ArcaMax Publishing > Books > Religion > Ten Great Religions, An Essay in Comparative Theology > Section 12
Section 12 of 15 - Table of Contents
Chapter X.
The Jewish Religion.
Sec. 1. Palestine, and the Semitic Races.
Sec. 2. Abraham; or, Judaism as the family Worship of a Supreme Being.
Sec. 3. Moses; or, Judaism as the national Worship of a just and holy King.
Sec. 4. David; or, Judaism as the personal Worship of a Father and Friend.
Sec. 5. Solomon; or, the Religious Relapse.
Sec. 6. The Prophets; or, Judaism as the Hope of a spiritual and universal
Kingdom of God.
Sec. 7. Judaism as a Preparation for Christianity.
Sec. 1. Palestine, and the Semitic Races.
Palestine is a word equivalent to Philistia, or the land of the
Philistines. A similar name for the coast region of Syria has been found
on a monument in Nineveh,[336] and at Karnak in Egypt.[337] Josephus and
Philo use the term "Palestine," as applying to the Philistines; and the
accurate learning of Milton appears in his using it in the same
sense.[338] "The land of Canaan," "The land of Israel," and "Judaea" were
the names afterward given to the territory of the children of Israel. It
is a small country, like others as famous; for it is only about one
hundred and forty English miles in length, and forty in width. It
resembles Greece and Switzerland, not only in its small dimensions, but by
being composed of valleys, separated by chains of mountains and by ranges
of hills. It was isolated by the great sea of sand on the east, and the
Mediterranean on the west. Sharply defined on the east, west, and south,
it stretches indefinitely into Syria on the north. It is a hilly,
high-lying region, having all the characters of Greece except proximity to
the sea, and all those of Switzerland except the height of the mountains.
Its valleys were well watered and fertile. They mostly ran north and
south; none opened a way across, Judaea to the Mediterranean. This
geographical fact assisted in the isolation of the country. Two great
routes of travel passed by its borders without entering its hills. On the
west the plains of Philistia were the highway of the Assyrian and Egyptian
armies. On the north the valley of the Orontes, separated by the chain of
Lebanon from Palestine, allowed the people of Asia a free passage to the
sea. So, though surrounded by five great nations, all idolatrous,--the
Babylonians, Medes, Assyrians, Phoenicians, and Egyptians,--the people of
Judaea were enabled to develop their own character and institutions
without much interference from without. Inaccessible from the sea, and
surrounded, like the Swiss, by the natural fortifications of their hills,
like the Swiss they were also protected by their poverty from spoilers.
But being at the point of contact of three continents, they had (like the
Mahommedans afterwards) great facilities for communicating their religious
ideas to other nations.
Palestine is so small a country that from many points the whole of it may
be overlooked[339]. Toward the east, from all points, may be seen the high
plateau of Moab and the mountains of Gilead. Snow-capped Hermon is always
visible on the north. In the heart of the land rises the beautiful
mountain Tabor, clothed with vegetation to its summit. It is almost a
perfect cone, and commands the most interesting view in all directions.
From its top, to which you ascend from Nazareth by a path which Jesus may
have trod, you see to the northeast the lofty chain of Hermon (Jebel es
Sheikh = the Captain) rising into the blue sky to the height of ten
thousand feet, covered with eternal snow. West of this appears the chain
of Lebanon. At the foot of Tabor the plain of Esdraelon extends northerly,
dotted with hills, and animated with the camps of the Arabs[340]. The Lake
of Galilee gleams, a silver line, on the east, with Bashan and the
mountains of Gilead in the distance, and farther to the southeast the
great plateau of Moab rises like a mountain wall beyond the Jordan. The
valley of the Jordan itself, sunk far below the level of the
Mediterranean, is out of sight in its deep valley; nor is anything seen of
the Dead Sea. To the northwest rises rocky Carmel, overhanging the Bay of
Accha (or Acre), on the Mediterranean.
The whole country stands high. Hebron, at the south, is three thousand
feet above the level of the sea; Jerusalem is twenty-six hundred; the
Mount of Olives, twenty-seven hundred; and Ebal and Gerizim in Samaria,
the same. The valley in which Nazareth stands is eight hundred and twenty
feet above the sea; that at the foot of Tabor, four hundred and
thirty-nine; while the summit of Tabor itself is seventeen hundred and
fifty. From Judaea the land plunges downward very rapidly toward the east
into the valley of Jordan. The surface of Lake Galilee is already five
hundred and thirty-five feet below that of the Mediterranean, and that of
the Dead Sea is five hundred feet lower down.[341] Palestine is therefore
a mountain fastness, and most of the waves of war swept by, leaving it
untouched and unassailed. From Jerusalem to Jericho the distance is only
thirteen miles, but the latter place is a thousand feet lower than the
former, so that it was very proper to speak of a man's "going down from
Jerusalem to Jericho."
The Jews belonged to what has been called the Semitic race. This family,
the only historic rival of the Japhetic (or Aryan) race, is ethnologically
composed of the Assyrians and Babylonians, the Phoenicians, the Hebrews
and other Syrian tribes, the Arabs and the Carthaginians. It is a race
which has been great on land and at sea. In the valley of the Euphrates
and that of the Tigris its sons carried all the arts of social life to the
highest perfection, and became mighty conquerors and warlike soldiers. On
the Mediterranean their ships, containing Phoenician navigators, explored
the coasts, made settlements at Carthage and Cadiz, and sailing out of the
Straits of Gibraltar went as far north as Great Britain, and
circumnavigated Africa two thousand years before Vasco da Gama. This race
has given to man the alphabet, the Bible, the Koran, commerce, and in
Hannibal the greatest military genius of all time.
That the different nations inhabiting the region around the Euphrates and
Tigris, Syria and Arabia, belonged to one great race, is proved by the
unimpeachable testimony of language. The Bible genealogies trace them to
Shem, the son of Noah. Ewald,[342] who believes that this region was
inhabited by an aboriginal people long before the days of Abraham,--a
people who were driven out by the Canaanites,--nevertheless says that they
no doubt were a Semitic people. The languages of all these nations is
closely related, being almost dialects of a single tongue, the differences
between them being hardly greater than between the subdivisions of the
German group of languages.[343] That which has contributed to preserve the
close homogeneity among these tongues is, that they have little power of
growth or development. As M. Renan says, "they have less lived than
lasted."[344]
The Phoenicians used a language almost identical with the Hebrew. A
sarcophagus of Ezmunazar, king of Sidon, dating from the fifth century
before Christ, was discovered a few years since, and is now in the Museum
of the Louvre. It contains some thirty sentences of the length of an
average verse in the Bible, and is in pure Hebrew.[345] In a play of
Plautus[346] a Carthaginian is made to speak a long passage in his native
language, the Punic tongue; this is also very readable Hebrew. The black
basalt stele, lately discovered in the land of Moab, contains an
inscription of Mesha, king of Moab, addressed to his god, Chemosh,
describing his victory over the Israelites. This is also in a Hebrew
dialect. From such facts it appears that the Hebrews, Phoenicians, and
Canaanites were all congeners with each other, and with the Babylonians
and Assyrians.
But now the striking fact appears that the Hebrew _religion_ differed
widely from that of these other nations of the same family. The Assyrians,
Babylonians, Phoenicians, and Carthaginians all possessed a nearly
identical religion. They all believed in a supreme god, called by the
different names of Ilu, Bel, Set, Hadad, Moloch, Chemosh, Jaoh, El, Adon,
Asshur. All believed in subordinate and secondary beings, emanations from
this supreme being, his manifestations to the world, rulers of the
planets. Like other pantheistic religions, the custom prevailed among the
Semitic nations of promoting first one and then another deity to be the
supreme object of worship. Among the Assyrians, as among the Egyptians,
the gods were often arranged in triads, as that of Ann, Bel, and Ao. Anu,
or Cannes, wore the head of a fish; Bel wore the horns of a bull; Ao was
represented by a serpent. These religions represented the gods as the
spirit within nature, and behind natural objects and forces,--powers
within the world, rather than above the world. Their worship combined
cruelty and licentiousness, and was perhaps as debasing a superstition as
the world has witnessed. The Greeks, who were not puritans themselves in
their religion, were shocked at the impure orgies of this worship, and
horrified at the sacrifice of children among the Canaanites and
Carthaginians.
How then did the Hebrews, under Moses and the later prophets, originate a
system so widely different? Their God was above nature, not in it. He
stood alone, unaccompanied by secondary deities; he made no part of a
triad; he was not associated with a female representative. His worship
required purity, not pollution; its aim was holiness, and its spirit
humane, not cruel. Monotheistic in its spirit from the first, it became an
absolute monotheism in its development. Whence this wide departure in the
Hebrews from the religious tendencies and belief of the surrounding
nations, who spoke the same language and belonged to the same stock?
M. Renan considers this a question of race.[347] He says: "The
Indo-European race, distracted by the variety of the universe, never by
itself arrived at monotheism. The Semitic race, on the other hand, guided
by its firm and sure sight, instantly unmasked Divinity, and without
reflection or reasoning attained the purest form of religion that humanity
has known." But the Assyrians, Babylonians, Arabians before Mohammed,
Phoenicians, and Carthaginians, and perhaps the Egyptians, belonged to the
Semitic race. Yet none of these nations attained to any monotheism purer
than that of the Veda or the Avesta. The Arabs, near relations of the
Hebrews, were divided between a worship like that of Babylon and Sabaeism,
or star-worship. No doubt in all these Semitic families the idea of one
supreme god lay behind that of the secondary deities; but this was also
the case in the Aryan races. And in both this primitive monotheism receded
instead of becoming more distinct, with the single exception of the
Hebrews. M. Renan's view is not, therefore, supported by the facts. We
must look further to find the true cause, and therefore are obliged to
examine somewhat in detail the main points of Hebrew history. It would be
easy, but would not accord with our plan, to accept the common Christian
explanation, and say, "Monotheism was a direct revelation to Moses." For
we are now not able to assume such a revelation, and are obliged to
consider the subject from the outside, from the stand-point of pure
history.
Sec. 2. Abraham; or, Judaism as the family Worship of a Supreme Being.
We have been so accustomed to regard the Jewish religion as a part of our
own, and so to look at it from within, that it is hard to take the
historic position, and to look at it from without. But to compare it with
other religions, and to see what it really is and is not, this is
necessary. It becomes more difficult to assume the attitude of an
impartial observer, because of the doctrine of verbal inspiration, so
universally taught in the Protestant Church. From childhood we have looked
on the Old Testament as inspired throughout, and all on the same level of
absolute infallibility. There is no high, no low, no degrees of certitude
or probability, where every word is assumed to be the very word of God.
