happened in the present case; for, while I strove to attain the
odd Jew-German, and to write it as well as I could read it, I soon
discovered that I ought to know Hebrew, from which alone the modern
corrupted dialect could be derived and handled with any certainty.
I consequently explained the necessity of my learning Hebrew to my
father, and earnestly besought his consent, for I had a still higher
object. Everywhere I heard it said that to understand the Old as well
as the New Testament, the original languages were requisite. The latter
I could read quite easily, because, that there might be no want of
exercise even on Sundays, the so-called Epistles and Gospels had, after
church, to be recited, translated, and in some measure explained. I now
designed doing the same thing with the Old Testament, the peculiarities
of which had always especially interested me.
[Side-note: Rector Albrecht.]
My father, who did not like to do anything by halves, determined to
request the rector of our Gymnasium, one Dr. ALBRECHT, to give me
private lessons weekly, until I should have acquired what was most
essential in so simple a language, for he hoped that if it would not be
despatched as soon as English was learned, it could at least be managed
in double the time.
Rector Albrecht was one of the most original figures in the world,
short, broad, but not fat, ill-shaped without being deformed,--in
short, an Æsop in gown and wig. His more than seventy-years-old face
was completely twisted into a sarcastic smile, while his eyes always
remained large, and, though red, were always brilliant and intelligent.
He lived in the old cloister of the Barefoot Friars, the seat of the
Gymnasium. Even as a child, I had often visited him in company with
my parents, and had, with a kind of trembling delight, glided through
the long dark passages, the chapels transformed into reception-rooms,
the place broken up and full of stairs and corners. Without annoying
me, he questioned me familiarly whenever we met, and praised and
encouraged me. One day, on the changing of the pupil's places after a
public examination, he saw me standing as a mere spectator, not far
from his chair, while he distributed the silver _præmia virtutis et
diligentia._ I was probably gazing very eagerly upon the little bag out
of which he drew the medals; he nodded to me, descended a step, and
handed me one of the silver pieces. My joy was great, although others
thought that this gift bestowed upon a boy not belonging to the school
was out of all order. But for this the good old man cared but little,
having always played the eccentric, and that in a striking manner.
He had a very good reputation as a schoolmaster, and understood his
business, although age no more allowed him to practise it thoroughly.
But almost more than by his own infirmities was he hindered by greater
circumstances, and, as I already knew, he was satisfied neither with
the consistory, the inspectors, the clergy, nor the teachers. To his
natural temperament, which inclined to satire, and the watching for
faults and defects, he allowed free play, both in his programs and
his public speeches, and as Lucian was almost the only writer whom he
read and esteemed, he spiced all that he said and wrote with biting
ingredients.
Fortunately for those with whom he was dissatisfied, he never went
directly to work, but only jeered at the defects which he wanted to
reprove, with hints, allusions, classic passages, and Scripture texts.
His delivery, moreover--he always read his discourses--was unpleasant,
unintelligible, and, above all, was often interrupted by a cough, but
more frequently by a hollow paunch-convulsing laugh, with which he
was wont to announce and accompany the biting passages. This singular
man I found to be mild and obliging when I began to take lessons from
him. I now went to him daily at six o'clock in the evening, and always
experienced a secret pleasure when the outer door closed behind me, and
I had to thread the long dark cloister-passage. We sat in his library
at a table covered with oil-cloth, a much-read Lucian never quitting
his side.
[Side-note: Hebrew Studies.]
