conclude with referring to the point with,
which I commenced, that it is time the social positions
of believers and disbelievers in inspiration were
settled on some fair basis; and, on behalf of the
latter, I claim that they should not only be freed
from all stigmas and disadvantages on account of
their opinions, but esteemed according to their merits,
morally viewed, and allowed to hold all positions of
honour and trust, as members of the State, equally
with the former. And lastly, I appeal to the clergy
especially, and to all others who are confident of
their power argumentatively to sustain the divine
inspiration of the Bible, either to come forward, and
show before the tribunals of common sense and justice
that they are right, and we, who have been guided in
our opinions by the teachings of the works I have
cited, or by our own reflections, are wrong, or other
wise to admit us to be entitled to a full share of all
social rights and privileges, and henceforth to let us
be honest and frank.
PROPOSAL.
In the preceding part I have endeavoured to show
that Sceptics and Free-thinkers are fully justified
in the views they hold respecting what is called
Revelation and Inspiration, inasmuch as they are
supported by a large number of serious and thoughtful
men and writers, both of the past and present periods,
whose talents, honour, and judgment have not been
impugned, and whose writings and arguments have
hitherto been met only by denials and denunciations. I
have also indicated the actual wrongs which some
�Scepticism and Social Justice.
21
persons suffer for their known, or supposed, sceptical
views, and the painful positions in which many are
placed by the forced concealment of their real opi
nions on inspiration.
Under these circumstances, and taking into con
sideration that the number of men and women who
claim the right of free and independent thought and
opinion, in religious as well as secular matters, is
become very large,—so large, indeed, that they may
be counted by thousands,—and that they are injuri
ously affected by the unfair prejudices to which they
are subjected,—
I PROPOSE
That steps be taken to form a Society, having for
its main objects the maintenance of the Right of
Private Judgment in its full integrity, together with
the right to hold and express opinions on religious
as freely as on secular subjects, and the protection of
its members from injurious attacks on their characters,
or obstacles opposed to their private or social inte
rests, on account of their opinions.
I do not suggest any working details, because it
is first necessary to ascertain whether a nucleus can
be found of a body ready to adopt the above, or any
similar principles, as the basis of a Society.
THOS. HORLOCK BASTARD.
Charlton Marshall, Blandford,
Marc7i, 1872.
�The following Pamphlets and Papers may be had on addressing
a letter enclosing the price in postage stamps to Mr Thomas
Sc/jtt, Mount Pleasant, Ramsgate.
Modern Protestantism. By the Author of “ The Philosophy of Necessity ” 6d
A Reply to the Question, “ Apart from Supernatural Revelation wh it
is the Prospect of Man’s Living after Death ? ” By Samuel Hinds,
D.D., late Lord Bishop of Norwich. Price 6d.
Tree and Serpent Worship. Price 6d.
A Review of a Pamphlet, entitled, “ The Present Dangers of the Church of Erm-hmd ”
By W. G. Clark, M. A., Vice-Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. Price fid
The Twelve Apostles. Price 6d.
°
The Bible for Man, not Man for the Bible. By a Country Vicar. Pri« 6d
Is Death the end of all things for Man ? By a Parent and a Teacher'
Price 6a.
On the Infidelity of Orthodoxy. By the Rev. Thomas Kirkman, M.A.,
F.R.S. In Three Parts. Price 6d. each Part.
The Finding of the Book. By John Robertson, Coupar-Angus. Price 2s
On Moral Evil. By Rev. Chas. Voysey. Price fid.
The Claims of Christianity to the Character of a Divine Revelation
Considered. By W. Jevons. Price fid.
*
The Unity of the Faith among all Nations. By a Padre of the Esta.
bdished Church. Price 6d.
Clergymen made Scarce. A Letter to the Bishop of London, by a Presbyter.
X- rice oa.
On the Efficacy of Opinion in Matters of Religion. By the Rev. W R
Worthington, M.A. Price 6d.
j
. .
Sacred History as a Branch of Elementary Education. Part I.—Its
H'fluence on the Intellect. Price fid. Part II.—Its Influence on the Development
of the Conscience. Price 6d.
On Religion. By a Former Elder in a Scotch Church. Price 6d.
Ihe Nature and Origin of Evil. A Letter to a Friend, hy Samuel Wds,
D.D., late Lord Bishop of Norwich. Price 6d.
A.I. Conversations. Recorded by a Woman, for Women. Parts I. and II. Price
fid. each Part.
The Passion for Intellectual Freedom. By Edward Maitland. Price 6d.
Reason versus Authority. By W. O. Carr Brook. Price 3d.
An Appeal to the Preachers of all the Creeds. By Gamaliel Brown. 3d.
The Voysey Case. By Moncure D. Conway. Price 6d.
Realities. By P. A. Taylor, M.P.
On the Causes of Atheism. By F. W. Newman. With Portrait. Price f<
The Bible ; Is it The Word of God ? ” By T. L. Strange, late Judge of the High
Court of Madras. Price 6d.
°
®
A Woman’s Letter. Price 3d.
-A-n
in t111! History of Religious Liberty. By Rev. Chas. Voysey.
With Portrait. Price 6d.
Thirty-Nine Questions on the Thirty-Nine Articles. By Rev. J. Page
Hopps. With Portrait, Price 3d.
Intellectual Liberty. By John Robertson. Price fid.
J. he Spiritual Serfdom of the Laity. By Moncure D. Conway. With
Portrait. Price fid.
Theology of the Past and the Future. By M. Kalisch, Ph.D. Reprinted
from Part I. of his Commentary on Leviticus. With Portrait. Price Is.
1 he divergence of Calvinism from Pauline Doctrines. By Prof. F. W. New
man. Price 3d.
The Doctrine of Immortality in its Bearing on Education. By “PresBYTER Anglicanus.” Price fid.
The Judgment of the Committee of Council in the Case of Mr Voysey.
Some remarks by J. D. La Touche, Vicar of Stokesay, Salop. Price 3d.
a challenge to the Members of the Christian Evidence Society. By
Ihos. Scott.
�
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 & 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
Scepticism and social justice
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Bastard, Thomas Horlock
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: Ramsgate
Collation: 21, [1] p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Publisher's list on unnumbered page at the end. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
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
1872
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
CT167
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 (Scepticism and social justice), 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
Subject
The topic of the resource
Bible
Scepticism
Bible
Conway Tracts
Scepticism
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/13141d5fa359a5ff4a38e22179548101.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=v8gfX8vv7-9B82g%7EfDIVdVTGp3Pwm96Sb%7EGgzloYBXrQ1ICY5waYKMpTs-HvJsNBb%7EXGy57bAX07e5r7Kk1fWXrd%7Ehs--QxD3SI23-UUKp6LZBW-lZ98%7E5vZ99HilGm9AZ7-D1i-0VG%7Ezb6MW-QsjrtCFDiJ%7E6lyC84HEdlz0cW97di4SrrQl8ihUbZbC07VHe-umadljMPN7U8rGVNKvTv1AFBhUlRDz2Afl1yLtkQAoSSy4UtwLomjlRErfR%7EQyGb5LuwlAhW2vyRp-fTtAZcJTg3WUYi7sM-Dn5obRn1ydumazDXq1BFKbY3UODO7YnqxbLGf2%7E9NXa3a5m3Opg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
ce7197f707d6cf886ca11064aec4efae
PDF Text
Text
8 z^'2-03
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
BIBLICAL BIOLOGY.
A CONTRIBUTION TO RELIGIOUS NON-SCIENCE.
---------- -----------By ANNIE BESANT.
---------- *----------
t “ Avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of
science, falsely so-called.”—1 Tim. vi., 20.
In these later days, when science is carrying devastation
into the land of faith, and godless education is everywhereoffering the fruit of the tree of knowledge to the children
of men, it behoves those who still cling to the faith once
delivered to the saints to offer such small aid as they may
in defending the citadel of Christianity, the Holy Bible,
against its foes. And above all things is it necessary to
know thoroughly what is in the Bible, so that those who
“ turn the Bread of Life into stones to cast against their
enemies ” may not suddenly shoot one out of an unsuspected
catapult. Let us search the Scriptures, as did the noble
Bereans, and we shall be rewarded by discovering therein
biological facts that we shall never find if we confine our
selves to works written by mere uninspired scientific men.
And, first, let us reject with indignation the idea that
the Bible is not written to teach us science. All that is in
the Bible is written “for our learning” (Bom. xv., 4),
and if scientific statements are made therein they must be
made for our instruction. It is not conceivable that when.
“ holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy
Ghost” (2 Peter i., 21) they spake wrong. The very
thought is blasphemy, and must be at once rejected by
every reverent mind. How should we be able to trust the
Bible in its revelations about heaven if we refuse to credit
its revelations about earth ? If it is worthy our faith in
celestial matters, surely we may believe it in matters*
terrestrial. If it is to be our guide to eternal, much more
must it be our guide to temporal, truths. Surely no one
�2
BIBLICAL BIOLOGY.
will be foolish enough to accept a light to his feet and a
lamp to his paths (see Ps. cxix., 105) if that light is delu
sive on the road along which he walks, and only throws a
glare on the far-off mountains beyond the river of death ?
No! Against all such “oppositions of science falsely
so-called” let us set our faces as flint (see Isa. 1., 7).
Give up one of these precious words, and we give up all.
If God has not “at sundry times and in divers manners ”
spoken “in times past unto the fathers by the prophets”
how can we be sure that he “hath in these last days spoken
unto us by his Son” (Heb. i., 1, 2)? Rather let us
‘ ‘ receive with meekness the engrafted word which is able
to save” our “ souls” (James i., 21), and thank God, who
has hidden these things from the wise and prudent Darwins
and Huxleys, and has revealed them unto babes (see
Matt, xi., 25).
Gen. i. contains some biological facts of great interest
and novelty. Herein we learn that trees brought forth
fruit, and herbs yielded seed, and the earth brought forth
grass, before the sun existed to “ divide the day from^he
night” (verses 11—14). These were the first living things
that existed on the earth. At that time there was no ani
mal life in existence ; no sound of life broke the silence of
those vast woods; for two days the vegetable world tri
umphed in security; no snail smeared the delicate fronds
of the fern ; no caterpillar ate the dainty new-born leaves;
no sparrow pecked the cherry ; no blackbird feasted on the
strawberry. Dogmatic science asserts that these grasses
and herbs and fruit-trees could not have brought forth
their seeds and fruits without the sunrays, but Genesis
knows better. Foolhardy science produces miserable pieces
of rock, containing fossil animals older than any plants,
and sets them against our glorious revelation. But are
men moles or rabbits, that they should burrow in the earth
and bring out these deceiving pebbles which God merci
fully hid out of sight, clearly showing that he intended
them to be out of mind ? Far better leave the earth as
God made it, and live on the surface, where God placed us.
The fossils cannot injure the moles, whereas it is plain
that they are a serious danger to a child-like faith. Are we
not told that except we 1 ‘ become as little children ” we “ shall
not enter into the kingdom of heaven ” (Matt, xviii., 3),
and I ask you, as sensible persons, “ I speak as to wise
�BIBLICAL BIOLOGY.
O'
0'
men, judge ye what I say” (1 Cor. x., 15), would any
child you ever heard of trouble its little head about Terebratula biplicata, Thecodontosaurus, Pterodactylus crassirostris, Noeggerathia cuneifolia, Homalonotus Delphinocephalas, Gorgonia infundibuliformis ? Would not the
mere names be enough to bring on croup ? And if we are
to become as little children, is it not clear that creatures
possessing names of this description are, by the merciful
dispensation of Providence, stamped as utterly inappropriate
to our present state ?
There is one beautiful suggestion, it would be going too
far to call it thought, of a man of God, which the truly
pious may well ponder over. It is this. Perhaps God
created the earth, just as it is, full of fossils, placing these
apparent records of the past out of the sight of simple
people, but ready to entrap the carnal geologist, as it is
written: “He taketh the wise in their own craftiness”
(1 Cor. iii., 19). Who can say that fossils are not among
the means prophesied of by Paul when he says that “ God.
shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe
a lie : that they all might be damned ” (2 Thess. ii., 11) ?
At any rate, no one ever alleges that people will be damned
for refusing to believe in fossils, while if Christianity be
true, people may be damned for believing them, and it is
surely wiser to be on the safe side. Possils would be no
consolation in hell, especially as they would probably all
become metamorphic rocks.
It is most interesting and comforting to know that GocI
gave man and woman ‘1 dominion over the fish of the sea,
and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing
that moveth upon the earth ” (Gen. i., 23). It is a little
difficult, perhaps, for a man to exercise this dominion when
his log is seized by a shark, or his body is carried off by a
tiger ; but doubtless if he reminded the animals of Gen. i.,
28, they would at once mend their ways, and restore his
property.
Gen. ii., 21, 22, are verses that have been the source of
wide-spread error—I mean of divine correction of so-called
science. Adam clearly went through life short of one rib,
and it has been generally supposed that his sons have in
herited this peculiarity, and that man has normally an
uneven number of ribs, twelve on one side and eleven on
the other, thus affording a beautiful hereditary proof of
�4
BIBLICAL BIOLOGY.
ancestral generosity. This pious faith has been rudely
shaken by the study of anatomy, and by the unpleasant
discovery that the number of male ribs is not odd; it now
exists only, I fear, in country villages where science classes
under South Kensington have not yet exerted their sceptic
making influence, and where people do not enquire too
curiously into their internal arrangements.
Gen. iii. presents us with a pleasant picture of inter
course with the lower animals before the fall of our first
parents brought sin into the world. What does scientific
zoology know of a talking serpent ? Can any scientist of
to-day pretend that he has ever met with a specimen able
to talk? Yet this remarkable snake talked with great
effect, and we owe to his well-directed eloquence the
inestimable blessing by which, as God said, “ the man is
become as one of us, to know good and evil” (v. 22). The
serpent in question was remarkable in ways other than his
gift of speech. After God had cursed him, he went about
as snakes do now, but before that he progressed on his
back, or his head, or his tail, in a manner since become as
old-fashioned as the minuet.
The tree of knowledge of good and evil, and the tree of
life, are plants quite beyond the reach of modern botany.
It would have been a priceless blessing for mankind if
Adam and Eve had smuggled some cuttings of these out
of the garden, for knowledge now has to be painfully
acquired, while life closes when experience has brought its
highest utility. It is, perhaps, comforting to know that
in the middle of the street of the throne of God and of the
Lamb, and on either side of the river, there is a tree of
life (Rev. xxii., 1, 2), which bears a different sort of fruit
every month—proving incidentally how very much horti
culture has advanced in that neighborhood—but the
thought intrudes, despite all effort, that we could dispense
with the tree of life after we have risen to immortality,
while it would be invaluable to us as mortals here. It re
quires great faith to feel that God is good in withholding
the tree of life while it would be useful, and in giving it to
us when it will be superfluous.
Gen . xxx., 37—42, gives some suggestions which breeders
of cattle will find useful. Peeled rods of green poplar,
hazel, and chesnut will influence the color of the young
of sheep and cattle. There is no reason why they should,
�BIBLICAL BIOLOGY.
■and the whole idea is absurd, but we are assured that by
this means Jacob cheated his uncle Laban in the most
scandalous manner.
The bush which burned with fire and was not consumed
(Ex. iii., 2.) and the rod which became a serpent and then
retransformed into a rod {Ibid iv., 2—4), offer much subject
for study to the pious mind, while the kinds of dust that
became lice (ZJm? viii, 16, 17), and of ashes that became
boils {Ibid ix., 8, 10), are fortunately confined to Egypt.
The cattle that were all killed of murrain {Ibid ix., 6) and
■subsequently plagued with boils {Ibid 9), and later smitten
with hail, so that they died again {Ibid 18—25), and of
which some died a third time {Ibid xii., 29), smitten by the
Lord, and others a third time drowned in the sea {Ibid
xiv., 28) are also confined to that same curious land; in
other countries animals only die once.
Lev. xi. gives some interesting facts of animal life. Nowa-days the camel’s leg does end in two toes, although not
very obvious ones, but in Moses’ time it was not so (v. 4).
The hare that chews the cud (v. 6) has become. extinct,
though all hares have a deceptive habit of munching, and
the bat is not now classified as “ a fowl” (compare verses
13 and 19). Probably at that time the bat was not a
mammal, and it has only become one since with the obj ect
of damning the scientific biologist. The “fowls that creep,
going upon all four ” (v. 20) have also become extinct,
and have left no fossils behind them to perpetuate their
memory; four-legged fowls given to creeping are wholly
unknown. So again with the “flying creeping things
which have four feet,” and go “upon all four” (verses 23,
21), such as locusts, beetles, etc. These have six legs
now-a-days, having acquired two more since the days of
Moses, and I desire to point out to scoffing sceptics that
were it not for this blessed book these remarkable quadru
pedal birds and insects would have remained unknown.
Who after this can dare to say that the Bible makes no
■contributions to science ?
I say nothing of the pregnant suggestion contained in
the reference to the flying, creeping things that “have
legs above their feet” (v. 21). To me this verse contains a
hint that at that time there existed some four-legged birds
with feet above their legs, a peculiarity that would neces
sitate a unique anatomical re-arrangement of the appen
�6
BIBLICAL BIOLOGY.
dages, and, to our purblind eyes, seems to present certain
difficulties in locomotion. This speculation is full of
interest, but perhaps it is dangerous to press too far
inferences from the sacred text. We must ever remember
that he who adds to the words of this holy book is cursed
with him who takes away from them (Rev. xxii., 19), but
perchance we avoid this danger by not regarding the
existence of these supracrural-footed, flying, creeping
things as a matter of faith, like that of the four-legged
fowls, but only as a pious opinion.
The Israelites must have had serious difficulties during
the period of transition between the queer beasts and
their modern namesakes. Thus a four-legged beetle was“clean” (Lev. xi., 22), but “whatsoever hath more feet
[than four] among all creeping things” was “unclean”
{Ibid. 42), as, for instance, everything now known as a
beetle. Perhaps beetles had four legs until the Jewish
ceremonial law was supplanted by Christianity, and there
upon they suddenly changed into the modern six-legged
kind. This change may have taken place even in the
time of Moses, for it is remarkable that in Deut. xiv., 19
“every creeping thing that flieth” has become unclean
and may not be eaten, and it would reconcile this apparent
contradiction if we suppose that all the insects had sud
denly developed an extra pair of legs, and so had come
under the head of flying creeping things with more legs
than four. Thus beautifully does science throw light on
the dark places in scripture, and cause apparently discord
ant texts to harmonise.
In Numbers xvii. we read of a remarkable rod which in
the space of a single night “budded and brought forth
buds, and bloomed blossoms and yielded almonds.” Sogreatly can God expedite natural processes when he wills.
Indian jugglers can now perform these marvels, but no
one would dream of being so blasphemous as to suggest
that Moses, who was “learned in all the wisdom of the
Egyptians” (Acts vii., 22), played a conjuring trick in
order to substantiate his brother’s claim to the priesthood.
The unicorn is another animal of which we should know
nothing were it not for the Bible. We find it mentioned
in Deut. xxxiii., 17, in Job xxxix., 9—12, and in Ps.
xcii., 10. There must therefore have been such an animal,
as the Holy Ghost would not talk about a non-existent
�BIBLICAL BIOLOGY.
7
creature, and yet there is not a trace of its existence out
side this book of God.
Ezekiel is a book of priceless value from our present
point of view. Who can read without his heart thrilling
of the living creatures that “had the likeness of man,”
and such a man—a man with four faces, with four wings,
with a calf’s feet, and a man’s hands, sparkling like
burnished brass, looking like burning coals of fire and like
the appearance of lamps (Ezek. i., 5—13). The likeness
is clearly not to any man of the past, so it must be to a
man of the future, and under these circumstances well
might John the Apostle say that “it doth not yet appear
what we shall be ” (1 John iii., 2). In the tenth chapter of
Ezekiel the same creatures appear again and are named
cherubims, and we learn the additional fact that “their
whole body, and their backs, and their hands, and their
wings, and the wheels were full of eyes round about ”
verse 12), a superfluity of visual organs that must have
been almost confusing to the possessors. Eirst cousins to
these extraordinary creatures must be the four beasts of
Revelation, who are “full of eyes within” (Rev. iv., 8),
an arrangement admirable for introspection, but otherwise
slightly unsatisfactory. I am almost inclined to think that
these four beasts are made out of one of Ezekiel’s, for a
careful comparison shows that, barring the multiplication
of wings, one beast is exactly a quarter of a cherub.
Jonah’s experiences are full of valuable biological in
formation. The whale (compare Matt, xii., 40), which was
a “great fish” (Jonah i., 17) living in the Mediterranean
Sea, and the internal arrangements of which were suitable
for swallowing a prophet and affording him lodging for
three days ; the gourd which grew up in a night, and the
worm which “smote” the gourd {Ibid iv., 6, 7)—are not
these known to and admired by every student of holy
•writ ?
Space fails to draw attention to all the biological revela
tions made in this blessed book, but I cannot pass over the
withered fig-tree without a word. As against the story
so beautifully told (Matt, xxi., 18, 19; Mark xi., 12—14,
20, 21) of this unhappy tree, on which Jesus “found
nothing but leaves, for the time of figs was not yet,” it is
alleged by infidel critics that if the season for figs had not
•arrived it was absurd for Jesus to expect to find any, and
�8
BIBLICAL BIOLOGY.
they scoff at the explanation given by the true believer that
fig-trees at that time in Judsea (although at no other time
and in no other place) bore figs before they bore leaves,
and that this fig-tree was therefore guilty of false pre
tences, whereby it deceived its Creator. It is perfectly true
that now the fig-tree is covered with leaves long before its
remarkable inflorescence has ripened into fruit, but it is
clear that this particular fig-tree began at the other end
and worked backward, otherwise we should be obliged to
come to the horrible and blasphemous conclusion that Jesus
was both silly and ill-tempered, and that he behaved like
a petulant child, howling because it cannot obtain impossi
bilities.
The Revelation of St. John the Divine offers a rich feast of
creatures unknown to science; I have already mentioned
the quarter-cherubs, and we have in addition a seven
horned seven-eyed lamb (v. 6); locusts shaped like horses,
with men’s faces, women’s hair, lions’ teeth, scorpions’
tails, wearing crowns and breast-plates (ix., 7:—10) ; a red
dragon, with seven heads, ten horns, and a-wonderful tail,
who casts a flood of water out of his mouth (xii. 3, 4, 15) ;
a beast like a leopard, with seven heads and ten horns,
with a bear’s feet and a lion’s mouth, and another with two
horns, who “spake as a dragon” (xiii., 1, 2, 11), how
ever that maybe; yet another, scarlet in color, “full of
names of blasphemy,” as others were full of eyes, and
with seven heads and ten horns (xvii., 3); never was there
suclj a menagerie full of most curiously composite animals
as that seen by the beloved Apostle from “the isle that
is called Patmos ” (Rev. i., 9).
My task is ended; I have shown something of the trea
sures of biological knowledge laid up for us in this most
precious book, and I commend my humble effort to all true
believers, beseeching them to aid it by their prayers.
London : Printed by Annie Be sant and Charles Bbadlaugh,
63, Fleet Street, E.C.—1884.
�
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 & 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
Biblical biology : a contribution to religious non-science
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Besant, Annie Wood [1847-1933]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 8 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Printed by Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1884
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
N061
Subject
The topic of the resource
Bible
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 (Biblical biology : a contribution to religious non-science), 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
Biology
NSS
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/68eb19399654ac7b92c891dae8d6bc21.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=Bs56QPnfLTG29tzydH-tZmU%7EI65HfRaF0y4%7EL3hiNCdfJDsRqnLpCtzzjIiG8ozsm0xSuESNPS1Jv43ast9qrhKM34mbB4aEzXx4R5DtQAUOw4mKSDNcVOnfnYfCxqNRup%7E5rndLh1IeykfGi7%7EeztPZenOiKrMwtcbfywmFKelOLXHhfenyitaUhhOEnAU%7EupMJtWqKzGS917GYuogb-36d%7EGU9-5mbH7jgHyE10wk6LRPj7HzQXpfn6s4SqsLnFuP2MQ6%7E%7EF6iNhdFFA4ASkmbM0pFxPx8nhDMo4S7rrR4ppEESuzw8jQ-4iCFJW-Vix1xGfiYJMC5mnGtc0gy8Q__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
dd72caf0a13bcef2f7b2c02518a50374
PDF Text
Text
o
-'¿Z A.
WHAT DID JESUS TEACH?
BY C. BEADLAUGH.
The doctrines of Jesus may be sought for and found 'in a small compass.
Four thin gospels are alleged to contain nearly the entirety of his sayings,
and as most Englishmen are professedly Christians, it might be fairly sup
*
posed that the general public were conversant with Christ’s teachings.
This, however, is not the case. The bulk of professors believe from custom
rather than from reading. They profess a faith as they follow a fashion—
because others have done so before them. What did Jesus teach? Manly
self-reliant resistance of wrong, and practise of right? No; the key-stone
of his whole teaching may be found in the text, “Blessed are the poor in.
spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”* Is poverty of spirit the chief
amongst virtues, that Jesus gives it the prime place in his teaching? Is
poverty of spirit a virtue at all? Surely not. Manliness of spirit, honesty
of spirit, fulness of rightful purpose, these are virtues; but poverty of spirit
is a crime. When men are poor in spirit, then do the proud and haughty
in spirit oppress and trample upon them, but when men are true in spirit
and determined (as true men should be) to resist and prevent evil, wrong,
and injustice whenever they can, then is there greater'opportunity for hap
piness here, and no lesser fitness for the enjoyment of further happiness, in
some may-be heaven, hereafter. Are you poor in spirit, and are you
smitten; in such case what did Jesus teach?—“ Unto whom that smiteth thee
on the one cheek, offer also the other.’’f ’Twere better far to teach that
* he who courts oppression shares the crime.” Rather say, if smitten once,
take careful measure to prevent a future smiting. I have heard men preach
passive resistance, but this teaches actual invitation of injury, a course
degrading in the extreme. Shelley breathed higher humanity in his noble
advice:—
“ Stand ye calm and resolute,
Like a forest close and mute,
With folded arms and looks, which are
Weapons of an unvanquished war.”
There is a wide distinction between the passive resistance to wrong and
the courting of further injury at the hands of the wrongdoer. I have in no
case seen this better illustrated than in Mr. George Jacob Holyoake s
history of his imprisonment in Gloucester Jail,J where passive resistance
• Matthew v., 3.
t Luke, vi., 29.
Last Trial by Jury for Atheism,” p. C®.
�3
WHAT DID JESUS TEACH?
saved him from the indignity of a prison dress, and also from compulsory
attendance at morning prayer in the prison chapel, which in his case would
have been to him an additional insult. But the teaching of Jesus goes much
beyond this kind of conduct; the poverty of spirit principle is enforced to
the fullest conceivable extent—“ Him that taketh away thy cloak, forbid
not to take thy coat also. Give to every man that asketh of thee, and from
him that taketh away thy goods, ask them not again.”* Poverty of person
is the only possible sequence to this extraordinary manifestation of poverty
of spirit. Poverty of person is attended with many unpleasantnesses; and
if Jesus knew that poverty of goods would result from his teaching, we
might expect some notice of this. And so there is—as if he wished to keep
the poor content through their lives with poverty, he says, “ Blessed be
ye poor for yours is the kingdom of God.”f “ But woe unto you that are
rich, for ye have received your consolation.’’^ He pictures one in hell,
Whose only related vice is that in life he was rich; and another in heaven,
whose only related virtue is that in life he was poor.§ He at another time
tells his hearers that it is as difficult for a rich man to get into heaven as
for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. || • The only intent of such
teaching could be to induce the poor to remain content with the want and
misery attendant on their wretched state in this life, in the hope of a higher
recompense in some future life. Is it good to be content with poverty?
Nay, ’tis better far to investigate the cause for such poverty, with a view to
its cure and prevention. The doctrine is a most horrid one which declares
that the poor shall not cease from the face of the earth. Poor in spirit and
poor in pocket. With no courage to work for food, or money to purchase
it! we might well expect to find-the man who held these doctrines with
empty stomach also; and what does Jesus teach?—“ Blessed are ye thatdiunger now, for ye shall be filledHe does not say when the filling shall take
place, but the date is evidently postponed until the time when you will have
no stomachs to replenish. It is not in this life that the hunger is to be
sated. Do you doubt me, turn again to your Testament and read, “ Woe
unto you that are full, for ye shall hunger.”** This must surely settle the
point. It would be but little vantage to the hungry man to bless him by
filling him, if when he had satisfied his appetite, he were met by a curse
which had awaited the completion of his repast. Craven in spirit, with an
empty purse and hungry mouth—what next? The man who has not man
liness enough to prevent wrong, will probably bemoan his hard .fate, and
cry bitterly that so sore are the misfortunes he endures. And what does
Jesus teach?—“Blessed are ye that weep now, for ye shall laugh.”■f•|■ Is this
true, and if true, when? “Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be com
forted.”^ Aye, but when? Not while they mourn and weep. Weeping for the
past is vain; ’tis past, and a deluge of tears will never wash away its history.
Weeping for the present is worse than vain—it obstructs your sight. In
each minute of your life the aforetime future is present-born, and you need
dry and keen eyes to give it and yourself a safe and happy deliverance.
When shall they that mourn be comforted? Are slaves that weep salt tear• Luke, vi., vv. 29, 30.
L.
2533 Matthew, v., i.
t Luke, vi., 20.
3 Luke, vi., 21.
3 Luke, vi., 24.
•• Luke, vi., 25,
} Luke, xvi., 19—3b
ff Luke, vi., 21.
�WHAT DID JESUS TEACH?
drops on their steel shackels comforted in their weeping? Nay, but each
pearly overflowing, as it falls, rusts mind as well as fetter. Ye who are
slaves and weep, will never be comforted until ye dry your eyes and ®arve
your arms, and, in the plentitude of your manliness—
“ Shake your chains to earth like dew,
Which in sleep have fall’n on you.”
Jesus teaches tha.t the poor, the hungry, and the wretched shall be
blessed? This is not so. The blessing only comes when they have ceased
to be poor, hungry, and wretched. Contentment under poverty, hunger,
and misery is high treason, not to yourself alone, but to your fellows.
These three, like foul diseases, spread quickly wherever humanity is stag
nant and content with wrong.
What did Jesus teach? ts Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”*
So far well, but how if thy neighbour will not hear thy doctrine when thou
preacheth the “ glad tidings of great joy ” to him? Then forgetting all thy
love, and with the bitter hatred that a theological disputant alone can
manifest, thou “shalt shake off the dust from your feet,” and by so doing
make it more tolerable in the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and
Gomorrah than for your unfortunate neighbour who has ventured to main
tain an opinion of his own, and who will not let you be his priest.f It is,
indeed, a mockery to speak of love, as if love to one another could result
from the dehumanising and isolating faith required from the disciple of
Jesus. Ignatius Loyola in this, at least, was more consistent than his Pro
testant brethren. “ If any man come unto me, and hate not his father, and
mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own
life also, he cannot be my disciple.’’^ “ Think not that I am come to send
peace on earth. I came not to send peace, but a 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 they shall be of his own household.”§ “ Every one that hath forsaken
houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or
lands for my sake, shall receive an hundred fold, and shall inherit everlast
ing life,”|| The teaching of Jesus is, in fact, save yourself by yourself.
The teaching of humanity should be, to save yourself save your fellow.
The human family is a vast chain, each man and woman a link. There is
no snapping off one link and preserving for it an entirety of happiness; our
joy depends on our brother’s also. But what does Jesus teach? That
“many are called, but few are chosen:” that the majority will inherit an
eternity of misery, while it is but the minority who obtain eternal happi
ness. And on what is the eternity of bliss to depend? On a truthful
course of life? Not so. Jesus purs Father Abraham in Heaven, whose
reputation for faith outstrips his character for veracity. The passport
through Heaven’s portals is faith. “ He that believeth and is baptised shall
be saved, and he that believeth not, shall be damned.”^ Are you married ?
Have you a wife you love? She dies and you. You from your firs> speech
to your last had ever said, “ I believe,” much as a clever parrot might say
* Matthew, xix., 19.
§ Matthew, x., 34—36.
t Matthew, x., 14,15,
H Matthew, xix., 29.
t Luke, xiv., 26.
f Mark, xvi., 16.
�WHAT DID JESUS TEACH?
4
it, if well taught. You had never examined your reasons for your faithi
for, like a true believer should, you distrusted the efficacy of your carnal
reason. You said, therefore, “I believe in God and Jesus Christ,”because
you had been taught to say it, and you would have as glibly said, “ I believe
in Allah, and in Mahomet his prophet,” had your birth-place been a few
degrees more eastward, and your parents and instructors Turks. You
believed in this life and awake in Heaven. Your much-loved wife did not
think as you did—she could not. Her organisation, education, and tempe
rament were all different from your own. She disbelieved because she_
could not believe. She was a good wife, but she disbelieved. A good and'
affectionate mother, but she disbelieved. A virtuous and kindly woman,
but she disbelieved. And you are to be happy for an eternity in Heaven,
while she is writhing in agony in HeU. If true, I could say with Shelley,
of this Christianity, that it
“ Peoples earth with demons, hell with men,
And heaven with slaves.”
It is often urged that Jesus is the Saviour of the world, that he brought
redemption without let or stint to the whole human race. But what did
Jesus teach? “ Go not into any way of the Gentiles, and into any city of
the Samaritan enter ye not.”* These were his injunctions to those whom
he first sent out to preach. “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the
house of Israel,” is his hard answer to the poor Syropheni ian woman who
s entreating succour for her child. Christianity, as first taught by Jesus,
was for the Jews alone, and it is only upon his rejection by them, that the
world at large has the opportunity of salvation afforded it. “ He came
unto his own and his own received him not.”f Why should the Jews
be more God's own than the Gentiles? Is God the creator of all? and
did he create the descendant of Abraham with greater right and privilege
than all other men? Then, indeed, is great and grievous injustice done.
You and I had no choice whether we would be boru Jews or Gentiles; yet
to the accident of such a birth is attached the first offer of a salvation which,
if accepted, shuts out all beside. The Kingdom of Heaven is a prominent
feature in the teachings of Jesus, and it may be well to ascertain, as
precisely as we can, the picture drawn by God incarnate of his own
special domain. ’Tis likened to a wedding feast, to which the invited
guests coming not, servants are sent out into the highways to gather
all ’they can find—both good and bad. The King comes in to see his
motley array of guests, and findeth one without a wedding garment.
The King inquired why he came in to the feast without one, and ihe man,
whose attendance has been compulsorily enforced, is speechless. And who
can wonder ? he is a guest from necessity, not choice, he neither chose the
fashion of his coming or his attiring. Then comes the King’s decree, the
command of the all-merciful and loving King of Heaven. “ Bind him hand
and foot, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and
gnashing of teeth.” Commentators urge that it w ;s the custom to provide
wedding garments for all guests, and that this man is punished for his nonacceptance of the customary and ready robe. The text Joes not warrant
• Matthew, x, 5.
f John, 1., ik
�WHAT DID JESUS TEACH?
ihis position, but assigns, as an explanation of the parable, that an invitation
to the heavenly feast will not ensure its partakal, for that many are called,
but few are chosen. What more of the Kingdom of Heaven? “ There shall
be joy in Heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and
nine just persons which need no repentance.”* Nay, it is urged that the
greater sinner one has been, the better saint he makes, and the more he has
sinned, so much the more he loves God. “ To whom little is forgiven, the
same loveth little.”f Is not this indeed asserting that a life of vice, with its
stains washed away by a death-bed repentance, is better than a life of consis
tent and virtuous conduct? Why should the fatted calf be killed for the ,
prodigal son?J Why should men be taught to make to themselves friends
of the mammon of unrighteousness?
These ambiguities, these assertions of punishment and forgiveness ofcrime,
instead of directions for its prevention and cure, are serious detractions from
a system alleged to have been inculcated by one for whom his followers claim
divinity.
Will you again turn back to the love of Jesus as the redeeming feature of
the whole? Then, I ask you, read the story of the fig-tree§ withered by the
hungry Jesus. The fig-tree, if he were all-powerful God, was made by him, he
limited its growth and regulated its development. He prevented it from bear
ing figs, expected fruit where he had rendered fruit impossible, and in his infi
nite love was angry that the tree had not upon it that it could not have. Tell
rne the love expressed in that remarkable speech which follows one of his
pai iib s, and in which he says:—“Eor, I say unto you, that unto every one
which hath shall be given, and from him that hath not, even that which he
hatii shall be taken aw iy from him. But those, mine enemies, which would
not that 1 should reign over them, bring them hither, and slay them before wze.’ j|
What love is expressed by that Jesus who, if he were God, represents him
self as saying to the majority of his unfortunate creatures (for it is the few
who are chosen):—“Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, pre
pared for the devil and his angels.”^- Ear from love is this horrid notion
of eternal torment. And yet the popular preachers of to-day talk first of
love and then of
“ Hell, a red gulf of everlasting fire,
Where poisonous and undying worms prolong
Eternal misery to those hapless slaves,
Whose life has been a penance for its crimes.”
In reading the sayings attributed to Jesus, all must be struck by that
passage which so extraordinarily influenced the famous Origen, ff If he
understood it aright, its teachings are most terrible. If he understood it
wrongly, what are we to say for the wisdom of teaching which expresses
so vaguely the meaning which it rather hides than discovers by its words?
The general intent of Christ’s teaching seems to be an inculcation of
neglect of this life, in the search for another. “ Labour not for the meat
which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life.”fJ
• Luke, xv., 7.
f Luke, vii., 47.
§ Matt., xxi., 18-22; Mark, xi., 12-24. || Luke, xix., 26, 27.
ft Matt., xix., 1%
jt John, vi., 27.
t Luke, xv., 27.
V Matt., xxv.,41.
�s
WHAT DID JESUS TEACH?
** Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor
yet for your body, what ye shall put on.......... take no thought, saying, what
shall we eat? or what shall we drink? or wherewithal shall we be clothed?
..........But seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all
these things shall be added unto you.” The effect of these texts, if fully
carried out, would be most disastrous: they would stay all scientific dis
coveries, prevent all development of man’s energies. It is in the struggle for
existence here, that men are compelled to become acquainted with the condi
tions which compel happiness or misery. It is only by the practical application
of that knowledge, that the wants of society are understood and satisfied, and
disease, poverty, hunger, and wretchedness, prevented. Jesus substitutes
“ I believe,” for “ I think,” and puts “ watch and pray,” instead of “ think,
then act.” Belief is made the most prominent feature, and is, indeed,
the doctrine which pervades, permeates, and governs all Christianity. It
is represented that, at the judgment, the world will be reproved “ Of sin
because they believe not.” This teaching is most disastrous; man should
be incited to active thought: belief is a cord which would bind him to the
teachings of an uneducated past. Thought, mighty thought, mighty in
making men most manly, will burst this now rotting cord, and then—
shaking off the cobwebbed and dust-covered traditions of dark old times,
humanity shall stand crowned with a most glorious diadem of facts, which,
like jems worn on a bright summer’s day, shall grow more resplendent as
they reflect back the rays of truth’s meridian sun. Fit companion to blind
belief is slave-like prayer. Men pray as though God needed most abject
entreaty ere he would grant them justice. What does Jesus teach on this?
What is his direction on prayer? “After this manner pray ye—Our
Father, which art in Heaven.” Do you think that God is the Father of all,
when you pray that he will enable you to defeat some others of his chil
dren, with whom your nation is at war? And why “which art in Heaven?”
Where is Heaven? you lookupward, and if you were at the antipodes, would
look upward still. But that upward would be downward to us. Do you
know where Heaven is, if not, why say “ which art in Heaven?” Is God
infinite, then he is in earth also, why limit him to Heaven? “ Hallowed be
thy name.” What is God’s name? and if you know it not, how can you
hallow it? how can God’s name be hallowed even if you know it? “Thy
kingdom come.” What is God’s kingdom, and will your praying bring it
quicker? Is it the Judgment day, and do you say “Love one another,”
pray for the more speedy arrival of that day, on which God may say to your
fellow “depart ye cursed into everlasting fire?” “ Thy will be done on
earth, as it is in Heaven.” How is God’s will done in Heaven? If the devil
be a fallen angel, there must have been rebellion even there. “ Give us this
day our-daily bread.” Will the prayer get it without work? No. Will
work get it without the prayer? Yes. Why pray then for bread to God,
who says, “ Blessed be ye that hunger...........woe unto you that are full?”
“And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” What debts have
you to God? Sins? Samuel Taylor Coleridge says, “A sin is an evil which
has its ground or origin in the agent, and not in the compulsion of circum
stances. Circumstances are compulsory, from the absence of a power to
resist or control them: and if the absence likewise be the effect of circum»‘•mces...........the evil derives from the circumstances........... and such evil is
�T
WHAT DID JESUS TEACH?
not sin.”* Do you say that you are Independent of all circumstances, that
you can control them, that you have a free will? Mr. Buckle says that the
assertion of a free will “ involves two assumptions, of which the first, though
possibly true, has never been proved, and the second is unquestionably false.
These assumptions are that there is. an independent faculty, called con
sciousness, and that the dictates of that faculty are infallible.”! “ And
lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” Do you think God
will possibly lead you into temptation? if so, you cannot think him all-good,
if not all-good he is not God, if God, the prayer is a blasphemy.
I close this paper with the last scene in Jesus’ life, not meaning that I
have—in eight pages—fully examined his teachings; but hoping that
enough is even here done to provoke inquiry and necessitate debate. Jesus,
according to the general declaration of Christian divines, came to die, and
what does he teach by his death-? The Rev. F. D. Maurice it is, I think,
who well says, “ That he who kills for a faith must be weak, that he who dies
for a faith must be strong.” How did Jesus die? Giordano Bruno, and
Julius Casar Vanini, were burned for Atheism. They died calm, heroic,
defiant of wrong. Jesus, who could not die, courted death, that he, as
God, might accept his own atonement, and might pardon man for a sin
which he had not committed, and in which he had no share. The death
he courted came, and when it eame he could not face it, but prayed to himbClf that he might not die. And then, when on the cross, if two of the gos
pels do him no injustice, his last words—as there recorded—were a bitter
cry of deep despair, “ My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” The
Rev. Enoch Mellor, in his work on the Atonement, says, “ I seek not to
fathom the profound mystery of these words. To understand their full
import would require one to experience the agony of desertion they ex
press.” Do the words, “ My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
express an “ agony ” caused by a consciousness of “ desertion?” Doubtless
they do; in fact, if this be not the meaning conveyed by the despairing
death-cry, then there is in it no meaning whatever. And if those words do
express a “ bitter agony of desertion,” then they emphatically contradict
the teachings of Jesus. “ Before Abraham was, I am.” “ I and my father
are one.” “ Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” These were the
words of Jesus, words conveying (together with many other such texts) to the
reader an impression that divinity was claimed by the man who uttered them.
If Jesus had indeed beenGod, the words “My God, my God,” would have
been a mockery most extreme. God could not have deemed himself forsaken
by himself. The dying Jesus, in that cry, confessed himself either the dupe of
some other teaching, a self-deluded enthusiast, or anarch-impostor, who, in
that bitter, cry, with the wide-opening of the flood-gates through which
life’s stream ran out, confessed .aloud that he, at least, was no deity, and
deemed himself a God-forsaken man. The garden scene of agony is fitting
prelude to this most terrible act. Jesus, who is God, prays to himself, in
“ agony he prayed most earnestly.”! He refuses to hear his own prayers,
and he, the omnipotent, is forearmed against his coming trial by an angel
from heaven, who “ strengthened ” the' great Creator. Was Jesus the Son of
• “ Aids to Reflection,” 1843, p. 200.
J Luke, xxa., 44,
f » History of Civilisation,” Vol. I., p. 14.
>
»r
�8
WHAT DID JESUS TEACH?
God? Praying, he said, “Father, the hour is come, glorify thy Son, that thy
Son also may glorify thee.”* And was he glorified? His death and resurrec
tion most strongly disbelieved in the very city where they happened, if, indeed,
they ever happened at all. His doctrines rejected by the only people to whom
he preached them. His miracles denied by the only nation where they are
alleged to have been performed; and he himself thus on the cross, crying
out, “ My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Surely no further
comment is needed on this head, to point more distinctly to the most mon
strous mockery the text reveals.
To those who urge that the course I take is too bold, or that the pro
blems I deal with are too deep or sacred, I will reply in Herschel’s version
of Schiller—
Wouldst thou reach perfection’s goat,
Stay notl rest not!
Forward strain,
Hold not hand, and draw not rein.
•
•
•
•
Perseverance strikes the mark,
Expansion clears whate’er is dark,
Truth in the abyss doth dwell.
My say is said—now fare thee well»
G©
Published by Austin & Co , at 17, Johnson’s Court, Fleet 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 & 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
What did Jesus teach?
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Bradlaugh, Charles [1833-1891.]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 14p. ; 18cm.
Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
[Austin & Co.]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G4950
N104
Subject
The topic of the resource
Jesus Christ
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[n.d.]
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 (What did Jesus teach?), 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
Jesus Christ
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/a8ec57ddc02e85bfebb6d29e15283a77.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=d36T8r9TaLtfLuDvvxuJY3n9VzZRrgl7th2uLECTWCwEfQF9llYD1CDPjUrMNHqR5fuZ7Px45UnQ-Rg5eSzHWbxIEpeThA40HRo%7E4kBFd9AQkO191jW4k2fiMRQ972B0uyOm-%7E1nZ09Mf441BMirQcqiTWx7QRTjoVjs%7EXg5ObC3Dcxp-aYg1y88N6jyonqmxnAx3fJjD7p7NLbKAVF3tqgF2xeYL8j9YDFqdCuRBe4qwikPsBydAIH%7EbZOd3yb8R-z6YkIhvvAh6IcLCV8Qlz0TRecUROSXwCZ5eE-xqFl8ouV8LfpajRo06RQXlPnJLd07LBCqt16dIU3plQCPgg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
61f4f5cb51ef1eb732f43d067eae76af
PDF Text
Text
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY (
/(J
UV
Price One Penny.
.
.
TWENTY-FOUR PROOFS
.
THAT THE
BIBLE is NOT the WORD of GOD.
By a CAMBRIDGE GRADUATE.
«.
■
----------- ♦-----------
The 'popular doctrine concerning the Bible, taught by the
Church of England and other bodies of Christians, is that
it is a direct communication from an omniscient and all
wise God to his creature, man, inspired or breathed into the
minds of certain holy men of old. From this it follows, as
a logical necessity, that every syllable, from the first verse
in Genesis to the last in the Revelation of John, must be
absolutely true; that the morality and philosophy of the
Bible must be the most sublime imaginable; its history
perfect in accuracy ; and that its prophecies have been, or
will be, fulfilled in every detail. If this be not the case,
then we must conclude that it is purely human in its origin,
for we cannot suppose that it is partly inspired and partly
false, since God has given us no means of distinguishing
the inspired from the uninspired, and we should have tojudge for ourselves of its value—that is, use reason to the * . "
exclusion of faith, and treat it as we do any other book.
1. The Bible is clearly proved to be historically inaccurate, ’
since it contains contradictions in different accounts of the
same event. For example, we will take the story of the
resurrection of Christ. Matthew tells us that Mary Mag
dalene and the other Mary came to the sepulchre ; there
was an earthquake ; the angel of the Lord descended and
rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it; and
finally “ they did run to bring his disciples word ” (Matt,
xxviii., 1-8). Mark tells us that Mary Magdalene, J^Iary the
mother of James, and Salome, came to the sepulchre, found'the
stone already rolled away (no earthquake or angel this Time), .
and entering in they saw a young man sitting on the -right
side (evidently meant for the angel mentioned in Matthew,
since he gives the same message) ; and finally “ they
trembled and were amazed, neither said they anything to any
man” (Mark xvi., 1-8). Thus on the last .point Mark
flatly contradicts the other three evangelists. Luke tells
�2
us that Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of
James, and other women that were with them, came to the
sepulchre, found the stone rolled away, and entering in,
“ behold two men stood by them in shining garments ” ; and
“ they told these things unto the apostles. And their words
seemed unto them as idle tales, and they believed them not.
Then arose Peter and ran unto the sepulchre ” (Luke xxiv.,
1-12). Lastly, John tells us that Mary Magdalene went to
the sepulchre (apparently alone this time), and seeing the
stone taken away, ran and told Peter and the other disciple
whom Jesus loved that they had taken away the Lord. The
two disciples went into the sepulchre, and not seeing Jesus,
went away again unto their own home. Mary stood with
out, and saw the two- angels sitting, “ one at the head and
the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain,”
and she came and told the disciples (John xx., 1-18). It
certainly requires a considerable exercise of faith (self
deception ?) to persuade ourselves that these four accounts
agree with each other in every detail; yet on their truth
hangs the central doctrine of Christianity—namely, the
resurrection of Christ; for “ If Christ be not risen, then is
our faith vain.”
2. The genealogies of Christ given in Matt, i., 1-17, and
Luke iii., 23-38, are different and contradictory to one
another. Not only are the names different, but while
Matthew gives twenty-seven generations from David to
Jesus, Luke gives forty-two 1
3. We are told by John that “ no man hath seen God at
any time ” (1 John iv., 12), and yet Jacob said at Peniel:
“ I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved ”
(Gen. xxxii., 30). Again, we find (in Exodus xxxiii., 11)
that “ the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man
speaketh unto his friend ” ; and in the 20th verse of the
same chapter we are informed that he said to Moses : “ Thou
Sanst not see my face: for there shall no man see me and
live ” ; and so he put Moses in a clift of the rock, and put
his hand over him, and took it away, and showed him his
back parts as he passed by. We are also told that there
“ went up Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and
seventy of the elders of Israel: and they saw the God
.of Israel : and there was under his feet as it were
a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were
the body of heaven in his clearness. And upon the
�3
nobles of the children of Israel he laid^not his hand: also
they saw God, and did eat and drink ” (Exodus xxiv., 9-11).
After this it may be thought hardly worth mentioning that
Isaiah puts in a claim to having seen the Lord in a vision :
“ I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted
up, and his train filled the temple ” (Isaiah vi., 1).
4. The Laws in the Old Testament, which are said to
have been given to Moses by God himself, prove on exami
nation not to be calculated to refine, elevate, and humanise
the race to whom they were given, educating and leading
them to nobler things—“ a schoolmaster to bring them unto
Christ”—such as would come from an all-wise and bene
volent being, “ whose mercy is everlasting ”; but a code
infamously unjust and cruel, brutalising and degrading, in
its tendencies, showing the grossest superstition in the mind
of the lawgiver, and altogether what we should expect to
find coming from a barbarous and primitive people. One
example of the injustice of these laws will be sufficient:
“ If a man smite his servant or his maid with a rod, and
he die under his hand, he shall be surely punished. Not
withstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be
punished : for he is his money ” (Exodus xxi., 20, 21).
5. Not only has the Mosaic code of laws cursed the race
to whom it was given, but even now it exercises a baneful
influence over the world ; those laws sanctioning and regu
lating slavery proving most formidable obstacles to the
abolition of the slave trade in the Colonies and Southern
States of America, where large meetings of ministers were
held declaring slavery to be enjoined by God; and in every
session of Parliament at the present time are they brought
up by the opponents of the Bill for legalising marriage with
a deceased wife’s sister.
6. The laws in the Old Testament on witchcraft (Lev.
xix., 31 ; xx., 6, 27, etc.) have caused tens of thousands of
innocent men, women and children to be burnt alive in the
middle ages, and now the world has discovered it to be a
purely imaginary crime 1 Is it possible that God, fore
knowing all this, would have inspired such laws ?
7. Polygamy is nowhere condemned in the whole Bible,
and is distinctly allowed in the Old Testament; the chief
saints, as Abraham, David and Solomon, being all poly
gamists.
8. We are taught that “ God is love ” and yet that he is
�4
going to burn the vast majority of mankind for all eternity
in hell; for “ strait is the gate and narrow is the way,
and few there be that find it ” ; “ many are called, but few
chosen ” ; “he that believeth not shall be damned.” Surely
no one will contend that the majority believe.
9. Paul teaches that God will torture us in hell, not for
resisting his will, but because he makes us sin without our
being able to resist. “ He saith to Moses, I will have mercy
on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on
whom I will have oompassion. So then it is not of him that
willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth
mercy. For the Scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for
this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might show
my power in thee, and that my name might be declared
throughout all the earth. Therefore hath he mercy on
whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.
Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault ?
For who hath resisted his will? Nay, but, 0 man, who
art thou that repliest against God ? Shall the thing formed
say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus ?
Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same
lump to make one vessel unto honor and another unto
dishonor ? What if God, willing to show his wrath,
and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction.”—Rom.
ix., 15-22. So Paul teaches us to believe, not in a merciful,
all-loving Father, “ unwilling that any should perish,” but in
an omnipotent Devil, who amuses himself by roasting us in
hell for committing sins which he himself forces us to
commit.
10. The Bible does not solve the difficulty of the origin of
evil, but on the contrary states expressly that God is the
author of evil. “ I form the light, and create darkness : I
make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.”
—Isaiah xlv., 7.
11. There are many other passages which prove that the
God of the Bible, whom we are taught to love and reverence,
is malignant in character, and are wholly incompatible with
those passages attributing to him mercy and goodness. For
example, Paul says, speaking of certain persons, “ God shall
send them a strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:
that they all might be damned” (2 Thess. ii., 11, 12).
Noble motive truly I
�12. In the Old Testament especially, God is represented
as approving of the most horrible atrocities ; among otherstoo numerous to mention, slaughtering all the Midianitesb
men, women and children (Numbers xxxi., 1-18}.
13. God is even represented as accepting a human sacri
fice, as in the case of Jephthah’s daughter, who was offered
up “ for a burnt offering ” (Judges xi., 30-39).
14. We submit that the basis of morality held up through
out the Bible is purely selfish ; not doing right because it is.
right, but rather for hope of reward in heaven, and from
fear of hell; trying to curry favor with God, no matter at
what expense to our fellowmen.
15. In some of the Psalms (read every Sunday in the
churches) we find sentiments simply diabolical in theirmalignity. David prays concerning his enemies, “ Let their
table become a snare before them: and that which should
have been for their welfare, let it become a trap. Let their
eyes be darkened that they see not; and make their loins,
continually to shake. Pour out thine indignation upon
them, and let thy wrathful aDger take hold upon them..........
Add iniquity unto their iniquity : and let them not come
into thy righteousness. Let them be blotted out of the book
of the living, and not be written with the righteous ” (Psalms,
lxix., 22-28). Just fancy praying that your enemies may
not repent, lest they should get saved and not be burnt for
ever in hell! And this is implied in the above passage.
We can only compare this prayer, inspired by the Holy
Ghost into the mind of David, the man after God’s own
heart, for true charity and nobility of thought, with the
following passage of the Christian father Tertullian, who is.
so highly esteemed by the Church : “ Expect the last and
eternal judgment of the universe. How I shall admire, how
laugh, how rejoice, how exult, when I behold so many
proud monarchs and fancied gods, groaning in the lowest,
abyss of darkness ; so many magistrates, who persecuted the
name of the Lord, liquefying in fiercer fires than they ever
kindled against the Christians ; so many sage philosophers
blushing in red-hot flames with their deluded scholars ; somany celebrated poets trembling before the tribunal, not of
Minos, but of Christ; so many tragedians more tuneful in
the expression of their own sufferings ; so many dancers,” etc.
(De Spectaculis, cap. 30).
16. Again we find in another Psalm—“ Set thou a.
�6
wicked man over him, and let Satan stand at his right
hand. When he shall be judged let him be condemned,
and let his prayer become sin. Let his days be few, and
let another take his office. Let his children be fatherless
and his wife a widow. Let his children be continually
•vagabonds and beg : let them seek their bread also out of
desolate places. Let the extortioner catch all that he hath,
and let the strangers spoil his labor. Let there be none to
extend mercy unto him ; neither let there be any to favor
his fatherless children. Let his posterity be cut off, and in
the generation following let their name be blotted out. Let
the iniquity of his fathers be remembered with the Lord,
and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out ” (Psalm
cix., 6-14). In our churches and Sunday-schools to-day it
is taught that this is the inspiration of hi a who said, “Love
your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them
that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you
and persecute you” (Matt, v., 44).
17. Jesus Christ prophesied that “ the son of man shall
come in the glory of his father with his' angels, and then he
shall reward every man according to his works. Verily, I
say unto you, there be some standing here which shall no
taste of death till they see the son of man coming m his
kingdom ” (Matt, xvi., 27-28). He said also, after referring
to the destruction of Jerusalem, “ Immediately after the
tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the
moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from
heaven and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken.
And then shall appear the sign of the son of man m heaven:
and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they
shall see the son of man coming in the clouds of heaven
with power and great glory. And he shall send his angels
with a great sound of a trumpet . . . Verily, I saij unto
you, this generation shall not pass till all these things ie ful
filled” (Matt, xxiv., 29-34). It is evident that these pro
phecies, which have been shown to be false by time were
understood by the apostles to be on the eve of fulfilment
when they wrote their epistles, for Peter and Paul apologise
for the end of the world not coming so soon as might be
expected (see 2 Peter iii., 3-12 ; 2 Thess. n.1-6) Peter
also says: “The end of all things is at hand (l Petei
iv , 7)/ Paul says: “ The Lord is at hand (Phil. iv., o),
and tells the Hebrews not to forsake their assemblies, and
�7
to exhort one another “so much the more as ye see the_
day approaching” (Heb. x., 25). James says: “Be ye
also patient; stablish your hearts, for the coming of the
Lord draweth nigh” (James v., 8). Jude says: “There
are certain men crept in unawares,” and after denouncing
them, reminds his readers of the words of Christ—“ How
that they told you there should be mockers in the last time ”
(Jude, v. 18). Lastly, John informs us that “the time is
at hand ” (Rev. i, 3). And all these things (and more, which
we have not room to notice) were written about the time
that “ that generation ” who heard Jesus was passing away.
Have not these predictions one and all been proved utterly
false by time, that trier of truth ?
18. The prophecies in the Old Testament, said by the
evangelists to refer to Christ, on examination will be found
wholly inapplicable. For example, Matthew (ii., 6) applies
to Christ the prophecy of Micah—“ And thou Bethlehem,
in the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of
Juda : for out of thee shall come a governor that shall rule
my people Israel.” On turning to Micah, however, we find
that this “ ruler in Israel,” who he says shall rise up, is a
general, coming to defend them against the Assyrians ; for
he goes on to say: “ This man shall be the peace, when
the Assyrian shall come into our land : and wh< n he shall
tread in our palaces, then shall we raise against him seven
shepherds and eight principal men. And they shall waste the
land of Assyria with the sword, and the land of Nimrod
in the entrances thereof ; thus shall he deliver us from the
Assyrian when he cometh into our land, and when he
treadeth within our borders” (Micah v., 5-6). It is some
what difficult to see how this can apply to Christ; yet if
it cannot the Holy Ghost must have made a mistake in
making Matthew quote part of this prophecy as being ful
filled in Christ.
19. Again Matthew tells us that the words of Hosea,
“ Out of Egypt have I called my son,” were fulfilled in
Christ (Matt, ii., 15). On turning to the prophet we find
him chiding Israel for national ingratitude. “ When Israel
was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of
Egypt. As +hey called them, so they went from them : they
sacrificed umo Baalim, and burned incense to graven
images ” (Hosea xi., 1, 2). We will merely remark on this
that we have not sufficient faith to enable ourselves to
�8
believe that this is not simply an historical reference to the
Israelites coming from Egypt under Moses, much less are
we able to see in it an overwhelming proof of prophetical
power in Hosea.
20. None of the prophecies said to refer to Christ will
bear the slightest examination. For example: “He shall
judge among the nations and shall rebuke many people :
and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their
spears into pruning-hooks : nation shall not lift up sword
against nation, neither shall they learn war any more”
(Isaiah ii., 4). Yet when the Prince of Peace did come, he
said: “ Think not that I come to send peace on earth: I
come not to send peace, but a 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” (Matt, x., 34, 35).
21. Science has clearly demonstrated that it is false that
“ in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the
sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day ”
(Exodus xx., 11).
22. Science has clearly proved that the grass and herbs
and trees were not created before the sun and moon and
stars, as stated in Gen. i., 11-18.
23. Science clearly teaches the utter absurdity of such
astronomical ideas as that “ God said, Let there be a firma
ment in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters
from the waters. And God made the firmament, and
divided the waters which were under the firmament from
the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
And God called the firmament Heaven” (Gen. i., 6-8)
St. Augustine, in explaining this, informs us that the firma
ment was‘stretched across the sky like a skin. We suppose
this is what Peter refers to when he says “ the heavens shall
pass away with a great noise ” (2 Peter iii., 10).
24. If by any sophistry it were possible to reconcile
science and the Bible, it must still be admitted that in the
past God was unable to convey his true meaning on these
points, and not only has his revelation given rise to false
scientific ideas, but has hindered the development of science
at every tufti, and brought untold bitterness and persecution
in the last few centuries on scientific men, in addition to
wrecking the faith of many truthseekers at the present day.
Printed and Published by Ramsey and Foote at 28 Stonecutter Street, E.O.
�
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 & 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
Twenty-four proofs that the Bible is not the word of God
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Cambridge Graduate
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 8 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Tentative date publication from KVK. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Ramsey and Foote
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1885?]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
N114
Subject
The topic of the resource
Bible
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 (Twenty-four proofs that the Bible is not the word of God), 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
God
NSS
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/e9ad022fbd59364ae851e0ae9ecfb171.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=pJTQW335n5-aZI8RYsN1rhCsZSZtKd4IkvNWp426vLcJSDoTKcgklylBS3bY0w7KxcN-yuqwigR1KcExF81wBJCgJ5TtsufRA2GdblF4-stMYoChwS7kW9VMvTezQ3EmvsP7MLfk1p4nDWNBZo6qtPTXgXgm5CaiPwJ0D8%7EFucXheUW9Cch552A7BeUfkckfst4Me9XRHnSXJI1moxb0Zv7WRRnFwikhA613wPvKckvvoZtOlJCXOEgJJsvOozPZrgwqobY1-RP5-rz12G6Dz-gRKL7-pkBWFbpdi54rlH7NTr6qqbkfZJT8wA2SwIpnKXB0JjvyNnp007xd6bh7Uw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
c5caaff407516d7a70d84602c18953f7
PDF Text
Text
ROME
AND
THE
BIBLE.'
BY THE REV. T. DONNELLY, S.J.
Introduction.
A pamphlet entitled The Claims of Rome, by Samuel
Smith, M.P., is being largely circulated in this our city
of Liverpool, as well as in his own constituency in
North Wales. On reading this pamphlet, we began to
realize more vividly than hitherto how difficult it is to
kill the great Protestant Tradition. Though we have
much to say, it is so hard to get a hearing in order to
refute the Protestant Tradition. Here we have a man
who has uplifted his voice in behalf of the oppressed
and the downtrodden, a man who has a conscience
which he is not afraid or ashamed to obey, a man who
deserves credit for his manly denouncement of the
religious indifferentism of the day, a man who has
most generously opened his purse in behalf of the
suffering, a man whose well-known philanthropy carried
him triumphantly into Parliament in 1882, suddenly
coming forth and flinging down in the arena of political
strife, and amidst a people already bitterly prejudiced
against the Catholic Church, a number of statements and
accusations that cannot be stigmatized by a milder name
than calumnies.
We do not accuse Mr. Samuel Smith of wilfully,
deliberately and with eyes wide open uttering what he
1 The substance of Sermons preached at St. Francis Xavier’s,
Liverpool, January, 1897.
I
�2
Rome and the Bible.
knew to be false. His pamphlet clearly shows that he,
not the Catholics, has a profound ignorance of the
historical facts mentioned in the pamphlet. We were
not surprised at this when we turned to the Appendix
and saw the names of authorities such as Mr. Charles
Hastings Collette, the Monthly Letter of the Protestant
Alliance, and Janus. That he, and those who think with
him, may know more clearly the value of the support upon
which he is resting, may we venture to ask him and them
to read a penny pamphlet by the Rev. Sydney F. Smith
on Mr. Collette as a Historian, published by the Catholic
Truth Society. In this pamphlet of sixteen pages Mr.
Collette is shown to be guilty of thirty-one deviations
from truth. A similar pamphlet by Mr. F. W. Lewis, on
Mr. Collette as a Controversialist, exposes the methods
of the Protestant Alliance. As to Miss Ellen Golding,
Mr. Smith apparently does not know that she has
disappeared from Protestant platforms ; if he wishes to
read a full account of her, he will find it in Father
Smith’s pamphlet on Ellen Golding, the Rescued Nun
(C.T.S., id.). These three pamphlets throw much light
upon the methods of certain Protestant agitators, as well
as on the tortuous ways of the Protestant Alliance.
The Church and the Bible.
On the present occasion I propose to deal only with
that part of Mr. Samuel Smith’s pamphlet which deals
with the attitude of the Catholic Church towards the
Bible.
Two assertions stand out prominently in this portion
of the onslaught made by Mr. Samuel Smith upon the
Roman Church and its Supreme Head, the Pope.
First, “ Wherever Rome has had undisputed sway, she
has kept the Bible from the laity.” In proof of this
statement we are told how difficult it was for friends of
Mr. Smith to smuggle Bibles into Rome; how, on the
seizure of Rome by the Italians, the first wheel carriage
contained a consignment of Bibles (presumably the first
ever seen in Rome); how Lasserre’s French translation
of the Gospels, after Papal approbation, was placed upon
�Rome and the Bible.
3
the Index and its sale prohibited; and how finally
Pius IX. admonished the bishops to labour that the
faithful may fly'with horror from this poisonous reading.
Second, “ Nothing is more certain than that in every
country where Rome is supreme the circulation of the
Scriptures is forbidden.” In proof of this we are
reminded of what took place not many years ago in
Italy, Spain, and Austriaj we are referred in the Appen
dix to the Fourth Rule of the Index; and we are told
the opinions of Cardinals Bellarmine, Wiseman, &c.
In answer to the first statement, “ that wherever Rome
has had undisputed sway she has kept the Bible from
the laity,” it must be remembered that Rome’s eccle
siastical power over Western Christendom at least was
recognized up to the sixteenth century. Men might
argue and quarrel as to who was the lawful Pope during
the Great Schism; but the great central fact stands out
all the more prominently because of the Schism, that
the Pope was the chief ecclesiastical ruler of Christen
dom. It was not until a.d. 1229 that the first authori
tative restriction on Bible reading was passed by a
Council held at Toulouse to receive the submission of
Count Raymond, to suppress the growing heresy and
prevent its further spread. Inasmuch as these heretics,
who revolted against all authority, mutilated the Bible in
order to propagate their errors, the Council of Toulouse
forbade the possession by laymen of the Sacred Books,
especially in the vernacular.
At the beginning of the fifteenth century the Lollard
cry in England was, “ An open Bible for all! ” meaning
by an open Bible the incorrect and mischievous trans
lation attributed to Wyclif, in which text and notes alike
were made the instruments of an attack on all lawful
authority. Thus we find that it was the perversion
of Holy Scripture which rendered the prohibition of
unauthorized translations of Holy Scripture absolutely
necessary. Thomas Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury,
in the Council of Oxford, 1406, after noticing the diffi
culties and dangers of translating the Word of God,
ordained that no one should on his own authority
�4
Rome and the Bible.
translate into English any portion of Holy Scripture
by way of book, or pamphlet, or treatise; nor should
any such book, pamphlet, or treatise, lately composed in
the time of John Wyclif, or since, or which shall here
after be composed, be read in whole or in part, publicly
or in private, under pain of the greater excommunication,
until such translation be approved by the Diocesan or
by a Provincial Council. In spite of enactments the
evil spread, and^when England broke off from union
with Rome tly^ Bible was seized upon as the standard
of revolt.
The right of private judgment having been proclaimed,
text after text was torn from its context and used to
prove the truth of any particular doctrine that made an
impression on the reader. Calvinists and Lutherans,
Presbyterians and Anabaptists, as well as the Anglicans,
found in the pages of Holy Scripture a rich mine from
which to dig any fanciful doctrine. In fact, to-day as in
the past, no two Protestants agree as to the meaning of
the Bible.
Dreading evils such as these, the Catholic Church
judged it necessary at certain times, when men’s minds
were disturbed by erroneous teaching, to safeguard the
Word of God, ever held by her in the utmost reverence,
with various restrictions.
The Bible before Luther.
There used to be a story common amongst Protestants
that Luther discovered the Latin Bible about 1507 ; that
he was the first to translate it into German; that other
“ reformers ” followed his example and made the first
translations of the Bible into the languages of their
countries, and that then for the first time the people
came to know the Bible, for up to that date the Catholic
Church had kept the Bible away from them—or, in
other words, “wherever Rome has had undisputed sway
she has kept the Bible from the laity.” All this is
untrue. The Church Times, July 26, 1878, says: “This
catalogue of Bibles [in the Caxton Exhibition at South
Kensington, 1877] will be very useful for one thing, at
�Rome and the Bible.
5
any rate, as disproving the popular lie about Luther
finding the Bible for the first time at Erfurt about 1507.
Not only are there very many editions of the Latin
Vulgate (z.e., the Bible in Latin, the very thing Luther
is said to have discovered), but there are actually nine
German editions of the Bible in the Caxton Exhibition
earlier than 1483, the year of Luther’s birth, and at least
three more before the end of the century.”
Let us now see what Bibles the Catholic Church had
printed before any Protestant Bibles appeared.
We
ought to remember that in those days most who could
read read Latin, and even preferred a Latin Bible to one
in their own language. Before Luther’s pretended dis
covery the Catholic Church had printed over a hundred
editions of the Latin Bible, each containing, according
to Janssen, one thousand copies, although the art of
printing with movable types dated only from 1441. In
German there were twenty-seven editions before Luther’s
Bible appeared. In Italian there were over forty editions
of the Bible before the first Protestant edition appeared.
There were two in Spain by 1515, one with the express
permission of the Spanish Inquisition. In French there
were eighteen editions by 1547, the first Protestant
version appearing in 1535.
Although no Catholic
version of the English Bible appeared in print until
some time after the publication of such versions in
other countries, it is clear from the testimony of Sir
Thomas More, quoted in the next paragraph, that no
prohibition of vernacular versions had been issued by
the ecclesiastical authorities in this country, and that
many manuscript copies of the same had been freely
circulated subsequent to, as well as long before, the time
of WyclifL>/
The Bible in the Middle Ages.
?7As many Protestant writers and lecturers are repeatedly
asserting that the earlier Bible of Wyclif was prohibited
by the Church authorities in England simply on account
of their general hostility to the Word of God in the
vernacular, it may be well to quote the remarks of a
�6
Rome and the Bible.
Protestant writer, the Rev. E. Cutts, D.D., in a work
already quoted: “ There is a good deal of popular
misapprehension,” says he, “about the way in which
the Bible was regarded in the Middle Ages. Some
people think that it was very little read, even by the
clergy; whereas the fact is that the sermons of the
mediaeval preachers are more full of Scriptural quotations
and allusions than any sermons in these days; and the
writers on other subjects are so full of Scriptural allusion
that it is evident their minds were saturated with
Scriptural diction. . . . Another common error is that
the clergy were unwilling that the laity should read the
Bible for themselves, and carefully kept it in an unknown
tongue that the people might not be able to read it.
The truth is that most people who could read at all
could read Latin, and would certainly prefer to read the
authorized Vulgate to any vernacular version. But it is
also true that translations into the vernacular were
made. ... We have the authority of Sir Thomas More
for saying that ‘ the whole Bible was, long before Wyclif’s
days, by virtuous and well-learned men translated into
the English tongue, and by good and godly people with
devotion and soberness well and reverently read.’ . . .
Again, on another occasion he says : ‘ The clergy keep
no Bibles from the laity but such translations as be
either not yet approved for good or such as be already
reproved for naught (bad), as Wyclif’s was. For as for
old ones that were before Wyclif’s days, they remain
lawful, and be in some folk’s hands.’ ” 1 Surely such
testimony as this, coming from the pen of one who for
his transcendent ability was raised to the post of Lord
Chancellor of England, ought to convince Mr. Samuel
Smith of the mistake he has made in asserting that
“Wherever Rome has had undisputed sway she has
kept the Bible from the laity.”
I purposely quote non-Catholic writers in refutation of
this astounding statement, as they are less liable to be
suspected of partiality for Roman Catholic doctrine and
practices. Dean Hook 2 says: “ It was not from hostility
1 Turning Points of English Church History, pp. 200-201.
• Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury, vol. iii. p. 83.
�Rome and the Bible.
7
to a translated Bible, considered abstractedly, that the
conduct of Wyclif in translating it was condemned.
Long before his time there had been translators of
Holy Writ. There is no reason to suppose that any
objection would have been offered to the circulation of
the Bible if the object of the translator had only been
the edification and sanctification of the reader. It was
not till the designs of the Lollards were discovered that
Wyclif’s version was proscribed.” Then, on p. 94, he
proceeds: “When we speak of them (the Lollards) as
martyrs, we ought to regard them as political martyrs
rather than religious. They made religion their plea in
order to swell the number of the discontented; but their
actions tended to a revolution in the State as well as in
the Church. . . . Both parties regarded their principles
as subversive of all order, in things temporal as well as
in things spiritual.”
Writing in the Academy of
August 7, 1886, Mr. Karl Pearson says: “ The
Catholic Church has quite enough to answer for . . ,
but in the fifteenth century it certainly did not hold bach
the Bible from the folk; and it gave them in the
vernacular a long series of devotional works which for
language and religious sentiment have never been
surpassed. Indeed, we are inclined to think it made a
mistake in allowing the masses such ready access to the
Bible. It ought to have recognized the Bible once for
all as a work absolutely unintelligible without a long
course of historical study; and so far as it was supposed
to be inspired, very dangerous in the hands of the
ignorant.” The Quarterly Review, October, 1879, says :
“The notion that people in the Middle Ages did not
read their Bibles is probably exploded, except among the
more ignorant of controversialists. ... The notion is
not simply a mistake ... it is one of the most ludicrous
and grotesque blunders.”
The Monks and the Sacred Scriptures.
We know, too, that it was the chief occupation of the
monks to study the Bible and multiply copies of it.
Thousands of copies must have been made in England
�8
Rome and the Bible.
alone before the invention of printing, and these naturally
fell into the hands of those who could read, like the
clergy, the nuns, and, as we know from Sir Thomas
More,, the learned laity. But as the greater number of
the laity could not read, how were they taught the Bible?
They were taught by the clergy and the monks, who
used as means of instruction paintings and stained-glass
windows illustrating the events and lessons of the Bible;
poetry, in the hymns which embodied Bible history and
teaching; music, to which they set words from the Bible;
the stage, by sacred representations of scenes from the
Old. and the New Testament, and the ceremonial of the
services of the Church, in which, as the year went round,
were presented, sometimes in almost dramatic form, the
principal events of the life of Christ, and the history of
God’s dealings with man. In those days, as said the
Catholic Synod of Bishops at Arras in 1203, “painting
was the book of the ignorant, who could read no other.”
And for this reason in Catholic countries the walls of
churches, of monasteries, of cemeteries, of cloisters are
covered with paintings representing scenes from the Old
and New Testament. In England up to the “ Reforma
tion the Catholic Church used all these ways to teach
the people the. Bible “In this country,” writes Mr.
Henry Morley, in his First Sketch of English Literature,
“the taste for miracle plays was blended with the old
desire to diffuse as far as possible a knowledge of religious
truth; and therefore the sets of miracle plays acted by
our town-guilds placed in the streets, as completely as
might be, a living picture-Bible before the eyes of all the
people. . In Germany there was a celebrated set of forty
or fifty pictures of Bible subjects so popular and so much
that xt was known as “The Bible of the Poor”
(friblia Pauperuni).
Thus, before the “ Reformation,” not only were there
plenty of Bibles for those who could read, but the
Oman Catholic Church made use of every means at her
disposal to teach the .Bible to those who could not read.
Gid space allow, it would be easy to show that the
general drift of the teaching of the Fathers of the Church
�Rome and the Bible.
9
on this subject was an earnest exhortation to more
frequent meditation on Holy Scripture, whilst at the
same time they warn the faithful against the misuse of
the Word of God by heretics, who read the Scripture
without penetrating its meaning, because they do not
read it aright. For twelve hundred years all the
influence of the Church was exerted in favour of a
wider spread of the Holy Scripture and a more familiar
acquaintance with its Scripture Text by clergy and laity
alike. Even after the invention of printing, when a
general diffusion of Bibles in the vernacular first became
possible, no check or hindrance was put upon it by
authority, so long as the translations used were really a
version, not a perversion, of Holy Scripture, and were
not interlarded with heretical or offensive annotations.
Unfortunately, in the “Reformation” days, the Word
of God was turned into an instrument for the use of
heresy. As in foreign countries, so too in England, the
translations were falsified in meaning, and the sweet
milk of Christian doctrine turned to poison.
In
Tyndale’s translation, flavoured with the errors of
Lollardism, Our Lord is made to say in St. Matt,
xvi. 18: “On this rock I will build My congregation.”
The word “idols ” is translated “images.” In St. John
v. 21, the Apostle warns the early Christians : “Babes
keep yourselves from images.” The Apostolic “traditions”
on which St. Paul lays stress (2 Thess. ii. 15, iii. 6) are
turned into “ ordinances,” and so on. It was the
necessity of preserving the purity of the Gospel of Jesus
Christ and defending it from perversion and misuse by
heretics, and safeguarding the Faith of her children,
that induced the Church to issue a series of Decrees,
Encyclicals, and Briefs, all of which are aimed, not
against the reading of the Word of God, but either
against those whose object it was to find therein what
suited their heretical purpose, and who ingeniously
twisted the meaning of the Holy Scripture, or against
any interpretation of it in a sense contrary to the teach
ing of the Church and the unanimous consent of the
Fathers, doctors, and theologians.
�IO
Rome and the Bible.
The Circulation of the Bible.
So far we have dealt with the astounding assertion that
wherever Rome has had undisputed sway, she has kept
the Bible from the laity, and shown, chiefly from non
Catholic authorities, that the assertion is not only void
of foundation, but contrary to fact. There is a second
assertion made by Mr. Smith, and generally accepted by
Protestants, which we shall prove to be as devoid of
foundation and contrary to fact as the first. It runs as
follows : “ Nothing is more certain than that in every
country where Rome is supreme the circulation of the
Scriptures is forbidden.”
This is indeed a very sweeping statement—a statement
of the truth of which Mr. Smith is so convinced that he
does not hesitate to say that there is “nothing” (not
even, therefore, the existence of God or the Divinity of
Jesus Christ) more certain than that the Roman Church
forbids the circulation of the Scriptures. This statement
is so positive and definite and precise that many a man
will at once accept it, not believing that a man of Mr.
Samuel Smith’s position, and eminence, and straight
forwardness, and rectitude would care to have his name
finked with slander and calumny. It is another proof,
if proof were wanted, of how the man must fare who
ventures to intrude into a domain of which he has no
knowledge.
In the fields of science each man sticks to his own
special line, acknowledging his ignorance of other
branches into the mysteries of which he has not been
initiated ; but in the realm of theology the most ignorant
and the novice deem themselves the equals of the
learned and the veteran. Mr. Samuel Smith has been
led astray by his so-called authorities, who but too often
have wilfully poisoned the springs and sources of his
torical inquiry.
As we have seen, for twelve hundred years the Roman
Church, through her pastors and her doctors, praised and
recommended the reading of Holy Scripture, striving by
every means in her power, in those days when the art
�Rome and the Bible.
il
of printing had not been discovered, to multiply copies of
the Holy Scriptures; using the books of Holy Writ in the
compilation of her prayer-books and books of devotion;
by the arts of painting and music bringing the Scripture
history down to the level of the unlearned, who knew
not how to read ; by scenic representations on the stage
making the characters of the Old and New Testament live
indelibly impressed on the souls of the spectators, bring
ing back, as does the Ober-Ammergau play, in a most
vivid and realistic manner the grand drama of the world’s
history and showing how it all culminates in the awful
tragedy on Mount Calvary. True it is that when the
Albigenses made a new translation of the Bible and
explained it in their own sense to show that the visible
world was created by an evil god, who was also the
author of the Old Testament; that the Body of Christ
was not real; and that sins committed after baptism
could not be forgiven, the Church stepped in and
forbade, not the circulation of the Scriptures, but the
circulation of this new translation which they explained
so as to suit their heretical views.
From the very beginning of the Church there have
been countless translations of the Holy Scriptures. In
these latter days the process is ever going on. Trans
lations differ very much from each other, even in
the same language, and what is more important, they
differ very much in passages of the highest moment. Il
this be so they cannot all be the sense as it was given at
first by God in the original Hebrew or Greek.
Now what do we Christians mean when we talk of the
Bible ? We can only mean one thing—that it is the
Inspired Word of God. Consequently, if we find many
of these translations contradicting one another on most
important points we are driven to the conclusion that
they cannot all be the Bible, that many of them are the
work of men—nay, the work of the devil, who has
induced men to put their own meaning in the place of
the inspired sense of God’s Word.
Let us trace the history of the Authorized English
Version. This will show us how necessary it has been
�12
Rome and the Bible.
for the Church to act with caution, lest the Written Word
of God should become so mutilated as not to be recog
nizable. First comes Tyndale’s New Testament, under
Henry VIII.; then Cranmer’s Great Bible (1539); then
the Bishops’ Bible (1568), under Elizabeth; then the
Authorized Version (1611), under James I.; and finally
the Revised Version, under Victoria (1881). We ask
why were these successive editions brought out, and we
are told in answer, because the previous ones were found
not to give the Word of God in its true sense. The
Rev. J. H. Blunt, in his History of the Reformation of
the Church of England, says: “ In some editions of
Tyndale’s New Testament there is what must be regarded
as a wilful omission of the gravest possible character,
for it appears in several editions, and has no shadow of
justification in the Greek or Latin of the passage, 1 Pet.
ii. 13, 14. Such an error was quite enough justification
for the suppression of Tyndale’s translation.”
Cranmer himself complained to Convocation that his
Great Bible contained both in the Old and New Testa
ments many points which required correction, and he
put it to the vote of the Upper House whether it could
be retained without scandal to the learning of the clergy.
The majority of the Bishops decided that it could not
be so retained. This was followed by the Bishops’ Bible,
it in turn by the Authorized Version of James I., and
now we have the Revised Version of 1881.
Let us take one instance only to show how untrust
worthy even the Authorized Version is. In 1 Cor. xi.
27, the translation in the Authorized Version runs:
‘ Whoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the
Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood
of the Lord.” Note the word “and”: it was an allimportant word in those days in that sentence. For
Protestants maintained that it was necessary to receive
Holy Communion under both kinds, and backed up
their doctrine by this text. Though in the days of the
Manichean heresy Holy Church had insisted upon Com
munion under both kinds, yet her discipline for many
reasons had changed upon this point, and for centuries
�Rome and the Bible.
*3
Communion under one kind for the laity had been the
usual practice of the Western Church. If we turn to the
Revised Version, we find the passage rendered now as
follows: “ Whoever shall eat the bread or drink the
cup of the Lord unworthily,” &c. This is the reading in
the Catholic Church, and confirms her practice of ad
ministering the Sacrament under one kind. The Revised
Version is judged also by many learned men to contain
serious errors.
If we turn to Continental versions, it is quite sufficient
for our purpose to see the estimate formed by the
“ Reformers ” themselves of these translations. Luther’s
translation, in which Emser detected over a thousand
glaring errors, Zuinglius declared to be a corruption of
the Word of God; a compliment which Luther repaid
with interest on the appearance of the translation by
Zuinglius. CEcolampadius and the theologians of Basle
found fault with Beza’s translation because, as they say,
he changed the text of Scripture. Naturally Beza retorts
upon them, and declares their translation to be impious
in parts. Du Moulin says of Calvin’s translation, that it
did violence to the letter of the Gospel, which Calvin
has changed, and to which he made additions of his own.
When the ministers of Geneva made an exact version of
Calvin’s Bible, James I. of England declared at the
Hampton Court Conference that of all versions it was
the most wicked and unfaithful. When the Authorized
Version first appeared in England it was openly decried
by many Protestant ministers as abounding in gross
perversions of the original text.
Furthermore, what has been the practical outcome of
the principle of private judgment in • conjunction with
unrestrained licence in translating the Scriptures as each
man chose? What has been the lesult in Germany, the
first theatre of Protestantism? Is it not a fact that
Rationalism, a system little better than downright Deism,
has frittered away the very substance of Christianity?
The Rationalists of Germany have left nothing of
Christianity—not even its skeleton. Is England, that
imported a religion first made in Germany, in a much
�14
Rome and the Bible.
better plight? Do not many fear, and rightly fear,
that the same spirit will soon carry all before it in
England ?
The Catholic Church, the guardian of Revealed Truth,
the custodian of the Word of God, both Written and
handed down by Tradition, seeing on the one hand the
faulty, erroneous, and mischievous translations of the
Scriptures that were being spread broadcast over every
Christian land, and recognizing that the so-called right
of private judgment, so lauded by the “ Reformers,” was
utterly subversive of all authority in Church and State,
provided a remedy for the evil that threatened the world.
As there has never been a Divine command laid upon
all men to read the Scriptures (else how could the early
Christians and the unlearned in all ages be saved?), the
Church has the power to regulate by her disciplinary
enactments whatever concerns this reading. Ecclesias
tical discipline is of its very nature changeable, and is
adapted to meet the requirements of times, places,
and persons. Restrictive measures which had prevailed
in isolated dioceses became general when the danger
became universal.
These measures were particularly
severe on the translations made or edited by heretics,
and rightly so. For very many of these translations
were written off with great speed, and consequently were
not very faithful to the text •, then the translators, under
the influence of their errors, introduced in many places
interpretations diverging from the traditional sense;
besides, when these editions reproduced the Catholic
version they suppressed the notes by which it was
accompanied; finally, the character of their authors and
the independent manner in which these editions and
translations were made render them objects of suspicion.
Furthermore, in our own days the method of procedure
adopted by the Bible Societies has added a new motive
for proscribing Protestant Bibles. In fact, it is generally
conceded in principle that in all the Bibles published by
these societies the Deuterocanonical Books of the Old
Testament are not printed, and the text given without
note or explanation. These Bibles, then, are mutilated
�Rome and the Bible.
15
and deprived of those helps which would render reading
less dangerous.
It is to no purpose, then, that our separated brethren
accuse the Roman Church of proscribing arbitrarily
editions and versions approved by Catholic prelates or
faculties, simply and solely because they are distributed
by Protestants. It is no silly jealousy that actuates
ecclesiastical authorities. It is the good of souls, gravely
compromised by these productions.
The Action of the Church.
The Bishops gathered together at the Council of Trent
drew up a decree relative to the reading of the Bible in
the vernacular, and besought the Pope before the dis
solution of the Council to publish it in a solemn manner, v
Pope Pius IV. yielded to their wish, and published,
March 24, 1544, the rules of the Index. The third
Rule is : “ Translations of the books of the Old Testa
ment can only be granted to wise and pious men,
according to the judgment of the Bishop, provided
that they use these translations as explanations of the
Vulgate, in order to understand the Holy Scriptures,
and not as the true text. As to translations of the New
Testament, made by authors of the first class (the
heresiarchs, Luther, Zuinglius, Calvin, &c.), let them be
granted to no one, because their reading cannot be
advantageous, and is generally very dangerous to the
readers. If annotations have been added to the versions
that are allowed, or to the Vulgate, their reading can be
permitted to those who are allowed to have these versions,
provided that the suspected passages in them have been
cut out by the theological faculty of a Catholic university
or by the General Inquisition.” The fourth Rule is:
“As experience has shown that if the use of the Holy
Bible in the vernacular be allowed to every one without
distinction there results therefrom, in consequence of the
rashness of men, more harm than advantage, let all
submit in this matter to the judgment of the Bishop or
the Inquisitor, so that they can permit, with the advice
of the parish priest or confessor, the reading of the Holy
�16
Rome and the Bible.
Scriptures translated into the vernacular by Catholic
authors to those whom they shall judge fit to draw from
this reading not harm, but an increase of faith and piety.
Let this permission be obtained in writing. Tho=e who
shall dare to read, or keep these Bibles without this leave
cannot receive absolution of their sins until they have
given them up to the ordinary. Regulars can neither
read them nor buy them without the leave of their
superiors.”
This two-fold rule, which became the Church’s law,
suppressed as far as possible the abuses without ignoring
or neglecting the advantages that might spring from the
use of the Bible in the vernacular. This law, faithfully
and loyally kept, foiled the plans and designs of the
heretics. This is the reason why such senseless cries
and absurd accusations have been excited by it. Pro
testants would have it that this new disciplinary enact
ment on the part of the Catholic Church was an impious
attack on God’s Holy Word; that the Holy Scripture
was treated as though it were a dangerous, if not a bad
book; that the laity were altogether forbidden to read it,
and that hence it became the monopoly of the clergy,
who were now able without let or hindrance to poison
the minds and hearts of the unfortunate believers in the
claims of the Church of Rome. Such is the fantastic
interpretation spread abroad by Protestantism with
obstinate persistency, in spite of every denial and every
explanation of Catholic theologians. Now let us see what in reality was allowed by the
Church in relation to the reading of the Holy Scriptures.
All Catholics, laymen as well as the clergy, were allowed
to read, ist, the Old Testament in the Hebrew text, and
the .New Testament in the Greek; 2nd, the Greek
version of the Septuagint; 3rd, the ancient translations
of the whole Bible in Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopian, &c. ;
4th, the Latin Vulgate. The Church knows full well
that these texts and these translations are orthodox, and
she was convinced that men who were capable of under
standing these ancient languages were sufficiently well
educated not to suffer themselves to be led astray by the
�Rome and the Bible.
17
difficulties and obscurities of the Holy Scriptures. We
must remember, too, that most, if not all, educated
men of that time understood Latin, and in consequence
were perfectly free to read the Vulgate.
The Church, however, did not allow the use of the
Bible translated into the vernacular indiscriminately to
all; but she gave the use of it freely and willingly through
the Bishop or the Inquisitor, to all who were accounted
fit to profit by its reading, on the advice of the confessor
or the parish priest. Undoubtedly, then, a restriction
was placed upon the indiscriminate reading of the Bible
translated into the vulgar tongue. Nay more, for a
brief period the restriction was drawn tighter by Sixtus V.
and Clement VIII., who insisted that application for
this leave was to be made to the Holy See. This legis
lation, however, was soon dropped, and things reverted
to the state established by Pius IV. When, however,
the fury of the storm had subsided, Holy Church began
to relax still more the severity of the discipline. Thus
we find Pope Benedict XIV. in 1757, the year that Clive
founded our Empire in India by the victory of Plassey,
two years before the fall of Quebec, three years before
the accession of George III.., a hundred and forty years
ago, confirming this decree of the Congregation of the
Index: “ If these translations of the Bible into the
vernacular have been approved by the Holy See or
edited with notes taken from the holy Fathers or learned
Catholic authors, they are allowable.” This decree was
confirmed in 1829 by Pius VIII., and is now practically
the law throughout the length and breadth of the Catholic
world.
Yet Mr. Samuel Smith, M.P., tells us that “ Nothing
is more certain than that wherever Rome is supreme
the circulation of the Scriptures is forbidden ! ” If he
is not yet convinced let him pay strict attention to the
words of Pius VI. writing to the Archbishop of Florence
in 1778, the year that the great Commoner, William
Pitt, Earl of Chatham, died, whilst the American
colonies were in the midst of their great struggle for
freedom. These are the words : “ You judge exceedingly
�18
Rome and the Bible.
well that the faithful should be excited to the reading of
the Holy Scriptures; for these are the most abundant
sources which ought to be left open to every one to draw
from them purity of morals and of doctrine, and to
eradicate the errors which are so widely spread in these
corrupt times. This you have seasonably effected by
publishing the Sacred Writings in the language of your
country, suitable to every one’s capacity.” Pius VII.,
writing in 1820 to the English Vicars-Apostolic, urges
them “ to encourage their people to read the Holy
Scriptures, for nothing can be more useful, more
consolatory, and more animating, because they serve to
confirm the faith, to support the hope, and to inflame
the charity of the true Christian.”
Is Mr. Samuel Smith still unconvinced ? Let him
turn his gaze to that vast Republic in which he has been
lately travelling, and note that in that land there is a
mighty episcopate which is accustomed to gather together
from time to time in council at Baltimore. About ten
years ago, in a Pastoral Letter addressed by them to
their faithful children, they say: “ It can hardly be
necessary to remind you, beloved brethren, that the most
highly valued treasure of every family library, and the
most frequently and lovingly made use of, should be
the Holy Scriptures,” and after citing the letter of
Pius VI. to the Archbishop of Florence cited above,
they conclude : “ We trust that no family can be found
amongst us without a correct version of the Holy
Scriptures.” If Mr. Samuel Smith, and those who agree
with him, are not yet convinced of the error, they must
be hard to satisfy. We are told to turn for a compact
view of the subject to the copious writings of the
Rev. J. A. Wylie, especially the one entitled The Papacy.
We turn to it, and we read the extract which purports to
be taken from an Encyclical of Pius IX. in 1850. We
give the extract as it appears in Mr. Samuel Smith’s
pamphlet and the extract as it is in the Pope’s Encyclical
in parallel columns, and leave to the pious consideration
of the reader the tortuous ways of some Protestant
controversialists—
�Rome and the Bible.
19
EXTRACT AS IN MR. SMITH’S
PAMPHLET.
EXTRACT AS IN THE
ENCYCLICAL.
“ Nay, more, with the assist
ance of the Biblical Societies,
which have long been con
demned by the Holy Chair,
they do not blush to distribute
Holy Bibles, translated into the
vulgar tongue, without being
conformed to the rules of the
Church. . . . Under a false
pretext of religion, they recom
mend the reading of them to the
faithful. You, in your wisdom,
perfectly understand, venerable
brothers, with what vigilance
and solicitude you ought to
labour that the faithful may fly
with horror from this poisonous
reading.”
“ Nay, more, with the assist
ance of the Biblical Societies,
which have long been condemned
by this Holy See, they do not
scruple to spread about and
recommend to the faithful peoples
under plea of religion, Bible,
translated into the vernacular
contrary to the rules of the
Church, and by this means cor
rupted and with reckless audacity
twisted to a false meaning.
Hence, venerable brethren, you
understand in your wisdom with
what vigilance and anxiety you
must labour that the faithful
sheep of the flock may shun the
pestilential reading of them.”
Is it easy to believe in the good faith of men who
wilfully and deliberately print statements like the above
as the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church ? Where
is the English sense of fair-play in such a translation?
Is it not skilfully devised to lead on the readers who
have neither the leisure nor the wish nor the opportunity
—and they form the multitude—to verify the quotation,
to believe that the Sovereign Pontiff forbids as pestilential
reading God’s Holy Word ? The important words which
give a totally different complexion to the sentence are
omitted, as if they were of no importance and did not
give any more light to the meaning of the sentence.
When we turn to what Pius IX. did say, we find that the
Pope earnestly exhorted the Bishops to labour to get
their flocks to shun the pestilential reading of—what?
The Bible ? No; but of Bibles which had been
translated into the vernacular, and which had “ by this
means been corrupted and, with reckless audacity,
twisted to a false meaning.”
We shall later see how wise and prudent, nay, how
absolutely necessary, were these orders of the Popes
through the action of the Bible Societies in the East.
Catholics often wonder how it is that such strong preju
�20
Rome and tke Bible.
dice exists against the Church. It is fabrications such
as these that keep up the bitter feeling against us.
Except in the South of France, North of Spain, and
England, where restrictions were imposed by Provincial
Councils in the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries respec
tively on translations of the Bible into the vernacular
because they were accompanied by false interpretations
or were false in translation, no restriction was imposed
upon such translations by the Church as a whole till
Pius IV. published the decree of the Index, March 24,
1544. Even then, as has been already said, the Bible
could be read by all, laymen as well as the clergy, in the
Hebrew and Greek texts, in the Septuagint version, in
the Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopian, &c., versions, and in the
Latin Vulgate.
Restrictions were placed upon the
reading of the translations of the Bible into the verna
cular, but leave could be obtained from the Bishop or
Inquisitor, through the confessor or parish priest, to do so.
This legislation was, however, changed by Benedict XIV.
140 years ago (in 1757), when he confirmed the decree
of the Congregation of the Index, by which the reading
of Catholic translations into the vernacular was allowed
if they were approved by the Holy See, or edited with notes
taken from the Fathers or good and learned theologians.
Lastly, Bishops and Popes have earnestly exhorted the
faithful to read the Holy Scriptures. How, then, can
Protestants give utterance to statements so completely at
variance with fact ?
Mr. Smith, in a letter to the Liverpool papers (January
nth), quotes from the Rev. Hobart Seymour’s Mornings
with the Jesuits (1850), saying that he had sought in
vain throughout Rome for a Bible in the Italian tongue.
(He contradicts himself, by the way, as he informs
us that Martini’s translation was actually offered to
him for sale.) Did the Rev. Mr. Seymour ask for
the Protestant Bible? If so, of course he was told
that it was not allowable. However, to obtain more
definite information, as soon as I saw Mr. Samuel
Smith’s letter I telegraphed to an English priest stationed
in Rome, and received from him a letter, which I print
�Rome and the Bible.
21
as an appendix, with a pamphlet in Italian on the
subject. He gives therein the same facts as I have
adduced, about Martini’s Bible appearing in many
editions; tells us that countless copies of the New
Testament were spread among the people before 1870,
the Pope and Bishops encouraging their diffusion; and
declares that hundreds of thousands of Curci’s cheap
translations of the Gospels, about 1870, have been
circulated.
Mr. Smith cites a Brief , sent in 1816 by. Pope
Pius VII. to Ignatius, Bishop of Gnesen, in which he
denounces the Bible Societies, and says that the Holy
Scriptures, “when circulated in the vulgar tongue, have,
through the temerity of men, produced more harm than
benefit.” This quotation is accurate as far as it goes,
but the words that follow show what it is that the Pope
forbids. They are: “And this is a misfortune which
we have more reason to fear in our days, as our holy
religion is attacked on all sides with skilful efforts. You
must then adhere to the salutary decree of the Congre
gation of the Index (June 13, 1757)—viz., that transla
tions of the Bible into the vernacular (vulgar tongue) are
not to be allowed, except such as are approved by the
Holy See, or edited with notes taken from the holy
Fathers.” Clearly, then, as I have said so often, approved
translations of the Bible are allowed.
A Protestant Device.
I have pointed out how, by misrepresentation which
would seem to be wilful and deliberate, the words of
condemnation of the Bible Societies by Pius IX. were
made to say what the Pope never said. That you may
see how common a device this is of some Protestant
writers for gulling the Protestant public, let me cite an
instance from the English Churchman of November 1,
1896 : “In the year 1824, in an ‘Encyclical,’ Leo the
Twelfth speaks of a certain society which is spreading
over the world the Bible, which is the gospel of the
devil.” Fancy the Ruler of that Church which, as Luther
said, preserved the Bible for us calling God’s Holy Word
•
�22
Rome and the Bible.
“ the gospel of the devil ” ! The writer knew only too
well that this was the food to supply to a large portion
of the non-Catholic world, which has been fed for three
hundred and fifty years on all kinds of mendacious
statements about the grand old Church of their fore
fathers. These are the statements that are swallowed
down wholesale by the gullible Protestant public, and
which keep alive Protestant prejudice.
Now, what did Leo XII. really say? “You are aware,
venerable brethren, that a certain society, commonly
caller! the Bible Society, strolls with effrontery throughout
the world; which society, contemning the traditions of
the holy Fathers and contrary to the well-known decree
of the Council of Trent, labours with all its might and
by every means to translate—or rather to pervert—the
Holy Bible into the vulgar languages of every nation;
from which proceeding it is greatly to be feared that
what is ascertained to have happened as to some
passages may also occur with regard to others, to wit,
that by a perverse interpretation the Gospel of Christ
be turned into a human gospel, or, what is worse still,
into the gospel of the devil.”
What are we to think of the capabilities of a man who
dares thus to come forth and proffer his translation
as the correct one of the Pope’s Encyclical? Most
schoolboys who have even a limited acquaintance with
the Latin tongue would laugh it to scorn. Yet fabrica
tions such as these are spread wholesale against Catho
licism by men who ought to—may I not add, who must
—know better.
The Bible Societies.
Why is it that the Catholic Church is so hostile to the
efforts of the Bible Societies ? Is it dislike for God’s
Holy Word? Every Catholic knows that such is not,
such cannot be the case. The Catholic Church has too
much love and veneration for all that comes from its
Creator and Redeemer. The Catholic Church loves
God’s Holy Word too much to expose it to the nameless
horror and frightful indignities to which it has been
�Rome and the Bible.
23
subjected by the action of the Societies in distributing
millions of copies throughout the world.
Of the results of this action I will give a few examples.
Archdeacon Grant in his B amp ton Lectures, c. 3, p. 93,
tells us: “ The cause of the eagerness which has some
times been evinced to obtain the sacred volume cannot
be traced to a thirst for the Word of Life, but to secular
purposes, the unhallowed uses to which the Holy Word
of God, left in their hands, has been turned, and which
are absolutely shocking to any Christian feeling.” “ They
have been seen,” says Dr. Wells Williams, “ on the
counters of shops in Macao, cut in two for wrapping up
medicines and fruits, which the shopman would not do
with the worst of his own books.” 1 “ They are em
ployed,” said Bishop Courrazy, “to roll round tobacco
and bacon.” 2 Whole cases of them were sold by auction
and purchased, says another eye-witness, at the price
of old paper, chiefly by the shoemakers, grocers, and
druggists. Mr. Tomlin admits that the Chinese often
stole them at night to apply them to domestic purposes,
and that some of the missionaries appeared to consider
this theft an encouraging proof of their zeal for Divine
things. Marchini tells us from actual observation that
they are sold by the weight to shoemakers to make
Chinese slippers, and then goes on to express his
astonishment, because “the English, who display so
much discernment and accuracy of judgment in other
matters,” should allow themselves to be the dupes of
salaried speculators or visionary enthusiasts.