But those who still hold to the plenary inspiration of the Old Testament
must consent, for our present purpose, to suspend their faith in this
doctrine, and provisionally to look at the Old Testament with the same
impartial though friendly scrutiny with which we have regarded the sacred
books of other nations. Not a little will be gained for the Jewish
Scriptures by this position. If they lose the authority which attaches to
the Word of God, they will gain the interest which belongs to the
utterance of man.
While M. Renan finds the source of Hebrew monotheism in a like tendency in
the whole Semitic race,--a supposition which we have seen to be
contradicted by the facts,--Max Mueller regards the true origin of this
tendency to be in Abraham himself, the friend of God, and Father of the
Faithful. He calls attention to the fact that both Moses and Christ, and
subsequently Mohammed, preached no new God, but the God of Abraham.
"Thus," says he, "the faith in the one living God, which seemed to require
the admission of a monotheistic instinct grafted in every member of the
Semitic family, is traced back to one man." He adds his belief that this
faith of Abraham in one supreme God came to him by a special revelation.
And if, by a special revelation, is meant a grand profound insight, an
inspired vision of truth, so deep and so living as to make it a reality
like that of the outward world, then we see no better explanation of the
monotheism of the Hebrews than this conviction transmitted from Abraham
through father and son, from generation to generation.
For the most curious fact about this Jewish people is, that every one of
them[348] is a child of Abraham. All looked back with the same ancestral
pride to their great progenitor, the friend of God. This has never been
the case with any other nation, for the Arabs are not a nation. One can
hardly imagine a greater spur to patriotism than this union of pride of
descent with pride in one's nation and its institutions. The proudest and
poorest Jew shared it together. There was one distinction, and that the
most honorable, which belonged equally to all.
We have seen that, in all the Semitic nations, behind the numerous divine
beings representing the powers of nature, there was dimly visible one
Supreme Being, of whom all these were emanations. The tendency to lose
sight of this First Great Cause, so common in the race, was reversed in
Abraham. His soul rose to the contemplation of the Perfect Being, above
all, and the source of all. With passionate love he adored this Most High
God, Maker of heaven and earth. Such was his devotion to this Almighty
Being, that men, wondering, said, "Abraham is the friend of the Most High
God!" He desired to find a home where he could bring up his children in
this pure faith, undisturbed and unperverted by the gross and low worship
around him. In some "deep dream or solemn vision" it was borne in on his
mind that he must go and find such a home.
We are not to suppose, however, that the mind of Abraham rose to a clear
conception of the unity of God, as excluding all other divine beings. The
idea of local, tribal, family gods was too deeply rooted to be at once
relinquished. Abraham, as described in Genesis, is a great Arab chief, a
type of patriarchal life, in which all authority is paternal. The religion
of such a period is filial, and God is viewed as the protector and friend
of the family or tribe. Only the family God of Abraham was the highest of
all gods, the Almighty (Gen. xvii. 1), who was also the God of Isaac (Gen.
xxviii. 3) and of Jacob (Gen. xxxv. 11).
Stanley[349] expresses his satisfaction that the time has past in which
the most fastidious believer can object to hearing Abraham called a
Bedouin sheik. The type has remained unchanged through all the centuries,
and the picture in the Bible of Abraham in his tent, of his hospitality,
his self-respect, his courage, and also of his less noble traits,
occasional cunning and falsehood, and cruelty toward Hagar and
Ishmael,--these qualities, good and bad, are still those of the desert.
Only in Abraham something higher and exceptional was joined with them.
In the Book of Genesis Abraham enters quite abruptly upon the scene. His
genealogy is given in Genesis (chap, xi.), he being the ninth in descent
from Shem, each generation occupying a little more than thirty years. The
birth of Abraham is usually placed somewhere about two thousand years
before Christ. His father's name was Terah, whom the Jewish and Mohammedan
traditions describe as an idolater and maker of idols. He had two
brothers, Nahor and Haran; the latter being the father of Lot, and the
other, Nahor, being the grandfather of Rebecca, wife of Isaac. Abraham's
father, Terah, lived in Ur of the Chaldees (called in Scripture Casdim).
The Chaldees, who subsequently inhabited the region about the Persian
Gulf, seemed at first to have lived among the mountains of Armenia, at the
source of the Tigris; and this was the region where Abraham was born, a
region now occupied by the people called Curds, who are perhaps
descendants of the old Chaldees, the inhabitants of Ur. The Curds are
Mohammedans and robbers, and quite independent, never paying taxes to the
Porte. The Chaldees are frequently mentioned in Scripture and in ancient
writers. Xenophon speaks of the Carduchi as inhabitants of the mountains
of Armenia, and as making incursions thence to plunder the country, just
as the Curds do now. He says they were found there by the younger Cyrus,
and by the ten thousand Greeks. The Greeks, in their retreat, were obliged
to fight their way through them, and found them very skilful archers. So
did the Romans under Crassus and Mark Antony. And so are they described by
the Prophet Habakkuk (chap, i. 6-9):--
"For lo, I raise up the Chaldeans,
A bitter and hasty nation,
Which marches far and wide in the earth,
To possess the dwellings that are not theirs.
They are terrible and dreadful,
Their decrees and their judgments proceed only from themselves.
Swifter than leopards are their horses,
And fiercer than the evening wolves.
Their horsemen prance proudly around;
And their horsemen shall come from afar and fly,
Like the eagle when he pounces on his prey.
They all shall come for violence,
In troops,--their glance is ever forward!
They gather captives like the sand!"
As they were in the time of Habakkuk, so are they to-day. Shut up on every
side in the Persian Empire, their ancestors, the Carduchi, refused
obedience to the great king and his satraps, just as the Curds refuse to
obey the grand seignior and his pashas. They can raise a hundred and forty
thousand armed men. They are capable of any undertaking. Mohammed himself
said, "They would yet revolutionize the world."
The ancient Chaldees seem to have been fire-worshippers, like the
Persians. They were renowned for the study of the heavens and the worship
of the stars, and some remains of Persian dualism still linger among their
descendants, who are accused of Devil-worship by their neighbors.
That Abraham was a real person, and that his story is historically
reliable, can hardly be doubted by those who have the historic sense. Such
pictures, painted in detail with a Pre-Raphaelite minuteness, are not of
the nature of legends. Stories which are discreditable to his character,
and which place him in a humiliating position towards Pharaoh and
Abimelech, would not have appeared in a fictitious narrative. The mythical
accounts of Abraham, as found among the Mohammedans and in the
Talmud,[350] show, by their contrast, the difference between fable and
history.
The events in the life of Abraham are so well known that it is not
necessary even to allude to them. We will only refer to one, as showing
that others among the tribes in Palestine, besides Abraham, had a faith in
God similar to his. This is the account of his meeting with Melchisedek.
This mysterious person has been so treated by typologists that all human
meaning has gone out of him, and he has become, to most minds, a very
vapory character.[351] But this is doing him great injustice.
One mistake often made about him is, to assume that "Melchisedek, King of
Salem," gives us the name and residence of the man, whereas both are his
official titles. His name we do not know; his office and title had
swallowed it up. "King of Justice and King of Peace,"--this is his
designation. His office, as we believe, was to be umpire among the chiefs
of neighboring tribes. By deciding the questions which arose among them,
according to equity, he received his title of "King of Justice." By thus
preventing the bloody arbitrament of war, he gained the other name, "King
of Peace." All questions, therefore, as to where "Salem" was, fall to the
ground. Salem means "peace"; it does not mean the place of his abode.
But in order to settle such intertribal disputes, two things were
necessary: first, that the surrounding Bedouin chiefs should agree to take
him as their arbiter; and, secondly, that some sacredness should attach to
his character, and give authority to his decisions. Like others in those
days, he was both king and priest; but he was priest "of the Most High
God,"--not of the local gods of the separate tribes, but of the highest
God, above all the rest. That he was the acknowledged arbiter of
surrounding tribes appears from the fact that Abraham paid to him tithes
out of the spoils. It is not likely that Abraham did this if there were no
precedent for it; for he regarded the spoils as belonging, not to himself,
but to the confederates in whose cause he fought. No doubt it was the
custom, as in the case of Delphi, to pay tithes to this supreme arbiter;
and in doing so Abraham was simply following the custom. The Jewish
traveller, Wolff, states that in Mesopotamia a similar custom prevails at
the present time. One sheik is selected from the rest, on account of his
superior probity and piety, and becomes their "King of Peace and
Righteousness." A similar custom, I am told, prevails among some American
tribes. Indeed, where society is organized by clans, subject to local
chiefs, some such arrangement seems necessary to prevent perpetual feuds.
This "King of Justice and Peace" gave refreshments to Abraham and his
followers after the battle, blessing him in the name of the Most High God.
As he came from no one knows where, and has no official status or descent,
the fact that Abraham recognized him as a true priest is used in the Book
of Psalms and the Epistle to the Hebrews to prove there is a true
priesthood beside that of the house of Levi. A priest after the order of
Melchisedek is one who becomes so by having in him the true faith, though
he has "no father nor mother, beginning of days nor end of life," that is,
no genealogical position in an hereditary priesthood.
The God of Abraham was "The Most High." He was the family God of Abraham's
tribe and of Abraham's descendants. Those who should worship other gods
would be disloyal to their tribe, false to their ancestors, and must be
regarded as outlaws. Thus the faith in a Supreme Being was first
established in the minds of the descendants of Abraham by family pride,
reverence for ancestors, and patriotic feeling. The faith of Abraham, that
his God would give to his descendants the land of Palestine, and multiply
them till they should be as numerous as the stars or the sand, was that
which made him the Father of the Faithful.
The faith of Abraham, as we gather it from Genesis, was in God as a
Supreme Being. Though almighty, God was willing to be Abraham's personal
protector and friend. He talks with Abraham face to face. He comes to him,
and agrees to give to him and to his posterity the land of Canaan, and in
this promise Abraham has entire faith. His monotheism was indeed of an
imperfect kind. It did not exclude a belief in other gods, though they
were regarded as inferior to his own. His family God, though almighty, was
not omnipresent. He came down to learn whether the rumors concerning the
sinfulness of Sodom were correct or not. He was not quite sure of
Abraham's faith, and so he tested it by commanding him to sacrifice Isaac,
in whom alone the promise to Abraham's descendants could be fulfilled. But
though the monotheism of Abraham was of so imperfect a kind, it had in it
the root of the better kind which was to come. It was imperfect, but not
false. It was entire faith in the supreme power of Jehovah to do what he
would, and in his disposition to be a friend to the patriarch and his
posterity. It was, therefore, trust in the divine power, wisdom, and
goodness. The difference between the religion of Abraham and that of the
polytheistic nations was, that while they descended from the idea of a
Supreme Being into that of subordinate ones, he went back to that of the
Supreme, and clung to this with his whole soul.