In spite of all my willingness, I did not get at the matter without
difficulty, for my teacher could not suppress certain sarcastic remarks
as to the real truth about Hebrew. I concealed from him my designs
upon Jew-German, and spoke of a better understanding of the original
text. He smiled at this, and said I should be satisfied if I only
learned to read. This vexed me in secret, and I concentrated all my
attention when we came to the letters. I found an alphabet something
like the Greek, of which the forms were easy, and the names, for the
most part, not strange to me. All this I had soon comprehended and
retained, and supposed we should now go to reading. That this was done
from right to left I was well aware. But now, all at once appeared a
new army of little characters and signs, of points and strokes of all
sorts, which were in fact to represent vowels. At this I wondered the
more, as there were manifestly vowels in the larger alphabet, and the
others only appeared to be hidden under strange appellations. It was
also taught, that the Jewish nation, so long as it flourished, actually
were satisfied with the first signs, and knew no other way to write
and read. Most willingly then would I have gone on along this ancient,
and, as it seemed to me, easier path; but my worthy declared rather
sternly, that we must go by the grammar as it had been approved and
composed. Reading without these points and strokes, he said, was a
very hard undertaking, and could be accomplished only by the learned,
and those who were well practised. I must therefore make up my mind to
learn these little characters; but the matter became to me more and
more confused. Now, it seemed, some of the first and larger primitive
letters had no value in their places, in order that their little
after-born kindred might not stand there in vain. Now they indicated
a gentle breathing, now a guttural more or less rough, and now served
as mere equivalents. But, finally, when one fancied that one had well
noted everything, some of these personages, both great and small, were
rendered inoperative, so that the eyes always had very much, and the
lips very little to do.
As that of which I already knew the contents had now to be stuttered
in a strange gibberish, in which a certain snuffle and gargle were
not a little commended as something unattainable, I in a certain
degree deviated from the matter, and diverted myself in a childish
way with the singular names of these accumulated signs. There were
"emperors," "kings," and "dukes,"[2] which, as accents, governing here
and there, gave me not a little entertainment. But even these shallow
jests soon lost their charm. Nevertheless, I was indemnified, inasmuch
as by reading, translating, repeating, and committing to memory,
the substance of the book came out more vividly, and it was this,
properly, about which I desired to be enlightened. Even before this
time the contradiction between tradition and the actual and possible
had appeared to me very striking, and I had often put my private tutors
to a non-plus with the sun which stood still on Gibeon, and the moon
in the vale of Ajalon, to say nothing of other improbabilities and
incongruities. Everything of this kind was now awakened, while, in
order to master the Hebrew, I occupied myself exclusively with the Old
Testament, and studied it, though no longer in Luther's translation,
but in the literal version of Sebastian Schmid, printed under the
text which my father had procured for me. Here, unfortunately, our
lessons began to be defective, so far as practice in the language
was concerned. Reading, interpreting, grammar, transcribing, and the
repetition of words, seldom lasted a full half hour; for I immediately
began to aim at the sense of the matter, and, though we were still
engaged in the first book of Moses, to utter several things suggested
to me by the later books. At first the good old man tried to restrain
me from such digressions, but at last they seemed to entertain him
also. It was impossible for him to suppress his characteristic
cough and chuckle, and although he carefully avoided giving me any
information that might have compromised himself, my importunity was
not relaxed; nay, as I cared more to set forth my doubts than to learn
their solution, I grew constantly more vivacious and bold, seeming
justified by his deportment. Yet I could get nothing out of him, except
that ever and anon he would exclaim, with his peculiar shaking laugh,
"Ah! mad fellow! ah! mad boy!"
Still, my childish vivacity, which scrutinized the Bible on all
sides, may have seemed to him tolerably serious and worthy of some
assistance. He therefore referred me, after a time, to the large
English Biblical work which stood in his library, and in which the
interpretation of difficult and doubtful passages was attempted in
an intelligent and judicious manner. By the great labours of German
divines the translation had obtained advantages over the original. The
different opinions were cited, and at last a kind of reconciliation was
attempted, so that the dignity of the book, the ground of religion, and
the human understanding might in some degree co-exist. Now, is often
as towards the end of the lesson I came out with my usual questions
and doubts, so often did be point to the repository. I took the volume,
he let me read, turned over his Lucian, and when I made any remarks on
the book, his ordinary laugh was the only answer to my sagacity. In
the long summer days he let me sit as long as I could read, many times
alone; after a time he suffered me to take one volume after another
home with me.