“ How degrading is the idea,” says a Protestant writer
in the Asiatic Journal (vol. ix. p. 343), “ to put into the
hands of every Chinese bargeman or illiterate porter a
packet of tracts, to sell or give away on his journey as he
pleases.”
So rapid is the consumption of Bibles in the various
branches of the retail trade in Hindostan that of the
millions circulated it is difficult, except in the capitals,
to find so much as the trace of a single copy. This we
1 The Middle Kingdom, vol. ii. c. 19, p. 343.
2 Annals of Propagation of Faith, vol. i. p. 107.
�24
Rome and the Bible.
are told by Captain J. B. Seely in The Wonders of Elora,
c. 19, p. 524, second edition. “Many of them have
probably gone to the pawnbrokers,” said Sir Charles
Oakeley, Governor of Madras. In Ceylon they were
used for much the same purposes as in India and
China.
In New Zealand the Maories, according to Mr. Fox,1
tore up the Bibles to make wadding for their guns, and
even went so far, as Miss Tucker indignantly informs us,
as to convert them into New Zealand cartridges. In
Africa, on the West Coast at Gaboon, after a grand
distribution of Bibles by the missionaries among the
negroes, as soon as the sacred book had fallen into the
hands of the children, M. Bessieux saw the leaves of the
Bible converted into pretty kites (Annals of Propagation
of Faith, vol. viii. p. 75). Colonel Napier’s tale is that
the Kaffirs converted lately, to our cost, the missionary
Bibles into ball cartridges or wadding.2 In Tetuan they
were thrown into the flames. In Abyssinia, we are told
by Mr. Parkyns that “ the use to which the many Bibles
given away in this country are commonly applied is the
wrapping up of snuff and such like undignified purposes.”
Throughout the Levant, Syria, and Armenia, millions of
Bibles have been distributed. Many of them have been
diligently collected and committed to the flames.3 An
agent of the Biblical Society resentfully records that the
ecclesiastical authorities “have always strenuously op
posed the distribution of the Bible in modern Greek.” *
The Greek Patriarch, too, worried by the aggressions
of the missionaries, published an Encyclical Letter
in which he not only warned his people against
the emissaries of the Bible Society, but described
them as “ satanical heresiarchs from the caverns of
hell and the abyss of the Northern Sea, whose object
was to proselytize and to foment division and harass
* The Six Colonies of New Zealand, p. 83.
2 Excursion in South Africa, vol. ii. c. 22, p. 442.
3 Dr. Robertson, Biblical Researches in Palestine, vol. i. § 3,
p. 140.
4 Journal of Deputation to East, vol. ii. p. 594.
�Rome and the Bible.
25
their Church and fill it with heresy.” He went on to
forbid the purchase or use of any translation of the
Scriptures made by the missionaries, whether in the
Turkish, Servian, Arabian, Bulgarian, Slavonian, or other
languages.1 If such an Encyclical had appeared from
the Roman Pontiff, how the pulpits of Protestant
England would have resounded with declamations against
the tyranny of the Papacy !
In Persia the Bibles were torn up in the presence of
the missionary and trampled in the dirt. At Bassora,
where Mr. Samuel, the missionary, was nearly torn to
pieces, the Mahometans, more reverential than the
missionary, anxious, as they said themselves, “ that a
book which they as well as Christians consider sacred
might not be trodden under foot, resolved that the
volumes should all be thrown into the river, and
this order was accordingly executed.” 2 Instances of
usage such as this might be multiplied ad infinitum.
They have cost innumerable sums, says Mr. Marshall^
have awakened only the contempt of the few pagans
who read them, have been polluted by the foulest and
most degrading uses, and finally consumed as waste
paper.
Degradation of the Scriptures.
Is it possible for God’s Holy Word to be subjected to
greater degradation? Yes, unfortunately it is so, and
what is worse, it has actually undergone the degradation.
We know how the “ Reformers ” of the sixteenth century
wrangled with one another about their own translations
of the Bible, how Luther’s version was called by Zuinglius
a corruption of God’s Holy Word, a compliment returned
a hundredfold by Luther on the translation edited by
Zuinglius; how James I. called the translation by Calvin,
edited with great care by the Genevan Ministers, the
most unfaithful of translations. Have the attempts of
the British and Foreign Bible Society to translate the
1 Loc. cit., p. 816.
2 Narrative of a Mission to India, by V. Fontanier, Vice-Consul
of France at Bassora, p. 344.
3 Christian Missions, vol. i. p. 22.
�26
Rome and the Bible.
Scriptures into the languages of the world fared any
better ? Let us examine and see. Please to remember
that all this time I am speaking from a historical point
of view, and not as a theologian. Dr. Morrison edited
the first Protestant version of the Bible in the Chinese
language at a cost of more than ^20,000. “ It was,” as
the Bible Society admits, “imperfect, and not sufficiently
idiomatic.” No wonder, for, as Dr. Morrison says : “ I
edited the New Testament with such alterations as in
my conscience, and with the degree of knowledge of the
Chinese language which I then possessed, I thought
necessary.” Yet Dr. Morrison had no hesitation in
proclaiming that as “ the Word of God ” which he had
himself altered as his conscience dictated. Talk about
an Infallible Pope, indeed !
Morrison’s translation was followed by Marshman’s,
of which Mr. Malcolm says : “lam assured by private
Chinese gentlemen that neither Marshman’s nor Morri
son’s Bible is fully intelligible, much less attractive.”
Marchini goes further, and assures us that their Chinese
versions are “an unintelligible jargon which no one
could read without laughing,” and that the learned
Chinese complained that their sublime idiom should be
so wantonly caricatured. This was so clear and manifest
a truth that a solemn meeting of missionaries of various
Protestant denominations was summoned to meet at
Hong-Kong in 1848, to take measures for concocting
one more version “ better adapted for general circulation
than any hitherto published.” The Rev. G. Milne1
informs us that “ one or two versions were attempted,
but exceedingly defective and very unsatisfactory.”
Many an honest man, no doubt, will scarcely be able to
credit these statements. Therefore it is all the more
important to get impartial testimony in proof of the
statements. Mr. Meadows Taylor, Chinese Interpreter
to H.M. Civil Service, describes in 1856 the real
character and effect of these Protestant translations
which have cost so much money as follows: “ Let the
English Protestant reflect on the Book of the Mormons
1 Life in China, p. 50.
�Rome and the Bible.
27
and on Mormonism, as it is spreading in some places in
Great Britain, and he will obtain a by no means exagge
rated notion of the contemptible light in which our
badly-translated Scriptures and Christianity in China are
regarded by the thorough Confucian, viz., as a tissue of
absurdities and impious pretensions, which it would be
lost time to examine.” 1
If we turn to India, is the. outlook different ? “ The
translations are so grossly absurd,” says a learned Protes
tant writer in the Asiatic Journal, vol. xxviii. p. 303,
that “ instead of promoting the service of Christianity, it
is not irrational to impute some of the backwardness of
the Hindoos to this cause.” A copy of the Telinga
version was given to some natives in the district of
Bellary, but as they could not understand it, they con
sulted their most learned man, who after careful examina
tion told his clients “ that its style was so obscure and
incoherent that it was almost impossible to comprehend
it, but that he believed it was a treatise on magic.” Of
the Tamil version a Protestant clergyman declared that
“ the translation is really pitiful, and deserves only con
tempt.”
Here are some specimens of the Canara
version :—“ In the beginning God created the earth and
the air.” “ Darkness was upon the water, but the soul
of God wandered with delight over the water.” “ Let
us make man like to us and having our form : let him
command the aquatic insects of the sea.” M. Dubois
tells us that in this version there is hardly a verse correctly
rendered, and that “ no Indian possessing the slightest
instruction can preserve a serious countenance in reading
cuch a composition.”
In the “ Baptist Missionary
Account,” 1819 (Appendix to Report), we are told that
in the Hindostani version the sentence “ Judge not, that
ye be not judged ” is rendered “ Do no justice that
justice be not done to you.” What an idea of Christian
morality to be presented to the pagan ! Are we surprised,
then, at the testimony given by Mr. Irving,2 that these
translations have been “either simply useless, or, from
1 The Chinese and their Rebellion, p. 79.
* Theory and Practice of Caste, p. 149.
�28
Rome and the Bible.
explaining the doctrines of our Faith by ridiculous forms
of expression, have been absolutely pernicious ” ?
The Popes and the Bible Societies.
Testimonies of this kind from non-Catholic sources
could be multiplied a thousandfold. If this be so, have
we Catholics any reason for surprise at the words of the
Sovereign Pontiffs, so continually, and persistently, and
energetically warning the flock of Christ against the
Bible Societies ? They each and all assert the right of
private interpretation of that which they claim to be the
sole rule of faith, God’s Holy Word, a doctrine which
the Catholic Church cannot allow. Too often, as we
have seen to-day, not translations, but perversions of the
Scriptures are sent forth, which bring ridicule and con
tempt upon the religion of Christ. Too often, indeed,
as Pope Leo XII. has declared, by a perverse interpre
tation the Gospel of Christ is turned into a human
gospel, or, what is still worse, into the gospel of the devil.
In conclusion, may I be allowed to state again that in all
this matter I am speaking from a historian’s point of
view, and that in speaking of the efforts of the Bible
Societies to convert the East I have confined myself to
the events that took place antecedent to the year 1863.
The Bible in Rome.
In proof of his assertion that wherever Rome has had
undisputed sway she has kept the Bible from the laity,
we are told by Mr. Samuel Smith how friends of his had
the greatest difficulty in smuggling Bibles into Rome.
Presumably they were Protestant versions of the Bible,
and they were prohibited by the Pope, lest the purity of
Catholic faith should be impaired. Had Mh. Samuel
Smith s friends taken with them Martini’s approved
edition of the Bible, or the approved Douay edition of
the Bible in English, no difficulty would have been
experienced.
The false impression is kept up in the next sentence:
“ When the Italian army entered Rome, the first wheel
carriage contained a consignment of Bibles.” What is
�Rome and the Bible.
29
suggested is clearly that the poor, hungry Romans had
been deprived, under the Papal sway, of God’s Holy
Word. How false is this suggestion may be gathered
from Father Chandlery’s letter (see Appendix).
M. Lasserre’s Translation.
We are told (p. 13) that “the present Pope gave his
approval to Lasserre’s French translation of the Gospels,
which had a large sale, but, strange to say, it is now
placed on the Index Expurgatorius, and its sale pro
hibited.”
Let us see what are the real facts of the condemnation
of Henri Lasserre’s translation of the Gospels. But first I
would ask Mr. Samuel Smith not to pin his faith too
strongly on an article on this subject by Dr. Wright, pub
lished in the Contemporary Review. This Dr. Wright, in
a letter to the papers, said : “ I pointed out as clearly as
I could that the same Infallible Pope had officially cursed
the same version of the Gospels twelve months and fifteen
days after he had officially sent it forth glowing with his
benediction.” When asked what grounds he had for
saying that the Pope cursed the book, he writes in reply,
with an ignorance of the Latin tongue that would dis
grace a schoolboy : “ Sacra Congregatio damnavit et
damnat . . .” Is it really ignorance ? Is he not aware
that “ damnavit ” means “ condemned ” ?
Briefly, the facts of the case are these. Henri Lasserre,
the well-known writer and devout client of Mary, issued
what he called a translation of the Four Gospels in the
French tongue, with a preface. It had received the
imprimatur of the Archbishop of Paris, after passing
twice through the hands of the censors, and at once had
an enormous sale. It ran through twenty-five editions
in twelve months, and was warmly welcomed by the
Catholic Press and many of the Bishops. Lasserre
presented his Holiness with a copy. Leo XIII. com
missioned Cardinal Jacobini to express to the author his
approval of the object with which he had been inspired
in the execution and publication of the work, and his
hopes that this object may be fully attained.
�30
Rome and the Bible.
Meanwhile other Catholics, more solicitous about the
preservation of the text of Holy Scripture from all undue
interference than about beauty of style, having carefully
studied the work, came to the conclusion that it was full
of inaccuracies and mistranslations, and departed in
many places from the traditional interpretation. Repre
sentations were made to Rome ; the book was examined
by the Congregation of the Index, whose office it is to
point out to the faithful books which are in any way
hurtful to faith or morals, with the result that the book
was placed upon the Index Expurgatorius. The book
was withdrawn from circulation by Henri Lasserre,
naturally much to his own regret. It must be noted
also, as M. l’Abbe Barbin pointed out in the Univers
of November, 1896, that Lasserre had not made all the
corrections pointed out to him, especially in his preface;
and that a public and official note from the archdiocese
formally warned him that this imprimatur was not an
approbation properly so called, but rather a simple per
mission to print.
Now, in the first place, even had Leo XIII. approved
the translation, there would have been no question of
Papal Infallibility involved in the matter. The Pope is
infallible only when he teaches the Universal Church
ex cathedra. But Leo. XIII. did not approve the
translation in itself (we have no proof that he ever read
it) ; he approved of the object that Lasserre had in view,
the greater diffusion of the Gospel story. How does
this square with Mr. Smith’s proposition?
Secondly, as the Congregation of the Index is a higher
court than that of any Archbishop, it has the right to
revise the judgements of the lower courts.
Thirdly, let us see some of the translations given by
Lasserre, which doubtless influenced the Congregation in
its decision.
In the Lord’s Prayer “ lead us not into temptation ”
is changed in this wise : “ Forgive us our trespasses as
we forgive them that trespass against us. Yes, Lord,
I say this to You, and I think it from the bottom of my
heart; yes, I wish to forgive and to be generous, to
�Rome and the Bible.
3i
forgive those who offend me, and to be generous to my
debtors. All the same, do not put me to the test, for
I know myself and my own frailty.” St. John xiii. 1 :
“ He loved them to the end ” is turned into “ He put
the finishing touch to His love.” St. John xv. 1, 5 :
“ I am the vine and you are the branches.” He tires
of the word “branches” at last, and turns it into
“ leaves.” Do the leaves produce fruit ? St. John iv. 5 :
“ wearied ” is turned into “ overwhelmed by fatigue and
having no further strength.”
“ Having no further
strength” is an interpolation. St. John xii. 6: For
“ [Judas] carried the things that were put therein ” we
have “ [Judas] embezzled the things.” St. Luke i. 30 :
“ Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found grace with God ”
is changed into “Fear not, Mary, for thou hast won the
good graces of God.” St. Luke i. 34: “I know not
man ” becomes “ I have no relation with my husband.”
St. Matthew i. 20 : “Is of the Holy Ghost” becomes
“The fruit of the Holy Ghost.” St. Mark xiv. 23: “And
they all drank of it” (the chalice) at the institution of
the Blessed Eucharist; these words are omitted. The
Passion , of Our Lord in St. Mark’s Gospel is told, to
render it more vivid and picturesque, in the present
tense. This, however, is not translating. St. Matthew
xix. 9: M. Lasserre puts aside, in sheer ignorance of
the ordinary use of the word “proneia,” the meaning
which this passage bears by the common consent of ail
Christendom, and puts into Our Lord’s mouth a law
respecting divorce which the whole world ignores.
St. Mark iii. 21: “ He is become mad ” is changed into
“He has fainted.” St. Matthew xviii. 17: “It must
needs be that scandals come ” we are told in a note
probably means “ It is a misfortune that scandals come.”
It is said that Cardinal Pitra, one of the most learned
Cardinals of the time, counted more than eight hundred
mistakes in the translation. Was it not time, then, to
stop the circulation of the book as a translation of the
Gospels ?
The Abbe Barbin says of the book that from cover to
cover it is a paraphrase, an adaptation, an arrangement
�32
Rome and the Bible.
of the Gospel that is arbitrary, pretentious, and at times
unfortunate, but that it is not a translation. Lest the
meaning of Holy Scripture should be obscured, and the
traditional explanation coming down from the Apostolic
times be set aside and false doctrine take the place of
the teaching of Our Lord and His Apostles, the Church
had to step in and prohibit the circulation of such a
book among the faithful.
The Church values the
treasure of God’s Holy Word too highly to allow it to
be the sport and play of any man’s fancy. Had
Lasserre’s version been a faithful transcript of the
Scriptures, no prohibition would have been issued.
The Epistle of Clement.
Mr. Smith tells us (p. 44) that “ no trust can be placed
in the Romish translations of the Scriptures into the
vernacular, for, though almost incredible, yet it is a fact
that the Rhemish Testament includes the forged so-called
First Epistle of Clement to St. James.” It seems need
less to say that no such Epistle is to be found amongst
the Canon of Scripture in the Rheims Testament.
APPENDIX.
t
The Bible in Rome.
The following are extracts from the letter from the Rev.
Peter Chandlery, referred to on pp. 20, 29 :—
“ The Rev. Hobart Seymour states that he visited every book
selling establishment in Rome in 1850, and could not procure a
copy of the Holy Scriptures in Italian. Answer (1): I have here
in my room a copy of the whole Bible in Italian, in three volumes,
printed at Milan in 1848, and bought in Rome in 1850, and it is
certain that this same book was for sale at all the leading book
sellers’ in Rome. Answer (2) : I called this morning at one of the
largest booksellers in Rome, who assured me that the Bible in
Italian was for sale in their shop in 1850, and has been ever since.
_ “ He says Martini’s edition of the Bible in Italian was offered to
him in two places, but it was in twenty-four volumes, and the price
was some A4 sterling. Answer : The edition of Martini in my
room, bought in Rome in 1850, is in three volumes octavo, and has
the full text and notes; the price was not more than six francs a
volume—15s. in all. Copies of the New Testament were to be
had for two francs and one franc.”
PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY THE CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIETY, LONDON.
U
�
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 & 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
Rome and the Bible
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Donnelly, T.
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 32 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: The substance of Sermons preached at St. Francis Xavier's, Liverpool, January 1897. Includes bibliographical references. Annotations in red pencil. Date of publication from KVK (OCLC WorldCat). A response to Samuel Smith, M.P.'s pamphlet 'The Claims of Rome'.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Catholic Truth Society
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1897?]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RA1537
Subject
The topic of the resource
Catholic Church
Bible
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 />This work (Rome and the Bible), identified by <span><a href="www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Bible
Catholic Church-Doctrinal and Controversial Works
Samuel Smith
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/9ccd82b8df771631e645babee134bc5a.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=u-sGydUZ4uQC%7EgndIMmS-k5ijtu3UaDQyRLkwQg1C8vAxyyJCwGFVW48q7AA-i6BqPg1jurXGB0ZMplPqRbCy%7E6sofWw6tLcda68HvvabIiFc3CdogUo7RZY8Uuv8UpdpeKYLSpS7JTUxvwfCORTM3kyW0WiZR9I4dup9PSY9xRrL5BWNyj-g5DJ9MitR1SPMdC0AykO0LpAvPnKahk6btj%7E7Cr7Q4uoTnQa3xBC8nNQrhlaxf7WOCRd%7EpCNusYdn1eOKtZIgwUSp3FxNdzfdGaYrGAzmGZ56mXJB7NRYbc6nUF5oagmE0Uzh7IF9RxF-B%7EV5BoVR67a7A7iNfx5jQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
552d70e66c381cbf904d3061d50f5601
PDF Text
Text
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
* ’ -
BIBLE HEROES
«
BY
i'
ll
*
FOOTE.
G. W.
lb
9
FIRST SERIES.
LONDON:
PROGRESSIVE PUBLISHING COMPANY,
28 Stonecutter Street, E.C.
1887.
it.
��LONDON:
PRINTED BY G. W. FOOTE,
AT 14 CLERKENWELL GREEN, E.C.
�—
-
—
....................... 1
1
�MR.
ADAM.
-------- 4---------
Science tells us that the human race has existed on this planet,
ruder in form and character the further we go back, for hundreds
of thousands of years. Long before “the grand old gar
dener,” as Tennyson calls him. was cultivating his. green peas
and asparagus in Eden, there were millions of civilised men in
Egypt and India, and probably in Assyria and China; and long
before that, in the obscurity of prehistoric ages, the earth was
peopled by barbarians. These also were preceded by savages
who, in their turn, had succeeded the ape-like progenitors of
Mankind.
Science and the Bible, however, disagree on this, as on so
many other points. According to the book which Christians
treasure without studying, and venerate without following, Mr.
Adam was the first man that ever lived; and he was born, or
rather manufactured, less than six thousand years ago. There
are, indeed, a few Christians who believe that the world was
inhabited before Jehovah made a clay man, hung him up to dry,
and finally blew the breath of life into his nostrils. The theory
of Pre-Adamite races was started in’1655 by Isaac de la Peyreira,
a converted Jew, who argued that the beings created in the first
chapter of Genesis were different from those created in the
second. From the first set all the Gentiles have descended,
while the Jews have issued from the loins of Mi’. Adam. Noah’s
flood was only a partial deluge, and it was only the antediluvian
Jews who perished in that catastrophe. But Peyreira’s book
was burnt in Paris by the executioner, and he himself narrowly
escaped the same fate. Since then his theory has always had
some adherents, yet they have been an insignificant minority.
Some Orientals also hold that there were men before Mr. Adam.
One race of these were the “ fiat-heads ” of Ceylon, who sub
mitted to him when he fell on their island after his expulsion
from Paradise; and they really must have been flat-heads to
truckle to such a nincompoop. Bishop South says that “An
Aristotle was but the rubbish of an Adam.” In other words,
Mr. Adam was perfect. So he was—a perfect fool. Like Charles
the Second, in Rochester’s epigram, Mr. Adam never did a wise
thing ; and, unlike the merry monarch, he never said a wise one
either. A collection of his utterances, throughout a long life
�BIBLE HEROES.
extending to nearly a thousand years, would be the smallest and
baldest treatise to be found in the whole world. It seems an
insult to the deity to allege that he was unable to turn out a
better specimen of his handiwork after six days’, apprenticeship
on such a gigantic scale.
Mr. Adam was made out of clay, or dust, or something of that
kind, by Jehovah, who was his spiritual father. Carnally, the
poor fellow was an orphan from birth. He never felt a mother’s
kiss on his brow. He never climbed on his father’s knee. God
was the only father he had, and his legs were too long; for if, as
Jesus tells us, heaven is his throne and earth his footstool, there
must be a frightful distance between his feet and the part he
displayed to Moses on Mount Sinai.
That the first man was made from earth is a very natural
superstition. The Peruvians, Collas, Caribees, and North
American Indians, believed that the first human beings sprang
from the ground. In Egypt, India, China, and Mexico, they were
believed to have been fashioned of earth by some superior power.
According to the Chaldeans, man was made by the mixing of
the blood of Belus with the dust of the ground; while the Per
sians held that he grew from the soil which was impregnated
with the seed of the man-bull Kaiomorts. Aristophanes, in
*
The Birds, calls men “ creatures of clay.”t According to Apollodorus, the first man and woman were formed of clay by Prome
theus. It is absurd to suppose that these ancient and widely
sundered peoples borrowed their notions of man’s origin from
the Jews, especially when we know that Genesis is not an early,
but a very late portion of the Hebrew scriptures, dating only
a few centuries before Christ.
The Mohammedans say that Mr. Adam’s body was made of
clay brought by the archangels, Gabriel, Michael, Israfiel, and
Asrael, from the four quarters of the earth. According to the
Talmud the dust was collected from all parts. Rabbi Hoshea
says his trunk was made of dust from Babel, his head of dust
from Palestine, and the rest of his limbs from, the soil of other
countries. Rabbi Acha adds that his seat of honor was made of
clay from Acre.J When he was finished there was some dust
left over, and of this God made locusts.
Didron§ prints a copy of an Italian miniature of the thirteenth
century, in which an angel is represented as modelling the rough
figure of a man, while God Almighty is standing by, waiting to
give it the finishing touches. God is also depicted as consulting
the angels about the matter in a series of figures in the north
porch of Chartres cathedral.*
§
*
t
J
§
Priaulx’s Questiones Mosazcce, p. 64.
So Frere and Poyard. Hickie translates “ figures of clay.’ ’
Baring Gould, Legends of Old Testament Characters, vol. i., pp. 9, 13.
Christian Iconography, vol. ii., p. 14.
�MB. ADAM.
3
When God furnished his clay man with a soul, it entered his
mouth and passed down into his belly, where to this very day
the soul of many of his descendants continues to reside. His
first motion was to sneeze and say “ Praise be to God.” Then he
tried to get up and eat, but the soul had not yet ani
mated his extremities, so Gabriel said “ 0 Adam, don’t be in a
hurry.”
We may here mention a curious idea referred to by Gerald
Massey, who says that “ Epiphanius represents Elkesi, the
Ebionite prophet, as teaching that Christ was the first created
Adam, who returned as the second Adam. Photius also says
Origen maintained that the soul of Jesus was the soul of
Adam.”*
Jehovah was not likely to turn out a mannikin, particularly
M, according to Philo, he spent sixty days over the job. Besides,
so long-lived a gentleman as Mr. Adam was naturally a good
height. The Rabbis say that the tree of life was so big that it
took a good walker five years to march round it, and Mr. Adam’s
proportions were in keeping with this mighty bole. When ho
laid down his body stretched from east to west, and when he
stood up his head reached to the seventh heaven. Subsequently
he became shorter. According to one Rabbinical story, the angels
were afraid of him, and to abate their terror God put him asleep
and pared him down; or, as others say, placed his hand on Mr.
Adam’s head and flattened him down to a thousand cubits.
A&Other story says that he shrank with horror at the death of
Abel, and was never able to stretch himself out to his original
dimensions. The Mohammedans assert that he lost his primitive
size in yearly pilgrimages to Mecca, and finally retained the
height of sixty ells. According to a fourth story, when Mr,
Adam was all alone on a peak in Ceylon, he was so tall that the
8tm burnt his hair off. God mercifully ordered Gabriel to
shadow the poor fellow’s head with his wings, and Mr. Adam
dwindled under that curious umbrella till he was only ninety
feet high.
Saint Augustine thought Mr. Adam was thirty years old when
he was born.f The Rabbis say he was superlatively beautiful.
It is generally believed by the Jews that he was born circumcised,
although he did his utmost to conceal the fact. J Therefore, if he
was made in God’s image, God must be circumcised too. Both
Mr. Adam and Mrs. Eve are drawn in pictures with navels.
Test as they were not born in the ordinary way this “ cannot be
showed,” says Sir Thomas Browne. His editor Ross, however,
says that navels were given them as an ornament, in support of
which opinion he cites the second verse of the seventh chapter
* The Natural Genesis, vol. ii., p. 329. 1 Cor. xv., 45-47.
f Sir Thomas Browne’s Works, (Bohn) vol. ii., p. 382.
$ Calmet’s Dictionary of the Bible, and Bayle’s Dictionary.
�4
BIBLE HEROES.
of Solomon’s Song, where the hero describes that feature in his
sweetheart as “ a round goblet.”
. _ 'A'.That Mr. Adam was created an hermaphrodite is a widely
received opinion. Gould reads Genesis I., 27 as “ male-female
created he them.” As Butler says :
“ Man was not man in Paradise,
Until he was created twice,
And had his better half, his bride,
Carved from th’ original his side,
T’ amend his natural defects,
And perfect his recruited sex;
Inlarge his breed at once, and lessen
The pains and labor of increasing,
By changing them for other cares,
As by his dried-up paps appears.”
Hudibras, Part III., Canto I., 761-770.
Man’s rudimentary mammas are now explained by Darwin.
They point back very much farther than the origin of the human
race. Yet in more ignorant ages they naturally lent a color to
the superstition in Butler’s verses. Many Jewish writers have
asserted that “ man and woman were created in one body, united
by the shoulders, having four feet, four hands, and two heads,
alike throughout excepting sex; and that God having cast this
compound figure into a deep sleep, divided it, and made two
persons of it.”* Browne says that Marcus Leo, a learned Jew,
affirmed that “ Adam in one swppositum, without division, con
tained both male and female.”f Antoinette Bourignon, the
mystic, held that Adam contained both sexes, and was able to
produce his like without connection. Paracelsus maintained
that the generative organs only appeared in our first parents
after their sin. Some Rabbis have held that Adam was an
elaborate Janus, male one side and female the other; Jeremiah
Ben-Eleazer supporting this view by the text “ Thou hast
fashioned me before and behind.”
A similar legend is expounded in Plato’s Banquet, far more
beautifully than in any Hebrew writings. It also appears in
the mythology of India, China, Persia and Phoenicia. Every
where men and women seek their joy in marriage, and out of
this yearning grew the fancy of two divided halves of an original
whole striving after their pristine unity.
Mr. Adam being made in the image of God, it follows that
Jehovah is androgynous too. This explains how he procreated
his only begotten son without a wife; for the Holy Ghost can
scarcely stand to him in that capacity, seeing it was the father
of the Virgin Mary’s baby.
Mr. Adam was a smooth-faced gentleman until he fell. After
* Calmet.
f Works, vol. i., p. 308.
�MR. ADAM.
a
that event he sprouted a beard. According to the Mohamme
dans, it was the result of excessive grief, but they do not explain
the effect of sorrow upon the hair-follicles of the chin. Mr.
Adam was an exception to the rule that grief has a tendency to
make people bald.
Tabari says that Mr. Adam remained five hundred years in
Paradise, but several Rabbis assert that events moved far more
rapidly. He was created on a Friday. God gathered the dust
in the first hour; in the second he formed the embryo ; in the
third the body was developed; in the fourth it was endowed
with a soul; at the fifth it stood upright; at the sixth Mr.
Adam named the animals ; at the seventh he married Mrs. Eve;
at the eighth Cain and his sister were born; at the ninth he
was warned against the forbidden fruit; at the tenth he fell; at
the eleventh he was “ over the garden wall ” ; and at the twelfth
hour he was toiling and sweating outside. This was a remark
ably quick dispatch of business. During those eventful twelve
hours poor Mr. Adam must have been puzzled to tell whether
he was on his head or his feet.
Mr. Adam was probably christened by his maker. But Priaulx
points out that there is a sort of pun in the Hebrew—God formed
Adam out of Adamah, which according to Josephus means red
earth. The Chinese say that the first man was kneaded of
yellow earth, because they are yellow themselves, and other
people assert different colors according to their own skins. Sale
says that Adamah is Persic, meaning primarily red earth; and
that in all the oriental languages it means man in general, but
eminently the first man. Parkhurst tries to derive the word
from a Hebrew noun signifying likeness, but this is only to
bolster up the theory of Mr. Adam’s being created “ in the like
ness of God.” Gerald Massey says that “ the name of Adam
occurs often enough in Inner Africa, to show Whence came the
primal pail’ who were personified as the typical parents in Egypt,
and continued in the sacred writings brought out of that land,
by the Hebrews.”* He gives a striking list of several African
languages in which the word Adam, with slight variations, means
Male or Father in the generic sense like the Latin Vvr. There
is a curious corroboration of his theory in the remark of a writer
cited by Eusebius, who says that Protogonos, or the first made, is
a translation into Greek of the Egyptian title of Adam, taken
from the pillars of Thothfi
However Mr. Adam obtained his name, it is certain that he
had it engraved on his card and cut on his brass-plate. “ Mr.
Adam, Gardener,” was properly exhibited on the gate of Eden.
But where Eden was is another matter. According to Genesis
it was “ eastward,” which is not very precise. Commentators
Vol. ii., pp. 16, 17.
f Calmet’s Dictionary.
�6
BIBLE HEROES.
advance all sorts of theories, their only point of agreement being
that Eden was somewhere.
Boss of this large establishment, Mr. Adam bnstled proudly
about. He was monarch of all he surveyed, and his right there
was none to dispute; except, perhaps, a big-maned lion with hot
carnivorous jaws, a long-mouthed alligator, a boa-constrictor, a
stinging wasp, or an uncatchable flea. Surveying his subjects,
he saw that all the lower animals had partners. Some of the
males had one wife, and some had a fine harem, but there was
none without a mate. He watched the amorous couples frisking
about, and the doves billing and cooing, and his solitary heart
filled with an ineffable yearning. Lifting up his hands to the
sky, from which his heavenly parent occasionally dropped down
for a conversation, he cried aloud, in the words that were after
wards used by poor diddled Esau, “ Bless me, even me also, 0
my father.”
Poor Mr. Adam pined away. He lost several tons in less than
a month, and the Devil had serious thoughts of offering to pur
chase him as a living skeleton for his show in Pandemonium. At
last God took pity on him. Forgetting that he had pronounced
everything good, or not foreseeing that Moses would be mean
enough to record the mistake, he said it was not good for Mr.
Adam to be alone, and resolved to make the orphan-bachelor a
wife. But how to do it ? God had clean forgotten her, and had
used up every bit of his material. All the nothing he had in
stock when he began to make the universe was exhausted.
There was not a particle of nothing left. God was obliged to
use some of the old material over again. Putting Adam into a
deep sleep, he carved out one of his ribs. It was the first surgi
cal operation under chloroform.
With this spare rib God manufactured the first woman. Mr.
Adam woke up minus a rib and plus a wife ; an awkward, yet
after all a pleasant exchange. He had never seen a woman
before, but he put his arm round her waist at once, and said
“ You’re my wife; ” and Mrs. Eve blushed her consent to the
engagement. It was the shortest courtship on record.
Before Mrs. Eve appeared on the scene, it seems that God
passed all the lower animals in review before Mr. Adam, expect
ing him to choose a partner from some agreeable species. But
not a single female made any impression on him. All he did
was to give them their proper names. Mr. Adam was certainly
a wonderful naturalist. He knew more than the Royal Society
or the British Association. He excelled Buffon, Cuvier, and
Darwin. It is a pity he did not write a Zoological Dictionary.
Several writings are ascribed to him, such as the Book of the
Generations of Adam, the Apocalypse of Adam, and the hundred
and fourth Psalm. Why did he not leave us some more instruc
tive productions ?
How Mr. Adam got on with his wife, and how she got on with
�MB. ADAM.
7
him, will be treated at length in my Bible Women. I also
reserve for that volume the curious Rabbinical stories of Lillith,
who is said to have been his real first wife before Mrs. Eve was
created. The whole story of the Fall is already discussed in my
Bible Romances. I shall therefore confine myself to Mr. A dam’a
personal exploits.
Having eaten of the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge,
he proved himself a miserable coward by throwing all theblame on his wife. He was hardly the sort of man a woman
could trust in the hour of danger. If Mrs. Eve had said to him
** Adam, my dear, there’s a noise in the passage; take the poker,
a»d go down and see who’s about,” he would have carefully
locked the door and covered his head with the bed-clothes.
Cod Almighty should at least have turned out a man. A fellow
like Adam was only fit to clean boots and carry slops.
Certain Rabbis say that when Mr. Adam was cast out of Eden
he fell right into Gehenna, but escaped to earth again by pro
nouncing the mystic word “ Laverererareri.” According to the
Mohammedans he fell upon mount Ser an dib, in Ceylon, while
Mrs. Eve fell at Dgidda, a port of the Red Sea, near Mecca.
Tabari says that the male apple-eater lay where he fell for a
hundred years, bemoaning his dreadful fate. After another
hundred years he met his wife again, and then they cried
together. Mrs. Eve’s tears changed into pearls, and Mr. Adam
snivelled so much that his briny drops formed the Tigris and
the Euphrates.
Defoe, in his witty and amusing History of the Devil, tells us
that after Cain set up as a family man, Mr. Adam dwelt on “ the
plains of Mecca in Arabia Felix.” The Mohammedans say he
lived in Ceylon. Michaelis supposes that India was first peopled,
and the reader in his turn can suppose anything else he
pleases.
When God told Mr. Adam that he should “ eat the herb of the
field ” the poor fellow trembled all over, and exclaimed, “ O Lord
of aD the world! I and my beast, the ass, shall have to eat out of
the same manger !” But Gabriel gave him lessons in cooking,
and the poor fellow got on very well at length, although
at first, his badly-baked new bread gave him a frightful belly-
Mrs. Eve being a good breeder, he had a numerous progeny.
Before he died, his children, grandchildren, and great grand
children, numbered something between twenty and seventy
thousand, so that he was obliged to bless them in the lump when
he shuffled off his mortal coil.
English editor thinks the forbidden fruit poisoned
Mr. Adam s blood, and wonders what an extraordinary age he
might have reached if he had never eaten it. As it was he lived
960 years, which is an age we shall never attain to, though we
refiain from apples all our days. Mr. A dam’s longevity is
�•8
BIBLE HEROES.
obviously mythological, for after the Deluge man’s life ig
shortened, and as we approach the historical period it dwindles
to three score years and ten. “ According to the traditions of
the Lamaic faith,” says Priaulx, “ the first men lived to the age
of 60,000 years.” Buckle tells us of two early Hindu kings,
Yudhisther and Alarka, who reigned respectively 27,000 and
66,000 years. Both these unfortunate princes were cut off in
their prime! Another king was 2,000,000 years old when he
came to the throne; he reigned 6,300,000 years, and then resigned
his empire, and lingered on for 100,000 years more. That tough
old monarch took over a hundred of Mr. Adam’s lives to die in.
Compared with him Mr. Adam was a chicken.
Mr..Adam’s last will and testament, according to the Arabs,
was dictated to the angel Gabriel, and sixty-two million angels
were required to bring the pens and parchments from heaven.
Seth was left as his sole executor.
There is no account of Mr. Adam’s funeral, though it must
have been a big affair’, and considering his height, his coffin must
have been a fine line for the undertaker. Some ancient writers
■say he was buried at Hebron. Origen held that he was buried
at Calvary, where Christ was crucified. Jerome, however,
doubted it, though it was soothing to the popular ear. The
Persians say he was buried in Ceylon, where his tomb used to
be shown. Jewish traditions assert that his body was embalmed.
It was taken into the ark by Noah, and afterwards buried at
Jerusalem by Melchizedek. The skull was found in latei’ ages,
and hence the spot was called Golgotha. Mr. Adam’s skull
must have been pretty thick.
Tatian and the Encralites were positive that poor Mr. Adam
went to hell after all, but the Church condemned this opinion.
The Fathers and the Rabbis say he did very hard penance and
went to glory.
Thus endeth the history of Mr. Adam. He was very little
credit to his maker, and although the first of Bible heroes, the
sects all agree that his example is to be shunned. The Adamites
of the second century imitated him by going to church naked,
and the Anabaptists were accused of similar extravagance. But
sane people do not emulate his conduct, for what little the Bible
records of him shows that he was a great booby, and it is really
wonderful that God Almighty exhausted his strength over such
a wretched production.
�CAPTAIN
NOAH.
-------- ♦--------
Mr. Adam’s early posterity included two remarkable persons.
One was Methusaleh who lived 969 years, and was thus older
than the grand, old gardener himself. The other was Enoch,
who never died at all, for he was so good that God had him con
veyed to heaven by a special messenger. He appears to have
ascended to glory, like Jesus Christ, body and soul together;
and probably, as Jesus Christ sits at the Father’s right hand,
Enoch sits on his left; unless the Holy Ghost occupies that seat,
instead of perching on the Father’s shoulder.
The next person of distinction is Captain Noah. Lamech, his
father, was 182 years old when he begat our hero, who was pro
bably his first-born, for no other child is mentioned, and gentle
men who lived nearly a thousand years did not marry as early
as we do. The word Noah means repose or rest. Perhaps Mrs.
Lamech had a bad time in her confinement, and they called the
bantling by that name to express their comfort that the job was
over. Or may be it was a lazy baby, who sucked his thumb,
stared into vacancy, and sat still wherever they placed him.
Unfortunately the Bible is silent on these interesting points.
Captain Noah lived 950 years in all, yet our record only covers
one of them, during which he acted as a navigator. What he
did in the first 600 years of his life, or what he did in the
last 350 years, is an inscrutable mystery. God and Noah only
know, and it is difficult to find either of them nowadays.
Captain Noah became a navigator in his six hundredth year
in this way. The Devil had so effectually planted the seeds of
original sin in man that “ every imagination of the thoughts of
his heart was only evil continually.” Things were so bad that
God, who is unchangeable, “ repented that he had made man on
the earth.” The Lord resolved to put all his business in this
world into liquidation. It was a case of universal bankruptcy.
All that was saved out of the catastrophe was a consignment of
■eight human beings, and an unknown number of elephants,
crocodiles, horses, pigs, dogs, cats, and fleas. In short, God
•determined to drown all his living creatures except some speci
mens of each variety to start afresh with. Rabbi Johanan says
that the very animals were demoralised as well as the men; but
�10
BIBLE HEROES.
neither he nor any other theological doctor explains why theLord kept samples of the old stock to breed from, instead of
creating a brand-new set.
Our hero was the only person who “ found grace in the eyes
of the Lord.” He was “ a just man and perfect,” and he
“ walked with God.” Yet we shall find that his history doesnot contain a single good action, while it contains at least two
bad ones. If the Lord could not have selected a better man
than Captain Noah the world must have been in a frightful
condition indeed.
Let us pause to inquire how it was that Noah was the only
passable specimen of the human race. Original sin does not
account for all their depravity, foi he had it as well as they..
*
Some divines have found the explanation in the words “ the sons
of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair.” Reckoning
ministers as sons of God, the fondness has continued ever since.
The deluge itself could not wash out the amatory feelings with
which they regard those sweet creatures who were supposed tobe the Devil’s chief agents. Even to this day it is a fact that
courtship goes on with remarkable briskness in religious circles.
Churches and chapels are places of harmless assignation, and
many matches are made in Sunday-schools, where Alfred and
Angelina meet to read the Scripture and flirt. The clergy arenotorious for their partiality to the fair sex. They purr round
the ladies like black tom-cats. Some of them are adepts in the
art of rolling on e eye to heaven and letting the other languish,
on the fair faces of the daughters of men. It is also noticeable
that the Protestant clericals marry early and often, and generally
beget a numerous progeny; while the Catholic priest who, being
celibate, never (well, hardly ever) adds to the population^
“ mashes ” the ladies through the confessional, worming out all
their secrets, and making them as pliable as wax in his holy
hands.
Who the original “ sons of God ” were is a moot point. Many
theories have been advanced by Jewish and Christian divines.
According to some, the sons of God were the offspring of Seth,
who was born in succession to righteous Abel, while the
daughters of men were the offspring of wicked Cain. Among
the oriental Christians it is said that the children of Seth tried
to regain Paradise by living in great austerity on Mount Her
mon, but they soon tired of their laborious days and cheerless
nights, and cast sheep’s-eyes on the daughters of Cain, whose
beauty was equal to their father’s wickedness. Marriages fol
lowed, and the Devil triumphed again.
According to the Cabbalists, two angels, Aza and Azael, com
plained to God at the creation of man. God answered, “ You, O
angels, if you were in the lower world, you too would sin.”"
They descended on earth, and directly they saw the ladies they
forgot heaven. They married and exchanged the hallelujahs of
�CAPTAIN NOAH.
11
the celestial chorus for the tender tones of loving women and
the aweet prattle of little children. Having sinned, or to use
the vile language of religion, “ polluted themselves with women,”
they became clothed with flesh. Trying to regain Paradise,
they failed and were cast back on the mountains, where they
continued to beget giants and devils. The latter were the Jins
■of Mohammedanism. Very soon the world was completely in
their power. They ruled everywhere, and built colossal works,
including the pyramids.
The “ giants ” have been cleared out of our Revised Version.
Probably the translators thought these mythical personages
were too suggestive of Jack and the Beanstalk, so they have
left the original Nephilim in the text. They know, as well as
we do, that every nation on the face of the earth has similar
legends of “ mighty men which were of old, men of renown.”
They are conspicuous in the mythologies of Greece, India, China,
and Scandinavia, and we find them also in the mythologies of
America. Greybeards talk of the wonderful times when they
were young, and nations prattle about the youth of mankind.
Skies were bluer, the sun was brighter, the earth was more
fertile, the men were bigger and braver and the women more
lovely and loving, in the golden age. Boccaccio gravely relates,
in his Genealoffia Deorum, that in his own time some Sicilian
peasants discovered the body of a giant in a cave, and the staff
of this wonderful being was fifteen hundred-weight! Girolamo
Maggio affirmed that while he was a prisoner in Africa he
actually saw the head of a giant, which was eleven palms in
■circumference I No doubt the fossil remains of large extinct
*
•animals gave color to the general superstition as to the enor
mous size of primitive men.
God told Captain Noah that he was going to drown the
world, and ordered him to build a ship for his own family and a
large menagerie. The “ ark,” as it is called, was to be 300 cubits
long, 50 cubits broad, and 30 cubits high. Reckoning the cubit,
which was the length of a man’s forearm, as eighteen inches,
this would be 450 feet long, 75 feet broad, and 45 feet high.
Anxious to make Captain Noah’s vessel as large as possible,
Cruden says that “ Some are of opinion that the cubit which
Noah made use of when he built the ark was equal to six com-mon
-cubits.”! But why six ? Why not sixty, or six thousand ?
Where there is absolutely no information, one man’s opinion is
as good as another’s.
Captain Noah must have been a first-rate shipwright to build
ft Vessel of these dimensions. Did God inspire him for the pur
pose ? And how is it that Captain Noah, who lived 350 years
after the deluge, and his immediate descendants, lost the art of
* Priaulx, Questiones Mosaicai, pp. 180,181.
f Concordance, article “ Cubit.”
�12
BIBLE HEROES.
shipbuilding, which had to be rediscovered by their posterity ?'
The ancient vessels in eastern stone-pictures were small, nearly
always open, and rowed with oars, though sails were used in addi
tion. Even in the days of Rome and Carthage very much the same
kind of vessel was employed, and when Julius Cassar crossed from
Gaul to Britain he required a tremendous fleet to convey his little
army. Fifteen centuries later the Spanish galleons were floating
castles, but the English ships were still small. Men like Drake
and Raleigh crossed the Atlantic and fought naval battles in
crafts of thirty, forty, and fifty tons.
Hebrew is a curious language, being all consonants. The vowel
points are a modern invention. The word translated “ ark”
therefore is spelt tebeh, thebeh, or thebet. It only occurs twice
in Scripture. The second time it is given to the ark of bul
rushes, in which little Moses was concealed. It means something
closed up, like a trunk. From the pictures of the ark in Calmet’s
Dictionary, it seems to have been a floating house. Calmet’s
English editor argues that it must have been flat, for if it were a
keeled ship, its draught would have exceeded the fifteen cubits
of water that covered the highest mountains, and it might have
stranded on some rocky peak.
Peter calls Captain Noah “ a preacher of righteousness,” and
no doubt while he was building the ark he gave his neighbors
many sermons, warning them to flee from the wrath to come. But
they only mocked him, say the Mohammedans. “ They took
their evening walks,” says Defoe, “ to see what he was doing,”*
and laughed at his big boat that was to float over the hills.
Eutychius, of Alexandria, who wrote in the tenth century, and
probably quoted from apocryphal writings that are now lost,
says that Captain Noah made a bell of plane wood, about five
feet high, which he sounded every morning, noon, and evening
to warn his neighbors that the deluge was coming, f Still they
laughed at him, as we should do to-day; but when the deluge
did come, they rushed to the ark in such multitudes that they
would have crowded and sunk it, if the lions, tigers, and other
ferocious animals had not fought them off the gangway.
There was no room for these people. All the space, and a
great deal more, was needed for the menagerie. Two of every
species of beast, bird, and insect, went into the ark, accord
ing to the sixth of Genesis; oi’ two of all unclean animals
and seven of the clean, according to the seventh chapter.
There are already known at least 1,600 species of mammalia,
12,500 of birds, 600 of reptiles, and of insects and other inferior
creatures at least 1,000,000. Captain Noah’s menagerie was
unique. It was absolutely complete, down to the smallest midge
and the last variety of flea. Whether he collected them from all
parts of the earth, or whether they came to him of their own
* History oj the'JJevil, chap. viii.
f Gould, vol. ii., pp. 109, 110.
�CAPTAIN NOAH.
13
accord, is an open question, for either view is favored by the
text. I have dealt with this, and the general scientific aspect of
the deluge, in my Bible Romances, and I will not repeat myself
here. But it must be stated, as a fact in Captain Noah’s career,
that he was expressly told to “ gather ” food for his passengers,
and of course he obeyed the divine command. What a tremen
dous task this was may be easily imagined. For the rest I must
refer the reader to the above volume; only adding that if, as
legend says, it took sixty-two million angels to bring the
materials for Mr. Adam’s last will, it must have taken all heaven,
including the Trinity, to collect twelve months’ provender for
this floating Zoo.
Captain Noah, his wife, his three sons Shem, Ham and Japheth,
and them three wives, were the only human beings who got into
the ark and escaped the fate of drowning. But according to
Eastern traditions, there was a ninth person who effected an
entrance, namely our old friend the Devil. He caught hold of
the donkey’s tail as that sedate quadruped stepped on the plank,
and of course Neddy could not make much headway. “ Come in
quick, you cursed one,” cried Captain Noah, who was anxious to
weigh anchor and set sail. The donkey and the Devil were soon
inside. But when the patriarch caught sight of Old Nick he
exclaimed, “ Holla, what right have you in here ?” Whereupon
the Devil replied, “ You said ‘ Come in, you cursed one,’ and
here I am.”*
Some Rabbis declare that the rhinoceros was too big to be
admitted. Its head was taken on board, but its body swam
astern. The rhinoceros was very much larger in ancient times,
for Rabbi Jannai says he saw a young one, only a day old, whose
neck was three miles long, and the river Jordan was actually
choked by its excretions.
Not only was the human race destroyed, but the giants also
perished, with the single exception of Og. He was so tall that
he stopped “ the windows of heaven ” with his hands, or the
water would have risen over his head. The other giants took to
swimming, but God made the water so hot that they were
boiled to death. Og, however, swam beside the rhinoceros,
where the water was kept cool. According to the Midrash, he
climbed upon the roof, and when they tried to dislodge him he
swore that if he were allowed to remain he and his posterity
would become the captain’s slaves. Such a capital bargain was
soon clinched, and Og’s daily rations were passed through a
porthole. After the deluge Og must have been a more valuable
servant than “ the drudging goblin ” of Milton’s L’Allegro.
Considerable interest attaches to the fate of another character.
According to our English Bible, Methusaleh died in the very
year of the flood. The Midrash says that he expmed seven days
* Gould, vol. i., . 112.
�14
BIBLE HEROES.
before it began, but Eusebius admits that “ according to all
editions ” of the Septuagint he “ lived fifteen years after the
Deluge, but where he was preserved through it is uncertain.”*
Perhaps our ancient friend, like the Irishman’s ancestor who
survived the flood, paddled his own canoe on that occasion.
Captain Noah’s voyage could not have been a pleasant one.
Some say he made the circuit of the globe, but he never touched
at a port or sighted land, and the monotony must have been
stupefying. Disgusting is a mild word for the stench,. from
which there was no escape. The huge ship had only one window
and one door, and apparently both were closed, for “ the Lord
shut them in,” and perhaps the precaution was necessary to
keep them from committing suicide. Surely the stoutest heart
and the stoutest stomach would succumb in a twelve-months’
trip under such loathsome conditions.
Where all the water came from is unknown, and it returned
to the same place. Five months before Captain Noah got ashore,
his ship “ rested upon the mountains of Ararat.” Scripture does
not say upon how many of them. The highest peak of this
range is 17,210 feet high, 14,320 feet above the plain of the
Araxes. The people of the neigborhood point to a step on the
mountain side, covered perpetually with snow and glacier, where
they say the ark stranded. Josephusf said that the remains of
this wonderful craft were to be seen in a good state of preserva
tion. The Christian Fathers told the same fine story. Benjamin
of Tudela says that the wood was all carried away by the Caliph
Omar, in a.d. 640, and placed in a mosque he erected on an
island of the Tigris. But Johann Strauss, in 1670, said he saw
the ark grounded on the snow. Prevoux, another traveller, saw
a large building at Chenna, said to have been built by Captain
Noah, and a piece of the ark was exhibited through an iron
grating. One of the beams is shown in the Lateran at Borne,
and no doubt it is quite as authentic as other relics of Holy
Mother Church.
Captain Noah and all his menagerie, including the elephant,
got down somehow. The animals all dispersed, after bidding
each other an affectionate farewell. There was no food for them
of course ; and how long the lion left the lamb at large, every
true believer must settle for himself.
Shem, Ham, and Japheth, with their three wives, whose names
are not recorded (for women in the early part of the Bible are
only regarded as breeding machines), “ overspread the whole
earth;” that is, they peopled the whole world. Shem is thought
to have appropriated Asia, Ham took Africa, and Japheth settled
in Europe. America and Australia were not discovered when
the Bible was written, or Captain Noah would have.had five sons
instead of three. In religion, as in other things, we live and learn.
Cited in Gould, vol. i., p. 105.
f Antiquities, I., 3.
�CAPTAIN NOAH.
5
John P. Robinson, he
Says they didn’t know everything down in Judee.
God Almighty chose Hebrew to write in, foi’ some purpose
best known to himself; but it is so curious, or so obscure, that it
often means anything or nothing. Shem is said by the doctors to
mean—name, or renown, or he that places, or he that is placed.
The reader pays his money and takes his choice. Japheth means
—he that persuades, or is handsome. Either will do. Ham or
Cham, means brown or black. More than once in the Psalms,
Africa is called the land of Cham; and Plutarch, in his De Iside
et Osiride, calls Egypt Chemia.
Christians, who laugh at Darwinism, and assert that every
species was created separate, should explain how the three sons
of one father and mother have peopled the world with white
men, yellow men, red men, and black men. The black races are
so distinct that the Talmud tried to account for them by saying
that Ham turned sooty in the ark through incontinence. Orient
alists say his skin darkened when his son was cursed. Any
theory is better than the cowardice of silence.
The Bible does not inform us whether Captain and Mrs. Noah
had any children after the flood. Perhaps they did, and perhaps
they didn’t. Mrs. Noah was called Noriah by the Gnostics, and
Jtfoerna or Tethira by some ancient Rabbis. She is called Nuraito
in Syro-Chaldee. This name comes from a word signifying fire.
Curiously this is the very meaning of Pyrrha, the name of
the wife of Deucalion, who was saved from the flood sent by
Jupiter, in a skiff which stranded on the top of Parnassus.
*
Being a very religious man, otherwise he would not have been
spared in the deluge, Captain Noah’s first business on reaching
terra firma was to pay his devotions to the Lord. He “ builded
an altar ”; that is, probably, he made a heap of stones; on
which he sacrificed of “ every clean beast, and of every clean
fowl.” It was the biggest holocaust on record. Never was
there so much meat, venison and poultry dressed for cooking;
and if the animals were all slaughtered before they were roasted
(let us hope they were), those eight butchers must have taken
many days cutting their throats or wringing their necks. The
“burnt offerings” were very acceptable to Jehovah, who
“ smelled a sweet savor,” sniffing up the odor of this extensive
cuisine with the greatest relish. His tough old heart mollified
Wader the sweet influence, and he said “ I will not curse the
ground any more, neither will I again smite everything living,
as I have done” Perhaps he thought that if he gave way to histemper again, and made a clean sweep, there would be no more
“ sweet savor ” for his holy nostrils.
The next thing Captain Noah did was to make a vinery, and.
a® goon as he brewed he drank deep of that liquor which, as the
Lucian, De Dea Syria and Timon.
Ovid, Metamorphoses, Bk. I.
�16
BIBLE HEBOES.
Bible says, “ cheereth God and man.”* The result was that the
“just man and perfect” got beastly drunk. According to the
Bible, this perfect performance went on in “ his tent.” The
Hebrew word is aheteh, and Parkhurstf says it was “ a tent con
secrated to divine worship,” so that Captain Noah was drunk in
the synagogue. Parkhurst adds that the old salt had probably
“ retired thither in expectation of a prophetic dream.” Perhaps
the oracle did not work, and Captain Noah sought inspiration
in the winecup. No doubt Bacchus gave him a prophetic dream,
but it seems to have been something like a nightmare, for he
awoke in a most abominable passion, and imitated his God by
damning a third of his own posterity.
Loosely clad in his flowing robe, the patriarch fell back in his
inebriation, and was guilty of indecent exposure. Ham dropped
in promiscuously, and witnessed this edifying spectacle. He
went out and told Shem and Japheth, who took a garment and
covered their father’s nakedness, walking backwards in order
not to see his shame. When his booze was over, Captain Noah
was wild at learning what had happened. Commentators say
that Ham had scoffed at his governor, but the Bible does not cor
roborate them. Anyhow Captain Noah swore, but he damned
the wrong party. “ Cursed be Canaan,” he cried, “ a servant of
servants shall he be unto his brethren.” Michaelis hints that
the text is corrupt, and that it should read “ Cursed be Ham,
the father of Canaan.” But as the curse was clearly to be ful
filled through the children, the emendation does not alter its
iniquity. It is supposed that the Canaanites were the descen
dants of Canaan, and that when the Jews dispossessed them by
wars of unparalleled ferocity, the chosen people were only ful
filling the just curse of an offended father on his son’s posterity !
Negro slavery has also been justified on the same foolish and
wicked principle.
Drunkenness, swearing, and injustice, are the only things
recorded of this perfect man during the 350 years he survived the
flood. There is not a single good deed or sensible word placed
to his credit. He is the second Bible hero, but his example is
better honored in the breach than in the observance.
Captain Noah was probably buried. His tomb is shown at
Mount Lebanon. It is an old aqueduct, over sixty feet long.
Large as this is, they say the old fellow could not be buried at
full length but had to have his legs doubled under his thighs. J
And there we will leave him, like the dull old folio in Browning’s
poem, to “ Dry-rot at ease till the Judgment Day.”
* Judges ix., 13.
f Hebrew Dictionary.
J Thomson, The Land and the Book, vol. i., p. 353
�FATHER ABRAHAM.
-------- ♦--------
Although the “ false prophet ” Mohammed asserts that Abraham
was n either a Christian nor a Jew, but an orthodox Mussulman,
it is perfectly clear, according to the Bible, that he was the
founder of the chosen people. God selected him from all the in
habitants of the world, four centuries after the Flood, to be the
father of a special nation. Abraham begat Isaac, Isaac begat
Jacob, Jacob begat a dozen from Reuben to Benjamin, and so they
went on begetting each othei’ to the end of the chapter. Yet it is
highly probable that such a person as Abraham never existed.
Not only the Jews, but almost all the tribes and barbarous
nations on earth, trace their descent to a common ancestor.
*
This useful fiction serves as a social bond, by giving a sense of
kindred to members of the same community. But although
Abraham is a myth, he is none the less a Bible hero. He en
joyed the proud and unique distinction of being the friend of
God.f His character, therefore, should be as perfect as human
frailty will allow. But, alas, Abraham was like other Scripture
worthies, and the most consummate sophistry cannot make him
a pattern of excellence.
This hero’s original name was Abram, which means “ high
father.” After bearing it over a hundred years, he had it
changed to Abraham, which means “ the father of a multitude.”
His wife’s name was also changed from Sarai (my princess) to
Sarah (the princess).
Father Abraham is first mentioned at the end of the eleventh
chapter of Genesis. He appears to have been the eldest son of
Terah, who set up as a father at the age of seventy, and died at
the ripe old age of two hundred and five. When Terah had
joined the majority, the Lord called Abraham out from his
kindred to the land of Canaan. He was then seventy-five years
old. J But if his father was dead he must have been a hundred
and thirty-five. St. Jerome and St. Augustine give up this diffi
culty as in soluble. § Calmet, however, cuts the gordian knot.
He surmises that Abraham was Terah’s youngest son, although
Genesis names him the first, and therefore as the eldest.
*
f
J
§
Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. i., page 402 ; vol. it, p. 235.
2 Chronicles xx., 7 ; Isaiah xli,, 8 ; James ii., 23.
Genesis xii., 4.
Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary, “Abraham.”
�18
BIBLE HEROES.
Among the Jews and Mohammedans there are many traditions
of Abraham’s youth.
Holy Scripture passes over his first
seventy-five years at a single bound, but there must have been
some remarkable incidents in the youth of such an extraordinary
person. It is related that his birth was heralded by a star; that
King Nimrod sought the young child’s life; that the baby was
hidden by his mother, and protected by the angel Gabriel; that
he was nourished in his concealment by milk, butter, honey, and
date-juice, which flowed from his fingers as he sucked them;
that he foiled all the armies that were sent to capture him; that
he had an interview with Nimrod, when all the idols in the palace
fell, and the king rolled from his throne in convulsions. As he
grew older he played havoc with his father’s trade. Terah kept
an idol-shop, and Abraham cried stinking fish to all the custo
mers. One day he smashed all the paternal stock except the
biggest god, in whose hands he placed the stick, and when the
old man returned home to empty the till and found his business
bankrupt, the pious young shopman swore that the surviving
deity had demolished all the rest. Subsequently he refused to
worship Nimrod’s gods, and was ordered to be cremated, but he
remained in the fire for three days and nights without the
slightest inconvenience.
*
When the Lord called Abraham into the land of Canaan, he
made him many fine promises, all of which have been broken,
although they were ratified again and again, “I will make of
thee a great nation,” said Jehovah. " ■ the Jews never were a
But ’
great nation, nor has Abraham’s seed become as “the dust
of the earth” for number. The Jews are more numerous
now than they ever were before, yet they boast only seven of the
fourteen hundred millions on the globe.
Jehovah also entered into an offensive and defensive alliance
with Abraham, saying, “ I will bless them that bless thee, and
curse him that curseth thee.” The natural laws of morality
were henceforth to be suspended, and people were to be judged
according to their sympathy or aversion for the Jews. A fur
ther promise was, “ In thee shall all families of the earth be
blessed.” What a splendid piece of impudence! Surely the
Jewish historians must have strutted like turkey-cocks as they
gloated over this passage.
God promised Abraham the land of Canaan, but as he could
not take possession of that fine property, he was glad to run
down to Egypt to escape a famine. According to Jewish tradi
tion, as he reached the river of Egypt, he for the first time in
his life noticed the beauty of Sarah. His wonderful modesty
kept him from looking her in the face, but he saw her features
reflected in the water I f Fearing that her marvellous loveliness
would set men’s hearts aflame, and that he might fare badly as
* Gould, vol. i., pp. 171—186.
f Gould, vol. i., p. 189.
�FATHER ABRAHAM.
19
the Menelaus of this Helen, he persuaded her to pass herself off
as his sister.
Here is courage for you! Surely the Lord might have found
a braver friend. Abraham’s solicitude was all about his own skin,
his wife’s honor being a secondary consideration. The natural
result was an infernal mess. The princes of Egypt went mad
over Sarah’s beauty, and Pharaoh put her in his seraglio. What
happened there the Lord only knows, but if Sarah had returned
to her cuckold with a cracked reputation, he would have had no
one to blame but himself. Pharaoh acted naturally. He
admired beauty, and saw no harm in marrying another man’s
sister. But Abraham’s friend was of a different opinion. The
Lord “ plagued Pharaoh and all his house with great plagues,”
and the poor king was glad to pack the precious couple out of
Egypt by the next mail.
How old does the reader think Sarah was ? Sixty-five at
least. She was a second Ninon de l’Enclos. Or rather she
resembled the Madame de Valentinois of Brantome, who, at the
*
age of. sixty-six, retained the beauty, the freshness, and the
attraction of her thirtieth year, and was loved and served by a
great and valiant king.
Pharaoh gave Abraham a good scolding before he expelled
him, but the lesson was lost on this friend of God. Twenty-five
years later he passed his wife off as his sister a second time.
Sarah was then ninety and pregnant, but her youthful charms
fascinated Abimelech the King of Gerar, who “ took ” her, but
in the elegant language of Scripture, was not allowed to “ touch”
her. .The Lord not only watched over Sarah’s chastity, but as
a punishment for the king’s folly in believing that the friend of
God could speak the truth, he “ fast closed up all the wombs of
the house of Abimelech,” and their sterility was only removed at
Abraham’s intercession. The unfortunate monarch was naturally
angry with the old fellow. “ Why,” he asked, “ did you not tell
me she was your wife ? Why did you say she was youi’ sister ?”
Thereupon the unvenerable hypocrite replied that she was his
sister as well as his wife, being the daughter of his father by
another mother. It is obvious, however, that he deliberately
arranged with Sarah to pretend that they were not husband and
wife; and, although the commentators have expended a good
deal of ingenuity in palliating the offence, they cannot explain
away the damning fact.
This little trick appears to have run in the blood, for Isaac,
who in this respect was a true chip of the old block, passed off
Rebekah as his sister for a similai’ reason, namely to keep him
self out of danger, f On all three occasions the godly liars were
rebuked by the persons they deceived. But the Lord never
reproached them, and it seems that morality was in a more
Discours V.
t Genesis xxvi., 6-11.
�20
BIBLE HEROES.
flourishing condition among the “ heathen ” than it was among
God’s elect. Abraham was not even above profiting by his
arrangement with Sarah. Pharaoh and Abimelech gave him
sheep, oxen, asses, camels and slaves, while they were courting
his “ sister,” and he was too much of a Jew to return those nice
little presents when they discovered their mistake.
Yet this cowardly huckster suddenly developed into a full
blown hero when his nephew was taken captive in a big battle.
Hastily arming three hundred and eighteen trained servants, he
pursued the victorious armies of five great kings. Palling
upon them by night, he smote them hip and thigh, rescued
Lot with all the other captives, and recovered every bit of the
spoil. Profane history furnishes no parallel to this heroic feat.
Even the three hundred Spartans, who defended the pass of
Thermopylae against the hosts of Xerxes, were less successful, for
with the exception of one man they were all slain, while Abraham
does not appear to have lost a single warrior. We must go to
Scripture itself for similar prodigies of valor; where we find
Gideon, who defeated a whole army with three hundred men
armed with pitchers and lamps; and Samson, who slew a
thousand Philistines with the jaw-bone of an ass.
According to the Jewish legends, Abraham was deserted by
his servants as they approached the enemy, but the patriarch
fell upon the five armies alone, and with God’s assistance he
polished them all off before daybreak.
*
On returning from the fight, Abraham met a gentleman
named Melchizedek, who was “ priest of the most high God.”
This worthy sky-pilot gave Abraham his blessing, and Abraham
“ give him tithes of all.” Melchizedek is described by Paul as
“ without father, without mother, without descent, having
neither beginning of days, nor end of life.”f Whenever we
meet anyone who answers to that description, we will pay him
tithes too. Probably the priests inserted this passage to give
the highest autiquity to the ten per cent, business. Yet we need
not go to the Jews for the origin of tithes, for the custom is
widespread. The Greeks generally dedicated a tenth of their
spoils to Apollo, but the Athenians to Minerva, and the Samians
to Juno. The Carthaginians sent a tithe of their Sicilian spoils
to Hercules, and the Arabians offered a tenth of their frank
incense to Sabis.t The Persians, the Scythians, and the Romans
also paid tithes to their gods.§ Superstitious people give presents
to their deities to purchase their favor, and the priests of every
religion have found a way to turn devotion into a duty.||
* Gould, vol. i., p. 194.
+ Hebrews vii., 3.
J Selden, History of Tythes, iii.
§ Calmet, Tythes.
|| Hooker’s reason why a “ tenth of our wordly profits ” is the proper
amount to give to the Church is very curious. Three is the number of
the Trinity, seven the number of our spiritual perfections, and ten the
�FATHER ABRAHAM.
21
Another part of religion which the Bible traces back to
Abraham is the rite of circumcision.
“Ye shall circumcise
the flesh of your foreskin,” says Jehovah, “ and it shall be a token
of the covenant between me and you.”* This was rather an
obscene token, but the Lord’s ways are not our ways. Abraham
circumcised all the males of his household on one day. He was
ninety-nine years old, and the surgical operation must have
been trying at his time of life.
Circumcision is no token of a covenant between Jehovah and
Abraham, nor is it a special mark of the chosen people.
Herodotus tells us that circumcision was practised by the
Colchians, Egyptians, Ethiopians, and Syrians, nearly five
centuries before Christ, when it was beginning to be discon
tinued by the Phoenicians.f The rite obtains among the Arabs,
the Abyssinians, and the Kaffirs; it was found by Captain Cook
among the South Pacific islanders; a similar practice prevailed
in Mexico^, and it existed among the aborigines of Australia.§
Such a widely prevalent rite, found in parts of the world that
have no intercourse with each other, must have had a general
origin. It is simply a relic of primitive superstition. The
ancient priests of Rhea amputated their genitals altogether in
honor of their goddess. What wonder, then, that a milder form
of mutilation should have survived among whole nations. Both
among the Jews,|| and among every other people, circumcision
was effected with a stone implement.^ No doubt the use of this
article, in accordance with the intense conservatism of religion,
had survived with the rite itself from the Stone Age.
All authorities agree in stating that circumcision was obli
gatory on the priestly caste in Egypt. This is a further proof
of its religious character. But many of the people also sub
mitted to it, as a mark of purity and holiness. That the Jews,
who had been in Egypt, should have borrowed this rite, is not
surprising ; * but that the Egyptian priests, the hierophants of
*
a hoary creed and the leaders of a haughty civilisation, should
have condescended to borrow it from their slaves, is absolutely
incredible.
Let us return to Abraham. His wife Sarah was barren, like
all the other Bible women who were to give birth to miraculous
children. She was anxious, however, that Abraham should
have children by somebody, so she gave him her handmaid
Hagai’ to breed from. Nothing loth, he “ went in unto Hagar,
number of nature’s perfections as well as “ the highest we can rise unto,
without iteration of numbers under it.” Here be reasons !—Ecclesiastical
Polity, bk. 5, chap, lxxix., 6, 7.
* Genesis xvii., 11.
f Bk. II., 104.
J Priaulx, pp. 381-9.
§ Tylor, Early History of Mankind, p. 219.
|| Exodus iv., 25: Joshua v., 2.
Tylor, pp. 216-219. ** Joshua v., 9.
�22
BIBLE HEROES.
and.she conceived.” Eighty-five was his age; but there was
life in the old boy yet. Hagar being in the family-way by her
master, Sarah was expected to sing small; but the good lady’s
temper was none of the tamest, and she bothered Abraham till
he exclaimed, “Do as you like with her.” Sarah took full
advantage of the permission, and Hagar ran away; but an angel
persuaded her to return, and in due course Abraham was pre
sented with a bouncing boy named Ishmael, who is supposed to
be the father of the Arabians.
Thirteen years later “the Lord appeared to Abram,” and
said, “ I am the Almighty God.” Our hero fell on his face,
and “ God talked with him.” This was no angel, but the great
I Am himself. What a pity there was no photographer handy
to take his likeness ! Oh, the joy it would be to have a portrait
of God Almighty over the mantel-piece! But, alas! that
pleasure is denied us. Photography was not invented then;
and since the advent of modern science Jehovah has kept care
fully out of the way. No Abraham has a chat with him, no
Moses sees his back parts.
Before leaving, the Lord promised that Sarah should be “ a
mother of nations.” God said it, but Abraham thought his
maker was joking. He “ fell upon his face, and laughed.”
But the Lord paid him another visit, and ratified the promise.
As he sat at his tent door in the heat of the day three men
appeared. Either one of them was God, or God was with them,
for all the conversation went on between Abraham and “ the
Lord.” We are told that, after the three men went, “ Abraham
stood yet before the Lord.” The text is very confused; but
God was evidently there, and it has been suggested that the
three visitors were Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
With Bedouin hospitality, Abraham said, Stop to dinner, and
they accepted the invitation. Sarah baked cakes, while he pre
pared the roast veal, which was served up with butter and milk.
Fortunately Genesis preserves the bill of fare at God Almighty’s
dinner. Should he ever favor us with a call, we shall know
what to put on the table.
Dinner being over, the Lord was in a good humor, for
dyspepsia is unknown to his omnipotent stomach. Rubbing his
hands together genially, he said to himself, “ I must do some
thing for Abraham. Pool’ old fellow, he wants a boy, and hang
it he shall have one, a real son and heir.” Certainly it did not
look a very promising case. Abraham was a hundred, and Sarah
was ninety. But, as the poet says, “ God moves in a mysterious
way his wonders to perform.” 'Turning to his “friend,” the
Lord said, “ Sarah, thy wife, shall have a son.” The old lady
overheard this promise, but she was old enough to know better,
so she “ laughed within herself.” The Lord has long ears, how
ever, and he heard her smile. “ Abraham,” said his Godship,
“ what is the old woman laughing about ? Does she fancy I
�FATHER ABRAHAM.
23
can’t manage it ? ” Sarah overheard this too, and being a bit
frightened, she said, “ I didn’t laugh.” “ You did though,” said
the Lord, and the matter dropped. But when nine moons had
rolled by Sarah had a baby, and they christened it Isaac. Many
other barren women had babies at the same time, according to
tradition, while the blind saw, the dumb spake, the deaf heard,
the lame walked, crazy people recovered their senses, and the
sun shone with forty-eight times his usual brilliancy. Alto
*
gether it was a fine old time, and we daresay there was a good
deal of wetting the baby’s nose.
Having one child, and perhaps thinking she was in for a good
family, Sarah concluded that Hagar was de trop, so when the
weaning feast came on she complained that the young minx
laughed at her, and asked Abraham to turn her adrift. “ The
son of this bondwoman,” said she, “ shall not be heir with my
son.” Abraham was reluctant to turn the girl out of doors, but
the Lord told him to obey Sarah, and early one morning he sent
Hagar and Ishmael packing with some dry bread and a bottle of
water. The pool’ mother and boy “ wandered in the wilderness
of Beersheba,” their provisions were soon spent, and the pathetic
picture of Hagar weeping over the imminent death of her child
is enough to melt a heart of stone. An angel came to their
assistance, but that does not diminish Abraham’s crime. Even
if a man seduces a woman, and withdraws himself from her
society afterwards to avoid further sin, he is bound to protect
her from want and its many perils; and the obligation is, if
possible, still deeper if she is the mother of his child. Theo
logians, who seek to whitewash Abraham, and to justify
Jehovah’s advice, have played fast and loose with the primary
laws of morality; but every honest heart will feel that the
“ father of the faithful ” was a contemptible scoundrel, or a hen
pecked fool, or a damnable mixture of both.
Having turned Ishmael out of house and home, to live or die,
it is not surprising that Abraham readily obeyed the Lord when
he was told to offer up Isaac as a burnt-offering. An altar was
built, the wood laid in order, and Isaac bound as a victim for
the sacrifice. Already the father’s hand, holding the fatal knife,
Was raised to strike death into the heart of his son, when the
tragedy was averted by a voice from heaven, telling him to spare
the lad. “How I know that thou fearest God,” said Jehovah,
“ seeing that thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son
from me.” Abraham was ready to commit a murder for his
friend.” Not in act, but in intention, he had slain his son.
And this readiness to perpetrate any crime at God’s instigation
is hailed as a sovereign proof of his piety. Even in the New
Testament, Paulf commends Abraham’s faith in offering up
Isaac, and James declares that by such “ works ” his “ faith ”
* Gould, vol. i., p. 206.
t Hebrews xi., J 7.
�24
BIBLE HEROES.
was “ made perfect.”* When such frightful atrocities are
sanctioned by the Bible, it is a sin to put it into the hands of
children, and a scandal to call it the infallible Word of God.
Neither Abraham nor Jehovah could dispense with a sacrifice
of some kind, so a ram was immolated in Isaac’s stead. Tradition
says that this opportune animal was brought from Paradise, and
ever since the Lord God planted the Garden of Eden it had fed
under the Tree of Life, and drunk of the river that waters its
roots; and the Last Trumpets of the Day of Judgment will be
made from its wonderful horns, t
Sarah died at a hundred and twenty-seven, and aftei’ seeing
Isaac settled, Abraham married Keturah, who with or without
his assistance was the mother of six sons. Dr. Giles obsei’ves
that Abraham had laughed at the notion of his being a father at
a hundred, yet when he is thirty-seven years older he marries
again and has six children. He surmises that Abraham was a
polygamist, like Jacob, David and Solomon; that he had children
by Keturah during Sarah’s lifetime; and that a late compiler
“ ranges in successive dates events which really were contem
poraneous.”!
Abraham died at a hundred and seventy-five, and was buried
in Sarah’s grave. The Mussulmans say he was the first man who
ever had a white beard, and that God kissed him, and he gave
up the ghost. § His tomb was “ discovered ” ever so many cen
turies after the funeral, in a cave near Hebron. Isaac and Jacob
were buried in the same hole, and all three bodies were in a fine
state of preservation. The Christians built a church over the
spot, but the Turks have changed it into a mosque, and for
bidden Christians to approach it.|| Several books have also.been
ascribed to Abraham. They were mentioned by the Rabbis, by
Athanasius, and by Origen. Probably the old fellow would be
as astonished as anybody to learn that he wrote them.
We now take leave of this Friend of God. He was a liar, a
coward, and a would-be murderer. His proper place would be
in the Chamber of Horrors. But Jesus Christ tells us that he
is in heaven, with Lazarus the sore-legged beggar in his bosom.
May it never be our fate to pig with such company, for although
Abraham was and probably is God’s friend, we decidedly object
to spending our eternity inside the shirt-front of an elderly Jew.*
§
* James ii., 21, 22.
f Gould, vol. i., p. 228.
J Rev. Dr. Giles, Hebrew Records, p. 233.
§ Gould, vol. 1, p. 23G.
|| Calmet.
�JUGGLING
JACOB.
-------- ♦--------
God was particularly fond of this Bible hero. Abraham was his
friend, but he loved Jacob. How much reason there was for this
affection will appeal’ in the course of our narrative. Jehovah
himself was a desperately sharp shaver at a bargain, but Jacob
beat him hollow in that line. He is the father of the great race
of Jeremy Diddlers. He diddled everybody he ever met, in
cluding God himself. His life was an uninterrupted career of
jewing, save for one little affair, in which his uncle Laban
diddled him.
But, before we follow Jacob’s adventures, we wish to say a
few words about our old friend Captain Noah. According to
Scripture, Noah lived fifty-eight years after the birth of Abra
ham, while Shem lived a hundred and ten years after the birth
of Isaac, and fifty years after the birth of Jacob. How was it
that neither Abraham, Isaac, nor Jacob knew either of them ?
They were the most interesting and important men alive at
that time; they had seen the world before the Flood; and one
of them had seen people who knew Mr. Adam. Both of them
had lived through the confusion of tongues at Babel, and were
well acquainted with the history of the world. Yet they are
never once mentioned during all the centuries they survived
their exit from the Ark. Why is this ? Simply because the
whole story is a myth. Each character plays his part, and when
he is no longer wanted he is quietly dismissed from the stage.
Up to a point, like the hero of one of Bret Harte’s poems, they
are all alive and kicking; afterwards they still resemble that
gentleman, who was knocked down in the spree, and “ the sub
sequent proceedings interested him no more.”
Isaac married at forty. His wife Rebekah was barren (of
course), and Isaac had to pray hard before she got into the
family-way. Naturally the result was twins. “ The children,”
we are told, “ struggled together within her.” Rabbi Eliezer
says that they carried on a theological discussion there. Another
*
Rabbi asserts that when Rebekah passed before a synagogue,
Jacob tried to get born; and when she passed before an idol
temple, Esau tried to do the same. Poor Rebekah “went to
Gould, vol. ii-, p. 16.
�2G
BIBLE HEROES.
inquire of the Lord ” about the matter. The answer was “ Two
nations are in thy womb.” What a prospect! The poor young
woman found to her cost that “ the effectual fervent prayer of a
righteous man availeth much.”
Esau was born first. He was red, and “ all over like a hairy
garment.” Jacob followed quickly; in fact “ his hand took hold
on Esau’s heel,” and hence his name. Jewish traditions explain
Esau’s redness in various ways. One says he was born under
the ruddy planet Mars, another that he liked his meat under
done, and another that he was red-haired. Rabbi Isaiah says
he had a serpent coiled in his bowels, and surely that was enough
to make him red in the face.
*
Isaac was seventy years old when the twins came to light.
We presume, therefore, that he had been nearly thirty yearspraying for them. Scripture does not say whether Rebekah,
according to the pious fashion of the age, lent him a handmaiden
or two to try his luck with.
“ The boys grew,” says Scripture. Of course they did. All
boys, except Tom Thumbs, manage to do that. Esau became “ a
cunning hunter.” The Rabbis say that he wore the leather suit
which God made for Mi’. Adam.f This outfit was stolen by Ham
from Noah. Ham gave it to Cush, and Cush to Nimrod. Esaukilled Nimrod and secured the God-made raiment, which gavehim success in hunting.^ Jacob dwelt in tents and minded
sheep. He was “ a plain man,” and also “ a smooth man.”
Smooth-skinned, smooth-tongued, and smooth-faced; plain and
unsophisticated as the Heathen Chinee.
One day this plain, smooth man was making lentil pottage,
when Esau came in from the hunt, faint and weary, and ready to
die of hunger. The starving hunter besought a little food of his
twin-brother. Any man with a spark of natural feeling would
have said, “ Eat, my brother, there is enough for both, and if not
we will share it.” Sir Philip Sidney, mortally wounded on the
field of Zutphen, was about to drink some water his friends
brought him to appease his intolerable thirst; but seeing a poor
soldier writhing in agony beside him, he put the precious
draught aside untasted, saying, “ Give it to him; his necessity
is greater than mine.” But Jacob was not a Sidney, although
God loved him. Not even a brother’s necessity touched his
selfish heart. His only thought was “ How can I make a profit
out of his extremity ? ” Turning to Esau, he said, “ I’ll give you
some of my pottage, but on one condition. Let me have your
birthright, and you may take a spoon.” The condition was
hard, for it meant that Esau was to resign all his rights of
seniority to Jacob. But a perishing man cannot be fastidious.
Esau was obliged to close with the offer. Yet, even then, Jacob
* Gould, vol. ii., p. 17.
+ Genesis iii., 21.
} Gould, vol. ii., p. IS.
�JUGGLING JACOB.
27
would not let him eat until he had confirmed the bargain with
an oath. “ Thus Esau despised his birthright,” says the Bible.
Thus Jacob despised the common instincts of humanity,” says
every honest reader.
Isaac grew old, and “ his eyes were dim, so that he could not
see.” Some Rabbis say that his eyes were dimmed by the tears
of the angels falling in them when he was stretched on the altai’;
others say that he was dazzled by looking on the throne of God;
and others that he went blind through crying over Esau’s
marriage with a Canaanitish woman. The old patriarch
*
thought his end was approaching, and having a weakness for
venison, he sent Esau out to hunt some game, so that he might
have a thorough good feast and give up the ghost on a full
stomach. While the hairy man was away on this expedition,
the smooth man played him a very dirty trick. Having sharped
Esau out of his birthright, Jacob proceeded to cheat him of his
father’s blessing.
Rebekah, who was the worthy mother of such a son, put Jacob
up to the contrivance. She cooked a kid to taste like venison,
and put the skin upon Jacob’s hands and neck, to make him feel
like Esau. Juggling Jacob took in the savory mess to his poor
old father, who asked him how he had caught the game so
quickly. This was a poser, but Jacob was equal to the occasion.
“ Because,” said he, “ the Lord thy God brought it to me.” The
rascally hypocrite mixed his piety with his cheating in the most
exemplary manner. He was a fellow who could pick a pocket
and say a prayer in the same breath.
Being somewhat sceptical, Isaac said “ Come near that I may
feel thee.” The blind old father felt him, or rather the kid skin,
and was a little reassured. Still, he noticed that the voice was
the voice of Jacob; so he asked him “ Art thou my very son
Esau?” And Jacob, rolling up the whites of his eyes like a
negro preacher, and in a tone that would have struck envy into
the soul of Mr. Pecksniff, answered “ I am.” That was enough.
Isaac tucked into the dinner, and afterwards gave Jacob the
blessing he intended for Esau. “ Be lord over thy brethren,”
said Isaac, “ and let thy mother’s sons bow down to thee.” In
patriarchal societies a father’s blessings and curses are “regis
tered in heaven,” and this was equivalent to giving Jacob’s off
spring a perpetual superiority over Esau’s.
Presently Esau returned from the hunt, cooked his game, and
invited his father to eat. “ Who art thou ?” said Isaac. “ I am
thy son, thy firstborn Esau,” was the reply. Isaac “ trembled
very exceedingly,” told Esau what had occurred, and added that
he could not retract Jacob’s blessing. When Esau heard this, he
“ cried with a great and exceeding bitter cry.” What a picture
of anguish! The poor fellow was heart-broken. He pleaded
* Gould, vol. ii., p. 15.
�28
BIBLE HEROES.
hard for a blessing too. “ Bless me, even me also, 0 my father,”
he cried, and then he “ lifted up his voice, and wept.” The story
is told with terrible pathos, and the Jews must have been blinded
with, the spirit of nationality not to feel that Esau sustained a
shocking injury, and that Jacob was a contemptible scoundrel.
Naturally “ Esau hated Jacob,” nor is it surprising that he
promised to slay this treacherous brother after their father’s
death. Jacob was too cowardly to face Esau’s wrath, so by
Rebekah’s advice he fled to his uncle Laban’s. During his
journey he slept one night upon a pillow of stones. It was cal
culated to give him the nightmare, yet he had a heavenly dream.
He saw a ladder reaching from earth to heaven. The Lord stood
on top of it, and said “ I am the Lord God.” Angels were
ascending and descending it, though it is difficult to understand
why these winged creatures should climb a ladder. Perhaps
they were moulting.
God shouted down from the top of that ladder all the fine
promises he had previously made to Abraham, and when Jacob
awoke he was in a very pious frame of mind. After saying his
prayers he made this beautiful vow : “ If God will be with me,
and will keep me in the 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 peace; then shall the Lord be my God.” Jacob was a
man of business. He was not going to worship any God for
nothing. His terms were pretty high, however; and all he
undertook to do, in addition to praising Jehovah, is expressed
in this elegant offer. “ Of all that thou shalt give me,” said
Jacob, “ I will surely give the tenth unto thee.” That is, if God
provided him with unlimited capital, he would give God ten per
cent, of the profits.
The Arabs say that Jacob’s stone pillow is now at Jerusalem.
It is also in Westminster Abbey. Somebody conveyed it to
Scone, where it was used for the consecration of the Scottish
king, and Edward I. brought it to London, where it remains till
Jacob sends for it.
*
Jacob settled down at his uncle Laban’s, undertaking to serve
him seven years for his younger daughter Rachel, with whom
the runagate was desperately in love. When the term expired
Jacob was married. There was a wedding feast, and he probably
got fuddled. How else are we to explain his obtuseness ? When
he awoke he found himself in bed with the wrong woman. He
had slept with Leah instead of Rachel. Eor once in his life he
was done brown. Laban explained that it was against the
custom of the country to wed the younger sister before the
elder, but he told Jacob that he might have Rachel too. Having
served seven years for the woman he did not want, Jacob had to
serve another seven years for the woman he did want. His
* Gould, vol. ii., p. 21.
�JUGGLING JACOB.
29
marrying two sisters is treated as perfectly proper. Yet the
clergy say that marriage with a deceased wife’s sister is incest.
Evidently the incest consists in taking two sisters in succession.
Taking them both together is the good old Bible plan.
Leah was fruitful, but Rachel was barren, like Sarah and
for the same reason. “ Give me children, or else I die,” she
exclaimed to Jacob. This put him in a passion, and he inquired
whether he was God Almighty. Thereupon Rachel asked him
to get children by her handmaid Bilhah. Soon afterwards
Leah made the same request for her handmaid Zilpah, and
Jacob obliged them both.
Rachel appears to have owned Jacob and farmed him out.
Leah’s eldest son found some mandrakes in the field and brought
*
them home. “ Give me some,” said Rachel to Leah, “ and Jacob
shall sleep with you to-night.” The bargain was struck, and
Leah posted off to meet Jacob. “ Thou must come in unto me,”
she said, “ for surely I have hired thee with my son’s mandrakes.”
Holy Scripture adds that “ he lay with her that night.” This is
a very pretty story for parents to put in the hands of their
daughters I Surely the Word of an all-wise God might teach
something more useful and decent than the lesson to be derived
from the story of a woman hiring her own husband to sleep
with her.
Thinking it high time to leave uncle Laban, Jacob asked for
his discharge. Laban, however, desired him to remain on his
own terms. Jacob stipulated that all the speckled and spottled
cattle, all the brown sheep, and all the spotted and speckled
goats, should be his, and all the rest his uncle’s. This was agreed
to, and Jacob proceeded to breed the flocks and herds, so that all
the stronger ones were of his variety, and all the feebler ones of
Laban’s. How he did this is a wonderful specimen of Bible
biology. When the animals were “ in the doing of the deed of
kind,” as Shylock puts-it, Jacob placed pilled rods with white
streaks before the lustier ones, and this enabled the females to
bring forth “ cattle ringstraked, speckled, and spotted.” Youatt,
who is a high authority on breeding, attributes this result to
“ the power of the imagination in the mother, carried to an
extent the like of which is certainly not seen in the present day,” or
to “some superior over-ruling agency.” f St. Jerome, St.
Augustine, and St Isidore, who probably knew as much about
sheep and cattle as about the Copernican astronomy, held that
Jacob’s method of breeding was perfectly natural; but St
* According to Calmet, mandrakes resembled the sexual parts of men,
and were used as aphrodisiacs, especially in cases of barrenness. But, as
Voltaire remarks (La Bible Enfin JExpliquee') this was an error of ancient
medicine, like the belief in satyrion and cantharides ; and “ such fancies
were only credited in great cities where debauchery supported charlatans ”
f Youatt Sheep; their Breeds, Management, etc., p. 17.
�30
BIBLE HEROES.
Chrysostom, Theodoret and others, who were equally learned on
the subject, held that it was “ something above nature.”* It is
scarcely necessary to say that modern farmers are not in the
habit of following Jacob’s methods. Those were Bible days, and
Bible sheep and cattle.
Jacob getting wealthy and Laban poor, they grew unfriendly,
and our hero resolved to go home to Isaac. He had both Laban’s
daughters, and all his sheep, cattle, and goats worth having,
and there was nothing more to remain for ; so he levanted one
night with all his belongings. But it was reserved for Rachel
to put the finishing touch to Laban’s misfortunes. She actually
carried off his images (terapliim, household gods, like the Roman
senates'), and left her pool’ old father without a god to worship.
This was more than flesh and blood could stand. Laban pursued
the fugitives, and rated Jacob for sneaking off without saying
good-bye; and “ wherefore hast thou stolen my gods ?” he
inquired. Jacob denied the charge, told Laban to search for
them, and vowed that whoever had them should be put to death.
But Rachel had put the images in the camel’s furniture in her
tent, and she sat upon them—hatching ! She escused her
self from rising up on the ground that “ the custom of women ”
was upon her. What a thievish, cunning slut this Rachel was !
She and her husband were fit for the shadiest business in Petti
coat Lane.
Twenty years had Jacob been away from home, and he was
returning a rich and prosperous man. But his heart sank as he
reflected that Esau’s anger might still be hot against him, and
when messengers came to say that Esau was coming out to meet
him with four hundred men, he began to taste the very bitter
ness of death. His mercenary nature prompted him to try the
effect of a bribe, so he sent forward “ a present unto my lord
Esau ” of goats, sheep, camels, oxen, and asses. Injured, how
ever, as Esau was, he did not cherish a spirit of revenge. He
had forgiven Jacob, and only remembered that they were
brothers. Putting aside the presents, with the generous
remark, “ I have enough, my brother ; keep that thou hast unto
thyself,” Esau embraced Jacob, and “ fell on his neck and kissed
him.” What a noble picture of generosity and brotherly
affection! Esau was large-hearted and magnanimous, while
Jacob was base and sordid. One was a hero, and the other a
skunk. Yet the Bible God says, “ Jacob have I loved, but Esau
have I hated.”f
While Jacob was in a funk at the thought of Esau’s approach,
he had a marvellous adventure. Being alone by night at
Jabbok brook, somebody “wrestled with him until the break
ing of the day.” It was the longest and most stiffly contested
Calmet, Jacob.
f Romans is., 13; Malachi i., 2.
�31
JUGGLING- JACOB.
match on record. The mysterious person found he could not
throw his man or shake him off. Jacob held on like grim death.
His thigh was put out of joint, but he never relaxed his grip.
“ Let me go,” said the stranger, “ for the day breaketh.” But
Jacob refused to do so, unless he obtained a blessing. That was
all the stranger had to give. Had he worn clothes, and keptany cash in his pockets, Jacob would have had that too. As it
was Jacob got the blessing. His name was changed from Jacob
to Israel. From a patriarch he became a prince. When the
Stranger departed, Jacob called the place Peniel, for, said he,
“ I have seen God face to face.” Supposing he was right (and
the other party has never contradicted him), Jacob wrestled
with God Almighty. The match was “ God v. Jacob.” It lasted
all night; there was only one round; and Jacob won the
stakes.
This need not surprise the reader, for in a following chapter
we are several times apprised that Jacob had interviews with his
maker. God “ appeared unto Jacob again,” “God spake with
him,” “ God said unto him, I am God Almighty.”*
Calmet informs us that authorities—that is, gentlemen who
are perfectly ignorant on the matter—are divided as to whether
Jacob’s thigh ever recovered from its dislocation. Some think
he went about with a game leg for the rest of his days, and.
others that he passed over Jordan safe and sound in everv
limb.
Isaac died, some time after Jacob’s return, at the ripe age of
a hundred and eighty. Esau had several wives before, but after
the old man was buried he took a fresh batch. Jacob, however,
kept to Rachel and Leah. But as he enjoyed two of their hand
maids, and perhaps a few more, he had a first-rate harem all the
same.
What became of Leah afterwards is not recorded. It is to be
hoped she died, for she appears to have been buried, f Rachel
died in giving birth to her second son, Benjamin. A tombstonewas fixed over her remains, and “ that is the pillar of Rachel’s-,
grave unto this day.” The writer of this sentence should havebeen more precise. He ought to have put into the text, or a
footnote, something like this—“ This is the 24th of so and so, in
the year of the world so and so.” Then we should have known
at what date the story was written, which is a great deal more
than the cleverest commentators are able to say now.
The remainder of Jacob’s life was chiefly spent in the land of
Canaan, where he managed to set his own family by the ears
through his doting fondness for Joseph, “ the son of his old age.”
But that pretty story, and the strangely bestial doings of some
of Leah’s sons, must be reserved foi’ our next chapter. Suffice it
to say, that Jacob spent his last seventeen years in Egypt, where
t Gen. xxxv., 7, 9, 11, 15.
f Genesis xlW 31.
�32
BIBLE HEBOES.
Joseph had become Prime Minister; and that he died at the age
of a hundred and forty-seven. On his death-bed he took to
prophecy, foreshadowing in highly symbolical and oracular
language the history of the future tribes of Israel. But as these
prophecies were all written long aftei’ the events foretold, they
were a remarkably easy form of composition. If Jacob uttered
all that vaticination on his last feather-bed, we should like to
know who took the shorthand notes.
Jacob’s body was embalmed, and buried at Joseph’s expense
in the cave of Machpelah. The Bible informs us that “ all the
elders of the land of Egypt ” went to the funeral, which we
respectfully beg leave to doubt. Nor do we believe that the
whole Egyptian nation mourned the loss of Jacob for seventy
days. This is, in our opinion, simply a bit of Jewish brag. The
chosen people always had a miraculous opinion of themselves,
which they have nevei’ induced other people to share; and their
historians constantly flattered their national vanity. When we
remember that the Jewish army thought nothing of killing a
hundred thousand in battle, we understand that the homage,
paid to Jacob by Pharaoh was all “ gas.”
According to the Bible, Jacob nevei’ did a generous action.
We must go to tradition to discover the single benefit he conferred on mankind. Before his time sneezing was fatal. The
strongest men were killed by a single shock. But Jacob induced
the Lord to relax this law on condition that everybody who
sneezed should say “ God bless me.” * That apocryphal blessing
is all we owe to Jacob. Throughout his long life he furnished
an unbroken example of the meanest vices. He was a liar,
a sharper, a cheat, a hypocrite, and a thief. God’s “ love ”
did not save him from being a paltry wretch. As a Bible
hero, he is contemptible. If he belonged to any other gallery of
unhung scoundrels, he would be beneath our disdain.
I* I Jesus Christ was good enough to say that “ many shall come
from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven.” f With all humility we
beg to be excused. Everlasting life would be a burden in such
detestable company. It would be an eternal round of suspicion.
Abraham and Isaac would always be trying to impose on our
credulity, and it would tax our utmost vigilance to preserve our
harp and crown from Juggling Jacob.
Gould, vol. ii., p. 29.
f Matthew viii,, 11.
�MASTER JOSEPH.
------- -♦--------
Bible heroes have thus far been found a shady lot. But Joseph,
the hero of the present chapter, is lauded as a model of every
virtue. It is difficult, however, to discover reasons for this
eulogy. Even the chastity for which he is famous is inade
quately established. That he resisted the importunities of an
amorous woman is indeed recorded, but we are not informed that
she was young and beautiful; on the contrary, her advances
were made with such brazen brutality that it might be conjec
tured she was an old practitioner in sin, enamored of the fresh
innocence of a pretty boy. Nor have we any means of judging
the strength of the temptation on Joseph’s side. Whether his
constitution was warm or cold, as well as the plainness or fasci
nation of his mistress, should affect our estimate of his cha
racter. But, on the other hand, we require no elucidations for
a judgment on his conduct as Prime Minister of Egypt. Accord
ing to the plain and circumstantial narrative of the Bible, he
deliberately reduced a whole nation to slavery, which is the
greatest crime that can be committed or conceived. The worst
atrocities of war, the vilest deeds of the cruellest tyrants, sink
into insignificance beside the premeditated villainy of Joseph
who used the knowledge he obtained from God to cozen the
Egyptians of their property and liberty for ever.
Joseph was the first of Jacob’s two children by Rachel. The
favorite wife of Israel was long barren, like all Bible women
destined to give birth to wonderful children, until at last, in the
graceful and expressive language of the Holy Ghost, “ God
harkened to her, and opened her womb.” When we next meet
this child of promise, he is seventeen years old, and his father’s
favorite, “because he was the son of his old age.” The old
fellow doted on the lad, and “ made him a coat of many colors,”
so that he looked a regular “ masher.” How many Sundayschool children have dreamt of that variegated garment! But,
alas, the Revised Version robs it of all its romance by stating
that it was simply “ a long garment with sleeves.”
°
Like other favorite children, Joseph was a bit of a sneak, and
told tales of his brethren. When they remembered this,- and
Saw him always in his best clothes, they “ hated him, and could
not speak peaceably unto him.” This feeling was exasperated
�34
BIBLE HEROES.
by his vanity. He dreamed that he and his brethren were
binding sheaves in the field, and their sheaves made obesiance to
his. In another dream “ the sun and the moon and the eleven
stars bowed before him.” This was too much even for Jacob, as
it seemed to include Joseph’s father and mothei’ am on g his
inferiors. He therefore reproved the youngster, yet he treasured
the dream in his foolish old heart.
Joseph’s brethren detested him, and he certainly gave them
cause for the sentiment. . Presently their smoking hatred burst
into flame. Jacob sent him to inquire after them and the flocks
while they were pasturing at a distance, and when they saw
him approaching they said to each other, “ let us slay him.”
It was a cowardly proposal, for they were ten to one, Benjamin
being probably at home; but their natures were fierce and
bloody, and the ties of kindred were as straw to the fire of their
passion. Their project was to kill him, fling his body into a pit,
and tell Jacob he was eaten by a wild beast. But Reuben per
suaded them not to shed his blood. He suggested that they
should cast him into a pit alive, intending to release him after
wards. This was agreed to. They stripped poor Joey, and cast
him into a pit, or probably a well, though “ there was no wafegr
in it.” An oriental tradition says there was water, but Jos^fli
stood on a stone; while the Rabbis say it was dry, but full of
scorpions and adders. Perhaps it was a rock-hewn cistern such
*
as abound in Palestine ; from which, as they are shaped like a
bottle, with a narrow mouth, a prisoner could not escape with
out assistance, f
Pooi- Joey being “ in the belly of the earth,” as Jesus says, to
dream at leisure, his tender-hearted brethren sat down to lun
cheon. . While they were feeding, and toasting Joseph’s health,
they spied a caravan of Ishmeelites going down to Egypt, and a
bright idea immediately occurred to Judah. “ Let us sell him
to the Ishmeelites,” he said. It was a capital notion, and worthy
of the family. But what followed is very obscure. We had
better give the text:—“Then there passed by Midianites
merchantmen; and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the
pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmeelites for twenty pieces of
silver : and they brought Joseph into Egypt.”J Who can make
head or tail of this jumble ? They drew Joseph up and sold him.
Who, his brethren or the Midianite merchantmen ? The second
they would seem to refei to the Ishmeelites who bought him;
*
yet the last verse of the chapter says that “ the Midianites sold
him into Egypt.” Two chapters further on, it says that Potiphar
bought Joseph “ of the hands of the Ishmeelites. ”§ Later, when
he reveals himself to his brethren, he says “ I am Joseph your
* Gould, vol. ii., p. 32
+ Rev. Dr. Thomson, The Land and the Book, p. 168.
t Genesis xxxvii., 28.
§ Genesis xxxix., 1.
�MASTER JOSEPH
35
brothei-, whom ye sold into Egypt.”* The Midianites sold him,
the Ishmeelites sold him, and his brethren sold him ! God help
ns ! Our brain is reeling. Would that the Holy Ghost had
written plainer, for this episode is like the peace of God, it passes
all (our) understanding; and, unfortunately, we have not the
dexterous faith of Dean Milman, who airily evades the difficulty
by saying that Joseph was sold to “ a caravan of Arabian
traders.”!
It is usually held that Joseph’s brethren did sell him, and as
they were Jacob’s sons it is highly probable. Josephus distinctly
says they sold him for twenty pieces of silver.J The Hebrew
and Samaritan give the same figure, but the Vulgate gives thirty,
which brings Joseph and Jesus to the same price. The Septuagint
gives twenty, but says the pieces were gold. According to the
Targums, the brethren had two pieces each, with which they
bought shoes. § But Zabulun, in the Testaments of the Twelve
Patriarchs, denies that he shared the blood-money, though
“ Simeon and Gad, and six other of our brethren, took the price
of Joseph, and bought sandals for themselves, their wives, and
their children.”
jJacob’s sons were cunning villains. They dipped Joseph’s
coat in goat’s-blood, took it to their father, and innocently asked
what he thought of it, For their part, they had a notion it was
Joseph’s, but they would defer to his opinion. The old man saw
it was his son’s, and concluding that his favorite child was
devoured by a wild beast, he grieved and wept, declaring that
he would join his beloved in the grave. Thereupon the hypo
critical scoundrels tried to comfort him. They had disposed of
their brother for two “ shiners ” each, and now they wept
crocodile tears over then- father’s bereavement. Reuben, how
ever, must be exonerated for once. He tried to save Joseph by
an artifice, but his strategy had failed.
