SECTION VII.—THE OLD TESTAMENT.

Before entering upon the comparative examination of the Hebrew Canon,

it is necessary to say a few words of the extraordinary race who were

its authors. There is probably no other book of which it may be said,

with the same depth and fulness of meaning, that it is the work of a

nation and the reflection of a nation's life. The history of the Bible

and the history of the Jews are more intimately bound up together than

is that of any other nation with that of any other book. During the

period of their political existence as a separate people they wrote

the Canon. During the long period of political annihilation which has

succeeded, they have not ceased to write commentaries on the Canon.

This one great production has filled the imaginations, has influenced

the intellect, has fed the religious ardor of each succeeding

generation of Jews. To name the canonical Scriptures, and the endless

series of writings suggested by them or based upon them, would be

almost to sum up the results of the literary activity of the Hebrew

race.

Our first historical acquaintance with the Hebrews brings them

before us as obtaining by conquest, and then inhabiting, that narrow

strip of territory bordering the Mediterranean Sea which is known as

Palestine. Their own legends, indeed, carry us back to a still earlier

period, when they lived as slaves in Egypt; but on these, from the

character of the narrative, very little reliance can be placed. The

story, gradually becoming less and less mythical, tells us, what is

probably true, that they overcame the native inhabitants of Palestine

in war, and seized upon their land; that they then passed through

an anarchial period, during which the centre of authority seems to

have been lost, and the national unity was in no small danger of

being destroyed, had not vigorous and able leaders interposed to save

it; that, under the pressure of these circumstances, they adopted a

monarchial constitution, by which the dangers of this time of anarchy

were at least to a large extent averted, and the discordant elements

brought into subjection to a common centre. Thus united, the Jewish

monarchy rapidly attained a considerable height of splendor and of

power. Surrounding nations fell under its sway, and it took rank as

one of the great powers which divided Western Asia. But this glory was

not to last long. The monarchy, broken up into two hostile parts by the

folly of Rehoboam, lost alike its unity and its strength; and after

a long series of kings, whom it is needless to enumerate, both its

branches fell victims, at separate times, the one to Shalmaneser, king

of the Assyrians, the other to Nebuchadnezzar, king of the Chaldees.

The latter event, while it put an end to the very existence of the

Jewish nation as an independent political power—for it was but a fitful

independence which was recovered under the Asmoneans—marks an epoch

which severs the history of the Jews into two periods, distinguished

from one another by the completely different character borne by the

people in each. It is customary, for theological purposes, to represent

the religious development of the Jews as pervaded by a fundamental

unity. They are supposed to have known and worshiped the true God

from the beginning, to have been sharply marked off from the rest of

the world by their strict monotheism, and to have been unfaithful to

their inherited creed only when they refused to recognize Christ and

his apostles as its authorized interpreters. Their own records tell a

very different story. According to these, the religion of the Jews,

like that of other nations, progressed, changed, improved, underwent

purification and alteration, and was, in its earlier forms, not much

unlike that of the surrounding heathens. Their leaders, indeed, and all

those whom their Scriptures uphold as examples of excellence, worshiped

a national God, Jehovah, whom they may have considered the only god who

enjoyed actual existence and possessed actual power. But whether or

not this were the case, he was, for all practical purposes, simply the

tutelary deity of the Hebrews. In his name the conquerors of Palestine

pillaged, murdered, and inflicted cruelties on the vanquished; to him

they looked for aid in their belligerent undertakings; to him they

offered the first fruits of victory. It was under his direct leadership

that they professed to subdue the heathens, and to attain national

security. The ark was his dwelling, and it could only bring destruction

to the Philistines, who were not under the protection of its inmate.

And when the Jews asked to be placed under the rule of a monarch,

they were told by the mouthpiece of Jehovah that it was his divine

government which they were rejecting. The morality of the chiefs who

conducted the invasion and subjugation of Palestine was not one whit

superior to that of their enemies, nor was the god on whose power they

relied of an essentially higher nature than many other national or

local divinities who were worshiped by other nations. They were the

rude leaders of a rude people worshiping a rude deity. His character

was such as we might expect the tutelary divinity of a tribe of

wandering and unsettled Bedouins to be. Having to establish their right

to a permanent home and an organized government by force of arms, it

was only natural that they should represent their God as favoring the

exploits of those arms, and even urging them on to the most ruthless

exercise of the rights of conquerors. It was natural that even their

most revolting acts should be placed under the especial patronage of

this approving god. It was natural, too, that when the conquest had

been at least in great part effected, while yet the anarchial and

semi-savage condition of the victors continued (as it did more or less

until after the accession of David), and internal strife took the place

of external warfare, the national god should become to some extent a

party-god; should favor one section against another, and even excite

the ferocious passion of those to whose side he inclined. The god of

Moses, of Joshua, and the Judges was thus a passionate, relentless, and

cruel partisan. No doubt the facts were not precisely such as they are

represented to us by the writers in the Old Testament, since in the

internecine conflicts which occasionally broke forth we may assume that

each side claimed for itself the approbation of Jehovah. But still the

story of the Hebrew annals is clear enough to show us the semi-savage

character of the people in these early days, and their utter failure to

form that lofty conception of the deity with which they have been so

largely credited by believers in the supernatural inspiration of their

historical records.

The primitive conception entertained at this period, which corresponded

with that generally found among uncivilized nations, was improved

and elevated to some extent during the age of comparatively settled

government which succeeded. As the Israelites advanced in the practice

of the arts, in the possession of wealth, in the cultivation of the

literary or musical attainments that refine domestic life, in the

peaceful organization of a society that had become more industrial and

less warlike, their idea of Jehovah underwent the modifications which

these changes imply. The god of Samuel is widely different from the

god of Isaiah or Jeremiah. Whether the popular notion had risen to the

height attained by these prophets may indeed be doubted; but this too

must have altered in order to make such prophets possible. Yet, in

spite of the comparative improvement, there are abundant indications

during the kingly period that the old Hebrew deity still retained the

ferocious characteristics by which he had formerly been distinguished.

Elijah's patron is gracious enough to his own adherents, but the

attributes of mercy or gentleness towards human beings generally are

undiscoverable in his character. And the deeds of blood which pious

monarchs from time to time were guilty of in his honor, and which

received his approbation, show that if the process of his civilization

had begun, it was still very far from being completed.

But the special glory of the Jewish race is supposed to consist even

more in the fact that this God, such as he was, stood alone, than in

the excellence of the manner in which they conceived of his nature.

The constancy of their monotheism, amid the polytheism of surrounding

nations, has appeared to subsequent generations so marvelous as

to require a revelation to account for it. The facts, however, as

related to us by the Jews themselves, do not warrant the supposition

that monotheism actually was the creed of the people until after the

Captivity. It appears, indeed, that that form of belief was held by

those who are depicted to us as the most eminent and the most virtuous

among them, and it would seem that there was generally a considerable

party who adhered to the worship of Jehovah, and at times succeeded

in forcing it upon the nation at large. But that Jehovism was the

authorized and established national religion, and that every other

form and variety of faith was an authorized innovation, is a far

wider conclusion than the facts will warrant us in drawing. This, no

doubt, and nothing less than this, is the contention of the historical

writers of the Old Testament; but even their own statements, made as

they are under the influence of the strongest Jehovistic bias, point

with tolerable clearness to a different conclusion. They inform us

that while the most ancient leaders of the Israelites who conducted

them to the promised land, the distinguished Judges who from time to

time arose, and all the most virtuous kings, belonged to the religion

of Jehovah, the people, notwithstanding these great examples, were

continually guilty of relapses into idolatry of the most flagrant

kind. This tendency manifested itself so early, and reappeared with

such persistence during the whole history of the Israelites of both

branches up to the destruction of their respective monarchies, that we

cannot, consistently with the admitted facts, suppose that Jehovism

had at any time taken very deep root in the mind of the people. They

seem, on the contrary, to have been readily swayed to and fro by

the example of the reigning monarch. Whether indeed they sincerely

adopted monotheism under a monotheistic sovereign, may perhaps be

doubted; but the emphatic denunciations of the Biblical writers leave

us no room to question the perfect sincerity of their idolatry. All

therefore that we can be justified in inferring from what they tell

us is, that a succession of priests and prophets maintained the faith

of Jehovah from age to age, and that from time to time a sovereign

arose who favored their views, and did all in his power, sometimes by

fair means and not unfrequently by foul, to advance the interests of

the Jehovistic party. Indian history acquaints us with very similar

fluctuations in the religion of a province, according as the priests

of one or the other contending sect succeeded in obtaining influence

over the mind of the reigning Rajah. But although we maintain that

monotheism was not, previous to the captivity, the popular religion

of the Jews, we need not go the length of asserting that there was no

difference in their minds between Jehovah and the other deities whom

they adopted from surrounding nations. Jehovah was unquestionably

the national god, who was held to extend a peculiar protection over

the Hebrew race. Nor does it follow that those who betook themselves

to some idolatrous _cultus_ necessarily abandoned that of Jehovah.