[Side-note: The Old Testament.]
A man may turn whither he pleases, and undertake anything whatsoever,
but he will always return to the path which nature has once prescribed
for him. Thus it happened also with me in the present case. My trouble
about the language, about the contents of the Sacred Scriptures
themselves, ended at last in producing in my imagination a livelier
picture of that beautiful and famous land, its environs and its
vicinities, as well as of the people and events by which that little
spot of earth was made glorious for thousands of years.
This small space was to see the origin and growth of the human race;
thence we were to derive our first and only accounts of primitive
history; and such a locality was to lie before our imagination, no less
simple and comprehensible than varied and adapted to the most wonderful
migrations and settlements. Here, between four designated rivers, a
small delightful spot was separated from the whole habitable earth,
for youthful man. Here he was to unfold his first capacities, and
here at the same time was the lot to befall him, which was appointed
for all his posterity, namely, that of losing peace by striving after
knowledge. Paradise was trifled away; men increased and grew worse;
and the Elohim, not yet accustomed to the wickedness of the new race,
became impatient and utterly destroyed it. Only a few were saved from
the universal deluge; and scarcely had this dreadful flood ceased, than
the well known ancestral soil lay once more before the grateful eyes of
the preserved.
Two rivers out of four, the Euphrates and Tigris, still flowed in their
beds. The name of the first remained; the other seemed to be pointed
out by its course. Minuter traces of Paradise were not to be looked for
after so great a revolution. The renewed race of man went forth from
hence a second time; it found occasion to sustain and employ itself in
all sorts of ways, but chiefly to gather around it large herds of tame
animals and to wander with them in every direction.
This mode of life, as well as the increase of the families, soon
compelled the people to disperse. They could not at once resolve
to let their relatives and friends go for ever; they hit upon the
thought of building a lofty tower which should show them the way back
from the far distance. But this attempt, like their first endeavour,
miscarried. They could not be at the same time happy and wise, numerous
and united. The Elohim confounded their minds--the building remained
unfinished--the men were dispersed--the world was peopled, but sundered.
But our regards, our interests, are still fastened to these regions.
At last the founder of a race again goes forth from hence, and is so
fortunate as to stamp a distinct character upon his descendants, and
by that means to unite them for all time to come into a great nation,
inseparable through all changes of place or destiny.
[Side-note: The Old Testament.]
From the Euphrates, Abraham, not without divine guidance, wanders
towards the west. The desert opposes no invincible barrier to his
march. He attains the Jordan, passes over its waters, and spreads
himself over the fair southern regions of Palestine. This land was
already occupied, and tolerably inhabited. Mountains, not extremely
high, but rocky and barren, were severed by many watered vales
favourable to cultivation. Towns, villages, and solitary settlements
lay scattered over the plain and on the slopes of the great valley, the
waters of which are collected in Jordan. Thus inhabited, thus tilled
was the land; but the world was still large enough, and the men were
not so circumspect, necessitous, and active, as to usurp at once the
whole adjacent country. Between their possessions were extended large
spaces, in which grazing herds could freely move in every direction.
In one of these spaces Abraham resides; his brother Lot is near him;
but they cannot long remain in such places. The very condition of a
land, the population of which is now increasing, now decreasing, and
the productions of which are never kept in equilibrium with the wants,
produces unexpectedly a famine, and the stranger suffers alike with the
native, whose own support he has rendered difficult by his accidental
presence. The two Chaldean brothers move onward to Egypt, and thus is
traced out for us the theatre on which, for some thousands of years,
the most important events of the world were to be enacted. From the
Tigris to the Euphrates, from the Euphrates to the Nile, we see the
earth peopled; and this space also is traversed by a well-known,
heaven-beloved man, who has already become worthy to us, moving to
and fro with his goods and cattle, and, in a short time, abundantly
increasing them. The brothers return; but, taught by the distress they
have endured, they determine to part. Both, indeed, tarry in Southern
Canaan; but while Abraham remains at Hebron, near the wood of Mamre,
Lot departs for the valley of Siddim, which, if our imagination is bold
enough to give Jordan a subterranean outlet, so that in place of the
present Dead Sea we should have dry ground, can and must appear like
a second Paradise; a conjecture all the more probable, because the
residents about there, notorious for effeminacy and wickedness, lead
us to infer that they led an easy and luxurious life. Lot lives among
them, but apart.