Sec. 3. Moses; or, Judaism as the national Worship of a just and holy King.
In speaking of Moses and of his law, it may be thought necessary to begin
by showing that such a man as Moses really existed; for modern criticism
has greatly employed itself in questioning the existence of great men. As
the telescope resolves stars into double, triple, and quadruple stars, and
finally into star-dust, so the critics, turning their optical tubes toward
that mighty orb which men call Homer, have declared that they have
resolved him into a great number of little Homers. The same process has
been attempted in regard to Shakespeare. Some have tried to show that
there never was any Shakespeare, but only many Shakespeare writers. In
like manner, the critics have sought to dissolve Moses with their powerful
analysis, and, instead of Moses, to give us a number of fragmentary
writings from different times and hands, skilfully joined together; in
fact, instead of Moses, to give us a mosaic. Criticism substitutes human
tendencies in the place of great men, does not love to believe in genius,
and often appears to think that a number of mediocrities added together
can accomplish more than one man of genius.
Certainly this is a mistake. The easiest and most natural solution of
wonderful results is the supposition of genius, inspiration, heroism, as
their cause. Great men explain history. Napoleon explains the history of
Europe during a quarter of a century. Suppose a critic, a thousand years
hence, should resolve Napoleon into half a dozen Napoleons; would they
explain the history of Europe as well? Given a man like Napoleon, and we
can understand the French campaigns in Italy and Germany, the overthrow of
Austria, the annihilation of Prussia, the splendid host of field-marshals,
the Bonaparte circle of kings, the Codex, the Simplon Road, and the many
changes of states and governments on the map of Europe. One man of genius
explains it all. But take away the man of genius, and substitute a group
of small men in his place, and the thing is much more obscure and
unintelligible. So, given Moses, the man of genius and inspiration, and we
can understand the Exodus, understand the Jewish laws, understand the
Pentateuch, and understand the strange phenomenon of Judaism. But, instead
of Moses, given a mosaic, however skilfully put together, and the thing is
more difficult. Therefore, Moses is to be preferred to the mosaic, as the
more reasonable and probable of the two, just as Homer is preferable to
the Homerids, and Shakespeare to the Shakespeare Club.[352]
We find in Moses the three elements of genius, inspiration, and
knowledge. Perhaps it is not difficult to distinguish them. We see the
natural genius and temperament of Moses breaking out again and again
throughout his career, as the rocky strata underlying the soil crop out in
the midst of gardens, orchards, and fields of corn. The basis of his
nature was the hardest kind of rock, with a surging subterranean fire of
passion beneath it. An awful soul, stem and terrible as Michael Angelo
conceived him, the sublime genius carving the sublime lawgiver in
congenial marble. The statue is as stern as law itself. It sits in one of
the Roman churches, between two columns, the right hand grasping the
tables of the law, the symbolic horns of power protruding from the brow,
and the austere look of the judge bent upon those on the left hand. A
fiery nature, an iron will, a rooted sense of justice, were strangely
overflowed and softened by a tenderness toward his race, which was not so
much the feeling of a brother for brethren as of a parent for children.
Educated in the house of Pharaoh, and adopted by his daughter as her
child, taken by the powerful and learned priesthood of Egypt into their
ranks, and sharing for many years their honors and privileges, his heart
yearned toward his brethren in the land of Goshen, and he went out to see
them in their sufferings and slavery. His impetuous nature broke out in
sudden indignation at the sight of some act of cruelty, and he smote the
overseer who was torturing the Jewish slave. That act made him an exile,
and sent him to live in Arabia Petrea, as a shepherd. If he had thought
only of his own prospects and position, he would not have gone near the
Israelites at all, but lived quietly as an Egyptian priest in the palace
of Pharaoh. But, as the writer to the Hebrews says, he "refused, to be
called the son of Pharaoh's daughter; choosing rather to suffer affliction
with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a
season."[353] Another instance of his generous and tender feelings toward
his nation is seen in his behavior when the people made the golden calf.
First, his anger broke out against them, and all the sternness of the
lawgiver appeared in his command to the people to cut down their
idolatrous brethren; then the bitter tide of anger withdrew, and that of
tenderness took its place, and he returned into the mountain to the Lord
and said, "O, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods
of gold. Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin--; and if not, blot me, I
pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written." Moses did not make
much account of human life. He struck dead the Egyptian who was
ill-treating a Jew; he slew the Jews who turned to idolatry; he slew the
Midianites who tempted them; but then he was ready to give up his own life
too for the sake of his people and for the sake of the cause. This spirit
of Moses pervades his law, this same inconsistency went from his character
into his legislation; his relentless severity and his tender sympathy both
appear in it. He knows no mercy toward the transgressor, but toward the
unfortunate he is full of compassion. His law says, "Eye for eye, tooth
for tooth, hand for hand, burning for burning, stripe for stripe." But it
also says, "Ye shall neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him, for ye were
strangers in the land of Egypt. Ye shall not afflict any widow or
fatherless child." "If thou lend money to any of my people that is poor by
thee, thou shalt not be to him as an usurer." "If thou at all take thy
neighbor's raiment to pledge, thou shalt deliver it unto him by that the
sun goeth down, for that is his covering." "If thou meet thine enemy's ox
or his ass going astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to him again."
Such severities joined with such humanities we find in the character of
Moses, and such we find to have passed from his character into his laws.
But perhaps the deepest spring of character, and its most essential trait,
was his sense of justice as embodied in law. The great idea of a just law,
freely chosen, under its various aspects of Divine command, ceremonial
regulations, political order, and moral duty, distinguished his policy and
legislation from that of other founders of states. His laws rested on no
basis of mere temporal expediency, but on the two pivots of an absolute
Divine will and a deliberate national choice. It had the double sanction
of religion and justice; it was at once a revelation and a contract. There
was a third idea which it was the object of his whole system, and
especially of his ceremonial system, to teach and to cultivate,--that of
holiness. God is a holy God, his law is a holy law, the place of his
worship is a holy place, and the Jewish nation as his worshippers are a
holy people. This belief appears in the first revelation which he received
at the burning bush in the land of Midian. It explains many things in the
Levitical law, which without this would seem trivial and unmeaning. The
ceremonial purifications, clean and unclean meats, the arrangements of the
tabernacle, with its holy place, and its Holy of Holies, the Sabbath, the
dresses of the priests, the ointment with which the altar was anointed,
are all intended to develop in the minds of the people the idea of
holiness.[354] And there never was a people on whose souls this notion was
so fully impressed as it was upon the Jews. Examined, it means the eternal
distinction between right and wrong, between good and evil, and the
essential hostility which exists between them. Applied to God, it shows
him to have a nature essentially moral, and a true moral character. He
loves good and hates evil. He does not regard them with exactly the same
feeling. He cannot treat the good man and the bad man in exactly the same
way. More than monotheism, this perhaps is the characteristic of the
theology of Moses.
The character of Moses had very marked deficiencies, it had its weakness
as well as its strength. He was impetuous, impatient, wanting in
self-possession and self-control. There is a verse in the Book of Numbers
(believed by Eichhorn and Eosenmuller to be an interpolation) which calls
him the meekest of men. Such a view of his character is not confirmed by
such actions as his killing the Egyptian, his breaking the stone tables,
and the like. He declares of himself that he had no power as a speaker,
being deficient probably in the organ of language. His military skill
seems small, since he appointed Joshua for the military commander, when
the people were attacked by the Amalekites. Nor did he have, what seems
more important in a legislator, the practical tact of organizing the
administration of affairs. His father-in-law, Jethro, showed him how to
delegate the details of government to subordinates, and to reserve for
himself the general superintendence. Up to that time he had tried to do
everything by himself. That great art, in administration, of selecting
proper tools to work with, Moses did not seem to have.
Having thus briefly sketched some of the qualities of his natural genius
and character, let us see what were the essential elements of his
legislation; and first, of his theology, or teachings concerning God.
Monotheism, as we all know, lay at the foundation of the law of Moses. But
there are different kinds of monotheism. In one sense we have seen almost
all ancient religions to have been monotheisms. All taught the existence
of a Supreme Being. But usually this Supreme Being was not the object of
worship, but had receded into the background, while subordinate gods were
those really reverenced. Moses taught that the Supreme Being who made
heaven and earth, the Most High God, was also the only object of worship.
It does not appear that Moses denied the existence of the gods who were
adored by the other nations; but he maintained that they were all inferior
and subordinate, and far beneath Jehovah, and also that Jehovah alone was
to be worshipped by the Jews. "Thou shalt have no other gods before me"
(Exod. xx. 3; Deut. v. 7). "Ye shall not go after other gods" (Deut. vi.
14). "Ye shall make no mention of the name of other gods" (Exod. xxiii.
13). "For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords" (Deut. x.
17). The first great peculiarity of the theology of Moses was therefore
this, that it taught that the Infinite and Supreme Being, who in most
religions was the hidden God, was to the Jews the revealed and
ever-present God, the object of worship, obedience, trust, and love. His
name was Jahveh, the "I am," the Being of beings.[355]
In a certain sense Moses taught the strict unity of God. "Hear, O Israel;
the Lord our God is one Lord" (Deut. vi. 4), is a statement which Jesus
calls the chief of the commandments (Mark xii. 29, 30). For when God is
conceived of as the Supreme Being he becomes at once separated by an
infinite distance from all other deities, and they cease to be gods in the
sense in which he is God. Now as Moses gave to Jehovah infinite
attributes, and taught that he was the maker and Lord of heaven and earth,
eternal (Deut. xxxiii. 27), a living God, it followed that there was no
God with him (Deut. xxxii. 39), which the prophets afterwards wrought out
into a simple monotheism. "I am God, and there is no other God beside me"
(Isaiah xliv. 8). Therefore, though Moses did not assert in terms a simple
monotheism, he taught what contained the essential germ of that idea.