Both might well have been carried on together, and there is abundant

evidence that the Jews of this period had much of that elasticity which

characterizes polytheism, and makes it ever ready to add new members

to its pantheon without discarding old favorites. So far as there was

a national worship carried on by a national priesthood, Jehovah must

have been its object. But we are not therefore compelled to imagine

that the nation had adopted Jehovism in so solemn and binding a manner

as to render its abandonment a gross violation of their fundamental

institutions. No doubt, according to the Scriptural writers, it was a

deliberate breach of the original constitution to forsake, even for a

moment, the exclusive service of the national god for that of any other

deity whatsoever. But the supernatural origin assigned by them to this

original constitution throws a doubt on their assertions, while the

facts they report serve to increase it. For while we learn that Jehovah

was deserted by one generation after another in favor of more popular

rivals, much to the indignation of his priests and prophets, we do not

perceive any traces of a consciousness on the part of the idolaters

that they were guilty of infidelity to fundamental and unchangeable

laws. They rather appear to have acted in mere levity, and the repeated

objurgations of the Jehovistic party would tend to the conclusion that

the people were not aware of any binding obligation to adhere to the

worship of this deity to the exclusion of that of every other. The

efforts of the Jehovists may indeed show that _they_ believed such an

obligation to exist: but not that their opponents were equally aware

of it. Moreover, we are not without some more positive testimony which

strongly favors this view of their mutual relations. Under the reign of

the pious, and no doubt credulous, Josiah, a certain priest professed

to have discovered a "book of the law" mysteriously hidden in the

temple. Without discussing in this place what book this may have been,

it is plain that it inculcated Jehovism under the penalty of curses

similar to those found in Deuteronomy, and it is plain too that its

contents caused the monarch a painful surprise, which expressed itself

by his rending his clothes and sending a commission to "inquire of the

Lord" "concerning the words of this book that is found." Now is it

possible to suppose that the words of such a book as this could have

inflicted on Josiah so great a shock, or have required the appointment

of a special commission to inquire concerning them, if it had been a

matter of familiar and general knowledge among the Jews that their

forefathers had solemnly adopted Jehovism as the only lawful national

creed, invoking upon themselves those very curses which the most devout

of monarchs was now unable to hear without astonishment and alarm? And

how are we to explain the production of this book by the priests as a

new discovery? If it had been merely the re-discovery of a lost volume

would the language of the narrative have been at all appropriate? Must

not Josiah in that case have rejoiced at the restoration to Judah of so

precious a treasure, however much he might have regretted the failure

of the nation to observe its precepts? The difficulty of supposing such

facts to have been forgotten is equally great. It would be scarcely

possible to imagine that not only the people, but the priests, could

at any period have lost all memory of the fact that they were bound,

under the most terrible penalties, to adhere to the faith of Jehovah.

At least the spiritual advisers of so religious a monarch must have

been well aware that their own creed formed an essential part of the

Jewish constitution; and we cannot doubt that they would carefully

have impressed this fact on their willing pupil, not as a startling

disclosure made only after he had been seventeen years on the throne

and had attained the age of twenty-five, but as one of his earliest and

most familiar lessons. In fact, this sudden discovery, in some secret

recess of the temple, of a hitherto unknown volume, concerning whose

claims to authority or antiquity the writers preserve a mysterious

silence, rather suggests the notion of a Jehovistic _coup d'état_,

prepared by the zeal of Hilkiah the priest and Shaphan the scribe. A

long time had passed since the accession of the king. His favorable

dispositions were well known. Since the eighth year of his reign at

least he had been under the influence of the priests, and in the

twelfth he had entered (no doubt under their directions) upon that

career of persecuting violence which was usual with pious monarchs

in Judea.[89] His mind was undoubtedly predisposed to receive with

implicit confidence any statements they might make. Hence, if Hilkiah

and his associates had conceived the idea of compiling, from materials

at their command, a book which, while recapitulating some events in

the ancient history of Israel, should represent those events in a light

favorable to their designs, they could hardly have chosen a better

moment for the execution of such a scheme. That they actually did this,

it would be going beyond the evidence in our possession to assert. It

may be that the book was an old one; and in any case, it is unnecessary

to suppose that it was an original composition of Hilkiah's, palmed off

upon the king as ancient. All that appears to me clearly to follow from

the terms of the narrative is, that the law which this book contained

(evidently the law of Jehovah) had not hitherto been regarded as the

established law of the country, and that the production of this volume,

in which its claims to that dignity were emphatically asserted, and its

violation represented as entailing the most grevious curses, was one of

the plans taken by the priestly party to procure for it the recognition

of that supremacy which they declared it had actually enjoyed in the

days of their forefathers. But although the history of Israel has been

written by adherents of this party, and we are unfortunately precluded

from checking their statements by any document recounting the same

events from the point of view of their opponents, their records, biased

as they are, clearly show us a nation whose favorite and ordinary

creed was not monotheism; which was ever ready to adopt with fervor

the idolatrous practices of its neighbors; and which was not converted

to pure and exclusive monotheism till after the terrible lesson of the

Captivity in Babylon.

This great event was turned to excellent account by the priests and

prophets of Jehovah. Instead of regarding it as a natural consequence

of the political relations of Judea with more powerful empires,

they represented it as the fulfillment of the penalties threatened

by Jehovah for infidelity towards himself. And as this view offered

a plausible explanation of their unparalleled misfortunes, it was

naturally accepted by many as the true solution of sufferings so

difficult to reconcile with the protection supposed to be accorded by

their national god. Under these circumstances a double process went

on during their compulsory residence in heathendom. Great numbers,

who were either not Jehovists, or whose Jehovism was but lukewarm,

gradually adapted themselves to their situation among idolaters, and

became at length indistinguishably fused, as the ten scribes had been,

with the alien races. But a few remained faithful to their God. These

few it was who formed the whole of the nation which, when return was

possible, returned to their native soil. Those who were not inspired

by a deep sense of the sanctity of their national religion; those to

whom the restoration of their national rites was not the one object of

overwhelming importance; those whose hopes of national restoration were

of a temporal rather than a spiritual nature, had no sufficient motive

to return to their native soil. Jerusalem could have no attractions

for them which Babylon did not possess. Thus, by a natural process,

the most ardent, the most spiritual, the most unbending monotheists

were weeded out from the mass of the community, and it was they who

accompanied Zerubbabel or Ezra on his sacred mission. Misfortune, which

had not shaken their faith, had deepened and purified it. Not only were

they Jehovists, but they were Jehovists of the sternest type. There was

among them none of that admixture of levity, and none of that facile

adaptability to foreign rites, which characterized the oldest Jews.

From this time forward their monotheism has never been broken by a

single relapse.

Thus the Captivity forms the turning-point in the character of the

Jews; for, in fact, the nation which was conquered by Nebuchadnezzar

was not the nation which, in the days of Kyros and Artaxerxes returned

to re-colonize and rebuild Jerusalem. The conquered people belonged

to a monarchy which, if it was now feeble and sunken, was directly

descended from one which had been glorious and mighty, and which had

aimed at preserving for Judea the status and dignity of an independent

power. Under its influence the Jews had been mobile, idolatrous,

deaf to the voice of Jehovistic prophets, neglectful of Jehovistic

rites; desirous of conquest, and, when that was impossible, unwilling

on political grounds to submit to foreign domination; rude if not

semi-barbarous in morals, and distracted by the contention of rival

religious parties. But this polity, of which the ruling motives were

mainly political, was succeeded after the return of the exiles by a

polity of which the ruling motives were exclusively religious. All were

now adherents of Jehovah; all were zealous performers of the rites

conceived to be his due.

This change must be borne in mind if we would understand Jewish

history; for the same language is not applicable to the Jews before and

after the Captivity, nor can we regard in the same light a struggling

and feeble race upholding its unanimous faith in the midst of trials,

and an independent nation in which a party, from time to time

victorious, endeavors to impose that faith by force. We may without

inconsistency censure the violence of the Jehovistic sectaries, and

admire the courage of the Jehovistic people. But although there is much

in this change that is good, it must be admitted that it has its bad

side. While becoming more conscientious, more scrupulously true to its

own principles, and more penetrated with a sense of religion, Judaism

became at the same time more rigid, more formal, more ritualistic, and

more unsocial. Ewald has remarked that the constitution established

after the return from captivity is one that lays undue stress upon the

exterior forms of religion, and may in time even become hostile to

what is truly holy. As it claims to be in possession of something holy

which temporal governments do not possess, it cannot submit to their

dominion; hence, he observes, Israel could never become an independent

nation again under this constitution.[90] Nor was this all. Even apart

from its tendency to magnify external forms, which was perhaps not of

its essence, the religion of Jehovah had inherent vices. The Jews,

believing their god to be the only true one, and insisting above all

on the supreme importance of preserving the purity of his _cultus_,

were necessarily led to assume a haughty and exclusive attitude towards

all other nations, which could not fail to provoke their hostility.

This unloveable spirit was shown immediately after their return by

their contumelious rejection of the Sâmaritan proposals to aid in

building the temple—proposals which seem to have been made in good

faith; by the Sabbatarian legislation of Nehemiah; and even more by the

exclusively harsh measures taken by Ezra for the purification of the

race. It was simply inevitable that all heathen nations who came in

contact with them should hate a people who acted on such principles.

Nor were the fears of the heathen altogether without foundation. When

the Jews recovered a temporary independence under the Maccabees, their

intolerance, now able to vent itself in acts of conquest, became a

source of serious danger. Thus, John Hyrcanus destroyed the temple of

the Sâmaritans (who also worshiped Jehovah) on Mount Gerizim, and the

Jews actually commemorated the event by a semi-festival. Alexander

Jannasus, too, carried on wars of conquest against his neighbors. In

one of these he took the town of Gaza, and evinced the treatment to

be expected from him by letting loose his army on the inhabitants and

utterly destroying their city. It was no doubt their unsocial and proud

behavior towards all who were not Jews that provoked the heathens

to try their temper by so many insults directed to the sensitive

point—their religion. Culpable as this was, it must be admitted that

it was in some degree the excessive scrupulosity of the Jews in regard

to things indifferent in themselves that exposed them to so much

annoyance. Had they been content to permit the existence of Hellenic

or Roman customs side by side with theirs, they might have been spared

the miseries which they subsequently endured. But the Scriptures,

from beginning to end, breathed a spirit of fierce and exclusive

attachment to Jehovah; he was the only deity; all other objects of

adoration were an abomination in his sight. Penetrated with this

spirit, the Jews patiently submitted to the yoke of every succeeding

authority—Chaldeans, Syrians, Egyptians, Romans—until the stranger

presumed to tamper with the national religion. Then their resistance

was fierce and obstinate. The great rebellion which broke out in the

reign of Antiochus Epiphanes, under the leadership of Mattathias, was

provoked by the attempt of that monarch to force Greek institutions on

the Jewish people. The glorious dynasty of the Asmoneans were priests

as well as kings, and the royal office, indeed, was only assumed by

them in the generation after that in which they had borne the priestly

office, and as a consequence of the authority derived therefrom. Under

the semi-foreign family of the Herods, who supplanted the Asmoneans,

and ruled under Roman patronage, as afterwards under the direct

government of Rome, it was nothing but actual or suspected aggressions

against the national faith that provoked the loudest murmurs or the

most determined opposition. It was this faith which had upheld the

Jews in their heroic revolt against Syrian innovations. It was this

which inspired them to support every offshoot of the Asmonean family

against the odious Herod. It was this which led them to entreat of

Pompey that he would abstain from the violation of the temple; to

implore Caligula, at the peril of their lives, not to force his statue

upon them; to raise tumults under Cumanus, and finally to burst the

bonds of their allegiance to Rome under Gessius Florus. It was this

which sustained the war that followed upon that outbreak—a war in which

even the unconquerable power of the Roman Empire quailed before the

unrivaled skill and courage of this indomitable race; a war of which I

do not hesitate to say that it is probably the most wonderful, the most

heroic, and the most daring which an oppressed people has ever waged

against its tyrants.