But Hebron and the wood of Mamre appear to us as the important
place where the Lord speaks with Abraham, and promises him all the
land as far as his eye can reach in four directions. From these
quiet districts, from these shepherd tribes, who can associate with
celestials, entertain them as guests, and hold many conversations with
them, we are compelled to turn our glance once more towards the East,
and to think of the condition of the surrounding world, which on the
whole, perhaps, may have been like that of Canaan.
Families hold together: they unite, and the mode of life of the
tribes is determined by the locality which they have appropriated or
appropriate. On the mountains which send down their waters to the
Tigris, we find warlike populations, who even thus early foreshadow
those world-conquerors and world-rulers--and in a campaign, prodigious
for those times, give us a prelude of future achievements. Chedor
Laomer, king of Elam, has already a mighty influence over his allies.
He reigns a long while; for twelve years before Abraham's arrival in
Canaan, he had made all the people tributary to him as far as the
Jordan. They revolted at last, and the allies equipped for war. We
find them unawares upon a route by which probably Abraham also reached
Canaan. The people on the left and lower side of the Jordan were
subdued. Chedor Laomer directs his march southwards towards the people
of the Desert, then wending north, he smites the Amalekites, and when
he has also overcome the Amorites, he reaches Canaan, falls upon the
kings of the valley of Siddim, smites and scatters them, and marches
with great spoil up the Jordan, in order to extend his conquests as far
as Lebanon.
Among the captives, despoiled and dragged along with their property,
is Lot, who shares the fate of the country in which he lives a guest.
Abraham learns this, and here at once we behold the patriarch a warrior
and hero. He gathers together his servants, divides them into troops,
attacks and falls upon the luggage of booty, confuses the victors,
who could not suspect another enemy in the rear, and brings back
his brother and his goods, with a great deal more belonging to the
conquered kings. Abraham, by means of this brief contest, acquires, as
it were, the whole land. To the inhabitants he appears as a protector,
saviour, and, by his disinterestedness, a king. Gratefully the kings
of the valley receive him:--Melchisedek, the king and priest, with
blessings.
Now the prophecies of an endless posterity are renewed, nay, they
take a wider and wider scope. From the waters of the Euphrates to the
river of Egypt all the lands are promised him; but yet there seems a
difficulty with respect to his next heirs. He is eighty years of age,
and has no son. Sarai, less trusting in the heavenly powers than he,
becomes impatient; she desires, after the oriental fashion, to have a
descendant by means of her maid. But scarcely is Hagar given up to the
master of the house, scarcely is there hope of a son, than dissensions
arise. The wife treats her own dependent ill enough, and Hagar flies to
seek a happier position among other tribes. She returns, not without a
higher intimation, and Ishmael is born.
Abraham is now ninety-nine years old, and the promises of a numerous
posterity are constantly repeated, so that in the end the pair regard
them as ridiculous. And yet Sarai becomes at last pregnant and brings
forth a son, to whom the name of Isaac is given.
[Side-note: Natural and Revealed Religion.]