This one God, supreme and infinite, was also so spiritual that no idol, no
statue, was to be made as his symbol. He was a God of truth and stern
justice, visiting the sins of parents on the children to the third and
fourth generation of those who hated him, but showing mercy to thousands
of those who loved and obeyed him. He was a God who was merciful,
long-suffering, gracious, repenting him of the evil, and seeking still to
pardon and to bless his people. No doubt there is anthropomorphism in
Moses. But if man is made in God's image, then God is in man's image too,
and we _must_, if we think of him as a living and real God, think of him
as possessing emotions like our human emotions of love, pity, sorrow,
anger, only purified from their grossness and narrowness.
Human actions and human passions are no doubt ascribed by Moses to God. A
good deal of criticism has been expended upon the Jewish Scriptures by
those who think that philosophy consists in making God as different and
distant from man as possible, and so prefer to speak of him as Deity,
Providence, and Nature. But it is only because man is made in the image of
God that he can revere God at all. Jacobi says that, "God, in creating,
_theo_morphizes man; man, therefore, necessarily _anthropo_morphizes God."
And Swedenborg teaches that God is a man, since man was made in the image
of God. Whenever we think of God as present and living, when we ascribe to
him pleasure and displeasure, liking and disliking, thinking, feeling, and
willing, we make him like a man. And _not_ to do this may be speculative
theism, but is practical atheism. Moses forbade the Jews to make any image
or likeness of God, yet the Pentateuch speaks of his jealousy, wrath,
repentance; he hardens Pharaoh's heart, changes his mind about Balaam, and
comes down from heaven in order to see if the people of Sodom were as
wicked as they were represented to be. These views are limitations to the
perfections of the Deity, and so far the views of Moses were limited. But
this is also the strong language of poetry, which expresses in a striking
and practical way the personality, holiness, and constant providence of
God.
But Moses was not merely a man of genius, he was also a man of knowledge
and learning. During forty years he lived in Egypt, where all the learning
of the world was collected; and, being brought up by the daughter of
Pharaoh as her son, was in the closest relations with the priesthood. The
Egyptian priests were those to whom Pythagoras, Herodotus, and Plato went
for instruction. Their sacred books, as we have seen, taught the doctrine
of the unity and spirituality of God, of the immortality of the soul, and
its judgment in the future world, beside teaching the arts and sciences.
Moses probably knew all that these books could teach, and there is no
doubt that he made use of this knowledge afterward in writing his law.
Like the Egyptian priests he believed in one God; but, unlike them, he
taught that doctrine openly. Like them he established a priesthood,
sacrifices, festivals, and a temple service; but, unlike them, he allowed
no images or idols, no visible representations of the Unseen Being, and
instead of mystery and a hidden deity gave them revelation and a present,
open Deity. Concerning the future life, about which the Egyptians had so
much to say, Moses taught nothing. His rewards and punishments were
inflicted in this world. Retribution, individual and national, took place
here. As this could not have been from ignorance or accident, it must have
had a purpose, it must have been intentional. The silence of the
Pentateuch respecting immortality is one of the most remarkable features
in the Jewish religion. It has been often objected to. It has been
asserted that a religion without the doctrine of immortality and future
retribution is no religion. But in our time philosophy takes a different
view, declaring that there is nothing necessarily religious in the belief
of immortality, and that to do right from fear of future punishment or
hope of future reward is selfish, and therefore irreligious and immoral.
Moreover it asserts that belief in immortality is a matter of instinct,
and something to be assumed, not to be proved; and that we believe in
immortality just in proportion as the soul is full of life. Therefore,
though Moses did not teach the doctrine of immortality, he yet made it
necessary that the Jews should believe in it by the awakening influence of
his law, which roused the soul into the fullest activity.
But beside genius, beside knowledge, did not Moses also possess that which
he claimed, a special inspiration? And if so, what was his inspiration
and what is its evidence? The evidence of his inspiration is in that which
he said and did. His inspiration, like that of Abraham, consisted in his
inward vision of God, in his sight of the divine unity and holiness, in
his feeling of the personal presence and power of the Supreme Being, in
his perception of his will and of his law. He was inwardly placed by the
Divine Providence where he could see these truths, and become the medium
of communicating them to a nation. His inspiration was deeper than that of
the greatest of subsequent prophets. It was perhaps not so large, nor so
full, nor so high, but it was more entire; and therefore the power that
went forth from the word and life of Moses was not surpassed afterward.
"There arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord
knew face to face." No prophet afterward till the time of Jesus did such a
work as he did. Purity, simplicity, and strength characterized his whole
conduct. His theology, his liturgy, his moral code, and his civil code
were admirable in their design and their execution.
We are, indeed, not able to say how much of the Pentateuch came from
Moses. Many parts of it were probably the work of other writers and of
subsequent times. But we cannot doubt that the essential ideas of the law
proceeded from him.
We have regarded Moses and his laws on the side of religion and also on
that of morals; it remains to consider them on that of politics. What was
the form of government established by Moses? Was it despotism or freedom?
Was it monarchy, aristocracy, democracy, or republicanism? Were the Jews a
free people or an enslaved people?
Certainly the Jews were not enslaved. They had one great protection from
despotism,--a constitution. The Mosaic law was their constitution. It was
a written constitution, and could therefore be appealed to. It was a
published constitution, and was therefore known by all the people. It was
a sacred constitution; given on the authority of God, and therefore could
not be modified, except by the same authority. This constitution therefore
was a protection against despotism. A constitution like this excludes all
arbitrary and despotic authority. We can therefore safely say that the law
of Moses saved the nation from despotism. Thus he gave them an important
element of political freedom. No matter how oppressive laws are, a
government of fixed law involves in the long run much more real freedom
than the government, however kind, which is arbitrary, and therefore
uncertain and changeable.
But were these laws oppressive? Let us look at them in a few obvious
points of view.
What did they exact in regard to taxation? We know that in Eastern
governments the people have been ground to the earth by taxation, and that
agriculture has been destroyed, the fruitful field become a wilderness,
and populous countries depopulated, by this one form of oppression. It is
because there has been no fixed rate of taxation. Each governor is allowed
to take as much as he can from his subordinates, and each of the
subordinates as much as he can get from his inferiors, and so on, till the
people are finally reached, out of whom it must all come. But under the
Mosaic constitution the taxes were fixed and certain. They consisted in a
poll-tax, in the first-fruits, and the tithes. The poll-tax was a
half-shekel paid every year at the Temple, by every adult Jew. The
first-fruits were rather an expression of gratitude than a tax. The tithes
were a tenth part of the annual produce of the soil, and went for the
support of the Levites and the general expenses of the government.
Another important point relates to trials and punishments. What security
has one of a fair trial, in case he is accused of crime, or what assurance
of justice in a civil cause? Now we know that in Eastern countries
everything depends on bribery. This Moses forbade in his law. "Thou shalt
take no gift, for the gift blindeth the eyes; thou shalt not wrest the
judgment of the poor, but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbor."
Again, the accuser and accused were to appear together before the judge.
The witnesses were sworn, and were examined separately. The people had
cheap justice and near at hand. "Judges and officers shalt thou make thee
in all thy gates, throughout thy tribes; and they shall judge the people
with just judgment."
There were courts of appeal from these local judges.
There seems to have been no legislative body, since the laws of Moses were
not only a constitution but also a code. No doubt a common law grew up
under the decisions of the local courts and courts of appeal. But
provision was made by Moses for any necessary amendment of his laws by the
reference which he made to any prophet like himself who might afterward
arise, whom the people were to obey.[356]
There was no provision in the Jewish constitution for a supreme executive.
But the law foretold that the time would come in which they would desire a
king, and it defined his authority. He should be a constitutional king.
(Deut. xvii. 14-20.)
We have already said that one great object and purpose of the ceremonial
law of Moses was to develop in the minds of the people the idea of
holiness. This is expressed (Lev. xix. 2), "Speak unto all the
congregation of the children of Israel, and say unto them, Ye shall be
holy; for I the Lord your God am holy."
Another object of the ceremonial law was to surround the whole nation with
an impenetrable hedge of peculiarities, and so to keep them separate from
surrounding nations. The ceremonial law was like a shell which protected
the kernel within till it was ripe. The ritual was the thorny husk, the
theology and morality were the sacred included fruit. In this point of
view the strangest peculiarities of the ritual find an easy explanation.
The more strange they are, the better they serve their purpose. These
peculiarities produced bitter prejudice between the Jews and the
surrounding nations. Despised by their neighbors, they despised them again
in turn; and this mutual contempt has produced the result desired. The
Jews, in the very heart of the world, surrounded by great nations far more
powerful than themselves, conquered and overrun by Assyrians, Medes,
Persians, Syrians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, have been more entirely
separated from other nations than the Chinese or the people of Japan.
Dispersed as they are, they are still a distinct people, a nation within
other nations. Like drops of oil floating on the water but never mingling
with it, so the Jews are found everywhere, floating drops of national life
in the midst of other nationalities. In Leviticus (xviii. 3) we find the
command, "After the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein ye dwelt, shall
ye not do; and after the doings of the land of Canaan, whither I bring
you, shall ye not do; neither shall ye walk in their ordinances." They
have not obeyed this command in its letter, but continue to obey its
spirit in its unwritten continuation: "After the doings of the English and
French and Americans shall ye not do, nor walk in their ordinances, but
shall still continue a peculiar people."
Sec. 4. David; or, Judaism as the personal Worship of a Father and friend.
Many disasters befell the Jews after their settlement in Palestine, which
we should allude to were we writing the heads of their history rather than
giving an account of their religion. Among these were their long conflict
with the Philistines, and their subjection by that people during twenty
years. The Philistines, it has been recently discovered, were not a
Semitic nation, and were not in the land in the time of Moses. They are
not mentioned as a powerful people in the Pentateuch or the Book of
Joshua, but suddenly appear as invaders in the time of the Judges,
completely defeating and subduing the Canaanites along the shore. In fact,
the Philistines were probably an Indo-European or Aryan people, and their
name is now believed to be the same as that of the Pelasgi. They were
probably a body of Pelasgi from the island of Crete, who, by successive
invasions, overran Palestine, and gave their name to it.[357] They were
finally reduced by David; and as his reign is the culminating period of
Judaism, we will devote some space to his character and influence.
The life of David makes an epoch in Jewish history and human history.
