In our second reading of _Levi and Sarah, or the Jewish Lovers_, we
have been struck with the following narrative of the pristine celebrity of
this favoured people:--
The most ancient of all the written histories of the human race, of their
deeds and condition, is undoubtedly that of the people of Israel: a people
to whom God himself was both leader and lawgiver--for whom the sea was
divided, and the stony rocks poured forth fountains of water---whose food
descended on them from heaven--for whom angels from above fought--and whom
all nature cheerfully obeyed,--in short a people, who, through a course of
many centuries, though surrounded with numerous Heathen nations, bore
constant testimony to the existence of one God alone. It is not wonderful
that such a people should think themselves exalted far above all others.
Moses, the first of all instructors and legislators, desired to raise his
people above the fate which had ruined other nations, by communicating to
them firmness and perseverance in their adherence to such institutions, as
should keep them a distinct nation from all others. These institutions
were peculiarly appropriate to the time, to the situation, and the
circumstances of the people for whom they were prescribed. It was not his
design that the Children of Israel, when freed from their misery, after
wandering forty years in the wilderness, should mix themselves up with the
Heathens, and adopt their morals and principles. He desired that they
should continue a distinct and holy people, that strangers should be
extirpated, and their country be possessed by Jews alone. Their bounds
were marked out by God himself, and extended from Lebanon and the
Euphrates to the sea; and he commanded them to keep his commandments in
the land which he had bestowed upon them, so that he alone should be their
Lord. Hereupon, as I have before observed, Moses delivered such laws as
were adapted to their situation. But these wanderers of the desert adhered
not to the law delivered to them. We find even during the life of Moses
much obstinacy, and an unbridled inclination to Heathenism was manifested,
by their making objects of idolatrous worship. After the death of Moses,
the seventy-two interpreters collected his doctrines; but they added to
them some, withdrew others, and confused several, by which the pure Mosaic
opinions must have been obscured. And we read accordingly, in the tenth
chapter of Judges, "that the children of Israel did evil in the sight of
the Lord." They served Baal and Ashtaroth, the deities of the Syrians and
Moabites, and even the gods of the Philistines, whom God had commanded
they should not serve.[6] Their hearts became hardened in their apostacy.
The siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnazar, and the captivity in Babylon, had
the most corrupting influence on the purity of the Mosaic doctrines, and
on the laws. The original writings discovered by Hilkiah, were retrenched,
added to, and the order of the events displaced. From the long residence
amongst, and a great intercourse with strange people, all the frightful
prejudices, all the fanciful dreams of our rabbins, were introduced into
the sacred books. We learn from the second book of Chronicles, chap.
xxxvi. verse 17, "that the king slew the young men with the sword in the
house of the sanctuary, and had no compassion upon young man or maiden,
old man or him that stooped for age. And all the vessels of gold, and the
treasures of the house of the Lord, and of the king and all the princes,
these he brought all to Babylon; and they burnt the house of God, and
brake down the walls of Jerusalem, and burnt all the palaces thereof with
fire."
[6] The greater part of the kings, both of Israel and of Judah,
served strange gods. Under Josiah, as he cleared out the
Temple, the book of the laws of Moses was found by Hilkiah the
priest, and was delivered to the king, who was much struck
with the threatenings it contained.
During the seventy years that this captivity lasted, only a few old men
survived who had retained any recollection of the laws of Moses. Esdras
collected, as far as was possible, the doctrines of Moses; but they were
mingled with too many principles which were foreign to them, and some of
them may be traced to Zoroaster. The existence of the three sects of the
Pharisees, the Sadducees, and Essenes, each of which give a different
interpretation of the word of God, abundantly prove this. Hillel and
Schamai, a little before the time of Vespasian, had a school. The Rabbi
Jonathan Sillai, a pupil of Hillel, exalts his master by saying, "If every
tree were a pen, and the whole ocean ink, I should not be able to describe
the wisdom I have received from Hillel." What extravagant expressions! How
well do they paint the fanaticism of sectarianism! It was not, however,
long, before this blind zeal drew down on the people a punishment from
Heaven, by the destruction of Jerusalem under the Roman chief, Titus. Read
the work of Flavius Josephus, and you will behold the noble firmness and
perseverance of the Israelites on one side, and on the other the
melancholy truth, that raving enthusiasm and blind obstinacy precipitated
the ruin of the most flourishing people in the world. The last siege and
capture of Jerusalem will ever be memorable in the history of mankind. How
violent was the exasperation between the two sects of the believers! What
firmness and obstinacy in each party, who preferred death and the
destruction of the whole nation to yielding up the smallest particle of
their different opinions! At that time, there fell, by famine and the
sword, more than a million of the Jews. One part of the people were left
as food for the wild beasts of the field, whilst some were kept alive to
grace the triumph of the victor; but that which above all moved the grief
of the Israelites, was the destruction of that temple which had been
erected by their own monarchs at so great an expense. Its glory has been
described by the author already named; I find the description among my
papers, and send it to you. You will weep as a true Israelite, and compare
our former greatness with the degraded state to which the blindness and
errors of our Elders have reduced us.
Under Hadrian, the Jews were once more excited to a contest.[7] Bar Cochef
announced himself as the Messias, but in the sequel 580,000 of our nation
were destroyed, and the name of Jerusalem was changed for that of Elia.
The emperor Julian, usually called the Apostate, in his ambition for
future fame, ordered the Temple of Solomon to be rebuilt. But the fathers
of the Christian Church, as well as the contemporary author Ammianus
Marcellinus, assert that a fire, which burst forth from the ground,
suspended the operation at its commencement.
[7] About fifty years after the destruction of Jerusalem, when the
great body of the Jews held the opinion that the time for the
appearance of their Messias had arrived, there arose this man,
who announced himself in that character, and called himself
Bar Cochef, or the "Son of a Star." He was acknowledged by
numbers of his people, who became his followers, declared him
their king, and made war upon the Romans, many of whom were
destroyed, both in Greece and in Africa. His power continued
betwixt three and four years, when the very people who had
supported him proclaimed him an impostor, and gave him the
name Bar Cosifa, or the "Son of a Lie."
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