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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.
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�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.
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�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.
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�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.
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�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.
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�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.
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�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
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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
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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
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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.
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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'
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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
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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.
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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.
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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,
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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.
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�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.
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�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
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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-
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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.
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�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
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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.”
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�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
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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
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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-
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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
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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
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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
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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.
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�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
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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
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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
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
�
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
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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
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Bible romances
Creator
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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
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Progressive Publishing Company
Date
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1884-85
Identifier
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N227
Subject
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Bible
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (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>
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Bible
NSS