Eastern and Rabbinical traditions assert that Joseph’s face
shone like the sun, and all the women and damsels ran out on
the terraces to see the light, while the wealthy ladies of Helio
polis sent their husbands or relations to bid for the beautiful
youth.i| According to Genesis, he was purchased by “ Potiphar,
an officer of Pharaoh, captain of the guard.” Josephus and the
Testaments, however, style this gentleman the chief cook. Dr.
Kitto calls him “ chief of the royal police,” while Dr. Taylor
renders the original Hebrew as “ chief of the executioners.”^
Whoever wishes to know what Potiphar really was must pray
for enlightenment from heaven.
Joseph gained his master’s favor, and soon became his right* Genesis, xlv., 4.
f History of the Jews, p. 23.
I Josephus, Book II, c. iii.
§ Gould, vol. it, p. 35.
|| Gould, vol. ii,, p. 35.
•f Rev. W. M. Taylor, D.D., Joseph, the Prime-Minister, p. 45.
�36
BIBLE U EROES*
hand man. Potiphar made him overseer of his estate, and “ the
Lord blessed the Egyptian’s house for Joseph’s sake.” Now,
Potiphar had a wife, and thereby hangs a tale. She also had a
partiality for Joseph, who was “a goodly person, and well
favored; ” indeed, the Orientals say he was so beautiful that
he was called the Moon of Canaan. His mistress did not beat
about the bush. First she “ cast her eyes upon Joseph,” and
next she said, “ Lie with me.” But il casto Giuseppe declined
her frank invitation. He reproved her immodesty, reminded
her that she was his master’s wife, and refused to “ sin again st
God.” Dr. Taylor argues that, besides the gratification of
appetite, Joseph might expect “this intrigue meant also for
him the putting of Potiphar ultimately out of the way, and his
own elevation, in an easy and speedy fashion, to his master’s
place.”* But we beg to differ. Egypt was a highly-civilised
country, women were allowed great freedom, marriage was held
sacred, and life was secure. It no more followed then than it
does now, that a married woman who intrigued with a young
fellow would also murder her husband.
Josephus writes a long account of this wretched business.f
The Arabs give it a romantic turn; Zuleika, in their story, being
a very different character from the lustful quean in the Bible.
The Testaments make pool’ Joseph groan “ She was wont to bare
her arms, and breasts, and legs, that I might fall before her.”
His mistress, then, was a thorough-going Lady Booby, and he
was more sorely tried than Joseph Andrews. It is a great pity,
however, that we have not Potiphar’s wife’s account of the
affair. The poor lady is condemned unheard. She might give a
very different version, showing that she played the Lucretia to
his.Tarquin. Joseph and the Jews have made their affidavits,
while Zuleika and the Egyptians have never been examined.
Genesis, however, tells us that Potiphar’s wife pressed Joseph
to comply with her desires, and one day, when they were alone,
she “ caught him by his garment, saying, Lie with me.”
Josephus says she “had a mind to force him.” But Joseph
fled, leaving his garment in her hands. Thus signally repulsed,
her love soured to hate, and she accused poor Joey of having
tried to violate her; whereupon Potiphar clapped the chaste
youth in prison as a ravisher.
The Rabbis give many amplifications of this pretty story,J
and there is a version of it in the Koran, where it is said that
Joseph “ would have resolved to enjoy her, had he not seen an
evident demonstration of his Lord.” This is explained by the
1 earned Sale in a footnote to his translation.
. “ Some suppose that the words mean some miraculous voice or appa
rition, sent by God to divert Joseph from executing the criminal thoughts
* P. 52.
+ Book ii.. chap, 4.
f Gould, vol. ii., pp. 36, 37
�MASTER JOSEPH.
37
which began to possess him. For they say, that he was so far tempted
with his mistress’s beauty and enticing behavior, that he sat in her lap,
and even began to undress himself, when a voice called to him, and bid
him beware of her; but he taking no notice of this admonition, though
it was repeated three times, at length the angel Gabriel, or, as others
will have it, the figure of his master appeared to him : but the more
general opinion is that it was the apparition of his father Jacob, who bit
his fingers’ ends, or, as some write, struck him on the breast, whereupon
his lubricity passed out at the ends of his fingers.”*
A pretty little story also hangs by Joseph’s garment. Potiphar’s wife’s cousin, who was then a baby in the cradle, cried
out that if the garment was torn in front, the lady’s version was
correct, but if it was torn behind the young man’s version was
correct.f Potiphar obeyed the voice of the sucking child, and
satisfied himself of Joseph’s innocence; yet to gratify his wife,
or to wean her from her passion, he still kept him in gaol.
Strange to say, this imprisonment was his first step to glory.
He gained the good graces of his keeper, but that was little.
“ The chief cause of his rapid rise to fortune and dignity,” as
Milman observes, “ was his skill in the interpretation of
dreams.” Joseph was a diviner, a walking dream-book. His
sknl was first tried on Pharaoh’s chief butler and chief baker,
who were in prison at that time. He interpreted their dreams
with marvellous accuracy, predicting that the first would be
restored to his post and the second hanged. Two years later
Pharaoh had a wonderful dream, which troubled him greatly.
All the magicians and wise men of Egypt were summoned to
interpret it, but they could not, though they were very clever
fellows, and could turn rods into serpents in a jiffey. There
upon the chief butler, who was restored to his post, remem
bered Joseph, and recommended him to the king. Accordingly
our hero was brought out of prison, and aftei’ shaving and
putting on a clean suit, he stood before Pharaoh and told him
to fire away. Pharaoh related his dream, which we will not,
and Joseph interpreted it as meaning that Egypt was to have
seven years of plenty, followed by seven years of famine. He
also advised that a fifth part of the annual produce during the
first period should be saved for the necessity of the second.
Pharaoh was mightily pleased; he called Joseph a wise man,
full of the spirit of God, and made him grand vizier of Egypt.
Joseph now rode in a chariot, clothed in fine linen, with a gold
chain round his neck, and Pharaoh’s ring on his finger. The
king als(o gave him a new name, Zaphnath-paaneah, which
Josephus writes as Psothom Phanech, or the reader of secrets.
Pharaoh likewise “ gave him to wife Asenath, the daughter of
Poti-pherah, priest of On.” Milman supposes that “ as inter+ Sale, footnote to the Koran, chap. xii.
t Koran, chap. xii.; Gould, vol. ii., p. 37.
�38
BIBLE HEE0E8.
preter of dreams, Joseph, no doubt, intruded into the province ”
of the priests, and the king married him to a priest’s daughter
to “ disarm their jealousy.”* According to Josephus the name
*
of Joseph’s father-in-law was Petephres, and Whiston says the
notion that he was Joseph’s old master is “ common to Josephus,
to the Septuagint interpreters, and to other learned Jews of
old time. ”f Many, says Gould, J suppose that Asenath was the
daughter of Joseph’s old master Potiphar by Dinah! And she
was as tall as Sarah, as comely as Rebekah, and as beautiful as
Rachel. The Targums add that she was the daughter of Dinah
by Shechem, and was adopted and brought up by Potipherah’s
wife.§ But, according to other Jewish and Mussulman tradi
tions, Joseph married the Potiphar’s wife who made love to him,
after she became a widow; and the loves of Zuleika and Joseph
are a popular subject for Eastern poets.||
^Pharaoh’s grand vizier began to save corn against the famine.
Josephus says that the Egyptians had no expectation of the
drought, though Whiston considers this incredible. According
to the Bible, Joseph “ gathered corn as the sand of the sea,” ana
laid it up in granaries. The Jewish historian adds that he
“ took the corn of the husbandmen, allotting as much to every
one as would be sufficient for seed and for food, but without
discovering to anyone the reason why he did so.”5[
This virtuous Joseph was therefore a regrator, or, as the
Yankees say, “ a cornerer.” He monopolised grain to sell at
famine prices. Yet his action is approved and praised by men
who ask for laws against the same thing being done now. In
fact, the Yankees have passed a law against it, though Joseph
is still treated as a perfect saint in all the churches and chapels
in the United States.
When the famine came “ the dearth was in all lands ”; but
we suspect it was like the darkness at the Crucifixion, which
covered the whole earth, yet was invisible at a distance. The
Egyptians were obliged to buy corn of Joseph, or else starve.
At first he sold for money, but he soon had all their cash.
Next he took their horses and cattle. Then he took all their
land, and when the transaction was finished he said “ Behold, I
have bought you this day and your lands for Pharaoh”** You
and your lands I They had lost all their possessions, and had
become slaves to boot; in other words, the poor Egyptians were
thoroughly jewed.
Joseph supplied them with seed to sow the land, of which
they were no longer proprietors, on condition that the fifth part
of the produce should be paid to Pharaoh Wishing to put a
f Footnote to Josephus, bk. it, chap. 6. * Vol, ii., p. 46.
§ Ante-Nicene Library, vol, xxit, p. 73, footnote.
|| Gould, vol. ii., pp. 40, 41.
Josephus, Bk. it, chap. 5.
* Genesis xlvit, 23.
* P. 25.
�MASTER JOSEPH.
39
good face on. this affair, Josephus says that he “ gave them back
the land entirely,” but Whiston is obliged to differ from his
author. “ It seems to me,” he writes, “ that the land was now
considered Pharaoh’s land, and this fifth part as its rent, to be
paid to him, as he was their landlord, and they his tenants;
and that the lands were not properly restored, and this fifth part
reserved as tribute only till the days of Sesostris.”* Dr. Taylor
says that Joseph “also gave them back their cattle,” but he
draws on his fancy for the statement, as there is not a suggestion
of it in the Scripture.
Dr. Taylor offers a curious apology for Joseph. He contends
that if the Egyptians had obtained corn for nothing it “ would
only have demoralised them.” So he sold it to them, to prevent
their becoming paupers, and transformed them into slaves! But
was not Joseph a wise man? Did not God grant him super
human knowledge ? Surely, then, he might have hit upon a
more humane device. Had the people been properly warned of
the approaching drought, and provision made in the public
granaries, they might have maintained themselves during the
famine. It is infamous to trade on a natural calamity. A
nation reduced to want by continued drought is like a starving
crew. Despotism would be necessary for self-preservation ; but
what would be thought of a mercenary wretch who took advant
age of the public starvation to reduce his fellows into a state of
perpetual slavery or dependence ? Yet that is what Joseph did,
if there is any truth in the story. He was as cunning and un
scrupulous a minion as ever basked in the smiles of a king.
Joseph dealt with the people he had “bought” in a high
handed manner. He “ removed them to cities from one end
of the borders of Egypt even to the other end thereof.”
Dean Milman insinuates that this was a method of protecting
them from the overflow of the Nile, but he is obliged to allow
that “ This has been supposed by some an arbitary measure, in
order to break the ties of attachment, in the former possessors,
to their native farms.”!
Let it be observed that Joseph did not buy up the land of the
priests, who were the highest caste, and in whom “ one-third of
the whole land of the country was inalienably vested.”^ They
were all supported gratis during the famine, yet Dr. Taylor
does not hint that they were pauperised. The fact is, the priests
were the real rulers of Egypt. They were not only the minis
ters of religion, but public astronomers, geometricians, sur
veyors, physicians, legislators, and judges; and the king was
either selected from their body or enrolled in it before his
coronation. They were too powerful even for Pharaoh’s grand
vizier. Joseph could not browbeat or swindle them. Yet these
* Footnote, Josephus, bk. ii., chap. 7.
t P. 29.
J Milman, p. 25.
�40
BIBLE HEBOES.
priests, altheugh they looked after themselves pretty sharply,
seem to have connived at the spoliation of the people.
Among those who were driven into Egypt by the famine were
Joseph’s brethren. How he treated them roughly as strangers,
and then revealed his identity; how he invited Jacob’s house
hold into Egypt, and induced Pharaoh to let them settle there;
is a story familial’ to all. It is related with exquisite pathos and
simplicity, and merely as a story it may be compared with any
domestic narrative in literature.
The number of Jacob’s household is given as sixty-six and as
seventy in two consecutive verses. Josephus says seventy,
*
without including Jacob. But Stephen, in the Acts of the
Apostles, gives the number as seventy-five.f Probably he quoted
from the Septuagint, which includes five descendants of Joseph
not included in the Hebrew text. But the Holy Ghost should at
least make the Old and New Testaments agree in their arithmetic,
Sixty-six, seventy, or seventy-five, they settled down in
Goschen. It was a particularly fine land for shepherds, for the
grass grew to the height of a man, and so thick that an ox might
browse all day without rising.J According to Genesis it was
“ the best of the land.” The beggars in this case were choosers
too, and in the midst of their excessive humility they kept a keen
eye on the main chance.
Nearly every Bible character has had some writing ascribed to
him, and Joseph is no exception to the rule. Legend assigns
him the authorship of Joseph’s Prayer, and Trimethius speaks of
a magical book attributed to him, called Joseph’s Mirror.§
According to the Rabbis he had a tremendous voice, and would
have made a fine open-air preacher. On one occasion his voice
shivered a palace pillar into fine dust. Reuben’s lungs were still
more powerful, for when he roared all the inhabitants died of
terror within a radius of a hundred miles. ||
Joseph died at the age of a hundred and ten, and “ they em
balmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.” According
to the Targums, they sank the coffin in the Nile; but Exodus
tells us that when the Jews left Egypt they carried Joseph’s old
bones with them.^f
Here endeth the history of Joseph. Fortunately for the
honor of the human race, it is purely legendary. Egyptian
history shows no trace of such occurrences. Joseph did not
jew the Egyptians; and the story of a Hebrew slave lording it
oyer the hereditary rulers of a mighty civilisation is simply a
bit of J ewish brag.
* Genesis xlv., 26, 27.
f Acts vii., 14.
§ Calmet, Joseph. || Gould, vol. ii., pp. 43, 44.
J Milman, p. 29.
Exodus xiii., 19.
�JOSEPH’S
BRETHREN.
Jehovah was always unlucky in the choice of his favorites, and
the same misfortune attended his Son, for the twelve disciples of
Jesus, when he was arrested, all “ forsook him and fled.”
Probably the number of those valiant worthies was taken from
the number of the sons of Jacob ; in fact, their Master distinctly
told them that, when he came into his Kingdom, they should sit
upon twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. That
*
precious promise has not been fulfilled, nor has the Lord
accomplished the blessings he prophesied for the descendants of
Joseph and his brethren. Perhaps he has repented, found second
thoughts best, and privately resolved to violate his pledge. Nor
can anyone bring him to task for the dereliction. The Lord
■swears, as the Bible frequently informs us, but as he swears unto
himself he can easily obtain a release from awkward engage
ments, without fearing a prosecution for perjury.
Considering the stock they came from, the character of Jacob’s
■sons is not surprising. They possessed between them all the
•qualities which endeared theii’ father, as well as Isaac and
Abraham, to the God of Israel. Lying, theft, lust, incest,
murder, and fratricide, appeared to run in the family. When
Jacob lay on his death-bed, and dealt out his patriarchal blessings,
he reminded his progeny of their crimes in magisterial tones;
forgetting that what was bred in the bone would show in the
blood. He blamed the branches, without reflecting that they
shared the vices of the roots and stem.
Reuben was Jacob’s eldest son by Leah. After Rachel died in
giving birth to Benjamin, Jacob “journeyed, and spread his
tent beyond the tower of Edar.” While he was residing there,
doubtless mourning over the only woman he loved, his first-born
played him a very dirty trick. “Reuben,” we are told, “ went
and lay with Bilhah his father’s concubine.”f What an in©estuous beast! A concubine was not a harlot, nor even a kept
mistress. She had a legal status, and was second only to the
wife; indeed, she was a wife, though over the left shoulder.
Calmet’s Bible Dictionary justly remarks that the term concubine,
M in Western authors, commonly signifies a woman who, without
being married to a man, yet lives with him as his wife : but, in the
sacred writers, the word concubine is understood in another sense;
* Matthew xix., 28 ; Luke xxii., 30.
t Genesis xxxv., 22.
�42
BIBLE HEROES.
meaning a lawful wife, but one not wedded with all the cere
monies and solemnities of matrimony; a wife of a second rank,
inferior to the mistress of the house.” The Boman law regarded
concubines in a similar light. Even the Christian law of Jus
tinian recognised the right of a concubine’s offspring to a sixth
part of the father’s estate; and, as Gibbon informs us, “ from
the age of Augustus to the tenth century, the use of this
secondary marriage prevailed both in the West and the East.”*
Priests were allowed concubines after they were forbidden to
marry, and according to the canon law, which is still unrepealed,
there is nothing to prevent a clergyman from taking a concubine
in preference to a wife,f although his bishop would probably in
hibit him for doing so.
Enough has been said to prove that Bilhah was a real, though
an inferior, wife of Jacob’s. Yet we must not neglect a conclu
sive piece of evidence. There is absolutely no distinction made
between the children of his concubines and those of his legiti
mate wives. They all rank according to the succession of their
births, whether they are born of Leah or Rachel, or of Bilhah or
Zilpah.
Reuben’s crime was disgusting. It is not suggested that he
was the victim of an irresistible passion, like Marc Anthony,
who threw manhood and empire away on Cleopatra, playing the
great drama of “ All for Love, or the World Well Lost.” Bestial
concupiscence moved him. He had more than the incontinence
of Jack Ealstaff, without a gleam of the fat knight’s wit. Like
an animal, to use the simple language of Scripture, he “ went
and lay with Bilhah.” She was probably a good deal older than
himself, and as in oriental countries women age quickly, she
could scarcely have been a very fascinating object. Above all,
she was his father’s half-wife, and the mother of two of his own
brothers. This Reuben was filthy and incestuous. Yet he was
the eldest son of the man whom God loved, and the founder of
the first twelfth of the chosen people. According to Revelation,
there will be a hundred and forty-four thousand Jews around
the throne in heaven, twelve thousand from each of the twelve
tribes of Israel; every one a male, and every one a virgin.
Surely, if there is any truth in heredity, it will be hard to find
so many male virgins in the tribe of Reuben.
An apocryphal book, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs,.
makes Reuben give his own account of the transaction. The
author of this curious work was perhaps a Jew, who, having
been converted to Christianity, employed the names of the
patriarchs of Israel to win over his countrymen to the new
faith. Where and when it was written is unknown, but it was
quoted by Tertullian and Origen in the second century. Eoi’
many centuries afterwards its history is indefinite. There are
* Decline and Fall, chap. xliv,
f Rev. M Davies, Hagar.
�JOSEPH S BRETHREN.
43
possible references to it in Jerome and Athanasius, and in the
Canons of the Councils of Rome (a.d. 494) and Bracara (a.d. 563).
In the middle of the thirteenth century it was brought to the
knowledge of Western Europe by Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of
Lincoln. Matthew Paris, the chronicler, said it was “hidden
through the jealousy of the Jews ” because it contained pro
phecies of Christ. He also called it “ a glorious treatise,” cal
culated to strengthen Christianity and confound the unbelieving
Jews. Four Greek manuscripts of the Testaments exist. One is
at Cambridge, one at Oxford, one at the Vatican, and another in
the possession of Tischendorf, who discovered it in the island of
*
Patmos. We may add that this curious work, which we must
draw from, is still regarded as canonical by the Armenian
Church.
According to the Testaments, which we suspect to be as true
as Gospel, Reuben delivered himself in the following manner on
his little affair with Bilhah, just before giving up the ghost in
his hundred and twenty-fifth year :
“ Pay no heed to the sight of a woman, nor yet associate privately with
a female under the authority of a husband, nor meddle with affairs of
Womankind. For had I not seen Bilhah bathing in a covered place, I
had not fallen into this great iniquity. For my mind, dwelling on the
Woman’s nakedness, suffered me not to sleep until I had done the
abominable deed. For while Jacob our father was absent with Isaac his
father, when we were in Gader, near to Ephrata in Bethlehem, Bilhah was
drunk, and lay asleep uncovered in her chamber; and when I went in
and beheld her nakedness, I wrought that impiety, and leaving her sleep
ing I departed. And forthwith an angel of God revealed to my father
Jacob concerning my impiety, and he came and mourned over me, and
touched her no more.”f
This is a poor apology. .Reuben offers, as a partial excuse,
that he fornicated with his father’s concubine when she was
dead drunk. He does not, indeed, say dead drunk, but he says
drunk, and her obstinate sleep warrants the double epithet.
Nobody but a beast would indulge his sensuality with a woman
in such a nauseous condition.
Waxing maudlin over his recollected sin, Reuben launches
out into warnings against “ the beauty of women,” as though it
were a .snare to any but lascivious fools. Fra Lippo Lippi, in
Browning’s masterly poem, teaches a better philosophy :
“ Suppose I’ve made her eyes all right and blue,
Can’t I take breath and try to add life’s flash,
And then add soul and heighten them threefold ?
Or say there’s beauty with no soul at all—
(I never saw it—put the case the same—)
If you get simple beauty and nought else,
You get about the best thing God invents.
* Ante-Nieene Christian Library, vol. xxii.
f Ibid, p. 15.
I Robert Browning, Fra Lippo Lippi.
�44
BIBLE HEROES.
So speaks a glorious poet. But the Reuben of the Testaments
breaks into a fit of foul-mouthed fury at the whole sex; and,
alas, his view of women is pure Jewish and Christian too, other
wise it would not have been written for the primitive Church.
This is how he vomits his censure.
“ Hurtful arejwomen, my children; because since they have no power or
strength over the man, they act subtilly through outward guise how they
may draw him to themselves; and whom they cannot overcome by
strength, him they overcome by craft. For moreover the angel of God
told me concerning them, and taught me that women are overcome by
the spirit of fornication more than men, and they devise in their head
against men ; and by means of their adornment they deceive first their
minds, and instil the poison by the glance of their eye, and then they take
them captive by their doings, for a woman cannot overcome a man by
force. Flee therefore fornication, my children, and command your wives
and your daughters that they adorn not their heads and faces ; because
every woman who acteth deceitfully in these things hath been reserved
to everlasting punishment.”*
This grovelling, unnatural philosophy is fit for misogynists
and eunuchs. To men it is an insult, and to women an outrage.
Yet it might well satisfy a pious student of the Bible, wherein
the “ weaker vessel,” as Peter calls her, is systematically
degraded. How long are we to cherish the abject teaching of
polygamists and harem-keepers ? Shall the Occident bow for
ever before the worst features of the Orient ? The Arab, in
Girardin’s story, is what the Jews were of old, and what the
Christians were in spirit, if not altogether in practice. This
gentleman of Arabia, being asked by Girardin why the Easterns
did not allow their women more liberty, replied, “ You can look
on them without perturbation, but we/”—adding in deeper
tones, “ The very face of a woman1” The inflammable Arab
would understand the Bible and the Testaments on the subject of
women, though he would probably shrink from the company of
an incestuous brute like Reuben.
“ Israel heard it,” says Genesis, adding with ludicrous haste
“ Now the sons of Jacob were twelve.” The old fellow apparently
said nothing till he was in extremis, when he eased his mind on
the subject. Addressing Reuben, he said, “ Unstable as water,
thou shalt not excel; because thou wentest up to thy father’s
bed; then defiledst thou it: he went up to my couch.”t
Jacob’s next sons were Simeon and Levi. The chief exploit of
these worthies is circumstantially narrated in the thirty-fourth
chapter of Genesis. Their sister Dinah is the only daughter of
Jacob mentioned in Scripture, and she was the cause of a very
pretty quarrel. She “ went out to see the daughters of the
land,” which the commentators construe as gadding abroad.
But perhaps she only visited hei’ female neighbors, and took five
Ante-Nicene Library, vol. xxii., p. 16.
t Genesis xlix., 4
�Joseph’s
brethren.
45
©’©lock tea with them, for want of sisterly company at home.
Daring her rambles she fascinated Shechem, son of Hamor the
prince of the Hivites, who “ took her, and lay with her.” Court
ship in those days was not prolonged. Holy Writ goes at once
to the fifth act of the play.
Shechem’s love was not blunted by possession. He proposed
to marry the girl, and it was really a capital match for a shep
herd’s daughter. Hamor opened negociations with Jacob,
offering a heavy dowry for his consent to the union; but Jacob’s
virtuous sons protested against Dinah’s marrying a man who
had “ defiled her.” They hated their own sins in another, and
resolved to punish Shechem for their own offences as well as his.
We cannot give our sister, they said, to one that is uncircum
cised ; although, as Bishop Hall remarks, “ Themselves had
taken the daughters and sisters of uncircumcised men; yea,
Jacob himself did so.”* They pretended, however, that if
Shechem and all his people would be circumcised, there would
be no barrier to intermarriages of Israelites and Hivites. The
hard proposal was accepted. Shalem, the city in which they
dwelt, prepared for amputation, and on the selfsame day “ every
male was circumcised.” It was a painful condition, and Shechem
must have been very fond of Dinah, and the Hivites of Shechem,
to undergo it.
What follows is comedy and tragedy in one. “ On the third
day, when they were sore,” the inhabitants of Shalem could not
resist the assault of Simeon and Levi, who “ took each man his
sword, and came upon the city boldly, and slew all the males.”
Dancy a whole city disposed of in this easy fashion 1 Though
they were sore with circumcision, surely the men could have
defended themselves against two assassins. But if not, the
women could have fallen pell-mell upon the brace of bullies, and
overwhelmed them with the kitchen furniture. The story is
altogether too thin except for thickheads. We might say of
Simeon and Levi, what the disciples said to Jesus about the two
fishes that were to feed five thousand—“ What are they among
so many ? ”
Yet if their exploit was authentic, and not legendary, Simeon
and Levi were a couple of scoundrels, guilty of treachery and
murder. According to the sequel, they pillaged the Hivites’
property, taking all their sheep, oxen, asses, and other moveables,
and making captives of “their little ones, and their wives.”
What became of those poor creatures ? Were they kept or sold
as slaves, or subjected to the lust of Jacob’s sons? The regard
of Joseph’s brethren for the honor of their sister was compatible
with the greatest contempt for the rights of other women.
Dinah, it seems, was ready to marry Shechem, but Simeon and
Levi ravaged and massacred a whole city for a punctilio. No
Contemplations, book iii., 3.
�46
BIBLE HEROES.
wonder that Jacob, on his deathbed, exclaimed that “ instru
ments of cruelty are in their habitations.”
According to the Targum of Jerusalem and the Rabbis, who
are followed by some ancient Fathers, the scribes and lawyers
were of the tribe of Simeon. Probably they inherited the craft
*
of their progenitors, which induced Jesus to exclaim “Woe
unto you lawyers.” Levi, on the other hand, was the pro
genitor of the Levites, who were chosen by God for the service
of his tabernacle and temple, and provided by law with tithes
of corn, fruit, and cattle ; the tenth of which, again, was paid
to the Aaronites who served in the sanctuary. Jacob’s curse,
therefore, that the posterity of Simeon and Levi should be
scattered, was fulfilled in a very agreeable manner. Punishment,
in this case, is remarkably like reward.
We come now to Judah, Jacob’s fourth son, of whom the old
fellow’s valedictory words were, “ thou art he whom thy brethren
shall praise.” Rising into prophecy, the dying patriarch ex
claimed, “ The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a law
giver from between his feet, unfiil Shiloh come; and unto him
shall.the gathering of the people be.”f So runs the Authorised
Version, but the Revised Version says that “ until Shiloh come ”
may read “ until he come to Shiloh.” There are many other
renderings—for Hebrew is a delightfully vague language—the
principal ones being given in Calmet. Yet from this obscure,
perplexed, and controverted passage, the Christians have
derived a prophecy of Christ! He, they say, is Shiloh, and the
sceptre departed irom Judah after his advent; although the
Jews, who should be the highest authority on the meaning of
their own Scripture, strenuously repudiate this interpretation.
Shiloh was, in fact, the name of a place and not of a person.
Joshua assembled the people there to make a second distribu
tion of the Land of Promise.J There the Tabernacle was set up
when the Jews were settled in Canaan.§ At Shiloh Samuel
began to prophesy,|| and afterwards the prophet Ahijah dwelt
there. T It is highly probable that this sacred place was in the
writer’s mind when he penned the famous Shiloh passage in
Genesis, although what he precisely meant by it will never be
known till the Day of Judgment.
If the reader will turn to the first chapter of Matthew, he will
find that the genealogy of Jesus is traced back through Joseph,
who was not his father, to Judah who “ begat Phares and Zara
ofThamar.” How Phares and Zara were bastards, and their
mother was a harlot, who committed incest with her father-inlaw. Jesus, therefore, was descended from Judah (if he was
descended) in a most unfortunate manner. There was a frightful
bar sinister in the family escutcheon. For our part we should
- * Calmet, Simeon.
f Genesis xlix., 10.
§ Joshua xix., 51.
|| 1 Samuel iv., 4.
J Joshua xviii., 8-10.
1 Kings xiv., 2.
�Joseph’s
brethren.
47
never think of prying into a man’s family antecedents. Let
every tub stand on its own bottom. But when an inspired
biographer ostentatiously draws out a man’s genealogy before
Our eyes, we can hardly refrain from remarking that “ all is not
sweet, all is not sound.”
Some time after Joseph’s brethren sold him, Judah left the
family for a while, and lodged with an Adullamite gentleman
named Hirah. Seeing there “ a daughter of a certain Canaanite ”
who tickled his fancy, in the eloquent language of Scripture
“ he took her, and went in unto her.” Whether he married her
is an open question. She bore him three sons, Er, Onan, and
Shelah. Er growing to man’s estate, Judah found him a wife
called Tamar; but Er was an erring youth, and “ the Lord slew
him.” This was the first individual case of death from the
visitation of God. According to the Jewish law, as Tamar was
*
left childless, her dead husband’s next brother was bound to
marry her. Judah, therefore, plainly told Onan, “ Go in unto
thy brother’s wife, and marry her, and raise up seed unto thy
brother.” This order was obeyed in the lettei’ but not in the
spirit. Onan frustrated his father’s intention by an unspeakable
device, which is bluntly disclosed in the Bible; f and the name
of Tamar’s second husband, by whom she was as childless as by
her first, has become synonymous with self-pollution. Onan’s
evasion displeased the Lord, who “ slew him also.” Thus two
of the noble Judah’s three sons were declared not fit to live.
Shelah was not yet old enough to marry, but Judah pro
mised Tamar she should have 'him when he was “ grown.” But
Judah was slack in fulfilling his promise, or he and Tamar
differed as to Shelah’s ripeness for matrimony. Anyhow, the
young widow resolved to stand no more delay, and finding that
Shelah was not given to her embraces, she made up her mind to
become a mother by Judah. Having married two brothers in
succession, and while expecting the third, she determines to
commit incest with her father-in-law ; being nearly, if not quite,
as shameless as the daughters of Lot.
Hearing that Judah was going to Timnath to shear his sheep,
she flung off her widow’s weeds, dressed like a meretricious
harlot, and sat “ in an open place ” by the way. Judah saw her,
took her for a courtesan, and begged the hospitality of her
tribe. Playing the prostitute to the letter, she asked his price
for her favors, and he promised her a kid. But as the animal
had to be sent on, she demanded a “ pledge,” having learned,
Bishop Hall says, “ not to trust him without a pawn.” Judah
gave her his signet, his bracelets, and his staff as security, and
the precious pair adjourned to the nearest brothel. Scripture
does not say so, but let us hope they had that decency.
Judah, in the Testaments, says he was drunk, and “ recognised
Jueuteronomy xxv., 5.
f Genesis xxxviii., 9.
�48
BIBLE HEEOES.
her not by reason of wine ”—evidently considering this a pallia
tion of his vice; and like Reuben, he launches into censures on the
sex, as though they were not at least six to the women’s half
dozen.
The articles in pawn being probably more valuable than the
kid, Judah sent the animal on by his friend Hirah, who could
not discover the woman; indeed, the people straitly denied that
there was a harlot in the locality. But three months afterwards
Tamar betrayed the consequences of her filthy frolic, and it was
told Judah, “ thy daughter-in-law hath played the harlot; and
also, behold, she is with child by whoredom.” This is plain
enough, and short if not sweet. It worked on Judah like a tar
antula. He boiled with rage at the wanton. His indulgence
was venial, but hers was a mortal sin. Sternly, like a virtuous
implacable judge, he cried, “ Bring her forth, and let her be
burnt.”
Tamar, however, quickly turned the tables on him. She pro
duced the articles he left in pawn, and asked him whose they
were. His guilt was then as obvious as hers. Did he straight
way offer to share her pyre ? Oh no. Judah loved his own skin,
and to save it he was obliged to spare Tamar’s too. He admitted,
perhaps according to the tribal morality of the time, “ She hath
been more righteous than I,” and then instead of punishing
himself heavily and his accomplice lightly, he added, “ I’ll forgive
us both.”
Six months later the incestuous wanton gave birth to twins.
Her confinement was a curious one, and Scripture relates it
*
fully, perhaps for the curiosity and amusement of children,
The twins were named Pharez and Zarah, and from the first of
this ill-begotten pair our Blessed Lord and Savior traced his holy
descent; the illustrious line being also adorned by the chaste
Ruth, the chaster Bathsheba, and apparently the still chaster
Rahab, an ancient Mrs. Jeffreys of Jericho.
There is little information as to the rest of Joseph’s brethren,
except that they “ burked ” their own flesh and blood,
and nearly brought their father’s grey head in sorrow to the
grave. The only one described by Jacob, besides the four pre
cious rascals we have anatomised, was his sixth son. “ Issachar,”
said Jacob, “ is a strong ass.”f The old fellow ought to know,
and we believe him. The family were mostly rogues, but there
was one strong ass to give it variety.
* Genesis xxxviii.. 27-30.
f Genesis xlix., 14.
�HOLY
MOSES.
“The history of Moses,” says Cardinal Newman, “is valuable
to Christians, not only as giving us a pattern of fidelity towards
God, of great firmness, and great meekness, but also as affording
us a type or figure of our Savior Christ.”* Evidently, then, we
have to do with a very important personage. It is a curious
fact that Jesus and Moses are the only individuals in the Bible
who are characterised by the epithet meek. Jesus said “ I am
meek,”f and although that is the last thing we should believe of
a man on his own protestation, we are bound to credit the state
ment of Jesus, for he was God, and whoever disbelieves him
will be damned. Fortunately Moses is not left to his own vindi
cation ; his meekness is vouched for by the Almighty himself,
who informs us, with the indisputable authority of omniscience,
that “ the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which
were upon the face of the earth.”J Yet the carnal mind would
he slow to accept the description of either of these worthies if
it were not dictated by infinite wisdom. It was a peculiar meek
ness which prompted Jesus to ride into Jerusalem like a theatrical
conqueror on a couple of requisitioned donkeys, amid the plaudits
of an ignorant and fanatical mob ; which led him to assault the
harmless money-changers and dove-sellers in the unsanctified
precincts of the temple; and which inspired his scurrilous
denunciation of his rivals. No less singular was the meekness
Of Moses, who commenced his public career by assassinating an
Egyptian, and ended it by ordering the wholesale robbery,
violation, and slaughter of the Canaanites. But when Deity
commands our reason must submit. Moses was the meekest
man on earth. We make the admission freely, as we hope for
grace. Yet the imp of scepticism dances in our brain, despite
our efforts to suppress him, and cries out—Oh yes, Moses was
meek, as you say; meek with the meekness of Byron’s Lambro,
who was
“ the mildest manner’d man
That ever scuttled ship or cut a throat.Ӥ
The life of our hero divides itself into three distinct chapters.
* Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. vii., p. 118.
+ Matthew xi., 29.
J Numbers xii., 3.
§ Don Juan, canto iii., 41.
�50
BIBLE HEROES.
He lived a hundred and twenty years in all. Forty years he
spent in Egypt, the land of his birth; forty years he followed
the avocation of a shepherd in Midian ; and forty years he led
the wandering Jews in the wilderness, where three millions of
them coiled and uncoiled like an aimless serpent, taking a whole
generation to complete a month’s journey, and demonstrating
once for all the asinine stupidity of making an excursion under
the guidance of a missionary.
Before Jacob’s favorite son had long been dead, a king arose
in Egypt who “ knew not Joseph.” Regarding the Jews, who
multiplied like rabbits, with the gravest apprehension, he
appears to have withdrawn them from their pasturages and set
them to task-work, which they have never relished from that
day to this. According to their own account, which is probably
a partial one, and certainly foreign to our historical notions of
Egyptian manners, he served them “ with rigor ” and “ made
their lives bitter with hard bondage.” Josephus says that he
“ set them also to build pyramids.”* But this cannot be true,
for the Bible states that they worked in brick, and the pyramids
are built of stone. Pharaoh’s object seems to have been to wear
them out, but they continued to increase amazingly, and he had
recourse to stronger measures. If we may believe the Jewish
historian, he commanded that every male child among the
Hebrews should be cast into the Nile as soon as it was born;
and in order that his edict might be carried out effectually, he
instructed theEgyptian midwivestosee to its execution.! Milman
follows Josephus on this point, and adds that “ the midwives, in
this land of hereditary professions, were most likely a distinct
class under responsible officers.”! But the Bible expressly says
that Pharaoh gave the order to the Hebrew midwives. § Nay
more, it gives us their names, Shiphrah and Puah. Jewish
tradition says they were mother and daughter.|| No others are
mentioned, and we must therefore conclude that two midwives
sufficed for a population of a million or so, among whom there
could not be less than a thousand births a week 1
According to the Rabbis, God came to the assistance of the
Jewish mothers. They were delivered in sleep ; angels attended
on them, washed and dressed the babies, and smeared their
little hands with butter and honey, so that they might, in licking
them, be fed and kept from crying. When Pharaoh’s emissaries
followed their traces, the earth gaped and swallowed the little
ones, who afterwards sprouted from the soil like flowers, and
walked home unperceived.IT
In the midst of this extraordinary rumpus, “ there went a
man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi.”
* Book ii., chap. ix.
J History of the ,Teios, p. 32.
|| Gould, vol. ii., p. 67.
f Josephus, book ii., chap. ix.
§ Exodus i, 15.
Gould, vol. ii, p. 70.
�HOLY MOSES.
51
Their names, as we subsequently learn, were Amram and.
'
*
Jochebed.
She conceived and bare a son, and seeing “ he was
a goodly child, she hid him three months.” Judging from the
narrative this was their first child, yet Moses had a brother
three years older than himself, and a still older sister.f The
Rabbis affirm that Jochebed was a hundred and thirty years old
at the birth of Moses, yet as fresh and beautiful as when she
left her father’s house.t According to Exodus (vi., 20) she was
her husband’s aunt 1 The same verse informs us that Amram
lived to the age of a hundred and thirty-seven. All this is hard
to believe, but the penalties of disbelief are still harder.
Josephus, no less than the Bible, dwells on the beauty of'
Moses. Eine and large as a baby, he grew up tall and handsome,
and people turned to look at him in the streets.§ This mar
vellous child, say the Rabbis, was born at three in the morning,
on the seventh day of the month Adar, in the year 2368 after
the Creation, and 130 after Jacob’s descent into Egypt. Some
say his parents called him Tobias (God is good), but others say
he was called Johutiel (Hope in God).|| Clement of Alexandria,,
however, affirms that he was named Joachim at his circumcision,
although it appears from Exodus‘s that Moses was nevei’ circum
cised at all, while in heaven he passes under the name of MeZcfei.
**
Bishop Hall indulges in the natural reflection that it was a
wonder Amram thought of procreating “when he knew he
should beget children either to slavery or slaughter.” The
Bishop’s explanation is that Amram thought “ his own burning
a still greater evil, and “ he therefore uses God’s remedy for
sin, and refers the sequel of his danger to God.”ff A most Chris
tian and convenient philosophy!
Our little hero being three months old, his mother despaired
of hiding him any longer, and therefore resolved to throw all
further responsibility for his safety on the Lord. She took an
ark of bulrushes, daubed it with slime and pitch to make it.
water-tight, put her baby in it, and launched it among the flags
of the Nile, leaving her daughter Miriam to watch what would
happen. As the river abounds with crocodiles it was a dan
gerous experiment; but no doubt those voracious creatures werewarned off by the same God who “ spake unto the fish ” that
swallowed Jonah.
Presently Pharaoh’s daughter came to that very spot to bathe.
“ Those.times,” says Bishop Hall, “looked for no great state.”’
But he is mistaken. Egypt was a mighty empire, Pharaoh was
a powerful.and splendid monarch, at once priest and king; and
the supposition that his daughter, apparently his only daughter,
would bathe among the water-flags of the Nile, at a spot which*
§
* Exodus vi., 20.
f Exodus vii., 7.
J Gould, vol. ii., p. 71.
§ Josephus, book ii., chap. ix.
|| Gould, vol. ii., p. 72.
T VI., 12, 30.
** Calmet, Moses.
ff Contemplations, book iv., 2.
�52
BIBLE HEROES.
anyone was free to visit, and where a Hebrew slave conld watch,
with impunity, is too absurd for serious criticism. Let the Jews
believe it! as the Roman satirist exclaims. They were credulous
enough for anything. But those who are acquainted with the
manners and customs of the ancient Egyptians will regard the
story with derision.
According to Josephus the princess was named Thermutis.
The Rabbis say that she had been married for some time to
Chenephras, prince of a territory near Memphis, but was child
less, although she fervently desired a son who might succeed
hei’ father on the throne of Egypt. Any reader with half an
*
eye can see what is coming.
Exodus tells us that Pharaoh’s daughter espied the floating
cradle and sent a maid to fetch it. When it was brought the
little urchin inside snivelled, and his tears touched her heart,
although she saw it was a Hebrew baby. Thereupon Miriam
came up and offered to fetch a nurse for the bantling. The offer
was accepted, and of course Miriam fetched her own mother,
who suckled her own offspring as a hireling. Josephus, who
amplifies every Bible story, except those he prudently neglects,
informs us that several Hebrew women were called before Joche
*
bed, but the baby would not patronise their feeding apparatus.
Miriam then saw her chance; she brought her mother, and “ the
child gladly admitted the breast. ”f
Jewish traditions furnish many wonderful incidents in this
story. God was then afflicting Egypt with intolerable heat, and
the people suffered from grievous boils. Thermutis herself did
not escape the malady. She usually washed in the palace baths,
but on this day she performed her ablutions in the sacred Nile.
Seeing the ark, she bade one of her maidens to swim out and
bring it to the shore, but the other servants told her it contained
a Hebrew child, cast out by the royal command, and ad
*
vised her not to oppose her father’s will. For this interference
they were immediately swallowed by an earthquake, opportunely
wrought by the angel Gabriel, who was hovering around.
Meanwhile the princess, in hei' eagerness, had stretched out her
hand towards the ark; by a miracle her arm was lengthened
to sixty ells, and she lifted the child out of the water. She
admired his beauty, but her compassion was chiefly excited by
his tears, the angel Gabriel having boxed his ears to make him
weep copiously.t
But the most astonishing part of this romance is to come.
The Bible gravely informs us that when this precious child was
grown (no age is stated) he was brought to Pharaoh’s daughter
“ and he became her son.” This is absurd enough, for Egypt was
a land of castes, and the princess had no more power to break
* Gould, vol. ii., p. 73.
f Josephus, bk. ii., ch. ix.
J Gould, vol. ii., pp. 73, 74.
�HOLY MOSES.
53
through them than the meanest of her father’s subjects. But
Josephus makes the monstrous addition that Thermutis adopted
him as the “ heir to her kingdom,” * a statement which evinces
the grossest ignorance. Fancy the Princess of Wales adopting
a child from the Foundling Hospital with a view to its becoming
King of England ! The fact is we are not dealing with history,
although Christians deem it so, but with oriental romance. The
Rabbis try to make the yarn more plausible by saying that
Thermutis feigned a pregnancy, went through a fictitious con
finement, and palmed off the little Hebrew as her own child ! f
Let us pause for a moment to consider the change in our
hero’s name. Henceforth he was called Moses. According to
Dr. Lee, learned men differ as to whether the word is Hebrew or
Egyptian.J Josephus says that “ Thermutis imposed the name
Mouses upon him, from what had happened when he was put in
the river; for the Egyptians call water by the name of Mo, and
such as are saved out of it by the name of Z7ses.Ӥ The Abbe
Renaudot, however, affirms that Mooou signifies water, and Si
to draw or take out.|| The etymology is a little mixed, but near
enough for any useful purpose.
From this time till he attained to the age of forty,If the book
of Exodus is silent as to his career. But Stephen says, in the
Acts of the Apostles (vii., 22) that “Moses was learned in all
the wisdom of the Egyptians.” The Rabbis also relate that as a
boy he played on Pharaoh’s knee, and one day he kicked over
and danced upon the crown. All the king’s councillors cried
©ut for his immediate execution, but the angel Gabriel, assuming
the form of a grave and reverend signior, advised Pharaoh to
put before the lively youngster a bowl of precious stones and a
bowl of live coals; if he took the jewels he would know what he
was about, but if he took the fire he would be ignorant and
innocent. Moses naturally thrust his hand towards the wrong
bowl, but Gabriel, who had made himself invisible, directed it
towards the red-hot coals. The poor boy burnt his fingers, and
putting them to his mouth, he burnt his lips and tongue.
**
Therefore he said in after years “ I am slow of speech, and of a
slow tongue.”ff
Josephus likewise informs us that Moses led an Egyptian
army against the Ethiopians, signally defeated them, and married
Tharbis their king’s daughter, who was enamored of his beauty.JJ
But the Rabbis place these exploits after his flight from Egypt.
They say that Moses assisted the king of Ethiopia against some
rebels, and the monarch dying amidst the war, his subjects
elected the valiant Hebrew as their king. He reigned over them
* Book II chap. ix.
f Gould, vol. ii., p. 76.
t Hebrew Grammar, p. 153. § Book II., chap. ix. || Calmet, Moses.
1 Acts vii., 23.
** Gould, vol. ii., p. 77.
ft Exodus iv„ 10.
++ Book II., chap. x.
�54
BIBLE HEROES.
for forty years, and. tlien resigned in favor of the legitimate
heir to the throne.
*
According to Josephus, the real cause of the flight of Mosesfrom Egypt was the malice of the people, who envied the laurels
he won in the Ethiopian war. They infected the king with theirenmity, and. Moses, on learning that his death was being com
passed, “ went away privately ” to the city of Midian on the
coast of the Red Sea. But this account is perfectly false, as
Josephus must have known. The Jewish historian, whose
honesty and accuracy were lauded by Scaliger as superior to
that of the Pagan writers, composed his Antiquities with an eye
to the Gentiles. He designed to give them an exalted idea of'
his countrymen, and to this end he deliberately omitted several
striking incidents in the J ewish scriptures, which might excite
a.smile or a sneer at the expense of the heroes or the religion of’
his race. Josephus had the Book of Exodus before him; he
knew that Moses fled from Egypt because he had slain a native;
yet he never alludes to the circumstance, but throws the blame
upon the Egyptians whose laws had been shamefully violated.
The Bible informs us, as it informed Josephus, that Moses
“ spied an Egyptian smiting a Hebrew.” They may have been
quarrelling, for Hebrews could quarrel as well as Egyptians.
Either may have been right, or either wrong. But Moses sided
with his countryman. In the expressive language of Scripture,
he “looked this way and that way, and when he saw that there
was no man, he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand.”t
Like all savages he was both sanguinary and cautious. “ He
who commits such a deed,” wrote Goethe, “ approves himself a
thorough barbarian.”J Milman himself is constrained to admit
that Moses was “ guilty of a crime, by the Egyptian law, of the
most enormous magnitude.”§ He had incurred “ the unpardon
able guilt of bloodshed.” Subsequently, in dealing with the first
plague, Milman allows that the Egyptians viewed murder with
the greatest abhorrence, and that “ To shed, or even to behold
blood, was repugnant to all their feelings and prejudices.”||
Always ready to supply the deficiencies of Scripture, the
Rabbis pretend that an Egyptian taskmaster concealed himself ’
in the. house of a Hebrew in order to debauch his wife, and on
his being discovered Moses was appealed to. The meekest man
on earth raised a spade to strike the Egyptian dead. While the
fell weapon was poised aloft Moses consulted the Lord. Jahveh
told him to smite and spare not; whereupon the spade descended
on the Egyptian’s skull, yet it did not kill him, for he fell dead
at the sound of God’s name.If
Our “ very meek ” assassin thought his deed of darkness would .
* Gould, vol. ii., pp. 83—86.
f Exodus ii , 12.
J Notes to West-iistlicher Divan.
§ History of the Jews, p. 35.
II P. 38.
Gould, vol.ii., pp. 81, 82.
�HOLY MOSES.
55
never be discovered. But he found, like many another homicide,
that murder will out. The very next day he interfered between
two quarrelling Hebrews, one of whom turned upon him, ex
claiming, “ Who made thee a prince and a judge over us ?
intendest thou to kill me as thou killedst the Egyptian ?” Holy
Moses, what a mess! Yesterday’s crime was on the wings of
the wind. Pharaoh heard of it and “sought to slay Moses.”
Here again the Babbis step in, telling us that his execution was
ordered, the headsman flashed the sword over his head, yet he
was not slain, for the Lord turned his neck into marble. Some
declare that Gabriel assumed the semblance of the executioner,
transmogrified that worthy into the semblance of Moses, and cut
off the headsman’s own head with his own sword ! *
Moses was off. He and Egypt had had enough of each other.
■Somewhere in “ the land of Midian ” he “ sat down by a well.”
The priest of that country (had it only one priest ?) had seven
daughters, who were shepherdesses. They came down to this well
to water their father’s flocks, but the men drove them away, and
Moses stood up and helped them. This piece of gallantry
deserves notice, a's such things are exceedingly rare in the
Bible.
The girls introduced Moses to their father Beuel, who is afterwards called Jethro. Our hero took up his residence with the
•old man and married his daughter Zipporah. Had it been
Jacob, he would have married the whole seven, and had a fresh
wife for every day in the week, keeping the prettiest for
■Sunday.
Here Moses lived in clover, and as the years rolled by his
memories of Egypt must have grown dim. But he was fated to
return thither, and leave again after a butchery compared with
which his assassination of the Egyptian was child’s play.
The old Pharaoh was dead, a new Pharaoh reigned in his
stead, and the Lord had work for Moses in Egypt. God appeared
to him one day at Mount Horeb in the form of a conflagration.
Moses saw a bush burning without consuming, and anybody who
sees a bush in that condition may he sure the Lord is inside.
Presently the divine voice shouted, “ Moses, Moses I” and Moses
said “ Here 1” Then the voice cried “ Take off your shoes, for
the ground is holy,” and Moses was quickly unshod, which proves
that people who converse with gods are soon bereaved of their
understandings.
“Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God.”
although he afterwards became very familiar with the deity, who
“ spake unto Moses face to face, as man speaketh unto his friend.”t
Cardinal Newman asserts that Moses was the only person before
Christ who enjoyed that honor, but he forgets our old friend
—
* Gould, vol. ii., p. 83.
+ Exodus xxxiii., 11 ; Deuteronomy xxxiv., 10.
�56
BIBLE HEROES.
Jacob who had an equally close view of the divine counten
*
ance.
This God in the bush informed Moses that he was to visit
Egypt, bring the Jews out of bondage, and lead them to Palestine.
This was a big undertaking. Moses viewed it with reluctance,
and told the Lord he was unequal to the task. But the Lord
persisted, and Moses tried another tack, “ Who shall I say has
sent .me?” he inquired. “I Am that I Am,” was the reply,
and its exquisite definiteness was enough to raise a smile on the
face of a jackass. But Moses was too frightened to grin, and he
listened patiently while “ I Am that I Am ” sketched out the
plan of campaign.
When Jahveh had finished Moses protested that nobody in
Egypt would believe such a story. “ Cast your rod on the
ground,” said Jahveh. Moses did so, and it became a serpent.
Our hero scurried off, but he was ordered to take the reptile by
the tail, and it turned into a rod again. “ Now put your hand
in your bosom,” said Jahveh. Moses did so, and when he drew
it out it was white with leprosy. He put it back, drew it out
again, and it was perfectly sound. “ There,” said Jahveh, “ do
that brace of tricks in Egypt, and my word for it they’ll believe
you.” Yet Moses still objected that he was very slow of speech,
and desired the Almighty to send another messenger. Then the
Lord grew wild, but he restrained himself, and promised Moses
the assistance of his brother Aaron, who was a good speaker.
“ You shall be his god,” said Jahveh, “ and he shall be your
telephone.”!
Moses gave in. He said good-bye to Jethro, fixed his wife and
sons on one poor donkey, and set out for Egypt. On the road
he put up an hotel, where “ the Lord met him, and sought to
kill him.” The Authorised Version calls it “an inn,” and the
Revised Version “a lodging house.” But whether it was a
drinking shop or a teetotal' establishment, whether its sign was
“ beer and spirits ” or “ beds fourpence a night,” God Almighty
attempted there the life of his own missionary. How did he
seek to kill him ? Did Moses get wind of it and secrete himself?
Did the Lord chase him from room to room ? Did he poison the
prophet’s “ nightcap,” and was Holy Moses too robust to
succumb ? Such questions might be elaborated ad infinitum.
Meanwhile the fact remains, unless the Bible lies, that Infinite
Goodness designed a murder and Infinite Power failed in its
execution.
The conclusion of this extraordinary business was that Zipporah took a sharp stone, cut off her Son’s foreskin, and cast it
at his father’s feet with the remark that he was “ a bloody hus
band.” Then, says the Bible, God “ let him go.” From this it
would appear that the Lord was angry with Moses because he or
his son was uncircumcised, but the deity knew that very well
* Genesis xxxii., 30.
f Exodus iv., 16.
�57
HOLY MOSES.
when he despatched him on his mission. The Hebrew text, how
ever, is very obscure, though what glimpses we get of its mean
*
ing are most ludicrous. Perhaps the whole passage is an inter
polation in the interest of circumcision. Let it be added that
Josephus is silent on this absurdity, which would have excited
the risibility of his Gentile readers.
Here again it should be noticed that Zipporah circumcises the
boy with a stone implement. We have already indicated the
significance of this fact (p. 21), and it only remains to add that
a stone knife was also used by the Egyptian embalmers.
Calmet asserts that the rite of circumcision was not forgotten
by the Jews in Egypt, but the statement is not warranted by
the Bible. Moses distinctly tells God that he is “ of uncircum
cised lips.” What can this mean but that he was uncircum
cised ? Had he attached a sovereign importance to the rite he
would not have neglected to perform it on his sons. Why, also,
did the Jews disregard this token of God’s solemn covenant with
Abraham in their forty years’ wanderings ? After the death of
Moses they were all circumcised by Joshua. Does not this show
that “ the covenant ” with Abraham was unknown to them ?
There can be little doubt that the story of Abraham’s circum
cision was got up by the priests, long after his time.
Moses was met in the wilderness by his brother Aaron. On
reaching Egypt they called a meeting of the Jewish elders, who
were soon convinced by the serpent and leprosy tricks, and
then they paid Pharaoh a visit. “ The kings of Egypt,” says
Milman, “ probably held that sort of open court or divan, usual
in Oriental monarchies, in which any one may appear who
would claim justice or petition for favor. ”f Pharaoh was
requested to let the Jews go into the wilderness for a feast, and
the petition was preferred in the name of Jehovah. “ Jehovah 1”
he sneered, “ who the devil is Jehovah ? I never heard of the
fellow. Be off with you, and mind your business.”
This rebuff was followed by fresh oppression. The Jews were
ordered to make bricks as before, but to find their own straw,
and their taskmasters were more rigorous than ever. This
caused them to remonstrate with Moses for interfering, and he
in turn remonstrated with God in very plain and disrespectful
language. “Nonsense!” said the Lord; “now you shall see
what I will do to Pharaoh.”
What God did do, how he afflicted the poor Egyptians with
all sorts of filthy, disgusting, and terrible plagues, is related in
my Bible Romances. The Ten Plagues were the work of Jehovah
and not of Moses, who was only his instrument. Suffice it to
say that Pharaoh was eventually glad to let the Jews go on their
own terms, and Moses led them out of Egypt in one night.
Three millions of people moved more rapidly than a disciplined
* Calmet, Moses.
t P. 37
�58
BIBLE HEROES.
army. Not only the sound in wind and limb marched off for the
land of promise, which they never lived to reach, but also the
blind, the lame, the paralysed, the bedridden, women just con
fined, and children newly born. What a wonderful troupe they
must have been ! Yet Moses, although he was eighty years old,
headed them with the greatest alacrity.
Miriam was still alive and was now a prophetess. We read
that she took a timbrel, followed by all the women of Israel with
similar instruments, and dancing at their head, she sang a song
of glory to the Lord for drowning Pharaoh and his army in the
Red Sea. What a lively old lady! She came of a long-lived
family, and was juvenile and frisky when other women stoop
and crawl.
We shall not follow the Jews through their idiotic wanderings
in the desert, but merely deal with those incidents that affect
Moses or exhibit his character, and those transactions in which
he played a conspicious part.
In some respects Moses had a hard time of it. Whenever
anything went wrong the Jews grumbled lustily, abused him to
his face, and frequently threatened to stone him. But he en
joyed many compensations. He still possessed the magical rod,
with which he wrought miracles, such as bringing water out of
rocks. He smote one rock at Horeb and produced enough water
from it to supply three millions of people. Whiston, the trans
lator of Josephus, says that “ This rock is there at this day, as
the travellers agree, and must be the same that was there in the
time of Moses, as being too large to be brought thither by our
modern carriages.”* Simple Whiston 1 His logic is like that
of the gentleman who proved the truth of his ghost-story by ex
claiming “ Why, there’s the very house in which it happened 1”
Moses also rejoiced in a most intimate communion with his
Maker. When he suffered from hypochondria, when the Jews
murmured against his leadership, or when he had any knotty
point to resolve, he used to get assistance from the Lord.
Several of these interviews are recorded, but they are too
numerous for citation. We shall presently see that Moses had
great influence over God; in fact, he played the part of a candid
friend, and by judiciously reminding the Lord of his weakness
he sometimes brought him down from a towering flight of
passion.
The chief interview between God and Moses took place on
Mount Sinai Jehovah came down from everywhere to the top
of this eminence,! a distance which has never been computed.
His descent was made “ in the sight of all the people.” Moses
received an invitation to come up and spend a few days with him,
and they had so much to talk about that it was nearly six weeks
before they separated. During this time the Jews were warned
Josephus, bk. iii.. ch. ii., footnote.
t Exodus xix., 11, 20.
�HOLY MOSES.
59
off the mountain by thunders, lightnings, clouds, and clangorous
teampets ; and whoever touched it incurred the penalty of death.
Moses took with him “ Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy
of the elders of Israel,” who for once in their lives had a view of
the Almighty. “ They saw the God of Israel: and there was
ttttder his feet, as it were, a paved work of a sapphire stone, and
as it were the body of heaven in its clearness. And upon the
aohles of the children of Israel he laid not his hand : also they
saw God, and did eat and drink.”* This is a little mixed, yet it
seems clear that seventy-three Jews took luncheon with God.
Such a gross piece of anthropomorphism is very amusing. Still
more amusing is Milman’s attempt to explain away their
viw of God’s feet as “ symbolic fire ” over “ what appeared like
a pavement of lapis-lazuli, or sapphire, or the deep blue of the
dearest and most cloudless heaven.”!
Moses went up to the top of Sinai, where he and God were
wrapt in a cloud for forty days and nights. What God said to
Moses may be found in Exodus, from chapter twenty-five to
Chapter thirty-one. Most of it is ecclesiastical stuff, of no interest
except to priests and their dupes. At the finish Moses received
** two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the
finger of God.” We are told that “ the tables were written on
both sides,” and that “ the tables were the work of God, and the
writing was the writing of God.”{ This is supposed to have
been the decalogue. God quarried the stones, chiselled and
polished them, and graved the letters. Were they still in
existence they would be the most precious objects in the world.
But, alas, they were soon smashed. Something put the “ very
■meek ” Moses out of temper, and in his passion he eclipsed the
greatest sinners on record, save himself, by flinging down the
fables and breaking all the ten commandments at once. The
Rabbis say that the holy writing flew away to heaven.§
While Moses was up in the cloud the Jews had resorted to
Holatry, in circumstances which will be treated in our next
chapter on Aaron. God saw their backsliding and boiled with
rage. “ Let me alone,”|| he said to Moses ; “ I’ll kill the whole
lot, and breed a fresh people from you.” But Moses advised
him to sprinkle cool patience upon the heat and flame of his distemper. “ Remember your promises to Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob,” said he; “ don’t act rashly; above all think how the
Egyptians will laugh at you.” Then the Lord cooled down and
Said he was sorry he lost his temper. Nor was this the only
occasion on which Moses pacified Jehovah, and restrained him
from violating his own sixth commandment on the most tremendous scale. A similar scene occurred when the Jews were
* Exodus xxiv., 9-11.
f Milman, p. 53.
t Exodus xxi., 18; xxii., 16.
§ Gould, vol. ii, p. 105.
|| Exodus xxxii., 10.
�60
BIBLE HEROES.
-terrified by the report of the spies who returned from Palestine
*
with stories of giants beside whom men were like grass
hoppers.
When Moses descended from Sinai and saw what the Jews
were doing he broke the tables he was carrying, and was obliged
to go up again for facsimiles. But the Lord declined to supply
the stone this time. Moses had to bring his own, and the Lord
worked in the ten commandments again with his finger. This
lumpy piece of literature was stowed away in the ark, and both
have gone the way of other antiquities. They will be found
when we discover the Twelve Tables of ancient Romef and the
gold plates of Joe Smith the Mormon. Yet their loss is grievous,
for as Bishop Hall exclaims, “ Any manuscript scroll, written by
the hand of a famous man, is laid up amongst our jewels; what
place then should we have given to the hand-writing of the
Almighty 1” $
No passion distorted the face of Moses when he descended the
second time from Sinai. His face shone so gloriously that even
Aaron was afraid to come near him, and he was obliged to wear
a veil. According to some Rabbis, he had seen the original light
which God created, and by which Adam saw from one end of the
earth to the other; others say he had seen the Shekinah,§ whose
glory his face reflected as the moon reflects the sun’s.
The Bible informs us that Moses had seen something more re
markable. “ Show me thy glory,” he said to Jehovah, who
replied, “ thou canst not see my face : for there shall no man see
me, and live.” This flatly contradicts the statement in the pre
vious chapter that “ the Lord spake unto Moses face to face,”
but the Bible is full of such discords. According to this story
God gave Moses a view of his “back parts.” We are not told
what Moses thought of them. Of course the story is as true as
gospel, yet if it had not appeared in the Bible we should have
laughed at the notion of God Almighty exhibiting his posteriors
to a gentleman who wished to see his face.
During his two confabulations with the Lord on Mount.Sinai,
which Josephus cunningly runs into one, to avoid mentioning
the golden-calf business, Moses “ tasted nothing of food usually
appointed for the nourishment of man.”|| So says Josephus, but
the Bible says “ he did neither eat bread nor drink water.”5T
The reasonable inference is that he fasted altogether, and was
miraculously supported. Elijah also went forty days and nights
without food, and the same feat is recorded of Jesus.ff But
**
Moses takes the palm. He went through two periods of absti* Numbers xiv.
f Maine’s Ancient Law, p, 14.
t Contemplations, book v.. § 6.
§ Gould, vol. ii, p. 108.
|| Josephus, book iii., chap. v.
Exodus xxxiv., 28; Deuteronomy ix., 18 ; x,, 10.
** 1 Kings xix., 8.
ft Matthew iv., 2.
�HOLY MOSES.
61
fiance, and beat all ancient and modern fasting-men hollow, by •
dispensing with liquids as well as solids.
Moses was so great a favorite with God that all who insulted
or opposed him were badly punished. When he married an
Ethiopian woman, Miriam and Aaron set their backs up, and
sneeringly inquired whethei the Lord had not spoken by them
*
as well as by Moses. Scripture does not go to the bottom of
this quarrel, nor tell us whether Zipporah was still alive. She
may have been dead, or Moses may have taken another wife
during her lifetime, for he was a lusty old fellow, and Zipporah’s
withered charms must have lost their attraction. Be that as it
may, Miriam and Aaron took to nagging. This is a common
incident in domestic circles, and it was scarcely worth the fuss
God made about it. He was especially angry with the female
sinner, and punished her with the loathsome and ghastly disease
of leprosy, which was only removed at her brother’s intercession.
*
Here, again, the Lord flies into a fury, and Moses has to cool
him down.
Subsequently there was a kind of sedition raised by Korah,
Dathan, and Abiram. The first of this trinity, say the Rabbis,
was very wealthy. Moses had obtained the philosopher’s stone
from God. To use an Hibernicism, this stone was a plant which
grew in abundance on the shores of the Red Sea. Moses
revealed the secret to Korah, who used it to transform large
quantities of base metal into gold. His wealth grew so pro
digious that eventually it took sixty camels to carry the keys of
his treasuries.! With his riches increased his pride, and when
Moses ordered the Jews to wear blue, Korah habited all his
servants in scarlet and mounted them on red horses. So far the
Hebrew old-clothes-men. According to the Bible, Korah, Dathan,
and Abiram, headed an agitation against the tyranny of Moses.
Followed by a number of the people, and two hundred and fifty
princes, they expostulated with Moses and Aaron for “ taking
too much ” upon themselves. Prime Ministers had, in those
days, an easy method of disposing of the opposition. Moses
appealed to God, and the judicious deity sent an earthquake
which swallowed up all the ringleaders, as well as a fire which
consumed two hundred and fifty men who presumed to worship
in rivalry with Aaron.!
Goethe held that these revolts, and the perpetual murmurings
of the Jews, resulted from their leader’s bad generalship. He
maintained that Moses was as pooi’ a military commander as
he was a legislator, and that the preposterous wanderings of the
Hebrews in the wilderness were occasioned by his lack of courage
and address. Certainly our hero took care to keep out of
danger. When the Jews fought the Amalekites, Moses left
* Numbers xii.
f Gould, vol. ii., pp. 120—123,
t Numbers xvi.
�62
BIBLE HEB0ES.
Joshua to lead the troops and repaired to the top of a hill to pray
for their success. This significant fact is obscured by a cloud of
supernaturalism. Moses, we are told, lifted his hands to heaven,
and while he remained in that posture the Israelites won, but
when he dropped his hands through weariness the Amalekites
prevailed. Seeing this, Aaron and Hur set him on a stone, and
held up his hands on either side. Thus the Amalekites were
*
routed and slaughtered, while, according to truthful Josephus,
not a single Jew was lost in the engagement.!
During their wars the Jews fought with Og the King of
Bashan,j whose subjects they exterminated without regard to
age or sex. This king was the remnant of a race of giants.
His bed was thirteen feet six inches long and six feet broad.
According to the Rabbis, Og was much larger than this. The
sole of his foot was forty miles long, and a chair was made out
of one of his teeth. A single drop of sweat from his brow
weighed thirty-six pounds, while at one meal he consumed a
thousand oxen and a thousand firkins of liquor. This unparalleled
giant was destined to feel the prowess of Moses. Seizing a hatchet,
our hero made a prodigious jump in the air, and hit Og on
the ankle. The battle concluded by Og getting his head im
prisoned in a monstrous ant-hill, and exposing the rest of his
person to the merciless hatchet of his enemy.§
But whethei’ valiant or the reverse, Moses is credited in the
Bible with extraordinary ferocity. His war policy was extermi
nation. Men, women, and children, were all put to the edge of
the sword, except when the virgins were reserved for a darker
fate.|| When the Jews fought the Midianites, defeated them,
killed all the males, and took the women and children captive,
Moses was wroth with them for being so merciful. “ Kill every
male among the little ones,” he sternly ordered, “ and kill every
woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the
women children, that have not known a man by lying with him,
keep alive for yourselves.”^ What devil could exceed this bar
barity ? One’s hand falters in transcribing the bloody text.
Holy Moses was a tough old fellow, and unless his days had
been shortened by a miracle he might have lived till now. For
one little slip he was doomed to die in the wilderness. Joshua
was consecrated his successor, and Moses ascended Mount Nebo,
whence the Lord gave him a bird’s-eye view of the promised
land. He was still vigorous, though a hundred and twenty
years old; his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated.
**
Beginning his career at eighty, when most men who live SO long
* Exodus xvii., 9-13.
f Josephus, book iii., chap. ii.
J Numbers xxi; Deuteronomy iii.
§ Gould, vol. ii., pp. 124, 125.
|| Deuteronomy xx.
Numbers xxxi., 17, 18.
** Deuteronomy xxxiv., 7.
�HOLY MOSES.
63
are decrepid, lie bore the burden and heat of a forty years’
leadership of the most stiff-necked race in history, and was still
as game as ever. Surely he was the original Grand Old Man.
But his time had come. Somewhere on that hill the Lord
settled his hash. God “ buried him in the land of Moab, over
against Beth-peor : but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto
this day.”* Josephus, however, says he disappeared in a cloud,
but wrote in the holy books that he died, lest the Jews should
say he had gone to God.f
The Rabbis say that Gabriel, Michael, Israfiel, and Azrael, who
acted as sextons at the funeral of Moses, defend his grave till
the Judgment Day.! Before or after the burial (God know
which) the Devil appears to have put in a claim for the corpse,
but he was defeated by Michael after a fierce dispute.§ This
curious legend has been more useful than might have been
expected, for it furnished Byron with the central idea of his
Splendid Vision of Judgment.
According to the Talmud, an attempt was once made, when
the Persian empire was at its zenith, to discover the sepulchre of
Moses. A host of soldiers ascended Mount Nebo, and when they
reached the top they saw the sepulchre at the bottom, but when
they descended to the bottom they saw it at the top. The search,
therefore, had to be abandoned.||
Some, however, have maintained that Moses did not die, but
shared the destiny of Enoch and Elijah. “ Our masters,” says
Maimonides, “ have assured us that our master Moses is not
dead, but ascended into heaven, where he serves God to all
eternity.”1T Curiously, in the Gospel story of the Transfiguration,
Moses and Elijah are brought together with Jesus in a visible
bodily form. Sceptics have asked how the disciples, who saw
**
the trio, recognised Moses and Elijah who had gone to glory so
many centuries before. But the true believer regards this as
hypercriticsm, and answers that all things are possible with
faith.
Like other Bible heroes, Moses has been credited with the
authorship of several books. The passage about Michael and
the Devil in Jude is from the Assumption of Moses, a work now
lost, but which was quoted by Origen and othei’ early Fathers.
There were also an Apocalypse and. a lesser Genesis ascribed to
him, as well as the Testament of Moses and the Mysterious Books
of Moses, ft The Jews, in addition, affirm that he wrote eleven of
the Psalms (xc. to c.), and both Jews and Christians have always
asserted that he wrote the Pentateuch. But modern scholarship
• Deuteronomy xxxiv., 6.
f Book IV., chap. 8.
f Gould, vol. ii., p, 135.
§ Jude, 9.
|| Gould, vol. ii., p. 1.36.
Calmet, Moses
** Matthew xvii„ 3; Mark ix., 4 ; Luke ix., 30
ft Calme4, Moses.
�64
BIBLE HEROES.
has justified the criticisms of Spinoza and Voltaire, and the
*
Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch is now abandoned by every
authority. Ministers still preach the falsehood from the pulpit,
but they dare not defend it outside their churches. Every
scholar knows that the Pentateuch is not the work of one hand,
and that the Mosaic law cannot be carried beyond the time of
Ezra, after the Captivity, when a mass of priestly teaching was
incorporated with ancient legends and traditions, and presented
as ordinances of Moses so as to give them the authority of
antiquity which so imposes on the credulous conservatism of
barbarians.f
Moses is probably a mythical figure. The Jews themselves,
judging from their so-called historical books, never heard of him
for nearly a thousand years after his death. Manetho, the
Egyptian historian, who is “refuted” by Josephus, declares
that the Jews were originally a band of Egyptian lepers who
migrated under the leadership of a leprous priest. The Jewish
historian resents the statement as an insult, but the Jewish
scriptures reveal the most extraordinary precautions against
leprosy, although Josephus denied their liability to the disease.
Whatever is the truth on this point, the Bible figure of Moses
is unhistorical. Robert TaylorJ is doubtless wrong in confusing
Moses with Bacchus, but he is quite right in indicating their
points of similarity. Both were of Egyptian origin, both were
brought up in Arabia, both crossed the Red Sea, both carried a
miraculous rod, both fetched water from the rock, both led armies
through deserts, both were legislators, both were priests, both
were soldiers, both were magicians, both were married, and, adds
Taylor, both of them wore horns.
According to scripture, there arose not a prophet like unto
Moses, and the Jews mourned for him thirty days. If he existed,
and bequeathed the intolerant and bloody maxims of the Jewish
law, mankind has mourned for more than thirty days on his
account. From that law is derived the persecuting spirit of
Christianity, as well as of Mohammedanism; a spirit which has
destroyed the happiness of millions, built thousands of dungeons
for honest thought, and lighted the fires of a myriad stakes for
the glory and honor of God.
* Philosophical Dictionary, Moses.
+ Dr. W. Robertson Smith, The Old Testameiit in the Jewish Church,
gives a fair resume of the conclusions of European scholarship, although
he does not go to the full length of his own principles. He has been cast
out as a heretic from the Scottish Church, but his opponents are too
sensible to attempt a refutation of his teaching. Their weapons are
persecution and silence.
J Devil's Pulpit, vol. ii., No. 20.
�PARSON
AARON.
The Church, said Bishop Warburton, has been from of old the
Cradle and the nursery of the younger aristocracy. When a
young fellow, belonging to the upper ten thousand, is under the
necessity of making his own nest, they send him into one of the
professions if he possesses a fair share of brains; if he has only
a moderate quantity of that article, they send him into the
army; and if he has none worth speaking of, they send him
into the Church. A living is procured for him, preferment may
be expected in time, and at the very worst he lolls at ease in the
sleepy hollow of a parson’s paradise.
Churches are the supports of privilege, and therefore it is not
surprising that they are filled with scions of the nobility. The
altar and the throne have always been in alliance. Priests and
kings are excellent friends. Both are leagued against the
people. One teaches and the other rules, one inspires credulity
and the other practises oppression, one deludes and the other
plunders, one works the confidence trick and the other walks off
with the spoil. Without priestcraft, neither kingcraft nor aris
tocracy could exist. Minds must be devastated before bodies
can be fettered. Poi’ this reason every true lover of his species
will echo the prayer of Shelley—
“ Oh that the wise from their bright minds would kindle
Such lamps within the dome of this dim world,
That the pale name of Priest might shrink and dwindle
Into the hell from which it first was hurled,
A scoff of impious pride from fiends impure.”*
Those who understand the immemorial alliance between the
spiritual and the temporal powers for the subjugation of the
people, will appreciate the congruity of Parson Aaron being the
brother of Holy Moses. These worthies were bound together
by the closest tie of blood, and therefore they understood each
Other thoroughly. Moses ruled and Aaron worked the oracle.
Moses gave his orders like a despot, and Aaron blessed them
and approved them with a text. Moses organised and A a,ran
preached; and whenever a big miracle was to be wrought the
two brothers acted together, so as to impose effectually on their
credulous slaves.
* “ Ode to Liberty.'
�66
BIBLE HEROES.
Aaron’s nane signifies lofty or mountainous; or, according to
Saint J erome, a mountain of strength He was, indeed, a tower
*
of strength to Moses, for he almost uniformly confirmed his
brother's mandates in the name of God; but there was nothing
very lofty in his character, and the only thing mountainous
about him was his impudence.
Three years older than Moses, he was still several years
younger than their sister Miriam. How he lived, what he did,
and in what society he moved, before his eighty-third year we
have no information. He took a back seat till he was wanted,
like all the personages in the story-books. God sent him out
into the wilderness to meet Moses when he was commissioned to
bring the Jews from Egypt. As this necessitated a journey of
two months, Calmet infers that Aaron’s circumstances were
above those of the lower class of Jews, who were kept to their
daily bondage; and that though his family “ had no pretension
to sovereign authority by descent, yet they were of consideration
among the Israelites by property, or by office, or by some othei’
way.” This learned writer also maintains that as Aaron and
Moses do not seem to have been elected to represent the Jews,
their reception by Pharaoh argues his recognition of their
superior status. But Scripture tells us that the two brothers
had a meeting with “ all the elders of the children of Israel,”!
who credited their mission from God when they beheld the
“ signs,” What is this but an equivalent to election ?
Moses had no “ gift of the gab,” but Aaron could “ speak
well.”! When they appeared before Pharaoh, therefore, Aaron
did all the speechifying; otherwise there might have been a
scene like that in the Merchant of Venice, where Launcelot Gobbo,
assisted by his father, solicits a place of Bassanio.
Moses’s rod turned into a serpent at the burning bush in
Horeb, but it was reserved for Aaron’s rod to perform this
elegant trick before Pharaoh. When the King of Egypt asked
for a miracle in proof of their mission from Jehovah, Aaron
threw down his rod and it became a serpent. Pharaoh smiled,
and exclaiming “ Is that your trump card ? ” he beckoned to his
magicians, who instantly “ did in like manner with their enchant
ments.’^ Dean Milman shuffles out of this awkward contretemps
in the following manner. “The dexterous tricks,” he says,
“which, the Eastern and African jugglers play with serpents
will easily account for this without any supernatural assistance.
It might be done, either by adroitly substituting the serpent
for the rod; or by causing the serpent to assume a stiff
appearance like a rod or staff, which being cast down on
the ground might become again pliant and animated.”|| But
* Calmet, Aaron.
§ Exodus vii., 2.
f Exodus iv., 29-31.
J Exodus iv , 14.
|| History of the Jews, p. 3>.
�PARSON AARON.
67
this pretty explanation might cover Aaron’s trick as well
as the magicians’, and _ proving too much is as bad as
proving too little. Besides the spirit of such an expla
nation is utterly unhistorical. All ancient nations, like
all modern savages, believed in magical arts, and in the
power of sorcerers to transform one thing into another. Egypt
*
was certainly no exception to the rule.f Jehovah himself is
represented as admitting the power of rival deities, but boasting
his own superiority. “ Against all the gods of Egypt,” he says, “I
will execute judgment:J am the Lord.”t Even the early Chris
tians never denied the miracles of Paganism; the only ques
tion in dispute was which miracles were divine and which were
diabolical. Surely Milman must have been disingenuous, for in
the very next chapter of Exodus it is recorded that the magi
cians of Egypt turned water into blood, and brought swarms of
frogs out of the river “ by their enchantments.” Was this also
legerdemain ? Milman does not say. He does not even mention these wonders. Silence in such a case was discretion, but
its honesty is more than questionable.
Probably Moses and Aaron felt chagrined when they saw
their serpent trick capped by Pharaoh’s magicians. “Holy
Moses! ” the elder brother might have exclaimed, “ what on
earth are we to do now ? Our performance seems stale in these
parts. I fancy we shall have to learn some fresh 1 business ’
or throw up the sponge altogether. Hadn’t you better go back
to the burning bush and ask Jehovah for a new wrinkle ? Or
stay, there is the leprosy trick you spoke about. Thrust your
hand inside your shirt-front, Moses, and pull it out white as snow.
Depend upon it these infernal magicians will scampei’ like hares
if you do, foi’ they are punctiliously clean, and some of the
Brahmans of this country will not pass within half-a-mile on the
leeward side of one of our holy race.”
What answer Moses would have made to this appeal may be
left to conjecture, for a fresh miracle speedily extricated the
brothers from their unpleasant position. There are some scep
tics, however, who deny that there was anything miraculous in
what occurred; for Aaron’s was a Jewish rod, and if, when trans
formed into a serpent, it swallowed up the others, this was no
more than might have been expected. But whether a miracle
or a natural occurrence, this event decided the contest, for it
was obviously impossible for the swallowed serpents to swallow
their swallower. Whether Aaron’s serpent digested the others
or vomited them up again, we are not informed. If it ejected
them, every Egyptian sorcerer doubtless got his stick back; if
not, Aaron’s stick must have been remarkably stout when he
* Tylor, Primitive Culture, chap. iv.
f Lenorimant, La iVLagie chez les Chaldeens, p. 90.
J Exodus, xii., 12.
�68
BIBLE HEROES.
left the palace. Jehovah was the lord of lords, and Aaron’s rod
was literally the stick of sticks.
Aaron’s part in the tragi-comedy of the Ten Plagues, as well
as that of Moses, is dealt with in our Bible Romances. Keally
the harrying of Egypt was the work of Jehovah and not of
his intruments. He, therefore, must receive the full credit of
its filthinesss and atrocity.
.When the Jews were well out of Egypt, and encamped before
Sinai, Aaron had the pleasure of accompanying Moses up that
mountain,, where he had the further pleasure of lunching with
God Almighty. Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy elders,
“ saw God, and did eat and drink.”* There can be no doubt as
to this remarkable repast, but unfortunately none of the guests
preserved the bill of fare. Had they done so, and had the docu
ment been handed down to this age in a good state of repair,
it would certainly fetch an enormous price in the auction-room.
We may presume that God wrote it himself, and if he graved
the decalogue with his finger, he probably scrawled this less
dignified document with his big toe.
Parson Aaron did not stay with Holy Moses during his forty
days’ confabulation with Jehovah. He descended to look after
the chosen people, who had astonishingly short memories. They
were always forgetting the miracles and mercies of Jehovah, and
whenever Moses turned his back they were off in search of fresh
gods.
. Now, on this occasion, Moses turned his back for a very long
time. His absence was protracted enough to try the loyalty and
patience of the most devoted adherents. Day after day the
Jews looked up to “ the mount of God,” but no Moses appeared,
nor did they so much as catch a glimpse of his bald head behind
a rock. All they saw was clouds, clouds, clouds; and by-andbye they concluded that Moses and Jehovah had both ended in
smoke. In this predicament they naturally wanted a fresh
leader and a fresh god. Savages are like sheep in following
their chief, and without a deity to worship they are like fish out
of water. The Jews, therefore, requested Aaron to take the
place of “ this Moses ” who had gone aloft, and they begged him
to make them a few gods to ease their religious desolation.
Aaron accepted the offer with great alacrity. Possibly he
shared the general belief in the collapse of Moses, or thought
he might be able to establish his own authority before his
brother’s return when he might successfully bid him defiance.
Aaron was the elder brother, yet he had to play second fiddle;
and as he was not yet consecrated high priest, he perhaps
thought his own merits were not sufficiently recognised and
rewarded. Here then was a glorious opportunity of promoting
his own interest, and Aaron not unnaturally seized it. “ I’ve
Exodus xxiv., 11.
�PARSON AARON.
69
played second fiddle to Moses long enough,” he may have exclaamed, “ and if ever he returns he shall play second fiddle to
me.”
Jehovah does not appeal’ to have entered into our hero’s
Calculations. That was not an age when religion presented only
Hobson’s choice. There were many gods, all independent of
each other, and all warranted sound. What wonder, then, if
Aaron thought he might, like Cain, go out from the presence of
the Lord, and worship another deity.
Orthodox commentators, however, prefer the theory that
Aaron was a coward. He had not the courage to resist the
popular clamor, and he incurred the wrath of God sooner than
face the wrath of the Jews, who on several occasions attempted
to stone Moses himself when they were annoyed or disappointed,
lor our part, we leave every reader to decide for himself.
Having agreed to make the Jews some new gods, Aaron
desired them to furnish him with the material. He could not
make a god out of his own head, unless it was a wooden one.
M Bring your gold,” said Aaron. Gold ! It is the first demand
of priests in every age and clime. They love gold. Judging by
their practice, gold is their god. The felicities of heaven are for
their dupes; they themselves wish “ in health and wealth long
to live.” They read their title cleai’ to mansions in the skies,
but they prefer the actual possession of a snug rectory or
vicarage in this miserable vale of tears.
The Jews brought Aaron their golden earrings, which were
worn by men and women alike With this precious metal he
*
made a golden calf; or rather, we suspect, with so much of it
as was left after he deducted his own liberal commission. Before
the calf he erected an altar. Religious worship went on merrily
again. The people “ sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to
play ” ; their play apparently consisting in naked dances before
the new god. The Jews took readily to the worship of the
golden calf. Some people, indeed, say they worship it still.
Perhaps the calf was an imitation of the Egyptian god Apis,
and thus the Jews simply returned to the religion of their old
masters. Long after this they affected calf-worship. Jeroboam
set up.two golden calves at Dan and Bethel,f and these were
worshipped by Jehu even after he had “ destroyed Baal out of
Ifirael.”J
When Moses came down from the clouds and witnessed the
saltatory worship of this golden calf, he not only broke all the
ten commandments, but burnt the calf, ground it to powder,
mixed it with water, and made the Jews drink the potion.
Metallurgists would like to know how this was done, but Scrip* Exodus xxxii., 2.
fl Kings xii., 28, 29.
I 2 Kings x., 28, 29.
�70
BIBLE HEROES.
ture, which tells us many things we could dispense with, neglects
to inform us of many things we are anxious to learn.
After drinking, this water, those who had kissed the idol were,
according to Jewish tradition, marked with gilt lips. Another
tradition says that their hair turned red, and that is the origin
of red hair among the Jews; while a third tradition declares that
this watei’ gave them the jaundice, which was then introduced
for the first time, though it has remained ever since.
*
Moses instructed the Levites to slay the idolators. They did
so, and “there fell of the people that day about three thousand
men.” Aaron, however, was only expostulated with. The chief
sinner was spared because he belonged to the leader’s family.
During the colloquy between the two brothers, Aaron pre
varicated in a manner worthy of his profession. “ Look here
Moses,” he said, “ I didn’t make that calf. ’Pon honor! I just
put the gold into the fire, and the calf came out of itself.”f
Soon afterwards Aaron was consecrated high priest, and the
office was to be hereditary in his family for ever. Even those
who assisted in the ceremonies of Jehovah’s worship were to
belong to Aaron’s tribe of Levi. The consecration was perfoimed .by Moses. Taking Aaron and his sons, he washed
them with water, and we dare say they needed it. They were
then dressed in the priestly paraphernalia. Aaron’s outfit
was extremely fine. Not only were all his garments of the
richest material, but he wore a splendid mitre on his head, and
a golden breastplate in front, inwrought with the mystic Urim
and Thummim. These words signify light and perfection, or
revelation and truth.X The article itself consisted of twelve
precious stones, by which undoubtedly the high-priest divined.
This superstition connected with precious stones was common in
ancient ages. No oracle was complete without them. Among
barbarians the superstition is still rampant, and it lingers even
among civilised nations. Thousands of people in our own
country believe in the occult virtues of precious stones, and
only two or three centuries ago each had its specific influence
on human health and fate.
Aaron was also anointed with oil.§ Some of it was mixed
with blood from the altar, and the beastly mess was sprinkled
on his and his son’s garments.|| But most of the holy oil was
poured over Aaron’s head. According to the Psalmist, it ran
down his beard and fell upon the skirt of his garments.^
Dripping with the holy macassar, Aaron looked a greasy priest,
but the stuff sanctified him. Like Christ, he was the “ anointed,”
or the begreased. Anointing is still retained in the Catholic
Church, and both the Catholic and the Protestant Church retain
* Gould, vol. ii., pp. 105-107.
f Exodus xxxii., 24.
I Whiston, footnote to Josephus.
§ Leviticus viii., 12.
|| Ibid, v. 30.
If Psalms cxxxiii., 2.
�PABSON AARON.
71
baptism. “ When we come into life,” says Robert Taylor, “ we
WBt be baptised, when we go out of it we must be anointed.
We are baptised into Jesus Christ and greased into the Holy
Ghost.”*
Besides this holy oil, Aaron had a sacred scent for use in the
'tabernacle. God gave the prescription for making it, and pro
nounced a frightful penalty against anyone who violated the
patent, f
Henceforth Moses and Aaron pulled well together. Each had
his eminent place, and they could exercise their respective
authorities without conflict. Woe unto the Jews when they set
up their backs against this worthy pair ! Eor murmuring after
the settling of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, and the slaughter
of two hundred and fifty worshippers in their rival tabernacle,
no less than 14,700 were killed.^
To prevent any further rivalry with Aaron in the priesthood,
♦he brothers hit upon an ingenious device. Speaking as usual
in the name of God, Moses ordered the princes and elders to
bring a rod for each of the tribes. This made eleven, and Aaron’s
rod for the tribe of Levi made the twelfth. All were to be
placed in the tabernacle, and the rod of God’s choice for
the priesthood was to blossom.
The plan was tried.
Twelve rods were laid before the Lord overnight, and
in the morning when Moses entered to see the result, Aaron’s
rod “ was budded, and bloomed blossoms, and yielded almonds.”§
Aaron’s blooming rod settled this dispute for ever. Yet the
princes and elders of Israel must have been remarkable flats to
accept such a decision. Aaron and Moses had access to the
tabernacle at all hours, though they had not; and what was
easier than foi’ the confederate brothers to design and execute
this pretty miracle themselves ?
Aaron had one little quarrel, however, with Moses, and he
Was joined by Miriam. Moses manned an Ethiopian woman;
one of a people who, for some mysterious reason, are referred
to in Scripture as unable to change their skin. This was against
the Jewish law and custom. Aaron and Miriam, therefore,
“ spake against Moses.” But their murmurings vexed Jehovah,
fwho actually came down, stood in the door of the tabernacle,
and read them a severe lesson.|| Miriam was punished with
leprosy and excluded from the camp, where she remained seven
days, after which the Lord healed hei’ at Moses’s intercession.
Aaron suffered no othei’ punishment than a bad frightening.
Evidently Moses was a terrible old fellow to interfere with.
Miriam apparently did not long survive this ordeal. She
died in the desert of Zin.
In the same year, accordingyto
Y • * Devil's Pulpit, vol. ii., p. 332.
t Num. xvi., 49.
§ Num. xvii., 8.
f Exodus xxx., 34-38.
[I Num. xii., 3-5.
Num. xxi.
�72
BIBLE HEROES.
*
-Josephus, Aaron died also. Scripture is not so precise, but it
records both their deaths in the same chapter. Surely their
disappearance so soon after their quarrel with Moses looks some
thing more than a coincidence. The Bible story of Aaron’s
demise is very singular. God tells Moses to inform his brother
that his time has come. Moses and Aaron, and Eleazar
the latter’s son, ascend Mount Hor. Arrived at a convenient
spot, Moses strips Aaron’s garments off and puts them on
Eleazar; Aaron then accommodatingly dies, and the uncle and
nephew descend. Josephus, perhaps thinking that the story
looked ugly, says that the transference of the priestly garments,
and the death of Aaron, took place in the presence of the people.f
Now when we remember that Aaron had seriously crossed
Moses, and that the “ meek ” man was capable of sticking at
nothing to serve his purpose, is it absurd to suppose that Aaron
was “ burked ” on Mount Hor, with or without the assistance of
his son and heir ? Eleazar may have actively participated in
the murder, or his father and uncle may have left him in some
hollow while they went further, and on arriving at a likely
situation Moses may have killed Aaron as he killed the Egyptian
so many years before. According to a Mohammedan tradition,
Moses was accused of murdering Aaron, but he was exculpated
“ by the angels bringing his body and exposing it to public
view, or, say some, by the testimony of Aaron himself, who was
raised to life for that purpose.’’^ This, at any rate, is certain,
if anything in the story is certain. Three men went up that
mountain and only two came down. They reported that the
third had died there; but one of them had seriously quarrelled
with the deceased, and the other inherited his office and pro
perty.
Gould gives a long account of the Jewish traditions as to the
death of Aaron. When they reached the summit of Mount Hor
they saw a cavern, and inside they found a death-bed prepared
by the angels. Aaron reposed on it and gradually gave up the
ghost. The Mohammedan tradition, however, says that there
was a sarcophagus, with the inscription, “ I am for him whom I fit.”
Moses tried to lie down in it, but his feet hung out; Aaron then
got in, and it fitted him exactly. Subsequently, say the Rabbis,
Aaron’s coffin ascended in sight of all the people, borne by
angels, who carried it to heaven.§ Whatever Aaron’s fate may
have been after death, he certainly enjoyed a well-feed office on
earth. Could he have managed it, he would doubtless be in the
ten-per-cent, business still; but fortunately even priests must
die, and “ go home ” to heaven or otherwise as destiny decides.
* Book IV., chap. iv.
JjSale's Koran, Ch. xxxiii., footnote.
f Book IV., chap, v., § 7.
§ Gould, vol. ii., pp. 127—131.
�GENERAL JOSHUA.
----------- «♦-------------
After Jehovah had dispatched Moses and secretly buried him,
as Moses himself had eighty years previously dispatched and
buried the Egyptian, Joshua was appointed to succeed him as
leader of the Jews. He was “ full of the spirit of wisdom, for
Moses had laid his hands upon him.” No doubt Moses laid his
venerable hands on Joshua’s head, for religious superiors have
always transmitted holiness to their inferiors through the skull.
Jesus Christ laid his hands upon the apostles, saying “ Receive
ye the Holy Ghost,” and the same performance is gone through
still at the ordination of priests. A bishop lays his hands on
the would-be curate’s cranium, and discharges through that
Osseous structure as much of the Holy Ghost as the young
gentleman is capable of receiving.
Joshua, it appears, was nominated for the leadership by Moses,
but God readily accepted the nomination, and proceeded to in
struct the new chief in his duties. He told him to be above all
“ strong and very courageous,” and to fight the inhabitants of
Palestine according to the law of Moses, a piece of advice which
Joshua was the last man in the world to neglect.
What was this law of Moses ? We have already seen (p. 62)
how Moses commanded the massacre of all the captive Midianites except the young virgins, all of whom were reserved as
food for the lust of his brutal soldiery, with the exception of
thirty-two that were assigned to “ the Lord,” or in other words
to the priests. Let us now turn to Deuteronomy, where we
*
shall find the war-policy dictated by Moses in the name of the
most merciful God.
“ When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim
peace unto it. And it shall be, if it make thee answer of peace, and open
unto thee, that all the people that is found therein shall be tributaries
unto thee, and they shall serve thee. And if it will make no peace with
thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it: And
when the Lord thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt
smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword: But the women,
and the little ones, and the cattle, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou
take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which
the Lord thy God hath given thee. Thus shalt thou do unto all the
sgities which are very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of
* Numbers, xxxi., 29, 40.
�74-
BIBEE heroes.
these nations. But of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God
doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that
breatheth.”*
Such were the bloody maxims of inspired war-! Yet when
England was excited by the report of Turkish atrocities in
Bulgaria, how the clergy, who frequently attended indignation
meetings, denounced both the Turks and their creed; declaring
that the Koran sanctioned, if it did not command, those infamies;
and protesting that there was no hope for a nation which
derived its politics from such an accursed book. Mohammed
did, indeed, give savage counsels to his followers in respect to
war, but they sink into insignificance beside the counsels of
Moses. Allah was far less brutal than Jehovah. The whole
range of history reveals no more ferocious cruelty than the Jews
perpetrated in Canaan, when they took forcible possession of
cities they had never built and fields they had never ploughed.
“ How that red rain will make the harvest grow ! ” exclaimed
Byron over the slaughter of Waterloo; and surely the first
harvest the Jews reaped in Canaan must have been luxuriantly
rich, for the ground had been drenched with human blood.
Joshua was soon ordered to cross the river Jordan and begin the
holy war. . But before doing so he dispatched two spies to recon
noitre Jericho, which was the first place to be attacked. They
reached this famous old city by night, and of course required
lodgings. Instinct, or the Holy Spirit, led them to a brothel.f
Mrs. Rahab, who presided over this Academy of Venus, proved
a very good friend to the interlopers; for when their arrival
was bruited abroad, and the king’s messengers came to arrest
them, she hid them beneath a heap of flax on the roof, and
declared they had just left. Pursue them quickly, she added,
and you are sure to overtake them. These intelligent officers,
without searching the premises, set out in chase of the imaginary
runaways; and when the coast was clear Mrs. Rahab, whose
house was erected on the town wall, let her two guests down
“by a cord through the window.”
But before they left she made a covenant with them. Like
many other ladies of easy virtue, or no virtue at all, Mrs. Rahab
was inclined to piety. She had conceived a great respect for
Jehovah, and was assured that his people would overcome all
their enemies. She had also a great respect for her own skin; so
she.made the spies promise, on behalf of the Jews, that when
Jericho was taken they would spare her and all hei’ relatives ;
and they were to recognise her house by “ the line of scarlet
thread in the window;” red, as old Bishop Hall says, being the
saving color.
Mrs. Rahab was clearly a traitress ,to her own countrymen.
* Deuteronomy, xx., 10-16.
f Judges ii., 1.
�GENERAL JOSHUA.
75
She not only harbored the enemy’s spies, but actually made a
profitable alliance with the invader. According to the law of
all countries, whether barbarous or civilised, she was guilty of
treason and deserved to be hung. But besides being a traitress
she was also a harlot. Josephus judiciously describes hei as an
*
*
innkeeper. Milman blandly says she kept “ a public caravansary.”f Whiston, with whom discretion was not altogether
the better part of valor, tries to explain the harlotry away.
*" Observe,” he says, “ that I still call this woman Rahab, an
■inn-keeper, not a harlot; the whole history, both in our copies,
and especially in Josephus, implying no more. It was indeed
so frequent a thing, that women who were inn-keepers were
also harlots, or maintainers of harlots, that the word commonly
used for real harlots was usually given them.”J But this is a
Very lame apology for Mrs. Rahab. There is nothing in the
■“ whole history ” that contradicts her being a lady of pleasure;
and as the Bible is not an ordinary book, but God’s Word, its
language must be taken as it stands. If the Lord meant us to
regard Mrs. Rahab as a virtuous woman, he would have em
ployed another word than “ harlot.” Some indeed maintain
that zona does not mean “ harlot ” at all, but it was so under
stood by the translators of the Septuagint, and by St. Jerome,
the translator of the Vulgate. Our Authorised Version trans
lates zona as “ harlot,” and thus it is allowed to stand in the
Revised Version.
Mrs. Rahab, traitress and prostitute, was duly saved from
the sack of Jericho, She married Salmon, a prince in Israel, of
very questionable taste. They begat Boaz, who begat Obed,
who begat Jesse, who begat David, and so on to “ David’s greatei
*
®on.”§ The blood of Mrs. Rahab, therefore, flowed in the veins
of Jesus Christ. She was adopted into the holy line of the
Savior’s ancestry, and both James and Paul have sung her
praises.|| Each calls her a harlot, but one celebrates her
■“ works ” and the other hei “ faith,” and between them they
*
make her a most illustrious saint.
Joshua’s two spies returned safely to the camp, and reported
“ all serene.” The Canaanites were very much frightened, and
their terror would render them an easy prey.
The next morning Joshua got up early and told the Jews that
God was going to do wonders. They wanted to get on the
■other side of Jordan, and the Lord intended to ferry them over.
The river was swollen at that time and could not be forded, nor
had the Jews any means of navigation. But God was with
them, and he who had manipulated the Red Sea was quite equal
* Book V., chap. i.
f History of the Jews, p. 92.
J Footnote to Josephus.
§ 1 Chronicles i.; Matthew i,
|| James ii., 25; Hebrews xi., 31.
�76
BIBLE HEROES.
to dealing with the Jordan. Forward went the priests, bearing
the ark, followed by all the people; and as the holy feet of the
men of God “were dipped in the brim of the water ” the river
parted in twain; on one side the waters “ stood and rose up
upon a heap,” while on the other side they “ failed and were
cut off.” No miracle, however, was worked further up the river
to stop the supplies, and therefore the “ heap ” must have been
a pretty big one before the Lord let it fall.
Standing in the river-bed “ firm on dry ground,” the priests
kept the road clear while the Jews “ passed over right against
Jericho.” They seem to have done this in less than a day, but
three millions of people would require a week. Perhaps Old
Nick was commissioned to accelerate their progress with his
toothpick; or perhaps the Lord assisted them more comfortably,
after the fashion of Richard Baxter, the famous author of Tike
Saints’ Everlasting Rest, who wrote a tractate entitled “A Shove
to a Heavy-A—d Christian.”
When the Jews were over Jordan the “ heap ” of water tum
bled down. Joshua and his people then encamped near Jericho,
in readiness for still greater wonders. Three days afterwards
the manna, on which God had fed the Jews for forty years, with
such fatal results that only two of them survived the trial, was
suddenly stopped. Manna is “ angel’s food,” made of the “ corn
of heaven.”* It was good enough for the chosen people while
they loitered in the wilderness, but henceforth J ehovah’s fighting
cocks needed a more stimulating diet.
The generation born in the desert had grown up uncircum
cised, although it is difficult to understand how such a rite, if it
was believed to be the mark of God’s covenant with the Jews,
could ever have been neglected. Joshua, therefore, was ordered
to amputate their foreskins, and he “ made him sharp knives ”
for the purpose. According to the letter of the narrative he was
the sole surgeon for a million and a half of patients. Allowing
a minute for each operation, it would have taken him three years
to complete the business, yet it appears to have been transacted
in a single day. Samson’s jaw-bone was nothing to Joshua’s
knife.
Orthodox critics will, of course, contend that Joshua circum
cised the Jews as a general victuals his army; that is, he
simply caused it to be done; and no doubt this would be a
rational interpretation of the text if Joshua were not a mira
culous personage. Why should not a surgeon perform fifteen
hundred thousand operations in one day as easily as an orator
could address an audience of three millions ? This oratorical
feat is recorded of Joshua. After the capture of Ai he gathered
all the Jews together, men, women, and children, and even the
strangers, and read to them all the law of Moses without omitPsalms lxxviii., 24, 25.
�77
GENERAL JOSHUA.
ting & single word. It must have been a long job, and Joshua
*
ffiittlt have been pretty dry before the finish. But the greatest
marvel is how he made himself audible to three million people
at once. Either their ears were very sharp or his voice was
terribly loud. General Joshua could outroar Bottom the
weaver by two or three miles. One wonders how a voice, which
oould be heard distinctly on the outskirts of such a vast audience,
did not break the tympanums of the front ranks. But perhaps
they put the stone-deaf in the first rows, then the half-deaf, and
then the hard of hearing, while those with more sensitive ears
stood at a merciful distance.