Nations, like plants, have their period of flowers and of fruit. They have
their springtime, their summer, autumn, and winter. The age of David among
the Jews was like the age of Pericles among the Greeks, of Augustus among
the Romans, of Louis XIV. in France, of Charles V. in Spain. Such periods
separate themselves from those which went before and from those which
follow. The period of David seems a thousand years removed from that of
the Judges, and yet it follows it almost immediately. As a few weeks in
spring turn the brown earth to a glad green, load the trees with foliage,
and fill the air with the perfume of blossoms and the song of birds, so a
few years in the life of a nation will change barbarism into civilization,
and pour the light of literature and knowledge over a sleeping land. Arts
flourish, external enemies are conquered, inward discontents are pacified,
wealth pours in, luxury increases, genius accomplishes its triumphs.
Summer, with its flowers and fruits, has arrived.
When a nation is ripe for such a change, the advent of a man of genius
will accomplish it. Around him the particles crystallize and take form and
beauty. Such a man was David,--a brave soldier, a great captain, a
sagacious adventurer, an artist, musician, and poet, a man of profound
religious experience; he was, more than all these, a statesman. By his
great organizing ability he made a powerful nation out of that which, when
he came to the throne, consisted of a few discordant and half-conquered
tribes. In the time of Saul the Israelites were invaded by all the
surrounding nations; by the Syrians on the north, the Ammonites and
Moabites on the east, the Amalekites and Edomites on the south, and the
Philistines on the west. In the time of David all these nations were
completely subdued, their cities garrisoned, and the power of the
Israelites submitted to from the Euphrates to the Mediterranean.
Most great men are contented to be distinguished in one thing, and to lead
a single life; but David led three lives, each distinct from the
other,--the life of a soldier and statesman, the life of a poet and
artist, the life of deep religious experience. We will look at his
character in each of these three directions.
We have already said that David found the Israelites divided and half
conquered, and left them united and conquerors. By means of his personal
qualities he had made himself popular among the tribes. He was known as a
brave and cautious guerilla chief. His native generosity and
open-heartedness won him the love of the people. His religious tendencies
gained for him the friendship of the priests, and the great influence of
Samuel was always exerted in his favor. He was thus enabled to unite the
people, and gain their confidence till he could make use of them in larger
enterprises. The Jews were not naturally a military nation, and were never
meant to be such. Yet when their strength was united they were capable, by
their determination and tenacity of purpose, of extraordinary military
exploits. Everything depended on their _morale_. Demoralized and weakened
by doubts and scruples, or when conscious that they were disobeying the
laws of Moses, they were easily defeated by any invader. The first duty of
their general was to bring them back from their idolatries and
backslidings to the service of God. Under Joshua it only needed two great
battles to conquer the whole land of Palestine. So, reunited under David,
a few campaigns made them victorious over the surrounding nations.
The early part of David's life was a perpetual discipline in prudence. He
was continually beset with dangers. He had to fly from the presence and
ferocious jealousy of Saul again and again, and even to take refuge with
the Philistines, who had reason enough to be his enemies. He fled from
Saul to Samuel, and took shelter under his protection. Pursued to this
retreat by the king, he had no resource but to throw himself on the mercy
of the Philistines, and he went to Gath. When he saw himself in danger
there, he pretended to be insane; insanity being throughout the East a
protection from injury. His next step was to go to the cave Adullam, and
to collect around him a body of partisans, with whom to protect himself.
Saul watched his opportunity, and when David had left the fastnesses of
the mountain, and came into the city Keilah to defend it from the
Philistines, Saul went down with a detachment of troops to besiege him, so
that he had to fly again to the mountains. Betrayed by the Ziphites, as he
had been before betrayed by the men of Keilah, he went to another
wilderness and escaped. The king continued to pursue him whenever he could
get any tidings of his position, and again David was obliged to take
refuge among the Philistines. But throughout this whole period he never
permitted himself any hostile measures against Saul, his implacable enemy.
In this he showed great wisdom, for the result of such a course would have
been a civil war, in which part of the nation would have taken sides with
one and part with the other, and David never could have ascended the
throne with the consent of the whole people. But the consequence of his
forbearance was, that when by the death of Saul the throne became vacant,
David succeeded to it with scarcely any opposition. His subsequent course
showed always the same prudence. He disarmed his enemies by kindness and
clemency. He understood the policy of making a bridge of gold for a flying
enemy. When Abner, the most influential man of his opponents, offered to
submit to him, David received him with kindness and made him a friend. And
when Abner was treacherously killed by Joab, David publicly mourned for
him, following the bier, and weeping at the grave. The historian says
concerning this: "And all the people took notice of it and it pleased
them: as whatsoever the king did pleased all the people. For all the
people understood that day that it was not of the king to slay Abner the
son of Ner." His policy was to conciliate and unite. When Saul's son was
slain by his own servants, who thought to please David by that act, he
immediately put them to death. Equally cautious and judicious was his
course in transferring the Ark and its worship to Jerusalem. He did this
only gradually, and as he saw that the people were prepared for it.
We next will look at David in his character as man of genius, musician,
artist, poet. It is not often that an eminent statesman and soldier is, at
the same time, a distinguished poet and writer. Sometimes they can write
history or annals, like Caesar and Frederick the Great; but the imaginative
and poetic element is rarely found connected with the determined will and
practical intellect of a great commander. Alexander the Great had a taste
for good poetry, for he carried Homer with him through his campaigns; but
the taste of Napoleon went no higher than a liking for Ossian.
But David was a poet, in whom the tender, lyrical, personal element rose
to the highest point. The daring soldier, when he took his harp, became
another man. He consoled himself and sought comfort in trial, and sang his
thankfulness in his hours of joy. The Book of Psalms, so far as it is the
work of David, is the record of his life. As Horace says of Lucilius and
his book of Odes, that the whole of the old man's life hangs suspended
therein in votive pictures; and as Goethe says that his Lyrics are a book
of confessions, in which joy and sorrow turn to song; so the Book of
Psalms can only be understood when we consider it as David's poetical
autobiography. In this he anticipates the Koran, which was the private
journal of Mohammed.
"The harp of David," says Herder, "was his comforter and friend. In his
youth he sang to its music while tending his flocks as a shepherd on the
mountains of Judaea. By its means he had access to Saul, and could sooth
with it the dark mood of the king. In his days of exile he confided to it
his sorrows. When he triumphed over his enemies the harp became in his
royal hands a thank-offering to the deity. Afterward he organized on a
magnificent scale music and poetry in the worship of God. Four thousand
Levites, distinguished by a peculiar dress, were arranged in classes and
choirs under master-singers, of whom the three most distinguished, Asaph,
Heman, and Jeduthun, are known to us by specimens of their art. In his
Psalms his whole kingdom lives."
We speak of the inspiration of genius, and distinguish it from the
inspiration of the religious teacher. But in ancient times the prophet and
poet were often the same, and one word (as, in Latin, "vates") was used
for both. In the case of David the two inspirations were perfectly at one.
His religion was poetry, and his poetry was religion. The genius of his
poetry is not grandeur, but beauty. Sometimes it expresses a single
thought or sentiment, as that (Psalm cxxxiii.) describing the beauty of
brotherly union, or as that (Psalm xxiii.) which paints trust in God like
that of a sheep in his shepherd. Of the same sort is the fifteenth Psalm,
"Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle?" the twenty-ninth, a description
of a thunderstorm; the sixty-seventh, "O God, be merciful to us and bless
us"; the eighty-fourth, "How lovely are thy tabernacles"; and the last
Psalm, calling on mankind to praise God in all ways.
It is a striking fact that these Hebrew lyrics, written long before the
foundation of Rome, and before the time of Homer, should be used to-day in
Christian worship and for private devotion all over the world.
In speaking of the Vedas and the Avesta we said that in such hymns and
liturgies the truest belief of a nation can be found. What men say to God
in their prayers may be assumed to express their practical convictions.
The Jewish religion is not to be found so surely in its Levitical code as
in these national lyrics, which were the liturgy of the people.[358]
What then do they say concerning God? They teach his universal dominion.
They declare that none in the heaven can be compared to him (Psalm
lxxxix.); that he is to be feared above all gods (Psalm xcvi.). They teach
his eternity; declaring that he is God from everlasting to everlasting;
that a thousand years in his sight are as yesterday; that he laid the
foundations of the earth and made the heavens, and that when these perish
he will endure; that at some period they shall be changed like a garment,
but that God will always be the same (Psalm xc., cii.). They teach in
numerous places that God is the Creator of all things. They adore and
bless his fatherly love and kindness, which heals all our diseases and
redeems our life, crowning us with loving-kindness, pitying us, and
forgiving our sins (Psalm ciii.). They teach that he is in all nature
(Psalm civ.), that he searches and knows all our thoughts, and that we can
go nowhere from his presence (Psalm cxxxix.). They declare that he
protects all who trust in him (Psalm xci., cxxi.), and that he purifies
the heart and life (Psalm cxix.), creating in us a clean heart, and not
asking for sacrifice, but for a broken spirit (Psalm li.).
These Psalms express the highest and best moments of Jewish life, and rise
in certain points to the level of Christianity. They do not contain the
Christian spirit of forgiveness, nor that of love to one's enemy. They are
still narrowed to the range of the Jewish land and nation, and do not
embrace humanity. They are mountain summits of faith, rising into the pure
air and light of day from hidden depths, and appearing as islands in the
ocean. They reach, here and there, the level of the vast continent, though
not broad enough themselves to become the home of all races and nations.
There is nothing in the Vedas, nothing in the Avesta, nothing in the
sacred books of Egypt, or the philosophy of Greece and Rome, which so
unites the grandeur of omnipotence with the tenderness of a father toward
his child.
Sec. 5. Solomon; or, the Religious Relapse.
We have seen how the religion of Abraham, as the family worship of the
Supreme Being, was developed into that of Moses, as the national worship
of a just and holy King. We have seen it going onward from that, ascending
in the inspirations of David into trust in an infinite God as a friend,
and love to him as a father. We now come to a period of relapse. Under
Solomon and his successors, this religion became corrupted and degraded.
Its faith was changed into doubt, its lofty courage into the fear of kings
and tyrants, its worship of the Most High into adoration of the idols of
its neighbors. The great increase of power and wealth in the hands of
Solomon corrupted his own heart and that of his people. Luxury came in;
and, as in Rome the old puritanic virtues were dissolved by the desire for
wealth and pleasure, so it happened among the Jews. Then came the
retribution, in the long captivity in Babylon, and the beginning of a new
and better life under this hard discipline. And then comes the age of the
Prophets, who gradually became the teachers of a higher and broader faith.