But against such discipline as that of Rome, and such generals

as Vespasian and Titus, success, however brilliant, could be but

momentary. The Jewish insurrection was quelled in blood, and the Jewish

nationality was extinguished—never to revive. One more desperate effort

was indeed made; once more the best legions and the best commanders of

the Empire were put in requisition; once more the hopes of the people

were inflamed, this time by the supposed appearance of the Messiah,

only to be doomed again to a still more cruel disappointment. Jerusalem

was razed to the ground; Aelia Capitolina took its place; and on the

soil of Aelia Capitolina no Jew might presume to trespass. But if the

trials imposed on the faith of this devoted race by the Romans were

hard, they were still insignificant compared to those which it had to

bear from the Christian nations who inherited from them the dominion

of Europe. These nations considered the misfortunes of the Jews as

proceeding from the divine vengeance on the crime they had committed

against Christ; and lest this vengeance should fail to take effect,

they made themselves its willing instruments. No injustice and no

persecution could be too bad for those whom God himself so evidently

hated. Besides, the Jews had a miserable habit of acquiring wealth;

and it was convenient to those who did not share their ability or

their industry to plunder them from time to time. But the Jewish race

and the Jewish religion survived it all. Tormented, tortured, robbed,

put to death, hunted from clime to clime; outcasts in every land,

strangers in every refuge, the tenacity of their character was proof

against every trial, and superior to every temptation. In this unequal

combat of the strong against the weak, the synagogue has fairly beaten

the Church, and has vindicated for itself that liberty which during

centuries of suffering its enemy refused to grant. Eighteen hundred

years have passed since the soldiers of Titus burned down the temple,

laid Jerusalem in ashes, and scattered to the winds the remaining

inhabitants of Judea; but the religion of the Jews is unshaken still;

it stands unconquered and unconquerable, whether by the bloodthirsty

fury of the legions of Rome, or by the still more bloodthirsty

intolerance of the ministers of Christ.

SUBDIVISION I.—_The Historical Books._

It is scarcely necessary to say that no complete account of the

contents of the Old Testament can be attempted here. To accomplish

anything like a full description of its various parts, and to discuss

the numerous critical questions that must arise in connection with such

a description, would in itself require a large volume. In a treatise

on comparative religion, anything of this kind would be out of place.

It is mainly in its comparative aspect that we are concerned with the

Bible. Hence many very interesting topics, such, for instance, as the

age or authorship of the several books, must be passed over in silence.

Tempting as it may be to turn aside to such inquiries, they have no

immediate bearing on the subject in hand. Whatever may be the ultimate

verdict of Biblical criticism respecting them, the conclusions here

reached will remain unaffected. All that I can do is to assume without

discussion the results obtained by the most eminent scholars, in so

far as they appear to me likely to be permanent. That the Book of

Genesis, for example, is not the work of a single writer, but that at

least two hands may be distinguished in it; that the Song of Solomon

is, as explained both by Renan and Ewald, a drama, and not an effusion

of piety; that the latter part of Isaiah is not written by the same

prophet who composed the former,—are conclusions of criticism which

I venture to think may now be taken for granted and made the basis

of further reasoning. At the same time I have taken for granted—not

as certain, but as likely to be an approximation to the truth—the

chronological arrangement of the prophets proposed by Ewald in his

great work on that portion of Scripture. Further than this, I believe

there are no assumptions of a critical character in the ensuing pages.

First, then, it is to be observed that the problems which occupied

the writers of the Book of Genesis, and which in their own fashion

they attempted to solve, were the same as those which in all ages have

engaged the attention of thoughtful men, and which have been dealt

with in many other theologies besides that of the Hebrews. The Hebrew

solution may or may not be superior in simplicity or grandeur to the

solutions of Parsees, Hindus, and others; but the attempt is the same

in character, even if the execution be more successful. The authors of

Genesis endeavor especially to account for:—

1. THE CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE.

2. THE ORIGIN OF MAN AND ANIMALS.

3. THE INTRODUCTION OF EVIL.

4. THE DIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES.

Although the fourth of these questions is, so far as I am aware, not a

common subject of consideration in popular mythologies, the first three

are the standard subjects of primitive theological speculation. Let us

begin with the Creation.

One of the earliest inquiries that human beings address themselves to

when they arrive at the stage of reflection is:—How did this world in

which we find ourselves come into being? Out of what elements was it

formed? Who made it, and in what way? A natural and obvious reply to

such an inquiry is, that a Being of somewhat similar nature to their

own, though larger and more powerful, took the materials of which the

world is formed and moulded them, as a workman moulds the materials

of his handicraft, into their present shape. The mental process gone

through in reaching this conclusion is simply that of pursuing a

familiar analogy in such a manner as to bring the unknown within the

range of conceptions applicable to the known. The solution, as will

be seen shortly, contrives to satisfy one-half of the problem only by

leaving the other half out of consideration. This difficulty, however,

does not seem to have occurred to the ancient Hebrew writers who

propounded the following history of the Creation of the Universe:—

"In the beginning," they say, "God created the heavens and the earth.

And the earth was desolate and waste, and darkness on the face of the

abyss, and the Spirit of God hovering on the face of the waters. And

God said: Let there be light, and there was light. And God saw the

light that it was good, and God divided between the light and the

darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called

Night. And it was Evening, and it was Morning: one day.

"And God said: Let there be a vault for separation of the waters,

and let it divide between waters and waters." Hereupon he made the

vault, and separated the waters above it from those below it. The

vault he called Heavens. This was his second day's work. On the third,

he separated the dry land from the sea, "and saw that it was good;"

besides which he caused the earth to bring forth herbs and fruit-trees.

"And God said: Let there be lights in the vault of the heavens to

divide between the day and between the night, and let them be for signs

and for times and for days and for years." Hereupon he made the sun for

the day, the moon for the night, and the stars. "And God put them on

the vault of the heavens to give light to the earth, and to rule by day

and by night, and to separate between the light and the darkness; and

God saw that it was good. And it was evening, and it was morning; the

fourth day" (Gen. i. 1-19).

Let us pause a moment here before passing on to the next branch of the

subject: the creation of animals and man. The author had two questions

before him; how the materials of the universe came into being, and how,

when in being, they assumed their present forms and relative positions.

Of the first he says nothing, unless the first verse be taken to

refer to it. But this can scarcely be; for the expression, "God made

the heavens and the earth," cannot easily be supposed to refer to

the original production of the matter out of which the heavens and

the earth were subsequently made. Rather must we take it as a short

heading, referring to the creation which is about to be described. And

in any case, the manner in which there came to be anything at all out

of which heavens and earth could be constructed is not considered. We

are left apparently to suppose that matter is coeval with the Deity;

for the author never faces the question of its origin, which is the

real difficulty in all such cosmogonies as his, but hastens at once

to the easier task of describing the separation and classification of

materials already in existence.

Somewhat similar to the Hebrew legend, both in what it records and

in what it omits, is the story of creation as told by the Quichés in

America:—

"This is the first word and the first speech. There were neither men

nor brutes, neither birds, fish, nor crabs, stick nor stone, valley

nor mountain, stubble nor forest, nothing but the sky; the face of

the land was hidden. There was naught but the silent sea and the sky.

There was nothing joined, nor any sound, nor thing that stirred;

neither any to do evil, nor to rumble in the heavens, nor a walker

on foot; only the silent waters, only the pacified ocean, only it

in its calm. Nothing was but stillness, and rest, and darkness,

and the night; nothing but the Maker and Moulder, the Hurler, the

Bird-Serpent" (M. N. W., p. 196.—Popol Vuh, p. 7).

Another cosmogony is derived from the Mixtecs, also aborigines of

America:—

"In the year and in the day of clouds, before ever were either years

or days, the world lay in darkness; all things were orderless, and a

water covered the slime and the ooze that the earth then was" (M. N.

W., p. 196).

Two winds are in this myth the agents employed to effect the subsidence

of the waters, and the appearance of dry land. In another account,

related by some other tribes, the muskrat is the instrument which

divides the land from the waters. These myths, as Mr. Brinton, who

has collected them, truly remarks, are "not of a construction, but a

reconstruction only, and are in that respect altogether similar to the

creative myth of the first chapter of Genesis."

In the Buddhistic history of the East Mongols, the creation of the

world is made, as in Genesis, the starting point of the relation.

But the creative forces in this mythology are apparently supposed to

be inherent in primeval matter. Hence we have a Lucretian account of

the movements of the several parts of the component mass without any

consideration of the question how the impulse to these movements was

originally given. "In the beginning there arose the external reservoir

from three different masses of matter; namely, from the creative air,

from the waving water, and from the firm, plastic earth. A strong wind

from ten-quarters now brought about the blue atmosphere. A large cloud,

pouring down continuous rain, formed the sea. Dry land arose by means

of grains of dust collecting on the surface of the ocean, like cream on

milk."[91]

Although the sacred writings of the Parsees contain no connected

account of the creation, yet this void is fully supplied by traditions

which have acquired a religious sanction, and have entered into the

popular belief. Those traditions are found in the Bundehesh and the

Shahnahmeh, works of high authority in the Parsee system. According to

them, Ahura-Mazda, the good principle, induced his rival, Agra-Mainyus,

the evil principle, to enter into a truce of nine thousand years,

foreseeing that by means of this interval he would be able to subdue

him in the end. Agra-Mainyus, having discovered his blunder, went to

the darkest hell, and remained there three thousand years. Ahura-Mazda

took advantage of this repose to create the material world. He

produced the sky in forty-five days, the water in sixty, the earth in

seventy-five, the trees in thirty, the cattle in eighty, and human

beings in seventy-five; three hundred and sixty-five days were thus

occupied with the business of creation. It will be observed that,

though the time taken is longer, the order of production is the same

in the Parsee as in the Hebrew legend. This fact tends to confirm the

supposition, which will hereafter appear still more probable, of an

intimate relation between the two.