Soon aftei’ this wholesale circumcision, and while the Jews
were thinking of going to Jericho, Joshua had a curious experi
ence, exactly like the one that happened to Balaam’s ass. He saw
“ a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand.”
Joshua walked up and asked the stranger whether he was for or
against them. I am “ captain of the host of the Lord,” was the
reply. Good heavens! General Joshua was a “ big pot,” but here
was a superior officer of the Lord of Hosts. Our hero immediately
fell flat, and he was further ordered to take off his shoes. Moses
was told to do the same thing when he met God in the burning
bush. We may therefore presume that shoemakers will have to
follow some other trade in heaven.
_ From this celestial messenger Joshua received precise instruc
tions as to the assault on Jericho, and it must be admitted that
the Lord’s way of storming fortresses is unique in military
literature.
“ Ye shall compass the city, all ye men of war, and go round about the
city once. Thus shalt thou do six days. And seven priests shall bear
before the ark seven trumpets of rams’ horns: and the seventh day ye
shall compass the city seven times, and the priests shall blow with the
trumpets. And it shall come to pass, that when they make a long blast
with the rams’ horn, and when ye hear the sound of the trumpet, all
the people shall shout with a great shout; and the wall of the city shall
fall down flat, and the people shall ascend up every man straight before
him.”f
What general except Joshua ever received such extraordinary
instructions from his commander-in-chief? God’s soldiers need
no cannon or bomb-shells, nor even battering rams or catapults;
all they require is a few priests—and that article never mna
short—a few rams’ horns, and good lungs for shouting.
God’s orders were obeyed. Six days in succession the Jews
went round the wall of Jericho behind their tootling priests.
Probably the garrison wondered why they did not come on, and
felt there was something uncanny in this roundabout seige. On
the seventh day the Jews went round the wall seven times, and
either they must have had good legs or Jericho was very small
for a capital city. Suddenly the priests trumpeted like mad
* 'Joshua viii., 30-35.
t Johsua vi., 3-5.
�78
BIBLE HEROES.
elephants, the Jews shouted like the Falls of Niagara, and the
wall of Jericho fell flat—as flat as the fools who believe it.
Will some inspired sky-pilot kindly inform me whether the
whole wall fell flat, as seems implied by the text, “ the people
went up into the city, every man straight before him.” If so,
1 should like to learn what became of Mrs. Rahab’s house which
was “ upon the town wall,” and what was the use of her “scarlet
thread m the window ” when her Academy of Venus was in
ruins.
Jericho was. in the hands of Jehovah’s bandits, and they
carried out his bloody instructions to the letter. Even the
passion of lust was not allowed to conflict with their prime
duty of slaughter. The universal cry was “ Kill, kill, kill 1”
God told them to “ leave alive nothing that breatheth,” and
Joshua was there to see the command obeyed. The army of the
Lord “ utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and
woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the
edge of the sword.”* Only Rahab and her relatives were
spared; all the rest were massacred; and when the pall of
night fell upon the doomed city it covered a scene that
might have made the very devils shudder. Surely if the blood
of man “ crieth from the ground,” here was enough to have
sounded to the stars.
Joshua and the priests understood each other. All the silver
and the gold, and all the vessels of brass and iron, were “ put
into the treasury of the house of the Lord.” Then Jericho was
burnt, and Joshua laid a solemn curse on whomsoevei’ should
rebuild it. But although “the Lord was with Joshua” the
curse was futile. Jericho was rebuilt. The city existed in Jesus
Christ’s time, and was next in importance to Jerusalem. A
certain man travelling to Jericho fell among thieves; but if he
or any other mortal ever fell among worse thieves than Joshua
and his marauders, it would need a pen dipped in something
worse than hell-fire to chronicle the encounter.
When the Jews attacked Ai they were repulsed, and no less
than thirty-six were killed. This prodigious loss melted their
hearts and they became as water. Joshua rent his clothes, fell
upon his face before the ark with the elders of Israel, and all of
them, peppered their ■ greasy Hebrew locks with dust. After
remaining in this position for several hours, Joshua expostulated
with God, asked him whether he had brought his people over
Jordan only to betray them to theii’ enemies, and expressed a
hearty wish that they had never crossed at all. God, however,
told him to get up. Some one had stolen a portion of the spoil
of Jericho, all of which belonged to the Lord, or in other words
^e. pGests, who evidently concocted this pretty story. In
quisition was made at once, and “ Achan was taken,” who con
Judges vi., 21.
�GENERAL JOSHUA.
79
fessed to having appropriated “ a goodly Babylonish garment,
and two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold of fifty
shekels weight.” His doom was swift and terrible; he was
Stoned to death, and his body consumed with fire. Nor was he
the only sufferer. Jehovah (or the priests) was not so easily
appeased. Achan’s sons and daughters, and even his oxen,
asses, and sheep, were served in the same manner. A cairn was
raised over the cinders, and then “ the Lord turned from the
fierceness of his anger.” This holocaust put him in a good
temper, and the heathen felt the smart of his loving-kindness.
Joshua captured Ai forthwith; all the inhabitants, from the
oldest man to the youngest babe, were massacred ; and the city
was burnt into a desolate heap. After this feast of blood Joshua
“ built an altar unto the Lord God of Israel in Mount Ebal,”
and Jehovah seems to have been mightily well pleased with the
whole business.
t The Gibeonites obtained a league by craft, but though their
lives were spared they did not escape slavery. The five kings
of Jerusalem, Hebron, Jarmuth, Lachish, and Eglon, who united
their forces, were defeated by Joshua; and as their armies fled
from the field “ the Lord cast down great stones from heaven
upon them,” killing more by this stratagem than the Jews slew
with the sword. When we read that Pan fought with the
Greeks against the Persians at Marathon, we must regard it as
a fable; but when we read that Jehovah fought with the Jews
against the five kings at Gibeon, we must regard it as historical
truth, and if we doubt it we shall be eternally damned.
But the most remarkable incident of this battle was Joshua’s
miracle. For the purpose of enabling God and the Jews to kill all
the fugitives, which could not have been achieved in darkness,
he cried out, “ Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou,
Moon, in the valley of Ajalon.” Those obedient orbs immediately
stood still, the day was lengthened, and the slaughter of the
enemy was completed.
What Joshna stopped, if he stopped anything, was not the sun
but the earth; and science tells us that a sudden arrest of the
earth’s motion would generate heat enough to cause a wholesale
conflagration. But nothing of the kind happened. Nor, indeed,
has any ancient nation, except the Jews, preserved the slightest re
cord of Joshua’s miracle. Josephus says that “ the day was leng
thened,” but he of course borrowed from the Jewish scriptures.
Whiston’s footnote on the story is perfectly nonsensical. Mil
man discreetly commits himself to no opinion on the subject.
Bishop Watson, in his reply to Thomas Paine, thinks it “ idle, if
n©t impious, to undertake to explain how the miracle was per
formed.” But he adds that, “ a confused tradition concerning
Ws miracle ” was preserved by the Egyptians. The only evi
*
* Watson’s Apologies, p, 220.
�80
BIBLE HEROES.
dence he gives is a passage from. Herodotus about the sun having
twice risen in the west and set in the east in Egypt. But wl^at
has this to do with Joshua ? Such prodigies were common
among credulous eastern peoples in ancient times. Even the
Greeks believed that when Jupiter personated Amphitryon, and
visited jhis bride Alcmena, the amorous god lengthened the
night to prolong his enjoyment; and surely this story is quite
as credible, and quite as moral, as the Bible story of Joshua's
lengthening the day to prolong a massacre.
While the Jews pursued their fugitive enemies the five con
federate kings hid themselves in a cave. Joshua ordered the
mouth to be closed with big stones until the pursuit was ended,
when the poor devils were brought out and treated with great
ignominy. Their necks were used as footstools by the captains
of Israel, and afterwards they were hung on separate trees.
This highly civilised treatment of prisoners shows that Joshua
and the Jews were worthy of their God.
General Joshua’s remaining career was one of uniform blood
shed. The history, indeed, is monotonous in its brutality.
Makkedah, Lachish, Eglon, Hebron, Debir, and other cities were
captured; and in every case the inhabitants were exterminated.
Men, women, and children were involved in a promiscuous
slaughter. Joshua “ left none remaining, but utterly destroyed
all that breathed, as the Lord God had commanded.”* Dumb
animals, also, were treated with equal cruelty; the horses, for
instance, being maliciously houghed,f and allowed to perish by
a slow and agonising death.
When Jehovah’s bandits had obtained possession of Palestine
by wars of unparalleled ferocity, General Joshua gave up the
ghost at the age of one hundred and ten.J He was buried at
Timnath. Josephus says he led the Jews for twenty-five years.§
General Joshua’s father was called Nun; his mother’s name
is unknown, but according to a Jewish tradition the lady who
had the signal honor of bringing this pious murderer into the
world was Miriam, the sister of Moses and Aaron.|| Neither the
Bible nor any other authority assigns him a wife; and, indeed,
it is highly probable that such a slaughterer of his kind was a
total stranger to the domestic sentiments. We may presume
that he gratified his lust on some of the captive females, who
were unfortunate enough to survive the massacre of their fathers
and brothers, and to fall into the hands of the vilest horde of
cut-throats that ever polluted the earth. Scripture tells us he
was “ full of the spirit of wisdom,”*T but the inspired narrative
[
of his career exhibits a moral monster whose effigy merits a
conspicious place in the Chambei’ of Horrors.*
§
* Joshua x., 40.
f Joshua xi., 6. 9.
f Joshua xxiv., 29.
§ Josephus, bk.v., chap. i. || Gould, vol. ii.,p. 138.
Deut. xxxiv., 9.
�JEPHTHAH & CO.
After the death of General Joshua the Jews “ forsook the Lord
and worshipped Baal and Ashtaroth.” Baal was identical with
Bel of the Babylonians, and with Moloch, although in the course
of time he improved, and became “ no longer the god of destruc
tion and death in nature, but the father of life, the supreme
dispenser of light and heat, the principle and cause of the
Renewing which yearly clothes the earth with luxurious vegeta
tion.”* This Baal was evidently the sun. Ashtaroth was a
feminine deity, better known as Astarte, representing the moon,
whose periodicities are intimately associated with those of the
human sexual system. She was the goddess of voluptuousness
and fecundity, as Baal was the god of strength and virility.
Their worship included the most incredible lasciviousness, but
Who can wonder that an amorous people like the Jews should
constantly turn their backs on the stern Jahveh, and court the
Softer deities of Syria ? Their bacchic strains at midnight were
better than the horrid shrieks of human sacrifice; the fever of
lust was less awful than the rage of murder.
But if the Lord thought otherwise, why did he not take pre
cautions against their natural tendency ? He clearly foresaw
the mischief, for he purposely left in the promised land “ five
lords of the Philistines, and all the Canaanites, and the Sidonians,
* and the Hivites that dwell in Mount Lebanon,”f in order that
his chosen people might be tempted into idolatry. They were
left to “ prove Israel, whether they would hearken unto the
commandments of the Lord,” as well as “ to teach them war, at
the least such as before knew nothing thereof”; a proceeding
Which strikes the carnal mind as simply infamous.
With all their fondness for fighting, the Jews were less san
guinary than Jehovah, and they intermarried with the remnants
of the native population. This displeased the Lord, who objected
to the spoiling of their precious blood, which had “ rolled through
rascals ever since the Blood.” But he was still more displeased
when the Jews “ served Baalim and the groves.”}: That was an
unpardonable sin, for what god could ever stand rivalry in the
Opea market ? Therefore the Lord “ sold them ” into the hands of
* Jules Soury, The Religion of Israel, p. 53.
t Judges iii, 3.
t For “ groves ” the Revised Version substitutes ‘‘ Asheroth,” which
were phallic emblems.
s.
�82
BIBLE HEROES.
the king of Mesopotamia, who ruled them for eight years. “ Sold
them ” is a capital phrase. Sooner or later the gods always sell
those who are foolish and weak enough to trust them.
During several generations there was a perpetual alterna
tion of loyalty and treason on the part of the Jews. Foi’ long
periods they were punished by subjection to their enemies; then
the Lord took pity on them, and “ raised up ” Judges to deliver
them.
The first important Judge was Ehud. He was a Benjamite
and left-handed, and he delivered Israel in a very left-handed
fashion. Under pretence of bringing a present to Eglon, the
king of Moab, to whom the Jews were then subjected, he obtained
a private interview. “ I have a message from God unto thee,”
said Ehud. Eglon rose from his seat, and being “ a very fat
man ” he displayed a fine abdomen, into which Ehud imme
diately thrust God’s message in the shape of a dagger. It pene
trated so deeply that it could not be withdrawn, and in the
beautiful language of Scripture “ the dirt came out.” Ehud
escaped, gathered the Jews together, and fell upon the soldiers of
Moab, all of whom perished in the battle. They were ten thou
sand in all, and “ not a man escaped.”
God’s chosen people, and especially their scribes, had mar
vellous notions of arithmetic. Ten thousand Moabitish soldiers
had sufficed to overawe for eighteen years a people numbering
three millions with six hundred thousand men of arms 1 It
could scarcely be done even now when trained soldiers with
rifles have such immense advantage over undisciplined and ill
armed multitudes; and how much less when the weapons and
methods of warfare were rude, when men fought mostly hand
to hand, and one man was as good as another.
As the Lord “ raised up ” this “ deliverer,” we are justified in
assuming that he instigated the assassination. According to
Scripture, therefore, the assassination of obstructive monarchs
is a virtuous deed. Christian apologists, who make rich capital
out of the French Revolution, have wasted much denunciation
over the guillotining of Louis XVI., conveniently forgetting the
story of" Ehud, who slew Eglon treacherously, whereas the
execution of Louis XVI. was at least a formal act after a public
trial.
Eighty years’ rest followed Ehud’s performance; then the
Jews went wrong again, and were oppressed by the Philistines.
Once more the Lord raised them up a deliverer, whose whole
history is told in a single verse. His name was Sham gar, and
*
he “ slew of the Philistines six hundred men with an ox goad,”
probably skewering them like cat’s-meat. Milman describes
this formidable weapon as “ a strong pike, eight feet long, and
pointed with iron.”f Shamgar was a tough fellow, his ox goad
Judges iii., 31.
f History of the Jews, p. 106.
�JEPHTHAH AND CO.
83
was tough, the story is tough, and it requires a tough throat to
swallow it.
After this “ the children of Israel again did evil in the sight
of the Lord,” who once more “ sold them” to Jabin, king of
CaBftan. This monarch “ mightily oppressed them,” for he had
nine hundred chariots of iron. How many soldiers he had we
are not informed. But unless they were a great army, it is
difficult to understand how they could mightily oppress a
nation, as populous as Scotland is now, and nearly as populous
a® England was in the reign of Elizabeth. Our surprise is in
creased when we subsequently read that his iron chariots, his
army, and his great captain Sisera, were all overcome by Barak
ten thousand Jews.
A woman stirred Israel up to fight. She was called Deborah,
and her husband’s name was Lapidoth. Doubtless he was merely
ft necessary appendage to his wife. She was a prophetess, and
gh® “judged Israel at that time.” She “ dwelt under the palmteee of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in Mount Ephraim ;
and the children of Israel came up to hei’ for judgment.”* Clearly
ih® was a Sibyl,f who told fortunes and revealed the secrets of
futurity. People who practise that business now are sent to
gaol, but in ancient times they were honored and trusted, as
they still are among savages.
At her instigation Barak, the son of Abinoam, collected ten
thousand men to fight Jabin ; and Sisera gathered together all
his chariots and warriors to put down the impudent rebel.
But the Lord took part in the battle, and the Canaanites were
utterly discomfited. Every man of them was slain, except
Siiera himself, who alighted from his chariot and fled on foot
towards the tent of Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite, who was
OU terms of friendship with king Jabin. Jael came out, proffered
him shelter, gave him refreshment, covered him with a mantle,
invited him to sleep, and promised to watch for the enemy
While he slumbered. Relying on her good faith, the weary
general sank into repose, and when he was unconscious his
treacherous . hostess, violating the sacred laws of hospitality,
gmote a nail into his temples and fastened his head to the
ground. Then she went out to meet Barak, brought him into
her tent, and showed him his enemy treacherously and brutally
assassinated. A generous soldier would have revolted at the
infamous spectacle, but Barak and Deborah sang a long duet,
in which they said, “ Blessed above women shall Jael the wife of
Heber the Kenite be.”J Blessed forsooth 1 Surely a woman who
inveigles a hunted man into her tent, pretends old friendship
for him, lulls him into a false security, and murders him in his
sleep, is a fit mate for the Devil; nay, a fit spouse for Jehovah
* Judges iv., 4, 5.
f Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. ii., pp. 215—228.
J Judges v., 24.
�84
BIBLE HEROES.
himself, who might have bred from her many a “ man after his
own heart.”
Coleridge has expended some fine eloquence on Deborah,
calling her “ a high-souled, heroic woman,” and the “ Hebrew
Bonduca.”* But her pious rejoicings over the treachery of Jael,
and the cold-blooded assassination of a fugitive general after the
extermination of his army, reveal a dark and ferocious temper.
Israel had rest another forty years, but they went wrong
again, and the Lord “ delivered them into the hand of Midian.”
But these Midianites had been utterly destroyed by Moses; their
cities were burnt, their males and married women were slain,
and the young virgins reserved for a darker fate.f Yet here
they are again, stronger than ever, and able to oppress the Jews
for seven years!
Gideon was “ raised up ” to deliver the Jews from this
thraldom. Visited by an angel, who wrought miracles for a
sign of his divine mission, Gideon demolished his father’s altar
dedicated to Baal, and prepared for war with Midian. But
before commencing the campaign he demanded a supreme sign
of God’s favor. Laying a fleece of wool on the ground at night,
he found it in the morning wet with dew while the ground was
dry. The following morning the ground was wet and the fleece
dry. What a pity that fleece was not preserved, like the blood
of St. Januarius in the bottle at Naples; and as the congealed
blood liquefies annually under the hand of a priest, so the fleece
might still exhibit its miraculous character. Unfortunately, it is
lost. The priests fleece their pious sheep, but they never show
them anything so wonderful as Gideon’s fleece.
Gideon’s army numbered thirty-two thousand, but the Lord
reduced it to ten thousand, and finally to three hundred, by “ a
singular process, of which it is difficult to discover the
meaning.” J Brought down to the river to drink, some of the
army lapped the water like dogs, and they were selected.
Gideon and his doggish three hundred advanced by night
against the Midianites, who were multitudinous like grass
hoppers, and their camels as the seashore sand. Each Hebrew
soldier carried a lamp in a pitcher. Nearing the enemy, they
broke the pitchers and flourished the lamps in their left hands,
while in their right hands they blew their trumpets. The
Midianites were scared and thrown into great disorder. They
fought each other by mistake and then fled, the Jews _ pursuing
them with hideous slaughter, and bringing back to Gideon the
heads of two princes as trophies of victory. Jehovah’s prize
fighters were on a level with the Zulus. Imagine the French
beating the Germans, and bringing the heads of Bismarck and
Moltke to Paris ! Even the French “infidels” would scarcely do
* Confessions of an Enquiring Spirit, Letter iii.
J Milman, p. 110.
f Numbers xxxi.
�JEPHTHAH AND CO.
s>
*
that but God’s favorites thought it a glorious part of war, and
he never taught them better.
Having killed 120,000 Midianites, Gideon captured two cities,
and punished Succoth for refusing him assistance by whipping
its elders with thorns and briars. Being invited to rule the
*
dews, he declined, but at length consented on condition of re
ceiving all the golden earrings taken from the 'slaughtered
Midianites, and other precious spoil. With a portion of this
treasure he “ made an ephod,” and put it in his own city,
Ophrah; where “ all Israel went a whoring after it,” a circum
stance which is difficult to understand, as an ephod was not an
idol, but a costly, ornamental part of the priestly raiment.
Israel had rest for another forty years. Why forty ? Because
that was a sacred number, and we are not reading history but
romance. Gideon lived to a good old age and left a numerous
family. Like all God’s favorites he was a thorough-going poly
gamist. He had l£ many wives ” and at least one “ concubine.”
They bore him seventy-one sons, and perhaps as many daughters.
Gideon was succeeded by Abimelech, who put his seventy
brothers to death; and he was followed by Tola, who ruled for
twenty-three years, and added thirty male children, and God
knows how many female children, to the population. When
Tola died the Jews indulged in a perfect carnival of idolatry.
They worshipped the gods of all their neighbors with the utmost
impartiality; which so provoked the Lord that he let the Phili
stines and the Ammonites oppress them until they repented,
when he raised them up a deliverer in Jephthah the Gileadite.
This worthy was the son of a harlot, and being driven from his
father’s house by the legitimate children he had taken to the
life of a freebooter. But he was elected chief by the elders of
Gilead when they resolved on war with Ammon. Before going
out to battle, “ the spirit of the Lord ” being upon him, he
vowed that if he returned victorious he would offer whomsoever
came out of his own house to meet him as a burnt offering. The
Ammonites were smitten with immense slaughter, and Jephthah
returned to Mizpeh, where his daugher, who was ignorant of
his vow, came out to meet him with dance and song. The pious
father was very sorry, for “ she was his only child,” but he kept
his promise to God, and after allowing the unfortunate girl two
months to bewail her virginity, he “ did with hei- according to
his vow.”f
Ordinary Christians shrink from the literal horror of this
story, and welcome every attempt of modern commentators
to explain it by the subterfuges of a later faith. But
a slight acquaintance with ancient creeds would diminish
their surprise. Human sacrifice is almost invariably found in
certain Stages of religious culture. No matter where we turn
* Judges viii, 16.
t Judges xi., 30-40.
�86
BIBLE HEROES.
—to Phoenicia, Carthage, Assyria, Arabia, Gaul, Rome, Greece,
India, Mexico, or Peru—this dark and bloody rite has prevailed;
*
and it has been found in recent times among various African
tribes, in the South Pacific islands, and among the Mongols and
the American Indians, f All the great Semitic gods, from Moloch
downwards, were ravenous for human victims, and there is
nothing overstrained in the terrific thirteenth chapter of Flau
bert’s Salam/mbd. Nor was the God of Israel an exception to the
rule. “ There is, indeed,” says Professor Soury, “ no doubt that
human victims were offered to Jahveh” in primitive times.J
Like Moloch, Jahveh claims his first-born. “ The first born of
thy sons shalt thou give unto me,” he says, “ foi’ all the first born
are mine.”§ And Jephthah’s fulfilment of his vow was in accord
with the text in Leviticus (xxvii., 28-29), which declares that
both beast and man devoted to the Lord shall not be redeemed,
but “ shall surely be put to death.”
Not until the twelfth century of our era, when Rabbi Kimchi
wrote on the subject, was there any attempt to dispute the
sacrifice of Jephthah’s daughter. Josephus distinctly says “ he
sacrificed his daughter as a burnt offering.” || St. Ambrose
deplores Jephthah’s cruelty; St. Jerome says that God permitted
the sacrifice to punish the imprudent father for such a rash vow;
St. Chrysostom expresses a similar opinion, which was also
adopted by Justin Martyr and Theodoret; and the great St.
Thomas, while censuring Jephthah’s rashness, acknowledges
that the faith and devotion which inclined him to make this vow
proceeded from God.TT
Rabbi Kimchi proposed to read, “ It shall be consecrated to
the Lord if it be not fit for a burnt offering,” or “ it shall be
offered for a burnt offering, if fit for it.” Simon Patrick
**
followed this line, but confessed that the stream of interpreters
ran in the contrary way. Adam Clarkeff takes the same position,
but he supports it with a priori reasons of no weight against the
text, which, as Lnther says in his marginal note, “ stands there
clear.” Our Authorised Version shows “ a distinct disposition to
tone down the meaning of the original,” says the Rev. Dr. Wright,
who alleges that the Hebrew “ whosoever goeth out from the doors
of my house,expressly refers to a person, and not to an
animal. This agrees with Oalmet, who says “ Observe, he does
not say the first thing, or the first animal, but the first person.”*
§
* H. 0. Trumbull, D.D., The Blood Covenant, pp. 105, 106, 157, 166,
174, 277.
t C. S. Wake, .Evolution of Morality, vol. i., pp. 161, 324, etc.
J Jules Soury, The Religion of Israel, p. 46.
§ Exodus xiii., 2; xxii., 29; Numbers ill., 13.
|| Book V., chap. vii.
Calmet, Jephthah. ** Commentary, 17 Go.
tf Commentary, Judges xi., 31.
British and Foreign Evangelical Review, July 1884, p. 61.
�JEPHTHAH AND 00.
87
This great Catholic commentator adds that “ I will offei’ him up
as burnt offering to the Lord, eum holocaustum offeram Domino,”
is the true meaning of the text, and they pervert it who say
she was redeemed. Exactly the same view is expressed in the
latest English commentary, edited by Canon Cook. The original
Hebrew, we are told, means whosoever, and “ these words prove
©Oaelusively that Jephthah intended his vow to apply to human
being-s not animalsthe same writer adding, still more strongly,
that the words “ preclude any other meaning than that Jephthah
contemplated a human sacrifice.” *
The words “ and she knew no man,” which end the story of
Jephthah’s vow, have induced some apologists to pretend that
his daughter was not burnt, but devoted to perpetual virginity.
The words, however, stand in our Revised Version “ and she had
not known man ” ; that is, says the Speaker’s Commentary, “ in
the mind of the writer her virginity was an aggravation of her
Orue! fate.” Besides, as Milman observes, “ it is certain that
vows of celibacy were totally unknown among the Hebrews,
and belong to a different stage of society. Another objection of
Michaelis is fatal to these views. The daughter could not be
Consecrated to the service of the high priest, for the high priest
and the ark were then at Shiloh, in the territory of Ephraim,
with whom Jephthah was at deadly war.”f Well might Bishop
Warburton exclaim, “ Solutions like these expose sacred scrip
ture to the scorn and derision of unbelievers.
There cannot be a reasonable doubt that Jephthah’s daughter
was sacrificed as a burnt offering to the Lord. But the ques
tion remains, Did the Lord accept the present and sanction the
sacrifice ? First, let it be noted that “ the Spirit of the Lord
came upon Jephthah ” § before he made his fatal vow; nor is
there any sign that the holy spirit deserted him before its com
pletion. .Next, there is absolutely no censure of Jephthah’s
Conduct in any part of the Bible. Lastly, he is mentioned by
Paul |j .as a worker of righteousness through faith. Jephthah’s
vow did not, therefore, displease the Lord, who continued to
speak through prophets and apostles for more than a thousand
years without expressing the slighest disapprobation ; and even
When he distinctly praised Jephthah through the inspired pen
Of St. Paul, [he neglected to mix any censure with his pane
gyric .
Jephthah’s vow was not without a parallel among pagan
nations. Agamemnon, who led the Greeks in the war against
Troy, immolated his daughter Iphigenia to appease the gods,
and. procure favorable winds for the fleet which was detained
*
f
t
|
The Speaker’s Commentary, Judges xi.
History of the Jews, p. 112.
Divine Legation of Moses, vol. ii., p. 698 (Tegg).
Judges xi., 29.
|| Hebrews xi., 32.
�88
BIBLE HEBOES.
at Aulis. According to. the Greek legend, Iphigenia’s inno
*
cence excited the compassion of Diana, on whose altar she was
to be sacrificed; and when the knife was descending into her
devoted bosom the goddess miraculously snatched her away,
and substituted a handsome goat for the maiden. This escape,
however, is probably later than the original story of her immo.
lation. Like the modern theories of the escape of Jephthah’s
daughter, it was the product of an age which had grown
ashamed of the brutalities of primitive faith, and learnt to sub
stitute animals for human victims on the altars of the gods.
Jephthah subsequently, at the head of his victorious
Gileadites, warred with the tribe of Ephraim, of whom, after
the battle, he slew forty-two thousand in cold blood. After
this he judged Israel for six years, during which time his deeds
are not recorded. Being dead and buried, he left a name illus
trious for filicide, massacre, and no virtue except animal courage.
The Book of Judges ends worthily in a tornado of bloodshed
and lust. There was a Levite who became priest to one Micah,
a fellow who robbed his mother, got wealthy, set up gods for
himself, and kept his own parson, who acquired such a reputa
tion that the Danites stole him. This Levite had a concubine
who played him false and decamped. He fetched her back, and
on his way home he stayed a night at Gibeah, which was in
habited by Benjamites. Just as in the case of Lot’s visitors, the
people came to the Levite’s host and demanded his guest. The
old man quietly refused, but offered them instead his own
daughter (a maiden) and the Levite’s concubine, whom they
might abuse as they pleased. In the end, the poor concubine
was thrust out to the lustful crowd, who treated her so brutally
that in the morning she lay dead at the door. Then the Levite
cut her up into twelve pieces, and sent one to each of the twelve
tribes, who inflicted such vengeance on the Benjamites that only
six hundred escaped alive out of twenty-six thousand^ All
the women seem to have perished, and the tribe of Benjamin
was threatened with extinction. But the fugitives soon received
the gift of four hundred virgins spared in a religious massacre
at Jabesh-gilead ; and afterwards they made a Sabine rape upon
the daughters of Shiloh while they were merrymaking.
What a horrid story of unnatural passion, brutal lust, awful
bloodshed, and weltering anarchy! No wonder Josephus, for
the honor of his nation, passes it all over in silence. God’s
chosen people, on their own showing, were an abominable crew;
while their Judges were but savage chieftains, whose only vir
tue was physical bravery, and their highest happiness to possess
a harem and procreate like barn-yard cocks.
* Lempriere’s Classical Dictionary, Iphigenia; Euripides, Iphigenia in
■lulis.
f Judges xix.-xxi.
�PROFESSOR SAMSON.
-------- ♦--------
Milton’s sublime genius has invested the story of Samson with
a fictitious grandeur. Omitting the ludicrous incidents of his
hero’s career, by taking it at the point where it became tragic,
he produced a noble drama in the Greek style. But the real
hero of Samson Agonistes is Milton himself. All those pathetic
lamentations and noble resolves flowed from the depths of his
own sorrow and courage, when in blindness and solitude he
grieved ovei' the dead Commonwealth, which his pen had de
fended and adorned, and reflected on the moral profligacy and
political baseness of the Restoration. No trace of the poem’s
tender beauty or heroic splendor can be found in the old Hebrew
story, which was the occasion but not the source of his inspiration.
Samson’s history is vulgar and absurd. “ As in those of the
Grecian Hercules and the Arabian Antar,” says Milman, “ a kind
of comic vein runs through the early adventures of the stout
hearted warrior, in which love of women, of riddles, and of slay
ing Philistines out of mere wantonness, vie for the mastery.” *
This is mild criticism _ indeed. Samson is nothing but a great
bully, alternately courting, swaggering, fighting and drinking.
He is described as a teetotaller, but sevei’al texts show that he
shared Jack PalstafPs partiality to good liquor, though he never
displayed a scintillation of his wit. His one virtue, if it may
be called so, was his miraculous strength, in which he excelled
Hercules himself. Were he alive in this age of exhibitions, he
would realise a colossal fortune by his public performances.
Professor Samson would be “ all the rage,” and his gymnastic
exploits the talk of the town.
°
Myth and tradition seem to have been clumsily blended in
Samson’s history. We have seen that Shamgar slew six hun
dred Philistines with an ox goad; and Dr. Oort surmises that
the achievements of this hero were woven into a solar myth.f
As to the solar myth there can be no doubt. The reader will
meet with abundant evidence as we proceed. Meanwhile let
two facts be noted. Samson’s name is never mentioned in the
whole of the Jewish Scriptures except in the four chapters
devoted to his career. It is also remarkable that while the
* History of the Jews, p. 113.
t Bible jor Young People, bk. ii., chap. xx.
�90
BIBLE HEBOES.
other Judges fight at the head of armies, Samson fights alone
like Hercules, opposing his enemies single-handed, and slaying
thousands without arms.
Samson is introduced to us in the thirteenth of Judges. His
father’s name was Manoah, but his mother’s is not revealed,
from that perverse contempt of women for which the Bible is
conspicuous. Like other Bible women who gave birth to
wonderful children, she was unfortunately barren. But Manoah
was not the only person of the male persuasion. She was visited
one day by an angel, who promised her a son. Naturally he
called when Mr. Manoah was out; and, according to Josephus,
his appearance was that of a beautiful, tall young man. His
*
intervention was very effectual, and in due course she produced
a sturdy baby, who became the champion athlete of the world.
Mrs. Manoah told her husband, and Josephus relates that her
encomiums on the visitor’s beauty raised a storm of jealousy in
the good man’s breast. But this passion was allayed by the
angel’s return. They invited him to dine with them, but he
refused, and even declined to tell them his name. Mr. Manoah
sacrificed a kid to the Lord, and the angel “ did wonderously,”
though the details of his performance are omitted. Finally,
when the flame rose from the altar he ascended with it, and
vanished from their sight. This convinced them it was an
angel, and they fell on their faces, exclaiming, “We shall surely
die, because we have seen God.” f
Now, who was this visitor ? From the Hebrew it appears
that Mrs. Manoah addressed him as “ thou God of visibility,”
and the “ angel of the Lord ” is said to be equivalent to “ the
Messiah.” According to the Rev. W. A. Scott,J it was “ the
Great Judge.” Gill § says it was “no less than the Son of
God,” and Adam Clarke || says it was “ no other than the Second
Person of the ever-blessed Trinity.” If these learned commen
tators are right, this was the first appearance of Jesus Christ on
earth, or his first appearance without the other two partners of
the firm. Yet the visitor may have been the First Person of
the ever-blessed Trinity, old Jahveh himself, in the guise of a
“ masher ” ; for he who appeared to Moses in a burning bush,
showed him on another occasion his holy posteriors, and
habitually conversed with him face to face, might very well call
on the Manoahs, who belonged to the same chosen stock.
Mrs. Manoah was ordered by this visitor—whether an angel,
Jesus Christ, God Almighty, or even the Holy Ghost—not to eat
grapes, nor to drink wine or anything “ short,” for the child was
to be a Nazarite from the womb. No razor was to “ come on
his head,” though nothing was said about scissors. And when*
§
* Bk. v., chap. viii.
f Judges xiii., 22.
t The Great Judge; or the Story of Samson (San Francisco. 1858 )
§ Bible Exposition, p. 57.
[] Commentary, Ju. xiii., 3.
�PROFESSOR SAMSON.
91
the child grew up he was to redeem Israel from the Philistines,
by whom they were then oppressed.
One part of this prediction is very suggestive. How could
the boy be a Nazarite, when that sect certainly did not
exist until many centuries after the date of the Judges ? The
Nazarites were teetotallers apd strict ascetics, which Samson
was not. Why, then, is he called a Nazarite? Because he had
long flowing hair, like all the members of that sect, who
eschewed the razor and all its works as affronting the decrees
of God, and gave unlimited hospitality to as many of his crea
tures as chose to nestle in their hirsute adornments. But
Samson’s luxuriant curls have really a different reason. They
amounted to seven, which was a sacred number with the Jews.
*
They were his glory, like the shining locks of Apollo; and his
strength lay in them, as is the case with all the solar gods; for
that abundant hair represents the sun’s rays, which are resplen
dent in summer, shorn in the winter, and renewed in the spring.
It is possible, however, as Gerald Massey argues, that the num
ber seven in this, case is derived from the lunar myth; seven
being the indivisible quarter of one moon.f
The very name of this miraculous child betrays his mytholo
gical character. Samson, or Shimson, means sun-like, according
to Gesenius;^ their sun, according to St. Jerome; little sun,
according to Adam Clarke ;§ and his sun, according to Calmet.||
Dag, or fish, gave Dagon, or fish-god; and from Shemesh, the
sun, was derived Shemesh-sun, or sun-god. We find the first
syllable retained in many biblical names, such as Shem, Shemuel
(Samuel), Shemida. Shemiramoth, and Shemezar. The Phoeni
cian sun-god, Baal, who. was notoriously worshipped by the
recreant Jews, leaves similar traces in the names of the sons of
Saul and David—Eshbaal, Meribaal, and Baalyadah, as preserved
in Chronicles, but changed by the Kabbi compilers of Samuel
into Ishbosheth, Mephibosheth, and Elyadah. There were also
two places in Palestine, one in Dan and the other in Naphthali,
called Beth.-shemesh, or Ir-shemesh; that is, “ house of the
sun ” or “ city of the sun.”
Dr. Oort well remarks of Samson’s adventures that “ a solar
myth doubtless lies at the bottom of them, as we may see by the
very name of the hero, which signifies sun-god. In some of the
features of the story, the original meaning may still be traced
quite clearly.’W The same view is admirably developed and
supported by Professor Steinthal, in his appendix to Goldziher’s
Valuable Mythology of the Hebrews
**
Gerald Massey, however,
contends with some reason, that the legend of Sam son is not
f Gerald Massey, Luniolatry, pp., 11, 12.
I Hebrew Lexicon.
§ Commentary, Ju. xiii, 24.
|| B. Diet., Samson.
IT Vol. II., p. 226.
** English Translation (Longmans, 1877).
* Judges xvi., 19.
. aA-'
A. r
�92
BIBLE HEROES.
entirely solar, but is “ the Hebrew version,of the Egyptian myth
of Khunsu, the luni-solar hero, who slays the giants—or Phili
stines—and overcomes the powers ofMpJfcpess.”* Samson’s
thirty companions, and their thirty changes of raiment, are
“the thirty days to the month in th^e ''soli4unar reckoning.”
These sun-gods—with or without njbcfc myths—are found
among all peoples who have advanced beyond fetishism. The
mighty orb was an object of wonder and praise, and was personi
fied and worshipped. Light, heat, and life sprang from the be
nignant god of day, and all their fluctuations were reflected in
his career. Sunrise and sunset, the war of light and cloud, the
fecund power of spring, the consuming heat of summer, and the
blighting approach of winter, were all symbolised in his birth,
battles, triumphs, defeat, death, and resurrection.
How Samson’s youth was spent we are not told. The Bible
says he “grew,” but most children do that. We are also
informed that “ the Lord blessed him,” but not what the blessing
was worth. We picture him as a boisterous lad, fond of exer
cising his raw strength; pulling cats’ tails, robbing orchards,
fighting his playmates, and “ cheeking ” his elders. While still
young he entered the camp of Dan, and there “ the spirit of the
Lord began to move him at times.” One movement of the spirit
sent him after a Philistine young woman at Timnath. Returning
home in hot haste, he told his parents to go down and secure her
for his wife. They desired him to choose a wife from his own
tribe, but he cut them short. “ She just suits me,” said he, “ so
fetch her at once.” This was rather undutiful, but “ it was of
the Lord.” So the old people gave in and set out for Timnath,
with the young fellow on their track.
As Samson approached Timnath, “ a young lion roared against
him ” most uncivilly, and our hero made a first display of his
prowess by slaying the offensive brute with “ nothing in his
hand,” just as Hercules slew the Nemean lion without a weapon.
Samson kept his exploit secret and went on to his young woman.
Shortly after, on passing the spot again, he found a swarm of
bees in the lion’s carcase; and taking a couple of handfuls, he
ate some himself, and gave the rest to Mr. and Mrs. Manoah.
This worthy couple had made arrangements for the wedding,
and thirty young men came to share the festivities. By way of
killing the time, Samson propounded a riddle. If they solved
it in seven days, he was to give them thirty sheets and thirty
changes of raiment; if not, they were to give him the same
articles. The riddle was, “ Out of the eater came forth meat,
and out of the strong came forth sweetness.” After trying six
days to solve it, but in vain, they threatened to murder Mrs.
Samson and all her family unless she wormed the answer out of
her husband. She coaxed him, wept like a thunder-shower, and
Luniolatry, p. 10.
�PROFESSOR SAMSON.
93
“ lay sop® Upon him,” until he told her the answer, which she
conveyed to his friends, who won the bet. Samson delicately
taunted them with having “ ploughed with his heifer,” and then
absconded, leaving his wife for his bosom friend; and “ the Spirit
Of the Lord,” coming upon him again, he went to Ashkelon and
slew thirty men. Josephus says “ he divorced this wife; and
the girl despised his anger, and was married to his companion.”*
Samson’s riddle remains a riddle still, except to the mythologistg. Bees do not build in dead flesh, for their wax and honey
would be spoiled by putrefaction. Virgil, indeed, describes them
as breeding in the carcase of an ox ;f but he places the event in
Egypt, the motherland of superstition. The whole story is
mythological. Hercules slew his lion ; and the sun-god Sandon,
of the Assyrians and Lydians, was likewise a lion killer. The
lion is also found as the animal of Apollo on the Lycian monu
ments as well as at Patara. “ Hence it becomes clear,” says
Steinthal, “ that the lion was accepted by the Semitic nations as
a symbol of the summer heat. . . . ‘ Samson, Hercules, or San
don, kills the lion,’ means therefore, ‘He is the beneficent saving
power that protects the earth against the burning heat of
Summer.’ Samson is the kind Aristeeos who delivers the island
of Keos from the lion, the protector of bees and honey, which
is most abundant when the sun is in the lion.”J This is mostly
true, but it is pointed out by Gerald Massey that, on this theory,
Samson “ in killing the lion would be only slaying the reflection
of himself.” Regarded, however, as a luni-solar-god, Samson is
relieved from this suicide. Mithraic monuments depict the lion
with a bee in its mouth. Sekhet, the she-lion, was an Egyptian
figure of fire; her name was also the name for the bee, which
was the royal symbol of Lower Egypt; and the bee denotes the
sweetness in the lion. When her heat, at the time of the annual
inundation, became often fatal, the luni-solar hero, as Khunsu,
Hercules, or Samson, was the conqueror in the cool of the night.
Further, the full moon rose when the sun was in the sign of the
lion, and “ As the moon was the bringer of the waters, and the
breath of life in the coolness and the dews of night, the lunar
hero was not only credited with drawing the sting of Sekhet;
but with extracting honey from the dead lion.Ӥ
Having satiated his anger, Samson remembered the young
woman at Timnath, and at harvest time he paid her a visit.
Like the rude lover in Voltaire’s L'Ingenu, he walked towards
her bedroom, hut her father barred his way. “ No, no,” said
th® old man, “ that game won’t do now, Samson; the girl’s
another man’s wife, so hands off; but here’s her sister, a fine
handsome girl, and you can have her if you like.” Samson de* Book V., chap. ix.
J Goldziher, p. 396.
f Georgies, iv.
§ Massey, p. 11.
�94
BIBLE HEI.OES.
dined the offer, and bolted in a passion. Catching three hun
dred foxes, he tied them in pairs by their tails, stuck firebrands
between their tender buttocks, and sent them into the standing
corn of the Philistines. Terrible destruction ensued, and the
e iraged Philistines burnt the young woman of Timnath and her
father to death.
This was a clumsy stratagem, and rough on the foxes, to say
nothing of the Philistines. Samson might have kindled a con
flagration more easily had the Lord provided him with a few
gallons of paraffin oil, a patent sprinkler, and a box of fusees.
The word rendered “ foxes ” is also rendered “jackals.”* Dr.
Oort considers that “ in the reddish-brown jackals, with torches
between their tails, .we may easily recognise the lurid thunder
cloud, from the projecting points of which the lightning-flashes
seem to dart.”"f' Gerald Massey says the jackal was an Egyptian
type of darkness ; and Samson’s chastisement of the Philistines
is similar to the struggle between Horus and the jackal-headed
Sut-Anap.J Prom a natural point of view, Samson’s feat is in
credibly absurd. He might have burnt down the Philistines’
corn in less time than it takes to catch one fox or jackal; yet, on
the other hand, had he acted sensibly he would not have been
Samson.
After smiting the Philistines hip and thigh, Samson retreated
to the rocky fastness of Etam, though it is strange that such an
irresistible warrior should hide himself from his enemies. His
own people sided with the Philistines, and he grimly allowed
them to bind him with new ropes and deliver him to the foe.
But as they shouted he broke his bonds like tinder, and attacked
them with the jawbone of a jackass (probably Balaam’s) that
happened to be lying about. When he stopped slashing a
thousand corpses were piled in heaps. Surely the Philistines
were jackasses _ too. They must have stood and waited their
turns. Why did they not skedaddle, and leave him to cut slices
in the air ?
According to Herodotus,§ Hercules had a similar adventure
in Egypt, where the inhabitants tried to offer him as a sacrifice
to Jupiter. Fora while he submitted quietly, but when they
led him to the altar he put forth his strength and slew them all.
. Samson was dreadfully thirsty after completing his tally of
victims, and being ready to die, he called on the Lord, who
clave a hollow in the jawbone and brought forth water. One
commentator suggests that the socket of a tooth became a well.
What a monstrous ass! The Revised Version puts the jawbone
in the margin, and says “ God clave the hollow place that is in
Lehi.” Calmet and others argue that the jawbone was the name*
§
* Revised Version, margin.
f Vol. II., p. 233.
§ Book II., chap. xlv.
J P. 13.
�PROFESSOR SAMSON.
95
of a hill or pass, and Maktesh, or jaw-tooth, the name of a sharp
rock. But in any case there was a miracle, and why stickle for
niceties in the presence of Omnipotence ?
Hercules was favored with a similar miracle. After slaying
the dragon of the Hesperides, he was in danger of perishing
from thirst in the scorching deserts of Libya, but the gods
caused a fountain to spring from a rock which he struck with
his foot. Dr. Oort considers both the jawbone and the spring
as mythical, the former being the jagged thunder-cloud, from
which the lightning shoots, while the latter is the rain that
pours out of it as the sun-god triumphs.
*
This tremendous massacre of Philistines appears to have
gained Samson the Judgeship, which he held for twenty years;
but the dignity of this position did not restrain his fondness for
escapades. Going to Gaza once for a spree, he stayed at a
brothel with “ an harlot,”f and the Gazites laid in wait for him,
intending to kill him in the morning. But at midnight Samson
went out for a stretch, probably bilking his fancy woman; and
lugging off the city-gates on his shoulder, he carried them to the
top of a hill, and perhaps took salvage for bringing them down
again.
His next amour, for like Hercules he had many, was with
Delilah. She dwelt in Nachal Sorek. or the Vine Valley. This
may be a mythical trait, representing the sun-god’s zealous
wooing of the vine ; or it may imply that Samson was anything
but a Nazarite. Delilah’s name, according to Ewald,| means
Auiiress; but the generally accepted meaning is languid, delicate,
triste. Gerald Massey compares her with the Egyptian Ishtar,
the female moon, who as the year wanes is accused of robbing
the sun-god, Izdubar, of his virility.§
°
As Omphale befooled Hercules, so Delilah befooled Samson.
Milton treats her as his wife; but she was evidently a profes
sional beauty; indeed, Calmet plainly calls her “ a prostitute.”
Hex- countrymen, the Philistines, offered her a heavy bribe to
reveal the secret of Samson’s strength. Thrice he tricked her,
but the fourth time she succeeded. Finding that his strength
lay in his hair (as the sun’s power is in his beams), she 'made
him “ sleep upon her knees,” and called in a barber, who shaved
his head as bald as a plate. The traitress then delivered him
to the Philistines, who bound him with brass fetters, put out his
eyes, and made him grind corn in their prison house.j|
But Samson’s turn was coming. His death was to be more
marvellous than his life. He was destined to make positively
* Vol. II., p. 233.
f Ju. xvi , 1.
J History of Israel, vol. ii., p. 407.
§ P. 13.
|| Calmet says that “ some commentators ” find an “ obscene sense ” in
Samson’s occupation there; but we may be excused from fathoming the
Bible cloaca too deeply.
�96
BIBLE HEROES.
his last appearance in the fifth act of the play, to eclipse all his
previous efforts, and literally bring down the house.
The Philistine lords fixed a public holiday to celebrate Sam
son’s capture, and to honor their god Dagon for delivering him
into their hands. When their hearts were merry they called for
Samson to make them sport like a circus-clown. They should
have been more careful, for his hair had begun to grow again,
and his pate “ showed like a stubble land at harvest home.”
Why did they not give him a clean shave every morning ?
Samson leaned against the two middle pillars supporting the
temple-roof, on which three thousand men and women were
assembled, in addition to those inside the edifice. Suddenly he
clasped the pillars, prayed for divine assistance, bowed himself
with all his might, and brought down the whole structure in
shapeless ruin. Thus Professor Samson avenged himself, and
perished under a mountain of his enemies.
St. Augustine, St. Bernard, and others, have discussed whether
Samson was justified in killing himself; but they exculpate him
on the ground that he was moved by the Holy Ghost. Mytho
logically, .his suicide is easily understood. “ The sun-god,” says
Steinthal,” “ in fighting against the summer heat is fighting
against himself; if he kills it, he kills himself.”* Hercules also
destroyed himself, but arose out of the flames to Olympus. The
Phoenicians, Assyrians and Lydians also attributed suicide to
their sun-gods; yet these did not actually die, but renewed
themselves like the phoenix.
According to Josephus, Samson was too easily seduced by
wicked women, though “ in all other respects he was of extra
ordinary virtue.”! Very extraordinary ! Show us a single wise
word or good deed he ever said or performed ? Compared
with the heroic age of Greece, that of the Jews was barren and
brutal. Adam Clarke is obliged to admit that “ if we regard
what is called the choice of Hercules, his preference of virtue
to pleasure, we shall find that the heathen is, morally speaking,
vastly superior.”^ Yet St. Paul classes Samson with the heroes
of faith,§ and Adam Clarke says he is “ supposed to be a most
illustrious type ” of Jesus Christ. Surely this is a libel on the
Prophet ofNazareth, who bore little resemblance to the mythical
Jew, who drank, spreed, raked, fought, and murdereu wholesale.
Our hero is rather an “ illustrious type ” of God the Father,
between whom and himself there was a striking likeness. Old
Jahveh is the head of the house, but Professor Samson is a
cadet of the family and shares the blood.
* Goldziher, p. 397.
I Commentary, Ju. xvi.
f Bk. V., chap. viii.
§ Hebrews xi., 32.
�
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 & 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
Bible heroes
Description
An account of the resource
Edition: First series
Place of publication: London
Collation: 200 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references. Incomplete copy - lacks p.97-200. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Foote, G. W. (George William) [1850-1915]
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Progressive Publishing Company
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1887
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RA423
N226
Subject
The topic of the resource
Bible
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 (Bible heroes), 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
NSS
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/aa57c0ab97a7743ca652be664a9562cf.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=l9r-yW4rO8C0oHOTWlD1jCiQ2amd1uO0iIOhb1N%7EM3C1uFvdTSQMsKT1EHdh9l4%7EpUe0-80CXrOTuPWh9bhSney-XAwO6sVoxXdgCoV8AWlC4jZ9aXOmbV%7EFc5wyxj1Fe7u0Qz9BK5QRWTfRqRFFGnbinKPzWejyZ5fnDZFzn6Bf0KrQerCdviqmkoWy3DDIv4%7EGJwEHS7QDcyo2c36DnY0HOF6csZVH26e9Yq6KM6js1BqYDJd3CWQgc6OB1vnUex0gb0X%7Eb3-L%7ECXYnwedoY5MBei3wold235U3AmzZ07K5cXHoMRfpfjH64dPYuEX1F0fJmWf565u6YB0ob9vlw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
1e04dc1d64616de6e4c7290b5e18e75b
PDF Text
Text
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
DR.
TORREY
AND
THE
BIBLE
FOR FREE DISTRIBUTION
THE PIONEER PRESS
2 Newcastle Street, London, E.C
1905
i.jirt'iW'AN L.x • u
•D:i
�DR. TORREY AND THE BIBLE
-------------♦——■
INTRODUCTION
Dr. Torrey has been conducting Missions in the principal
cities of Great Britain and Ireland. He is now conducting
the great Albert Hall Mission in the metropolis. He hopes
to “ save ” London: and he believes that if he saves
London he will save the world—which is probably true.
The regular Christian preachers take a back seat now
that Dr. Torrey is in London. According to the secretary
of the Albert Hall Mission, it is intended that the people of
this metropolis shall have a chance of hearing the Gospel
fairly and squarely laid before them.
Now this is very
interesting. London swarms with churches and chapels, to
say nothing of mission rooms and Sunday schools; it has
thousands of professional teachers of Christianity—Catholic
priests, Church clergymen, Nonconformist ministers, and
Salvation Army officers; these are all engaged week by
week, and year after year, in preaching the Gospel to the
inhabitants of this mighty city; yet it has been thought
necessary to bring a hustling American revivalist to London,
at a cost of £17,000, in order to give its citizens a chance
■of having this very Gospel presented to them. Can you
imagine anything more wonderful ?
We are told that most of the Christian Churches of
London—with the exception, of course, of the Roman
Catholic Church—are promoting the Albert Hall Mission or
have given it their blessing. It seems, therefore, to be a
co-operative - enterprise ; and, on this understanding, one is
entitled to ask whether the leading men in those Churches
endorse Dr. Torrey’s teachings, especially in relation to the
Bible.
You will see that this is a most important point. What
the American revivalist may think about theatres, dancing,
�-I
( 3 )
and such things, is insignificant in comparison. The Bible
is the Holy Scripture of the Christian religion. A Christian
cannot exist or be conceived without it. The Bible is his
Word of God. This is what all Christians say; and if
they say no more you might fancy, they were all agreed.
But they do say more. They differ as to /zoa’ the Bible is the
Word of God. Dr. Torrey says one thing on this point, and
men like General Booth and Father Ignatius agree with him.
But the leading men in most of the Churches do not agree
with him. Many things in the Bible which he regards as
absolutely true they regard as legends and fictions; and some
of the things which he defends as the highest morality
they abandon as plain savagery.
Now if people call the Bible the Word of God, and yet
read its contents so differently, is it not absurd to say that
they agree simply because they use the same shibboleth ?
What we ask the reader to do is to follow us in a brief
examination of Dr. Torrey’s views on the Bible, and a com
parison of them with the views of men of light and leading
in the Christian Churches. And before we finish we think
they will see that he is fifty years behind the time in the matter
of Biblical criticism—just as he is more than fifty years
behind in the matter of modesty, charity, and philosophy.
THE STORY OF GENESIS
Dr. lorrey is the author of a little work on Hard Problems
of Script are, a.nd its opening section deals with “The First
Chapter of Genesis.”’ It starts as follows :—
“One of the favorite points of attack upon the Bible
by infidels is its opening chapter. It is said that the
teachings of this chapter are proven to be absurd by
the assured conclusions of modern science.”
This is denied by Dr. Torrey, who tries to refute it. But
before we deal with his attempted refutation let us see how
other Christians look upon the story of Genesis.
It is safe to say that there is not a single scholar in any
Christian Church who regards the Bible story of creation as
possessing any scientific value. Consequently these scholars
must be included amongst the “infidels” at whom Dr. Torrey
is so fond of railing. Not only Churchipen like Canon
�( 4 )
Driver, Bishop Gore. Professor Sanday, and the late Dean.
Farrar, but Nonconformists like the Rev. Dr. Horton, the
Rev. R. J. Campbell, the Rev. Dr. John Clifford, and the Rev.
Dr. Guinness Rogers, would laugh at Dr. Torrey’s denuncia
tion of the “infidels” who have no respect for the “science”
of the first chapter of Genesis. They are such “ infidels ”
themselves. And the fact ought to be told to the people
who flock to Dr. Torrey’s Mission.
Bishop Gore, of Birmingham, calls the story of the
Creation and the Fall of Man a “ myth or allegorical
picture” (Lux Mundi, p. 357). Dean Farrar makes a
sweeping admission which covers this point and a great deal
more.
“ The knowledge of the writers of Scripture on the
subject of exact science was simply the human and
individual knowledge of those writers, and that was the
knowledge, or rather the ignorance, of the most un
scientific of all nations in the most unscientific of all
ages. To the Hebrews by whom the greater part of the
Bible was written science was unknown ; their immemo
rial habits of thought were wholly alien from the
scientific spirit ” [The Bible : its Meaning and Supremacy,
pp. 146. 147).
Dean Farrar treated the Genesaic story of the origin of
things as an “ allegory ” or a “ philosopheme.” This is the
view now taken by all well-informed persons, although the
story may have been regarded as literally true by the ancient
Jews, as it was until quite recently by the modern Chris
tians. Even the great Sir Oliver Lodge, the Principal of
the new Birmingham University, in his recent reply
to Professor Haeckel, refers as a matter of course to
“the old Genesis legend” and “legends of apples and
serpents and the like” [Hibbert Journal, January 1905,
p. 329).
This is the attitude of all decently educated people nowa
days. But it is not the attitude of Dr. Torrey. He defends
the scientific character of the first chapter of Genesis. Let
us see how he does it.
' His first answer to the “ infidels ” is that the Bible use of
the word day is not limited to periods of twenty-four hours ”
but is “ frequently used for a period of time of undefined
�( 5 )
length.” To prove this he refers to four texts in which the
expression “ that day ” is used as meaning “ that age ” or
“ those times.” But what trifling this is ! There was no
need to refer to texts at all. Everyone knows that when a
man says “ in my day ” he does not mean “ in my twentyfour hours.” Words have often a primary meaning and a
secondary meaning; a literal meaning and a metaphorical
meaning; and which is intended in any particular place
is to be determined by the context. Now the first chapter
of Genesis not only speaks of six days of Creation, but it
keeps saying that “ the evening and the morning were the
first day,” the second day, the third day, and so on to the
end of the narrative. It is this that fixes the meaning of
the word “ day ” in the present instance. But the great Dr.
Torrey did not think it worth mentioning.
Dr. Torrey proceeds to administer another dig in the ribs
to the “ infidels.”
“ It is further urged against the credibility of the
account of Creation given in Gen. i. that ‘ it speaks of
there being light before the sun existed, and it is absurd
to think of light before the sun, the source of light.’
The one who says this displays his ignorance of modern
science. Anyone who is familiar with the nebular hypo
thesis, commonly accepted among scientific men to-day,
knows that there was cosmic light ages before the sun
was a separate body.”
This is mere trifling. What the Bible says is that evening
and morning, which involve day and night, existed on this
earth three days before God made the sun ; while school
boys now know that the earth is a child of the sun, and that
night and day depend upon the earth’s revolution in its orbit
around the centre of the system to which it belongs. The
Bible also says that vegetation, including fruit trees, was
brought into existence before the sun. Are we to suppose,
then, that the apples and oranges were grown in “ cosmic
light ” ? Or is Dr. Torrey—a native of the land of Artemus
Ward and Mark Twain—playing off an elaborate joke upon
the innocent Britishers ?
Will it be believed that, after dwelling on “ the mar
vellous accord of the order of creation given in Genesis with
that worked out by the best scientific investigation,”
�( 6 )
Dr. Torrey gives the show away by declaring his opinion
that Genesis does not relate the history of creation at all ?'
Here are his own words :—
“ There is grave reason to doubt if anything in
Genesis i. after verse i relates to the original creation
- of the universe. It seems rather to refer to the refitting
of a world that had been created and afterwards
plunged into chaos by the sin of some pre-Adamic race
to the abode of the present race that inhabits it—the
Adamic race.”
Thus the great American revivalist saws off the bough of
the tree on which he has been sitting. At the same time he
displays his wonderful knowledge of up-to-date science.
His friends, should really ask him to state in what standard
work on biology or anthropology they may find an account of
the “ Adamic race.” It would also be interesting to know
what the “pre-Adamic races” were like. And while Dr.
Torrey is about it he might tell us what men of science
teach that the world was ever “ plunged into chaos.” He
might' even tell us in what scientific book, or what dictionary
of scientific terms, the word “chaos ” is to be found.
CAIN’S WIFE
Dr. Torrey starts the second section of the little work we
are criticising with another dig at the “ infidels.” This is
what he says :—
“ One of the favorite questions with infidels of a
certain class is ‘ Where did Cain get his wife ?’ I have
also met many young Christians who have been greatly
puzzled and perplexed over this question.”
“ Infidels ” do not spend their time over this question. It
is clear that Dr. Torrey knows nothing about them. It is
also clear that the “ young Christians ” he meets with possess
little education and intelligence. Only the ignorant believe
in the actual existence of Cain or Cain’s wife nowadays,
Dr. Torrey puts in a bit of buffoonery about “ a sceptic”1
who came to him to ask where Cain got his wife. With the
keen instinct of his profession, Dr. Torrey asked him “ Isn’t
there something wrong with your life ?” And it soon
transpired that “ the real difficulty was not about Cain’s
wife, but about another man’s wife.” Such is the character.
�( 7 )
and such is the fate, of “ sceptics ” in Dr. Torrey’s farthing
novelettes.
The upshot of Dr. Torrey’s discussion of the Cain s wife
episode is that “ Cain married his own sister.” Precisely
so. That is what the “infidels” have always said. Ihey
have also said that Cain’s marriage with his sister throws
the stain of incest upon the cradle of the human race—
which might have been obviated if Jehovah had created tiro
first pairs of human beings instead of one. But this objec
tion is not noted by Dr. Torrey. He prefers to answer
what nobody says.
According to the Bible story the second generation of
human beings—the offspring of Adam and Eve’s children—
were all first cousins. This leads Dr. Torrey to observe
that “ the intermarriage of cousins is fraught with frightful
consequences,” but “ in the dawn of human history it was
not so.” Well, he knows as much about the dawn of human
history as he knows about present human history. The
“ frightful consequences ” he refers to are imaginary as he
would know if he were acquainted with the researches of
Francis Darwin and others on this subject.
HUMAN SACRIFICES
This is the heading of the third section of Dr. Torrey’
work. He complains that “ the enemies of the Bible ” have
tried to make capital out of the story of Abraham and Isaac.
But he also admits that “ not a few Christians have been
bewildered and distressed by this story.
It is urged by Dr. Torrey that Abraham was not ordered
to “kill Isaac” but to “offer him.” Could anything be
more ridiculous ? The story is serious enough in the Bible,
but Dr. Torrey reduces it to a pantomime. He admits that
Isaac was bound upon the altar and “ presented to God as
a whole offering,” yet he contends—although he does not say
it in so many words—that Abraham had no idea that his
son was to be actually offered up as a sacrifice. But in that
case the whole proceeding was an utter farce. We are told
that it was atrial of Abraham’s faith ; and what sort of a trial
could it be if there were no apprehension of danger to Isaac ?
Dr. Torrey deals in the same fashion with the story of
�Jephthah. “ We are nowhere told,” he says, ‘‘that Jephthah
did burn his daughter.” Well, the words mean that, or they
mean nothing. Jephthah was going forth to fight the
Ammonites. Before he went “the spirit of the Lord ” came
upon him.
“ And Jephthah vowed a vow unto the Lord, and said,
If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon
into mine hands,
“ Then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the
doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace
from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord’s,
and I will offer it up for a burnt offering” (Judges xi.
30, 31)Jephthah came back victorious, and his daughter came out
to meet him. She was his only child, and he loved her, but
he could not go back upon his word, and he “ did with her
•according to his vow.”
It is difficult to imagine, anything plainer. If the Bible
does not mean that Jephthah sacrificed his daughter as a
burnt offering to the Lord, we may as well put it on the top
shelf as a book of puzzles.
Dr. Torrey says that the Hebrew word translated “burnt
■offering” simply means “offering” and “does not neces
sarily involve the thought of burning.” But is it fair to raise
such a point before a popular audience ? How are they to
be judges as to the proper translation of Hebrew ? The
English Bible says “ burnt offering.” And this is in harmony
with the Mosaic Law ; for, according to Leviticus xxvii. 28, 29,
both lower animals and human beings devoted to the Lord
were not to be redeemed, but “ surely be put to death.”
Canon Cook, in the Speaker's Commentary, says that “ what
soever ” in Jephthah’s vow should be “whosoever,” that
Jephthah intended his vow “to apply to human beings not
animals,” and that the original words “ preclude any other
meaning than that Jephthah contemplated a human sacrifice.”
Dr. Torrey may reply that he prefers his own version
But what right has he to dogmatise in opposition to scholars
of far greater reputation than himself ?
Josephus, the Jewish historian, distinctly says that
Jephthah “ sacrificed his daughter as a burnt offering.” Al
the early Christian fathers—including St. Ambrose, St.
�( 9 )
Jerome, and St. Chrysostom—took the same view. The
great Catholic theologian, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Calmet,
the famous Catholic scholar, follow this opinion. So does the
Protestant historian of the Jews, Dean Milman, who laughs
at the idea that Jephthah’s daughter .spent the rest of her
•days in a kind of convent, and says “ it is certain that vows
of celibacy were totally unknown among the Hebrews.”
Bishop Warburton, the learned author of the Divine Legation
of Moses, poured contempt on the efforts of the Dr. Torreys
of his day, who advanced all sorts of theories in preference
to admitting that Jephthah’s daughter was burnt on the altar
•of Jehovah. “ Solutions like these,” he said, “ expose sacred
scripture to the scorn and derision of unbelievers.”
Jephthah’s vow had its parallels in Pagan history or
legend. One of the best known instances is that of
Agamemnon, who led the Greeks in the war against Troy,
and immolated his daughter Iphigenia to appease the gods,
and procure favorable winds for the fleet which was detained
at Aulis.
What is certain is that the Jews were a Semitic people,
and that all the Semitic gods were ravenous for human
victims. Nor is it reasonable to expect the Jehovah of early
Jewish history to be any better than the other deities of
whom he is said to have been “jealous.” Tolstoy calls him
■a “ terrible and wicked monster,” and the ancient annals of
"the Jews, as preserved in the Old Testament, reek with
bloodshed and cruelty.
SLAUGHTER OF THE CANAANITES
Bloodshed and cruelty were never worse exemplified than
in the Jewish extermination of the original inhabitants of
Palestine. In some parts of the country, by Jehovah’s
•express order, the natives were to be butchered indiscrimi
nately. The Jews were to slay all, man, woman, and child,
and leave alive nothing that breathed. In other parts cruelty
was mixed with lust. Dr. Torrey puts it that “ the adult
males were to be slain, but the women and children to
be spared.” “ Spared ” is a good word, and as Dr. Torrey
refers us to Deuteronomy xx. 10-15, we will see what it means.
“ But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle,
�(
IO
)
and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt
thou take unto thyself.”
The women were part of the “spoil." The Jews were to“ take them unto ” themselves. They were to become the
wives or concubines of the men who had butchered their
fathers, brothers, and husbands. That is how they were
“ spared.”
When the Jews defeated the Midianites they brought “all
the women and children ” with other spoils of the war “untoMoses,” and his orders throw a flood of light on that same
“spared.”
“ Now therefore kill every male among the little ones,,
and kill every woman that hath known man by lying,
with him. But all the women children that have not
known a man by lying with him, keep alive for your
selves ” (Numbers xxxi. 17, 18).
That is how they were “spared.” The male Jews kept
the Midianite virgins for themselves. It may be added that
“ the Lord’s tribute ” (verse 40) was thirty-two virgins..
What the Lord wanted them for is not very intelligible. No
doubt they fell to the share of the priests. Divided
between Aaron and Eleazar they would be sixteen apiece—
and a veil may be drawn over their fate.
Dr. Torrey defends the slaughter of the Canaanites. He
almost rejoices over it. He declares that the command to
exterminate them was “ a command big with mercy and
love.” They were not fit to live. They were utterly and
irredeemably depraved. Their death was a blessing to the
Jews, whom they might have contaminated if they had
lived. It was also a blessing to themselves, for the sooner
they died the sooner they stopped sinning. This is a point
on which Dr. Torrey feels strongly. He says that it is “an
act of mercy” to kill children who are likely to grow upvicious. Were it not for the hope that they may awake
to the saving Gospel of Christ, Dr. Torrey “ could wish
that all the babes born in the slums might be slain in in
fancy.” He would kill them out of sheer tenderness—thiswonderful American reformer!
But let us pause to ask on what authority we are to
believe that the Canaanites were too wicked to be allowed to
live ? The only authority is that of the very men who
�(. II
)
massacred them and took possession of all their property.
It reminds us of a committee of butchers sitting in judgment
on a flock of sheep. It is a travesty of honor and justice.
And a man who defends it in this age of civilisation is
absolutely unfit to be a moral teacher -of his fellow-men.
There are many Christian divines of all Churches who are
now ready to brand as infamous the very things that Di.
Torrey praises as exhibitions of divine benevolence. One
instance will suffice to show what we mean. Dean F arrar
speaks of the “ worse than Armenian atrocities ” which the
Jews inflicted on their enemies. He denounces the “ ghastly *
massacre of women and innocent children.
He lefers to
the “ miserable pleas which have sometimes been urged in
favor of the righteousness of the wars of extermination.”
But what, he asks, can “ excuse the cold-blooded butchery
of captive women and innocent little ones, and the retention
of others to be slaves and concubines ?” And he declares
that it was only “ in their moral ignorance ” that the
Israelites could have imagined that “ by such- deeds they
were pleasing God and obeying his commands” Cl he Bible,
PP-75, 76)Thus it appears that what Dean F arrar regards as atrocious
Dr. Torrey regards as a blessing and a mercy. Well, there
is no accounting for taste—or the want of it.
IMPURE BIBLE STORIES
This is Dr. Torrey’s heading, not ours ; it stands over the
fifth section of his little book.
There are things in the Bible that its best friends
often wish out of it. Dr. Torrey is of a very different
opinion. “ We may well praise God,” he says, “ that he
has put these things in the Bible.” He seems to regard
them as the clearest proofs that it is the Word of God.
He takes the position that “the Bible is in part a book of
moral anatomy and therapeutics,” and that it necessarily
“ describes sins that cannot wisely be dealt with in a mixed
audience.” But he argues that “to speak plainly of sin,
even the vilest of sins, in order to expose its loathsomeness
and in order to picture man as he really is, is not obscenity.
Let it be observed that this is no vindication of a book
�( 12 )
which is placed in the hands.of children. Does it suffice in
the case of adult readers ? Let us see.
Suppose we take the story of Lot and his daughters.
What is there to redeem its filthiness ? Lot’s wife was
killed for looking back at their burning home, but no con
demnation is passed upon the other persons in this delectable
narrative. Neither did Josephus, the Jewish historian, con•demn them ; and his English translator, the Rev. Dr.
Whiston, was “not satisfied” that Lot’s daughters had
-acted wrongly “in a case which appeared to them of un-avoidable necessity.”
Who can discern the slightest moral lesson in this dis-,
.gusting story ? Its real object can be stated in a few words
1 he Moabites and the Ammonites were hereditary enemies
•of the Jews; and the Jewish annalists represented Moab
-and Ammon, the supposed founders of those two nations, as
having been the fruit of incest between a drunken old man
-and his beastly daughters. It was a “ patriotic ” libel on
the hated foreigners.
Dr. Farrar pleads that the “coarseness” of the Bible
must be excused on the ground of its Oriental origin. What
shocks the modern Western mind “gave no such shock to
-ancient and Eastern readers.” This, of course, is a rational
plea, as far as it goes. At least it recognises the difficulty.
Dr. Farrar even admits that “ There are other passages of
Scripture, happily disguised by the euphemism of transla
tions, which, if their exact meaning were understood, could
not be read without a blush ” (The Bible, p. 221).
Dr. Torrey thinks he helps his case by a foul-mouthed
attack on “ infidels.” Part of it is a disgraceful libel on the
late Colonel Ingersoll, which we are dealing with in a com
panion pamphlet to this one, The temper of this American
.apostle of the religion of Christ is displayed in the following
sentence:—
“ The child who is brought up on infidel literature
and conversation is the easiest prey there is to the
seducer and the procuress.”
“ Infidels ”—by which he means Secularists, Freethinkers,
Agnostics, Rationalists, and even Deists—can afford to smile
nt the convulsions of this malignant mountebank.
�( 13 )
Even if “ infidels ” were all wicked, and ten times morewicked than Dr. Torrey represents them, it would not prove
that a black spot in the Bible is white. Dr. Torrey has mis
taken the argument.
CONTRADICTIONS IN THE BIBLE
Most of Dr. Torrey’s sixth section is occupied with a
farcical tale of one of the many “ infidels ” he has put to
shame. This particular “ infidel ” was great on Bible con
tradictions, and Dr. Torrey found him looking for the book
of Psalms in the N ew Testament!
The Higher Critics admit that there are plenty of contra
dictions in the Bible. But they do not stand up for its.
verbal inspiration. Dr. Torrey does, and he will not admit
any contradictions at all. He takes the New Testament
text, “ No man hath seen God at any time,” and the Old.
Testament text to the effect that Moses, Aaron, Nadab, and
Abihu, and seventy elders, went up a mountain and “ saw
the God of Israel.” This “ certainly looks like a fiat con
tradiction,” he says, but he devotes two pages to showing
that it is not so. Those who have a taste for verbal jugglery
may follow him in this argument. We regard it as beneath
contempt.
CHRIST’S THREE DAYS IN THE GRAVE
Dr. Torrey’s seventh section is of no importance. Hiseighth section deals with the difficulty of understanding how
Jesus spent “ three days and three nights in the heart of the.
earth ” between late on Friday afternoon and early on
Sunday morning. Dr. Torrey soon settles this difficulty..
He affirms that Jesus was crucified on Wednesday. This
leaves three clear days—and where’s the trouble then ?
This beautiful theory is based upon the statement in
John xix. 14 that the day on which Jesus was tried and
crucified was “ the preparation of the Passover.” But the
three other Gospels represent Jesus as having already eaten
of the Passover with his disciples before his arrest. Dr.
Torrey describes this as one of the ” false impressions ’’they
conveyed. He says that John wrote later than the other
Evangelists, with ” an evident intention to correct false im-
�( 14 )
pressions that one might get from reading the other
gospels.” Here then is one of those Bible contradictions
which we were told did not exist. John is on one side;
Matthew, Mark, and Luke are on the other; and, when the
great Dr. Torrey jumps into the scale with John, the other
scale—with three against two in it—soon kicks the beam.
This method of solving Bible difficulties is bound to
succeed—if the audience will stand it. And it must be
allowed that Dr. Torrey’s audiences are expected to stand
a good deal.
JONAH AND THE WHALE
Dr. Torrey complains that the story of Jonah is “a
favorite butt of ridicule with unbelievers,” and he proceeds
with a long face to argue that it is true in every detail—
barring the whale. The animal that took Jonah in out of
the Wet is called a whale in the New Testament, but
the Greek word means a “ sea monster.” Any other
person than Dr. Torrey would see that this is a very insig
nificant point. The wonder of Jonah’s three-days sub
marine excursion still remains.
While on the subject of “ sea monsters ” Dr. Torrey
tickles his readers’ bump of wonder. Let us hear him :—
“ It is recorded that a man fell overboard in the
Mediterranean and was swallowed by one of these sea
monsters, the monster killed, and the man rescued
alive. A whole horse was taken out of the belly of
another.’
It is recorded ! Dr. Torrey might have told us where.
Was it in an American journal—in the silly season ?
Whether the “whale” swallowed Jonah, or Jonah swal
lowed the whale, it is evident that Dr. Torrey is prepared to
swallow both. He says that anyone who believes in an
Almighty Being
“ will have no difficulty in believing that he could with
out the least difficulty prepare a fish with a mouth and
a throat big enough to swallow not only Jonah, but the
whole ship too, and with a belly capacious enough to
furnish Jonah with all the space and air needed for
three days and three nights’ lodging, even without occa
sionally coming to the top of the water for ventilation,”
�What a swallow 1 Nearly as large as Dr. Toney s. And
what physiology! Fancy air enough for Jonah to breathe in
safety for seventy-two hours, when an average man would
•exhaust a tank of air eight feet each way in a few minutes!
And what sort of a “ sea monster ” is it that “ ventilates ”
through its “ stomach ” I
Dr. Torrey gravely rebukes “those who would have us
believe that the Jonah story is not historic fact, but allegory*
He says that no one who “ accepts the authority of Jesus
■Christ ” can believe this. In the next section he affirms that
all who reject Jesus Christ will be tormented day and night
for ever. All the Higher Critics, therefore, and all the
Christian clergy, as well as laymen, who believe that the
Jonah story is allegory, and not history, are treading the
primrose path to the everlasting bonfire. Dr. Torrey says
so, and he knows, he knows.
Probably not one Christian clergyman in a thousand
believes that the book of Jonah is a record of actual facts.
All the Higher Critics are agreed on this point. Canon
Driver puts the sceptical case quite strongly in his standard
Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament (p. 303), and
Dean Farrar does the same in his well-known work The Bible
(pp. 233-239). The latter, indeed, asks whether anyone
could ever have been supposed to understand the book of
Jonah literally. He supposes that even the Jews could hardly
have been so foolish.
The fact is that Dr. Torrey is terribly behind the times.
He is not a sign of the growth of orthodoxy, but a sign of its
decay. He is not only behind the “ infidels,” but behind the
leading men iu nearly all the Churches, and behind even the
man in the street. If he were to mix freely with ordinary
people, and talk to them under the rose, he would learn
that they have nothing but laughter for tales of talking
serpents and asses, of women turned into pillars of rock
salt, and men taking submarine trips in living “ sea monsters.”
CONCLUSION
It is thirty years ago since Matthew Arnold told the
Christian world, not the “ infidels,” that “ the reign of the
Bible miracles is doomed.” From this fate there is no escape.
�( 16 )
T he Highet Clitics see it. and are gradually descending to the
ground of Naturalism to avoid a catastrophe. Dr. Torrey
does not see it. Perhaps he is incapable of seeing it. But
the spirit of progress will not await his convenience. Nor
will Dr. 1 orrey succeed in making any impression on the
vast public outside the Churches. He may convert the con
verted, he may infuse a little temporary enthusiasm into the
lukewarm. More than this he has not done, and more than
this he will never do.
When he winds up his old-fashioned little treatise on the
the difficulties of the Bible by consigning all who do not
share his views of it to “everlasting anguish, ’ he simply
makes himself ridiculous. The doctrine of eternal hell is
dead. It is not so much as mentioned in the new Free
Churches Catechism. And a man who cries “ Believe what
I teach, 01 be damned is now looked upon as a curious
relic of old times, or as a person suffering from a bad attack
of swelled-head.
Nothing that Dr. Torrey can say, nothing that any man
can say. will ever restore the Bible to its old position.
Everyone who knows the facts is perfectly aware that the
theory of the verbal inspiration of the Bible is doomed.
While the American revivalist is consigning people to hell
for not believing that theory, it is repudiated by the leaders
of all the principal Christian Churches in England. It is
the “ Higher Criticism ” that is really at the bottom of the
great disruption in Scotland. And when the Church Congress
brings forward a scientist like Sir Oliver Lodge'to adorn its
meetings, he frankly advises them to provide Jesus with two
human parents instead of one. Even the narratives of the
Virgin Birth and the Resurrection are now under debate in
Christian circles. What childishness it is, then, on Dr.
Torrey’s part to try to frighten people into retaining the
more fantastic and less important miracles of the Old
Testament.
Readers of this pamphlet are invited to read “ The Freethinker,'’
edited by the writer of this pamphlet, and published at ’ 2
Newcastle-street, E.C., every Thursday, price twopence.
�
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 & 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
Dr Torrey and the Bible
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Foote, G. W. (George William) [1850-1915]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 16 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Author believed to be G.W. Foote: note at foot of p.16 states that The Freethinker is edited by the writer of this pamphlet. Reuben Archer Torrey was an American evangelist, pastor, educator, and writer.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
The Pioneer Press
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1905
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
N641
Subject
The topic of the resource
Bible
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 (Dr Torrey and the Bible), 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
NSS
R.A. (Reuben Archer) Torrey
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/14a0f7b4f20932b2b4e6584db3d9991a.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=KWwi7fHl62cf%7Ear53My2DmcTVL3jCsZ%7E355cpQzajI07wGZcs0LHH92bu2f0WTtxX0ynNofy05Wdm2dn6HIAdHYuNAhKdtb4Tk8sN96HCIPCrmhlv0iWZPUvyF28b1kbDGHIOj6NYScRHj9ldidJs9jKyfOWJNYCnVVM6ezb-vZ2yNR%7Elp3ueuvMq2WmMgA4qdE3v-SCLDvgJOAgm8ZoGfnAPCgXZUEpcVSrDwWeJb49RbWJWey%7EVGstcxM35nb%7EWQGNpdd%7EqV7xP49koZcqb-OSHmDk7MLnWh1bSsfTe0XOgu4U6iI3BYHMS9nFP1p-%7ETV3uHWPopePCtpSAZC9Kg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
9edfc26c5efedbeae9ec083b9a5cc5f1
PDF Text
Text
BY
G,
W,
FIRST
PRICE
A
FOOTE,
SERIES.
SHILLING.
LONDON:
PROGRESSIVE
PUBLISHING
COMPANY,
28, STONECUTTER STREET, E.C.
��BIBLE ROMANCES—1.
THE CREATION STORY.
By G. W. FOOTE.
The Book of Genesis is generally thought, as Professor Huxley
says, to contain the beginning and the end of sound science.
The mythology of the Jews is held to be a divine revelation of
the early history of man, and of the cosmic changes preparatory
to his creation. The masses of the people in every Christian
country are taught in their childhood, that God created the
universe, including this earth with all its flora and fauna, in five
days ; that he created man, “the bright consummate flower” of
his work, on the sixth day, and rested on the seventh. Yet
every student knows this conception to be utterly false; every
man of science rejects it as absurd ; and even the clergy them
selves mostly disbelieve it. Why, then, do they not disabuse
the popular mind, and preach what they deem true, instead of
what they know to be false ? The answer is very simple. Because
they feel that the doctrine of the Fall is bound up with the
Genesaic account of Creation, and that if the latter be discredited
the former will not long be retained. The doctrine of the Fall
being the foundation of the scheme of Atonement, the clergy
will never admit the Creation Story to be mythical until they
are forced to do so by external pressure. At any rate they
cannot be expected to proclaim its falsity, since by so doing they
would destroy the main prop of their power. What the recog
nised teachers of religion will not do, however, should not be
left undone, especially when it is so needful and important. Men
of science, by teaching positive and indisputable truths, are
gradually but surely revolutionising the world of thought, and
dethroning the priesthoods of mystery and superstition. Yet
their influence on the masses is indirect, and they do not often
trouble themselves to show the contradiction between their dis
coveries and what is preached from the pulpit. Perhaps they are
right. But it is also right that others should appeal to the people
m the name not only of science, but also of scholarship and
common sense, and show them the incredible absurdity of much
that the clergy are handsomely paid to preach as the veritable
and infallible Word of God.
•
Creation Story, with which the Book of Genesis opens, is
incoherent, discrepant, and intrinsically absurd, as we shall
attempt to show. It is also discordant with the plainest truths
of Science. Let us examine it, after casting aside all prejudice
and predilection.
If the universe, including this earth and its principal inhabitant,
�2
'
The Creation Story.
man, was created in six days, it follows that less than six thousand
years ago, chaos reigned throughout nature. This, however, is
clearly untrue. Our earth has revolved round its central sun for
numberless millions of years. Geology proves also that millions
of years have elapsed since organic existence first appeared on the
earth’s surface, and this world became the theatre of life and
death. Darwin speaks of the known history of the world as “of
a length quite incomprehensible by us,” yet even that he affirms
“ will hereafter be recognised as a mere fragment of time ” com
pared with the vast periods which Biology will demand.. The
instructed members of the Church have long recognised these
statements as substantially true, and they have tried to reconcile
them with Scripture by assuming that the word which in the
History of Creation is rendered day really means a period, that is
an elastic space of time which may be expanded or contracted to
suit all requirements. But there are two fatal objections to this
assumption. In the first place, the same’word is rendered day in
the fourth commandment, and if it means period in Genesis, it
means period in Exodus. In that case we are commanded to
work six periods and rest on the seventh, and each period must
cover a geological epoch. How pleasant for those who happen to
be born in the seventh period, how unpleasant for those born in
one of the six! The lives of the one class all work, those of the
other all play ! In the second place, the account of each day’s
creation concludes with the refrain, “ and the evening and the
morning were the first (or other) day.” Now evening and
morning are terms which mark the luminous gradations between
night and day, and these phenomena, like night and day; depend
on the earth’s revolving on its axis, and presenting different por
tions of its surface to the sun. Evening and morning clearly
imply a space of twenty-four hours, and the writer of Genesis,
whoever he was, would probably be surprised at any other inter
pretation of his words. It is sometimes argued, as for instance by
Dr. M’Caul, that these primeval days were of vast and unknown
duration, the evening and the morning not being dependent on
their present causes. But this supposition could only apply to
the first three days, for the sun, moon, and stars were created on
the fourth day, expressly “ to rule over the day, and over the
night, and to divide the light from the darkness.” The fifth and
Bixth days, at least, must be understood as of normal length, and
thus the chronological difficulties remain. All animal life was
brought into existence on the last two days, and therefore the
Bible still allows an antiquity of less than six thousand years for
the world’s fauna. Geology and Biology allow millions of years.
Here then Science and the Bible are in flagrant and irreconcilable
contradiction.
The fact that the writer of Genesis represents light as existing
three days before the creation of the sun, the source of light, has
�The Creation Story.
3
frequently been noticed. One learned commentator supposed
that God had infused a certain “ luminosity ” through the air,
which was not exactly the same as the light of the sun. But light
is not a thing; it is a phenomenon caused by definite laws of
astronomy and optics. Such explanations are but fanciful refuges
of superstition. “ God said let there be light and there was
light,” is not the language of science and history, but the language
of poetry. As such it is sublime. We find a similar expression
in the Vedas of the Hindoos: “He thought, I will create
worlds, and they were there ! ” Both become ridiculous when
presented to us as a scientific statement. The physical astro
nomer knows how worlds are formed, as well as how their move
ments are determined; he knows also the causes of light; and he
knows that none of these processes resembles the accounts given
in the Creation Stories of the Hebrews and the Hindoos.
Science knows nothing of six creative epochs, any more than
of six creative days; and it is quite certain that the order of
Creation given in Genesis differs widely from the revelations of
Geology. For instance (and one instance in such a case is as
good as a thousand), fish and fowl are said to have been created
on the same day. Let us, for the sake of argument, assume that
day means period. The conclusion still is that fish and fowl were
created together. Starting from this conclusion, what should we
expect to find in our geological researches? Why, the fossil
remains of fish and of fowl in the same epochs. But we find
nothing of the kind. Marine animals antedate the carboniferous
period, during which all our coal deposits were laid, but no
remains of fowl are found until a later period. Now the carbo
niferous period alone, according to Sir William Thompson, covers
many millions of years; so that instead of fish and fowl being
contemporaneous, we find them geologically separated by incon
ceivable spaces of time. Here again the Bible and Science fatally
. disagree,
Even if we admit that the fifth day of creation -was a period,
the chronology of the Bible is still fatally at variance with fact.
With respect to the antiquity of the human race, it is precise and
unmistakable. It gives us the age of Adam at his death, and the
ages of the other antediluvian patriarchs. From the Flood the
genealogies are carefully recorded, until we enter the historic
period, after which there is not much room for dispute. From
the creation of Adam.to the birth of Christ, the Bible allows
about four thousand years. The antiquity of the human race,
' therefore, according to Scripture, is less than six thousand years.
Science, however, proves that this is but a fragment of the vast
period during which man has inhabited the earth. There was
a civilisation in Egypt thousands of years before the alleged
creation of Adam. The Cushite civilisation was even more
ancient. Archaeology shows us traces of man’s presence, in a
�4
The Creation Story.
ruder state, long before that. The researches of Mr. Pengelly
in Kent’s Cavern proved that cave-men lived there more than two
hundred thousand years ago ; while geological investigations in
the Valley of the Somme have established the fact that primitive
men existed there in the tertiary period. Professor Draper
writes: “So far as investigations have gone, they indisputably
refer the existence of man to a date remote from us by many
hundreds of thousands of years. It must be borne in mind that
these investigations are quite recent, and confined to a very
limited geographical space. No researches have yet been made
in those regions which might reasonably be regarded as the
primitive habitat of man. We are thus carried back immeasurably
beyond the six thousand years of Patristic chronology. It is
difficult to assign a shorter date for the last glaciation of Europe
than a quarter of a million of years, and human existence antedates
that." The chronology of the Bible is thus altogether obsolete.
The idea of a seven-days’ creation was not confined to the
Jews: it was shared by the Persians and Etruscans. The
division of the year into months and weeks is a general, although
not a universal practice. The ancient Egyptians observed a tendays’ week, but the seven-days’ week was well known to them.
The naming of the days of the week after the seven Planets was
noted by Dion Cassius as originally an Egyptian custom, which
spread from Egypt into the Roman Empire. The Brahmins of
India also distinguish the days of the week by the planetary
names. This division of time was purely astronomical. The
Jews kept the Feast of the New Moon, and other of their ceremonies were determined by lunar and solar phenomena. We
may be sure that the myth of a seven-days’ creation followed
and did not precede the regular observance of that period.
There is one feature of the Hebrew story of creation which
shows how anthropomorphic they were. The Persians represent
Ormuzd as keeping high festival with his angels on the seventh
day, after creating all things in six. But the Hebrews represent
Jehovah as resting on the seventh day, as though the arduous
labors of creation had completely exhausted his energies. Fancy
Omnipotence requiring rest to recruit its strength! The Bible,
and especially in its earlier parts, is grossly anthropomorphic.
It exhibits God as conversing with men, sharing their repasts,
and helping them to slaughter their foes. It represents him as
visible to human eyes, and in one instance as giving Moses a
back view of his person. Yet these childish fancies are still
thrust upon us as divine truths, which if we disbelieve we shall
be eternally damned!
Let us now examine the Creation Story internally. In the
first place, we find two distinct records, the one occupying the
whole of the first chapter of Genesis and the first three verses of
the second, at which point the other commences. These two
/
�The Creation Story
5
records belong to different periods of Jewish history. The older
one is the Elohistic, so called because the creator is designated
by the plural term Elohim, which in our version is translated
God. The more modern one is the Jehovistic, in which Elohim
is combined with the singular term Jehovah, translated in our
version the Lord God. The Elohistic and Jehovistic accounts
both relate the creation of man, but instead of agreeing they
widely differ. The former makes God create man in his own
image ; the latter does not even allude to this important circum
stance. The former represents man as created male and female
at the outset; the latter represents the male as created first, and
the female for a special reason afterwards. In the former God
enjoins the primal pair to “be fruitful and multiply and replenish
the earth; ” in the latter there is no such injunction, but on the
contrary, the bringing forth of children in sorrow is imposed
upon the woman as a punishment for her sin, and she does not
appear to have borne any offspring until after the expulsion from
the Garden of Eden. Lastly, the Elohistic record makes no
mention of this Paradise, in which, according to the Jehovistic
record, the drama of the Fall was enacted, but represents
man as immediately commissioned to subdue and populate the
world. Such discrepancies are enough to stagger the blindest
credulity.
We now proceed to examine the Jehovistic account of Creation
in detail. We read that the Lord God formed man of the
dust of the ground, the Hebrew word for which is adamah. The
word Adam means “ be red,” and adamah may be referred to the
red soil of Palestine. Kalisch also observes that man may have
been originally called Adam on account of the red color of his
skin. The Chinese represent man as kneaded of yellow earth, and
the red Indians of red clay. The belief that man was formed of
earth was not confined to the Jews, but has been almost uni
versal, and undoubtedly arose from the fact that our bodies after
death return to the earth and resolve into the elements. The
Lord God placed this forlorn first man in the Garden of Eden,
with the command to till it, and permission to eat of the fruit of
all its trees except “ the tree of knowledge of good and evil.”
How Adam trespassed and fell, and brought a curse upon him
self and all his innocent posterity, we shall consider in another
pamphlet. The story of the Fall is infinitely curious and
diverting, and must be treated separately.
Adam’s first exploit, after he had taken a good look round
him, was very marvellous. All the cattle and beasts of the field
and fowl of the air were brought before him to be named, and
“ whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the
name thereof.” This first Zoological Dictionary is unfortunately
lost, or we should be able to call every animal by its right name,
which would doubtless gratify them as well as - ourselves. The
�6
The Creation Story.
fishes and insects were not included in this primitive nomencla
ture, so the loss of the Dictionary does not concern them.
.
The Lord made the animals pass before Adam seemingly with
the expectation that he would choose a partner from amongst
them. Nothing, however, struck his fancy. If he had fallen
in love with a female gorilla or ourang-outang, what a difference
it would have made in the world’s history !
A ftftr this wonderful exploit u the Lord caused a deep sleep to
fall upon Adam,” who surely must have been tired enough to
fall into a good sound natural sleep, without a heavenly narcotic.
While in this state one of his ribs was extracted for a purpose
we shall presently refer to, and which he discovered when he
awoke. This curious surgical operation involves a dilemma. If
Adam was upright after it, he must have been lopsided before;
if he was upright before it, he must have been lopsided after. In
either case the poor man was very scurvily treated.
It has been maintained that God provided Adam with another
rib in place of the one extracted. But this is a mere conjecture.
Besides if the Lord had a spare rib in stock he might have made
a woman of it, without cutting poor Adam open and making a
pre mortem examination of his inside.
The divine operator’s purpose wa,s a good one, whatever we
may think of his means. He had discovered, what Omniscience
would have foreknown, that it was not good for man to be alone,,
and had resolved to make him a help-meet. Adam’s “ spare-rib
was the raw material of which his wife was manufactured. The
Greenlanders believed that the first woman was fashioned out of
the man’s thumb. The woman was brought to Adam, who said
_ “This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.” Not a
word did he say about “ soul of my soul.” Perhaps he suspected
•she had none, and with some truth, if we go no further than our
English version. When the Lord God made man, he ‘‘breathed
into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul,
but apparently no such operation was performed on Eve. Indeed
it is very difficult to prove from the Bible that woman has a soul
at all. Women should reflect on this. They should also reflect
on the invidious fact that they were not included in the original
scheme of things, but thrown in as a make-weight afterwards.
Let them ponder this a while, and the churches and chapels in
which this story is taught would soon be emptied. The majority
of those who occupy seats in such places wear bonnets, and most
of those who don’t, go there for the sake of those who do. _
When Adam had thus accosted his bride he grew prophetical.
“Therefore,” said he, “shall a man leave his father and his
mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one
flesh.” In his desire to give the institution of marriage the
highest sanction, the writer of this story perpetrated. a gross
anachronism. Adam had no parents, nor any experience of
�The Creation Story.
7
marriage. Unless, therefore, we credit him with superhuman
prescience, it is absurd to make him talk in this way.
Eve’s name, no less than Adam’s, betrays the mythological
character of the story. It means the “ mother of all,” and was
evidently applied to her by the Jewish writers in order to signify
her supposed relationship to the human race.
While God was engaged in the work of creation, why did he
not make two human couples, instead of one ? The arrange
ment he adopted involved the propagation of the human species
through incest. Adam and Eve’s sons must have had children
by their sisters. If two couples had been created, their families
might have intermarried, and mankind would not then have
sprung from the incestuous intercourse of the very first genera
tion. Surely omnipotence might have obviated the necessity of
a crime against which civilised consciences revolt with unspeak
able disgust.
Adam and Eve were placed by God in the Garden of Eden.
“ Eden,” says Kalisch, “ comprised that tract of land where the
Euphrates and Tigris separate ; from that spot the ‘ garden in
Eden’ cannot be distant. Let it suffice that we know its
general position.” Its exact position can never be ascertained.
What a pity it is that Noah did not occupy some of his leisure
time, during the centuries he lived after his exit from the ark,
in writing a typography of the antediluvian world! The Greeks
placed Paradise in the Islands of the Blessed, beyond the Pillars
of Hercules in the western main. The Swede, Rudbeck, asserts
that Paradise was in Scandinavia ; some Russian writers supposed
it to have been in Siberia; and the German writers, Hasse and
Schulz, on the coast of Prussia. Eastern traditions place it in
Ceylon, and regard the mountain of Rahoun as the spot where
Adam was buried. Some old Christian writers hazarded the
theory that Paradise was beyond the earth altogether, on the
other side of the ocean, which they conceived to encircle it, and
that Noah was conveyed to our planet by the deluge. Kalisch
gives a long list of ancient and modern authorities on the sub
ject, who differ widely from each other as to the actual position
of Eden, their only point of agreement being that it was some
where.
The Creation Story of the Bible cannot be considered as any
thing but a Hebrew myth. Scholars have abundantly shown the
absurdity of supposing that Moses wrote it. Doubtless, as a
piece of traditional mythology, it is very ancient, but it cannot
be traced back in its present literary form beyond the Babylonish
captivity. Men of science without exception disbelieve it, not
only with regard to the world in general, but also with regard to
the human race. In his famous article on “The Method and
Results of Ethnology,” Professor Huxley made this declaration :—
“ There are those who represent the most numerous, respectable,
�8
The Creation Story.
and would-be orthodox of the public, and who may be called
‘ Adamites,’ pure and simple. They believe that Adam was made
out of earth somewhere in Asia, about six thousand years ago;
that Eve was modelled from one of his ribs; and that the pro
geny of these two having been reduced to the eight persons who
landed on the summit of Mount Ararat after an universal deluge,
all the nations of the earth have proceeded from these last, have
migrated to their present localities, and have become converted
into Negroes, Australians, Mongolians, etc., within that time.
Five-sixths of the public are taught this Adamitic Monogenism
as if it were an established truth, and believe it. Z do not; and
I am not acquainted with any man of science, or duly instructed
person, who does.” The clergy, then, who go on teaching this
old Creation Story as true, are either unduly instructed or dis
honest, ignorant or fraudulent, blind guides or base deceivers.
It is not for us to determine to which class any priest or preacher
belongs: let the conscience of each, as assuredly it will, decide
that for himself. But ignorant or dishonest, we affirm, is every
one of them who still teaches the Creation Story as a record of
actual facts, or as anything but a Hebrew myth.
The origin of the human race is far different from that recorded
in Genesis. Man has undoubtedly been developed from a lower
form of life. The rude remains of primitive men show that they
were vastly inferior to the present civilised inhabitants of the
world, and even inferior to the lowest savages with whom we
are now acquainted. Their physical and mental condition was
not far removed from that of the higher apes; and the general
opinion of biologists is that they were descended from the Old
World branch of the great Simian family. There is, indeed, no
absolute proof of this, nor is it probable that there ever will be,
as the fossil links between primitive man and his Simian pro
genitor, if they exist at all, are most likely buried in that sunken
continent over which roll the waters of the South Pacific Ocean.
But as the line of natural development can be carried back so
far without break, there is no reason why it should not be carried
farther. The evolution theory is now almost universally accepted
by men of science, and few of them suppose that man can be
exempted from the general laws of biology. At any rate, the
Bible account of Creation is thoroughly exploded, and when that
is gone there is nothing to hinder our complete acceptance of
the only theory of man’s origin which is consistent with the facts
of his history, and explains the peculiarities of his physical
structure.
PRICE ONE PENNY.
London: Fkeethought Publishing Company, 28, Stonecutter St., E.C.
�BIBLE ROMANCES.—2.
NOAH’S
By G.
W.
FLOOD.
FOOTE.
The Bible story of the Deluge is at once the biggest and the
most ridiculous in the whole volume. Any person who reads it
with the eyes of Common sense, and some slight knowledge f
science, must admit that it is altogether incredible and absurd,
and that the book which contains it cannot be the Word of
God.
About 1,656 years after God created Adam, and placed him
in the garden of Eden, the world had become populous and
extremely wicked ; indeed, every thought and imagination of
man’s heart was evil continually. What was the cause of all this
wickedness we are not informed ; but we are told that the sons
of God took unto them wives of the daughters of men because
they were fair, and we are led to suppose that these matches
produced giants and other incurably wicked offspring. No
physiological reason is assigned for this strange result, nor
perhaps was there any present to the mind of the writer, who
probably had witnessed unhappy mariages in his own family, and
was anxious to warn his readers, however vaguely, against
allowing their daughters to be inveigled into matrimonial bonds
with pious sniffling fellows, who professed themselves peculiarly
the children of their Father in heaven. However, the narrative
is clear as to the fact itself: men had all gone irrecoverably
astray, and God had repented that he ever made them. In such
a case an earthly human father would naturally have attempted
to improve his family ; but the Almighty Father either was too
indifferent to do so, or was too well aware of the impossibility
of reforming his own wretched offspring ; and therefore he deter
mined to drown them all at one fell swoop, just as cat-loving old
ladies dispose of too numerous and embarrassing feline pro
geny. Bethinking him, however, God resolved to save alive one
family to perpetuate the race; he was willing to give his creatures
another chance, and theD, if they persisted in going the wrong
way, it would still be easy to drown the lot of them again, and
that without any reservation. He had also resolved at first to
destroy every living thing from off the face of the earth ; but he
afterwards decided to spare from destruction two of every species
of unclean beasts, male and female, and fourteen, male and
female, of all clean beasts and of all fowls of the air and of every
creeping thing. Noah, his wife, his three sons, Shem, Ham, and
Japhet, and their wives (eight persons in all), were the only
human beings to be preserved from the terrible fate of drowning
�10
Noah's Flood.
Noah was commanded by God to build an ark for the reception
of the precious living freight, the dimensions of which were to
be, in English measure, 550 feet long, 93 feet wide, and 55 feet
deep. Into this floating box they all got; the flood then came
and covered the earth, and all besides were drowned.
Now this is a very strange, a very startling story; it seems
more like a chapter from the “ Arabian Nights ” or the “ Advenventures of Baron Munchausen” than from the sacred Scriptures
of any Religion. Carnal reason prompts us to ask many ques
tions about it.
1. How did Noah contrive to bring these beasts, birds, and
insects all together in one spot ? The task seems superhuman.
Some species could be found only in very remote places—the
kangaroo only in Australia, the sloth only in South America, the
polar bear only in the Arctic regions. How could Noah, in those
days of difficult locomotion, have journeyed in search of these
across broad rivers, and over continents and oceans? Did he
bring them singly to his dwelling-place in Asia, or did he travel
hither and thither with his menagerie, and finish the collection
before returning home ? There are, according to Huvh Miller,
1,658 known species of mammalia, 6,266 of birds, 642 < f reptiles,
and 550.000 of insects ; how could one man, or a hundred men,
have collected specimens of these in those days, and in such a
brief space of time ? The beasts clean and unclean, male and
female, might be got together by means of terrible exertion, but
surely to assemble the birds and reptiles and insects must trans
cend human capacity. Some of the last class would of course
not require much seeking ; they visit us whether we desire their
company or not; and the difficulty would not be how to get
them into the ark, but how on earth to keep them out. Others,
however, would give infinite trouble. Fancy Noah occupied in a
wild-goose chase, or selecting specimens from a wasps’ or hornets’
nest, or giving assiduous chase to a viligant and elusive blue
bottle fly!