So, when the Jews returned to Jerusalem, they came back purified, and
prepared to become once more loyal subjects of Jehovah.
The principle of hereditary succession, but not of primogeniture, had been
established by an agreement between David and the people when he proposed
erecting a Temple at Jerusalem. He had appointed his son Solomon as his
successor before his own death. With the entrance of Solomon we have an
entirely different personality from any whom we have thus far met. With
him also is inaugurated a new period and a different age. The age of Moses
was distinguished as that of law,--on the side of God absolute authority,
commanding and forbidding; on the side of man the only question was
between obedience and disobedience. Moses was the Law-giver, and his age
was the age of law. In the time of the Judges the question concerned
national existence and national independence. The age of the Judges was
the heroic age of the Jewish nation. The Judges were men combining
religious faith with patriotism; they were religious heroes. Then came the
time of David, in which the nation, having become independent, became also
powerful and wealthy. After his time the religion, instead of being a law
to be obeyed or an impulse to action, became ceremony and pageant. Going
one step further, it passed into reflection and meditation. In the age of
Solomon the inspiration of the national religion had already gone. A great
intellectual development had taken the place of inspiration. So that the
Jewish nation seems to have passed through a fourfold religious
experience. Religion was first law, then action, next inspiration and
sentiment, afterward ceremony, and lastly opinion and intellectual
culture.
It is the belief of Herder and other scholars that the age of Solomon gave
birth to a copious literature, born of peace, tranquillity, and
prosperity, which has all passed away except a few Psalms, the Book of
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon.
Solomon is personally a much less interesting character than David; for
policy is never so interesting as impulse, and the crimes of policy seem
worse than those of passion. The first act of Solomon was of this sort. He
put his brother Adonijah to death for his attempt to seize the throne.
Joab, who supported Adonijah against Solomon, was also put to death, for
which we do not grieve, when we remember his assassination of Abner and
Amasa, shedding the blood of war in peace. But the cold, unscrupulous
character of Solomon is seen in his ordering Joab to be slain in the
tabernacle while holding the horns of the altar, and causing Adonijah to
be taken by force from the same place of refuge. No religious
consideration or superstitious fear could prevent Solomon from doing what
he thought necessary for his own security. He had given Adonijah a
conditional pardon, limited to good behavior on his part. But after his
establishment on the throne Adonijah requested the mother of Solomon,
Bathsheba, to ask her son to give him for a wife the beautiful Abishag,
the last wife of David. Solomon understood this to mean, what his mother
did not understand, that his brother was still intriguing to supplant him
on the throne, and with cool policy he ordered him to immediate execution.
Solomon could pardon a criminal, but not a dangerous rival. He deposed the
high-priest for the same reason, considering him to be also dangerous.
Shimei, who seems to have been wealthy and influential as well as a
determined character, was ordered not to leave Jerusalem under penalty of
death. He did so, and Solomon put him to death. David, before his death,
had warned Solomon to keep an eye both on Joab and on Shimei, for David
could forgive his own enemies, but not those of his cause; he was not
afraid on his own account, but was afraid for the safety of his son.
By the death of Joab and Shimei, Solomon's kingdom was established, and
the glory and power of David was carried to a still higher point of
magnificence. Supported by the prophets on the one hand and by the priests
on the other, his authority was almost unlimited. We are told that "Judah
and Israel were many, as the sand which is by the sea in multitude, eating
and drinking and making merry. And Solomon reigned over all kingdoms from
the river unto the land of the Philistines, and unto the border of Egypt;
they brought presents, and served Solomon all the days of his life. And
Solomon's provision for one day was thirty measures of fine flour, and
threescore measures of meal, ten fat oxen, and twenty oxen out of the
pastures, and an hundred sheep, beside harts, and roebucks, and fallow
deer, and fatted fowl." The wars of David were ended. Solomon's was a
reign of peace. "And Judah and Israel dwelt safely, every man under his
vine and under his fig-tree, from Dan even to Beersheba, all the days of
Solomon. And Solomon had forty thousand stalls of horses for his chariots,
and twelve thousand horsemen." "And God gave Solomon wisdom and
understanding exceeding much, and largeness of heart, even as the sand
that is on the sea-shore. And Solomon's wisdom excelled the wisdom of all
the children of the east country, and all the wisdom of Egypt. For he was
wiser than all men; than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman, and Chalcol, and
Darda, the sons of Mahol; and his fame was in all nations round about."
"And there came of all people to hear the wisdom of Solomon, from all
kings of the earth, which had heard of his wisdom." The great power and
wealth of the Jewish court at this period are historically verified by the
traditions still extant among the Arabs of Solomon's superhuman splendor.
The story (1 Kings iii. 5) of Solomon's dream, in which he chose an
understanding heart and wisdom, rather than riches and honor, reminds us
of the choice of Hercules. It is not unlikely that he had such a dream, it
is quite probable that he always preferred wisdom to anything else, and it
is certain that his wisdom came from God. This is the only connection we
can trace between the dream and its fulfilment.
Solomon inaugurated a new policy by entering into alliances and making
treaties with his powerful neighbors. He formed an alliance with the king
of Egypt, and married his daughter. He also made a treaty of commerce and
friendship with the king of Tyre on the north, and procured from him cedar
with which to build the Temple and his own palace. He received an embassy
also from the queen of Sheba, who resided in the south of Arabia. By means
of the Tyrian ships he traded to the west as far as the coasts of Spain
and Africa, and his own vessels made a coasting voyage of three years'
duration to Tarshish, from which they brought ivory, gold, silver, apes,
and peacocks. This voyage seems to have been through the Red Sea to
India.[359] He also traded in Asia, overland, with caravans. And for their
accommodation and defence he built Tadmor in the desert (afterward called
Palmyra), as a great stopping-place. This city in later days became famous
as the capital of Zenobia, and the remains of the Temple of the Sun,
standing by itself in the midst of the Great Desert, are among the most
interesting ruins in the world.[360]
The great work of Solomon was building the Temple at Jerusalem in the
year B.C. 1005. This Temple was destroyed, and rebuilt by Nehemiah B.C.
445. It was rebuilt by Herod B.C. 17. Little remains from the time of
Solomon, except some stones in the walls of the substructions; and the
mosque of Omar now stands on the old foundation. No building of antiquity
so much resembles the Temple of Solomon as the palace of Darius at
Persepolis. In both buildings the porch opened into the large hall, both
had small chambers on the side, square masses on both sides of the porch,
and the same form of pillars. The parts of Solomon's Temple were, first, a
porch thirty feet wide and fifteen feet deep; second a large hall sixty by
thirty; and then the holy of holies, which was thirty feet cube. The whole
external dimensions of the building were only sixty feet by one hundred
and twenty, or less than many an ordinary parish church. The explanation
is that it was copied from the Tabernacle, which was a small building, and
was necessarily somewhat related to it in size. The walls were of stone,
on extensive stone foundations. Inside it was lined with cedar, with
floors of cypress, highly ornamented with carvings and gold. The brass
work consisted of two ornamented pillars called Jachin and Boaz, a brazen
tank supported by twelve brass oxen, and ten baths of brass, ornamented
with figures of lions, oxen, and cherubim.
The Book of Kings says of Solomon (1 Kings iv. 32) that "he spake three
thousand proverbs, and his songs were a thousand and five. And he spake of
trees, from the cedar-tree that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that
springeth out of the wall: he spake also of beasts, and of fowl and of
creeping things, and of fishes." He was, according to this account, a
voluminous writer on natural history, as well as an eminent poet and
moralist. Of all his compositions there remains but one, the Book of
Proverbs, which was probably in great part composed by him. It is true
that three books in the Old Testament bear his name,--Proverbs,
Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs. But of these Ecclesiastes was
probably written afterward, and though the Song of Songs may have been
written by Solomon, it was probably the work of another, living at or
near his time.
But of the Book of Proverbs there cannot be much doubt. It contains some
of the three thousand of which Solomon was the reputed author. It shows
his style of mind very clearly,--the cool understanding, the calculating
prudence, the continual reference to results, knowledge of the world as
distinguished from knowledge of human nature, or of individual character.
The Book of Proverbs contains little heroism or poetry, few large ideas,
not much enthusiasm or sentiment. It is emphatically a book of wisdom. It
has good, hard, practical sense. It is the "Poor Richard's Almanac" of
Hebrew literature. We can conceive of King Solomon and Benjamin Franklin
consulting together, and comparing notes of their observations on human
life, with much mutual satisfaction. It is curious to meet with such a
thoroughly Western intellect, a thousand years before Christ, on the
throne of the heroic David.
Among these proverbs there are many of a kindly character. Some are
semi-Christian in their wise benevolence. Many show great shrewdness of
observation, and have an epigrammatic wit. We will give examples of each
kind:--
PROVERBS HAVING A SEMI-CHRISTIAN CHARACTER.
"If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread;
If thirsty, give him water to drink,
For thou wilt heap coals of fire on his head,
And Jehovah will reward thee."
"To deliver those that are dragged to death,
Those that totter to the slaughter,
Spare thyself not.
If thou sayest, Behold, we knew it not,
Doth not He that weighs the heart observe it?
Yea, He that keeps thy soul knows it.
And He will render to every man according to his works."
"Put not thyself forth in the presence of the king,
Nor station thyself in the place of great men.
Far better it is that one should say to thee,
Come up hither!
Than that he should put thee in a lower place,
In the presence of the prince."
"The lip of truth shall be established forever,
But the tongue of falsehood is but for a moment."
PROVERBS SHOWING SHREWDNESS OF OBSERVATION.
"As one that takes a dog by the ears,
So is he that passing by becomes enraged on account of another's
quarrel."
"Where there is no wood the fire goes out;
So where there is no talebearer contention ceases."
"The rich rules over the poor,
And the borrower is servant to the lender."
"The slothful man says, There is a lion without,
I shall be slain in the streets."
"A reproof penetrates deeper into a wise man
Than a hundred stripes into a fool."
"Hope deferred makes the heart sick."
"The way of transgressors is hard."
"There is that scatters, and yet increases."
"It is naught, it is naught, saith the buyer,
But when he goeth his way then he boasteth."
PROVERBS WITTILY EXPRESSED.
"The legs of a lame man are not equal,
So is a proverb in the mouth of fools."[361]
"As a thorn runs into the hand of a drunkard,
So is a proverb in the mouth of a fool."[362]
"As clouds and wind without rain,
So is a man who boasts falsely of giving."
"A soft tongue breaks bones."