Always prone to speculation, the Hindus were certain to find in the

dark subject of creation abundant materials for their mystic theories.

Various explanations are accordingly given in the Rig-Veda. Thus, the

following account is found in the tenth Book:—

"Let us, in chanted hymns, with praise, declare the births of the

gods,—any of us who in this latter age may behold them. Brâhmanaspati

blew forth these births like a blacksmith. In the earliest age of

the gods, the existent sprang from the non-existent: thereafter the

regions sprang from Uttānapad. The earth sprang from Uttānapad, from

the earth sprang the regions: Daksha sprang from Aditi, and Aditi from

Daksha. Then the gods were born, and drew forth the sun, which was

hidden in the ocean" (O. S. T., vol. v. p. 48.—Rig-Veda, x. 72).

With higher wisdom, another Vaidik Rishi declares it impossible to know

the origin of the universe:—

"There was then neither nonentity nor entity: there was no atmosphere,

nor sky above. What enveloped [all]? Where, in the receptacle of

what, [was it contained]? Was it water, the profound abyss? Death was

not then, nor immortality; there was no distinction of day or night.

That One breathed calmly, self-supported; there was nothing different

from, or above, it. In the beginning darkness existed, enveloped

in darkness. All this was undistinguishable water. That One which

lay void, and wrapped in nothingness, was developed by the power of

fervor. Desire first arose in It, which was the primal germ of mind;

[and which] sages, searching with their intellect, have discovered in

their heart to be the bond which connects entity with nonentity. The

ray [or cord] which stretched across these [worlds], was it below or

was it above? There were there impregnating powers and mighty forces,

a self-supporting principle beneath, and energy aloft. Who knows, who

here can declare, whence has sprung, whence, this creation? The gods

are subsequent to the development of this [universe]; who then knows

whence it arose? From what this creation arose, and whether [any one]

made it or not, he who in the highest heaven is its ruler, he verily

knows, or even he does not know" (O. S. T., vol. v. p. 356.—Rig-Veda,

x. 129).

A later narrative ascribes creation to the god Prajapati, who, it is

said, having the desire to multiply himself, underwent the requisite

austerities, and then produced earth, air, and heaven (A. B., vol. ii.

p. 372).

We now return to Genesis, which proceeds to its second problem: the

creation of living creatures and of man. This is solved in two distinct

fashions by two different writers. The first relates that on the fifth

day God said, "Let the waters swarm with the swarming of animals

having life, and let birds fly to and fro on the earth, on the face

of the vault of the heavens." Having thus produced the inhabitants of

the ocean and air on the fifth day, he produced those of earth on the

sixth. On this day too he made man in his own image, and created them

male and female. The whole of his work was now finished, and on the

seventh day he enjoyed repose from his creative exertions, for which

reason he blessed the seventh day (Gen. 1-ii. 3).

* * * * *

Here the first account of creation ends; the second begins with a

descriptive title at the fourth verse of the second chapter. The writer

of this version, unlike his predecessor, instead of ascribing the

creation of man to the immediate fiat of Elohim, describes the process

as resembling one of manufacture. God formed the human figure out of

the dust of the earth, and then blew life into it, a conception drawn

from the wide-spread notion of the identity of breath with life. Again

the narrator of the second story varies from the narrator of the first

about the creation of the sexes. In the first, the male and female are

made together. In the second, a deep sleep falls upon the man, during

which God takes out a rib from his side and makes the woman out of it.

Generally speaking, it may be remarked that the former writer moves in

a more transcendental sphere than the latter. He likes to conceive the

origin of the world, with all its flora and all its fauna, as arising

from the simple power of the word of God. How they arise he never

troubles himself to say. The latter is more terrestrial. God with him

is like a powerful artist; extremely skilled indeed in dealing with

his materials, but nevertheless obliged to adapt his proceedings to

their nature and capabilities. This author delights in the concrete

and particular; and not only does he aim at relating the order of

the creation, but also at making the _modus operandi_ more or less

intelligible to his hearers.

A somewhat different account of the origin of man is given in the

traditions of Samoa, one of the Fiji islands. These traditions also

describe an epoch when the earth was covered with water. "Tangaloa,

the great Polynesian Jupiter," sent his daughter to find a dry place.

After a long time she found a rock. In subsequent visits she reported

that the dry land was extending. "He then sent her down with some earth

and a creeping plant, as all was barren rock. She continued to visit

the earth and return to the skies. Next visit, the plant was spreading.

Next time, it was withered and decomposing. Next visit, it swarmed with

worms. And the next time, the worms had become men and women! A strange

account of man's origin!" On which it may be remarked, as a curious

psychological phenomenon, tending to illustrate the effects of habit,

that the missionary considers it "a strange account of man's origin"

which represents God as making him from worms, but readily accepts

another in which he is made out of dust.

The third question dealt with in Genesis is that of the origin of evil.

This is a problem which has engaged the attention and perplexed the

minds of many inquirers besides these ancient Hebrews, and for which

most religions provide some kind of solution. The manner in which it is

treated here is as follows:—

When God made Adam, he placed him in a garden full of delights, and

especially distinguished by the excellence of its fruit-trees. There

was one of these trees, however, the fruit of which he did not wish

Adam to eat. He accordingly gave him strict orders on the subject in

these words: "Of every tree of the garden thou mayst eat; but of the

tree of knowledge of good and evil, of that thou mayst not eat, for on

what day thou eatest thereof, thou diest the death" (Gen. ii. 16, 17).

This order we must suppose to have been imparted by Adam to Eve, who

was not produced until after it had been given. At any rate, we find

her fully cognizant of it in the ensuing chapter, where the serpent

appears upon the scene and endeavors, only too successfully, to induce

her to eat the fruit. After yielding to the temptation herself, she

induced her husband to do the like; whereupon both recognized the

hitherto unnoticed fact of their nudity, and made themselves aprons of

fig-leaves. Shortly after this crisis in their lives God came down to

enjoy the cool of the evening in the garden; and Adam and Eve, feeling

their guilt, ran to hide themselves among the trees. God called Adam,

and the latter replied that he had hidden himself because he was naked.

But God at once asked who had told him he was naked. Had he eaten of

the forbidden tree? Of course Adam and Eve had to confess, and God

then cursed the serpent for his gross misconduct, and punished the man

by imposing labor upon him, and the woman by rendering her liable to

the pains of childbirth. He also condescended so far as to become the

first tailor, making garments of skins for Adam and Eve. But though he

had thus far got the better of them by his superior strength, he was

not without apprehension that they might outwit him still. "And God,

the Everlasting, spoke: See, the man is become as one of us, to know

good and evil; and now, lest he should stretch out his hand and take

also of the tree of life, and eat and live forever! Therefore God,

the Everlasting, sent him out of the garden of Eden, to cultivate the

ground from which he had been taken" (Gen. iii. 22, 23). And in order

to make quite sure that the man should not get hold of the tree of

life, a calamity which would have defeated his intention to make him

mortal, he guarded the approach to it by means of Cherubim, posted as

sentinels with the flame of a sword that turned about. In this way

he conceived that he had secured himself against any invasion of his

privilege of immortality on the part of the human race.

Like the myth of creation, the myth of a happier and brighter age,

when men did not suffer from any of the evils that oppress them now,

is common, if not universal. Common too, if not equally common, is the

notion that they fell from that superior state by contracting the stain

of sin. I need scarcely refer to the classical story of a golden age,

embodied by Hesiod in his "Works and Days," nor to the fable of Pandora

allowing the ills enclosed in the box to escape into the world. But it

may be of interest to remark, that the conception of a Paradise was

no less familiar to the natives of America than to those of Europe.

"When Christopher Columbus," observes Brinton, "fired by the hope of

discovering this terrestrial paradise, broke the enchantment of the

cloudy sea and found a new world, it was but to light upon the same

race of men, deluding themselves with the same hope of earthly joys,

the same fiction of a long-lost garden of their youth" (M. N. W., p.

87). Elsewhere he says: "Once again, in the legends of the Mixtecas, we

hear the old story repeated of the garden where the first two brothers

dwelt.... 'Many trees were there, such as yield flowers and roses, very

luscious fruits, divers herbs, and aromatic spices'" (M. N. W., p.

90). Corresponding to the golden age among the Greeks was the Parsee

conception of the reign of Yima, a mythological monarch who was in

immediate and friendly intercourse with Ahura-Mazda. Yima's kingdom is

thus described in the Vendidad: "There was there neither quarreling

nor disputing; neither stupidity nor violence; neither begging nor

imposture; neither poverty nor illness. No unduly large teeth; no form

that passes the measure of the body; none of the other marks, which

are marks of Agra-Mainyus, that he has made on men" (Av., vol. i. p.

76.—Vendidad, Fargard ii. 116 ff.). In another passage, found in the

Khorda-Avesta, not only is the happiness of Yima's time depicted, but

it is also distinctly asserted that he fell through sin. "During his

rule there was no cold, no heat, no old age, no death, no envy created

by the Devas, on account of the absence of lying, previously, before

he (himself) began to love lying, untrue speeches. Then, when he began

to love lying, untrue speeches, Majesty fled from him visibly with the

body of a bird" (Av., vol. iii. p. 175.—Khorda-Avesta, xxxv. 32, 34).