But suppose Noah to have succeeded in his arduous enterprise,
the question still remains, how did he keep his wonderful
zoological collection alive ? Some of them could live only in
certain latitudes; the inhabitants of cold climates would melt
away amidst the torrid heat of Central Asia. Then, again, there
are some insects that live only a few hours, and some that live a
fewdajs at the utmost; what means were adopted for preserving
these ? Some animals, too, do not pair, but run in herds ; many
species of fish swim in shoals ; sometimes males and sometimes
females predominate, as in the case of deer, where one male
heads and appropriates a whole herd of females, or in the case
of bees, where many males are devoted to the queen of the hive.
These could not have gone in pairs, or lived in pairs; their
instincts pointed to another method of grouping. How did
�Noah’s Flood.
11
Noah provide for their due preservation ? When these questions
are answered others speedily arise ; in fact, there is no end to the
difficulties of this marvellous story.
.
2 Whence and how did Noah procure the food for his huge
menagerie? That he was obliged to do so, that the animals were
not miraculously preserved without food, we are certain ; for he
was expressly commanded by God to gather food for himself an
for them. “ Take thou unto thee,” it was said to him, “ of all
food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee ; and it shall
be for food for thee, and for them.” What provision was made
for the carnivorous animals, for lions, tigers, vultures, kites, and
hawks? Some of these would require not simply meat, but
fresh meat, which could not be provided for them unless super
fluous animals were taken into the ark to be killed, or Noah had
learned the art of potting flesh.
Otters would require fish
chameleons flies, woodpeckers grubs, night-hawks moths, and
humming-birds the honey of flowers. What vast quantities oi
water also would be consumed ! In fact, the task of collecting
food to last all the inmates of the a>k, including the eight human
beings, for more than a year, must have been greater even than
that of bringing them together in the first place from every zone.
The labors of Hercules were mere trifles compared with those of
Noah. Poor old patriarch! He amply earned his salvation.
Had he been possessed of one tithe of Jacob’s cunning and
business sagacity, he would have struck a better bargain with God,
and have got into the ark on somewhat easier terms. Few men
would have undertaken so much to gain so little. _
3. How were all the animals, with their food, got into the ark f
The dimensions as given in the Bible would be insufficient to
accommodate a tithe of them ; the ark could not have contained
them all, if they were picked together like herrings or sardines.
Even if they were so packed, space would still be required for
their food ; and for what a vast quantity ! An animal even with
man’s moderate appetite would consume in the course of twelve
months solid matter to the extent of four or five times its own
weight, and some animals are of course far more voracious.
This difficulty as to stowing the animals and their food into the
ark is quite insuperable ; it is not to be obviated by any employ
ment of miraculous intervention. Not even omnipotence can
make a clock strike less than one, and God himself must fail to
make two things occupy the same space at the same time..
4. How were the inmates of this floating menagerie, sup
posing them got in, supplied with fresh air? According to the
Bible narrative the ark was furnished with but one window of a
cubit square, and one door which was shut by God himself, and
it may be presumed, quite securely fastened. Talk about the
Black-hole of Calcutta, why it was nothing to this! What a
scramble there must of been for that solitary window and a
�12
Noah’s Flood
mouthful of fresh air! Lions, tigers, jackals, hysenas, boa-con
strictors, kangaroos, eagles, owls, bees, wasps, bluebottles, with
Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japhet, and their wives, all in one fierce
melee. But the contention for the precious vital air must, how
ever violent, have soon subsided: fifteen minutes would have
settled them all. Yet curiously enough the choking animals
suffered no appreciable injury ; by some occult means they were
all preserved from harm; which furnishes another illustration
of the mysterious ways of God. What powerful perfumes, too,
must have arisen from all those animals! So powerful indeed,
that even the rancid flavor of foxes and skunks must have been
undistinguishable from the blended scents of all their fellow
passengers. Those who have visited Wombwell’s menagerie, or
stood in the monkey-house of the Zoological Gardens, doubtless
retain a lively recollection of olfactory disgust, even although
in those places the most scrupulous cleanliness is observed ; but
their experience of such smells would have been totally eclipsed
if they could but for a moment have stood within Noah’s ark
amidst all its heterogeneous denizens. However the patriarch
and his sons managed to cleanse this worse than Augean stable
passes all understanding. And then what trampings they must
have had up and down those flights of stairs communicating
with the three storeys of the ark, in order to cast all the filth out
of that one window. No wonder their children afterwards began
to build a tower of Babel to reach unto heaven; it was quite
natural that they should desire plenty of steps to mount, so as to
gratify fully the itch of climbing they had inherited from their
parents.
5. Where did all the water come from ? According to the
Bible story the waters prevailed upon the earth a hundred and
fifty days, and covered all the high hills and mountains under
the whole heaven. Now mount Ararat itself, on which the ark
eventually rested, is seventeen thousand feet high, and the
utmost peaks of Himalaya are nearly twice as high as that; and
to cover the whole earth with water to such a tremendous height
would require an immense quantity of water; in fact, about
eight times as much as is contained in all the rivers, lakes, seas,
and oceans of our globe. Whence did all this water come ? The
Scripture explanation is sadly insufficient; the fountains of the
great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened,
and the rain was upon the earth for forty days and forty nights.
The writer evidently thought that there were great fountains at
the bottom of the sea, capable of supplying water in unlimited
quantities from some central reservoir; but science knows
nothing whatever about them; nay, science tells us that the
internal reservoir, if there be one, must contain not water, but
liquid fire. If this great reservior poured its contents into the
sea, the result would be similar to that frightful catastrophe
�Noah's Flood
13
imagined by the Yankee who wished to see Niagara Falls pour
into Mount Vesuvius.
,
The supply from that quarter thus failing, we are forced oacK
upon the rain which descended from the windows of heaven,
wherever they may be. It rained forty days and forty nights.
Forty days and forty nights ! Why forty million days and. nights
of rain would not have sufficed. The writer was evidently in tota
ignorance of the laws of hydrology. The rain which falls from
the clouds originally comes from the waters of the earth, being
absorbed into the atmosphere by the process of evaporation.
The utmost quantity of water that can thus be held in suspense
throughout the entire atmosphere is very small; in fact, if pre
cipitated, it would only cover the ground to the depth of abou
five inches. After the first precipitation of rain, the process oi
evaporation would have to be repeated ; that is, for every addi
tional descent of rain a proportionate quantity of water would have
to be extracted from the rivers, lakes, and seas below.
surely every sane man must perceive that this pretty juggle could
not add one single drop to the previously existing amount or
water, any more than a man could make himself rich by taking
money out of one pocket and putting it into another. . The fab e
man who is reported to have occupied himself with dipping up water
from one side of a boat and emptying it over on the other,
hoping thereby to bale the ocean dry, must have been the real
author of this story of Noah and his wonderful ark.
Some Christian writers, such as Dr. Pye Smith, Dr. Barry, and
Hugh Miller, have contended that the author of the book of
Genesis is describing not a universal but a partial deluge ; not a
flood which submerged the whole earth, but one that merely
covered some particular part of the great Central Asian plains.
But surely, apart from any consideration pertaining to the very
emphatic language of the text, rational men must perceive that the
difficulty is not obviated by this explanation, but rather increased.
How could the waters ascend in one place to the height of seven
teen thousand feet (the height of Mount Ararat) without over
flowing the adjacent districts, and, indeed, the whole earth, in
conformity to the law of gravitation ? Delitzch is bold enough
to assert that the flood of water was ejected with such force from
the fountains beneath that it assumed quite naturally a conical
shape. But then, even supposing that this explication were
anything but sheer silliness, which it is not, how would the
learned commentator 'account for the water retaining its conical
shape for months after the force of upheaval had expended
itself ? These explanations are entirely fanciful and groundless.
The language of the narrative is sufficiently explicit. “ And all
flesh died that moved upon the earth
“ all in whose nostrils
was the breath of life;” “and every living substance was de
stroyed which was upon the face of the groundand Noah only
�14
Noah’s Flood.
remained alive and they that were with him in the ark.” Such
are the precise unmistakeable words of Scripture, which no
sophistry can explain away. But even if the contention for a
partial deluge could be made good, the fundamental difficulties
would still remain. As Colenso observes, the flood, “ whether
it be regarded as a universal or a partial deluge, is equally in
credible and impossible.”
Geology absolutely contradicts the possibility of any such catas
trophe as the deluge within the historic period. According to
Sir Charles Lyell, no devastating flood could have passed over
the forest zone of AL tn a during the last twelve thousand years ;
and the volcanic cones of Auvergne, which enclose in their ashes
the remains of extinct animals, and present an outline as perfect
as that of AEtna, are deemed older still. Kalisch forcibly pre
sents this aspect of the question : “ Geology teaches the impos
sibility of a universal'deluge since the last six thousand years,
but does not exclude a pattial destruction of the earth’s surface
within that period. The Biblical text, on the other hand,
demands the supposition of a universal deluge, and absolutely
excludes a partial flood.”
6. What became of all the fish? In such a deluge the rivers
and seas must have mingled their waters, and this in conjunction
with the terrific outpour from the windows of heaven, must have
made the water brackish, too salt for fresh-water fish, and too
fresh for salt-water fish ; and consequently the aquatic animals
must all have perished, unless, indeed, they were miraculously
preserved—a contingency which anyone is free to conjecture,
but no one is at liberty to assert, seeing that the inspired writer
never even hints such a possibility. Now there is no evidence
whatever that Noah took any ffh with him into the ark ; under
natural circumstances they must have perished outside; yet the
seas and rivers still teem with life. When did the new creation
of fish take place ?
7. What became of all the vegetation ? Every particle of it
must have rotted during such a long submergence. But even if
mysteriously preserved from natural decay, it must still have
been compressed into a mere pulp by the terrific weight of the
super-incumbent water. Colenso estimates that the pressure of
a column of water 17.000 feet high would be 474 tons upon each
square foot of surface—a pressure which nothing could have
resisted. Yet, wonderful to relate, just prior to the resting of
the ark on Mount Ararat, the dove sent out therefrom, returned
with an olive leaf in her mouth just pluckt off. A fitting climax
to this wonderful story.
Finally the story relates how the ark rested on the top of
Mount Ararat, whence its inmates descended to the plains below,
which were then quite dry. Mount Ararat towers aloft three
thousand feet above the region of eternal snow. How the poor
�Noah's Flood.
15
animals, aye, even the polar bear, must have shivered! And
what a curious sight it must have been to witness their descent
from such, a height. Often have I speculated on the probable
way in which the elephant got down, and after much careful
thought I have concluded thus : either he had waxed so fat with
being fed so long on miraculous food that he rolled pleasantly
down like a ball, with no other injury than a few scratches ; or
he had become so very, very thin with living simply on expecta
tions, in default of more substantial fare, that he gently floated
down by virtue of levity, like a descending feather.
And then what journeys some of the poor animals would have
to make ; the kangaroo back to Australia, the sloth to South
America, the polar bear to the extreme north. How they lived
on the road to their ultimate destinations the Lord only knows.
There was no food for them; the deluge had destroyed all
vegetation for the herbivorous animals, all flesh for the carniverous. Not even a nibble was left for the sheep.
As for poor Noah, the first thing recorded of him after his
watery expedition is that he drank heavily of wine and got into
a state of beastly inebriation. And who can wonder that he did
so ? The poor old man had floated about on oceans of water for
more than a year, and probably he was heartily sick of his
watery prospect. The astonishing thing is that he did not get
water on the brain. It was quite natural that he should swill
deep potations of some stronger fluid on the first available
opportunity. Surely he had water enough during that twelve
months to last a lifetime ; enough to justify his never touching
the wretched fluid again.
While Noah was dead drunk, his second son, Ham, saw “the
nakedness of his father,” and reported the fact to his two
brethren, who took a garment and, walking backwards, so that
they might not see, covered the patriarch’s nudity. On recover
ing from his drunken stupor, Noah discovered “ what his younger
son had done unto him,” and proceeded at once to vigorous
cursing. Ham was the offender, if there was any offence at all,
which is not very clear; but punishment in the Bible is
generally vicarious, and we read that the irate patriarch cursed
Canaan, the son of Ham, for his father’s misdemeanor. Flagiti
ously unjust as it is, this proceeding thoroughly accords with
Jehovah’s treatment of Adam’s posterity after he and Eve had
committed their first sin by eating of the forbidden fruit.
Before Noah got drunk he had received from God the assur
ance that the world should never more be destroyed by a flood,
As a perpetual sign cf this covenant the rainbow was set in the
heavens. But the rainbow must have been a common sight for
centuries before. This phenomenon of refraction is the result
of natural causes, which operated before the Flood, as well as
after. The earth yielded its fruits for human sustenance, and
�16
Noah's Flood.
therefore rain must have fallen. If rain fell before the Deluge,
as we are bound to conclude, the rainbow must have been then
as now. The usual practice of commentators is to explain this
portion of the narrative by assuming that the rainbow was visible
before the covenant with Noah, but only after the covenant had
a special significance. But, as Colenso observes, the writer of
the story supposes the rainbow was then first set in the clouds,
and is evidently accounting for the origin of this beautiful
phenomenon, which might well appear supernatural to his unin
structed imagination.
Besides the manifold absurdities of this story there are other
aspects of it even more startling. What a picture it presents of
fiendish cruelty and atrocious vindictiveness ! What an appalling
exhibition of divine malignity ! God, the omnipotent and omni
scient ruler of the universe, is represented as harboring and
executing the most diabolical intentions. He ruthlessly exter
minates all his children except a favored few, and includes in his
vengeance the lower animals also, although they were innocent
of offence against his laws. Every creature in whose nostrils
was the breath of life, with the exception of those preserved in
the ark, was drowned, and the earth was turned into a vast
slaughter-house. How imagination pictures the terrible scene
as the waters rise higher and higher, and the ravening waves
speed after their prey ! Here some wretched being, baffled and
hopeless, drops supinely into the raging flood ; there a stronger
and stouter heart struggles to the last. Here selfish ones
battling for their own preservation; there husbands and wives,
parents and children, lovers and maidens, affording mutual aid,
or at last, in utter despair, locked in a final embrace and meeting
death together. And when the waters subside, what a sickening
scene presents itself! Those plains, once decked with verdure,
and lovely in the sun and breeze, are covered with the bones of
a slaughtered world. How can the Christian dare to justify
such awful cruelty ? The God of the Pentateuch is not a bene
ficent universal father, but an almighty fiend.
This story of Noah’s Flood is believed still because people
never examine what is taught them as the word of God. Every
one who analyses the story must pronounce it the most extra
ordinary amalgam of immorality and absurdity ever palmed off
on a credulous world.
PRICE ONE PENNY.
London: Progressive Publishing Company, 28, Stonecutter St., E.C.
�BIBLE ROMANCES—3.
EVE AND THE APPLE.
By G. W. FOOTE.
Christianity is based upon the story of the Fall. In Adam all
sinned, as in Christ all must be saved. Saint Paul gives to this
doctrine the high sanction of his name, and we may disregard
the puny whipsters of theology, who, without any claim to in
spiration, endeavor to explain the Genesaic narrative as an alle
gory rather than a history. If Adam did not really fall he could
not have been cursed for falling, and his posterity could not
have become partakers either in a sin which was never committed
or in a malediction which was never pronounced. Nor can
Original Sin be a true dogma if our first parents did not trans
mit, the germs of iniquity to their children.. If Adam did not
fall there was bo need for Christ to save us ; if he did not set God
and man at variance there was no need for an atonement; and
so the Christian scheme of salvation would be a fiasco from
beginning to end. This will never do. No Garden of Eden,
no Gethsemane! No Fall, no Redemption! No Adam, no
Christ!
.
Mother Eve’s curiosity was the motive of the first trans
gression of God’s commandments in the history of the world,
and the whole human race was brought under the risk of eternal
perdition because of her partiality to fruit. Millions of souls
now writhe in hell because, six thousand years ago, she took a
bite of an apple. What a tender and beautiful story! God
made her to be Adam’s helpmeet. She helped him to a slice of
apple, and that soon helped them both outside Eden. The sour
stuff disagreed with him as it did with her. It has disagreed
with all their posterity. In fact it was endowed with the mar
vellous power of transmitting spiritual stomach-ache through any
number of generations.
How do we know that it was an apple and not some other
fruit? Why, on the best authority extant after the Holy Scrip
tures themselves, namely, our auxiliary Bible, Paradise Lost;
in the tenth book whereof Satan makes the folio-wing boast to his
infernal peers after his exploit in Eden:—
“ Him by fraud I have seduced
From his Creator, and, the more to increase
Your wonder, with an apple.”
�2
Eve and the Apple.
'x'i
Yet another authority is the profane author of “ Doh Juan,”
■who, in the first stanza of the tenth canto, says of’Newton:
“ And this is the sole mortal who could grapple,
Since Adam, with a fall, or with an apple. ”
Mil ton, being very pious, was probably in the counsel of God.
Ib>w else could he have given us an authentic version of the
long colJnquies that were carried on in heaven ? Byron, being
very profane, was probably in the counsel of Satan. And thus
we have the most unimpeachable testimony of two opposite
sources to the fact that it was an apple, and not a rarer fruit,
which overcame the virtue of our first parents, and played the
devil with their big family of children.
This apple grew on the Tree of Knowledge, which God planted
in the midst of the Garden of Eden, sternly enjoining Adam and
Eve not to eat of its fruit under pain of death. Now the poor
woman knew nothing of death and could not understand what
i dreadful punishment it was ; and there was the fruit dangling
before her eyes every hour of the day. Is it any wonder that
<he brooded incessantly on the one thing forbidden, that her
/-Oman’s curiosity was irresistably piqued by it, and that at last
her longing grew so intense that she exclaimed, “Dear me! I
can’t refrain any longer. Let the consequences be what they
will, I must have a bite.” God made the woman ; he knew her
weakness; and he must have known that the plan he devised to
test her obedience was the most certain trap that could be in
vented. Jehovah played with poor Eve just as a cat plays with
a mouse. She had free-will, say the theologians. Yes, and so
has the mouse a free run. But the cat knows she can catch it
again, and finish it off when she is tired of playing.
Not only did God allow Eve’s curiosity to urge her on to sin,
he also permitted the serpent, “more subtil than any beast of
lhe field,” to supplement its action. This wily creature is popularly
supposed to have been animated on the occasion by the Devil
himself; although, as we shall explain in another Romance en
titled “ The Bible Devil,” the book of Genesis makes not even
Ahe remotest allusion to such a personage. If, however, the
iempter was the Devil, what chance had the poor woman against
Bus seductive wiles ? And even if he was only a serpent, he was
very “ subtil ” as we are told, and able to talk like a book, and
we know that these creatures have fatal powers of fascination.
Surely Mother Eve was heavily handicapped. God might have
given her fair play, and left her to fight the battle without fur
nishing auxiliaries to the strong side.
The serpent, we have said, could converse in human speech.
His conversation and his conduct will be dealt with in the Romance
yust referred to. Suffice it here to say that he plainly told the
woman that God was a liar. “He,” said the tempter, “has
said ye shall surely die if ye touch the fruit of this tree. Don’t
�Eve and the Apple.
8
believe it. I tell you, ye shall not surely die.” What could poor
Eve think ? In addition to her native curiosity here was another
incentive to disobedience. Which of these two spoke the truth?
There was only one way of deciding. She stretched forth her
hand, plucked an apple, and began to eat. And immediately,
says Milton,
“ Earth felt the wound, and nature from her seat,
Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe
That all was lost.”
What a rumpus about a trifle ! It reminds us of the story of a Jew
who had a sneaking inclination for a certain meat prohibited by his
creed. One day the temptation to partake was too strong; he
slipped into a place of refreshment and ordered some sausages.
The weather happened to be tempestuous, and just as he raised
his knife and fork to attack the savory morsel, a violent clap of
thunder nearly frightened him out of his senses. Gathering
courage, he essayed a second time, but another thunderclap
warned him to desist. A third attempt was foiled in the same
way. Whereupon he threw down his knife and fork and made
for the door, exclaiming “What a dreadful fuss about a little
' Eve’s transgression, accordingto the learned Lightfoot, occurred
“about high noone, the time of eating.” The same authority
informs us that she and Adam “did lie comfortlesse, till towards
the cool of the day, or three o'clock afternoon." However that
may be, it is most certain that the first woman speedily got the
better of the first man. She told him the apple was nice and he
took a bite also. Perhaps he had resolved to share her fortunes
good or bad, and objected to be left alone with his menagerie.
Lightfoot describes the wife as “ the weaker vessell,” but a lady
friend of ours says that the Devil stormed the citadel first,
knowing well that such a poor outpost as Adam could easily be
carried afterwards.
Haying eaten of the fruit, and thus learned to distinguish
between good and evil, Adam and Eve Quickly discovered that
they were naked. So they “ sewed fig leaves together, and made
themselves aprons.” We are not told who gave them lessons in
sewing. Perhaps they acquired the art through intuition. But
the necessary implements could not have been gained in that way.
Dr. Thomas Burnet, whose mind was greatly exercised by the
astounding wonders of the Bible, very pertinently asked “ Whence
had they a needle, whence a thread, on the first day of their
creation? ” He, however, could give no answer to the question,
nor can we, except we suppose that some of the female angels
had attended a “ garden party” in Eden and carelessly left their
needles and thread behind them. Any reader who is dissatisfied
with this explanation must inquire of the nearest parson, who, as
he belongs to a class supposed to know almost everything, and
�4
Eve and the Apple.
believed to have access to the oracles of God, will doubtless be
able to reveal the whole gospel truth on the subject.
A little later, God himself, who is everywhere at once, came
down from everywhere to the Garden of Eden, for the purpose
of taking a “ walk in the cool of the day,” He had perhaps just
visited the infernal regions to see that everything was ready
for the reception of the miserable creatures he meant to damn,
or to assure himself that the Devil was really not at home; and
was anxious to cool himself before returning to his celestial
abode, as well as to purify himself from the sulphurous taint which
might else have sent a shudder through all the seraphic hosts.
Apparently he was holding a soliloquy, for Adam and Eve “ heard
his voice.” Colenso, however, renders this portion of the
Romance differently from our authorised version—‘-And they
heard the sound of Jehovah-Elohim walking in the garden in the
breeze of the day.” Delitzsch thinks they heard the sound of
his footsteps, for God used to visit them in the form of a man!
Could the force of folly farther go ? Any devout Theist, who
candidly thought over this petty fiction, would find its gross
anthropomorphism inexpressibly shocking.
Knowing that God was everywhere, Adam and Eve nevertheless
“ hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the
trees of the garden.” But they were soon dragged forth to the
light. Adam, who seems to have been a silly fellow, explained
that he had hidden himself because he was naked, as though the
Lord had not seen him in that state before. “ Naked!” said the
Lord, “Who told thee that thou wast naked. Hast thou eaten
of that tree, eh?” “ O, Lord, yes,” replied Adam; “just a
little bit; but it wasn’t my fault, she made me do it, O Lord!
O Lord ! ” Whereupon God, who although he knows everything,
even before it happens, was singularly ill-informed on this occa
sion, turned fiercely upon the woman, asking her what she had
done. “ Oh, if you please,” whimpered poor Eve, “ it was I who
took the first bite; but the serpent beguiled me, and the fault
you see is not mine but his. Oh dear I oh dear ! ” Then the
Lord utterly lost his temper. He cursed the serpent, cursed the
woman, cursed the man, and even cursed the ground beneath
their feet. Everything about at the time came in for a share of
the malison. In fact, it was what the Yankees would call a good,
all-round, level swear.
* The purse of the serpent is a subject we must reserve for our
pamphlet on “The Bible Devil,” The curse of the woman was
that she should bring forth children in pain and sorrow, and that
the man should rule over her. With her present physiological
condition, woman must always have suffered during conception
as she now does ; and therefore Delitzsch infers that her structure
must have undergone a change, although he cannot say in what
respect. He dwells also on the “ subjection ” of woman, which
“ the religion of Revelation ” has made by degrees more endur-
�Eve and the Apple,
5
able; probably forgetting that the Teutonic women of ancient
timfis were regarded with veneration, long before Christianity
originated. Besides, the subordination of the female is not
peculiar to the human race, but is the general law throughout the
animal world.
Adam’s curse was less severe. He was doomed to till the
ground, and to earn his bread by the sweat of his face. Most of
us would rather take part in the great strenuous battle of life,
than loll about under the trees in the Garden of Eden, chewing
the cud like contemplative cows. What men have had to com
plain of in all ages is, not that they have to earn their living by
labour, but that when the sweat of their faces has been plenteously
poured forth the “bread” has too often not accrued to them as
the reward of their industry.
Orthodox Christianity avers that all the posterity of Adam and
Eve necessarily participate in their curse, and the doctrine of
Original Sin is taught from all its pulpits. Only by baptism can
the stains of our native guilt be effaced; and thus the unbaptized,
even infants, perish everlastingly, and hell, to use the words of
a Protestant divine, holds many a babe not a span long. A great
Catholic divine says—Hold thou most firmly, nor do thou in
any respect doubt, that infants, whether in their mothers’ wombs
they begin to live and then die, or when, after their mothers
have given birth to them, they pass from this life without the
sacrament of holy baptism, will be punished with the everlasting
punishment of eternal fire.” Horror of horrors ! These men call
sceptics blasphemers, but they are the real blasphemers when
they attribute to their God such supreme injustice and cruelty.
What should we think of a legislator who proposed that the
descendants of all thieves should b.e imprisoned, and the des
cendants of all murderers hung ? We should think that he was bad
or mad. Yet this is precisely analogous to the conduct ascribed
to God, who should be infinitely wiser than the wisest man and
infinitely better than the best.
The crime of our first parents was indeed pregnant with the
direst consequences. It not only induced the seeds of original
sin, but it also brought death into the world. Milton sings—
“ Of man’s first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world."
And Saint Paul (Romans v., 12) writes “ As by one man sin
came into the world, and death by sin.”
Now this theory implies that before the Fall the inhabited por
tion of the world was the scene of perfect peace. Birds lived on
seeds and eschewed worms, and the fierce carniverous animals’
grazed like oxen. The lion laid down with the lamb. “ Waal,’
said the Yankee, “ I don’t doubt that, but I rayther guess the
lamb was inside." The fact is that most of the carnivorous
�6
Eve and the Apple.
animals could not live on a vegetable di*et; aad therefore they
must either have subsisted on flesh before the Fail, which of
course involves death, or their natures must have undergone a
radical change. The first supposition contradicts scripture, and
the second contradicts science.
Geology shows us that in the very earliest times living creatures
died from the same causes which kill them now. Many were
overwhelmed by floods and volcanoes, or engulphed by earth
quakes; many died of old age or disease, for their bones are found
distorted or carious, and their limbs twisted with pain ; while the
greater number were devoured, according to the general law of
the struggle for existence. Death ruled universally before the
human race made its appearance on the earth, and has absolutely
nothing to do with Eve and her apple.
Adam and Eve were warned by God that in the day they ate
of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge they should surely die.
The serpent declared this to be rank nonsense, and the event
proved his veracity. What age Eve attained to the Holy Bible saith
not, for it never considers women of sufficient importance to have
their longevities chronicled. But Adam lived to the remarkably
good old age of nine hundred and thirty years. Like our Charles
the Second he took “ an unconscionable time a-dying.” One of
his descendants, the famous Methusaleh, lived thirty-nine years
longer; while the more famous Melchizedek is not even dead
vet, if any credence is to be placed in the words of holy Saint
Paul.
But all these are mere lambs, infants, or chicken, in compari
son with the primeval patriarchs of India. - Buckle tells us that,
according to the Hindoos, common men in ancient times lived to
the age of 80,000 years, some dying a little sooner and some a
little later. Two of their kings, Yudhishther and Alarka, reigDed
respectively 27,000 and 66,000 years. Both these were cut off in
their prime ; for some of the early poets lived to be about half a
million ; while one king, the most virtuous as well as the most
remarkable of all, was two million years old when he began to
reign, and alter reigning 6,300,000 years, he resigned his empire
and lingered on for 100,000 years more. Adam is not in the
hunt with that tough old fellow. On the principle that it is as
well to be hung for a sheep as a lamb, faithful Christians should
swallow him as well as Adam. When the throat of their credulity
is once distended they may as well take in everything that comes.
W hat followed the Curse clearly shows that man was not origi
nally created immortal. Adam and Eve were expelled from the
Garden of Eden expressly in order that they might not become
so. God “drove them forth” lest they should “take also of
the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever.” Many orthodox
writers, who have to maintain the doctrine of our natural im
mortality, preserve a discreet silence on this text. Our great
Milton, who has so largely determined the Protestant theology
�Eve and the Apple.
7
of England, goes right in the face of Scripture when he makes
God say of man,
“ I at first with two fair gifts
Created him endowed, with happiness
And immortality. ”
The fact is, the Book of Genesis never once alludes to any
such thing, nor does it represent man as endowed with any other
soul than that “ breath of life ” given to all animals. It is also
certain that the ancient Jews were entirely ignorant of the
doctrine of a life beyond the grave. The highest promise that
Moses is said to have made in the Decalogue was that their
“days should be long in the land.” The Jews were a business
people, and they wanted all promises fulfilled on this side of
death.
Nor is there any real Fall implied in this story. God himself
says that “ the man,” having eaten of the forbidden fruit, “ is
become as one of us.” That could scarcely be a fall which
brought him nearer to God. Bishop South, indeed, in a very
eloquent passage of his sermon on “Man Created in God’s
Image,” celebrates the inconceivable perfection of the first man,
and concludes by saying that “ An Aristotle was but the rubbish
of an Adam, and Athens but the rudiments of Paradise.” But
a candid perusal of Genesis obliges us to dissent from this view.
Adam and Eve were a very childish pair. Whatever intellect
they possessed they carefully concealed. Not a scintillation of
it has reached us. Shakespeare and Newton are an infinite im
provement on Adam and Eve. One of the Gnostic sects, who
played such havoc with the early Christian Church, utterly re
jected the idea of a Fall. “ The Ophites,” says Didron, “ con
sidered the God of the Jews not only to be a most wicked but
an unintelligent being............ According to their account, Jaldabaoth, the wicked demi-god adored by the Jews under the
name of Jehovah, was jealous of man, and wished to prevent
the progress of knowledge; but the serpent, the agent of
superior wisdom, came to teach man what course he ought to
pursue, and by what means he might regain the knowledge of
good and evil. The Ophites consequently adored the serpent
and cursed the true God Jehovah.”
’
Before expelling Adam and Eve from Eden, the Lord took
pity on their nakedness, and apparently seeing that their skill in
needle-work did not go beyond aprons, he “ made coats of skins,
and clothed them.’’ Jehovah was thus the first tailor, and the
prototype of that imperishable class of workmen, of whom it was
said that it takes nine of them to make a man. He was also the
first butcher and the first tanner, for he must have slain the
animals and dressed their skins.
Lest they should return he “ placed at the east of the Garden
of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every
�8
Eve and the Apple.
way, to keep the way of the tree of life.” As this guard seems
never to have been relieved, profane wits have speculated
whether the Flood drowned them, and quenched the flaming
sword with a great hiss. Ezekiel describes the Cherubims with
characteristic magnificence. These creatures with wings and
wheels were “full of eyes round about.” And “ everyone had
four faces: the first face was the face of a cherub, and the
second face was the face of a man, and the third the face of a
lion, and the fourth the face of an eagle.” What monsters!
No wonder they effectually frightened poor Adam and Eve from
attempting a re-entrance into the Garden.
Perhaps the reader would like to know what became of the
Tree of Knowledge. One legend of the Middle Ages relates
that Eve along with the forbidden fruit broke off a branch which
she carried with her from Paradise. Planted outside by her
hand, it grew to a great tree, under which Abel was killed; at
a later time it was used in building the most holy place of
Solomon’s temple; and finally it yielded the beams out of which
the cross was made ! Another legend says that, after the Fall,
God rooted out the Tree of Knowledge, and flung it over the
wall of Paradise. A thousand years after it was found by
Abraham, none the worse for its long absence from the soil. He
planted it in his garden, and while doing so he was informed by
a voice from heaven that this was the tree on whose wood the
Redeemer should be crucified.
Space does not allow us to dwell at length on the Paradise
Myths of other ancient peoples, which singularly resembled that of
the Jews. Formerly it was alleged that these were all cor
ruptions of the Genesaic story. But it is now known that most
of them date long anterior to the very existence of the Jewish
people. As Kalisch says, “they belonged to the common
traditionary lore of the Asiatic nations.” The Bible story of
Paradise is derived almost entirely from the Persian myth. It
was after contact with the reformed religion of Zoroaster, during
their captivity, that the remnant of the Jews who returned to
Palestine collated their ancient literature, and revised it in ac
cordance with their new ideas. The story of Eve and her Apple
is, as every scholar knows, an oriental myth slightly altered by
the Jewish scribes to suit the national taste, and has absolutely
no claims on our credence. And if this be so, the doctrine of
the Fall collapses, and down comes the whole Christian structure
which ie erected upon it.
[PRICE ONE PENNY.]
LaiijnoN : Frbkthought Publishing Company, 28, Stonecutter Street,
Farringdon Street, E.O,
�BIBLE ROMANCES,—4,
THE BIBLE
DEVIL.
By G. W. FOOTE,
The Christian Godhead is usually spoken and written of as &
Trinity, whereas it is in fact a Quarternion, consisting of God the
Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost, and God the DeviL
The Roman Catholics add yet another, Goddess the Virgin Mary.
God the Devil, whom this Romance treats of so far as his history
is contained in the Bible, is popularly supposed to be inferior to
the other persons of the Godhead. In reality, however, he is
vastly their superior both in wisdom and in power. For, whereas
they made the world, he has appropriated it almost entirely to
himself; and, whereas they who created all its inhabitants, have
only been able to lay down a very narrow-gauge railway to
the Kingdom of Heaven, he has contrived to lay down an
exceedingly broad-gauge railway to the Kingdom of Hell. Few
passengers travel by their route, and its terminus on this side is
miserably small; but his route is almost universally patronised,
its terminus is magnificent, and there is an extraordinary rush for
tickets.
According to the Christian scheme, the Devil tempted Adam
and Eve from their allegiance to God in the form of a serpent.
He played the devil with Eve, she played the devil with Adam,'
and together they have played the devil with the whole human
race ever since.
But let any unbiassed person read the Genesaic story of the
Fall, and he will certainly discover no reference to the Devil.
A serpent is spoken of as “more subtle than any beast of the
field;” it. is throughout represented simply as a serpent; and
nowhere is there the faintest indication of its possessing any
supernatural endowments.
The Story of the Fall contains clear relics of that Tree and
Serpent worship which in ancient times prevailed so extensively
over the East. The serpent was formerly regarded as the symbol of
a beneficent God. In Hindustan, says Maurice, “the veneration
of the serpent is evident in every page of their mythologic history,
in which every fabulous personage of note is represented as
grasping or as environed with a serpent.” According to Layard,
the word which signifies “ life ” in the greater part of the Semitic
languages signifies also “a serpent.” And Jacob Bryant says
that the word “Ab,” which in Hebrew means Father, has also
the same meaning as the Egyptian “Ob,” or “Aub,” and
signifies “ a serpent,” thus etymologically uniting the two ideas.
The Tree and the Serpent were frequently associated, although
they were sometimes worshipped apart. The Aryan races of the
�26
The Bible Devil.
Western world mostly worshipped the Tree alone. The Scan
dinavians had their great ash “ Yggdrasill,” whose triple root
reaches to the depths of the universe, while its majestic stem
overtops the heavens and its branches fill the world. The
Grecian oracles were delivered from the oak of Dodona, and the
priests set forth their decrees on its leaves. Nutpi or Neith, the
goddess of divine life, was by the Egyptians represented as
seated among the branches of the Tree of Life, in the paradise
of Osiris. The “ Hom,” the sacred tree of the Persians, is
spoken of in the Zendavesta as the “ Word of Life,” and, when
consecrated, was partaken of as a sacrament. An oak was the
sacred tree of the ancient Druids of Britain. We inherit their
custom of gathering the sacred mistletoe at Yule-tide, while in
our Christmas Tree we have a remnant of the old Norse tree
worship. During the Middle Ages the worship of trees was for
bidden in France by the ecclesiastical councils, and in England
by the laws of Canute. A learned antiquary remarks that “ the
English maypole decked with colored rags and tinsel, and the
merry morice-dancers (the gaily decorated May sweeps) with
the mysterious and now almost defunct personage, Jack-in-thegreen, are all but worn-out remnants of the adoration of gods in
trees that once were sacred in England.”
Now the serpent and the tree were originally both symbolic
of the generative powers of nature, and they were interchange
able. Sometimes one was employed, sometimes the other, and
sometimes both. But in that great religious reformation which
took place in the faiths of the ancient world about 600 years
before the time of Christ, the serpent was degraded, and made to
stand as a symbol of Ahriman, the god of evil, who, in the Persic
religion, waged incessant war against Ormuzd, the god of bene
ficence. The Persian myth of the Fall is thus rendered from
the Zendavesta by Kalisch:—
“The first couple, the parents of the human race, Meshia and
Meshiane, lived originally in purity and innocence. Perpetual
happiness was promised them by Ormuzd, the creator of every
good gift, if they persevered in their virtue. But an evil demon
(Dev) was sent to them by Ahriman, the representative of every
thing noxious and sinful. He appeared unexpectedly in the form
of a serpent, and gave them the fruit of a wonderful tree, Hom,
which imparted immortality and had the power of restoring the
dead to life. Thus evil inclinations entered their hearts ; all
their moral excellence was destroyed. Ahriman himself appeared
under the form of the same reptile, and completed the work of
seduction. They acknowledged him instead of Ormuzd as the
creator of everything good ; and the consequence was they for
feited for ever the eternal happiness for which they were
destined.”
Every reader will at once perceive how similar this is to the
Hebrew story of the Fall. The similarity is intelligible when
we remember that all the literature of the ancient Jews was put
�The Bible Devil.
27
into its present form by the learned scribes who returned with
the remnant of the people from the Babylonish captivity, and
who were full of the ideas that obtained in the Persian religion
as reformed by the traditional Zoroaster.
As we have said, the Hebrew story of the Fall contains clear
relics of Tree and Serpent worship. There is also abundant
proof that during the long ages in which the Jews oscillated
between polytheism and monotheism this worship largely pre
vailed. Even up to the reign of Hezekiah, as we find in the
Second. Book of Kings, the serpent was worshipped in groves, to
the great anger of the king, who cast out the idolatry from
among his people.
Having explained the subject thus, let us now assume with
orthodox Christians that the serpent in Eden was animated by
the Devil, or was indeed the Devil himself incarnate.
We have already observed that the Devil excels his three
rivals in wisdom and in power. While they were toiling so
strenuously to create the world and all that therein is, he Quietly
stood or sat by as a spectator. “All right,” he might have
murmured, “ work away as hard, as you please. You ve more
strength than sense. My turn will soon come. When the job is
finished we shall see to whom all this belongs.” When the work
was completed and they had pronounced all things good, in
stepped the Devil, and in the twinkling of an eye rendered im
perfect all that they had so labored to create perfect; turning
everything topsy-turvey, seducing the first pair of human beings,
sowing the seeds of original sin, and at one stroke securing the
wholesale damnation of our race. What were they about, to let
him do all this with such consummate ease ? Surely they must
have slept like logs, and thus left the whole game in his hands.
He made himself the “prince of this world,” although they
created it; and if those may laugh who win, he was entitled to
roar out his mirth to the shaking of the spheres.
Besides being the prince of this world and of the powers of
darkness, the Devil is described as the father of lies. This,
however, is a gross libel on his character. Throughout the
contest with his rivals he played with perfect fairness. And from
Genesis to Revelation there can be adduced no single instance in
which he departs from the strict line of truth. On one occasion
when Jehovah desired a lying spirit to go forth and prophesy
falsely to his people, he found one ready to his hand in heaven
and had no need to trouble Satan for a messenger. The Lord
God had told Adam, “ Of the tree of knowledge of good and evil,
thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof
thou shalt surely die.” “Nay,” said the Devil, when he began
business “ye shall not surely die ; for God doth know that in the
day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall
be as gods, knowing good and evil.” Every word of his speech
was true. Instead of dying “ in the day” that he ate of the fruit.
Adam lived to the fine old age of nine hundred and thirty years.
�28
The Bible Devil.
And after the “fall” the Lord God said, “Behold, the man is
become as one of us, to know good and evil.” The Devil’s truth
fulness is thus amply vindicated.
Satan’s visit to Eve was paid in the form of a serpent. She
manifested no astonishment at being accosted by such a creature,
fbe
^h°le, menagerie of Eden spoke in the human
6’ and
Bala.am ® ass was only what the biologists would
most of°X °lrsyrsion *? th/ primitive type. Jofeptae and
most of the Fathers, conceived of the serpent as having had
SnaU\a\uma? voice and legs; so that if he could not have
walked about with Eve arm in arm, he might at least have
accompanied her in a dance. Milton, however, discredits the legs
and represents the serpent thus:—
°
“Not with indented wave.
Prone on the ground, as since, but on his rear,
Circular base of rising folds, that towered
Fold above fold, a surging maze, his head’
Crested aloft, and carbuncle his eyes 5
With burnish’d neck of verdant gold,’erect
Amidst his circling spires, that on the grass
Floated redundant.”
Very splendid 1 But the doctors differ, and who shall decide ?
.What foliowed the eating of the forbidden fruit we have dealt
with in Eve and the Apple.” We shall therefore at once come
to the curse pronounced upon the serpent. “ And the Lord God
said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art
cursed 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: and I will put enmity between thee and the woman
and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and
thou shalt bruise his heel.”
J
’
The final portion of this curse is flagrantly mythological.
Among the Hindoos, Krishna also, as the incarnation of Vishnu
is represented now as treading on the bruised head of a con
quered serpent, and now as entwined by it, and stung in the
heel. In Egyptian pictures and sculptures, likewise, the serpent
is seen pierced through the head by the spear of the goddess
Isis. The enmity ” between mankind and the serpent is, how
ever not universal. Amongst the Zulus the snake is held in
great veneration, as their dead ancestors are supposed to reappear
in that form ; and in ancient times, as we have already observed
serpents were actually worshipped.
*
’
The middle portion of the curse has not yet been fulfilled.
The serpent lives on more nutritious food than dust. Tn the
Zoological Gardens the inmates of the serpent-house enjoy a
more solid diet
The fact is, we have here an oriental
Sr?tlOv uKS1SCh p0Ults out that “the great scantiness of
h the s®rPent can subsist, gave rise to the belief,
entertained by many Eastern nations, that they eat dust.” This
�The Bible Devil.
29
belief is referred to in Micah vii., 17; Isaiah lxv., 25, and else
where in the Bible. Among the Indians the serpent is believed
to live on wind.
That the serpent “goes” upon its “belly” is, of course, a
fact. Before the curse it must have moved about in some other
way. Milton’s poetical solution of the difficulty we have already
given. During the Middle Ages those seraphic doctors of
theology, who gravely argued how many angels could dance on
the point of a needle, speculated also on the serpent’s method
of locomotion before the “fall.” Some thought the animal
had legs, some that it undulated gracefully on its back, and
others that it hopped about on its tail. The ever-bold Delitzsch
decides that “its mode of motion and its form were changed,”
but closes the controversy by adding, “ of the original condition
of the serpent it is, certainly, impossible to frame to ourselves a
conjecture.” All this is mere moonshine. Geology, as Colenso
remarks, shows us that the serpent was the same kind of
creature as it is now, in the ages long before man existed on the
earth.
Why the serpent was cursed at all is a question which no
Christian can answer. The poor animal was seized, mastered,
occupied, and employed by the Devil, and was therefore abso
lutely irresponsible for what occurred. It had committed no
offence, and consequently the curse upon it, according to
Christian doctrine, was a most brutal and wanton outrage.
Having done such a splendid stroke of business in Eden, the
Devil retired, quite satisfied that the direction he had given to
the affairs of this world was so strong and certain as to obviate
the necessity of his personal supervision. Fifteen centuries
later the human race had grown so corrupt that God (that is,
the three persons in one) resolved to drown them all; preserving,
however, eight live specimens to repeople the world. How the
Devil must have laughed again! He knew that Noah and his
family possessed the seeds of original sin, which they would as
suredly transmit to their children, and thus prolong the corruption
through all time. Short-sighted as ever, Jehovah refrained from
completing the devastation, after which he might have started
afresh. So sure was the Devil's grip on God’s creation that, a
few centuries after the Flood, there were not found ten righteous
men in the whole city of Sodom, and no doubt other cities were
almost as bad.
According to the Bible, the Devil’s long spell of rest was
broken in the reign of • King David, the man after God’s own
heart, but a very great scoundrel nevertheless. The Second
Book of Samuel (xxiv., 1) tells us that “Again the anger of the
Lord was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against
them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah.” Now the First
Book of Chronicles (xxi., 1) in relating the same incident says,
“And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to
number Israel.” Who shall reconcile this discrepancy?
�30
The Bible Devil.
Was it God, was it Satan, or was it both ? Imagine David with
the celestial and infernal powers whispering the same counsel
into either ear! A Scotch minister once told us that this diffi
culty was only apparent. The Devil, says he, exercises only a
delegated power, and acts only by the express or tacit permis
sion of Godso that it matters not which is said to have
provoked David. Yes, but what of the consequences ? Because
the king, despite all protests, took a census of his people the
Lord sent a destroying angel, who slew by pestilence seventy
thousand of them. Where, in the whole history of religion,
shall we find a viler sample of divine injustice ?
+hPT^eS’ if theDeVi.1 actrs in a11 ,cases onlY by God’s permission,
the latter is responsible for all the former’s wrcng-doino-. The
principal, and not the agent, must bear the guilt. And this
suggests a curious problem. Readers of “Robinson Crusoe”
inll remember that when Man Friday was undergoing a course
of theological instruction, he puzzled his master by asking why
God did not convert the Devil. To his unsophisticated mind it
was plain that the conversion of the Devil would annihilate sin
^°b“ison Crusoe changed the subject to avoid looking foolish
but Man Friday s question remains in full force. Why does not
God convert the Devil? The great Thomas Aquinas is re
ported to have prayed for the Devil's conversion through a whole
long night. Robert Burns concludes his “Address to the De’il ”
with a wish that he ‘ wad tak a thought an’ men ’ ” And
bterne, m one of his wonderful strokes of pathos, makes Corporal
Irim say of the Devil, “He is damned already, your honor •”
whereupon, “I am sorry for it,” quoth Uncle Toby. Why oh
why, we repeat, does not God convert the Devil, and thus put a
stop for ever to the damnation of mankind? Why do not the
clergy pray without ceasing for that one object? Because they
dare not. The Devil is their best friend. Abolish him, and
disestablish hell, and their occupation would be gone. They
must stick to their dear Devil, as their most precious possession,
their stock-in-trade, their talisman of power, without whom they
were worse than nothing.
J
The Devil’s adventures in the Book of Job are very amusing.
One day there was a drawing-room or Zevee held in heaven. The
sons of God attended, and Satan came also among them. He seems
to have so closely resembled the rest of the company that only
God detected the difference. This is not surprising, for the
world has seen some very godly sons of God, so very much like
tne Oevil, that if he met one of them in a dark lane by night,
he might almost suspect it to be his own ghost. God, who
knows everything, as usual asked a number of questions. Where
had Satan been, and. what had he been doing ? Satan replied,
hke a gentleman of independent means, that he had been going
t0 andiro in the earth’ and walkinS up and down in it. “ Well ”
t
“Jiav(l you. observed my servant Job ? What’a
good man! perfect and upright. I’m proud of him.” Oh yes,
�The Bible Devil.
31
Satan had observed him. He keeps a sharp eye on all men. As
-old Bishop Latimer said, whatever parson is out of his parish the
Devil is always in his. “Doth Job fear God for nought?” said
Satan. “He is wealthy, prosperous, happy, and respected ; you
fence him about from evil; but just let trouble come upon him,
and he will curse you to your face.” This was a new view of the
subject; the Lord had never seen it in this light before. So he
determined to make an experiment. With God’s sanction Satan
went forth to afflict Job. He despoiled his substance, slaugh
tered his children, covered him with sore boils from head to foot,
and then set on his wife to “nag” him. But Job triumphed;
he did not curse God, and thus Satan was foiled. Subsequently
Job became richer than ever and more renowned, while a fresh
family grew up around his knees. “ So,” say the Christians,
“ alls well that ends well!” Not so, however; for there remains
uneffaced the murder of Job’s children, who were hurriedly
despatched out of the world in the very midst of their festivity.
When the celestial and infernal powers play at conundrums, it is
a great pity that they do not solve them up above or down below,
and leave the poor denizens of this world free from the havoc of
their contention. ,
In the New Testament, as in the Old, the Devil appears early
■on the scene. After his baptism in Jordan, Jesus was “led up
of the spirit in the wilderness to be tempted of the Devil.” When
he had fasted forty days and nights he “was afterward an
hungered.” Doctor Tanner overlooked this. The hunger of
Jesus only began on the forty-first day. The Devil requests
Jesus to change the stones into bread, but he declines to do so.
Then he sets him “ on a pinnacle of the temple ” in Jerusalem,
and desires him to throw himself down. Jesus must have been
exceedingly sharp set in that position. Meanwhile, where was the
Devil posted ? He could scarcely have craned his neck up so as
to hold a confabulation with Jesus from the streets, and we must
therefore suppose that he was sharp set on another pinnacle. A
pretty sight they must have been for the Jews down below!
That temptation failing, the Devil takes Jesus “up into an
exceeding high mountain, and showeth him all the kingdoms of
the world, and the glory of them.” This is remarkably like
seeing round a corner, for however high we go we cannot possibly
see the whole surface of a globe at once. “ All these things,”
says Satan, “ will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship
me.” What a generous Devil! They already belonged to Jesus,
for doth not Scripture say “ the earth is the Lord’s and the fulness
thereof ”?—a text which should now read “ the earth is the land
lords’ and the emptiness thereof.” This temptation also fails,
and the Devil retires in disgust.
What a pretty farce! Our burlesques and pantomimes are
nothing to it. Satan knew Jesus, and Jesus knew Satan. Jesus
knew that Satan would tempt him, and Satan knew that Jesus
knew it. Jesus knew that Satan could not succeed, and Satan
�32
The Bible Devil.
knew that also. Yet they kept the farce up night and day for
no one knows how long; and our great Milton in his “Paradise
Regained ” represents this precious pair arguing all day long
Satan retiring after sunset, and Jesus lying down hungry cold
and wet, and rising in the morning with damp clothes to renew
the discussion.
Soon after Jesus went into the country of the Gergesenes
where he met two fierce men possessed with devils which he
determined to exorcise. The devils (for the Devil had grown
numerous by then), not liking to be turned adrift on the world
without home or shelter, besought Jesus to let them enter the
bodies of a herd of swine feeding by. This he graciously
permitted. The devils left the men and entered the swine whereupon the poor pigs, experiencing a novel sensation, never
having had devils inside them before, “ran violently down a
steep place into the sea, and perished in the waters.” Whether
the devils were drowned with the pigs this veracious history saith
not. But the pigs themselves were not paid for. Jesus wrought
the mn-ade at other people’s expense. And the inhabitants of
tnat part took precisely this view of the case. For “ the whole
city came out to meet Jesus: and when they saw him, they be
sought him that he would depart out of their coasts.” No doubt
they reflected that if he remained working miracles of that kind
districtGnd °f a WGek nOt a ShlgIe Pig W°Uld b6 left aUve in th®
Entering in Genesis, the Devil appropriately makes his exit in
Revelation. The twelfth chapter of that holy nightmare describes
mm as “a great'red dragon, having seven heads, and ten horns
and seven crowns upon his heads; and his tail drew the third
part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth ”
What a tail! The writer’s ideas of size were very chaotic
Bringing a third part of the stars of heaven to this earth is much
like trying to lodge a few thousand cannon-balls on the surface
ot a bullet.
Finally the Devil is to be “bound for a thousand years” in
nefl Let us hope the chain will be strong; for if it should
break, the pit has no bottom, and the Devil would go right
through, coming out on the other side to renew his old tricks
buch is the Romance of the Bible Devil. Was ever a more
ludicrous story palmed off on a credulous world? The very
clergy are growing ashamed of it. But there it is, inextricably
interwoven with the rest of the “ sacred ” narrative, so that no
skill can remove it without destroying the whole fabric. The
Devil has been the Church’s best friend, but he is doomed, and
as their fraternal bond cannot be broken, he will drag it down to
irretrievable perdition.
PKICE ONE PENNY.
Freethought Publishing Company, 28 Stonecutter Street, London.
�BIBLE ROMANCES —V.
THE TEN
PLAGUES.
By G. W. FOOTE.
If a man who had never read the Bible before wished to amuse
himself during a spare hour among its pages, we should recom
mend him to try the first fourteen chapters of Exodus. A more
entertaining narrative was never penned. Even the fascinating
Arabian Nights affords nothing better, provided we read it with
the eyes of common sense, and without that prejudice which so
oftens blinds us to the absurdities of “ God’s Word.” At the end
of the fourteenth chapter aforesaid, let the book be closed, and
then let the reader ask himself whether he ever met with a more
comical story.
Two hundred and fifteen years after the arrival of Israel in
Egypt, God's chosen people had fallen into slavery. Yet they
were exceedingly prolific, so that “ the land was filled with
them.” Afraid of their growing numbers, Pharaoh ‘‘spake to the
Hebrew midwives ” and told them to kill all their male children
at birth and leave only the daughters alive. This injunction the
midwives very properly disobeyed. Had they obeyed Pharaoh,
the Jewish race would have been extinguished, and Judaism and
Christianity never heard of.
But the comical fact as to these midwives is that there were
only two of them, Shipprah and Puah. What a busy pair they
must have been! What patterns of ubiquitous industry! When
the Jews quitted Egypt they mustered six hundred thousand
men, besides women and children. Now, supposing all these
were collected together in one city, its size would equal that of
London. How could two midwives possibly attend to all the
confinements among such a population ? And how much more
difficult would their task be if the population were scattered
over a wide area, as was undoubtedly the case with the Jews!
Words fails us to praise the miraculous activity of these two
ladies. Like the peace of God, it passes all understanding.
One of the male children born under the iron rule of Pharaoh
was Moses, the son of Amram and Jochebed. The incidents of
his eventful life will be fully recorded in our series of “ Bible
Heroes.” Suffice it here to say that he was adopted and brought
up by Pharaoh’s daughter; that he became skilled in all the
learning of the Egyptians; that he privily slew an Egyptian who
had maltreated a Hebrew, and was obliged therefore to flee to
the land of Midian, where he married Zipporah, a daughter
of Jethro the priest. At this time Moses was getting on to his
eightieth year. Nowadays a man of that age sees only the
grave before him, and has pretty nearly closed his account with
the world. But in those days it was different. At the age of
�34
The Ten Plagues.
eighty Moses was just beginning his career. He was indeed a
very astonishing old boy.
One day Moses was keeping his father-in-law’s flock near
Mount Horeb, when lo 1 a strange vision greeted his eyes. The
“ angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of
the midst of a bush,” which burned without consuming. By
“angel” we are to understand a vision or appearance only, for
the being within the bush was God Almighty himself; and
throughout the rest of the narrative the word “angel” gives
place to Lord or God. Moses approached this wonderful sight;
but the Lord called out to him, “Draw not nigh hither : put off
thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest
is holy ground.” Thereupon Moses hid his face “forhe was afraid
to look upon God.” Could anything be more ludicrous ! Fancy
God, the infinite spirit of the universe, secreting himself in a
bush and setting it on fire, just to make a little display for the
benefit of Moses 1 Our wonder, however, is presently lessened;
for this God turns out to be only Jehovah “The Lord God of
the Hebrews,” a mere local deity, who cared only for for his
own people, and was quite ready to slaughter any number of
the inhabitants of adjacent countries, besides being bitterly
jealous of their gods. He had heard the cries of his people and
had determined to rescue them from bondage. Fie had also
resolved to give Pharoah and the Egyptians a taste of his quality,
so that they might be forced to admit his superiority to their
gods. “ I will let them know,” said he to Moses, “ who I am,
and you shall be my agent. We’ll confound their impudence
before we’ve done with them. But don’t let us be in a hurry,
for the little drama I have devised requires a good deal of time.
You go to Egypt and ask Pharaoh to let my people go. But
don’t suppose that he will consent. That wouldn’t suit my plans
at all. I have decided to set you two playing at the little game
of “pull Moses, pull Pharaoh,” and 1 shall harden his heart
against your demands so that there may be a fierce tussel. But
don’t be afraid. I am on your side, and just at the end of the
game I’ll join in and pull Pharaoh clean over. And mind you
tell him all along that my power, not yours, works all the wonders
I mean you to perform, for you are only my instrument, and I
want all the glory myself. Play fair, Moses, play fair! ”
Moses was not unwilling to engage in this enterprise, but like
a prudent Jew he required certain assurances of success. Fie
therefore first raised an objection as to his own insignificance—
“Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh? ” To which God
replied, “ Certainly I will be with thee; and this shall be a token
unto thee, that I have sent thee : When thou hast brought forth
the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain.”
Moses, however, required a much less remote token than this;
so he again objected that nobody would believe him. There
upon the Lord bade him cast his rod on the ground, and lo! it
became a serpent. Moses very naturally fled before it, till the
�The, Ten Plagues.
35
Lord told him not to run away but to take it by the tail. He
did so, and it became again a rod in his hand. Then the Lord
bade him put his hand in his bosom, and on taking it out he
found it was “leprous as snow.” Again he put it in his bosom,
and when he plucked it out once more it was sound ‘and well.
“There,” said the Lord, “those signs will do in Egypt. When
you show them nobody will doubt you.” Moses still objected
that he was very slow of speech, and frankly desired the
Lord to send some one else. The Lord grew angry at this per
sistent reluctance; yet he restrained himself, and informed
Moses that his brother Aaron, who was a good speaker, should
accompany him. The prudent prophet seems to have been at
length satisfied. At any rate he made no further objection, but
after a little conversation with the Lord, who was very talkative,
he set forth on his journey to Egypt.
Singular to relate, the Lord met Moses at an inn on the road,
and sought to kill him. What a strange God, to be sure 1 Why
-did he want to kill his own messenger ? And why, if he wanted
to kill him, did he not succeed in doing it? Truly the ways of
God are past finding out. The only reason discoverable for this
queer conduct is that Moses’ boy was uncircumcised. Zipporah,
his wife, took a sharp stone and performed the rite of circum
cision herself, casting the amputated morsel at the feet of the
boy’s father, with the remark that he was “a bloody husband.”
The Lord’s anger was therby appeased, and the text naively says
that he then let Moses go.
Prompted by the Lord, Aaron went out into the wilderness to
meet Moses, and they soon appeared together before “all the elders
of the children of Israel,” who readily believed in their mission
when they heard Aaron’s account of the Lord’s conversation with
Moses, and saw the wonderful signs. Afterwards the two brothers
visited Pharaoh, but God had hardened his heart; so he
■denied all knowledge of the Lord, and refused to let Israel go.
On the contrary, he commanded the taskmasters to be even more
rigorous with them, and, instead of giving them straw to make
bricks, as theretofore, to make them gather straw for themselves.
And when they complained, Pharaoh replied that they were an
idle lot, and only wanted to go out and sacrifice to the Lord in
order to avoid work. Whereupon they remonstrated with Moses
for his interference, and he, in turn, remonstrated with God in
very plain and disrespectful language. “Nonsense!” said the
Lord, “now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh.”
Again Pharaoh was visited by the two brothers, who this time
■commenced to work the oracle. Aaron cast down his rod, and
it became a serpent. But the magicians of Egypt, who were
present by the invitation of the king, were in nowise astonished.
“ Oh,” said they, “is that all you can do? ” Then every man of
them threw dowh his rod, and it also became a serpent. That
was indeed an age of miracles ! The magicians of Egypt wrought
this wonder without any help from the Lord, and solely “with
�36
The Ten Plagues.
their enchantments.” Here then was a pretty fix! So far neither
side had any advantage. But, presently, Aaron’s serpent—which
thus proved itself a truly Jewish one—created a diversion by
swallowing all the others up. We must suppose that it after
wards disgorged them, or else that Aaron’s rod was exceedingly
stout when he got it back.
Pharaoh’s heart remained obdurate, notwithstanding this sign,
and he still refused to let the people go. And then the plagues
commenced.
The first was a plague of blood. Aaron stretched forth his
rod, and all the waters of Egypt, the streams, the rivers, the
ponds, and the pools became blood. Even the water in vessels
of stone and wood was ensanguined. The fish all died, and the
river stank: and “there was blood throughout all the land of
Egypt.” This was a good start, but the magicians of Egypt beat
it hollow ; for after Aaron had turned all the water of Egypt
into blood, they turned all the rest into blood. No wonder that
Pharaoh’s heart remained hardened! He quietly walked into his
house and let the subject drop.
Seven days later Moses went again to Pharaoh and said,
“Thus saith the Lord, let my people go.” And Pharaoh said,
“I won’t.” “Won’t you?” replied Moses, “we shall see.”
Forthwith Aaron brandished his rod over the streams, rivers,
and ponds, and brought on the second plague in the shape of
frogs, which swarmed all over the land. They entered the houses,
penetrated to the bed-rooms, mounted the beds, slipped into the
kneading-troughs, and even got into the ovens, although one
would expect frogs to give such hot places a very wide berth.
What a squelching of frogs there must have been ! The Egyptians
could not have stood absolutely still, and the land was covered
with them. Again the magicians, “with their enchantments,”
followed suit, and brought up frogs too. Yet, as the land was
already covered with frogs, it is difficult to see how the new
comers found room, unless they got on the backs of the others,
and went hopping about in couples. Pharaoh now relented.
He called for Moses, and said, “Intreat your Lord to take away
these nasty frogs, and I will let the people go.” “That will I.”
said Moses, “ and you shall know that there is none like unto the
Lord our Gocl.” The next day the frogs died out of the houses,
villages, and fields, and were gathered into heaps, so that, again
“the land stank.” But when Pharaoh saw that there "was
respite he hardened his heart again, “ as the Lord had said.”
The third act of this tragi-comedy was decisive in one sense,
for in it the magicians of Egypt were obliged to retire from the
competition. Aaron stretched forth his rod again and smote
the dust of the earth, all of which instantly became lice, in man
and in beast. Before this dirty miracle the magicians of Egypt
shrank dismayed. They made a feeble and altogether unsuccess
ful attempt to imitate Aaron’s performance, and then drew back,
declining to continue the contest. Tho lice settled them.
�The Ten Plagues.
37
“This,” said they, “is the finger of God.” When they saw the
lice they knew that the Lord was shaking himself and meant
business. But Pharaoh still refused to knuckle under. Even
ao-ainst the force of this supreme wonder his heart was steeled.
°So the fourth plague came. A grievous swarm of flies descended
on Egypt, so that “the land was corrupted” by reason of them.
But not a single fly crosses over into “the land of Goshen”
where the Jews dwelt. Thereupon Pharaoh called for Moses
and Aaron, and told them he was willing to let their people go
and sacrifice to the Lord for three days, but not outside Egypt.
Moses reiterated his demand for a three days’ journey into the
wilderness. Whereto Pharaoh replied that they might go, but
“not too far.” Moses then undertook to banish the flies. And
he was as good as his word; for he made such a clean sweep of
them that “not one remained.” This precious narrative always
runs to extremes. Egypt without a fly in it would be in a very
abnormal condition. At ordinary times the land is infested with
flies; and large numbers of the people suffer from diseased eyes,
in consequence of these insects incessantly fastening on the sores
caused by the irritating sand which fills the air. It was absurd
for this Hebrew story-teller to scotch the last fly; he should
have left sufficient to maintain the character of the country.
Again Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and when the flies were
banished he refused to “ let the people go.” So the fifth plague
came. A “very grievous murrain,” which spared the cattle of
Israel, broke out on the cattle of Egypt, and with such virulence
that they all died. Pharaoh found on inquiry that there was
“ not one of the cattle of the Israelites dead,” yet for all that his
heart was hardened and he would not let the people go.
So the sixth plague came. Aaron took “ handfuls of ashes of
the furnace,” which Moses sprinkled towards heaven, and “it
became a boil breaking forth with blains upon man and upon
beast.” Even the magicians were afflicted. Now the reader
will bear in mind that all the cattle of Egypt were killed by the
fifth plague. What beasts, then, were these tortured with boils ?
Were they dead carcasses, or were they live cattle miraculously
created in the interim ? From the serpent of Eden to Jonali’s
whale, the animals of the Bible are a queer lot.
Pharaoh’s heart remaining still hardened, God commanded
Moses to make a special appeal to him, and to get up early in the
morning for that purpose. So Moses stood before Pharaoh and
said “ thus saith the Lord God of the Hebrews, let my people go,
that they may serve me. If you refuse I shall plague you and
your people worse than ever, and so teach you that there is none
like me in all the earth. You had better cave in at once.” But
Pharaoh would not harken. He tacitly declared that the Lord
God of the Hebrews might go to Jericho.
So the seventh plague come. A fierce, hail, accompanied by
fire that ran along the ground, smote all that was in the field,
both man and beast. It smote also every herb of the field and
�38
Tice Ten Plagues.
brake every tree of the field. Only those were saved who “feared
the Lord” and stayed indoors _ with their servants and cattle.
J ortunately the wheat and the rice were spared, as they were not
grownup; or there would have been a famine in Egypt com
pared with which the seven years of scarcity in Joseph’s time
had sunk into insignificance. Pharaoh now relented and re
pented. “I have sinned this time,” he said, “the Lord is
righteous, and I and my people are wicked.” And Moses,
seeing that the king had recognised Jehovah as the true cock of
the theological walk, procured a cessation of the thunder and the
hail. But lo 1 when Pharaoh perceived this, he hardened his
heart again, and “ sinned yet more.”
So the eighth plague came. After a day and night of east wind,
a prodigious swarm of locusts went up over the land of Egypt’
covering the face of the whole earth, and darkening the ground’
they “did eat every herb of the land, and all the fruit of the
trees which the hail had spared.” But we were told that the
hail smote every herb, and brake every tree. What then was left
for the locusts to eat ? The writer of. this narrative had a very
short memory, or else a stupendous power of belief.
Agaiii 1 haraoh confessed that he had sinned. The locusts
were cleared away, and so effectually that “not one remained.”
But “the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart ” for the eighth time,
and he refused to let the people go.
Whereupon Moses
brought darkness over the land of Egypt, a thick darkness that
might be felt. I his thick darkness lasted in Egypt for three
days, during which time the people “ saw not one another,
neither rose any from his place.” We presume, therefore, that
they all starved for that time. Poor devils 1 What had they
i ?e • b.e treated thus ? All the children of Israel, however,
had light in their dwellings. Why then did they not avail them
selves of such a fine opportunity to escape ? It was a splendid
chance, yet they let jt slip. Perhaps Moses did not give the
word, and they were like a flock of sheep without him. Perhaps
they wished to stay and see the rest of the fun. For more was
coining, although it was anything but fun to the poor Egyptians.
Io them indeed it was an awful tragedy such as we lack words
to describe.
Moses commanded the Jews to take a male lamb for each
household, to kill it, and to daub its blood over the two side
posts and on the upper door-posts of their houses. The flesh
they were to eat in the night, roasted with bitter herbs, and nnleavened bread, as the inauguration of the passover. The Lord
meant to pass through the land in the dark, and slay all the first
born m Egypt; and lest he should make some mistake he
required the Jews’ houses to be marked with blood so that he
might distinguish them. We should expect God to dispense with
such “aids to memory.” What followed must be told in the
language of Scripture: “At midnight the Lord smote all the
ist born m the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh
�The Ten Plagues.
39
that sat on the throne unto the firstborn of the captive that was
in the dungeon; and all the firstborn of cattle. And Pharaoh
rose up in the night, he, and all his servants, and all the
Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt; for there was
not a house where there was not one dead.” The reader’s
imagination will picture the horror of the scene. That “great
cry in Egypt ” arose from a people who were the first victims of
God’s hatred of all who stood in the way of his chosen “ set of
leprous slaves.” And in this case the tragedy was the more
awful, and the more inexcusably atrocious, because God
deliberately planned it.
He could easily have softened
Pharaoh’s heart, but he chose to harden it. He could have
brought his people owft of Egypt in peace, but he preferred that
they should start amidst wailings of agony, and leave behind them
a track of blood.
Yet in the tragedy there is a touch of comedy. Those beasts
that were first killed by the murrian and afterwards plagued by
the boil, at last lose their firstborn by the tenth plague. Besides,
there is a touch of the ludicrous in the statement that every house
had one dead. All the firstborn of such a large population could
not have been present at that time.
Some might have left
Egypt for purposes of trade, and others would certainly have
been cut off before by death. It is an interesting question, too,
what the Lord did when the firstborn happened to be twins.
Pharaoh and the Egyptians were now anxious to get rid of the
Jews. So God’s people departed in haste. They took good care,
however, not to go empty-handed. They “borrowed” of the
Egyptians, without the remotest intention of ever paying them
back, jewels of silver, jewels of gold, and raiment. In fact they
“ spoiled the Egyptians.” In recent times the modern Egyptians
have wiped off that old score by spoiling a few Jewisli money
lenders.
God led his people past instead of through the land of the
Philistines, lest they should be frightened by war, and wish to
return to Egypt. He does not seem to have known their
character, considering the delight with which they subsequently
warred against their enemies, and the joy they took in wholesale
massacre. Moses carried off the bones of Joseph, which must
have been rather stale by that time. And God went before the
huge host of six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women
and children, and a mixed multitude of followers; by day in a
pillar of cloud, to lead them the way, and by night in a pillar of
fire, to give them light, until at length they found themselves
encamped before the Red Sea.
In the meanwhile God had again hardened Pharaoh’s heart, for
the express purpose of killing some more Egyptians and getting
more honor to himself. The Israelites soon heard that Pharaoh
was pursuing them with an army, and they remembered his
dreadful war chariots. They found themselves between the
devil and the deep sea. Whereupon they murmured against
�Moses for bringing them out into the wilderness to die. But he
disregarding them, stretched forth his miraculous rod over the
sea, and lo! the waters parted, forming a wall on either side of a
safe passage, through which the Jews travelled with dry feet
Pharaoh and his host, however, attempting the same feat, were
overwhelmed by the down-rushing sea-ramparts, and all drowned.
There remained, says Exodus, not so much as one of them.
AVe have heard a different account of this affair. A ne°TO
preacher once explained that the Red Sea just at that time, was
a little bit fiozen over, and the Jews carrying only what they
had borrowed “frum the Gyptians,” crossed the ice safely but
" hen 1 haraoh came with his thundering war-chariot-s, the ice
broke, and “ dey all was drown’d.” But a nigger in the audience
objected that the Red Sea is “in de quator,” and is never frozen
over. “War did you larn dat?” asked the preacher. “In de
jogiafy, was the reply. “Ah,” was the ready retort, “dat's
war you made de mistake; dis was a very long time ago, and
dere was no jografy and no quator den.”
That nigger
preacher’s explanation seems quite as good as the one given bv
“Moses.”
J
We leave the Jews with their Lord God on the safe side of the
Red Sea, where Moses heads the men in singing a joyful song of
praise, and Miriam the prophetess heads the women with timbrel
and with dance. Jehovah has ended his plaguing of the Egyp
tians, after more than decimating them. He has covered his
name with terrible splendor, and proved “that there is none
like him to a world which is very happy to be assured of the
fact. 1 wo such monsters would make earth a hell. Reader!
did you ever meet with a more extraordinary story than this of
the Ten Plagues; and can you regard the book which contains
i as Go d s Wor ?
PRICE ONE PENNY.
London : Fbeethovght Publishing Company, 28 Stonecutter
Street, London, E.C.
�BIBLE ROMANCES—VI.
JONAH AND THE WHALE.
By G. W. FOOTE.
We have often wondered whether Shakespeare had the story
*t)f Jonah in his mind when he wrote that brief dialogue
between Hamlet and Polonius, which immediately precedes the
famous closet-scene in the Master’s greatest play—
Hamlet.—Do you see yonder cloud that’s almost in shape of
a camel ?
Polonius.—By the mass, and ’tis like a camel, indeed.
Hamlet.—Methinks it is like a weasel.
Polonius.—It is backed like a weasel.
Hamlet.—Or like a whale p
Polonius.—Very like a whale.
Having, however, no means whereby to decide this question,
we must content ourselves with broaching it, and leave the
reader to form his own conclusion. Yet we cannot refrain
from expressing our opinion that the story of the strange
adventures of the prophet Jonah is “ very like a whale.”
In another of Shakespeare’s plays, namely “ The Tempest,”
We find a phrase which exactly applies to the romance of
Jonah. When Trinculo discovers Caliban lying on the ground,
he proceeds to investigate the monster. “ What,” quoth he,
■“ have we here ? a man or a fish ? dead or alive ? A fish: he
smells like a fish ; a very ancient and fish-like smell.” Now this
is a most admirable description of the Book of Jonah. It has
“ a very ancient and fish-like smell.” In fact, it is about the
fishiest of all the fishy stories ever told.
Sailors’ “ yarns ” have become proverbial for their audacious
and delicious disregard of truth, and the Book of Jonah is
“ briny ” from beginning to end. It contains only forty-eight
verses, but its brevity is no defect. On the contrary, that is
one of its greatest charms. The mind takes in the whole story
at once, and enjoys it undiluted; as it were a goblet of the
fine generous wine of romance. Varying the expression, the
Book of Jonah may be called the perfect cameo of Bible fiction.
When the Book of Jonah was written no one precisely
knows, nor is it discoverable'who wrote it. According to
Matthew Arnold some unknown man of genius gave to Chris
tendom the fourth gospel, and with sublime self-abnegation
allowed his name to perish. A similar remark must be made
concerning the unknown author who gave to the world this
racy story of Jonah and the whale. We heartily wish his name
had been preserved for remembrance and praise.
Our marginal Bibles date the Book of Jonah b.c. cvr. 862.
Other authorities give the more recent date of b.c. 830 as that
of th® events recorded in it. This chronology will suggest an
important reflection later on.
�42
Jonah and the Whale.
The wonderful story of .Jonah and the whale begins in this
wise :—“ Now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah, the son
of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and
cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me.”
Who Amittai was, and whether man or woman, is a problem
still unsolved; but it is reasonable to suppose the name was
that of Jonah’s father, as the ancient Jews paid no super
fluous attentions to women, and generally traced descent from
the paternal stem alone. Amittai belonged to a place called
G-athhepher, “ the village of the Cow’s tail,” or, as otherwise
interpreted, “ the Heifer’s trough.” Jonah’s tomb is said to
have been long shown on a rocky hill near the town ; but
whether the old gentleman was ever buried there no man can
say. The word Jonah is said to mean a dove, and is by some
derived from an Arabic root, signifying to be weak or gentle.
Another interpretation, by G-esenius, is a feeble, gentle bird.
This refractory prophet was singularly ill-named. If his cog
nomen was bestowed on him by his parents, they must have
been greatly deceived as to his character. The proverb says
it is. a wise son that knows his own father ; and with the
history of Jonah before us, we may add that it is a wise fathei'
who rightly knows his own son.
The solicitude of “ the Lord G-od of the Hebrews ” for the
welfare of the Ninevites is to the sceptical mind an extra
ordinary phenomenon. It is one of the very few cases in
which he shows the slightest concern for any other people than
the Jews. His ordinary practice was to slaughter them whole
sale by pestilence or the sword; and it is therefore very
refreshing to meet with such an instance of his merciful care.
For once he remembers that the rest of Adam’s posterity are
his children, and possess a claim on his attention.
Jonah, however, did not share this benign sentiment; and
disrelishing the missionary enterprise assigned him, he “rose
up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.”
Jehovah does not seem to have been omnipresent then; that
attribute attaches to him only since the beginning of the
Christian era, when he assumed universal sway. Long before
the time of Jonah, another man, the first ever born in this
world, namely Cain, also “ went out from the presence of the
Lord, and dwelt in the Land of Nod; ” probably so called
because the Lord was not quite awake in that locality. No
one knows were Nod was situated, nor can the most learned
archieologists denote the actual position of Tarshish. These
two places would be well worth study. A careful examination
of them would to some extent reveal what went on in those
parts of the world to which G-od’s presence did not extend;
and we should be able to compare their geological and other
records with those of the rest of the world. No doubt some
striking differences would be perceptible.
Jonah determined to voyage by the Joppa and Tarshish line.
So he went to the former port and embarked in one of the
Company’s ships, after paying his fare like a man.
�Jonah and the Whale.
43
Staving a perfectly untroubled conscience, and no apprehen sion of his coming troubles, Jonah no doubt felt highly elated
at having done the Lord so neatly. Perhaps it was this
elation of spirits which safe-guarded him from sea-sickness.
At any rate he went “ down into the sides of the ship,” and
there slept the sleep of the just. So profound was his slumber,
that it was quite unbroken by the horrible tempest which
ensued. The Lord had his eye on Jonah, for the prophet had
not yet reached the safe refuge of Tarshish; and he “ sent out
a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in
the sea, so that the ship was likely to be broken.” The
mariners “ cast forth the wares that were in the ship ” to
lighten her, and toiled hard to keep afloat; but their efforts
were apparently fruitless, and nothing lay before them but
the certain prospect of a watery grave. The reader will be
able to imagine the tumult of the scene; the dash of ravening
waves, the fierce howling of the wind, the creaking of masts
and the straining of cordage, the rolling and pitching of the
good ship and the shifting of her cargo, the captain’s hoarse
shouts of command and the sailors’ loud replies, alternated
with frenzied appeals to their gods for help. Yet amidst all the
uproar Jonah still slept, as though the vessel were gaily skim
ming the waters before a pleasant breeze.
Let us pause here to interpose a question. Did the “ great
wind sent out into the sea ” by the Lord confine its attentions
to the immediate vicinity of Jonah’s ship, or did it cause a
general tempest and perhaps send some other vessels to Davy
Jones’s locker ? As no restrictions are mentioned, we pre
sume that the tempest was general, and that the Lord’s wind,
like the Lord’s rain referred to by Jesus, fell alike upon th©
just and the unjust.
This circumstance very naturally
heightens our previous conception of his righteousness.
That the Lord, or some other supernatural power, caused
the tempest, the mariners of Jonah’s ship and their captain
never once doubted. Living as they did, and as we do not,
under a miraculous dispensation, they attributed every
unusual, and especially every unpleasant, occurrence to the
agency of a god. The idea of predicting storms, with which
the civilised world is now familiar, they would doubtless have
regarded as blasphemous and absurd. It is, therefore, by no
means wonderful that every man on board (except Jonah, who
was fast asleep) “ called unto his god.” Ignorant of what god
was afflicting them, they appealed impartially all round, in
the hope of hitting the right one. But the circle of their
deities did not include the one which sent the wind ; so the
tempest continued to prevail, despite their prayers.
In this extremity a happy thought occurred to the “ ship
master.” It struck him that the strange passengei’ down
below might know something about the tempest, and that his
god might have caused it. Forthwith there dawned within
him a recollection of words which Jonah had uttered on em
barking. Had he not told them “that he fled from the
�44
Joliah and the Whale.
presence of the Lord?” “Dear me,” the captain probablysaid to himself, “ what a fool I was not to think of this before.
That chap down below is the occasion of all these troubles ;
I’ll go and hunt him up, confound him ! ” Thereupon he
doubtless slapped his thigh, as is the wont of sailors when
they solve a difficulty or hit on a brilliant idea; after which
he descended “ into the sides of the ship,” whither Jonah had
gone. There he found the prophet slumbering as peacefully
as a weanling child, with a smile of satisfaction playing over
his Hebrew features. We can imagine the captain’s profound
disgust in presence of this scene. He and his men had been
toiling and praying, and alas ! pitching the cargo overboad,
in order to save their skins ; and all the while the occasion of
their trouble had been lying fast asleep ! Preserving an out
ward decorum, however, he accosted Jonah in very mild terms.
“ What meanest thou, 0 sleeper ? ” said he, “ Arise, call upon
thy God, if so be that God will think upon us, that we perish
not.”
What exquisite simplicity! It reminds us of the childlike
and bland Sir Henry Drummond Wolff, when he opposed Mr.
Bradlaugh’s entry to the House of Commons. That honorable
champion of the Almighty objected to Mr. Bradlaugh on the
ground that he acknowledged no God, and was thus vastly
different from the other members of the House, all of whom
“ believed in some kind of deity or other.” You must have
a god to be a legislator it seems, even if that god is, as the
Americans say, only a little tin Jesus. So the captain of this
tempest-tost ship desired Jonah to call upon his god. He
made no inquiry into the character of the god, any more than
did Sir Henry Drummond Wolff on a later occasion. It was
enough to know that Jonah had “ some kind of deity or
other.” Any god would do.
Now comes the most remarkable episode in this wonderful
story. The captain and the crew were aware that Jonah had
“ fled from the presence of the Lord,” because “ he had told
them; ” they had, therefore, every reason to believe that
Jonah’s god had caused the tempest. Yet, curiously enough,
instead of at once proceeding on this belief, “ they said, every
one to his fellow, Come, and let us cast lots, that we may
know for whose cause this evil is upon us.” This wholly
superfluous procedure may, perhaps, be attributed to their ex
ceptional love of justice. They wished to make assurance
doubly sure before they “ went for ” Jonah. And with sweet
simplicity they had recourse to the casting of lots, in which
their wills would be inoperative, and the whole responsibility
of deciding be thrown on the gods, who alone possessed the
requisite information.
The lot of course fell upon Jonah. Any other result would
have spoilt the story. “ Then,” continues our narrative, “ said
they unto him, Tell us, we pray thee, for whose cause this evil
is upon us ? What is thine occupation ? and whenco comes t
thou ? what is thy country ? and of what people art thou ?
�Jonah and the Whale.
45
And he said unto them, I am an Hebrew, and I fear the Lord,
the God of heaven, which hath made the sea and the dry land.
Then were the men exceedingly afraid, and said unto him,
Why hast thou done this ? For the men knew that he fled
from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them.
Then said they unto him, What shall we do unto thee, that
the sea may be calm unto us ? for the sea wrought and was
tempestuous. And he said unto them, Take me up and cast
me forth into the sea; so shall the sea be calm unto you : for I
know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you.”
We are almost dumb with astonishment before this act of
self-sacrifice on the part of Jonah, for which his previous
history left us quite unprepared. Who would have thought
him capable of such disinterested conduct ? His unselfish
ness was assuredly heroic, and may even be called sublime.
No doubt the captain and crew of the ship were as much
astonished as we are, and their opinion of Jonah went up
several hundred per cent. They resolved to make a last
supreme effort before turning him into fish-bait. But all their
gallant endeavors were discovered to be futile and a mere
waste of time. So the men, more in sorrow than in anger,
finally took Jonah up and threw him overboard. They had
done their best for him, and now, finding that they could do
no more except at too great a risk, they sadly left him to do
the rest for himself.
Immediately, we are told, “ the sea ceased from her raging.”
Jonah was oil upon the troubled waters. What an invaluable
recipe does this furnish us against the dangers of the deep sea !
The surest method of allaying a storm is to throw a prophet
overboard. Every ship should carry a missionary in case of
need. It would, indeed, be well if the law made this com
pulsory. The cost of maintaining the missionary would be
more than covered by the saving effected in insurance. Here
is a splendid field for Christian self-sacrifice ! Hundreds of
gentlemen who are now engaged in very doubtful labor among
the heathen, might engage in this new enterprise with the
absolute certainty of a beneficent result; for poor ungodly
mariners would thus be spared a hasty dispatch from this
world without time to repent and obtain forgiveness, and be
allowed ample leisure to secure salvation.
When the men saw that “ the sea ceased from her raging ”
on Jonah’s being cast into her depths, “ they‘feared the Lord
exceedingly, and offered a sacrifice unto the Lord, and made
vows.” To the sceptical mind it would seem that they had
much more reason to “ fear ” the Lord during the continuance
of the tempest than after it had subsided. It also seems
strange that they should have the means wherewith to offer a
sacrifice. Perhaps they bad a billy-goat on board, and made
him do duty, in default of anything better. Or failing even
a billy-goat, as the Lord God of the Hebrews could only be
propitiated by the shedding of blood, they perhaps caught and
immolated a stray rat. Th© nature of their “ vows ” is not
'' J
�4t>
Jonah and the Whale.
recorded, but it is not unreasonable to assume that they swore
never again to take on board a passenger fleeing “ from the
presence of the Lord.”
Meanwhile, what had become of poor Jonah ? Most men
would be effectually settled if thrown overboard in a storm
But there are some people who were not born to be drowned'
and Jonah yas one of them. He was destined to another fate’
The Lord, it appears, “ had prepared a great fish to swallow
up Jonah, ’and the feat was of course duly performed. Our
narrative does not describe the character of this “ great fish ”
but light is cast on the subject by another passage of Scrip
ture. In the twelfth chapter of St. Matthew, and the fortieth
verse, Jesus is represented as saying, “ For as Jonas was three
days and three nights in the whale’s belly ; so shall the Son of
man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth ”
Lhe great fish was then a whale. Jesus said so, and there can
be no higher authority. Sharks and such ravenous fish have
an unpleasant habit of “ chawing ” their victims pretty con
siderably before swallowing them ; so, on the whole, we prefer
to believe that it was a whale. Yet the Levant is a curious
place for a whale to be lurking in. The creature must have
been miraculously led there to go through its appointed per
formance. It must also have been “prepared,” to use the
language of the Bible, in a very remarkable way, for the gullet
of a whale is not large enough to allow of the passage of an
object exceeding the size of i.n ordinary herring. Swallowing
Jonah must have been a tough job after the utmost prepara
tion-. With a frightfully distended throat, however, the whale
did its best, and by dint of hard striving at last got him
down. Jonah could never afterwards say to that hospitable
fish, “ I was a stranger and ye took me not in.”
Having properly taken Jonah in out of the wet, the poor
whale doubtless surmised that its troubles had ended. But alas
they had only just begun! Swallowing a prophet is one
digesting him is another. For three days and nights
the whale struggled desperately to digest Jonah, and for three
days and nights Jonah obstinately refused to lie digested
filler m the entire course of its life had it experienced such a
difficulty. During the whole of that period, too, Jonah
carried on a kind of prayer meeting, and the strange rumbling
in its belly must have greatly added to the poor animal’s dis
comfort. At last it grew heartily sick of Jonah, and vomited
him up on dry land. We have no doubt that it swam away
into deep waters, a sadder but a wiser whale; and that ever
afterwards, instead of bolting its food, it narrowly scrutinised
every morsel before swallowing it, to make sure it wasn’t
another prophet. According to its experience, prophets were
uecidedly the most unprofitable articles of consumption.
We are of course aware that the narrative states that “ the
Lora spake unto the fish, and it vomited Jonah upon the dry
land. But this we conceive to be a mere pleasantry on the part
o the unknown author. The idea of the Lord whispering into a
�Jonah and the Whale.
47
whale’s ear is ineffably ludicrous: besides the whale had a
very natural inclination to rid itself of Jonah, and needed no
divine prompting.
Jonah’s prayer “unto the Lord his God out of the fish’s
belly ” is very amusing. There is not a sentence in it which
bears any reference to the prophet’s circumstances. It is a
kind of Psalm, after the manner of those ascribed to David.
Our belief is that the author found it floating about, and
thinking it would do for Jonah, inserted it in his narra
tive, without even taking the trouble to furbish it into decent
keeping with the situation.
The word of the Lord came unto Jonah a second time, and
presuming no more to disobey, he went to Nineveh. It is to
be supposed, however, that he first well-lined his poor stomach,
for both he and the whale had fasted three days and nights,
and must have been sadly in want of victuals.
Nineveh, according to our author, was a stupendous city of
“ three days’journey.” This means its diameter and not its
circumference, for we are told that Jonah “ entered into the
city a day’s journey.” If we allow twenty miles as a moderate
day’s walk, Nineveh was sixty miles through from wall to
wall, or about twenty times as large as London ; and if densely
populated like our metropolis, it must have contained more
than eighty million inhabitants. This is too great a stretch
even for a sailor’s yarn. Our author did not take pains to
clear his narrative of discrepancy. In his last verse he
informs us that the city contained “more than six score
thousand persons that cannot discern between their right
hand and their left.” If this number is correct Nineveh was
a large place, but its dimensions were very much less than
those stated in the Book of Jonah.
Jonah obeyed the Lord this time and began to preach.
“ Yet forty days,” cried he, “ and Ninevah shall be over
thrown.” How the prophet made himself understood is an
open question. Either the Lord taught him their language,
or he miraculously eUabled them to understand Hebrew.
Further, they worshipped Baal, and Jonah preached to them
in the name of his foreign God. According to ancient, and to
a large extent modern custom, we should expect them in such
a case to kill the presumptuous prophet, or at least to shut him
up as a madman. Yet they did nothing of the kind. On the
contrary, “ the people of Ninevah believed God.” Even the
king was converted. He covered himself with sackcloth, and
sat in ashes. He also decreed that neither man nor beast in
the city should eat or drink anything ; but, said he, “ let man
and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto
God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way.” What
an enormous consumption of sackcloth there must have been !
The merchants who sold it did a surprising business, and no
doubt quotations went up immensely. We wonder, indeed,
how they managed to supply such a sudden and universal
demand. And what a sight was presented.by the whole popu-
�48
Jonah and the Whale.
lation of the city 1 Men, women, and children, high and low,
rich and poor, were all arrayed in the same dingy garments.
Even the horses, cows, pigs and sheep, were similarly attired.
What a queer figure they must have ent 1 And what an aston
ishing chorus of prayer ascended to heaven 1 According to
the text, the beasts had to “ cry mightily ” as well as the men.
Since the confusion of tongues at Babel, neither history nor
tradition records such a frightful hubbub.
Their supplications prevailed. God “ saw their works, that
they had turned from their evil way ; and God repented of the
evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did
it not.” Immutable God changes his mind, infallible God
repents 1
God spared Nineveh, but only for a brief while, for it was
destroyed a few years later by Arbaces the Mede. The merci
ful respite was thus not of long continuance. Yet it “ dis
pleased Jonah exceedingly.” He had been suspicious from the
first, and he only fulfilled God’s mission under constraint.
And now his worst suspicions were confirmed. After he had
told the Ninevites that their city would be overthrown in forty
days, God had relented, and utterly ruined Jonah’s reputation
as a prophet. So he made himself a booth outside the city,
and sat in its shadow, to watch what would happen, with a
deep feeling, which he plainly expressed to the Almighty, that
now his reputation was gone he might as well die. The Lord
considerately “ prepared a gourd,” which grew up over Jonah’s
head to protect him from the heat; at which the sulky
prophet was ” exceedingly glad,” although it would naturally
be thought that the booth would afford ample protection. He,
however, soon found himself sold; for the Lord prepared a
worm to destroy the gourd, and when the sun arose he sent
“ a vehement east wind” which beat upon poor Jonah’s head,
and made him so faint that he once more asked God to
despatch him out of his misery. Whereupon the Lord said
coaxingly, “ Loest thou well to be angry?” And Jonah pet
tishly answered, “ Yes, I do.” Then the Lord, with a wonder
ful access of pathos, altogether foreign to his general
character, twitted Jonah with having pity for the gourd and
none for the inhabitants of “ that great city.” With this the
story concludes. We are unable to say whether the poor
prophet, so wretchedly sold, ever recovered from his spleen,
or whether it shortened his days and brought him to an un
timely grave.
The Book of Jonah is as true as Gospel, for Jesus* endorsed
it. The Bible contains the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
but the truth. So without expressing any sceptical senti
ments, we will end by repeating Byron’s words, “ Truth is
strange—stranger than fiction.”
PRICE ONE PENNY.
London : Freethought Publishing Company, 28 Stonecutter
Street, London, EC.
�BIBLE ROMANCES.—VII.
THE WANDERING JEWS.
By G. W. FOOTE.
The Middle Ages had a legend of the Wandering Jew. This
person was supposed to have been doomed, for the crime of
mocking Jesus at the crucifixion, to wander over the earth until
his second coming. No one believes this now. The true
Wandering Jews were those slaves whom Jehovah rescued from
Egyptian bondage, with a promise that he would lead them to a
land flowing with milk and honey, but whom he compelled to
roam the deserts instead for forty years, until all of them except
two had perished. Of all the multitude who escaped from
Egypt, only Joshua and Caleb entered the promised land. Even
Moses had to die in sight of it.
These poor Wandering Jews demand our pity. They were
guilty of many crimes against humanity, but they scarcely de
served such treatment as they received. Their God was worse
than they. He was quick-tempered, unreasonable, cruel, re
vengeful, and dishonest. Few of his promises to them were
performed. They worshipped a bankrupt deity. The land of
promise was a Tantalus cup ever held to their lips, and ever
mocking them when they essayed to drink. God was their
greatest enemy instead of their best friend. Their tortuous path
across the wilderness was marked by a track of bleaching bones.
All the evils which imagination can conceive fell on their de
voted heads. Bitten by serpents, visited by plagues, cursed with
famine and drought, swallowed by earthquake, slain by war, and
robbed by priests, they found Jehovah a harder despot than
Pharaoh. Death was to them a happy release, and only the
grave a shelter from the savagery of God.
Commentators explain that the Jews who left Egypt were unfit
for the promised land. If so, they were unfit to be the chosen
people of God. Why were they not allowed to remain in Egypt
until they grew better, or why was not some other nation
selected to inherit Canaan ?
At the end of our romance of “The Ten Plagues” we left the
Jews on th© safe side of the Red Sea. We must now ask a few
questions which we had no space for then.
How, in a period of two hundred and fifteen years, did the
seventy males of Jacob’s house multiply into a nation of over
two millions? Experience does not warrant belief in such a rapid
increase. The Jewish chroniclers were fond of drawing the long
bow. In the book of Judges, for instance, we are told that the
Gileadites, under Jephthah, slew 42,000 Ephriamites; and
that the Benjamites slew 40,000 Israelites, after which the
Israelites killed 43,100 Benjamites, all of these being “men of
valor” that “drew the sword.” The book of Samuel says that
�50
The Wandering Jews.
the Philistines had 80,000 war chariots, and that they slew
30,000 footmen of Israel. The second book of Chronicles says
that Pekah, king of Israel, slew of Judah in one day 120,000
“ sons of valor,” and carried away 200,000 captives ; that Abijah’s
force consisted of 400,000, and Jeroboam’s of 800,000, 500,000
of whom were killed! At the battle of Waterloo the total
number of men killed on our side was 4,172. The statistics of
slaughter in the Bible were clearly developed from the inner
consciousness of the Jewish scribes • and no doubt the same
holds good with respect to the statistics of the flight from
Egypt.
This view is corroborated by a singular statement in the third
chapter of Numbers. We are there informed that when the
census was taken “All the first-born males, from a month old
and upwards of those that were numbered, were twenty and two
thousand two hundred and three score and thirteen.” Now as there
were about 900,000 males altogether, it follows that every Jewish
mother must have had on an average for ty-two sons, to say nothing
of daughters ! Such extraordinary fecundity is unknown to the
rest of the world, except in the region of romance. The Jews
bragged a great deal about Jehovah, and they appear to have
obtained some compensation by bragging a great deal about
themselves.
How did the Jews manage to quit Egypt in one night ? There
were 600,000 men on foot, besides women and children, not to
mention “the mixed multitude that went up also with them.”
The entire population must have numbered more than two
millions, and some commentators estimate it at nearly three.
They had to come in from all parts of Goshen to Barneses,
bringing with them the sick and infirm, the very old and the very
young. Among such a large population there could not have
been less than two hundred births a day. Many of the Jewish
women, therefore, must have been just confined. How could
they and their new-born children have started off in such a
summary manner ? Many more women must have been at the
point of confinement. How could these have been hurried off
at all? Yet we are told that not a single person was left
behind!
How were the flocks and herds driven out in such haste ?
There were about two million sheep and two hundred thousand
oxen. The sheep alone would have required grazing land as
extensive as the whole county of Bedford, besides what would
have been needed for the oxen. Is it credible that all these
animals were collected together from such a wide area, and
driven out of Egypt in one night ? Yet we are told that not a
single hoof was left behind I
How did the huge multitude of people march? If they
travelled fifty men abreast, as is supposed to have been the
practice in the Hebrew armies, the able-bodied warriors alone
would have filled up the road for about seven miles, and the
whole multitude would have formed a dense column twenty-two
�The Wandering Jews,
51
miles long. The front rank would have been two days’ journey
in advance of the rear.
How did the sheep and cattle march ? How was it possible
for them to keep pace with their human fellow travellers ? They
would naturally not march in a compact array, and the vast drove
must therefore have spread widely and lengthened out for miles.
What did the drove live upon during the journey from
Raineses to Succoth, and from Succoth to Etham, and from
Etham to the Red Sea? Such grass as there was, even jf the
sheep and cattle went before the men, women, and children,
could not have been of much avail; for what was not eaten by
the front ranks must have been trodden under foot at once, and
rendered useless to those that followed. After they “ encamped
by the Red Sea,” on the third day, there was no vegetation at
all. The journey was over a desert, the surface of which was
composed of hard gravel intermixed with pebbles. After cross
ing the Red Sea,their road lay over a desert region, covered
with sand, gravel, and stone, for about nine miles; after which
they entered a boundless desert plain, called El Ati, white and
painfully glaring to the eye, and beyond this the ground was
broken by sand-hills. How were the two million sheep and two
hundred thousand oxen provisioned during this journey ?
What did the Jews themselves live on? The desert afforded
them no sustenance until God miraculously sent manna. They
must, therefore, have taken a month’s provisions for every man,
woman, and child. How could they possibly have provided
themselves with so much food on so short a notice ? And how
could they have earned it, seeing that they were already burdened
with kneading-troughs and other necessaries for domestic use,
besides the treasures they “borrowed” of the Egyptians?
How did they provide themselves with tents ? Allowing ten
persons for each tent, they must have required two hundred
thousand. Were these carefully got ready in expectation ? In
the land of Goshen they lived in houses with “lintels” and
“side-posts.” And how were the tents carried? The Jews
themselves were already well loaded. Of course the oxen
remain; but, as Colenso observes, they were not trained to carry
goods on their backs, and were sure to prove refractory under
such a burden.
Whence did the Jews obtain their arms? According to
Exodus (xiii., 18) “the children of Israel went up harnessed out
of the land of Egypt.” The Hebrew word which is rendered
“harnessed” appears to mean “armed” or “in battle array” in
all the other passages where it occurs, and is so translated. Som e
commentators, scenting a difficulty in this rendering, urge that
the true meaning is “by five in a rank.” But if 600,000 men
marched out of Egypt “ five in a rank,” they must have formed
a column sixty-eight miles long, and it would have taken several
days to start them all off, whereas they went out altogether
“ that self-same day.” Besides, the Jews had arms in the desert,
and how could they have possessed them there unless they
�52
The Wandering Jews.
obtained them in Egypt? If they went out of Egypt “ armed ”
why did they cry out “sore afraid” when Pharaoh pursued
them ?
According to Herodotus, the Egyptian army, which formed a
distinct caste, never exceeded 160,000 men. Why were the Jews
so appalled by less than a third of their own number? Must
we suppose, with Kalisch, that their bondage in Egypt had
crushed all valor and manhood out of their breasts? Josephus
gives a different explanation. He says that the day after
Pharaoh’s host was drowned in the Red Sea, “Moses gathered
together the weapons of the Egyptians, which were brought to
the camp of the Hebrews by the current of the sea and the force
of the wind assisting it. And he conjectured that this also
happened by Divine Providence, that so they might not be
destitute of weapons.” But, as Colenso observes, though body
armor might have been obtained in this way, swords,spears and
shields could not in any number. The Bible, too, says nothing
about such an occurrence. We must therefore assume that
600,000 well-armed Jews were such utter cowards that they could
not strike a blow for their wives and children and their own
liberty against the smaller army of Pharaoh, but could only
whimper and sigh after their old bondage. Yet a month later
they fought bravely with the Amalekites, and ever afterwards
they were as eager for battle as any Irishman at Donnybrook
fair. How can this difference be accounted for? Could a
nation of hereditary cowards become stubborn warriors in the
short space of a month ?
Let us now follow the Wandering Jews through the Desert
which they should have crossed in a week or two, but which
they travelled up and down for forty years. People who want
to make an expeditious journey had better do without a divine
guide.
Coming to Marah, they found only bitter water to drink, at
which they began to murmur. But the Lord showed Moses a
certain tree, which when cast into the water made it sweet. It
must have been a wonderful tree to sweeten water for two
millions of people. Bitter water, also, quenches thirst more
readily than sweet, and it stimulates the appetite, which would
be highly desirable under a fierce relaxing sun.
A ^nth after they left Egypt they came to the wilderness of
bin. There they began to murmur again. Finding themselves
without food, they remembered “the flesh pots” of Egypt, and
reproached Moses with having brought them into the desert to
die of hunger. Both Moses and the Lord seem to have thought
it unreasonable on their part to ask for something to eat. Oliver
I wist was stared at when he asked for more, but the Jews
surprised God by asking for something to begin with. Yet
reflecting, perhaps, that they were after all unable to live without
food, the Lord rained down manna from heaven. After the dew
evaporated in the morning, they found this heavenly diet lying
on the ground. It was “ like a coriander seed, white; and the
�The Wandering Jews.
S3
taste of it was like wafers made with honey.” No doubt the
angola subsist on it in paradise. Moses preserved a pot of it for
tihe instruction of future generations. The pot has, however,
not been discovered up to the present day. Some future
explorers may light upon it “in the fulness of time,” and so
help to prove the historical character of the Pentateuch.