"As vinegar to the teeth, and smoke to the eyes,
So is the sluggard to him that sends him."
"The destruction of the poor is their poverty."
"A merry heart is a good medicine."
But what are human wisdom and glory? It seems that Solomon was to
illustrate its emptiness. See the king, in his old age, sinking into
idolatry and empty luxury, falling away from his God, and pointing the
moral of his own proverbs. He himself was the drunkard, into whose hand
the thorn of the proverb penetrated, without his heeding it. This prudent
and wise king, who understood so well all the snares of temptation and all
the arts of virtue, fell like the puppet of any Asiatic court. What a
contrast between the wise and great king as described in I Kings iv. 20-34
and the same king in his degenerate old age!
It was this last period in the life of Solomon which the writer of
Ecclesiastes took as the scene and subject of his story. With marvellous
penetration and consummate power he penetrates the mind of Solomon and
paints the blackness of desolation, the misery of satiety, the dreadful
darkness of a soul which has given itself to this world as its only
sphere.
Never was such a picture painted of utter scepticism, of a mind wholly
darkened, and without any remaining faith in God or truth.
These three books mark the three periods of the life of Solomon.
The Song of Songs shows us his abounding youth, full of poetry, fire, and
charm.
The Proverbs give his ripened manhood, wise and full of all earthly
knowledge,--Aristotle, Bacon, Socrates, and Franklin, all in one.
And Ecclesiastes represents the darkened and gloomy scepticism of his old
age, when he sank as low down as he had before gone up. But though so sad
and dark, yet it is not without gleams of a higher and nobler joy to come.
Better than anything in Proverbs are some of the noble sentiments breaking
out in Ecclesiastes, especially at the end of the book.
The Book of Ecclesiastes is a wonderful description of a doubt so deep, a
despair so black, that nothing in all literature can be compared to it. It
describes, in the person of Solomon, utter scepticism born of unlimited
worldly enjoyment, knowledge, and power.
The book begins by declaring that all is vanity, that there is nothing
new under the sun, no progress in any direction, but all things revolving
in an endless circle, so that there is neither meaning nor use in the
world.[363] It declares that _work_ amounts to nothing, for one cannot do
any really good thing; that knowledge is of no use, but only produces
sorrow; that pleasure satiates.[364] Knowledge has only this advantage
over ignorance, that it enables us to see things as they are, but it does
not make them better, and the end of all is despair.[365] Sensual pleasure
is the only good.[366] Fate and necessity rule all things. Good and evil
both come at their appointed time. Men are cheated and do not see the
nullity of things, because they have the world in their heart, and are
absorbed in the present moment.[367]
Men are only a higher class of beasts. They die like beasts, and have no
hereafter.[368]
In the fourth chapter the writer goes more deeply into this pessimism. He
says that to die is better than to live, and better still never to have
been born. A fool is better than a wise man, because he does nothing and
cares for nothing.[369]
Success is bad, progress is an evil; for these take us away from others,
and leave us lonely, because above them and hated by them.[370]
Worship is idle. Do not offer the sacrifice of fools, but stop when you
are going to the Temple, and return. Do not pray. It is of no use. God
does not hear you. Dreams do not come from God, but from what you were
doing before you went to sleep. Eat and drink, that is the best.[371] All
men go as they come.
So the dreary statement proceeds. Men are born for no end, and go no one
can tell where. Live a thousand years, it all comes to the same thing. Who
can tell what is good for a man in this shadowy, empty life?[372]
It is better to look on death than on life, wiser to be sad than to be
cheerful. If you say, "There _have been_ good times in the past," do not
be too sure of that. If you say, "We can be good, at least, if we cannot
be happy," there is such a thing as being _too_ good, and cheating
yourself out of pleasure.[373]
Women are worse than men. You may find one good man among a thousand, but
not one good woman.[374]
It is best to be on the right side of the powers that be, for they can do
what they please. Speedy and certain punishment alone can keep men from
doing evil. The same thing happens to the good and to the wicked. All
things come alike to all. This life is, in short, an inexplicable puzzle.
The perpetual refrain is, eat, drink, and be merry.[375]
It is best to do what you can, and think nothing about it. Cast your bread
on the waters, very likely you will get it again. Sow your seed either in
the morning or at night; it makes no difference.[376]
Death is coming to all. All is vanity. I continue to preach, because I see
the truth, and may as well say it, though there is no end to talking and
writing. You may sum up all wisdom in six words: "Fear God and keep his
commandments."[377]
The Book of Ecclesiastes teaches a great truth in an unexampled strain of
pathetic eloquence. It teaches what a black scepticism descends on the
wisest, most fortunate, most favored of mankind, when he looks only to
this world and its joys. It could, however, only have been written by one
who had gone through this dreadful experience. The intellect alone never
sounded such depths as these. Moreover, it could hardly have been written
unless in a time when such scepticism prevailed, nor by one who, having
lived it all, had not also lived _through_ it all, and found the cure for
this misery in pure unselfish obedience to truth and right. It seems,
therefore, like a Book of Confessions, or the Record of an Experience,
and as such well deserves its place in the Bible and Jewish literature.
The Book of Job is a still more wonderful production, but in a wholly
different tone. It is full of manly faith in truth and right. It has no
jot of scepticism in it. It is a noble protest against all hypocrisies and
all shams. Job does not know why he is afflicted, but he will never
confess that he is a sinner till he sees it. The Pharisaic friends tell
him his sufferings are judgments for his sins, and advise him to admit it
to be so. But Job refuses, and declares he will utter no "words of wind"
to the Almighty. The grandest thought is here expressed in the noblest
language which the human tongue has ever uttered.
Sec. 6. The Prophets; or, Judaism as the Hope of a spiritual and universal
Kingdom of God.
Before we proceed to examine the prophetic writings of the Old Testament,
it is desirable to make some remarks upon prophecy in general, and on the
character of the Hebrew prophets.
Prophecy in general is a modification of inspiration. Inspiration is
sight, or rather it is insight. _All_ our knowledge comes to us through
the intellectual power which may be called sight, which is of two
kinds,--the sight of external things, or outsight; and the sight of
internal things, which is insight, or intuition. The senses constitute the
organization by which we see external things; consciousness is the
organization by which we perceive internal things. Now the organs of sense
are the same in kind, but differ in degree in all men. All human beings,
as such, have the power of perceiving an external world, by means of the
five senses. But though all have these five senses, all do not perceive
the same external phenomena by means of them. For, in the first place,
their senses differ in degrees of power. Some men's eyes are telescopic,
some microscopic, and some are blind. Some men can but partially
distinguish colors, others not at all. Some have acute hearing, others
are deaf. And secondly, what men perceive through the senses differs
according to what is about them. A man living in China cannot see Mont
Blanc or the city of New York; a man on the other side of the moon can
never see the earth. A man living in the year 1871 cannot see Alexander
the Great or the Apostle Paul. And thirdly, two persons may be looking at
the same thing, and with senses of the same degree of power, and yet one
may be able to see what the other is not able to see. Three men, one a
geologist, one a botanist, and one a painter, may look at the same
landscape, and one will see the stratification, the second will see the
flora, and the third the picturesque qualities of the scene. As regards
outsight then, though men in general have the same senses to see with,
what they see depends (1) on their quality of sense, (2) on their position
in space and time, (3) and on their state of mental culture.
That which is true of the perception of external phenomena is also true of
the perception of internal things.
Insight, or intuition, has the same limitations as outsight. These are (1)
the quality of the faculty of intuition; (2) the inward circumstances or
position of the soul; (3) the soul's culture or development. Those who
deny the existence of an intuitive faculty, teaching that all knowledge
comes from without through the senses, sometimes say that if there were
such a faculty as intuition, men would all possess intuitively the same
knowledge of moral and spiritual truth. They might as well say that, as
all men have eyes, all must see the same external objects.
All men have more or less of the intuitive faculty, but some have much
more than others. Those who have the most are called, by way of eminence,
inspired men. But among these there is a difference as regards the objects
which are presented by God, in the order of his providence, to their
intuitive faculty. Some he places inwardly among visions of beauty, and
they are inspired poets and artists. Others he places inwardly amid
visions of temporal and human life, and they become inspired discoverers
and inventors. And others he places amid visions of religious truth, and
they are inspired prophets, lawgivers, and evangelists. But these again
differ in their own spiritual culture and growth. Moses and the Apostle
Paul were both inspired men, but the Apostle Paul saw truths which Moses
did not see, because the Apostle Paul had reached a higher degree of
spiritual culture. Christ alone possessed the fulness of spiritual
inspiration, because he alone had attained the fulness of spiritual life.
Now the inspired man may look inwardly either at the past, the present, or
the future. If he look at the past he is an inspired historian; if at the
present, an inspired lawgiver, or religious teacher; if at the future, an
inspired prophet. The inspired faculty may be the same, and the difference
may be in the object inwardly present to its contemplation. The seer may
look from things past to things present, from things present to things to
come, and his inspiration be the same. He fixes his mind on the past, and
it grows clear before him, and he sees how events were and what they mean.
He looks at the present, and sees how things ought to be. He looks at the
future, and sees how things shall be.
The Prophets of the Old Testament were not, as is commonly supposed, men
who only uttered predictions of the future. They were men of action more
than of contemplation. Strange as it may seem to us, who are accustomed to
consider their office as confined to religious prediction, their chief
duty was that of active politicians. They mixed religion and politics.
They interfered with public measures, rebuked the despotism of the kings
and the political errors of the people. Moreover, they were the
constitutional lawyers and publicists of the Hebrews, inspired to look
backward and explain the meaning of the Mosaic law as well as to look
forward to its spiritual development in the reign of the Messiah.
Prediction, therefore, of future events, was a very small part of the work
of the Prophets. Their main duty was to warn, rebuke, teach, exhort, and
encourage.
The Hebrew prophets were under the law. They were loyal to Moses and to
his institutions. But it was to the spirit rather than to the letter, the
idea rather than the form. They differed from the priests in preferring
the moral part of the law to the ceremonial. They were great reformers in
bringing back the people from external formalism to vital obedience. They
constantly made the ceremonial part of the law subservient to the moral
part of the law. Thus Samuel said to Saul: "Hath the Lord as great delight
in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord?
Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of
rams." And so afterward Isaiah declared in the name of the Lord, that the
sacrifices of a wicked people were vain, and their incense an abomination.
We read of the schools of the Prophets, where they studied the law of
Moses, and were taught the duties of their office. In these schools music
was made use of as a medium of inspiration.