More elaborately than in any of these systems is the fall of man

described in the mythology of Buddhism. In this religion, as in that of

the Jews, man is of divine origin, though after a somewhat different

fashion. A spiritual being, or god, fell from one of the upper spheres,

to be born in the world of man. Through the progressive increase of

this being arose "the six species of living creatures in the three

worlds." The most eminent of these species, Man, enjoyed an untold

duration of life (another point in which Buddhistic legends resemble

those of the Hebrews). Locomotion was carried on through the air;

they did not consume impure terrestrial food, but lived on celestial

victuals; and propagation, since there was no distinction of sex, was

carried on by means of emanation. They did not require sun or moon,

for they saw by their own light. Alas! one of these pure beings was

tempted by a fool called earth-butter and ate it. The rest followed

its example. Hereupon the heavenly food vanished; the race lost their

power of going about the sky, and ceased to shine by their own light.

This was the origin of the evil of the darkening of the mind. As a

consequence of these deeds, sun, moon, and stars appeared. Still

greater calamities were in store for men. Another, at another time,

ate a different kind of food, an example again followed by the rest.

In consequence of this, the distinctions of sex were established in

them; passion arose; they began to beget children. This was the origin

of the evil of sensual love. On a further occasion, one of them ate

wild rice, and all lived for a time on wild rice, gathered as it was

needed for immediate consumption. But when some foolish fellow took it

into his head to collect enough for the following day, the rice ceased

to grow without cultivation. This was the origin of the evil of idle

carelessness. It being now necessary to cultivate rice, persons began

to appropriate and quarrel about land, and even to kill one another.

This was the origin of the evil of anger. Again, some who were better

off hid their stores from those who were not so well off. This was

the origin of the evil of covetousness. In course of time the age of

men began to decline so as to be expressible in numbers. It continues

gradually to decline until a turning-point arrives, at which it again

increases (G. O. M., p. 5-9).

Several points of similarity between the Hebrew myth and that just

narrated will doubtless occur to the reader. The fall of man is due,

in this, as in Genesis, to the eating of a peculiar food by a single

person; and this example is followed, in the one case, by the only

other inhabitant; in the other, by all. The calamity thus entailed

does not terminate in the loss of former pleasures, but extends to the

introduction of crime and sexual relations. Eve is cursed by having to

bear children; the same misfortune happened to the Buddhist women. Cain

quarreled with Abel and killed him; so did the landed proprietors in

the Indian legend quarrel with and kill one another.

The fourth question which appeared to have engaged the attention of the

authors of Genesis was that of the variety of languages. How was it,

if all mankind were descended from a single pair, and if again all but

the Noachian family had been drowned, that they did not all speak the

pure language in which Adam and Eve had conversed with their Creator

in Paradise? Embarrassed by their own theories, the writers attempted

to account for the phenomenon of the diverse modes of speech in use

among men by an awkward myth. Men had determined to build a town, with

a tower which should reach to heaven. Jehovah, however, came down one

day to see what they were about, and was filled with apprehension that,

if they succeeded in this undertaking, he might find it impossible

to prevent them from carrying out their wishes in other ways also,

whatever those wishes might be. So he determined to confound their

language, that they might not understand one another, and by this happy

contrivance put an end to the construction of the dangerous tower (Gen.

xi. 1-9).

We have anticipated the course of the narrative in order to consider

the solutions offered in Genesis of the four principal problems with

which it attempts to deal. We must now return to the point at which we

left the parents of the race, namely, immediately after their expulsion

from Eden. They now began to beget children rapidly; and Adam's eldest

son, Cain, afterwards killed his second son, Abel, for which Jehovah

cursed him as he had previously cursed his parents. Adam and Eve had

several other children, and (though this is nowhere expressly stated,

but only implied) the brothers and sisters united in marriage to carry

out the propagation of the species. In course of time, however, the

"sons of God" began to admire the beauty of the "daughters of men," and

to take wives from among them. Jehovah, indignant at such a scandal,

fixed the limits of man's life—which had hitherto been measured by

centuries—at 120 years. At the same time there were giants on earth.

Now Jehovah saw that the human race was extremely wicked, so much

so, that he began to wish he had never created it. To remedy this

blunder, however, he determined to destroy it; and in order that the

improvement should be thorough, to destroy along with it all cattle,

creeping things, and birds, who had not (so far as we are aware,)

entered into the same kind of irregular alliances with other species as

men. Nevertheless, he had still a lingering fondness for his handiwork,

badly as it had turned out; and therefore determined to preserve enough

of each kind of animal, man included, to carry on the breed without

the necessity of resorting a second time to creation. Acting upon

this resolve, he ordered an individual named Noah to build an ark of

gopher-wood, announcing that he would shortly destroy all flesh, but

wished to save Noah and his three sons, with their several wives. He

also desired him to take two members of each species of beasts and

birds, or, according to another account, seven of each clean beast

and bird, and two of each unclean beast; but in any case taking care

that each sex should be represented in the ark. When Noah had done all

this, the waters came up from below and down from above, and there

was an increasing flood for forty days. All terrestrial life but that

which floated in the ark was destroyed. At last the waters began to

ebb, and finally the ark rested on the 17th day of the 7th month on

Mount Ararat. After forty more days Noah sent out a raven and a dove,

of which only the dove returned. In seven days he sent the dove again,

and it returned, bringing an olive-leaf; and after another week, when

he again sent it out, it returned no more. It was not, however, till

the 27th of the 2d month of the ensuing year (these chroniclers being

very exact about dates) that the earth was dried, and that Noah and his

party were able to quit the ark. To commemorate the goodness of God in

drowning all the world except himself and his family, Noah erected an

altar and offered burnt-offerings of every clean beast and every clean

fowl. The effect was instantaneous. So pleased was Jehovah with the

"pleasant smell," that he resolved never to destroy all living beings

again, though still of opinion that "the imagination of man's heart is

evil from his youth" (Gen. vi. 7, 8).

The myth of the deluge is very general. The Hebrews have no exclusive

property in it. Many different races relate it in different ways. We

may easily suppose that the partial deluges to which they must often

have been witnesses suggested the notion of a universal deluge, in

which not only a few tribes or villages perished, but all the inhabited

earth was laid under water; or the memory of some actual flood of

unusual dimensions may have survived in the popular mind, and been

handed down with traits of exaggeration and distortion such as are

commonly found in the narratives of events preserved by oral tradition.

Let us examine a few instances of the flood-myth.

The Fijians relate that the god "Degei was roused every morning by the

cooing of a monstrous bird," but that two young men, his grandsons,

one day accidentally killed and buried it. Degei having, after some

trouble, found the dead body, determined to be avenged. The youths

"took refuge with a powerful tribe of carpenters," who built a fence to

keep out the god. Unable to take the fence by storm, Degei brought on

heavy floods, which rose so high that his grandsons and their friends

had to escape in "large bowls that happened to be at hand." They landed

at various places; but it is said that the two tribes became extinct

(Viti, p. 394).

The Greenlanders have "a tolerably distinct tradition" of a flood. They

say that all men were drowned excepting one. This one beat with his

stick upon the ground and thereby produced a woman (Grönland, p. 246).

Kamtschatka has a somewhat similar legend, except that it admits a

larger number of survivors. Very many, according to this version, were

drowned, and the waves had sunk those who had got into boats; but

others took refuge in rafts, binding the trees together to make them.

On these they saved themselves with their provisions and all their

property. When the waters subsided, the rafts remained on the high

mountains (Kamtschatka, p. 273).

Among the North Americans "the notion of a universal deluge" was, in

the time of the Jesuit De Charlevoix, "rather wide-spread." In one of

their stories, told by the Iroquois, all human beings were drowned; and

it was necessary, in order to re-populate the earth, to change animals

into men (N. F., vol. iii. p. 345).

The Tupis of Brazil are supposed to be named after Tupa, the first

of men, "who alone survived the flood" (M. N. W., p. 185). Again,

"the Peruvians imagined that _two_ destructions had taken place, the

first by a famine, the second by a flood; according to some a few only

escaping, but, after the more widely accepted opinion, accompanied by

the absolute extirpation of the race." The present race came from eggs

dropped out of heaven (Ibid., p. 213). Several other tribes relate in

diverse forms this world-wide story. In one of the versions, found in

an old Mexican work, a man and his wife are saved, by the directions

of their god, in a hollow cypress. In another, the earth is destroyed

by water, because men "did not think nor speak of the Creator who had

created them, and who had caused their birth." "Because they had not

thought of their Mother and Father, the Heart of Heaven, whose name is

Hurakan, therefore the face of the earth grew dark, and a pouring rain

commenced, raining by day, raining by night" (Ibid., p. 206 ff.).

The diluvian legend appears in a very singular form in India in the

Satapatha Brâhmana. There it is stated, that in the basin which was

brought to Manu to wash his hands in, there was one morning a small

fish. The fish said to him, "Preserve me, I shall save thee." Manu

inquired from what it would save him. The fish replied that it would be

from a flood which would destroy all creatures. It informed Manu that

fishes, while small, were exposed to the risk of being eaten by other

fishes; he was therefore to put it first into a jar; then when it grew

too large for that, to dig a trench and keep it in that; that when it

grew too large for the trench, to carry it to the ocean. Straightway

it became a large fish, and said: "Now in such and such a year, then

the flood will come; thou shalt therefore construct a ship, and resort

to me; thou shalt embark in the ship when the flood rises, and I shall

deliver thee from it." Manu took the fish to the sea, and in the year

that had been named, "he constructed a ship and resorted to him. When

the flood rose, Manu embarked in the ship. The fish swam towards him.

He fastened the cable of the ship to the fish's horn. By this means he

passed over this northern mountain. The fish said, 'I have delivered

thee; fasten the ship to a tree. But lest the water should cut thee

off whilst thou art on the mountain, as much as the water subsides, so

much shalt thou descend after it.' He accordingly descended after it

as much (as it subsided).... Now the flood had swept away all these

creatures; so Manu alone was left here" (O. S. T., vol. i. p. 183). The

story goes on to relate that Manu, being quite alone, produced a woman

by "arduous religious rites," and that with this woman, who called

herself his daughter, "he begot this offspring, which is this offspring

of Manu," that is, the existing human race.