The manna, as might be expected, had some peculiarities. No
matter how much or how little he gathered, every man found on
measuring that he had exactly an omer of it. Although it fell
regularly every week day, none fell on Sunday. A double
quantity had, therefore, to be gathered on Saturday. It melted
in the sun, but could nevertheless be baked and seethed. Any of
it left overnight stank in the morning and bred worms.
For forty years “the children of Israel did eat manna.” But
more than once their gorge rose against it. Manna for breakfast,
manna for lunch, manna for dinner, manna for tea, and manna
for supper, was a little more than they could stand. The mono
tony of their diet became intolerable. Accordingly, we read in
the twenth-first chapter of Numbers, that they complained of it
and asked for a slight change in the bill of fare. “ There is no
bread,” said they, “neither is there any water; and our soul
loatheth this light food.” This small request so incensed the
Lord that he sent a lot of fiery serpents among them, which bit
them so that “much people of Israel died.” Like Oliver Twist,
the Jews quickly repented their presumption.. They humbled
themselves before Moses, and he interceded with God for them.
The prophet then made a brass serpent and set it on a pole, and
on looking at it all who had been bitten recovered.
On another occasion, as we read in the eleventh of Numbers,
they were guilty of a similar offence. This time it was the more
surprising, as God had just burnt a lot of them up with raging
fire for “ complaining.” They remembered “the fish, which we
did eat in Egypt freely ; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the
leeks, and the onions, and the garlick.” “Now,” said they,
‘ ‘ there is nothing at all, besides this manna, before our eyes.
Who shall give us flesh to eat?” The Egyptian bill of fare was
certainly enough to make their mouths water, and it proves that
if Pharaoh made them work hard he did not starve them, as
Jehovah very nearly succeeded in doing. They were so. affected
by their recollection of the luscious victuals they enjoyed in
Egypt, that they actually cried with sorrow at their loss. Moses
heard them weeping, “ every man in the door of his tent.” This
put the Lord in a very bad temper; and Moses, who seems to
have been much less irascible than Jehovah, “also was dis
pleased.” God determined to give them a surfeit. “ Ye shall,”
said he, “ not eat flesh one day, nor two days, nor five days,
neither ten days nor twenty days ; but even a whole month, until
it come out at your nostrils, and be loathsome unto you.” Thereupon the Lord sent a wind which brought quails from the sea.
They were so plentiful that they fell in heaps two cubits high for
about twenty miles around the camp. That worthy commentator,
�54
The Wandering Jews.
the Rev. Alexander Cruden, says that the miracle of this occur
rence consisted, not in the great number of quails, but in their
being “brought so seasonably” to the Jewish camp. The
quantity did not trouble his credulous mind. “ Some authors,”
says he, “affirm that in those eastern and southern countries
quails are innumerable, so that in one part of Italy within the
compass of five miles, there were taken about an hundred
thousand of them every day for a month altogether; and that
sometimes they fly so thick over the sea, that being weary they
fall into ships, sometimes in such numbers, that they sink them
with their weight.” The good man’s easy reliance on “some
authors, ’ and his ready acceptance of such fables, show what
credulity is engendered by belief in the Bible.
The Jews gathered quails for two days and a night, and ioyfully carried them home. But “while the flesh was yet between
their teeth,” the Lord smote them with a very great plague so
that multitudes of them died. Poor devils 1 They were always in
' hot water.
J
How the sheep and cattle were provisioned the Bible does not
inform us. There was scarcely a nibble of grass to be had in the
desert, and as they could not very well have lived on sand and
pebbles, they must have been supported miraculously. Perhaps
the authors of the Pentateuch forgot all about this.
Not only were the Jews, like their flocks and herds, miracu
lously supported; they were also miraculously found in clothes.
For forty years their garments and shoes did not wear out. How
was this miracle wrought? When matter rubs against matter,
particles are lost by abrasion. Did the Lord stop this process’
or did he collect all the particles that were worn off during the
day, and replace them by night on the soles of shoes, on the
elbows of coats, and on the knees of pantaloons ? If the clothes
never wore out, it is fair to suppose that they remained abso
lutely unchanged. Imagine a toddling urchin, two years old at
the exodus from Egypt, wearing the same rig when he grew up
to manhood! Justin, however, says that the clothes grew with
their growth. Some Jewish rabbis hold that angels acted as
tailors in the wilderness, and so the garments were all kept
straight . But Augustine, Chrysostom, and other Fathers abide
by the literal interpretation that, through the blessing of God,
the clothes and shoes never wore out, so that those who grew to
manhood were able to hand them over, as good as new, to the
rising generation. According to this theory, everybody must have
had a poor fit, unless there was a transference of garments every
twelve months or so.
The history of the Wandering Jews is full of miracles and
wonders. It says that all the congregation of Israel, numbering
over two millions, assembled at the door of the Tabernacle. As
the whole width of the Tabernacle was eighteen feet, only nine
men could have stood in front of it; and therefore the warriors
of Israel alone, to. say nothing of the rest of the population, if
we allow eighteen inches between each rank of nine men, would
�The Wandering Jews.
55
have formed a column nearly twenty miles long! We find also
that Moses, and Joshua after him, address not only the whole
congregation of Israel, including men, women, and children, but
the mixed multitude ” of strangers as well. Their voices were
distinctly heard by a crowded mass of people as large as the
entire population of London. They must have had stentorian
lungs, or the people must have had a wonderful sense of
When the Jews were encamped, according to Scott’s estimate,
they lived in a sort of “ moveable city, twelve miles square,” nearly
as large as London. The people had to go outside this vast
camp every day to bring in a supply of water and fuel, after cut
ting the latter down where they could find it I All their rubbish
had to be carried out in like manner, for Jehovah used sometimes
to take a walk among them, and he was highly displeased at
seeing dirt. Every man, woman, and child, including the old,
the sick, and the infirm, had to go outside the camp to attend to
the necessities of nature ! All the refuse of their multitudinous
sacrifices had to be lugged out of the camp by the three priests,
Aaron, Eleazer, and Ithamar. Colenso reckons that the sacrifices
alone, allowing less than three minutes for each, would have
occupied them incessantly during the whole twenty-four hours
of every day. The pigeons brought to them daily as sin offer
ings must have numbered about 264, and as these had to be con
sumed by the three priests, each of them had to eat 88 pigeons a
day, besides heaps of roast beef and other victuals!
Soon after the first fall of manna, the Jews murmured again
because they had no water. Whereupon Moses smote a rock
with his magical rod, and water gushed from it. The precious
fluid came just in time to refresh them for their fight with the
Amalekites. These people were very obstinate foes, and it
required a miracle to defeat them. Moses ascended a hill and
held up his hand. WTile he did so the Israelites prevailed, but
when he let down his hand the Amalekites prevailed. To ensure
victory, Aaron and Hur stood on either side of him, and held up
his hands until the sun set. By this means Joshua discomfited
the Amalekites with great slaughter. Moses built an altar to
celebrate the event, and God swore that he would “have war
with Amelek from generation to generation.” .As Jehovah’s
vengeance was so lasting, it is no wonder that his worshippers
carried on their wars ever afterwards on the most hellish prin
ciples.
In the thirty-first chapter of Numbers we read that .12,000
Israelites warred against Midian. The brag of the chronicler is
evident in this number or in those which follow. This little
army polished off all the kings of Midian, burnt all their cities
and castles, slew 48,000 men, and carried off 100,000 captives,
besides 675,000 sheep, 72,000 oxen, and 61,000 asses. What
prodigious spoil there was in those days! Of the captives Moses
ordered 48,000 women and 20,000 boys to be massacred in cold
blood; while the remaining 32,000 “women that had not known
�56
The Wandering Jews.
man by lying with him ” were reserved for another fate. The
Lord’s share of these was thirty-two ! They were of course
handed over to the priests as his representatives. Parsons, whorail against the immorality of scepticism, say that this is all true.
. These Midianites were a tough lot; for although they were all.
hilled on this occasion, and their cities and castles burnt, we find
them a powerful nation again in the sixth of Judges, and able to
prevail against the Jews for seven years.
Another people badly punished by the Jews were the inhabitants of Bashan. All their cities were destroyed to the number
of sixty. Their king, Og, was a gigantic fellow, and slept on an
iron bed twelve feet long. The cities of Heshbon were destroyed
in the same way. All the men, women, and children, were
slaughtered. Not one was spared.
We shall hereafter follow the Jews under Joshua. For the
present we must content ourselves with a last reference to their
wanderings. under Moses. While they were encamped round
Mount Sinai, their leader received an invitation to go up and
visit God who had been staying there for six days. They had
much to talk about, and the interview lasted forty days and forty
nights. At the end of it Moses descended, carrying with him the
Ten Commandments, written by the finger of God on two tables
of stone. In his absence the Wandering Jews had given him up
as lost, and had induced Aaron to make them a god, in the shape
of a golden calf, to go before them. This image they were
worshipping as Moses approached the camp, and his anger waxed
so hot that he threw down the tables and broke all the Ten Com
mandments at once. He then burnt the calf in fire and ground
it to powder, mixed it with water and made them drink it. He
also sent the Levites among them, who put three thousand men
to the edge of the sword. God wanted to destroy them alto
gether, but Moses held him back. “Let me alone,” said the
Lord. “No, no,” said Moses, “just think what the Egyptians,
will say ; they’ll laugh at you after all as a poor sort of a god ;
and remember, too, that you are bound by an oath to multiply
your people and to let them inherit the land of promise.” So the
Lord cooled down, and wrote out the Decalogue again on two
fresh tables of stone. This Decalogue is supposed to be the
foundation of morality. But long before the time of Moses
moral laws were known and observed in Egypt, in India, and
among all the peoples that ever lived. Moral laws are the per
manent conditions of social health, and the fundamental ones
must be observed wherever any form of society exists. Their
ground and guarantee are to be found in human nature, and do
not depend on a fabulous episode in the history of the WanderingJews.
PRICE ONE PENNY.
Printed and Published by H. A. Kemp, 28 Stonecutter Street,
London, E.C.
�BIBLE ROMANCES.—VIII.
THE TOWER OF BABEL.
By G.
W.
FOOTE.
The Bible, it is frequently asserted, was never meant to teach us
science but to instruct us in religion and morality ; and therefore
we must not look to it for a faithful account of what happened in
the external world, but only for a record of the inner experiences
of mankind. Astronomy will inform us how the heavenly
bodies came into existence, and by what laws their, motions are
governed; Geology will acquaint us with the way in which the
earth’s crust was formed, and with the length of time occupied by
the various stages of the process; and. Biology will tell us all
about the origin and development of living things. God has
given us reason, by exercising which we may gather knowledge
and establish sciences, so as to explain the past, illustrate the
present, and predict the future ; and as reason is sufficient for all
this there is no need of a divine revelation in such matters. But
as reason is insufficient to teach the will of God and the laws of
morality, a divine revelation of these is necessary, and the Bible
contains it.
. .
This plausible contention cannot, however, be maintained, lhe
Bible is not silent with respect to astronomy, geology, or biology.
It makes frequent and precise statements concerning them, and
in nearly every instance it contradicts scientific truth, as we have
amply proved in previous numbers of this series.
.
The eleventh chapter of Genesis gives an explanation of the
diversity of languages on the earth. It does this in the truest
spirit of romance. Philologists like Max Muller and Whitney
must regard the story of the Tower of Babel, and the confusion
of tongues, as a capital joke. A great many paisons may still
believe it, but they are not expected to know much.
One fact alone is enough to put the philology of Genesis out of
court. The native languages of America are all closely related to
each other, but they have no affinity with any language of the
Old World. It is therefore clear that they could not have been
imported into the New World by emigrants from the plains of
Central Asia. The Genesaic theory is thus proved to be not of
universal application, and consequently invalid.
Let us come to the Bible story. Some time after the Flood,
and before the birth of Abraham, “the whole earth was of one
language and one speech 5” or, as Colenso translates the original.
“ one of lip, and one of language.” . This primitive tongue must
have been Hebrew. God spoke it in Eden when he conversed
with our first parents, and probably it is spoken in heaven to this
day. For all we know it may be spoken in hell too. It probably
is, for the Devil and his angels lived in heaven before they were
turned into hell, and we may conclude that they took their native
�58
The Tower of Babel.
language with. them. It was spoken by Adam when he named
his wife in Paradise ; by Eve, after the expulsion when she gave
names to her sons, Cain and Seth; by Lamech, shortly before
the Flood, when he explained the name of Noah; and indeed, as
Colenso observes, “it is obvious that the names of the whole
series of Patriarchs from Adam to Noah, and from Noah onwards,
are in almost every instance pure Hebrew names.” Delitzsch,
however, thinks it comparatively more probable that the Syriac
or Nabatsean tongue, preserved after the dispersion at Babylon,
was the one originally spoken. Yet he dismisses the possibility
of demonstrating it. He supposes that the names of Adam and
the other patriarchs have been altered, but not so as to lose any
of their original meaning; in other words, that they have been,
by God’s grace, translated with perfect accuracy from the
primeval speech. But Colenso very justly remarks that the
original documents do not allude to a process of translation,
and that we have no right to assume it. He also adds that
“if the authority of Scripture is sufficient to prove the fact of
a primeval language, it must also prove that this language was
Hebrew.”
Yet the Bible is wrong, for Hebrew could not have been the
primitive speech. It is only a Semitic dialect, a branch of the
Semitic stem. Sanscrit is another stem, equally ancient; and
according to Max Muller and Bunsen, both are modifications of
an earlier and simpler language. Neither has the least affinity
with Chinese, which again, like them, differs radically from the
native dialects of America. As Hosea Biglow sings,
“ John P. Robinson, he
Says they didn’t know everything down in Judee.”
And most certainly they did not know the true origin and
development of the various languages spoken by the nations of
the earth.
The people who dwelt on the earth after the Deluge, and all
spoke one language, journeyed from the east, found a plain in
the land of Shinar, and dwelt there. Shinar is another name for
Babylon. After dwelling there no one knows exactly how long,
“they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn
them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had
they for mortar.” The writer of this story was very fond of
short cuts. It took men a long time to learn the art of making
bricks ; and the idea of their suddenly saying to each other “ let
us make brick,” and at once proceeding to do so, is a wild ab
surdity.
Having made a lot of bricks, they naturally wished to do some
thing with them. So “ they said, Go to, let us build a city and a
tower, whose top may reach unto heaven ; and let us make us a
name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole
earth.” How could making a name, for the information of
nobody but themselves, prevent their dispersion ? And how could
they resolve to build a “city,” when they had never seen one,
and had no knowledge of what it was like ? Cities are not built
�The Tower of Babel.
5J
n this manner. ‘‘Rome wasn’t built in a day” is a proverbwhich applies to all other places as well. London, Pans and
Rome, are the growth of centuries, and the same must have been
true of ancient capitals.
. .
The reason assigned by Scripture for the work of these primi
tive builders is plainly inadequate. A more probable reason is
that they mistrusted God’s promise never again to destroy the
earth with a flood, and therefore determined to build a high
tower, so that, if another deluge came, they might ascend above
the waters, or, if need be, step clean into heaven itself. 1 hen
lack of faith is not surprising. We find the same characteristic
on the part of believers in our own day. They believe m God s
promises only so far as it suits their interest and convenience.
Scripture says, “Whoso giveth unto the poor lendeth unto the
Lord.” Yet there are thousands of rich Christians who seem to
mistrust the security.
.
How high did these primitive builders think heaven was .
According to Colenso, they said, “Come, let us build for us a
city, and a tower with its head in heaven." Did they really
they would ever succeed in building so high. Perhaps tey
did, for their Natural Philosophy was extremely
doubtless imagined the blue vault of heaven as a solid thing, in
which were stuck the sun, moon, and stars, and no higher than
the sailing clouds.
, .
Their simple ignorance is intelligible, but how can we explain
the ignorance of God ? Their project alarmed him Ide actually
“came down to see the city and the tower which the children ot
men builded.” Heaven was too distant for him to see from with
accuracy, and telescopes were not then invented. A close in
spection led him to believe that his ambitious children would
succeed in their enterprise. They thought they might bund intoheaven, and he thought so too. What was to be done ? if they
once got into heaven, it might be very difficult to turn them out
again. It took several days’ hard fighting to expel Satan and
the rebellious angels on a previous occasion, and these new
comers might be still more obstinate. In this dangerous extremity,
“the Lord said [unto whom is unknown], Behold, the people is
one, and they have all one language ; and this they begin to do .
and now nothing will be restrained from them which they have
imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their
language, that they may not understand one another s speech.
Why did the Lord resolve to take all this trouble ? Had he
forgotten the law of gravitation and the principles of architec
ture ? Was he, who made the heaven and the earth, ignorant of
the distance between them ? He had only to let the people go
on building, and they would eventually confound themselves ;
for, after reaching a certain height, the tower would tumble about
their ears. Gravitation would defeat the cohesion of mortal’.
Why did not God leave them alone ? Why did he take so much
unnecessary trouble ? The answer is that this “ Lord was only
“ Jehovah ” of the Jews, a tribal god, who naturally knew no
�<30
The Tower of Babel.
more about the facts and laws of science than his worshippers
who made him.
The Lord carried out his resolution. He “confounded their
language,” so that no man could understand his neighbors.
Probably this judgment was executed in the night; and when
they awoke in the morning, instead of using the old familiar
tongue, one man spoke Chinese, another Sanscrit, another Coptic,
another American, another Dutch, another Double Dutch, and
so on to the end of the chapter.
According to the Bible, this is the true philology. No language
on the earth is more than four thousand years old, and every one
was miraculously originated at Babel. Is there a single philo
logist living who believes this? We do not know one.
The result of this confusion of tongues was that the people
“left off to built the city,” and were “scattered abroad on the
face of all the earth.” But why did they disperse ? Their common
weakness should have kept them together. Society is founded
upon our wants. Our necessity, and not our self-sufficience,
causes association and mutual helpfulness. Had these people
kept company for a short time, they would have understood each
other again. A few common words would have come into general
use, and the building of the tower might have been resumed.
How was their language “confounded”? Did God destroy
their verbal memory ? Did he paralyse a part of their brain, so
that, although they remembered the words, they could not speak
them? Did he affect the organs of articulation, so that the
sounds of the primeval language could not be reproduced ? Will
some theologian kindly explain this mystery ? Language is not
a gift, but a growth. Different tribes and nations have had
different experiences, different wants, and different surround
ings, and the result is a difference in their languages, as
well as in their religious ideas, political organisations, and social
customs.
Before we leave this portion of the subject, we beg to introduce
Milton again. In the last Book of “Paradise Lost” he adds
from his fertile imagination to the Bible story, and supplies a
few deficiencies about which the mind is naturally curious. He
makes the Archangel Michael tell poor Adam and Eve, as part
■of his panoramic description of future times, that a mighty
hunter shall arise, claiming dominion over his fellows, and gather
under him a band of adherents. This is clearly Nimrod. Milton
separates him and his subjects from the rest of mankind, and
represents them as the people who settled on “ the plain in the
land of Shinar.”
According to our great poet, therefore, the confusion of
tongues applied only to them, and the other inhabitants of the
earth retained the primeval language in all its original purity.
This detachment, says Michael—
Marching from Eden towards the west, shall find
The plain, wherein a black bituminous gurge,
�T/ie Toiler 0/ HabeZ.
81
BA A
underground, the mouth of Hell:
Of brick and of that stuff they cast to build
A chyTAd a tower, whose top may reach to Heaven;
And get themselves a name, lest, far dispersed
In foreign lands, their memory be lost,
Regardless whether good or evil tame.
But God, who oft descends to visit men
Unseen and through their habitations walks
S mark their doings, them beholding soon,
Comes down to see their city, ere the tower
Obstruct Heav’n-tow’rs, and in derision sets
Upon their tongue a various spirit to rase
Quite out their native language and instead
To sow a jangling noise of words unknown.
Forthwith a hideous gabble rises loud
Among the builders; each to other calls
Not understood, till hoarse, and all in rage,.
As mock’d they storm: great laughter was m heaven,
And looking down, to see the huBbub strang
And hear the din; thus was the building left
Ridiculous, and the work Confusion named.
W?ce was “ called Babel.” The Hebrew root
is not however, that from which the word “Babel is deriveu.
Rawlinson, suppose it be a compound of El
,
nase “ Bab-El” means the “ Gate of God.
It is evident that the story of the Tower of
by the Jehovist author of this part of Genesers of
■of the famous unfinished Temple of Belus 9^ KRh._
.antiquity. Birs Nimroud is thus described by Kahsch.
“The hugh heap, in which bricks, stone, marble, and basa t,
are irregularly mixed, covers a ^ac® off
to ioO^eHn
chief mound is nearly 800 feet high, and from 200 to 400 feet m
width commanding an extensive view over a country of utter
•desolatior^^he Jwer consisted of -ven ^tin"
platforms, built of kiln-burnt bricks, each about twenty teetmgn,
gradually diminishing in diameter. The upper pa
?ork hi a vitreflef appearance ; for it is ^PP»sed « the
Babylonians in order to render their edifices more durable, sud
Stted them to toe heat of the furnace ; and large fragments 0
�62
The Tower of Babel.
such vitiefied and calcined materials are also intermixed with therubbish at the base. This circumstance may have given rise to
or at least countenanced, the legend of the destruction of the
Tower by heavenly fire, still extensively adopted among the
Arabians The terraces were devoted to the planets, and werediffeiently colored m accordance with the notions of Sabsean
astrology—the lowest, Saturn’s, Hack; the second, Jupiter’s
• the third Mars’s, red ; the fourth, the Sun’s, wZZow • the
thehMoon^sSS’ w?wZe{/rthe si^th’ Mercui'.y,s) blue; the seventh,
it %
11 nF" T. Mero„da9h-afan-akhi is stated to have begun
tv n’C’-k j
K
pfinished five centuries afterwards by
Nebuchadnezzar who left a part of its history on two cylinders
which have lately been excavated on the spot, and thus decip
hered by Rawlinson ‘The building, named the Planisphere
which was the wonder of Babylon, I have made and flashed
Ki?
’
nhedwith laPis lazuli- I have exalted its head.
Behold now the building, named ‘‘The Stages of the Seven
Spheres, which was the wonder of Borsippa, had been built bv
k
h1ad comPleted forty-two cubits of height"•
ririled dl ThOt fSnif1 tl}e ,h,;ad- From the lapse of time it beclme
ruined. They had not taken care of the exit of the waters •
so the ram and wet had penetrated into the brickwork. The
casing of burnt brick lay scattered in heaps. Then Merodach
my great lord, inclined my heart to repair the building. I did
not change its site, nor did I destroy its foundation-platform.
But, m a fortunate month, and upon an auspicious day, I under
took the building of the raw-brick terrace and the burnt-brick
casing of the Temple. I strengthened its foundation, and I
placed a titular record on the part which I had rebuilt. I set
my hand to build it up, and to exalt its summit. As it had been
in ancient times, so I built up its structure. As it had been in
former days, thus I exalted its head.’ ”
• Pr®fe®sor Kawfinson assigns b.c. 2300 as the date of the build
ing of the Temple. But as Colenso remarks, his reasoning is
very loose. His date however, is antecedent to the supposed
fame of the building of Babel, and according to his own chrono
logy the latter may have been a tradition of the former. Add to
this that the rums of Sirs Nimroud are extant, while there is no
vestige of the rums of Babel. According to Kalisch’s chronologyBits Nvmroud was built long after the supposed time of Moses ’
and it
wrote the Pentateuch our position cannot be mainpaiHed- But he did not write the Pentateuch or any portion of
it Ihe writer of the Jehovist portion of Genesis, which con
tains the story of the Power of Babel, certainly did not flourish
before the time of Solomon, about b.c. 1015—975. Here then
is an interval of a century. That is a short period for the’'
growth of a legend. Yet, as Colenso observes, “as the tower
was apparently an observatory, and the fact of its being dedicated
o the seven ancient planets shows that astronomical observations
had made considerable progress among the Chaldeans at the
lme when it was built, the traditions connected with it may have
�The Tow&r of Babel.
63
■embodied stories of a much earlier date, to which the new buildinThrTemSpleCUo7ejupiter Belus with its tower was partially
destroyed by Xerxes b.c. 490 ; upon which says Kalisch, the
fraudulent priests appropriated to themselves the lands an
enormous revenues attached to it, and seem, from this reason to
have been averse to its restoration.” A part of the edifice still
■existed more than five centuries later, and was mentioned by
Pliny But the other part was, in the tune of Alexander the
Great a vast heap of ruins. He determined to rebuild it, but
desisted from the enterprise, when he found that ten thousand
workmen could not remove the rubbish m two months. Ben
iamin of Tudela described it in the twelfth century, after which,
for more than six hundred years, it remained unnoticed and
unknown. The ruins were rediscovered by Niebuhr m 17o6,
subsequent explorers more accurately described them; and they
were thoroughly examined, and their monumental record
deciphered, about thirty years ago. _
a « Knlisch observes
The myth attaching to it is not unique. As Kalisch observes,
“most of the ancient nations possessed myths concerning im
pious giants, who attempted to storm heaven, either to share it
with the immortal gods, or to expel them from it
And even
the orthodox Delitzsch allows that “ the Mexicans have a legend
of a tower-building, as well as of a Flood. Xelhua, one of the
seven giants rescued in the flood, built the great pyramid o
Cholula, in order to reach heaven, until the gods angry at his
audacity, threw fire upon the building, and broke it down
whereupon every separate family received a language of its own
To lessen the force of this, Delitzsch says that the Mexican legend
has been much colored by its narrators, chiefly Dominicans and
Jesuits ; but he is obliged to admit that there is great significance
in the fact that the Mexican terrace-pyramid closely resembles the
construction of the Temple of Belus. No argument can vitiate
the conclusion that as similar myths to that of Genesis abounded m
ancient times, it is highly illogical to attach particular important?
to any one of them. If one is historic, all are historic.
justified in holding that the Jewish story of the Tower of Babel
is only a modification of the older story of the Temple of Belus.
We will conclude this Romance by mentioning a few facts, not
speculations, which are exceedingly curious, and which present
grave difficulty to the orthodox believer. .
.
According to the Bible, in Abraham s time, not four centuries
after the Deluge, the descendants of Noah’s three sons had mul
tiplied into the four great kingdoms of Shmar (Babylon),
Egypt, and Gerar, besides a multitude of smaller nations Does
any instructed man believe in the possibility of such multiplica
tion? It is altogether incredible.
.
. ...
Some of these nations had reached a high degree of civilisa
tion. Indeed, the temples, tombs, pyramids, manners, customs,
.and arts of Egypt betoken & full-grown nation. The sculptures
•of the Fourth Dynasty, the earliest extant, and which must be
�64
The Tower of Babel.
assigned to the date of about 3500 B.c., are almost as perfect as
those of her Augustan age, two thousand years later. Professor
Rawlinson seeks to obviate this difficulty by appealing to the
version of the Seventy instead of to the Hebrew text by which
he obtains the remote antiquity of 3159 b.c., instead of 2348, for
the Deluge. But this chronology does not reach within four
hundred years of the civilisation denoted by the sculptures
referred to! And there must have been milleniums of silent
progress in Egypt before that period.
On the ancient monuments of Egypt the negro head, face,
hair, iorm, and color, are the same as we observe in our own
day. Consequently, the orthodox believer must hold that in a
few generations, the human family branched out into strongly
marked varieties. History discountenances this assumption, and
Biology plainly disproves it. Archdeacon Pratt supposes that
ohem, Ham, and Japheth “had in them elements differing as
widely as the Asiatic, the African, and the European, differ from
each other. ’ He forgets that they were brothers, sons of the
same father and presumably of the same mother. Such extra
ordinary evolution throws Darwinism into the shade.
Noah lived fifty-eight years after the birth of Abraham,
bhem lived a hundred and ten years after the birth of Isaac, and
au yearsTafter th*3 birth of Jacob. How was it that neither
Abraham, Isaac, nor Jacob knew either of them. They were the
most interesting and important men alive at the time. They had
seen the world before the Flood. One of them had seen people
who knew Adam. They had lived through the confusion of
tongues at Babel, and were well acquainted with the whole
history of the world. Yet they are never once mentioned in
Scripture during all the centuries they survived their exit from
the ark Why is this ? Noah before his death was the most
venerable man existing. He was five hundred years older than
any other man. He must have been an object of universal
regard. Yet we have no record of the second half of his career •
no account is given of his burial ; no monument was erected to
bis memory. Who will explain this astounding neglect? The
Bible is a strange book, and they are strange people who
believe it.
PRICE ONE PENNY.
Printed and Published by H. A. Kemp, 28 Stonecutter Street,
London, E.C.
�BIBLE ROMANCES—IX.
BALAAM’S ASS.
By G. W. FOOTE.
-------- ♦--------
Thf ass has figured extensively in romance. His long ears and
peculiar bray are explained by a story which goes back to the
Flood On that occasion, it is said, the male donkey was inad
vertently left outside the ark, but being a good swimmer he
nevertheless managed to preserve his life. After .many despera e
efforts he at last succeeded in calling out the Pat™rch s name, as
nearlv as the vocal organs of a jackass would allow.
No-ah,
No-ah” cried the forlorn beast. Noah’s attention was at last
aroused and on looking out of window to see who was calling,
he -perceived the poor jackass almost spent and faintly battling
with the waves. Quickly opening the window, he caught Neddy
by the two ears and hauled him in. This he did with such vigor
that Neddy's aural appendages were considerably elongated , and
ever since7donkeys have had long ears and 1brayed ‘‘No ah
No-ah” at the approach of wet weather. Jor the sake oi
Christians who are not well acquainted with Gods Word, we add
that, this storv is not in the Bible.
Classical scholars and students of modern literature know . ow
the ass has been treated by poets and romancers. The stolid
animal has generally been made the subject of comedy.. Drunken
and impotent Silenus, in the Pagan mythology, joins m the pro
cessions of Bacchus on a sober ass, and the patient animal staggers
beneath the heavy burden of a fat-paunched tipsy god.. Apulius
and Lucian transform the hero of their common story into an ass,
and in that shape he encounters the most surprising experiences.
Voltaire makes an ass play a wonderful part m his Pucelle.
And in all these cases it is worth noticing how the profane wits
remember the ass's relation to Priapian mysteries, from his fabled
interruption of the garden-god’s attempt on the nymph Lotts
downwards, and assign to him marvellous amatory adventures.
Erasmus, in his “Praise of Folly,” does not forget the ass, with
whom he compares the majority of.men for stupidity, obstinacy,,
and lubricity: noris the noble animal forgotten by Rabelais,,
who cracks many a joke and points many a witticism at his
expense.wn
humorist) Charles Lamb, confesses however to
a deep tenderness for Neddy, and dwells with delight on the pro
tection which his thick hide affords against the cruel usuage of
man. He has, says Lamb, “a tegument impervious to ordinary
stripe®. The malice of a child or a weak hand can make feeble
impressions on him. His back offers no mark to a puny foeman.
To a common whip or switch his hide presents an absolute insen-
�66
Balaam’s Ass.
sibility. lou might as well pretend to scourge a schoolboy
with a tough pair of leather breeches on.” Lamb also quotes the
following passage from a tract printed in 1595, entitled “The
Noblenesse of theAsse ; a Work Rare, Learned, and Excellent.” :
“He refuseth no burden; he goes whither he is sent, without
any contiadiction. He lifts not his foote against any one • he
bytes not; he is no fugitive, nor malicious affected. He doth all
things in good sort, and to his liking that hath cause te employ
him. If strokes be given him, he cares not for them.” True the
ass is not much given to kicking or biting, but he has an awk
ward knack of quietly lying down when he is indisposed to work
and of rolling over with equal quietude if a rider happens to be
on his back. But the old author is so enchanted with the 44 asse ”
that he does not stay to notice this scurvy trick. He even goes
on to express his liking for the ass’s bray, calling Neddy “a rare
musitian, and saying that “to heare the musicke of five or six
voices chaunged to so many of asses is amongst them to heare a
song of world without end.”
umueriv?
“Sentimental Journey,” has a chapter entitled
1 he Dead Ass, wherein the animal is lifted into the sphere
of pathos. And lastly, Coleridge has some very pious musings
on an ass, wherein the animal is lifted into the sphere of religion.
how, dear reader, you begin to see the drift of this long
exordium, although my purpose was indeed twofold. First I
wished, after the example of my betters in literature, to give you
a slight glimpse of the immense extent of my learning. Secondly
1 wished to lead you through the various stages of literary treat
ment of the ass, from the comic to the pathetic, and finally to
the religious, m order that you might approach in a proper frame
of mind the consideration of Balaam’s ass, who is the most
remarkable of all the four-legged asses mentioned in the Bible
1 here were others Asses were being sought by Saul, the son
oi Kish when he found a kingdom of subjects instead. Jesus
rode into Jerusalem on an ass, and also apparently on a colt,
having probably one leg over each. With the jawbone of an ass
bam son slew a thousand Philistines ; and if the rest of the
animal accorded with that particular bone, he must have been a
ough ass indeed. But all these are of little interest or importance beside the- wonderful ass of the prophet Balaam, whose
history is contained, with that of his master, in the twentysecond, twenty-third, and twenty-fourth chapters of the Book of
Numbers.
Soon after the Wandering Jews in the desert were plagued by
“fiery serpents” for asking Moses to give them a slight change
in their monotonous bill of fare, they warred against the Amorites and pretty nearly exterminated them. Whereupon Balak
the son of Zippor, king of Moab, grew “ sore afraid.” He called
together the “ elders of Midian” with those of Moab, and said
that in his opinion the Jews would lick them all up as the ox
lick ed up the grass of the field.
�Balaam’s Ass.
67
Against such a ferocious gang as the Jews, with a bloody God
of Battles to help them, human valor promised little success; so
Balak resolved to solicit supernatural aid. Accordingly he sent
messengers unto Balaam the son of Beor, a renowned and potent
soothsayer, desiring him to come and curse the people of Israel.
The king had implicit confidence in Balaam. “Whom thou
blessest,” said he, “is blessed, and whom thou cursest is cursed.”
This great prophet must have wrought prodigious wonders in his
time to gain so magnificent a reputation; and if the king’s
panegyric on him was true, he must have been a dangerous
person to those who annoyed him and made him swear.
The “elders of Moab and the elders of Midian,” who were
Balak’s messengers, went to Pethor, where Balaam resided. As
the reader might expect, they did not go empty handed, but took
with them “the rewards of divination.” What these were we
are not told. No doubt they were very handsome. The pro
phetical business requires large profits to compensate for the
absence of quick returns; 'and in any case it is not to .be sup
posed that a man who can do what no one else can, will begin
work without a heavy retaining fee. We conclude that Balaam,
like nearly every prophet mentioned in history, had a good eye
for the main chance, and did not trust very much in the bounty
of the gods. He was never hard up for bread and cheese while
other people were hard up for divine assistance, and as that was
an ignorant and credulous age, we presume that his larder was
well-stocked. He must, indeed, have had a fine time, for he was
the biggest pot in his own line of business in all that district.
Balaam kuew his business well. It would never do for a
prophet, a soothsayer, a wizard, or a diviner, to give prompt
answers to his applicants, or even to make his answers plain
when he does give them. That would render the profession
cheap and rob it of mystery. So Balaam, therefore, said to the
messengers, “Lodge here this night, and I will bring you word
again, as the Lord shall speak unto me.”
Now this reference to the Lord is very surprising. The
Moabites worshipped Baal, and no doubt they had the utmost
contempt for Jehovah. Yet Balaam, who was a prophet of their
religion, tells them that he will consult the god of Israel on the
subject of their visit! This is one of the self-contradictions with
which the Bible abounds.
The next incident of the story is no less remarkable. God, the
infinite spirit of the universe, paid Balaam a visit; and although
he knows everything, past, present, and to come, he asked the
prophet “What men are these with thee?” Balaam gave a
straightforward reply, for he doubtless knew that prevarication
and subterfuge were useless with God. Said he, “Balak the son
of Zippor, King of Moab, has sent unto me, saying, Behold
there is a people come out of Egypt, which covereth the face of
the tarth : come now, curse me them; peradventure I shall be
able io overcome them and drive them out.” The precisiog. of
�68
Balaam s Ass.
Balaam’s language is admirable, and so it its accuracy. He
neither desired to keep the Lord in suspense, nor to leave him
in ignorance of necessary details. God’s answer was equally brief
and perspicuous : “ Thou shalt not go with them; thou shalt not
curse the people : for they are blessed.”
This interview between God and Balaam, like the following
ones, occurred in the night. The Lord seems to have been always
afraid of daylight, or else to have had a peculiar fondness for the
dark. Perhaps he thought that during the night there was less
chance of the conversation being interrupted, and it is well
known that the Lord loves privacy and does not like conversing
with more than one at a time. He agrees with us that “two’s
company and three’s none.”
In the morning Balaam got out of bed and told Balak’s
messengers to return and say that the Lord would not let him
come ; and they at once set out for the capital.
Balak, however, was not to be so easily put off. He seems to
have regarded the prophet’s talk about the Lord’s prohibition as
“all my eye.” “Perhaps,” said he to himself, “my messengers
were small fry in the sight of Balaam, and he is therefore dis
pleased. My presents also may have been too small. I should
have recollected that Balaam has a very exalted opinion of him
self, and is renowned for his avarice. What a stupid I was to
be sure. However, I’ll try again. This time 1’11 send a deputa
tion of big guns, and promise him great wealth and high position
in the state. He can’t refuse such a tempting offer.” Straight
way he “ sent yet again princes, more and more honorable ” than
those who went before, and commanded them to urge Balaam to
let nothing hinder him from coming.
Balaam slightly resented this treatment. He told the messengers
that if Balak would give him his house full of silver and gold,
he could not go beyond the word of the Lord, to do more or less.
Yet he apparently deemed it politic to make another trial. He
was, of course, quite aware that God is unchangeable, but some
how he thought the Lord might alter his mind. So he bade the
messengers to tarry there that night while he consulted God
afresh.
Balaam’s expectation was realised. The Lord did change his
mind. ‘ ‘ He came unto Balaam at night, and said unto him, If
the men come to call thee, rise up and go with them; but yet the
word which I shall say unto thee, that shalt thou do.” So the
prophet rose up in the morning, saddled and mounted his
wonderful ass, and went off with the princes of Moab.
Poor Balaam, however, did not reflect that as the Lord had
changed his mind once he might change it twice, and the omission
very nearly cost him his life. He was unfortunately ignorant of
what happened to Moses on a similar occasion. After the Lord
had dispatched the Jewish prophet to Egypt to rescue his
people from bondage, he met him at an inn, where perhaps they
botjj put up for the night, and sought to kill him. The same
�@9
Balaam’s Ass.
thing happened now^ No sooner^
£eU™’y Ms Xi - “ veer God andi dreadMly hard, to
please. If you don’t obey ^^nd^^Xd chance of beinf
murdered ^The only safe^ourse is to get out of his way and
odf° toS” stood^n
sTVy
drawn sword in his hand, ready to
P
-g^ nejther
crime was having done exac y w
,p,
however, had
Balaam nor his two servants saw
he had a
better eyesight. Being only
ass’a^dli^g\Sok of this
greater aptitude for seeing angels
A wav ^to a field,
formidable stranger, Neddy bolted fX±ior XptTeer per
Balaam, who saw no reason for such behaviOT except^s^^^p^o
verseness, began to whack bis ass
s forcible argument and
the right road, Neddy s-cumhedto to«tly, in the
logged on again, lhe angel oi w.e
. , J? His intention
meantime, made himself invisible even
J
fata] stroke in
was ultimately to kill Balaam, bu
X. , foresaw. Going
order to make the most of the come y
vineyards, a wall
a little in front he “stood in a path »f
ight of
being on this side, and »
A'^bolt in the field,
the angel again, and being unable
-Ralaam’s foot a good
he lurched against the wall and §ave+ ®a aa“ine out of the
scrunching. Still the prophet suspected noth S
poor
common, for that was an ordinary trick of refractory a
• J
Neddv therefore, got another thrashing, lhen tne angei
KeZfarther, and “ stood in a. narrowr plane, where there
was no way to turn either to the rig
0 proceed and
Neddy estimated the certain penalty of r®ffu®in§ ^aring them
the probable penalty of going forward After c0“Pa idgdown.
he decided to stop where he was, amXthiacy,
Balaam’s anger was once more. kindled y
P
and he whacked the ass again with his stall.
Then the Lord intervened, and brought about the most^
S„dXo“,"fa“Zead-•
ZKtX
SZAe, “thatthou hast
S^XtdtoXthat^o^
had held many a conversation before. ln the “
±^d XgXZf EdenXeXs not at
,
serpent
surprised,
* BalaamTs ass was a cc nkn ” Knf flip sftx is immaterial, and. as we
’
“ she, but tne sex is im
,
commenced with the masculine gender we will continue witn
�70
Balaam's Ass.
but went on with the colloquy as though talking serpents were
common things If a dumb animal were nowadays to address
tmrT/|WltK +HOuW
d°? ” he.would certainly be very much
startled , but when the same thing occured in the old Bible
you8?”^6 maU
°nCe replied’ “ Very well, thank you, how are
Balaam promptly answered the ass’s question. “Because”
said he, ‘‘thou hast mocked me : I would there were a sword in
hand for now would I kill thee.” Then the ass rejoined
Am not I thine ass, upon which thou hast ridden ever since I
was thine unto this day ? Was I ever wont to do so unto thee ?”
This was a poser Balaam scratched his head and reflected but
at last he was obliged to say “Nay.”
’
Neddy had so far the best of the argument. But Balaam had
the practical argument of the stick left, and no doubt he was
about to convince the donkey with it. All arguments practical
or otherwise would however have left the dispute exactly where
it stood A eddy saw the angel, and that was enough for him
Balaam did not see the angel, but only Neddy’s obstinate
stupidity In short, they reasoned from different premises and
could not therefore arrive at the same conclusion.P They might
have argued till doomsday had not the Lord again intervened
th! T A°P/nfd Balaams eyes>” 80 that he also “ saw the angel of
idle Lord standing m the way, and his sword drawn in his hand ”
Then Balaam “bowed his head, and fell flat on his face ” and
there he and Neddy lay side by side, two asses together. ’
Now, dear reader, you will observe that the ass, being indeed
dSiTotTJt?6
uand that Balaam’
awLeman,
did not see the angel until his wits were disordered by the wonder
renirk thatS“ in°afl
D?rt
tWS beaT out S'reat Bacon’s
remark that m all superstititon, wise men follow fools ” 9 And
may we not say, that if asses did not see angels first, wise men
would never see them after ?
’
on^his fTc?el«°w?e
said *0 Balaam, while he remained flat
timni ? h h m heref°re hast thou smitten thine ass these three
times? behold I went out to withstand thee, because thy way is
perverse before me: and the ass saw me, and turned from me
t?soSei hid TS:+bnleSS Sie had turned from me> ^ely now
• +i
lam thee’ and saved her alive.” The moral of
this is that asses stand the best chance of salvation, and that
wise men run a frightful risk of damnation until they lose their
tin^^T recognised the awfd mess he Was in, and being, b thig
ne as limp as a wet rag, he made the most abject apology. “ T
wayagTnstme" &Th’ “ t” 1
UOt tbat thou ^des/in th J
how the
Tuhlf
reasoning shows still more clearly
notT sinned°nt
had ^ken leave of his senses. He had
lor wTit hVf’
strictly obeying God’s commands;
When the T r d lUt that,the angei remained so long invisible,
then the Loid opened his eyes,” and made his vision like unto
�Balaam s Ass.
71
th® vision of an ass, he saw the angel plainly enough ; and how
could he possibly have done so before ?
“I’ll go back,” added Balaam, thinking that if he sinned so
greatly in going forward, he had better return home. But the
angel of the Lord, who had intended to kill him for advancing,
now told him to “go with the men.” And Balaam went with
them, keeping his weather eye open during the rest of the
journey.
,-,17
Balak was heartily glad to see Balaam. The prophet had been
a long time coming, but better late than never. The next day
they went “up into the high places of Baal,” from which they
could see “the utmost part of the people ” of Israel. “There
they are,” said Balak, “confound them! leprous slaves out of
Egypt, bent on stealing other people’s lands, and sticking to all
they can lay hands on ; bloodthirsty vagabonds, who fight people
with whom they have no quarrel, and kill men, women, and
children when they are victorious. h\ow, Balaam, do your duty.
Curse them, and lay it on thick.”
• Seven altars were built, and seven oxen and seven rams sacri
ficed on them. But all this good meat was wasted, for when
Balaam “went to an high place,” God met him, according to
agreement, and told him what to say. And lo ! when the prophet
returned to the king, he blessed the Jews instead of cursing them.
“Hullo, Ballam, what’s this?” cried the king. “ I asked you
to curse my enemies and you’ve gone and blessed them. What
d’ye mean?” “True,” answered Balaam, “ but I told you that
I could only speak what the Lord put into my mouth.”
Balak appears to have been just as sceptical as Pharaoh about
the God of the Jews. He attributed his disappointment to a
freak of the prophet, and not being easily baffled he resolved to
try again. So he took Balaam up another high place, and built
seven fresh altars, and sacrificed on them seven more bullocks
and rams; after which he repeated his invitation. Again Balaam
went farther to consult the Lord, whom he found waiting for
him; and received his instructions. And lo ! when he returned
to Balak he again blessed the Jews instead of cursing them.
Balak resolved to try again. He took Balaam to another high
place, built seven more altars, and sacrificed seven more bullocks
and seven more rams. But again the prophet blessed Israel,
and a third time the king was sold. Then he gave it up, and
Balaam and his ass went home.
What became of the ass is unknown. Perhaps he went into
the prophetical business himself, and eventually retired on a very
handsome fortune. Perhaps he went about as a preacher of the
gospel as it was then understood; in which case, judging from the
rule of success in later ages, we have no doubt that he attracted
large audiences and delighted all who were fortunate enough to
sit under him. And when he died all the two-legged asses in
Moab probably wept and refused to be comforted.
Balaam’s end was tragic. The thirteenth chapter of Joshua
�72
Balaam’s Ass.
informs us that he was eventually slain by the very people he had
thrice blessed. After an account of one of the bloody wars of
Jehovah’s bandits we read that “ Balaam also the son of Beor,
the sooth-sayer, did the children of Israel slay with the sword
among them that were slain by them.” The angel of the Lord
spared him, but God’s butchers cut his throat at last. On the
whole he might as well have cursed the Jews up and down to
Balak’s satisfaction, and taken the handsome rewards which were
offered him on such easy terms.
Here endeth the story of Balaam’s Ass. I hope my reader
still believes it, for if not, he will be reprobate while he lives and
damned when he dies.
PRICE ONE PENNY.
Printed and Published by H. A. Kemp, 28 Stonecutter Street,
London, E.C.
�BIBLE ROMANCES—X.
GOD’S THIEVES IN CANAAN.
By G. W. FOOTE.
--------- 4----------
Some years ago the righteous indignation of England was roused
by the daily record of atrocities perpetrated in Bulgaria by the
Turkish bashi-bazouks. Men were wantonly massacred, preg
nant women ripped up, and maidens outraged by brutal lust.
Our greatest statesman uttered a clarion-cry which pealed
through the whole nation, and the friends of the Turk m high
places shrank abashed and dismayed before the stern response
of the people. Many clergymen attended public meetings, and
denounced not only the Turks, but also their Mohammedanism.
They alleged that the Koran sanctioned, even if it did not com
mand the horrors which had been wrought in Eastern Europe,
and they declared that there was no hope for a country which
derived its maxims of state from such an accursed book, lhose
denunciations did honor to their hearts, but very little to their
heads For every brutual injunction in the Koran, twenty might
be found in the Bible. Before the clergy cry out against the
Scriptures of Islam, they should purge their own of those horrid
features which are an insult to man and a blasphemy against
God Mohammed gave savage counsels to his followers with
respect to waging war, but these sink into insignificance beside
the counsels given to the Jews by Moses in the name of God.
Bible romances are generally comic, but this one is infinitely
tragic. The whole range of history affords no worse instances of
cold-blooded cruelty than those which God’s theives, the Jews,
perpetrated in Canaan, when they took forcible possession of
cities they had not built and fields they had never ploughed.
“How that red rain will make the harvest grow! exclaims
Byron of the blood shed at Waterloo; and surely the first
harvests reaped by the Jews in Canaan must have been
luxuriantly rich, for the ground had been drenched with the
blood of the slain.
Before Moses died, according to the Bible, he delivered an
elaborate code of laws to his people in the name of God. lhe
portions referring to war are contained in the twentieth chapter
of Deuteronomy. Here they stand in all their naked hideous-
ae*‘SWhen thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then
proclaim peace unto it. And it shall be, if it make thee answer
of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be that all the Pe<T^
that is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall
serve thee. And if it will make no peace with thee, but will
make war againt thee, then thou shalt besiege it. And when the
�74
God’s Thieves in Canaan.
Lord thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt
smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword : But the
women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the
city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and
thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the Lord thy God
hath given thee. Thus shalt thou do unto ail the cities which
are very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these
nations. But of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy
God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive
nothing that breatheth. But thou shalt utterly destroy them.”
Such were the fiendish commands of Jehovah, the bloody
maxims of inspired war. Let us see how the Jews carried them
out.
Duiing the lifetime of Moses they made a good beginning!
for in their war against Midian they slew 48,000 men, 48,000
women, and 20,000 boys, and took as spoil 32,000 virgins. But
they did much better under Joshua.
After God had dispatched Moses and secretly buried him, so
that nobody should ever discover his sepulchre, Joshua was
appointed leader in his stead. He was “full of the spirit of
wisdom, for Moses had laid his hands upon him.” Then, as now,
' religious superiors transmitted holiness to their inferiors
through the skull. God accepted the nomination of Moses and
instructed Joshua in his duties. He told him to be above all
“ strong and very courageous,” and to fight the enemy according
to the law of Moses. Joshua was not the man to neglect such
advice.
Joshua was soon ordered to cross the river Jordan and begin
the holy war. But before doing so, he dispatched two spies to
reconnoitre Jericho, the first place to be attacked. They reached
the city by night, and of course required lodgings. Instinct led
them to the house of Rahab, the harlot. She proved a very good
friend; for when messengers came from the king in the morning
to inquire about them, she said that they had gone, and advised
the messengers to go after them, which they did. Meanwhile
she hid the spies under some flax on the roof of her house, and
at night “ let them down by a cord through the window, for she
dwelt on the town wall.” Before they left, however, she made a
covenant with them. Like many other ladies of easy virtue, or
no virtue at all, Rahab was piously inclined. She had conceived
a great respect for Jehovah, and was assured that his people
would overcome all their enemies. But she had also a great re
spect for her own skin ; so she made the two spies promise on
behalf of the Jews that when they took Jericho they would
spare her and all her relatives ; and they were to recognise her
house by the “line of scarlet thread in the window.” They got
back safe to Joshua and told him it was all right; the people
were in a dreadful funk, and all the land would soon be theirs?
Joshua got up early the next morning and told the Jews that w
the Lord was going to do wonders. They wanted to get “ on
�God’s Thieves in Canaan.
75
the other side of Jordan,” and the Lord meant to ferry them
across in his own style. Twelve men were selected one from
each tribe to follow the priests who bore the ark m front, and
all the Jewish host came after them. As it was harvest time, the
river had overflowed its banks. When the priests’ feet “ were
dipped in the brim of the water,” the river parted in twain ; on
one side the waters “ stood and rose up upon an heap, while on
the other side they “failed and were cut off.” As no miracle
was worked further up the river to stop the supplies the “ heap
must have been a pretty big one before the play ended. A clear
passage having been made, the Jews all crossed on dry ground.
Thev seem to have done this in less than a day, but three millions
of people could not march past one spot in less than a week.
Perhaps the Lord gave them a shove behind.
The twelve selected Jews, one from each tribe, took twelve
big stones out of the bed of the river, which were “pitched in
Gilgal” as a “memorial unto the children of Israel for ever.
For ever is a long time and is not yet ended. Those stones
should be there now. Why don’t the clergy try to discover
them? If brought to London and set up on the Thames embank
ment they would throw Cleopatra’s needle into the shade.
When God had ferried the Jews across, and picked out the
twelve big stones as aids to memory, the “heap” of water
tumbled down and overflowed the banks of the river Joshua
and his people then encamped near Jericho, in readiness for
greater wonders to come.
,
.
Three days afterwards the manna ceased. Jehovah s fighting
cocks wanted a more invigorating diet. This time they did not
ask for a change, but the Lord vouchsafed it spontaneously.
All the males, too, were circumcised by God’s orders. This
Jewish rite had been neglected during the forty years’ wandering
in the wilderness, but it was now resumed. From the text it
seems that Joshua circumcised all the males himself. As they
numbered about a million and a half, it must have been a long
iob. Allowing a minute for each amputation, it would in the
natural course of things have taken him about three years to do
them all; but being divinely aided, he finished his task m a single
day. Samson’s jaw-bone was nothing to Joshua’s knife.
Soon after Joshua, being near Jericho, like Balaam’s ass saw
an angel with a drawn sword in his hand. When he had made
obeisance, by falling flat and taking off his shoes, he received
from this heavenly messenger precise instructions as to the
capture of the doomed city.. The Lord’s, way of storming
fortresses is unique in military literature. Said he to Joshua—
“ Ye shall compass the city, all ye men of war, and go round
about the city once. Thus shalt thou do six days. And seven
priests shall bear before the ark seven trumpets of rams’ horns:
and the seventh day ye shall compass the city seven times, and
-the priests shall blow with the trumpets. And it shall come to
pass that when they make a long blast with the ram s horn, and
�76
God's Thieves in Canaan.
when ye hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people shall shout
with a great shout; and the wall of the city shall fall down flat,
and the people shall ascend up every man straight before him.”
Did ever another general receive such extraordinary in
structions from his commander-in-chief ? God’s soldiers need
no cannon, or battering rams, or bomb-shells; all they require is
a few rams’ horns and good lungs for shouting.
God’s orders were obeyed. Six days in succession did the
Jews march round the walls of Jericho, no doubt to the great
bewilderment of its inhabitants, who probably wondered why
they didn’t come on, and felt that there was something uncanny
in this roundabout siege. On the seventh day they went round
the city seven times. How tired they must have been! Jericho,
being a capital city, could not have been less than several miles
in circumference. The priests blew with the trumpets, the people
shouted with a great shout, and the walls of Jericho fell flat—
as flat as the simpletons who believe it.
A scene of horror ensued. The Jews “ utterly destroyed all
there was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and
ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword.” Only
Rahab and her relatives were spared. The silver, and the gold,
and the vessels of brass and of iron, were put into the Lord's
treasury-—that is, handed over to the priests; and then the city
was burnt with fire. God commanded this, and his chosen people
executed it. Could Jericho have been treated worse if the Devil
himself had planned the fight, and the vilest fiends from hell had
conducted it?
Rahab the harlot, being saved with all her relatives, who were
perhaps as bad as she, dwelt with the Jews ever afterwards.
Whether she continued in her old profession we are unable to
say. But it is certain that the Jews soon after grew very corrupt,
and the Lord’s anger was kindled against them. The first result
of God’s displeasure was that the Jews became demoralised as
warriors. Three thousand of them, who went up against Ai, were
routed, and thirty-six of them were slain. This seems a very
small number, but, as we have already observed, the Jewish
chroniclers were much given to bragging. Their losses were
always very small, and the enemy’s very great.
After this rebuff the Jews funked; their hearts ‘ ‘ melted and
became as water.” Joshua rent his clothes, fell upon his face
before the ark, and remained there until the evening. The
elders of Israel did likewise, and they all put dust on their heads.
To conclude the performance Joshua expostulated with God,
asked him whether he had brought his people over Jordan only
to betray them to their enemies, and expressed a hearty wish
that they had never crossed the river at all.
The Lord told Joshua to get up, as it was no use lying there.
Israel had sinned, and God had determined not to help them
until they had purged themselves. Some one, in fact, had stolen
a portion of the spoil of Jericho, all of which belonged to the
�God’s Thieves in Canaan.
77
Lord that is to the priests, who evidently helped to concoct this
nrettv story Joshua forthwith proceeded to hunt the sinner out.
C meS was very singular. He resolvedto £ —
twelve tribes until the culprit was found, I he tribe ot juuan
was examined first, and luckily in the very first family Acha
was taken,” although we are not told how he was spotted
Achan confessed that he had appropriated of the spoil a_
•Rabvlonish o-arment, and two hundred shekels of ®-iver> .ana a
weta ” f grid of fifty shekels weight,” which he had hidden
under his tent His doom was swift and terrible ; he was stoned
t"^ his body burnt with fire We>maythin^: Mspunish
went severe but we cannot deny his guilt, tie, ^°wevei,
“oTthe only sufferer. Jehovah was not
small quantity of blood. Achan s sons and daug™8 we
stoned with him, and then^bodies
«ne
A^eaFheap’of’stones was raised over their cinders, “jehorah
“ the Lord turned from the fierceness of his anger. Jehovah
acted iustlike the savage old chieftain of a savage tribe
As
irascible tempers do not improve with age
X
9till asnennerv as ever. Yet we are asked to lov ,
> ,
wSshipP ®s brutal being, as the ideal of all that >s merciful,
jUtaed?aWy after Joshua sent thirty thousand menmgainst Ai,
which they took with great ease. All its mhabitan ,
oldest ma? to the youngest babe were '“^red. Tim city
itself was burnt into a desolate heap. The King
reserved to furnish the Jews with a little extra sport, by w^y
dessert to the bloody feast. He was hanged oni a^ntil eve tide when his carcass was taken down and buried under a n ;al
If stoles.” Joshua -‘then built
a tapmto the Lord God of
Israel in Mount Ebal,” who appears to have been mightily we
pleased with the whole business.
_
i a
o-athered all
Joshua’s next exploit was indeed miraculous He gathered
the Jews together, men, womeni, children, and even the,trang,
and read to them all the laws of Moses, wl^XXtliroat must
word. It must have been a long job, and Joshua s ttooa
have been rather dry at the end. But the greatest^o^er is
he made himself heard to three millions of people at1
1
other orator ever addressed so big an audience E1^er“e^e in
were very sharp, or his voice was terribly loud. The people
The front rank must have been nearly stunned with the sound.
Joshua could outroar Bottom the weaver by two or^iee^e’d
The people of Gibeon, by
of irSSeng^± couX
themselves off on Joshua as strangers from a. distantcou t y,
contrived to obtain a league whereby their livee
When their craft was detected they were sentenced to become
hewers of wood and drawers of water to the Jews; m other words,
^AdonLztdec, king of Jerusalem ; Hoham, king of Hebron ;
�78
God’s Thieves in Canaan.
Piram king of Jarmuth; Japhia, king of Lachish; and Debim
king of Eglon ; banded themselves together to punish Gibeon
for making peace with the Jews. Joshua went with all his army
to their relief. He fell upon the armies of the five kino-s dis
comfited them with great slaughter, and chased them along the
way to Beth-horon. As they fled the Lord joined in the hunt.
He cast down great st.ones from heaven upon them ” and killed
a huge number even “more than they whom the children of
Israel slew with the sword.”
When we read that Pan fought witfi the Greeks against the
Persians at Marathon, we must regard it as a fable ; but when
we read that Jehovah fought with the Jews against the five kino-s
at Gibeon we must regard it as historical truth, and if we doubt
it we shall be eternally damned.
Not only did the Lord join in the war-hunt, but Joshua
wrought the greatest miracle on record by causing a stationary
body to stand still. He stopped the sun from “ going down ”
and lengthened out the day for about twelve hours, in order that
the Jews might see to pursue and kill the flying foe “ The sun
stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged
themselves upon their enemies.” What Joshua really stopped
if he stopped anything, was the earth, for its revolution, and not
the motion of the sun, causes the phenomena of day and nio-ht
Science tells , us that the arrest of the earth’s motion would
generate a frightful quantity of heat, enough to cause a general
conflagration. Yet nothing of the kind happened. How is it
too, that no other ancient people has preserved any record of this
marvellous occurrence ? The Egyptians, for instance, carefully
noted-eclipses and such events, but they jotted down no memor
andum of Joshuas supreme miracle. Why is this? How can
Christians explain it ?
When Jupiter personated Amphytrion, and visited his bride
Alcmena the amorous god lengthened out the night in order toprolong his enjoyment. Why may we not believe this ? Is it
not as credible, and quite as moral, as the Bible story of
Jehovah s lengthening out the day to prolong a massacre ? Were
the Greeks any bigger liars than the Jews ?
It has been suggested that Joshua was so elated with the
victory that he drank more than was good for him, and got in
at k j Str,e that in the evening’lie saw two moons instead of one
Nobody liked to contradict him, but the elders of Israel to’
harmonise their leader’s vision, declared that it comprised’the
sun and the moon, instead of two moons, which were clearly
absurd. The court poet improved on this explanation, and com
posed the neat little poem which is partially preserved by the
Jewish chronicler, who asks “ Is not this written in the book of
Jas ier.
The waggish laureate Jasher is supposed by some
profane speculators to have got up the whole miracle himself.
The five kings fled with their armies and “hid themselves in
a cave at Makkedah.” Joshua ordered the mouth to be closed
�God’s Thieves in Canaan.
-
'
79
■with big stones until the pursuit was ended. At last they were
brought out and treated with great ignominy. Their necks were
made footstools of by the captains of Israel, and they were
afterwards hung on trees until the evening, when their carcasses
were flung into the cave. After this highly civilised treatment of
their captives, the Jews took all the capital cities of these five
kings and slew all the inhabitants. Then they desolated the hills
and vales. Joshua “ left none remaining, but utterly destroyed
all that breathed, as the Lord God of Israel commanded.” Hazor
and many other places were also treated in the same way, “ there
was not any left to breathe.”
Jehovah was not, however, able to execute his intentions com
pletely. The children of Judah could not drive the Jebusites
out of Jerusalem; nor could the children of Manasseh entirely
drive out the Canaanites from their cities. After Joshua’s death,
as we read in the book of Judges, “ the Lord was with Judah,
and he drove out the inhabitants of the mountain ; but could not
drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots
of iron.” Iron chariots were too strong for the Almighty! Yet
he managed to take off the wheels of Pharaoh’s chariots at the
Red Sea. Why could he not do the same on this occasion ?
Were the linch-pins too tight or the wheels too heavy?
Joshua died at the ripe old age of a hundred and ten. What
ever else he may have been, he was certainly one of the gamest
fighting cocks that ever lived. Jehovah never found a better
instrument for his bloody purposes. They buried him at
Timnath-serah. Joseph’s old bones, which Moses brought out
of Egypt, were buried at Shechem. Had they been kept much
longer some Hebrew “old-clo’ man” might have carried them
off and made an honest penny by them.
After Joshua’s death, the tribe of Judah fought against Adonibezek. When they caught him they cut off his thumbs and his
big toes. He acknowledged the justice of his punishment, and
admitted that God had served him just as he had himself served
seventy kings, whose great toes he had cut off, and made them
eat under his table. Kings must have been very plentiful in
those days.
During Joshua’s lifetime the Jews served God, and they kept
pretty straight during the lifetime of the elders who had known
him. But directly these died they went astray; “they forsook
the Lord and worshipped Baal and Ashtaroth.” God punished
them by letting their enemies oppress them. “Nevertheless,”
says the story, “the Lord raised up judges, which delivered
them out of the hand of those that spoiled them. And yet they
would not hearken unto their judges, but they went a whoring
after other gods, and bowed themselves unto them; and they
turned quickly out of the way which their fathers walked in,
obeying the commandments of the Lord; but they did not so.
.... And it came to pass, when the judge was dead, that they
returned and corrupted themselves more than their fathers, in
�80
God's Thieves in Canaan.
following other Gods to serve them, and to bow down unto them;
they ceased not from their own doings, nor from their stubborn
way.”
God’s selection of the Jews as his favorite people does not
seem to reflect much credit on his sagacity. All who came out of
Egypt, except two persons, turned out so badly that they were
pronounced unfit to enter the promised land, and doomed to die
in the wilderness. The new generation who entered Canaan,,
after being circumcised to make them holy; after seeing the
miracles of Jordan and the valley of Ajalon; after having gained
a home by God’s assistance in a land flowing with milk and
honey; this very generation proved worse than their fathers.
The original inhabitants of Canaan, whom they dispossessed,
could hardy have surpassed them in sin and iniquity; and
therefore the ruthless slaughter of their conquest was as un
reasonable as it was inhuman. So much for “ God’s Thieves in
Canaan.”
PRICE ONE PENNY.
Printed and Published by H. A. Kemp, 28 Stonecutter Street,';
London, E.C.
�BIBLE ROMANCES—11.
CAIN AND ABEL.
By G. W. FOOTE.
God completed the immense labors described in the first chapter
of Genesis by creating man “in his own image,” after which he
serenely contemplated “ everything that he had made, and,
behold it was very good.” Yet the first woman deceived her
husband the first man was duped, and their first son was a mur
derer. God could not have looked very far, ahead when he pro
nounced everything “very good.” It is clear that the original
nair of human beings were very badly made. As the Lord was
obliged to take a rest on the seventh day, it is not unreasonable
to suppose that he was pretty tired on the sixth, and scamped
the work All the sin and suffering in this world is the conse
quence of man having been the fag-end of creation. If the Lord
had rested on the sixth day and created man on the seventh, how
different things might have been ! The Devil would probably
have done no business in this world, and the population of hell
would be no more now than it was six thousand years ago.
After leaving the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve, having no
fear of Malthus in their hearts, began to “ multiply and replenish
the earth ” When their first child was born, Eve said, “ 1 have
gotten a’man from the Lord,” poor Adam’s share in the
youngster’s advent being quietly ignored. She christened him
Cain a name which comes from a Hebrew root signifying to
acquire. Cain was regarded as an acquisition, and his mother was
very proud of him. The time came when she wished he had
never been born.
. ,
Some time after, but how long is unknown, Eve gave birth to
a second son, called Abel. Josephus explains this name as
meaning grief, but Hebrew scholars at present explain it as mean
ing nothingness, vanity, frailty. The etymology of Abel’s name
shows conclusively that the story is a myth. Why should Eve
give her second boy so sinister a name ? How could she have so
clearly anticipated his sad fate? Cain’s name has, too, another
significance besides that of “acquisition,” for, as Kalisch points
out it also belongs to the Hebrew verb to strike, and “ signifies
either the man of violence and the sire of murderers, or the
ancestor of the inventors of iron instruments and of weapons of
destruction.”
.
Cain and Abel had to get their own living. Being born after
the Fall they were of course debarred from the felicities of Eden,
and were compelled to earn their bread by the sweat of their
�82
Cain and Abel.
brows, in accordance with God’s wide-reaching curse. Both, so
to speak, were forced to deal in provisions. Abel went in for
meat, and Cain for vegetables. This was an admirable division
of labor, and they ought to have got on very well together; one
finding beef and mutton for dinner, and the other potatoes and
greens. They might even have paid each other handsome compli
ments across the table. Abel might have said, “ My dear Cain,
these vegetables are first-rate,” and Cain might have replied,
“ My dear Abel, I never tasted a better cut.”
Delitzsch, whose criticisms are huge jokes, frowns on this
picture of fraternal peace. He opines that Cain and Abel were
vegetarians, and never enjoyed a beef-steak or a mutton- chop.
Abel kept only small domestic cattle, such as sheep and goats,
whose woolly skin might be used to cover “their sinful naked
ness.” The utmost Dtlitzsch allows is that they perhaps drank
milk, which, although animal nutriment, is not obtained through
the destruction of animal life. But, as Colenso observes,
animals were slain for sacrifices, and they may have been killed
also for eating. Besides, even a vegetable diet involves infinite
destruction of minute animal life. On the whole we prefer to
disregard Delitzsch in this matter, and to stand by our pleasant
picture of the two first brothers at dinner.
Their admirable arrangement, however, brought mischief in
the end. It was right enough so far as they were concerned, but
it worked badly in relation to God. They liked a mixed diet,
but the Lord was purely carnivorous and liked all meat. He
devoured Abel’s provisions with great relish, but turned up his
nose at Cain’s vegetables. The mealiest potatoes, the tenderest
green peas, had no charm for him ; and even the leeks, the garlic,
the onions, and the cucumbers, which were afterwards so
beloved by his Jewish favorites, were quite unattractive. In
the language of Scripture, “ Cain brought of the fruit of the
ground an offering unto the Lord. And Abel, he also brought
of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the
Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering : But unto Cain
and to his offering he had no respect.” Elsewhere in the Bible
we read “ God is no respecter of persons,” but Scripture is full
of contradictions, and such things present no difficulty to the
spirit of faith, which, like hope, “ believeth all things.”
Why was Cain’s offering slighted? The Bible does not tell
us, but many reasons have been advanced by commentators.
The Talmud supposes that Cain did not offer his best produce,
but only the inferior kinds, thus giving God what he did not
require himself, and treating the holy rite of sacrifice as a means
of working off his refuse vegetables. Kalisch waives this theory,
and thinks it probable that Cain’s sin was primarily not against
God, but against man. “ The supposition,” he says, “ is obvious
that envy and jealousy had long filled the heart of Cain, when
�Cain and Abel.
83
contrasted his laborious and toilsome life with the pleasant
hi, brother Abel. With incjant exerton,
tormented by anxiety, and helplessly dependent on the
of the skies he forced a scanty subsistence out ot the woin
Bp
heart He beheld the happiness of his brother with the feelings
an enemy. The joy at the «uooeM ot his own labor, was
embittered by the aspect of Ms brother’s greater
could God look with delight upon an offering which the offerer
himself did not regard with unalloyed satisfaction ? How cou
he eoeonrege by bis applause a man whose heart was poisoned
by the mean and miserable passion of envy f
But all this is gratuitous and far-fetched. Cam yas not
afflicted with so laborious an occupation. Adam supported hi self and Eve and all Cain had to do was to provide himself, and
perhaps Abe’l with vegetables. Nor could Abels occupation
have been light, for flocks and herds require a good deal of
attendance and in those early days they needed vigilant protecSoeagX’t“be ravage, of irild beasts. . Abel’s ta.k.mote have
been quite as heavy as Cain’s. Our opinion is that the Lord
showed his usual caprice, hating whom he would and lovmg
whom he would. Jehovah acted like the savage hero ot M .
browning’s ‘ Caliban on Setebos,” who sprawls on the shore
watching8a line of crabs make for the sea and squashes the
twentieth for mere variety and sport. If Jehovah is ^es
to explain his loves and hates, he answers with Shylock, it is
my whim.” It was his whim to love Jacob and hate Esau, and
it was no doubt his whim to accept Abel’s offering and reject
^Mythologically the acceptance of Abel’s offering and the rejec
tion of Cat’s are easily intelligible. The principle of samfice
was deeply imbedded in Judaism. Without shedding ofblood
there could be no remission of sin. Under the Levitical law the
duties of the priesthood chiefly consisted in
offerings of the people. It is. therefore, not difficult to unde
stand how the Jewish scribes who wrote or revised the Penta
teuch after the Babylonish captivity should give thl?
the narrative of Genesis; nor is it hard to conceive that for
centuries before that date the popular tradition had already,
under priestly direction, taken such a color, so as t g
oldest and deepest sanction t > the doctrine of animal sacrifice.
It must also be noticed that Abel, who found favor with God,
was “a keeper of sheep,” while Cain, whose offering was con-
�84
Cain and Abel.
temned, was “ a tiller of the ground.” This accords with the
strongest traditional instincts of the Jews. The Persian religion
decidedly favors agriculture, which it regards as a kind of divine
service. Brahminism and Buddhism countenance it still more
decidedly, and even go to the length of absolutely prohibiting
the slaughter of animals. The Jews, on the other hand, esteemed
the pastoral life as the noblest, and the Hebrew historian very
naturally represented it as protected and consecrated by the
blessing of Jehovah, while agriculture was declared to have
been imposed on man as a punishment. The nomadic origin of
the Jews accounts for their antipathy to that pursuit, which sur
vived and manifested itself long after they settled in Palestine,
devoted themselves to the cultivation of the soil, and enacted
agrarian laws. They always esteemed agriculturalists as inferior
to shepherds ; men of superior attainments in their histories and
legends rose from pastoral life ; and kings kept their flocks.
David, the man after God’s own heart, and the national hero of
the Jews, was a shepherd, and the Lord came to him while he
was keeping his father’s sheep. Moses was keeping his fatherin-law’s sheep when God appeared to him in the burning bush
at Mount Horeb ; Jacob kept his uncle Laban’s sheep when he
fled from Esau ; and Abraham, the father of the faithful, was
rich in flocks and herds.
To recur to our story. Abel probably enjoyed the conspicuous
mark of divine favors conferred on him. Cain, however, ex
perienced very different feelings. He “ was very wroth, and his
countenance fell.” Whereupon the Lord somewhat facetiously
asked him what was the matter. “ Why,” said he, “ art thou
wroth ? and why is thy countenance fallen ? If thou doest well,
shalt thou not be accepted ? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth
at the door.” This was all very well, but as a matter of fact
Cain’s offering had already been rejected, and according to the
Bible he had done nothing to deserve such harsh treatment.
The Lord’s final words on this occasion read thus in our
English Bible : “ And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou
shalt, rule over him.” These words are construed as applying to
Cain s mastery over Abel, as the elder brother; but they seem,
quite unmeaning in that connexion ; for Abel left no offspring,
and the prophecy, if such it were, was never fulfilled. Kalisch
throws light on this obscure passage. The Lord, he says, was
referring not to Abel but to Cain’s secret sin, and the passage
should read “And to thee is its desire, but thou shalt rule
over it.”
Cain then “talked with Abel his brother.” Geseniussupposes
that he communicated to him the words of God, and; treats this
as the first step towards a reconciliation. However that maybe,
we hear nothing more of it, for the very next words relate the
murder of the younger brother by the elder. “ And it came to
�Cain and Abel.
85
pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose np against Abel
his brother, and slew him.”
Kalisch
This abrupt narrative certainly requires explanatio .
seems to think that Cain went about his work after the inter
view with God, in a better frame of mind; but whilehe.toiled
hard “in the field” he became incensed at the sight ofAbel
loafins under a fine umbrageous tree and calmly watching h
flock Forgetting the divine admonitions, and listening on y
the voice of passion, he madly killed his only brother, and made
himself the first murderer. The Talmud gives several legends
about the hatred between the two brothers. <One imP"tes ^he
ference to Cain’s avarice, another to his ambition, another to his
taXtonlne.., and another to hi. envy and jedony ££
-n1int of Ab. l’s wife. The last of all seems the truest, namely,
S” they differed - in their view, regarding Provide..., th.
moral government of the world, and the efficacy of virtuous
deeds for happiness.” This idea informs Byron s tragedy on the
subject In “ Cain ” the younger brother’s offering is burnt up
with supernatural fire, while the elder’s altar remains unkindled,
whereupon Cain inveigh, again,! God’, partiality
the bloodv sacrifice which finds greater favor than his own
peaeefnl tribute of fruit and flower,. He
*
scatter the relic, of Abel’s offering from the altar,
thwarted bv his brother who resists the sacrilege. Abel is teiiea
in the struggle, and Cain, who had no intention of killing him,
flnds himself an actual murderer before his brother s corpse..
We are bound to conclude that the first quarrel in the world,
like nine-tenths of those that have occurred since, was abouJ-re
ligion. Cain thought God should be worshipped in one way
Abel thought he should be worshipped in another; and they settled
the question, after the manner of religious diputants m all ag
bv the stronger knocking the weaker on the head. In religion
there is no certitude on this side of the grave; if we are> ever
destined to know the truth on that subject we must, die to find
it out We may therefore argue fruitlessly until the day or
judgment. The only effectual way of settling a religious pro
blem is to settle your opponents.
, , ,
After the murder the Lord paid Cam another visit, and asked
him where Abel was. Cain replied that he was not his brother s
keeper and didn’t know. He does not appear to have thought
Goda particularly well-informed person. Then the Lord s
that Abel’s blood cried unto him from the gr<>und;
now,” he continued, “ art thou cursed from the earth, which
hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother s blood from thy
hand; when thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield
unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be
on the earth. And Cain said unto the Lord, my punishment is
greater than I can bear. Behold, thou hast driven me out this
�86
Cain and Abel.
day from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be
hid, and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth;
and it shall come to pass that every one that fiodeth me shall
slay me. And the Lord said unto him, Therefore whosoever
slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And
the Lord set a mark on Cain, leBtany finding him should kill him.
And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in
the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.”
Now let us examine this story. Why was Cain so solicitous
about his safety ? Why did he fear that everybody would try to
kill him ? He had slain his brother, and his father and mother
were the only people in the world besides himself and per
haps his sisters. Kalisch suggests that he apprehended the future
vengeance of mankind when the world grew more populous.
But how, in that case, could a distinctive mark be any pro
tection ? It would publish his identity to all beholders. Be
sides, one would suppose that Cain, the first man ever born into the
world, would always be well known without carrying about a
brand like a special wine or a patent edible. And what was the
maik ? Kalisch thinks it was only a villainous expression.
Others think it was the Mongolian type impressed upon the
features of Cain, who became the founder of that great division
of the human race. A negro preacher started a different theory.
When the Lord called out in a loud voice, “ Cain, where is thy
brother Abel,” Cain, who was a black man, like Adam, turned
pale with fear, and never regained his original color. All his
children were pale too; and that, said the preacher, ‘‘accounts
for de white trash you see ebery war in dese days ”
How did Cain manage to go “ out from the presence of the
Lord,” who is everywhere ? Satan does the same thing in
the Book of Job, and Jonah tries to do it later on. Jehovah
was clearly a local as well as a visible God, and not the infinite
spirit of the universe.
Where was the land of Nod situated ? East of Eden, says the
Bible. But nobody knows where Eden was. As we pointed
out in “The Creation Story,” scores of different positions have
been assigned to it. The only yoint of agreement among the
commentators is that it was somewhere. All that can safely be
affirmed, then, is that Nod was east of Somewhere. The name
itself is very appropriate. No douot the Lord was not quite
awake in that locality, and hence we may explain how Cain
managed to go “ out from his presence.”
In this strange land of Nod, Cain “ knew his wife.” Who
was she ? Probably his own sister, but the Bible does not tell
us anything about her. Their first son was called Enoch. Cain
then “ builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the
name of his son, Enoch.” But this is directly opposed to the
curse, “ a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.”
�Cain and Abel.
87
Delitzsch notices this, and, as usual, seeks to explain it away.
Cain he says, “ in this way set himself against the divine curse,
in order to feel it inwardly so much the more, as outwardly he
seems to have overcome it.” To which we reply—first, that
there is no evidence that Cain felt the curse “ more inwardly
after he built the city ; and, secondly, the idea of a man success
fully setting himself against an omnipotent curse is a trifle too
absurd for credence or criticism.
Now Adam and Eve, when Cain fled after the murder of Abel,
were left childless, or at least without a Bon. But it was neces
sary that they should have another, in order that God’s chosen
people the Jews, might, be derived from a purer stock than
Cain’s.’ Accordingly we read that Adam, in his hundred and
thirtieth year, “ begat a son in his own likeness, after his image,
and called his name Seth.” Why was not Cain begotten in the
same way? Had he been so, the cradle of the world might not
have been defiled with the blood of fratricide. Seth being the
image ” of Adam, and Adam “ the image ” of God, Seth and the
Almighty were of course very much alike. He was pious, and
from him were descended the pious patriarchs, including Noah,
from whom was descended Abraham the founder of the Jewish
race. God’s chosen people came of a good stock, although
they turned out such a bad lot.
From Seth to Noah there are ten Patriarchs before the flood.
This is clearly mythological. The Hindus believed in ten great
saints, the offspring of Manu, and in ten different personifica
tions ’of Vishnu. The Egyptians had ten mighty heroes, the
Chaldeans ten kings before the Flood, the Assyrians ten kings
from Ham to Ninyas, and as many from Japhet to Aram; and
Plato enumerates ten sons of Neptune, as the rulers of his
imaginary Island of Atlantis, submerged by the Deluge.
Cain’s descendants were of course drowned by the Flood, but
they did a great deal more for the world than the descendants
of pious Seth, who seems to have done little else than trust in
God. The Cainites laid the basis of civilisation. One of them
Jabal, founded cattle-keeping; his brother, Jubal, invented
musical instruments; and their half-brother Tubal-cain first
practised smithery. Seth’s descendants had nothing but piety.
Even their morals were no better than those of the Cainites ; for
at the Flood only eight of them were found worthy of preserva
tion, and they were a poor lot. Noah got beastly drunk after
the waters subsided, and one of his three sons brought a curse
on all his offspring. What then must we think of the rest?
Tuch excellently explains the mythological significance of the
story of Cain and Abel and Seth. “There lies,” he says, “in
this myth the perfectly correct reminiscence, that in the East
ancient nations lived, under whom in very early times culture
and civilisation extended, but at the same time the assertion,
�88
Cain and Abel.
that these could not prejudice the renown of the WesternAsiatics, since the prerogatives, which their descent from the
first-born would secure to them, were done away through God’s
Curse, which lighted on their ancestor Cain. Thus the East is
cut off from the following history, and the thread fastened on,
which carries us on in Genesis, right across through the
nations to the only chosen people of Israel.” The entire history
of the world before the Flood is dismissed in five chapters, and
that from the Flood to Abraham in two more. After that the
mighty antique civilisations are never noticed except so far as
they affect the history of the Jews. The ages of the Patriarchs
also dwindle down from nine centuries in the beginning to
almost the normal longevity in the semi-historical period. Could
anything more conclusively prove the mythical character of the
narrative ?
One of the Patriarchs descended from Seth, namely Enoch,
which singularly enough is also the name of Cain’s eldest son,
never died. We read that “ he was not, for God took him.”
It is about time that the Lord took the whole lot out of his
Word, and gave us a little ancient Azstory instead. We want a
revised Bible in the fullest sense of the word. The old book
needs to be completely rewritten. How thankful we should all
be if the Lord inspired another “Moses” to rectify the errors
and supplement the deficiencies of the first, and to give us scien
tific truth instead of fanciful myths about the early history of
our race ! But the Lord never inspires anybody to do a useful
piece of work, and our Darwins will therefore have to go on with
their slow and laborious task of making out a history of mankind
from the multitudinous and scattered traces that still survive the
decay of time.
PRICE ONE PENNY.
London: Progressive Publishing Company, 28, Stonecutter St., E.G.
�BIBLE ROMANCES.—12.
L 0 T’S
WIFE.
By G. W. FOOTE.
Lot and his family were a queer lot. Their history is one of the
strangest in the whole Bible. They dwelt amongst a people
whose debauchery has become a byword, and in a city which
has given a name to the vilest of unnatural crimes. Lot, his
wife, and their two unmarried daughters, were the only persons
preserved from the terrible fate which Jehovah, in one of his
periodic fits of anger, inflicted upon the famous Cities of the
Plain. They witnessed a signal instance of his ancient method
of dealing with his disobedient children. In the New Testa
ment, God promises the wicked and the unbelievers everlasting
fire after they are dead ; in the Old Testament, he drowns them
or burns them up in this world. Lot and his family saw the
destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah by “brimstone and fire
from the Lord out of heaven and they, four persons in all, just
half the number that survived the Flood a few centuries before,
were the only ones that escaped. God specially spared them.
Yet Lot’s wife was turned into a pillar of salt for looking back
as she fled from the doomed city, and the old man himself soon
after got drunk and committed incest with his daughters. From
this crime sprang Moab and Ammon, the founders of two nations
who became for many centuries the most implacable enemies of
God’s chosen people.
Why did the Lord spare these four persons? Why did he
not profit by the lesson of the Flood? The eight persons
rescued from drowning in that great catastrophe were infected
with original sin, and the consequence was that the world
peopled from their stock was a great deal worse than the ante
diluvian world. It would clearly have been better to destroy all
and start absolutely afresh. The eight rescued persons were
apparently just as bad as those who were drowned. So with the
four persons spared at the destruction of Sodom. The people of
that city could hardly have been much worse than Lot and his
children. The Lord appears to have been as stupid in his mercy
as he was brutal in his wrath.
Lot was Abraham's nephew, and evidently came of a bad stock.
The uncle’s evil career will be sketched in our series of “Bible
Heroes.” For the present we content ourselves with the remark
that no good could reasonably be expected from such a family.
Lot’s father was Haran, a son of Terah, and brother to Abraham.
He “ died before his father Terah in the land of his nativity, in
Ur of the Chaldees.” A city was called by his name in the land
�90
Lot's Wife.
of Canaan, and Terah and the family dwelt there after they left
Ur, until the patriarch died and Abraham was called out from his
kindred to found a new house. The “father of the faithful ”
took his orphaned nephew with him. Lot accompanied his
uncle on the journey to Egypt, where Abraham passed his ■wife
off as his sister, and showed his natural bent by lying right and
left.
Soon afterwards we learn that Abraham and Lot had grown
very rich, the former “in cattle, in silver, and in gold,” and the
■latter in “ flocks, and herds, and tents.” Indeed “ their sub
stance was so great that they could not dwell together, and there
was strife between the herdmen of Abram’s cattle, and the herd
men of Lot’s cattle.” Whereupon Abraham said, “ Don’t let us
quarrel within the family, but let us part. You can go where
you like. If you go to the right I’ll go to the left, and if you go
to the left I ll go to the right.” It was necessary to separate
Lot from the fortunes of Abraham, in order that God’s dealings
with the latter might be uninterrupted and his family kept
distinct; and so the Hebrew chronicler very naturally separates
them here, in a manner which reflects great credit on Abraham,
and exhibits him in a most amiable light.
Cunning Lot took full advantage of the offer. He “lifted up
his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well
watered everywhere, even as the garden of the Lord.” So they
parted, and Lot “pitched his tent towards Sodom,” whose
inhabitants, says our naive story, “were wicked and sinners
before the Lord exceedingly.” Commentators explain that Lot’s
approach to such a detestable sink of iniquity indicated the
native corruption of his heart, or at least a sad lack of horror at
the sins which made the place stink in the nostrils of God.
In the next chapter we find Lot living in Sodom, although we
are not told when he moved there. Amraphel king of Shinar,
Arioch king of Ellasar, Chedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal
“king of nations,” made war with Bera king of Sodom, Birsha
king of Gomorrah, Shinab king of Admah, Shemeber king of
Zeboiim, and the “king of Bela, which is Zoar.” A great battle
was fought in the vale of Siddira, which is alleged to be now
covered by the Dead Sea. The four kings were victorious over
the five. The kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, and the victors
spoiled their cities, taking with them many captives, among
whom was “Lot, Abram’s brother’s son.” How Abraham went
out with a handful of men, defeated the triumphant forces of the
allied kings, and rescued his nephew, is a pretty little story
which we reserve for our fife of that patriarch. All the other
captives were rescued also, and Lot, returning with his friends,
continued to dwell in Sodom as before.
We hear no more of him for a considerable time. During the
interval Abraham has a child by Hagar. Ishmael, with the rest
of the patriarch’s household, is circumcised. And finally the
Lord visits Abraham again to tell him that, notwithstanding their
�Lot’s Wife-
91
advanced ages, he and Sarah shall yet have a son. What hapnaned during the interview properly belongs to the hie of
Abraham, but we shall here consider so much of it as relates to
^The^Lord °compiained that the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah
was “very grievous,” and said that the great cry of it had
Reached him in heaven. Being much concerned about the r
“ o-oino-s on,” he had resolved to drop down and see for h™self
if they°were really as bad as he suspected. “ If not, said he,
«I will know.” In the Old Testament, God, who knows every
thing', is always seeking information.
Abraham surmised that the Lord meant to play the devd with
the Sodomites, and he was anxious about Lot who dwelt with
them. So he began a parley. “Now, my Lord, said Abraham
“vou surely don’t mean to destroy indiscriminately; you, the
judge of all the earth, must act on the square. Suppose there
are fifty righteous men in Sodom, won’t you, just for their sake
snare the place?” Knowing that there were nothing like fifty
righteous men in Sodom, the Lord promptly acceded to Abraham s
reouest • so promptly indeed that Abraham smelt a rat, and
SeSkel to drive a^loser bargain So he asked the Lord to
knock off five. “Very well,” was the reply, “ if I find fortyfive righteous men I’ll spare the city.” Abraham was still
suspicious. He knew that Jehovah loved a bit of destruction
and was not easily moved when he had once made up hiss mind,
to indulge himself. So he returned to the charge.
I beg
pardon,” said he, “for troubling you so but dojou mmd
knocking off another ten, and rnakir-,; thirty of it?
Not at
all,” answered the Lord, “ we’ll say thirty.
Abraham felt there
was something wrong. This amiable readiness o o'
thoroughly perplexed him. If the Lord had hagg e ov
thirty, he would have known that there was about that number
of righteous men in the place; but in the actual condition of
affairs, he felt that he had considerably overshot the mark. The
game was very dangerous, but he decided to renew it
My
Lord,” he began, “I’m a dreadful bore, but Im not quite satis
fied with our contract and should like to re-open it. I don t
wish to be importunate, but you will knock off another ten .
“With all my heart,” replied the Lord, “well say twenty.
Still dissatisfied, Abraham resolved on a final effort. “My good
Lord,” said he, “ this is really the last time of asking. I promise
to bother you no more. Will you knock off another ten.
“All right,” was the reply, “anything to oblige. Well say ten
altogether. If there are so many righteous men in Sodom 1 u
spare it. Good afternoon, Abraham, good afternoon. An
the Lord was off. ' Abraham ruefully watched the retreating
figure, perfectly assured that the Lord had got the best of thebargain, and that he himself had been duped, worsted, and
befooled.
„ ,
, ,
, .
God did not go to Sodom himself, but sent two angels to-
�92
Lot's Wife.
inspect it. They reached its gate in the evening, and found Lot
sitting there. In eastern towns the places before the gate are
the appointed localities for meetings ; and in ancient times they
were used for still more extensive purposes. There the judge
pronounced his decisions, and even kings held there occasionally
their courts of justice; there buying and selling went on; the
people assembled there to see each other and hear the news;
and almost all public affairs were transacted there, from religious
worship to the smallest details of civil life. It is not surprising,
therefore, that Lot should be sitting in the gate when the two
strangers arrived at the city. Some commentators have even
conjectured that he went out to meet them; but others object
that this is contradictory to the narrative, which does not exhibit
Lot as recognising the angels, and that it implies “too ideal a
notion of his virtue.” Some have supposed that Lot had attained
to the dignity of a judge, and that he was sitting to act in that
capacity on this occasion; but later circumstances refute this
supposition; for, in the quarrel which ensued, the people of
Sodom reproached him as “ a stranger ” who set himself up as a
judge of their conduct.
Lot advanced to the strangers, greeted them with a profound
bow, addressed them as “my lords,” and asked them to stay
over night at his house, where he would wash their feet, give
them something to eat, and find them a bed. They declined his
frank hospitality, and said they meant to pass the night in the
streets. Kalisch observes, as though he knew all about their
motives, that “it was their intention to try his character, and
to give him an opportunely of showing whether his generosity
was merely a momentary emotion, or had become a settled
feature in his character.” He also dismisses the idea that they
wished to remain in the streets or to study “ the moral
state of the Sodomites,” as they required no such knowledge,
for “they were not only the angels of God, but God himself
acted in them.” But Kalisch should bear in mind that God told
Abraham he was going on purpose to “ see whether they
have done altogether according to the cry of it and that, as
the angels could not know more than God, it was after all
necessary that they should make inquiries. Lot, however,
“ pressed upon them greatly,” and at last they entered his house.
Hethen “made them a. feastf which seems to have consisted of
nothing but unleavened bread. Perhaps the angels, who had
dined heavily with Abraham on veal, butter, and milk, were
afraid of bad dreams, and only wanted a light supper before
going to roost.
They were, not however, destined to enjoy a good night’s
sleep. Before they “lay down,” the men of Sodom “compassed
the house round, both old and young, all the people from every
quarter. And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where
are the men which came in unto thee this night? Bring them
out unto us, that we may know them.”
�Lot's Wife.
93
*"£rty lonM
two strangers ? The°story
Y^
neighbors
F0T XTto the nineteenth chapter of Judges, where the men
we must go to the nine
r
men q£ Sodom clamor for
of Gibeah clamor for the Le
offers them instead his own
XtXYneTto X The man’s right of possession gave
it all its importance
worth
he rebuked
Lot went out and shut t
wickedly,” and immediately
his neighbors for desiring
y thought perfectly
made them an offer which he seems to n
daughters
^KbX^Xn^^.^ 8tbem-
of my roof." Th? laws of hosptohty area^ *
WeSmOmOTentcnred law Instead of strenuously opposing the
committal of one crime, heproposes ^ther ^ hemous
&
The Sodomites scorned his otter. ±ney
v
massssgs
called hi strangers, and on+nallv nressed so sore upon him that
with the
actually pressea s
r
they “ came near to break tk<? ,00J’’.
wer. They “ put forth
thXhSXa^dpunedL^
te ho°iw 4S?bKneSJ both' small and^eat^so that they
wearied themselves to find the.door
it £aligch
XUSep^l"iX by ititut&g “blind eon-
fUTre’Xls““tod to act promptly.
Ttey- informed Lot
+n his “sons-in-law, which married his daughters,
Lot spoke to ms sons m m ,
Early in the morning
ltagered- They laid h01d
t
�94
Lot's Wife.
of his hand, his wife’s, and his two unmarried daughters’, led'
them outside the city, and said, “ Escape now for thy life; look
not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape tothe mountains lest thou be consumed.” Lot did not relish this
prospect of a hard climb. He therefore asked the angels to let
him flee unto the city of Zoar, because it was near and “a littleone.” That is what the servant girl said to her mistress when
she confessed to an illegitimate child, “ please’m, it’s only a very
little one.” She thought that a small illegitimate baby wasn’t
as bad as a big illegitimate baby, and Lot thought that a little
wicked city wasn’t as bad as a big wicked city.
Lot’s request was granted, and he was told to look sharp. He
inade good speed, and reached Zoar when “the sun was risen.”
“Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah
brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven ; and he over
threw those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of
the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.” It is a mistake
to suppose that brimstone and fire are characteristic of hell, for
the Lord evidently keeps a large stock of those commoditiesin heaven. Nor must it be supposed that Lot was spared be
cause he was righteous. He was spared because the Lord “ was
merciful unto him.” His virtues, Kalisch remarks, were not
sufficient for his salvation, which he owed to “the piety of
Abraham.” Abraham may have had “piety” enough to save a
Lot, but he had scarcely “ virtue ” enough to save a mouse.
Kalisch says that “ about the situation of Zoar there remains
littie doubt.” He identifies it with “the considerable ruins
found in Wady Kerek, on the eastern side of the Dead Sea.”
But he has no such assurance as to the situation of Sodom. Hedeprecates De Saulcy’s assumption, that Sodom is traceable in
the heap of stones found near the Salt Mountain, Udsum; and
adds—“We may hope rather than expect, that authentic ruins
of the four destroyed towns will ever be discovered. Biblical
historians and prophets already speak of them as localities utterly
and tracelessly swept away; and the remark of Josephus, that
‘ shadows ’ of them still existed in his time, is vague and
doubtful.”
In the South of Palestine there is an extraordinary lake of
mysterious origin. It is about thirty-nine miles long, and from
eight to twelve miles broad. It is fed by the river Jordan, and
drained by the evaporation due to a fierce and terrible sun. Its
water is clear and inodorous, but nauseous like a solution of
alum; it causes painful itching and even ulceration on the lips,
and if brought near a wound, or any diseased part, produces a most
excruciating sensation. It contains hydrochloric and sulphuric
acid, and one-fourth of its weight is salt. No fishes live in it;
and according to tradition, which however is not true, birds that
happen to fly over its surface die. Near it is said to grow the
Apple of Sodom, beautiful in appearance, but containing only
ashes. This lake is appropriately called the Dead Sea.
�Lot’s Wife.
95
The natives say that at low water they glimpse fragments of
'buildings and pillars rising out of the bottom of the lake. But
-this is only a fancy. Yet beneath the waters of the Dead Sea are
thought to lie the Cities of the Plain. The northern part of the
lake is very deep, the southern part very shallow. The bottom
consists of two separate plains, one elevated, the other depressed.
The latter is by some held to be the original bottom of the lake,
and the former to have been caused by the destruction of Sodom
and Gomorrah. But this also is only a fancy. The bitumen,
which is found in such large quantities in and near the lake, is a
symptom and remnant of the volcanic nature of the region.
. Several lines of earthquake are traced from it in a north-eastern
direction; and it is conjectured that the three lakes, Merom,
Tiberias, and Asphaltites, together with the river Jordan, are
the remaining traces of the huge gulf once filled by the Dead Sea
before the land was lifted by a geological catastrophe. Volcanic
action has caused all the remarkable phsenomena of the district,
which was of immemorial antiquity thousands of years ago;
and the story of the Cities of the Plain is only one of the
legends which ancient peoples associated with every striking
aspect of nature.
Let us recur to Lot. His sons, his married daughters, and
their husbands, perished in the deluge of brimstome and fire.
He and his two unmarried daughters fled to Zoar as fast as their
legs could carry them. But his wife was less fortunate. She
ran behind Lot, and with the natural curiosity of her sex she
looked back on the doomed city. For this violation of the
angels’ orders she was turned into “a pillar of salt.” Some
-commentators try to blink this unpleasant fact by artful transla
tions ; such as “ she fell into a salt-brook,” or “ she was covered
with a salt crust,” or she was “ like a pillar of salt.” Josephus
pretended to have seen this old woman of salt, but others have
been less lucky, although many travellers and pilgrims have
searched for it as for a sacred relic. But let us not despair
Lot’s wife may yet be discovered and exhibited in the British
Museum.
What became of Lot and his daughters? Fearing to dwell
in Zoar, they left it and “ dwelt in a cave.” The damsels, who
had heard their father offer them to the promiscuous embrace of
a lustful crowd, could not be expected to be very scrupulous in
their conduct. They were alone, without husbands to make them
mothers, and to be childless was a calamity and a reproach; so
they put their heads together and devised a nasty scheme. Two
nights successively they made their father blind drunk, and got
him to commit incest with them. This is very beastly and very
absurd. Lot was old; he was so drunk that he knew nothing of
what happened; yet he got two virgins with child 1 The
porter in “ Macbeth ” would have laughed at such a ridiculous
.story.
These improper females were by no means ashamed of their
�96
Lot’s Wife.
action ; on the contrary, they boasted of their bastards; and the
historian does not utter a word in condemnation of their crime.
Lot was the father of his own grandchildren; his daughters
were the mothers of their own brothers ; and his other children
were destroyed by heavenly brimstone and fire.- Were they not,
as we said at the outset, a queer lot? But the queerest lot was
Lot’s wife. Whatever may be said of the rest of the family, no
one can say that she was not worth her salt, for the Lord
thought she was worth enough to make a pillar. Let us hope
that the old lady will some day be discovered, and that her pillar
of salt may yet, to the confusion of sceptics, stand as a veritable
pillar in the house of God, and there defy the attacks of all the
infidel Samsons, world without end. Amen.
PRICE ONE PENNY.
Freethought Publishing Company, 28 Stonecutter Street, London.
�national secular society
BIBLE ROMANCES.
BY
G.
W.
FOOTE.
[SECOND SERIES.']
Price Ninepence.
----------- -♦>------------
LONDON:
PROGRESSIVE PUBLISHING COMPANY,
28 Stonecutter Street, E.O.
1885.
�mmi
�BIBLE ROMANCES—XIII.
DANIEL AND THE LIONS.
By G. W. FOOTE.
Daniel is a very important character in the Bible. He plays the
chief part among the Jews during the Babylonish captivity. His
history perhaps is not very instructive, but it is certainly enter
taining. As for “ The Book of Daniel,” it has beer the cause
of much waste of learning and good paper. Nearly all the prophe
tical rubbish ever written has been based upon it. It evidently
inspired the book of “ Revelation,” and is thus responsible for
most of the works on that puzzling subject which “either finds a
man cracked or leaves him so.”
Daniel was one of the children brought away from Jerusalem
to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar. The mighty king meant to have
these Jew boys well fed and well taught, so that at the end of
three years they might “ stand before him. Daniel received the
new name of Belteshazzar, but as that is a huge mouthful
we shall drop it, and call him by his original name. Three
other lads of the same tribe of Judah were his companions.
They are better known by their Chaldean names—Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abednego. As they grew up all four proved un
common men. Daniel could not be eaten by lions, and the others
were incombustible.
Nebuchadnezzar ordered them meat and wine, but they would
not “ defile ” themselves with these, as they were vegetarians and
teetotallers. By special favor of the prince of the eunuchs, they
were allowed to live on pulse and water, which made them fat and
fair. Daniel, however, appears to have relinquished his dietary
principles in after years, for we find him saying that when he
“ mourned three full weeks ” in the reign of Cyrus, he “ ate no
pleasant bread, neither came flesh nor wine in my mouth.” Pro
bably his stomach and his mind were carnal together, and he
only recurred to vegetarianism in his fits of piety.
The four children became skilful and learned and wise. Daniel
in particular “had understanding in all visions and dreams.”
That is, he told people what was in their heads better than they
knew it themselves, and explained the meaning of all the curious
ideas that haunted their skulls at night. No doubt he could pre
dict what would happen if a man dreamt about a dog, an old
lady about a cat, or a young one about a mouse. Probably he
�98
Daniel and the Lions.
edited an astrologer’s almanack, or a “ Book of Fate,” a copy of
which may yet be brought to light. Daniel was the most know
ing Jew, but his three friends also were excellent, and the king
“ found them ten times better than all the magicians and astro
logers that were in all his realm.”
We shall presently give a specimen of Daniel’s skill in that
line, but before doing so, we mean to go to the “apocryphal ”
“ History of Susanna,” which Protestantism has wrested from
the beginning of the “ Book of Daniel.” In the course of this
Romance we shall refer to two other “apocryphal” books—
“ Bel and the Dragon ” and the “ Song of the Three Holy Chil
dren,” which are quite as good history Daniel, and much better
fun.