History, for the most part, rests upon the legitimate propagation of
the human race. The most important events of the world require to
be traced to the secrets of families: and thus the marriages of the
patriarchs give occasion for peculiar considerations. It is as if
the Divinity, who loves to guide the destiny of mankind, wished to
prefigure here connubial events of every kind. Abraham, so long united
by childless marriage to a beautiful woman whom many coveted, finds
himself, by his hundredth year, the husband of two women, the father of
two sons; and at this moment his domestic peace is broken. Two women,
and two sons by different mothers, cannot possibly agree. The party
less favoured by law, usage, and opinion, must yield. Abraham must
sacrifice his attachment to Hagar and Ishmael. Both are dismissed, and
Hagar is compelled now, against her will, to go upon a road which she
once took in voluntary flight, at first, it seems, to the destruction
of herself and child; but the angel of the Lord, who had before sent
her back, now rescues her again, that Ishmael also may become a great
people, and that the most improbable of all promises may be fulfilled
beyond its limits.
Two parents in advanced years, and one son of their old age--here, at
last, one might expect domestic quiet and earthly happiness. By no
means. Heaven is yet preparing the heaviest trial for the patriarch.
But of this we cannot speak without premising several considerations.
If a natural universal religion was to arise, and a special revealed
one to be developed from it, the countries in which our imagination
has hitherto lingered, the mode of life, the race of men, were the
fittest for the purpose. At least, we do not find in the whole world
anything equally favourable and encouraging. Even to natural religion,
if we assume that it arose earlier in the human mind, there pertains
much of delicacy of sentiment; for it rests upon the conviction of an
universal providence, which conducts the order of the world as a whole.
A particular religion, revealed by Heaven to this or that people,
carries with it the belief in a special providence which the Divine
Being vouchsafes to certain favoured men, families, races, and people.
This faith seems to develope itself with difficulty from man's inward
nature. It requires tradition, usage, and the warrant of a primitive
time.
Beautiful is it, therefore, that the Israelitish tradition represents
the very first men who confide in this particular providence as heroes
of faith, following all the commands of that high Being on whom they
acknowledge themselves dependent, just as blindly as, undisturbed by
doubts, they are unwearied in awaiting the later fulfilments of his
promises.
As a particular revealed religion rests upon the idea that one
man can be more favoured by Heaven than another, so it also arises
pre-eminently from the separation of classes. The first men appeared
closely allied; but their employments soon divided them. The hunter
was the freest of all; from him was developed the warrior and the
ruler. Those who tilled the field bound themselves to the soil, erected
dwellings and barns to preserve what they had gained, and could
estimate themselves pretty highly, because their condition promised
durability and security. The herdsman in his position seemed to have
acquired the most unbounded condition and unlimited property. The
increase of herds proceeded without end, and the space which was to
support them widened itself on all sides. These three classes seemed
from the very first to have regarded each other with dislike and
contempt; and as the herdsman was an abomination to the townsman, so
did he in turn separate from the other. The hunters vanish from our
sight among the hills, and re-appear only as conquerors.
The patriarchs belonged to the shepherd class. Their manner of life
upon the ocean of deserts and pastures, gave breadth and freedom to
their minds; the vault of heaven, under which they dwelt, with all its
nightly stars, elevated their feelings; and they, more than the active,
skilful huntsman, or the secure, careful, householding husbandman, had
need of the immovable faith that a God walked beside them, visited
them, cared for them, guided and saved them.
We are compelled to make another reflection in passing to the rest of
the history. Humane, beautiful, and cheering as the religion of the
patriarchs appears, yet traits of savageness and cruelty run through
it, out of which man may emerge, or into which he may again be sunk.
That hatred should seek to appease itself by the blood, by the death of
the conquered enemy, is natural; that men concluded a peace upon the
battle-field among the ranks of the slain, may easily be conceived;
that they should in like manner think to give validity to a contract
by slain animals, follows from the preceding. The notion also that
slain creatures could attract, propitiate, and gain over the gods, whom
they always looked upon as partisans, either opponents or allies, is
likewise not at all surprising. But if we confine our attention to the
sacrifices, and consider the way in which they were offered in that
primitive time, we find a singular, and, to our notions, altogether
repugnant custom, probably derived from the usages of war, viz., that
the sacrificed animals of every kind, and whatever number was devoted,
had to be hewn in two halves, and laid out on two sides, so that in the
space between them were those who wished to make a covenant with the
Deity.