After the flood, the history proceeds for some time to narrate the

lives of a series of patriarchs, the mythological ancestors of the

Hebrew race. Of these the first is Abram, afterwards called Abraham;

to whom a solemn promise was made that he was to be the progenitor

of a great nation; that Jehovah would bless those who blessed him,

and curse those who cursed him; and that in him all generations of

the earth should be blessed (Gen. xii. 1-3). When Abraham visited

Egypt, he desired his wife Sarah to call herself his sister, fearing

lest the Egyptians should kill him for her sake. She did so, and was

taken into Pharaoh's harem in consequence of her false statement; but

Jehovah plagued Pharaoh, and his house so severely that the truth

was discovered, and Sarah was restored to her lawful husband. It is

remarkable that Abraham is stated to have subsequently repeated the

same contemptible trick, this time alleging by way of excuse that Sarah

really was his step-sister; and that Abraham's son, Isaac, is said to

have done the same thing in reference to Rebekah (Gen. xii. 10-20, xx.,

xxvi. 6-11). Abimelech, king of Gerar, who was twice imposed upon by

these patriarchs, must have thought it a singular custom of the family

thus to pass off their wives as sisters. Apparently, too, both of

them were quite prepared to surrender their consorts to the harems of

foreign monarchs rather than run the smallest risk in their defense.

Abraham, at ninety-nine years of age, was fortunate in all things

but one: he had no legitimate heir. But this too was to be given

him. Jehovah appeared to him, announced himself as Almighty God, and

established with Abraham a solemn covenant. He promised to make him

fruitful, to give his posterity the land of Canaan, in which he then

was, and to cause Sarah to have a son. At the same time he desired

that all males should be circumcized, an operation which was forthwith

performed on Abraham, his illegitimate son Ishmael, and all the men in

his house (Gen. xvii). In due time Sarah had a son whom Abraham named

Isaac. But when Isaac was a lad, and all Abraham's hopes of posterity

were centered in him as the only child of Sarah, God one day commanded

him to sacrifice him as a burnt-offering on a mountain in Moriah.

Without a murmur, without a word of inquiry, Abraham prepared to obey

this extraordinary injunction, and was only withheld from plunging

the sacrificial knife into the bosom of his son by the positive

interposition of an angel. Looking about, he perceived a ram caught in

a thicket, and offered him as a burnt offering instead of Isaac. For

this servile and unintelligent submission, he was rewarded by Jehovah

with further promises as to the amazing numbers of his posterity in

future times (Gen. xxi. 1-8; xxii. 1-19).

The tradition of human sacrifice, thus preserved in the story of

Abraham and Isaac, is found also in a curious narrative of the Aitareya

Brâhmana. That sacred book also commemorates an important personage, in

this instance a king, who had no son. Although he had a hundred wives,

yet none of them bore him a male heir. He inquired of his priest,

Narada, what were the advantages of having a son, and learned that

they were very great. "The father pays a debt in his son, and gains

immortality," such was one of the privileges to be obtained by means

of a son. The Rishi Narada therefore advised King Harischandra to pray

to Varuna for a son, promising at the same time to sacrifice him as

soon as he was born. The king did so. "Then a son, Rohita by name, was

born to him. Varuna said to him, 'A son is born to thee, sacrifice him

to me.' Harischandra said, 'An animal is fit for being sacrificed,

when it is more than ten days old. Let him reach this age, then I will

sacrifice him to thee. At ten days Varuna again demanded him, but now

his father had a fresh excuse, and so postponed the sacrifice from age

to age until Rohita had received his full armor." Varuna having again

claimed him, Harischandra now said, "Well, my dear, to him who gave

thee unto me, I will sacrifice thee now." But Rohita, come to man's

estate, had no mind to be sacrificed, and ran away to the wilderness.

Varuna now caused Harischandra to suffer from dropsy. Rohita, hearing

of it, left the forest, and went to a village, where Indra, in

disguise, met him and desired him to wander. The advice was repeated

every year until Rohita had wandered six years in the forest. This last

year he met a poor Rishi, named Ajigarta, who was starving, to whom

he offered one hundred cows for one of his three sons as a ransom for

himself in the sacrifice to be offered to Varuna. The father having

objected to the eldest, and the mother to the youngest, the middle one

Sunahsepa, was agreed upon as the ransom, and the hundred cows were

paid for him. Rohita presented to his father the boy Sunahsepa, who

was accepted by the god with the remark that a Brahman was worth more

than a Kshattriya. "Varuna then explained to the king the rites of the

Rajasuya sacrifice, at which on the day appointed for the inauguration

he replaced the (sacrificial animal) by a man."

But at the sacrifice a strange incident occurred. No one could be

found willing to bind the victim to the sacrificial post. At last his

father offered to do it for another hundred cows. Bound to the stake,

no one could be found to kill him. This act also his father undertook

to do for a third hundred. "He then whetted his knife and went to kill

his son. Sunahsepa then got aware that they were going to butcher him

just as if he were no man (but a beast). 'Well,' said he, 'I will seek

shelter with the gods.' He applied to Prajapati, who referred him to

another god, who did the same; and thus he was driven from god to

god through the pantheon, until he came to Ushas, the dawn. However,

as he was praising Ushas, his fetters fell off, and Harischandra's

belly became smaller; until at the last verse he was free, and

Harischandra well." Sunahsepa was now received among the priests as

one of themselves, and he sat down by Visvamitra, an eminent Rishi.

Ajigarta, his father, requested that he might be returned to him, but

Visvamitra refused, "for," he said, "the gods have presented him to

me." From that time forward he became Visvamitra's son. At this point,

however, Ajigarta himself entreated his son to return to his home, and

the answer of the latter is remarkable. "Sunahsepa answered, 'What is

not found even in the hands of a Shudra, one has seen in thy hand, the

knife (to kill thy son); three hundred cows thou hast preferred to

me, O Angiras.' Ajigarta then answered, 'O my dear son! I repent of

the bad deed I have committed; I blot out this stain! one hundred of

the cows shall be thine!' Sunahsepa answered, 'Who once might commit

such a sin, may commit the same another time. Thou art still not free

from the brutality of a Shudra, for thou hast committed a crime for

which no reconciliation exists.' 'Yes, irreconcilable (is this act),'

interrupted Visvamitra!" (A. B., p. 460-469.)

On the likeness of this story to the Hebrew legend of the intended

sacrifice of Isaac, and on the difference between the two, I shall

comment elsewhere. From the days of Abraham the history proceeds

through a series of patriarchal biographies—those of Isaac and Rebekah,

of Jacob and Rachel, of Joseph and his brothers—to the captivity of

the Israelites in Egypt under the successor of the monarch whose prime

minister Joseph had been. It is at this point that the history of the

Hebrews as a distinct nation may be said to begin. The patriarchs

belong to universal history. But from the days of the Egyptian

captivity it is the fortunes of a peculiar tribe, and afterwards of

an independent people that are followed. We have their deliverance

from slavery, their progress through the wilderness, their triumphant

establishment in their destined home, the rise, decline, and fall

of their national greatness, depicted with much graphic power, and

intermingled with episodes of the deepest interest. It would not be

consistent with the plan or limits of this work to follow the history

through its varied details; all we can do is to touch upon it here

and there, where the adventures, institutions, or imaginations of

the Hebrews present points of contact with those of other nations as

recorded in their authorized writings.

It was only by the especial favor of Jehovah that the Hebrew slaves

were enabled to escape from Egypt at all. That deity appointed a man

named Moses as their leader; and, employing him as his mouthpiece,

desired Pharaoh to let them go. On Pharaoh's refusal, he visited Egypt

with a series of calamities; all of them inadequate to the object

in view, until at length Pharaoh and all his army were overwhelmed

in the Red Sea, which had opened to allow the Israelites to pass.

These last now escaped into the wilderness, where, under the guidance

of Moses, they wandered for forty years, undergoing all sorts of

hardships, before they reached the promised land. During the course

of their travels, Jehovah gave Moses ten commandments, which stand

out from a mass of other injunctions and enactments, by the solemnity

with which they were delivered, and by the extreme importance of their

subject-matter. They are reported to have been given to Moses by

Jehovah in person on Mount Sinai, in the midst of a very considerable

amount of noise and smoke, apparently intended to be impressive. By

these laws the Israelites were ordered—

1. To have no other God but Jehovah.

2. To make no image for purposes of worship.

3. Not to take Jehovah's name in vain.

4. Not to work on the Sabbath day.

5. To honor their parents.

6. Not to kill.

7. Not to commit adultery.

8. Not to steal.

9. Not to bear false witness against a neighbor.

10. Not to covet.

Concerning these commandments, it may be observed that the acts

enjoined or forbidden are of very different characters. Some of the

obligations thus imposed are universally binding, and the precepts

relating to them form a portion of universal ethics. Others again are

of a purely special theological character, and have no application

at all except to those who hold certain theological doctrines.

Lastly, others command states of mind only, which have no proper

place in positive laws enforced under penalties. To illustrate these

remarks in detail: the four commandments against killing, stealing,

adultery, and calumny are of universal obligation, and though they

are far from exhausting the list of actions which a moral code should

prohibit, yet properly belong to it and are among its most important

constituents. But the first, second, third, and fourth commandments

presuppose a nation believing in Jehovah as their God; and even with

that proviso the fourth, requiring the observance of a day of rest,

is purely arbitrary; belonging only to ritual, not to morals. To

place it along with prohibitions of murder and theft, is simply to

confuse in the minds of hearers the all-important distinction between

special observances and universal duties. Again, the fifth and tenth

commandments require mere emotional conditions; respect for parents in

the one case, absence of covetousness in the other. No doubt both these

mental conditions have actions and abstinences from action as their

correlatives; but it is with these last that law should deal, and not

with the mere states of feeling over which no commandment can exercise

the smallest control. Law may forbid us to annoy our neighbor, or do

him an injury on account of his wife whom we love, or his estate which

we desire to possess; but it is idle to forbid us to wish that the wife

or the estate were ours.