In the “ History of Susanna ” Daniel is described as “ a young
youth,” but he turns out an “ old file.” What “ a young youth”
exactly means we are unable to say. It cannot mean a person
“ born young,” for Daniel seems to have come into the world
with his wisdom teeth already cut. Yet it must mean something.
We shall strenuously and earnestly pray for enlightenment on
this point, so that in our next edition we may be able to give
the precise character of “a young youth.” We may also be
able to state how the young may become youths, and how
youths may become young.
Daniel the “young youth,” to use Shakespeare’s words,
“ came to judgment.” Two elders lusted after Susanna, the wife
of Joacim, “ a very fair woman and one that feared the Lord.”
They secreted themselves in the garden, rushed out upon her
when she was alone in her bath, and threatened that if she did
not yield to their desires they would declare that they had
detected her in an intrigue with a young man. But her virtue
was impregnable to their seductions. That scamp, Lord Byron,
says of sweet Donna Julia :
Wedded she was some years, and to a man
Of fifty, and such husbands are in plenty ;
And yet, I think, instead of such a one
’Twere better to have two of five-and-twenty.
How shocking ! But there is perhaps some truth in the French
wit’s remark that Susanna’s virtue might have run more risk
from one young man than two old ones.
These disreputable elders were as bad as their word. They
lied about poor Susanna, and being pious they were of course
believed. She was condemned to death. But just at the critical
moment young Daniel intervened. Taking the elders separately,
he asked each under what tree he saw the paramours “ companying together.” One said a mastick tree, and the other an
holm. This discrepancy convinced everybody of their falsehood,
and they were put to death instead of poor Susanna. “ From
�Daniel and the Lions.
99
that clay forth,” says the story, “ Daniel was had in great repu
tation in the sight of the people.” If so, he earned it very
cheaply. The two elders must have been fools as great as they
were rogues if they could not rebut his little argument. There
was really nothing in it. They might have answered that a
difference on such a minor point did not vitiate their testimony
as to the main facts. The Jews were thankful for very small
mercies in the shape of wisdom, and anybody with half a head
could get a big reputation in those days.
Nebuchadnezzar “ dreamed dreams, wherewith his spirit was
troubled, and his sleep brake from him.” Perhaps the poor
monarch was overburdened with the cares of empire. Perhaps
he drank bad wine or ate pork for supper. This happened “ in
the second year of his reign.” But there is clearly a mistake in
the date; for Daniel and his friends had been fed and taught
by his orders for three years before he “ communed with them,”
and these bad dreams plagued him after that. This, however,
is a mere nicety of criticism. No pious mind will stumble over
such a trifling difficulty.
Nebuchadnezzar called in all the magicians, astrologers, and
soothsayers, and bade them explain his dream. They answered,
“Tell us the dream, and we will interpret it.” “Nay,” he rejoined,
“ I can’t do that, the thing is gone from me ; you must interpret
the dream, and find it out too. If you succeed I’ll reward you
handsomely, but if you fail I’ll just cut you into mince-meat.
The trembling wizards protested that this was absurd, and that
no king had ever asked the like before. “So much the worse
for you,” roared Nebuchadnezzar; “ what use are you if you can’t
do this ? Don’t I clothe you, house you, and feed you on the fat
of the land? You know I do; and I tell you plainly I want
something for my money. If you can read the future, you can
also read the past. So just tell me my dream straight, or I’ll hang
you all as a set of liars and thieves.”
Here was a pretty pass I Those “ wise men ” were flummuxed.
Whichever way they turned the prospect was black with des
pair. Wise men ! They were great simpletons. As the king
had forgotten his dream, why did they not invent one, and
unanimously swear that was it? Our modern wizards would
have obliged him, and saved their own bacon, in less than five
minutes.
Nebuchadnezzar grew furious and ordered all the “ wise men ”
to be slain. Daniel and his friends were among the crew. But
before the royal decree could be executed the four young Jews
put their heads together, and the “ young youth” went to the
king and told him his dream and its interpretation. The Lord
God of Israel helped him at the pinch, and revealed to him
what all the gods of Babylon could not or would not reveal to
the other mystery-men. Nebuchadnezzar fell upon his face and
�100
Daniel and the Lions.
worshipped Daniel; told him that his God was a God of gods,
yards taller than all the rest; gave him many great gifts, and
made him “ ruler over the whole province of Babylon, and chief
of the governors over all the wise men.” “Good!” thought
Daniel, “ this business pays.” Neither were his three friends
neglected; they were “set over the affairs of the province of
Babylon.”
Nebuchadnezzar’s dream was about a great image, and soon
afterwards he tried to realise it. He made an image of gold,
sixty cubits high and six cubits broad, and set it up in the
plain of Dura. But this colossus could not have been solid gold.
We have no doubt it was a gilded affair, like the statue of
Prince Albert in Kensington Gardens, which we owe to the
wifely affection and exquisite taste of our noble queen; all
glitter and dazzle outside and worthless within, after the fashion
of most monarchs in this priest-ridden and king-deluded world.
Having set up his big toy, Nebuchadnezzar gave a monster
concert, and invited all the nobs and swells. All the various
peoples of Babylon—natives, immigrants and captives—flocked
out to see the show; and at the herald’s proclamation, every
body fell down and “ worshipped the golden image.”
Nebuchadnezzar was delighted. He was not only a great king
but he had actually made a god. Yet his pleasure was soon
damped by “ certain Chaldeans ” who came and informed him
that three scurvy Jews—Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego—
would neither serve his gods nor worship his image. Full of
rage and fury, he had the trio brought before him, and told
them that if they would not serve “ his gods ” and worship “ his
image” he would roast them alive. “ And,” said he, “I should
just like to see the God that will deliver you out of my hands.”
They replied that they had a God of their own, a iirst-class
Jewish God, warranted sound in every respect, and they meant
to stick to him. “ Very well,” said he, “ then into the oven you
go.”
What silliness! Only a short time before the king praised
Daniel’s God as the mightiest and the best, and now he con
demns three Jews for worshipping him! Either Nebuchad
nezzar or the scribe who wrote this romance must have had a
very short memory.
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were bound in full dress,
and flung into a “ burning fiery furnace ” made seven times
hotter than usual. According to the “ Song of the Three
Children,” rosin, pitch, tow, and small wood were used as fuel;
and the flames streamed forth forty-nine cubits so that lots of
the Chaldeans were burnt. Our “Book of Daniel” says that
“ the flame slew those men who took up ” the three Jews. But
to the intended victims it was rare fun. They were incombustible
and fireproof. Flames had no terror for them. Even in Hell
�Daniel and the Lions.
101
they would just have gone up and warmed their hands at the
fireplace.
The Apocryphal book states that the angel of the Lord came
•down to keep them company, and blew the flames away with “ a
moist whistling wind ; ” and they all four sang a song of praise
to God forty-one verses in length. Nebuchadnezzar was
astonished. He had cast in three men bound, and lo! four
walked about loose, the last being “ like the son of God.” He
shouted to them to come forth, and it was found that not a hair
of their heads nor a thread of their clothes was singed. Then
Nebuchadnezzar said “ blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach
and Abednego ; there’s no God like him; and if any persons
speak amiss against him I’ll cut them in pieces and make their
houses a dunghill.” It will thus be seen that belief in the Jew
■God did not tame the king’s ferocity nor make him tolerant.
Belief in the Jew God never had that effect on anybody, and
never will.
Nebuchadnezzar the king, whose wits appear to have been
disposed to wool-gathering, dreamed again. He assembled once
more the magicians, the astrologers and the soothsayers; but
although this time he told them his dream, they could not
interpret it. Why did he not send straight for Daniel ? Because
the man who wrote this story was a Jew, and his object was to
show how the Lord’s prophet could succeed after all the “wise
men ” of Babylon had failed.
“But at the last,” of course, “Daniel came in,” and he ex
plained the king’s dream. The idea that a dream was not
prophetic never crossed their minds. God’s servants, like their
superstitious neighbors, never doubted that the future lay folded
up in night-visions. The only thing doubtful was how to
interpret them.
The interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream was that he
should be driven from men and dwell with the beasts of the field,
eating grass with them, until he recognised and humbled him
self before the most High. And all this came to pass. At the
end of twelve months, as the king gloried in his greatness, a
voice from heaven announced that his kingdom had departed
from him ; and the same hour “he was driven from men, and did
eat grass as oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven,
till his hairs were grown like eagles’ feathers, and his nails like
birds’ claws.”
Now we take it that poor Nebuchadnezzar simply went mad,
and wandered about like other oriental lunatics, playing all sorts
of pranks. This view is borne out by his own statement soon
after—“ Mine understanding returned unto me.” He was crazed
like our George III.; and the Jews, when they returned from
captivity in Babylon, made out that their God turned him loose
as a punishment for his pride.
�102
Daniel and the Lions.
Nebuchadnezzar recovered and died in the purple. He was
succeeded by Belshazzar, who also brought misery on himself
by insulting the Jew God. One night, at a great feast which he
gave to a thousand of his lords, he ordered out the golden and
silver vessels that his father had taken from the temple in Jeru
salem. This awful sacrilege was swiftly punished. A super
natural hand wrote on the wall of the banquet chamber the
mystic words—Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin. Dreadfully
alarmed, the king called for the “wise men” to explain the
writing, but they could not understand it. Of course not; else
what was the use of the great Jewish wizard ? Daniel solved the
riddle. His explanation was not flattering to Belshazzar. It was
that he had been weighed and found wanting, and that God had
given his kingdom to the Medes and Persians. And “in that
night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans slain, and Darius
the Median took the kingdom.” What a wonderful prophecy!'
But it appears very simple when we know that it came after the
event. The “Book of Daniel ” was concocted by Jewish scribes
at a much later period, in order to glorify themselves at the
expense of their old captors, and to exalt the majesty of theirown God.
Change of empire did not affect Daniel. He might have
sung
“For kings may come and kings may go
But I go on for ever.”
Darius set over the kingdom a hundred and twenty princes, and
over these three presidents, of whom Daniel was first. This pre
ference rankled in their hearts, and they resolved to “burke ’’him
by some means. Accordingly they devised a nice little scheme to
ruin him. But they reckoned without their host, or rather with
out the Lord of hosts.
They got the king to sign a decree, “ according to the law of
the Medes and Persians which altereth not,” that whoevershould ask a petition of any god or man, save of the king, for
thirty days, should be cast into the den of lions. Then they
went and caught Daniel on his marrow-bones supplicating his
god, and reported it to the king, at the same time demandingthat he should be lawfully punished. Darius was sore dis
pleased ; he was fond of Daniel; and he labored to save him
until sunset. But his efforts were all in vain. Like Shylock,
the statesman of Babylon “stood for law” and would have it~
So .Daniel was cast into the den of lions. Poor Daniel I But
wait awhile. Heroes don’t die in that fashion.
While Daniel and the lions are settling matters, let us statethat the apocryphal “ History of Bel and the Dragon” gives a
different account of the enmity of these Chaldeans. Daniel, it
appears, had played the devil with their god Bel and his priests.
Bel the idol had “spent upon him every day twelve great'
�Daniel and the Lions.
103
measures of fine flour, and forty sheep, and six vessels of wine.’'
The king (who is Cyrus here) one day asked Daniel why he did
not worship Bel, who was a living god, for see. said the king,
“ how much he eateth and drinketh every day.” Daniel answered
that the provisions were really consumed by the seventy priests
and their families. Then the king determined to test the
question. The meat and wine were set in the temple and the
door was sealed. But the priests had “ a privy entrance ” under
the table, and they laughed to themselves. Daniel, however,
soon made them laugh on the other side ot their mouths; for he
strewed ashes over the floor, and in the morning the footsteps of
men, women, and children betrayed the fraud. The king slew
the priests, and Daniel demolished Bel and his temple.
That was bad enough. But Daniel did still worse. He under
took to slay without sword or staff a great dragon which the
Babylonians worshipped. Taking pitch and fat and hair he “did
seethe them together, and made lumps thereof; this he put in the
dragon’s mouth, and so the dragon burst in sunder ”—we sup
pose with disappointment and spite. This was more than the
Babylonians could stand. They told the king he was become a
Jew, and threatened to destroy him and his house if he did not
hand Daniel over. The king, being afraid, let them have their
way; and they “ cast him into the lion’s den, where he was six
days.” During all that time, the lions were starved in order
that they might devour the meddlesome Jew.
But if the lions starved, Daniel didn’t. There was a prophet
in Jewry, called Habbacuc, who was carrying some pottage out to
his reapers in the field, when an angel of the Lord appeared and
told him to take it to Babylon and give it to Daniel. “ Baby
lon ! ” said Habbacuc, “ I never saw it, and I don’t know where
the den is.” Whereupon the angel caught him by the hair and
sailed off with him to Babylon. What a comfortable way to
travel! We should just like to see some modern prophet, say
Mr. Spurgeon, do a thousand miles in that style. • What would
the angel have done if Habbacuc had been bald ? And how did
the half-scalped prophet get the pottage into the den ? If the
lions respected Daniel, they might show him less courtesy; and
while Daniel was dining off the pottage they might dine off
Habbacuc. However, it was done, and Daniel cleaned out the
bowl. Then the angel lugged Habbacuc back to Jewry, no doubt
clasping the bowl, which was very likely used afterwards for col
lections instead of Habbacuc’s hat.
“ Bel and the Dragon ” says that the king came on the seventh
day to bewail Daniel, and found him still alive and flourishing.
But our Bible says that he went the very next morning. The
Lord had saved him by shutting the lions’ mouths; not with
good meat, but with lockjaw. These poor animals were the real
victims. Imagine their disgust when they prowled around the
�104
Daniel and the Lions.
nice well-fed prophet and couldn’t open their teeth for a bite I
Daniel was fished or forked out; and as the king thought the lions
wanted feeding, he threw in Daniel’s accusers. Perhaps they
deserved it, but their wives and children were thrown in too ;
and, although Daniel was such a pious fellow, he never observed
anything improper in this treatment of innocent people.
To finish the pretty drama, the king “ wrote unto all people,
nations, and languages, that dwell in all the earth (what a
stretch 1) commanding them to “ tremble and fear before the God.
of Daniel,” as though he ran a god of his own. Neither God’s
prophets nor heathen kings ever thought the people had any
rights. They just ordered them about like dogs, one day com
manding them to worship this god, and the next day another,,
until the people didn’t care a cent which it was.
After these adventures, Daniel, who was so good at interpret
ing dreams, took to dreaming himself. “ The visions of my
head,” he says, “ troubled me.” The fact is he was old and in
his dotage, like nearly all the learned divines who have wasted
their time over his fancies. Once he “ fainted and was sick cer
tain days.” Another time he was in a deep sleep on his face,
and a mysterious hand plucked him up and set him on all-fours.
He was evidently graduating fast for a lunatic asylum, and we
have no doubt that he died as insane as any prophet could wish
to be.
What became of his incombustible friends we are not told, so
all are free to guess, for our part, we believe they went into the
stoking business down below, as they were well able to stand the
heat; and if any Christian denies this we defy him to disprove it.
Here endeth the true story of Daniel and the Lions. Let us
pray !
PRICE ONE PENNY.
London: Fkeethought Publishing Company, 28, Stonecutter St., E.C.
�NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
BIBLE ROMANCES.—XIV.
THE JEW JUDGES.
By G. W. FOOTE.
----------------
The Jews were never a happy family. They were nearly always
fighting other people or each other. Whenever their chroniclers
say “ there was peace in the land ” for a few years, they seem to
regard it as an extraordinary occurrence. But the Lord is
largely to blame for this. He selected the Jews from among all
the peoples of the world, and had extensive and almost exclusive
dealings with them. Yet he never managed to civilise them,
although he could easily have done so ; for the power which
produced the universe out of nothing was surely capable of
reforming a few of the inhabitants of this little world. The
natural consequence of this neglect was that when the Lord sent
them his only begotten and dearly beloved son, they crucified
him right away.
After the death of that wonderful fighting-cock, Joshua, the
chosen people forsook the Lord and worshipped other gods.
They knew that he was very jealous, and that he was able to
torture and kill them if he liked, yet they were utterly careless
whether they pleased him or not. The Bible explains this by
saying that they were stubborn and stiff-necked. That is, they
were jackasses, who might have taken lessons in sensible be
havior from Balaam’s “moke.” Why then did not the Lord
choose a wiser nation ?
The Jews “ forsook the Lord and worshipped Baal and Ash taroth.” Baal was identical with Bel of the Babylonians and
with Moloch, although in the course of time he improved and
became, as Soury says, “ no longer the god of destruction and
death in nature, but the father of life, the supreme dispenser of
light and heat, the principle and cause of the renewing which
yearly clothes the earth with luxuriant vegetation.” This Baal
is evidently the sun. Ashtaroth was the feminine deity, better
known as Astarte. She was the goddess of voluptuousness and
fecundity, as Baal was of virility and strength. Their worship
included the most incredible lasciviousness, and it is not wonder
ful that an amorous people like the Jews should turn their backs
on the stern Iahveh, and court the softer deities of Syria.
Their bacchic strains at midnight in the sacred groves were
better than the horrid skrieks of human sacrifice, and the fever
of lust was less awful than the rage of murder.
�106
The Jew Judges.
But if the Lord thought otherwise, why did he not take pre
cautions against their natural tendency? He clearly foresaw all
the mischief, for he purposely left in the promised lancl “ five
lords of the Philistines, and all the Canaanites, and the Sidonians,
and the Hivites that dwelt in Mount Lebanon in order that
his chosen people might in the first place be tempted, and
in the second place be punished when they went astray.
These were left “to prove Israel, whether they would hearken
unto the commandments of the Lord,” as well as “to teach
them war, at the least such as before knew nothing thereof.’’
'Ihis strikes the carnal mind as simply infamous. Why
did not the Lord give them entire possession, so that they
might have lived in peace with their neighbors, and in pious
obedience to him ? The only answer is that he loved war and
bloodshed, and looked forward to plenty of fine sport in that
line.
The children of Israel, we are told, intermarried with the
•Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.
This displeased the Lord. He wanted to keep a pure stock, like
a good breeder. He knew that crossing would make them too
human for his purpose. He objected to the spoiling of Abra
ham’s blood, which, like that of Pope’s hero, “had rolled through
rascals ever since the flood.”
But Israel did still worse. They “ served Baalim and the
groves.” This was an unpardonable sin. The Lord hated com
petition. He knew there was little chance for him in the open
god-market, where people paid their money and took their
choice, and he was resolved to retain the Jews by hook or by
crook so that he might boast of having a people of his own. He
had brought them out of Egypt with a high hand, had helped
them to overcome all their enemies, had worked any number of
miracles for them, and had actually sent them down vast
•quantities of “ angels’ food” from his celestial larder. And now
they disowned him altogether. What god could be expected to
stand such scurvy treatment?
So “ the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel, and he sold
them into the hand of Chushan-rishathaim, king of Mesopotamia;
and the children of Israel served Chushan-rishathaim eight years.”
What a neat phrase I The Lord sold them. That does not
mean that he took money from the king of Mesopotamia and
handed them over like a flock of sheep at so much a head. It
means that the Lord, who had promised to preserve them a
mighty nation, and to let them live for ever on the fat of the
land, allowed the foreigner to oppress them and make them
half-starved slaves ; thus selling them meanly and detestably, as
the gods always have sold those who were weak and foolish
enough to trust them.
After eight years of bondage, the Jews were delivered by
�The Jew Judges.
107
Othniel, the son of Kenaz, •whom the Lord “raised up” for the
purpose. The spirit of the. Lord came upon him, and he judged
Israel, and the land had rest forty years.
But the good men of Israel went wrong again after his death,
and the Lord “ strengthened Eglon the king of Moab ” against
them. He “ went and smote Israel, and possessed himself of
the city of palm trees ” devoted to the worship of Baal and Ashtaroth. And the unfortunate Jews served him eighteen years.
In their distress they cried unto the Lord, who heard their
prayers, and raised them up another deliverer in “ Ehud the son
of Gera, a Benjamite, a man left handed.” Ehud was left handed
in more senses than one. He “ delivered ” Israel by assassina
tion. After preparing a big two-edged dagger, which he con
cealed under his clothes, he paid a visit to the king. Under
pretence of offering a present, and of having some secret news to
communicate, he obtained a private interview, and stabbed poor
Eglon, who was a very fat man, in the stomach, so that the
dagger stopped in and his bowels came out. This little perform
ance being safely completed, Ehud made off. He then gathered
the Israelites together and fell on the soldiers of Moab, all of
whom were put to death. They were ten thousand in all, and
“ not a man escaped.”
What a pretty story 1 Ten thousand Moabitish soldiers had
sufficed to keep in subjection for eighteen years a people number
ing more than three millions and with at least six hundred thou
sand men of arms I It could not be done even now when trained
soldiers with rifles have such immense advantage over undisci
plined and ill-armed multitudes; and how much less could it have
been done when the weapons and methods of warfare were rude,
when men fought mostly hand to hand, and one man was just as
good as another.
Ehud assassinated Eglon for ruling over the Jews, and as the
Lord raised him up “ a deliverer,” while the narrative seems to
approve his conduct, we must conclude that in those days the
Lord sanctioned such an act. Assassination of obstructive
monarchs is, therefore, according to Scripture, a virtuous deed.
How do the clergy reconcile this with their talk about Freethought brandishing the regicidal steel?
After the disembowelling of poor fat-bellied Eglon “theland
had rest fourscore years.” So the third chapter of Judges should
have ended. But some later Jewish scribe has tacked on another
verse about “ Shamgar the son of Anath, which slew of the
Philistines six hundred men with an ox goad.” Like the peace
of God, this passes all understanding. The Philistines must
have taken a long time to kill, unless they stood in single file for
the J ewish warrior to spear them one by one. Shagmar was a
tough fellow, his ox goad was tough, the whole story is tough,
and it requires a very tough throat to swallow it.
�108
The Jew Judges.
After the death of Ehud “the children of Israel again did
evil in the sight of the Lord,” who once more “ sold them ” to
Jabin, King of Canaan. This monarch “mightily oppressed
them,” for he had nine hundred chariots of iron. How many
soldiers he had we are not told. But unless they were a vast
host, it is difficult to understand how he could mightily oppress
a nation as populous as Scotland is now, and nearly as populous
as England was in the reign of Elizabeth. Our surprise at
Jabin’s mighty oppression of Israel is increased when we read
that his iron chariots, his army, and his great captain Sisera,
were all overcome by Barak and ten thousand Jews!
It was a woman that stirred Israel up to fight. She was
called Deborah. Her husband was one Lapidoth. No doubt he
was merely a necessary appendage to his wife who ruled the roost.
Deborah was a prophetess, and she “judged Israel at that time.”
She “ dwelt under the palm tree of Deborah between
Ramah and Beth-el in Mount Ephraim; and the children of
Israel came up to her for judgment.” This is very significant.
Deborah was clearly a Sibyl, who told fortunes and revealed the
secrets of futurity. People who practise that business now are
sent to jail, but in ancient times they were honored and trusted.
This Jewish prophetess uttered her oracles under a palm-tree,
the reason being that groves were dedicated to religious worship,
and the rustling of tree-tops was deemed the whispered revela
tions of divinity. There can be little douht that Deborah kept
a sacred grove, and that her oracles were nothing but wind.
At her instigation Barak, the son of Abinoam, collected ten
thousand men to fight Jabin; and Sisera gathered together all
his iron chariots and all his warriors to put down the impudent
rebel. But the Lord fought for Israel, as Pan fought for the
Greeks at Marathon, and the result was that the Canaanites were
utterly discomfited. Every man of them fell under the swords
of the Jews, except Sisera himself, who alighted from his chariot
and fled.
There was a Kenite called Heber, of the children of Hohab the
father-in-law of Moses, who had a wife named Jael. This
woman was a crafty wretch, and she settled Sisera’s hash with
all the cunning of her kind. She invited him into her tent, gave
him some milk to drink, covered him up with a mantle, and
advised him to go to sleep. “ My husband and your king Jabin,”
said she, “ are very good friends, and I will shelter you from the
Jews, if they come and ask after you, I’ll say you are not here,
and I’ll stand in the door of the tent to keep anybody from look
ing in. Now, my dear sir, you may sleep in safety. Trust to
me, and I’ll see that all is right. Shut your eyes and have a
good nap.” Poor Sisera did so. And when he was sound
asleep the treacherous cat took a big hammer and a long tenpenny nail and fastened his head to the floor.
�The Jew Judges.
109
Then she went out to meet Barak. “ Good day,” said she,
■“you seem very eager, whom are you looking for?” “Why
Sisera, to be sure; has he passed this way?” “ Oh dear no,
he’s in my tent, sound asleep: just come and see.” So they went
in, and there lay Sisera in the sleep of death.
That is how the Lord fights. With him all is fair in war.
He smiles on assassination and treachery between allies. His
prophetess Deborah and his general Barak sang a long duet over
their victory, in which they said “ Blessed above women shall
Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite be.” Blessed, forsooth 1 A
woman who violates the sacred laws of hospitality, inveigles a
hunted man into her tent, pretends old friendship for him, lulls
■him into a false security with her deceit, and then treacherously
murders him, is a fit mate for the Devil.
Jabin was soon disposed of after the murder of Sisera, and
Israel had rest another forty years. But they went wrong
^again, and the Lord “ delivered them into the hand of Midian
seven years.”
Now if the reader will turn to the thirty-first chapter of
Numbers he will find that the Midianites were utterly destroyed
by the Jews u*der Moses. Their cities were burnt; all the
males, the married women and the children were slain; and the
young virgins reserved for a worse fate. Yet here are the
Midianites again, stronger than ever, and able to oppress the
Jews for seven years!
These fatherless and motherless Midianites, who apparently
sprang from the ground or dropped down from the skies, played
the very devil with the Jews, stealing their harvests, and driving
them into dens and caves, so that they once more “ cried unto
the Lord ” for help.
Then the Lord sent down an angel, who took up his residence
under an oak tree. Having secured lodgings, he visited Gideon
the son of Joash, whom he found threshing wheat on the sly to
■cheat the Midianites. He accosted him very abruptly but very
cunningly, calling him a “ mighty man of valour,” and saying “ the
Lord is with thee.” Now Gideon, although he was hiding him
self from the enemy, took the personal compliment with the
greatest complacency. But he scouted the idea of the Lord being
with the < >ws. “Nay, nay,” said he, “that’s a trifle too thin.
How can the Lord be with us while he leaves us in this mess ?
The Lord indeed 1 Where is he? What has become of him?
Our fathers used to talk about his miracles. We have never seen
one. No doubt it was all a joke.” Then the angel “looked
upon him,” as much as to say “Oh Gideon, Gideon!” And
opening his holy lips he said “thou shalt save Israel from the
Midianites.” “ Come, now,” said Gideon, “ that’s a good one.
What’s the use of talking such nonsense to a poor fellow like
me ? ” “ Nay,” answered the angel, “ I’m not joking; you shall
�110
The Jew Judges.
do it.” But Gideon, like every other Jew, was a canny person^
and he required a sign to warrant the angel’s statement. He put
some flesh and unleavened cakes on a rock, and drenched them
with broth; whereupon the angel brought fire up out of the rock
which burnt them up. That settled it. He was an angel.
But before Gideon would assault the Midianites he demanded
another sign. He laid a fleece of wool on the ground, and in the
morning it was wet with dew while all the ground was dry. Thatmiracle, however, did not suffice him. So the next night he
spread the fleece again, and in the morning it was dry while all'
the ground was wet.
That fleece ought to have been preserved like the blood of
Saint Januarius in the bottle at Naples. And just as the con
gealed blood liquefies once a year under the hand of the priests,
we have no doubt the fleece would still exhibit its miraculouscharacter. Unfortunately it is lost. The priests fleece their
pious sheep, but they never show them anything so wonderful as
Gideon’s fleece.
Gideon gathered together a decent little army, but this dis
pleased the Lord. “No,” said he, “that won’t do. If you
defeat the Midianites with such an army, the Jews will boast
that they have won the victory themselves. Now I want the
glory myself, and I mean to let everybody see that I am run
ning this campaign. So please send away a lot of your men.”
Obedient Gideon dismissed twenty-two thousand, and retained
only ten thousand. “That’s still too many,” said the Lord;,
“just take them down to the water to drink; those who stoop
down to drink you may send home, but those who lap the water
like a dog you may keep.” Only three hundred passed in this
examination.
^Gideon and the doggish three hundred went up against the
Midianitish army, which was exceedingly numerous, like grass
hoppers or the sand by the sea shore. Each of them carried a
lamp in a pitcher. When they drew near the enemy they broke
the pitchers and flourished the lamps in their left hand, while
with their right hands they blew their trumpets. The Midianites
were scared and thrown into great disorder. They fought each*
other by mistake and then fled, the Jews pursuing them with
great slaughter, and bringing back to Gideon as trophies of
victory the heads of two princes. Jehovah’s prize-fighters were
not very refined. Imagine the French beating the Germans and
bringing the heads of Bismarck and Moltke to Paris ! Even the
French “ infidels ” would scarcely do that, but God’s favoritesthought it a glorious part of war, and he never taught them
better.
Having killed 100,000 Midianites, Gideon went on with histhree hundred men, defeated another army of fifteen thousand,,
and despoiled two cities. Is it not strange that men of such
�The Jew Judges.
Ill
prowess could be oppressed repeatedly, and for years together,
by their neighbors?
The Jews then desired Gideon to rule over them, but he knew
Them too well and declined the honor. He requested instead
seven hundred shekels of gold and other precious spoil of war.
With a portion of his treasure Gideon made an ephod, and put
it in his own city, Ophrah; and “ all Israel went a whoring after
it.” That is, they went after other gods as soon as they had got
■all they wanted from the Lord.
The land had now another rest of forty , years 1 Why forty
•each time ? Because that was a sacred number, and we are not
reading history but romance.
Gideon lived to a good old age and left a numerous family.
He had seventy sons and perhaps as many daughters. Like all
God’s favorites he was a thorough-going polygamist. He had
“ many wives ” and at least one “ concubine.” No doubt with
the wealth and the women he had a fine time.
As soon as he was dead, the Jews “went a whoring after
Baalim.” Abimelech, the son of Gideon by his concubine, put
his seventy brothers to death and ruled over Israel for three
years, until in one of his wars a woman broke his skull with
a millstone and let daylight into his silly brains.
He was followed by Tola, who judged Israel twenty-three
years ; after whom came Jair, who judged for twenty-two years,
and who had thirty sons who “ rode on thirty ass colts.” They
•and their sisters, with the old man and his wives, must have
made a nice little tea-party.
When he died, the Jews “went it blind.” They worshipped
•all the gods of all their neighbors with the utmost impartiality;
which provoked the Lord so that he let the Philistines and the
Ammonites oppress them until they repented, when he raised
them up a deliverer in Jephthah the Gileadite, a great fighting
man and the son of a harlot. Before going out to fight the
Ammonites, he vowed that on his return he would offer up to
the Lord as a burnt offering the first thing that came out of his
own doors. The Ammonites were smitten with immense slaughter,
and Jephthah returned to Mizpeh. His only daughter, who knew
nothing of his vow, came out to meet him with dance and song.
The pious father was very sorry, but he kept his promise to
God, and after allowing his daughter two months to bewail her
virginity, he “ did with her according to his vow.”
This tragedy being finished, Jephthah and the Gileadites
quarreled and fought with their brethren of the tribe of
Ephraim, and slew forty-two thousand of them. This man of
blood judged Israel six years. He was succeeded by Ibzan,
who judged for seven years ; Elon, ten years; and Abdon, eight
years. All recorded of them besides is that they had plenty of
wives, children and donkeys. After these came Samson, the mighty,
�112
The Jew Judges.
the valiant, the wonderful, whose career we reserve fora separate
number of this Series.
In the seventeenth chapter of Judges we come to the Levite,
whose concubine was so horribly abused. He became priest to
one Micah, a fellow who robbed his mother, got wealthy, set up
gods for himself and kept his own parson. But the Danites stole
the Levite and made him their priest. Clericals appear to have
been scarce then. Now-a-days the market is glutted with them.
This Levite had a concubine who played him false and left him,
He fetched her back, and on his way home he stayed a night at
Gibeah, which was inhabited by Benjamites. Just as in the case
of Lot’s visitors, the people come to the Levite’s host and
demanded his guest. The old man quietly refused, but offered
them instead his own daughter (a maiden) and the Levite’s con
cubine, whom they might abuse as much as they pleased. In the
end, the poor concubine was thrust out to the lustful crowd, and
so brutally treated by them that in the morning she lay dead at
the door. Then the Levite cut her up into twelve pieces and
sent one to each of the tribes of Israel, who assembled and,
after severe loss to themselves, so punished the Benjamites that
only six hundred out of twenty-six thousand escaped.
What a horrible story ! Yet this record of unnatural passion,
brutal lust, and awful bloodshed is part of God’s Word, and
is put into the hands of children to make them pure and kind
and good!
The fugitive Benjamites had no wives, and it seemed that one
tribe would utterly perish. But they soon received the gift cf
four hundred virgins who were spared in a religious massacre at
Jabesh-gilead; and not long after they stole a lot of the
daughters of Shiloh while they were merrymaking. The rape of
the Sabines is of course mythical, but this is veritable history,
and all who doubt it will be damned. The fact is, we have here
a trace of that old system of wife-stealing so prevalent amongst
savages. God’s chosen people were ignorant, superstitious,
idolatrous, lustful, and cruel; while their judges were no more
than savage chieftains, whose noblest virtue was physical
courage, and their highest happiness the possession of many
wives and the procreation of many children. The Zulus are
just as civilised as they were; yet how Christians would laugh
if they were told that God had chosen the Zulus to be the re
cipients of his messages to the world, and the ultimate producers
of the universal Messiah.
PRICE ONE PENNY.
London: Erejethought Publishing Company, 2d, Stonecutter St., E.C.
�BIBLE ROMANCES-XV.
SAINT JOHN’S NIGHTMARE.
By G. W. FOOTE.
Let me hope, dear reader, that your head is strong and sound ;
I Q
for we now approach that great subject, the interpretation of
<
the Apocalypse, which,, as Bishop South said, generally finds a 5^ I
man cracked or leaves him so. It has occupied the attention of
thousands of crazy enthusiasts, and has- occasioned the writing
of a whole library of books, which are a monument of learned
imbecility. While the world has unconcernedly pursued its
business and pleasure, a host of demented Christians have tried
to foretell the course of events from a study of one of the
maddest productions of the human brain. All their predictions
have been falsified, but the prophets are never discouraged, and
they begin their vaticinations with renewed confidence after
every fresh exposure.
,S
The Apocalypse forms a fit end to the Christian scriptures f 0
$ ) “ for-as the book of Genesis commences the Bible by outraging
. L, science,ithe book of Revelation concludes it by defying common• sense. ^No-better title could be devised for it. than Saint Johnr’s 1
-Nightmare. It is the work of some early Jew-Christian, whose
brain was addled with superstition, his heart inflamed by the
sufferings of his co-religionists, and his imagination excited by
the delusion of the immediate second coming of Christ.
There is a cause for everything, including lunacy. How came
John to suffer from nightmare ? The easiest supposition is that
he ate a pork supper, but this is excluded by the fact that he
was a Jew. A careful perusal of the Apocalypse discovers the
correct answer. John had imitated, and even excelled, a curious
feat of the prophet Ezekiel. That heady Jew, in order to
qualify himself for the business of prophecy, ate a roll; and John,
for the same purpose, ate a loaf. This language must, however,
be taken figuratively. Ezekiel’s roll was of parchment, and
John’s loaf was a book of the same material. In both cases the
food was “in the mouth sweet as honey;” but in John’s case he
himself says “ as soon as I had eaten it, my belly was bitter ;”
and we should judge that Ezekiel’s luncheon had much the same
.»
effect, as he certainly behaved like a man with a bad-bellyache.
Now a parchment book is a pretty tough meal, enough to cause
indigestion in the stoutest stomach, and so we ea» understand $
the origin of Saint John’s Nightmare.
The authorship of Revelation has been much discussed.
Luther deemed it to be “ neither apostolical nor prophetic.” A
thousand years before, Dionysius of Alexandria, a disciple of
�114
St. John's Nightmare.
Origen, mentions that some objected to the whole work as with
out sense or reason, and as displaying such dense ignorance,
that an apostle, or even one in the Church, could not have
written it; and they assigned it to Cerinthus, who held the
doctrine of the reign of Christ on earth. It was not in the cata
logue of the Council of Laodicea. Nor was it the only work of
the kind ; for the Ante-Nicene library gives apocryphal Revela
tions of Moses, Esdras, Paul, and John the Theologian; while
Tischendorf, in his Prolegomena, gives an abstract of the
Revelations of Peter, Bartholomew, Mary, and Daniel. There
was also a Revelation of Thomas, now known only by the decree
of Pope Gelasius ranking it as apocryphal.
One half of Luther’s dictum is open to question. Our Apo
calypse may be apostolic after all. Justin Martyr, one of the
earliest fathers, evidently refers to it as the work of “ John, one
of the apostles of Christ.” But the word apostle was employed
very loosely in that age, and it is possible that the real author
of Revelation was Presbyter John. However that may be, it is
certainly one of the earliest pieces of Christian literature extant^
9, and ft affords a good idea of the mental state of true believers in
I the infancy of the faith. The author of ^Supernatural R> lig-ionn
considers it the only apostolic book we have. He ascribes it to
John, the brother of James; and no one can deny that it
breathes the very spirit of those Sons of Thunder, who asked
Jesus to call down fire from heaven to destroy the unbelieving
Samaritans.
Whether Apostle John or Presbyter John, the author was
assuredly a Jew. He is very wroth with men who have the
impudence to “say they are Jews and are not.” His view of
angels, spirits, and demons is Jewish. His doctrine of the
millennium, as Gfrorer has shown, was held by many of the
Rabbins. His grammar is execrable, and his style, as Davidson
remarks, is “ so thoroughly Hebraistic as to neglect the usual
rules of Greek.” His elegant Jewish idioms, borrowed from the
worst parts of the prophets, are another proof that he was one
of the “chosen people.” He makes God Almighty, for instance,
tell the Church of Laodicea “ because thou art lukewarm, and
neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth." No Greek
would have written in that style.
Another proof is the writer’s evident hostility to the move
ment for converting the Gentiles. Renan and the author of
■^Supernatural Religion,** both agree that Paul is referred to in
the passage about those who say they are apostles, and are not,
but are liars. Let us further notice that the sealed elect are all
•of the twelve tribes of Israel; that the heavenly city is called the
New Jerusalem; that the twenty-four elders make up the
number of the Jewish Sanhedrim; that the outer court of the
temple of God in the New Jerusalem, like that of Herod’s
second temple, is “given unto the Gentiles;” that only Jews
cat of the fruit of the tree of life, while the other nations drink
�St. John’s Nightmare.
115
a decoction of the leaves; that the ark of the covenant is seen in
the heavenly temple; that those who were victorious over the
Beast “ sing the song of Moses and that the author ends his
Nightmare with a fine piece of Jewish “cheek,” promising the
most diabolical plagues to anyone who should add to it, and
eternal damnation to anyone who should take away a single
word.
The “Speaker’s Commentary” says that “the conception of
the sanctity and symbolical dignity of numbers^2jsdie.therderived
by-the-Jews from-their heathen neighbors” or not, is “re
flected from the pages of the Old Testament.” We find it on
almost every page of Revelation. Numbers Three, Four and
Forty are duly honored, but the greatest regard is shown
to the most sacred number Seven. There are seven spirits before
the throne and seven lamps burning there, seven golden candle
sticks, seven churches, seven stars in the Son of Man's right hand,
the book of fate is sealed with seven seals, the Lamb has seven
horns and seven eyes, and seven angels pour out seven golden vials
full of the wrath of God. What Professor Moses Stuart well
calls the “numerosity” of the book is conspicuous throughout/ *
aad; the very number of the Beast is a crowning proof of its
Jewish origin.
There yet remains the fact that a great deal of the language
and imagery of Revelation is borrowed from Daniel, Ezekiel,
Jeremiah, and, above all, from the book of Enoch. As in
dreams we have usually a kaleidoscope of our waking ex
periences, so in Saint John’s Nightmare there is a jumble of
recollections. Almost everything is second-hand. The only
original image is that of the Sixth Seal, and even its conclusion
is marred by an obvious plagiarism from -Jesus. The four beasts
in the fourth chapter are accurately stolen from Ezekiel, being
simply the great prophet’s cherubim in a new position. We
have already referred to the eating of the roll. The fine excla
mation over the fall of Babylon, who “ made all the nations
drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication,” is a slight
spoiling of one of the superbest verses in Jeremiah ; while the
title, “ Mother of Harlots,” is clearly adopted from the older
prophets who were extremely fond of such language.
John purloins pretty freely also from the book of Enoch,
which was written during the century before Christ, and became
so quickly accepted that the author of the Epistle of Jude
actually quotes it as the work of old translated Enoch the
“ seventh from Adam.” Many of the New Testament writers
are indebted to this remarkable book, which anticipates some
of the doctrines and maxims ascribed to Jesus, and more than
foreshadows the dogma of the Trinity. But no other writer
drew from it so extensively as John. He transcribed whole
passages with the most unblushing licence. His oft-quoted
phrase, “King of kings, L >rd of lords,” is taken from Enoch.
His theory of the Jewish saints in heaven not having been
�116
St. John’s Nightmare.
“polluted with women” is derived from the same source, as
well as the ‘ ‘ ten thousand times ten thousand ” before the throne.
Enoch also furnished him with the lake of brimstone, the last
judgment, the tree of life whose fruit is given to the elect, the
book of life, the living fountains, the new heaven and earth, the
great white throne, and the “Ancient of Days, whose head was
like white wool.” If John paid back to Enoch, Ezekiel, Jere
miah and Daniel, all he stole from them, he would be completely
bankrupt, and his remaining assets would not redeem him fro m
the lowest poverty.
The date of Saint John’s Nightmare is difficult to fix. Lardner
placed it at the year 95-96, but more recent critics shift it back
nearly twenty years. Davidson thinks the book was composed
about 68-69, and it bears internal evidence of having been
written soon after the death of Nero, and either when the fall of
Jerusalem was imminent or directly after it occurred.
Now let us examine the book as it stands. John, like all
primitive Christians, believed in the immediate second coming
of Jesus, who has not been seen or heard of yet. The end of
the world was drawing near, and John was commissioned to
show the “things which must shortly come to pass.” His
exordium ends with the significant words “for the time is at
hand.”
This craze has periodically afflicted the Christian world. Paul
believed in the speedy return of the crucified Savior, no less
than John. The early Church, knowing that the Son of Man
was coming like a thief in the night, lived in daily expectation
of his appearance through the clouds. Gradually, however, the
belief declined; but even in the third century there was a fierce
controversy about the millennium ; Nepos, an Egyptian bishop,
writing a treatise in support of the idea, and Origen opposing it
with the greatest warmth. Six hundred years later the doctrine
revived, and all Christendom expected that the world would
come to an end with the tenth century. But the world con
tinued to roll along as before, and never troubled itself about
prophets and fools. Since then the madness has broken out
from time to time, but it is now dying away like many other
pestilent disorders of the great Age of Faith. Dr. Cumming fore
told the end of the world several times, but the event never came
off, and he went to his grave a discredited prophet. We have still
a pious charlatan who plays the old game, although he has often
been found out. He wrote an elaborate treatise to prove that
the late Louis Napoleon was the destined Antichrist. A few
months ago he proved from Saint John’s Nightmare that Gambetta
was the forerunner of Antichrist, who was clearly Prince Jerome.
He has now a fresh interpretation quite as true as the rest;
hundreds crowd to see him cast the political horoscope; and he
edits a religious journal, which boasts of a hundred thousand
readers—mostly fools.
" John’s Revelation is addressed to the “seven churches which
�St. John’s Nightmare.
117
are in Asia.” He does not appear to have thought that Christi
anity would ever extend beyond those limits. Now Ephesus,
bmyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea, were very closely situated. What a small conquest in forty
years by a God-supported creed 1 ItdAalmost as though the
approaching dissolution of all things were addressed “ to the
seven churches which are in Highgate, Epping, Woolwich,
Brompton, Richmond, Hammersmith, and Kilburn.”
John’s Nightmare happened “ on the Lord’s day.” The first
thing he heard was a tremendous voice like a trumpet, and the
first thing he saw was seven golden candlesticks. If John had
lived in the nineteenth century he would have seen gasaliers
or electric burners. In the midst of the candlesticks was a person
like the Son of Alan, dressed in a kind of nightshirt, with feet
u 6 burniQg brass, flaming eyes, and a fine woolly head of hair.
He held, seven stars in his right hand, and a sharp two-edged
sword with his teeth, and his voice was like the falls of Niagara.
This was God the Son in a new character. Poor John was
horribly frightened, but the Lord reassured him, and explained
that the seven candlesticks were the seven churches, and the seven
stars their seven angels.
Before this heavenly visitor had spoken two minutes he called
Paul a liar, said that some pretended Jews were of the synagogue
of the Devil, and twice declared his hatred of the Nicolaitanes.
These people were a Christian sect accounted heretical by John.
Irenaeus traces its origin to Nicolaus, one of the seven deacons
mentioned in the sixth of Acts. Tertullian says it was a sect of
Gnostics. If his surmise be correct, it shows that Gnosticism
probably existed before Christianity. Orthodox John hated all
heretics, and of course he made God hate them too.
When the Lord had ended his message to the seven churches,
John saw a door opened in heaven, whether front or back he
does not say. Then a voice like a trumpet called him up, and
he went up. God Almighty, like a big stone of jasper and
sardine, sat on a throne, which was arched by a green rainbow.
Round the throne were seated twenty-four elders (the exact
number of the Jewish Sanhedrim), dressed in white and wearing
golden crowns. Prowling round the throne as a body-guard
were four wonderful beasts with eyes in their heads and eyes in
their posteriors, and six wings apiece. The description of these
animals is borrowed almost word for word from Ezekiel’s account
of the cherubim. They were a strange collection of pets, and
they justify Heine’s witticism about all the menagerie of the
Apocalypse. If lhirnum eould only purchase one-of them for his
show, he- would jeturn Jumbo to the Zoological Gardens, and
countermand his order to the King of Siam for a white elephant.
Ifdie could also secure Alother- Eve’s serpent, Balaam’s ass, and
Jonah’s whale, he might reckon on making a million a year as
long as the-show-lasted.
These beasts lead a very monotonous life. They sing day and
�118
St. John's Nightmare.
night, without any rest, “ Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty,
which was, and is, and is to come.” After their song, the
twenty-four elders fall down and sing, “ Thou art worthy, O
Lord, to receive glory and honor and power: for thou hast
created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were
created.” And . this concert goes on for ever and ever. How
sick the elders and the elderly beasts must be of the dreary per
formance ! And unless the Lord is infinitely vain, he must be
as sick as thejj/
John next saw Jesus Christ, in the form of a slain lamb, with
seven horns and seven eyes, take a book out of God’s hand and
loose its seven seals. Later on we read of the marriage supper
of this juvenile sheep, but the author does not record whether
the lamb himself was served up with mint-sauce.
Four horses appeared on the breaking of as many seals. The
second, third, and fourth were red, black, and pale, signifying
slaughter, famine, and death. The first was white, signifying
the purity of the Gospel, and its rider went forth conquering
and to conquer. This exactly resembles the Kalki avatar of
Vishnu. Whatever John’s faults were, he was certainly a good
borrower.
When the fifth seal was broken John saw “ under the altar
the souls of them that were slain for the word of God and
when the sixth was broken, the sun turned black and the moon
red, the stars tumbled down on the earth, the sky rolled
up, and all the human race ran and hid themselves in rocks
and dens. In fact, it was what the Yankees call an almighty
smash.
Then four angels kept the four winds from blowing, and
another angel sealed a hundred and forty-four thousand elect,
who were all Jews and all virgins “not defiled with women.”
Considering the profligacy of the Jews at that time, we should
have thought it impossible to find so many. But truth is always
strange, stranger than fiction. The primitive Christians were
evidently Essenean Jews; they contemned marriage, and'
regarded virginity as the highest virtue. These elect Jews
surrounded the elders and the beasts, and only they could learn
the song. All the Gentiles who were saved had back seats, and
aS"the French say, they “assisted ” at the. performance.
We must passover the extraordinary locusts, with men’s faces,
women’s hair, and lion’s teeth, who came out of the bottomless
pit; the great army of two hundred million horsemen ; and come
to the woman who gave birrh to a man-child that was pursued by
a great red dragon with seven heads and ten horns, and a tail
that whisked down a third part of the stars. What a tail 1 The
woman, we take it, means Judaism ; the man-child, Christianity ;
and the dragon, the Devil. This eminent personage was to
league with the Beast, oppress the saints, set up a universal
kingdom, blaspheme God, and gather all the kings and armies of
the world to the great battle of Armageddon, where they were
�St. John's Nightmare.
119
to be defeated by Jesus Christ and the hosts of heaven. This
battle has not been fought yet, but as Armageddon is the valley
of Megiddon mentioned by Zeckariah, the reader will know
where to expect it; although as to when it may be looked for we
have no information.
The Devil is to be chained in the bottomless pit fora thousand
years, during which time those who have not worshipped the
Beast are to reign with Christ, and everybody will be happy
and wise and good. Why doesn’t the millennium come at once ?
When the thousand years are expired, the Devil is to be loosed
agaiu, and allowed to deceive the nations, until he is cast into
the lake of fire and brimstone with the Beast and false prophet,
and tormented day and night for ever. Poor Devil! Then
cometh judgment day. The saved go to heaven and the damned
IbQl
(Ml•
Who the Devil was we know, but who the devil was the
Beast? Undoubtedly Nero, whose holocaust of Christians at
Rome, for the suspected crime of burning the city, had filled
the Church with hatred and dismay. Not daring to write
Nero’s name, any more than that of Borne, John put it between
the lines. “There are,” he says, “seven kings: five are fallen,
and one is, and the other is not yet come ; and when he cometh
he must continue a short space. And the beast that was, and is
not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into
perdition.” The seven kings, we hold, meant seven Roman
emperors ; and the eighth, who had already reigned but was to
reign again, meant Nero. Suetonius relates that, long after the
tyrant’s death, many believed that he was still alive, and would
* ] soon reappear and avenge himself on his enemies. Renan calls
the Nero fable ‘ cette ideejmere de I Apocalypse'^—the germ idea
1 of the Apocalypse; and he.is supported by Volckmar, Ewald
Reville, Scholten, Reuss, Krenkel, and a host of others.
’
The,number of tiie Beast, too, was 666, and the letters of the
tyrant’s name in Hebrew (Csesar Nero) just make it up. There
have, of course, been thousands of people, from whose names
the number of the Beast could be made up. Napoleon was one
of them, and Euglisb Tories used to think him Antichrist. They
now fancy it is Air. Gladstone, whose name does just as well.
John had neither of these in his mind. He meant Nero who
was to return, to regain his throne by the helo of the Parthians
to set up as Antichrist, to persecute the faithful, and finally to
be overthrown by Jesus Christ at the great battle of Arma
geddon.
Babylon unquestionably means Rome. There is no mistaking
the seven-hilled city, or the great harlot, arrayed in purple and
scarlet, and “ drunk with the blood of the saints.” But John’s
prophecies have not been fulfilled. He could see no farther
through a millstone than his neighbors. Rome has not been
“ utterly burned with fire,” nor are the voices of craftsmen and
musicians dumb in her streets.
�120
St. John's Nightmare.
i
John’s description of the New Jerusalem is very amusing. It
is fifteen hundred miles in length, and the same in breadth and
height—a heavenly cube. Hell is much larger, but that is
natural, for the Christian scheme damns the many and saves the
few. Why-are the celestial mansions fifteen hundred miles high?
We expect that when the city was laid out, no space was reserved
for the angels to practise flying, and they were therefore pro
vided with lofty domes, so that they might exercise their wings
inside, on wet days as well as dry.
Had John been a Greek or a Roman, he would have imagined
an artistic heaven, full of splendid architecture, noble statues,
and glorious pictures. But being an unartistic Jew, he could
imagine nothing but heaps of gold and precious stones. The
same defect is still apparent in the “chosen people.” Their
women revel in showy dress, and their men delight in gold
. /,
rings, gold studs, and gold watchchains big enough to cable the-^.rM'r
“ Great Eastern;’4
_ The Jew comes out in another circumstance. The founda
tions of the New Jerusalem bear the names of the twelve
Apostles; but the twelve gates, each a pearl, bear the names of
the twelve tribes of Israel. The Bible is a Jew-book from
beginning to end, and we civilised Europeans still go about in
what Carlyle called Hebrew Old-Clothes.
We have no room to notice the many Protestant divines who
have exercised their ingenuity in showing that Saint John really
prophesied the iniquitous life and awful death of the Catholic
Church; since we are fully persuaded that he could not look so
far ahead, and that he expected a universal flare-up soon after his
Nightmare was written. But we may observe that the Catholics
have begun to round on. the Protestants ; and that Signor
Pastorini, for instance, applies the sounding of the fifth trumpet
to Luther who, renouncing his faith and vows, may be said to
have fallen ; and when he opened the door of hell there issued
forth a thick smoke, or a strong spirit of seduction, which had
been hatched in hell. May this noble game of tit-for-tat con
tinue ! It will be a glorious sight for the sceptic to behold the
two great halves of Christendom proving each other’s depravity
from the silly Nightmare of Saint John. The sceptic cannot
decide between them. He is obliged to act like Voltaire who,
when he heard two old women vilifying each other, said—I be
lieve them both.
PRICE ONE PENNY.
London: Fbbbthought Publishing Company, 28, Stonecutter St., E.C.
�BIBLE ROMANCES—XVI.
A VIRGIN MOTHER.
By G. W. FOOTE.
--------- -0.----------
There is nothing new under the sun, said the wise king. This
observation is peculiarly true with respect to religion. Modern
creeds are simply old ones in a new guise, and Christianity
itself is a patchwork of cuttings from the religious wardrobe of
antiquity.
Patchwork requires much labor and time, and Christianity was
slowly constructed. Many of its essential features were unknown
to the primitive Church. The apostolic writings, for instance,
do not mention or allude to the subject of this romance. Neither
Paul nor John knew anything of the miraculous birth of Jesus.
The Gospels belong to a much later date. In the second century
Christianity grew by incorporating to itself the most venerated
dogmas of other superstitions. Our Gospels were written when
the process was nearly completed, more than a hundred years
after the death of Christ. The mighty river of every great
system is formed gradually. Its nominal source is perhaps a
trickling rill in some remote and well-nigh inaccessible region ;
as it runs it is. joined by other streams, many of them larger
than itself, until at last it gains the level ground, and flows on
through a broad deep channel to the sea. The grand river, with
ships on its bosom and cities on its banks, bears no proportion
or resemblance to the mountain rill whence it derives its name.
And so with Christianity, which is unlike its spring, the man
Jesus. It has flowed through centuries, and received tribute
from innumerable streams on either side ; Egyptian myth, Greek
philosophy, Essenean doctrine, and Oriental legend. Its like
ness to its founder is little else than in name.
The Immaculate Conception was borrowed from the mytho
logy of Egypt. No deity was more idolised by the multitude
than the virgin mother of Horus. Juvenal remarked, at the end
of the first century, that the Roman painters almost lived on the
goddess Isis. “Such,” says Sharpe, “was the popularity of
*
that most winning form of worship, which is still continued there
in the pictures of the Virgin Mary with the infant Jesus in her
arms.” The same author, after describing a representation of
the birth of King Amunothph III., says that “In this picture we
have the Annunciation, the Conception, the Birth, and the
Adoration, as described in the first and second chapters of Luke’s
Gospel; and as we have historical assurance that the chapters in
* “Egyptian Mythology,” p. 86.
�122
A Virgin Mother.
Matthew’s Gospel, which contain the Miraculous Birth of Jesus,
are an after addition not in the earliest manuscripts, it seems
probable that these two poetical chapters in Luke may also be
unhistorical, and borrowed from the Egyptian accounts of the
miraculous birth of their kings.” *
We may observe that the drawing referred to was on one of
the walls of the Temple of Luxor. The god Thoth announces
to the maiden queen that she should “bring forth a son” who
would be a ruler in the land. Then the gods Kneph and Athor
take her by the hand, and place in her mouth the symbol of the
child’s life. Next come the midwives in attendance on her
labor, and the nurses with the infant just born. Finally a
number of sages pay adoration to the wonderful baby.
All this takes us- back to the myth of Isis and Horus, and
shows us how greatly it influenced the Egyptian mind. On the
temple of the goddess at Sais there was the inscription, “The
fruit which I have brought forth is the sun.” Plutarch, in his
De Iside, states that “This Isis is the chaste Minerva, who,
without fearing to lose her title of virgin, says she is the mother
of the sun.” She was styled Our Lady, the Queen of Heaven,
the Star of the Sea, the Governess, the Earth Mother, the Rose,
the Mother of God, the Savior of Souls, the Intercessor, the
Sanctifier, the Immaculate Virgin, and so forth. All these titles
have been applied by Christians to the Virgin-Mary.
Her symbol was the Sistrum. The bars across the opening
signified virginity. “ The goddesses,” says Bonwick,f “ to whom
the instrument was dedicated, though always mpthers, were ever
virgins. The sistrum was, therefore, the symbol of the Celestial
Mother.” It is at least six thousand years old. The doctrine of
the incarnation and immaculate conception were thus well estab
lished in Egypt some time before Adam dug potatoes in Eden,
and millenniums before Jesus Christ was born or thought of.
The child Horus went through a career like that of Jesus. He
had a miraculous birth, death and resurrection. He is usually
depicted as an infant in his mother’s arms. Bonwick observes
that “ the earliest representations of the Madonna have quite a
Greco-Egyptian character, and there can be little doubt that
Isis nursing Horus was the origin of them all.” J
Another notable point is that black Madonnas used to be
common in Europe. Now there was a black Isis too, supposed
to symbolise not only the Mother of the Gods, but the primeval
darkness which preceded light, and gave birth to all things.
The glorified Horus carried his mother to heaven, as Ariadne
was carried by Bacchus, and Alcmense by Hercules. Christianity
very soon demanded the same honor for the mother of Jesus.
The Collyridians and Marians distinctly deified her; while the
Melchites, at the council of Nice, contended that the true Trinity
* Ibid, p. 19.
f “ Egyptian Belief and Modern Thought,” p. 215.
$ Ibid, p. 142.
�A Virgin Mother.
123
was the Father, the Virgin Mother Mary, and the Son Jesus.
This heretical sect, which got suppressed, had a more intelligible
notion of the Trinity than the Christians who triumphed.
Father, mother, and son, we can all appreciate; but the three
m one, who are neither one nor three and yet both, are so
mysterious that, like the peace of God, they pass all under
standing.
Bonwick says we have the best testimony that the worship of
Isis was early transferred to the Virgin Mary. Higgins, how
ever, thinks it was the Roman worship of Juno which Chris
tianity borrowed. According to this learned writer, “The
*
goddess Februata Juno became the Purificata Virgo Maria. The
(nd Romans celebrated this festival in precisely the same way as
the moderns—-by processions with wax lights, etc., and on the
same day, the second of February. The author of the Perennial
Calendar observes, that it is a remarkable coincidence that the
festival of the miraculous conception of Juno Jugalis, the blessed
Virgin, the Queen of Heaven, should fall on the very day the
modern Romans have fixed the festival of the conception of the
blessed Virgin Mary. Being merely a continuation of an ancient
festival, there is nothing remarkable in it.”
Probably the truth is that both Egypt and Rome contributed
to the Christian mythology. The Madonna and Child were
copied from Isis and Horus ; and the festival of Juno was trans
ferred to the Virgin Mary during that period when the Church
stooped to conquer, and won over the multitudes of Paganism
by appropriating nearly all its rites and celebrations.
Let us now glance at another aspect of the question The
gods of antiquity were a lustful crew. They were very fond
of the fair daughters of men. Ovid and other poets give us a
lively description of their doings. Many wonderful personages
in the heroic age were born of ladies who conceived by holy
ghosts. The illicit offspring of minor deities were very numerous.
But the greatest rake of all was Jupiter. He who brandished
the lightning and hurled the thunderbolt from Olympus
ruling both gods and men, frequently gave Juno the slip and
came down on the spree. Lovely damsels and handsome spouses
were his sport; and they were soon won, for he laughed at locks
and bolts, and was always ready to eke out persuasion with force.
In pursuing his amours he adopted many disguises. He courted
Antiope as a satyr, Europa as a bull, and Leda as a swan, while
Alcmense was betrayed by his assuming the form of her husband.
How different from Jehovah, who hated women, and cared for
nothing but orgies of blood! Yet the greatest misogynist has
his moment of weakness. Jehovah yielded at last to the charms
of Mary. He who never felt the tender passion in his lusty
youth eventually broke his own seventh commandment, and in
ins dotage carried on an amour with a carpenter’s wife.
* “ Anacalypsis,” vol. iii., p. 82.
�124
/
>
■
*
*
A Virgin Mother.
We say he broke the seventh commandment, but true believers
think differently. Sovereigns and deities were chartered liber
tines. It was once deemed a greater honor to be a king’s
mistress than a common man’s wife, and the highest of all honors
to be the mistress of a god. Many heroes boasted of their
descent from such unions, and they were regarded as superior to
their fellow men.
There was even a religious side to all this gallantry, and it
was common to ascribe virginity to the young ladies who were
impregnated by celestial lovers. The world was full of such
notions. Fohi, in China, was miraculously conceived by a
nymph who bathed in a river, and whose garments were
touched by a lotus plant, the emblem of love. He became a
founder of religion, a warrior, and a lawgiver. Codom was born
on the shores of a lake, between Siam and Camboya, of a virgin
who became pregnant by the sunbeams. She was translated to
heaven, but the boy was found by a hermit, and grew up to be a
great sage and worker of miracles. Archer, in Corea, was born
in the same fashion. Huitzilipochtli, in Mexico, was given birth
to by a woman who caught in her bosom a feather ball which
descended from the heavens. In a legend of the Apaches, rain
caused a supernatural conception; in Tahiti it was the shadow
of a bread-tree leaf which Taaroa passed over Hina. The
mother of the first Mandan chief conceived by eating the fat of
a bison cow. Many other instances might be cited, but these
may suffice.
In historical times we have Buddha miraculously conceived,
and even in the most cultivated period of Athenian history a
legend grew up that Plato was born supernaturally, the god
Apollo having visited his mother as the Virgin Mary was visited
by the Holy Ghost.
It is a singular fact that the early Christians never disputed
the Pagan mythology. On the contrary, they appealed to it in
support of their own superstitions. Justin Martyr, in his First
Apology, addressed to Antoninus Pius, furnishes a striking illus
tration. “ When,” he wrote, “we say also that the Word, who
is the first birth of God, was produced without sexual union, and
that he, Jesus Christ, our teacher, was crucified and died, and
rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propound nothing dif
ferent from what you believe regarding those whom you esteem
sons of Jupiter. For you know how many sons your esteemed
writers ascribe to Jupiter. Mercury, the interpreting word and
teacher of all; 2Esculapius, who, though he was a great physician,
was struck by a thunderbolt, and so ascended to heaven ; and
Bacchus, too, after he had been torn limb from limb; and
Hercules, when he had committed himself to the flames to escape
his toils; and the sons of Leda, the Dioscuri; and Perseus, son of
Danse; and Bellerophon, who, though sprung from mortals, rose
to heaven on the horse Pegasus.” In other words, Justin says:
You have men born of gods, just like our Jesus Christ, and
�A Virgin Mother.
125
though you revile us, we are really all in the same boat. The
testimony of credulous writers like this is all Christians have to
warrant the monstrous legends of their faith.
The date assigned for the birth of Jesus is another proof that
the story is mythical. On the 25th of December the zodiacal
sign of the celestial Virgin shows on’ the eastern horizon, the
sun has then risen one degree above the solstitial point, and
the year is just born. The Romans observed this day as a
festival, and it was the birthday of all the great sun-gods of
Egypt) Persia, India, and Greece.
Our first Gospel significantly relates that the star of the
nativity was perceived by the worshippers of Ormuzd. Persian
magi, or wise men from the east, first saw the portent of the
Son of God’s birth, and brought the news to King Herod. The
Jews had not noticed the shining wonder. We have here a
trace of astrology, or the superstition that events on earth are
decided or heralded by the motions of the stars.
The same Gospel says that the wise men followed the star
they had seen in the east, until it stood over the place where
little Jesus was doing his first crow. What an absurdity ! Fol
lowing a star is ludicrous enough. It is like chasing the moon,
a diversion affected by children and lunatics. But imagine a
star resting over a particular chimney-stack! The writer of
“ Matthew ” knew nothing of astronomy, or he would not have
perpetrated such a silly blunder. The stars are so distant that a
few hundred miles at this end make no difference in the angle
of vision.
_ Of our four Gospels only two, Matthew and Luke, record the
birth of Jesus. Both Mark and John are silent about it. They
evidently thought the prophet of Nazareth was born in the usual
way. No one during the life of Jesus ever hinted at his super
natural origin. His countrymen asked, “Is not this the car
penter’s son ? ” and nobody answered that he was the son of the
Holy Ghost.
Now Luke was confessedly not an authority on the subject.
He merely undertook to write what the early Christians gene
rally believed. Only the first Gospel remains, and that was
never written by Matthew. According to primitive tradition
Matthew did write a Gospel, but in Hebrew. Our Gospel of
Matthew is in Greek. Its author, too, was evidently not a Jew.
He utterly misunderstood Jewish idioms, and seven times in the
first four chapters he drags in prophecies which any Jew would
see had absolutely no relation to the matter in hand.
With respect to the birth of Jesus, these two Gospels differ
on every point. Matthew omits the Annunciation, and says that
Mary’s pregnancy was revealed to Joseph in a dream. Luke lets
the poor cuckold find it out himself. And while stating that
angelic visitors appeared to shepherds who were watching their
flocks, he never once refers to the star, or the wise men, or the
jealousy of Herod, ot the questions put to the priests and scribes,
�126
A Virgin Mother.
or the journey into Egypt, or the massacre of the innocents.
These two witnesses flatly contradict each other, and being both
on the same side of the case, they must be ruled out of court.
They also stumble over the date of the baby god’s birth. Both
say it was in the reign of Herod the Great, but Luke fixes it at
the time of the taxing, when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.
Now this gentleman was not appointed to the office till long
after the death of Herod, and his census did not take place till
about ten years after the time when Jesus is supposed to have
been born. O Luke, Luke 1 You should have kept quiet over
that little affair of the taxing, for it completely upsets your
evidence. Out you go, arm in arm with Matthew, and don’t
appear in court again.
Our Gospels tell us very little about Mary, but there are two
apocryphal Gospels that supply the deficiency. The first is the
Gospel of the Birth of Mary, which was received as genuine and
authentic by several, of the early sects. The second is the Proto
evangelion, which was ascribed to James the brother of Jesus.
It was frequently referred to by the Fathers, and it obtained a
very general credit in the Christian world.
Mary, they say, was the daughter of a rich man named Joachim,
sprung from the royal family of David. Her mother’s name was
Anna. She was born at Nazareth, and educated in the Temple
at Jerusalem. Her origin was miraculous. Joachim and Anna
for a long time had no children. She prayed hard to the Lord
for a baby, and he skulked away from the gibes and jeers of his
fellows into the wilderness, where he fasted forty days and forty
nights. That was a poor preparation for becoming a father,
but an angel came and set matters right. Joachim went home,
and in due course little Mary came to light.
This wonderful maiden walked nine steps when she was nine
months old. At the age of three years she was taken to the
Temple in Jerusalem, where she mounted the stairs like a
grown woman, and danced a jig to the admiration of all Israel.
Her. parents left her there to be brought up with the other
virgins. As she grew in years she grew in grace. She enjoyed
the conversation of angels, and received visitors from God every
day.
_ The priests, however, seem to have mistrusted this chaste
virgin, for at the age of fourteen they resolved to marry her
to prevent mischief. Her blood was perhaps more like lava
than ice. It may even be true, as some have suspected, that
the priests had initiated her already into the mysteries of Venus,
and were anxious to father the fruit of their pious labors on
some simple layman. At any rate, they summoned all the mar
riageable men of the house of David to appear and go through
a kind of raffle for the girl. The Lord directed the game, and
Joseph won. He begged to be excused, on the ground that he
was an old man. Perhaps the poor fellow smelt a rat. How
ever, he had to submit, and Mary became his wife. A French
�A Virgin Mother.
127
wit says that a young husband may have a child, but an old one
is sure to. Joseph left his dear young virgin wife at home
while he went abroad carpentering. When he returned she was
in the family-way.
What was the cause of Mary’s misfortune ? Bishop Talley
rand, in a letter he is said to have written to the Pope after their
quarrel, states that the Roman authorities discovered that Mary
had an intrigue with a Roman soldier named Panthera. In the
second century Celsus twitted the Christians with worshipping
the bastard child of a virgin who had been forced by a Roman
soldier of the same name. The Sepher Toldeth Jesu, an ancient
Jewish story, describes Joseph Pandera, not as a Roman soldier,
but as an idle profligate belonging to the fallen tribe of Judah
He was a man of fine figure and rare beauty. By the assistance
of Mary’s mother he was introduced to her one Sabbath evening •
and she, thinking he was her betrothed Jochanan, yielded herself
to his desires. There is a striking agreement in these stories as
to the name of Mary’s seducer. We are loth to defame the
young lady’s character, but we cannot help thinking that where
there is so much smoke there must be some fire.
The “ Protoevangelion,” like the Gospel of Luke, gives a story
of the Annunciation. An angel tells Mary that, while continuing
to be a virgin, she shall conceive and bring forth a son. This
heavenly messenger was the archangel Gabriel. Mary was then
only fourteen. That was a youthful age for a mother, but the
Holy Ghost was in an eager mood, and could brook no delay.
When Joseph “ returned from his building houses abroad,” he
found the Virgin “grown big.” As in Matthew, Joseph decided
to put her away privily. But the angel paid him a visit one
night, admonished him to keep the young woman, and told him
that what was within her was “ the work of the Holy Ghost.”
Joseph of course gave in. The priests, however, were not so
easily satisfied. They made him drink some of the rot-gut water
of trial; but as it had no evil effect on the old fellow, they
exonerated him from the charge of having taken his young
bride’s virginity.
Pious Christians have written vast quantities of obscene rub
bish on this subject, most of which must be left in the obscurity
of a dead language. French writers imagine the Holy Ghost
hovering over Mary, as Jove in the shape of a swan overshadowed
the charms of Leda. The speculations of Saint Ambrose cannot
be translated from the Latin. His least indecent theory is that
Mary was impregnated through the ear.
Catholics believe that Mary remained a virgin to the end of
the chapter. The Gospels mention the brothers of Jesus but
Christian piety assumes that they were sons of Joseph by
another wife. Apocryphal writings inform us that Mary died
soon after the crucifixion. One document states that she was
attended in her last moments by the twelve A.postles two of
whom were raised from the dead to be present. Another docu-
�-128
A Virgin Mother.
ment states that her body was taken to heaven by angels in the
presence of Thomas, and that the brethren who would not
believe it reopened the tomb and found the corpse of God’s
mother missing.
This Christian fable of the Virgin Mother is still devoutly
believed by millions of. sane, men, who have accepted it on
grounds of faith, and are entirely ignorant of its real origin.
We have proved that the superstition is far older than Chris
tianity. We have shown that Paul and the Apostles khew
nothing of it; that it was incorporated into the Christian
religion after their time,; and that the strongest evidence in
support of the miraculous birth of Jesus, is a probably interpo
lated chapter in a Gospel supposed to have been written by
Matthew, but which was most certainly not written by a Jew
nor even in existence until long after all the contemporaries of
the Prophet of Nazareth had mouldered into dust. Whoever
persists in believing the fable after learning these facts is a slave
to faith, and on the broad road to Colney Hatch..
If a pious young lady were now to give birth to a child, and
protest that she knew nothing about it except that one night an
angel told her that she was - to become a virgin mother, would
her parents and friends believe the story ? And if she went into
a court declaring that the third person of the Christian Trinity
was her partner in the business, would any magistrate make an
order against the Holy Ghost for the maintenance of the child/?
Jesus Christ is said to have had no father. Thousands of
other boys have been in the same plight. There is no miracle in
that. If the founder of Christianity wished to prove his super
natural origin, he should have “gone the whole hog,” and
dispensed with a mother too. That would have been a real
miracle. But at present his divine paternity is more than dubious.
If there is a mother in the case, depend upon it there is a father
somewhere. That which is born of the spirit is spirit, not flesh
and blood ; and the Holy Ghost is far too shadowy a person to
be the father of a lusty boy. We feel sure that Jesus.Christ.was
born like other men, and we decline to believe that God Almighty
ever stooped to debauch an old man’s wife. The whole story is a fable. There never was in this world, and there never will be
such a monstrous absurdity as a Virgin Mother.
l’RTCE ONE PENNY.
London: Freethought Publishing Company, 28,Stonecutter St., E.C.
�BIBLE ROMANCES-XVII.
GOD IN A BOX.
By G. W. FOOTE. >
What blasphemy! the pious ■will exclaim. God in a box I
How shocking! The wretch who dares to utter such-language
should be severely punished; the wretch who dares to write it
should be hung. Nay, hanging is too good for him. .He ought
to be burnt, broken on the wheel, or slowly tortured to death.
But soft a while, ye loving followers of the meek and lowly
one ! The blasphemy is not mine. I did not put God in a box;
the Jews did it. They were very free with gods. They nailed
up one, as a farmer fixes a bat or a weasel on the barn-door ;
and centuries before that, they carried about his father in a
travelling trunk. Whatever blasphemy is implied in the title ofthis Romance must be charged to their account. The Bible
warrants every statement I make, and I challenge, contradiction.
I found God in a box and did not put him there. I merely lift
the lid and show him inside.
It is a veritable fact that Jehovah of the Jews, who became
God the Father of Christianity, was originally a lump of stone,
or some other fetish, enclosed in a wooden box His devotees
carried him with them in all their wanderings. When they
fought, they took him into the battle to ensure victory. He was
their star of fortune, their, glory, and their pride. While they
retained him, and kept him good-humored, they were prosperous
in peace and war ; when they,provoked him, they were chastised
with famine, plague, and slaughter; when they lost him, they sank
under the frown of fate, and became the prey of foreign conquest
or civil dissension. They gave him, as meat and drink, the flesh
and . blood of animals ; and sometimes his altars were polluted
with a darker sacrifice of human life. Like all fetishes, he was
tabu except to the priests. . No layman was suffered to approach
him. Invading his privacy was sacrilege, and punished with
instant death.
When the Jews carried and carted Jahveh from place to place,
they were in a very low state of culture. They had not ad
vanced beyond fetish-worship, which is the primitive form of
religion. The word Fetish comes from the Portuguese fetiqho,
and signifies a charm. We find traces of fetishism in the most
advanced crgeds. Savages treasure a curious stone, a piece of
ivory, a fish-tooth, a rare shell, a mineral, or a gem ; and Euro
peans still wear bone or metal crosses, attached to a string of
shining beads, which are told over during prayer; while an
occult virtue is ascribed to different jewels in every civilised
country. AmoDgst the vulgar, throughout Christendom, amulets
�130
God in a Box.
are still worn, and often secreted next the skin. They are held
to bring luck, and as sovereign against danger. Even the
worship of images is preserved in the Catholic adoration of
saints. Nor are the most austere Protestants free from this
superstition. Their great fetish is the Bible. They reverence
its very leaves and cover ; they damn everybody who doubts it;
and they kiss it as a token when they are obliged to tell the
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
It might easily be inferred, from the fourth verse of the third
chapter of Hosea, even if there were no other evidence, that the
worship of teraphim, or images, was a feature of primitive
Judaism. But we are not confined to this source of information.
When Jacob made tracks from uncle Laban’s, with both his
daughters and all the sheep and cattle worth having, the old
man had to go a seven days’ journey after them to recover his
gods. Rachel, who seems to have been just the right wife for
Jacob, had stolen the whole lot, without leaving her father a
single god to worship. Laban hunted high and low for his tera
phim, but never found them ; for his cunning slut of a daughter
covered them over, and while he searched her tent she sat upon
them—hatching.
Jahveh also was no doubt a portable family god. He first
calls himself the god of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. After
wards he calls himself the god of Israel—that is, of the descend
ants of these patriarchs. He never calls himself the god of all
mankind. On the contrary, he admits the existence of other
gods, and is openly jealous of them. The Jews, in turn, always
speak of him as our god. He was their own Jahveh. They
'■ ran ” him, and were ready to back him against the field.
We are first introduced to God in a Box in the twenty-fifth
of Exodus. Jahveh was sick and tired of roaming about, and
having casual interviews with his prophet, in a burning bush, in
a public-house, or on the top of a hill. He determined to settle
down and dwell with his people. Accordingly, Moses was
instructed to build him a residence. He was to have a tent all
to himself, a first-class article, made of the very best stuff; fine
linen of various colors, badgers’ skins, rams’ skins, and goats’
hair ; with brass and silver for the fittings, and gold and jewels
for the decorations. Inside the tent, which our English version
dignifies with the name of tabernacle, there was to be placed a
nice snug box for him to lie in, instead of squatting igno
miniously on the floor. The Bible calls it an ark, but the
Hebrew word so translated, means a box, a mummy case, or a
treasure chest. He was also to be supplied with furniture and
domestic utensils; a wooden table overlaid with gold, three
feet long, eighteen inches broad, and two feet three inches
high, with golden dishes, covers, spoons and bowls; and a
golden candlestick bearing seven lights, with golden tongs and
snuff-dishes. Altogether it was a very genteel establishment for
a bachelor god. When Jahveh came to inspect it, he said it
�God in a Box.
131
would do capitally, and took immediate possession. Directly he
entered the place was filled with smoke, a fact which surprises
those who fancy the Devil is the sole dealer in that commodity.
No doubt he found it very useful. His priests, who were
accustomed to incense, could stand the fume, but intruders were
soon smoked out.
The priests were ordered to keep some shewbread always on
that table, so that he might have a snack at any time. This is
a common thing with fetish worshippers. Tylor says that pots
and other necessaries are put in the fetish huts still, but “ the
principal thing in the hut is the stool for the fetish to sit on,
and there is a little bottle of brandy always ready for him.”1
Probably, although it is not so stated, the Jewish priests gave
Jahveh a drop of something to drink; for it was a thirsty
climate, and the old fellow often betrayed a sanguinary violence
of temper which usually results from intoxication. There is,
indeed, a suggestion of this in Judges ix., 13, where we read
of “wine which cheereth God and man.”
The dimensions of the table were in keeping with those of
the ark, which was three feet nine long, two feet three broad,
and two feet three deep. That was the old fellow’s size ! We
might wonder how Christians could think that God Almighty
ever got inside such a box, if we did not know that they still
imagine him to be in a little piece of bread. What is too great
for the faith of people who, as Browning says, see God made
and eaten every day ?
Now what was really inside that box ? I will not indulge in
conjecture, nor cite “ infidel ” authors, but go at once to a great
Dutch scholar, who has recently lectured on the religions of the
world before the elite of Biblical students in London and the
University of Oxford. Kuenen says: “When we observe how
the ark was treated and what effects were ascribed to it, it
becomes almost certain that it was held to be the abode of Jahveh,
so that he, in some way or other, was himself present in it
Then only is it that we can explain the desire of the Israelites to
have the ark with them in the army, their joy at its arrival, and
its solemn conveyance to the new capital of the empire in
David’s reign. Now was the ark empty, or did it contain a
stone, Jahveh’s real abode, of which the ark was only the reposi
tory? This we do not know, although the latter opinion, in
conjunction with the later accounts of the Pentateuch, appears
to us to possess great probability.” 2
.More orthodox English writers treat the subject with euphe
misms. Eadie says : “ This sacred chest was the awful emblem
of the Jewish religion.” The Speaker’s Commentary says:
“.Now he was ready visibly to testify that he made his abode
with them. He claimed to have a dwelling for himself.” Old
1 “ Primitive Culture,” vol. ii., p. 144.
2 “Religion of Israel,” vol. i., p. 233.
�132
God in a Box.
Bishop Patrick says: “It was his cabinet, as we now speak,
into which none entered but himself.”
Kuenen’s surmise is strengthened by all our knowledge of
fetishism. At each end of the ark was a cherub, evidently a sacred
fowl of some kind, facing inwards, and bending down over the
ark. This is the attitude of worship. They were adoring the
image within.
Being covered with gold, the ark looked like solid metal,
though it was really made of shittim wood, according to Jahveh’s directions. The reader must not expect a long disserta
tion on shittim wood. Kimchi says it is the best kind of cedar.
Aben Ezra says it is a sacred wood that grows in the wilderness
by Sinai. Smith’s “Bible Dictionary” describes it as an acacia.
Jerome, in his commentary on Isaiah xl., calls it lignum imputribile, an incorruptible wood. If he is right the ark may yet
turn up, unless it has “ gone to smash.”
The ark was topped by a mercy seat of pure gold. “There,”
said the Lord to Moses, “ I will meet with thee, and I will
commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between
the two cherubims.” And in David’s time he is described
(2 Samuel vi., 2) as “ the Lord of hosts that dwelleth between
the cherubims.” Clearly he fixed himself there at communion
time. Now what was the mercy seat? It was simply the lid of
the box. The Hebrew Kapporeth means to cover, and in the
First of Chronicles xxviii.* 2, the holy of holies is called the
house of the Kapporeth.
Here then the whole case lies in a nutshell. If Jehovah and
God the Father are indeed the same, we may say to the Chris
tians—Your God was once carried about in a box, and he used
to get out and sit on the cover.
It is highly probable that the Jews borrowed their idea of an
ark from the Egyptians, whom most nations have found, as
Fuseli said of Blake, “ damned good to steal from.” Sir John
Gardner Wilkinson, in his “Manners and Customs of the
Ancient. Egyptians,” says that “one of the most important
ceremonies was the procession of shrines,” which is mentioned
in the Rosetta stone, and frequently represented on the walls of
the. temples. The lesser shrine was a sort of canopy ; the great
shrine was an ark or sacred boat. Like the Jewish ark, it was
borne by priests. It was also carried in the same way, by means
of staves passed through metal rings at the side. Wilkinson
further remarks that the wings of two figures of the goddess
Thmei or Truth, overshadowing the sacred beetle of the Sun,
contained in some of the Egyptian arks, “ call to mind the
cherubim of the Jews.” The chosen people seem to have “ bor
rowed of the Egyptians ” in more senses than one.
The Bible is remarkably precise in its details as to the ark. It
even informs us who made it. There was only one man in all
Israel whom Jahveh thought fit for the job. This was Bezaleel.
of the tribe of Judah, a kind of jack-of-all-trades, and what he
�God in a Box.
133
did not know the Lord taught him. He wove the linen, tanned
the skins, carved the wood, made the brass fittings, beat the
gold, cut the stones, and fixed everything up. In theatrical par
lance, he was a first-class utility man. It is an astonishing thing
that, many centuries later, when Solomon built the first temple
at Jerusalem, he found no Jew able to do the metal work, and
had to send to Tyre for a competent artist. The Jews were not
a progressive people. In this respect, at least, they seem, like
Hamlet’s crab, to have walked backward.
Most fetishes are used for divination, and Jahveh was no
exception. He piloted the Jews about the wilderness, and with
such extreme accuracy that it took them forty years to do a
month’s journey. The priests carried him in front. When he
stopped, all the people halted and pitched their tents until he
chose to move on again. Sometimes he rested a couple of days,
sometimes a month, and sometimes a year. Except when
engaged in bloodshed, he was the laziest god that ever lived.
He relished an occasional massacre, but for the rest he held with
Tennyson’s lotos-eaters that “ there is no joy but calm.” Moses
had to keep this drowsy deity up to the scratch with shouting.
When the ark set forward, he cried, “ Rise up, Jahveh, and let
thine enemies be scattered;” and when it rested he cried,
“Return, O Jahveh, unto the many thousands of Israel.”
God in the box was of great service to the Jews in crossing
Jordan. The river was swollen witfi the spring freshet, and the
question of transport was very difficult. But Jahveh was equal
to the emergency. The priests marched boldly along with the
ark, and when their feet touched the brim of the water, Jordan
disparted, the waters that poured down from above standing up
in a heap. They held Jahveh in the bed of the river until all
Israel had crossed safely, after which they followed suit, and
Jordan flowed on as before.
'
’
Savages frequently take their gods into battle, and so did the
Jews. General Joshua found old Jahveh of immense aid in the
conquest of Canaan. The priests carried him for a whole week
round Jericho, which so weakened its walls that, when the
Levites trumpeted and the people shouted, they fell down flat.
_ There can be no doubt that the Jews relied on their fetish for
victory. When the men of Ai repulsed their attack, Joshua
rent his clothes and prostrated himself before the ark, where he
remained for many hours, until the Lord revealed the secret of
their defeat. On a previous occasion, during the lifetime of
Moses, a detachment of Jews were smitten and pursued by the
enemy, because they went up a hill while Jahveh staid at the
bottom.
When Canaan was conquered, Jahveh’s tent was set up at
Shiloh, whence he was fetched to Eben-ezer in the days of Eli
Whether the ark remained there all that time is an open question’
We read of a place called Bethel in the book of Judges and
Bethel means the “ house of god.”
’
�134
God in a Box.
The adventures of Jahveh and his box in the war with the
Philistines under Eli are very lively and amusing. He appears
to have been neglected by the Jews, and not without reason, for
his virtue was temporarily exhausted. But after their heavy
defeat by the Philistines, they resolved to fetch the ark from
Shiloh, and give old Jahveh another trial. When their fetish
arrived they made the earth ring with their shouts, on hearing
which “the Philistines were afraid, for they said, God is come
into the camp/’ Being, however, a warlike race, they soon
regained courage ; and they acquitted themselves so well in the
next battle, that the Jews were utterly routed with the loss of
thirty thousand men. The Philistines found plenty of loot, and
amongst the spoil of war was old Jahveh in the box.
When Eli, the aged high priest, heard that the ark had fallen
into the hands of the uncircumcised, and that his two sons, its
custodians, were slain, he fell off from his seat backward, and broke
his neck. Poor old fellow 1 Would our Archbishop of Canter
bury be affected in that way? We suspect not. He would
probably go on living, and stick to his fifteen thousand a year.
When Phineas’ wife, Eli’s daughter-in-law, heard the news,
she was seized with sudden travail, and died after giving birth
to a son. Her last words were, “The glory is departed from
Israel: for the ark of God is taken.” The fetish was their pal
ladium, and with it disappeared all their hopes.
Being strangers to the bigotry of monotheists, the Philistines
treated old Jahveh with great respect. Although a foreigner, he
was still a god, and they were ready to adopt him. Savages
often act in that way. Waitz tells us, in his “ Anthropology,”
that the Fan tees, for instance, even “ purchase gods which have
acquired a certain celebrity. The gods are put on their trial, to
see whether they are more powerful than others, and if they
prove themselves so, obtain preference and a higher rank above
other gods.”
Jahveh was taken on trial. The Philistines put him in their
joss-house beside their own god Dagon. It was a dangerous ex
periment, for two of a trade seldom agree. During the day
Jahveh behaved himself decently, but in the night he got out of
bis box and “ went for ” Dagon. Now poor Dagon was taken at
a disadvantage. Being a fish-god, he hadn’t a leg to stand on,
and he was soon sprawling on the floor. Jahveh then retreated
into his box, where the Philistines found him placidly reposing
m the morning, as though he knew as little about the night’s mischief as the heathen Chinee knew about euchre. They set
Dagon up again. All went well during the day as before, but
in the night old Jahveh again slipped out of his box and assaulted
his rival. This time he was in deadly earnest. He broke
Dagon’s head off, amputated his hands, and left nothing but the
stump. In the morning the Philistines beheld this doleful
spectacle, and yet the author of it all lay stone-still in his box,
looking as childlike and bland as ever.
�God in a Box.
135
But this did not suffice. Old Jahveh’s blood was up. He
smote the men of Ashdod with emerods. The most superficial
reader® of the Bible, when they remember what a lousy victory
the Lord gained over the magicians of Egypt, will readily con
ceive that this was a very dirty disorder. It was the bleeding
piles or worse. Perhaps the sweet Psalmist had this incident in
mind when he sang that the Lord “smote his enemies in the
hinder-parts : he put them to a perpetual reproach.” The Ashdodians were disconcerted by this attack in the rear, and at a
public meeting on the question, they decided to pass old Jahveh
on to the next city. But the men of Gath fared no better, for
“ they had emerods in their secret parts.” The Ekronites also
had a turn, and after great suffering and loss of life, they sent
old Jahveh and his box back to the Jews with their compli
ments, and a peace-offering of five golden mice and five golden
emerods.
Parallels to this story exist in Pagan writings. Herodotus
gays that Venus afflicted with “ emerods ” the Scythians who
plundered her temple. Grotius relates a similar fiction as to
the institution of the Phallica. When the Athenians ridiculed
some images of Bacchus, the god sent them a genital disease,
and to prevent its depopulating the city, they received his
images with pomp, and displayed Thrysi with figures of the
afflicted parts bound to them.
The men of Beth-shemesh, where the ark first stopped on
Jewish soil, welcomed it piously ; but they were rash enough to
look into it, and their profane curiosity so enraged old JahveL.
that he slew fifty thousand and seventy of them. This is a
good illustration of the idea of tabu, and a signal instance of his
love of butchery.
They passed the ark on to Kirjathjearim, where it remained
for twenty years, until David ordered its removal to Jerusalem.
Its journey to the capital was, however, arrested at Nachon's
threshing-floor. Just there the oxen shook the ark badly, and a
man called Uzzah put forth his hand to steady it. His object
was to save Jahveh from the ignominy of being tossed out in
the dust. Nevertheless the fetish took it as an insult, and
immediately killed poor Uzzah, either by a kind of torpedo
shock or by a blow on the head. This is a further illustration
of tabu.
David was highly displeased with the Lord for this “ breach
Upon Uzzah:” and being afraid that his turn might come next
ho left the ark at the house of Obed-edom, and went to Jerusalem
alone. But when he heard that it brought a blessing to its
lucky guardian, he fetched it away to the capital, and put it in a
brand new tent. The pious king was so overjoyed that he
danced naked before the ark, and his wife rebuked him for his
indecent exposure.
Soon afterwards David resolved to do the Lord a good turn.
Here am I, said- he, dwelling in a fine cedar house, while dear old
�136
God in a Box.
Jahveh lives in a tent:, it isn’t fair; I’ll build him a house.
But the Lord declined the offer. No, no, said he ; don’t you go
building me a new-fangled shanty : I’ve lived in a nice, airy,
well-ventilated tent ever since I can remember, and I mean to
go on living in one ; just mind your own business and let me
bide. Yet the Lord relented in Solomon’s reign, and allowed
himself to be placed in the temple, although he insisted on
being supplied with exact copies of his old furniture.
.When the priests opened the ark, according to the First of
Kings viii.-)(>9, they found nothing inside “save the two tables of
stone which Moses put there at Ho'reb.” The fetish had disap
peared. Probably they had by that time grown ashamed of it;
yet as religion cannot advance by too great leaps, they kept the
box, called it the ark of the covenant, and treated it simply as
an oracle. Many years later the box itself became an oppro
brium.. The great prophet Jeremiah declared that the time
would come when- “they shall say no more, the ark of the
covenant of the Lord: neither shall it come to mind: neither
shall they remember it: neither shall'they visit it: neither
shall that be done any more.”
The author of “Hebrews” does not quite agree with the
book of Kings. He states, in chap, ix., 4, that irn addition to
the tables of stone, the ark contained a specimen pot of that
wonderful manna, and Aaron’s blooming rod.
What finally became of the ark? Josephus says there was no
such thing in the second temple. The apocryphal book of
Maccabees states that the prophet Jeremy, being warned of God,
hid it in a cave on Mount Pisgah, and sealed up the entrance,
so that those who followed him could not find it; and that its
resting-place is to remain “unknown until the time that God
gather his people again together.” The Jews still believe it will
come with the Messiah. We fervently hope he will bring the
box in its original state, with Jahveh inside. Archaeologists
would be delighted to examine such a famous old fetish; and if
the Messiah is anything like other Jews, he will no doubt accept
the handsome price which the trustees of the British Museum
would gladly give for such an interesting relic of antiquity.
PRICE ONE PENNY.
London: Freetblought Publishing Company, 28, Stoneeutter St.,E.C.
�BIBLE ROMANCES.—XVIII.
BULLY
SAMSON.
By G. W. FOOTE.
-------- ♦--------
Milton’s sublime genius has invested, the story of Samson with
a fictitious grandeur. He saw that it contained materials for a
tragedy in the Greek style, and this plan enabled him to sub
ordinate those ludicrous incidents which would have degraded
a modern tragedy on the subject. The hero’s thraldom and
blindness suggested his own ill fortune and loss of sight, and
the final triumph over the Philistines gave him an opportunity
to vindicate - himself. The real hero of “Samson Agonistes”
is John Milton.' All those pathetic lamentations and noble
resolves flowed from the depths of his own sorrow and courage.
No trace of his tender beauty or heroic splendour can be found
in the story which was the occasion and not the source of his
inspiration.
The Bible- story of Samson is vulgar and absurd. We can
only account for it by supposing that myth and tradition were
clumsily blended. Samson is nothing but a great bully, ex
tremely fond of women, and always swaggering and fighting. It
is also pretty clear that he was addicted to drink. He is
described as a teetotaler, but a close examination of several texts
shows that he was in all probability as partial to good liquor as
Jack Falstaff. Would he had the fat knight’s spirit and wit I
In the last verse of the third of Judges £here is mention of
Shamgar, the son of Anath, who slew six hundred Philistines
with an ox goad; very probably by skewering them together
like cat’s-meat; and Dr. H. Oort surmises that the exploits of this
hero have been woven into a solar myth, and thus made to form
a new history. His conjecture is highly credible.
As to the solar myth there can be no doubt. The reader will
meet with abundant evidence as we proceed. But there are two
facts which should be stated now. Samson’s name is never
mentioned in the whole of the Jewish Scriptures outside the
four chapters devoted to his career ; and this renders it probable
that the legend was borrowed somewhat late,’ and incorporated
into the earlier narrative. It is also remarkable that while all
the other Judges fight at the head of troops, Samson combats
his enemies single-handed, and slays thousands without arms.
They obtain occasional assistance from heaven, but his achieve
ments are all supernatural.
We are first introduced to Samson in the thirteenth chapter of
Judges. His father’s name was Manoah, but his mother’s name
is hidden, in consequence of that perverse contempt of women
which is so conspicuous in God’s Word. The good lady was un-
�138
Bully Samson.
fortunately barren. She expected never to have a child. But
never is a long time, and the chapter of accidents is fruitful in
surprises. Manoah was not the only person of the male per
suasion. One day a “ man of God ” appeared on the scene when
she was alone, as men of God generally do, and promised her a
son. His intervention was very effectual, and in due course she
produced a sturdy baby, who grew up the champion athlete of
all time.
How strange it is that barren wives were so often selected by
the Lord to become the mothers of prodigies I Sarah was barren,
and ninety before she had Isaac. Rachel was long barren before
the advent of Jacob, although cross-eyed Leah was very prolific.
Hannah was barren, and fretted by the taunts of her productive
rival Peninnah, until the Lord sent her Samuel. And the
apocryphal gospels represent Saint Ann, the grandmother of
God, as twenty years barren before she gave birth to the Virgin
Mary.
Mrs. Manoah went home and told her husband, who besought
the Lord for further information, and desired that the man
of God might come again. His request was granted. The
welcome visitor appeared once more to the lady in her hus
band’s absence. This time she ran and fetched Manoah, to
whom the announcement was repeated. They invited the
stranger to dine with them, but he refused, and equally
declined to tell them his name. By his advice, Manoah burnt
a kid as an offering to the Lord. He “ did wondrously ”
while the happy couple looked on, doubtless performing some
celestial tricks ; and when the flame rose from the altar he
ascended with it, and vanished from their sight. Then they
knew it was an angel, and they fell on their faces, exclaiming,
“We shall surely die, because we have seen God.”
Now who was this visitor? From the Hebrew it appears that
Mrs. Manoah addressed him as “ thou god of visibility.” The
“ angel of the Lord ” is said to be equivalent to “ the Messiah.”
According to the Rev. W. A. Scott, it was “the Great Judge;”
Gill says it was “no other than the Son of God;” and Adam
Clarke says it was “no other than the Second Person of the
ever-blessed Trinity.” If these learned commentators are right,
this was about the first appearance of Jesus Christ on earth.
On the other hand, the visitor may have been the First Person
of the ever-blessed Trinity, old Jahveh himself. This is not a
wild supposition ; for he who appeared to Moses in a burning
bush, showed him on another occasion his posterior, and habitu
ally conversed with him face to face, might very well call on the
Manoahs, who belonged to the same chosen stock.
Mrs. Manoah was ordered by the stranger, whether an angel,
Jesus Christ, or God Almighty, not to eat grapes, nor to drink
wine or anything “short,” for the child was to be a Nazarite
from the womb. No razor was to come on his head after he
saw daylight, from which we infer that the fashion of that time
�Bully Samson.
139
was a remarkably close crop ; and when he grew up he was to
redeem Israel from the hand of the Philistines, a people who
were continually oppressing the Jews, and who seem to have
been preserved by the Lord for that very purpose, so that he
might occasionally strike in, and as they say, “ show the strength
of his muscle.”
One part of this prediction is very suggestive. How could
this boy be a Nazarite, when that sect was in all probability not
in existence until hundreds of years after the date of the Judges ?
The Nazarites were teetotalers and strict ascetics, which Samson
most assuredly was not. Why then was he called a Nazarite ?
Because he had long flowing hair, like all the members of that
sect, who eschewed the razor and all its works as affronting the
decrees of God. But his luxuriant curls have a different reason.
They amounted to seven, which was a sacred number with the
Jews. They were his glory, like the shining locks of Apollo ;
and his strength lay in them, as is the case with all the solar
gods, for that abundant hair represents the sun’s rays, which are
resplendent in summer, shorn in the winter, and renewed in the
spring.
The very name of this miraculous child betrays his mytho
logical character. Samson, or Shimshon, means sun-like accord
ing to Gesenius ; their sun according to Saint Jerome ; and little
sun according to Adam Clarke. Bag, or fish, gave Dagon, or
fish-god; and from Shemesh, the sun, was derived Shemesh-sun
or sun-god. We find the first syllable retained in many Biblical
names, such as Shem, Shemuel (Samuel), Shemida, Shemiramoth, and Shemezer. The Phoenician sun-god Baal, who was
notoriously worshipped by the recreant Jews, leaves similar
traces in the names of the sons of Saul and David, Eshbaal,
Meribaal, and Baalyadah, as preserved in Chronicles, but
changed by the Rabbi compilers of Samuel into Ishbosheth,
Mephibosheth, and Elyadah. There were also two places in
Palestine, one in Dan and the other in Napthali, called Bethshemesh or Ir-shemesh, that is “ house of the sun ” or “ citv of
the sun.”
J
Dr. Oort well remarks of Samson’s adventures that “a solar
myth doubtless lies at the bottom of them, as we may see
by the very name of the hero, which signifies sun-god. In some
of the features of the story, the original meaning may still be
traced quite clearly.”1 The same view is admirably expanded
and supported in a disquisition on 'l The Legend of Samson,”
by Professor H. Steinthal, of the University of Berlin, which
forms an appendix to Goldziher’s very valuable “ Mythology of
the Hebrews.”
J
These sun-gods are found among all peoples who have ad
vanced beyond fetishism. We have Apollo in Greece, Ra in
Bgypt, Surya in India, and Balder in Scandinavia. The mighty
1 “ Bible for Young People,” vol. ii., p. 226.
�140
Bully Samson,
orb was an object of wonder and praise, and soon personified and
worshipped. Light, heat, and life sprang from the benignant
god of day; and all their fluctuations were reflected in his career.
Sunrise and sunset, the war of light and cloud, the fecund power
of spring, the consuming heat of summer, the blighting approach
of winter, were all described in his birth, battles, triumphs,
defeat, death and resurrection.
Samson was the Jewish Hercules, although, as Dupuis remarks,
he was a poor copy. Adam Clarke, who noticed the resemblance,
insinuated that Hercules was copied from Samson, an idea which
every scholar would now regard as absurd. We shall find many
points of likeness as we proceed- with the review of our hero’s
career.
How Samson’s youth was spent we do not know. The Bible
says that he “ grew,” but most children do that at some rate
or other. We are also informed that “ the Lord blessed him,”
although not in what way. We imagine him as a boisterous lad,
fond of exercising his raw strength; pulling cats’ tails, poking
out dogs’ eyes, robbing orchards, thrashing his schoolfellows,
stealing old men’s sticks and lame men’s crutches, making fun
of females, and “cheeking” his elders. All these characteristics
may be inferred from his behavior in after life.
He entered the camp of Dan, it seems, while still young, and
there “ the spirit of the Lord began to move him at times.” An
early movement of the spirit sent him after a young woman at
Timnath, a daughter of the Philistines. He returned home in
sharp haste, and told the old people to go down and get her for
his wife. They very properly desired him to choose a wife from
his own tribe, but he cut them short. “ She just suits me,” said
he, “ so you’d better fetch her at once.” This conduct was very
undutiful, but then “ it was of the Lord.” On this occasion, as
on every other, Samson went courting amongst aliens, in direct
violation of God’s law; but as the Lord prompted him to the
first offence, we presume that he is equally responsible for all
that followed.
Hercules slew the lion of the Nemean forest without any
weapon, and Samson first displayed his prowess by slaying a
young lion with “ nothing in his hand.” We are left to con
jecture how the feat was performed, but religious artists have
not hesitated to supplement the Bible narrative. There is one
picture which represents Samson with the lion between his legs,
while he wrenches open its jaws with his two hands. If that
young lion’s teeth were in good order, it must have been rough
work for his fingers, unless the Lord specially hardened them as
he did Pharaoh’s heart.
Samson kept his exploit secret and went on to his young
woman. Shortly after, on passing the spot again, he found a
swarm of bees and honey in the lion’s carcase. He took a couple
of handfuls, of which he ate some himself, and gave the rest to
his parents. The wedding was arranged, and thirty young men
�Bully Samson.