But the office of a prophet was not limited by culture, sex, age, or
condition. Women, like Miriam, Deborah, Hannah, Huldah, and Noadiah;
inexperienced youths, like Jeremiah; men of high standing in society, like
Isaiah and Daniel; humble men, like the ploughman Elisha and the herdsman
Amos; men married and unmarried, are numbered among the Prophets. Living
poorly, wearing sackcloth, feeding on vegetables, imprisoned or
assassinated by kings, stoned by the people, the most unpopular of men,
sometimes so possessed by the spirit as to rave like madmen, obliged to
denounce judgments and woes against kings and people, it is no wonder that
they often shrank from their terrible office. Jonah ran to hide in a ship
of Tarshish. They have called their message a burden, like Isaiah; they
have cried out like Jeremiah, "Ah, Lord God, I cannot speak, for I am a
child"; like Ezekiel, they have been obliged to make their faces harder
than flints in order to deliver their message.
Dean Stanley, in speaking of the Prophets of the Old Testament, says that
their theology consisted in proclaiming the unity of God against all
polytheism, and the spirituality of God against all idolatry, in declaring
the superiority of moral to ceremonial duties, and in announcing the
supremacy of goodness above the letter, ceremony, or dogma. This makes
the contrast between the Prophets and all other sacred persons who have
existed in pagan and, he adds, even in Christian times. Dean Stanley says
the Prophets were religious teachers, without the usual faults of
religious teachers, and he proposes them as an example to the Christian
clergy. He says: "O, if the spirit of our profession, of our order, of our
body, were the spirit, or anything like the spirit, of the ancient
Prophets! If with us truth, charity, justice, fairness to opponents, were
a passion, a doctrine, a point of honor, to be upheld with the same energy
as that with which we uphold our own position and our own opinions!"
The spirit of the world asks first, Is it safe? secondly, Is it true? The
spirit of the Prophets asks first, Is it true? secondly, Is it safe? The
spirit of the world asks first, Is it prudent? secondly, Is it right? The
spirit of the Prophets asks first, Is it right? secondly, Is it prudent?
Taken as a whole, the prophetic order of the Jewish Church remains alone.
It stands like one of those vast monuments of ancient days, with ramparts
broken, with inscriptions defaced, but stretching from hill to hill,
conveying in its long line of arches the pure rill of living water over
deep valley and thirsty plain, far above all the puny modern buildings
which have grown up at its feet, and into the midst of which it strides
with its massive substructions, its gigantic height, its majestic
proportions, unrivalled by any erection of modern time.
The predictions of the future by the Prophets of Judaea were far higher in
their character than those which come occasionally to mankind through
dreams and presentiments. Yet no doubt they proceeded from the same
essentially Iranian faculty. This also is asserted by the Dean of
Westminster, who says that there is a power of divination granted in some
inexplicable manner to ordinary men, and he refers to such instances as
the prediction of the discovery of America by Seneca, that of the
Reformation by Dante, and the prediction of the twelve centuries of Roman
dominion by the apparition of twelve vultures to Romulus, which was so
understood four hundred years before its actual accomplishment. If such
presentiments are not always verified, neither were the predictions of
the Prophets always fulfilled. Jonah announced, in the most distinct and
absolute terms, that in forty days Nineveh should be destroyed. But the
people repented, and it was _not_ destroyed. Their predictions of the
Messiah are remarkable, especially because in speaking of him and his time
they went out of the law and the spirit of the law, and became partakers
of the spirit of the Gospel. The Prophets of the Jews, whatever else we
deny to their predictions, certainly foresaw Christianity. They describe
the coming of a time in which the law should be written in the heart, of a
king who should reign in righteousness, of a prince of peace, of one who
should rule by the power of truth, not by force, whose kingdom should be
universal and everlasting, and into which all nations of the earth should
flow. What the Prophets foresaw was not times nor seasons, not dates nor
names, not any minute particulars. But they saw a future age, they lived
out of their own time in another time, which had not yet arrived. They
left behind them Jewish ceremonialism, and entered into a moral and
spiritual religion. They dropped Jewish narrowness and called all mankind
brethren. In this they reach the highest form of foresight, which is not
simply to predict a coming event, but to live in the spirit of a future
time.
Thus the Prophets developed the Jewish religion to its highest point. The
simple, childlike faith of Abraham became, in their higher vision, the
sight of a universal Father, and of an age in which all men and nations
should be united into one great moral kingdom. Further than this, it was
not possible to go in vision. The difference between the Prophets and
Jesus was, that he accomplished what they foresaw. His life, full of faith
in God and man, became the new seed of a higher kingdom than that of
David. He was the son of David, as inheriting the loving trust of David in
a heavenly Father; he was also the Lord of David, by fulfilling David's
love to God with his own love to man; making piety and charity one, faith
and freedom one, reason and religion one, this life and the life to come
one. He died to accomplish this union and to make this atoning sacrifice.
Sec. 7. Judaism as a Preparation for Christianity.
After the return from the captivity the Jewish nation remained loyal to
Jehovah. The dangers of polytheism and idolatry had passed. We no more
hear of either of these tendencies, but, on the contrary, a rigid and
almost bigoted monotheism was firmly established. Their sufferings, the
teaching of their Prophets, perhaps the influence of the Persian worship,
had confirmed them in the belief that Jehovah was one and alone, and that
the gods of the nations were idols. They had lost forever the sacred ark
of the covenant and the mysterious ornaments of the high-priest. Their
kings had disappeared, and a new form of theocracy took the place of a
royal government. The high-priest, with the great council, became the
supreme authority. The government was hierarchal.
Hellenic influences began to act on the Jewish mind, and a peculiar
dialect of Hebrew-Greek, called the Hellenistic, was formed. The
Septuagint, or Greek version of the Old Testament, was made in Alexandria
about B.C. 260. In Egypt, Greek philosophy began to affect the Jewish
mind, the final result of which was the system of Philo. Greek influences
spread to such an extent that a great religious revolution took place in
Palestine (B.C. 170), and the Temple at Jerusalem was turned into a temple
of Olympic Jupiter. Many of the priests and leading citizens accepted this
change, though the heart of the people rejected it with horror. Under
Antiochus the Temple was profaned, the sacrifices ceased, the keeping of
the Sabbath and use of the Scriptures were forbidden by a royal edict.
Then arose the Maccabees, and after a long and bitter struggle
re-established the worship of Jehovah, B.C. 141.
After this the mass of the people, in their zeal for the law and their old
institutions, fell in to the narrow bigotry of the Pharisees. The
Sadducees were Jewish Epicureans, but though wealthy were few, and had
little influence. The Essenes were Jewish monks, living in communities,
and as little influential as are the Shakers in Massachusetts to-day. They
were not only few, but their whole system was contrary to the tone of
Jewish thought, and was probably derived from Orphic Pythagoreanism.[378]
The Talmud, that mighty maze of Jewish thought, commencing after the
return from the captivity, contains the history of the gradual progress
and development of the national mind. The study of the Talmud is necessary
to the full understanding of the rise of Christianity. Many of the
parables and precepts of Jesus may have had their origin in these
traditions and teachings. For the Talmud contains much that is excellent,
and the originality of Jesus was not in saying what never had been thought
before, but in vitalizing all old truth out of a central spiritual life.
His originality was not novelty, but vitality. We have room here but for a
single extract.[379]
"'Six hundred and thirteen injunctions,' says the Talmud, 'was Moses
instructed to give to the people. David reduced them all to eleven, in the
fifteenth Psalm: Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle who shall dwell
on thy holy hill? He that walketh uprightly,' &c.
"'The Prophet Isaiah reduced them to six (xxxiii. 15): He that walketh
righteously,' &c.
"'The Prophet Micah reduced them to three (vi. 8): What doth the Lord
require of thee but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly
with thy God?
"'Isaiah once more reduced them to two (lvi. 1): Keep ye judgment and do
justice.
"'Amos (v. 4) reduced them all to one: Seek ye me and ye shall live.
"'But lest it might be supposed from this that God could be found in the
fulfilment of his whole law only, Habakkuk said (ii. 4): The just shall
live by his faith.'"
Thus we have seen the Jewish religion gradually developed out of the
family worship of Abraham, through the national worship of the law to the
personal and filial trust of David, and the spiritual monotheism of Job
and the Prophets. Through all these changes there ran the one golden
thread of faith in a Supreme Being who was not hidden and apart from the
world, but who came to man as to his child.
At first this belief was narrow and like that of a child[380] We read
that when Noah went into the ark, "the Lord shut him in"; that when Babel
was built, "the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the
children of men had built"; that when Noah offered burnt-sacrifices, "the
Lord smelled a sweet savor"; that he told Moses to make him a sanctuary,
that he might dwell among the Israelites. We have seen, in our chapter on
Greece, that Homer makes Jupiter send a pernicious dream to Agamemnon, to
deceive him; in other words, makes Jupiter tell a lie to Agamemnon. But
how is the account in I Kings xxii. 20-23, any better?[381]
But how all this ignorance was enlightened, and this narrowness enlarged,
let the magnificent theism of the Psalms, of Job, and of Isaiah testify.
Solomon declares "The heaven of heavens cannot contain him, how much less
this house that I have builded." Job and the Psalms and Isaiah describe
the omniscience, omnipresence, and inscrutable perfections of the Deity in
language to which twenty centuries have been able to add nothing.[382]
Thus Judaism was monotheism, first as a seed, then as a blade, and then as
the ear which the sun of Christianity was to ripen into the full corn. The
highest truth was present, implicitly, in Judaism, and became explicit in
Christianity. The law was the schoolmaster to bring men to Christ. It
taught, however imperfectly, a supreme and living God; a Providence ruling
all things; a Judge rewarding good and punishing evil; a holy Being, of
purer eyes than to behold iniquity. It announced a moral law to be
obeyed, the substance of which was to love God with all the heart, and
one's neighbor as one's self.
Wherever the Apostles of Christ went they found that Judaism had prepared
the way. Usually, in every place, they first preached to the Jews, and
made converts of them. For Judaism, though so narrow and so alien to the
Greek and Latin thought, had nevertheless pervaded all parts of the Roman
Empire. Despised and satirized by philosophers and poets, it had yet won
its way by its strength of conviction. It offered to men, not a
philosophy, but a religion; not thought, but life. Too intolerant of
differences to convert the world to monotheism, it yet made a preparation
for its conversion. This was its power, and thus it went before the face
of the Master, to prepare his way.
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