These errors are avoided in the five fundamental commandments of

Buddhism, which relate wholly to matters that, if binding upon any, are

binding upon all. They are these:—

1. Not to kill.

2. Not to steal.

3. Not to indulge in illicit pleasures of sex.

4. Not to lie.

5. Not to drink intoxicating liquors.[92]

No doubt the fifth is not of equal importance with the rest; yet

its intention is simply to put a stop to drunkenness, and this it

accomplishes, like teetotal societies, by requiring entire abstinence.

Probably in hot climates, and with populations not capable of much

self-control, this was the wisest way. The third commandment, as I have

presented it, is somewhat vague, but this is because the form in which

it is given by the authorities is not always the same. Sometimes it

appears as a mere prohibition of all unchastity; but the more probable

view appears to be that of Burnouf, who interprets it as directed

against adultery, in substantial accordance with Alabaster, who renders

it as an injunction "not to indulge the passions, so as to invade the

legal or natural rights of other men."

In the eight principal commandments of the Parsees, the breach of

which was to be punished with death, there is the the same confusion of

theological and natural duties as in the Hebrew Bible. The Parsees were

forbidden—

1. To kill a pure man (_i. e._, a Parsee).

2. To put out the fire Behram.

3. To throw the impurity from dead bodies into fire or water.

4. To commit adultery.

5. To practice magic or contribute to its being practiced.

6. To throw the impurity of menstruating women into fire or water.

7. To commit sodomy with boys.

8. To commit highway-robbery or suicide (Av., vol. ii. p. lx).

Besides these commandments, Jehovah gave his people a vast mass of

laws, amounting in fact to a complete criminal code, through his

mouthpiece Moses. Among these laws were those which were written on the

two tables of stone, commonly though erroneously supposed to have been

the ten commandments of the twentieth chapter. The express statement

of Exodus forbids such a supposition. It is there stated that when God

had finished communing with Moses he gave him "two tables of testimony,

tables of stone, written with the finger of God." This most valuable

autograph Moses had the folly to break in his anger at finding that the

Israelites, led by his brother Aaron, had taken to worshiping a golden

calf in his absence (Ex., xxxi. 18, and xxxii. 19). God, however,

desired him to prepare other tables like those he had destroyed, and

kindly undertook to write upon them the very words that had been on

the first. Apparently, however, he only dictated them to Moses, who

is said to have written upon the tables "the words of the covenant,

the ten commandments." What these words were there can be no doubt,

for he had begun his address to Moses by saying, "Behold, I make a

covenant;" and had concluded it by the expression, "Write thou _these_

words: for after the tenor of these words have I made a covenant

with thee and with Israel" (Ex. xxxiv. 1-28). Now the commandments

thus asserted to have been written on the tables of stone were very

different from the ten given before on Mount Sinai, and resemble more

closely still the style of those quoted from the Parsee books. Yet

they were evidently deemed by the writers of great importance, from

the honor ascribed to them of having been originally written in God's

own handwriting on stone. Their purport is:—1. To forbid any covenant

with the inhabitants of the land to which the Israelites were going,

and to enjoin them to "destroy their altars, break their images, and

cut down their groves;"—2. To require the observance of the feast of

unleavened bread;—3. To lay claim to firstlings for Jehovah, and demand

their redemption;—4. To command the Sabbatical rest;—5. To enjoin the

observance of the feast of weeks;—6. To desire that all males should

appear thrice yearly before the Lord;—7. To forbid the sacrifice of

blood with leaven;—8. To forbid leaving the sacrifice of the feast

of the passover till morning;—9. To demand the first-fruits for

Jehovah;—10. To forbid seething a kid in its mother's milk.[93]

Eminent as Moses was, and high as he stood in the favor of his God, he

was not permitted to lead his people to Canaan. Jehovah punished him

for a momentary weakness by depriving him of that privilege, which was

reserved for Joshua. Just as the waters of the Red Sea were cleft in

two to allow the Israelites to quit Egypt, so were those of the Jordan

cleft in two to allow them to enter Canaan. No sooner did the feet

of the priests bearing the ark touch the water, than the portion of

the river below was cut off from that above, the upper waters rising

into a heap (Josh. iii). Striking as this miracle is, it is not more

so than that performed by Visvamitra, an Indian sage. When he arrived

at a river which he desired to cross, that holy man said: "Listen,

O sisters, to the bard who has come to you from afar with wagon and

chariot. Sink down; become fordable; reach not up to our chariot-axles

with your streams. (The rivers answer): We shall listen to thy words,

O bard; thou hast come from far with wagon and chariot. I will bow

down to thee like a woman with full breast (suckling her child), as

a maid to a man will I throw myself open to thee. (Visvamitra says):

When the Bharatas, that war-loving tribe, sent forward, impelled by

Indra, have crossed thee, then thy headlong current shall hold on its

course. I seek the favor of you the adorable. The war-loving Bharatas

have crossed; the Sage has obtained the favor of the rivers. Swell on,

impetuous and fertilizing; fill your channels; roll rapidly" (O. S. T.,

vol. i. p. 340).

So that the very same prodigy which, according to the Book of Joshua,

was wrought for the benefit of the Hebrew people in Palestine, was,

according to the Rig-Veda, wrought for the benefit of a warlike tribe

in India.

After their arrival and settlement in Palestine the Israelites passed

through a period of great trouble and disturbance. The government was

a direct theocracy; men appointed by God, that is, self-appointed,

put themselves at the head of affairs and governed with more or less

success under the inspiration, and in the name of Jehovah. During this

time the people were exposed to great annoyance from their enemies the

Philistines, by whom they were for a certain space held in subjugation.

The legend of the national hero and deliverer, Samson, falls within

this period of depression under a foreign yoke. Samson is the Jewish

Herakles, and his exploits are altogether as fabulous as those of

his Hellenic counterpart; though it is not impossible that such a

personage as Samson may have lived and may have led the people with

some glory against their hereditary enemies. Many internal disturbances

contributed to render the condition of the Israelites under their

theocracy far from enviable; and at length, under the government of

Samuel, the last representative of this state of things, the people

could bear their distress no longer and united to demand a king. The

request was undoubtedly a wise one; for the authority of a monarch was

eminently needed to give internal peace and protection against external

attacks to the distracted nation. Samuel, however, was naturally

opposed to such a change. His feelings and his interests were alike

concerned in the maintenance of the direct government of Jehovah, whose

plenipotentiary he was. But all his representations that the proposal

to elect a king was a crime in the eyes of God, were unavailing. He

was compelled to yield, and selected, as the monarch appointed by

Jehovah himself, a young man named Saul. Before long, however, Jehovah

discovered that he had made a mistake, and that Saul was not the kind

of man he had hoped to find him. Samuel was therefore desired to

anoint David to supplant him. In other words, Saul did not prove the

obedient instrument which Samuel had hoped to make of him, and he

therefore entered into a secret conspiracy to procure his deposition.

The conduct of Saul, and his relations to David, have probably been

misrepresented by the ecclesiastical historians, who persistently

favor David. Nevertheless, they cannot wholly disguise the lawless and

savage career of this monarch before his accession to the throne, of

which at length he obtained possession. Nor was his conduct during his

occupation of it altogether exemplary. He, however, promoted the views

of the priestly party, and this was enough to cover a multitude of sins.

His son Solomon who succeeded him was the most magnificent of the

monarchs of Israel and the last who ruled over the undivided kingdom.

He was especially renowned for his wisdom, which is exemplified by a

famous decision. Two women came before him to dispute the ownership

of an infant. One of them stated that the other, who was alone in the

same house with her, had killed her own child by lying upon it during

the night, and taken the living child from its mother while that mother

was asleep. The other asserted that the living child was hers. Having

heard the two statements, the king ordered the living child to be cut

in two and half given to each woman. Hereupon the one declared that

she would prefer to resign it altogether; but the other professed her

acquiescence in the judgment. The king at once awarded it to her who

had been willing to resign it rather than see it divided (1 Kings,

iii. 16-28). Equal, or perhaps even greater wisdom, was displayed by

a monarch whose history is recorded in one of the sacred books of

Buddhism. Two women were contending before him about their right to a

boy. He desired each of them to take hold of it by one of its hands and

to pull at it; the one who succeeded in getting it to keep it. She who

was not the mother pulled unmercifully; whereas the true mother, though

stronger than her rival, only pulled gently in order to avoid hurting

it. The king perceived the truth, and adjudged it to the one who had

pulled it gently (G. O. M., p. 344).

Rehoboam, the son and successor of Solomon, failing to conciliate the

people at his accession, brought about the schism between Sâmaria and

Judea, between the ten tribes and the two, which was never afterwards

healed. After this the government in each kingdom may be described as

absolute monarchy tempered by prophetical admonition. The prophets,

who formed a kind of professional body of advisers in the interest of

Jehovah, made it their business to reprove the crimes, and especially

the idolatries of the kings. They exercised the kind of influence which

a _corps diplomatique_ may sometimes exercise on a feeble court. The

monarchs sometimes attended to their advice; sometimes rejected it; and

they receive commendation or reproof at the hands of the historians

according to their conduct in this respect. Two of these prophets,

Elijah and Elisha, were men of great eminence, and their actions

are recorded at length. Such was the power of Elisha that when, on

one occasion, he cursed some children who had called him bald head,

she-bears came out of the wood and ate forty-two of them (2 Kings, ii.

23-25). Respect for ecclesiastics or prophets is sometimes inculcated

by such decided measures as these. A young Buddhist monk once laughed

at another for the alacrity with which he leapt over a grave, saying he

was as active as a monkey. The man whom he had ridiculed told him that

he belonged to the highest rank in the Church; that is, that he was an

Arhat. Upon hearing this the young monk was so alarmed that all his

hair stood on end, and he begged for forgiveness. His repentance saved

him from being born in hell; but because he had laughed at an Arhat he

was condemned to be born 500 times as a monkey (G. O. M., p. 351).