141
■came to share in the merriment. By way of killing the time,
Samson propounded a riddle. If they solved it in seven days,
he was to give them thirty sheets and thirty changes of raiment;
if not, they were to give him the same articles. The riddle was,
“ Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came
forth sweetness.” For six days they tried to crack this hard nut,
and on the seventh they threatened Mrs. Samson that if she did
not worm the answer out of her husband, they would murder
her and all the family. She coaxed the great bully, wept all day
like a thunder-shower, and “lay sore upon him,” until at last
he told her the answer, which she conveyed to his friends, who
■of course won the bet. Samson delicately taunted them with
having “ ploughed with his heifer,” and then absconded, leaving
his wife for his bosom friend. Being in a dreadful rage, he went
to Ashkelon, and killed thirty men to cool himself down.
A passage in Virgil’s fourth Georgic indicates the ancient
belief that bees might be engendered in the carcase of an ox.
It was, however, a mere superstition, involving a physical im
possibility. Bees do not build in dead flesh, for their wax and
honey would be spoiled by putrefaction, and Samson’s riddle is
a riddle still.
The slaying of the lion is mythological. We have already
mentioned Hercules, but more remains. The Assyrians and
Lydians, Semitic nations like the Jews, worshipped a sun-god
named Sandan or Sandon, who was also a lion killer. The lion
is found as the animal of Apollo on the Lycian monuments as
well as at Patara. “ Hence,” says Steinthal, “ it becomes clear
that the lion was accepted by the Semitic nations as a symbol of
the summer heat............. ‘ Samson, Hercules, or Sandon, kills
the lion ’ means therefore ‘ He is the beneficent saving power
that protects the earth against the burning heat of summer.’
Samson is the kind Aristaeos who delivers the Island of Keos
from the lion, the protector of bees and hives of honey, which
is most abundant when the sun is in the lion.”
Having satiated his anger, Samson remembered the young
woman at Timnath, and at harvest time he went down with a
nice present. Like the rude lover in Voltaire’s “L’lngenu,” he
walked to her bedroom, but her father barred his way. “No,
no,” said he, “that little game won’t do now, Samson ; the girl’s
another man’s wife, so hands off ; yet there’s her sister, a fine
handsome girl, and you can have her if you like.” Samson said
he would see him in Hades first, and bolted in a tempest of
passion. He caught three hundred foxes, tied them in pairs tail
to tail, stuck firebrands between their rumps, and sent them into
the standing corn of the Philistines. Terrible destruction en
sued, and the enraged Philistines burnt the young woman of
Timnath and her father to death.
Samson must have been a dexterous sportsman to catch three
hundred foxes. Some commentators try to evade the difficulty
■by maintaining that the word staaKm means handfuls or sheaves
�142
Bully Samson.
of corn, instead of jackals or foxes ; but the word rendered as
caught never means simply to get, but always to seize by strata
gem. We learn from Ovid’s “Fasti” that it was a Roman
custom in April to let loose a number of foxes in the circus with
lighted flambeaux on their backs ; and the people took pleasure
in seeing the poor animals run about until they were roasted by
the flames. Dr. Oort considers the whole episode as mythical,
and states that “in the reddish-brown jackals, with torches
between their tails, we easily recognise the lurid thunder-cloud,
from the projecting points of which the lightning-flashes seem
to dart.” In any case Samson’s feat is incredible. He must
have been as wily as the Devil to catch so many foxes, and
three hundred could not be collected without attracting atten
tion. Nor could they make much progress if the couples were
fairly matched, and pulled in opposite directions. Our opinion
is that Samson could have burnt down all the Philistines’ corn in
less time than it takes to catch one fox ; but, on the other hand,
if he had acted like a sensible man, he would not have been
Samson.
After smiting the Philistines hip and thigh, Samson retreated
to the rocky fastness of Etam, although it is strange that so irre
sistible a warrior should hide himself from his enemies. His
own people sided with the Philistines, and he grimly allowed
himself to be bound with new ropes, and delivered up to the foe.
But as they shouted he broke through his bonds like tinder, and
went for them with the jawbone of a jackass that happened to be
lying about. When he stopped slashing, a thousand corpses
were piled in heaps. Those Philistines must have been jackasses
too. They must have stood and waited their turns. Why did
they not skedaddle, and leave Samson to cut slices out of the
air ?
According to Herodotus, Hercules had a similar adventure in
■®gypt> where the inhabitants took him to offer as a sacrifice to
Jupiter. For awhile he submitted quietly, but when they led
him up to the altar, he put forth his strength and slew them all.
The charming old raconteur points out, however, that the Egyp
tians were not guilty of human sacrifices.
Samson was dreadfully thirsty after completing his tally of
victims, and being ready to die, he called on the Lord, who clave
a hollow in the jawbone and brought water from it. One com
mentator suggests that the socket of a tooth became a well.
What a monstrous ass !
Hercules was favored with a similar miracle. After slaying
the dragon of the Hesperides, he was in danger of perishing with
thirst in the scorching deserts of Libya, but the gods caused a
fountain to issue from a rock which he struck with his foot. Dr.,
Oort considers the jawbone and the spring as mythical; the
former being the jagged thunder-cloud, from which the lightning
shoots, while the latter is the rain that pours out of it as the
sun-god triumphs.
�Bully Samson.
143
This tremendous massacre of Philistines appears to have
gained Samson the Judgeship of Israel, which he held for twenty
years. Such a strong fellow no doubt found very few who
dared to disobey him. With Samson it was a word and a blow,
and no one that felt his fist once ever lived to feel it twice.
His next exploit was that of a perfect bully. He went down
to Gaza for a spree, intending to stay all night at a brothel.
While he sported with his harlot the Gazites heard the news, and
they laid in wait for him, so as to kill him in the morning. But
they were woefully disappointed, for at midnight Samson grew
restless, and wanted to stretch himself. He sallied out, pro
bably without paying his score, lugged off the gates of the city
on his shoulders, and carried them up to the top of a hill.
How they got them back is a knotty question. Perhaps they
induced Samson to convey them back, and in return settled his
account with “ the harlot.”
His next amour, for like the pagan Hercules he had many,
was with Delilah. She dwelt in Nachal Sorek, that is, the Vine
Valley. This may be a mythical trait, representing the zealous
wooing of the vine by the sun-god ; or it may imply that Samson
was anything but a Nazarite. The word Delilah, according to
Ewald, means traitress; but the generally accepted meaning
is languid, delicate, triste. Great bullies are usually enamoured of
frail little women.
As Omphale befooled Hercules, so Delilah befooled Samson.
Milton treats her as his wife, yet it is pretty clear that she was
a professional beauty. The Philistines offered her eleven
hundred pieces of silver to find out and reveal the secret of
Samson’s strength. He tricked her thrice, but the fourth time
she had him. He told her that his strength lay in his hair, and
that if it were shaven he would become as weak as another man.
She made him “ sleep upon her knees ” a sleep so profound that
it was probably the result of drunkenness and exhaustion; called
in a barber, who shaved off his seven locks and left him bald as
a plate; and then handed him over to the Philistines, who bound
him with brass fetters, put out his eyes, and made him grind in
their prison house.
But Samson’s turn was coming. His death was to be more
marvellous than his life. In the fifth act of the play he was to
make positively his last appearance, to eclipse all his previous
efforts, and literally bring down the house.
The Philistine lords arranged for a public holiday to celebrate
Samson’s capture, and to honor their god Dagon for delivering
him into their hands. When their hearts were merry, they
called for Samson to make them sport, from which it would
appear that they had turned him into a kind of clown. They
should have been more careful, for Samson’s hair had begun to
grow again, and his p ite “ showed like a stubble land at harvest
home.” Why did they not keep a barber to give him a clean
shave every morning ? Very dearly did they pay for their negli-
�144
Bully Samson.
gence. Samson got his keeper to let him lean for rest against
the two middle pillars that supported the great roof of the
temple, on which there were about three thousand men and
women. Then he clasped the pillars with either hand, prayed
the Lord to let him avenge himself on the Philistines for the loss
of his eyes, bowed himself with all his might, and brought
down the whole structure in shapeless ruin. Thus Bully Samson
sank, terrible in death, surrounded by great heaps of slain
enemies. His people searched out his corpse, and buried it in
the family vault.
Samson’s suicide is capable of a mythic interpretation. Her
cules also destroyed himself by burning, but arose out of the
flames to Olympus. “The sun-god,” observes Steinthal, “in
fighting against the summer heat is fighting against himself; if
he kills it, he kills himself.” The Phoenicians, Assyrians and
Lydians attributed suicide to their sun-gods, for only thus could
they understand the sun’s mitigation of its own heat. Yet they
did not suppose that the god actually died, but only that he
renewed himself like the Phoenix. In this respect the story of
Samson seems to lack a fitting conclusion ; but it must be re
membered that the Rabbis did not intend it to be regarded as a
solar myth, that it contains a mixture of elements, and that, as
Ewald holds, the present version was probably based on an
earlier work.
Bully Samson’s history has not a single redeeming feature.
He judged Israel for twenty years, but that post did not require
much virtue, and it was often occupied by sturdy rogues. Adam
Clarke admits that “ if we regard what is called the choice of
Hercules, his preference of virtue to pleasure, we shall find that
the heathen is, morally speaking, vastly superior.” Yet this
learned commentator elsewhere says that “a parallel has often
been drawn between Samson and our blessed Lord, of whom he
has been supposed to be a most illustrious type.” This brings
the Prophet of Nazareth very low indeed, and classes him with
the gutter-crowd of Bible worthies. Jesus Christ was not, in
our opinion, so transcendently good and wise and great as his
followers assert; but he certainly deserves to be rescued from
the critical violence of Doctor Adam Clarke. He in nowise
resembles the mythical Jewish hero, who drank, spreed, raked,
fought, and murdered wholesale. It would be more truthful to
say that he is an “ illustrious type ” of God the Father, for
there is a most remarkable resemblance between the characters
of Jehovah and Samson. Old Jahveh is the head of the house,
but Bully Samson is a cadet of the family and shares the blood.
PRICE ONE PENNY.
London: Fkeethought Publishing Company, 28, Stonecutter St., E.C.
�BIBLE ROMANCES—XIX.
GOSPEL
GHOSTS.
By G. W. FOOTE.
--------- ♦---------
The belief la ghosts is rapidly dying out. They are scarcely
ever heard of in towns, except in a forlorn condition at Spiritist
Seances, where they are at the beck and call of professional mediums,
and reduced to playing tricks for their sport and profit. Most
surviving ghosts lurk about villages and lonely homesteads. The
reason of this is obvious. Life and society quicken the intellect
in towns, while the quiet and solitude of the country stimulate
the imagination. And ghosts are entirely a matter of fancy.
Like miracles they depend on faith. If you believe in them you
you may see them ; if you do not you never will. The superstitious
man might behold one in a dimly-lighted room, but a sceptic
would sot perceive one in a dark churchyard. Ghosts are pure
illusions. They are literally, to use a slang phrase, “ all my eye.”
Yet the Bible abounds with these phantasms. They are of
Various kinds, from little spectres to the great Ghost, commonly
called Holy, who himself appears in a variety of forms. Such a
feet is, however, not surprising when we consider that God s
Word is full of the grossest superstitions. Its very author, when
he came on earth in the person of Jesus Christ, actually thought
that mad people had devils in them, and were to be cured by the
exorcist instead of the doctor. Nothing unscientific or absurd need
therefore surprise us in his writings. We ought rather, in read
ing them, to be thankful for the smallest mercies in the shape of
knowledge and common sense.
Gospel Ghosts are the subject of this Romance, but I cannot
treat them without some preliminary words on those of the Old
Testament. We are very early introduced to one of these. The
second verse of Genesis says that “ the Spirit of God moved upon
the face of the waters.” But as there were no eyes to view this
ocean traveller, the very fish not being then in existence, we have
no notion of its form or feature. All we can say is that it was
the loneliest ghost on record, with the most miserable occupation.
It was worse off than Noah, for although he sailed the seas for
twelve months without sight of land, and must have been heartily
«ick of so much water, it is not unreasonable to suppose that he
had a drop of “ something short ” inside his floating menagerie ;
especially when we reflect that the first thing he did after the
Flood, directly he had offered his burnt offering to the Lord, was
to get dead drunk, which seems to show his ardent love of the
cratur.
The next ^host was “ the Lord God,” whom Adam and Eve
heard “ walking in the garden in the cool of the day.” Scripture
�146
I
“l
ill
I
Gospel Ghosts.
states that they heard his voice, so he was probably holding a
conversation with himself, as persons of weak intellect often do.
This is quite in keeping with the sequel, which displays him in
a dreadful passion at occurences which anyone but a fool would
have naturally expected. Yet this ghost is, in a manner, an
advance on the first, having passed, as Herbert Spencer would
say, from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous state, from the
simple to the complex. The “ Spirit of the Lord ” appears to have
been a gaseous body, if I may so speak of a ghost; but the “ Lord
God ” has a voice and a walking apparatus, and is therefore organic,
I wonder how long this process of development took. The
ghostly biologist who answers that question will settle a puzzling
problem in chronology, namely, the interval of time between “ in
the beginning ” and the creation of Adam.
After the Flood, and until the Jews settled down in Palestine,
the Lord frequently appeared again. He visited Abraham several
times, and on one occasion stopped to dinner. Two of his angels,
or himself divided into two, called on Lot at Sodom, and put up
with him for the night. He met Jacob near Jabbok brook and
held a wrestling match with him, in which, after many hours’
rough sport, he was at last defeated, although he dislocated his
adversary’s thigh. Moses saw him in a burning bush, in a public
house, and up a mountain, where he spent forty days with him
and had a panoramic view of his “ afterwards.” Altogether
Jahveli was a pretty busy ghost, until he found it more respectable
and prudent to cultivate a retiring disposition.
Lastly, there were many angelic ghosts in the Old Testament
who played various parts, such as heavenly messsengers, pro
misers of children to barren wives, (these were doubtless young
and good-looking), lying prophets, and wholesale murderers.
But the most remarkable angels were those sons of God who saw
the daughters of men that they were fair, and who were appa
rently the progenitors of a mongrel race of giants. It has, how
ever, been suggested that this narrative was written by a subtle
satirist who sailed as close to the wind as he could; that these
sons of God were priests, a class always fond of the fair sex; and
that the mongrel offspring wrere the bastard children they pro
created.
The first Bible ghost, in the more modern sense of the word,
is that of the prophet Samuel, who was raised by the witch of
Endor. This old lady kept a “ familiar spirit,” and no doubt a
bristly tom-cat. Her trade was summoning ghosts in the dead
of night. She was one of the survivors of a numerous tribe of
witches and wizards whom Saul had rooted out of the land in his
vigorous and sensible reign ; but in his decline, when the priests
and conjurers were all against him, and he was himself troubled
with fits of melancholy and superstition, he paid this old Hecate
a visit. Apparently ashamed of his weakness, he went in disguise,
and asked her to bring up Samuel. There was much haggling
before she would begin the performance, for according to the
�Gospel Ghosts.
147
law her life was in danger, but at last she brought the old fellow
up. Probably as business had been dull of late, she had grown
unused to ghosts ; at any rate, when she saw Samuel she screamed,
and fancied she saw streams of spectres issuing from the ground.
Samuel wore a mantle, so there are clothes in the spirit world, as
the Spiritists of to-day aver, although some of their lady mediums
have been detected playing the ghost themselves with devilish
little on.
Samuel’s ghost spoke, and all other ghosts indulge more or
less in the same diversion. They generally talk utter nonsense,
although Samuel’s language was rather wicked than absurd. I
should like to know what sort of voice he had. Superstition
generally ascribes to ghosts the ghost of a voice. Savages
describe the spirit-voice as a chirp or murmur, and the classic
descriptions of Homer and Ovid are very similar. Shakespeare
makes the King’s ghost in Hamlet speak monotonous lines which
we naturally associate with subdued accents; and the low
mysterious tone is still affected by the “ familiar spirits ” of modern
mediums. A screaming ghost would be a screaming farce. Those
who wish to find the explanation of this and many other facts of
Animism should consult Mr. E. B. Tylor’s magnificent work on
“Primitive Culture.”
Now let us make a leap to the time of Elijah, who played an
extraordinary trick with a ghost. He was lodging with a widow
at Zarephath, and living on her miraculous barrel of meal and
cruse of oil, which never failed, but gave forth perennial supplies
of pancakes. This fortunate lady’s boy fell ill and died, and she
reproached the prophet with being the cause of her loss. He in
turn gave the Lord a lecture on the subject, and asked what he
meant by slaying the poor woman’s son. Then Elijah carried
the little corpse up into the garret he occupied rent free, laid it
on his bed, “ stretched himself upon the child three times.” and
besought the Lord to let its soul come back. His prayer was
heard, the third stretch was lucky, “ the soul of the child came
into him again, and he revived.” Curiously there is a similar
feat recorded of Elisha, who inherited Elijah’s mantle, and pro
bably all the rest of his paraphernalia. His hostess, however, was
not a widow but a wife. Her husband was old, and she had no
child when Elisha first came to their house, but that little defect
was soon remedied. She had a son and heir, who grew big
enough to carry his father’s dinner to the reaping field, where
alas ! he was killed by a sunstroke. Elisha operated on the
corpse as Elijah had done before him. He stretched himself on
the child, mouth on mouth, eyes on eyes, and hands on hands,
gave it a good warming, and then went downstairs to get up the
steam again, perhaps over a bottle of inspiration. Being well
primed, he ascended and gave the corpse another middle. This
effort was crowned with complete success. The child’s soul
returned, he sneezed seven times, and opened his eyes, no doubt,
thinking Elisha had been giving him snuff.
�148
Gospel Ghosts.
What a fine example of barbaric superstition I Among savages,
such as the ancient Jews undoubtedly were, it is a common
belief that the soul leaves the body when a man faints or dies,
and may sometimes be brought back by calling on it; and thus,
says Tylor, “ the bringing back of lost souls becomes a regular
part of the sorcerer s or priest's professions." Elijah and Elisha
seem to have both been in this line of business, and these two
cases may have been recorded merely as specimens of their skill.
And how interesting and instructive is that incident of the child
sneezing seven times ! The breath and the soul were the same
thing, and both passed through the nose. God breathed into
Adam’s nostrils the breath of life. At the Flood all in whose nostrils
was the breath of life died. Jacob, as Tylor says, prayed that
man’s soul might not thenceforth depart from his body when he
sneezed. It has been a general custom to utter a pious ejaculation
on sneezing; and when, after a good sneeze Christians say “God
bless me !” they are unconsciously performing an ancient religious
rite. Sternutation is widely associated with demoniacal possession.
The idea appears among peoples so diverse as the Hindus, the
Persians, the Kelts, the Kaffirs, and the Jews, not to mention a
number of other races. The Messalians, an heretical sect, used
to spit and blow their noses to expel the (lemons they might have
drawn in with their breath. There are pictures of mediaeval
exorcists driving out devils through the patients’ nostrils; and
centuries earlier Josephus told of his seeing a certain Jew, named
Eleazar, cure demoniacs by drawing the demons out through the
same channel. Yes, the nose is as prominent in religious history
as it is on our faces, and its intimate connection with the soul may
explain why the priests have always led us by this particular organ.
Elisha s bones, although they could not resuscitate themselves,
had the power of reviving others. A corpse dropped hurriedly
into his sepulchre stood up alive and kicking. Ezekiel saw a
whole valley of dry bones start into life again. Probably the old
ghosts were ready to resume their bodies at a very short notice,
for they were supposed to haunt the place of their burial. Quite
another kind of ghost was the one that passed before the face of
Eliphaz in the dead of night and made the “ hair of his flesh ”
stand up like quills upon the fretful porcupine. Unfortunately
we have no description of it; yet, as it preached a long sermom,
we may conjecture that it was the ghost of a parson looking out
fo<’ a fresh pulpit.
*
This preliminary dissertation on the apparitions of the Old
Testament has proved longer than I expected ; but it is necessary
to my purpose, and it will enable the reader to understand the
Gospe Ghosts.
Jesus Christ himself was considered a ghost by some of the
early heretics. They could not conceive that Deity was born of
a woman, ate, drank, and slept, and suffered an ignominious death ;
so they held that the Messiah was not a being of flesh and blood,
but a phantasm. There is something to be said for this opinion
�Gospel Ghosts.
149
for the same Jesus who was crucified and buried ascended into
heaven ; and does not St. Paul say that “ flesh and blood cannot
inherit the Kingdom of God ?” But on the other hand there are
the very plain unequivocal words which Luke puts into the
mouth of Jesus on his appearence to the eleven, “A spirit hath
not flesh and bones, as ye see me have. ’ This seems decisive.
Yet those fastidious heretics may be met half way, for if Jesus
was not a ghost, he was the son of a ghost.
With the exception of those spirits Jesus was in the habit of
casting out from people who never possessed them, a sprightly
variety of which he sent into the Gadarean swine, the first
authentic ghost he took in hand was that of Jairus's daughter.
Some critics, among whom is Olshausen, throw doubt on this how
ever. When Jesus came to raise the girl from the dead, in other
words to call her ghost back, he said “ the maid is not dead, but
sleepeth.” Those critics take this language literally, and assert
that it was not a case of resurrection at all. When the doctors
differ who shall decide? No doubt this is a very important
■question, but somehow the world is quite content to leave it
unsettled, even though it remain open till the day of judgment.
Matthew, Mark and Luke narrate this story, but John does
not. Mark and Luke both say that Jesus, after restoring the
maid to her friends, charged them that they should tell no man,
while Matthew says that “ the fame hereof went abroad into all
that land.” This is a good illustration of Gospel Harmony. Yet
it is fair to say that the different stories may be reconciled by
■supposing that Jesus told a white lie. He might have asked them
to keep the miracle a secret, in order to get it well published.
Jesus raised up more than one person from the dead, as indeed
was to be expected, for Rabbi Acha in the Talmud only expressed
the general belief when he said that “ in the Messianic time God
will wake the dead, as he did before by Elijah, Elisha and Ezekiel.”
The second case was that of the widow's son at Nain. Jesus
resuscitated him publicly before “ much people ” as he was being
carried to the grave. Of course the young man, like the young
maid, was never heard of again; and although the “ rumor went
forth through all Judaea,” it never reached the ears of Matthew,
Mark and John. Josephus did not hear of it, nor even Paul,
for he told Agrippa that Christ was the first that rose from the
dead, and in Corinthians (xv, 20) he calls him “ the firstfruits
of them that slept.” For any useful result, or any conviction it
produced, this miracle was as barren as the figtree.
Philostratus relates a similar story of Apollonius of Tyana, who
met one day in the streets of Rome a damsel carried out to burial,
followed by her betrothed, and by a weeping company. He bade
them set down the bier, saying he would staunch their tears;
and having enquired her name, whispered something in her ear,
and then, taking her by the hand, he lifted her up, and she began
straightway to speak, and returned to her father s house. This
story is quite as beautiful as Luke's, and probably quite as true.
�150
Gospel Ghosts.
Professor Rhys.
Davids and other Buddhist scholars narrate it with slight varia
tions, but it is more finely rendered by Mr. Edwin Arnold in his
noble poem “ The Light of Asia.” A young mother brings theMaster her dying child, bitten by a poisonous snake, and implores,
his aid. Gazing at her with his gentle eyes, and laying on her his
patient hand, he says that there is one thing which might heal
her grief and the boy’s wound, if she could find it; a black
mustard-seed, taken from a house where no father, mother, child
or slave has died. But she seeks it in vain, for although those of
whom she begs kindly offer her the seed, she cannot take it,
because every house bears the taint of death ; and she returns tothe pitiful wise Master with the sad news.
A far more beautiful story is told of Buddha.
“ My sister! thou hast found,” the Master said,
“ Searching for what none finds—that bitter balm
I had to give thee. He thou lovedst slept
Dead on thy bosom yesterday : to-day
Thou know’st the whole wide world weeps with thy woe:
The grief which all hearts share grows less for one.
Lo ! I would pour my blood if I could stay
Thy tears and win the secret of that curse
Which makes sweet love our anguish, and which drives—
O’er flowers and pastures to the sacrifice—
As these dumb beasts are driven—-men their lords.
I seek that secret bury thou thy child.
How pathetic, yet how sane! How far above Luke’s story of'
Christ, which teaches no lesson and touches no eternal problem !
Yet Buddha was a “ heathen moralist,” who lived centuries before
Christ was born.
Luke claims to have had “ perfect understanding of all
things from the very first,” and he certainly beats the other
evangelists in his account of the ruler’s daughter. Yet he
yields to reporter John in the case of Lazarus; in fact, John,
beats all three of his rivals hollow, for while he hunts up all the
details of the gentleman's resurrection, they never once get on,
the scent. Lazarus was loved by Jesus; he lived and died, rose
from the tomb, and lived and died again, unless he is still roam
ing the earth; yet Matthew, Mark and Luke never heard of him..
What makes this ignorance still more striking is that John repre
sents the raising of Lazarus as the fact which provoked the resent
ment of the chief priests and Pharisees, and led to the crucifixion
of Christ.
Jesus knew that his friend Lazarus lay dying, but would not
save his life, because he meant to work a bigger miracle. When
he arrived at Bethany, Martha and Mary were surrounded with
sympathetic friends, and weeping over their brother’s grave. Thescene was so affecting that “ Jesus wept ” too, although he knew,,
which they did not, that in less than a minute Lazarus would be
restored to life. Jesus is called “ the man of sorrows,” and not
without cause, for he could pipe his optics on the smallest provo
cation.
�Gospel Ghosts.
151
Lazarus had been dead four days, and his flesh was rather high.
Martha said “he stinketh ” ; and St. Ambrose wrote that the
smell was like Egyptian darkness, so thick that it could be felt.
But Jesus, being the son of Jahveh, and used to the sickly odor
■of burnt offerings, was not deterred by such a trifle. Approaching
the tomb, he first asked his celestial parent to back him up, and
then shouted “ Lazarus, come forth!” Whereupon the corpse
started up all alive, but not kicking, for it was bound hand and
foot with graveclothes, and must have looked remarkably like a
bale of bacon. Lazarus was soon unpacked, and then he walked
away into infinite space, for he was never heard of afterwards.
Many people saw this miracle, but it was not mentioned at the
trial of Jesus before Pilate. What a strange omission 1 If
Lazarus had been produced in court, with the witnesses of his
resurrection, is it likely that Pilate would have sentenced Jesus
to death ? Or, if the chief priests and Pharisees believed in the
miracle, would they have tried to kill one who had proved him
self the master of Death ?
Why did Jesus shout “Lazarus, come forth”? Would not a
whisper have done as well ? There is a theatrical air about the
whole performance. Renan suggests that it was all a trick, got
up between Lazarus and Jesus, when the latter’s head was turned
and his conscience perverted by the Messianic delusion. Dr.
Davidson saves the credit of his Savior by impeaching John’s
accuracy, and charging him with “ converting the Lazarus of the
parable in Luke into a historical person.” Keim also holds that
“ not a doubt can remain of the spuriousness of the whole story.”
A host of Biblical critics agree with this view, including Schenkel
Strauss, Baur, Weisse and Hilgenfeld.
What became of Lazarus after his resurrection ? Scripture is
silent, but tradition says he became Bishop of Marseilles, which is
no doubt as true as that he wrote the wrote the “ Marseillaise.”
Epiphanius relates that he lived thirty years after his “ second
birth.” What a pity he did not occupy some of that time in
writing his autobiography 1 The history of the four days he
spent God knows where would have been the best bit of literary
property in the market. There is a tradition that the first thinoLazarus asked on coming to, was whether he should die aoaimand on being told “ Yes,” he never smiled more. Had he 'then’
like Jesus a little later, spent those four days in Hell ? Or had
he been to Heaven, and finding it dismally monotonous, as
Revelation depicts, was he terrified at the thought of returning,
and dwelling for ever with what Heine called “ all the menagerie
of the Apocalypse ” ? Robert Browning has brought great learn
ing and subtlety to bear on this subject, in his Epistle of Karshish the Arab Physician, but of course he is a poet and not a
theologian.
Jesus Christ's ghost will be dealt with in my next Romance
which I shall devote entirely to his resurrection and ascension.’
I conclude this one with a few words on the great ghost, the
�152
Gospel Ghosts.
ghost of ghosts, the Holy Ghost. Let us, dear reader, approach
this mystical spirit with fear and trembling; for blasphemy
against the Holy Ghost is a sin that will never be forgiven us in
this world or the next. It leads as surely to the pit as jumping
from the gallery of a theatre ; and is all the more to be dreaded
because nobody knows exactly what it is.
Men have speculated whether this being should be called he
she, or it. But the incidents treated in my Romance of “A
Virgin Mother ” decisively settle that question. Mary “ was
found with child of the Holy Ghost.” What shape the heavenly
father of Jesus took when he visited Joseph s young woman is
a moot point. Protestant writers shirk the subject, but Catholics
go in for the dove or the pigeon. They ridicule the pagan story
of Jove’s making love to Leda in the form of a swan, and
becoming the father of Castor and Pollux. But what difference
is there between these two myths except in the size of the bird ?
Yet to laugh at the one is legitimate fun, while to laugh at the
other is unpardonable sin. Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost
depends on a mere point in ornithology.
There is no doubt as to the Holy Ghost's form on his next
appearance. When Jesus was baptised “ he saw the Spirit of
God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him.” This
is Matthew's account. Luke goes farther. He writes as
though all the bystanders witnessed the marvel as well as Jesus,
“ The heaven was opened, and the Holy Ghost descended in a
bodily shape like a dove.” Fancy such an avatar occurring to
day, and some pious sportsman taking a pot shot at the sacred
bird, and eating the Holy Ghost for supper. Fortunately the
age of miracles is past, and we need not fear such a catastrophe.
The last appearance of the Holy Ghost was on that famous day
of Pentecost, when he came in the form of tongues of fire on the
heads of the twelve apostles. The effect of this visitation was
singular : they all began to jabber strange tongues. Some of the
auditors thought they were filled with the spirit, and others said
they were drunk. A similar diversity of opinion haj obtained since.
Many men have been “ filled with the Holy Ghost,” like those
captains of the first Salvation Army, have talked with strange
tongues, have seen visions and dreamed dreams ; and while some
people have thought them inspired, others have thought them
delirious. This latter class have ever, as in the Acts, been
stigmatised as “ mockers,” but their number is rapidly increasing
in this age of science and common-sense. They have always had
the laugh on their side, and now the world is coming over too.
A mighty roar of laughter is shaking the realms of superstition,
flutteringall the ghosts, warning them to melt into thin air, and
“ like the baseless fabric of a vision faded, leave not a wrack
behind.”
PRICE ONE PENNY.
Printed and Published by Ramsey and Foote, at 28 Stonecutter Street, E.C.
�BIBLE ROMANCES—XX.
A RISING
GOD.
By G. W. FOOTE.
-------- ♦------We now approach the Romance of the Resurrection and the
strange exploits of the famous Jerusalem ghost. Singular as it.
may appear, the “ greatest religion in the world ” is founded on
the history of this phantom. For eighteen centuries it has rested
the eternal welfare of mankind on a fable. Ever since St. Paul
wrote “If Christ be not risen then is our preaching vain,”
Christianity has staked everything on a mythical story, no more
respectable than that of the Cock Lane ghost. The wild delu
sions of an hysterical woman, communicated to a multitude of
others by a well known process of infusion, originated that
Gospel of the Resurrection which is described as the Christian’s
support in life and consolation in death, and without which none
of us should see salvation.
In the previous Romance of “ Gospel Ghosts ” I prepared the
ground for this, and considerable space was devoted to the Old
Testament ghosts because their treatment was essential to my
purpose. My readers can now estimate the statements of Canon
Westcott on this subject, and see through his sophistries. In his
“ Gospel of the Resurrection ” he contends that Christ s disciples
were not likely to have been deceived, because “there was no
popular belief at the time which could have inspired them with a
faith in an imaginary Resurrection.” This writer presumes on
his readers’ ignorance. The resurrection of the dead was a.
primary doctrine of the Pharisees, and distinguished them from
the Sadducees. These parties were the two great religious
divisions of Judaism, the former representing popular Dissent
and the latter the orthodox State Church. When Paul stood
before the Sanhedrim, and was in danger for reviling the high
priest Ananias, he dexterously availed himself of their jealousy
by crying, “ I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee : of the hope
and resurrection of the dead I am called in question.” This;
clever evasion set them by the ears at once, and “there arose a
dissension.” On a former occasion the Pharisees cornered Jesus
with a puzzle that turned on their favorite doctrine.; they asked
him whose wife a woman seven times married would be at the
resurrection. Canon Westcott’s statement is thus belied by his
own Scripture. And it is further belied by history, for the sect,
of Essenes, to which Jesus himself probably belonged, joined
with the Pharisees in their opposition to the Mosaic doctrine of
the Sadducees, and their acceptance of the belief in a future life..
We have also seen that the raising of persons from the dead was-,
not uncommon in the days of the prophets, that Jesus several
�154
A Rising God.
times performed the same feat, and that the Jews fully expected
the Messiah to revive corpses after the manner of Elijah.
The learned Canon merely alludes to these significant facts,
-and then tries to nullify them by arguing that “ the belief in the
resuscitation of the dead to the vicissitudes of ordinary life
would indispose for the belief in a rising to a life wholly new in
kind and issue.” Perhaps so, but what new feature was there in
the story of Christ’s resurrection ? It is beyond all dispute that
he was believed to have risen in the body. Beyond a certain
capacity for mysteriously appearing and vanishing, and floating
•through closed doors, he displayed all the characteristics of a
human being. He walked, talked and dined; and when the
-apostles imagined him a spirit, he repudiated the idea, and
invited them to feel his muscle. True, he ascended into heaven
before their eyes, but it was in a bodily form; and they were
■quite prepared to see him levitate, for Enoch and Elijah had
gone aloft in that way, and could the Messiah do any less ?
The idea of a lost leader’s return is not novel. Witness the
legends of Arthur, Arminius, Barbarossa, and Napoleon. Even
Nero, as Suetonius relates, was expected to come again and
resume his throne. And to this day the crazy Southcotians
believe that their Joanna will revisit the earth. But perhaps the
most signal parallel to the apostles’ frame of mind is to be found
in the story of Omar, who, when the report of Mohammed’s death
was brought, drew his scimitar, and swore he would kill the
wretch who dared to say that the prophet of Allah could die.
Let it not be said that it was impossible for a legend concern
ing Jesus to grow up during the lifetime of his disciples. Light
foot well says that the Jews were perhaps the most superstitious
people that ever lived. With equal truth Iienan asserts that
“ Palestine was one of the countries most in arrear in the science
■ of the day; the Cali beans were the most ignorant of all the
inhabitants of Palestine, and the disciples of Jesus might be
leckoned among the most stupid Galilseans.” There was nothing
too. extravagant for their credulity. Sixteen centuries later a
similar legend to that of Jesus Christ arose among the followers
■of one of his compatriots. Sabbathai Sevi, in 1666, proclaimed
himself the Messiah, and attracted a crowd of disciples. Being
seized by the Sultan, who would not tolerate his vagaries, he had
to face the grim alternative of making a summary exit from this
world or becoming a Mussulman. He preferred conversion to
■execution, and lived until 1676, when he succumbed to a colic
instead of the bowstring. “ It might have been expected,” says
Milman, “ that his sect, if it survived his apostacy, at least would
have expired with his death ; but there is no calculating the
■obstinacy of human credulity: his followers gave out that he was
transported to heaven like Enoch and Elijah ; and notwithstand
ing the constant and active opposition of the Jewish priesthood,
the sect spread in all quarters.” Now if, in the seventeenth cen
tury, such a legend could arise respecting a man -who publicly
�A Rising God.
155
apostatised, and who, instead of suffering martyrdom, died of
flatulence ; how much more easily, in the first century, might a
similar legend gather round the memory of a nobler character,
whose tragic end is one of the most pathetic episodes in human
history.
Having in another volume admitted that our four gospels can
not be traced back farther than the second half of the second
eentury, Canon Westcott is obliged to make much of the earlier
epistles of St. Paul. The First of Corinthians is universally
allowed to be authentic, and in the fifteenth chapter the great
apostle gives his “testimony to Christ’s resurrection.” Paul
writes that “ he was buried, and that he rose again the third day
according to the Scriptures : And that he was seen of Cephas,
then of the twelve : After that he was seen of above five hundred
brethren at once ; of whom the greater part remain unto this
present, but some are fallen asleep. After that he was seen of James ;
then of all the apostles. And last of all he was seen of me also’
as of one born out of due time.” There is no idealism about
this, says the learned Canon; it is purely historic. He then
arbitrarily fixes the date of Paul’s conversion at “ ten years after
the Lord’s death,” and concludes that we have the unimpeachable
witness of a contemporary. What marvellous logic! What
astounding ignorance of the laws of evidence !
Paul was not an actual witness of the Resurrection; and as.
there is not the slightest evidence that he ever saw Jesus in the
flesh, how could he recognise his apparition ? For ten years
after the crucifixion Paul disbelieved the story of the risen
Christ, and persecuted those who embraced it. He was not a
dolt, but a man of sharp, inquiring intellect; and surely he
examined the story before he rejected it. Investigation and
argument never convinced him of its truth ; it required a miracleio persuade him. And even that is open to doubt, for there are
many who hold that he was converted by a sunstroke. On the
road to Damascus, where he intended to ferret out the Christians,
“ suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven T
and he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul,
Saul, why persecutest thou me ?” This was not a case of sun
stroke, say the apologists, for the narrative states that “ the men
which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but
seeing no man.” But Paul himself, in relating the adventure
(Acts xxii., 9), says that they “ saw indeed the light, and were
afraid ; but they heard not the voice of him that spake to me.”
On the whole it is clear that he only heard the voice, while neither
he nor they beheld any apparition. It was clearly a case of sun
stroke attended with hallucination. Paul may be pardoned for
yielding to delusions at a time of intense excitement, but there
©an be no excuse for the Christian apologists who share them
in ©old blood.
Paid obviously considers this “ appearance B of Christ of the
same kind as the others. He made no distinction between sub-
�156
A Rising God.
jective and objective experiences. Of what value, then, is his
testimony ? And how can he stand sponsor for the other witnesses
he enumerates but does not produce ?
Who were the “ five hundred brethen ” that saw the risen
Christ? Why did not Paul record their evidence fully? Why
were not the survivors brought before a responsible committee,
and their examinations taken down and preserved ? And how
did there happen to be “five hundred brethren” assembled in
one place, when the disciples, immediately after the Ascension
“ together were about an hundred and twenty ” ? Did Jesus
descend again from heaven, and give another farewell perform
ance, positively for the last time ?
Now let us come to the four gospels. These were not in
existence until long after Jesus and all his disciples had mouldered
to dust. They are not contemporary witness, but the voice
of tradition, put into a literary form by unknown writers. As
might be expected, they agree considerably as to the sayings of
Jesus, but differ widely as to his doings; and their disagreement
is naturally greatest with respect to the supernatural portions of
his history.
Matthew states that at the crucifixion there was darkness over
all the land for three hours. Luke says it extended “ over all the
earth.” Mark and John never heard of it, nor did Josephus,
who was also a Jew. It also escaped the notice of every profane
historian. Pliny, Suetonius, Tacitus and Plutarch do not mention
this extraordinary occurrence, although two of them carefully
recorded prodigies and wonders. Matthew also states that the
veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom.
Luke of course agrees, and Mark and John are again silent. An
earthquake is introduced to account for this rent, but how could
an earthquake tear a soft, flexible substance without throwing
down the solid structure to which it was attached ? Matthew
further alleges that this capricious earthquake opened the graves,
and that many of the sleeping saints arose and strolled into
Jerusalem. Mark and John are again silent. Even Luke throws
up the sponge, and leaves Matthew in possession of the field.
Earthquakes were cheap enough in that superstitious age, and
ghosts were as plentiful as blackberries. No wonder the
Christians borrowed a few for their Savior's death. How could
they do less, when as much was done for Pagan kings and
emperors ? Shakespeare, who let nothing slip, notices how
“ In the most high and palmy state of Rome,
A little ere the mighty Julius fell,
The graves stood tenantless and the sheeted dead
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets.”
Why are not the prodigies related of the death of Caesar as cred
ible as those related of the death of Christ ?
Matthew’s use of the word “ saints ” in this story is very
singular. As they died before Jesus, they were not redeemed
�A Rising God.
157
by his precious blood. Perhaps it is true, as Irenaeus asserts,
that Jesus lived till fifty ; and thus a crowd of disciples might
have gone to their graves before he gave up the ghost. And
what became of the “ saints ” after their resurrection? Why did
aot Paul produce a few of them instead of vaguely alluding to
those “ five hundred brethren ” ? According to Eusebius, Quadratus presented an apology to the Emperor Hadrian about A.D.
120, in which he asserted that some of them were still surviving !
Many of the biggest lies on record were told by those early
Christians ; and if the Devil is the father of liars as well as lies,
they have a good claim to be considered his eldest children.
In what condition did the “ saints ” arise ? Were they stinking
like Lazarus ? They were not spirits, but resuscitated bodies.
Did they return home “ like ghosts to trouble joy,” as the Lotos
Eaters say in Tennyson’s poem ? Surely there must have been
great confusion. The late Mr. Solomons probably found Mrs.
Solomons married again to Mr. Isaacs, and so reconciled to her
lot as to resent his impertinent intrusion. Jesus would of course
be obliged to act as umpire ; and in deciding whose wife Mrs.
Solomons-Isaacs was, he would be unable to resort to the evasion
with which he baffled the Pharisees. “ Don’t tell me that in the
kingdom of heaven there is neither marrying nor giving in mar
riage,” roars Solomons, “ this ain’t heaven; and I want my
wife.” “ No, no,” shrieks Isaacs; “ he shan’t have her. Send
that preposterous fellow back to his grave, and tell him to lie
there quietly, without plaguing his old neighbours, or there’ll be
a breach of the peace, Mr. Jesus.” Let us draw a veil over the
dreadful scene.
It has been doubted whether Jesus actually died on the cross.
Crucifixion was very slow murder to a man in the prime of life.
The victims sometimes lingered for days, perishing at last from
sheer exhaustion. Jesus was only on the cross for a few hours,
and when Joseph of Arimathsea applied for the body “Pilate
marvelled if he were already dead.” This is Mark’s version.
John, however, says that he was hastily removed with the two
thieves, “ that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on
the Sabbath day.” Considering these facts, some have held that
Jesus did not die then, that the resurrection and ascension were
“ a plant,” arranged between him and the disciples, and that
he retired to an Essenian monastery, where he spent the
remainder of his days in quiet obscurity.
Matthew describes the burial. Joseph of Arimathsea, lays the
body in a new tomb, rolls a big stone against the entrance, and
goes home to supper. In that sepulchre Jesus performed the
marvellous feat of remaining three days between Friday night
and Sunday morning. Perhaps he reckoned the nights as over
time, but even then his arithmetic was rather elastic.
. While Jesus was putting in three days’time between Friday
night and Sunday morning, the chief priests and Pharisees were
also acting in an extraordinary way. They went and told Pilate
�158
A Rising God.
that Jesus had promised to rise again after three days, and
asked him to take precautions against his disciples’ playing thepart of body-snatchers. He gave them a watch of soldiers, and
they made the sepulchre still surer by sealing the stone. But in
the night there was another earthquake ; an angel flew down
from heaven and rolled back the stone, sat on it, and frightened
the keepers into fits. In the confusion Jesus picked himself up
and walked off to borrow a suit of clothes. The watch then
went and told the chief priests and elders, who gave them “large
money,” asked them to say that the disciples came by night and
stole the body while they slept, and promised to make it all
right with Pilate.
Was there ever a sillier story? The big-wigs of Jerusalem
had executed Jesus as “a deceiver.” Surely, then, when they
found he was not, when they learnt that he had angels in his
retinue and was lord of death, they would have trembled with
fear, and repented in sackcloth and ashes. Deceiving the people
in this extremity was simply asinine, for that would be no pro
tection against him. Nor is it likely that the soldiers would say
they had slept at their posts, when it was an offence punishable
with death. The promise to pacify Pilate was all fudge, for the
Governor and the Sanhedrim lived in a constant state of mutual
enmity. Regard it how you will, this story is absurd. It is the
work of a man who knew nothing ahout the political and social
condition of Jerusalem.
But this is not all. How did the priests come to know that
Jesus prophesied his resurrection? His very disciples were
ignorant of the fact (John xx., 9) and how could the priests be
aware of what was unknown to them ? Fortunately, there is a
little sentence in Matthew’s narrative which throws a flood of
light on the whole affair. The saying that the disciples stole the
body, he says, “ is commonly reported among the Jews until this
day.” Until this day ! Does not this show that the story was
written long after date ? Does it not allow scope for the
introduction of any quantity of legend and mythology ?
.The contradictions of the four gospels now come fast and
thick. In their stories of the visit to the sepulchre, of Christ’s
first appearance, of his subsequent interviews with his disciples,,
and of his final ascension to heaven, they differ hopelessly. Such
conflicting evidence would be laughed out of any court of law,
and shall it be accepted in the high court of reason ? These
inspired writers scarcely agree on a single point, while their dis
agreements are numerous and essential. I cannot deal with them
all, but I select a few typical cases.
Matthew brings two women to the tomb, Mary Magdalene and
“ the other Mary.” Mark brings these two with a third called
Salome. Luke ignores Salome, and brings a third called Joanna,
with “ other women ” whose names are not mentioned. John
brings Mary Magdalene alone. Here is gospel harmony for youf
However, they all agree that mad Mary Magdalene was there if
�A Rising God.
159
anybody was. Jesus had cast seven devils out of her ; in other
words, she was afflicted with hysteria; and it is quite possible
that she invented the whole story of the resurrection, and forced
it on the disciples by mere force of impudence and iteration.
Matthew says there was an earthquake, and that an angel
rolled away the stone and sat on it. Mark says the women saw
no angel, but the stone was rolled away, and on looking in they
saw a young man in white. Luke also omits the angel, but he
places two men in shiny suits in the sepulchre. John merely
says that they found the sepulchre open, without seeing any
angel or man, although two angels were there afterwards when
Mary Magdalene came the second time. The wonder is that the
crazy creature did not see a million.
Matthew says that Jesus appeared first to the women. Mark
says that he appeared to Mary Magdalene alone. Luke says that
his first appearance was to two of the disciples as they were
walking to Emmaus. John agrees for once with Mark.
Matthew says that the angel told the disciples to go into
Galilee, where they should see their Master; and Mark agrees
with him. Luke omits this message, and keeps the disciples in
Jerusalem. John also omits the message, although he takes
Jesus and the disciples to Galilee. And right on the heels of
John pomes the Acts, stating that Jesus and his disciples never
went into Galilee at all, but that he expressly “ commanded them
that they should not depart from Jerusalem.”
Gospel harmony is like Dutch harmony, in which each man
sings his own tune, without caring a curse for his neighbors.
We have had some good illustrations already, but they are tame
to those that follow.
The gospels differ as to the subsequent appearances of Christ
as well as about the first. Matthew says that he appeared only
■once, just before going aloft. A lark says he appeared three
times : to the women, to two disciples as they walked, and to the
eleven. Luke says he appeared twice : to the two pedestrians,
and to the eleven in a room. John says he appeared four times :
to Mary Magdalene, to the disciples in a room without Thomas,
to the same again with Thomas, and to the same once more at
Tiberias. John only tells the dramatic story of doubting Thomas
Didymus, and of course he is the only evangelist who introduces
the spear-thrust. It was necessary that when sceptical Tom
wanted to plunge his hand in his Savior s entrails, he should find
a ready-made hole.
When Jesus appeared to the eleven in a third-floor back he
must have floated through the door or crept through the keyhole.
Yet he gave them ocular and palpable proof that he was not a
spirit, but good solid flesh and bone. Luke and John both make
him eat broiled fish and honeycomb with his disciples, the un
digested remnants of which he appears to have carried in his
stomach to heaven.
I now come to the Ascension, or the flight of the Jerusalem
�160
A Rising God.
ghost. Of course the Christians were obliged to get rid of their
“ resurrected ” Savior in some way. They could not produce him
when people began to inquire, and so they had to account for his
disappearance. Only one resource was possible. They reported
that he had “ gone up.” But they did this in the clumsiest fashion,
and their various accounts are a remarkable instance of “ gospel
harmony.” Matthew (that is, the first gospel; for Matthew had
as much to do with it as the man in the moon) does not even
narrate the ascension. He vaguely hints that Jesus evanesced
after appearing to the eleven disciples who were left after Judas
stretched his own neck, up “ a mountain ” somewhere in Galilee.
John (or the fourth gospel) breaks off with a fine piece of bun
combe, and leaves Jesus flitting about in the world like a dis
consolate bat. The whole positive story of the ascension lies
between Mark and Luke. Luke says that Jesus ascended from
Bethany, a short distance from Jerusalem, on the very day of his
resurrection, or, at the latest, the next morning. Mark, on the
contrary, without any precision as to time, distinctly states that
he ascended from Galilee, at least sixty miles from Jerusalem.
It cannot be said that they agree as to time ; it can certainly be
said that they differ as to place ; and this difference puts them
both out of court until one or the other can find a corroborating
witness. There is only one more witness to examine—the anony
mous author of the undated “ Acts of the Apostles.” He agrees
With Mark as to the place, but differs from both Mark and Luke
as to the time ; for he plainly says that Jesus spent forty days (off
and on) with his disciples before levitating through the clouds.
There is a significant statement in this last account. Jesus
was “taken up, and a cloud received him out of their sight.”
That is, he was lost in a cloud, just as they were. With a little
licence in metaphor, we might say that the whole thing concluded
in smoke. And this is the end of the Rising God.
PRICE ONE PENNY.
Printed and Published by Ramse^ and Foote, at 28 Stonecutter Street, E.O.j
�BIBLE ROMANCES—XXI.
THE BIBLE MENAGERIE.
By G. W. FOOTE.
Menageries are delightful places to visit. The objects of the
show are not only interesting but alive. It is not art but nature.
The animals do not keep one posture and a fixed gaze. They
exhibit the varying emotions of conscious vitality, in limbs,
features and eyes. Unfortunately, however, the Bible menagerie
is cold and dead. Many of its specimens, it is true, belong to
species which still inhabit the earth; but others alas! are with
out any living counterparts, and there are sceptics wicked enough
to suggest that they are artificial products of a pious imagination.
The first animals specifically mentioned in the Bible are
“ great whales.” God made a quantity of these on the fifth day
of creation out of the same material from which he manufactured
everything else, namely Nothing. The Revised Bible calls them
“ great sea-monsters.” Calvin translates the Hebrew word tannin
as tunny fish. Patrick thinks it means the crocodile, and Adam
Clarke any large aquatic animal. What a beautifully clear
language Hebrew is, and what a happy family are the commen-,
tators!
Job is supposed to refer to one of these “great whales ” in his
fantastic description of leviathan, a creature which the Revised
Bible degrades into a crocodile. Rabbi Kimchi says it is the
same animal mentioned in the Creation story, and the largest
fish in the sea. But whether leviathan was a whale or a crocodile
there are no specimens of either now extant in the least resem
bling Job’s, with its “comely proportions,” its pyrotechnic
“neesings,” its eyes “like the eyelids of the morning,” and its
breath that could light a fire without matches. The author of
the Book of Job was a poet, and he seems to have used all the
license of his tribe in this piece of description. If he were
alive now he might earn a good living by drawing up the adver
tisements for Wombwell’s menagerie or the Bank Holidav
announcements for “the Zoo.”
J
A still more distinguished member of the “ great whale ” family
was the interesting mammal that so obligingly took in Mr. Jonah
out of the wet, when he was literally about to perish from water
on the brain. We have already related the prophet’s adventures
and.at present we are only concerned with his three-days’ com
panion. How the hospitable creature got Mr. Jonah down is a
debateable question. Without a miracle, the gullet of a whale
will only accommodate an ordinary herring. What a distention its
poor throat must have suffered! In every way it was a frightful
�162
The Bible Menagerie.
stretch. The Talmudic writers give many interesting details of
this animal’s character. They say it possessed seven eyes, one for
every day in the week. They also assert that it was a male, and
that Mr. Jonah, finding its entrails rather restricted, besought
Jehovah to change his quarters. He was then transferred to a
female; but as she was in an interesting condition, Mr. Jonah
found his accommodation still more limited; and he was therefore
compelled to ask Jehovah to shift him back to his original apart
ments. Whether male or female, the poor whale must have been
sadly punished by entertaining a man in its belly for three days
and nights. What a horrid stoppage of the bowels! There was
plenty of emetic in the shape of salt water, but it would not
operate until the Lord’s time was come. Some Arabic writers,
in opposition to Jesus Christ and the book of Jonah, assign forty
days, instead of three, as the period of Mr. Jonah’s residence in
the whale’s interior. The supposition is too cruel. Anyhow, it
was a wonderful fish ; and any aquarium that possessed one like
it, as well as a preacher who could stand being swallowed and
vomited, would soon make a large fortune. There might be a
performance twice a week, and man and whale could have
Sunday to themselves for rest and devotion.
The Book of Jonah describes the animal that took him for a
deep-sea excursion as “ a great fish,” and Bochart and other
commentators have opined that it was a shark, some of that
species being quite capable of swallowing and containing a man.
But sharks have an awkward habit of “ chawing” with their for
midable rows of teeth ; and Mr. Jonah’s condition, after passing
that ghastly barricade, would defy surgery. Fortunately we have
the authority of Jesus Christ for saying that the animal was a
whale. Yet this makes the Bible contradict science or itself, for
a whale is not a fish, although it lives in the sea.
Mr. Adam and Mrs. Eve are the next animals the Bible
mentions. One was made out of mud, and the other out of a
spare rib. Both were modelled like their maker, who is there
fore, we presume, bisexual. With the scripture in their hands,
the Christian priests still maintain that man is the image of God.
If the Almighty is like some of them he is very ugly. Mr.
Adam doubtless differed a good deal from the men of to-day.
He lived nine hundred and thirty years, and according to Jewish
tradition he was several hundred feet long. His skeleton, if it is
ever discovered, will tax the resources of our largest museums.
The Bible menagerie is well supplied with serpents. One of
these is a truly remarkable creature. It held a conversation
with Mrs. Eve, and introduced her to the forbidden fruit. She
was not at all astonished at its powers of speech, and we may infer
that serpents talked in those days. God was asleep or off duty
at the time. When he discovered the serpent’s trick, he cursed
it, dooming it to go upon its belly and eat dust all the days of its
life. Clearly, therefore, Mrs. Eve’s serpent must have peram-
�The Bible Menagerie.
163
bulated on its back, its head, or its tail; unless we allow, with
Josephus, that it walked on legs, besides possessing a human
voice. Adam Clarke, in a learned disquisition on the many
renderings of the Hebrew machash, concludes that it means an
ape, and perhaps an orang-outang. What a pity the world has
lost the primitive zoological dictionary! It was compiled by Mr.
Adam, who gave names to every beast of the field and every fowl of
the air as the Lord paraded them before the grand stand. No doubt
the volume was ornamented with cuts by the old man or one
of the boys, who had plenty of leisure for the work. If it
existed now, it would not only be the most precious of ancient
relics, but throw a clarifying light on the vexed question
whether Mrs. Eve succumbed to a serpent or a monkey.
Mrs. Eve’s tempter is not the only talking animal in the
Bible menagerie. There is at least another, namely Balaam’s
ass, whose exploits we have already narrated. This four-legged
wonder, like most asses, had a faculty for seeing angels. The
Lord opened its mouth, as he has the mouth of many an ass
since. From this fact we judge it was not a loquacious animal,
like its modern successors. According to the story, its elo
quence required to be stimulated with a stick: an excellent
hint to congregations that are troubled with a dull preacher.
Recurring to serpents, the Lord sent some fiery ones to bite
the Jews for murmuring against his commissariat. The bite of
this reptile was mortal to “ much people.” Some of them, how
ever, recovered by a sort of homoeopathic treatment. They looked
at a serpent of brass stuck on a pole, and were healed. We
commend this remedy to the attention of the British Govern
ment in India. It would probably save the lives of thousands of
Hindoos. Should there be any difficulty in finding a brazen
serpent, any Christian church or Missionary Society could easily
furnish one, and between them they might supply every district
with one of its own. We may add that the fiery serpents in
Numbers are serpentine seraphim. They are mentioned by Paul
(Hebrews i., 7), and by Isaiah (vi., 2), who locates them with
the Lord of Hosts and gives them hands and speech. God’s
command to Moses is not “ Make thee a fiery serpent,” as
the Bible renders it, but “Make thee a seraph.” The whole
legend is probably connected with animal worship. The Egyp
tians adored the ibis, the cat and the crocodile, and the Jews who
had resided in the Nile valley were naturally infected with the
same superstition. When Jehovah and Moses had apparently
ended in smoke at Mount Sinai, the chosen people called on
Aaron to make them a new god, and he obligingly made them a
golden calf (out of their metal, of course, not Ais), which they
danced round naked, to the great disgust of Moses, although he
had just viewed the Lord’s seat of honor. Aaron’s calf is very
suggestive of the Egyptian worship of Apis. The Jews have had
a sneaking fondness for the golden calf ever since. Even so late
�164
The Bible Menagerie.
as the reign of Jeroboam (1 Kings xii., 28, 29) they worshipped
two golden calves at Dan and Beth-el, and the brazen serpent
remained till the time of Hezekiah. According to the Bible
(2 Kings xviii., 4) it was the original article manufactured by
Moses. Hem I
J
Related to the fiery serpents are the dragons which are men*
tioned fourteen times in the Bible. The best description we
know of this fabulous monster is in the eleventh Canto of the
first Book of Spenser’s “ Faerie Queene ”; a work no less romantic
than the Bible, and far more delightful. Dragons could walk or
fly; their shape was something like a lizard’s ; they were covered
with hard scales ; their tails were long and powerful; they had
“ deep devouring jaws ” with several ranks of terrible teeth;
and their claws were viciously keen and strong. Fourteen
times does the word of God certify to this animal’s existence,
and who shall eliminate it from the Bible menagerie ? Perish
the thought! Whoever doubts the existence of dragons is an
unbeliever, and all unbelievers shall have their portion in the
lake that burneth with brimstone and fire.
The most remarkable dragon was the one seen by St. John in
his holy nightmare. It was “ a great red dragon, having seven
heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. And his
tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them
to the earth. AVhat a tail! And what a tale ! St. John shines
forth as the boss stretcher, and O Arabian Nights and Baron
Munchausen, hide your diminished heads.
Another flying animal is the Columba Paracletus, the holy dove
or pigeon, the third person of the blessed Trinity—in short the
Holy Ghost. It moved over the face of the waters in the reign
of “ Chaos and old Night,” and visited the Virgin Mary after the
manner of Ledas swan. Jove, however, like his bird, was the
more powerful, or his mistress was the more fruitful; for twins
sprang from his embrace, while Jahveh’s only produced a lacka
daisical youth with corkscrew curls.
Flying also, and serpentine, is the cockatrice, -which the
Revised Bible has changed to a basilisk, although they are the
same thing.. This marvellous creature is several times mentioned
in holy writ. Sir Thomas Browne makes it the subject of a
chapter in his “ Vulgar Errors.” “ Such an animal there is,” he
says, “ if we evade not the testimony of Scripture.” The quaint
and learned old doctor gives a list of profane writers who have
mentioned it, from Pliny to Scaliger, and gravely asserts on the
latter’s authority that “ a basilisk was found at Rome in the days
of Leo the Fourth.” The modern basilisk, according to Browne,
“ is generally described with legs, wings, a serpentine and winding
tail, and a crest or comb somewhat like a cock. But the basilisk
of elder times was a proper kind of serpent, not above three
palms long.” Winged or not, it had two peculiarities. It killed
with its glances, and it was hatched by a toad or a serpent from
�The Bible Menagerie.
165
a cock’s egg. We should like to see such a cock. It would be
*
a knowing old bird. The only cock, in our opinion, likely to do
the feat, was the one that crowed at Peter ; and we daresay the
apostle would share our view of that astonishing fowl.
It is certainly surprising that the Bible menagerie should
contain a cockatrice, but we need not wonder at the ancient
Jews believing in the existence of such a creature, for Mr. B. H.
Cowper justly remarks that “ The race of Rabbis delighted in
creating animals otherwise unknown in heaven above or earth
below.”f They sported a wild cock, whose feet rested on the
earth while its head touched heaven ; and a bird called the zig,
of such magnitude, that when it spread out its wings it caused
an eclipse of the sun. Another extraordinary fowl was so colossal
that one of its eggs, dropping on the earth, submerged sixty
villages, and broke down three hundred cedars. Eggs like that
would be dirt cheap at thirteenpence a dozen.
Among the unclean animals forbidden to the Jews by the
Levitical law were “ fowls that creep, going upon all four.” These
four-legged birds would be very interesting to the ornithologist.
Two verses farther (Leviticus xi., 21) we are introduced to
creeping things “which have legs above their feet.” What a
delightful novelty it would be to discover some of the creeping
things, suggested by this text, with their feet above their legs I
Locusts, beetles and grasshoppers are not considered edible now,
but Moses recommended them to the Jews. Yet he prohibited
jugged hare on the ground that the hare “cheweth the cud”
and is therefore unclean. This is one of the Mistakes of Moses.
The hare is not a ruminant. No doubt the inspired penman
observed that the hare has a habit of moving its jaws when,
resting, and thus fell in to a very natural error. But why did not the
Lord set him straight on this point? And why also (we may
inquire) did the Lord take so much trouble in the time of Moses
to decide what animals were clean and what unclean, when the
distinction was well known before the Flood ? (Gen. vii., 2).
May we not, after all, conclude that the Levitical law with
respect to clean and unclean animals was borrowed from Egypt?
Porphyry tells us that “ the Egyptian priests abstained from the
flesh of all solid-hoofed quadrupeds, which had toes and no
horns, and from all birds of prey and from fish.” Lane says that
the modern Egyptians will not eat fish without scales. According
to Josephus, Manetho accused the Jews of being turned out of
* So late as 1710 the French Academy received a memoir from
M. Lapeyronie, of Montpellier, on some “ cock’s eggs ” brought to him
by a farmer. Some learned blockheads examined one, and found no
yolk, but a colored particle in the centre, which they took to be the
young serpent. The cock was dissected, but the farmer brought
more eggs. They were laid by his hens 1
f Article on the Talmud, Journal of Sacred Literature, Jan. 1868
�166
The Bible Menagerie.
Egypt because they were leprous and impure. Pig’s flesh was
said to promote skin disease, and the Jews were stringently for
bidden to touch it. Abstention from pork has ever since been a
prune article of their faith. But whose were those swine into
which Jesus sent a legion of devils? Perhaps the animals were
bred for the export trade, as the Jew butchers in Russia sell
ke slier meat to their co-religionists and dispose of all the
bad to the Gentiles. Yet the miracle was rather rough
on the unfortunate porkers, and Jesus Christ evidently did not
agree with Charles Lamb on the subject of Roast Pig.
Among the very small animals, smaller than locusts, beetles
and grasshoppers, the Lord’s peculiar favorite is the louse ; and
perhaps it was for this reason that the pious genius of Robert
Burns immortalised the creature. The magicians of Egypt kept
up with Messrs. Moses and Aaron in their first three perform
ances. They turned their rods into serpents; after all the water
in Egypt was turned into blood, they turned the rest into blood;
and they brought up frogs galore as well as their opponents.
But when the Hebrew conjurors turned all the dust of Egypt
into lice, the native magicians gave up the competition. “ This
is the finger of God,” they cried. They recognised his trade
mark. When they saw the lice they knew the Lord was shaking
himself to some purpose.
We come now to the cherubim, a curious kind of fowl, gene
rally depicted by Bible illustrators with plenty of head and no
tail, all stem and no stern. They are graphically described by
Ezekiel (x., 12, 14). They had four faces, which is twice as many
as some Christians have; a cherub’s, a man’s, a lion’s and an
eagle’s. Their bodies, backs, hands and wings were covered with
eyes, so that there was no getting round them. Saint Tohn
(Revelation iv., 6—8) improves upon Ezekiel by splitting this
composite creature into four separate ones, omitting the cherub
however, and substituting a calf. These four beasts have six
wings each, and are “ full of eyes before and behind.” They
are a sort of body-guard to the Lord, and protect his throne
against Republicans and Socialists. No doubt they face the in
habitants of the New Jerusalem, and turn their many-eyed pos
teriors to their sovereign, who probably dotted them with optics
in that quarter to break the monotony and give the surface an
air of intelligence. We presume it would be blasphemy to com
pare these creatures with Argus of the Greek mythology, who
had a hundred eyes, only two of which slept at a time. What a
price Barnum would give for a couple of cherubim I He might
sell Jumbo and the white elephant, and make a magnificent
fortune on the Hebrew wonder. Walk up, walk up ! ladies and
gentlemen; see the four-headed marvel with one leg and two
million eyes, just purchased at immense cost from Messrs. Ezekiel
and St. John, head keepers of the Bible menagerie, and warranted
by the Pope of Rome and the Archbishop of Canterbury.
�The Bible Menagerie.
167
We dare say Barnum would offer a good price for a pair of
unicorns. This animal is mentioned seven times in the Bible.
Daniel’s bear (vii., 5) with three ribs in its mouth, would also be
a catch; or one of Isaiah’s satyrs (xiii., 21) which the Revised
Bible rashly changes into he-goats ; or the horses of fire, like the
flaming steeds of Apollo, that carried Elijah to heaven ; or
Aaron’s blooming rod that turns into a serpent and swallows
other reptiles like greased lightning. A few specimens from
what Heine calls the Menagerie of the Apocalypse would also be
a great attraction. The Son of Man (i., 13-16) with white woolly
hair, brass feet, a voice like a cataract, and fiery eyes, doing the
sword trick. The lamb (v., 6) with seven horns and seven eyes.
The locusts (ix., 7-10) shaped like horses, with men’s faces,
women’s hair, lion’s teeth, scorpion’s tails, iron breast-plates and
golden crowns. The leopard (xiii., 1, 2) with bear’s feet, a lion’s
mouth, seven heads and ten horns. To these curiosities might
be added one of the antediluvian giants (Genesis vi., 4). These
personages undoubtedly existed, although the Revised Bible is
ashamed of them, and hides them behind the Hebrew Nephilim.
They are such monsters (Numbers xiii., 33) that ordinary men look
like grasshoppers beside them. There might also be included
a specimen or two of those hardy Egyptian cattle that were
first killed by the murrain, then plagued with boils, and after
wards killed again with fiery hail (Exodus ix).
Behemoth might likewise have figured in the collection, if it
had not been degraded into a commonplace character in the
Revised Bible. Our juvenile imagination was inflamed by the
extraordinary description in the fortieth chapter of Job.
“ Behold now behemoth,” exclaims the Lord, and we pictured an
animal as big as a cathedral. Alas for the romantic fancies of
youth! Behemoth turns out to be merely our old friend the
hippopotamus. It must, however, have suffered an alteration since
the days of Job, for we do not find at present that “his force is
in the navel of his belly.”
We may here observe that many animals in the Bible menaferie. are wrongly ticketed, especially those in the eleventh of
ieviticus. The eagle should be the vufiure, the vulture the kite,
the kite the red kite, the owl the ostrich, the nighthawk the owl,
the cuckow the gull, the ferret the gecko, the chameleon the
frog, the mole, the chameleon, the bittern, the porcupine, the
swan the ibis, the heron the grasshopper. At least this is what
we gather from the Revised Bible and the commentators.
There is a dog in the Bible menagerie but it is treated with
great contempt. “By the law,” says Cruden, “it was declared
unclean, and was very much despised among the Jews: the most
offensive expression they could use, was to compare a man to a
dead dog.” What disgusting ingratitude to one of man’s best
friends! The dog has played an important part in the history
of civilisation, and is held in esteem by nearly every people
�168
The Bible Menagerie.
except the Jews. The Zend Avesta enjoins kindness to our
•canine companions, because he who made man made the dog
also. Compare this with Paul’s selfish exclamation “ Doth God
care for oxen?” (1 Corinthians ix., 9). Before Christians are
able to display any care for the lower animals, they must neglect
the teachings of the Bible, and expel the virus of Judaism from
their blood. The most noble and pathetic lines on a dog in the
English language were written by the sceptical Byron.
The last animals we can refer to in the Bible menagerie are
angels. What their exact shape is no man knoweth, but as they
are usually represented with wings, we may regard them as a
species of fowl; although, curiously enough, Jacob saw them, in
his dream, climbing a ladder. But perhaps, as the schoolboy
said, it was moulting time, and the angels were disabled
from flying. According to the Psalms (lxxviii, 24, 25) they
live on manna, a large supply of which was sent down to the
wandering Jews from the heavenly larder. They are not, how
ever, incapable of eating a meat dinner, for two of them (Genesis
xviii.) sat down with Abraham and the Lord to a succulent
repast of roast veal. But there is no such savory dish in heaven ;
the menu is most monotonous—manna for breakfast, manna for
dinner, manna for tea, and manna for supper. No wonder the
Jews tired of it, and longed for the fleshpots of Egypt. Add
to this that angels have no sex, and neither marry nor give in
marriage, and you will be able to form some idea of the happy
prospect in store for you when you join the heavenly band.
It is true that the sons of God, in Genesis, who saw the daughters
of men that they were fair, have been regarded as angels by
some subtle commentators, who could see as far into a millstone
as most of their neighbors ; and undoubtedly there is a good deal
to be said for the conjecture. But, on the other hand, nobody is
bound to believe it; and, besides, even if angels went courting
in those days, there may have been a revolution in their physi
ology since, or the Lord, being a jealous God, may have un
manned his courtiers, to prevent their fawning on any objects
but himself. From the language of Jesus Christ and the revela
tion of Saint John, we infer that Paradise is filled with angelic
•eunuchs, eating manna **and singing psalms for ever and ever.
Oh what must it be to be there 1
PRICE ONE PENNY.
Printed and Published by G. W. Foote, at 28 Stonecutter Street, London.
�BIBLE ROMANCES.—XXII.
THE CRUCIFIXION.
By G. W, FOOTE.
------- ♦------The poet Wordsworth pictures a “fingering slave,” so eager in
the pursuit of science, and so lost to all sense of decency, that
he “ would peep and botanise upon his mother’s grave.” There
are also many orthodox Christians who will start at the idea of
the Crucifixion of their blessed Savior being included in these
Bible Romances. Nothing is sacred to a sapper, says the French
song; and these irate believers will exclaim that nothing is sacred
to a, Freethinker. Some of them will go farther and indulge in
■epithets and expletives that leave Wordsworth’s reprobation far
behind. Let me, however, beseech my ruffled critics to pause
and reflect. I do not propose to laugh at the Crucifixion, or to
treat it as a subject for jest; for the tragedies of life are truly
sacred, whether enacted in a palace or a cottage, or under the
infinite cope of heaven. I would no more mock Jesus on his
■cross than I would mock Prometheus on his rock. My purpose
is different. I wish to show that the Gospel story of the Cruci
fixion is pure romance from beginning to end; that the evangelists
are hopelessly at variance with each other; that their narratives
betray a gross ignorance of Jewish law and custom; and that
if Jesus Christ did “ suffer under Pontius Pilate,” there is no
authentic history of how and why his sufferings were inflicted.
My space does not allow me to go into all the details of this sub
ject ; I shall therefore be obliged to deal with its broad features
and salient points.
According to the story, why did Jesus go to Calvary ? Hix
preaching, miracles and popularity, had excited the enmity of the
priests. These Jerusalem sky-pilots knew he was master of Life and
lord of Death, for they were apprised of his having raised corpses
from the tomb, and restored them to their old board and lodging.
Yet, with these facts before their eyes, or in their minds, they
sought to put the miracle-worker himself out of the way ; and a
greater marvel still, they succeeded in doing it. He was per
fectly well-known, yet they paid one of his disciples to point him
out; and they arrested him in the garden of Gethsemane, although
the mere sound of his voice flung his apprehenders on their baeks.
Nay more, when peppery Peter drew a sword, and cut off an ear
of one of them, Jesus actually picked it up and fastened it on
again. Most men would be inclined to let such a miraculous person
alone; but those obstinate Jews persisted in their design in
�170
The Crucifixion.
spite of heaven and hell. They were always a stiff-necked and
perverse people.
i Matthew, Mark and Luke, represent Jesus as brought before
Caiaphas for examination, while John places the trial in the house
of Annas. Whichever place we take, the story is equally incred
ible. The Judges who were trying the culprit would certainly
not walk about the room with the witnesses, the servants, and
the crowd ; much less would they spit upon and revile ’him.
There remains a still more fatal objection. Jesus could not have
j been tried by priests, whether they were high or low. Let us
; hear a learned Jewish rabbi on this point“ The whole trial
from the beginning to the end, is contrary to Jewish law and
custom as in force at the time of Jesus. No court of justice
with jurisdiction in penal cases could or ever did hold its session
in the place of the high priest. There were three legal bodies in
Jerusalem to decide penal cases : the great Sanhedrim, of seventyone members, and the two minor Sanhedrim, each of twenty-three
members . The court of priests had no penal jurisdiction except
in the affairs of the temple service, and then over priests and
Levites only.”*
How then,. Christians will ask, did the Jewish writers of the
Gospels fall into such a glaring error ? The answer is simpleThe Gospels were not written by disciples of Jesus, or by Jews
at all. They were composed in Greek, nobody knows where
. or by whom, more than a hundred years after the alleged Cruci
fixion.!
The subsequent trial before Pilate is also full of fancies. We
pass by the absurd statement that the Roman governor at Jeru
salem sent a prisoner to Herod who ruled in Galilee merely
because. the man was born there; which is as silly as the
supposition that a Frenchman who committed a murder in
England would be sent for trial to Paris. Pilate’s wife sent to
her husband on the judgment-seat to say that she had suffered
a bad dream about Jesus, and that he was innocent and should
be acquitted. A very likely message to a Roman governor in
the reign of Tiberius ! Pilate himself “ finds no fault ” in Jesus,
and afterwards sentences him to death. Another likely circum
stance ! He exculpates himself by washing his hands in public,
to symbolise his guiltlessness of the man’s blood, and to throw it
upon the Jews. What transparent absurdity! Such an act
would be meaningless to a Roman, and it was more than Pilate’s
life was worth to show such contempt for the imperial law.
Tiberius would have whipped off his head in a jiffy.
* Rabbi Wise, “ Martyrdom of Jesus of Nazareth," p. 66.
t “ There is no evidence that either the Gospels, the Acts of the
Apostles, or the other writings, as we have them, existed within a
hundred and twenty years after the Crucifixion.’’—Rev. Dr. Giles
“ Christian Records,” p. 9.
�The Crucifixion.
171
When did the Crucifixion occur ? Matthew, Mark and Luke,
distinctly assert that Jesus had already eaten of the Passover.
The festival had therefore begun. But this exposes the evangelists’
ignorance of Jewish customs. Rabbi Wise says that “ In the
first place, the Jews did no public business on that day; had no
court sessions, no trials, and certainly no executions on any
Sabbath or feast day. And in the second place, the first day of
the Passover never was on a Friday, and never can be, according
to the established principles of the Jewish calendar.”*
The fourth Gospel is later than the other three, and the work of
a more learned pen. The author silently corrects his predecessors’
mistake, and makes Joseph of Arimathsea bury Jesus before the
Passover begins.
The evangelists differ as to the hour of execution. According
to Matthew and Mark, Jesus gave up the ghost about the ninth
hour, or three o’clock in the afternoon ; and Mark states definitely
that Jesus was crucified about the third hour, or nine o’clock in
the morning. According to Luke, however, the trial did not
begin till the morning after the arrest; and there must have been
a very sharp despatch of business to get Jesus nailed up by nine
o’clock. John is even more irreconcileable with the other writers,
for he distinctly says that Pilate’s court was still sitting at mid
day, three hours after Jesus (according to Mark) was on the
cross.
According to John, Jesus carried his own cross from the
preetorium to the place of execution. But Matthew, Mark and
Luke, say that, owing to his prostrate condition, it had to be
carried for him by Simon of Cyrene. The Lord only knows who
Simon was. From the narrative as it stands, without any other
light, he appears to have turned up promiscuously, as such handy
people always do in romances. One of the early Christian sects,
the Basilidians, made this utility-man play a further part in the
drama. They denied that Jesus was crucified in person, and
asserted that he only suffered by proxy, poor Simon having been
tucked up in his stead. /That profane wit, the Rev. Robert,
Taylor, imagines a conversation between the original and the
substitute. Simon reproves Jesus for letting him be crucified ;
it was carrying the simulation a great deal too far. But Jesus
replies “ Oh no, Simon, my boy ; you may as well die for me as I
for you.”
We may add that Muhammed evidently accepted the heretical
notion of some victim having suffered for Jesus. A phantom
or a criminal, the Kuran says, was substituted on the cross,
and the innocent Jesus was translated into the seventh heaven.
Another Christian idea was that Judas Iscariot had to act as
proxy. This is a funnier notion, and involves a sort of poetical
justice. It might be called “ Judas for Jesus, or the biter bit.”
* “ Origin of Christianity,” p. 30.
�172
The Crucifixion.
The Synoptics represent Jesus as failing under the burden of
the cross, and Christian artists picture him tottering, with a great
wooden structure on his shoulders, heavy enough to tax the
strength of a giant. But this is all imagination. What the
prisoner had to carry was not the upright part, which was a
fixture at the place of execution, but simply the cross-piece, or
patibulum; and the obligation was imposed, not as a physical
labor, but as a moral indignity.
—
There have been hot disputes whether the feet as well as the
hands of Jesus were nailed to the cross. Some rationalists have
contended that he did not actually die, and his feet being
uninjured, he was able to walk about after “ the resurrection.”
But Luke (xxiv., 39) makes Jesus show the disciples his hands
and feet to prove his authenticity. John, however, omits the
feet, and mentions the hands and side. But John was up to
something, as we shall see presently.
Pilate set an inscription on the cross in three languages, and
the evangelists read it so clearly that they write it in four different
ways. Matthew says it was “This is Jesus the King of the
Jews.” Mark says it was “ The King of the Jews.” Luke says
it was “This is the King of the Jews.” John says it was “ Jesus
of Nazareth the King of the Jews.” This is a beautiful instance
of Gospel Harmony. Anybody can see that Matthew, Mark,
Luke and John, were inspired to write the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth.
Three hundred years after the Crucifixion, the very cross on
which Jesus suffered was found by St. Helena, the mother of
Constantine, together with the crosses that bore the two thieves.
The novel explorer was turned eighty, and very much in her
dotage. She went to Jerusalem on purpose to find the cross,
and it was not likely that the bishop and his clergy would let her
go away disappointed. The authentic nature of Christ’s cross
was shown by its working miracles, while the others were no
more efficacious than ordinary wood. Helena took a part of the
true cross to Constantine ; the rest she enclosed in a silver box,
and left in care of the bishop of Jerusalem, who periodically
exhibited it to the faithful, for a consideration. Afterwards little
bits of it were sold, and in a short space of time the sacred wood
was “ spread all over the earth.” To account for this extra
ordinary distribution, it was asserted that the true cross was like
the widow’s cruse of oil; the more there was taken from it the
more there was left. Calvin said that if all the pieces in Europe
were collected into a heap, they would form a good shipload.
Crowds of monkish pedlars lived on the cross, who never could
live on the square.
The historians of Saint Helena’s lucky “ find ” say that the
true cross bore the very title affixed to it by Pilate. Yet by some
unfortunate accident the clergy of Jerusalem omitted to copy it.
We are therefore unable to decide between the different versions
�The Crucifixion.
173
of the four evangelists. Alack and alack ! And now the age of I
miracles is flown, and the true cross, with many other pious relics,'
has melted into “ the infinite azure of the past.”
Crucifixion is said to have produced an agony of thirst, and
John makes Jesus suffer from this craving. “ I thirst,” cried the
victim, and they gave him a sponge full of vinegar; perhaps the
posca, or vinegar and water commonly drunk by the Roman
soldiers. The other evangelists mention a different concoction,
which was offered to Jesus as he reached Golgotha. Matthew
says it was vinegar and gall, while Mark says it was wine
mingled with myrrh ; two very delectable drinks.
According to Matthew and Mark, although Luke and John do
not mention the tremendous circumstance, Jesus shrieked on the
cross, Eli, Eli, lama sabacthani—My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me ? Whereupon, say the evangelists, some of the by
standers remarked “ This man calleth for Elias.’ Moonshine!
The writers were ignorant of Hebrew. If the by-standers were
Romans, they knew no more of Elias than of Tobit. If they
were Jews, they could not have confounded Eli with Elias,
for the words differ very widely in their pronunciation. The tag
to the exclamation is obviously the work of men who knew
nothing of Hebrew, who saw that Eli and Elias were alike to
the eye, without knowing how they differed to the ear.
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ? It is the first
verse of the twenty-second Psalm. What a terrible cry!
Abandoned by disciples, mocked by enemies, and forsaken by
God. Where are the legions of angels that should come to the
rescue ? Are all the armies of the ghosts no match for a com
pany of Roman soldiers? Blood trickles from the thorncrowned brow; the body strains against the cruel nails in the
gory hands and feet; the throat and lips are parched with
thirst; and overhead shines the implacable Syrian sun, every
beam like a sword of fire. There is no help on earth, and none
in heaven. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ?
Yet with this terrible cry ringing in their ears, the Chris
tians assert that the man who uttered it was “ very God of
very God.” Surely it is the dying exclamation of a deluded
enthusiast! And the speaker was of less heroic mould, if the
story be true, than many a martyr of liberty and progress.
Giordano Bruno languished for seven years in a loathsome dun
geon. He was tortured—no one knows how often—by the
fiends of the Inquisition. At length he was sentenced to be
burnt alive. But captivity had not broken his proud spirit,
and he said to his judges: “ I suspect you pronounce my
sentence with far more fear than I hear it.” The fire
shrivelled his body, and with inconceivable pangs turned the
noblest heart on earth to dust, but it could not wring a single
plaint from the scorching lips. Bruno stood alone against the
world with no hope of assistance from heaven, and no expectation
�174
The Crucifixion.
of a martyr’s crown. Truth was his goddess, and he served her
with a noble devotion. Unlike Christ, who quailed under the
frown of Death, he met it with a serene smile; for he had that
within him which Death might extinguish, but could not terrify
a daring fiery spirit that out-soared the malice of men, and out
shone the flames of the stake.
Various versions are also given of Jesus’s last words
According to John, he said “ It is finished ” immediately before
expiring; and hundreds of sermons have been preached on this
enigmatical sentence. According to Luke, however, he said
“ Father unto thy hands I commend my spirit.” Matthew and
Mark, on the other hand, simply say that he uttered a loud cry
and gave up the ghost. Another instance of Gospel,Harmony! J
Mark adds that a Roman centurion, who was standing by, when
he heard Jesus cry out, exclaimed “ Truly this man was the son
of God.” Whoever knew such a little evidence go such a‘very
long way ? Was there ever another man in the world so easily
satisfied ? The exclamation is simply impossible ; its meaning is
so absolutely foreign to the Roman mind. Matthew chronicles
the same event, but he throws in an earthquake and the
resurrection of “ many bodies of saints,” besides the loud cry of
Jesus, to account for the centurion's conviction.
Differences obtain also as to who were the friendly spectators
of the Crucifixion. Matthew says that Jesus was watched from
afar by Galilean women, who had traipsed after him to Jerusalem
including Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joses’
and the mother of Zebedee’s children, a female apparently with
out a name. Mark’s account is similar, but he introduces a lady
called Salome. Luke says that Jesus was followed by a great crowd
of both sexes. But John artistically excludes the tag-rag and
bob-tail. of true believers ; gets up a pathetic scene between
Jesus, his mother, and the beloved disciple ; and brings on
Mary Magdalene and another Mary to fill up the stage.
On the other hand, John’ barely alludes to the two malefactors
who were crucified with Jesus ; while Matthew and Mark made
them mock their companion. Luke works up a more striking
scene. One thief mocks Jesus, and is rebuked by the other ■
and the Savior as a reward for the man’s generosity, says, “ To
day thou shalt be with me in Paradise.” We wonder how Jesus
kept his promise. According to the Apostles’ Creed, he descended
into hell for three days after the Crucifixion, on which occasion
we presume, he “ preached to the spirits in prison.” After his
resurrection also, as we read in John, he forbade Mary Magdalene
to touch him, saying, “ For lam not yet ascended to my Father.”
On the whole, we conclude that, owing to a lapse of memory on the
part of Jesus, the penitent thief had to hang about the gates of
Paradise for forty days before he could walk in with Jesus.
John, or whoever was the author of the fourth Gospel, tells us
something else about these two thieves and Jesus. The Jews
�The Crucifixion.
175
requested Pilate to let all three be taken down before the Sabbath
began, and he dispatched some soldiers for that purpose. They
broke the legs of the two thieves, but finding Jesus already dead,
they left his continuations alone. One of them, however,
prodded him in the side with a spear, and “forthwith came there
out blood and water.” What arrant nonsense! If Jesus had
been dead for any time, the spear would have drawn no blood.
If he were alive, it would draw blood, but no water, unless he
suffered from dropsy.
Why did that soldier prod Jesus with his spear? And why is
not the incident related by the other evangelists ? Because
John required it as a preparation for another incident as to which
they are equally silent. After the Resurrection, Jesus desires
doubting Thomas Didymus to thrust his hand in his Savior’s side,
to satisfy himself that it was all correct. John introduces the
spear-thrust, which Matthew, Mark and Luke knew nothing of,
simply to have a hole ready for Tom’s fist.
Now we come to a matter on which John is silent while the
other three evangelists prattle. During the Crucifixion there
was darkness over all the land for the space of three hours. The
Pagan historians, as well as John, knew nothing of this marvellous
eclipse. It happened in the lifetime of Seneca and the elder
Pliny, each of whom, says Gibbon, “ in a laborious work has
recorded all the great phenomena of Nature, earthquakes, meteors,
comets and eclipses, which his indefatigable curiosity could
collect.” Yet these writers never heard of the supernatural dark
ness of the Passion. To meet this difficulty, the early Fathers
discovered a passage in Phlegon, which states that the greatest
eclipse ever known occurred in the two hundred and second
Olympiad. But, as Gibbon ironically observed, the passage “ is
now wisely abandoned,” and at the present day no apologist of
Christianity thinks of defending it. It was nothing but a fraud,
devised to buttress a tottering fable.
Matthew mentions another circumstance, which is omitted not
only by John, but also by Mark and Luke. In addition to the
eclipse, there was an earthquake, which shook the temple, rent
its holy veil in twain, and opened the graves of many saints,
who quietly got up and walked into Jerusalem. Having already
dealt with this piece of fiction in my romance of “ A Rising God,”
I shall content myself with asking why Matthew only, of all the
four evangelists, heard of this tremendous occurrence. A no less
curious fact is, that the Jews who witnessed these extraordinary
events never believed them; and as Diderot said, the transcen
dent wonder of wonders is not the miraculous career of Christ
but the incredulity of the Jews.
Imagine such a story as that of the Crucifixion under exami
nation in a court of law. How the opposing counsel would
badger the witnesses. How he would expose their mutual con
tradictions on every important point. How he would gloat over
�176
The Crucifixion.
the fact that some of them saw and heard the most startling
occurrences, while others never noticed them, although they
were present. How confidently he would ask the court to treat
the evidence of such witnesses as altogether unworthy of credit.
When we turn to the rest of the New Testament we find grave
reasons for doubting whether Jesus was crucified at all. Paul
preached “Christ and him crucified,” and the very emphasis
seems to show that there was an opposite school. His great
rival, Peter (Acts v., 30), speaks to the Jews soon after the
alleged Crucifixion, of “Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a
tree ”; and again at Caesarea (Acts x., 39) he speaks of Jesus
and the Jews in the third person,” whom they slew and hanged
on a tree.” Peter further says (Acts xii., 29>, “they took him
down from the tree, and laid him in a sepulchre.” And in his
first epistle he speaks of Jesus “ Who his own self bare our
sins in his own body on the tree.” Peter does indeed,
refer twice in the second of Acts to Jesus as “ crucified,”
but it is in a long-winded speech, which was probably com
posed for him by the author. Curiously too, Paul himself (Galatians in., 13) sides for once with Peter. “ Christ,”
he says, “ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made
a curse for us ; for it is written, Cursed is everyone that hangeth
on a tree.” On the whole, it is impossible to decide whether
Jesus was crucified or hung. The reader buys his Bible and
takes his choice. Whoever wishes to read more on this subject
should refer to the “ Jewish Life of Christ,” which I edited in
collaboration with my friend Mr. Wheeler. He will there find
that the Taimuds speak of Jeshu, by whom Lardner says is meant
our Jesus, as having been hung.
This much, however, is certain : the cross on which Jesus was,
crucified, if he suffered that death, was not shaped Eke the cross
we see in religious pictures. It resembled a big letter T, and
there was no extension of the upright beam above the cross
piece.. The true cross was an ancient phallic symbol. It was
used in Egyptian hieroglyphics as the sign of life. When Con
stantine aboEshed the punishment of crucifixion, the Roman cross
ceased to be famihar, and the Christian priests were therefore
able to confound it with the most venerated symbol of ancient
faiths. They thus artfufiy transformed an executed rebel into a
sacred figure, radiating the mysticism of aU the creeds.
PRICE ONE PENNY.
Printed and Published by G. W. Foote, at 28 Stonecutter Street, London.
�
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 & 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
Bible romances
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Foote, G. W. (George William) [1850-1915]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 176 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Inscription in ink on t.p.: Joseph Mazzini Wheeler. First series (p.1-96), Second series (p.[97]-104).
Contents: The Creation Story; Noah's Flood; Eve And The Apple; The Bible Devil; The Ten Plagues; Jonah And The Whale; The Wandering Jews; The Tower Of Babel; Balaam's Ass; Cain And Abel; Lot's Wife; Daniel and the Lions. Bible Romances; The Jew Judges; Saint John's Nightmare; A Virgin Mother; God in a Box; Bully Samson; Gospel Ghosts; A Rising God; The Bible Menagerie; The Crucifixion.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Progressive Publishing Company
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1884-85
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
N227
Subject
The topic of the resource
Bible
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 (Bible romances), 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
NSS
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/7d677a7b95d19ab0f5c98f04773d69a6.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=GLvbr8b0SVxdm-XY1XzqplJ-GWN8A2WZmW2%7En5Sw8at8PlERnWGzJ8Xz1mZ5627XaTvZIVTNKfBvUeOOBiB1rPA1rgxyiFfXL3vF0uT%7ElO-wZM0ijYzFEFmq8pyWIcPAkkCv1Bh65kj4TiRgs9nKmos81ca3dZMUPN%7EbkXc4gJ%7EIWhXpFAHB2imA7Hl320JfUckMs0LJQnDS5n3Mv59s3GrX6JyNBt5R3fPdmZk-zZx4vmObYX08p90KToUYcZVA7CAbwr2zK6gdhDPmhIWAAgaTeR4NtD2GeDaMdsJbzSNxO-CBiDQnL4Rw%7EzB0RPtFp1Nr%7EU78xt2jNGIQmtO4Ng__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
52b3769024839cb7f639e2ed304bac4f
PDF Text
Text
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
libit tasus C iliilisatinn:
AN APPEAL TO THE PIOUS.
BY
“G. F. S.”
“Rivers of
THY LAW.”—Ps.
waters
cxix.,
run
down
mine
eyes,
because
they
136.
LONDON:
A. BONNER,
63
FLEET
STREET,
1889.
E.C.
keep
not
��&
WibU tom 0 i bi Its atf ott.
In his time, old John Bunyan grieved that religion
went in silver slippers. What would he say now
were he alive? We no longer respect the God we
profess to worship, but have gone after the luxurious
idol of civilisation. Civilisation is replacing God in our
hearts and lives; we are casting out the Almighty from
among us, and following other lights than His. It is
time to rouse ourselves and begin to read the Bible,
which we pretend to reverence, though we neglect to
make ourselves acquainted with its sacred pages. If
we profess godliness, let us have the decency to follow
the precepts of our God. It is true that He has said
“ An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”, and because
it suits our social arrangements the murderers among us
are made to suffer the just penalty of their evil doings.
But God has also said “ Thou shalt not suffer a witch
to live”, and if God had not known that witches existed
He would not have given such a terrible command. So
explicit is His will in this matter that not only is death
the prescribed punishment, but the precise manner of
it—a bleeding shuddering death by stoning—is com
manded. Yet we, glorying in our pretended enlighten
ment, decide we know better than our God, defy him,
and speak with horror of the near date of 1722, when
the last witch was burnt in Scotland by Captain Ross,
Sheriff-Depute of Sutherlandshire! Who are we that
we should change the decrees of Omnipotent Wisdom,
creatures of a day who cannot fathom his awful
designs? We cry Lord! Lord! and do not his com
�4
BIBLE V. CIVILISATION.
mands, but allow ourselves to be softened and beguiled
by our humanity into the ways of the Secularists. That
holy man John Wesley said that the giving up of witch
craft was in effect the giving up of the Bible. “ I can
not ”, said he, “give up to all the Deists in Great
Britain the existence of witchcraft till I give up the
credit of all history, sacred and profane.”
There is nothing in which we have more treacherously
forsaken our religion than in our way of treating heresy.
We even pride ourselves on our toleration, and look
back upon the past “ persecutions”, as we irreligiously
call them, with horror and disgust. Yet if we believe
our religion to be the only true one (as who among us
does not ?), what is our duty respecting the heretic, the
man or woman whom we believe to have forsaken the
only true God ? Does the Almighty whom we worship
command us to tolerate such, to live harmoniously with
such, bearing with them, praying with them, and
beseeching our God to turn their hearts unto Himself ?
Not so. God knows the spiritual leprosy which will
infect us if we live with heretics, and in His awful
wisdom he says the heretic shall be cut off from the
land of the living. “ If thy brother, the son of thy
mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy
bosom, or thy friend which is as thine own soul, entice
thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other Gods .
. . . thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto
him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt
thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him : but thou
shalt surely kill him ; thine hand shall be first upon
him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all
the people. And thou shalt stone him with stones that
he die ” (Deuteronomy xiii, 6—io). ‘ We cannot do this
thing ’, we cry ; ‘ we cannot obey here ’ ; spare us, O Lord,
we say; or, worse, we try to explain away the com
mand, saying Christ’s mission has changed all that.
This is sheer self-indulgence. We either are to obey
the Unchangeable, or we are not. “ Thus saith the
Lord ! ” We cannot escape the fact that if we profess
godliness we must, at any cost or pain or distress, obey
the mandates of our God; and they are rigid. What
matter how flesh and heart shrink from casting out the
�BIBLE V. CIVILISATION.
5
wife of our bosom and seeking her death, if only our
conscience is at peace ? Do we not extol the great and
beautiful obedience of Abraham in his willingness to
slay his beloved son ? Do we say he ought to have
disobeyed his God ? And who are we that we shall
dare with impunity to disobey explicit commands ?
Friends, we try in vain to fit our modern ideas to our
God-given ancient religion. How are we better than
the Secularists ? They ignore the Bible ; we pretend
to worship its precepts, and blasphemously neglect its
severe demands. We pick and choose as we like, and
obey only such of the Almighty’s laws as fit our modern
civilisation, which boasts that it “has assisted,. if,
indeed, it may not claim the main share, in sweeping
away the dark superstitions, the degrading belief in
sorcery and witchcraft, and cruel intolerance ”. Alas,
is not our science sweeping away our ancient and
divinely-inspired religion ?
To take up a specially modern delusion, does a
reverent and earnest study of God’s dealings with the
ancient peoples show him to be such as our nineteenth
century sentiment imagines—a God of love, a heavenly
Father ? It is very charming to think of Him as such,
no doubt ; our duty, however, is not to find the charm
ing, but to search the true. Do we not read of very
frequent and terrible massacres of men, women, and
children by His direct commands ; though sometimes
virgins were spared as booty for God’s priests ? “ But
Sihon, king of Heshbon, would not let us pass by him;
for the Lord thy God hardened his spirit, and made
his heart obstinate that he might deliver him into thy
hand .... and we took all his cities at that time,
and utterly destroyed the men and the women, and
the little ones, of every city ; we left none to remain”
(Deuteronomy ii, 30, 34). This is one of many similar
cases. And do we not see God’s anger — his great
majestic anger — raised against all flesh from time to
time, until we feel that punishment, not love, is the
garment of the Almighty ? From the unsinning cattle
which died of hailstones (Exodus ix, ig, 23, 25) to the
preachers, 450 in number, of a false religion, who had
to be slaughtered by God’s true clergy, the one penalty
�6
BIBLE V. CIVILISATION.
of exciting the divine wrath is—death. This thought
naturally does not please us; we do not care to enter
tain it ; we seek other writings to contradict it ; but
it remains. It is of the Lord ; His law is eternal ; let
Him do what seemeth Him good. Shall not He do
with His own as He will ? The God of Nature and
the God of our beloved Bible are not opposed. They
are one. We can, as that pious soul Cowper said so
truthfully, “Look from Nature up to Nature’s God”.
The law of destruction so noticeable in Nature is also
God’s law as expressed to us in his earliest written
revelation. . How little the Christ realised God’s spirit
is shown in the opposition of his teaching to His
Father’s. “ Do unto others as you would that they
should do unto you,” is Christ’s teaching. Something
very different was the treatment which the Almighty
commanded his Chosen Ones to exercise towards those
nations with whom they had dealings. “ So Joshua
smote all the country of the hills, and of the south, and
of the vale, and of the springs, and all their kings : he
left none remaining ; but utterly destroyed all that
breathed, as the Lord God of Israel commanded ”
(Joshua x, 40).
‘‘And that day Joshua took Makkedah, and smote it with the edge of the sword, and
the king thereof he utterly destroyed, them, and all
the souls that were therein ; he let none remain ”
(Joshua x, 28). The celebrated French divine Bossuet, one of God’s most eminent modern servants, shows
how deeply he has studied the method of the Eternal,
when he says, “ God has all hearts in His hand ;
sometimes He holds back the passions, sometimes He
gives them the rein. Does He wish to make legis
lators ? He sends them His wise spirit and foresight.
He warns them of the evils which threaten states, and
establishes public tranquillity. Knowing human wisdom
to be limited, He enlightens it, extends its powers, and
then abandons it to its ignorance. He blinds it, over
turns it, confounds it by itself. Its own subtleties
embarrass it, and its precautions are its snare. When
God wishes to destroy empires, He weakens counsel.
Egypt, once so wise, becomes drunken, stupid, and
tottering, because the Lord has spread the spirit of
�BIBLE V. CIVILISATION.
7
folly in its councils. But let not men deceive them
selves. God restores the lost faculties when it pleases
Him. It is thus that our God reigns righteously over
the peoples.” God and Nature are not in opposition ;
the severity of Nature is the expression of his Omni
potence—his Power. Are not “ the scorpion’s sting, the
cobra’s poison, the ferret’s teeth, the tiger’s claws, and
the eagle’s talons ” part of His divine design ? Is not
the law of the forest, is not the law of the ocean, rapine
and destruction ? Creation must be an expression of
the Creator—His thought. Let us who are believers
in the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses not
try to escape, by the road of evolution, from the fact
that God is the maker of all created things, and that
He has Himself given the instincts to each creature,
whether it is the instinct of the cat to torture the mouse
ere killing it, or the instinct of the male rabbit to
devour its offspring, or that of “ the wasp bringing in
the caterpillar for its young, and stinging it enough to
paralyse, but not to kill ”. Is it not enough for us to
know that since God designed “ animals to prey upon
each other for food, and then pronounced the system
of almost universal carnage ‘very good’,” as a living
writer expresses it, it is the Father’s will ; and we
ought to forbear making comparisons between our petty
ideas of goodness and the divine conceptions. Let us
beware of mental pride in such matters, and bow our
spirits before the Inscrutable.
In the light of these conclusions as to the unity of
God and Nature, marriage, the central social institu
tion, can be better understood. Our modern European
notion of monogamy being the highest form of union
between man and woman, leads us to assume that it
is of divine institution. We resent any tampering with
it, as immoral and contrary to the will of God. But
were not God’s chosen friends polygamists, and of a
most pronounced type ? Had not Abraham his Sarah,
Hagar, Keturah, and concubines besides ?
Jacob
married two sisters and their two maids, and “ God
hearkened to Leah and Rachel and gave them sons”, as
indeed he also blessed their maids. David had his
Michal, Abigail, Ahinoam, and “ four more wives and
�BIBLE V. CIVILISATION.
concubines out of Jerusalem ”, God blessing .six of the
seven with children. May we not therefore infer, since
Abraham and David were so close to God, and intimate
with His counsels, that polygamy is more in accordance
with His will than monogamy ? Indeed, do we not
altogether misunderstand the relative importance of
man and woman as demonstrated in the Holy Scrip
tures ? Surely even the Mohammedans read God’s
pleasure on this point better than we, His apostate
children who lightly preach the equality of the sexes ?
And our very notions of illegitimacy are completely
opposed to the cherished biographical facts of the
greatest of the Bible heroes. God, like Nature, mocks
at our little social ceremonies and upstart ways, and
bids us back to our noble Old Testament to see what
manner of men were “ after his heart ”.
One last word. Let us cast from us, O friends, the
silver slippers John Bunyan dreaded so much, and
which have beguiled our steps too long into the wide
sweet pastures of godless tolerance and civilised chari
ties. Beautiful to look at, luxurious to worship, as is
the idol of civilisation, which makes a virtue of for
bearance and a merit of Samaritanism, it is at our
soul’s peril we pay homage at that shrine. The
Eternal’s dealings with, and instruction to, His own
people, must be our guide; and may we bravely, and
at whatever cost or heart-break, fulfil His awful Will.
�
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 & 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
Bible versus civilisation : an appeal to the pious
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 8 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: By 'G.F.S.' [from title page]. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
A. Bonner
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1889
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
N572
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
G.F.S.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Bible
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 (Bible versus civilisation : an appeal to the pious), 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
NSS