Elisha's powers in other respects were not less wonderful. He could

cause iron to swim, could foretell the course of events in a war, could

restore the dead to life, and could smite the king's enemies with

blindness (2 Kings, vi. 7). In this last accomplishment he has rivals,

as Canon Callaway has correctly noted, among the Amazulu priests. The

Amazulus have a word in their language to describe the practice. "It

is called an _umlingo_," they say, if, when a chief is about to fight

with another chief, his doctors cause a darkness to spread among his

enemies, so they are unable to see clearly (R. S. A., vol. iii. p. 338).

The kingdom of Israel, unfaithful to the worship of Jehovah, fell

under the yoke of Shalmaneser, King of Assyria; while Judah, though

attacked and summoned to submit, by his successor, Sennacherib (or more

correctly Sanherib), remained independent some time longer. The King

of Judah was at this time Hezekiah, a man thoroughly imbued with the

principles of the Jehovistic party, and therefore much lauded by the

historians. The prophet of the day was Isaiah, one of the most eminent

of those who have filled the prophetic office. Isaiah warmly encouraged

Hezekiah to resist the designs of conquest cherished by Sanherib, and

promised a successful issue. The messengers of the Assyrian monarch

had insultingly reproached Jehovah with his inability to deliver the

land, alleging that none of the gods of the territories which he had

conquered had availed them anything. But a signal confutation of

this profane belief in large armies as against deities was about to

be given, and that in a manner which gave an equally signal triumph

to Jehovah, the god of the Jews, and Ptah, the god of the Egyptians.

Sanherib was engaged in an expedition against Egypt, which was governed

at this time by a priest-king, resembling Hezekiah in the piety of his

character. This priest was in bad odor with his army, who refused to

assist him against the invaders. During his trouble on this account,

the god whom he served appeared to him in his sleep and promised that

he should suffer nothing, for he would send him his divine assistance,

just as Jehovah promised deliverance through the mouth of Isaiah. He

therefore went with some followers to Pelusium, and when there, a

number of field-mice, pouring in upon the Assyrians, devoured their

quivers, their bows, and the handles of their shields, so that on the

next day they fled defenseless, and many were killed. Herodotus tells

us that in his day there was still to be seen the statue of the king

in the temple of Ptah, a mouse in his hand, and this inscription:

"Whoever looks on me, let him revere the gods" (Herod., ii. 141). In

the Hebrew version of this catastrophe, the field-mice are converted

into the angel of the Lord, and the destruction of the weapons into the

slaughter by that angel of 185,000 men. Sanherib, it is added, returned

to Nineveh, where he was assassinated by his two sons (2 Kings, xix.

35-37). But Sanherib himself, in a deciphered inscription, declares

that he had beaten the Egyptians, subjected Judea, carried off many of

its inhabitants, and only left Jerusalem to the king (R. I., p. 328).

Certainly this statement is strongly confirmed, so far as Judea is

concerned, by the admission of the historians themselves, that Sanherib

had taken the fenced cities of the country; that Hezekiah had made an

unreserved submission to him, and had even sent him, by way of tribute,

not only all the treasures in his own palace and in the temple, but the

very gold from the doors of the temple, and from the pillars which he

himself had overlaid (2 Kings xviii. 13-16). So humiliating a position

went far to justify the taunts of the Assyrian ambassadors, that the

god of Judea was no more to be trusted as a defense against material

weapons than the gods of the subjugated nations.

A remarkable instance of the favor of Heaven towards Hezekiah was

subsequently evinced. The king fell dangerously ill, and was warned by

Isaiah to make the necessary arrangements in view of his death, which

was about to happen. Hezekiah did not bear the announcement with much

dignity. He passionately implored Jehovah to remember his piety and

good deeds, and then "wept sore." Moved by this pitiable supplication,

Jehovah sent Isaiah back again to promise him fifteen years' more life.

On Hezekiah's asking for a sign that he would be healed, Isaiah asked

him whether he would prefer that the shadow on the dial should advance

or go back ten degrees. Hezekiah, thinking that it was a mere trifle

for a god to cause it to advance, desired that it might turn backwards

(2 Kings, xx. 1-11).

A similar grace was shown towards King Woo in China, but in this case

it was the prayer of others, not his own, that effected his recovery.

His brother, the Duke of Chow, erected four altars, put certain

symbols upon them, and addressed himself to three departed kings. "The

_grand_ historian _by his order wrote_ on tablets his prayer to the

following effect:—" A. B., your chief descendant, is suffering from

a severe and dangerous sickness;—if you three kings have in heaven

the charge of _watching over_ him, _Heaven's_ great son, let me, Tan,

be a substitute for his person. "I have been lovingly obedient to my

father; I am possessed of many abilities and arts which fit me to serve

spiritual beings. Your chief descendant, on the other hand, has not

so many abilities and arts as I, and is not so capable of serving

spiritual beings. And, moreover, he was appointed in the hall of God

to extend his aid to the four quarters _of the empire_, so that he

might establish your descendants in this lower world. The people of

the four quarters stand in reverent awe of him. Oh! do not let that

precious heaven-conferred appointment fall to the ground, and all our

former kings will also have a perpetual reliance and resort. I will

now seek for your orders from the great tortoise" (C. C., vol. iii. p.

353.—Shoo King, part 5, book 6). After this prayer, the Duke divined

with the tortoises, which gave favorable indications. "The oracular

responses" were favorable too. Accordingly the king recovered, but the

devoted brother, though he did not die, suffered for some time from

unjust suspicions, and retired from court. This was after the decease

of King Woo. The discovery of the tablets by Woo's successor led to his

restoration to favor. The relation of the reign of Hezekiah, one of

the most inglorious of Judah's rulers, is an example of the use made

of a theory which pervades and colors the whole history of the kings

from beginning to end. That theory is, that God favored and protected

those monarchs who worshiped and obeyed his prophets, while he

punished those who worshiped other gods and neglected his orders. The

deposition of Saul, the glory of David, the destruction of the families

of Jeroboam and Baasha, the miserable fate of Ahab and his seventy

sons, the exaltation of Jehu and his milder punishment proportioned

to his mitigated idolatry, are all examples of the prevalence of this

theory. Some of the facts indeed were rather difficult to deal with;

such, for instance, as the palpable decline of Judea under Hezekiah,

and the continuance of its previous misfortunes under Josiah, the most

praiseworthy of the kings, who, in spite of his unrivaled piety, was

slain in a battle against a mere pagan. But inconsistencies like these

might be glossed over or explained away. The best kings might meet with

the greatest calamities, and the people of Jehovah might prove even

more unfortunate than the heathen. It mattered not. They were still

under his protection; and if they suffered, it was because they had

not worshiped him enough, or not worshiped him exclusively. With this

elastic hypothesis the key to all historical events was found.

Traces of a similar theory are to be found in the sacred books of

China, though in one instance it is placed in the mouth of a successful

sovereign desirous of vindicating his supersession of a former dynasty.

It is, however, precisely in such cases, where some David or Jehu

has deposed a former monarch and taken his throne, that this theory

is useful, transferring, as it does, the responsibility of the issue

to a higher power. Thus speaks the Chinese king:—"I have heard the

saying—'God leads men to tranquil security,' but the sovereign of Hea

would not move to such security, whereupon God sent down _corrections_,

indicating his mind to him. Këe, however, would not be warned by God,

but proceeded to greater dissoluteness and sloth and excuses for

himself. Then Heaven no longer regarded nor heard him, but disallowed

his great appointment, and inflicted extreme punishment. Hereupon it

charged your founder, T'ang the Successful, to set Hea aside, and by

means of able men to rule the empire. From T'ang the Successful down to

the Emperor Yih, every sovereign sought to make his virtue illustrious,

and duly attended to the sacrifices. And thus it was that while Heaven

exerted a great establishing influence, preserving and regulating the

house of Yin, but its sovereigns on their part were humbly careful

not to lose the favor of God, and strove to manifest a good-doing

corresponding to that of Heaven. But in these times, their successor

showed himself greatly ignorant of _the ways of_ Heaven, and much less

could it be expected of him that he would be regardful of the earnest

labors of his fathers for the country. Greatly abandoned to dissolute

idleness, he paid no regard to the bright principles of heaven, nor the

awfulness of the people. On this account God no longer protected him,

but sent down the great ruin which we have witnessed. Heaven was not

with him because he did not seek to illustrate his virtue. _Indeed_,

with regard to all states, great and small, throughout the four

quarters of the empire, in every case there are reasons to be alleged

for their punishment.... The sovereigns of our Chow, from their great

goodness, were charged with the work of God. There was the charge to

them, Cut off Yin. _They proceeded to perform it_, and announced the

correcting work of God.... The thing was from the decree of Heaven; do

not resist me; I dare not have any further change for you" (C. C.,

vol. iii. p. 460.—Shoo King, part 5, b. 14, ii. 1-18).

But it was not only by interested parties that this doctrine was

proclaimed in China. The She King, a sacred book corresponding in

character to the Psalms, distinctly adopts it, and thus gives it the

highest sanction. This is the language of one of the Odes:—

"Great is God,

Beholding this lower world in majesty.

He surveyed the four quarters [of the kingdom],

Seeking for some one to give settlement to the people.

Those two [earlier] dynasties

Had failed to satisfy him with their government;

So throughout the various States

He sought and considered

For one on which he might confer the rule.

Hating all the great [States],

He turned his kind regards on the west,

And there gave a settlement [to king T'æ]....

God having brought about the removal thither of this Intelligent

ruler,

The Kwan hordes fled away; ...

God, who had raised the State, raised up a proper ruler for it....

This King Ke

Was gifted by God with the power of judgment,

So that the fame of his virtue silently grew.

His virtue was highly intelligent,

Highly intelligent and of rare discrimination;

Able to lead; able to rule,—

To rule over this great country;

Rendering a cordial submission, effecting a cordial union.

When the sway came to King Wăn,

His virtue left nothing to be dissatisfied with.

He received the blessing of God,

And it was extended to his descendants."

The Ode proceeds to relate how completely victorious this virtuous

king was over his enemies, and how perfect was the security from

invasion enjoyed by the country while he governed it (C. C., vol. iv.

p. 448.—She King, part 3, b. 1, ode 7).